A Truth for a Truth (35 page)

“You really do stick your nose everywhere it’s not wanted, don’t you?” She held the gun out, but I saw how unsteady her hand was. I took heart.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said sounding surprisingly calm. “Unless you toss that gun, I’m going to start my engine, whip around, and ram this boat with all I’ve got. You can shoot as many times as you like, but it’s unlikely you’ll hit me.”

“You don’t think so?” She held out her wavering hand, gun pointed more or less in my direction. “Besides, we’d all go in, and Hildy can’t really swim right now, can she?”

“We’ll take our chances. Don’t forget it would be sink or swim for you, too. Just drop the gun, okay? Everything’s over anyway.”

“I’ll shoot
her
!” She lowered the gun toward the bottom of the boat.

“You do, and you’ll blow the boat full of holes and the whole thing will sink.”

She swung her arm around and aimed in my direction again. Then she lurched a step toward the stern and Hildy.

I tried to start the engine before my final few words, but what had worked so well wasn’t working now. The motor coughed and sputtered. Frantically I tried the throttle again. Marie was closer now, turning, the wavering hand with the gun pointed in my direction. I knew I could try to launch myself at her, although it would be a clumsy attempt, most likely ending with me in the water sandwiched between the boat and the Jet Ski. But I had to do something, and the Jet Ski was no longer cooperating.

“Having prob—” Marie screeched, then she went down on her knees. Just like that. One minute she’d been leaning toward me, and the next she was pitching forward, one arm thrown over the side.

I took advantage of the situation, swung a leg over the Jet Ski, and threw myself toward the boat, aiming for the closest pole. I just managed to grab hold before the Jet Ski flopped away and left me dangling. Geoff’s little boat was rocking demonically. I had to get inside, or it would capsize, then Hildy really would go down, Hildy who was now kicking out at Marie again, having already landed at least one blow that had knocked the woman to her knees.

I had a leg over the side and was swinging around to get both feet on board when Marie pushed off the edge and stood. She had dropped the gun when she fell, and no sooner was she on her feet than she was searching for it. Hildy kicked again, and the gun skidded toward the bow. Marie dove for it, but as I swung onto the boat I stuck a leg out just in time to trip her.

She scrambled to her knees, then her feet. She moved forward, as if to push me aside, then her shoulders sagged. I could see she was looking beyond me. I dared one quick glance. A brightly lit boat was speeding in our direction with several figures standing in the bow.

The lake patrol. I’d never been more grateful. I edged backwards toward the gun, just in case Marie was spooked into trying to take everyone with her.

I squatted, gaze still fixed on her face, and felt behind me. My fingers closed on the barrel. I lifted the gun in one swift movement and tossed it over the side.

Then I stood, hands out and arms extended in front of me, just in case, but there was no need. We could hear shouts from the lake patrol, and their directive was clear. Marie slowly raised her hands above her head, and so did I, for good measure.

Teddy wasn’t the least bit nervous. She had memorized her speech and practiced every inflection. Deena had gotten into the act, giving her some pointers she had picked up from her stint on the debate team. I wondered how much time my oldest would have for tutoring her sister in the coming years. She was now a middle school graduate, and soon enough she would be a working woman. She had snagged a job waiting on customers and making sandwiches at Ahmed’s Deli for the summer. I was hoping for a discount on falafel.

Teddy, of course, had no job, but she did have a speaking engagement. She was the token child at a rally on the Oval to promote a pedestrian mall for downtown Emerald Springs. The cause was futile, but the day was lovely and lots of people had turned out. To her credit, Ida Bere had done an admirable job of organizing. Clowns strolled through the audience bestowing balloons with “See Emerald Springs on Foot” printed on them. At booths and tables along the edges local businesses sold their signature wares, and a restaurant grilled hot dogs and popped corn. I’d seen a number of members of our church. Ida was in charge; they were terrified not to show up. Ed was off somewhere chatting and shaking hands. I’d nearly run into Samuel Booth, who hadn’t, to his credit, disappeared back into the crowd to avoid me. Maybe he was starting to believe I was not going to share his secret. I hoped so.

