Murder at Beechwood (17 page)

“Good morning, Scotty. They assigned you to stand guard?”

“Until later this afternoon, yes. Are you here to visit our prisoner, or are you checking on one of your tenants?”

I winced at the word
prisoner,
and again at
tenant
. “My family doesn't own this house any longer, Scotty. Your
prisoner
does, but please don't call him that. He's innocent.”

“I hope so, Emma. For your sake.”

I tried to hide my surprise at his parroting of Jesse's sentiments. Did everyone know of my association with Derrick Andrews? Did I wear my heart so plainly on my sleeve?

But then Scotty added, “You're a trusting soul, Emma. You believed in Brady when he was in trouble last summer. I wouldn't want to see your faith in people shaken.”

I touched his forearm briefly. “Thank you, Scotty. Is it all right if I go inside? Actually, I'm here at Jesse's request,” I added in a lower tone.

He nodded knowingly. “He sent you to see what you can find out?”

I wasn't at all sure yet what I intended, but I didn't dissuade Scotty of his assumption.

He glanced up at the façade of the house, to the second-story apartment that Derrick had taken as his own when the old tenant moved out. “The windows are open. See that he keeps them open, and if you need me, just shout.”

“I don't think it will come to that, but again, thank you.”

With that I climbed the four steps to the front door, where the tiny vestibule had been sectioned off from the first-floor flat. A staircase led up to the two apartments on the upper levels, and as I ascended, memories of climbing those stairs to bed each night brought a tightness to my throat. A sense of unreality settled over me. This house had once been my home . . . and today I came as a guest.

I had tried, over the past year, to be stoic. Realistic. My father earned his living as a painter, mostly landscapes but with the occasional portrait as well. An artist's life is far from a lucrative one and my parents had needed the funds from the sale of the house. But they hadn't told me—hadn't warned me. Neither had Derrick when he entered into negotiations with them through his lawyer. I had been the last to know, and then only when the transfer of ownership had been finalized, when it was too late for me to do anything about it.

What could I have done? Admittedly very little. I didn't possess that kind of money, and my pride would have prevented me from asking Uncle Cornelius for it.

Pride and memories and a sense of loss—those seemed to be the only lasting legacy of my childhood. Knocking on Derrick's door drove that fact deeper still.

“Who is it?” He sounded puzzled and didn't wait for my answer before opening the door. He obviously hadn't been expecting company, for he wore no tie or waistcoat and was buttoning up his coat, which he must have donned hastily. Softly he exclaimed, “Emma!”

“I hope I'm not disturbing you.”

“I'm surprised they let you in.”

“Scotty—the policeman outside—is an old friend.”

“Newport is full of old friends of yours, isn't it?” I wasn't sure if a sardonic edge accompanied those words or not. He stepped back and opened the door wider. “Won't you please come in?”

I hesitated. “I wish you would stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Being so blasted polite.” I walked past him into a parlor that had once been my parents' bedroom—so familiar, yet made so entirely foreign by new furnishings and Derrick's personal effects.

“I apologize. I hadn't realized politeness was offensive to you,” he said, following me into the room. We stood facing each other, both of us stiff, ill at ease.

“It is offensive when accompanied by an obvious attempt to set me at a distance.” Oh, good Lord, had I really said that? I hadn't meant to. I had intended to keep my pride wrapped as tightly as a cloak against a winter wind.

So much for that.

“Is it acceptable for me to offer you a seat and bid you to make yourself comfortable?” A corner of his mouth tilted.

With my own lips pursed I scanned the room and chose the hard-backed chair at the writing desk, turning it to face into the room. The chair had already been pulled out. Had I interrupted him in the middle of writing a letter? Or perhaps an article for the Providence
Sun,
his family's newspaper. I didn't glance at the desk, deeming that too much of an intrusion of privacy, but I had chosen the chair solely for its distance from the easy chair and brass-tacked leather sofa. For some reason I needed that space between us. The open, front-facing windows flanked me, the semi-sheer, unbound curtains blowing inward with the breezes. I thought of Scotty down below, ready to run up to save me if I needed him.

