"Sarge!" Ange called out. "Here they are."
The woman looked over her shoulder and snapped, "Hold 'em."
Ange gestured sternly at a pair of Louis Quinze chairs on either side of an occasional table. An ormolu clock ticked away in the center of the table, and Quill noted the time: eleven-fifteen.
She and Meg both sat down. Ange took up what Quill thought of as the guard-dog stance: feet braced apart, hands on his position belt, a stem and unforgiving look on his face.
"Ange?" she said chattily. "Are you from around here?"
"New Jersey, ma'am."
"Is crime more interesting here or in New Jersey?"
Meg rolled her eyes. Ange didn't respond at all. Quill tried again. "Been on the force long?"
"Two years, ma'am."
"So you've had some experience," Meg cracked. "Mostly traffic though, right? Don't even bother asking him stuff, Quill. He doesn't know a thing."
A tinge of red crept over Ange' s cheeks. Quill looked at Meg, bemused at her rudeness. Meg dropped the merest wink and Quill murmured, "Oh, of course." Then, with indignation, she said, "What a mean thing to say, Meg. Officer..." She darted a glance at his uniform. His last name had more consonants than syllables. "That is, Ange knows what's been going on here. Don't you, Ange?"
"Seen this before, ma'am."
"Where, on that dumb TV show Cops?" Meg snorted. "Hah."
Ange's gaze drifted downward. Meg was wearing a gauzy white cotton dress that she'd picked up in Bloomingdale's that afternoon. Despite her tough-guy diction, she looked a lot younger than thirty. "Home invasion, miss."
Quill, a little huffy that she'd been 'ma'amed' and Meg had been 'missed,' said with more force than she'd intended, "Home invasion? You mean armed thugs breaking into people's homes and taking their valuables? That's ridiculous!"
"Oh?" Officer Ange, despite his youth, had an un- expected depth of shrewdness. "You two know any different, you'd better let the sergeant know."
"Know what?" The female detective's companion, the one who had gone out the door to, presumably, examine the body of the security guard, approached with a frown. "Your names?" he snapped. He was of medium height, with very broad shoulders and a big chest. His hair was fair-mixed heavily with gray and thinning on top. His nose dominated a thin, tanned face. Quill liked his looks.
"Sarah Quilliam. This is my sister, Meg."
The set of his shoulders shifted a little. "Sarah Quilliam? You involved in that business with Hedrick Conway up in Hemlock Falls?"
"Why, yes. I was."
"Hm. It's all right, Corporal. I'll take it from here."
Ange straightened and put his hands behind his back. "Sir?"
"I said it's all right. I know them. Or of them, at least." Quill, who had the sudden, undeniably thrilling thought that news of her exploits as a solver of crime had gotten as far as Miami, smiled brilliantly. "Nosy," the detective added, "but harmless."
"If you say so, sir."
"Those two bimbos of the Taylor boys will need an escort home. Why don't you take them and report back here in half an hour. No more than that."
"Yes, sir." Ange marched off. Quill noticed that the tips of his ears were red.
The detective shoved both hands in the pockets of his sport coat, balanced on the balls of his feet, and said unexpectedly, "How's Myles?"
"Myles?" Quill blinked at him. "Oh, my goodness! You must be Jerry. Myles's friend from his days in New York."
"Hear he's fallen into a pretty lucrative line of work."
"Yes. He's an investigator for a company that handles corporate crime. He spends a lot of time overseas."
His eyes went to the ring on her left hand.
"And yes, we're getting around to that. At some point."
"Good to hear it. Thought things were kind of rocky there for a while."
"Oh?" Quill's voice was cool.
"We thought we might get him on the force in Miami a while back. Just before he took that investigator's job. Didn't say much, Myles. Never does. But I gathered that if you two were really going to get married, he wasn't interested in moving down here. So." His tone shifted. "You two know anything about this?"
"We might," said Quill. "Actually, um... Jerry... I'd been expecting that something was going to happen to Verger Taylor."
"You had, huh?"
Quill ignored Meg's warning glare. "In the past few days, I've heard no less than two significant threats against Verger Taylor's life."
"No kidding?"
Quill, a little uncertain at the sarcasm in his voice, nodded.
"You realize that keeping track of people who want to murder Verger Taylor is a full-time job? The list's pretty long. In the past month we've had" - he paused, drew a small notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket, and flipped through the pages - "three significant death threats against him."
"Three?" said Quill.
"Significant?" Meg asked. "What do you mean by significant?"
