Murder in Wonderland (12 page)
"You saw Tori's text."
"Allie, please, you have to help me."
"You're a fine actress, June. Better than anyone would've thought. You should have acted this well in some of Del's productions."
"Please, Allie..."
"Croquet mallet."
"Please, Allie..."
"You have no idea what 'croquet mallet' means. But you must have seen me looking at the text. The croquet note was to get me involved in following leads, so you could follow right behind me."
"You don’t understand."
"The same with the code written on the face of the queen card. It took a jeweler's hand to write those letters so small and neatly."
"Allie, I didn’t want this. You have to believe me." There was a quality to the woman's voice that wasn't there that day in the library. Something about her voice now was...
more real
.
"Allie!" the woman suddenly screamed, the sound dying in the rush of water, sending a blood-freezing chill down Allie's back.
A thick arm came around Allie's neck. And the cold barrel of a pistol pressed against her temple.
"This town is full of busybodies," Ethan Brody hissed in her ear. "And you’re their queen bee."
"Poisoning is a silent crime, isn’t it, Ethan? Usually follows a pattern of silence. What was it? An affair? Blackmail? Or was it both?"
June screamed over the rush of water. "Ethan ended it with her. But you don’t understand. That woman is so cruel. She was going to bankrupt us. Allie, you have to understand."
"So you killed her."
"Allie, please understand."
"They use cyanide in gold processing. Where'd you put it Ethan? In her rings? Her bracelets?"
"That's enough out of you."
"Why? You're going to kill me anyway. Ah, of course! Her earrings! She picked them up the morning of my book club."
"You've got too much time on your hands, lady. That's alright. It figures in that you came down here for a little nighttime stroll and slipped into the water and drowned. Hit your head on some rocks on the way down. Poor thing."
"Allie," said June, "it was the only way."
"The only way to keep from getting caught?" Allie said, her voice tightening with anger. "By luring me here with some fake story about you and your husband going missing? Tell me, Ethan, how close am I?"
"You're close."
"June," said Allie, tears beginning to fall down her moist cheeks, "something tells me you don’t really want this. This maniac forced you into this."
June's voice was wracked with anger. "You don’t understand! He's mine! No one else's!"
"It's over, June," her husband screamed. "I ended it. Now shut your mouth!"
This one solitary moment of distraction was all Allie needed to stab her heel dead into Ethan's kneecap. He howled in pain and doubled over, releasing her.
She ran to June. "You can make this right again by coming to the police with me and coming clean."
She looked over at Ethan, who, regaining his composure, steadied himself on one knee, cocked the gun, and took aim.
"Freeze!" yelled Sgt. Beauchenne. "Drop your weapon!"
Two other cops came in on either side of Ethan Brody, guns drawn.
Ethan dropped his weapon and put his hands on his head.
As they read him his rights, Beauchenne walked calmly over to where Allie and June stood, watching in disbelief.
"June Brody? I'm afraid you're going to have to come with us down to the station and answer a few questions."
"Do I need a lawyer?"
"Not my place to say, ma'am. However, in my personal opinion on the matter, yes."
Allie looked at Beauchenne. "You know I want to hug you right now. How did you...how?"
"First of all, you're the worst sneak in the world. My guy spotted you coming out of your house and followed you here. He radioed me along the way. That's him there."
The officer he was referring to was handcuffing Ethan Brody and raising him to his feet.
Beauchenne continued. "I went to Ms. Cardinal's house with the strange task of searching for a flamingo. And wouldn’t you know it? There was one right there on the back deck. One of those metal statuettes for garden decoration. Didn't take long for me to realize that the head comes off and that it's one of those waterproof security things that you store important papers in. Among Ms. Cardinal's personal effects were a stack of letters, printed emails and such. They pretty much gave the whole story. But the thing that alerted me was the very first one I looked at: A detailed letter outlining a plot to do away with you, Ms. Brody, at this very spot, at this very time and place."
June's face had resumed its stone stoicism. But then her eyes widened, and hardened, and her face contorted into such a hideous mask of hatred that Allie thought she should look away. And when they walked her husband by her, she spat in his face. It was a moment before order was restored.
Beauchenne's men loaded her into a separate car, and husband and wife were driven away.
"Can I hug you yet?" she asked.
"Ms. Griffin, I'll risk getting my clothes smelling as bad as yours do."
She felt her face flush.
