Birds of Prey : Previously Copub Sequel to the Hour of the Hunter (9780061739101) (21 page)

“When you came out of her room, why didn't you close the door?”

“Close it?” Naomi asked. “I thought I did. But I was so upset, if it wasn't closed properly, I must not have noticed.”

“Did you see anyone else in the corridor?”

“No, no one. The hallway was empty all the way from Margaret's room to the elevator. Why?”

“Did you notice anything about the service door directly across from Margaret's room?”

“No. I didn't even know there was one.”

“So you didn't see that it was slightly ajar?”

“No. Are you saying someone was hiding there?”

“Yes.”

“Then that must be the killer, the person Todd Bowman thinks is my accomplice in all this. Is that right?”

I nodded. “Let me ask you something, Naomi. In addition to Virginia and Sharon, is there anyone else on board this ship that you know?”

“Chloe and Harrison, of course. And I know Leila by sight. Do they count?”

“Yes.”

“But aside from them, there's no one else. At least, no one else I'm aware of so far. Why?”

“Is there anyone else who might have known about the payments to you from Harrison Featherman? Anyone at all?”

“It's not something I'm proud of,” Naomi said quietly. “It isn't the kind of thing one goes through life bragging about.”

“You mentioned Margaret said something about Harrison Featherman rewriting his will. What exactly did she say?”

“She told me she had found out about the rewritten will and that Melissa was being treated on a par with Chloe and the baby Leila is expecting. That threw me for a loop because I knew nothing about it. Harrison never mentioned a word of it to me.”

“How did Margaret find out?”

“I have no idea. She didn't say. Maybe she bribed someone who works for the estate-planning lawyer who did the work. Anyway, then she asked me straight out if Melissa was Harrison's child, and I said yes. Then she said, ‘I thought so,' and how could I do that to her and how could I betray her that way? I tried to explain to her that I was desperate to have a baby, that Gary and I had tried and tried. After that she got real quiet, then she said, ‘I suppose you think you're the only one who ever wanted to have a baby?' I don't know what she meant by that. I mean, she and Harrison had Chloe, didn't they? Then it was like she just went haywire. Nuts! She started screaming obscenities at me and throwing things—her shoes, her purse. She told me to get out, and I did.”

“Chloe is an only child?” I saw at once that was the wrong question. “I mean, she was raised as an only child.”

Naomi nodded.

“Did Harrison and Margaret try having another child after Chloe was born?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Naomi answered. “They may have. We never talked about it.”

“But I thought you were good friends.”

“Just because women are friends doesn't mean they talk about everything,” Naomi returned. “And I know men don't talk about a lot of that stuff, either,” she added. “Some things are too painful to mention.”

Naomi Pepper had me there.

“You said she threatened to tell Chloe. What would that have accomplished?”

“I'm not sure,” Naomi replied. “I think Margaret thought it would drive a wedge between Harrison and Chloe. The two of them have always been incredibly close from the very beginning, from when Chloe was just a toddler. I think Margaret was terribly jealous of the way they got along. And then, to have Chloe and Leila end up being friends as well . . .” Naomi shook her head. “That just drove Margaret wild.”

“Do you think it was the fact that Harrison was making financial provisions for all his children that upset Margaret so? Would what he did in rewriting his will have had any adverse impact on Margaret's income, for example?”

“I doubt it,” Naomi said. “Margaret always claimed that she had the best divorce attorney her husband's money could buy. When they did the property settlement, it was supposedly a clean, cut-and-dried deal. Margaret said she didn't want to be in a position of having to wait around for the mailman to know whether or not the support check was going to show up. And as far as I know, she never had to worry about that.

“At the time of the divorce I remember Harrison was stretched pretty thin financially. He had a couple of tough years, but eventually he worked his way out of it. Whatever settlement Margaret got, it must have been substantial, and I'm sure she invested it wisely. As far as I know, money or the lack of it has never been a problem for her.”

“She didn't have to work?”

“She worked, all right,” Naomi conceded. “But it was because she wanted to, not because she had to.”

“Doing what?”

“I don't know, really. About the time Chloe went off to kindergarten, Margaret went back to school and got a Ph.D. in something from the U Dub. Genetics, I think. I was a liberal arts major, so all that hard science stuff leaves me cold. I don't understand it at all. And that was something else the four of us never talked about—work. It wasn't all that happy a topic for any of us. When we got together, it was to have fun.”

“What did you talk about then?”

“Old times,” Naomi said wistfully. “About the times when we were young and beautiful, and didn't have a care in the world. Back then everything was ahead of us and nothing was impossible.”

“You were telling me about Margaret's divorce attorney. What about you?” I asked. “Did you have one?”

“Not really,” Naomi said. “There was the guy who was supposedly handling my divorce but then I had to stop the proceedings because Gary moved back home. He's really the only one I've ever used, and he wasn't particularly good. At the time, Margaret suggested I use hers, but of course I never could have afforded him.”

“Do you have any criminal defense attorneys in your circle of friends?”

“No. Do I need one?”

“In my opinion, yes. What's your plan for tomorrow?”

Naomi shrugged. “We dock in Skagway in the morning. We had all planned to take that narrow-gauge railroad trip up White Pass, but since Todd Bowman told me I can't get off the boat without his permission and since I'm damned if I'll ask him, I guess I won't be doing that.”

I reached over to the bedside table, picked up my wallet, and shuffled through it until I found one of Ralph Ames' cards. The card was one of his new ones that listed both his Seattle and his Scottsdale numbers.

