Ring for Murder (Lighthouse Inn Finale) (11 page)

“Knowing the two of you, I don’t even want
to begin to speculate.”

He laughed, kissed his wife, and the two of
them started to leave the Dual Keeper’s Quarters when they noticed
two cars coming up the drive. Monique and Jackson were coming back,
and they shouldn’t see Alex and Mor.

It was starting to get dark out, and there
was a chill in the air that promised the cooler temperatures that
were surely to come. The leaves were starting to fade away and
fall, but there were enough still on the trees to rattle as the
wind blew through them.

As the two men hustled to the other building
trying not to be seen, Mor said, “It’s getting cold out.”

“We’re due, don’t you think?”

As Alex unlocked the main door to the other
building, Mor asked him, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I can’t say until I see that room again,”
Alex said. He hoped Mor wouldn’t ask him any more questions. He had
a thought, more of a wisp of an idea, and if he gave it too much
consideration, Alex knew that it could easily vanish.

His hand shook a little as he opened the
door to the room where Tony had been murdered, but it was less now
than it had been before. He wasn’t exactly getting used to being
there, but at least he could reenter the room without balking at
the threshold.

Alex looked around the room, took it in, and
then nodded.

“I was right.”

“About what?” Mor asked.

Alex held a hand up to silence his best
friend as he tried to decide if he could use this new information
as a way to trap the real killer.

Finally, he spoke. “I had it, but it’s
gone.”

“Don’t worry, it will come to you.”

Alex shook his head. “But maybe not tonight.
We need to find a way to keep either one of our suspects from
sneaking in here tonight.”

“I’ll stay here,” Mor said.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” Alex said.
There was no way he could expect his friend to stay in a room where
a murder had so recently occurred.

“You’re not asking. I’m volunteering. We can
spring our trap tomorrow night.”

“What makes you think I’ll be able to come
up with something by then?”

“However long it takes,” the big man said.
“There’s no time limit on my offer.”

Alex couldn’t bear the thought of Mor
staying there. “Hang on. Let me think a minute.”

Mor asked softly, “Would it help if I waited
outside?”

“Do you mind?”

“I’ll be on the other side of the door. Call
me if you need me.”

After he was gone, Alex looked around again.
How could he trap the killer with the coins Mor had so carefully
crafted? There had to be a way, if he could only see it.

And then it hit him. They were all being too
clever. What mattered was that the murderer got the chance to come
back to the scene of their crime. What if, as crazy as it sounded,
the killer wasn’t really after the coins, but something else? Say
the piece of paper they’d found? Or even something else. There was
only one way to find out. Alex took a towel from the bathroom,
opened it, and tucked Mor’s coins inside, still housed safely in
their bag. After putting the towel back in its place, he walked out
to speak with Mor.

In a low voice, he said, “You need to go
back to the inn and tell the ladies that I need to be alone. Tell
them I’m going for a long drive and won’t be back tonight. Make it
convincing, and do it loudly enough so that Jackson and Monique can
hear you. I know that you can bellow, so that shouldn’t be a
problem.”

“What are you going to really be doing?”

He pointed across the hall at the linen
closet. “I’ll be hiding in there, watching to see what happens.
Leave the main door unlocked when you go. We want to make it easy
on our suspects, and we need them to come in that way,”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Alex put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t. I’m counting on you to make up for my
absence. Be loud, be funny, and most important, be noticed.”

“Got it,” Mor said.

Alex watched his best friend leave, and then
he stepped into the closet. If he moved things around a little, he
could see all the way down the hallway. If someone tried to get
into the room where Tony had been killed, Alex would see it.

He passed the time remembering the times he
and Tony had in the past. There weren’t a lot of good memories, but
he cherished the ones he had. Tony hadn’t been much of a brother,
but he’d stood up for Alex a few times, and Alex realized that he’d
never thanked his brother for that, at least. And now it was too
late.

