Hiss And Tell

13

The late hour had become even later, well past midnight, by the time Will delivered Sunny to the checkpoint at the edge of Neal’s Neck. She noticed there was only one state trooper now standing beside the sawhorses.

That roused a comment out of her tired brain. I guess if the ninety-nine percenters were going to attack, this would be the time to do it. Hope Lee Trehearne has his own private troops on high alert.

She gave Will a good-bye kiss and started around the roadblock, heading for the guesthouse. That’s when Sunny discovered someone else was still awake and alert. Priscilla Kingsbury rose from where she’d been sitting on the fieldstone steps leading up to the front door. Apparently she too had shaken off her tipsiness. Her face was sober and concerned.

“Are you all right?” she asked in a low voice as Sunny approached. “We heard sirens, and the trooper on duty said that a cop had been found dead in his car. It wasn’t your—your friend, was it?”

Sunny shook her head and Cillie heaved a sigh of relief. “I stayed up to see you. I was afraid—”

“It was Sheriff Nesbit.” Sunny’s voice sounded harsh in her ears.

Priscilla’s face showed her shock. “I used to meet him, sometimes. It sort of came with the territory, working in this county—especially with his wife working on the food pantry with the 99 Elmet Ladies.” She shook her head, still digesting the news. “He seemed like a nice man.”

Yeah—nice to a Kingsbury, said Sunny’s brain reflexively, but she didn’t voice the unkind thought out loud. She hadn’t liked the man much, but nobody deserved Nesbit’s fate. Besides, there were other things she needed to warn Cillie about.

“You remember the state I was in—hell, the state we all were in?” Sunny said. “Seeing the sheriff dead shocked me sober, but Lieutenant Wainwright could still smell the beer on me. He even asked what drinking game we’d been playing. So don’t try lying when he asks what we were doing earlier. It won’t look good.”

“But why would he ask—” Cillie broke off, if possible, looking even more shocked. “He can’t think that anyone here—”

“To quote the man, ‘The proximity is suggestive.’ He can’t ignore looking for a connection when two people get killed barely a couple of blocks apart.”

But Cillie’s concerns were closer to home. “If Grandfather finds out about the beer pong, he won’t be happy.”

That should be the least of our troubles, Sunny thought. But all she said was, “You’d better tell the others, too. I suspect tomorrow is going to be a long day.”

*

Her prediction proved only too tiresomely true. Sunny got only a few hours’ sleep after a marathon phone call with her father discussing what had happened to the sheriff. Mike’s enthusiasm for politics diminished considerably now that it had turned from bare-knuckles to bloody. He wanted her off Neal’s Neck, but she argued to stay. What kind of reporter would she be, turning her back on a mystery—and a story like this?

She won that difference of opinion, but it didn’t feel much like victory, dragging herself out of bed to head down to the state police barracks. The good news: the clothes she’d unpacked yesterday didn’t smell as stuffy, and Priscilla had been able to get hold of a lint roller and an iron for Sunny to use. The bad news: Sunny had to wear one of her limited supply of suits for her trip. And Lee Trehearne was on hand to see her off in one of the compound’s town cars, his expression mixing a self-satisfied “I told you so” with violent dislike.

Just the memory of Trehearne’s evil eye kept Sunny sitting in a stiffly uncomfortable pose until she was about half a mile away from the compound. Don’t relax too much, she warned herself as she finally sank back into the upholstered seat. You don’t want to doze off.

To keep herself awake, she mentally edited the statement she was going to write down for the troopers. Sunny decided to tactfully evade the subject of beer pong, and merely say that the younger members of the gathering had been entertaining themselves by the pool.

They arrived and Sunny asked her security guard/driver to wait while she took care of her business inside. If they decided to hold onto her for questioning, she could send the car back then.

Sunny had half expected to find herself in an interrogation room with a pad and pen. Instead, a young trooper led her to an empty office with a desk. She sat down to work on her story. Will had said that the blood at the murder scene was still fresh, so Sunny contained herself to the events of that evening. She mentioned that Beau Bellingham had left the group fairly early, and that Peter Van Twissel had departed some time afterward, accompanied by Carson. She couldn’t put a time to the bridegroom’s return, having been too busy launching her big beer pong assault to check her watch.

I hate to flag them as possible suspects, Sunny thought, but this is too important to start fooling around.

She wondered what kind of alibis Cale could offer for the rest of the family.

After a final read Sunny decided she’d done the best she could. She signed the statement, turned it in at the front desk, and found herself dismissed with the warning that Lieutenant Wainwright might want to talk with her again.

