Shaded Light: The Case of the Tactless Trophy Wife: A Paul Manziuk and Jacquie Ryan Mystery (The Manziuk and Ryan Mysteries Book 1) (49 page)

“I talked to Hildy for a few minutes at the pool while Nick went to his room to change.”

“How long was he?”

“Maybe ten minutes. He’d said he was almost through with what he was working on, so I assume he finished it first.”

“You haven’t remembered anything else that might help us, have you?”

She looked up and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry. You don’t really think Nick did it, do you?”

“Several things point to him.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“Not for the moment. But if he comes around, I would make sure I wasn’t alone with him.”

Manziuk and Ryan left, but Lorry continued to sit at the desk. For a long time, she stared at the closed door.

Outside, Ryan said, “Well?”

Manziuk let out a long sigh. “Looks like it, all right. Let’s talk to Mrs. Winston and then maybe we should pay a visit to Peter Martin.”

“I can drive,” she said, thrusting her chin forward in challenge as she headed for the driver’s side.

“In your dreams,” he replied. As he unlocked the driver’s door, he said, “When I want to be driven around by a young woman as if I were a doddering old fool, I’ll let you know.”

“So it
is
your pride,” she said. “I thought so. It’s okay for a younger man to drive you around, but not a younger woman. How ridiculous. And sexist. I could report you.”

“Do your worst. You still aren’t driving.”

The gate swung open once they buzzed and told Ellen who they were. She answered the front door. “Oh, my! I wasn’t expecting you, was I?”

“No, Mrs. Brodie. We dropped by to clear up a few things. Is Mrs. Winston able to talk with us?”

“I don’t know. I gave her the medication the doctor left. So she’d sleep, you know. She was very distraught yesterday. But of course you know that. Anyway, I can go and see if she might be awake.”

“Do that, please. And if she’s asleep, I’d like you to wake her.”

“Oh, but—? Oh, yes, I see.” She left them standing in the hallway for ten minutes. During that time, neither spoke.

“Oh, dear,” she said as she returned to them, “my manners have gone right out the window. I’m so sorry. I never would have left you standing here if I’d been myself. I was thinking about Crystal, of course, and how sad this all is, and I—”

“You were seeing if Mrs. Winston could see us,” Ryan said. “Is she awake?”

“Yes. I expect you’re in a hurry, aren’t you? And me rattling on. She’s awake. I don’t know how alert she’ll be, though. The doctor said she could be a little groggy. And then she’s apt to burst into tears, you know. At any time.”

“We’ll take a chance,” Manziuk said.

“Come on, then.” She started toward the kitchen. Over her shoulder, she said, “But I expect you know the way, don’t you?”

They found Mrs. Winston in bed in her room adjoining the kitchen. The bedclothes were twisted and pulled out at the bottom. Several pillows lay in a heap on the floor. Mrs. Winston had apparently been having a rough time. Her hair was askew, face swollen and red; her hands, on top of the old quilt, were twisting each other in an odd, wringing motion.

“Mrs. Winston,” Manziuk said as he sat on the chair beside her bed. “We’re sorry to have to bother you again.”

“Have you found him?” Her voice was rasping.

“You mean the murderer? No, we haven’t yet. There are a couple of things I need to know. They might help me discover who it was.”

“He had no business hurting Crystal. She never did anybody any harm.” Her agitation continued to manifest itself as she twisted her hands in quick, jerky motions. “She was young. She never hurt anybody.”

“I know, Mrs. Winston. I wish I could bring her back. She didn’t deserve to die like that. But I can’t bring her back. I can only make sure that whoever did it doesn’t do it again.”

“She didn’t deserve it.”

“No.”

There was a long moment of silence.

Ryan opened her mouth to speak, but a sharp look from Manziuk made her shut it again.

Into the silence, Mrs. Winston at last spoke. Her voice was shaky, but determined. “What do you want?”

“I need to know,” Manziuk spoke distinctly, “whether Crystal was ever out of the kitchen on Sunday afternoon?”

“She was in the kitchen. We were working on supper.”

“I know. But it’s easy to forget. Did she go out to get glasses from the bar?”

“Glasses?”

“Dirty glasses. From the bar in the games room. Did she go to get them?”

“Dirty glasses. Oh, yes. I remembered them because of Bart. He was on the patio and I saw his glass. I don’t know why, but it made me remember that we hadn’t collected the ones from the bar since early in the morning. There were quite a few there from the night before. In the morning, Crystal put out fresh ones and we took the dirties to the kitchen. A little while after I saw Bart, I sent her to get the dirty ones and take a tray of fresh ones. She was hardly gone any time at all.”

“I see. So there were still people on the patio when you asked her to go?”

“Oh, yes. Quite a few. They were having lemonade.”

“Did Crystal go anywhere later? Say to check the flowers?”

“Flowers? I don’t remem—no, wait. She did go to the dining room to make sure the flowers were fresh for supper.”

“The dining room?” Manziuk’s voice betrayed disappointment. “But that’s at the front of the house.”

