Death hits the fan (30 page)

I could well believe it. He looked ill now, just talking about it, his skin graying beneath the brown, his lips robbed of natural color.

"When Marcia first worked here, she did an adequate job, but then ... then she became abrasive. I began to hint that she might work elsewhere, but she didn't take the hint. And she needed the money. I felt too guilty. It's easy to talk about firing someone, but to actually do it?" He shrugged. "Even when I thought she might be stealing books, I still couldn't bring myself to force her to leave."

I nodded involuntarily. How could I have doubted Ivan when neither Wayne nor I had been able to force Ingrid to leave our own home?

"So I gave Marcia the benefit of the doubt," Ivan finished up. "It was all I could do. And now she's dead."

No wonder he looked so sick.

"So you need to find an answer," Wayne put in gently.

He believed his old friend now. He hadn't been sure before, I realized.

"Yes," Ivan hissed, nodding his head violently as he kept

his hands locked together. "Why did Marcia die?" he asked. "Was she murdered?"

"Could Marcia have guessed who Shayla's murderer was?" I asked. I had a dim memory of her insinuating that she knew. Had she shared her guesses with the wrong person? No, knowing Marcia, she would have accused, not shared.

"That's what I've been afraid of," Ivan admitted. Finally he unclasped his hands and leaned forward. "Marcia told me she knew more than I did about the murder," he whispered. "She teased me about it. She said she was going to make more money with that knowledge than she did selling books."

"Blackmail?" I whispered back.

He nodded. "I knew that's what she meant. I told her that blackmail was dangerous. I pleaded with her to go to the police if she really knew something. But I wasn't sure if she was just trying to upset me. She did that sometimes. I didn't know .. ." His words faltered and he stared at the floor.

Ivan was blaming himself for Marcia's murder, but I didn't think he was the killer. Not anymore.

"Okay," Wayne put in, his voice brusque. "Enough of the guilt. Let's go over this analytically."

Ivan looked up, a flicker of hope in his eyes.

"Start with everyone who was here that night," Wayne ordered.

"Well," Ivan began. "I suppose I knew Yvette the best. And Ted. You know about his son." r

"Not everything," I prompted.

"Well, Ted's son had a terrible illness. He needed a liver transplant. He was on a waiting list. Ted kept saying he could save his son's life if he had enough money to bribe the right person. I don't know if it was true. But he didn't have the money. His books weren't selling as well by that time.

His original publisher had dropped him and he'd gone with a small press. He was desperate."

"Poor guy," a voice from behind us put in. Winona. I hadn't heard her walking our way. Ivan didn't even seem to notice her presence. He was too caught up in Ted's story.

"Ted's son died before he ever got a liver transplant."

Winona gulped. I looked up and saw tears in her eyes.

"No wonder he's bitter," I muttered.

"It was terrible," Ivan agreed. "I think of my own son. God, how could Ted bear it? And then his wife left him. I would have never expected her to leave. But all that held them together was their son. They'd quit the jewelry business a long time ago—"

"The jewelry business," I interrupted. "Ted was in the jewelry business?"

Hire you telling me that Ted was in the jewelry business, as in making bracelets, not just selling them?" I prodded, my voice gaining speed along with the pounding of the blood in my temples.

"Well. . . yes," Ivan admitted slowly, tilting his head as he looked at me. Could he have really missed the connection?

"So could Ted have made the bracelet?"

Blank-faced silence was my only answer at first. It probably wasn't very long before Ivan finally reacted, but it felt like decades.

And then Ivan gulped. I could hear the sound just as clearly as if I'd gulped myself in the stillness of the bookstore. Ivan's face grew even grayer than before. I hoped he wasn't going to pass out. I hoped / wasn't going to pass out.

"No way," Winona whispered.

The heater seized the moment to kick in with a roar of hot air.

We all jumped simultaneously. Even Wayne. Even PMP.

"Scree!" the parrot screamed. "Shut up! Shut up! Thank you."

"Tell me about Ted's business," Wayne ordered, standing abruptly. "Did Ted actually manufacture jewelry?"

"Well, yes, he did," Ivan answered, blinking urgently. He squeezed his hands together again. "He and his wife made necklaces and earrings." His voice lowered. "And bracelets. They sold their stock to jewelry stores and boutiques. It was a good little business. They worked very well together. But when Ted's writing actually began to pay him enough to live on, they shut down the jewelry operation. I don't know about the equipment..." He faltered. "I didn't even think of it. I thought of Ted only as a writer. I..."

