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8:10 a.m. Sunday, August 30th, 1992
BAILEY sat at the kitchen table eating a thick slice of cold ham and a hunk of freshly baked bread. On the other side of the table, Padget plowed distractedly through a bowl of cereal, staring out into space with his mind obviously elsewhere. Pondering the murders and the various suspects, probably. That was what Bailey had been thinking about.
Turner had been astonished and amused by the idea that Brandt Keener might still be alive and hiding in the house, killing off those who had wronged him. And he’d declared that the man was most definitely dead. His controlled chuckles might’ve been inappropriate, but they had also reminded Bailey of his own difficulty containing himself earlier. When Bailey then floated the idea of someone seeking revenge on Brandt’s behalf, Turner had dismissed it, claiming nobody had cared that much for the man. A sad epitaph for the successful entrepreneur.
Though Turner had tried to be as helpful as he could, sharing everything he knew of Keener’s relationships with family, business associates, employees, and rivals—it didn’t bring Bailey any nearer to knowing who had murdered the man. Apparently, friends hadn’t entered into Brandt’s life, or much of the finer feelings for that matter. He had made enemies, which were well known. And he’d had those who felt obligated to him, like Turner. And people paid to do his bidding, such as the cook Mrs. Trimble and the lawyer Dobson.
A frustrated Bailey had left his old colleague to walk down the corridor and inform Quill about the murder of Talia. The news had clearly been an unpleasant surprise to him, though his distaste for the development didn’t appear to stem from sympathy for the dead maid so much as annoyance over how it might inconvenience him personally. And he had blamed Bailey as the bearer of the bad news.
Returning to the staff quarters, he’d found that Mrs. Trimble had retired for a rest, having finished cleaning up after breakfast, and Padget had been in the kitchen brooding by himself. Bailey had recommended this small repast as a way to keep up their strength and cheer them both up a bit, but the merriment hadn’t materialized. Not that this occasion called for celebration, but they needed to stay optimistic.
Bailey was having a difficult time staying positive himself—Sam was determined to stay here and try to uncover the killer as long as that took, but as soon as Padget mentioned to the authorities his belief that they’d sent Bailey here undercover, both of them would be in a world of trouble. There was no way Bailey was going to try to prove he was retired law enforcement from the future, and there was no doubt the contemporary police would have a problem with his having allowed Padget to assume that he was one of them. And now he had let the federal agent assume Sam was as well.
What he needed to do was to pass on to Padget everything they’d learned and leave and let the federal agent share all that information with the police. But there were two problems with doing that. One big challenge would be getting Sam to go along with the plan, and the other issue was that little of what they’d found would help. Still, he ought to relay all of it to Padget now, even though it might make the man even more pessimistic. What they really needed to do was take action and precipitate something. As long as it wasn’t another murder.
Pausing to swallow his last hunk of ham, Bailey caught Padget’s eye. “I’m going to want your help.”
The federal agent looked up from his cereal and smiled as he dropped his spoon into the bowl. “I’d be glad to assist in any way I can.” Just sitting and waiting clearly wasn’t what he wanted to do.
Bailey nodded. “We can use the excuse of wanting to keep everyone safe to gather them all into the parlor. Then if we start laying out the evidence and the various motives each person had, maybe—”
He cut himself short as Sam came running into the kitchen. She was still wearing the baggy blouse that was the top half of her maid’s uniform but not the skirt, and it was a strange sight. Padget stared at her with his mouth gaping.
She glanced back over her shoulder and waited until she had reached Bailey’s side before speaking. “It’s Dobson. He tried to brain me with the bronze globe in the study.”
Closing his mouth and pursing his lips, Padget looked past her, but there was no one there. “Dobson tried to kill you? Why? He couldn’t have killed Keener, since he wasn’t even on the island then.”
Sam glared across the table at the man. “What does that matter? He killed Talia. I’m sure of that, and I certainly know he tried to murder me.” With a deep breath she turned back to Bailey. “You have to go get him. Now.”
Bailey rose with alacrity and headed for the hall with Sam on his heels and a skeptical federal agent not far behind. The corridor was, of course, empty. Dobson would hardly be running through the halls with a paperweight in his hands for anybody to see. Padget’s doubt was so strong it could be felt, but underneath that a clear current of excitement buzzed, and he glanced at Bailey with uncertainty. “I don’t know...”
