The Diva Goes Overboard

You could eat charcuterie, cheeses, fruits, and veggies from a board. And you could serve a butter board with warm bread with it. But if you’re planning to make a hamburger board or a chili board, then you might as well just order takeout if you’re pressed for time.

Natasha

For a moment, everyone fell silent. Then Natasha’s screams could be heard below mixed with the heavy pounding of police running on board.

Natasha’s dress was seriously tight and midi length. There was no way she could swim or kick her legs. Not unlike a mermaid, I thought. I looked around for a life buoy. Happily, one was close by. Hoping I wouldn’t hit her on the head, I yelled, “Natasha! Grab this!” I tossed it overboard and watched it splash into the water. Good grief, she couldn’t reach it.

Karl, who could have helped her, was churning away from the yacht as fast as he could go.

There wasn’t time to give it much thought. I grabbed another life buoy, kicked off my shoes, and jumped.

Amazingly, the water was very cold. Because I held onto the life buoy, I didn’t go down far. I surfaced and looked around for Natasha, who thankfully had managed to keep her head above water, but was struggling. I swam toward her and handed the life buoy to her.

“Hold on to this.”

Natasha clutched it, her breath coming hard.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t try to swim, just hold on.”

She nodded. I held on to it, too, and sidestroked toward the other life buoy. Once I had it in hand, I kicked our way to the pier.

Hands reached for us. I pushed Natasha in front of me. She was coughing and needed to be pulled out first.

When she was safely on the pier, I accepted help getting out of the water.

For once I welcomed the summertime heat and humidity. I doubted that even the best dry cleaner could rescue my dress, but it didn’t matter. The important thing was that we were safe.

“Where’s Karl?” I asked.

A police officer said, “In custody. They pulled him out of the river.” He pointed and I could see the boat that had picked him up.

“Is he under arrest?”

“I would think so.”

I watched as they transferred him to a squad car, and it drove away.

“This is all your fault,” Natasha murmured.

I turned toward her. “Are you okay? It seemed like you swallowed some water.”

“I am never inviting you to anything again. I’m so embarrassed that I just want to die.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“It’s all these murder cases that you’re always pursuing. It’s not ladylike. Look what a mess I am. This was supposed to be the best day of my life! Sophie, we are no longer friends.”

“Karl is the one who poisoned Orson and killed him.”

“What? They must be wrong.”

“Nope. He used poison hemlock.”

“But he dresses so well.”

“I guess we should learn something from that.”

“I invited a killer to my party?”

A van from the local news station pulled up. “Go fix your hair. I see a reporter coming.”

She gasped and got to her feet. “Is my makeup running?”

“Yup.”

Barefooted, Natasha ran along the pier and onto the boat.

“Are you all right?” I knew it was Wolf without looking.

“I’m fine.”

“Are your shoes in the river?”

“They would be on the boat.”

Wolf tilted his head, and an officer went to look for them.

Another officer approached him. “Sir, the press is here. Do you want to speak to them?”

Wolf squatted next to me. “Do you want to talk to the press?”

“No. That’s Natasha’s thing. Maybe she can turn this into a Natasha Style moment.”

The officer returned with my shoes. Wolf held them out to me.

“Thanks!” I said to the officer who had fetched them.

“I’ll give you a ride home.” Wolf stood up and held his hand out to me.

When he left, I took a long, hot shower. I could hear my landline ringing, but I didn’t get out to answer the phone. It was probably the press.

I stepped out and wrapped myself in a warm, cozy bathrobe. But I heard voices. Daisy and Mochie weren’t anywhere to be seen.

I listened. There were two or three of them. And then I heard Nina yell, “Where is she?”

“I’m up here.” I ran down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“We were worried about you when you didn’t answer your cell phone.”

“Ah. I believe it’s at the bottom of the Potomac River.”

Nina turned on the TV in my kitchen. Mars put on the kettle.

Bernie hugged me. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

Natasha spoke on TV in a soaking wet dress that looked even more like Morticia Addams’s gown than before. It clung to her.

“I couldn’t let a murderer escape. I simply had to stop him, so I jumped in after him,” said Natasha.

“Natasha actually jumped in the Potomac voluntarily?” asked Mars. “That’s hard to believe.”

Wasn’t it, though? I started laughing. “She wanted attention and she’s getting it now. I guess her party worked to her benefit after all.”

“Who is the murderer?” asked Mars.

“Karl Roth.”

“No kidding?”

“I suggested that they test Orson for coniine which is in poison hemlock, which looks like carrots when it’s growing. They found it in his system. Karl is Orson’s killer.”

Bernie sat down next to me, and Mars brought me a steaming cup of tea.

“But why?” asked Nina. “Just some old grudge? Why wouldn’t he be able to get over it?”

I shrugged. “Envy? Old grudges?”

“I guess we’re lucky he didn’t offer us food or drinks last night,” said Mars. “Close call.”

Bernie ordered takeout from the Laughing Hound for dinner. As we ate, I brought them all up to speed about the women on the corkboard. “Our last hope is Riley Hooper.”

