Midsummer Murder (34 page)

Lindy rolled her eyes. Bill had the decency to look embarrassed.

“I was there getting a take on the locals,” he said.

Lindy wiped the blood off his lip. He winced as the cloth touched his cheek.

“Really, Bill, brawling in a public bar . . .” she said.

“It was kind of fun.”

“For crying out loud.”

Bill tried to take the cloth from her, then grabbed his side instead.

Without thinking, Lindy dropped to her knees and began to feel his ribs. “Is anything broken?”

Bill was holding his breath. “They mainly got the fleshy parts,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Right, tough guy.”

She continued to press his sides until she had reached the bottom of his rib cage. He seemed okay.

“You can stop that now,” he said.

She looked at her hands resting on his abdomen. “Oh.” She moved her hands away.

Bill finished exhaling.

“You should have seen him, Mom, he took on all four of them.”

“And finished them off—like that.” Donald snapped his fingers.

“Then the other guys in the bar threw them out and bought us all beers.”

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“That was the worst part,” said Bill. “Beer.” Bill hated beer. “But it was safer than the wine. I doubt if the bartender would know the difference between a Chateau Neuf de Pape ’83 and a Gallo 2000.” He started to laugh, then stopped and ran his hand over his stomach.

“So did you learn anything from the locals?” asked Lindy.

“That these guys were the town troublemakers. They’ve been stirring up feeling against Van Zandt and company. All that crap about the Native Americans building casinos. And—that Grappel has looked the other way while they do it.”

“Criminy.” Lindy sat down on the bed. Bill winced.

She slid over a respectable distance from him and looked at Annie, but Annie was too steeped in admiration to notice.

“Who started that idea, anyway?” she asked Donald.

“There was some article in the local newspaper.”

“Stu said the editor was in favor of development.”

“I talked to the man,” said Bill. “An ex-hippie. It seems that the article was an editorial written by him, urging people not to let anyone, including the Native Americans, develop the land.”

“He’s antidevelopment?” asked Lindy.

“He’s an ex-hippie,” Bill repeated.

“But what about those lurid headlines when Larry was killed?”

“Even ex-hippies have to make a buck.” Bill gingerly shifted position. “And the real estate people turn out to be two retired schoolteachers from New York. They rent summer cottages.”

“And the mayor?”

“For the last thirty years. He might be in favor of some development, but he didn’t strike me as the type to condone murder in order to pave the way for it.”

“Then—”

“I think the Eastons have a skewed view of the local mindset.”

Lindy shook her head slowly. “Not all of the Eastons. Marguerite told us that she had friends in the town. She never doubted them.”

“Well, that leaves Ellis.” Bill paused. “Stu is not an Easton.”

Not even by marriage, thought Lindy. “So that puts us right back to—”

“Where I came in.” He gave her a look that could have been interpreted in several ways, then pushed himself off the bed. “But I would like to get some sleep before the night is over.”

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“Sure,” said Donald. He backed toward the door. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

Annie stood on tip toe and kissed his good cheek. “You were wonderful.”

This from a girl who only yesterday had accused him of being her mother’s lover. Wonders never cease, thought Lindy.

By the time Lindy reached the door, Donald and Annie were already chattering away down the hall. Bill had followed her over.

“You’re sure you’re not hurt.”

Bill laughed. “What a question.”

“Bill . . .”

“Good night, Lindy.”

She swallowed. “Good night.” She backed out the door. It closed in her face.

233

Twenty-One

“Wake up.”

A groan came from under the pile of covers on the bed across from hers.

“Wake up,” Lindy repeated.

A mass of cinnamon curls appeared, followed by two blinking eyes.

“How can you sleep when I’m dying of curiosity? Do you still have a job? Did you quit? What happened?” Lindy fired her questions toward the lump in the other bed.

“What time is it?”

“Eight o’clock.”

Biddy nestled back into the covers.

Lindy climbed out of her own bed and stood over Biddy. “Biddy.”

“Huh?” came the lazy reply.

