Bright Eyes (31 page)

“Why doesn’t it?”

“Your theory is that Mrs. Patterson saw something when she was inside the house that may implicate the killer.” Detective Monroe raised his bushy eyebrows. “What, exactly, do you imagine she saw?”

Zeke stared into the detective’s eyes. Suddenly they seemed as glassy and lifeless as a snake’s. “Excuse me, but I believe I’m on the wrong side of this desk to be asked that question. The bleeder valves on that car were loosened. Someone deliberately tampered with those brakes to make Natalie have an accident when she left the farm. Going either direction, the speed limit is fifty-five, and she would have encountered sharp curves. Last week, she blithely wandered through Robert Patterson’s house, looking for goblets while he was possibly being murdered out in the garage. If you can’t connect those dots and see that there’s a strong possibility she saw something that may get her killed, you’re a poor excuse for a cop.”

“That’s Mrs. Patterson’s story.”

Anger roiled within Zeke. “But you don’t buy it?”

“Whether or not I buy it is beside the point. I have to look at the facts, Mr. Coulter, and right now she’s the only person who had a reason to want Robert Patterson dead.”

“The only person you’ve found,” Zeke corrected. “And the only person you will find if you don’t get your head out of your ass.”

Monroe pushed to his feet. “For all I know, Mrs. Patterson loosened her own damned bleeder valves. Now that the sale of her farm has come to light, she’s our primary suspect, and she knows it. She may be feeling desperate. What better way to throw suspicion off herself than to stage an attempt on her own life?”

Zeke had never in all his life wanted to hit a man so badly. “Her kids were in that frigging car, Monroe. You can’t honestly believe she would deliberately put their safety at risk.”

The detective shrugged. “That depends entirely on what kind of person she is. If she murdered Robert Patterson, she obviously doesn’t place a high value on human life, now does she?”

Pete grabbed Zeke’s arm. “Come on, son. Getting yourself thrown in jail won’t help the situation.”

Zeke jerked his arm free and leveled a finger at the detective’s nose. “Bring your superior in here
now
. I want a witness to the fact that we’ve reported an attempt on Mrs. Patterson’s life and you’re blowing us off.”

“May I ask why you feel that’s necessary?” Monroe asked.

Zeke straightened his shirt and endeavored to calm down. When he’d managed, he returned the detective’s smile. “Connect the dots, Detective.”

Naomi’s face lost color when Pete told her that someone had tampered with the brakes on Natalie’s car. She glanced bewilderedly at Zeke and shook her head.

“What are you saying?”

Pete finger combed his graying hair. “I know it’s scary, honey. I don’t want to believe it, either. But those bleeder valves didn’t open by themselves. Someone tried to kill our girl.”

Naomi shook her head again. “She has no enemies. Why would anyone want her dead?”

Zeke explained his theory that Natalie might have seen something she shouldn’t have while searching Robert’s house. “Maybe the killer’s car was parked on the street. Maybe he left a monogrammed cigarette lighter lying on the coffee table. Maybe he was actually inside the house and he thinks she saw him. God knows. All I can say with any certainty is that someone set her up to have a serious accident.” He looked at Pete. “You said it a hundred times yesterday if you said it once. It was a miracle they got out of that wreck alive.”

“This is insane.” Naomi cupped a hand over her eyes. “Like we’re in a
Law and Order
rerun. Things like this don’t happen to people like us.”

Pete slipped an arm around her shoulders and led her to a kitchen chair. Once seated, she lowered her hand from her eyes. “How could
anyone
want her dead? You must be mistaken. If she’d seen something in that house, she’d know it, wouldn’t she?”

Pete lifted his hands. “God knows what she saw, but she must have seen something. It’s the only explanation Zeke and I can come up with.”

For the first time since Zeke had met her, Naomi looked her age. Her face had gone ashen. Her skin looked like wax that had melted slightly and slipped downward, making her eye sockets seem deeper and her cheeks sunken. “If you’re right and someone tried to kill her, he may try again.”

Zeke sat across from Naomi and took her hand. “We won’t let that happen,” he assured her.

Naomi straightened her shoulders, and traces of color returned to her face. “How can we keep her safe?”

Zeke sat back on his chair. “First of all, she can’t be left alone. And unless she’s with me or Pete, I don’t think she should leave the house.”

“What about the club? You’ve almost finished the renovations. She can’t let her business go under. How will she support herself and the kids?”

Zeke almost said that from here on out, he would take care of Natalie and the kids, but the problem was more far-reaching than that. The club wasn’t merely a source of income to Natalie, but a necessary component of who she was.

