Staged to Death (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) (20 page)

“He’s not
my
doctor!”

“He could be,” Nikki disagreed with a sly glance as she disappeared off the porch into the yard.

Caprice wanted to get back to Seth, but she was also concerned about why Grant had left so abruptly.

When she went to the canister on the counter for sugar, she noticed the message light blinking on the phone. She might as well check to see who had called.

Playing the message, what she heard gave her pause for a moment. She jabbed at the button to play the message again. Several puzzle pieces clicked into place in her head.

Why hadn’t Roz told her—

Maybe because Roz had no idea what was really going on. As Caprice reconsidered what she’d thought was an innocuous legend attached to the stolen dagger, the clues she had uncovered suddenly all made sense. After all, there were no coincidences with murder, were there?

She just might know who’d killed Ted Winslow.

 

 

The following evening Caprice sat in her car at the curb of a one-story house in a quiet neighborhood. Around seven
P.M.
, with the sun sinking lower, she was nervous . . . but not over-the-top nervous. She’d be taking precautions. She just hoped she was right about her deductions. She just hoped this worked. She just hoped the man she’d muted on her phone in mid-conversation would have her back if things got dicey.

A black SUV cruised down the street and pulled into the driveway. Exiting her car, Caprice made sure her phone was still on speaker. After patting the other pocket in her gauzy maxi-skirt for her pepper-spray gun, she took a few deep breaths.

The man she suspected of murdering Ted Winslow climbed out of his SUV, waved at her, then met her at his front door.

“I’m glad you called to schedule this appointment,” he said with a smile. “I’m eager to get started.”

She bet he was. He wanted a life with Roz. Had he simply waited for his chance to make it happen? Or had he planned the murder all along?

After he unlocked the door, he motioned her to precede him inside.

Caprice stepped into Dave Harding’s living room, repeating the mantra in her head that she had to remain calm. When she’d heard his voice on the answering machine, she’d realized why the man who’d warned her to stop asking questions—though his voice was somewhat disguised—sounded familiar. Besides that—

She was here for a confession, that was all. If not a confession, some admission that the police could use to close in on the murderer.

If she was wrong? She’d leave, looking foolish.

Dave’s living room was a mishmash of conflicting styles. It looked as if he’d bought one piece of furniture here, one there, not much caring how the room looked. She imagined the rest of the house would be furnished in the same way.

He looked a bit embarrassed as he motioned to the flat-screen television, the brown corduroy recliner, the gray-patterned sofa. “Drab, I know. That’s why I need to spruce it up. Maybe paint? Some curtains?”

Right now, a lopsided blind hung across the front plate-glass window, half up, half down.

“Have you lived here long?” Her voice wasn’t quivering just a bit, was it?

“Since the store started turning a profit. About six years.”

“Why did you decide to redecorate now?” she asked in what she hoped was an ingenuous manner.

He gave a small shrug. “I’d like it redesigned for a couple. I’m hoping not to be a bachelor much longer.”

Their gazes met and held.

The legend attached to Ted’s dagger should have alerted her sooner to what had happened to him. That dagger out of all his collector’s items had been stolen. The legend accompanying the dagger stated, “Whosoever owns this dagger will own his heart’s desire.”

When she’d heard Dave’s message for Roz on her answering machine yesterday, she’d had one of those “ah-hah” moments. Dave had said, “I really enjoyed our lunch together, and I believe you did too. Whenever you need a listening ear, I’m here. Maybe we can find our hearts’ desires. Call me and we’ll do it again soon.”

Chills had raced down Caprice’s spine when she’d heard the phrase “hearts’ desires.” Could it be a coincidence that the phrase was used in the legend? She didn’t think so. Dave wanted to be more than friends with Roz. Caprice suspected Dave had wanted Roz to be his since high school. He’d lost her once. He wasn’t going to lose her again. And she’d recognized the cadence of his voice. He was the one who’d phoned her and warned her to stop asking questions. Anyone could get her cell-phone number because it was printed on her business cards. She’d handed out quite a few at the Winslow open house.

Dave broke eye contact and crossed to a single-drawer occasional table beside the recliner. He glanced at it, then back at Caprice. “I’m hoping you can incorporate ruby red into your design for this room. It’s her favorite color. Ruby is her birthstone.”

Silence dropped over the room, and Caprice knew she had to take hold of and direct the flow of the conversation. One of her hands lay over her pocket, feeling the solidity of her phone. The other brushed over the pepper-spray gun. How long would it take for her to pull it from her pocket? She should have practiced.

However, maybe this was just a man in love and he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Red’s a color trend right now and should be easy to work in.”

