Sharp Edges (31 page)

The chimes over the door tinkled with a terrible, grating cheerfulness. Eugenia shivered.

"Eugenia." Fenella sounded surprised but pleased to see her. "I didn't see you enter the shop."

"Good morning, Fenella." Eugenia straightened and turned. She summoned up what she hoped was a reasonable facsimile of a smile. "I thought you might be getting some coffee."

Fenella made a face as she walked toward the sales counter. "I enjoy festival days, but they aren't good business days for me. The crowds tend to stay outside where the booths are, especially when its sunny. Can't blame them. Was there something you wanted?"

For an instant Eugenia's mind went blank. All she wanted was to escape. Belatedly, she remembered the reason she had wandered into the shop in the first place.

"The painting in the window," she said brightly. "The seascape. I'm not a big fan of that kind of thing, but that one is special. I think Cyrus might like it."

"It's very good, isn't it?"

"Yes." Eugenia made herself walk calmly toward the door. "Another local artist, I assume?"

"Yes, of course. I told you, I only feature local artists. The painter's name is Brad Kolb. Wonderful technique."

"Fascinating use of color. Great depth without excessive detail."

"Yes, indeed."

Eugenia opened the door. She wanted to run, but she made herself toss Fenella a breezy smile, instead. "When Cyrus gets back this afternoon, I'll mention it to him."

"So that was him I noticed driving onto the early ferry?"

"He's taking his nephew back to the airport." The cover story sounded utterly inane, Eugenia thought. One would have expected a trained detective to come up with a more detailed explanation for leaving the island. But Cyrus had insisted that simpler was always better.

"I'll put the Kolb painting in the back until you can return with Mr. Colfax."

Don't hold your breath
, Eugenia thought. "Thanks. I appreciate it.

Fenella's thin, unnaturally arched brows lifted in amusement. "It will be interesting to see if he likes it. I'm afraid it might not be
pretty
enough for his, uh, tastes."

Anger surged out of nowhere. This was no time to leap to Cyrus's defense, Eugenia thought. Nevertheless, she had to resist an inexplicable urge to defend his taste in art. "I'm sure he'll like it."

She escaped through the door and hurried out onto the crowded sidewalk. She needed an espresso and a quiet place to think.

Ten minutes later, plastic cup in hand, she made her way back to where she had parked her car. She got in behind the wheel, took a fortifying sip of the double shot of espresso, and made herself go over everything from the top.

The truth was, when it came right down to it, she did not really have very much to explain the adrenaline that had shot through her when she had discovered Fenella's signature on the ugly glass and metal sculpture. She had reacted on a gut level, the way she always did to art. It was time to step back and look at the situation objectively.

Okay, so Fenella Weeks may have been one of Daventry's ex-lovers, she thought. Big deal. The group was hardly an exclusive one. Nellie had never spoken of the relationship, so presumably she had either not known about it or not cared.

Fenella had never mentioned her past relationship with Daventry, either. She had even claimed that she did not know what the views were like from Glass House. But maybe that was not so surprising or even suspicious, Eugenia thought. She knew herself, that if she had ever made the mistake of sleeping with Daventry, she would have wanted to deny it, too.

She took a sip of the espresso and drummed her fingers on the steering wheel.

Daventry had had a reputation for openly mocking his old flames, usually by denigrating their artistic talent. But he had apparently kept quiet about Fenella.

Why?

The unanswered question hovered in the atmosphere.

Eugenia felt her stomach tighten with fresh tension. First things first, she thought. If Cyrus were here, he would probably tell her to verify all the facts before she leaped to conclusions.

The only real fact she had was the piece of savage sculpture she had found in Fenella's back room. It was possible—improbable, but possible—that, in her anxiety, she had made a serious mistake. Perhaps the artist who had created the monstrous thing in Daventry's gallery was not Fenella, but someone who worked in the same medium.

Eugenia decided that it was time to take another, closer look at the sculpture in Glass House. She had to be sure.