“When she goes in to work, Pete or I will go with her,” Zeke settled for saying. “Meanwhile, we have to come up with some other people who had a motive to kill Robert. As things stand, Monroe is focused mainly on Natalie.”

“Why hasn’t he arrested her, then?” Naomi asked.

“They probably haven’t built a strong enough case against her yet.”

Naomi got up and started to pace the kitchen floor. “And in the meantime, they’re not looking for the real killer.”

“Chances are, no. They think they’ve got her. All they have to do is prove it.”

Pete sat back on his chair. “How do we go about coming up with other suspects?”

Zeke repositioned the saltshaker. “We start with Grace Patterson. Maybe she knows something. If not, we’ll talk to Robert’s girlfriends. Someone hated him enough to want him dead. We just have to find out who.”

Natalie entered the kitchen just then. She stopped just inside the archway, her expression turning inquisitive when she saw the three of them speaking in low tones and looking so solemn. “What?” she asked.

Zeke hated to burden her with more. She stood slightly hunched, as if it were too painful to straighten her spine. Like it or not, though, this wasn’t something that could safely be kept from her.

“Come sit down, honey,” he said.

A wary look entered her eyes as she moved to the table. She walked as if the floor were made of eggshells, a telltale sign that it wasn’t only her chest causing her discomfort. Considering the fact that her Chevy resembled a crushed aluminum can, Zeke wasn’t surprised. She was fortunate to be alive.

As she sat down, she said to her mother, “I came down to get Chad some more sherbet and 7 Up. The pain medication is still upsetting his stomach.”

Naomi stood up. “I’ll take care of it.” As she stepped to the refrigerator, she asked, “How’s Rosebud feeling?”

“Bored,” Natalie said with a wan smile. “Valerie’s about to give up on keeping her in bed. I think she’s going to be fine.” She looked back at Zeke and her father. “You were powwowing about something serious when I came in. Are you going to tell me what, or keep me in suspense?”

Zeke glanced at Pete. The older man rubbed his jaw, apparently none too anxious to answer his daughter’s question. Zeke sat forward, folded his arms on the table, and, as gently as possible, told Natalie what they had learned at the wrecking yard. At the news, her eyes went almost black with terror.

“You think someone tried to kill us?” she asked incredulously.

Zeke wished with all his heart that it wasn’t necessary to burden her with this. “Actually, honey, I think the kids being involved was pure happenstance. Whoever messed with the brakes was trying to get you, not the kids.”

Her throat convulsed, her small larynx bobbing like a marble under her cleft chin. “But that’s crazy. I didn’t see anything at Robert’s house.”

“You must have seen something,” Zeke insisted gently. “When you got there, do you remember any cars parked on the street?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t really notice. At the time, I didn’t know I needed to pay attention to things like that.”

“How about once you went inside?” Zeke felt a little foolish—a male version of Nancy Drew, sifting for clues. Only this wasn’t a game. He truly believed Natalie’s life was on the line. “Whether you thought it was significant at the time or not, you must have seen something to implicate the killer, honey.” He threw out a few possibilities, but Natalie only shook her head. “Go back to that moment when you stepped inside,” he suggested, “and tell us what you saw, room by room.”

Naomi came to stand by the table, her hands laden with a drinking glass and bowl. She remained there as Natalie launched into a halting description of Robert Patterson’s residence. The picture that began to form in Zeke’s mind was of garish opulence—gilded statues, paintings framed in gold, furnishings straight from a Hollywood film set. Robert had clearly enjoyed luxury, but nothing Natalie recalled seemed significant otherwise.

“Back up,” Zeke said as she began describing the study. “What was that you said?”

She gave him a blank look.

“You saw papers on his desk?”

She nodded. “It’s strange, actually, because Detective Monroe told me there were no papers found on the desk.” She shrugged. “I figured they were unimportant and one of the investigating officers moved them or something.”

A cold feeling inched up Zeke’s spine. “Did you look closely at them?”

“No, not really. Right after I noticed them, I saw Grandma Devereaux’s goblets.”

Those damned goblets again. “Think, Natalie. It may be extremely important. Did you notice anything about those papers?”

Her dark brows pinched together in a frown. “It was a contract of some kind. I remember thinking at the time that I couldn’t care less about Robert’s business dealings anymore, and then I saw the crystal. I got so upset then that I never looked at the papers again.”

“But Monroe claims the contract wasn’t there?”

Her gaze clung to his. “You think that’s it, don’t you? That something in that contract identified the killer.”

