A Penny for Your Thoughts (43 page)

He was glad I called and said that news of Alan’s theft and capture and Carlos’ disappearance and recovery had even made a two-minute blurb on the evening news in Washington.

“They showed you climbing down that tower,” he said. “They’re calling you a hero.”

“All in the line of duty,” I replied, smiling up at the ceiling. For a moment, I let myself admit that it felt good to save the day.

I asked him what he had heard from the police, and not surprisingly, he was fully informed. After he fussed at me for a while about not removing myself from the case when I realized I was in danger, he calmed down and brought me up-to-date.

According to Tom, Judith was being held by the police on charges of theft and corporate fraud for her part in stripping money from the accounts of Feed the Need.

Alan had regained consciousness in the hospital, though he was still listed in critical condition. He had admitted to the theft from Feed the Need as well as the larger crime of trying to steal more than a million dollars from Smythe Incorporated. But he
vehemently denied any involvement with Wendell Smythe’s death at all, and now he had changed his alibi. Instead of just saying he was “running errands,” at the time of Wendell’s death, Alan was now maintaining that on the morning of the murder he had left the office to run to the bank and then the post office; while in line at the post office, he had met a lovely young lady in the line in front of him with whom he shared a cup of coffee and a quick but heated session in the alley behind the coffee shop. He hadn’t gotten her name and had no way of knowing how to contact her to prove his alibi. If that were true, I thought suddenly, at least it would explain his breathless and befuddled appearance the first time we met.

But the police seemed to think they had enough evidence to convict Alan of Wendell’s murder without a confession. Besides the fingerprint on the syringe in the trash can, they had found his hair on Wendell’s arm. Circumstantial, yes, but when coupled with Alan’s embezzling activities and subsequent attempt to flee, the cops felt it was an airtight case.

As for Monty Redburn, he had now committed enough crimes to keep himself locked up for quite a while, and I was glad. With 20 cops as witnesses, getting a conviction on the attempted murder of Alan Bennet should be a piece of cake.

Needless to say, the J.O.S.H.U.A. Foundation would not be making a loan to Feed the Need now. Perhaps, Tom said, if Derek could clear up the mess and demonstrate an ability to lead the company, Tom would consider a future request for funds.

“And, of course,” Tom said, “you’re almost free to go. As soon as you go downtown tomorrow morning and give them your full statement, the police will release you from your Pennsylvania prison.”

I closed my eyes, thinking how good those words sounded.
Free to go
. Finally, in the morning, after getting my car and giving my statement, I would load up and head home. It sounded too good to be true.

We talked for a moment longer, and then I hung up the phone, feeling oddly at loose ends. My body was wiped out, but my mind
was now flying. I walked to the window and looked out at the gorgeous moonlit night. This place was so beautiful, the perfect lawn and stately trees so peaceful.

Finally, unable to resist the call of the smooth blue water below me, I decided to go for one last nighttime swim in the Smythes’ heated pool.

Fifty-One

Heavenly,
I thought as I leaned back in the water, letting my hair float out behind me.
This water is just heavenly
.

Tonight, I decided, I wasn’t even going to do any laps. I was just going to lie here and float in the water and relax. After all that had happened, I deserved to pamper myself.

I let my feet rise up to the surface and tilted my head back so that only my face was above the water line. Arms stretched out beside me, I closed my eyes, lying flat in the water, trying to clear my mind of everything but the soft gentle waves that surrounded me.

It almost worked, too. But the longer I floated there trying to relax, the more my mind kept racing back to Alan Bennet, to the moment our eyes met at the airport. The eyes of a killer.

Or were they?

Something about it was bothering me, something about the way that this entire thing tied together. Had Alan Bennet killed Wendell Smythe? For the last few days, I had felt pretty sure that he had. But now, in spite of all that had happened, for some reason I was suddenly doubtful. It was almost as if things had tied together too neatly, too simply, and that bothered me. I just didn’t know what to think anymore.

I sat up in the water and swam slowly, going back over the day’s events in my mind. I had watched while Alan robbed the company and had seen him arrested and then shot at the airport. I knew he had conned two different women into giving him what he needed and tricked one very unsavory man into trusting him to come through in the end. Even poor Carlos had been caught up in the man’s lies, risking his own life to prevent Alan’s escape.

Poor Carlos. I thought of the two of us in the tower, of the brave way he had headed down those dark stairs to the crowd waiting below. How odd that this whole thing began—and ended—with me heading down a flight of stairs.

The stairs.

I stopped swimming and stood up in the water. The stairs! Of course! Carlos had run down the stairs of the airport tower ahead of me. He had been going fast, holding onto the rail, and I had shined the light down through the center of the stairwell, so that he could see as he went. I closed my eyes now, trying to picture the stairs in the office building where Wendell Smythe had been killed. The stairs there also ran clockwise as they went down. I remembered my pursuit of the person running down those stairs ahead of me on the day of Wendell’s murder. I remembered hearing the sounds of running feet below me, but when I looked down the center of the stairwell, I had seen nothing.

The person I was chasing had been left-handed,
I realized! He—or she—had been running down the left side of the stairs, holding onto the left rail. I grew angry at myself for not thinking of this before. I thought back to the coroner’s report. Wendell had been injected into the left upper arm, the angle of the needle posterior to anterior. Just the way a left-handed person would do it.

I felt sure Alan Bennet was right-handed. Thinking back to the day we met, I remembered that was the hand he used to carry my printer as he walked me to Wendell’s office.

