Engaged to Die (22 page)

“Billy, for Christ's sake,” Rusty exploded. “It's my wife. You won't tell my wife, will you?”

Beth's lips quivered. She reached up, pressed her fingers against her mouth.

Max leaned against the wall, his gaze bleak. He'd always enjoyed playing golf with Rusty. Loud, boisterous, and profane, Rusty had a joke a minute. Max didn't think they'd ever be a foursome again. Not if Max could help it. Beth's pain flooded the room, waves of hurt and humiliation and loss. Max looked
away from her face, so much older than when they'd walked through the door.

Rusty threw out his hands. “Jesus, man, is that too much to ask? Look”—he hitched his chair closer to the desk, ignoring Beth—“everything's a mess. I knew I had to straighten things out when I got that goddamn phone call this afternoon. I mean, I don't like to be hassled. If I hadn't been hassled last night”—he shot a dark look at Beth—“we wouldn't be here right now.”

Beth Kelly stumbled to her feet. “Hassle? Is that what you call it? How about all the lies you told me? You said you loved me. Sure, you'd meet me places, make love to me, stay with me in hotels in Atlanta and Charleston. But when it came down to it, you never intended to leave her, did you?” She was oblivious to Billy and Max, her entire being focused on the red-faced man who kept his gaze averted from her. “Look at me, damn you.” Her voice rose, cracked.

“Oh, shit.” Rusty pushed up from his chair, exasperated, embarrassed, impatient. Finally, he looked toward her. “Beth, leave it alone. Can't you think about something besides yourself for one goddamn minute?”

Beth slapped her arms across her front. “Something else? Like your wife? Like how you sure don't want your wife to know what you were up to last night? How about me? What do you think the school board will do if it gets in the papers that I was down at the point with you? What if that comes out? All you care about is Susan. You can't even think about me.” She turned toward Billy. “I'm not going to say a word about anything if it's going to get into the
Gazette
.”

Billy was reassuring. “Ms. Kelly, if you didn't have anything to do with the death of Mr. O'Neill, this of
fice will have no reason to release any information concerning you.”

“Or me?” Rusty demanded.

Beth lifted her hands in outrage. “Oh, sure, first things first. Got to keep Susan in the dark.” Her lips quivered.

“Beth.” Rusty spoke quietly, but the muscles ridged in his jaw. “Let's talk about this later.” He took a deep breath. “God, I'm sorry, Beth.” There was a note of puzzlement in his voice. “I thought we were having fun. That's all.”

Billy hurried to speak before Beth could reply. “All right, Mr. Brandt. I'll hear from you one at a time. You first. Your tuxedo jacket tested positive for human blood. Now I'd better make it clear that you have a right to counsel, and anything you say…”

As Billy rattled off the Miranda warning, Rusty's face sagged with shock. “Jesus, you don't think I did anything to Jake?”

Billy's stolid expression remained unchanged.

“Oh, God, I never thought of being suspected. It was the hassle. Susan—” He shot a look at Beth, shook his head in exasperation. “But when I got that damn call this afternoon, I knew I had to do something. I damn sure wasn't going to pay some bitch money—”

Max pushed away from the wall, leaned forward. “Hold up, Rusty. What call? When? From whom?” He didn't look at Billy, but he hoped Billy was listening hard. Here was proof that Elaine Hasty should be picked up at once.

“Oh, hell, maybe an hour ago. I don't know who it was. She whispered. I'm pretty sure it was a woman.” Anger hardened Rusty's voice. “Anyway, she said she
saw me going to the point last night around the time Jake O'Neill was murdered. She demanded money, five hundred dollars in twenties. She called Beth, too, made the same pitch.”

Billy pulled his notepad close. “We'll get to the calls in a minute. Blackmail's a serious offense. Murder is a capital crime. I want to know exactly what each of you did last night. And Ms. Kelly…” Once again, he reeled off the Miranda warning.