Before they left, we agreed to go to the grand opening of Colin Warren’s event space the next evening. I stashed the leftovers in the fridge, left the dirty dishes soaking in the sink, and took my laptop upstairs to bed.

I Googled Maryland Warren family. Most of the hits were about the new event space. Colin was getting a lot of publicity. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people named Warren. But as I continued, I found an article about Sharon Warren Shergold, who had cancer as a child back in the days when only 10 percent of children survived. The main gist of the article was how far treatments had come. The photos that accompanied it showed a skinny little girl wearing a flower headband on her bald head. It was heartbreaking. But the picture of a healthy Sharon next to it was wonderful to see.

Late the next afternoon, Mars, Bernie, Nina, and I walked over to the new event space. It was every bit as glamorous as I had hoped. Bonnie and her mom, Sharon, had outdone themselves with floral arrangements. They were gigantic and vibrant. The railing in the ballroom had been completed. People stood on the upper balcony that led around the room. Servers mingled with trays of drinks. Tables had been set up with charcuterie boards and butter boards. A round table showed off a chocolate fountain.

Someone arrived with a media entourage. Everyone was whispering about who it could be. A senator? The mayor? When the media pulled away a hair, I realized it was Natasha. She had a cameraman filming her, probably for her TV show on Monday.

Everyone attended. It seemed as if the entire town had turned out for the event.

Colin’s uncle Terry gave me a curt nod. This time I approached him. “Colin said you were the best at building. This is beautiful. Very well done.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Is the rest of the family here?”

He pointed. “Over there, my sister and three brothers.”

“There’s a family resemblance.”

“We all look like Warrens. Always have.” He rubbed his nose with his forefinger. His hand was black and blue. And his suit jacket and shirtsleeve were pulled back just far enough for me to see a Rolex on his wrist. One with a navy blue face and bezel.

“Ouch!” I said. “What happened there?”

“Aw, it’s nothing. I was lifting a heavy beam and the rascal got away from me.”

“It looks very painful.”

“I’ve had worse. I believe they’re calling me.”

They were lining up for a family photo.

Behind me, a woman said in a low voice, “Will you look at that? To see them now, it’s hard to believe my dad forbade my brothers from hanging out with the Warren boys.”

A second woman said, “My father did, too. Those boys were a handful!”

“And will you look at little Bonnie. Didn’t she turn out pretty? Doesn’t look a thing like them, though.”

The woman was right. The Warren family members did look alike, except for Bonnie.

“Sharon looks so healthy! It’s amazing after what she went through. She was the sickliest little girl I ever knew. All that chemo and radiation.”

“I remember when she lost her hair, bless her. No wonder those boys ran wild. Their parents had to be focused on Sharon.”

“Remember how they said she wouldn’t be able to have children? I tell people that all the time when they get bad news from a doctor. Doctors don’t know everything. Though I never did buy that story about the French boy.”

“I was skeptical about that, too. I always thought it was a local boy, but Sharon knew if she said who he was that her brothers would beat the you-know-what out of him.”

I desperately wanted to ask them questions, but I was afraid they would clam up. They started to drift away! I turned quickly. “Excuse me. Did you know the Warrens growing up?”

“Why yes,” said the one with a white streak in her hair. “We live in Old Town now, so we wanted to show our support.”

“That’s very kind of you. It’s a beautiful place. Um, if you don’t mind, you were saying something about Sharon?”

The two women exchanged a look.

The one with the white streak said, “Sharon had cancer when she was young. She had to go through chemo and radiation, and thank goodness it worked! Look at her today.”

The other woman whispered, “The treatments saved her life, but they said she was infertile. She couldn’t have children. It was tragic. Sharon loved kids. So everyone was a little bit surprised when she turned up with a baby. No one could remember seeing her pregnant. I know some women can hide it well for a while. Heaven knows I never could.”

“But Sharon is an amazing seamstress. You would not believe what she can sew. We thought maybe she had made some clothes for herself that were structured to hide the belly.”

“It was the talk of the town. Didn’t they say that Bonnie was very premature and had to stay in the hospital for a few months? I think that was it. The baby probably wasn’t full term when Sharon delivered.”

“I see. They’re a lovely family.”

“Nice meeting you,” they said as they hit the charcuterie boards.

So Orson had been on to something with Bonnie after all. I hoped she might be Stella’s missing sister, Callie. Only DNA could prove that, and it wasn’t as though I could ask Bonnie.

And now I couldn’t help wondering about her uncle Terry. I didn’t believe for a minute that he lost control of a beam that somehow managed to fall on his hand. But I suspected that whoever beat the pulp out of Jordan probably had a hand or two that looked like Terry’s right now.

But how would the fake artifact fit in? Terry didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be interested in antiquities and artifacts. I could follow up with Wolf. He probably had a bead on Terry Warren by now. I stepped into the lobby and texted Wolf: Meet me at the store tomorrow morning? 8 a.m.?