Death at a Premium (26 page)

“Hemmm. Hemmm.” She cleared her throat.

Too soft.

She knocked on the nice walnut woodwork that she herself had installed.

No response.

“Chief Rodney . . . I need to talk to you. Chief Rodney.”

One eye opened. “Miss Pigeon.”

“Yes. It’s me. I need to talk to you,” she repeated.

“Whatever you say damn well better be important.” Both eyes were open now and they were glaring at her.

“Yes. You need to arrest Seymour Higgins. He’s a murderer.”

The roar that resulted from her statement brought Trish Petric running into the room. “Chief, can I do anything?”

“You can lock up this redheaded idiot for interfering with legitimate police business.”

“I don’t think I can do that, Chief. May I ask why are you here, Ms. Pigeon?”

“I was just beginning to explain to Chief Rodney that I believe Seymour Higgins killed the man we found in the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast. Or, if Mr. Higgins didn’t kill the man himself, he caused him to be killed.”

“Do you know who the dead man is, Miss Pigeon?”

“No, but . . .”

“Then you’re talking complete nonsense,” Chief Rodney exclaimed and got out of his chair.

“But his identity doesn’t matter. I know what happened . . . where are you going?” Josie asked. “Aren’t you at least going to listen to what I have to say?”

“Of course he is,” Trish Petric answered. “Chief Rodney knows he cannot ignore a citizen who comes to him with information relating to a serious unsolved crime.”

He sat back down and scowled at the women standing before him. “Yeah. That. This better be good, Miss Pigeon.”

“Maybe so good that you’ll remember to call me Ms. Pigeon,” she answered and got down to business.

“Now a lot of what I have to tell you is just speculation, but if you listen to it all, I think you’ll agree that it makes sense—perfect sense,” she added. Now that she had his attention, she wasn’t sure how to begin. “You see, Tyler has been running all over the island interviewing working women for his senior project . . .”

“What the hell does that have to do with Seymour Higgins? You’re not going to tell me that he’s a woman in disguise, are you, Miss Pigeon?”

“No, but you see, Tyler doesn’t want me to know what he’s been doing, so he manipulated me—made sure I wouldn’t be around when he needed privacy.”

“So what the . . .”

“Which is exactly what Seymour Higgins has been doing to me—to you—to all of us. And he’s managed to do it without even being on the island most of the time. Of course, he had other people do things for him. Rich people can do that.”

“Who did what?” Trish Petric asked.

Chief Rodney just glared.

“Well, first he sent his grandson to draw up plans to remodel the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast, and then he sent his decorator to worry about those plans, and then he sent his wife, and then finally came here himself . . .”

“To do what, Miss Pigeon?”

“To cause you—and everyone else—to look at Island Contracting’s crew for the killer.” She took a deep breath and continued. “You see, everyone was worried about storage. The Bride’s Secret is a huge place, and there was never going to be a shortage of storage despite the fact that it doesn’t have a basement. But, by sending Luigi the decorator to make sure we understood that storage was of utmost importance, Seymour Higgins made sure we would be looking for extra space behind the walls.”

“Which is when you found the body,” Trish said.

“And those stupid dummies,” Chief Rodney added.

“Exactly. They were stupid, but they served an important purpose. Their discovery meant that the police were at the site and interested in what Island Contracting was doing before the dead man was discovered.” Josie turned to Trish Petric. “Seymour Higgins wanted to be sure the police connected the body with my job and my crew before the identification was made. He thought the island police would find their suspects on the island.

“That’s also why he didn’t just dump the body in the ocean or the bay. If the tide brought it back to land, everyone on the island would be a potential suspect. As it was, no one was looking outside of my crew.”

Chief Rodney was scowling. “I don’t get it, Miss Pigeon.”

“Seymour Higgins is good at taking advantage of situations and when he came here in the spring he realized he had found something special—the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast, a contracting company insured by the company he owns, and . . .” She glanced over at Chief Rodney before continuing. “. . . And a police department that could be manipulated.”