I thought of all the suspects, wondering what was the quickest way to find out who was left-handed and who was right-handed. I
closed my eyes, picturing them each in turn, trying to think of some action I had seen them perform and which hand they had been using. All that would come to my mind was Nick, the day I met him, carefully making his pecan tarts.

Nick was left-handed.

“It was
Nick
,” I whispered to myself urgently.

Then I heard an odd sound, like a splash. I opened my eyes and spun around, stunned to see Nick sitting on the edge of the pool. He had taken off his shoes and socks and was resting his feet in the water.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said in his deep male voice.

I swallowed hard, my mind racing, my heart pounding.

“W-what?” I managed to gasp.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he repeated calmly. “Wendell used to say that sometimes when he wondered what I was thinking.”

He looked at me, his eyes too dark to read.

“I wonder now what you are thinking,” he said softly.

I took a step back in the water, trying not to let fear show in my face.

“Why are you here?” I rasped. “I thought you went to the hospital.”

He shook his head.

“My sister wanted to talk with Mrs. Smythe. I told her to drive. I decided to stay here, with you.”

“I see.”

I glanced around, trying to think how I could escape. A quick swim to the deep end, climb out, and run across the yard? He would surely catch me. I looked wildly up at the house, knowing we were too alone, too isolated, for anyone to hear me if I screamed. I thought about Carlos in the hospital having the cut on his leg sewn up. It couldn’t take forever. Surely, they would all be home soon.

“I wondered what your plans are now,” he said, holding out one foot and tapping it against the water. Ripples rolled out on the
surface and rolled all the way to me until they splashed against my stomach and disappeared.

“I’m leaving in the morning,” I said lightly, taking another step back. “Now that the killer’s been caught, there’s no reason for me to stick around.”

I could hear my own voice as I spoke, knowing it sounded as fake as it possibly could. What was wrong with me? I was an investigator; I regularly bent the truth for a living. Why now did this one lie sound so pathetic? Had he heard what I said? Did he know what I was really thinking?

He just shook his head, clicking his tongue.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he repeated. “Or not. Because I already know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking Alan Bennet didn’t kill Wendell after all.”

My mind raced as I tried to fit other pieces of this puzzle together. I thought about Nick’s alibi, about the fact that he had been shopping in Philadelphia with Marion at the time that Wendell was killed. I never had gotten around to asking her to clarify that, nor had I inquired as to whether Nick had been with her the entire time.

“Let us not pretend any more, Callie. I just heard you say, ‘It was Nick.’ You think it was me.”

“Why, Nick?” I asked sinking down into the water. “Why kill a man who never hurt anyone, who did so much good in the world, for so many people?”

“Wendell Smythe was a good man,” Nick replied, ignoring my question. He reached one hand out to the water and scooped up a handful and splashed it onto his face. The water trickled down across his broad cheeks, moistening his beard, leaving a dark wet spot on the front of his shirt.

“I’ve already told the police,” I said. “They know Alan didn’t do it. They know he’s not the one who killed Mr. Smythe.”

“You didn’t tell the police yet,” Nick said simply, shaking his head. “You just now figured it out yourself.”

I started to speak, but he held up one hand to stop me.

“I was afraid you would figure it out, sooner or later,” he said. “So now the question that remains is, what are we going to do about it?”

He stood and took a step forward into the water, the legs of his pants becoming wet. He took another step forward, and the water was now up to his hips. I hesitated, calculating just where I could go if I managed to make it out of the pool. Nick was big, yes, but sometimes big meant slow. Perhaps I could outrun him. Perhaps I could make it into the house, lock the door, and call the police before he could get inside.

“Why could you not just leave it alone?” he asked sadly. “Alan Bennet has been arrested. If he lives, he will go to trial. He will pay for his crimes.”

“He’ll pay for his crimes, alright,” I said. “But should he have to pay for someone else’s as well?”

Our eyes met. I saw Nick poised to jump, and I chose that moment to spring backward, diving into deeper water. Heart pumping, I swam as fast as I could through the black water to the other end of the pool. Reaching the cement side, I grabbed hold and hoisted myself out. I was almost up when I felt a hand at my ankle, gripping, pulling, yanking me.

In one motion, I landed hard on the side of the pool and fell helplessly under the water. Then his hand was around my neck. I fought, twisting fiercely, but he was just too big, too strong. He pulled me up out of the water, his arm wrapped around my neck, my back pressed tightly against his body.

“Please,” he whispered, his lips at my ear as I gasped for breath. With his other hand, he grabbed my arms and pinned them to my body. “I do not want to hurt you. I just want you to promise you will not tell.”

Was he insane? Did I have any hope at all? I thought about us there in the deep water. He was fully dressed, the water in his clothes weighing him down, his legs kicking furiously beneath me. After a while he would begin to get tired. He would lose strength, and then I could get away.

“I won’t tell,” I whispered. “I promise.”

I thought of Angelina, the night I overheard her in the pantry with Alan.
Nick will kill me if he finds us,
she had said. Until now, I had thought it was just a figure of speech.

He changed his grip on me and began dragging me toward the shallow end. He was crying now, his sobs echoing across the top of the water. I wanted to understand why. I just wanted to know what made him do it.

He dragged me all the way to the steps, and then he pulled me against him again, his arm tighter around my neck. I could barely breath. I closed my eyes, willing my heart to slow down, forcing myself to think clearly.

“It’ll be our secret, Nick,” I rasped. “Yours and mine.”

“How can I be sure?” he asked, his breathing heavy, his grip strong. He was rocking us back and forth, still crying. “You should have left it alone.”

I didn’t know what to do. I felt a wave of dizziness come over me and knew it was the lack of oxygen. I had to breathe. I couldn’t breathe.