Murder Most Persuasive (26 page)

Laura fell silent as she absorbed all this information. “But honestly,” she said after a moment, “why could anyone want to poison Bonnie? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It may not make sense,” said Aunt Winnie, “but it appears to have been what happened. There
was
poison in her drink. And
only
in her drink. It’s not the sort of poison that commonly finds its way into a martini.”

“Not the way I make them, anyway,” added Reggie. Although her words sounded flip, we could see she was genuinely upset at the potential implication of her having made Bonnie’s drink.

Aunt Winnie reached out and patted Reggie’s hand. “No one thinks for a minute that you had anything to do with this, Reggie.”

“The police do,” Reggie muttered.

“Then the police are wrong,” Aunt Winnie said loyally.

“Don’t forget, I’m the one who brought them out,” said Miles. “I’m sure
that
didn’t go unnoticed by the police.”

“So that brings us back again to the question of how the poison
did
get in her drink,” said Kit. “We need to think this through.” I shot her a look. Could she be a bigger idiot? Obviously, someone who was at the cookout tried to poison Bonnie. Correction—someone at the cookout
did
poison Bonnie. Try as we might, we couldn’t ignore the fact that at the very least someone had tried to hurt Bonnie. At the very worst, kill her. And the chances were pretty high that that person was still here with us now.

And yet Kit kept on yapping away, oblivious.

“Do you think there could be anything to what Bonnie said about Uncle Marty?” Kit asked.

Several voices spoke at once. “Absolutely not!” “Kit, he was sick for years!” “Don’t be ridiculous!” “Kit, for the love of God, use your head for once!” (Okay, this last one was me.)

“Okay, okay!” Kit said, holding her hands up in defense. “It was just a question. Wasn’t it Poirot who said that you need to dismiss every option, and the one that remains, no matter how absurd, is the solution?”

“No, Kit, that was Sherlock Holmes. And I hate to point this out to you, but it was also fiction,” I said.

Kit glared at me. “I am only trying to help. Poor Bonnie is lying in a hospital bed having had her stomach pumped after poison ended up in her drink!”

No one spoke. People shifted uneasily in their seats and glanced about furtively as if looking for a way to escape. Unfortunately, it was a common side effect of having Kit around.

“What about Julian?” I asked.

“What about Julian?” replied Frances.

“Well, do we know if Bonnie has given him the money for this investment yet?”

Around me everyone shook their heads.

“Does it matter?” asked Laura.

“It might,” I said. “If Julian already has the money, he might be ready to move on.”

“You mean Julian might have poisoned Bonnie because he’d already gotten the money?” asked Laura.

“It’s a possibility,” I said.

“So his whole freak-out at the hospital was just a show?” asked Reggie.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s just a theory. But if it were the case, his freak-out gave him a nice reason for leaving the house and moving to a hotel.”

“From where he might be able to leave unnoticed,” added Frances.

I nodded. Frances looked thoughtful. “I wonder,” was all she said.

Around me, people began to discuss this possibility. I did not participate. Mainly because I didn’t really believe it was a viable option. I merely said it to defuse the tension that Kit had created. While Julian was clearly a con artist, he didn’t strike me as a murderer. No doubt he’d made a lucrative career out of swindling daffy middle-aged women out of their money. That he was a criminal, I was sure, but I would bet he was of the wormy cowardly variety rather than the hardened violent type.

I thought about Bonnie’s poisoning. Reggie had made the drinks and Miles had brought them out. Both freely admitted as much. Could either of them have really poisoned the drink? And, if so, why? So much depended on
why
someone tried to kill Bonnie. Was it because of Michael’s murder, or because she was planning to give Julian the money?

Bonnie was at the house around the time that Michael was buried under the pool. Could she have seen something? Or was she involved? She couldn’t have seen Miles, as he’d already left for his business trip to New York. However, Reggie could have come back to St. Michaels with Donny in tow and buried Michael, but why on earth would she? She’d just ended it with Michael and at that time had no idea about his attack on Ann or the embezzlement.

