Tickled to Death (12 page)

“Why are you expecting a crowd this weekend?” I asked, wondering how a certain facilitator would react should she be subjected to nonstop slogging.

“Because of the article to appear in the paper later this week, Claire. We were just talking about it, weren’t we? I was opposed to it initially because the success of the breeding is our first concern, but Agatha Anne insisted that this is a unique opportunity for the public. She even sent fliers to church and civic groups in the adjoining counties, offering them a discount for advanced reservations. We’re going to double ticket prices for the occasion, and take the barge to within a quarter mile of the aerie. Those with adequate binoculars will have a stirring sight awaiting them. We’ll have lectures complete with slides and a tape recording of the squeaky cackle the adult eagles make when in a defense posture. You will be here for our Eagle Awareness weekend, won’t you?”

“I haven’t made any plans yet,” I said. “It sounds as though the weekend will be profitable. Did Agatha Anne and Georgiana ever get the books straightened out on Saturday night? Caron mentioned that they’d spread everything out and were working hard.”

“I don’t think they did,” she said unhappily. “I
volunteered Wharton’s services, but they insisted that they would be finished by Friday. The Raptors Ball is so very vital to the continuation of the Dunling Foundation. If word gets out that we’re in arrears with the caterer or the florist, people will be less inclined to be generous. There are many other equally worthy organizations, although none is so dear to my heart.”

“Does Wharton have experience in accounting?”

“After thirty years in the military, he has experience in almost everything. His superiors were not always rational when making assignments. It’s almost a policy to disregard training and expertise.”

“What about electronics?” I said, crossing my fingers.

“What about it?” Wharton said from behind the settee.

“I was just thinking about those wonderful old war movies, where everyone barked into walkie-talkies to coordinate the attack,” I said. It was inane, admittedly, but it was tough to invent anything better with a bald-headed vulture glaring down at me.

“I was in communications for a time,” he said, “but we didn’t have time to play with gadgets. We strung telephone wire, installed surveillance systems, that sort of thing. Any more questions, Mrs. Malloy?”

I excused myself and went inside to hide until
I felt less like an appetizing mound of flesh. After I’d washed my face in the bathroom, I opened the door of Jillian’s bedroom. She had not returned. On the wall were photographs of her father, her mother, the two of them on a boat, and one of herself in a graduation gown. There were none of Becca.

I began a systematic search of the entire house. The only photographs I found were of Dick, Jillian, Jan, and some of the people currently nibbling canapés. I could not recall any shots of Becca at the house in town, for that matter—only the portrait in Dick’s office. And that had been painted under protest.

Good-byes were being said on the deck. As I went out, Wharton was helping Livia down the steps to the yard. Sid was now demonstrating his swing to Dick, while Agatha Anne watched impatiently.

Luanne came to the door, carrying glasses and wadded paper napkins. “Did you have a chance to talk to Anders?” she asked me in a low voice.

“Not yet,” I admitted. “Has he left?”

“Ten or fifteen minutes ago.” She searched my face, her expression carefully neutral. “You and Dick were outside for quite a long time. Did you…discuss anything significant?”

“You’d better ask him,” I said, unwilling to tell her that he’d further incriminated himself in my mind. “However, I’ll go by Anders’s trailer now and try to find out if he really was in Dick’s house
yesterday. I don’t know how he could have gotten hold of a key, but it’s possible he was using the house for an assignation. Do we have any idea where Agatha Anne was yesterday afternoon?”

Luanne shrugged. “I was in town. Do you suspect she and Anders are having an affair?”

I described the clinch I’d seen in the office, although I omitted my emotional reaction, which had been juvenile at best. “Try to find out if Agatha Anne went to Farberville to see the insurance agent or somebody like that. She gave an interview to the newspaper sometime during the last two days. You might ask Georgiana about it.”

“Why do I get Georgiana while you’re tackling Anders?” she asked.

“You’re in love, remember?” I hurried across the living room before she could offer a caustic remark about my intermittent personal crises.

The only light inside the trailer seemed to be in the kitchenette, but my headlights flashed on the red truck parked in front. I carefully closed the car door so as not to disturb the patients in the backyard cages, and knocked timidly on the door of the trailer. Luanne had said he’d left only ten or fifteen minutes earlier, I thought as I waited. He hadn’t wasted any time tumbling into bed.

