Tickled to Death (15 page)

I cleared my throat. “Please note that I had
nothing to do with any of this. I’d never met any of you or evinced any great interest in birds. All I did was try to prove Dick’s innocence.”

“So he can marry your friend,” Wharton said, nodding. “This way Dick won’t have to bother with a divorce, will he? I’m helping him just like you, Mrs. Malloy. We’re on the same team in a way. Teamwork’s vital in the military.”

“I think you’re missing my point,” I said. “I’m not responsible for anything that’s happened. I can understand your problems with Agatha Anne and Becca, but—”

Despite the wire around her wrist, Becca managed to jab me. “Could you try a different tactic, please?”

Wharton picked up the candle. “I did not miss your point. You have a reputation for meddling. This time you meddled when you should have stayed at home and minded your own business. Agatha Anne and Becca betrayed the Dunling Foundation. There is only one way to deal with traitors. You may consider yourself to be a spy. Spies are dealt with in the same manner.” He disappeared into the cabin.

Agatha Anne frowned at her wrists. “This is not going well. Sid is very fond of his boat, and has invited some old friends to fish this weekend. Do either of you have a suggestion?”

Neither of us had offered one when Wharton returned. He turned on the engine, maneuvered the boat out of the slip, and stopped at the end
of the dock. Once he’d adjusted the wheel, he stepped out of the boat and pushed the throttle.

“Bon voyage,”
he called as the boat chugged away from the marina.

“How long does it take for the propane to accumulate?” I shouted over the sound of the engine. I stuck my wrists at Becca. “See if you can catch the end.”

“And break a nail?”

“It depends,” Agatha Anne shouted, “on the rate of escape, obviously.” She began to gnaw at the wire with her teeth.

I looked back at the marina. Wharton stood watching us, the shotgun resting in one arm. “As soon as we’re out of range, we’ll have to jump. I’d rather sink than be incinerated in an explosion. I presume we all know how to swim?”

“I’ve never tried under these circumstances,” Agatha Anne shouted hoarsely.

“Nor have I,” Becca said. She’d not raised her voice, but her words were audible.

I struggled to my feet and hopped toward the stern of the boat. I had no idea about the range of the shotgun, but Wharton looked quite small and the distance daunting. “After the boat explodes, find something to hang on to,” I said as I looked at the cold, choppy water. “The explosion will bring other people to the marina. We’ll be safe.”

Agatha Anne and Becca clung to each other as they hopped to my side. The boat lurched, sending
us sprawling onto the deck, and it took several precious minutes to struggle back up.

“We’d better jump,” I shouted.

Becca leaned forward to look down at the inhospitable water. “I have a slight problem.”

“A slight problem?”

“I grew up in a housing project, so I’m not an accomplished swimmer. My coat is likely to drag me down. I think I shall take my chances here on the boat. Wharton may have overestimated the time required for the propane to fill the cabin, or the candle might have gone out. We’re nearly halfway across the lake already. In another five minutes, the boat will run into the shore.”

I opened my mouth to tell her she had to jump, then realized she was making sense. Her coat would soak up water, and there was no way to remove it. It was unlikely Wharton had much experience in this particular arena. Agatha Anne and I could be in the process of drowning when the boat gently bumped the far side of the lake.

“I smell propane!” screamed Agatha Anne.

Becca pushed me. I had a second to gulp in a breath as I tumbled over the side. Having taken this sort of dive only a few days earlier, I anticipated the coldness of the water. As soon as I stopped plunging downward, I kicked my way to the surface. Agatha Anne’s head appeared seconds later, her eyes round and her expression dazed.

The boat was receding. Becca stood at the
helm, her perfect blond hair streaming in the wind.

The boat exploded in a ball of flames and black, roiling smoke.

I coughed and gagged as smoke swept over me. Waves slammed into my face. Bits of burning debris bobbled by like miniature funeral barges. My head throbbed with the sound of the explosion. I tried not to think about Georgiana’s dream, which had been fabricated especially for me. All things considered, I was not in the mood to swim with a skull.

