Love Is Murder

IV

While Patrick and the others took Vanessa’s body to the root cellar, Lucy found Steve in the lodge’s office. He sat slumped at the desk with his head in his hands.

“Hey,” Lucy said softly, sitting across from him. “You okay?”

He shook his head. Though he had a lot of responsibility, he was still a young man, not even twenty-one, and this situation seemed to be taking its toll. He picked up a quart carton of orange juice that was on the desk next to him and took a long gulp. Drinking from the carton reminded Lucy of her brothers growing up. Her sister Carina would have a shit fit if she caught them, and always found an innovative way to get back at them. Once, Carina poured hot sauce in the orange juice. Patrick had been the brunt of that spicy etiquette corrective.

“Did you call to the sheriff?” Lucy asked.

Steve looked up. He tucked some papers under the desk calendar before saying, “Yes. There’s no way they’ll be here before noon tomorrow, and that’s still contingent on the storm. They’ll know more in the morning. They ran Patrick through their system, I guess, and said he should determine what’s best to do with the body until they arrive.”

“Patrick is taking care of it. We need to close off that room, however.”

“Why?”

“Health reasons.”

He didn’t seem to find Lucy’s answer odd. That she was becoming a better liar didn’t please her.

“Who has keys?” she asked.

“The guests would have two. There’s an extra here. I have a master key for every room.”

“May I have it?”

“I won’t go in.”

“I know, but Patrick wants to control the keys.”

Steve now looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”

“I’m just doing what my brother asked. I’m not a cop.”

He pulled the key from his ring and handed it to her. He then reached over into one of the boxes and handed her an extra key. “I don’t have the other two.”

“We have Vanessa’s, and Patrick will get Trevor’s.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Anytime a healthy person dies, it’s never a mistake to be extra cautious. But I’m certain the coroner will clear everything up as soon as the body gets examined.” She then asked, “What other things have been going on around here?”

“What do you mean?”

“Upstairs you said-”

“Oh.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “I was just feeling sorry for myself.”

“This has been a hard year for you. When did your father die?”

“Last March. Nearly a year ago, but I still miss him so much.” His voice cracked and he looked away. He took another pull on his orange juice.

“I know. I’m so sorry. Beth told me there had been some mechanical problems, with the generator, then the bear in the root cellar-”

“Grace thinks I left the door unlatched, but I didn’t. I’ve secured that root cellar every night since I was eight.”

“How long have you been feeling dizzy?”

“That has nothing to do with anything.”

“Maybe, but I’m worried about you.”

“Why should you care? You don’t even know me.”

True, and Lucy didn’t have an answer. She was sticking her nose into other people’s business. “I have some medical training, and the dizziness and fatigue and imbalance could be a sign of something serious.”

“Look, I spent three days in the damn hospital in Jackson right before Christmas. They said my blood pressure was a little low, but not dangerously so, and they ran their battery of tests. Everything came back normal ’cept for borderline anemia. So I’m on an iron supplement. Grace shouldn’t be talking to everybody about my problems. It’s all under control.”

“You fell off a cliff today, Steve.”

“I just slipped.”

“For a kid who grew up in these mountains, I think you’d know better.”

“I can’t spend any more time in a hospital. Grace can’t run this place alone, and without at least some guests, we won’t survive the year. I don’t want us to sell the lodge. I can’t disappoint my dad like that. I didn’t think we’d ever be in this position. Dad always had an emergency fund, but-”

“But what?”

“It’s gone. Grace said he didn’t want to tell me that the lodge had been running in the red for the last few years, and he was using his savings to keep it afloat.” Steve put his head back down. “I can’t lose my home. It’ll be like losing Dad all over again.”

Looking for Patrick, instead Lucy found Heather Larson in the dining room. The vacationer from the Silicon Valley was loading food on a plate, but no one else was eating.

“I thought I’d bring Trevor something to eat, though I doubt he’ll touch it,” she said. “Still, he’ll need something to soak up all the scotch he’s drinking.”

Lucy winced. He’d be difficult to interview if he was falling down drunk.

“Did she kill herself?” Heather asked, just like everyone else had.

“We don’t know.”

“It’s so awful, either way, but I hope it was natural. For Trevor. He’s such a nice guy.”