"Threatening letters, phone calls, that sort of thing. Taylor's attorney, Frank Carmichael, turns them over to us pretty routinely."
"Corporal whosis, that is, Ange."
"Wisc. Just like it's spelled."
"Yes. Him. That is, he. Said that all the evidence pointed to a home invasion."
"That's right. It's a typical M.O. for this part of Palm Beach County. The perpetrators scope out the victim's home beforehand, posing as television repairmen or electricians, then pick a night when there's not a lot of activity. They don't care in particular if anyone's home or not. They disable any alarm systems, shoot whomever's in their way, and take off with what they can steal. In this case, it was a bag with twenty thousand dollars cash, a lot of small silver and jade. The contents of the safe in Taylor's office."
"Twenty thousand in cash?" Quill was stunned. "The boys say keeping that amount of money on hand was typical of him. It's not all that unusual around here."
"Couldn't have it been premeditated murder? Planned to look like a home invasion?"
"Anything's possible," Jerry said agreeably. "But I'll tell you one thing about police work, if Myles hasn't told you already - the simplest explanation is usually the best. We checked the security log, and two telephone repairmen checked in to the mansion three days ago. One of our guys just contacted the phone company - and no such team was sent out. The security guard was shot through the head, execution style, and all the indications are that Taylor's been shot, too."
"Do you have any suspects yet?" Meg asked. "A home invasion is usually staged by young kids without anything to lose. Except their lives. Most of them don't care about that. Half the time around these parts, the homeowner's armed and blows at least one of them away. The other half of the time, they shoot to kill, but the victim survives to put them in jail. Seems to me if one of Taylor's business victims want to blow him off, they'd choose a much less risky way. But then, you tell me."
"Where's his body?" Meg demanded. "If this was a home invasion, where's Verger's body?"
"Now, that's a good question. I don't know." He grinned. Quill, who had been feeling a little intimidated, couldn't help but grin back.
"I know you two have been involved in a number of cases. Myles tells me you're actually pretty sharp at solving crimes. So, you have any ideas? I'll listen."
"Where do you think the body is?" asked Meg. "If the types of criminals that stage home invasions just leave the bodies, where is Verger Taylor?"
Jerry nodded. "Now that, Miss Quilliam, is the best question anyone's asked all night. There's one possible explanation. And if it's true..."
"Jer!" Jerry's woman partner, a pleasant-featured, heavyset woman in her fifties, waved at him urgently from across the room. "We got it. We got the call."
"Oh, my goodness," Quill said. "Kidnapping. Of course!" She and Meg sprang up after Jerry and trailed behind him to the living room telephone. Evan, his face tight, was listening intently on the telephone. A wire was attached to the head of the phone by the same kind of rubber suckers that used to tip Meg's play arrows when she was six. The wire ran to a recorder that was spinning slowly. Evan held the receiver away from his ear, so that the police officers nearby could hear the conversation. The kidnapper's voice was heavily distorted. And from the look on Jerry's face, Quill knew that they were either unprepared or technically unable to trace the call.
"But is my father all right?" Evan said. He was sweating. It seemed hard for him to get his lips under control.
"Waaann hunnnnert t'ouusaanndd..." the voice hissed. "Leeffttt onnnn theee noooommmbbber nine buoy oonnn the chhhannnell. Byyyy tenn-thhhirty tommorroowww."
Evan's look at Detective Fairchild was desperate. "One hundred thousand dollars," he repeated, "left on the number nine buoy in the Port of Palm Beach Channel at ten-thirty tomorrow night."
"Nnoooo pollisss. No ppolllosss. Orrr..." A sudden scream, agony-filled, clearly male, blared from the receiver. Evan dropped it with a shout. There was a click and then the dial tone droned implacably.
"Did you hear him, Detective?" Evan's voice was high and uncontrolled. He stopped, put his hands over his face, and took several deep breaths. When he took his hands away, his face was pale, but calmer. "You didn't hear it all. He said that if we didn't get that money there, tomorrow night, without police involvement, they'll send Dad back to us. Piece by piece." He shuddered.
There was a clatter and thump. Quill turned. Corrigan had fainted.
"Cor!" Evan leaped for his brother. The two medics stepped over the stretcher and knelt by him. "Don't touch him! Leave him alone!" Evan shoved one medic aside and snarled at the other to move. He cradled Corrigan's head in one hand and slapped him lightly, swiftly across the cheeks with the other. "Cory," he said. "Cory!"
