Hot Money (12 page)

“Meaning?”

“One of the guests said he wanted to speak with me privately. I assumed he wanted to discuss setting up an endowment or at least increasing his already sizable donation. I suggested we take a walk around the grounds, but he insisted it would be quieter upstairs in the mansion. Who knows, maybe he’d always wanted to get it on in an elegant room done by some European artist who’d never gotten over a visit to China.”

“It is a seductive room,” Molly said cautiously, recalling the soft jade-and-gold decor, the drapes of fabric that provided a suggestion of a canopy for the narrow bed.

“Obviously he thought so. The minute we were inside, he was all over me. The last guy who tried to grope me with so little finesse was a college student. I was nineteen at the time.”

Molly was horrified at the thought that one of the guests at a fancy gala would attack a woman in an upstairs bedroom. “He didn’t …” She couldn’t even bring herself to phrase the entire question.

“Are you kidding? You don’t think I took all those martial arts classes for nothing, do you? The second the first shock wore off, I flipped him off the bed, pinned him to the floor, and suggested that the size of his donation be tripled.”

“He agreed, naturally?”

Liza allowed herself a faint grin. “He agreed.” Suddenly the grin faded. “Of course, it’s possible that his check is no good.”

Molly regarded her in shocked disbelief as she realized what Liza was implying. “Roger?”

“Roger,” she confirmed. “Not that I blame the poor bastard. Being married to Tessa would be enough to drive any man to extreme measures.”

Molly understood now why Liza had been so insistent that she go with her to the Lafferty house the day before. She also realized why there had been such an odd undercurrent between the two of them. “Liza, you have to tell Michael about this.”

“No way,” Liza said adamantly. “I refuse to embarrass either one of us by spreading this incident around.”

“You have to,” Molly insisted. “Why?”

“Don’t you see? You’re Roger Lafferty’s alibi.”

The realization that she was Roger Lafferty’s alibi had obviously never occurred to Liza. It seemed to have put her into a state of shock.

“Surely, you realized if he was your alibi, then you were his?” Molly said.

“I never thought of him as mine. I would have gone to jail before I’d ever tell a soul that I was lured to a bedroom by that man.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic? ‘That man’ is a wealthy, prominent businessman, not some creep off the streets. Besides, it wasn’t as if you actually slept with him. When you realized his intentions, you put him down … literally.”

“Maybe so, but he apparently thought I would be amenable to his advances. What does that say about the lengths to which people think I’ll go in the name of environmental activism?”

Molly shook her head. “I doubt Roger was planning to buy his way into your bed. I suspect he simply had the hots for you. He certainly wouldn’t be the first man to find your combination of brains and beauty to be seductive.”

“Maybe,” Liza said doubtfully.

“Liza, just because you are oblivious of the way men look at you, I am not. In fact, it is sometimes very difficult being your friend. We walk into a room and all male eyes focus on you. I’m just part of the scenery.”

“Obviously the hunk doesn’t see it that way.”

Molly allowed herself a tiny smirk of satisfaction. “No, he doesn’t. He seems to be immune, for which I am incredibly grateful. But that’s beside the point. You have to talk to him when he gets here and tell him what happened with Roger.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, do you want me to tell him? Or maybe you’d rather talk to that Miami detective, the one who probably lifts cars in his spare time to stay in shape. He certainly looks as if he’d take the news that you were withholding evidence well.”

Liza shuddered at the thought of sharing her most embarrassing moment with Detective Abrams, just as Molly had known she would.

“Okay, you win,” she conceded with obvious reluctance. “I’ll tell Michael.”

His arrival, as if on cue, prevented her from changing her mind.

“Tell him,” Molly prodded, the minute Michael had a beer in his hand and a comfortable spot on the sofa. Liza looked as if she preferred to wait until he’d finished the beer, maybe several beers.

“Tell me what?” he said, regarding them both suspiciously. “Don’t tell me one of you is confessing to the crime.”

Molly glared at him. “No.”

Liza squirmed awkwardly, her expression miserable. “Look, this isn’t really easy for me, but I do have a confession to make. Not about the murder exactly, but about Roger Lafferty. He couldn’t have done it.”

“Oh?”

His bland response got Molly’s attention. She regarded him curiously.

