Plaster and Poison (26 page)

22

I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to you that it wasn’t dogs making the thumping and squeaking and muffled groaning sounds.
The squeaking was the sound of bedsprings, and the thumping was the noise the bed made banging against the wall. The figure on the bed—not a king poodle—was writhing and straining, and for a second I just gaped, shocked.
Beatrice’s wrists were tied to the headboard and her mouth gagged with what looked like a Hermčs print scarf. Trust Mary Elizabeth to gag a prisoner with four hundred dollars’ worth of designer silk.
The material used to bind Beatrice’s hands looked like more of the same, incidentally, so let’s make that eight hundred dollars’ worth of designer silk.
The curtains were drawn, so when I first opened the door, it took a moment for her to notice me. When she saw me, her eyes widened in recognition and she tried to speak against the scarf. “Mph-hmph! Aa—ee!”
“Beatrice!” I responded. “My God! What’s happened to you?”
The next few minutes were chaotic. As soon as I removed the gag, words poured out of Beatrice’s mouth while I did my best to untie the knots around her wrists, made ever tighter by her attempts to free herself.
“I had no idea,” she babbled as I worked the knots with my fingers and, when that didn’t work, with my teeth. “That morning, I had no idea that Gerard was dead. Not until you told me. I knew I hadn’t seen him that day, but that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn’t. I did my work, and then I went into town to have lunch with Mom, and that’s when we ran into you and your mom, and you told us that he was dead. Until then, I had no idea.”
I stopped to take a breath and ask a question. “So you definitely didn’t have anything to do with killing him?”
She looked mildly offended. “Of course not. Why would I kill him?”
I shrugged. I could think of a few reasons, but obviously I was wrong, so better not to say anything.
She was silent for a moment, then she started up again. “No, I had nothing to do with killing him. I had a couple of drinks with him once, when he brought a bottle of wine down to the office, but that’s all.”
I spat out a silk fiber. “Was he coming on to you?”
Beatrice hesitated. “Yes and no. He was, but I don’t think it was because he was interested. It was more because that was the way he was, and maybe because he thought there’d be something in it for him. He was asking me lots of questions about myself, and also about the Stenhams.”
I nodded. “So what happened after I saw you the other day? ”
“I went back to the office and back to work,” Beatrice said, “and in the late afternoon, Mrs. Stenham came by.”
“You mean Mary Elizabeth?”
“The one who lives here,” Beatrice said. “Older lady. White hair.”
“Not Ray or Randy?”
She shook her head, then winced. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. You did a good job tying yourself up tighter.”
“I was trying to tear the scarf,” Beatrice explained.
“I’m sure you were,” I responded. “Hermčs is good-quality stuff. Anyway, go on. Mary Elizabeth came to the office? ”
She nodded. “She said she wanted to tell me about Gerard, since she thought I might not have heard, and since she figured I would have met him, since he was staying above the office. It all sounded very nice and solicitous. She brought me a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker . . .”
“Doctored with more of her medicine, no doubt,” I muttered. “We think that’s how Gerard was killed. Ray and Randy doped him.”
Beatrice nodded. “It made me woozy and nauseous, so she offered to drive me home.”
“And instead you ended up here.” I thought I might be getting somewhere with the knots, finally. One of them was showing signs of loosening.
“She said she was starting to feel bad, too, and why didn’t we both just lie down until we felt better.”
“And by the time you woke up . . . ?”
“I was here,” Beatrice said, looking around.
“We’ve been really worried.” I tore at the knots. “Alice has been driving all over Boston looking for you and Steve.”
“Steve? Steve’s missing, too?” Fear flashed in her eyes, along with the discomfort.
I shook my head. “Not anymore. We found him last night. In a hotel in Brunswick. He was waiting for Gerard to call him . . . it’s a long story. I’ll let him tell you.”
“Steve’s here?” Her cheeks pinked.
“Not here in the house. But in Waterfield. Staying with your mom and Dr. Ben.”
“Wow. That’s . . .” She lapsed into silence. I had no difficulty deciphering what it was, though. Sweet. Wonderful. Awesome. Nice. Beatrice was happy.
“Here we go.” I undid the last of the knots, and Bea shook out her hands. I did the same, flexing my fingers while Beatrice rubbed her wrists. “We’d better get going. Mom’s downstairs, keeping Mary Elizabeth busy. Let’s see my darling aunt talk her way out of this one.”