If, however, Bonnie had been poisoned because of her plan to give Julian the money, then Miles had no motive while Reggie did. Yet I had a hard time believing that this was because of the money.

Bonnie had seemed genuinely shocked when she realized that she had to have been at the house when Michael was placed in the pool’s foundation, but something about her reaction didn’t ring true. What had she said? I tried to remember. She’d gone on about how terrible it was that she’d been at the house and how she might have seen something. She’d seemed concerned that her lack of seeing something had resulted in the mess today. What had she said? I closed my eyes.
“But that’s just the problem. I didn’t see anything. And I feel just terrible about it because I should have!”

Why did she feel she should have seen something? Was it simply because she was there? Or was it because she knew someone else was there as well? I remembered the wineglasses. Could Bonnie’s visitor have been the killer? Is that why she felt she should have seen something? Could Reggie have distracted Bonnie with a few friendly glasses of wine while Donny buried Michael? I tried to envision that, but the idea of Reggie sharing a cozy evening with Bonnie seemed improbable at best.

But even if that was the case, why would she mention it today in front of Reggie? Why would she hint at her suspicions? As I pondered this, a horrible thought occurred to me. Had Bonnie actually been trying to blackmail Reggie? Was she sending a message to her that she knew or suspected? If so, and Reggie or Donny was indeed the killer, it was a dangerously stupid thing to do.

I sighed. Yes, if it was a dangerously stupid thing to do, chances were Bonnie would do it.

CHAPTER 26

Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived.

—
PERSUASION

T
HE CONVERSATION DRIFTED
to Julian and his obvious designs on Bonnie’s money. Thankfully, no one revisited the matter of Michael’s murder or Uncle Marty’s death. After a while, Miles and Laura left, followed by Kit. Aunt Winnie reluctantly went home with her. I don’t know if she was more reluctant to leave Ann and me to discuss the situation without her or to sleep in the dreaded Jungle Room. Both were pretty compelling reasons. Peter had an early meeting he still needed to prepare for, so he headed home. Both Frances and Reggie were getting ready to head out, too, when Ann remembered the items that Uncle Marty had willed each of them. She’d collected everything and had boxed them. She now gave each her box.

They sat down in the living room and quietly sorted through the items. In all the chaos of the past week, I doubted if either had really had a moment to mourn their father. Now, as they looked through the items that he’d put aside for them—ranging from family heirlooms to saved artwork from their youth—both Frances and Reggie seemed to sag under the realization that their father was gone forever. It hit Reggie particularly hard. As she held an elaborate drawing of the family tree bequeathed to her, she gently traced her name with her finger. “Look,” she said, “there’s a space next to my name. Father never filled in the line for spouse.”

“It was supposed to be a wedding present, I believe,” said Frances. “For you and Michael.”

Reggie scoffed. “It never would have happened. Not with me, anyway.”

“It’s still a lovely drawing,” said Ann.

“I’ll make you a copy,” said Reggie and then added, more to herself, “Or maybe it would be more appropriate to give you the original and for me to keep the copy.”

It took me a moment to realize what Reggie was saying, but it was the second time I’d heard her use that word. When Michael had proclaimed his love to Ann, he called Reggie a “pale copy” of her. Ann had only told me that and yet Reggie seemed to know about it when she told Frances that she wasn’t a lovesick “pale copy” of who she was eight years ago. Before I could think, I found myself saying in surprise, “You never broke up with him, did you?”

Two blank faces turned my way. The third knew exactly what I meant. “What are you talking about?” Ann asked, her arms around Reggie.

“I’m talking about Michael,” I said. “You overheard Michael that night, didn’t you? You heard him tell Ann that he loved her and not you.”

Frances looked at me like I had three heads. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Reggie shifted uncomfortably on the couch, her gaze sliding away from mine. “Does it really make a difference now?” she asked sullenly.

“I think it matters a great deal,” I said. “You didn’t break up with Michael that night, did you? You overheard him with Ann. What happened next? Did you run back to the house? I can’t believe that you sat by and let him attack her.”

