Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (30 page)

Thursday 5:00 p.m.

January 28, 1999

Three days later, George and I shared an outside table at the Sunset Bar. He studied next week’s menu; I stared at the calm waters of Hillsborough Bay, marking time, now and then rubbing the sore spot on my head and wondering who bopped me with that bowling ball.

“Head’s up,” George murmured. Unfortunate choice of words. “Hathaway’s at the bar.”

“Ummm,” I said, lowering my lids to avoid eye contact. What I thought was,
“Finally.”
Maybe if I ignored Ben, he’d go away. Maybe the whole mess would go away. I’d read Morgan’s research several times, but his theories were short on details for erasing screw-ups through mind control.

No luck. Felt the opposite chair groan when Ben plopped his heft onto the seat; heard him slurp a long pull of Ybor Gold out of the frosted mug.

George said, “Good afternoon, Ben.”

“In what universe?” was his sour reply.

“Couldn’t agree more,” I confirmed a little too enthusiastically.

Crunched my eyelids tighter, still focused on eliminating Ben as the personification of my errors. Not working.

I said, “I can’t tell you how sad I am that O’Connell Worthington’s in jail.”

He should have been out by now. Learning my heroes have clay feet might not be the most disappointment I can experience in life, but its right up there with discovering my own stupidity in other respects.

Truth to tell, I was more disappointed that Christian Grover wasn’t in custody instead of O’Connell. Not only because I liked Grover less (a lot less), but because Carly liked Grover too much. Grover would cause indigestion around the Thanksgiving Dinner table for years to come.

Definitely not a peaceful thought.

Tried again to focus.

Ben said, “Stay tuned.”

George responded. “What?”

Hathaway slurped and swallowed and slammed his empty mug on the table. “We can’t prove Worthington actually killed the guy. His lone confession won’t cut it with a jury of his peers. I expect him to walk, if the State Attorney bothers to indict him.”

“What do you mean?” I hoped I’d managed the perfect note of curiosity.

Ben Hathaway’s creative crime solving skills were weak; he’d taken way too long to realize he’d arrested the wrong man for murder.

But it was my fault. I’d misjudged O’Connell Worthington. When I set him up, I’d expected him to save himself by naming Morgan’s killer.

So far, I’d been dead wrong.

“Well, we can’t find any trace of a murder weapon, although we’ve checked the house and his office. He drives a white Cadillac, but his wife drives a black one. Neither vehicle contains any trace of physical evidence in the trunk or anywhere else. And we just can’t figure out how he’d have physically been able to move the guy, tie him up, and dump him in the gulf. Dead bodies weigh a lot more than you think.”

No kidding. It took three days to figure that out?

Ben ordered a second beer, gulped again. “There’s no physical evidence of any kind linking Worthington with the body. The problems with the case go on and on. Sloppy crime, but the cover-up is as close to perfect as anything I’ve ever seen.”

He drained the second mug, set it down softly. Delivered what he’d come here to say. “The big problem is now that Worthington’s dead, we’ll never know who killed Morgan.”

What did he say?

I popped my eyes open and stared.

“Dead?” George and I said simultaneously.

“Suicide. In his cell a couple of hours ago. I thought you’d want to know.”

I was speechless. And responsible. My head dropped into open palms, fingers splayed through my hair, rubbing the sore spot harder, pressing the pain.

After a few moments, George asked, “How did it happen?”

Ben stood, crossed arms over ample belly, leaned against the deck rail, ignoring the old wood’s groan. “Investigated too many cases over the years himself, I guess. He knew what to do. He tied his socks together and climbed onto the sink. He tied one end of the socks to the bars on the windows and the other end around his neck. Stepped off. That was it. If he’d been a bigger man, he would have pulled the bars off the window. But he was so slight, they held.”

Tears pooled in my eyes. How could O’Connell be dead? How would I ever live with myself?

George took my hand, squeezed tight.

“He was a proud man, Willa. The shame. Tampa’s a small town that way. He’d have felt an outcast in a home he once owned.” He squeezed my hand tighter. “Really, what else would he do?”

George meant to comfort us all but his words failed.