My mother had come back from her trip to the West Coast just in time to join us, and now we were standing in the middle of the crowd, waiting for Teddy to speak. My daughter was scheduled after a performance by a local oldies “rock” band that had, so far, performed “These Boots Are Made for Walking,” “Walk on By,” and “Under the Boardwalk.” I thought the last might be a clue that the theme had been milked for all it was worth, and Teddy would be next.

Not so. The band, made up of three men and a woman, all pushing sixty, swung into “Walk a Mile in My Shoes.” Teddy didn’t seem to mind.

I had been in the middle of telling Junie some good news, so I finished. “And so, Grace Forester has asked me to bake bread when she needs it for Emerald Excellence. She was so glad I helped catch Win Dorchester’s murderer, and so impressed with the loaf I served her, she offered me an exclusive contract. So it looks like I’ll be employed again,” I finished. “Part-time, though it may be.”

“I can’t believe all this happened while I was away,” Junie said. I had already filled her in on the rescue of Hildy Dorchester and subsequent arrest of Marie Grandower. “At least baking bread won’t require any spectacular rescues.”

“It
was
quite an event,” I said modestly, although I thought that for sheer drama, I would
never
be able to top my Jet Ski rescue of poor, trussed Hildy.

“And Mrs. Dorchester is okay?” Junie’s as maternal as she is flighty. Although she’d yet to meet Hildy, Junie already wanted to take her under her wing. That was something I hoped never to witness.

“She’s fine,” I said. “And relieved, of course, that the real murderer was caught and nobody suspects her anymore.”

“But why would this Grandower woman do such a thing? She had so much. Why couldn’t she see that?”

Junie’s so good at finding the best in people, that someone like Marie Grandower is completely alien to her. She’s incapable of imagining that kind of anger or greed.

I tried to explain. “Her husband was wealthy, but unbeknownst to anyone, Marie had a serious gambling problem. When he died unexpectedly—which they’re now investigating, by the way—he left her more than comfortable. Unfortunately, after a couple of long vacations in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, she had nothing much left except her house here in town, and their vacation home in Hilton Head.”

“That sounds like an awful lot in a world where some people have no roof over their heads.”

I nodded for solidarity and went on. “When Daisy Dreyfus died and left her insurance money to the church, Marie was chairing our endowment committee.”

Churches remain mysteries to my mother, who can’t imagine why anyone feels a need for a building in which to worship. “And these committees do what?” she asked.

“They invest and manage the money that’s been given to or left to the church. We have a substantial endowment, because the church has been here so long. Marie got appointed to several committees when Win Dorchester was the minister, most likely to have more contact with him, although now we have a professional auditing our books to see if she was stealing from the endowment before she stole the insurance money. Things were in disarray after Win left so suddenly, and Geoff Adler, who was still the treasurer, was working furiously to keep Emerald Eagle afloat. Because he was so busy, Marie volunteered to help him. She’d pick up the mail in his folder, for instance. Which is probably how she found out about the insurance. And because of her work on the endowment committee, she was able to forge the papers needed to get the money, then wash the check in and out of our investment accounts without anyone paying attention.”

“And you say the total was nearly half a million dollars?”

That part still hurt. Marie had stolen $375,000 from the church, a staggering amount for a budget like ours. The chances we would ever recover it were slim, because Marie’s gambling had never ended. Sadly she hadn’t put her house in Emerald Estates up for sale because she wanted to live permanently in Hilton Head. Her South Carolina house, too, was on the market. She had debts again, huge ones, and not much else.

“It’s all such a shame,” Junie said. “But you caught her. You should be proud.”

“I’m not all that proud. I nearly blew it. I was sure the murderer was somebody else.”

Geoff Adler had been more shocked than anyone to learn that Marie killed Win Dorchester and probably Ellen Hardiger, although Marie had yet to confess to that death. Geoff had also been shocked to learn that he had been my top suspect.

Last week he and I had met at Give Me a Break, our local coffee meet and greet, to hash out the details over lattes.

“A number of things pointed to you,” I’d told him after some tense preliminaries. “First, you lied when you said you didn’t find out until recently that Marie and Win were lovers.”