Alex knew that Jackson was supposed to come
while Monique distracted the others. At least that was the theory.
Sure enough, Alex saw the hallway door open, and Jackson walked in
as though he owned the inn. Going straight for the room where Tony
had been killed, Alex waited for him to find the coins. The man was
a real pro, and entered with a blade of some sort in his hand. Alex
pulled back a little and watched him go into the room where Tony
had been killed. Ten minutes later, Jackson came out with the bag,
the knife put away. Alex was about to jump out when he realized
that didn’t mean anything. Not only was he unarmed, but it still
didn’t prove that Jackson was a murderer. He could have met up with
Tony there to discuss their business arrangement before the murder.
Instead of leaving, Alex kept his vigil, and in less than five
minutes, it was rewarded. The hallway door opened again, and this
time Monique came through. Alex watched her, and to his surprise,
he saw her going into the room next door, not the place where Tony
was killed. What was she doing? And then he thought he knew.

Two minutes later she came out with a towel
under her arm, and that’s when Alex stepped out of the closet.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he said as he
switched on a light. Enough had come through the windows before
from the moon to give the space some illumination, but the fresh
and direct light hurt his eyes. Alex was sorry that Jackson had
gotten away. He would have liked to ask the man a few questions,
but that was too bad.

“What are you doing here?” he asked
Monique.

Before she had a chance to answer, Jackson
came back, with Mor right on his heels.

“I thought you could use a little backup,”
Mor said.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jackson
said.

“He’s got a knife,” Alex said.

“I’ve got it,” Mor said with a smile.

“Let me go,” Jackson said, a look of hate in
his eyes.

Mor put a hand on his shoulder and clamped
down. As tough as Jackson was, Alex knew that it had to have hurt.
“You’re not going anywhere.”

“Actually, she’s the one you need to watch,”
Alex said as he pointed at Monique.

Chapter 10

“But he’s the one who took the coins,”
Monique said in protest as Mor grabbed her as well. “I distracted
you all so he could sneak in here and steal them. He was supposed
to split them with me, but he was taking off. That’s why I came
over here to see what was going on.”

Alex shook his head. “Don’t you ever get
tired of lying, Monique?”

“He killed Tony,” she screamed. Mor’s grip
tightened on Monique’s shoulder, and she stopped talking, at least
for the moment.

“He might be a thief, but he didn’t kill my
brother,” Alex said. “The coins weren’t what were important here.
You didn’t care that Jackson took the coins. Well, maybe you cared,
but it wasn’t your top priority. Getting this was.”

Alex reached down and picked up the tightly
wrapped towel at his feet. As he opened it, the missing bathmat
tumbled out onto the floor. “You got scratched during the argument
with Tony, didn’t you? Were you afraid your blood was on it,
too?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
Monique said as she tried to cover one hand with another.

Alex continued. “I already saw your
band-aid. Sure, we all thought the coins were the driving motive,
but honestly, both of you had the opportunity and the motivation to
steal from Tony. But only one of you had a reason to kill him.” He
turned to Jackson. “I’m not sure if the police can even arrest you
with the evidence we’ve uncovered. After all, the fake coins Tony
had and the ones we made up are all worthless.”

Jackson looked surprised, and a little
relieved, but then Mor added, “Don’t forget about the real
coin.”

Jackson laughed, a cold and hard sound.
“According to you people, I never had it. If had to guess, I’m
willing to bet that it’s in a safe somewhere around the inn,
probably in your office.”

It was clear to Alex that Jackson knew all
about his safe, and what it held, including the piece of paper he
and Mor had found, which Alex had brought along with him, just in
case he needed it. The last thing Alex wanted was for Jackson and
his boss to ever come back to the Hatteras West Inn. He took the
paper from his pocket, and then handed it to Jackson.

“What do you get out of this?” Jackson asked
suspiciously before he took the paper.

“I want you and your people to forget we
ever existed.”

Jackson seemed to take that in. “What about
the money we lost, and the coin you still have?”

“Don’t push your luck,” Mor said.

