Organized for Murder (15 page)

Despite arriving back late the night before, the elder McKenzies appeared relaxed and refreshed. George looked patrician-comfortable in his Sunday suit and tie, his salt-and-pepper mustache twitching in a half-smile with every remark. Jane, twinkling cornflower blue eyes adding sparkle to her words, seemed fresh as ever, not one un-dyed brunette hair out of place.

The plane's nighttime landing, coupled with the long round trip to Burlington International Airport, came too late for the girls. Keith ran solo the previous evening to pick up his parents, leaving with instructions from Kate to ask if the group could get together before church for breakfast. Agreement was unanimous.

Everyone seemed as relaxed as the cruise couple. While stories unfolded of warm Caribbean waves and bright island sun, a bevy of packages made a steady entrance out of Jane's capacious handbag, and now both girls wore rainbow-hued coral necklaces around their collars. Kate fingered the pretty, batik-print notebook her motherin-law chose especially for her, wondering how she'd gotten so lucky. Most women didn't count their in-laws as friends and supporters. She looked at the shark-tooth key ring they'd given Keith and the stack of matching tie-dyed Tshirts beside her own purse and sighed, content. No useless trinkets for Jane McKenzie; she bought souvenirs worth carting home.

Kate hoped to find some time after church to get Jane alone to discuss Amelia's murder and the later developments. The big question was what to ask first. Coming out of her reverie, she noticed her tomboy twin's once pristine white shirt bore evidence of pancakes. "Oh, Sam, you have maple syrup on your sleeve."

Jane whipped the napkin off her lap and dipped it in a water glass, reaching out to her granddaughter. "Here, dear, give me your hand."

"Well, if I eat one more bite I'm going to burst." Keith signaled for the bill. "I love this place, but I'll be running off this breakfast all week."

Margaret Newton, owner and expert meal-planner for the B&B, caught Keith's gesture and worked her way through the crowded room of satisfied customers. "Everything all right at this table?"

"Wonderful, Margaret," Keith replied, his words seconded by everyone's nodding heads. "We need to pay our check, though. Reverend Parker does like his congregation to show up on time."

"I hope this member can stay awake during the sermon." George held out a hand as Margaret withdrew her pad.

"Dad, I'll get it." Keith rose from his chair.

"Nonsense." George snatched the paper from the inn owner's hand, and smiled to cover the bad manners. "I haven't had to pay for a meal all week."

"That's not exactly right," Keith argued.

"Sure it is. The cruise ship had tables ready for us twenty-four hours a day." George counted money from his wallet and pushed a handful Margaret's way, then turned to Jane. "You about ready to go, Mother?"

"Yes, dear."

Kate smiled as Keith gave up after the usual fight. She turned to the girls. "Go wash your sticky fingers and meet us at the van."

"We want to ride with Grandpa and Grandma," Suzanne said. Samantha backed her up with a long, "Please."

"We'd love to drive these darlings in our car," Jane assured. "We've missed having the little gigglers around."

The girls responded in typical giggly fashion, getting their sticky fingers all over Jane's red wool suit as they hugged her before racing to the bathroom.

"I'm sorry—" Kate started.

"Pshaw." Jane waved a hand. "Not every grandmother has tangible evidence of her granddaughters' love. I'll be the envy of the senior's class this morning."

After gathering jackets and belongings, the adults made their way to the front, chatting with acquaintances along the way. The girls met them at the door, their reflections haloed in the windows by the brisk Vermont sunshine.

"That was the best idea," Jane said. George handed his key ring to Sam, and the girls raced to the La Sabre.

"Well, thanks again, Dad," Keith said. Kate nodded and smiled.

George fingered his pipe. "Need to do this more often. Girls will be grown up and driving before we know it. Won't have time to sit down and eat with us old geezers."

"Oh, don't remind me." Kate used a hand to shield the sun from her eyes as she watched her daughters unlock the Buick and climb into the backseat. "Some days I wish they were older. Maybe they would listen to what I say. Then I think about them driving and going off on their own, and I just cringe."

"That's natural," Jane said. "But don't go getting your hopes up. I think teenagers are worse at listening than first-graders."

