I was just scraping the last threadlike line of lemon out of the ramekin when Julian appeared. He sniffed the air and looked disapproving and then minced forward. Don’t ask me how a man pushing two hundred and fifty pounds can mince but he did. Not a pretty sight.
He stood over me. “We have a little problem.” “We? I don’t have any problems.”
He scowled with annoyance. “Terrence Wainwright has just been taken away in an ambulance.” His mouth pursed. “Seems he may have a ruptured appendix.” He was totally annoyed and put out with this failure on the part of Terry’s appendix.
“Ah.” I nodded in understanding. “That will leave you short-staffed.”
“More than that. Head of food and beverage services is a live-in position. I’d like you to take the position until he returns.”
A greasy smirk accompanied his words. Not amusing. How annoying was he going to be if I stayed here? And was there any point? Would I learn any more about Gina’s death by moving in to the B&T? Was there anything here I wanted? Isaak stuck his head out the door, looked at Julian and gave me a big wink.
“All right,” I said.
I called Styles that afternoon. “Deanna Weston doesn’t think Ethan is the killer.”
“Well you have to be pretty stupid to take up with a man you thought might kill you.”
“Not in her case. She has this crazy idea that it’s the perfect way to commit suicide.”
“Get out!”
“I kid you not.” I described Deanna’s suicide plan to him.
“But she doesn’t think it’s him. He cried last night after you talked to him. Deanna says he definitely isn’t the killer.”
“And of course a woman looking to get murdered is a great judge of character.”
“Maybe. She’s learned a lot about his background.”
“So have I.”
“Well…?”
“This has nothing to do with you.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Nothing.
“I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me about Ethan.” He groaned, bored with my tricks. Fortunately, I’m not the sensitive type.
“Come on,” I wheedled. “Will it kill you?”
He exhaled heavily. “He’s always been a mommy’s boy, couldn’t stay away from her. His mother was pretty bossy and domineering.” Silence. “And?” I asked.
“And she died in mysterious circumstances.”
“What?”
“Nothing was ever proved against him. It may have been suicide or an accident, an overdose of prescribed medication, the coroner wasn’t happy.” “Oh, I’ve got to tell Deanna.”
“No! Don’t even think of it. Ms. Weston has made her choice.”
The horns of a dilemma; how could I not tell her? But then I already had. She only took up with Ethan because she thought he had killed Bunny Lehre. “Now what’s the secret?” Styles asked “Deanna told me yesterday that he’s been taking money out of her purse. Not more than ten or twenty dollars at a time, amounts she might not miss. That’s probably why Bunny Lehre slung him out. She also may have been threatening him with the police.”
“He was charged once with stealing jewelry from a woman he was dating but those charges were dropped. Bunny Lehre’s daughter says some of her mom’s jewelry was missing.”
“So Ethan could have killed her?”
“Larceny isn’t the same as murder.”
“Bunny and Gina knew each other. I got the distinct impression that Gina went out of her way to meet Bunny. But why? It wasn’t because Gina liked the woman. Quite the opposite.”
“I’ve looked for a connection between them and can’t find it.”
“Was Ethan Eames the connection?”
“I don’t know.”
“If Gina thought Ethan was a serial killer and saw him with Bunny, wouldn’t she tell Bunny?”
“Or maybe Gina wanted to catch him in the act, that’s why she was hanging about.”
I sighed. “Maybe these murders are totally random and there’s nothing to tie the victims together. He just kills women of a certain age and a certain class. Gina seemed to hint at that.”
“In that case he’ll be hard to catch. We’ll just have to wait for him to make a mistake.”
“Gina said that’s what the police in North Carolina were waiting for. There’s something else. Bunny Lehre was screaming on the phone about investments to someone and making threats the day she died. All the dead women were rich. Maybe money is what connects all these women. Was there any financial connection between them?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions, aren’t you?”
“Did you know that Davis McDaniels, the VP of Cypress Island Bank has a drug habit? He also advised Bunny Lehre on investments plus he has some kind of investment interest in North Carolina. And the day Bunny Lehre died she was threatening to sue someone over money.” “Good god,” Styles said, “where do you get this stuff?” My mind went off on another track. “How much money did Gina leave?”
“About two million.”
“Wow! I’d kill for that. Did Gina and Bunny know each other before they came here?”
Styles was done with me. “Stop playing detective. Just stay out of this. And don’t do anything stupid.”
“As if I would.”