Beth Kelly clasped her hands tightly together. “I didn't have anything to do with murder. All I did—”

“Shut up, Beth. Nobody thinks you killed him. You probably'd never even met him. My God, we were just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Rusty took a deep breath. “I can explain.”

Billy waited, his eyes intent. “I'm listening.”

Rusty flung himself into his chair. “Sit down, Beth.”

She shook her head and folded her arms tight, remained standing.

His face turned even redder. “Suit yourself.” He leaned back ostentatiously. “This is all a lot of trouble for nothing. That's why I didn't say anything last night. She”—he tilted his head at Beth—“was giving me trouble. She insisted we had to talk. I mean, my God, what a lousy time and place. There's Susan and the rest of the family and this stupid party. I didn't want to be there anyway. I told Susan we ought to boycott the damn thing, Virginia ramming that little creep down our throats right in front of everybody we know. Susan said we had to play along. So there I was at the damn party, and Beth comes up to me and says we have to talk. Like I can slip off with her and have a tête-à-tête without anybody noticing. She kept insisting, and finally I told her I'd meet her at the point. I mean,
Jesus”—he gave a long-suffering sigh—“women can be unreasonable. I went out the back door—”

Beth's eyes burned with fury. And anguish.

Max opened his notebook. “What time was this?”

Rusty shrugged. “I don't know. People were starting to go up to the tent for the program. Susan had already left the gallery. I knew she expected me to come along pretty soon. Must have been around nine, maybe a few minutes after. Anyway, I went down the path and—”

Billy held up his hand. “Take it slow here. You walked down the path. Did you see anyone?”

Rusty clawed at his reddish hair. “Hell, no. Who'd be down at the point on a night like that? That's why I picked it. Anyway, I hurried. I knew I better get to the tent before Susan started to wonder. I came around that curve by the pines. I couldn't see much because of the fog. It was cold as Greenland. I figured the chill would cool Beth off, get her back to the house. And then Beth came flying up the path from the point. She would have screamed her head off if she could have got a breath. I grabbed her and asked her what the hell was wrong. She said—”

Billy interrupted. “Let her tell it.” He turned cold eyes on Beth.

“It was awful.” Her voice was husky. “I thought Rusty had gone ahead of me or I'd never have taken that path by myself. It was nine o'clock. I heard the clock—a big grandfather clock in the main hallway—striking just as I went out the back door.”

Max nodded. He didn't remember seeing Beth, but it was just about then that Annie caught a glimpse of Chloe running toward the kitchen parking lot.

Beth shivered. “It was scary, the fog hiding everything. I could only see a few feet ahead.”

“Did you see anyone? Hear anything?” Max asked quietly. “Take your time. You may be able to help us a lot.” His tone was friendly.

She gave him a look of gratitude. Her face lost a little of its tautness. “I don't think so. Not until I got to the point. I waited near the sign to the fort. I thought”—her face squeezed in remembrance—“I heard footsteps on the path into the garden. I whirled and looked. I saw something move”—she lifted her shoulders in a shrug—“I don't know what. It was so dark and foggy. I think”—her voice was uncertain—“somebody was on that path. The other one, not the path from the gallery. I called out for Rusty, but nobody answered.” She looked sick. “Maybe it was the murderer.”

Billy interrupted impatiently. “Let's get this straight—”

Beth tensed.

Max drew NO on his pad in big fat capital letters. If Billy showed a little more finesse, they might learn something of critical importance.

But Billy was hewing to his own plan. “You thought maybe”—he drawled the word—“you heard something in the garden. And maybe”—again his impatience was clear—“you saw something. Let's stick to what happened.”

“It was foggy.” Her retort was sharp. “I didn't exactly see anything. I almost”—her shoulders hunched—“didn't find the body. But I was so cold, and it seemed like I waited and waited, and I thought maybe Rusty was blowing me off”—she shot him a bitter look—“like he is. Anyway, I started pacing back and forth and I guess I went farther than I intended toward the shore. I was close to the overlook. I saw somebody lying on the ground. I knew something bad
had happened. Nobody would lie down there and not move. It was a man. I froze for a minute and he never moved. Never. I turned and ran. When I was almost to the pines, Rusty came. I told him there was somebody hurt at the point. He told me he'd go and see and I'd better go home, keep out of it.”

