A Premonition of Murder (28 page)

“Noah told me you were on your way out here today, and I had a bad feeling about it.” She laughed. “Now, don't go telling the Dream Club, or they'll think it was a premonition.”

“You came because Noah told you we were in danger?”

“Not just that,” she admitted. “Jeb Arnold spotted Osteroff's car in the woods and figured he was up to no good. He called the precinct and said we'd better send some cops out because there was bound to be trouble.”

“So Jeb Arnold was looking out for us. I'm surprised,” I said. “Osteroff told us Jeb was a thief.”

“Yes, that he is,” Sam told me. “Jeb and Osteroff and Lucy have been stealing from the mansion for years. I'm sure of it. But he's not a murderer. The DA will likely go easy on him. After all, he probably saved your lives.”

“
You
saved our lives,” I said feelingly.

Sam laughed. “Hey, that's what friends are for.”

“Can we leave now?” Ali said in a small voice. “This place is creeping me out.”

“We can leave right now,” Sam said. “Let me just get some ice from the kitchen.”

“Ice?” I asked.

She gave a rueful smile. “I think I broke my wrist. I guess I need to brush up on my takedown moves.”

30

“I still think it was a premonition that brought you to Beaux Reves today,” Sybil said placidly. The Dream Club was in full force tonight. It wasn't an official meeting but everyone gathered at our place, including Sam Stiles, who'd just given an abbreviated account of what had happened in the library.

“I knew this would happen,” Sam said wryly. “Didn't I warn you, Taylor?” She helped herself to a cup of coffee and a couple of Russian tea cakes. Ali was experimenting with pastries once again, but this time with good results. A touch of hazelnut liqueur had jazzed up the sometimes-bland cookie and turned it into a masterpiece.

“Yes, you did.” I scooped Barney up into my lap. He was making the rounds and had just greeted the Harper sisters, who'd brought him cat treats. I hate to think that his favors can be bought, but I'm afraid that's the case.

“Well, if it wasn't a premonition, what was it?” Dorien asked. She seemed subdued tonight. She had been in a sour
mood since I'd shown her the tasting tray and Ali and I had given her a few marketing tips. Whether she didn't think our ideas were applicable to her struggling catering business or she had hoped for a full-out partnership, I wasn't sure. I felt satisfied we'd done enough. It's one thing to help a friend, but we couldn't jeopardize our own business, which was on something of an upswing.

“It was a confluence of events,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Excellent tea cakes,” she said to Ali, who beamed. “A lot of things happened at once,” Sam went on. “It wasn't just the call from Noah, although that certainly nudged me in the right direction. He said he had a
feeling
that you were in danger out at the mansion.”

I tried not to smile. Sam had grinned when she'd said the word “feeling,” and I knew what she was thinking. Everyone believes that Noah is as cool and analytical as I am and that's why we're such a good match. They don't think Noah is capable of acting impulsively, or on sheer instinct or gut feelings, yet I know he is.

“There was the call from Jeb Arnold to the station house,” she said, ticking off the items on her fingers. “He said Norman Osteroff was prowling around the grounds and had hidden his car in the woods behind the house. That was enough to make me sit up and take notice.”

“How awful,” Minerva said. “When I think of what that dreadful man could have done to you . . .”

“Saints preserve us,” her sister Rose murmured. “You two would have been goners.”

“And there was some forensic evidence that turned up yesterday,” Sam said. “I didn't have a chance to tell you about it, Taylor, but I know you'll be interested.”

“Go ahead,” I urged her. Barney was getting restless, and
I placed him gently on the floor, where he curled up on my feet.

“Someone had tampered with the cord to the boom box,” Sam said. “They'd replaced the original cord with a longer one. We checked it out with the manufacturer. You were right, Taylor. There's no way Lucy could have balanced the boom box on the edge of the tub. The cord was too short.”

“So Osteroff tossed the boom box in the water to make it look like an accidental electrocution?”

Sam nodded. “Pretty clever. He figured he'd get away with it.” She shook her head in amazement. “But he made one big mistake. He replaced the cord on the boom box with a new cord from the same manufacturer, but he didn't realize they'd changed the model. Lucy had an older version of the boom box, and it came with a short cord. That's how we knew he'd switched the cords.”

“And he admitted it?” Lucinda asked. Lucinda was perched on the edge of her chair, her back ramrod straight. She told me she'd gone to a very strict boarding school in her youth, and young ladies were not allowed to “slouch back” in their chairs. The habit has stayed with her, all these years later.

“He had to admit it,” Sam said. “We had him dead to rights. He must have noticed the boom box weeks earlier and bought the cord in case he had the opportunity to kill her. It was just sheer luck that she was taking a bath last night when he sneaked into the mansion. His original plan was to catch her with her hands in the kitchen sink when it was full of water. That was riskier because he wasn't sure the boom box would really electrocute her. The bathtub situation was perfect for him. She'd either be electrocuted or he could drown her.”

“What an evil man,” Sybil muttered. “To think he nearly got away with everything. Three people are dead because of him.”

“There's more,” Sam went on. “Do you remember that shiny object we spotted in the crime scene photos? The one with the fish?”

“Yes, of course. I wondered if it could have belonged to Lucy because she was religious and she had a fish symbol on her kitchen plaque.”

“Well, as it turns out, it wasn't a religious symbol at all. It part of an expensive cuff link: solid gold with a fish design.” She paused. “The fish represents Pisces, and the cuff links belonged to Osteroff. We found the other one when we searched his house. He probably had no idea Abigail had pulled it off when he'd struggled on the stairs with her.”

“He
was
a Pisces,” I said. “It said so on his college yearbook page.”

“Isn't it amazing how it all comes together?” Persia said. “The word around my office is that Osteroff was making a big play for Desiree. No one really believed it because they were such a mismatched couple.”