Lucy had thought so, too, until his wife ended up murdered. “They both seemed nice, though Vanessa was quiet.”

“She was a bit weird. I never thought she’d kill herself though.”

“Weird? How?”

Heather shrugged. “Maybe I should say she was interested in strange things. Like this morning. Alan and I were up early to take a walk. She was standing by the barn taking pictures through the window.”

Lucy remembered some dark images on Vanessa’s camera, but she had assumed the camera had just gone off in her purse or something. She’d have to look more carefully at the detail.

“And then when I told her Alan and I were going to town, she asked me to mail something for her.”

“And why is that strange?”

“It was a postcard with a short message. ‘You are right. We win.’ ”

That was odd. “Who did she mail it to?”

Heather shrugged. “It went to Phoenix, but I didn’t pay attention to the name. I showed it to Alan, though. Maybe he remembers.”

A gust of wind burst through the house, and a door slammed shut. Lucy ran to the foyer, and saw Patrick and the other two men covered with snow, their faces red. “That was miserable,” Alan said. Lucy didn’t know if he was talking about the weather or moving Vanessa’s dead body to the root cellar by the side of the house.

“Is it locked?” Lucy asked.

“No bears will get into that place,” Patrick assured her and showed her the key to the padlock. He pocketed it, then took off his jacket and hung it on a rack near the door.

“Alan,” Heather said, “do you remember that postcard Vanessa asked us to mail?”

“Of course.”

“Who did she mail it to?”

“Nelson Russell.”

Heather said, “There you go,” she said to Lucy. “Why do you want to know?”

Lucy shrugged. “Just curious.” She glanced at Patrick, nonverbally telling him she’d clue him in later. “Patrick, Trevor is drinking heavily. You might want to talk to him now.”

“I’m bringing him this food-” Heather began.

Lucy took the plate. “I’ll take it for you.”

“I am frozen solid,” Alan said to his wife. “Let’s go upstairs.”

Lucy followed Patrick into the library. Kyle joined them. Angie sat with Trevor, holding his hand while he sobbed. The room reeked of scotch. Angie looked to be at her wit’s end.

Lucy said to Kyle, “We’ll relieve Angie. She needs a break. You two should get some food and relax. It’s going to be a long night.”

“Good idea,” Kyle said, escorting his wife from the room.

Patrick shut and locked the door. He sat down across from Trevor. “I’m sorry for your loss, Trevor.”

“Two years. We waited two years to get married. Two wasted years.”

“I know this is difficult. But-”

“We were both married before. But her ex-husband was an asshole and my ex-wife was just nuts. That we met up again after all those years-”

“Again?” Lucy asked.

“We dated back in high school, after my family moved to Phoenix from California. Vanessa and Nelson-her brother-became my closest friends. Then we went to different colleges, got married, all those things that people do. I always loved Vanessa, and when my divorce was final I moved back to Phoenix and we started seeing each other again. For two years. Taking it slow, because we wanted to make sure-” He coughed to cover up his distress.

“You come from a wealthy family?”

“We both do. Vanessa’s dad was in the construction business. He always did well, but in the eighties his business took off. He retired ten years ago, left it to Vanessa and her brother. They’ve done even better. She’s so smart.” He put his hand to his mouth. “She was. She was so smart. She wouldn’t kill herself. She loved life. Everything about it.”

“We don’t know that she killed herself,” Patrick said. Both he and Lucy were closely watching Trevor’s reaction. But his grief seemed genuine.

“She didn’t,” he said as if Patrick’s statement needed additional emphasis.

“Was she on any medication?”

Lucy hadn’t found any other prescriptions in the Marshes’ room other than the Seconal.

“No.”

“But she took sleeping pills.”

“Sometimes, but only when we travel because she doesn’t like sleeping in strange beds. She took one last night because she couldn’t sleep, but that’s it.”

“Was she acting depressed lately? Did she get any bad news?”

Trevor shook his head.

“And your relationship was good?”

“Yes! We just got married!” He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “I love her so much.”

He reached for his scotch and saw it was empty. He stood and grabbed the arm of the couch for support.

“Maybe you should slow down,” Patrick cautioned.

“Leave me alone. Just leave me alone!”

Patrick put an arm on Trevor to steady him, then eased him back onto the couch. Lucy asked, “Was Vanessa close to her brother?”

