Paperwhite Narcissus (23 page)

Authors: Cynthia Riggs

BOOK: Paperwhite Narcissus

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Victoria woke up late. Elizabeth had already gone to work but had left a freshly baked coffee cake and a full pot of coffee.

William Botts was the first to arrive. Casey and Junior came together in the police Bronco.

“Where’s Matt?” Victoria asked.

“At the hospital,” said Casey. “With his wife and a brand new eight-pound baby girl named Rowan. Born at two this morning.”

Victoria smiled. “How’s his wife?”

“Glowing. So’s Matt.”

They helped themselves to coffee. Botts carried the coffee cake and plates into the cookroom and Victoria seated herself at the table with her back to the window. Casey sat across from her and Junior and Botts sat on either side.

Victoria smoothed the red-checked tablecloth and helped herself to the still warm coffee cake. “Where’s Colley now?” she asked Casey.

“Temporarily incarcerated in the county jail. They’ll take him off Island later today.” Casey leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Okay, Victoria, now how about explaining yesterday’s performance? Why did we have to go through all the theatrics?”

“I had no idea we’d end up trapping the killer,” Victoria replied. “Audrey and Calpurnia wanted to tell me something and I thought you should be there to hear whatever it was they had to say.”

McCavity entered the room, glanced around, climbed into
the wastebasket, turned around a few times, and began to clean himself.

Casey sighed. “I’d like to hear your version of whatever it was you knew. Or deduced.”

Victoria took a sip of coffee, narrowing her eyes in the steam. “It’s hard to know where to start. We were dealing with three deaths, Ambler Fieldstone’s, Candy Keene’s, and Al Fox’s.”

Casey scowled but said nothing.

“Ambler’s was the most puzzling. Last night when Audrey and Calpurnia explained what happened, it cleared up that part of the puzzle. Ambler’s death was a stupid prank that went wrong. An accident.”

“Accident, my foot,” Casey muttered. “We’ll see about that. The Coast Guard will, I mean.”

“I never suspected Colley. He couldn’t possibly have run over Ambler with Ambler’s own boat. And, of course, he didn’t.”

“The false obituaries threw everyone off,” said Casey.

Victoria nodded. “They seemed to point to Colley as victim, not perpetrator. I assumed the killer was writing them to frighten Colley.”

Botts had taken a small spiral-bound notebook out of his pocket and was scribbling notes. He looked up. “The obits succeeded in frightening Colley enough to pay you to track down the writer’s identity. How did you know the writer was Tom Dwyer, by the way?”

“The last obituary was Tom’s private joke. You know how upset he was about the beaches being closed to fishermen during the nesting season.”

Junior laughed. “Gotta try his recipe sometime.”

“Don’t use piping plovers,” said Botts.

Casey was tapping her fingers on the table. “Go on, Victoria. I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Tom realized his obituaries were not amusing to anyone,” said Victoria, “and worst of all, that they were confusing the hunt for the killer. But he couldn’t resist sending a last one.
When Colley showed it to me, I held the note up to the light and saw the watermark.” Victoria smiled. “The paper was twenty-four-pound Plover Bond.”

“Where in hell did he find that?” said Botts.

“Go on, Victoria,” said Casey, tapping her fingers.

“I knew Tom wasn’t the killer, so I eliminated the obituaries as clues.”

“At that point you were left with Audrey and Calpurnia, who actually did kill Fieldstone.” Botts set his notepad down and helped himself to more coffee cake. “This stuff is great. I’d like the recipe.”

“Bisquick,” said Victoria.

Botts licked his fingers. “Seems to me both of them had motives and opportunity for killing Candy and Al Fox. They’d killed once. Why not a second and third time?”

Victoria nodded. “I suspected them almost from the beginning and decided they might have been working together, only pretending their hostility. One or the other could have lured Colley to Chappaquiddick, planning to kill him and take his body out into Nantucket Sound in Audrey’s boat, which was conveniently at Dike Bridge. But I was wrong. Colley planned to kill Audrey. That’s why he risked driving along the beach.”

“Calpurnia too, I suppose,” said Botts. “Ironic that Colley would have been swept out to sea and drowned if you hadn’t saved him.”

Casey sighed and looked at her watch.

Victoria continued. “Candy Keene’s shooting puzzled me too. At first I was afraid that the boy, who was target shooting in the hayfield near Candy’s house, had shot her by mistake, just as she feared.”

Junior shook his head. “They were practicing with rifles. She was shot with a hand gun.”

Victoria broke off a piece of her coffee cake and held it while she continued. “At the
Grackle
office last evening Casey told me the police had found the gun in the brook.”

“Stupid way to dispose of a weapon,” said Botts.

“I supposed the killer needed to get rid of it in a hurry and simply tossed the gun toward the brook. After all, the boy and his father must have been nearby.” Victoria set her coffee cake down, uneaten, and sipped her coffee. “When Casey told me the gun belonged to Tom’s wife, Phyllis, I began to think that Colley might be the killer.”

“Yeah?” Casey leaned forward on her elbows. “How did you make that leap? The state cops suspected Tom Dwyer.”

Botts shifted slightly. “Why suspect
him
? He had no reason at all to kill anyone.”

“The gun belonged to his wife,” said Casey. “The state guys figured Tom had access to it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” said Victoria.