"You're not just talking about stringing beads on wire for bracelets?" I asked. I'd done that myself in college for a few extra bucks. So had half the women I'd known.

"No, they had a professional workshop and everything," Ivan assured me. Not that it was an assurance I particularly wanted. Though at least Ivan's face was getting some color back now. "I don't know what was involved, but they used precious metals and gems, and did some lovely, intricate designs—"

Damn. Now I was out of my chair too. Ted could have made the bracelet.

"But wait," Ivan put in, frowning. "Yvette made jewelry at one time too." But then he shook his head. "No, no, that's not right. I think it was Lou, when he was in accountancy school. His mother or his aunt—or someone—was in the jewelry business. Something like that. Oh, I can't remember the exact details." He made his hands into fists as if to force the information out. "I just remember Yvette talking about how beautiful Lou's pieces were. So it must have been Lou. I think."

Yvette. My mind shrilled a warning. Yvette was having a

meeting. Lunchtime, she'd said. And she'd said Ted would come. Like Ivan, I was having a hard time remembering exactly. Hadn't she said Ted would come "for sure"? Why would she say that? Why hadn't I asked?

"But making jewelry doesn't necessarily imply—" Ivan was saying.

"Wayne, they're meeting now!" I interrupted. And suddenly I was shouting. "Lunchtime, Yvette's house!"

"Oh no," Ivan groaned. "I'd forgotten. Yvette's having another meeting."

"Gotta go," Wayne growled and headed toward the door.

I was right there with him, until Winona blocked me.

"Kate, let me come too," she begged. "Yvette asked me. Let me help."

I looked at Winona, hardly able to focus on her freckled, oval face with Yvette's narrow, sharp one floating in my mind. I tried to center my nagging thoughts. We had to hurry.

"No," I said firmly. "You've got Johnny, remember?"

Winona's shoulders slumped. But she nodded in agreement as I ran past her to catch up with Wayne.

"It's probably no big deal anyway," I yelled over my shoulder as we passed through the doorway.

But one last, backwards glance told me that neither Winona nor Ivan believed me.

"No big deal," PMP echoed cheerfully as the door closed behind me. "No big deal."

Once we were on the highway, I pushed the Toyota to its limit. Unfortunately, my aged Toyota's limit with two people inside wasn't quite seventy miles an hour.

"We promised Lou," Wayne murmured as I prodded the Toyota over a steep hill by pure force of will. My hands were sweating and slippery on the steering wheel.

"Maybe we're just overreacting," I told him. At least I was. My pulse was doing everything the Toyota couldn't.

"Lou might have killed Shayla himself. Or Yvette might have, for that matter. If Lou knew how to do whatever you have to do to make jewelry, she probably did too. And who knows who else could make jewelry?"

"But why Yvette?" Wayne shot back. "Why Lou?"

"What if Yvette was jealous of Shayla?" I proposed. "What if she was just nuts?"

"Lou could have been trying to protect Yvette somehow, but..."

Wayne's voice faltered as I skidded around a curve. Honking greeted the brief intrusion of my rear wheels into the next lane.

"Or Lou and Yvette together," Wayne muttered.

"Or Ted Brown." There, I'd said it. "Ted. He had the means. And his son died. Maybe he blamed Shayla somehow. She stole his ideas."

I let my words float through the car as I swung off onto the exit ramp, minutes away from Yvette's. What would be there when we arrived? Nothing, I told myself. Nothing but the usual chaos of bric-a-brac and animals. And weapons, I remembered suddenly. Daggers, swords, and shillelaghs among the teacups and posters and African masks.

I rammed my car up to the curb and over in front of the house. I didn't stop to parallel park. And just as I yanked open the gate to the Cassells' green, leprechaun-encrusted yard, Wayne spoke again.

"The film," he whispered. "Marcia's film. There was no bracelet on the table before the authors came in."

The photos that Ivan had shown us flashed through my mind. Wayne was right. No bracelet. But which author had come in first? I didn't have time to remember as we rushed to Yvette's front door. But when I tried to open the door, it was locked. I twisted the knob furiously. It couldn't be locked. Yvette was having a meeting. It had to be open. But

it wasn't. A dog barked somewhere inside the house. Then I heard a human voice.