Lindy yanked the covers away. Biddy sat up. “Ugh.” She scrubbed her hair, then looked up, blinked a couple of times, bringing her eyes into focus, then said, “Let’s get breakfast. I’m starved.”

“Thank God.” Lindy sank back onto her bed.

“Well, don’t sit down. Let’s get going.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you, she chanted inwardly as she went to take the first shower.

* * *

“So, then he said, would I consider staying on. I said of course, and then we went to bed.”

“You did?”

“Not together, dingbat.” Biddy popped a piece of English muffin into her mouth. “When I got back to the room, you were dead to the 234

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world.” She swallowed, and reached for her coffee. “So I ate the sandwich you left me. Thanks.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“You were too busy yelling at whomever you were dreaming about.”

Lindy’s eyes widened. “I don’t remember dreaming.”

“Just as well. You were giving somebody hell.”

“Myself, probably. We’ve got three days, counting today.
If
we go on with the performance.”

“Jeremy is afraid Ellis killed Larry,” said Biddy.

“I know. And if it’s true, Marguerite can kiss the retreat goodbye.”

“The sooner it’s over, the sooner she can get on with whatever she has to do,” said Biddy, momentarily losing interest in her food. Then she stuffed the rest of the English muffin into her mouth.

“So many people depend on her.”

“She should have thought of that before she let that chicken hawk brother of hers hang around the camp.”

“She didn’t know,” said Lindy. “I’m sure of that. You should have seen her reaction.”

“She didn’t know about Jeremy, maybe. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t know about Larry.” “I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

“Look. Lindy. I think the world of Marguerite, too. Everybody does.

But I have no doubt that she would do anything she needed to do in order to keep her mother’s dream alive. And I also think there are more than a few people who would help her.”

“Criminy. Sometimes your thought processes are scary. But why kill Larry? That would bring certain scandal. She would have been smarter to kill Ellis.”

“Her own brother?”

“Why are we even talking like this?” The idea that someone would kill a seventeen-year-old boy was horrifying enough. That it was most likely someone they knew made her sick. “I’m feeling overwhelmed here. None of this makes sense.”

“Unless it was just an accident.” Biddy glanced over Lindy’s shoulder. “Wow, what happened to him?”

Lindy turned around to see Bill coming toward them. He had a glaring bruise on his cheek.

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“Fistfight in the local bar,” Lindy whispered as Bill approached the table.

“I’m going to be gone for a few hours,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

Biddy laughed. “You can only be stupid when he’s here to enjoy it.”

Bill took the beginning of an exasperated breath, thought the better of it, and exhaled. “Let me rephrase that. Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be back this afternoon.”

“But where are you going?” It was a hell of a time for him to take off. They needed to catch a killer.

“To check out TriCon Enterprises.”

“The license plate?”

Bill nodded.

“They were able to trace it already?”

“The city never sleeps,” said Bill. And with that, he left them.

* * *

Biddy and Lindy separated outside the restaurant. Biddy went to make sure that Jeremy was teaching company class. Lindy wandered from master class to master class, while she desperately tried to figure out a reason for Larry’s death. And do so before that afternoon, when she would have to push aside her snooping and teach a rehearsal techniques class and then talk the class through Jeremy’s company rehearsal that afternoon.

Had she missed any clues, any motivations? She went over the list of people involved, dismissing each of them in turn. Chi-Chi, if she found out Robert was cheating on her with a young boy? There was a real motive for murder. Stu, jealous for the same reasons, about Ellis and Larry? Adele? She had access to drugs and—Lindy grasped for an image just out of her consciousness. Surgical gloves. She could have typed the message with the gloves on. No prints. Hmmm. Had they found prints on the computer? But Adele was only a little over five feet tall. If anyone had gone over that precipice in a fight, it would have been Adele.

She was surprised to see Byron Grappel and two state troopers coming up the path from behind the theater. One look at his face sent a shiver of fear through her. He had found the cave. Had he 236

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also found Connie? She turned down Two Rocks Way hoping to avoid the sheriff.