I knocked more loudly. A light came on in the living room and the door opened a few inches. “Hi,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you earlier. If it’s not too much of a bother, I was hoping I could ask you a question or two.”

“Sure,” said Anders, although he did not open the door any wider. “The problem is that I am not wearing any clothes at this minute. If you will wait there, I will put some on and we will talk.”

I lost the battle to rein in my imagination, and my face was noticeably warm when he returned and ushered me inside. He wore only the little bitty shorts, which only made things worse. I declined a glass of vodka and sat on the edge of a chair, my ankles crossed and my hands folded in my lap. Anders sprawled on the sofa and regarded me with amiable expectancy. There was just enough amusement on his face to convince me he could read my mind as if it were an open book (in the same genre as
The Joy of Sex
).

“I saw your truck in Farberville yesterday,” I said bluntly. It wasn’t technically true, but I needed to get to the point before I began to drool.

“You should have honked and waved at me. I would have invited you to lunch.”

“It was late in the afternoon,” I said, desperately trying to keep a squeak out of my voice. “You were pulling out of the street alongside Dick’s house.”

“I do not know where that is, so I cannot say that you are right or wrong. After I was finished with errands, I did drive around up in the hills where the rich people are living. The Gallinagos live in a very fine house. I have been there at a cocktail party preceding the Raptors Ball.”

“Then you weren’t inside Dick’s house?”

He stiffened. “As I was telling you, I do not know where it is. I have no key. For that matter, I have no reason to be there. Dick was in jail, and I certainly would not be visiting Jillian. She is much too gloomy, like my
mormor
, my grandmother, who dressed in black for fifty years and went to sit in the church every morning.”

I was almost certain he was lying. “We both know you were there, Anders. Who else was rolling around on the king-size bed with you? I know it’s someone who wears lipstick and drinks coffee, and possibly likes pepperoni pizza after a”—I needed a word that would not cause me to turn any more crimson than I already was—“frolic.”

He did his best to give me a look of immense bewilderment. “I am not understanding.”

“How did Agatha Anne get a house key?” I asked aggressively. “And why did you two choose Dick’s house? Was she afraid Sid might show up at hers unexpectedly?”

Anders’s mouth fell open, and he gaped at me as if I’d confessed to owning a well-thumbed book of eagle recipes. “I am not sure what to say,” he managed to whisper. “I do not wish to cause trouble for anyone, including Agatha Anne. Perhaps you are reading too much into our friendly embrace last weekend. There is something in my nature that leads me to show affection in such a way. She and I are only friends.”

“In the same fashion you and Becca were friends? Dick told me that he suspected the two
of you were having an affair. He staged the argument at the party so that you and Becca would think he’d gone back to town, but he didn’t. He saw you at the marina.”

We sat in silence. His forehead was creased, and beneath his golden tan, his face was ashen. He opened his mouth several times, but apparently was having no luck coming up with a credible explanation. “I think,” he said at last, “that I will have some vodka. Are you sure you will not join me, Claire?”

“No, I’m driving back to town tonight.”

He stood in the kitchenette and tossed down several glasses. I forced myself to watch his face rather than his hard, flat stomach and broad chest graced with downy blond hair. I barely noticed that in his haste to dress, he’d failed to button his little bitty shorts.

“Okay, then,” he said as he replaced the bottle in the refrigerator and set the glass in the sink. “Becca and I did have an affair for about three months. Most times we were together here during the day, when she was supposed to be helping with the birds. On rare occasions, we were together on the boat that belongs to the Dunling Foundation. I felt it was too risky, but she seemed to enjoy it all the more because of the chance we might be caught.”

“Did Bubo Limpkin know what was going on?”

“Not that I am aware.” His shoulders rippled
elegantly as he shrugged. “He was the sort to make trouble, Bubo was.”

I did a bit of calculation. If Becca’s affair with Barry Strix had ended when he left town in December, she’d wasted no time finding a substitute. “When did you last see her?”

“We left the boat before dawn and went our separate ways. She was wishing to come to the trailer at noon.” He stopped and licked a drop of vodka off the corner of his mouth. “I could not agree because I had a meeting with an officer from the state agency to arrange the transfer of an eagle to a facility in the southern corner of the state. I left here late in the morning and returned around four.”

“And that’s when Agatha Anne and Georgiana came?” I said. “Had they seen Becca at any time during the day?”