THIRTY-ONE

“AND WHAT DID he say when you said that?” Sam asked, refilling Josie’s wineglass and pushing a plate of Risa’s homemade antipasto closer to her.

“I think if I’d been alone, he would have thrown me out of his office. But since Trish was there . . .” Josie paused and looked across the coffee table at Trish, who was enjoying Sam’s wine as she listened to Josie’s story for the second time that day. “He pretty much had to listen. There was a witness.”

“So go on,” Carol Birnbaum urged, entering the living room and putting a plate of freshly baked gougere on the table before sitting down. “Eat them while they’re hot, but keep talking, my dear. We all want to know what has been going on.”

“Okay. Well, to begin at the beginning, Seymour and Tilly Higgins visited the island last winter and they went to the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast. They met there when they were young, and she, at least, had a sentimental attachment to the place. She had also done a lot for her husband over the years—raised the children he had with his first wife, and more importantly, brought a lot of money into the family when they married. Her family was in the insurance business and as the result of their marriage, Seymour Higgins owns one of the largest insurance companies in the country.

“Anyway, when they discovered the place was for sale, she asked him to buy it, and he did—claiming it was a gift for her. She told Carol and me that she had always wanted a big beach home where the family could gather. But, in a very different way, the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast met her husband’s needs as well . . . as did the situation here on the island.

“You see, Seymour Higgins was stopped by the police for speeding when they visited the island last winter. And my guess is that it didn’t take long for him to realize what a self-important ass Chief Rodney is.”

“Josie put this a bit more diplomatically when she was back at the station,” Officer Petric interrupted.

“I should hope so,” Sam said.

“Yes, well, Seymour Higgins’s wife may have found the summer house of her dreams, but I think he thought he had found a place where he could do pretty much anything he wanted—and get away with it after spreading his money around a bit.”

“The Rodney Island Forensic Center,” Sam suggested.

“Exactly. So Seymour Higgins bought the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast to turn it into a vacation home for his family, but he had plans—private plans—to increase his worth at the same time.”

“But. . .” Sam began.

“Look, I know this doesn’t all make sense right now, but it will if you just listen to the entire story.”

“It really will,” Office Petric assured them, popping another gougere into her mouth.

“I certainly hope so,” Carol said.

“When you say ‘increase his worth,’ you’re talking about killing and hiding that man.” Sam said.

“Yes. You see, Seymour Higgins’s interests in the insurance industry meant he could insure his life and his partner’s life as well—standard business practice—but, in this case, the death benefits were to go to Seymour himself. And he hired Island Contracting because he thought the police would suspect me—or a member of my crew— and not him.

“Look, you’ll understand if you let me explain about the Bride’s Secret. You see, Seymour Higgins didn’t really care about the project at all. He hired my company without checking out our references, and then he allowed his grandson to draw the plans for the job. And Christopher, while a charming young man, is completely unqualified. I discovered that fact immediately. And then I realized Seymour Higgins had hired Island Contracting without thoroughly checking us out when he stopped by my office. All his research has been done at his office in the city, but that was enough for him to realize that our insurance situation gave him unusual power over Island Contracting. He was surprised by my collection of birdhouses because he had no idea that Island Contracting had done so much work. But our abilities didn’t matter to him, because he didn’t care how the house ended up. Seymour Higgins probably assumed the job wouldn’t even get finished.”

“What about his grandson’s work?” Carol asked. “Didn’t he care about the time and effort the boy had put into designing the remodeling job?”

“I don’t know how Seymour Higgins felt about Christopher’s work, but I know his grandmother was concerned about that very thing. She suspected something was wrong, which is why she spent so much time down at Island Contracting’s office. She wasn’t worried about storage—she told me that later—and she wasn’t really looking for sinks and the like, although that’s what she claimed at the time.”

Carol nodded. “She was looking for information about your company. Yes, that makes sense.”

