Nine Man's Murder (15 page)

Jonas thought a moment. “You know, when I tried to get a closer look at her, she wouldn’t let me near. At the time I gave it no thought—being typical behavior for Amanda—but maybe it was to conceal the fact that there were no marks on her neck.”

“I thought you believed the killer to be a ghost, Hatter,” Bryan said.

“I do. But you have to admit, it’s an intriguing theory. After having worked on hundreds of murder cases, our prosecutor just may have come up with the perfect murder. She is ‘assaulted’; so not only is she no longer a suspect, but she has all the more reason to shoot the ‘intruder.’ We could actually have seen her pull the trigger, and still no one would have suspected her. Instead, we would all be looking for an alleged ‘assailant’ who had attacked Amanda and sent Reeve the note.”

Bryan offered Hatter the rare tribute of a surprised look. “You know something, Hatter, you might not be quite the fool I took you for. But there is still one problem with your theory. What’s Amanda’s motive?”

Silence.

“Actually,” Jonas finally said, “you might have stumbled upon that, Hatter. Did you see the look on Amanda’s face when you suggested she was connected to the warehouse fire?”

“How could she be connected?” Bryan protested. “It was Capaldi who set that fire.”

“And when he did,” Jonas explained, “the case Amanda had been building against him for years was destroyed overnight.”

Bryan nodded. “It was a stroke of luck that police found that key at the warehouse. It allowed them to discover Capaldi’s ledger and revive Amanda’s case.”

“And you think it was more than luck,” Hatter said.

Jonas grinned. “I have sources working close to that case. They told me the key was sooty but uncharred when they found it.”

“Which means,” Bryan concluded, “it was planted after the fire.”

Hatter watched his two companions closely. “You think Amanda planted it—to save her case.”

“There’s your motive, Hatter. If her evidence-planting came to light, it would mean the end of her career. And each of us was in a position to stumble upon the truth. Reeve worked for Capaldi. Bennett had an unsavory connection with him, too, as did Damien. Which Carter was apparently aware of.”

“Reeve had ‘confessed’ some of those activities to Gideon,” Hatter added. “Perhaps enough to jeopardize Amanda’s secret.”

“Jill is Amanda’s friend,” Bryan added. “Who knows how much she knew?”

“But what about me?” Hatter asked. “I wasn’t in a position to know anything.”

Purposeful footsteps in the hallway silenced the group as Amanda strode into the room, considering each man briefly.

“Jonas,” she said slowly, “I need to talk to you. In private. I need to know …”

The men’s expressions stopped the words in her throat. Few etiquette books tell what to do when an accusation of murder is interrupted by the accused herself.

“You were talking about me, weren’t you? I should have known. And I almost asked one of you to …”

With a scowl, Amanda turned and stomped out the door.

“I thought you wanted to ask me something,” Jonas called after her.

“Never mind. I’ll work it out myself.”

This time the men assured themselves of her absence before speaking.

“I wonder what she wanted?” Jonas asked. “It’s not like Amanda to consult anyone.”

Gideon appeared in the doorway. “Has anyone seen Bennett lately?”

No one had.

“I haven’t seen him since this morning. I wonder where he’s gone off to.”

“Probably in his room.”

“Do you think Bennett really knows who sabotaged the stunt that killed Julian Hayward?” Gideon asked.

“Let me ask you this,” Jonas said. “If the stunt was sabotaged, when was it done? The day before the accident, after shooting was wrapped up, Amanda and I inspected the scaffolding, and there was nothing wrong with it. That evening, Damien staked out the set until—”

Gideon was impaled by their stares.

“Why don’t you just say it?” he blurted out. “Everyone’s been avoiding the subject since we arrived here.”

“All right,” Jonas began warily. “Damien was replaced by you, Gideon, and you kept watch until—”

“My accident,” Gideon finished for him.

“As long as we’ve brought the subject out into the open,” Bryan said, “I’d like to know exactly what happened that night. I never did get the full story, since I was pulled—” Bryan did not complete the sentence.

Gideon relived the nightmare from which he had never fully awakened. Late that night he had replaced Damien, keeping watch without incident until early morning, when an unusual noise drew him from his post, leading him through the dark over a large trap door, whose opener mechanism, they later discovered, had been tampered with. Gideon’s weight on the platform forced it open, dropping him into a deep pit.

Gideon’s cries for help summoned the night watchman. With a shriek of sirens, the paramedics arrived. By the time Gideon set off for the hospital, Hatter had already arrived on the lot to relieve him. The scaffolding had thus been guarded without interruption since Jonas and Amanda had inspected it the previous evening.

“The only people who got near the scaffolding while I was on duty,” Hatter insisted, “were the three construction workers who completed the work on it. After that, the filming began.”

“Which brings up an interesting question,” Jonas said. “How could the set have been sabotaged when no one had an opportunity to get near it?”

“Yet it was sabotage—rather than an accident—because the set was perfectly safe when you examined it,” Gideon reminded Jonas.

“It’s interesting how everything keeps coming back to that movie lot case,” Bryan concluded.

Jill entered the room. “It’s snowing,” she announced.

Like curious children the group migrated to the parlor room windows.

“Where’s Amanda?” Jill asked, noting her friend’s absence.

“Here,” Amanda called from the doorway. “I just came down for a bite to eat.”

“Care to join us?”

“Not now. I’ll eat in my room.”

Her companions heard her mount the stairs. Eventually growing uncomfortable in one another’s presence, they drifted to the far corners of the inn, as if awaiting the inevitable.