“I seem to think they mentioned that Becca had been at the foundation office part of the morning.” He gave me a weak smile. “You should be asking them about this.”

“Yes, indeed. Let’s return to the topic of yesterday afternoon, shall we? Why in heaven’s name did you and Agatha Anne meet at Dick’s house?”

“They didn’t,” said Georgiana Strix as she came out of the bedroom, dressed only in one of Anders’s shirts. “We did.”

“Stay out of this,” Anders said curtly and not at all melodiously. His accent could have been that of any ordinary Chicago gangster.

Georgiana shook her frizzy head. “Agatha Anne is my best friend. I can’t let Claire spread rumors that might break up her marriage.” She padded barefoot across the room and sat down next to him. Without makeup, her face was disturbingly bloodless, but thus far her eyes were dry and her voice steady. “If you won’t tell her, I will. Maybe Barry will hear about it and start wondering how long we’ve been sleeping together.”

“How long have you?” I blurted.

“A couple of months,” she said, then leaned against his shoulder and tried to give me a defiant frown. It came across as a pout, but it was infinitely preferable to a deluge. “After the terrible accident that killed Becca, I volunteered to help clean cages. One morning a hawk pooped all over
me and I needed to take a shower. Anders decided he did, too.”

He smiled at the memory, but I was still too astonished to do more than blink. Other than the embrace in the Dunling Foundation office, I’d seen no evidence that he was sleeping with Agatha Anne. Georgiana was very pretty, conveniently divorced, and an obvious candidate that I’d simply overlooked.

She took a deep breath. “Please don’t tell anyone, but I saw the accident, too. I was out in my yard when Agatha Anne came dashing out of her house, and we drove to the marina together. When I got out of the car, I twisted my ankle and had to sit back down in the front seat. I could see the end of the dock, though, and the boat as it sped away…and Becca with her golden hair, dressed in a white halter and denim shorts…and then…” She ran out of breath and looked down.

“I did not know this,” Anders said as he put his arms around her. “Why did you not tell me before now?”

“When I realized what I’d seen, I collapsed, sobbing and screaming. Becca was such a dear friend, and she’d been so supportive after the divorce that I…” Her voice began to rise and her eyes to glisten, but she swallowed and said, “Agatha Anne said there was no reason for me to be submitted to all the questions—or made to testify if there was an inquest. Bubo hadn’t seen me, and
she assured me that two witnesses would be enough. She took me home and went back to the marina before the deputies arrived. I crawled into bed and stayed there with the blanket over my head until the next morning. I have nightmares almost every night.”

My wonderfully contrived (albeit electronically dubious) beeper theory paled, although it was possible that she’d failed to see someone at the top of the parking lot. “I have one more question,” I said. “I can understand why a married woman might insist on a clandestine tryst in town, but you’re single. Why did you and Anders meet at Dick’s house yesterday afternoon? Why not here or at your house?”

From beneath his sheltering arms she gave me a panicky look, then squeezed her eyes closed and began to speak in a curiously mechanical voice, as if she were a schoolchild mumbling the Pledge of Allegiance. “Last night I dreamed I went to the marina again, but this time I was in the boat with Becca when it exploded. I was flung into the water, and as I tried to swim away from the suffocating black smoke, pieces of her body began to splash down all around me. Her skull bobbled up next to me. It was horrible!”

It was also unresponsive. I looked at Anders, who looked back warily. No one spoke for a long moment.

“About Dick’s house?” I finally said.

Georgiana disengaged herself, although she
kept her hand on his thigh, her nails pressing into his flesh. “Anders, go on and tell her how Becca had a key made for you so the two of you could play in Dick’s bed while he was at work.”

“She found it exhilarating,” he said reluctantly. “It was very silly, this need to see how close we could come to being caught, but she thrived on it. I could never say no to Becca, no matter what she was asking.”

“You have a house key,” I said with an encouraging nod. “Presumably Becca showed you how to disarm the security system if you arrived there before she did, and she showed you how to operate the coffeemaker. That’s fine, but it doesn’t explain why you two were there yesterday.”

Anders sighed. “No, it does not. The reason we were there is very hard to be explaining, I am afraid.” He sat back and crossed his arms as if the matter were settled; it was obtuse and therefore unworthy of further discussion.

It was late, and I needed to leave. “I realize it is very hard to be explaining,” I said, rudely mimicking his accent, “but why don’t you give it a try? No one has accused you of stealing the silver or rifling the safe. I suppose it might be deemed trespassing, but I can assure you Dick will not press charges. He has more important problems.”