“Of course I didn’t! What a horrible thing to suggest!” Reggie shot back. Turning to Ann, she said, “I had no idea of the attack, I swear!”

“But you overheard him?” Ann asked, pulling her arms back in surprise.

Reggie looked down at her lap. “I did. I saw you two by the dock talking and made my way over to you. Neither of you saw me, I guess, and I heard everything Michael said about me and about you. I don’t remember much after that. I ran back to the house and went to my room. I had a pretty bad night, but it was nothing compared to what you had to endure,” Reggie said to Ann. “Anyway, in the morning I planned on telling him to go to hell, but of course he was gone when I got up. Since I planned on ending things with him, I just sort of … sped things up a bit and said I’d already done the deed. I guess I didn’t want to have to hear about what happened from Ann.”

“So you had no idea of his feelings for Ann?” I asked.

“No. I mean, I … I don’t know. I might have suspected some preference, but I tried to convince myself that his affection for Ann was of a brotherly nature. Clearly I was wrong.” She stared at the floor for a moment before continuing. “Michael was always something of a ladies’ man, but I really loved him,” she said quietly. “I guess I always knew—on a certain level, anyway—that he wasn’t faithful, but I didn’t care. Not really. I convinced myself that that would change once we were married.” Reggie looked at Ann and continued. “But when I saw him with you, I knew the whole thing was a complete sham. I knew he was drunk, but it wasn’t the wine talking. You know what they say, ‘in vino veritas’ and all that. He didn’t love me. He was just using me for the money and the position at Daddy’s business.”

Frances looked at Reggie in surprise. “So you lied all these years? You told us you broke up with him when you didn’t? Why on earth would you do that?”

Reggie lowered her head. “Blame it on the Reynolds pride, I guess. Mine was in tatters after that night. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anyone.”

*   *   *

My head was spinning when I went to bed that night. The fact that Reggie had known about Michael’s feelings for Ann and lied all these years about how things ended with him troubled me. Reggie was known for two things: her beauty and her temper. Had her temper finally pushed her too far? By lying about what she’d overheard and the breakup, she instantly provided a valid reason why Michael wasn’t around anymore.

I remembered that I saw her with Donny after Michael’s body was found. They appeared to be discussing something very serious—could they have been discussing Michael? Donny was on the crew that put in the pool. Reggie could have killed Michael and then called Donny to help her bury the body.

There were so many possibilities, so many reasons for killing Michael. He was that kind of guy. I needed to figure out
which
reason had gotten him killed. Was it because of Reggie? Was it because of Scott? It was no secret that Frances wanted Scott to take over her father’s business. Could she have wanted it to the point that she was willing to murder the competition? Or was it because of the embezzlement? Had Michael been double-crossed? And if so, by whom? Had Bonnie been his partner, or had she witnessed something when she unexpectedly returned to the house? And why had Bonnie been poisoned? Was it because she had seen something, or was it completely unrelated to Michael? She was planning on giving Julian a large amount of money to invest. It was clear that Julian was nothing more than a scam artist. Had Bonnie known that when she agreed to give him the money? Was she using him to get back at the family? I’d dismissed the idea earlier, but now I considered it again. Could
Julian
have actually been the one who poisoned Bonnie? I tossed and turned, no closer to an answer and no closer to sleep.

I revised my earlier characterization of Julian as a cowardly larcenist. I decided he could have poisoned Bonnie. I decided it mainly because I didn’t like Julian and that solution didn’t involve family members. I decided that, at least for tonight, I’d lay the blame at his door. It was a much nicer solution and one that allowed me to get to sleep.

Of course, any real hope I had that it was Julian was dashed to hell when he was found murdered the next day.

CHAPTER 27

You have delighted us long enough.

—
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I
T WAS ANN
who woke me with the news. Roughly shaking me, she simply said, “The police just called. Julian’s dead. Murdered. Here’s your coffee.”

“Murdered? At the Ritz?” I asked sleepily, sitting up and taking the offered cup.

“Yes. He was poisoned.”

I was now fully awake. I stared blankly at the steaming cup. Who needs coffee when you have murder? “Don’t tell me,” I began.