“I was with him,” Liza blurted. “I’d rather not go into the circumstances, but there is no doubt in my mind that he couldn’t possibly have killed Tessa.”

Molly waited again for Michael’s exclamation of surprise, maybe even a curse at the loss of the number one suspect. Instead, he merely nodded. “I know.”

Liza and Molly both gaped at him.

“What do you mean you know?” Molly demanded.

“Know what?” Liza said.

“I know that he dragged you off to the Cathay Bedroom in the wild hope of seducing you. I also know it didn’t work.”

“He told you,” Liza said dully.

“After a lot of prodding. One of the other guests saw the two of you disappear into that bedroom. She rather gleefully reported that fact to Detective Abrams. He’s been waiting to see how long it would take for the two of you to come clean. Roger caved in first. I’m not sure if he was more humiliated that he’d tried or that he’d failed. Anyway, he told all. Less than an hour ago, as a matter of fact. I talked with Abrams right after he left the Lafferty house.”

“If somebody blabbed, why the hell didn’t Abrams just ask for confirmation?” Liza grumbled.

“Because it doesn’t really matter. We don’t know exactly how long you were in that room or the exact time of Tessa’s death. Sorry. Neither of you is out of the woods yet.”

“Wait a minute,” Molly protested. “We do know the time of death or pretty close to it.”

Michael’s gaze narrowed. “Explain.”

“It was just after nine when we arrived. We saw Tessa, with Liza in fact,” she said, trying to reconstruct the sequence of events. “Don’t you remember? The photographer from the morning paper was taking pictures. Tessa was there, very much alive, preening for the camera in fact. Then Liza came over to talk with us. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes after that when we got to the edge of the bay and I found the body. That makes it nine thirty, nine forty-five at the latest.”

Molly shivered as she realized how little time Tessa had spent tangled in the mangrove before she’d discovered the body. Was it possible they could have saved her, if she hadn’t taken time to go back to the car for that flashlight? It was not something to be dwelled upon.

“Liza, where did you go after you spoke with us? Is that when you ran into Roger?”

Liza shook her head, her expression thoughtful. “Not right away. I think there was a crisis of some sort,” she said slowly. “Yes, I remember now. Neville was complaining about the champagne.”

“The champagne?” Michael repeated. “What was wrong with it? It tasted great to me.”

“No, no,” Liza said. “The champagne was donated, but we had to pay corkage. Do you know what that is?”

Michael shook his head.

“It means we had to pay him a small fee for every bottle opened, even though he didn’t supply it. It’s standard with a lot of hotels and caterers when dealing with charity functions that get donated wine or champagne. Obviously, they’d rather supply it themselves at some exorbitant rate, but some will bend their rules if you pay the corkage fee.”

“Sounds like a rip-off,” Michael observed, “But I get it. So what was the crisis?”

“We were supposed to have someone standing by all evening to assure that the number of bottles he said he served were actually served. Otherwise we could be overcharged in corkage. It’s a pain in the neck, but we insisted.”

“Trusting group, aren’t you?”

“When you have to account for every penny to a coalition board the way we do, you can’t afford to be sloppy.”

“Okay, so this person was missing. Who was supposed to be there?”

“I’m not sure. We’d rotated the assignment so no one would have to spend all evening in the catering tent. I can’t recall who was supposed to be there. I grabbed someone to fill in until the next person showed up.”

“Can you find out who was missing?”

“Sure. The subcommittee chair for the catering should have a list. Patrice never lets details like this slip.”

Molly was instantly alert. “Patrice MacDonald?”

Liza nodded. “Why are you looking like that?”

“Don’t you see? If she was in and out of the catering tent all evening, she would have had ample opportunity to snatch that candlestick. And if she’d been assigned to that particular hour herself and disappeared …” She allowed her voice to trail off so they could get the implications all on their own. They didn’t fail her.

“Molly, you could be right. It fits with everything we know about Clark Dupree and Tessa, the spat Patrice had with Tessa in Bal Harbour, everything,” Liza enthused.

“Slow down,” Michael said. “We don’t have proof of anything here. We don’t even know for sure that the candlestick was the murder weapon. It might not even have been stolen in the first place. Maybe it was just misplaced and this caterer got all bent out of shape for nothing. He seemed like the excitable type.”

“He is that,” Liza conceded.

