She turned and faced Branson. “Just working on my next book. It’s going to be based on a bunch of old family letters.”
He came to the table and looked over her shoulder. She quickly covered Renee’s (Wren’s) signature with her hand, but it was too late.
Branson grabbed the bottom of the letter, Liz the top. It ripped in half. After examining it Branson said. “I didn’t know Wren wrote to her parents when we were in Stalag Serenity Springs. She always said she hated them but not as much as our fearless leader Elder Jay.” He pulled a chair next to her. “So, I see you guessed that she killed Julian, the fake witch, and Mother’s fiancé.”
Liz looked him in the eyes. “Did she do it alone or did you help?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I hated the guy too.”
“Then why did you introduce him to your mother?”
“I had to. He walked into the restaurant. Said he would spread the news about my past and the fact the restaurant was mortgaged to the hilt. Then he threatened to plant something drug related in the restaurant and call in an anonymous tip. It would not only hurt me, but Mother, too. He wanted on the gravy train. Her gravy train.”
“Where does Wren come into all this? Have you been with her since you met at Sunshine Serenity Springs?”
“No,” he said calmly. “After the compound closed, she went to serve six months in juvenile detention. She told me she’d been looking for Elder Jay/Julian Rhodes for years, so I told her where he was. Then like an idiot, I fell for her, like I’d done back then. We reconnected, so to speak.”
“I take it your mother never saw Elder Jay/Julian when you were at Sunshine Serenity Springs,” she said, checking her options for escape.
“No, I went inside at the end, right before it got closed down. Wren was there a lot longer than me. If you ever saw the way we were treated, you’d understand her wanting payback.”
“Why did she kill him?” She reached around the back of the chair for her purse.
He grabbed it and tossed in on the floor, then continued, “After she got Julian to turn over half of his water company, I think she realized he’d find a way to take it back once he married my mother. Plus, Wren knew how upset I was about my mother marrying him and his blackmail. It might have been her way of helping me.”
“You had no idea she was going to kill Julian with the…”
“Antifreeze. No.”
There it was. Liz broke out in a sweat. She glanced at Barnacle Bob who’d been eavesdropping as usual. He started repeating, “Antifreeze, Antifreeze.”
Branson locked his eyes on Liz’s. He’d figured out his mistake. No one knew Julian had been killed with antifreeze. Not even Dorian. He advanced toward her. “I didn’t kill him. Wren did.”
“No, but you’re just as much as guilty as she was. You knew what she was going to do.”
“He deserved it anyway. He was evil to the core. The way he treated everyone at that camp. The way he treated my mother. I heard that those threatening letters to her were written by him. No surprise there. He reveled in having people dependent on him.” He stepped toward her.
She stood and took a step away from him, her back pinned to the half wall below the arched opening. If he pushed her, it would be a sixty-foot drop. “You probably told her to put the antifreeze in the Mermaid Margarita. I just realized that on the first menu you gave us on Friday, the margaritas weren’t listed. But the new menu had them. I’d call that premeditation. Did you and your pal Wren put oleander in Julian’s SWS water?”
“Not Me. Wren. She almost killed my mother. She told me it was a spur of the moment decision. When she looked up how much antifreeze it would take to kill someone, she saw something about this other case where a wife had killed her husband with antifreeze and some kind of flower.” He looked feverish. “The water was meant for Julian, but Mother drank it. That’s why I told Wren we should take a break. She went berserk. It was an honest mistake she said, but she didn’t seem upset. I saw then that if we ever married, she might kill again, either me or my mother. It all came down to money with her.”
“How did she take your breaking up with her?” Liz asked, taking a baby step toward him, away from the opening.
“Not well,” Branson said. “I told her to wait until things cooled down. What happened next was an …”
“A what?” a voice said from behind Branson. Ryan was standing there.
Branson frantically glanced around for an exit. There were only three, down the stairs, or out the open stucco archway on both sides of the tower.
Ryan stepped closer.
“Accident,” Branson said.
“Ryan held up a gold lock in a plastic bag. Etched in the metal were the initials LV for Louis Vuitton. The same lock that matched the small key Liz had found on the floor in Wren’s suite.