“Very. Two peas in a pod. Nelson was one of my best friends. We’re a year older than Vanessa. He’s my brother-in-law now-” Trevor choked back a sob. “This will kill him. Why did this happen to Vanessa?”

“A coroner will make that determination,” Lucy said.

“I need to know. I just need to know that she was happy. That she didn’t-” He pressed his palm on his forehead.

“What did you do today after breakfast?” Patrick asked. That had been the last time he and Lucy had seen the Marshes.

“We went on a walk. A long walk to this vista with an amazing view. We talked. Thought about how nice it would be if we could have a vacation home up here. Phoenix is so damn hot-and I suggested we go to Kirkwood and check out some properties. Vanessa asked if I would do it alone, she wasn’t up for snowmobiling. Beth went with me, and it only took thirty minutes to get there. We stayed a few hours, got back at three or so. I went to check on Vanessa, but she was sleeping and I left-What if she was in trouble and I could have helped her?” His voice rose in panic.

But Lucy caught what he’d said. “She was sleeping? You went into your room?”

“I opened the door and saw her lying on her side, curled up like she sleeps. I let her rest. But when she didn’t come down by five, I went back to wake her up and she-” He broke off.

Trevor had put himself at the scene of the crime during the window when Vanessa was murdered.

“Are you sure she was asleep?” Lucy asked.

“I don’t understand, of course she was asleep.”

He could have been mistaken. She could have been dead, but looked asleep. The eyes often opened as the muscles in the lids contracted during early stages of rigor mortis. But she might have been sleeping. Or drugged, in order for the killer to inject her with whatever killed her.

But she was presupposing that Trevor wasn’t the killer.

“Where did you live before you returned to your hometown?” Patrick asked.

“I went to college in Boston, and stayed there. Met my first wife. We moved to Dallas so I could be close to my team.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I owned the Dallas Kings.”

“The baseball team?”

He nodded. “I sold it during the divorce, to my ex-wife. I bought it for her, anyway, but at least I got my money back, and more. Treena was the sports nut. So nutty that after I caught her cheating on me the second time with a player, I filed for divorce.”

“And what do you do where you can buy and sell baseball teams?”

“Do?” He almost smiled, though his blue eyes were still watery and rimmed red. “I’m an investor. Venture capital. I invest in companies I think have promise, in exchange for a small percentage. I’m good at what I do. Out of twenty-nine investments this last decade, twenty-two were successful.”

“Define successful.”

“Five years ago I invested five hundred thousand in two college students to develop tracking software that helps businesses target their most likely customers. I gave them a little advice on how to sell the software-instead of flat-fee licensing, they get royalties on the license. In two years, they were netting over one million a year. Last year, it was three million. I own twenty percent of the company. In five years, I’ve more than tripled my initial investment. That’s my most successful venture to date. I love those boys like they’re my own sons.”

Patrick seemed impressed, but he was always into technology. Something felt wrong to Lucy, though. “Trevor,” she said, “why would you and Vanessa spend your honeymoon at a lodge like the Delarosa? I’d imagine that you could buy your own cabin anywhere you wanted.”

“Vanessa saw a brochure for the place and wanted to visit. We’re going-” He stopped himself, leaned back and closed his eyes. “We were leaving for Hawaii on Wednesday. Now-I have to call her father and brother. Oh, God, how are we going to make it without Vanessa?”

Lucy and Patrick stood in the dining room, dishing up lukewarm dinner. “I don’t think he killed her,” Lucy said quietly.

“It could be an act.”

“Could be.”

“You don’t think so?” he asked.

“No. You didn’t see him with her body. I don’t think that could be faked.”

They sat at one of the round tables. “Maybe we’re wrong,” Lucy said. “Maybe that mark isn’t an injection.”

“It wasn’t a bee sting.”

“We won’t know until an autopsy.”

They ate for a moment in silence. Lucy added, “The lodge here is struggling. Steve said his father spent their savings keeping it afloat.”

“Upstairs, Beth and Grace were talking about selling.”

“Beth was,” Lucy reminded him. “Grace was worried about Steve.”

“What if Vanessa wanted to buy the Delarosa?” Patrick said. “With Trevor’s money, she could easily afford it. Probably could with her own money.”