I headed for the door while Beatrice swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“There’s something I should mention . . .” she said, but I was already halfway down the hall and then I continued down the stairs. After lying bound for the best part of two days, Beatrice was considerably slower, her knees were likely wobbly, and it was taking her some time to get the circulation going. So I was by myself when I hit the bottom of the stairs and turned into the parlor.
“The jig’s up, Auntie . . .” I tossed off flippantly. And then I stopped—dead. My mother was sitting on one of the love seats, hands folded primly in her lap, eyes agonized. Mary Elizabeth was pointing an enormous gun at her.
For a second, the world stood still. The only sound was that of Beatrice’s labored steps on the stairs. I turned to her as she got to the bottom. “You didn’t mention the gun.”
“I was trying. You got going so fast I couldn’t keep up. And I thought it was probably best not to yell it after you.”
She came up to stand beside me. “Sorry,” she added after taking in the tableau in the parlor, “guess I should have.”
“It might have been better. Still, water under the bridge.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled, a very cold little smile that came nowhere near her eyes. “Come in, girls. Have a seat. Next to your mother, Avery. You, too, Mrs. Gremilion.”
The gun didn’t swing toward us, but with it pointed directly at my mother, it wasn’t like I could refuse. I walked in and sat down next to Mom, while Beatrice took her other side.
“Keep your hands where I can see them,” Mary Elizabeth ordered. I took Mom’s. Her palm was sweaty; she must be terrified. You couldn’t hear it in her voice, though, when she turned to Beatrice with a smile, holding her other hand out.
“There you are, Bea. We’ve all been worried sick about you. Your mom will be relieved to hear you’re all right.”
Mary Elizabeth snorted. In a ladylike way, of course. She didn’t have to say it: Beatrice might be all right now, but her chances of staying that way—our chances of getting out of this with our lives—were rapidly dwindling.
Mom and Bea linked hands as well, and then we sat there, all in a row, staring down the barrel of the gun.
“Is that thing loaded?” I asked after a moment.
Mary Elizabeth looked down her nose at me. “Naturally. I’m an older woman living alone; my children want me to be safe, and an empty gun wouldn’t do me any good. However, I’d be happy to prove it.”
“No,” I said, a little sick at the idea of losing a toe or part of an ear; or worse, Mom or Beatrice, “that won’t be necessary.”
“Glad to hear it.” Mary Elizabeth smiled, chillingly.
Silence descended again.
“What are you planning to do with us?” I asked after another long minute.
Mary Elizabeth hesitated. She didn’t seem to have an immediate plan. Maybe we could turn that to our advantage.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than the sound of a car engine could be heard coming closer and then stopping. I craned my neck to see out the nearest window, but all I could see was an expanse of snow-covered lawn with a line of snowcapped ornamental bushes like squat Christmas elves in pointy hats.
“Expecting someone?” I asked Mary Elizabeth. She showed teeth but didn’t answer. I turned to Mom. “Did she call anyone while the two of you were alone down here?”
Mom nodded. “Unfortunately so. She left messages for both her children.”
Damn,
I thought. What I said was “Well, I called Derek, too, while I was upstairs, and told him where we were and that there was a medicine bottle with Lanoxin in the bedside table drawer. He said that would be what killed Gerard. And he said he’d tell Wayne.”
Outside, a car door slammed. Loudly. I looked at Mary Elizabeth. “What do you want to bet that’s the chief of police? If he walks in here and finds you holding us all at gunpoint, you could be going to jail for the rest of your life. Wouldn’t it be better to put the gun away and cooperate? Just because Ray and Randy are going down, doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Raymond and Randall are not ‘going down,’ ” Mary Elizabeth said coldly. “I will not allow that to happen.”
Outside the front door, someone stomped the snow off their feet before coming inside.
“What are you going to do to prevent it?” I wanted to know. “Even if you shoot all three of us, you won’t help Ray and Randy. They’re already in custody at the police station as we speak.”
Out in the hallway, the doorknob rattled and someone pushed against the door, ineffectually. Mary Elizabeth must have locked it behind us when we came in.
“They will be released,” Mary Elizabeth said calmly.
“What makes you think so?”
“Because,” Mary Elizabeth said, “they did not kill Gerard Labadie.”
Now a key was being inserted in the door.
Mary Elizabeth continued, calmly, “And because they did not kill him, the chief of police will not be able to prove that they did.”
“Of course they killed Gerard! I mean, who else . . . ?”