Sunny’s eyes did sink closed on the sixteen-mile return ride, but she made a determined effort to rouse herself before she arrived back at the compound. She needn’t have bothered. The guesthouse was empty except for a note from Priscilla inviting her to breakfast in the boys’ accommodations. Sunny went over there to find most of the guests around a large and somewhat scuffed dining room table. Apparently the furniture gets harder use here in boy-land, she thought.

Peter certainly looked the worse for wear. He was horribly hungover, extremely apologetic for his embarrassing behavior the night before, and barely able to stomach any breakfast. He had to excuse himself hurriedly when Tommy Neal suggested he try hitting one of the leftover bottles of beer as hair of the dog.

Sunny looked after Peter with a certain amount of sympathy. But that soon faded as she found herself considering Peter Van Twissel in quite another light. He’d shown himself to have quite an ugly streak when he drank beyond his limits. How much had he imbibed on the day that Eliza Stoughton was killed? He was the only male in the party that Eliza hadn’t wound up fighting with—at least, not in public. So motive was open. As for means, Sunny remembered how strong his bony fingers had looked—and how easily they’d curled into fists. As for opportunity, well, she’d thought of that before. Assuming he was aware of the surveillance cameras, he certainly had the computer savvy to wipe any evidence from the hard drives.

But seeing him pale and hunched over this morning, he seemed as though he couldn’t harm a fly. Most likely, the fly would win. Could Peter really look so natural after killing two people? For that matter, could he have dragged himself out of bed to meet with Frank Nesbit? Or could the sick bit have been an act? Peter had seemed pretty drunk; even his nasty side had seemed real enough.

Carson came in to apologize for Priscilla—she’d been hijacked by Fiona Ormond for wedding business. “I think they’re talking about cakes, and Fiona wanted Cillie’s opinion of the local bakeries.” He paused for a second before asking, “How did it go with the state police?”

Sunny kept her answer brief, just mentioning the pen and pad. She wasn’t about to give another impromptu course on dealing with police interrogations.

Speaking of which . . . Sunny shifted her gaze to the front-runner in the suspects sweepstakes. Beau Bellingham was awake but still wearing the same rumpled surgical scrubs he’d probably slept in. Did he not own any other clothes? Sunny wondered. It’s not like he’s on call out here. When anyone spoke to him, he replied in monosyllables. His expression was stiff, almost sullen, but the way his eyes darted around the room showed that he was on edge.

He knew already that the cops had their eyes on him, Sunny thought. Having another flimsy alibi isn’t going to help, even if he doesn’t have much in the way of obvious motive.

During the course of the day, each member of the group was brought in for a talk with Lieutenant Wainwright. Otherwise, they worked quietly to clean up the area of last night’s party, collecting the empty bottles, rinsing them out, and adding them to the recycling boxes outside the kitchen of the big house. The Styrofoam ice chests could be broken up and put in the trash, after the water remaining from the ice had been poured off. A generous collection of full bottles also remained, which wound up in the refrigerators of the guesthouses. Carson reported that the Ping-Pong table was already gone when he went to scout the area after rising. Cale Kingsbury must have been up and on the move even earlier.

Of course, Sunny had another job as well—getting out another blog post. The hard-news reporter she’d been wanted to focus on the murder near the premises. Kind of hard to shoehorn a subject like that into coverage of a festive event, she thought.

While she sat in her room, wrestling with trying to tie the two diametrically opposed concepts together, Priscilla popped her head in. “Just wanted to check how you were doing.” She made a game attempt at smiling. “After last night, I figured you might want to rest a little more.”

Inspiration struck. “You said you knew the sheriff when I told you what happened,” Sunny said. “How about the rest of your family?”

“Well, Grandfather had some dealings with him. Political fund-raising dinners and, of course, security for the property here. In fact, he’s going to issue a statement about the sheriff in an hour or so.”

“How about your brothers and your uncle?”

“They knew him in passing, I guess.”

Sunny nodded. “Here’s what I’d like to do for today’s blog post. I don’t think we can ignore what happened last night. So I’d like to have each member of the family—the folks from Maine—respond to this new tragedy, losing a neighbor during what should be a happy time.”

Cillie might work for a nonprofit foundation, but she came from a family of politicians. “That might work pretty well.”

“Great,” Sunny told her. “Let’s go listen to your grandfather and see if we can crib anything from his statement.”

