Shaded Light: The Case of the Tactless Trophy Wife: A Paul Manziuk and Jacquie Ryan Mystery (The Manziuk and Ryan Mysteries Book 1) (58 page)

“Sent,” Manziuk said. “Not written. You can write e-mail and then set the computer to send them whenever you want. Just like turning your oven on with a timer. George likely had been writing e-mail earlier in the weekend but hadn’t bothered to send them because no one would be at work. He was probably going to send them all on Monday. I think he was about to come upstairs when he heard Jillian and Kendall talking at the top of the staircase. Kendall told Jillian that Nick would meet her in the Japanese garden but that he might be a few minutes late. So George whipped into his office and set the timer to send the e-mail and then hurried out to kill Jillian. He knew it would appear that he’d been working the entire time.”

“When did you figure all this out?” Ryan interrupted.

“While we were talking to Nick. I realized that if Nick really hadn’t drugged Fellowes, and frankly I never could see him doing that, then the only other way the Seconal could have been given was in the tea. You said yourself yesterday that it would be much easier to dissolve the Seconal in a hot substance. And I rather think Fellowes would have noticed that much powder in his Coke.”

Ellen’s tears were flowing freely again. “How could he do that?” she whispered. “Telling me it was Kendall when all along—his own son! I’ll never forgive him for that. Never!”

“Mrs. Brodie, I don’t think your husband is the same man you once knew. I think this past year he’s been doing a lot of things you’re going to find hard to believe.”

But her mind was fixed on one point. “Are you sure about this? Are you sure Kendall didn’t do it?”

Manziuk nodded.

She relaxed slightly. “It’s bad enough to think one of them could be a murderer. But both! It was more than I could bear.” She wiped her eyes and took several deep breaths before reaching in to her pocket. “You’ll need this. One of the gardeners brought it to me. He noticed it because it was tied wrong. I expect it was the—the one he used.” Breathing hard, she slowly pulled out a piece of smooth beige cord.

Manziuk pulled a plastic bag from his pocket and had her drop the cord into it.

“So Kendall found her there.” Tears were again overflowing. “I can’t think what it was like for him to find her—if he was really in love with her.”

“I think he’s realized by now that it wasn’t love,” Manziuk said gently.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “There’s a part of me that can’t believe this is really happening. I keep thinking I’ll wake up and it will all be back to normal. Crystal will be here. Anne and Jillian will be saying nasty things to each other. And George will pop out of his study to see what I’m doing.” She wiped her eyes and rocked in the chair. “All I could think about before this weekend was that maybe Kendall and Lorry would hit it off. That’s all I wanted.” She buried her face in her hands as her tears overwhelmed her.

“Yes, I know. But right now, I need you to answer some questions about your husband’s mother. Did she have red hair?”

Ten minutes later, Manziuk was on the phone to Seldon, who’d been at a fancy dinner party with the mayor. “His mother had red hair?” Seldon questioned.

“Mother and sister.”

“And he delivered the car to his son the day after the last murder.”

“Right.”

“Should we put out an APB?”

“Already done.”

“Benson will be waiting in your office when you get there. He’ll want all the details.”

Lorry looked at her watch. After ten. Dave had told her not to stay this long. But she was finished. And she was finally feeling that she knew what was going on in all parts of the mission.

Now she could really start to be useful.

“I’m ready to head out, Lorry.” Aaron, the other young intern who was staying with the Spaldings, stuck his blond head around the corner. “Everybody else is gone. You should come, too.”

“I have to clean up,” Lorry said. “I’ll only be about ten more minutes.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.”

“I’ll make sure everything’s locked up and sweep the floor.”

Ten minutes later, Lorry shut off the computer and put away her notebook and the pen she’d been using. The sound of a tapping on the front door made her look up, but the desk Lorry was using sat in the far corner of the room, the view blocked by a couple of large orange cloth dividers.

“I’ll see who it is,” Aaron said.

“I’m nearly ready.” Lorry tidied a few papers and made sure she the desk was clear for whoever would use it in the morning. Then she reached for her purse.

She heard Aaron open the door, heard him say, “What are you—?” Then a thud and the sound of the door shutting. The lights went out.

“Aaron?” she called into the darkness. Although he didn’t respond, she could hear movement in the outer office.

She reached for the phone.

A black figure came around the divider, and a hand in a black leather glove caught her hand before it reached the receiver.

She tried to pull away from the hand but failed. As she rose from the chair, trying to back away, the figure came around behind her and kicked the chair away. Another hand reached in front of her neck, passing a black electric cord across it.

TWENTY-ONE

The phone on the desk began to ring. It startled them both. Lorry used the moment to twist sideways and then lean backwards toward the person behind her. She stamped hard on the place where she thought the person’s foot should be, and hit something. A male voice yelled in pain. But the hands holding the cord grasped it like a steel vise.

The phone continued to ring, but neither of them paid attention to it.

In the darkness of the mission office, Lorry struggled against the cord that was cutting into her throat, holding her fast. She tried to scream, but barely any sound came. Tried to pull the cord away, but she couldn’t get a grip on it.

The cord was being pulled tighter, cutting into the soft flesh, making each breath difficult.

With all the strength she had left, she brought her right heel up hard to where she guessed the man’s crotch would be.

