Resort to Murder (12 page)

I was a little surprised at the anger in Steve's voice. “Yes. He told me.”

Steve's voice was hard. “I cornered him last night, asked him what the hell he thought he was doing. He
acted surprised, said he was just saying what everybody thought. I asked him for chapter and verse. Of course, he couldn't come up with anybody else who was claiming Roddy was murdered. I told him he damn sure better be careful what he said or he might be in big trouble.” The lawyer's face jutted forward. “The little punk laughed at me. Well, he's damn sure not laughing now.”

I made no answer.

“But,” and his tone was uneasy, no longer combative, “I don't see how the hell George could fall from here. I don't like it.”

“There was no suggestion last year that Roddy Worrell's death was anything other than an accident?”

Steve didn't answer for a long moment.

I looked at him sharply.

He massaged the side of his face. “I thought maybe he jumped. But now…” He jerked his head toward the shore. “We'd better head back before it's completely dark.”

I went first, using my small travel flashlight. The thin beam was some help, but we didn't speak again until we reached the hard-packed trail that led up to the hotel. I faced him. Suicide? “Tell me about Roddy Worrell.” His wife remembered him as a justifiably angry man. George Smith had said he wasn't really very drunk. Frederick described a showman of sorts and recalled a burst of laughter. But I wanted to know more. “Did you like him?” And how, I wondered, did Steve feel about a married man pursuing Connor?

“Roddy.” Steve's tone was dry but with a tinge of warmth. “Cocky little guy. He could be a hell of a lot of fun.”

I was surprised. I'd envisioned an imposing man,
someone like Curt Patterson or Steve Jennings. “Little?” Of course Steve Jennings was a big man indeed. Though lanky, he stood at six feet two, perhaps three.

He studied me. “A little taller than you. Skinny. Think Frank Sinatra.”

I smiled and understood immediately. Steve and I dealt in the same cultural currency.

“You know what I mean. A bony face,” he explained, “a scrawny guy, but he had some kind of appeal for women.” He sounded puzzled.

I wasn't. Sex appeal isn't limited to linebackers. I was getting a better idea of Roddy Worrell, a man who attracted women, a man with a taste for women, a man who liked to have fun.

“What kind of marriage did he have?” In a domestic crime, the spouse is always the first suspect. It's amazing how often the old dictum proves true.

“She was married to him when he died.” He shrugged. “Who ever knows about someone else's marriage? A lot of women wouldn't have given him such a long lead. But maybe she didn't give a damn. Maybe she gave a big damn, but she liked being married. Maybe…Who the hell knows? Do I think she pushed him off the tower? She could have.” I almost didn't hear his next words, he spoke so softly. “So could a lot of other people.”

“People staying at the hotel.” I didn't make it a question. That number, as he and I well knew, included Connor, Marlow, Jasmine, Aaron, Lloyd, and, of course, Steve himself.

“There were other people here that night. And we don't know who might have had it in for Roddy.” Steve took my elbow and we started up the path. “Maybe he owed his bookmaker. Maybe he'd made a pass at the
gardener. Maybe he knew more than he should have about somebody.”

The last might have been true for George Smith. I didn't think it applied to Roddy Worrell. I trained the little flashlight on the path, watched my step. “Was his bookmaker sighted in the garden that night? Or the gardener? Or any desperate phantom seeking his silence? And were any of them here this morning?”

Steve didn't answer.

I slowed my pace. “What time did the party in the bar break up?”

“Just after twelve.”

“What broke it up?” I hoped he would be honest.

“A pretty ugly scene.” The words were strong, but his tone was remote. “Connor was dancing with Lloyd. Anybody with eyes could see that he was infatuated with Connor. She loved it, of course. But I thought it would just be one of her usual—” He broke off. “Anyway, they were dancing and Roddy was playing the piano and singing. He tried to sound like Mel Tormé. I think he was singing ‘You Belong to Me.' All of a sudden, he slammed his hands down on the keys, stood up. He knocked over the piano bench.”

“Were there many people there?” We were at the top of the slope and I welcomed the bright circles of light from the hotel lampposts.

“No. It was a quiet night. Just Connor and Lloyd and my wife and me. And Mrs. Worrell. She was sitting at one of the small tables. That was a little unusual. She didn't usually come into the bar that late. And the bartender. I don't remember who it was.”

“Marlow and Aaron?” Jasmine, of course, would not have been in the bar.

“No. They turned in around ten. Thank God it was just us.”

I was seeing the bar, dim for evening, the wall sconces glowing against the paneled walls, perhaps a light over the piano. And the cocky little man who looked like Frank Sinatra and the ever-seductive Connor and lovesick Lloyd, and Steve watching from a table, likely drinking a Dark 'n Stormy, and the throaty whisper of a song.

