The second, I knew very well.
Wistonchuk.
My mother's maiden name.
"Russell, you've got to settle down. There's nothing you can do right now."
Anthony and I were alone on a two metre by two metre stone pad, a private outdoor seating area just outside the doors to my bedroom on the side of the house that faced a grove of fruit trees and an unruly patch of overgrown grasses.
"But how can it be, Anthony?" I stared into the movie-idol eyes, taking in the greying blond of his boyishly shaggy hair, the deepening lines of his handsome face, the familiarity of it somehow a comfort to me so far away from home. In deference to the dry early afternoon heat, he was wearing a pair of loose shorts and an unbuttoned shirt that showed off his still shapely torso. "How can my sixty-three-year-old Ukrainian mother from Howell, Saskatchewan, be the owner of a fifty-metre yacht sailing around the Mediterranean? With Sereena Smith on it!"
"Russell," he said in his cultured, Englishman's voice, "you don't know that the Wistonchuk you saw on the ownership documents was your mother. It could be anyone. I grant you it's not the most common of names, but surely there are a few others in the world," he reasoned. Anthony was more than my friend. He was my mentor, my teacher, my Obi-Wan Kenobi.
"That's true," I admitted. "And I thought the same thing..."
"Until?" he said with narrowing eyes, reading me well.
"Until I remembered where I'd heard the other name."
"Ashbourne?"
"Yes. Anthony, when Sereena and I were in New York City last year a man called her Ms. Ashbourne."
Anthony's brow furrowed with interest. "Really."
"When I asked him about it he apologized, said it was a mistake, but there was something about the whole thing that didn't seem right."
"Who was this man?"
I cleared my throat. "Well.. .he was an elevator operator at The Sherry-Nether land hotel."
Anthony regarded me for a moment, not saying anything.
"I know what you're thinking."
"Doubtful," he shot back. "Anyway, it doesn't matter what I think. You'll be home soon enough and you can ask Sereena and your mother directly if they happen to be co-owners of a luxury yacht that they forgot to tell you about."
He was making fun of me in that genteel way of his that made it seem as if he wasn't doing it at all.
"Listen, puppy," he said, slipping his tanned bare feet into sandals and getting up. "The others have lunch preparations well under control. We'll eat around two out back. Why don't you get some rest until then? You are the walking wounded after all." He laid his right hand gently against my cheek, registered a look of concern and moved his hand up to my forehead. "You're a little warm, Russell. Perhaps we should fetch a doctor."
"No, no, no," I scoffed at the idea. "It's just the after-effects of all the pain medication. I think I will lie down for a while though. I'll be fine after some shut-eye."
I knew Anthony was right. There really wasn't anything I could do until I got home. It probably was nothing anyway. My mother owning a yacht? Ha. She was more the old Russian barge type. And I did need rest. I hadn't had much since being stabbed. (Now there's a sentence I don't say every day.) I needed time to think about Richard and how we could prove his attempts at murder. As soon as we had returned to the villa after our trip into town, I had a short private meeting with Charity and Flora and told them what I'd found out at the internet cafe. They were appreciably shocked and, like me, doubted that it was all a big coincidence. And, also like me, they were flummoxed over how we could bring Richard Gray to justice.
Anthony left, softly closing the door behind him. I didn't even bother to take my clothes off. I felt irresistibly drowsy. I crawled under the blankets of my bed and fell fast asleep listening to the soothing sound of a light
breeze playing in the orchard.
Jared appeared like a hazy version of himself floating on top of me.
"We didn't know if we should wake you," he said, smiling. He was sitting on the bed next to me, one hand resting on my chest. "Are you all right? Do you want to eat or would you like to sleep a little longer?"
"What time is it?" I said in a voice that I didn't recognize, feeling disoriented.
"It's close to three."
"Three? How long did I sleep?" I said, startled further into wakefulness.
"You needed it, Russell. The gals have been telling us about all you've been through this last week.
Your body needs time to recuperate." He stopped there, brushing a stray lock of hair from my forehead.
He was even more beautiful than Anthony, more beautiful than most men. Jared was nearing thirty-five.
