Murder Most Persuasive

Chapter 10

An hour later, the rest of the family left Ann and me surrounded by dirty dishes and empty glasses. Scarlett, who clearly had no Mammy to advise her to eat like a bird in front of others, freely gobbled up the scraps of food left behind. Miles had promised to call Stephen Guilford in the morning, although Frances and Reggie remained unconvinced of the wisdom of that plan. Pouring the last of the coffee into Ann’s cup, I said, “How are you holding up?”

After taking a sip, she said, “I don’t even begin to know how to answer that. It’s bad enough to have to remember that horrible night with Michael, but then to have to process the fact that someone killed him and buried him under our pool! And who’s in charge of it all? Joe!”

“Yeah. I guess it was kind of a stupid question. I was thinking, though, about something Scott said. He mentioned that Michael’s car was gone the morning after the party.”

“So?”

I paused. “Well, I just wondered what happened to it. Did Michael leave and then come back another way, or did someone else drive the car away?”

Ann considered the question. “Does it matter?”

“I think it might. Did his car ever turn up?”

Ann frowned at her coffee cup. “I believe the police eventually found it at the airport in Baltimore.” She nodded as if to confirm this fact. “Yes, they found it at BWI. I remember thinking that the only reason Michael would have left that car behind was if he’d left the country. Do you remember it? He had that Mercedes. I’ve never seen a man love a car so much. I wouldn’t be surprised if he rubbed it nightly with a diaper.”

I did remember the car. It was a C-class Mercedes, which a boyfriend of mine at the time had referred to as a “starter Mercedes.” It was perfect for Michael. Image was all-important to him, and he thought that his car labeled him as an up-and-comer in the world. I remember laughing at the time at how wrapped up into cars guys can get. All I noticed about the car was that it was black. Of course, men probably would say the same thing about women and shoes. Silly men.

“Well, Michael obviously never left the country,” I said. “I guess whoever killed him drove his car to the airport to make everyone think that. The question is, when did that person put it there?”

“I don’t see how the timing really matters,” Ann said.

“It might not, but there are only a few options. One, Michael left St. Michaels the morning of the fifth and then returned later for some unknown reason. Two, Michael left on the fifth, was killed, and then brought back. Three, Michael never left St. Michaels the morning after the party, meaning…”

“Someone who was at the party must have driven it away,” finished Ann, realization dawning.

“It would look that way.”

Ann stared at me. “Shit,” was all she said.

It wasn’t a terribly elegant thought—but wholly accurate. We didn’t say much after that, about the murder or anything else, for that matter. We were both too caught up in our own thoughts. I imagined that Ann was trying to process the sudden reappearance of Joe in her life and the grim possibility that someone we knew had killed Michael. I was wondering how Michael’s car ended up at the airport. I debated bringing it up again, but seeing Ann’s drawn face, I decided that she’d already dealt with enough tonight.

As we cleaned up the dishes, I found myself working out various scenarios in my head, scenarios revolving around different people killing Michael and hiding the body in the construction area for the pool. Could someone have really buried a body there without being seen? Was more than one person involved? I thought about Scott. He was familiar with the construction site and might have resented Michael, but was that really a motive for murder? Hell, I hadn’t liked Michael even before I found out about his attack on Ann, but I still couldn’t fathom someone killing him. Unless, I thought with a sick feeling, Michael’s attack on Ann was the very reason for his murder. I quickly glanced over at Ann, wondering if she’d thought of that. Her face, as she dried the cheese platter and put it away, was unreadable.

We said good night around ten o’clock and went upstairs to bed. I called Peter and quickly brought him up to speed on what had happened. After quietly listening to my tale, he said, “Another murder? Jesus, Elizabeth, I hardly know what to say. For a fact checker, you certainly have a fair amount of excitement thrown your way. Well, at least this time, thank God, you have no reason to get involved.”

When I didn’t answer right away, Peter said, “Elizabeth? You’re not actually thinking of getting involved in this, are you?”

“Well…” I paused, unsure how I really felt.

