Chapter 25
I paused at the landing. The carpet was still pulled back, revealing the door in the floor. I would have to call a carpet installer to fix that as soon as possible.
Shivers ran along my arms just to think of what had happened there. I trudged up the remaining stairs and along the hallway, trying not to think about the blood on the carpet.
Maxwell’s office was a mess. If I hadn’t known the police had gone through everything, I would have thought someone had ransacked it.
I searched for a carpeting person on my cell phone and made an appointment for someone to come in at one o’clock in the afternoon to replace the hall carpeting and tack down the carpet on the landing. That done, I immersed myself in the job of searching for anything that might be useful in defending the professor.
Bit by bit, I set about restoring order. It was slow going to organize it all and put papers, notebooks, and fascinating maps back where I thought they belonged. I read or flipped through each item in search of anything that might help the professor.
Three hours later, I had nothing. No leads, no clues, nothing suspicious or even interesting. He had a lot of maps, including curious hand-drawn maps, no doubt for locating treasure. Could someone have been after a particular map and happened upon Delbert in the bookstore after hours? I perused them, but even though some had tempting words like tesoro on them, I wasn’t knowledgeable enough about the professor’s latest quest to know if one of them was especially important or rare.
I rose and stared out the window. What had happened here? Had Delbert been searching for something when I caught him in Maxwell’s office? Had he found a key and used it to let himself in later that night? He had departed in a hurry. Had he returned later to look for something in particular? Maybe he’d had a new scheme in mind and needed some kind of maps or documentation to make it seem real to his next victims.
Across the street, a man in a dark business suit stared at the bookstore. He gave me chills for a minute. I scolded myself. Maybe he had heard about the murder or intended to shop here. Everything and everyone was beginning to look sinister to me.
I sat down at the desk, found a red pencil in the top drawer, and drew the layout of the office, the hallway, and the secret hatch in the stairs. I drew little drops of blood in the hallway. Unless I missed my guess, the gouge on the floor might indicate that the spear had landed inside the hatch. Someone threw it in there. To get rid of it? Or was it aimed at someone?
It must have been retrieved by the killer, who drove it into Delbert. Perhaps he had staggered along the hallway, bleeding, in an effort to get away. Or maybe he died immediately and was dragged to the hatch to dispose of his body.
I crammed my diagram in the top drawer and went downstairs to open the store for the day. I flipped the CLOSED sign to OPEN and unlocked the front door.
Bob bounded in, full of enthusiasm. While I opened a box of cupcakes and set out napkins, I listened to him chatter, and wished I could confide in him about Jacquie. While he babbled on, the man whom I had seen from the window walked in.
He had a receding hairline and his body leaned toward being very well fed. His gaze fell on the stairs immediately, and almost as though he was drawn to them, he slowly walked up.
“Florrie, are you paying any attention to what I’m saying?” asked Bob.
“Yeah. I’ll be right back.” I sprang up the stairs and found the man staring at the trapdoor. “May I help you?”
He turned weary eyes toward me. “My son died here.”
I gasped, embarrassed to have done so. My hand flew to cover my mouth. “Mr. Woodley?”
He nodded, seemingly in slow motion, as though he had no energy left.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Not many people are sorry,” he murmured. “They say they are, but they don’t mean it. It’s terrible to know that people are relieved that your child is gone. Even worse to feel some sense of relief yourself.”
I had been guilty of that feeling. I could hardly take my eyes off the man. It was terrible to lose any loved one, even the ones who brought more difficulty than happiness to one’s life. “It must be very hard for you.”
“Are you Florrie?”
“Yes.”
“I apologize. On behalf of my entire family, I apologize for their behavior.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“My wife told the police that none of this would have happened if you hadn’t moved into the carriage house.” He eyed me briefly. “You’re a good bit younger than Maxwell. He usually goes for women his own age.”
“I manage his bookstore. I’m not his concubine.”
A glimmer of a smile crossed his lips but vanished in an instant. “You didn’t know Delbert, did you?”
“I only met him very briefly.”
“I did everything I could to turn his life around.” He covered his eyes with one outstretched hand. In the barest whisper, he said, “I didn’t like my own son. And now I have to live with that knowledge. There will never be a chance for redemption or reconciliation. I can never take back the last things I said to him.”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t imagine a parent not liking his own child.
He continued speaking, but I wasn’t sure he actually meant to talk to me. It was more like a stream of his thoughts. Maybe he needed to work through his guilt but didn’t have anyone to whom he could admit the truth.
“It began when he was just a child. Friends, family members, and doctors said he would outgrow his conniving behavior. But he never did. And what began as small, inconsequential ugliness grew into full-fledged deceit. He cared about no one but himself. You can’t imagine the sleepless nights and the dread of anticipating the next horrific chicanery.”
“I’m sure he had some redeeming qualities.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? He was always on the lookout for the next scam. I knew he would come to a tragic end. I just wasn’t prepared for it to happen so soon. He was young. He had time to change his evil ways. But if I’m being realistic, I suppose he never would have.”
I had to throw some hope his way. He was grieving and beating himself up. “Maybe Delbert would have changed and become more like his dad.”
