High Heels and Homicide (27 page)

Everyone laughed, and for a moment, the tension eased.

“Where was I?” Maggie asked. “Oh, sorry, Alex. I was jumping ahead, wasn't I? Go on. I see where you're going. Bless you, Bernie.”

“Thanks,” Bernie said after her loud sneeze, then blew her nose. “This had better be worth pneumonia, Alex. Come on, show us the secret passage.”

“First things first,” Saint Just told her. “You will all please remember that what I'm about to say is conjecture only and I've no real proof. However, I believe that Mr. Undercuffler, a known criminal—”

“Whoa! Back up, Sherlock,” Maggie said. “A
known
criminal? I thought we were just guessing that he was part of it. Is that what Steve told you? Sam was an actual criminal?”

“Yes, indeed, although possibly reformed. But, following your example, I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I? We'll step back in time a moment and consider Miss Pertuccelli, shall we?”

“Why?” Nikki asked, blowing on another recently filed nail. “She's dead. They're both dead. Can we go downstairs now? What do we care about secret passages?”

“I want to see the secret passage first,” Sir Rudy protested. “I paid for it.”

Saint Just, always accommodating, proceeded to drop to one knee and run his hand down the side of the mantelpiece until he felt the slight indentation, then pushed.

As before, the opening appeared, this time to oooh's and aaah's and one heartfelt “And it's all mine!”

“I think it best that we don't further disturb anything inside the passageway until the constable has been,” Saint Just told them, shutting the panel once more. “Fingerprints, that sort of thing. But I will tell you all my theory.”

“Our theory,” Maggie added. “I give
you
credit.”

“Our theory,” Saint Just concurred. “It is our theory that Miss Pertuccelli was aware of Mr. Undercuffler's dubious background and, either by plan or happenstance, enlisted him in her hunt for the missing jewels, the jewels allegedly hidden somewhere in Medwine Manor by the late and reportedly lingering Uncle Willis.”

Maggie shrugged. “Okay, so I didn't know about his record until now, but I was right about her hiring Sam as a partner in crime.”

“Possibly. Probably.”

Sir Rudy clapped his hands. “The stolen jewelry, of course! That's where Uncle Willis hid it all. They found it? I'd always hoped, but they really found it? A fortune in jewels?” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Oh. That's not good. Because they're gone again, aren't they?”

Maggie nodded her agreement. “Right. But let's get back to Sam because he's our first victim and the murders are more important than the jewelry.”

“Says you, missy,” Sir Rudy grumbled, looking crestfallen.

Maggie pushed on. “Instead of sending Sam looking around for places to shoot the movie, Joanne was really sending Sam off to look for the jewels. Except she already had a pretty good idea where they were, and I don't think we understand that part yet. Do we, Alex?”

“A detail that will fall into place in time,” Saint Just told her. “For the nonce, we'll concentrate on Sam, as you call him, and Joanne. Joanne sent Sam off, the hiding place for the jewels was discovered, and the jewels recovered, all via this room and the secret passage. At which point there may have been a general falling-out or a planned severing of an uneasy partnership.”

“She killed him and left him in the attic room, maybe even dragged him up there,” Maggie clarified for their very attentive audience. “Sam didn't hang himself or get himself hanged. We told you it was murder, but I don't think we told you how we knew. He was strangled with Joanne's stopwatch cord and not hung up until hours later. That can be proved by the marks on Sam's neck, but we won't go into the how of that right now, either. We found the stopwatch behind a bureau up in the attic room right above us. We're figuring he died maybe an hour after I last saw him.”

“But then there was a problem, as is often the case with impulsive acts,” Saint Just said, taking up the story, pleased as he could be at how he and Maggie seemed to so neatly dovetail each other. “It would seem that Tabby and you, Mr. Lloyd, had decided to adjourn to this room, with the first murder committed and Sam's body still in the attic above you. And, quite possibly, the jewels were still there as well. You had to be removed from the room. Thus the open doors to flood the generators.”

“Why not just climb the stairs to the attics, Saint Just?” Sterling asked.

“A good question, but I believe I have the answer. The dust. Once the murder was done, the murderer or murderers had time to think, to come up with a plan. Footprints in the considerable dust would leave a trail showing that more than one person had climbed those stairs and walked those attics, both coming and going—that one person being the supposedly suicidal Sam Undercuffler, who could not possibly have made
two
tracks of footprints if he was dead by his own hand.”

“They could have just swept the attic and gotten rid of the whole dust problem,” Maggie said.

