Murder Most Persuasive (2 page)

“What do you think, Reggie?” Bonnie asked, turning to her oldest stepdaughter.

Regina “Reggie” Ames, née Marshall, née Stewart, née Reynolds, lowered her martini glass and studied her stepmother with undisguised scorn. At thirty-seven, Reggie ran one of D.C.’s more popular wedding planner services, services that she herself has used quite frequently. She’s now, as she puts it, unaffiliated with a husband—hers or anyone else’s. But by no means is she through with the institution. Reggie attracts men the way butter pecan ice cream attracts me. She’s one of those women who are better-looking today than they were at twenty-one—and at twenty-one she was gorgeous. She’s slim, toned, and still has all the right curves. Some of my closest friends still refuse to believe we’re related. In fact, if we weren’t related, I’d probably hate her. If I’m completely honest with myself, there likely would be a voodoo doll involved.

“What do I think about what?” Reggie asked.

“About having a party for your father,” Bonnie replied.

“Bit late for that, isn’t it?” Reggie murmured, before raising her glass to take a sip.

“Reggie!” hissed Frances.

“What did you say?” asked Bonnie, leaning closer. “I didn’t hear.”

“I said I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Reggie said, setting down her glass. Pushing a lock of her glossy black hair behind one ear, she said, “Let me know what I can do. I’d love to help.”

Bonnie leaned back in her chair, a faint line forming between her brows. “I don’t know. I’d hate to appear insensitive.” Reaching out to the flag, she lightly stroked its stars and stripes, before continuing. “Annabel, you’re always so sensible. Do you really think we should have a party?”

From the way Ann blinked several times before answering, it was clear that she was a bit perplexed that her suggestion that her father’s life be celebrated had been taken seriously. Nevertheless she said, “I think a party honoring Dad would be lovely.”

Bonnie considered this before announcing with a teary smile, “Then it’s settled. I’ll start planning it as soon as I get back.”

“Get back?” asked Frances, an edge in her voice. “Get back from where?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” asked Bonnie, her blue eyes round. “I was sure that I did. I’m going on a spa retreat, out to a place in Arizona. The horrible suddenness of poor Martin’s death has been so stressful for me. I need to find my center. I need to unwind.”

“What exactly does she call what she does now?” Aunt Winnie muttered to me.

It might not be the most diplomatic question, but it was a fair one. Much of Bonnie’s day was spent either shopping or lunching. It was hard to see how such a schedule would require unwinding.

Frances shot her husband, Scott, an anxious look. His round face mirrored his wife’s concern. Rubbing his large hand across his chin, he leaned across the table, his posture reminiscent of an arm wrestler—an arm wrestler wearing an expensively tailored gray suit. However, despite its obvious excellent quality and fit, it still looked all wrong on him. Scott Phillips was one of those men who are more at ease in jeans and a T-shirt. Although he’d been tapped to take over Uncle Marty’s business years ago and had shown great promise in continuing the company’s success, he’d never gotten used to having to wear the suit.

“When are you leaving, Bonnie?” he asked.

“Tomorrow. I’ll be gone just a week.”

Scott coughed. It was not the cough of someone with a cold. It was the cough of someone with a problem. “Bonnie, I know this isn’t the best time,” he said, with an uneasy glance at the rest of us, “but there’s that matter I discussed with you earlier.”

Seeing the perplexed expression on Bonnie’s face, he continued, “The property in St. Michaels? We need to discuss the proceeds of the sale of the house.”

“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee, not that again,” said Bonnie, with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Yes,
that
again,” said Scott through gritted teeth. “I realize this is a difficult time, but it’s best we get this sorted out as soon as possible.”

“I understand that,” she replied. “And I fully intend to do just that. When I get back.”

“But—”

Bonnie interrupted. “But nothing! I need to get away. I realize that everything’s in a jumble right now, but it’s not as if we can’t sort it out when I get back. I know you think the proceeds are to be split among the three of you, but I don’t agree that that was what Martin wanted. I’m sure he meant for me to have a fourth. However, we can discuss it when I get back.”

“But—” Scott continued.

Again, Bonnie interrupted him. “But nothing!” she said, her voice becoming petulant. Over the years, I’ve seen only two sides to Bonnie’s personality—flaky and petulant. She was a spoiled child in a woman’s body. “We’ll deal with it when I get back,” she said. “But I have to say, I don’t think the proceeds on the house are the problem.”