“Before we decide what to do, we need to listen to what Sam has to say.” Bailey turned to his leader. “You’re safe now. Take your time and describe exactly what happened.”
Clearly impatient, she rolled her eyes at him. “I took him a tray in the study, and he said he wanted to ask me some questions, and the next thing I knew he was trying to bash my head in.”
“But why would he want to kill you? Did he realize you’d figured out he killed Talia? And how do you know that?”
“I knew he’d murdered her the moment he was trying to do the same to me. I don’t have the slightest idea why he wanted to murder me. Thankfully, he wasn’t hard to outrun.”
Bailey frowned. “I don’t suppose anybody witnessed this?” At the shake of her head he went on. “Then he’ll try to pretend nothing happened, claim you’re delusional if you tell anyone.”
Padget nodded. “And he’ll have every reason to think that line would work. He doesn’t know she’s law enforcement. Or either of us, for that matter.”
“And that gives us an advantage. Let’s take the time to think this through.” Bailey made sure to include his leader. “It seems impossible that Dobson killed Keener, Sam, so it’s improbable he murdered Oak. Why then did he strangle Talia?”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe it was something to do with that will? I don’t know. You’re the expert, but I don’t think standing around and talking will solve anything. Why don’t we go ask him?”
The federal agent boggled. “Just walk right up to a lawyer and ask him why he murdered someone without even a shred of evidence?”
Bailey found himself grinning. “It’ a great idea and certainly something he won’t be expecting. To confront him together may rattle him, Padget, and I’ll want you as a witness to whatever he might end up saying.” Since he still hoped to get Sam to leave before the authorities arrived.
“Well, I suppose you’re the one in charge.”
He fell in behind Bailey and Sam as they began walking down the corridor and probably didn’t notice the amused glance they shared. Padget hadn’t figured out that she was the boss, and it was probably just as well. When they reached the study, they found the door closed.
The lawyer might not even be in the room, but if he was, Bailey expected the man would be acting as normal as possible. And when he opened the door, barging in, that’s exactly what they found—Dobson sitting at the desk and reading legal papers.
The lawyer looked up with an irritated expression. “What is it? Can’t you see I’m busy?” He had to have seen Sam and Padget entering the room behind Bailey, so he would’ve known what this was all about, but he’d played the innocent to perfection.
Bailey strode all the way forward to the edge of the desk where he would tower over the man. “Did you really have to kill Talia?”
Clearly the question wasn’t the one he had been expecting, but the puzzled look in his eyes only lasted for a moment, and then the lawyer recovered. “I take it this is some kind of joke? I must say I find it to be in poor taste. And I don’t really have time for this.”
“You had better make time to answer my questions.” Bailey moved around the corner of the desk and walked over to the window, where he removed one of the cords holding back the curtains. “I imagine it will help if I restrain you first.” The man had tried to kill Sam, so it wasn’t difficult to seem menacing.
“This is ridiculous. Am I to be manhandled by a footman? Interrogated by you or the butler? Because of an unsubstantiated allegation by a maid?” The lawyer suddenly flushed as he realized that he’d said too much.
Padget was the one who pointed that out. “We never got around to mentioning her accusation. As I’m sure you’re aware, you might as well have confirmed her story, since the only way you could know she had one is if what she’d said had happened.”
“I hope you don’t intend to try that kind of specious logic with the authorities.”
Bailey grinned at the lawyer, and he doubted it was a pleasant sight. “As Padget isn’t a real butler, but an undercover federal agent, I think he can convince them.”
Padget squinted back at Bailey, apparently unhappy to have been identified, but then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out his credentials and showed them to Dobson. “Special Investigating Officer Padget of the U.S. Treasury Department.”
“And I’m retired law enforcement.” Bailey had to hope no one asked to see his identification. “So, since Sam says you tried to smash in her skull with that paperweight—” He pointed at the small bronze globe on the desk. “Then I’m going to find out why. Whatever it takes.”
Dobson blustered. “You wouldn’t dare harm a hair on my head. If you’re a police officer, you have to know what I could do to you if you did.”
Bailey shook his head. “Didn’t you hear me say I was retired? I don’t have a career to worry about, and I’m only here unofficially.” Which was putting it mildly. “So I don’t have to worry about the rules. That leaves me lots of latitude in the way I decide to deal with you.” Of course his personal ethics would constrain what he’d actually do, though he was unsure himself exactly what those limits would be, but Dobson didn’t need to know that.