It seemed like déjà vu all over again. Sunny stood in the same grassy area, facing the hastily assembled platform. This time, though, she was hiding behind the stand of bushes with Priscilla Kingsbury instead of Caleb. Sunny had been fast asleep for the Kingsbury’s official statement regarding what they called Eliza Stoughton’s “mishap.” Ken Howell had attended, however. According to him, the Kingsbury lawyer, Vincent Quimby, had done the talking. She spotted both Ken and Randall in the crowd of the usual media suspects.

A moment before the appointed hour, a golf cart appeared on the path from the big house—the cart with the senatorial seal on the windshield. It came to a stop, and Senator Thomas Neal Kingsbury emerged, with Lee Trehearne behind him. The Senator stood very erect in his summer-weight suit, but his steps were careful as he climbed onto the platform. Trehearne attended him like a mother hen until Kingsbury finally waved him away. For the first time, Sunny got a sense of the man’s age. Maybe he really is just hanging on until he sees a relative in the White House, she thought.

As he approached the microphone set up at the front of the platform, the Senator’s habitual quirks kicked in. But this time, his studied poses and vocal cadences made sense. There really were cameras on him.

“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I’ll keep this brief. You all know my family has gathered here for a wonderful event. We’re all very saddened by this senseless tragedy. None of us has any idea why this terrible thing happened to Sheriff Nesbit, or how. What I do know is that Frank Nesbit was a fine public servant and a good man.”

Yup, Sunny’s cynical reporter alter ego commented, just like every other dead politician who wasn’t caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Along with all of my family, we extend the most heartfelt condolences to Frank’s wife Lenore. It’s a very sad business.” He stood looking saddened for a long moment, about enough time for a TV reporter to recapitulate when and where the statement was being made in the cutaway back to the studio. Then Kingsbury said, “Thank you very much. No questions, please.”

Of course, that didn’t deter the more hard-boiled press professionals. They responded about the same way Shadow would on being offered a plate of prime tuna. Randall MacDermott was the first reporter who managed to pitch his voice to cut across the noise and be heard. Whatever his other shortcomings—and Sunny had a long list—he was a real reporter, she thought admiringly. “Senator,” he called, “do you think there’s any connection between the sheriff’s murder and the death of the young woman on your property?”

The look Kingsbury sent Randall would have quelled a lesser man. Then the Senator pulled himself together and walked back toward his golf cart, not even dignifying Randall’s shot with a “no comment.” In a moment, he was gone.

“A little on the brief side, but you can see how he handled all the main points,” Sunny told Priscilla. “I think you’d want to work some personal recollection into whatever you say about the sheriff. You’re here working for the foundation. Is there something he might have done to help?”

“He twisted some arms when it came to fund-raising,” Cillie said as she led Sunny over to the big house. “Let me see if I can come up with a better way to say that.” They found the older generation preparing for lunch. Cillie’s older brother Tom frowned when Sunny made her pitch but nodded his head as he thought it over.

“Okay if I do this off the cuff?” Tom Kingsbury asked. Sunny held up a small cassette recorder. “It’s been a while since I was involved in politics up here in Maine, but I certainly remember Frank Nesbit. He was a good friend and supporter to my grandfather—loyal, too. He stuck it out on the Senator’s last campaign, and when Cale lost on his reelection bid.” Tom suddenly stopped. “Better cut that. We don’t really talk about my grandfather’s last campaign, so many people turned their backs on him. Same thing with Uncle Cale’s stint in Congress. Can I start over?”

Sunny nodded. Tom frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “It’s been some time since our family took part in politics here in Maine. But I remember Frank Nesbit, and not just as a good friend and loyal supporter of my grandfather. As sheriff, he represented everything that local public service should be about. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to see him on this trip, and sorrier still for what happened to him. We Kingsburys would all like to express our sympathy to Frank’s family.” Tom cocked his head. “Okay?”

“That’s fine,” Sunny said. “Thanks, Governor.”

When they approached the eldest brother, Lem, he turned to his wife. “Deborah, do we have anything to say?”

She responded with a prompt but obviously prepared party line. “We join with the Senator in his sorrow at the loss of a good man like Frank Nesbit. While his life was an example of public service, his death shows how dangerous law enforcement can be. Family to family, we grieve with the Nesbits.”

The Senator himself declined to add anything. He gave Sunny a moment’s frowning consideration, and then said, “I’ve already made a statement on that subject.”

Case closed, Sunny thought. Go away.

She thanked the Senator, then she and Cillie beat a quick retreat. On their way out of the house, they bumped into Cale Kingsbury. When Sunny asked him for a statement, he waved her recorder away. “Nothing I have to say would carry any weight. You had more contact with the man, Cillie. If you can say he helped with the foundation in any way, that would be good enough for me.”