“We can’t tell you right now,” said Georgiana. “If you come back this weekend, we can tell you then.”

“Why can’t you tell me until the weekend?” I
demanded, increasingly frustrated with them. I would have hazarded a guess, but no inspiration came to mind. When neither spoke, I stalked out the door and returned to my car. As I drove up the hill, I heard a blood-curdling cry from the darkness behind the trailer. It captured my mood perfectly.

The following morning I called Luanne at her store to tell her about the encounter and ensuing conversation in the trailer. I went so far as to admit I’d stayed awake well past midnight, staring blindly at a book and searching for an explanation for their behavior.

“I can understand why Becca found it exciting,” I said, “but why would they risk Dick or Jillian walking in on them? That wouldn’t be exciting—all it would be is embarrassing.” I winced as I remembered a night in my teenage years when a policeman had shone a flashlight through a rear window of a car. I’d wanted to crawl into an ashtray and expire. “If they think it’s vital to keep their affair a secret from their chums at the lake, then why not go to a motel or her house in town?”

“I guess it’ll have to wait until the weekend,” she said listlessly, clearly failing to share my enthusiasm for a charmingly elusive problem. “I’ve arranged for someone to mind the shop for the rest of the week so I can go back to the lake. Sid doesn’t think it’s politic for Dick to see any patients until this is settled. Oh, and Dick said to
tell you he found a private investigator in the Miami area and expects to hear something from him in a few days.”

“Have him ask the investigator to see what he can find out about Barry Strix’s activities on the day of the accident and this past weekend as well.”

“Georgiana’s ex-husband?”

“Dick suspected that he and Becca were having an affair. It’s likely to have nothing to do with the price of Beluga caviar, but it can’t hurt to eliminate him.”

“What’s the price of Beluga caviar got to do with anything?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were listening.”

We talked a while longer. Afterward, I sold a travel guide to an elderly couple, then dragged out my ledger and checkbook and tried to establish a relationship between the two that was not strictly fictional. My ineptitude in such matters reminded me of the Dunling Foundation’s problems with its accounting system. Becca had taken over the bookkeeping in December and reduced it to impenetrable chaos in three months. It was painfully true that many more dollars coagulated in their accounts than in mine, but a ledger was still a collection of figures. According to Agatha Anne, Georgiana had a degree in business and the skill with which to manage a medical clinic. It was reasonable to assume she’d inher
ited her old position after the accident. Why had it taken three months to figure out Becca’s eccentric method?

I called my accountant and waited dutifully until he finished lecturing me about my lack of fiscal responsibility and its effect on his digestive processes. I then asked him if there was a bookkeeping system that could stymie anyone with a degree and experience.

“Look at your ledgers, Mrs. Malloy,” he said peevishly. “Considering all those numbers you scrawl in the margins, those slips of paper with cryptic messages, the illegible invoices, the unrecorded check stubs, I would opine that you have come perilously close to such a system.” He grumbled for a moment, then said, “But as long as the figures were not written in a foreign vernacular, I eventually could make sense of them.” With a parting grumble, he hung up.

Becca was less and less a paragon of perfection. She’d sponged off the Gordons. She’d had an affair with Barry, and as soon as he left town, begun yet another with Anders. She’d boggled the books and baffled her replacement. And she’d been on the boat at the worst conceivable moment, although I had to concede it had not been her fault.

Dick had offered a reasonable explanation for the damning call to the lake house, and I could understand why he’d erased the message on the machine. It was not the sort of message
that should be played by strangers. If he was telling the truth, then someone else had called Becca to report the wounded eagle. As a thought struck, my eyebrows rose and my lips formed a flawless circle. The someone had called Becca’s house—rather than the office of the Dunling Foundation.

I picked up a pencil and started a list of where people had been late that afternoon (we amateur sleuths are very big on making lists, as well as timetables and convoluted charts). Dick’s long-distance bill seemed to verify his whereabouts. Supposedly Sid had been at his office, wiring unruly teeth. Gannet surely had verified this, too; I did not, however, make a note to call him and inquire. Agatha Anne and Georgiana were at Anders’s trailer, which not only meant that none of them could have made the call but regrettably suggested that no one had been in the foundation office to take the call.