She finished the last of the espresso and tossed the cup into the small litter bag. Her fingers shook when she inserted the key in the ignition. It occurred to her that it had not been very smart to add a dose of caffeine to the adrenaline that was already swirling through her bloodstream.

Another handy tip for the amateur detective, she thought as she slammed the Toyota into gear. Watch the coffee intake when you're dealing with a murderer.

Possible
murderer, she corrected herself as she drove out of the marina parking lot. No one had any real proof that Daventry had been killed.

But if he had been murdered, and if Nellie had witnessed the crime, it would explain a great deal.

The trip back to Glass House was interminable. The warning squeal of her car's tires on some of the twisting turns told Eugenia that she was driving too fast. Twice she made herself slow down to a more reasonable speed, but by the time she rounded the last curve she was treading hard on the accelerator.

She roared into the driveway of Glass House, braked to a furious stop, and leaped out of the car.

She fumbled with the new code for the front door before she finally managed to let herself into the mirrored hall. Flinging her purse down on the nearest glass table, she raced up the staircase to the third floor without bothering to remove her shoes.

She was breathing heavily by the time she reached the gallery that housed the artwork crafted by Daventry's ex-lovers.

She made herself take a deep breath before she opened the door.

The windowless chamber was as dark as an Egyptian tomb. Cold, stale air rushed out to envelope her as she stepped into it. She found the wall switch and quickly pushed it.

The dramatically arranged spotlights winked on, revealing each item in the bizarre collection while leaving the space around them in jet black shadow.

She walked slowly through the forest of black glass pedestals, never taking her eyes off the horrific glass-and-metal thing at the far end. It crouched in its glass cage, waiting for her. The sharp glass shards imbedded in it gleamed malevolently in the eerie light. The darkness that surrounded the pedestal seemed far more dense and impenetrable than the gloom that flanked the other displays.

Got to watch that overactive imagination, Eugenia thought. It would have been nice to have had Cyrus with her. His laconic, low-key attitude toward this kind of thing would have been a better tonic than the caffeine she had dumped into her system.

She reached the last pedestal and looked at the evil sculpture through the clear glass shroud of the display case.

The same artist. It had to be the same one. Her intuition was never wrong when it came to recognizing technique and style.

She unlatched the display case and reached inside as if she were putting her hands into the cage of a dangerous reptile.

Her fingers closed tentatively around the ugly sculpture. The sharp edges bit into her palms. She lifted it out of the case and started to turn it sideways so that she could see the signature on the base.

"It's my work, of course," Fenella said lightly from the doorway. "But, then, you already know that, don't you?"

Eugenia froze. The edges of the sculpture dug into her skin. The pain broke the spell that had gripped her at the sound of Fenella's amused words.

Clutching the sculpture very carefully in both hands, she turned toward the door.

Fenella was starkly silhouetted by the bright sunlight that bounced off the mirrored walls of the atrium. The darkness of the gallery made it impossible to see her face, but it was obvious that she held an object in her right hand.

"Yes. I already knew that." Eugenia was relieved to hear her own voice. It sounded infinitely more calm and controlled than she felt. "But I had to be certain."

"I realized what had happened when I saw the drops of blood on the floor of my back room." Fenella closed the door of the chamber, cutting off the outside light. "I was afraid that you would be trouble. I hoped you would simply go away without getting the answers you wanted, but you kept pushing."

She took a step forward. As she did so her right hand passed through the edge of a beam cast by one of the display lights. Eugenia saw the gun. For a few seconds she could not breathe.

"There's no point killing me," Eugenia said. "I can't prove anything."

"I tried to tell myself that at first. Right after I realized the mistake I had made when I sold Rhonda's painting to you."

"You knew Rhonda had not painted that picture."

"Well, of course I did," Fenella said, disgusted. "Rhonda has no talent. When she asked me to sell the painting because she needed the money, I assumed she had stolen it from some off-island gallery."

"But after I bought it, she told you that it had been painted by Nellie Grant. That's when you knew you had a problem, didn't you?"