“True, but we've had more time to consider alternative possibilities. The murderers did not. They were, as you would say,
winging
it. To continue, the lack of footprints in the dust also would delay anyone's curiosity in searching for the writer in this particular attic of this very large pile, at least long enough for the murderers to make good their escape.”

“Besides,” Maggie interrupted yet again, “Sam was
only
the writer. If Joanne didn't ask about him, nobody would probably even notice he was missing. Except they didn't count on us.”

“Thank you, Maggie. And once a serious search party was mounted, there would be so many footprints that the former lack of them would never be noticed. And not to offend the ladies, but the cold would also have served to keep Undercuffler's body undiscovered.”

“So they could just have left him in the attic room,” Evan Pottinger said, obviously not as drunk as he might appear. “Why'd they go back and hang him out the window? Oh, right, maybe they had to go back for the jewelry anyway. And the suicide angle. You're figuring they didn't decide to fake the suicide until after he was already dead. I forgot. And we're saying murderers now. Plural. There's more than one?”

Maggie jumped in to answer. “Joanne's stopwatch cord may have been used as the murder weapon, but the woman most certainly did not lift Sam's dead weight up and out the window while tying him to the scaffolding. Not alone.”

“She's right,” Arnaud said, shaking his head. “It took the two of us just to cut him down again. Joanne couldn't have done it alone. But she killed him?”

“I'm afraid we can't ask her that,” Saint Just said, stepping away from the fireplace. “But there you have it. Unbelievable as it may seem, it appears that Joanne Pertuccelli and Sam Undercuffler, and one as-yet-unnamed cohort in crime, heard about the missing jewels, discovered the hidden passage, found the jewels, and then had a falling out that ended in the murders of two of the three accomplices. It is only left to discover that third party, who is, sadly, one of us, unexpectedly trapped here with us at the moment. And the jewels, of course. When we discover the one, we will find the other.”

“I don't understand,” Troy said, frowning. “How did they know about the jewelry?”

Saint Just, who had previously been annoyed with Troy Barlow's thick skull, wished the man hadn't taken this moment to at last appear incisive.

“We don't know. We're working on that, just as I am still wondering why the miscreants didn't simply shut Sam's body in the secret passage and be done with it, allowing everyone to think he'd simply gone missing—at least until the heat of summer. Perhaps the faked hanging was a natural thought progression for someone in the very visual movie industry? Or perhaps the method of demise for Uncle Willis spurred their imaginations?”

“Stuff him behind that wall? And you said summer.
Eeeeuuuwww
, you mean he'd start to smell when it got hot.” Marylou put her hand to her mouth, then buried her head against Sir Rudy's chest. “That's just too gross.”

“Indeed,” agreed Saint Just. “Now, if there are no further questions, and if no one is prepared to confess, I suggest you all adjourn once more to the main saloon and the warmth of that quite delightful fire while we await the arrival of the constable.”

“That's it? That's all? Sam and Joanne were bad guys, and they're dead—and so what? And there's still a killer in the group? No way.” Evan Pottinger lifted the lead crystal stopper from the decanter he held and threw it in the general direction of the bed. “I say let's frisk everybody, find the jewels. I get to pat down
Boffo
girl.” Then he drank straight out of the decanter.

Saint Just was tempted to agree with at least the spirit of Evan's suggestion. It was time every guest's bedchamber was searched, as, judging by the size of the outline in the dusty stone niche, the amount of jewels was considerable, certainly more than could be concealed on anyone's person. “I think personal searches are unnecessary, Evan. However, as you all return to the main saloon, please, Maggie, Sterling, and I will conduct searches of each bedchamber until such time as the constable can ford the flood.”

“I don't want you poking around in my room. You're no cop,” Troy said, pouting. “I'm going with you.”

A chorus of “me, too's” followed. Naturally.

“Very well. But we'll all go together, room to room.”

“Like a group toidy,” Bernice said, and Maggie giggled.

“Please don't explain that, ladies,” Saint Just said. “Now off you go, two by two, as has already been suggested.”

“She's gone.” Byrd Stockwell turned in a full circle. “Nikki's gone! Son-of-a—”

“Nikki?” Maggie looked up at Saint Just, wide-eyed. “No.
She's
the third one?”

Saint Just was confused. Really, really confused. How could he have been watching the wrong suspect? “There was always the hope someone would, as you Americans say, make a break for it. But Miss Campion? Perhaps she, too, had need of the facilities?”