It took a while to weave together the more professional pronouncements from the Kingsburys with Priscilla’s more heartfelt memorial, but in the end Sunny was pleased with the results. Along with a nice portrait of a subdued Cillie and one of Ken’s shots of the Senator at the mic, it made for a nice, respectful posting. Once that was accomplished, Sunny felt justified in putting her feet up for a while and trying to catch up on some of the sleep she’d lost. The afternoon shadows were stretching more toward evening when she awoke. Her drowsy eyes seemed to see a familiar silhouette outlined against the window. Shadow?

But when she blinked herself alert and sat up, the cat was gone.

*

Shadow picked himself up and walked out of the soft bed of flowers where he’d fallen. He’d wandered around this new place for so long without finding Sunny that he’d begun to lose hope. Why would Sunny come here? There didn’t seem to be much of interest to be found here. He’d come across a place where there was loud music and a big pond of splashing water. He’d seen those places before and never thought they were any good. For one thing, the strong, nose-twisting stink that came from the water made it hard to scent anything else. He’d have left right away except that there was a two-legged female there who had petted him gently and had given him some food.

She was nice, but she wasn’t Sunny.

He’d finally drawn away and went back to the house where Sunny had left him earlier. Getting in wasn’t as easy this time. The doors and all the windows on the ground floor were closed. He’d been experimenting with the upstairs when he’d gotten a trace of an unmistakable fragrance. Working his way carefully along the roof, he’d approached another window and looked inside. There was Sunny, lying on a bed, asleep!

Shadow had immediately set to work on the screen in the window, trying to pull it aside so he could enter and wake Sunny up. But he’d foolishly used the paw with the broken claw. A sudden jolt of pain had made him jerk back—not a good thing when dealing with the tricky footing of a roof.

He’d found himself tumbling backward, and then there was no roof under his paws, only air. Nothing for his claws to catch hold of. And then he’d impacted on soft earth and sweet-smelling flowers—although a few of them would never be the same after he’d landed on them. Shadow got back on his feet, shook himself, and sneezed. Then he pranced out onto the grass, his tail held high. Just in case anyone saw me, he thought, I’ll act as if I planned to do that.

*

Sunny managed to get in a decent nap before Cillie Kingsbury appeared at her door. “Carson got a call. His parents are in the air. They expect to land in about an hour.”

The news shouldn’t have startled Sunny. She knew the de Kruks were due to arrive today. So why did her stomach suddenly tighten the way it used to when she was going off to interview someone for a big story? She was just a spear-carrier in this particular opera—nothing but window dressing.

And speaking of dressing, she had just enough time to take a shower and change into her other suit before rejoining Priscilla downstairs. A moment earlier, Sunny had been admiring her reflection in her cinnamon-colored suit. She’d made more of an effort to get active lately, and the results had shown. Her suit wasn’t tight, the skirt was just the right height, she’d even felt stylish. Compared to Cillie’s outfit, however . . . Well, Priscilla’s left shoe probably cost more than Sunny’s whole outfit combined.

But if Sunny felt a reporter’s buzz, Cillie radiated nervousness.

“Come on,” Sunny told her. “You look as if you expect them to eat you. Haven’t the de Kruks been here before?”

“No,” Cillie replied. “And now that they’re almost here, everything looks so moth eaten.”

“Well, you look nice.” That was an understatement. Priscilla wore a deceptively simple aquamarine dress that flattered her short, sandy blond hair. The jewelry she wore with it was silver—old silver, with a patina, probably a hand-me-down from some Victorian ancestor.

“So do you,” Cillie said. “That’s a nice color for you.”

Sure—when you can’t compliment the clothes, compliment the color. With a determined mental effort, Sunny shut her interior critic down. She wasn’t the center of attention here, the bride was. “I’d tell the de Kruks that the place is like your jewelry—old with a story behind it.”

Cillie touched her necklace. “It was my great-great-grandmother’s. How did you know?”

“Because it looks like a family piece. Augustus de Kruk’s family line may be old, but their money is new. The Kingsburys, though, have history. To be crude about it, isn’t that what they’re marrying into? Even if that includes the silver monstrosity in the rear parlor.”

Sunny’s irreverent analysis shocked a laugh out of Cillie, and seemed to put her on a more even keel.

“So where will you receive the guests?” Sunny asked.

“Down in front of the big house,” Priscilla replied. “I suppose we’d better start collecting people and get a move on.”