Directly across from me hung a telephone that had never been there before, the oak stained dark, the brass shining, and the ebony gleaming. I noticed, too, wires where previously there had been none, running up the walls to electric sconces.

“You've made improvements to the house, I see.”

“I hope you approve.”

“It's your house now to do with as you please.” I heard the resentment in my voice and tried, not altogether successfully, to school my features to conceal my displeasure.

An awkward silence fell, broken by Derrick clearing his throat. “May I offer you some refreshment?” He pointed toward the one-time dressing room that had been renovated into a small kitchen. Beyond that would have been my bedroom, and then Brady's. Briefly I wondered what use he had made of those rooms.

“Derrick, why won't you tell the police where you went after leaving the hospital yesterday?”

“Ah, I see. Did your friend Jesse send you over to question me? Did he think a softer touch might persuade me to reveal the dark and deadly truth?” He sat opposite me on the Chesterfield sofa, yet the distance between us proved not nearly as safe as I'd hoped. I felt him all too keenly, felt the force of whatever electromagnetic forces continually drew us toward each other.

“Don't make a joke of this,” I retorted, perhaps too harshly. But he
had
touched upon the truth of the matter. “You wouldn't be under house arrest if you had been forthcoming. Are you . . . ?”

“Am I what? If you have a question, by all means, ask it.”

“Are you protecting someone?”

“Such as whom?” He held up a hand when I opened my mouth to express my exasperation. He gestured to the cushion beside him. “Come here, Emma. Please,” he added when I didn't move.

I hesitated another moment before rising and crossing the room to sit beside him. “All right. What couldn't you tell me with a few feet between us?”

“I can only tell you if you swear to me this will never reach Jesse's ears, or anyone else's.”

A sudden, cold fear spread through me. “You're frightening me. Derrick, what did you do?”

“Your word, Emma.”

I didn't hesitate. “Yes, yes, I swear.”

He studied me another second or two, and seemed to reach a decision. “I didn't murder Wyatt Monroe. Or Virgil, for that matter. I went off island yesterday.”

“That's it? I never believed you murdered anyone, but why couldn't you have admitted to going off island to Jesse? You weren't under house arrest yesterday and could come and go as you pleased. Now by refusing to cooperate—”

“I left Newport at my mother's request.” He fell silent and showed me his profile as he watched the curtains stirring. I wanted to prompt him but realized the value in holding my tongue while he gathered the wherewithal to confide in me.

As he once did so easily, without a second thought.

“My sister left early yesterday morning without a word to my mother,” he said at length. He spoke to the curtains, rather than to me. “Mother was concerned about her and asked me to go after her and find out why she left.”

“And did you find her?”

“I did. She was in North Kingstown, waiting for a train to take her back to Providence, or so she said. I had a brief glimpse of her ticket, though, before she tucked it away in her purse. I'm certain the destination was New York. Otherwise why wouldn't she have boarded the northbound train right here in Newport? My father did.”

Newport only ran northbound trains between here and Boston. Boats and mainland railways provided the only routes south. As his question seemed rhetorical, I asked one of my own. “What happened once you found her?”

“She returned to Newport with me. Reluctantly, but she returned. She's back on the
Lavinia's Sun
with my mother.”

“I don't understand. Why the secrecy, and why can't your sister be allowed to travel if she wishes? She's not a child.”

Derrick sprang up from the sofa, startling me. He went to the chair I'd vacated and leaned to grip its back. His shoulders knotted, straining his coat, and his head went down. His effort to compose himself filled the room with waves of tension that had me holding my breath. Finally, he turned back around. He met my gaze, but his head was still down, his eyes hooded.