Zeke’s heart was pounding in double time. “I think it’s highly possible that you saw his name on that contract and didn’t register it.”

When Zeke got Detective Monroe on the line a few minutes later, the policeman was less than friendly. Zeke got straight to the point.

“There were no papers lying on Patterson’s desk,” Monroe insisted after Zeke explained. “I was one of the first people on the scene, and I took meticulous notes. No contract, Coulter. If it had been there, I would have seen it.”

“That doesn’t rule out the possibility that it was there when Natalie went into the study.”

“What do you surmise, that it developed feet and walked away?”

Zeke made a mental note to get this man fired before this was over. “No, I surmise that someone removed it from the desk. On her way out, Natalie heard a door latch click somewhere in the house. The killer may have still been inside.”

“It’s an interesting theory, Mr. Coulter, but I’m the detective handling this case. Why don’t you just relax and let me do my job?”

“Because, as far as I can see, you’re not doing it,” Zeke replied. “That woman—Patterson’s girlfriend. She says Robert got a phone call and sent her away to go shopping for a few hours. Patterson obviously meant to meet with someone. He and that someone chitchatted in the study over a few glasses of wine. They could have been discussing a business deal.”

“Yes—or it may have been a meeting between exes to discuss the sale of a certain farm.”

Zeke’s blood ran cold. In that moment, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the police were concentrating almost solely on Natalie being the killer.

Chapter Seventeen

L
ater that afternoon when Zeke and Natalie went to see Grace Patterson, she served high tea. The woman fascinated Zeke. Over his lifetime, he’d known a few wealthy people, most recently and inarguably the wealthiest, the Kendrick family. But he’d never met anyone so ostentatious as Robert’s mother. She reminded him of a character onstage, the props around her carefully selected and arranged to convey her queenly importance.

When she greeted them at the door, she was dressed in a black tunic and pants made of soft, silky stuff that flowed around her when she moved. With her pale complexion and blond hair, the effect was stunning, which he suspected had been her aim. Women of her social standing always dressed to make a statement, he supposed, even in mourning. To finish off the outfit, she wore low black heels with feathers across the insteps. Slippers, he guessed, because no one in her right mind would wear shoes like that outside.

She led them into a beautiful room to the right of the entry hall that sported a collection of what appeared to be priceless antiques. Near the fireplace, refreshments awaited them on a tea table encircled by four wing-back chairs. He wasn’t surprised when Grace sat down first. Someone of royal lineage couldn’t be expected to remain standing while lesser beings were seated.

“Please, join me,” she said with just enough warmth to seem sincere, but with enough coolness to convey that their visit was an inconvenience.

Natalie, still in great discomfort from the accident, sank gratefully onto a cushion. Zeke was almost afraid to settle his considerable weight onto the chair beside her. His luck, he’d bust the damned thing. As he lowered himself gingerly onto the seat, he took in the amazing assortment of small cakes, cookies, and bite-sized sandwiches arranged on flowery, gilt-edged platters. They’d come to talk, not eat a meal.

As Grace poured tea with practiced precision, she said, “It’s lovely to have you come, Natalie, but I must confess to some puzzlement. On the phone, you mentioned wanting to ask me some questions?”

Natalie accepted the cup and saucer that Grace offered her. Holding the saucer in her left hand, she settled back on the chair, using her right hand to sip from the dainty little cup. She seemed to feel more relaxed in these surroundings than he did.

“The children and I were in a serious car accident yesterday, Grace.”

Robert’s mother almost spilled her tea. “Oh, dear God,” she gasped. “Chad. Is he all right?”

Anger put a glint in Natalie’s eyes. “His ribs are badly bruised, but he’s fine otherwise. You do have two grandchildren. Aren’t you equally concerned about Rosie?”

Grace’s cheeks went pink as suddenly as they’d gone pale. “Of course. How is she?”

“She got a nasty bump on the head,” Natalie replied. “Fortunately, it doesn’t appear that she has a concussion.”

“Thank goodness.” Grace returned her cup to its saucer without clinking the china. “I’m delighted to hear that they’re both okay.”

Zeke couldn’t fit his finger through the handle of his cup. Instead he had to grasp it between his thumb and forefinger. “Actually, Mrs. Patterson, Natalie misspoke. The wreck wasn’t an accident.”

Grace’s blue eyes went wide. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that someone tried to kill Natalie yesterday. By chance, the kids were in the car with her when it happened.”

“Dear God,” Grace whispered.

Natalie looked so drained that Zeke took it from there, telling Grace the story from start to finish. “We believe that the name of your son’s murderer was on that contract, Mrs. Patterson, and that he believes Natalie may have seen it. Rather than risk exposure, we think he’s trying to shut Natalie up before she remembers what she saw and goes to the police.”