"You know, I have a great deal of work to do, what with these papers and all. There's also the matter of a couple of vandals who broke into Ms. Cardinal's house. Didn’t take anything, at least I don’t think they did. But they did make a hell of a mess downstairs. Left a lot of footprints too."
He looked at Allie's feet.
"Yup. I’d say about size six and a half, seven, women's Nikes."
Allie found herself at a loss for words, as fear choked her voice off at the top of her throat.
"Or kids' sizes. Of course, I really have no idea who did it. I suspect it was kids just out having a good time. Yup, lousy little kids with their lousy little kid feet. Funny, I wonder how they managed to circumvent the security system. I myself needed the code to deactivate it a little while ago when I searched the place." He removed his hat and scratched his head. "Oh well, I guess that'll just have to remain unsolved." He leaned in. "But I sure hope those kids learned not to go poking their noses into police business. Could have really fouled up an investigation."
Allie no longer felt much like hugging Sgt. Beauchenne. She felt like kissing him.
"I'm sure they learned," she said.
"I'll see you around, Ms. Griffin. Can I give you a lift home?"
"No," she said, feeling the odd combination of awkwardness and intense relief. "I'll walk. Thank you."
The warmth and comfort of her home now was indescribable. She let herself in through the front door and collapsed on the couch, thinking about pouring herself a very large drink.
She sat up. She forgot about the cat's insulin. "Dinah!
Ou est ma chatte
?"
She called again. "Dinah? Where are you, kitty?"
She went into the bedroom. "Dinah?"
A tiny meow came from under the bed.
She bent down and poked her head under. The cat was wide-eyed and still. "What are you doing under there, baby?"
"I just put apple seeds in your garbage," said Jill Metzger.
Her heart leaped into her throat. The bespectacled twin was pointing a gun at her.
Allie tried to stand.
"Don’t move, Griffin.
"You didn’t kill her, Jill, at least not the first time."
"Oh, that's lovely."
"No, I'm serious. It was June and Ethan Brody. Cyanide in the earrings. You didn’t even kill her a second time. I looked it up. The efficacy of cyanide is reduced by exposure to boiling water. Tori Cardinal was this close to saving her own life by being better than me at tea service."
"You don’t know what you're talking about." There was the beginning of quiet panic in the woman's voice.
"The Brodys poisoned her way before she got to my house. Way before you smeared honey-laced cyanide into your cup and switched it with hers. Way before you asked me for a honey jar you could dump the remainder in."
"Are you through?"
Sgt. Beauchenne appeared behind her, creeping up as silent as snow. He put his finger to his lips.
"No, I'm not," Allie said, unable to hold back a smile. "I'm never,
ever
inviting you to a book club again."
A strange look came over the girl's face. And Sgt. Beauchenne grabbed her around the neck and reached for the gun.
Jill let out an anguished cry of defeat.
Beauchenne disarmed the woman.
"That's two I owe you," Allie said.
"I didn’t like the idea of your walking home by yourself. You know, you
really
have to learn how not to get tailed. Oh, and by the way, one of those papers I found..."
"Was a will," said Allie. "I know. Tori Cardinal was in the process of changing it. She and Jill had a falling out."
The sergeant did his duty with the help of a junior officer, who cuffed the woman in Allie's bedroom while Allie watched, disbelieving, as the reality of it all dropped on her like a lead blanket.
As they prepared to escort Jill Metzger out, Allie approached her.
"Jill, was your sister involved?"
The girl looked up, her eyes red and moist, her face ravaged. And she sniffed and said calmly, "My sister is a dolt."
The reporter was getting ready to roll when Detective Tomlin came to the door.
"I'm sorry, am I interrupting something?" He seemed genuinely caught off-guard.
"They're interviewing me for the channel six news. You’re welcome to stay."
"Wait, said the production associate, "you’re the detective? Can you stay while we interview you?"
"Actually," the detective smiled, "I was here to tell li'l old Allie here that in digging around on the Cardinal case I came across a couple of things. Like the fact that her husband died of a heart attack some years ago. And that there were questions surrounding his death that were never answered. And that several witnesses testified to our very own Allie Griffin here being pretty handy with a syringe. That's all. I wanted to talk to her about that. But you guys are busy, so I'll let you go.
Adios
."
Allie called after him. "Detective?"
He turned.
"If you need any help solving that case like you did with this one, you know where I am. I'm not going anywhere. Tootles."
He smiled crookedly while she shut the door in his face.
Then she faced the cameras, asked if her hair looked alright, and smiled to herself.
Digging into my past, eh Tomlin? Bring it on.
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