“You know I want Roz to move in here with me, don’t you?”

“I guessed. You liked her a lot in high school.”

“I
loved
her in high school.” The vehemence in his voice revealed the intensity underlying his declaration.

“A first love is hard to forget,” she empathized, thinking of hers and how she’d felt when Craig had walked away.

“I don’t want to forget. If her mom hadn’t gotten sick—”

“That was a difficult time for Roz.”

“I wanted to help her through it. But she stopped dating while her mom was going through treatment. Then Roz ran off to flight attendant’s school, started flying everywhere, and met Winslow. I couldn’t believe she fell for someone slick like him.” His voice had deepened, the expression on his face growing dark and fierce.

“Ted was rich and could give Roz everything she wanted.” Caprice understood she was goading him. She just hoped the man on the other end of the call could hear.

Dave slashed his hand through the air. “She didn’t care about his money. She just wanted his love, and he was the kind of man who couldn’t give it.”

“You heard things about him?” Caprice prompted, searching for even more motivation for murder.

“My sister has her hair done at Curls R Us. Valerie Swanson is her stylist. One night after an appointment—she was Valerie’s last one for the night—she saw them kissing out back. Everyone knew Winslow on sight. His picture was in the paper often enough—donating to charity, getting promoted to senior vice president at PA Pharm, flying off to third-world countries on PR trips because the company donated medicine. But he was a class-A, unfaithful jerk!”

Dave seemed to be on a roll now. He was definitely passionate about the subject. Maybe she should just go for the confession if he was ready to spill the whole story.

“I think Ted did love Roz,” she theorized. “I think that because of the dagger that was stolen.”

“I heard about that,” Dave muttered. “It had jewels in the handle.”

Caprice had caught him now. The police still hadn’t released the information that a collectible had been stolen, let alone a description of it. “I can’t remember what kind of jewels decorated it,” she said.

Automatically, Dave responded. “Rubies, diamonds, and emeralds.”

Now she had him. Going for broke, she hurried on. “I found out that Ted bought it through an auction. Isaac Hobbs told me Ted had looked for something like it for Roz for a long time. When Ted saw the legend attached, he had to have it . . . for Roz.
Whosoever owns this dagger will own his heart’s desire
.”

Almost as in a Jekyl and Hyde nightmare, Dave’s face contorted with anger. “He wanted to own her. Like a
possession
.” He spat out the word as if it were a profanity. “I met with him that night in his sword room. We’d set it up at the open house. I convinced him I wanted to know more about his damn collection when what I intended to confront him about were his feelings for Roz. He said Roz would never divorce him. He showed me that dagger and patted it into his palm. He told me the legend. When I brought up Valerie and what I knew about that, he said Valerie was just a playmate to let off steam with. He said he loved Roz and she loved him. He said he had his heart’s desire and he’d never let her go.”

Trying to be as sympathetic as possible, Caprice urged Dave on. “I imagine you tried to reason with him because you wanted Roz to have better than him . . . to be happy!”

“I thought we could talk man to man. I thought he’d let go of her if he didn’t really love her. But he showed me that dagger on purpose. He wanted to rub salt in my old wound. He was so arrogant . . . acting like he owned the world and everything in it. And when he turned around to put the dagger away—”

“That’s when you took the dagger from its scabbard and stabbed him.”

“He deserved it! It was so satisfying to jab that dagger into him—”

Dave had been lost in his passion, his old hurts, his story. And he still was. Until the realization that Caprice had guessed exactly what had happened splashed over him.

He went for the drawer at the recliner, and Caprice panicked that he might have a gun. Her fingers fumbled in the folds of her skirt until she finally plunged her hand into her pocket for the pepper spray.

But Dave was quicker. He didn’t have a gun in his hand, but he brandished the ruby and emerald–embedded dagger. Extracting the blade from its gold sheath, he came at her. Quickly she sidestepped him, finally closing her fingers around the pepper spray.

When he slashed at her, she remembered a defensive move, eluded him, and knocked over his poor excuse for a pole lamp. He tripped over it and fell. With Dave on the floor, she closed her eyes and brought her foot down on his wrist just as the front door burst open. Chief of Police Mack Powalski, along with Detective Jones and two other officers, charged in.

Thank goodness her dad had a good friend with a badge who owed him at least one favor!

Detective Jones had Dave Harding cuffed in a matter of minutes.

As Chief Powalski surged toward Caprice, he looked as worried as her father would have been. “Are you okay?”

Shakily, she nodded. She’d been connected to the chief’s line the whole time. Even though she’d muted him, with the phone on speaker he’d been able to hear her.