“Agatha Anne!” I called raggedly, scanning the water. I heard a faint response and moved toward it, but every inch of progress required a great deal of squirming. My hands were useless. I doubted we could make it all the way back to the marina. Exhaustion would drag us down as surely as Becca’s fur would have dragged her down. I twisted my head and looked where the boat had been, then resumed my eel-like squirms. There was no hope she had survived.

“Claire?” Agatha Anne called. “Are you okay?”

I refused to waste my breath on a caustic
answer, and arrived at her side. “We need to find something to hold us up,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ve spotted a life preserver?”

“If I had, I’d be hanging on to it, wouldn’t I? Do you think a boat will come to investigate?”

“I think we’d better start swimming.”

A charred paddle floated into range. It provided only a little buoyancy, but it was not the time to be picky. We discovered our best mode was on our backs. Waves splashed into my eyes and nose, erratically but insistently. Conversation was impossible. I was afraid to look at the dock. If the distance had not lessened appreciably, even the Energizer Bunny would not have been able to keep on going. His little pink self would be at the bottom of Turnstone Lake.

“I can’t make it any farther,” Agatha Anne said as she clung to the paddle. Her heretofore flawless face was splotched and her hair hung in her eyes. “It’s too cold.”

I let my feet sink so that I was vertical, a much better position from which to lecture her. “Yes, you can, dammit! We both can. Wharton Dunling is not going to get away with this. We are going to make it to the marina and call for help.” I allowed myself a glimpse at our destination and tried to imbue my voice with optimism. “We’re halfway there. It’s not that far now.”

“My entire body is anesthetized from the cold. My ankles are getting puffy and the wire hurts dreadfully.”

I raised my hands out of the water long enough to point my finger at her. “This is not the time to start whining.”

Her lower lip shot out. “I hate it when my ankles get puffy.”

“Let’s go,” I said, then lay back like a sodden log and began to kick. Her pouty expression had reminded me of Caron, and my stomach churned as I considered the reality that my daughter might be an orphan before she had a driver’s license. Tears began to dribble out of the corners of my eyes to be washed away by waves. Nearby I could hear Agatha Anne’s snuffles. I squeezed my eyes as tightly as I could and imagined Wharton Dunling’s face. It was behind bars.

Periodically, we paused to rest and took turns with the paddle. Agatha Anne’s expression remained mutinous, as if I were punishing her for a missed curfew or a bad grade. I wasn’t predisposed to defend myself. The distance was dwindling, but there were obvious reasons why swimming while trussed was not an Olympic event.

I finally felt something brush against my foot as we entered shallower water. I was much too depleted to worry about snakes or alligators, or even corpses. The dock was closer. No one had appeared in response to the explosion, but it had taken place in the middle of the lake.

We wiggled our way past the dock and arrived at the boat ramp. Allowing the paddle to
drift away, we sat on the concrete and let relief rather than waves wash over us. I looked back at the smoking rubble, but I couldn’t judge the distance with any accuracy. It didn’t matter how far it was. It had felt like a million miles.

“Shall we call someone?” said Agatha Anne.

“I can’t drive the car like this.” I made it to my feet and looked at the screen door of the marina office. The lengthy immersion had caused my ankles to swell, and I could barely move my feet. I started up the ramp, one torturous hop at a time.

“My legs are too tired,” Agatha Anne said. She began to pick at the wire around her ankles.

It was tempting to rejoin her, but I was worried about Wharton’s whereabouts. I continued slowly to the screen door. Yellow tape forbade entry. I ripped it off and opened the door, then held my breath while I turned the knob of the sturdier wooden door. Whoever had put up the tape had found it sufficient warning.

I crumpled into the nearest chair, where less than a week earlier I’d pretended to be an insurance investigator. Had my presence been a catalyst? I decided it had not. Bubo had implied he was preparing to demand a blackmail payoff. My unsuccessful Machiavellian ploy might have affected his agenda, but he would have made the call sooner or later. On a day when banks were open, perhaps.