He looked at me as though he had just awakened. “Thank you. Good luck to you, Florrie.” He turned and walked down the stairs, a sad, stooped figure.
For no good reason, I followed a few steps behind and watched from a window when he left the store. He walked along the street,just another weary businessman in a good suit. No one would ever guess the pain he carried in his heart.
Bob was busy with a customer and another petted Frodo, while patiently waiting to pay for five books. I rang them up. When I was done, I located two items in my purse—the phone number for Ms. Strickland, and Emily Branscom’s health club membership card. I slid the card into my pocket and called Maxwell’s lawyer.
“Good morning,” I said. “Any news on the professor’s case?”
“The autopsy results are back. I had hoped Delbert might have been on a psychedelic drug that caused him to hallucinate. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The spear was the cause of death, but I guess we knew that.”
“Any indication of the time of death?” I asked.
“I’ll spare you the gory details, but they’re speculating between eleven at night and nine in the morning.”
“That’s a broad window of time.”
“That’s what I think. How’s Mr. DuBois?”
I told her about his confusion at night, and then segued into the crossed wires and the likelihood that it had been done intentionally. “One of the police officers suggested that we buy a number of outdoor cameras since the estate is so large. They can be monitored on an iPhone or iPad, giving the security guards the ability to see more of the estate at one time.”
Happily, Ms. Strickland was all for the proposed setup. We made financial arrangements for it, and I hung up, feeling much better about everything.
I texted Jonquille to let him know just as Zsazsa waltzed into the store. She breathed deeply, enjoying the scents of the store, smiled, and helped herself to coffee and a lemon cupcake.
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Oh? Has something happened?” Her eyes widened with eagerness.
“Hey Bob,” I called. “Cover for me? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“Sure.” He ambled over and snatched a cupcake. “Gotta get the chocolate-iced ones while I can.”
Zsazsa followed me upstairs to Maxwell’s office. I closed the door behind us. I felt slightly guilty for sitting in his chair like I was the boss, but it was the most private place to talk.
“Last night, as far as we can ascertain, someone broke into the carriage house and crossed wires in the refrigerator to shock me. The refrigerator had to be pulled away from the wall and in the back, this was discovered.” I withdrew Emily Branscom’s gym club identification card and held it out to Zsazsa.
She pulled on reading glasses covered with sparkling rhinestones and frowned at the card. “You think Emily broke into the carriage house?”
“No. I think Emily might have been a regular visitor there.”
Zsazsa blinked at me. Her eyes widened so far that the tips of her fake eyelashes touched her eyebrows. “The mysterious man in her life is Maxwell?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. I can’t imagine that she broke in to create a short in the refrigerator. She certainly has no reason to want to harm me. The only thing I can conclude is that she must have lost the card there before I moved in. It was probably swept under the refrigerator by mistake.”
Zsazsa stared at the card. “It was renewed recently.” She tapped the card against the desk. Her lips, the color of a ripe tomato, drew into a sneaky smile. “You have come to the right woman, Florrie. I believe a few carefully placed inquiries may yield some useful information. But I am quite concerned about you. Would you like to stay with me?”
It was such a generous offer that I was taken aback. “You’re too kind, Zsazsa. But the police are making arrangements for better security. I’m not worried.”
“Would these police happen to include a certain Sergeant Jonquille of the most amazing blue eyes?”
“As it happens, yes.”
She clasped her hands together in joy. “I hoped so. You must bake for him. Something special.”
“His father owns a restaurant. I hardly think he’ll be impressed by my baking.”
“It is a gesture of love, my dear. The tender flakiness, the soft crumb, the delicate sweetness. These are things that speak to the heart.”
“It’s not like that, Zsazsa. He’s just helping me out. That’s all.”
“Very well.” She smiled as though she didn’t believe me. “I am still glad that he is looking out for you. Love blooms in the strangest of situations. Now, I shall take this interesting identification card and do a bit of sleuthing.”
“Thanks, Zsazsa.”
We walked down to the main level, where I noticed that she checked in with her pal Professor Goldblum before she left the store.
Color Me Read was doing a brisk business. I hated to imagine that the publicity about Delbert’s death and the professor’s arrest was bringing in new customers, but that appeared to be the case.
The carpet layer showed up promptly at one o’clock. When he saw the stair landing, he asked, “Is this where that guy was murdered?”
“I’m afraid so. Can you tack this all back into place?”
“Sure. Sure I can.”
He followed me up to the third floor. “Any chance that you can match the maroon of the carpet in the hallway?”
“No problem.”
“Florrie!” I knew Veronica’s voice without looking.
She stepped up the stairs in ridiculously high heels and an elegant suit.
“How can you walk in those?” I asked.
“You get the hang of it. You should try a pair.”
“I’d snap my ankle in a matter of minutes.”
“But they look so great, don’t you think?”
The carpet layer piped up. “Nothin’ like a great pair of heels on a lady.”
I motioned to Veronica to follow me downstairs. “What are you doing in Georgetown in the middle of the day?”
“Can you take a quick break?” Veronica’s forehead wrinkled with worry.