Detective Jones crossed to the chief while Harding was read his rights by one of the officers. Pulling latex gloves from his pocket, he snapped them on and addressed Caprice. “The chief should arrest you for obstruction of justice.”

“You didn’t have a case,” she protested.

“We were keeping an eye on him.”

“And on Roz too,” Caprice tossed back, determined not to let the detective intimidate her.

With a frustrated shake of his head, Jones stooped to pick up the dagger.

The jewels glimmered in the end-of-day light streaming through the bottom half of the window.

As Harding was led toward the door, the chief said, “Nobody’s heart’s desire is worth murder.”

Caprice stared at the dagger, suddenly realizing how dangerously close she’d come to being murdered herself. Her knees wobbled and Chief Mack Powalski, who’d pushed her on a swing when she was a child, caught her before she sagged to the floor.

The open house on Sunday was as much fun as a Caribbean vacation. While Nikki served frozen strawberry and banana smoothies, waiters in flowing white shirts passed trays of roasted pork with pineapple, brown sugar and mustard–coated salmon, and coconut-garnished fruit salad. Caprice’s multicolored dress floated around her as she made sure all ran smoothly.

Often she was stopped by an attendee who recognized her from the photo that accompanied the article Marianne Brisbane had written. The piece had been picked up by several newspapers and the story had fleetingly flown by on cable news—
AMATEUR SLEUTH HELPS POLICE IN STING TO CATCH AN ALLEGED KILLER.
Caprice knew the furor would die down soon, though the Office of Regulatory Affairs, another center within the FDA, was starting a field investigation into PA Pharm’s practices.

The capiz-shell chandelier tinkled above the guests’ chatter, jiggled by the huge ceiling fan in the adjoining room. Back in her element, Caprice felt like her old self again—her pre-sleuthing self. She was ashamed her nerves hadn’t held up until she’d left Dave Harding’s house and gotten home.

Soon Roz and Dylan would be moving into a town house with a yard and Caprice would be living with only Sophia again. This whole crisis had changed her friendship with Roz. They were best friends now, with a bond that would last.

She was hoping she and Seth were working on another bond that would last. They’d had another coffee date, discussing everything that had happened—not only her confrontation with Dave but Bella’s situation too. Everyone had seen the tension between her and Joe when they’d returned to the party. Caprice just hoped they could talk about their problems instead of letting them come between them.

As Caprice threaded through prospective buyers to the atrium with its wicker furniture, pastel fabrics, and sisal rug, she was grateful for a bit of solitude. Everyone else seemed to be looking and mingling in the more expansive rooms at the front of the house. Caprice was still a bit introspective, still considering everything that had happened, including the police finding the key to Ted’s curio cabinet in the drawer where Dave had kept the stolen dagger; she stood at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, peering into the sunny, late-afternoon view of a pool and patio that stretched across the backyard.

“Thinking about going for a swim?” The deep male baritone was easily recognizable, though in this setting Grant’s voice seemed foreign.

“I don’t have my swimsuit. What are you doing here? Thinking about buying a house?” When she turned toward him, their gazes locked.

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

Not yet? What did that mean? She hadn’t seen or spoken to Grant since her mom’s birthday party.

Grant broke the sudden silence. “I stopped by because I wanted to see what you do. Quite a shindig!”

“I try.”

“I know you do. I’m impressed.” He shifted on his Docksiders, then came a little closer. “I also wanted to congratulate you on solving Winslow’s murder. But . . .”

She held up her hand to stop him. “My family, Chief Powalski, and Roz have already raked me over the proverbial coals many times. You don’t have to do it too.”

She held up a tray of little coconut-walnut pastries for him to sample one. But he took the wooden tray from her and set it down again.

“I didn’t come to eat. I came to get your promise that you won’t do something that dangerous again.”

Everyone who’d cared about her had been afraid for her. Had Grant felt that moment of fear when he’d learned what she’d done?

She still wasn’t sure if she’d done something foolish or something brave. Yet seeing Ted’s murderer in handcuffs, knowing Roz was in the clear, hoping her friend could move on, she knew she had to be honest with him.

“I have no intention of solving another murder.”

“But?” he prompted.

“But I can’t promise that, given the chance, I wouldn’t do it again.” There had been both an adrenaline rush from the danger and satisfaction in helping a friend. But how often in a person’s lifetime did anything like this happen?

Grant studied her for several moments. Then he nodded. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He headed for the doorway that led to the hall and the part of the house where the open house was most successful.

“Grant?”

Stopping, he waited.

“Friends accept each other for who they are.”

“Is that what we are? Friends?”

“I hope so.”

After a half smile that seemed truly genuine, he left her alone in the atrium.

She smiled too.