“In the two years since Judith's husband passed away, she has been . . . different. Not simply grieving, but angry, resentful, at times volatile, especially in the past year. She has spent her money wildly, consorted with heaven only knows whom, and has disappeared for months on end. Not once but several times.”

I took this in, working it over in my mind. My nerve endings began to buzz. “Is that where you were in the spring? Looking for her?”

“I searched for her last winter. By spring I'd hired a private detective, but again to no avail. Then she suddenly just showed up at home one day.”

“How long ago did she reappear?” I could barely keep a trill of excitement from my voice.

“Two months ago.”

“Oh.” My growing eagerness suddenly deflated. With Judith disappearing for long stretches at a time, I'd suddenly entertained the notion that perhaps Robbie might be
her
baby. But that couldn't be, not if Derrick had seen her two months ago. She would have been six or seven months gone and surely showing the evidence of it. No, whatever had kept Judith away from home must have been another matter. With a sigh I said, “This is why she accused you of bullying her at Mrs. Astor's ball.”

He nodded. “She didn't appreciate my interference.”

“Derrick, all this secrecy, your avoiding me—why couldn't you have confided in me?” The hurt I'd been feeling all along made my voice tight, plaintive. I could do nothing to prevent it.

“I'm sorry, Emma. Perhaps I should have, but it was a difficult situation. I—”

“No, don't apologize,” I said quietly, trying to tamp down my pain, my bitter disappointment. It wasn't his fault that I had assumed too much, that I had believed myself entitled to more than he felt able to give me. “Your sister's life is none of my business and I respect that. But why not be honest with the police?”

“And make Judith's situation a matter of public record, the topic of gossip and scandal? Destroy her chances of ever remarrying and finding happiness? Thank you, no.”

“You could lie and merely say—”

“Lie to the police? They'd almost surely discover the truth and I would look all the more guilty.”

“But you have a legitimate alibi and—” I bit down, not sure I should continue.

“Go on. And what?”

“Well, I have a theory about who might have murdered Wyatt, but the police won't take it seriously unless we can exonerate you first.” I hurried to explain. “I posed the same possibility to Jesse this morning and he all but dismissed it, but . . . Derrick, what if Virgil Monroe didn't die in the water? What if he's still alive?”

His eyes widened. Several seconds passed before he spoke. “You mean he faked his death?”

“Precisely. But before you ridicule the idea—”

“I wasn't going to.” He raked his hair back off his brow and returned to sit beside me on the sofa. He stared down at his hands, fisted and braced on his knees. “Are you thinking he was able to swim to shore during the storm?”

“Was he a good enough swimmer, do you know?”

“He wasn't a young man . . . but he wasn't infirm either.” His brow creased in a show of concentration. “Last summer, during the Relay for Charity at Bailey's Beach, Virgil swam a hundred yards in the race.”

“Did he do well?”

He made an open-palmed gesture in the air. “His team didn't win, but I believe they finished respectably.”

“Then he
was
a good swimmer. Or
is.
”

“I don't know that anyone could have swam in those seas, Emma.”

“He might have clung to one of the buoys used to mark the race course until the waves subsided.”

Derrick paused, seeming to weigh that likelihood. “Then where is he?”

“Hiding. Watching. You see, I didn't simply snatch this theory out of the air. I had a look at the
Vigilant,
as well as the registration records. Did you know Wyatt was supposed to captain the boat during the race, but the position assignments were altered at the last minute?”

“There isn't much unusual about that.”

“Perhaps not, but it does seem unusual to have attempted to cover the change with a thin coating of paint in the records book. And then,” I added quickly before Derrick could comment, “I realized with the new positioning of the crew, it made far more sense if Wyatt had been the intended victim. Don't you see? Someone—perhaps Virgil—attempted to stage what appeared to be an accidental swinging of the boom to knock the port trimmer overboard. In this case, that would have been Wyatt. Except the storm kicked up and caused a true accident, that of Virgil going over instead.”