Chapter 26

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,” Leigh said, watching with glee as the fins of yet another group of bottlenose dolphins appeared beside the boat. She, Warren, Bev, and Hap were cruising around the ship channels, taking in the local sights and enjoying the warm Texas air in the hour before sunset.

“Oh, now, Carl was happy to do it,” Hap insisted, leaning out over the railing next to her. “We all felt bad that you two missed your cruise earlier, and Carl doesn’t need an excuse to take this old girl out on the water on a day like today.”

“At least let us reimburse him for the gas,” Warren offered.

“Not a chance,” Hap declined. “We’d already collected a little money to get a defense fund set up for the preserve. Thanks to you, that unsolvable problem was solved before we’d spent a dime! Seems the least we could do is treat the two of you to a charter dolphin watch and a nice, romantic dinner out on your last night here. The rest will go to the preserve’s regular foundation, don’t you worry.”

One of the dolphins leaped partway out of the water, and Leigh smiled as she heard its happy clicking sound. “The kids would love this.”

Warren smiled in agreement. “We’ll have to bring them here sometime.”

“Absolutely!” Bev insisted. “Can’t promise you we’ll still be working at the Silver King or the Grande, of course. Their future’s pretty much up in the air. But wherever we end up, you and those twins of yours are always welcome! What kind of cookies do the young’uns like?”

Leigh turned to her hostess with both a laugh and a groan. “Do you have any idea how long I am going to have to starve myself to recover from what was supposed to be a week of fresh air, exercise, and caloric moderation?”

Bev chuckled without remorse. “I just make the treats, darlin’. The consequences aren’t my problem.”

“Now you see what I’ve got to live with,” Hap laughed, patting his protruding belly.

“So that’s why I married you!” Warren exclaimed to Leigh, putting a hand to his own trim waist.

She punched him. “And I thought it was because you enjoyed spending quality time with law enforcement.”

Bev and Hap both laughed, albeit a little nervously.

“We really are sorry this week hasn’t been more… relaxing for you,” Bev said sadly. “We’d hoped to show you a better time.”

“Oh, please,” Leigh said quickly, “none of what happened was your fault! And you’ve been fabulous in helping us out.”

“Absolutely,” Warren agreed. “I would never have been able to finish my work here if it weren’t for you and your birder friends keeping an eye on… things. We owe you so much.”

Bev smiled. “Well, we birders stick together,” she said smugly.

Hap made a snorting sound. “I still say you can’t be so sure about that.”

“Now, Hap!” Bev protested. “I never did disagree with you! You know I took the risk of renegades into account.”

“Do you mean,” Warren asked, “you thought that some of the birders might go rogue and start hunting for the diamonds themselves? I have to admit, I was wondering about that myself.”

Bev shrugged. “Well, sure. People are people, after all. But that didn’t make forming the group a bad idea. The cause needed an army to have a fighting chance. Besides, I figured having a little peer pressure could help keep folks on the straight and narrow. If any of the regulars suddenly started wintering in the south of France, someone was gonna know the reason why!”

Leigh chuckled. “I thought the birders showed amazing devotion to the cause.”

“So did I,” Warren agreed. “Just remind me never to get on their bad side.”

“And how,” added Hap. “Some of those people are wicked scary, I’m telling you.”

“Oh, they are not!” Leigh found herself defending, even before Bev could say a word.

Hap’s blue eyes danced as he teased her. “You telling me you’d be up for meeting the likes of Bonnie in a dark alley? That woman nearly took my head off last week. Said I smeared her binocular lenses when all I did was pass the blame things across the table.”

“You had rib sauce all over your fingers and you made her miss the pipit!” Bev chided.

Hap sighed dramatically.

“You won’t find me criticizing them,” Warren stage-whispered to Hap as he gave Leigh a hug around the shoulders. “They’re the only people I know who’ve ever been able to keep an eye on the missus.”

Leigh grumbled, albeit good-naturedly. Unbeknownst to her at the time, the Rangers had been keeping a pretty good eye on her, too, especially this morning. Eva Menlin’s hired bodyguard, who was known to Eva’s husband, had been located and interviewed at a local motel shortly after her body was identified. But he claimed that Eva had dismissed him from the job as soon as their business was concluded on Wednesday, and that it was a last-minute decision on his part to stay another few days and “soak up some sun.” He insisted he had no idea that Eva had failed to get on her plane, nor did he have any explanation for why her rental car had been found abandoned twenty miles from the airport.

The Rangers didn’t believe him, of course, and after receiving multiple reports of overnight footprints at the preserve, the real scenario had not been difficult to surmise. Still, they lacked direct evidence to tie him to Eva’s and Stanley’s murders, and thus had spent all of last night and this morning lying in wait at the wetlands, hoping to arrest the bodyguard with the loot in his grubby paws. But in order for that to happen, he had to find the diamonds.

Leigh still wondered if he ever would have. Considering how deeply her foot had smooshed the purse down, she doubted it. Not that she got any credit for having served up the Rangers’ evidence on a silver platter… Oh, no. All she got, as usual, was a dressing-down for interfering. But the bodyguard had taken the bait. Twice, in fact, since he’d attempted to take them from her by force, and then had retrieved them again just before the Rangers closed in. Leigh didn’t care to think about how close he’d come to being shot while standing within inches of her. Nor did she care to think what might have happened if he had seen the results of her pathetic toss, which had barely moved the purse six feet. What mattered was that she had bought herself enough time to get away from him — and out of range of the Rangers’ bullets. The only people who would benefit from those diamonds now were the company’s creditors.