“Yeah? Well, let's go find out,” Maggie said, already heading for the doorway to the hall, hard on Byrd Stockwell's heels.

“You go with the others, Robin,” Saint Just said, taking hold of the man's arm and turning him about. “Sterling? Please see that our Robin Redbreast remains with the others.”

“Really?” Sterling blinked several times, then stood up very straight. “Perry and I will see to it, Saint Just, have no fears on that head. Perry? You take his left, I'll take his right.”

“Anything you say, Sterling.”

“Don't you dare,” Byrd said, backing away, only to bump into Bernice, of all people, who had picked up a very substantial-looking brass figurine and was now holding it with the same intensity with which Saint Just's favorite New York Met, Mike Piazza, gripped a baseball bat.

“Go on, try to run, I dare you,” Bernie said. “I've been looking for someone to beat on all night. If I can't drink, I can get my jollies this way.”

“Thatta girl,” Maggie said, then took off for the other wing, Saint Just beside her. “I know which is Nikki's room. I saw it yesterday morning.”

“This doesn't make sense,” Saint Just told her as they broke into a jog. “You saw the robin look at the wall when I announced we'd found the passage—
before
I revealed the location of the opening?”

“I did. And he's logical. Nikki isn't. One thing's for sure—the robbery itself was
planned
. Only the murders were unplanned.”

They were past the main staircase now, and Maggie suddenly stopped, then turned back.

“I thought you said you knew the location of her bedchamber.”

“I do, but she went this way,” Maggie said, holding up her flashlight as she grabbed the railing and started down the stairs toward the candlelit first floor.

“How do you know that?”

“Because I can smell her perfume, and the smell died off when we got past the staircase,” Maggie said, moving faster on the stairs than Saint Just ever would have supposed; obviously a woman on a mission. “She went this way.”

“Very good, Maggie.”

“Not really,” she said as they reached the bottom of the staircase and then sniffed again before heading back toward the study and, beyond that, the servant staircase leading to the kitchens. “She
pours
on the perfume. A Chihuahua with a deviated septum could follow her scent. Come on, Alex, she's getting away!”

M
aggie ran until she realized she probably should slow down before she fell and broke something—most probably herself—and then hesitated as she and Alex got to the servant stairs.

“She went down. And you know why? Because she
knows
to go down. Do you know
why
she knows to go down?”

“Maggie, she's down. And very soon to be out and about, so we can probably leave this discussion for later, yes?”

“Good point. But I know how she knows how to get out, so file that—I knew first.”

“My compliments,” Alex said, indicating with a slight bow that she should precede him down the stairs to the kitchens.

Maggie felt the breeze before she saw the door open to the outside, and she was off again, hot on the heels of a woman who really, really got on her nerves…and it had nothing to do with Nikki's great looks or her even greater body. Really, it didn't. At least not much.

“We'll need Wellington boots and raincoats,” Alex said, grabbing her arm as she was halfway out the door into the downpour and the growing gray light of dawn.

“We don't have time for those.”

“We do if we have to go more than ten feet to find her, and I'm sure we do. We've been out there before, remember? At least the Wellingtons, Maggie. You'll fall without them.”

“Sure, okay, you're right,” she said, smiling at him. Then she waited until he'd sat himself down on the old wooden bench before she bolted. “She's
mine
, Alex!”

The cold rain hit Maggie with only a little less than the impact she'd expect from a bucket of ice water being thrown at her, and she blinked, sputtered…and pressed on, already knowing the location of the path Alex had investigated earlier.

She felt her feet slipping out from under her as she staggered along, rethinking her refusal of those time-consuming rubber boots to cover her leather-soled shoes. But she kept the flashlight beam headed straight ahead, not down, and kept moving along the narrow path that just barely rose above water, water, and more water.

“Maggie! Maggie, come back here!” Alex yelled—gosh, he'd actually
yelled
.

“I can't. She's got a head start,” Maggie yelled back at him.

And then she saw a figure, darker than the dawn around it. Nikki Campion. Nikki Campion, who'd taken the time to pull on rubber boots and one of those ugly yellow coats.

The idiot woman also had two suitcases, one in each hand. Was she nuts? Who makes a getaway with Gucci?

“Halt!” Maggie cried out. “Halt or I shoot!”

Which really worked only in truly bad cop and war movies.

Nikki let go of the suitcases and broke into a trot, the miner's light strapped to her headband lighting her way.

“Damn,” Maggie swore, rubbing her face with her free hand, trying to wipe off the rain that had already saturated her hair and was now running down into her eyes.