“It all happened pretty fast. Roddy lurched across the dance floor—”

The small oblong of shiny wood floor near the piano scarcely qualified as a dance floor, but I understood what Steve meant.

“—and I got up. I thought Roddy was going to grab Connor. He had his hand out, but when he got up to Connor and Lloyd, he stopped and rocked back on his heels and pointed at Connor.” He frowned. “He was pretty drunk and I couldn't hear all of it, but he kept saying he loved her and he thought she loved him and if his life went to hell it was all her fault, and then he swung around and headed toward the door. Connor was upset. She ran after Roddy.” Steve gave a little shrug. “That didn't mean a thing. You have to understand that Connor can't bear it if anyone's angry with her. Lloyd started to go after the two of them and I reached out and grabbed his arm. I told him to let it go, that Connor would soothe Roddy down, that he was given to dramatics and it would blow over better if Lloyd stayed out of it. I told him to stay cool like Mrs. Worrell. She was sitting at her table, a half-smile on her face, like the music had never stopped. Lloyd was still an outsider. Connor was with me and my wife, so Lloyd dropped it.”

“Did you see Connor later?”

It took him a moment to answer. He came back from a far distance. “Ellen wasn't feeling well. We turned in.”

“You didn't check on Connor?” I didn't quite keep the surprise from my voice. Connor had hurried out into the night after a man who'd drunk too much, a man in a highly emotional state.

We reached the base of the steps to the lower terrace. In the lamplight, his face was sardonic. “Mrs. Collins, if I chased after Connor every time some man went nuts for her—”

Footsteps pounded across the terrace above us.

We looked up.

Marlow Bailey flung herself down the steep stone stairs. “Steve,” she shouted, “Steve, come quick.”

W
E met Marlow halfway up the steps. She grabbed Steve's arm. “You've got to come. The police are here and they want to talk to Mother about Roddy.”

I scarcely heard the rest of Marlow's frightened plea. Steve hurried up the stairs after her, moving fast but trying to calm her down at the same time. “Don't worry, Marlow. I'll take care of it.” He spoke in his confident lawyer's voice, but I wondered how he felt in his heart.

I didn't try to keep up, though I followed as fast as I could. I should have warned Connor and Lloyd at teatime so that they would have been prepared. It was inevitable that the inspector would pursue Mrs. Worrell's claims. I had known what was sure to come and I had waited too passively for the right moment to speak with Connor. Part of it, of course, was my indecision about whom I should warn—Connor or Lloyd or Marlow.

I stopped for a moment's rest when I reached the stairs to the upper terrace. Mrs. Worrell must have contacted the inspector the minute Connor and Lloyd reached the hotel late this afternoon. Quite likely, Foster had asked her to telephone when Connor returned.

I found Lloyd pacing in the lobby area between the front desk and the drawing room. Marlow hunched on a narrow settee, her face bleak.

“Damn officious, if you ask me.” Lloyd's face was red, his tone aggrieved. But beneath the bluster there was a thin sound of fear. He strode toward me. “You talked to that policeman this morning. What's going on? He came down to the terrace and asked Connor to come up here to help him in his inquiries.” Lloyd clawed at his thinning hair. “I told him she didn't know that fellow who landed on the rocks. He had nothing to do with us and that inspector—what's his name, Frost?”

“Foster.” Marlow pressed her hands tightly together.

“He said he just wanted to have a few words with Mrs. Bailey about her activities a year ago when Mr. Worrell died. I said that was nonsense, but he insisted and we came up here—”

“I ran to get Steve.” Marlow's face was pale. “He's with Mother.” She pointed across the lobby at a short hallway that angled away from the front desk. A door opened just past the front desk and Mrs. Worrell came out.

Lloyd nodded his approval at Marlow. “That was using your head. They wouldn't let me come in with Connor—”

Lloyd's back was to Mrs. Worrell. She hesitated, then turned away, moving up the short hall. She was quickly out of sight. Of course, she could simply have been on her way to the exit at the end of the hall. I didn't think so. She had moved so cautiously, her final glance surreptitious and stealthy. The cardroom where I'd spoken to the police that morning was one of a series of rooms that opened onto the short hallway.

“—but when Steve said he was Connor's attorney, Foster let him accompany her. I should have told him I was her counsel. Hell, why not? I'm a lawyer. I can represent her, too.” He swung around, headed for the hallway.

“Wait, Lloyd!” Marlow came to her feet.

He hesitated, stopped, his face petulant.

“I know Mother would rather have you with her.” Marlow ran up to him. “But don't make too big a deal of it. After all, Steve was here last year. The police talked to him at the time. Let's not blow it all out of proportion.”