To his credit, Geoff had blushed. “I shouldn’t have lied. If the police had asked, I would have told them the truth. But let’s face it, you weren’t asking in an official capacity.”

I ignored the affront to my dignity. “Why did you lie?”

“I thought I was just acting like a loyal friend. All those years ago Marie asked me not to tell anybody. After Win left she was afraid people would find out about the affair and think she was a tramp. When it came up again, I didn’t want anybody to think she’d bragged about it.”

“Not just a loyal friend.” I looked down at my cup, to eliminate some of the pressure on him. “You were in love with her, weren’t you? Maybe you still are?”

He didn’t answer. I gave him a few seconds, then I looked up. The truth was in his eyes, as well as embarrassment.

“It clouded your judgment,” I said.

“Seriously.”

“And the bit about Win having multiple affairs?”

“Protecting her again, I guess. I wanted to blame their affair entirely on him. I guess I even convinced myself what I told you was true, that he’d seduced her and she was just one of many. Win did have an eye for women. He liked to talk about them, man to man. I expanded those conversations in my head, I suppose, to make Marie less responsible. I don’t know if he had other affairs or he didn’t. I don’t want to know.”

I didn’t either. Furthermore, I believed Geoff, even while I found his loyalty to Marie puzzling. But people in love do the oddest things. Look how many times Zoey told herself her husband would stop beating her, before she finally realized she had to leave him for good.

“Why did you bring her to the party that night?” I asked. “Knowing what you did about their past?”

“Marie heard about the party at church on the Sunday Win spoke, and she told me she wanted to go. She said she wanted to hold her head high and show Win she had moved on without him. I was delighted. I thought if she was finally over him, maybe she was ready for the two of us to be more than friends.”

“And you weren’t worried about her causing a scene?”

Before he responded I could see him going back over that awful night. “I’m a take-charge guy,” he said at last. “I guess I thought I could get her out of there if I needed to. I didn’t count on her having so much to drink there was no reasoning with her.”

“Except that she probably wasn’t even tipsy, Geoff. She was pretending to be, so she could act like she was leaving, then sneak back in through the kitchen door and load the dip with the pills she’d taken off Win’s night-stand. Then she went back outside and waited. She’d already told you she was going to demand a chat with Win. She figured if she lingered in the side yard for a private conversation with him, you would ask him to go out and talk to her. She had already worked out a way to be sure Hildy saw them together, in case later the police suspected murder. She wanted an angry scene with Hildy, so she made sure she got one.”

“How could she do that?”

“She made sure the telephone rang at the right moment, so Hildy would most likely answer it in the hallway and glimpse them together. Marie called a friend across town, when she knew Win was probably on his way outside, then she asked the friend to call her back. She pretended she was having problems with her cell phone, so she gave the woman the Dorchesters’ phone number. At the same time she warned her the number might not be correct, so if Marie didn’t answer herself, the friend should just hang up.”

“All because he was so standoffish with her that night?” Geoff asked.

“No. Not at all.” That was the part, of course, that all of us had missed. Neither love nor sex had been factors in this murder.

“Marie probably
was
over Win, if she was ever in love with him in the first place,” I said. “Frankly, I think he was a distraction. She liked to gamble. She liked to take chances. She went after him the way she probably went after the jackpot in Atlantic City, and she won, at least until Win woke up and realized he loved his wife and family. Most likely Marie was annoyed, but I’m sure she got over that quickly. No, she killed him because after he talked to Ellen Hardiger at his anniversary sermon and discovered Daisy Dreyfus had left Russell House a boatload of money, Win cornered Marie and asked if Daisy had left anything to
our
endowment. He remembered that Marie had chaired the committee, a three-year commitment, and he assumed she would be the one to know. When she said nobody named Daisy Dreyfus had left the church anything, he must have gotten suspicious. Maybe from the way she answered? Maybe the look on her face? Whatever it was, he started asking questions. Marie knew him well enough to be sure he would ask, and if he asked too many, her theft would be discovered. So she had to take care of him quickly. Ellen was probably an afterthought.”