How was she going to keep up with the woman? Nikki ran flights of stairs for
fun
, for crying out loud. The last time Maggie could remember running was weeks and weeks ago, when she'd gone after that creep and tackled him, nearly getting herself killed in the process.

You'd think a woman would learn.

Then again, every once in a while, a woman catches a break. Even Margaret Kelly.

With a startled screech, Nikki Campion lost her footing on the slippery cobbles, or bricks, or whatever the old stones were, and, her arms waving wildly, over she went, into the pond.

Where the Boffo Transmissions girl, even with her built-in flotation devices, sank like a rock.

“I'll get her,” Alex shouted, coming toward Maggie in his boots and slicker, carrying another slicker for her. “I knew she wouldn't get far. Here, put this on.”

Maggie had her flashlight trained on the water. Wow, whitecaps. When this pond flooded, it didn't fool around. “I don't see her, Alex. We can't wait for you to get out of that stuff. And she's wearing it, too. She can't swim in that.” She began stripping off her soggy sweatshirt.

“Maggie, no—”

Maybe if he'd said “please” she wouldn't have done it? No, she was going to do it no matter what Alex said. Jumping in after Nikki Campion was just the sort of thing Maggie always did. Jump first, think later.

As the water closed over her head, Maggie instantly gained a whole new understanding of the word “cold.” She'd have to tell Evan.

She surfaced to sputter and to yell, “It's cold!” Treading water as she worked to toe off her loafers, she tried to get her bearings, but there was still no sign of Nikki. “She come up at all?” she yelled at Alex, who had trained both flashlights on the water.

“Only for a moment. To your left. Maggie, I—”

“Okay.” Maggie took another deep breath and went back under, opening her eyes, as she hoped to see something in the dark water.

And she did see something. The glow from Nikki's miner's light, or runner's light, or whatever the heck it was.

Maggie's feet touched bottom—the pond was probably only about nine or ten feet deep in this spot—then pushed off the graveled bottom even as she reached out with one hand and grabbed for the yellow slicker by the back of the collar.

Except her fingers hadn't closed around a collar; they'd closed around a strap, a wide strap. She pulled, and the strap came with her—or rather, the large cloth bag attached to the strap came with her. But not Nikki.

Maggie let go of the bag and it sank to the bottom of the pond. She was a good swimmer, which came from living her formative years at the Jersey shore, but she had limits. Lung capacity was one of them. Good thing she didn't smoke anymore or Nikki would be a goner.

Maggie surfaced, took another deep breath, and went down again, this time with more of a plan. Locating the glow of the miner's light, she judged where Nikki's arms were and grabbed one on the second try, pulling hard on the end of the sleeve of the slicker.

Luckily, the slicker had been fashioned for a much larger person. Even luckier, Nikki actually
helped
her, if blind panic can be called help.

Her arms and legs thrashing, Nikki grabbed onto Maggie, attacking her rescuer. Typical. So Maggie, not really feeling all that sorry about it, brought up her knee and popped the actress one square under the chin.

All in the name of rescue
, she told herself as she grabbed onto Nikki's hair and headed for the surface.

“I've got her!”

Maggie sank a little as she felt Nikki being pulled up and out of the pond, then resurfaced in time to see Nikki's legs being dragged out of the water. “Yo. A little help here?”

Alex left Nikki where she lay on her stomach, coughing and retching, and reached for Maggie's hand. “You are the most feather-witted, headstrong, unbelievably selfish woman I have ever had the misfortune to encounter, do you know that? You could have drowned.”

“Yeah, I'm crazy about you, too,” Maggie gasped out, holding onto his hand as she gripped the edge of the raised path. “I'm betting the jewelry's still down there. She had it in a bag around her neck like an anchor, the jerk. Keep the flashlight on the water. I'm going to go back down and get it.”

“Maggie.”

“Don't try to stop me, Alex. I've had it up to here with these people, and I'm going to get those damn jewels and get out of England.”

“I agree. But perhaps you'd like to use this?” he suggested, retrieving Nikki's lighted headband and handing it down to her.

“Good thought,” Maggie said, trying to smile, but her teeth were chattering, so she gave up that particular effort as a bad job.

One last dive did the trick, as the handle of the bag actually seemed to be waving to her as she searched for it, and she was back on the surface and then on the slippery, bumpy path a moment later, lying face-to-face with Nikki Campion as the gray light of dawn became a little brighter. “Come here often?” she asked the drenched Nikki.