Clearly, the catalyst was Becca. She had manipulated the events from the moment she swooped in like a vulture to help Marilyn Gordon with her luggage in the Miami airport. She’d orchestrated everything and everybody. She hadn’t given Jillian Cissel an overdose because I’d started poking into the accident. She’d done it because it suited her to remain in the background. As Livia had said, Becca had many talents. Baking bread was the least of them.

I hopped to the cash register. My fingers were stiff, and it took effort to scoop out a few coins. I hopped to the pay telephone and told the operator to put me through to the sheriff’s office. After I had described the situation to a skeptical dispatcher, I hopped back to the counter and searched through junk-filled drawers for a tool with which to cut the wire. Everything I did was laborious and clumsy; I was deeply gratified that there was no one with a camcorder.

When Agatha Anne came hopping inside, I was sitting at the table, the fillet knife in front of me. My ankles were free, but there’d been no way to cut the wire around my wrists. My hands were on the table in the classic pose of supplication.

“Nice of you to drop in,” I said.

“I told you my legs were tired,” she said huffily.

We freed each other, then sat back to massage our skin and wait. This time the Mounties really were coming.

Agatha Anne peered at the darkness though the doorway. “Did you make sure Wharton’s not in the back room?”

“Why don’t you poke your head in there and see for yourself?”

“You’re the one with all the experience in this sort of thing. We could be sitting ducks, you know.”

“Shut up, bufflehead.” My countenance and tone of voice were adequate to elicit her compliance. I took the pilfered change and bought a soda. I did not offer her one. Someday when this was all a vague memory, I would proffer a silent apology to Emily Post, but at the moment I was all out of social graces. “Did you search the back room the night you pushed me in the lake?” I demanded.

“I’ve already apologized for that, Claire. I had no idea the water was so cold. I certainly wouldn’t have pushed you into it if I’d known.” She gazed at the harsh white lines around her wrist, as if trying to think which bracelets might best cover them.

“Did you search the back room?”

“No, but whoever did was looking for a cassette of a conversation I had with Bubo the day after the accident. He secretly recorded it.”

“It was not an accident,” I said sternly.

“You’re in a foul temper, aren’t you? Anyway, Bubo called me on the telephone and talked about…what we did. He emphasized the size
of the payment and made sure I acknowledged having made it. When he called me last week, he threatened to mail the cassette to Gannet.”

“He called you at home?”

“At the Dunling Foundation office,” she said, wistfully eyeing my can of soda. She was much too proper to ask for a sip. Because of my foul (or was it fowl?) temper, I didn’t offer her one.

Shortly thereafter Captain Gannet stomped into the office, accompanied by a few familiar deputies. He frowned at me. “You should find a new hairstyle, Mrs. Malloy. This one’s not flattering.”

“Next time I’m in Paris I’ll do just that.” I related everything that had happened, overriding Agatha Anne’s attempts to interrupt.

Captain Gannet thought it all over for a few minutes, scratching his head and grumbling to himself. “Why did you take a gun to Cissel’s house?” he barked at Agatha Anne. “Were you going to shoot the meddlesome Mrs. Malloy?”

She cringed as he glowered at her. “Of course not. I was sitting in the waiting room at the hospital, and all of a sudden I realized that Becca was back. I didn’t think she’d done that terrible thing to Jillian, though. I thought maybe she’d convinced Jillian that Dick had murdered her mother, which would explain why Jillian tried to kill herself. I knew Becca couldn’t stay at the house in town. It seemed likely that she was hiding at Dick’s lake house.”

“So you went there to shoot her?” Gannet said.

“Absolutely not! She was a dear friend and I admired her greatly. She had a fantastic backhand, Captain Gannet. I wish you could have seen it yourself. I just thought I’d ask about the money, and if she wasn’t cooperative, frighten her a bit.” Agatha Anne smiled modestly at the brilliance of her plan.

“Did Luanne tell you I’d taken the key?” I asked.

“No, I don’t seem to recall that she did.”

“Luanne’s judgment may be suspect, but her memory’s just fine. We can call her and ask, you know.”

“Well, she may have mentioned it,” Agatha Anne said. “We didn’t really discuss it at any length. I assumed your reasoning had been similar to mine and you suspected Becca was at the lake house.”