"If you're Demetrius Douvert, then I'm a fuddin' leprechaun." Yvette, that was Yvette speaking. Her voice was high and loud, but calm.

Douvert, my mind sorted urgently. Wasn't Demetrius Douvert Ted's protagonist?

"I take the lives of those who are evil," another voice answered. A deep voice. Was it Ted's voice? It sounded something like Ted, but it lacked its usual brittle, jerking quality. This voice was deep and slow. Ted Brown playing Shakespeare. One of the tragedies.

"Listen for a damn-dang minute here, Ted," Yvette said. "Shayla wasn't evil. Absolute good and evil are only illusions. Shi-shick, she had her good points, her bad points—"

"She was evil," the deep voice answered. Ted's voice. It had to be, unless Yvette was talking to herself.

I twisted the doorknob again. But it was well and truly locked.

"Well, was Marcia evil, then?" Yvette inquired. I didn't hear fear in her voice. But I felt it creeping up my own body. Hadn't Ted just said he took the lives of those who were evil? Wasn't he saying he'd killed Shayla?

It was quiet inside the house for a few heartbeats, then the deeper voice answered.

"Ted didn't mean to kill Marcia. Marcia thought she had it all figured out. Ted thought she was coming on to him sexually, but she just wanted to blackmail him. He shoved her and the handcart fell. An accident."

"Okay, okay. It was a figgin' accident. But am I evil, Ted?" Yvette asked, her voice that of a professor posing an important question to a student.

"Not Ted, Douvert!" he roared.

The sound of dogs barking obscured all other sounds for

a moment. But the dogs weren't near Ted and Yvette, I realized. Their barking came from the rear of the house.

Damn. Yvette wasn't evil. She was crazy. Did she want this man to kill her? I looked for a window to break.

I moved away from the door just as Wayne hurled himself at its oaken surface. But his large, muscular body just bounced off.

Yvette still sounded calm as Wayne stepped back to try again.

"Okay, Douvert, am I evil?" she rephrased her question.

"Hey, guys, um ..." A new voice. Was that Felix Byrne? "You know, this gonzo stuff is really far friggin' out and all, but—"

"Felix, open the door!" I shouted.

"You defend an evil woman," the deep voice went on. It sounded like a judgment.

Had anyone even heard my shout? I looked around me. The ceramic harp by the door looked sturdy enough to break glass.

And then the door opened.

Felix was the first person I saw in the maze of Star Trek, Ireland, Africa, and the mysteries that defined Yvette Cas-sell's living room. Fear had widened Felix's dark, soulful eyes, but excitement was lurking there too.

Wayne rushed through the door one pulse ahead of me.

"Hey man," Felix whispered, grabbing his arm. "This Ted guy's from outer space, you know, another planet.. ."

I stepped around the two men, surveying the room, and there, past the Enterprise, past the needlepoint, and past the poster-size blow-ups of Yvette's book covers, I saw Ted Brown. He wasn't wearing his cowboy hat, but his dark ponytail was in place, his posture ramrod-straight now as he faced Yvette.

"Earth to Ted," Yvette said, her hands resting on her tiny hips as if in exasperation. "I keep telling you, Shayla wasn't

fuddin' evil." Yvette stared at Ted through her tinted glasses, her head back as if trying to figure something out. Too late. Ted grabbed a bust of Nero Wolfe and advanced on her slowly. The dogs began barking again. But the dogs were in another room.

"Evil," he repeated. "Evil must die."

"Oh, come on, Ted," Yvette cajoled, but she was reaching in the long pocket of her green jacket. For her shillelagh? She'd never get it out in time.

My mind didn't have anything to do with the next instant. I was just running and kicking. My foot circled and knocked the Wolfe bust from Ted's hand. No cerebral assistance was necessary.

But then he turned his face to me. And my mind returned and was chilled. Ted's face was no longer morose. It was filled with hatred. He reached a hand toward me. My mind urged me to move. To move fast.

I stepped backwards, out of reach. And centered myself, ready.

One breath was all I took, and Wayne was behind Ted, one arm around his neck, the other holding his arm behind his back in a classic hammerlock. As if Wayne and I had been a team. Maybe we had.

My own body went slack with relief. And my brain buzzed. The science-fiction writers had been wrong. It wasn't always enough to kill on paper. At least, not for Ted Brown.