The lawyer looked at him with distaste. “Forcing a confession from me would only ensure I won’t be prosecuted. I’m sure you understand that.”
“I don’t intent to force anything from you. Now, put your arms behind the back of the chair, and I’ll tie you up so we don’t have to worry about you hurting anyone else.”
Dobson squinted at him for a long moment and then sighed and stretched his arms out to the side. And the next moment he had leaped out of the chair and grabbed a letter opener off the desk and swung it around in an arc toward Bailey’s face. Bailey’s rising palm caught the man’s fist just before the point of the blade reached his cheek, then squeezed those fingers until the lawyer let the letter opener drop to the floor with a clatter.
Pushing the man back down into the chair, Bailey wrenched that arm around behind him while he snatched the other flailing hand. He bound both of Dobson’s wrists together, making sure the lawyer’s arms were wrapped tightly enough around the back of the chair to prevent him from getting up without a serious struggle. Looking up, he saw Padget staring at him.
The federal agent’s face was full of dismay. “It’s highly irregular, isn’t it? And he is a lawyer after all. Are you sure we can do this?”
Bailey nodded. “I’m the one who’s doing it, but while I might get into trouble—” Though only if he and Sam stuck around. “It won’t hurt the case they will want to bring against him.” He certainly hoped that was true, but he wasn’t familiar with all the legal technicalities of this time. Though Dobson was, surely. “And you’re not doing anything, Padget, besides watching what I’m doing, so you don’t have to worry. You can just blame everything on me.” Bailey turned back to the trussed-up lawyer. “Now, I’d like some answers. Why did you murder Talia, and why try to kill Sam?”
Though those questions were undoubtedly objectionably phrased, Dobson answered Bailey while he glared at Sam. “It’s all her fault. Nobody would ever even have thought of suspecting me if I hadn’t made the mistake of trying to kill her, which I’d not have done if she hadn’t been here in the first place. But when I recognized her face, I couldn’t help myself. She’s got a hefty price on her head.”
That little speech flummoxed them all for a moment, and it made Bailey suspect the lawyer had an ace up his sleeve somewhere. “I thought you were a lawyer, but you sound like some sort of hitman.” It might be nineteen ninety-two, but who would have thought they’d come across a contract killer on this tiny island, and one who would recognize Sam? “So which are you?”
The man snorted. “I suppose you would say I’m both. Now.”
“Do you mean you’re a hitman turned lawyer or the other way around?”
Dobson sighed and sagged into the chair. “I’ve been a lawyer for a long time, and I never meant to become a killer. It all started a few years ago, when I discovered a demand for a service no one else was supplying. A client wanted a will that would punish his hated rival, but I couldn’t come up with a way to do that to his satisfaction. Then he confided in me that he’d considered hiring a hitman to kill his enemy but had worried he’d be found out and wind up in jail. That gave me the idea. I suggested that if he took out a contract after he’d died, he would be beyond the reach of the law.”
“But you wouldn’t be. Wasn’t that a dangerous position to put yourself in?” Not to mention that it was immoral. Though that aspect didn’t seem something the lawyer would be concerned about.
Dobson bridled. “It wasn’t as if I was really doing anything myself. He made me an executor and left me instructions under separate cover. So I was only fulfilling my legal responsibilities by transferring certain funds from his estate to an offshore account to be held in escrow, then contacting a third party to make a contract on behalf of my late client. That broker was the person who put out the hit and paid whoever earned the fee.” The lawyer smiled. “I could argue what I did was technically legal, and I’d realized there was an untapped market for revenge from beyond the grave.”
Bailey squinted at the man. “So that’s how you came to know all about Sam.”
“Yes. I wrote the will for a woman called Kirin. She was determined that if and when she died, this Samantha person should be hunted down and gotten rid of—her words, not mine—and left a letter to that effect. With a picture. There was enough money in her estate to ensure every assassin around the world would target this Samantha.” He was talking about Sam now without looking at her.
It all sounded quite cold-blooded and horrid to Bailey, but he was also interested in the specific details of how it had worked. It still wasn’t answering his questions, though. “As vile as what you’ve been doing sounds, I don’t understand how it led to you becoming a killer yourself.”