Grace began plucking nervously at the voluminous sleeves of her tunic, and then, with such suddenness she clinked the china, she set her cup on the table, pushed to her feet, and walked over to a secretary against one wall. When she returned to her chair, she carried a fifth of scotch. She poured a generous measure into her teacup, and then slid the bottle toward Zeke.

“No, thanks,” he said. “I have to drive.”

Zeke sneaked a glance at Natalie. Her expression told him more clearly than words that she’d never seen her ex-mother-in-law in such a state. The woman drained her cup in four gulps and poured herself another measure of scotch.

The first infusion of alcohol seemed to calm her a bit. She relaxed against the padded backrest of her chair to consume the second dose more slowly. “No one knows more about Robert’s business dealings than I,” she said shakily. “If someone is trying to kill Natalie, isn’t there a strong possibility that he’ll come after me as well?”

Until that moment, Zeke had been trying his damnedest to like this woman. Now disgust burned at the back of his throat like acid. She wasn’t worried about Natalie or her grandchildren, only about herself. He gave her a long, measuring look, decided that the more frightened she was, the more useful she might be, and said, “You’re right. I hadn’t thought of that. He may come after you.”

She took another swig of whiskey. “I kept telling Robert to clean up his act. Do you think he would listen? Now he’s dead, and I may be next.” She sent Zeke a panicked look. “What am I going to do, hire round-the-clock protection? Where does one find a bodyguard?”

People like Natalie had volunteers to protect her, Zeke thought. Someone like Grace Patterson had to pay for that kind of loyalty. “A security company might be a good place to start,” he said, not convinced the woman was even in danger. “If they can’t help you, maybe they’ll know someone who can.”

Grace started up from her chair. Zeke stopped her with, “First things first. Getting protection is a stopgap measure, Mrs. Patterson. You can’t live in fear for an extended period of time.” When she started to get up again, Zeke quickly added, “Even the best of protectors will relax his guard sooner or later. If the killer wants you out of the way, he’ll wait for his chance, and eventually, he may breach your security.”

Zeke waited for her to sit back. Then he went on. “The first and most important thing we need to do is give the police more to work with. As long as your son’s killer is at large, you’ll be in grave danger, and so will Natalie and her children.”

Her eyes huge and imploring, Grace shakily asked, “What do you need to know?”

At four o’clock that afternoon, Zeke had the dubious pleasure of visiting Detective Monroe’s office again. The plump, aging cop looked no happier to see Zeke than Zeke was to be there. They settled at opposite sides of the gray metal desk, glaring at each other like opponents in a death match. Zeke tossed a paper onto the blotter.

“I visited with Robert Patterson’s mother this afternoon. She gave me a list of individuals who had reason to want her son dead. Most of them are iffy—dumped girlfriends, a few businessmen he gave the shaft, that sort of thing. But the young man at the top of the list bears looking at. Robert Patterson cheated him out of more than four million dollars.”

Monroe unfolded the paper, looked at the name, and said, “Keep talking.”

“Stan Ragnor, thirtyish, a real estate broker with a surveying degree who works under his own shingle. He’s a sharp young man with a nose for developable land. A year ago, he found Robert Patterson a large piece of prime development property just outside Crystal Falls, a hundred acres zoned for rural residential, a minimum of ten acres per parcel.”

“I know what rural residential means, and he’s not sounding like a killer yet.” Monroe tossed down the paper. “Get to the point.”

“Ragnor is an eager beaver. Went back to college in his early twenties to get the surveying degree, worked for a while in the field down in California, and then moved back to Oregon, determined to make a go of it here. He fell on the idea of selling real estate, quickly realized his expertise lay in development, finally struck out on his own, and was champing at the bit to make his first fortune when he met Patterson. Unfortunately for him, he was still wet behind the ears when it came to business negotiations and thought a man’s word still counted for something.”

“How does this tie him to the murder?”

“Just hear me out. Ragnor had done his research and discovered that the city of Crystal Falls and the county have a joint twenty-year development plan to accommodate urban sprawl. In certain areas within a ten-mile radius of the city limits, they will allow land presently zoned rural residential to be rezoned to RS, residential standard density. Ragnor went door-to-door, trying to convince the landowners in one of those areas to list their ten-acre parcels with him. All totaled, he secured over a hundred contiguous acres, a veritable gold mine. Then he did all the necessary legwork to be sure sewer systems, access streets, and traffic studies wouldn’t throw a wrench in the fan blades for a subdivision. When he had a bulletproof package, he presented it to Robert Patterson, one of the biggest developers in town.”