“Once we dock, you might want to give this guy a call,” I said, handing the dog-eared card over to Naomi. “Ralph's a friend of mine, and he's very good.”

“Is he expensive?”

“Yes, but he's also well worth it. I'm sure you and he will be able to work something out.”

Naomi stood up then. “Where are you going?” I asked. “Back to your cabin?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight. After everything that's happened, I just can't face Virginia and Sharon. Maybe tomorrow I'll be tough enough, but not tonight.”

“Where are you going to sleep then?”

“Like I said, I'll hang out in one of the lounges.”

“No, you won't,” I told her. “That's silly. Why don't you sleep here? You can have the bed. I'll sleep on the floor.”

Naomi tried to object to this arrangement, but she didn't stand a chance. After all, I worked my way through college selling door-to-door for Fuller Brush. I know how to overcome objections. When she finally said yes, I flagged down my room attendant and laid hands on an extra blanket, a few extra pillows, and a roll-away bed. Sleeping on the paper-thin mattress of a roll-away cot wasn't how I had envisioned spending nights aboard the
Starfire Breeze
. But that was hardly surprising. Nothing about this cruise was working out the way I expected.

W
HEN I LAY DOWN
on the cot, it wasn't with much hope of sleeping. Naomi hadn't undressed, and neither did I. For one thing, I fully expected that Todd Bowman would come knocking at the door any minute and wake us both up.

Lying in the dark, I became more aware of the ship's up-and-down movement in the water. I also noticed that, since the previous night, I hadn't bothered to put my wristlets back on. To my amazement and relief, I no longer seemed to need them.

“Are you asleep?” Naomi inquired from across the room.

“No.”

“Me neither. You must think really badly of me. It's not just what I did to get pregnant, but what I did afterward. I thought Gary and I would be bringing the baby into a stable, loving home. I didn't expect that our marriage would blow up in our faces. I never meant to ask Harrison for help, and I didn't ask, either. Not really. It's just that when he offered, I didn't have the strength to turn him down. Gary never was worth much when it came to supporting the family. He loved to gamble way more than he liked paying the bills. Harrison offered me a lifeline; I took it.”

“Why?”

“Why did I take it?”

“No. Why did he offer?”

“I don't know. All he said was he wanted to make sure Missy was taken care of. That she was his responsibility as much as she was mine.”

“Does Melissa know any of this?”

“No.”

I tried to square this view of Harrison Featherman's selfless generosity with the guy who had charged onto the dance floor with the express purpose of bitching out his ex-wife. Not that Margaret hadn't deserved bitching out. Still, staging that kind of confrontation in public showed less-than-gentlemanly behavior on Harrison's part. For that matter, so did screwing around behind his wife's back.

“But I wasn't blackmailing him, Beau. That may be how it'll look to everybody else, but that isn't what was going on.”

“Nobody's judging you,” I said.

“That's not true. You were,” she said. “So was Margaret, and the same goes for Sharon and Virginia. They judged me without my even telling them about the money. I'm sure other people will think the same thing, especially if and when Todd Bowman gets around to arresting me for Margaret's murder.”

“He hasn't done that yet, and he may not. Murder is damned hard to prove, especially if there isn't a body,” I told her. “The evidence would all be circumstantial, and that doesn't go very far when a homicide is involved. You'll just have to take things one step at a time. One step and one day,” I added.

After that, Naomi subsided into silence, and so did I—silence but not sleep. Here I was again, making the same mistakes I had made once before. Not that I was in love with Naomi Pepper—not even close. But still, I was
involved
with her. I had taken her in despite the very real possibility that she was the prime suspect in a murder investigation. At least when I fell for Anne Corley, I had no idea she might be a suspect.

With Naomi Pepper, I wasn't the least bit sure she wasn't a viable one.

Finally, I fell asleep. Some time later, I dreamed about Anne Corley. That's not surprising. It happens fairly often. What was different about this dream was that she was on board the
Starfire Breeze
and seated at the same table in the Crystal Dining Room along with the rest of us—with Margaret Featherman and Naomi, Sharon Carson and Virginia Metz. Marc Alley was nowhere to be found. It was just me and those five women. As usual, Margaret Featherman was running the show.

“What is it that makes men so stupid?” she asked.

“That's simple,” Anne Corley told her. “All you have to do is lead them around by the balls, and they forget they have a brain.”

I tried to say something in my own defense, but it was useless. Anne's stinging remark was greeted by such gales of gleeful laughter that it was impossible for me to be heard. The laughter seemed to go on forever. They were all still hooting and giggling when I finally managed to escape by waking myself up.

By then, it was five o'clock in the morning. The
Starfire Breeze
was docking in Skagway, and my back hurt like hell. I never have been any good on roll-away beds or on hide-a-beds. They all have metal cross-support bars that hit me right in the lower ribs. Feeling as if somebody had been punching me with his fists, I got up, let myself out of the room, and went upstairs to the computer lounge. There I used my key card and one of the ship's computers to log onto the Internet and send Ralph Ames an E-mail.

Whenever Naomi Pepper managed to get in touch with him, I wanted Ralph to have some idea of what was going on. That was only fair. Friends don't blindside friends—not if they can help it.

By the time I finished with the computer, it was still too early for the dining rooms to be open for breakfast, so I went upstairs to the buffet. Naturally Lars Jenssen was already there.

“You're up bright and early,” he said when I put down my coffee cup and pulled out a chair at his table.

“How're things?” I asked.