“But she had money and that's what he was after,” Sara said. “My society reporter friend said the same thing. She was positive they were an item. She could see it in their photographs, the way they leaned into each other, the intimate looks.”

I gave a little shudder. “Osteroff as a romantic hero is hard to imagine,” I said. “As far as I can tell, the only good thing about him is that he likes horses.”

“Horses! I knew there was something else,” Sam said. Her voice was high, ecstatic. I was thinking that this must be a magical moment for her. A murderer was brought to justice.
All the clues were there, but no one had put them together until now.

“Jeb Arnold liked horses, too,” I suddenly remembered. “You mentioned that to us, Dorien.”

“Yes, I did. But how does this tie into the murders?” Ali passed Dorien the cookie tray, and she put a few on a napkin.

“Remember the saddle soap and lanolin on the banister?” Sam asked. “We couldn't figure out where the saddle soap came from. It was just a tiny amount, but it shouldn't have been there at all. No commercial cleaning product uses saddle soap, so we figured it must have come from the killer's hand. It was right there on the palm print.”

“Norman Osteroff,” Ali said. “His wife raises horses, and he helps out with them.”

“If only we had seen all this before,” Etta Mae said. “Maybe we could have saved poor Lucy.”

Etta Mae is blunt sometimes, but she has a good heart, and I think she finds all this talk of murder distressing.

“We did what we could,” I said gently. “Lucy made a big mistake when she blackmailed Osteroff. She practically signed her own death warrant. You can't tangle with a man like that. And if you do, you can't win.”

“But tell us about the book,” Sybil demanded. “I know Abigail had tucked her diary between the dust cover of
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
, but what did it say? Did it lay out her suspicions about Osteroff?”

“Yes,” Sam replied. “It had everything: names, dates, money transfers. She realized Osteroff had duped her sister, and she didn't want to believe he had murdered her, but all the evidence pointed that way. She invited him to the mansion in a last-ditch effort to to force him to explain himself. The next step was going to the police.”

“But instead she ended up dead,” Ali said sadly.

“Just as she had predicted that day at lunch,” Minerva added.

I nodded. In all the excitement of Osteroff's arrest for three murders, I'd nearly forgotten Abigail's startling revelation at lunch.

“And we told her it was just a dream,” Rose said in a tiny voice. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “We told her dreams could be explained in many ways, and there was no reason to think her death was imminent.”

“You couldn't have known,” Persia said. “None of us could. We don't offer answers in our dream interpretation work. Just possibilities.”

“So there are no more surprises?” Sara asked. She was planning on writing an in-depth piece about the murders at Beaux Reves for a major news outlet.

“Well, just one or two,” Sam said. “Do you remember how Sophie seemed so mysterious? She just appeared out of nowhere as a distant relative.”

“I was suspicious of her from the start,” I said. “There was something off about her, but I couldn't put my finger on it.” I pointed to Sara's slender little notebook. She was balancing it on the arm of the chair while drinking tea and munching on cookies. “I wondered if she could be a reporter.”

“Bingo,” Sam said. “Her real name is Rachel Martin, and she was planning to write a tell-all book about Beaux Reves. She specializes in crime fiction writing and hoped to be the next Ann Rule. She wanted to spend time in Savannah researching Desiree's death, and she figured out a way to gain access to the mansion.”

“By claiming to be a relative!” Sybil said.

“Exactly. Sadly, Abigail fell for her story and took her
in. Sophie covered her tracks and even had a fake passport printed up with her phony name.” Sam paused and glanced at her watch. I knew she had to leave in a few minutes.

“What was her involvement with Angus?” I asked.

“Angus was on to her. He found out her true identity and threatened to go to Abigail unless Rachel looked the other way while he continued to steal from the mansion.”

“So Angus was involved in the thefts, too?” Lucinda asked. “All that beautiful artwork, gone who knows where.”

“Angus and Nicky were both involved. It seems everyone was stealing from Abigail. Taylor's theory was correct. They removed original paintings one by one and replaced them with forgeries. And sometimes they commissioned outright fakes.” She turned to the Harper sisters. “Like that fake William Gilbert. If you hadn't noticed the steeple in the painting, we may never have caught on.”

“What about that missing painting in the front hall?” Ali asked. “It was beautiful. I suppose they sold that, too?”

Sam stood up. “No, oddly enough, that painting is okay. It really
was
sent to a restorer in Savannah. Abigail sent it out herself. She made a notation about it in her diary.”

“So it all comes back to the book,” Ali said.

“It's all about the book,” I chimed in.

The Harper sisters smiled at us. “Always, my dears, always.”

“And who locked me in the basement?” I demanded. “Do we know?” I figured it had to be Angus or Jeb. Or possibly Lucy.

“It was a new gardener, and it was completely innocent. He misunderstood some instructions and barricaded the door to the root cellar. Nothing nefarious at all.”

We broke up shortly afterward, and Ali decided to turn
in early. Barney and Scout scooted down the hall after her, so I was alone in the living room, finishing off the pot of tea. What an evening it had been! Full of surprises and revelations. Desiree, Abigail, and Lucy.

I was filled with a sense of sadness at their deaths, yet it was good to have closure to the case. The last thing Sam told us before she left was that Abigail had left Beaux Reves to the Magnolia Society in her will, so it would be preserved and enjoyed for generations to come.

I was stifling a yawn when the phone rang. Noah.

“Are you still up? I see your light is on.”

I curled my feet under me on the sofa and hugged the phone to my ear. “The Dream Club left a while ago, after Sam brought everybody up to date. I'm just having a cup of tea and . . . Wait a minute,” I said, scrambling to my feet and heading toward the window. The plantation shutters were open and the soft night air was drifting into the room. “How do you know the light's still on?”