“Go on,” Monroe said, showing a little more interest now.

Zeke sat forward on the chair. “In deals like this, a real estate broker can make a killing if he handles it right. When Ragnor presented the deal to Patterson, he asked for an exclusive, three-percent listing agreement on all the lots as well as on all the houses that would one day be built on them. It was a great offer to Patterson, roughly a fifty-percent cut in Realtor fees, and it was equally lucrative for Ragnor. Figure it out. On average, you can go with five lots per acre, and they sell from ninety to a hundred grand a crack. Ragnor stood to make over a million on the lot sales alone, plus a lowball figure of three million on the homes, which would go for at least two hundred grand each, more likely four, raising his take to six million.”

Monroe whistled. “The boy stood to make a bundle.”

“Exactly. In return, he agreed to walk the development project through for Patterson with the city, meeting with engineers and city planners. Ragnor found the pieces of land, negotiated to get the owners to sell, and then worked his ass off to put the deal together, trusting Patterson to keep his word and treat him right when the land was subdivided. In the end, Patterson cut him out of the deal.”

Monroe raised his eyebrows. “Sounds to me as if Ragnor is one stupid son of a bitch. No one does business without a contract nowadays.”

“I’m not here to discuss smart business tactics, Monroe. I’m here to tell you about a young man who trusted Robert Patterson and got the shaft in a very big way.” Zeke thought of Natalie and all the years she’d remained in her marriage, believing she might save it. Robert Patterson had been a master at manipulation. “Patterson knew how to string people along. He told Ragnor that he wouldn’t sign a listing agreement on lots and houses that didn’t yet exist. He kept putting Ragnor off, working him like a dog in the meantime, promising that he’d happily sign on the dotted line when the time was right. Ragnor stood to make megabucks, so he continued to work long hours for over a year to make everything fly. When the city finally dropped the gavel, giving the go-ahead for a huge subdivision, Patterson let Ragnor do even more legwork. According to Grace Patterson, there are countless angles that must be handled in a project that size, and Ragnor did it all, only to have Patterson laugh at him when it was all said and done, telling him that there was no way a two-bit Realtor was going to make almost as much money on the deal as he was. He went to another Realtor, offered one percent, and the guy leaped at it. After all his hard work, all Ragnor got out of the deal was an initial three percent when Patterson bought the original parcels.”

Monroe picked up the piece of paper again and studied the name. “I’ll check him out.”

Zeke nodded. “Do better than that, Monroe. Put him under a magnifying glass. Talk to Grace Patterson yourself. She heard Ragnor threaten her son’s life. I’m telling you, Natalie didn’t do this. The longer you focus on her, the longer it will be before you solve this case.”

Natalie had just turned off the downstairs lights to head upstairs for bed when the phone rang. It was almost eleven, and she couldn’t imagine who would be calling so late. She flipped the living room lamp back on and ran to the kitchen.

When she answered the phone on the fourth ring, a woman asked for Natalie Patterson.

“This is she,” Natalie replied.

“Are you the owner of the Blue Parrot?”

After the events of yesterday, Natalie felt uncomfortable answering that question until she knew more about the caller. “With whom am I speaking?”

“This is Nancy Steingold with Iron Clad Security. I’m calling to notify you that the security alarm at your business has just gone off. The police are on their way there now.”

“The alarm at my supper club has gone off?” In all the time Natalie had owned the business, this had never happened.

“You’ll probably want to be there to speak with the police and reset the alarm when they’re finished checking things out.” Ms. Steingold paused and then said, “Most times, these are false alarms. Something goes haywire—a motion detector or a faulty door latch that jiggles in the wind and breaks the magnetic field.”

Natalie had no motion detectors inside the club. Because of the cost, she’d gone with a basic perimeter system that went off only when a door or window was forced open. “Thank you for notifying me.”

“No problem. I hope it turns out that everything is fine.”

After breaking the connection, Natalie ran to her father’s bedroom. “Pop?” She tapped on the door, then opened it and flipped on the overhead light. “The security alarm at the club just went off. I need to go to town.”

Pete swung up to sit on the edge of his bed. He wore oversized white cotton pajamas with burgundy stripes. He reached for his pants. “You should call Zeke and tell him we’re going in. He may want to go with us.”

“He’s probably at the supply store. He goes in every night to do books, I think.”

“Then call him there and see if he’ll meet us at the club.” Pete shook out his pants. “I don’t like the sound of this.”