My stupid idea put O’Connell in jail. He wouldn’t have been there otherwise. He’d still be alive.

Now two men were dead and the killer, I believed, still free.

Although I wasn’t so sure it mattered anymore. At some point, enough has got to be enough.

O’Connell paid for Morgan’s murder. A life for a life. Carly was out of the woods, I had dodged the impeachment bullet.

I needed to let it go. But could I?

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Tampa, Florida

Thursday 5:45 p.m.

January 28, 1999

Sunset tonight was projected for 6:07 p.m. Now, the huge orange ball lingered near the horizon, glowing around Ben where he stood propped against the rail, head bowed. O’Connell had stood precisely there many times. Was it possible he’d never do so again?

Squeezed my eyes shut to hold tears in check; felt the hot trickle on my cheek and brushed it away. Crying would be done in private.

Ben had raised his gaze to mine when I’d controlled myself well enough to look again. When he spoke, I glanced away immediately.

He said, “I hate to ask you this, but would you come with me when I tell his wife?”

“Pricilla doesn’t know yet?” George asked.

Ben wagged his head slowly, side to side. “Someone she knows should be there. She’s bound to take it hard.”

I definitely did not want to witness when Cilla learned O’Connell was gone; I could tell George didn’t, either.

George stood, pressed my shoulder. “Willa, you’ll want to wash your face. Let me get my jacket, Ben. We’ll be right back.”

George held my hand and we went upstairs to make ourselves somewhat more presentable. I don’t know why we felt we had to look composed to deliver such terrible news, but we did.

George drove and Ben followed in his own car. Behind us, orange sun fell below blue horizon as we crossed our bridge onto the mainland.

We held hands for the three-mile trip to the Worthingtons’ Bayshore mansion. Absently, George stroked my palm with his thumb pad. I remembered happier visits; balls and cotillions, old-fashioned parties; Cilla’s southern charm and O’Connell’s courtly manners. None of this could I voice and retain composure.

George parked in the circular drive. We emerged from his Bentley into the breezy dusk as Ben Hathaway drove up.

He joined us, touched my arm gently, patted George’s shoulder, straightened his own posture and buttoned his jacket.

“Thank you both for doing this,” he said, quietly, as if he couldn’t have faced Pricilla alone. Ben was a cop. Delivering bad news was a part of the job. But our mission tonight was different.

No matter what had come before, from this point forward, Ben Hathaway would be counted among our friends as long as he would have us be so.

Three abreast, feeling nothing like crusaders, we trudged the long driveway and reached the front door much too quickly.

Ben rang the bell.

The housekeeper opened the door as she had a thousand times before.

George said, “Good evening, Mrs. Beason”

“Mr. and Mrs. Carson. Was Mrs. Worthington expecting you?” Lucille asked.

Ben replied, “We’d like to see Mrs. Worthington, if we may.”

Lucille must have been curious, but she was impeccably trained. “Certainly,” she said. “Please come this way.”

She escorted us into the old-fashioned parlor where Worthingtons had greeted guests for more than a hundred years.

“Mrs. Worthington will be right down” she said, as if we were welcome visitors. She departed, leaving the door open. I heard her footsteps on the stairs.

A few moments later, from the second floor, the housekeeper’s screams reached our ears. George and Ben ran up the staircase toward Lucille’s screams.

I reached the master bedroom seconds behind George, but light-years behind O’Connell Worthington.

Lucille Beason’s face was buried in George’s shirt while he made vain attempts to calm her.

Ben stood beside the four-poster where Cilla reclined fully clothed in the dress she’d worn to Michael Morgan’s funeral.

Ben checked Cilla’s carotid artery for a pulse while deliberately punching buttons on her phone with his left thumb. He made no effort to resuscitate. He responded to quick questions, finally saying, “No need to hurry.”

The room was high ceilinged and spacious. Front windows overlooked Hillsborough Bay, and I could see our home, Minaret on Plant Key, clearly.

Cilla was born in that bed, as all four of her children had been. It was there she’d slept with O’Connell for forty-seven years. Maybe she just couldn’t sleep there without him.

Did Cilla kill herself because she knew her husband was dead? Or had she thought to prevent him from suicide? Or had they planned joint suicide? We’d never know.