"Good God," Meg said, "this is terrible."
Quill went quietly to Evan's side. She knelt next to him and touched him on the shoulder. "Evan? Evan." The boy turned to her with dilated eyes, not seeming to see her at first, free hand raised, the other still fiercely clutching his brother's head. Quill closed her hand over his. "Here. He's just fainted. Let him down. Gently. That's it. Let me take him. You see how his eyelids are fluttering open? The shock's just been too much for him." She looked around. "Anyone have any smelling salts, or whatever it's called?"
"Ammonia carbonate," said one of the medics. He was a slight man, with a pencil-thin mustache and sympathetic brown eyes. He pulled an ampule from his breast pocket, broke it, and waved it under Corrigan's nose. The boy coughed and his eyelids opened and closed. The color began to seep back into his face and he sat up. Evan grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Cor! Cor! It's me. Evan! Wake up. Wake up!"
Corrigan held up his hand and nodded. He sat up, then shakily got to his feet. Quill, still on her knees, thought she had never seen anyone look so pale.
"Dad?" Corrigan said.
"Dad's going to be all right, Cor." Evan, fiercely determined, hugged him. "We're going to get him back. We're going to get the money."
"How?" asked Corrigan simply. "We don't have any. Where are we going to get it? Where are we going to get a hundred thousand dollars?"
"We'll get it, Cor."
"But it's all Dad's! And that will take time! And they said no police! How are we going to get Dad out of this mess without involving the police?"
For the first time since Quill had met him, Evan showed some of his father's behavior. He snapped his fingers. "Hawthorne. Hawthorne!"
There had been two men in three-piece suits conferring with Evan and Corrigan just before Meg had found Maria in the closet. The older of them wound his way through the crowd of policemen, medics, and technicians surrounding Evan and his brother. "Yes, Evan."
"I want my brother and myself out of here. Right now."
"Okay. Who exactly is in charge here?"
"Jerry Fairchild," Evan said. "Fairchild?"
"Right here, Mr. Taylor."
"Clear this room. My brother and I want to talk with you alone." His gaze swept over Quill; he didn't see her. "Everyone out of here. Now."
It was another forty minutes before Meg and Quill were allowed to leave. The police ushered them - accompanied by Maria - back into the kitchen. A detailed statement about their activities was taken from them. They gave their current address and the address in Hemlock Falls. Ange, who'd returned from taking Shirl and Beth back to Beth's home, volunteered to see them to their car and follow them out the gate.
"It's sweet of you, Ange," Meg said flippantly. "But we can manage to drive home alone." She looked critically at Quill. "Although if I look as bad as she does, I can see why you're concerned."
"It's not that, miss. It's the crowd outside the gates. We can prevent the media from coming onto a crime scene, but you're going to be mobbed once you leave here."
"Oh, my God," Meg said in disgust. "You might give us an escort at that, Ange. Just to Beach Road. We can take it from there. But you'd better alert the medics." She grinned. "I'm so flipped out by all of this that I'm going to break a solemn vow and let my sister drive."
-9-
Quill sat in a lounge chair overlooking the Atlantic and sipped orange juice. It was late, after ten o'clock in the morning. The sun was high overhead. The French doors were open to the breezes, and she could hear Meg clattering away in the kitchen. There was a brief hiatus, the patter of her bare feet, and then she came out onto the terrace. "Try this." She held out a quarter-cup of dark. strong-smelling liquid.
"No," Quill said. She folded her legs under her and started at the horizon. The clouds looked iffy. News about the weather had been supplanted by the disappearance/kidnapping of Verger Taylor and (less interesting from the media's points of view) the murder of the security guard. Although the tropical storm had been officially upgraded to a grade one hurricane, it was languishing somewhere off the coast of Puerto Rico and was not supposed to pose a threat, except in the minds of the weather anchors, who'd been vainly trying to scrape up a little bit of pleasurable terror all morning with possibilities of doom, death, and destruction. "There'll be rain later in the day, though," Quill said aloud.
"What? The so-called hurricane? I told you," Meg said with splendid inaccuracy, "that it wasn't going to show up here. Now, taste this. Quill! Come on! Please? Just a teeny, tiny taste."
"Meg, for heaven's sake. This is the third marinade recipe I've tried for you this morning and I hate it! It's horrible having all this strong stuff before I'm even awake."
"Just tell me what you think. I added something really different."
Quill groaned, carefully took the stainless steel cup, and sipped. "Rum," she said. "You added rum."