"Gee, thanks."

Kate relished the quiet ride to church with her husband. Neither had anything to say, but the silence remained comfortable, not strained. Given her silly worries of the previous few days, she chastised herself again over her fears. She took Keith's right hand, and he shot her a grin as the van entered the church parking lot.

Somehow everyone stayed awake through the sermon, though Jane had to give George a couple of nudges. A full stomach seemed to agree with the twins, too, and they sat quietly in the pew sharing a coloring book and crayons.

All seemed suddenly right in the world, at least for the moment. Kate closed her eyes for the final prayer.

On the drive home the van resumed its regular twin-tone noise level, and Kate contemplated what vegetable dish to add to the chicken cassoulet that should be nearing completion in the crock pot. Until the fight broke out in the back.

"I found it." Sam said.

"You gotta share," Suze returned hotly. When Kate turned around, she added, "Right, Mommy?"

"Share what?" Kate worried Suze had already broken her necklace and wanted to wrangle her sister's as a replacement. But no, both girls still sported the coral chokers. She looked down at Sam's hands. Her heart sank. She saw the piece of highly carved ivory. "Sam, give that to me."

"Can't I keep it, Mommy? See, it's a pretty fan." The child opened the ivory ends to release a hand-painted silk scene.

Kate had already intuited what the item was and where it belonged, but this absolutely confirmed her fears. The fragile piece, part of an expensive collection, belonged in the bamboo case on the back wall of Amelia Nethercutt's lavender guestroom.

*

"Keith, what are we going to do?" Kate asked, after sending the girls to wash for lunch. She no longer had the imagination to think about complementary side dishes and just lifted the crock server, placing the cassoulet in the middle of the table.

"Want me to heat up these rolls?" He held up a package from the counter.

"Huh? That's not what I meant."

"I know. You were talking about the fan." Without waiting for a decision on the bread, he filled a baking sheet and started the toaster oven. "Let's get through lunch. We can decide later what to do about everything else."

Kate distributed the plates, and handed the necessary silverware to the girls as they bounced into the room. "I don't think I have an appetite anymore."

"Why, Mom?" Sam asked, peering over the tabletop to see the crock's creamy contents. "Did lunch burn?"

"Your mother's a wonderful cook, Sam," Keith replied, lowering his voice to phony, authoritative mode. "She would never
burn our food
."

The twins giggled. "Yes, she has," they chorused.

"Never!" He moved in a menacing, Frankenstein style. "Treasonous words cannot be said in this house. You must be punished."

Both girls ran from the room, screaming in excitement.

"Oh, stop, please." Kate dropped into a chair.

The grin disappeared from her husband's face. "I'm sorry, hon. I'll go get them calmed down and ready to eat. I wasn't thinking."

"No, I'm sorry. You lightened the mood, and I do appreciate it." She propped her head on one hand and straightened scattered silverware with the other.

"You'll feel better after you eat."

She nodded but didn't believe him. The only thing that would make her feel better was to find an end to this nightmare and stop looking over her shoulder all the time.

Who had the opportunity to slip the fan into her van, and when? While they were at church? Yesterday at the meeting in Amelia's mansion? Kate thought back to how the heirs all left on Saturday. Of course, Sophia had stormed out ahead of everyone. Danny, still upset, had been the first of the remaining group to depart, his dad trailing after him. Thomas stayed with the lawyer while Kate and Meg left, but she remembered him dropping out of sight a few times before and after the tour—ostensibly to smoke. That gave him the opportunity to break into her van. The lock didn't show tamper marks, but she and Meg dropped their purses and jackets on the buffet as they had entered the meeting. Had Thomas been brazen enough to lift her keys as they all sat around the huge table? Was there a time no one would have noticed? Yes, at the time the lawyer talked about the will. Every eye stayed trained on him. Or, when Bill and Sophia argued.

Thinking of Sophia reminded Kate how the stepdaughter diva had been a late arrival herself. A mental picture flashed in her mind, replaying the sweeping grand entrance Sophia employed, plopping her fur wrap atop everyone else's belongings, then lingering to pick through her vintage alligator bag for a compact. "I must remove this shine from my nose," Sophia had said. Kate now wondered whether the shine was the only thing the viper removed.