Ellen had come in and was listening, but now she interjected, “Yes, certainly. Is anything wrong with that, inspector?”

“No. I just—”

“What about the flowers in the other room?” Ryan asked. “Not the games room. The other one.”

“Oh, you mean the day room?” Ellen asked with interest. “Did you want her to go there?”

“Not particularly,” Manziuk said, his voice putting a damper on Ellen’s enthusiasm.

“She did, you know,” Mrs. Winston said, her voice weaker than before. “She told me she had just given them water because they still looked fine.”

“So she was in the day room?”

Mrs. Winston nodded. “Right after she picked the flowers.”

“What?” The word burst from Manziuk’s lips and exploded into the small, crowded room.

“She picked flowers for the dining room arrangement. Just a few. Most of the flowers were fine, but a few had wilted. She picked some Shasta daisies and some roses.”

“Which garden?” Manziuk asked, his voice under control again, but eagerness in every line of his body.

“Why, the rose garden, of course,” Ellen answered. “The Shasta daisies are just this side of the entranceway, and there are lots of roses.”

“Is the arrangement still in the dining room?” Ryan asked as she started toward the door.

“Goodness, yes,” Ellen replied. “Who’s had time to think about flowers in this house?”

It was fairly easy to tell which roses Crystal had added to the vase. A few were clearly fresher than the others. And a quick walk to the garden showed that the roses had been picked from two bushes that were near the entrance—a beautiful reddish orange tea rose called Tropicana, and a majestic pink bloom named Queen Elizabeth.

“Who knows what she saw?” Manziuk muttered half under his breath after he and Ryan had taken their leave of Mrs. Winston and Ellen and seated themselves in the front seat of their car, with Manziuk at the wheel.

“The question is, did he see her?” Ryan added.

“Or she.”

“Yes, or she.”

“In any case, we now have a good possibility as to what happened. She came out here and saw someone either coming from or going into the Japanese garden. She didn’t think anything of it. Who knows if she’d even put it together when we interviewed her? It may have been later that it occurred to her to wonder what that person had been up to.”

“Or perhaps he, or she, approached Crystal.”

“Whatever, we now have to figure out who she saw.”

“You know,” Ryan said, “she might have gone to the garden herself and murdered Jillian Martin, though I can’t imagine why.”

“Unless it turns out Crystal was Peter’s secret girlfriend, I don’t think I’ll buy that.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“True. But I hope not in this case.”

“How about money?”

“If you mean that Jillian was blackmailing Crystal, or if, as I suspect you may mean, you think someone paid Crystal to kill Jillian, I don’t think so. I think she saw something and decided to make a profit from it.”

“It would have to be someone she wasn’t particularly afraid of.”

“According to Kendall, and even Nick himself, Nick Donovan has no trouble getting women to fall for him. I think if he had spun Crystal a good enough tale, she’d have believed Jillian’s murder was justified.”

Ryan nodded. “If a sensible girl like Lorry Preston is attracted to him, no doubt Crystal would have been.”

“Hmm.” Manziuk found a parking place. “Well, let’s go check out a few more things with Peter Martin.”

After a quick glance at Manziuk’s ID, Peter’s secretary buzzed her boss and watched with interest as Peter hurried out of his office to usher Manziuk and Ryan inside.

“Any news?” he asked as they seated themselves on the plush leather.

“No arrest, yet, but there may be one soon,” Manziuk replied.

“Dare I ask who?”

“Not for the moment. Mr. Martin, this is a rather delicate matter, but one I need to clear up. Your partner, Douglass Fischer, was on a business trip a couple of months ago. He took his secretary.”

Peter stared at him. “Even if he did, what’s that got to do with Jillian’s murder?”

“You’re aware of the trip?”

“Yes. Douglass, er, asked me for advice when he got back. You are, I take it, referring to the fact that it turned out to be more pleasure than business?”

“What I would like to know, Mr. Martin, is if you said anything to your wife about that weekend? Anything at all?”

“To Jillian? No, of course not. I wouldn’t…” His eyes looked away and a tinge of pink touched his cheeks.

“You remember something?”

“Yes. Not about the weekend. But—look, what’s this got to do with Jillian’s murder? You surely don’t suspect Douglass or Anne, do you?”

“Mr. Martin, your wife was blackmailing Mr. Fischer. She knew all about the weekend and had obtained evidence.”

“Oh, my God!”

“We need to know her source.”

“All I said to her—and it was unintentional, a slip of the tongue—was that I didn’t blame Douglass for slipping the leash. And I said something about his secretary—Miss Kayne—being attractive. Then I realized I shouldn’t have said that much and I changed the subject. That’s all.”

“Would it be possible for us to talk to Miss Kayne?”

“Douglass isn’t in yet. You could talk to her in his office where it’s private.”

Five minutes later, the young woman was threatening tears. “It’s so terrible about Mrs. Martin. She was so nice. So friendly.”

“Did you tell her about your relationship with Mr. Fischer?”

“Not what you’d call a relationship. Just that one time. My boyfriend Randy would kill me if he found out.”