Alex spoke up. “The coin was here, but it’s
on its way to the state museum in Raleigh. I donated it in my
brother’s name.” It wasn’t exactly true, but it soon would be. Alex
didn’t want any profit from the coin that had been a part of his
brother’s last con, and donating it in the Winston name was somehow
fitting. “As for the rest of the fake coins, you can have them if
you want them.” He took the original bag of counterfeit coins from
Elise and handed them to Jackson. “That should convince your boss
that you were conned. As for the money, I don’t have a clue what
Tony did with it, but I can tell you this. It’s not here.”

“Good enough,” Jackson said, and then
started to walk away. Mor looked at Alex, and he shook his head.
Alex was focused on one thing right now; the woman who had killed
Tony.

“You’re not going to just let him go, are
you?” Monique cried out.

Alex didn’t even have to answer. A squad car
drove up the lane, its lights flashing and siren wailing. Jackson
turned back and looked hard at Alex. “Did you set me up?”

“It wasn’t us,” Alex said.

Jackson shrugged, and then ate the piece of
paper Alex had just given him. “They don’t have a thing on me.” He
tossed the coins back to Elise, and then wiped his hands on his
pants. “We’re good now.”

As the sheriff got out of his car, Alex
opened a window and called him over to them. Once he joined them in
the Main Keeper’s Quarters, Armstrong said, “There’s a pile up on
Old 70, but I got the call and came running. I was told there might
be another murder here.”

“Who called you?” Alex asked. He was amazed
by how quickly the sheriff had shown up.

“It was anonymous,” the sheriff
admitted.

“Man or woman?” Alex asked.

“It was a woman.”

“I made the call,” Monique admitted. “I
thought Jackson was going to kill me if I didn’t turn the gold
coins over to him.”

“Why would I do that?” he asked. “I don’t
even know you, and we both know that the coins are
counterfeit.”

“Alex?” the sheriff asked. “You want to
explain this to me?” He looked over at Mor. “I’m guessing you have
a good reason to hold onto both of them.”

“She killed my brother,” Alex said.

“I suppose you have proof of that,
right?”

“We do,” Alex said.

“Then let’s hear it.”

Alex held the mat up. “If you send this to
the crime lab, I’m willing to bet they’ll find Tony’s blood, and
Monique’s as well. They struggled during an argument, and she got
scratched. Look at her hand if you don’t believe me.”

Monique said, “I caught it on a rusty nail
somewhere around here. I should sue.”

Alex shook his head, but the sheriff asked,
“Is that all?”

“There are scuff marks in the room where
Tony was killed. Whoever dumped him in the tub wasn’t strong enough
to pick him up, so they must have dragged him across the room. I
noticed it the first time I was up there, but I didn’t put it
together with Tony’s murder. If Jackson had killed him, he’d had no
problem putting my brother over his shoulder and carrying him. The
fact that Monique wasn’t as strong made me suspect that she might
have done it. Lastly, think about how Tony was killed. He was
stabbed in the heart. What professional killer do you know that
would use a knife to the heart? I’ve watched a lot of news and read
quite a few mysteries my guests have left behind over the years. It
sounds more like a crime of passion than of greed.”

“Where’d the knife come from?” Armstrong
asked, intently following Alex’s words.

“I’d check her place if I were you,” Alex
said.

“Surely she’s not that stupid,” the sheriff
answered.

“It’s worth a shot, and it would tie it all
up nicely if it turns out to be true, but I think you’ve got enough
to arrest her.”

“You meddling jerk,” Monique said as she
jerked away from Mor, reached into her jacket, and pulled out a
gun. “I killed your brother, and now I’m going to get rid of all of
you. What can they do, hang me more than once? I’ve already got
Tony’s blood on me. What’s a little more going to hurt? I’ve got
enough bullets to go around. Give me your gun, sheriff,” she said
as she trained it on him.

Alex could see true madness in Monique’s
eyes. “Don’t do it, sheriff.”

Armstrong looked at him as though he’d lost
his mind. “Alex, I don’t have any choice.”

Alex knew that if Monique had the sheriff’s
gun, they would all be dead. He just had one option, and before he
could talk himself out of it, he stepped forward towards Monique.
Alex was willing to bet his life on the fact that Monique hadn’t
reloaded the gun. After all, he’d searched everywhere in her room
and her purse. Where would she have gotten more ammunition?