“Exactly. She wanted Christopher’s project to be a success, and she wanted the big family summer home that her husband had promised her—and she knew neither would happen if Island Contracting was an incompetent fly-by-night sort of company. So she was checking us out in a rather devious fashion, because she didn’t want her husband—or me—to know what she was doing.

“But the real story starts when I hired Leslie, the second lucky break for Seymour Higgins.”

“What about Leslie?” Carol asked.

Josie glanced at Sam. “There’s something about Leslie that you don’t know, but that Seymour Higgins did: he’s uninsurable. He can’t get health insurance.”

“You have someone working on your crew who does not have health insurance? Do you know what sort of risk you’re taking?” Sam asked.

“I knew you would be worried, so I didn’t mention it to you,” Josie said.

“Josie, I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me about that.”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” she repeated.

“Just like you, Sammy, did not tell Josie that you’ve decided you can’t stay in this house once you’re married—because you don’t want her to worry,” his mother pointed out.

“You what?”

“I think you need to get on with your explanation,” Trish Petric suggested before Sam could reply. “I have to get back to the station fairly soon, and I assume you want me to tell you about my part in this story.”

“Yes. I’ll go on. The other thing you don’t know is that Seymour Higgins’s insurance company has insured Island Contracting for many years.”

“So presumably he had access to this information about Leslie.”

“Exactly. And knowing Leslie’s medical situation, he probably suspected that Leslie needed money. But I don’t think he would have realized that Leslie was willing to break the law to get it if he hadn’t discovered that Leslie was loaning—for a price—his driver’s license to minors wanting to buy beer.”

“How did he know that?” Carol asked.

“He discovered Christopher using it,” Josie answered. “He probably wasn’t surprised. The family knew Christopher had been in trouble in college for his drinking. His grandmother mentioned it to me the day we met.”

“I knew there was a drinking problem on the island after working here less than a week,” said Officer Petric, “but I didn’t know how much some young adults were contributing to the problem until I spent some time sitting in the parking lot at the Wawa, chatting with the kids there and checking IDs myself.”

“There certainly is,” Sam added. “I make sure everyone who works at my store checks and double-checks identification. In fact, I had a conversation about that very subject with Seymour Higgins in the spring. He was probably thinking about his grandson back then. I never thought it might be significant, to tell you the truth.”

Josie just took a deep breath and continued. “Anyway, Leslie Coyne is an important person in my story. First—he’s horrible. I don’t think I’ve ever hired anyone so completely unscrupulous. He lives off of women he claims to love. When I realized that, I told myself it wasn’t my problem, which is true, although it did make me awfully uncomfortable. But Sam discovered that Leslie was stealing from the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast and selling what he stole on the Internet—and that is my problem. Island Contracting cannot afford to be seen as hiring dishonest workers. Apparently that doesn’t matter to Leslie. Leslie cares about very little besides himself and money. I doubt if it was difficult for Seymour Higgins to convince Leslie that it would be in his interests to help him out.”

“And what exactly did Leslie do for Seymour Higgins?” Carol asked.

“In the first place, Leslie was present when all three bodies were found: the two dummies and the murdered man. I should have realized that immediately. In fact Officer Petric pointed it out to me, but I ignored her.”

“You think Leslie knew where they were hidden?” Sam asked.

“Yes. He may even have hidden the dummies. I don’t know about that, but Leslie certainly made sure they were found when they were.”

“And Seymour Higgins paid him to do this,” Sam continued.

“And to put his driver’s license on the dead man!” Carol added enthusiastically. “But why would he do that?”

“I doubt if he did. I think that came as a complete surprise to Leslie. But Seymour Higgins wanted Leslie connected with the dead man. He expected Leslie to be arrested for the murder. But of course, he didn’t realize we would be interested in Leslie for other reasons.”

“Stealing and selling the contents of the Bride’s Secret Bed and Breakfast on eBay,” Sam said.

“Exactly. No one would have known about that if you hadn’t been shopping for that furniture you love.”

“To furnish your new, bigger house that you can now tell Josie about,” Carol pointed out.