“Yeah. Maybe you're right.” The prospect of action had given him energy. Now his shoulders slumped and he resumed his edgy pacing.

I wondered at Marlow's motives. Perhaps she didn't want Lloyd to hear what her mother might say about her actions on the night Roddy Worrell died. But I very much wanted to hear. And there might be a way.

“I wouldn't worry, Lloyd.” I spoke in a soothing tone. Now was not the time to tell him of Mrs. Worrell's accusations against Connor. “It won't amount to anything and surely it won't take long.” I smiled reassuringly. “I'll see you at dinner and hear all about it.”

I moved toward the drawing room. I heard his nervous steps behind me. I crossed the drawing room, but instead of taking the exit that led to our rooms, I darted out through the open French doors to the upper terrace. It took only a moment to cross the smooth lawn and to reach the end of the building and the entrance to the short hall. I slipped through the door. The area where Marlow sat and Lloyd paced wasn't visible from the hallway. I walked fast to the door next to the room
where I'd spoken to Foster that morning. The door was closed.

I turned the knob, stepped inside a dark room. The light from the hall flared through the shadows, illuminating the tall woman hunched near a connecting door. The merest sliver of light between the door and the jamb indicated the connecting door was ajar, that and the deep, precise voice so easily heard.

Mrs. Worrell whirled around, her features ridged with fury and fear, staring eyes, twisted lips, splotched skin.

I pointed at the sliver of light from the connecting door, touched my finger against my lips, eased the hall door shut and tiptoed across the room.

I stood so near I heard the soft rush of her breath, but, more important, I heard the voices in the next room.

“…simply asking Mrs. Bailey to describe her actions on the night Mr. Worrell died.”

“I see no purpose to that.” Steve Jennings's tone was crisp. “You have Mrs. Bailey's statement from that evening. I refer you to that statement. It is complete and accurate and quite likely much more detailed than Mrs. Bailey could be at this point. After all, an entire year has passed. She would very likely not be able to remember the activities of the evening precisely.”

“I will be glad to refer to the statement if Mrs. Bailey has any difficulty—”

“I don't want to remember.” Connor's voice rose. “It's horrible to have to talk about it again. That's all over and done with. I can't help what happened to Roddy. I'm here to get married and I want to be left alone.”

Mrs. Worrell shifted her feet, the scrape of her shoes loud.

“Mrs. Bailey”—the inspector's voice was smooth, pleasant, relentless—“what was your relationship to Mr. Worrell—”

“Relationship! Why, he—”

“My client”—Steve's voice overrode Connor's—“declines to answer any questions concerning Mr. Worrell. She has already answered those questions. She responded to the inquiry at the time, and unless you have some reason to reopen that investigation, we shall excuse ourselves.”

Papers rustled. “Mrs. Bailey, information has been received that you were seen that night at the tower in the company of Mr. Worrell—”

Mrs. Worrell leaned her forehead against the wall as near the tiny opening as possible. The sliver of light ran a silver bar across her faded red hair, glistened on a golden hoop earring.

“—yet in your statement last year you claimed that you left Mr. Worrell on the upper terrace, returned to the hotel and never saw him again.” A sheet of paper crackled. “I will read your statement of last year:

“I don't see how I can help you. Poor Roddy. I still can't believe it. He was so alive, so much fun…when he was himself. Sometimes he drank too much and he had a way of making everything big and dramatic. And last night…oh, I don't know how to tell you. It was just one of those things. He cared for me, you see, but I'd never done a thing to encourage him. That happens to me. Men, you know, and I always try to be kind. I felt sorry for him, of course. Poor boy, he was so unhappy. That wife of his—”

Mrs. Worrell might have been carved from stone, she stood so still.

“—so cold and unpleasant. You wonder why he ever
married her. Not a pretty woman at all. And he rather made a scene in the bar. I suppose you've heard about that. Roddy said he loved me and he thought I loved him, and he said I was cold and cruel and that simply isn't true and then he threw himself out of the room. I went after him, of course. How could I not? Why, I had to tell him not to be silly. I couldn't bear for him to think me cruel—”

Despite the almost toneless recitation in the inspector's precise British speech, there was an echo of a woman's overweening hunger to be loved.

“—and I caught up with him on the terrace. But he wasn't like his usual self. He was gruff and angry. I talked and talked. I told him he was quite wonderful, that of course I really cared for him. And I did, you know, as a friend. That was always how I felt, that he and I were such good friends. He calmed down and we walked about the terrace. I felt that everything was all right. He asked me to walk in the gardens but I told him I was rather tired and I thought I'd go in and we said good night. I went back to the hotel and I never saw poor Roddy again.”