They came downstairs to find that Carson had already shepherded the rest of the younger guests out onto the road. He wore a cool gray suit with a muted check. Its skinny lapels and tailored fit flattered his slim build. Tommy Neal was more businesslike in navy blue. Peter Van Twissel had a suit much the same color, but his was definitely off the rack and didn’t fit him as well. And with his khaki slacks, off white jacket, and shaggy hair, Beau Bellingham looked like a beach bum crashing the party. Yardley Neal was a symphony in beige—clearly an expensive ensemble, but in a color that didn’t necessarily suit her.

“Shall we get the show on the road?” Carson suggested.

They’d barely started on the path when they had to draw off to let a motorcade of two town cars and a Range Rover pass them on the way out. Sunny caught a glimpse of Lee Trehearne in the lead vehicle, barking orders into a microphone.

“There goes the welcoming committee,” Cillie muttered.

When they arrived at the mansion, only Cale Kingsbury stood outside. “Too much hot air in there,” he told Sunny with a grin. “The Senator is still working on his welcoming speech.” He got a little more serious when he saw Priscilla, taking both her hands and stepping back to admire her. “Pay no attention to your broken-down old uncle,” he said. “Except when he tells you that you’re a lovely young woman.” He turned to Carson. “And you, my friend, are a lucky young man.”

Actually, Cale didn’t look too broken-down. He wore a summer-weight tan suit with a slightly darker knit tie. Only the width of the tie and the lapels suggested that his suit wasn’t as fashion forward as some of the others.

Sunny wouldn’t have minded a chance to talk with Cale, but she didn’t get much of a chance. He circulated among the members of the wedding party, chatting and joking. And certainly bringing down the tension level, Sunny had to admit.

The rest of the Kingsbury clan emerged, the males in almost identical navy blue suits, although the Senator’s had a pinstripe. The female side of the party all wore pastels.

A security guard stepped up to whisper in the Senator’s ear. “They’ve arrived,” the Senator announced, and everyone began to sort themselves out along a fieldstone retaining wall in front of the house. Now that Sunny came to think of it, that wall had served as a background for numerous family photos she’d seen around the place.

Sunny quickly positioned herself away from the developing reception line. Spear carrier, she reminded herself. Window dressing.

Still, it was an impressive little ceremony as the de Kruks, Augustus and his wife Magda, arrived. The Senator welcomed them, looking almost natural as he shook hands with the Emperor Augustus. Then came the political glad-handing with the governors, Lem Junior and Tom and their ladies, Deborah and Genevieve. After that, Carson and Priscilla offered handshakes and hugs, ending the formalities.

Augustus de Kruk glanced around. With his shining dome, beaky nose, and piercing eyes overshadowed by heavy brows, he really did look like a bald eagle, the alter ego used in so many op-ed cartoons.

Personally, Sunny had never responded well to the “look of eagles” she read about. To her, what eagles were usually looking for was their next meal. Certainly, the Emperor Augustus was quick to pounce when his eye fell on Beau Bellingham. “I hope you’ll be getting a haircut before the wedding, young man.” Augustus’s trademark growling voice, which he’d used to blight a hundred reality-TV careers on his various business shows, rumbled out as if the big man were perfectly willing to make his record a hundred and one.

Beau looked as though he’d been slapped, putting a hand up to his blond mop. “Oh, uh, of course, sir.”

The Emperor nodded. All was right with the world.

Priscilla suddenly appeared beside Sunny, hooking her arm and bringing her forward to the imperial presence. “Augustus, I’d like to introduce Sunny Coolidge. She’s a reporter, sort of embedded with us for the wedding.”

That ignited a spark of interest in de Kruk’s predatory eyes.

Sure, Sunny thought, he always was a publicity hound.

“I wouldn’t have expected that, Priscilla,” Augustus said. “Such an interesting idea. Which media outlet do you report for, Ms. Coolidge?”

“The Harbor Courier, a local paper,” Sunny replied. “Because first and foremost, this is local news.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” The interest in de Kruk’s eyes blinked off as if a switch had been flicked when he heard that Sunny didn’t represent a national media outlet.

The Senator’s wife decided the moment had come to offer some concrete hospitality. “We have a little light meal prepared,” she offered. “Or, if you would prefer to freshen up after traveling—”

Her polite speech was interrupted by a near shriek from Augustus de Kruk. “What—what is that animal doing here?” His famous rumble came out more like a falsetto, and his hand trembled as he pointed over everyone’s head.

Like everyone else Sunny swiveled to see what had upset the big man. Then she had to stifle a large gulp.

“That animal” was a cat, peering down with interest from the top of the fieldstone wall.

And that cat was Shadow.