“The birders did a good job of helping get those Finneys rounded up, too,” Bev said proudly. “Those kids may not be guilty of triple homicide, but single homicide is bad enough!”

“You got that right,” Hap agreed. Then he exhaled loudly. “You know, I keep hoping to hear that one or the other of them was innocent. Of the murder, or the fraud, or something. But no. That’s not what Bobby Jo’s passing on. It sounds like they all knew about the funny business with the stock. They couldn’t care less what happened to Cort’s company, I guess because they didn’t trust each other enough to keep a four-way partnership going. They all just wanted to get out of it as quick as they could with as much money as they could.”

“Even if it meant being chased after by the law the rest of their lives?” Bev questioned.

Hap shook his head. “I expect Janelle was the only one who really understood what was legal and what wasn’t, at least in the beginning. Bruce and Russell probably thought they could manage without getting caught, and Sharonna doesn’t think, period. By the time they all got the whole picture, there was no turning back.”

“How was the CFO involved exactly?” Warren asked. “Do they know yet?”

“Well, officially we don’t know anything, of course,” Hap said slyly, casting an eye toward his buddy Carl, who was driving the boat with headphones on. “But Bobby Jo hears things, and she told her daddy that the four of them have been telling four different stories ever since they were arrested. About the only thing they do agree on is that Ted Sullivan was no innocent. How things went wrong with him, though… Well, their stories are all so tangled up, Bobby Jo says she doesn’t think anybody may ever know what really happened out at the house that night.”

“He died at the Finney mansion?” Leigh asked.

Hap nodded. He threw a sober look at Bev. “They were all together that night. Did you know that? Cort always used to say he never even tried to get the four of them in the same room. Not after their mother died. I guess that first Christmas without her was a real doozy. Cops called out and everything. He used to joke with me — and it was only half a joke — that he was glad he was going to be dead at his funeral. Because the next time those four got together, something truly terrible was going to happen.”

“Good Lord almighty,” Bev muttered. “And to think I bad-mouthed Sharonna for staying in Fiji instead of flying back for her daddy’s funeral!”

“It was a good thing, I guess,” Hap continued. “Why they all got together that particular night to meet with the CFO, I don’t know. But something terrible sure enough did happen.”

“Which one of them killed Ted Sullivan?” Bev asked.

“Janelle says Sharonna crushed his skull by hitting him over the head with some kind of planter,” Hap answered. Then he paused.

“Do you believe that?” Bev pressed.

“Well, no,” Hap replied. “Because the other three all say Janelle did it.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. Leigh thought about asking who had disposed of the body, but the truth was, she didn’t care. The family owned a boat, and they were all guilty. Still, it would be easier to stomach, somehow, if one were guiltier than the others. “So, was Janelle the mastermind, then?”

“‘Mastermind’ is giving her too much credit,” Warren protested. “What she did required some accounting savvy, but it was still short-sighted and just plain dumb.”

“Yep,” Hap agreed sadly. “That’s what Cort always said about her. No common sense.”

“Poor Cort,” Bev said loudly, putting her arm around her husband’s waist. “He was a good old soul, and so was his wife, from everything I’ve heard. I suppose we can at least be grateful they died without realizing what a lousy pack of brats they’d raised.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Hap said skeptically.

“It’s just as well there were never any grandkids,” Bev mused.

“Only one spouse left behind, for that matter,” Hap added.

Bev let out a snort. “Misti? Please, that girl will divorce Bruce in a heartbeat once his money dries up. Sad to say it, but I don’t see anybody pining from loneliness over those four.”

Leigh felt a sudden pang. “Bev, that reminds me, have you decided—”

The shorter woman turned to Leigh with a chuckle. “Are you still on about that? Jiminy crickets, child, you’re as bad as Joyce!”

“What’s this?” Hap asked.

Bev laughed again. “Your cousin here’s done everything but get down on her knees and beg me to spend Sunday night over at Joyce’s motorhome, babysitting that crazy cat!”

Hap stared at Leigh. “But they’ll be back on Monday, won’t they?”

“Yes,” Leigh replied, her mind tortured once again with the image of a pitiful, mourning set of aquamarine eyes. “But we’re flying out early tomorrow, so Snowbell will be by herself all day, too. And I just hate the thought of her being alone all night, not having any idea when or if anyone is ever coming back. I just keep imagining her sitting up in that front window, staring out, with little kitty tears streaming down her—”

“Oh, good Lord almighty!” Bev conceded with a groan. “Fine! I’ll sleep with Snowbell. Maybe I can even get Hap to join us.”

“Say what now?” her husband interjected.

“Will that make you happy?” Bev asked Leigh.

Leigh grinned from ear to ear, then leaned down to give her cousin-in-law a hug. “Perfectly.”

Another dolphin made a leap, this time nearly clearing the water’s surface before splashing back into the chop of the boat’s wake.

The foursome cheered. Then, almost as if it were jealous of the attention, a brown pelican swooped down and began to glide along beside the boat.

Leigh laughed and gave the bird some applause as well.

“So, are you having a good vacation?” Warren asked, smiling down at her. “Despite all?”

She reached up and kissed him. “I am having a fabulous vacation,” she replied. And it was true. Despite everything unpleasant that had happened, in sum total for the week, she’d still had a darned good time.

Why shouldn’t she?

She was not involved.