"When Rhonda got back to the island that day and discovered that I'd sold the picture to you, of all people, she came unglued. She told me that you were a friend of Nellie's and that you would probably recognize her work."

"I only wanted to find out what had happened to Nellie."

"I couldn't allow you to start asking too many questions about her death," Fenella said. "I was afraid they would lead to… other things."

"You killed her, didn't you?"

"No." Fenella sounded genuinely surprised. "I planned to get rid of her, but it proved unnecessary. She took care of the problem herself by getting washed overboard on the way back to the island."

"Why did you want her dead?"

"She saw me the night of the party," Fenella said. "She was watching from the door of this very chamber. She heard the argument I had with Daventry."

"You quarreled with Daventry that night?"

"Lost my temper with him, I'm afraid. And Nellie Grant saw me push him down the staircase."

"That's impossible. She couldn't have seen anything from the doorway of this room. She would have had to go out onto the balcony and look straight down."

"No," Fenella said. "All she had to do was look straight across to the opposite wall."

"My God. The mirrors."

"Exactly. They're designed to reflect the staircase from floor to ceiling. I happened to glance at that wall as Daventry fell. I could see Nellie just as clearly as she saw me."

"What happened?"

Fenella sighed. "I must admit, I panicked and ran. I thought she would call Peaceful Jones. But nothing happened."

"She didn't go to the authorities," Eugenia said. "She left the island that night."

And came to Seattle to see me
, she added silently. Why had Nellie done that? On that last visit to the condo, she had said nothing about having seen Fenella Weeks push Daventry down the stairs.

"She took one of Daventry's boats from the marina," Fenella said. "I didn't know what she intended, but since she had not gone to the cops, I had to assume that she meant to exploit the situation."

"Exploit it? How?"

"I thought that she would probably try to blackmail me. But she died before she could make any threats."

"When she was reported missing in the storm, you thought it was all over and that your secret was safe."

"Yes," Fenella said. "But then I got a nasty shock. That disgusting Leonard Hastings tried to blackmail me. Can you believe it? It turned out that he had also seen me push Daventry. He was lurking upstairs in one of the second-floor rooms at the time."

"My God," Eugenia breathed. "You killed him, didn't you?"

"I paid him off until I could come up with a plan. Eventually I decided the easiest thing to do was to replace some of his heart medication with some stronger stuff. Meditation Jones was very helpful. She told me about the various illegal drugs that could kill a person with Leonard Hastings's heart condition. She had no idea how I used the information, of course."

"How did you get the drugs?"

"From a street dealer in Seattle." Fenella chuckled. "It was not difficult."

"With Hastings dead you thought you were finally in the clear again."

"I told myself that this time I was safe," Fenella said. "But then you showed up. I knew that you had been a friend of Nellie's. She had mentioned you several times. I got worried."

"Why did you try to kill Rhonda Price that night when she came to find me at the restaurant? Had she seen you push Daventry, too?"

"Rhonda?" Fenella gave the name a derisive twist. "Of course not. She's just a stupid little no-talent. She was too drunk that night to have noticed anything, even if she had been standing right there beside me."

"Then why hit her and shove her into the marina?"

Fenella sucked in air. "She made me very angry when she told me that it was one of Nellie's paintings she had given me to sell."

"I don't understand."

"
That painting was a link to what had happened that night
. It was bound to make you ask more questions."

The sudden wild rage in Fenella's voice sent shock waves to the far end of the gallery. They crashed against Eugenia.

"Yes," Eugenia said. "I see what you mean."

"I knew that if you recognized the painting you would be more convinced than ever that something was wrong. You would probe more deeply into the situation. Who knew where it would all lead?"

"And you now had two deaths to cover up, not just one. You could no longer feel safe."

"I started having bad dreams," Fenella said. There was an eerie, fretful quality in her voice now. "What if Hastings had left a note somewhere? What if he had talked to someone? Where had Nellie Grant gone the night of Daventry's death? Did she tell anyone about me before she died?"