“Call him,” Molly said. “Ask him if the candlestick has turned up. Liza, you have the number, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.” She reached into her voluminous purse and drew out a bulging date book that contained an entire section for names and addresses, as well as business cards. It was so well organized that she found the number before Michael could even register a halfhearted protest.

Molly shot him a challenging look. “If you don’t call, I will.”

To her surprise, Michael nodded. “Maybe that would be better. He’d be less likely to be on guard with you or Liza. In fact, Liza ought to be the one to call. As a member of the committee, surely you would be interested in whether the candlestick had been recovered.” He studied her intently. “Can you pull it off?”

“I don’t see why not,” she said confidently, reaching for the phone. After schmoozing with some underling, she got the caterer on the line. “Neville, darling, it’s Liza Hastings. How are you?”

Molly couldn’t hear his response, but judging from the way Liza was gazing heavenward, he was giving her an earful about his current travails.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured with a certain lack of sincerity. “Getting decent help is a problem. Listen, darling, the reason I called is that I need to know when you’ll get that final bill to us. We want to settle all the accounts before our next board meeting so we’ll know how the event did.”

She nodded at his answer. “Friday is terrific. By the way, did that candlestick ever turn up? I know how valuable it was.” Her expression changed to one of astonishment. “It did? When?” She glanced pointedly at Michael. “You found it in your office. How odd. How do you suppose it got there? Or was it there all along?”

Molly’s spirits sank, but Michael was still watching Liza intently. If he could have, he would have grabbed the phone out of her hand and finished the interrogation himself. Instead, he had to rely on Liza’s quick wits to get whatever answer he was after.

“Has anyone from the committee stopped by in the last couple of days?” Liza asked, earning a beaming smile of approval from Michael. “Oh, really. Patrice came by first thing Monday morning. Darling, you didn’t happen to notice whether that candlestick was there before she came by, did you?”

Liza’s eyes lit with excitement. “Thanks, Neville. Everything was spectacular on Saturday. You’re a genius. I’ll stop by for the bill on Friday.”

She put the receiver back on the hook with careful deliberation, then gave them a smug look. “Bingo.”

“The candlestick suddenly materialized after Patrice’s visit?” Molly said.

“That’s what he seems to recall. Hopefully, he won’t figure out quite why I wanted to know. If he does, he’s likely to call Patrice and warn her. She sends a lot of business his way. He’ll warn her out of loyalty or maybe just because it seems like a great tidbit of gossip to pass on.”

Michael nodded grimly. “Then I suggest we pay a visit to Mrs. MacDonald first. I’ll call Abrams and tell him what’s happening. Molly, is Brian around?”

“He’s at the pool.”

“Then get him while I call Abrams. I haven’t forgotten about that talk we intended to have. We’ll go on to dinner after we’ve stopped by Mrs. MacDonald’s. Liza, are you coming?”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said, then glanced at Molly. “On second thought, if you all have things to talk about …”

“Come,” Molly said, latching on to the excuse to avoid a conversation about marriage with a man who was being strong-armed into proposing.

Liza shook her head. “I’ll take my car to Patrice’s. Then you all can go on to dinner without me.”

Molly decided it was pointless to argue once Liza had made up her mind and foolish to give up the opportunity to hear Michael’s insights on the custody mess. “Your car or mine?” she asked Michael.

“Mine. I left it in the circle out front. The guard will have it towed if I don’t move it soon.”

“Nestor wouldn’t dream of it,” Molly told him. “He’s probably out there polishing it for you as we speak. Ever since you solved the murder of our condo president, our security chief has regarded you as his idol. He told Brian that.”

Michael looked embarrassed at the thought that a former Nicaraguan freedom fighter would consider him a hero. “I’ll meet you down there in five minutes. Liza, we’ll see you at Mrs. MacDonald’s. Wait for us to go in.”

Liza snapped off a salute.

As it turned out, it hardly mattered who arrived first. Patrice MacDonald wasn’t home, according to the housekeeper who answered the door. She cast a sly, approving glance at Michael. He smiled the killer-megawatt smile that encouraged confessions and probably seductions, Molly thought grumpily. At any rate it appeared to be working on the housekeeper. She was volunteering information in Spanish at a clip that was totally beyond Molly’s comprehension.