“Ms. Graham.”

She stopped. The way Grappel pronounced her name filled her with disgust.

“Sheriff. I didn’t know you were here.”

“Got a tip. Don’t suppose you know what I found down there.” He jerked his head over his shoulder.

She tried to look stupid. It wasn’t that difficult. She felt pretty stupid. “You want to tell me?” she asked blandly. She had to admit she was getting better at this deflection business.

“Larry’s love nest.” He smiled, his teeth small and pointy. Too small for his mouth. It was the first time she had noticed his teeth.

Details, she thought. It’s in the details, just like rehearsal, something not quite right. Something you might ordinarily overlook, but once you discovered it, and fixed it, and the dance flowed smoothly, it would seem so obvious.

“Well, good for you, Sheriff.” She pulled her mouth into a rictus smile. “Gotta run.” And she ran.

She didn’t stop running until she was back at the house.

Surrounded by thousands of acres of forest and mountains, it seemed like she was just running in the tiny circles of house, annex, theater, and studios. Just like a rat in a cage. It was ridiculous. How could you feel penned in when you were in the middle of wilderness?

What details was she missing? Did Chi-Chi feel penned in? Maybe she hadn’t wanted to learn the hotel business. And now she was stuck.

Marguerite controlled the lives of a lot of people here. Did one of them resent her manipulation? She gives them a chance, and then like indentured workers who had to buy from the company store, they could never pay off their debt? Or was it really about sex?

Did she dare call Connie Phillipses’ home to see if he had returned? Or would that muddy the water? Bill picked a hell of a time to leave them.

She paced up and down the hallway, then went into the library. She retrieved the Phillipses’ number from the Rolodex on the desk.

Punched in the numbers. The secretary informed her that Connie had not yet returned home. She sounded irritated as if his absence were adding to her normal workload.

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“Really, Ms. Graham. We stopped worrying about Connover’s tendency to run away years ago. A headstrong child. He can take care of himself.” A curt goodbye and Lindy was listening to a dial tone.

Why did people bother having children if they weren’t willing to care for them? God, it made her angry. If Annie or Cliff had run away from camp, she would have dropped everything and gone to look for them. She ached for the lonely, frightened boy who could be anywhere and for whom no one seemed to care.

Please, just let him be far away from here.

It was a long day, made longer by the increasing agitation that enforced inactivity always brought on. She taught her rehearsal techniques class; explained what Jeremy was doing as she and fifteen students sat in the audience watching rehearsal. She had them pick out techniques that she had told them about; pulled out her notebook and showed them how to take notes in the dark.

They were enthusiastic and a bit awestruck that their teachers actually knew what they were talking about; had studied long and hard to be good at what they did; that their ability to fix a step or a movement hadn’t sprung full-blown from the air.

Like other young professionals she had encountered, they seemed unaware of the dedication it took to be proficient at what you did.

They expected to be good. An entitled generation, they were taught to believe they deserved the best. The consequences of their actions were clouded by lenient teachers, indulgent parents, and peers whose only care was to have a good time.

Did they understand that Larry Cleveland had courted disaster because of his behavior? After their initial shock, it seemed to Lindy that they had dismissed him from their lives. What had Rose said?

Some of them would have been glad he was dead if they were old enough to realize it.

Had they been on the wrong track all the time? The older generation taking too much responsibility for what had happened, the younger generation not taking enough? In their concern for the Easton family, had they been wasting their energy, when they should have been looking for a murderer among Larry’s peers?

She decided to put Rebo back on the case. Find out what the students were thinking now. If they had any more ideas about why Larry Cleveland had died.

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She left Peter, Jeremy, and Biddy discussing that night’s tech rehearsal. She wandered aimlessly through the camp. Time was running out. If they didn’t find the real culprit, Robert would be held and then tried for the death of Larry Cleveland.

She walked into the student dining hall. Like any camp dinner, sounds of dishes, laughter, and benches scraping on the concrete floor filled the air. She grabbed a bottle of water. Drank it down. She walked back out into the growing dusk.