The lawyer looked at him as if he were slow. “I just told you how much money was to be paid to the person who eliminated the woman.” He wasn’t calling Sam by her name now. “When I recognized her, I got greedy and acted without thinking. Otherwise, I would have realized it was too big a risk to take.”
A growl began to build in Bailey’s chest. “That still doesn’t explain why you strangled Talia? Don’t tell me someone had a contract out on her.”
Dobson dropped his head and seemed contrite for the first time. “In a way, Brandt Keener did, but it was my mistake. I shouldn’t have gone along with the unfortunately vague language he wanted to use in the letter with his instructions for me. The man had become paranoid—he was convinced someone wanted to kill him.”
“But he wasn’t paranoid, was he? Someone really did want to murder Keener.”
“Still, he didn’t know who was going to do it, so how could there be provision for getting revenge in his will? He wasn’t interested in leaving vengeance to the legal system—he wanted me to put out a contract on his murderer. But you can’t hire someone to assassinate an unspecified individual. That was just what Brandt had in his instructions, though. I decided that if I was going to fulfill my obligations, then I had to discover the identity of his murderer—me, not the police—before I could put out a hit.”
“And just how did you plan on doing that? You couldn’t even have been sure he was murdered. Or could you?”
Dobson nodded. “As soon as I saw the results of the tests on the wine he’d drunk, I knew. But I still didn’t know who.”
Padget interrupted. “Tests? The samples—you took them?”
“I hired someone to steal the evidence that the police had gathered, if that’s what you mean.”
Bailey butted back in. “And you made sure that Brandt’s body was cremated before the authorities could stop it—but why?”
“It wasn’t his body that was incinerated. I had them switched, then hired a private individual who performed the autopsy to look for any evidence that might help me figure out who’d killed Keener.”
“Why not let the police investigate and solve the murder? You could’ve saved yourself all that effort and expense, and then put out the contract and fulfilled your ‘legal obligation’ as executor.”
The lawyer snorted. “I couldn’t rely on the police and besides, by the time they identified the culprit, they would’ve had the person in custody. And it would’ve made any assassin’s job difficult. Then there was the fact that if I discovered the murderer myself, I’d have an advantage over the professional hitmen. I could kill the person myself, then collect the fee from myself without taking out the contract. Any effort I’d gone to identifying Brandt’s murderer would’ve been worth it.”
Bailey could see all that circular reasoning was nothing but an excuse for the man’s greed. “So you killed Talia because you found out she was the one who had killed Keener? Did she also murder Oak? Why?”
Dobson shook his head. “How should I know? I was half-convinced Oak was Brandt’s murderer—until he was killed himself. After that, Talia seemed to be the most promising candidate. I’ve not ruled out Elaine Keener, though. I was thinking of eliminating her next, just to be sure.”
“Just to be sure?” Bailey boggled, but he didn’t think he was the only one.
“I had to feel like I’d earned the money. Surely you can understand that. If I had to kill a few extra people to feel confident that Brandt’s murderer was dead so I could collect the fee, it only involved a bit more effort.”
“But a lot more risk.” The man might’ve killed off half the house before he’d finished.
The lawyer simply shrugged. “I had it planned out pretty well. I went down to Talia’s room late at night and told her Brandt had left something extra for her, outside the actual will, which was true. She never had a chance to cry out. I brought some cyanide, but that wouldn’t have worked with her. So I intended to use that on Elaine and make it look like a suicide. And let the police figure that out.”
Bailey nodded. “Without a lot of evidence to go on, they’d probably have assumed Elaine had killed her husband and Oak and Talia and leave it at that.”
Dobson sighed and glanced over at Sam. “And then I had to go and ruin a perfect plan. But it was a really big price on her head. I guess I should have left the killing to the professionals.”
Leading the others over by the door and out of the man’s hearing, Bailey spoke to Sam. “Unfortunately, I believe him. It fits the facts that we know, and it explains why he murdered Talia and tried to kill you. And while he might’ve murdered Oak, we know he didn’t kill Keener, so why wouldn’t he confess to Oak’s murder if he’d killed him for the same reason as Talia? No, I believe we’re still looking for the person who killed those two men.”
Padget objected. “Maybe Oak murdered Keener and took his own life, or maybe Talia killed both of them.”
Sam stared at him. “No.” With Talia’s murder explained, as well as many of the other little mysteries, it had become clear who had killed Keener and Oak. “There’s another killer here. Alive. And I believe I know how we can catch him.”