 

I'd accepted Connor's version, most of it, until the concluding sentences. I didn't believe for a minute in that chaste good night at the entrance to the gardens. A truculent drunk would not metamorphose into a genial companion suggesting a stroll in the moonlight among the bougainvillea.

Chief Inspector Foster cleared his throat. “Mrs. Bailey, you were seen at the tower with Mr. Worrell. I am giving you an opportunity to correct your statement of—”

A chair scraped. “Upon advice of counsel, Mrs. Bailey will make no further statement. Come on, Connor.”

“Steve,” her voice was high and frightened, “what if someone saw—” She broke off abruptly.

I almost edged the door wider. Had Steve grabbed her arm? Frowned? Whatever, Connor said no more.

There was a flurry of movement as Connor and Steve hurried out of the cardroom. Papers crackled, a briefcase clicked shut, a man's firm tread sounded. The door to the hallway opened, closed.

Mrs. Worrell pushed the connecting door shut, pushed it hard, with a violence that was the more frightening because it was directed against the inanimate door. She turned, bumped against me, the sharp bone of her elbow painful against my arm. “You…”

I moved, too, but she reached the hall door first, flung it open. She glared at me, her gaze venomous. “Bitch.” Her footsteps clicked on the floor as she hurried away.

I looked after her and wondered. Did she mean Connor? Or me?

By the time I reached the desk in the main lobby, Mrs. Worrell was out of sight. Rosalind was still on duty.

“Mrs. Collins. What may I do for you?” She might be getting toward the end of her shift, but her voice still had an eager lilt.

Give me energy. Give me answers. Give me peace. How shocked she would have been had I answered honestly. Instead, I said briskly, “I'm looking for Chief Inspector Foster and I thought he came this way.”

“I believe he and his assistant have left. You can check with Robert down in the drive. He's parking cars this evening.” The hotel provided valet parking for dinner guests. The brochure proudly proclaimed the dining room a favorite of Bermuda families, and this evening that certainly appeared to be true.

I found Robert at the foot of the main stairs. “Have the police left, Robert?”

Robert had steady gray eyes, a freckled face, and, usually, a ready laugh. Tonight he looked pale and serious. “Yes, Mrs. Collins. Just now.”

If I hadn't eavesdropped alongside Mrs. Worrell, I could have been in the main hallway and caught the inspector before he left. But the door to the Sports closet was locked. Tomorrow would do. I felt certain the chief inspector would be here bright and early.

Robert echoed my thought. “The chief inspector said he'd be back tomorrow. He asked for you, but there was no answer in your room. Will tomorrow be soon enough?”

“Yes. Thank you, Robert.” I was turning away when I paused. “Robert, have you seen Mr. Worrell's ghost?”

“Ghost?” Robert's voice was thin. His eyes blinked rapidly. “Oh, no, not me. I don't know anything about it.” He looked past me. “Excuse me, Mrs. Collins, here comes a car.”

He stepped past me.

I climbed the steps, looked down to watch as Robert eased his long body into the tight seat of a VW. He carefully didn't look my way.

The hotel was falling into its evening rhythm as I walked slowly back to my room. There was no hint that a life had been lost only a hundred or so yards down the hillside, nothing to remind guests that the beach had been the scene of an intensive search, that the medics had struggled up the sloping path with a body bag. Through the open French windows, the sweet, balmy night air drifted inside with the murmurs of the birds as they settled into the soft darkness of night in the garden. The local diners appeared relaxed
and cheerful, their chatter bright and animated as they walked toward the dining room or the bar.

The very ordinariness made me angry. Damnit, George was dead! But what could I do about it? Perhaps tomorrow, when I talked to the chief inspector, I would persuade him that the purported ghost of Roddy Worrell mattered. In any event, surely he would agree to test the box kite for George's fingerprints, perhaps even test the kite tomorrow night, see if he could re-create the luminous glow that had hovered by the tower.

What would that prove?

At the very least, it would prove that there was no ghost. It would prove that someone had spent considerable time and effort and ingenuity to create the semblance of a ghost. It would surely encourage the chief inspector to wonder why this effort had been made. I certainly wondered why. I was too tired now to make sense of any of it, but I was sure that the luminous apparition seen above the tower was connected to George's death.

I glanced toward the tower, a dark shape in the moonlight, and hurried into the building with our rooms. I was a little surprised to find our hall empty. I'd rather expected to catch Steve or Connor or Lloyd or Marlow in the hallway. I looked at the line of closed doors. Dinner was served at seven. It was a quarter to seven and I needed to change. My lips suddenly twisted in an ironic smile. Which was more important: to dress for dinner or to seek the truth about murder?

I took a few swift steps, knocked on Connor's door. I suppose I was impatient. I was knocking again, a demanding rat-a-tat when the door opened a scant three inches, framing a vertical stripe of Lloyd's face.