43

A
manda locked the
door of her room, then glanced at the latch on the window: still pressed in. She sat at the writing desk, trying to marshal her unruly thoughts, but they ran riot.

What would she do, now that Reeve was dead? How could she get Imogen back? Amanda felt as helpless as she had felt as a teen working at Healing Heart, the receiving home for abused children. The horrible things she had seen there—battered, abused little girls, broken spirits, lives ruined by the age of five—had triggered at the time vague memories of her own childhood … things she told herself had not happened, things she did not want to remember, shameful things she had never told anyone.

Her years at Healing Heart had set her on the path of protecting defenseless children. She had devoted her entire adult life to stopping and punishing those who victimize others. She would rid the city of people who force innocent children into homes like Healing Heart. And to do so—effectively—she would need to become District Attorney.

Did she have what it takes to rise to the top? Of course. Look how she had outsmarted everyone up here. She knew they would never figure it out. It was her wits against theirs. And she was one step ahead. They had missed it. Only one thing remained to be worked out.

Something Jill had said …

A noise from behind interrupted her thoughts. Amanda turned to see what it was.

* * *

T
hrough the parlor
room’s north door, an L-shaped corridor flanked by downstairs bedrooms culminated in the library, where Hatter stood examining the modest book collection lining walnut bookshelves.

He had been the first to stop watching the dwindling snowfall, to head off in search of reference material on the supernatural. For ideas for more punishments … for the characters in his new book. But all he had found were two collections of ghost stories and an outdated encyclopedia.

So they thought he was crazy. Let them. The supernatural passes sentence on all offenders, punishing crimes that can’t be forgiven. Not only the crime of disbelief, but the crime of thumbing one’s nose at Destiny. For a criminal, unlike a victim, chooses to commit an offense. Let them thumb their noses at that.

Because in the end, Hatter knew he would have the last laugh.

* * *

B
ryan kept an
eye on the doorway the entire time. If anyone came from the entry hall into the billiard room, he would know of it.

After Hatter had departed—for the library, presumably, since his bedroom was upstairs—Bryan had returned to the billiard room to relax and think. And to plan his next move. On a table top, he noticed the cassette recorder they had found during Friday’s search of the inn and mountaintop. A cassette was in the recorder. Was the device still functional? He tested it. It still worked. Bryan pondered the possible advantage to which this could be put.

Sometimes everything you do only seems to make matters worse. Trying to avenge his parents had cost him Jill. His attempt to abandon the crusade against Paul Templar and reconcile with Jill had gotten him nowhere. And now the fiasco with Imogen. The more you try to fix something, the more harm you do. Because it’s not broken, Dad would have said.

He should have seen the pattern foreshadowed fifteen years ago. Trying to solve the movie set case, only to be pulled off it by Damien, desperate to stop the director from pressing charges. If he had just given Bryan the files he had asked for, Bryan wouldn’t have had to use that actress (what was her name?) to lure him out of his office while Bryan rifled the files. And if the set designer hadn’t walked into the office right at that moment, no one would ever have known.

Bryan removed from his pocket the anonymous note that he had received last week. Who could have sent it? It had to have been one of the people here. Thank goodness his indiscretion had not been more widely publicized than among the trainees at Anderson’s. If the State Licensing Board had gotten wind of it, he’d never have been granted a license. And they would pull that license from him in a heartbeat, if they ever found out.

There was something he had overlooked. What? He reviewed the entire weekend, from their arrival at Owen’s Reef and conveyance here by Bill and Max to the murders that had ensued. Had they arrived only yesterday? It seemed like ages ago.

But it would be over soon.

* * *

J
onas sat alone
in the parlor room, staring at the copy of the birth certificate someone had sent him this week. A Mexican birth certificate. If anyone knew he was in this country illegally, they could have him sent back to Mexico.

Obviously, someone knew.

And the fact that this birth certificate had arrived at the same time as the invitation to the reunion strongly suggested that this person was one of his fellow guests. One of them was threatening to have Jonas deported.

And part of the reason Jonas was here was to find out which one.

Jonas looked obliquely across the hall to the entrance of the billiard room, to which Bryan had returned. Hatter had entered the north wing (bound presumably for the library). Amanda was in her room. Jonas did not know what had become of Bennett, Gideon, or Jill.

What had Amanda wanted to ask him? Had she discovered the murderer’s identity?

What clues have been left behind? he wondered. How would Bryan tackle the problem? The thought escaped before could he suppress it. Should he ask Bryan? He and Bryan were incompatible opposites, with nothing in common. Bryan at least could show tangible signs of success; Jonas, less successful, was a failure.

Still, with so much at stake …

Jonas marched into the billiard room.

“I’ve been thinking about this game,” he began. “The problem is lack of physical evidence. In terms of tangibles, what do we have? Only that cigarette lighter Bennett pocketed yesterday when we first arrived. But that has disappeared, which leaves us nothing. So let’s consider intangibles.”

Whatever response Jonas had been expecting, it was certainly not the one Bryan gave. “Why are you asking me, when someone else appears to know more than she’s letting on?”

“Amanda?”

“Why not ask her what she knows?”

“Why not both ask her? We’re supposed to die by tomorrow. What have we got to lose?”

In silent agreement, the men left the billiard room and ascended the stairs to Amanda’s room.

Jonas rapped on the door.

No reply.

“Amanda … it’s us, Jonas and Bryan.”

Still no reply.

Jonas knocked harder and called louder.

“Amanda.”

The door was unlocked. The men entered.

They found her lying on the floor beside the writing table.

44