But in his line of work, modelling, he might as well have been eighty-five. His life and career as he knew them were slowly but surely coming to an end, but he was handling the disappearing job offers, the fewer phone calls, the flight of fame, as he did everything else, with distinguished and incomparable grace. "But it also needs food. Do you feel like joining us?"
I sat up, a little quicker than my brain wanted me to. I felt dizzy and a little sick to my stomach. "I'll be right out," I mumbled, trying for a smile that likely looked more like a grimace. "But I'm gonna get cleaned up first. You and the others go ahead and get started."
He laughed lightly, showing his perfect teeth and voluptuous, shiny lips to their best advantage. "We already have." He patted me affectionately on the shoulder as he got up. "You take your time. We'll be outside. It's a beautiful afternoon. We thought after lunch we might go to Radda. It's a cute village not far from here. Very pretty drive."
Jared left and I felt a renewed energy. He often had that effect on me. I needed a shower badly. I stumbled out of bed and began to strip. As is my habit, I patted down my pant pockets to ensure I didn't leave anything in them before tossing them into the laundry pile. I'd lost way too many twenty-dollar-bills that way. And indeed, I felt the familiar feel of crumpled paper in my left pocket and pulled it out. But it wasn't money. It was a white piece of stationery, folded in two. I opened it to see a handwritten note. At the bottom was Alberta's signature. She must have slipped it into my pocket that morning when she'd hugged me on the pier before rushing off to catch up to the rest of the disembarking staff.
I don't know whether I should tell you this or not, and I'm not sure if
I'll have the chance to before you
leave. I hope that by the time you get
this note it won't matter any more.
During my show last night on the ship, I heard the voice again, angrier,
saying the same thing, 'I'm
going to kill her.'
I'm sorry for having to give you this news.
Maybe it means nothing.
But I doubt it.
See you in Saskatoon
.
Love
Alberta Lougheed
My ears began a rhythmic pounding like an African drum solo as my blood pumped double time through my veins. Why did I feel so unsettled? During Alberta's last show on the ship, when Patrick Halburton was already behind bars, there was someone else, another murderer, thinking about killing my client. This news changed nothing. It reinforced what I'd already suspected. Patrick was not the only murderer out there. But something...something...not right.... I staggered against the bedpost. Why did I still feel so tired? I just needed another minute of r
est.. .just forty more winks...
"Dolly Parton is here to see you."
Huh?
At first all I could see was a brown and gray shape in front of me. I tried to open my eyes wider, then rubbed at them to wipe away the sleep. I saw that the brown thing sitting in a chair pulled up next to my bed was Flora Wiser. I had fallen asleep.. .again.
"Huh, what was that?"
"Dottie made some tea for you."
Still a little discombobulated, I dutifully turned my head to the right and saw a steaming cup of liquid on the bedside table. I was parched. I felt as if I hadn't had anything to drink in days. Tea is not usually my thing, but at that point I would have drunk anything. I struggled to release my arms from under the covers and sat up into a drinking position. The first thing I noticed was that my headache was gone. The dull throbbing that was slowly driving me insane had mercifully disappeared and I felt cooler. My fever must have broken. Ah, the healing properties of sleep.
Flora carefully handed me the cup of tea on its saucer and watched as I blew on it to cool it. "Thank you," I said. "Tell Dottie thank you."
Flora's thin mouth curved up into a small smile, causing her glasses to slide a millimeter down her nose.
"Dottie believes that a good cup of tea cures just about anything."
"Did I miss lunch?"
"Oh yes," she said. "But I brought you some cheese and crackers and an apple."
These too were on the bedside table.
"What time is it? How long have I been sleeping?" I was beginning to sound like Sleeping Beauty or Rip Van Winkle, but Flora most definitely was not my prince come to kiss me awake and I was pretty certain I'd yet to sprout a long beard.
"It's about four-thirty. Everyone else went on a drive, to another town...I forget its name." She nodded a little. "I didn't feel like going, so I stayed here to look after you."
"That's so nice of you." I meant it. Why wouldn't she want to go for a drive in the Italian countryside rather than babysit me?
"I don't mind at all." Flora's cheeks grew unusually pink. "I owe you. Without you I don't know what would have happened to us out there adrift in the sea. I suppose we wouldn't even be here. We'd have all drowned."