Hoping someone was there now, I called said office. Livia answered, and I hurriedly asked my question before she could start enthusing about their Eagle Awareness plans.

“In the office?” she said slowly. “I don’t think so. I was escorting a church group from a little town called Maggody. They were particularly eager to view bitterns, I believe it was, and it took several hours before we tracked down one.
Oong-KA-chunk!
”

“Pardon me?”

“The American bittern’s distinctive call is audible from over a quarter of a mile away.”

It occurred to me that Caron’s remark about the contents of Livia’s cranium was more accurate than I’d realized. “That’s good to know,” I said hypocritically. “Was Wharton also with this group?”

“No, I seem to think he was outside in the garden all afternoon.” She hesitated, then sighed and said, “The ladies and I were just coming to the end of the trail when we heard a boom. I was irritated because I assumed Wharton had taken a potshot at the groundhog, and he—Wharton, not the groundhog—had promised only the night before that he would not do so when there were visitors on the trails. I felt quite awful when I later learned that what we’d heard was the explosion of the boat.”

“Then the Dunling Foundation office was uninhabited,” I said glumly. “I suppose whoever wanted to report the wounded eagle tried there, then called Becca at home.”

“We always arrange to have the telephone answered. Wharton would have taken the cordless out to the garden. Now that I think about it, Captain Gannet asked that very same question, and Wharton was certain that no one called for at least an hour before the dreadful explosion.”

“By the way, how are Agatha Anne and Georgiana coming on the books?” I asked.

“I couldn’t say. I wish they’d let Wharton
straighten things out. He may not grasp this mysterious system, either, but he is familiar with the accounts. Until this year, he did all the financial reports that are essential to ensure our nonprofit status.”

“Why didn’t he do them this year?”

“Agatha Anne said that Becca had assumed responsibility for them. Becca was such a talented young woman, and so very adept at everything she tried. At her request, I taught her how to bake bread, and the next week she brought us a delicious loaf of whole-grain and a jar of homemade raspberry jam. I warned Dick that he’d better watch his waistline.” She chuckled at her wit.

I wished her a pleasant afternoon, then wasted the remainder of mine drawing a map of the Blackburn Creek development. The result resembled a serving of spaghetti. I was wondering if I had a jar of tomato sauce in a kitchen cabinet when Luanne called.

“I’m at the lake,” she said. “Jillian hasn’t returned. No one has seen or heard from her for over twenty-four hours. Dick’s been calling the house in town every ten minutes, but there’s no answer. Could you please drive by, and if her car is there, make sure she’s okay and call us?”

I agreed, locked the store, and drove across town to the opulent neighborhood, entertaining myself with a fantasized scenario in which Anders and Georgiana frolicked under the sheets while Jillian, dressed in black like Anders’s be
loved
mormor
, stood at the foot of the bed and sternly lectured them in Swedish.

Jillian’s car was parked in the garage, but there was no ominous hose attached to the tailpipe. I rang the doorbell, then pounded with my fist. If Jillian was inside, she was not in the mood for company. I jammed the button and pounded for a while longer, then circled the house, peering into windows for a glimpse of her. The interior looked exactly as it had the previous day—elegantly inhospitable.

I returned to the back of the house, where I was less likely to be observed by nosy neighbors. Reminding myself that I was there at Dick’s behest, I picked up a rock from a flower bed and smashed the glass pane in the door. I carefully reached through the shards and unlocked the door, then replaced the rock as best I could and entered the kitchen.

“Jillian?” I called. “It’s Claire Malloy.”

The coffee cup was now in the dishwasher, its rim pristine. The plate on the coffeemaker was cool to the touch. The pizza that had been in the refrigerator was gone, and it seemed as if a few items had been shifted. None of this was newsworthy, since it was obvious that Jillian had returned to the house sometime after the bail hearing. Anyone who’d heard her father accused of two murders might have found solace in pepperoni pizza.

I quickly searched downstairs, then called her
name as I went to the second floor. I was met with resounding silence. Jillian’s room showed little evidence of occupancy, but I doubted it ever did. A toothbrush was damp, however, and two sensible shoes were visible under the bed. I heard a quiet hum and tracked it to her computer atop a shoddy student desk. Small greenish lights indicated that parts of the system were running, but the screen was black except for a pulsating oblong no wider than a quarter of an inch at the top of the screen and a row of numbers and letters across the bottom. My understanding of computers was comparable to that of remote-control beepers.