“What’s that?” Branson asked.
“Found it in your car. You know what it is,” Ryan answered.
Because of the stack of menus she’d spied on Branson’s front seat, Liz had sent Ryan and Betty a text to check his car before coming up to the bell tower. The menus reminded her of what she’d realized when talking to Captain Netherton that the poisoned margaritas weren’t on the first menu, only the second.
“It’s the lock to Wren’s missing luggage,” Liz answered, happy she’d told Ryan about the key to Wren’s Louis Vuitton bag that she’d found after Wren had supposedly left the hotel. “Wren never left the hotel with her luggage, did she? You’d already killed her before you came to the séance. That’s why Wren didn’t show up. I remember how sweaty you were and out of breath when you came in for the séance. The coroner said Wren’s time of death was sometime early afternoon on Sunday. And when we saw her on the rocks, she was wearing the same dress from the brunch.”
Her words must have hit home, because Branson came and pulled her to him and put his arm around her neck in a chokehold.
She gasped for air.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Ryan said, gritting his teeth.
She felt Branson’s hot breath on her neck, the panicked trembling in his grip. “Stay back,” he said to Ryan. “If I jump, I’m taking her with me. I didn’t kill Julian. I swear, Wren did. Yes, she told me about her plan. I couldn’t stop her. You didn’t know her like I did.”
“You did stop her though, didn’t you son?” Betty and Dorian had come quietly up the stairs and were standing behind Ryan. Dorian said, “It sounds like you did it for me.” She stepped toward him. “Come, dear. I know your aura is pure. But hers wasn’t. I knew it from the séance. Maybe that’s why I felt her presence, she was already… Darling, release Liz. I am here. We’ll work it out.”
But he didn’t have to because Barnacle Bob stretched his wings and started to dive-bomb Branson’s head, pounding against his forehead with his pointy beak like Woody the Woodpecker. In order to protect his face, Branson released his hold on her.
Liz sprinted away. Ryan sprung forward, grabbed Branson, and twisted his arms behind his back, then pushed him face down on the floor. WWE wrestling-style, he kept a knee to Branson’s tailbone. “Liz? You all right?” Ryan asked, not even breaking a sweat.
“I’m good. BB, you’re my hero!”
He squawked, “Duh-duh-du-duh, du-duh…Batman!” Then flew to her shoulder.
“What about me?” Ryan asked, trying to make a joke but she could tell he’d been more than worried about her fate.
“Yes,” Liz said, still trembling, “both of my caped crusaders, you saved the day. And Barnacle Bob, you even did it during a thunderstorm.”
Betty came to Liz’s and Barnacle Bob’s side, then put her arm around Liz’s waist.
Dorian went to Branson. She got down on her knees and said to Ryan, “Please don’t hurt him Ryan. He’s no killer.”
Branson looked at his mother, his eyes filled with tears. “You’re wrong Mother, I did kill her. But it was an accident. I told her we shouldn’t see each other and she laughed, saying as a precaution she’d put the empty can of antifreeze somewhere in my restaurant where the police would find it, along with the glass that held Julian’s poisoned margarita. I lost it. I shoved her against the railing, it broke, she went flying. Broke her neck, I think. I tried to give her CPR, nothing worked.”
Betty elbowed Liz, and pointed to her bag, where she showed Liz that her iPad was facetiming the entire conversation. Liz saw her father’s face looking up at her.
A few minutes later, Fenton, Charlotte, and one of her deputies entered the room. Branson was handcuffed and led down the stairs by the deputy. Dorian followed behind. She seemed surprisingly calm. Maybe she had a glimpse of Branson’s rosy future, or maybe just a mother’s intuition that things would turn out okay. Liz didn’t see how.
Liz had no such positive feelings toward Branson. Yes, maybe killing Wren had been an accident, but she believed he could have prevented Julian’s death. She guessed there was no way to prove he knew Wren’s plans ahead of time. The only part of the conversation that had been recorded was when he’d confessed to pushing Wren.
Justice would prevail, as her father always said. They’d have to wait and see.