“That’s cops for you.” Botts bowed his head at Casey. “Present company excepted, Madam Chief.”

Victoria pushed her plate to one side. “I couldn’t believe that Phyllis still owned the gun. I thought she might have left it behind when she divorced Colley.”

“The gun was a high school graduation present,” said Casey. “You wouldn’t leave something like that behind.”

“I would,” said Victoria. “She certainly had no sentimental attachment to it.”

Casey shook her head. “I always loved guns. As I kid I’d have thought I’d died and gone to heaven if my old man had given me a gun.”

Victoria looked at the chief warily, thinking Casey had made a joke. But Casey tended to be literal, so Victoria let the comment about heaven pass.

Botts licked the point of his pencil. “But why would that make you suspect Colley?”

“I thought, if Phyllis left the gun behind when she divorced Colley, he had access to it,” said Victoria. “Right after Casey told me about the gun, I recalled seeing a letter opener the other day
on Colley’s desk. The letter opener looked very much like the one I’d seen on Al Fox’s desk that turned up missing.”

Casey sat up straight. “Why didn’t you tell me that right away? The letter opener could be the missing murder weapon.”

“I didn’t put things together until last night, and then everything happened at once.”

“Why on earth would Colley keep the weapon and flaunt it?” asked Botts, raising his shaggy eyebrows.

“Textbook example of narcissism,” said Junior. “‘Fox deserved what he got. I did the world a favor by killing him.’ Probably never occurred to Colley to get rid of the weapon. ‘Why should anyone suspect
me
?”’

“You were saying, Victoria?” said Casey.

“Colley was outraged at Al Fox, who was delivering alimony in person to Colley’s ex-wife in Majorca. Vacationing with Colley’s money and, probably, getting to know Colley’s ex-wife. The souvenir letter opener on Al Fox’s desk must have been the last straw for Colley.”

Casey set her elbows on the table again. “Go on, Victoria. You guys stop interrupting her.”

Victoria smiled. “Last night when John Milton growled, I was prepared for the killer to show up. By then, I thought the killer might be Colley.”

“But why did he kill Candy?” asked Botts.

“Colley had a handsome income from the newspaper, but most of it was going to those three, the Majorcan ex-wife, Al Fox, and Candy. He felt they were bleeding him.”

“How did he manage to shoot Candy?” asked Botts. “She must have known he was there.”

“We’ll have to ask Colley, but I think it’s likely she contacted him first. Perhaps to insist that he write an editorial in the
Enquirer
about the target shooting. You can imagine the rest. She invited Colley to her house on the afternoon the boy and his father were shooting and took him to the edge of the hayfield. He
waited until her back was turned and shot her, figuring the sound of the rifle shots would cover his.”

“Why didn’t she say something at the hospital when she was recovering?” asked Botts.

“She had been expecting a wild shot from the boy, despite all Casey’s assurances that they were using every safety precaution. While she was in the hospital, she was talking to Al Fox about suing the town.”

“I suppose Colley made the divinity himself,” said Botts.

“It’s not a difficult recipe,” said Junior.

Casey looked at her watch again. “One more thing, Victoria, then I got to leave. Why did Colley show up at the
Grackle
office at that exact moment?”

“He and Calpurnia argued last evening and she refused to tell him where she was going. So he followed her. I don’t think he knew what to expect. When Audrey showed up right after Calpurnia and the two went up to the office together, he realized he was in trouble. He reparked his car where it wouldn’t be seen, then came up the stairs after them.”

“Toting a gun,” said Botts.

“His own,” Casey said. “Was he planning on killing all four of you? And the dog, too?”

“I doubt if he was thinking clearly,” said Victoria.

“Typical narcissist,” said Junior.

About a week after the dust had settled, Victoria called on Botts. “William, I have some bad news for you.”

Botts looked up. “What now?”

“According to the terms of the Jameson Trust, control of the
Enquirer
has been turned over to Lynn Dwyer, Colley’s daughter. Lynn has asked her mother to serve as editor. Phyllis says she intends to reinstate all the staff members that Colley fired and plans to start paying summer interns.”

“Good,” said Botts.

“That means you’ll lose Katie and Matt, probably Tiffany and
Wendy, too. Including Lynn, that’s five out of eight staff members, leaving only you and your wife. I’ll stay with you, of course.”

“Victoria,” said Botts, getting to his feet, “I can’t think of a better revenge on Colley than for you to go back to writing your column for the
Enquirer.
As my farewell gift, I’ll donate to the
Enquirer
all four hundred and seven of my subscribers.”

John Milton got up from his bed of newspapers and lifted his front paw. Botts bent down and scratched the dog’s head. He removed the bright serape from Victoria’s chair, shook it out, folded it in half, then half again, and set it down on top of the newspapers.

“You can have your blanket back, old friend.”

OTHER MARTHA’S VINEYARD MYSTERIES BY CYNTHIA RIGGS

Jack in the Pulpit
The Cemetery Yew
The Cranefly Orchid Murders
Deadly Nightshade

THE PAPERWHITE NARCISSUS. Copyright © 2005 by Cynthia Riggs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

www.minotaurbooks.com

eISBN 9781466819078

First eBook Edition : March 2012

ISBN 0-312-33983-6

EAN 978-0312-33983-8

First Edition: May 2005