He gasped with pain and dropped his hands for an instant. The cord swung free. Lorry fell forward, stumbled, scrambled to get to her feet.

She could see him now, but he was wearing a black ski mask. All she could make out were his eyes, which glinted with hatred. He was coming after her, murderous cord held tightly between gloved hands.

She wanted to get to the open doorway, or at least knock the receiver off the still-ringing phone, but instead she had to backpedal, keeping her eyes on the man who wanted to kill her. Oh, God, help! she thought.

The phone had stopped ringing.

Her back hit a wall. The man lunged forward and grabbed a handful of her hair. As he yanked her toward him, Lorry screamed.

Neither of them heard the car screech to a stop outside or running feet on the sidewalk.

The masked man got the cord around her neck once more and began to pull it. But at that moment, two figures rushed into the room. Someone yelled, and Lorry recognized Nick’s voice.

A moment later Nick grabbed the man from behind, and the cord went slack. Kendall pushed Lorry out of the way. The masked man threw Nick off as if he were a puppy clinging to the man’s leg. Kendall stood between the madman and his prey.

The man stepped toward him.

“Get out of here, Lorry!” Kendall yelled. “Call the police!”

She fled. Kendall continued to back away. The man dropped the cord and pulled something else from his pocket. As Nick tackled the man from behind, a gun went off. The bullet grazed a desk and spun off harmlessly into the air. Then the three men went down in a tangled heap.

For a moment there was a wild melee. As the gun fired again, Nick yelled in pain.

Another figure shot through the doorway and joined the battle. Three to one at last prevailed. The masked man was pinned to the floor with Kendall holding his shoulders and Dave Spalding holding his feet. Nick kicked the gun beyond reach and then grabbed his upper right arm and doubled over.

“You okay?” Kendall panted.

“No.” Nick’s voice was strained.

“You creep!” Kendall grabbed the ski-mask and pulled. Immediately, he jerked back in horror. “Dad?”

Police sirens burst like firecrackers upon the stillness of the dark night.

George Brodie babbled nonstop as they led him away, telling them his mother never really loved his father, begging them to understand how hard he’d tried to take his father’s place, complaining that nothing had ever satisfied her, sobbing that just the sight of her with her red hair, dyed an even brighter red as she grew older and tried to hide the grey, made him feel sick to his stomach.

He told them he’d finally found a way to stop her from demeaning his father and complaining about everything he did for her. He knew how to shut her up now. The only thing he couldn’t understand was how, after a while, he’d see her coming back again and have to shut her up once more. But he’d keep doing it just as long as he had to, until he finally silenced her voice forever.

“He stole a Toyota,” Ryan said. “It’s parked down the street. The owner reported it about ten minutes ago.”

Manziuk shrugged. “I expect George Brodie was hot-wiring cars before he was ten.”

“You people were a little late, Inspector.” Nick Donovan and Lorry Preston walked up. Nick was clutching his arm, which had a blood-stained towel wrapped around it. “If we hadn’t got here, she’d have been dead.”

“I’m very thankful you got here. How did you know it was him?”

“Are you kidding? We thought it was Peter.”

“You look like you need a doctor.”

“I think I have a bullet in my arm. But it’s Kendall who’s in pain.”

“Where is he?”

“He and Marilyn followed his dad down to the police station in my car. He thought maybe he could help.”

“Marilyn was here?”

“She insisted on coming. When we pulled up, we saw the door open and a guy on the floor, so we left her to call 911 and park the car.” He thought for a moment. “You two must have been on your way already.”

“We were on our way here after talking to Ellen.”

“Does she know?”

“Some of it. Not about the other four girls.”

“Man,” Nick shook his head. “That’s going to be rough.”

“She’s a tough lady. As long as she has Kendall to see her through this, I think she’ll make it.”

“Nick needs to get to a doctor,” Lorry said. She’d been standing impatiently beside Nick while he talked to Manziuk.

“Put him in the ambulance, then. Anybody else injured? How about you?”

“I expect I have a few bruises, but no more.” She rubbed her neck. “And Aaron is going to be okay. Fortunately, George only knocked him out with the gun. He’s groggy, but it could have been a lot worse. God sent Nick and Kendall just in time.”

Manziuk shrugged. “Let a doctor make sure you’re okay.”

Nick, Aaron, and Lorry were duly loaded into the ambulance and driven away. Dave Spalding was assured that the police themselves would see that Lorry got back safely.

Manziuk and Ryan got into their car and sat for a moment looking at each other. “That was close,” Ryan said.

“Too close. We should have had her guarded.”

“She wasn’t alone.”

“The other kid didn’t know he was there as her bodyguard.”

“They shouldn’t have stayed so late.”

“You’re right there. When Dave got home and discovered Lorry was still at the office, he phoned to tell her to stay put until he got here. When no one answered the phone, he ran out to meet them and was in time to help Kendall subdue George.”

“She was lucky,” Ryan said.

“I never really thought he’d go after her.”

“Do you think killing Jillian and Crystal might have snapped something? They were the first ones he killed that he knew.”

“Crystal for sure. I expect he feels pretty bad about that. Assuming he has any feelings left at all.”

“Will he get off on insanity?”

“There’s a chance.”

“Poor Mrs. Brodie.”