Max was figuring on his pad:

Murder must have occurred—assuming witness's account is truthful—between 8:50 and approximately 9:04. According to Chloe Martin, O'Neill was alive when she left him. That would have been about 8:58, allowing her time to reach the kitchen parking lot by 9:00. This puts the span of time during which the murder might have happened at 8:59 to 9:04.

Max looked at Rusty. “You went down to the point.” The bloody jacket was proof. “You found him and left him there without doing anything?”

Rusty flushed at Max's tone. “Hell, man, there wasn't anything anybody could do. He was dead. I got down, looked. How do you think I got blood on me? I mean, I made sure. Then I thought it over. My God, what a mess. Jake dead, and what the hell could I say I was doing out there? Everybody knew I thought he was a jerk. But hey, you don't kill a guy because he's a jerk.”

Max gave him a thoughtful look. “Not even when you think he's going to hijack the family fortune?”

“Hell, no.” Rusty exploded. He swung toward Billy.

“Look, I swear the guy was dead. It had nothing to do with me or Beth. If I'd raised the alarm my wife was going to want to know what the hell I was doing down there—”

Billy leaned back in his desk chair. “Did you have any conversation with O'Neill at any time last night?”

Rusty flung out his hands. “Not a word. I didn't have anything to say to the creep. Anyway, why would I have Beth meet me there if I planned to kill him?”

Max's tone was casual. “It's never looked like a premeditated crime. Either Chloe Martin killed him and ran away, or she left him alive and somebody killed him after she left. Maybe you got there and heard them quarreling, and after she left, you grabbed up a heavy stick and attacked him. Beth wasn't there yet. You heard her coming and hurried off into the garden. When you got back to the gallery, you headed again for the point, and that's when Beth ran into you.”

“Not bloody damn likely.” Rusty's voice was strong, but beneath his bluster there was the shrillness of fear.

“No way, Max. Not me. I'm not going to be a patsy for anybody. I did exactly what I said. Hell, I wouldn't dare come here and tell you about the blackmail if I was guilty. I'd have had to pay the damn money. Instead I told the blackmailer to get lost. I figured she'd call Beth, too. And she did. I told Beth we had to come and clear things up. Nope, you can't pin this on me. And I'm not paying blackmail to anybody.”

 

Annie rushed inside the police station. She skidded to a stop in front of the counter. “Mavis, is Billy here?”
Annie looked up at the clock. A quarter to five. Fifteen minutes until Chloe's call…

Even at the best of times Mavis never quite looked relaxed, her eyes holding the memory of old terrors despite her happy years on the island since she met and married Billy. Now her face was tired and drained. “He's got some people in there, Annie. The O'Neill case. I'll let him know you're here.” She punched the intercom. “Captain, Mrs. Darling is here. She says—”

Annie leaned over the counter. “I may be able to help him find Chloe Martin, but I need to talk to him about it. As soon as possible.”

“—she has information about Chloe Martin's whereabouts. There is some urgency.”

Billy's voice crackled over the speaker. “Good.” Surprise mingled with satisfaction. “I can see her in a few minutes. We're finishing up. I'll buzz.” The connection ended.

 

Billy glared at Rusty Brandt. “You should have strung her along. Said you'd pay. Then we could have fixed up a packet for you, taken it to the drop-off.”

Rusty folded his arms. “I told her I didn't pay blackmail. I told her to call the cops and be damned. Then I hung up.”

Billy's face creased. “So all we have is your word against hers.”

“Wait a minute.” Rusty held up a broad hand. “I'm not going to make a complaint. And neither is Beth.”

Billy's face was about as pleasant as congealed pond scum. “Blackmail's a crime, Mr. Brandt. Your civic duty is to help the authorities. When and where was the money to be left?”