“Elizabeth! No! Please, no! I know you’ve been thrown into investigations in the past, but in those cases it was because the murder happened when you were there!”

“But in a way, I was there! I was at the Fourth of July party and no one saw Michael after that—or at least no one is admitting to it. After the party, Michael disappeared, and about a week later it was discovered that he’d embezzled Uncle Marty’s money. For all we know, he might have been killed during the party!”

“Yes, but he might not have. I don’t see why you think you need to get involved! Let the police handle this!”

“But this is family! I think Ann wants me to help—”

“Did she ask you to?” Peter interrupted.

“No, not in so many words but—”

“Did she ask in any words?”

“Peter! What is your problem? Ann is upset; she needs me now!”

“Fine! Hold her hand, talk to her, listen to her, but don’t play detective!” Peter took a deep breath and continued in a calmer tone. “I know you helped the police in the past, but Elizabeth, that doesn’t make you some kind of expert.”

“Hey, if it wasn’t for me, the police would have never figured out who killed Gerald Ramsey! I helped clear Aunt Winnie’s name!”

“And you also came very close to getting yourself—and me, I might add—killed!”

I squirmed a bit when he said that. I preferred to gloss over that part when I thought of my first success at sleuthing. “Peter, I’m not doing anything dangerous—nor am I going to do anything dangerous,” I quickly added, hearing him about to interrupt again. “I am just helping Ann while the police conduct their investigation. It’s bad enough for her that they discovered Michael’s body on the old property, but knowing that Joe is in charge of the whole investigation is pushing her over the edge. I am merely here for moral support right now.”

Peter groaned. “Right. Until you decide that moral support isn’t enough.” I had a sudden image of him resting his forehead on his desk in frustration. “Elizabeth, I don’t like this. I know you, you can’t not get involved, and I’m afraid that you’re going to get hurt!”

“How can I get hurt with you coming home to protect me?” I joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“That’s just it—I won’t be home for at least another week.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Oh, it’s a long, complicated, and ultimately stupid story,” Peter groused. “But I’ve got to stay out here awhile longer to get it all straightened out.”

“So I guess I won’t be coming out to see you this weekend?”

“It doesn’t look good. I’m sorry.”

Disappointment washed over me at the thought of Peter gone another week. “Oh. Well, that stinks.”

“I know. Just please promise me to be careful and not to get involved in anything beyond giving the police a statement. Just because this man was killed eight years ago doesn’t mean that his killer won’t do it again if threatened.”

A faint chill ran down my spine when he said that. “I promise,” I said softly, mentally amending “to be careful” to that statement. We talked a little more, but I think Peter sensed that I was bent on involving myself beyond his comfort level and was more than a little annoyed—both at being across the country and at not being able to convince me otherwise.

After we hung up, I changed into my pajamas and thought about that Fourth of July party all those years ago.

It had been a beautiful night. The day’s warmth had given way to a crystal-clear, balmy evening. Uncle Marty’s house, a white two-story colonial, sat on a manicured lawn that gently sloped down to the Miles River. Once night fell, we’d dragged wool blankets out onto the lawn and lain on them, idly watching the multicolored display of explosives above. The fireworks barge was so close that some of the debris from the explosions floated down to us like burned confetti. After the show was over, we’d watched the lights from the boats anchored on the water tip back and forth, gently rocked by the river’s current. After a while, the guests wandered off in various directions. Some, like Ann, Joe, and I, walked down to the water; others, like Frances, went inside to tend to the twins (Thing One and Thing Two), who were still nursing. Ann, Joe, and I sat on the dock, talking while we dangled our feet in the cool water. After a while, I walked back up to the house and headed to the bedroom that I was sharing with Ann. Sometime later, I heard the Things crying. When they didn’t stop after a minute or so, I got up to check on them. Scott was asleep on the bed—or rather, passed out on the bed. I had just started to soothe the boys when Frances came into the room and took over. Only seconds after I returned to my room, Ann came in disheveled and visibly shaken. It was then that she told me what had happened.