Two envelopes and a wrapped package rested on Cilla’s dressing table. I slipped the envelope addressed to Carly and the small package with my name on it into my pocket.

The other envelope was addressed to Ben Hathaway. It contained a full confession, executed and notarized by O’Connell Worthington, a gentleman even after death.

O’Connell provided the hard evidence of his guilt that Chief Hathaway had been unable to find. Motive: O’Connell said he’d killed Morgan because Morgan’s theories were timed to insure his financial ruin. Means: He’d included a purchase receipt showing his ownership of the murder weapon. But he said he’d thrown the gun into the Gulf at the same time he’d thrown in the body. Opportunity: Well, we had Carly’s eye-witness account for that. He apologized for the inconvenience.

EPILOGUE

Chief Hathaway marked the Michael Morgan murder closed. O’Connell’s firm was for sale, half a step ahead of foreclosure after over-extended their lines of credit for breast implant litigation. His written confession contained lengthy details of his downward financial spiral, meant to persuade doubters of his guilt. Hathaway and the State’s Attorney accepted.

O’Connell and Pricilla had been the epitome of our society for fifty years, as had their families before them. Public disgrace was more than they could bear.

I chose not to challenge O’Connell’s bluff.

The Worthington’s joint funeral was standing room only. Everybody, including me and George, Kate, the Warwicks, Carly and Grover, and the rest of Tampa, was visibly saddened.

Bill Sheffield told us his bank had been providing Worthington’s financing. The firm declared bankruptcy; lawyers scrambled for new jobs.

CJ occupied in the family pew, sobbing like a child at the death of his only sister and his life-long friend. Would he be more antagonistic toward me, or less, because of the role I’d played in their deaths?

When he couldn’t pin it on Grover, Ben Hathaway gave up and charged Fred Johnson with blackmailing Morgan. Johnson was disbarred, convicted and ordered to make restitution to Morgan’s estate. No one’s figured out what to do with the money. The legal wrangling will likely last beyond our lifetimes.

The package Cilla left for me on her dressing table before she died contained her diary and the four missing pictures from Morgan’s piano. The two nudes were Morgan and the very young, very beautiful Pricilla Worthington. Glory days?

I only read three sections of Cilla’s diary.

First, the passage describing the coincidence placing both of us in Carly’s apartment. She’d been searching for Morgan’s disk; panicked when I showed up. She said she’d never hit anyone on the head before, and thought she’d killed me, but was glad she didn’t.

Me, too.

Not a bowling ball, though. She’d used a Steuben vase. Good to know. Maybe a bowling ball is softer.

The second segment, her account of the night she killed Morgan, contained few surprises. After I’d discovered her name on Morgan’s list of accounts receivable and recognized her nude picture captured in Robin’s video, I’d suspected her. Saving her reputation, the rest of her money, and her husband was plenty of motive. Under the circumstances, many women would have done what Pricilla did. When O’Connell surrendered, my suspicions had been confirmed.

The final pages outlined her plan to kill herself. Sooner or later, she said, Hathaway would have found the evidence to arrest Morgan’s killer even after her husband took the blame. Pricilla knew O’Connell Worthington III would never have allowed his wife to be charged or convicted. Her death, she thought, would set him free.

Before she died, had she known she’d waited too long to save her husband?

A few days after the funerals, I had lunch with Carly at Minaret. Gave her Cilla’s letter. I watched her read it, and watched her cry.

Dear Carly,

I’m sorry, dear, because he was your father. He didn’t deserve a fine daughter like you. You’re better off without him.

He did deserve to die. When I first knew him, he was kind and caring. But he changed. Maybe it was the drugs, or the women, or the success, or the failure. I don’t know why. He became cold, greedy. The world is better off without him, too.

Much too late, I learned he didn’t love me, that I was only one in a long line of women. I broke it off immediately, and then spent the rest of my life trying to buy his silence. He demanded money for years. He took everything but our house. O’Connell never knew. I never wanted him to know, but it took every cent of my inheritance to keep Morgan quiet.

It was the video. He recorded our affair. Others, too. He threatened to show those tapes unless I paid him. I burned every last one after he died.