“What do you mean?” asked Scott.

Bonnie placed both of her hands on the table and leaned forward. Lowering her voice, she glanced furtively at the flag before continuing. “What I mean is that I can’t shake this feeling that poor Martin’s death was … well, as God as my witness, it was
wrong
.”

“What do you mean, ‘wrong’?” Reggie asked, hastily setting down her empty martini glass.

“I mean
murder,
” came the breathless response. Pressing her hand to her chest, she moaned, “Oh, my poor, poor Marty!”

Bonnie’s oft-repeated sentiment of the day was again met with silence. But this time, we weren’t ignoring her. Based on the horrified expressions around me, I suspected that for the first time today, Bonnie held everyone’s complete attention.

CHAPTER 2

My sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody’s.

—
PERSUASION

“M
URDER!” REGGIE SHRIEKED.
She sat upright in her chair as if someone had just dumped several ice cubes down the back of her dress and glared at Bonnie. “Just what the hell are you talking about?” Reggie’s temper was almost as legendary as her beauty. Even though her anger wasn’t directed at me, I still squirmed uncomfortably in my chair.

Bonnie’s pale hands fluttered before her face as she tried to explain. “Well, the
suddenness
of it, of course! I mean, didn’t anyone else think it was … well,
strange
?” Her large blue eyes stared questioninly at us.

“Strange in what way?” asked Ann, her voice struggling for composure.

“Well, that nurse, for one.” With a cautious glance around her, Bonnie lowered her voice an octave. “I think she was
foreign
.”

Bonnie was forever suspicious of “foreigners.” Last year, a series of prank phone calls in which the caller said nothing and hung up after a moment were also blamed on this demographic. When asked how she could possibly know the identity of the caller, as he or she did not speak, Bonnie calmly replied, “The breathing; it was
foreign
breathing.”

“For Christ’s sake, Bonnie,” Aunt Winnie snapped now, her patience gone. “There are so many levels of wrong with what you just said, it truly boggles the mind. But for starters, of
course
she was foreign! The girl’s name was Rona Bjornstad and she spoke with a heavy Dutch accent. You’re just figuring out
now
that she wasn’t born here?”

Someone snickered. However, Bonnie, unaffected by Aunt Winnie’s tirade, merely sniffed. “I read the papers,” came her enigmatic reply. “I know things.”

“My dear Bonnie, skimming the headlines on the gossip rags doesn’t count as papers,” Aunt Winnie shot back. “You make Sarah Palin look well-read.”

“Oh, I love her!” Bonnie gushed.

Aunt Winnie grimaced and muttered something. I leaned in to her. “Did you say what I think you just said?” I asked, aghast.

“Of course not,” she retorted primly. “That’s just your vulgar imagination.”

Across the table, Frances brushed an errant strand of brown hair off her face and leaned forward. “Bonnie,” she said, her tone full of exasperation, “Nurse Rona was wonderful with Dad.”

“That’s my point,” Bonnie countered with a tip of her blond head. “Maybe she was a little
too
wonderful.”

Frances’s brow furrowed. “Meaning?”

Bonnie pursed her lips. “Meaning, I think she liked him. You should have seen the way she was always hanging over him and trying to hold his hand.”

“She tried to hold his hand?” asked Ann.

Bonnie gave an emphatic nod that caused the lace on her black ensemble to shudder. “Of course, when I called her on it, she
claimed
that she was just trying to take his pulse, but
I
knew better. Oh, if I wasn’t a lady,
what
I wouldn’t tell that woman.”

There was an awkward pause as everyone around the table tried very hard not to laugh.

With monumental effort, Ann finally said, “Bonnie, I don’t think Rona had any designs on Dad and I don’t think he was … murdered.” She briefly closed her eyes, as if the sound of her voice calmly uttering this statement in the dining room of the Hotel Washington was too much to bear. “I think you’re very tired. We all are. Go on your spa retreat and get some rest. You’ll feel better when you get back, and all these thoughts about murder will be gone.”

Bonnie sniffed again. “All right. If you say so, Annabel.”

The muscles in Ann’s jaw bunched, and I made a private bet that while Bonnie’s thoughts about murder might disappear, others’ would only grow stronger.

*   *   *

“Good God, but Bonnie is a piece of work,” Aunt Winnie said to me after we left the restaurant. We were in my mother’s car on the way to the airport. Aunt Winnie had to catch a flight back to Cape Cod, where she and her boyfriend, Randy, own and manage a bed-and-breakfast. Randy had stayed behind to keep things running.