My breath caught in my throat. Partly because the front door opened, letting in a draft of cold air, but more because it had just hit me that if Ray and Randy hadn’t killed Gerard, then Mary Elizabeth had. We were sitting in the sights of a cold-blooded murderer. And if she’d killed Gerard, surely she’d have no qualms about killing us. It was a miracle she hadn’t killed Beatrice already.
Out in the hallway, we heard the door close, and the next moment, lightly clicking heels came down the hall to the parlor door. I suppressed a groan. Of all the people in Waterfield, Melissa James was the last I’d put my trust in to save my life.
She breezed around the corner with her trademark smile firmly in place. The sight of the gun, and of the three of us side by side like ducks in a shooting gallery, didn’t discombobulate her for long. She simply stopped, glossy bob swinging smoothly into place, and looked around. “Oh, dear. Am I interrupting something?”
“No, no,” I said politely, before Mary Elizabeth had a chance to open her mouth, “nothing you need concern yourself with, Melissa. Your future mother-in-law is simply tying up some loose ends.”
“I see. And how are you, Avery? Good, I hope? Lovely to see you again, Rosemary. And Beatrice . . . we’ve all been
very
concerned about you.”
It all sounded about as sincere as I had sounded a minute ago. Then she turned to Mary Elizabeth, her voice soothing, “Now, Mary dear, I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
Mary Elizabeth spared her a glance. “I’m afraid, Melissa, that your scruples are a little belated. Something has to be done. You never should have allowed that lout Gerard Labadie to stay in the model home. There were too many things at Clovercroft for him to get his grubby hands on.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” Melissa said, without sounding the least bit like she meant it. “I was just trying to recoup some money. How was I to know he would go through our files? Or that there’d be anything in the files for him to find?
I
had no idea Carolyn Tate was cooking the books!”
I blurted, “Carolyn Tate was cooking the books?!”
She turned to me, apologetically. “I’m afraid so. With Ray and Randy’s full cooperation, of course. Clovercroft was just sitting there, simply hemorrhaging money, and the mortgage had to be paid, and I suppose the best thing they could come up with was fudging the numbers to hold off the creditors for a while.”
“And Gerard found out?”
“I imagine he must have,” Melissa agreed. “As I said, I had no idea, when I offered him the use of the model home, that he’d do such a thing.”
“Always expect the worst,” Mary Elizabeth declared. “That way you won’t be surprised. If you had just used some sense on the front end, I wouldn’t have had to take care of the matter later.” She looked disgusted.
“I understand that, Mary dear,” Melissa said, “but this is a different situation. They”—she looked down at us—“don’t know anything.”
We all shook our heads, doing our best to look like we had no idea what we were even doing there. In spite of the fact that she had just told us everything.
“That one”—Mary Elizabeth gestured with the gun in Beatrice’s direction; Beatrice flinched—“worked in the Clovercroft office for weeks. Gerard probably told her what he was doing.”
“Gerard and I didn’t really talk,” Beatrice said, her voice low. “Not about anything important.”
“And dear Avery”—Mary Elizabeth bared her teeth in my direction—“was snooping upstairs, in my medicines. She found the Lanoxin. And called her boyfriend, who told her it was what had killed Gerard.”
Melissa glanced at me. I shrugged. No sense in denying it. “Derek said he’d tell Wayne all about it. I’m sure he has by now. They’re probably on their way here.”
A second passed while Melissa thought about this. Then she turned to Mary Elizabeth. “I think we should take them somewhere else. If the police are on their way—and if Derek told them what Avery told him, I think they must be—then it would be best for them not to be here when the police arrive.”
Mary Elizabeth hesitated but seemed to agree that this suggestion made sense. “Where?”
Melissa shrugged elegantly. “Back to Clovercroft? The police are finished there. We could just leave them outside somewhere, let them freeze to death. Nice and neat. No bullet holes, no gunshot residue, no ballistics. Or we could load them into that cute little car outside and push it off the cliffs into the ocean. With the water temperature being what it is, they wouldn’t last long, even if they could get out of the car.” Her look at us was clinical, and her tone chillingly indifferent.
“You can’t do that!” I blurted.
Melissa turned to me. “Why ever not?”
“Derek knows where we are. If we disappear, he’ll know that you did something to us.”
“Don’t be silly, Avery,” Melissa said lightly. “Derek knows I’m not capable of anything like that. And with Ray and Randy both down at the police station, clearly the culprit had to be someone else. Someone like”—her eyes swung around, and she smiled brightly—“poor Beatrice, so depressed after her husband left that she killed Gerard and then disappeared to avoid being arrested. And when the two of you found her, she had no choice but to kill you, too.”