Everyone wove in and out during the tour, and had ample opportunity to steal the key and hide the fan. After church would have been harder. None of her suspects attended the McKenzies' church, so no one had a chance of stealing her key and putting it back today unless one of her fellow parishioners was a confederate. Though, that didn't count the possibility the key could have been surreptitiously borrowed Saturday by one of the heirs to make a wax mold, and a duplicate key used this morning.

She moved to the oven as the timer pinged to signal the bread was done. Standing did more than physically straighten her backbone. Kate realized she was truly angry. She filled the breadbasket, vowing not to let this mental hustler win. "No way."

"What, Mommy?" Sam asked, the girls almost tiptoeing back into the room, Keith at their heels.

Poor things. As long as she let herself get frightened over every new setback, her family remained as much victims of this fiend as she was. "Just…um…telling myself not to let a headache ruin a wonderful Sunday afternoon with my family." She smiled at each girl, then up at Keith, adding, "I think I've found the cure I need, and I'm not letting this get to me anymore."

"You sure?" He held the chair out for her.

"Absolutely. Now, who wants bread?" she asked. As everyone filled their plates, happy, and often silly, conversation reigned once more. Kate stayed a little quieter than usual, but no one seemed to notice. She had plans to make. Her fingers itched to get hold of her casebook.

First, she needed to talk to Meg. They needed to send a bid in the next day, but not as a ruse to get into the house one more time. Stacked in Your Favor was going to accept the job, and not simply to make enough to take their families to Disney World. She'd show whoever pulled these nasty acts she was no convenient scapegoat. Until the unmasking of Amelia's murderer, Kate would enter the Nethercutt mansion at least five days a week, keeping her eyes and ears open.

There was no substitute for prudence, however. She needed to mandate some rules to protect herself and Meg, and she couldn't wait to tell Valerie how "for security reasons" they would do a group search of each other's belongings every day before leaving.

*

"Oh, yes, Thomas is a rather sad story," Jane said over the phone that evening.

Kate had been unable to get with her motherin-law for a private conversation all afternoon and fell back on a telephone call after Keith and the girls left for an after-dinner ice cream run. "He seemed rather short on confidence."

She could almost hear her motherin-law nod through the phone lines, as the response came, "Very low self-esteem. Amelia loved him without reservation, but she was never good at building confidence in others, her son included. She spent too much time polishing her own ego. It's all been such a sad situation."

"When we were introduced I noticed he had the same surname as Amelia's maiden name," Kate said. "Didn't she marry his father?"

"Oh, yes. Though of all her marriages and divorces that likely was the only one Amelia considered a failure. Dear, dear Joey."

The name of the husband Amelia said she always forgot about. "Miss Amelia mentioned him. From what she told me, I assumed the marriage was quite short."

"No, no." Through the phone Kate heard Jane take a deep breath, followed by a long moment of silence. "Until Amelia's marriage to Daniel Nethercutt, hers and Joey's was her longest. Six years. I doubt she forgot a single day."

"This doesn't jell with what she said to me. She spoke as if he was inconsequential. Like she could barely remember him."

Jane's voice took on a quieter tone as she continued. "Amelia and Joey grew up together. I think Amelia always loved him, but he wouldn't get married right out of college, and she got angry and found someone who would. James Harper. The marriage was doomed from the start. After all, its foundation was built on nothing more than spite, hurt feelings, and attempted jealousy."

Imagining a young headstrong Amelia, determined to either get her way or make the man pay, came easily to Kate. Jane's next words confirmed these impressions.

"The marriage lasted little more than a year. Her second, to Charles Walker mere months—"

"Charles
Webster
Walker? The attorney?" Kate cried.

"Why yes," Jane replied. "Have you met him?"

"He's the one who hired Meg and me to inventory the collections. He's the executor of the will." This was getting way too complicated. "Isn't it a conflict of interest for Miss Amelia's ex-husband to be handling her estate?"

"I don't see why, unless he's an heir. I can't imagine Amelia leaving him any kind of inheritance. That wouldn't be her way. Of course, with the rumors of their affair—"