“A place like this, with all the land, so close to Kirkwood? It’s worth a lot.”

“Then why is Steve so worried? He could get a loan on it.”

“I don’t know-maybe there already is a big mortgage.”

“We can look into that easily enough. But what if Steve heard that Vanessa wanted to buy the lodge? Maybe she persuaded Grace or Beth. Steve wouldn’t want to sell-”

“You’re suggesting he killed her?”

“If Grace owns the place after his dad’s death, then she could sell whenever she wanted.”

Grace might have been worried about Steve’s health. She could have thought selling the lodge was the right thing to do. “But,” Lucy said, “we don’t know if she owns the land, or Steve, or both.”

“We can find out.”

“We’ll need to go to the recorders office, or-”

“Or I can look around here.”

Lucy frowned. “You need to be careful.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

She didn’t want to believe Steve was a killer, but he seemed so distraught. Perhaps his mysterious illness made him act rashly.

There was something premeditated about Vanessa’s death. Who keeps hypodermic needles lying around? Who has poison at their disposal-and knows how to use it?

“You need to be careful, too, sis.” Patrick said.

A crash from the kitchen had Lucy and Patrick bolting up from their chairs. Patrick pushed open the swinging door into the kitchen and found Kyle DeWitt on the floor, struggling to stand.

Patrick squatted next to him and helped him sit up. “Whoa, Kyle, hold on a second. What happened?”

“I just felt dizzy.”

“And fainted?”

“I guess.” He touched his forehead. A bump was already forming.

Lucy walked over to the refrigerator for ice and stepped into a puddle of spilled juice amid broken glass.

“Sorry,” Kyle said. “I dropped my glass.”

Grace rushed in. “What happened?”

“I’m fine. Really.” The guy looked embarrassed. “Just slipped.”

Grace stared at the mess on the floor.

“I’ll clean it up,” Lucy offered.

“No,” Grace snapped, “I’ll do it.” She strode over to a cabinet and grabbed some rags and a broom and dustpan.

Lucy and Patrick exchanged glances. She was wound tight. Maybe they all were tonight, with a dead body in the root cellar.

“You fainted,” Patrick said. “You didn’t just slip.”

Grace said, “We’re at a seventy-five-hundred-foot elevation. The air is thinner up here.” She knelt to pick up the biggest pieces of glass.

Lucy said, “Grace is right. The thin air could affect you, especially if you overexert yourself. Usually symptoms of high-altitude sickness don’t occur until eight thousand feet-”

Grace cut her off. “That’s arbitrary. People are affected differently.”

“True,” Lucy said, though she didn’t completely agree. The human body processed oxygen at different ranges comfortably; it was when the atmosphere started to thin at eight thousand feet that the oxygen level sharply declined. Kyle was a grown man, physically fit, and he shouldn’t have a problem here. But she wasn’t going to quibble over five hundred feet. “Do you have a headache?” Lucy asked.

“No, I just felt light-headed and dizzy. I didn’t really faint.”

Patrick helped Kyle to his feet. “I think we’re all tired and under stress. You should go to bed. We all should.”

“Good idea,” Grace said.

Angie walked in. “What’s wrong?” She looked at the bump on Kyle’s head. “My God, Kyle! What happened?”

“I slipped. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing!”

Lucy handed Angie the makeshift ice compress she was holding. Angie put it on his head. “Ouch, that’s cold!”

“Let’s go to bed,” Angie said. “I need to keep my eye on you.”

He kissed her, then pulled her into a hug. “I’m fine, babe, really. You can have your way with me.”

Angie hugged her husband back tightly, her voice filled with emotion. “You’d better be.”

“Hon, I am. Really.”

Kyle kept his arm around his wife, and they said good night to the others as they walked out together.

Lucy watched them leave the kitchen. She reflected that even after two years with Cody, she’d never felt that comfortable with him, where she could joke about their sex life or show public displays of affection. With Kyle and Angie it was entirely natural, not in any way forced. Their affection showed in their expression, how they looked at each other, how they touched each other. It was the subtle hints that showed Lucy that Kyle and Angie truly cared for each other, the little things that Lucy had worked hard to remember when she and Cody were still together, but usually forgot.

She wondered if she would ever find someone where she didn’t forget those small touches that said I love you.