“Marty could be a cold son of a bitch at times,” Aunt Winnie continued, “and he certainly bamboozled Bonnie into marrying him all those years ago, but there are times when I think that her utter craziness helped somewhat to redress that balance. Life with her could not have been easy.”

“Where on earth do you think she got the idea that Uncle Marty was murdered? The man had been hanging on by a thread for years. I can’t believe she was surprised by his death,” my mother asked.

“Yes, well, that’s Bonnie for you. Never met a fact she couldn’t ignore,” Aunt Winnie replied, her mouth twisted into a small red smirk.

“So you don’t think there could be any truth to what she said?” I asked.

From the front seat, Kit let out a whoop of laughter and swung around to face me. “I knew it! I knew it!” she crowed. “As soon as Bonnie began all that nonsense about Uncle Marty being murdered, I knew you were going to get all
weird
. Just because you were around when a murder happened doesn’t make you Nancy Drew!”

“I never said I was Nancy Drew!” I shot back. “And for your information, I was involved in
two
murder investigations, not just one, and I helped solve them both!”

“Oh, please,” said Kit, with a lofty air of superiority. “Not this again.”

The thing that drove me crazy was that I
had
been involved in two murder investigations and I’d helped solve them
both.
Hell, in one case I’d been in a full-on fight with the murderer, resulting in a bash to the head (mine, of course) and a temporary imprisonment in a dark basement (again, that would be me). Yet Kit still treated the whole thing as a giant joke.

“Kit!” said Aunt Winnie, coming to my defense. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but Elizabeth was invaluable in helping solve the murder that happened at my inn. If it weren’t for her help in finding the real killer, the police probably would have arrested me!”

“Yeah, well, that may be so,” Kit said in a tone that indicated she thought anything but that, “but I don’t think that Uncle Marty was murdered and neither do you.”

“Well, no…” began Aunt Winnie.

“And that’s my only point,” said Kit blandly. “But what was all that business with Scott about the property in St. Michaels?”

Aunt Winnie leaned forward. “Before Marty died, he arranged for the sale of the St. Michaels house. I’m not sure what Bonnie is talking about, but
my
understanding was that the proceeds were to be split three ways among the girls. They could do what they wanted with it. They were all happy with the arrangement. Well, that’s not completely true,” she amended. “I don’t think Reggie wanted to sell the house, but she was outvoted.”

“Sounds like Scott really wants his share of the money. I gather it’s a lot?” asked Kit.

“Probably,” said Aunt Winnie. “I imagine the house sold for quite a bit.”

“It was a beautiful place,” I said. “At least, from what I can remember.”

Kit sniffed indignantly. “I wouldn’t know. I never saw it.”

I held my tongue, sorry I’d mentioned that particular bone of contention. Although Kit is nearer in age to Ann, Ann and I had always been closer. As a result, I’d been invited to the house in St. Michaels a few times for summertime overnights. I was sorry to hear that they had sold it; it was a magnificent house with a spectacular view of Maryland’s Miles River.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the crowded passenger dropoff lane at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. As she got out, Aunt Winnie turned to me. “Now, are we still on for October? I need you and Peter to help me with the new place.”

Peter is my boyfriend. I’ve known him since I was little, but that’s not to say that it was love at first sight. Far from it, in fact. Back then I lumped him in the same category as clowns, flu shots, and other nightmares of youth. But a bizarre occurrence two years ago at Aunt Winnie’s inn had changed all that. A man had been murdered during Aunt Winnie’s New Year’s Eve party, and the police stupidly suspected her of the crime. While trying to clear her name and discover the real murderer, I also discovered that Peter had improved with age.

“Absolutely,” I replied, giving her a hug. Aunt Winnie, like me, is a die-hard Jane Austen fan. Her current inn is the Inn at Longbourn; however, she and Randy recently purchased a second property on Nantucket. They are in the process of converting it into another inn. Like Longbourn, this one too is going to have an Austen theme. Each of the six rooms is going to be named and decorated for one of Austen’s novels. Aunt Winnie had named the inn Aust-Inn-tatious. Peter and I were going to spend two weeks later in October helping her and Randy get the place ready. As Peter had recently joined his parents’ national hotel company, he was going to help with the business aspects while I was to help with the Austen touches.