Captain Gannet met my gaze as he lit a cigarette, then flicked the match on the floor. We both knew Agatha Anne had found an explanation from which she would never budge. “Did Wharton Dunling kill Bubo?” he asked me. I could see from his expression that the necessity to pose the question was having a deleterious effect on his internal organs. It gave a whole new meaning to the word “galling.”

“Yes, I think he did,” I said. Had I not been sopping wet, I might have basked in the glow of
his discomfort. “He eavesdropped on telephone conversations. He must have heard Bubo’s demand and decided to take out yet another traitor to the cause. Agatha Anne had no means to get ten thousand dollars, and Bubo was capable of mailing the tape from another state. The Dunling Foundation would be finished. Livia might have a fatal heart attack. He’s devoted to her.” I shot a dark look at Agatha Anne. “And unlike certain other people, she may well be worthy of it. She honestly is more concerned with the bird sanctuary than with the society page. She grows milkweed for the butterflies, for pity’s sake.”

“I have a trumpet vine for the hummingbirds,” she retorted.

Gannet intervened before I could launch into a diatribe about hypocrisy and other less gracious traits. “I sent a deputy to Dunling Lodge. No one is there, and the jeep is gone.”

“Wharton mentioned a nationwide network of vets,” I said. “It must have taken us an hour to swim back here and call. He and Livia may be in the next state by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if various links in the network have access to false documents.” I stopped to think, then added, “You might try the Mexican customs authorities.”

“Why would I do that, Mrs. Malloy?” Gannet said with the widest smirk I’d seen thus far. It stretched from ear to ear, and he bore a disturbing resemblance to the Cheshire Cat.

I could not make him vanish, alas, but I could
wipe away his smirk. “That’s where the monarch butterflies go when it starts getting cool. In Wharton’s case, it’s downright cold these days.”

He had the grace to blink.

Caron had no grace at all when I related all of this later that afternoon. “What about my job?” she howled. “What about the hundred and seventy-eight dollars for driver’s ed?”

“You’ll have to find another job,” I said.

“Nobody’s going to pay ten dollars an hour.” She sat down on the floor and flopped against the self-help books. “Dishwashers start at minimum wage and get like a ten-cent raise every year if they haven’t broken any dishes.”

Inez peeked around the corner of the fiction rack. “I forgot to tell you that Louis Wilderberry’s sister called me this morning,” she said hesitantly.

“So?”

“They found a sub for Coach Scoter.”

“So?”

“It’s this retired nun named Louisa Ferncliff. I didn’t know nuns retired. I thought they just died. Then again, I thought they were all named Sister something or other.”

“Send me to the swamp!” Caron buried her face in her hands. “In North Carolina or someplace stupid like that, there’s the Great Dismal Swamp. Maybe they need a facilitator.”

I remembered how I’d felt when I doubted I would make it to shore. “I’ll make you a deal,
dear. We’ll forget about driver’s ed. You work here without pay and I’ll apply the credit toward the difference in the insurance rates. Twelve hours a month, okay?”

“And I take the driver’s exam in August?” Caron said, recovering nicely.

“No car, though. You’ll have to share mine.”

She stood up and gave me a haughty look. “I’ll be the laughingstock of the entire high school when I show up in the parking lot. Can’t you trade it in for something less nerdy?” When I shook my head, she headed for the door. “Let’s ask your mom to take us to the mall, Inez. I want to get that black bikini for Rhonda’s party on Saturday. Then I may just call Rhonda and tell her Everything Else that Allison Wade said about her buttocks, not to mention her thighs.”

The bell jangled, and then I was alone. It was raining, which meant the sidewalks were empty and the traffic sparse. I anticipated no customers. In two more years Caron would leave for college (little did she know I was sending her to the University of Antarctica). It was probable that Luanne would marry her pedodontist once he recovered from his mourning for his daughter. I disliked cats. I would be alone more and more of the time.

Unless, of course, I picked up the telephone.

The following Wednesday I trailed Luanne across the beer garden to our favorite picnic table. Once
we’d feathered our nest with beer, she handed me several typewritten pages.