Oh shucks, ma'am. So that was it. She felt beholden to me for saving her life. Nice, but unnecessary.
"I
didn't do much other than hold onto the boat with the rest of you," I countered. "Sereena and the Kismet deserve all the credit."
"But you fought off those men. You kept our spirits up and watched out for us and made us believe we'd be okay, whether you truly believed it or not. And it was especially brave of you to dive in after the captain when you're so afraid of water."
I looked at Flora.
Suddenly I knew.
My heart began to dance wildly in my chest and my head exploded with renewed pain. I tried to remain calm and hoped Flora did not notice any change in me.
Like Jell-O into a mould, a story began to pour into my mind, slipping and sliding until it reshaped itself and settled into place.
"Are you all right, Mr. Quant?"
Darn, she noticed. "I'm fine. Just a little tired, that's all."
"Maybe some food would help?"
"Water?" God I was thirsty. "Cold water."
"Of course." She got up and left the room to get me some water.
I wanted to get out of bed, but didn't. I felt my forehead. Still a little warm. I guessed I wasn't fully recovered yet. I lay there trying to think of something to convince me that I was wrong, that what my gut was telling me couldn't be true. But it was all there.
Alberta's note said she heard the voice in her head saying: "I'm going to kill her" on the last night on the ship. The voice couldn't have belonged to Patrick Halburton. He was in The Dorothy's brig. It couldn't have belonged to Richard either, for he abandoned ship in Salerno. Of course the voice could have been talking about someone else on the boat, or Alberta could have been out to lunch, but suppose not?
"Here you go." It was Flora, back with the water.
Setting aside my teacup, I took the offered water and drank down half of it before saying, "Flora, do you remember the night on the boat when we both received messages to meet each other, messages neither of us sent?"
"Yes," she said, quietly lowering herself back into the bedside chair.
"Someone wanted both of us out of the way."
She nodded. "Yes. You already told us. It was Richard."
"If Richard wanted the murderer to get to Charity it would make sense to keep you preoccupied-everyone knows you're always at your grandmother's side. But why me?"
"Well," Flora responded slowly, as if she were trying to figure out where I was going with my comments. "You're a detective, grandmother's bodyguard-although I know you don't like that term...everyone knew..."
"Not true," I countered. "As far as the rest of the family was aware, and Richard, I was your grandmother's financial advisor, on the way to Rome with her to help effect the changes to her will, nothing more. Richard'd have no reason to suspect I'd be physically protecting her unless.. .unless somehow he knew exactly who I was and why I was really on the boat."
"But how could he have found that out? Do you think maybe your friend.. .Errall.. .told someone?"
I shrugged as if accepting that as a possibility. "I suppose."
Flora stared at me, unmoving except for her nose, quivering like a rabbit's on the scent of a carrot. "I suppose," she finally spoke, repeating my words as if agreeing to an unalterable fact. She reached for one of the pillows that had ended up at the foot of my bed and began to knead it with her bony fingers.
"The tea Morris drank was poisoned during a Charity Event when the entire family was present on your grandmother's estate. But Richard wasn't there, was he?"
Flora said nothing but continued to mush up the pillow.
"Does Richard know your grandmother's habits well enough to know that she drinks tea every night before going to bed? I don't think so. He had to have inside information, inside help."
Flora's eyes grew wide with dawning shock and her voice trembled as she answered in a tiny voice,
"Dottie."
I held her eyes for a long moment before I said, "There is someone else though, isn't there?"
Flora had just told me how brave I was the night our tender was sabotaged in Palermo, especially since I was afraid of water. The problem with that was that I'd admitted my fear of water to almost no one, not even my closest friends. But I had told one person: Richard Gray. The only way Flora would have this information was if Richard had told her. And why would he share pillow talk with a girl he supposedly hardly knew? Only if they were in cahoots and in constant communication with one another. I'd have to confirm it with Charity, but I was betting the whole FOD cruise, arranged by GrayPride tours, was likely Flora's idea, inspired by Richard. It's true the information was weak on its own, but the more I thought about things, the more I found to support my theory. . .a theory that was fast revealing itself as the truth.
The pieces were beginning to click together.
Flora's face fell flat. She just sat there, watching me now like a cat waiting for a mouse to pop its head out of a hole.