After Joe said good night, she’d remained on the dock, trying to decide if she should break it off with Joe before she left for England. Although she didn’t want to, she was being pressured by both her father and Laura to do so. As she sat there, Michael approached her. He saw that she was upset and made an effort to console her, putting his arm around her shoulders. Although Ann realized that he was drunk, she didn’t know just how drunk until he made his sudden declaration of love, a love he claimed to have always felt for her and not Reggie. He said Reggie was proud and shallow, but Ann was the real thing, going so far as to call Reggie a pale copy of Ann. He then further shocked her by trying to kiss her. When Ann pushed him away, he grew angry and tried to do much more than kiss her. His inebriation kept him from doing any real harm, but he was still bigger and stronger, and it was several desperate minutes before Ann was able to punch him and wrestle herself away. Without looking back, Ann ran blindly for the house and to our room. She was horribly shaken and upset. I wanted to tell Uncle Marty and Reggie, but Ann refused. I think on some level she knew that by telling her father and Reggie, she would be destroying Michael’s life. Even though he’d tried to attack her, she was loath to destroy him. She had some idea of talking to him in the morning and insisting that he get help and, of course, cancel the wedding. However, in the morning Michael was gone and Reggie announced that she’d broken it off with him. Ann saw no reason to tell Reggie the rest of it. A week or so later, Ann left for England and Michael’s embezzlement was discovered and we all thought we’d seen the last of him.

Which was sort of true.

But what had really happened? Had Michael left and come back? And if so, with whom and why? And why was he killed? Was it the money, or was it because of his attack on Ann? Or was it for some completely different reason? There was something there that bothered me, something I was missing. But every time I tried to pinpoint what it was, it swam out of reach.

As I continued to mull everything over, I realized that Peter was absolutely right. I was planning on injecting myself into this investigation. But why? Crawling under the bed’s thick duvet, I frowned at the ceiling. Was Kit (God forbid) right? Did I secretly see myself as a modern-day Nancy Drew, coolly stepping in to solve the crime when the local police force found themselves baffled? Did I actually possess a kind of knack for solving crimes, or was I merely a twenty-eight-year-old who was bored out of her skull with her current life? That last thought struck a tender nerve somewhere in the not-so-deep recesses of my head. Could that be my problem? True, I didn’t particularly enjoy my job, but so didn’t loads of other people and they didn’t run off and push themselves into murder investigations. For the first time in my adult life, I was in a mature, stable relationship with a great guy. Hell, just being in a relationship with a guy who wasn’t cheating on me, sponging off of me, or stealing my patent leather pumps for reasons best left unexamined was a first. True, a lot of my friends were getting married lately, and I could navigate both the Williams-Sonoma bridal registry and Babies “R” Us sites with my eyes closed. But did I want to get married and start a family? I loved Peter, but I didn’t know if I was ready for that step. Among other things, I always figured I should know how to balance my checkbook before I got married, let alone start a family.

No, I thought, squaring my shoulders as much as one can square shoulders in a bed with a down mattress, I refused to believe that I was focusing on these investigations to distract myself from a boring, but nevertheless secure, job and a life that seemed to have no real direction.

Then again, I’d believed in the Easter Bunny until I was almost twelve. I don’t even want to go into the whole Santa Claus debacle, except to say that childlike naïveté begins to resemble undiagnosed lead poisoning when it hits late adolescence.

I pulled the bedspread up to my chin and curled onto my right side. As I listened in silence to the soft, rhythmic ticking of my bedside clock, I decided the reason I found police investigations so fascinating wasn’t the issue. The issue was that a man—a man who was once considered a part of the family—had been murdered and buried under the family pool.

Don’t ask me why, but I found myself remembering the lines from A Charlie Brown Christmas, the scene where Charlie Brown confides to Lucy that he’s feeling let down about Christmas. Lucy assertively tells him, “You need involvement. You need to get involved in some real Christmas project. How would you like to be the director of our Christmas play?” To which Charlie Brown excitedly replies, “Me? You want me to be the director of the Christmas play?”

Well, no one had asked me to be the director of this investigation, but I had to admit that there was something enticing about setting an overlooked wrong to right.