It was morning, and the case was solved. Sort of solved. Most of it solved. She hoped Alex was happy. She was. Rapidly freezing to death, maybe nearing a slight case of fatigue-induced delirium, but happy.

“I believe you two have been introduced,” Alex said, assisting Maggie to her feet. “Here,” he added, draping a wet slicker over her shoulders. “This won't help much, but it's better than nothing. Can you navigate the path back to the house while I assist Miss Campion?”

“Don't…don't let her get away,” Maggie told him, heading for the still-open back door to Medwine Manor. “I'm so cold!”

She wasn't quite halfway to the house before Sterling, looking really adorable in his own yellow slicker, came running toward her, gathered her close under his arm, and led her into the kitchens, where Perry was waiting with a large red-and-green-plaid wool blanket.

“I love you guys,” Maggie told them, shaking all over. “Fireplace. Get me to a fireplace. I'm
so
cold.”

And that's when the lights went on…

 
 

“I thought it was the generators, but they're probably ruined,” Sir Rudy said, handing Maggie a cup of hot tea as she entered the main saloon. “Our local electrical council has certainly outdone themselves. I don't remember power being restored this quickly before.” He held up the silver sugar bowl. “Sugar?”

“Yes, three, please. Or four, if that doesn't insult you,” Maggie said, trying with all her might not to spill the tea because her hands were still shaking. She glanced at the mantel clock. It was after six. Gee, it was true: Time flies when you're having fun.

Tabby and Bernie had grabbed her almost the moment she'd climbed the stairs to the first floor, pushing her into the study, to sit and drip and shiver while Tabby raced upstairs for towels and dry clothing, and Bernie told her she was an idiot—and Maggie had agreed with her.

But now she was back in the main saloon, and the power was on, which meant the central heating had kicked in, and the fire was still blazing in the fireplace, and Maggie actually had a moment to wonder how she was supposed to get all her wet clothes into a suitcase, then explain them to an airline security guard.

Because she was leaving England today if she had to swim. Okay, maybe not if she had to swim.

“Where's Alex?”

“Here, my dear,” he said, and she turned to see him standing to the far left of the large room, looking the epitome of the Gentleman At Home, as he had crossed one ankle over the other and was leaning, so nonchalantly, on the knob of his sword cane. “And, before you ask, here, too, are all our new friends, including Miss Campion and the robin. Although I don't believe either of them is pleased to be here.”

“I was leaving,” Nikki explained through chattering teeth. “A person can't leave a house before she's murdered? So I picked up someone else's bag by mistake. So what? A person can leave a place when a person wants to.”

“This is ridiculous,” Byrd Stockwell said, glaring at Evan Pottinger, who was standing over the seated Byrd, holding the fireplace poker. “She ran, which proves she's guilty. All I did was diddle the slut.”

“So very charming. Always the gentleman, Robin, aren't you?”

“Really?” Byrd said with a sneer. (Maggie all of a sudden didn't think he looked half so handsome.) “At least I'm not trying to act like some stuffed-shirt English lord.”

Alex put a hand to his chest and recited a line from Aeschylus. “‘Oh me, I have been struck a mortal blow right inside.' Pardon me, Robin, as I toddle to my chair, a broken man.”

And then he did just that, propping his sword cane against one arm of the chair as he sat facing Byrd Stockwell. “Now, if we could dispense with the histrionics and be on with this?”

Maggie walked over to stand beside Alex. “What have I missed? Have I missed anything?”

“A phone call from Mary Louise, as a matter of fact. A very interesting phone call from Mary Louise. But we'll allow that information to fall into our conversation as we get on with this, if that's all right with you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really, no.”

“Didn't think so,” Maggie said, sipping her tea as she looked more closely at Nikki, who was shivering in a blanket on another chair dragged to this side of the room. And surprise, surprise, someone had tied one of her ankles to a leg of the chair. Good thinking. “Okay, go for it. I'm kind of tired anyway.”

“I
hate
you,” Nikki said, glaring at Maggie. “You tried to drown me. I'm going to sue you, you know. You won't have a pot to piss in when I'm done with you.”

“Gee, I'm scared.” Maggie looked at Alex. “You have the bag?”

“It's safe, yes,” Alex told her, then got to his feet and turned to speak to everyone. “I am happy to announce, ladies and gentlemen, that we have both our miscreants safely in hand now, and there should be no further impositions on your time or constraints on your movements. In other words, you may go.”