Death by Proposal (9 page)

“I
have something that will surprise you,” Cindy said slowly then.

“What?”
Both of them turned to her, expectant.

“The
police gave me a note they found in Kate’s wastebasket.  She wrote it to Sean before
she died,” Cindy said, taking the crumpled paper out of her pocket and
smoothing it out again.

Both
Carl and Tyra stared at the paper.

“What
did she say?” asked Tyra, alarmed.

“Read
it yourself,” Cindy held it out as Carl leapt forward and grabbed it, his face
puckering as he read every word.

“
She’ll
always love him
, what garbage!” Carl exclaimed as he came to the note’s
end.

Tyra
grabbed the note and read it next. “She loved him. That’s how she felt,” Tyra
insisted. “It wasn’t a lie.”

“It
sounds like a good bye note,” Cindy said quietly, fishing to see how Carl and
Tyra would respond.

Tyra
began sobbing again. “She still loved him, she was still suffering,” she
whimpered.

“There’s
nothing new there,” Carl’s face darkened. “Telling the idiot she loved him
again and again. What was there about him to love? Why didn’t she send the note
to him?”

“She
may have,” said Tyra, “this might just be a one version. It’s all crumpled up,
the handwriting’s hard to make out. She probably wrote it again on a fresh
piece of paper.  If I know her, she did. Always begging him back, one way or
another.”

“It’s
an odd note to write the night you get engaged,” Cindy remarked. “The police are
taking it as a suicide note.”

Both
Carl and Tyra froze into silence.

“What
do you think?” Cindy’s probed.

“That’s
not possible,” Carl said in a husky tone. “I completely reject the possibility.
There was no reason for her to kill herself over this. She’d been through
breakups before.”

“But
she hadn’t gotten engaged to someone else before,” Cindy interrupted. “Kate
just got engaged to Clay and really wanted to be with Sean. Could be she was
desperate and didn’t know how to get out of the situation?”

“She
could always have called me,” Carl burst out. “She called me for everything,
all the time. I’ve gotten her out of worse situations.”

“But
she knew you couldn’t stand Sean,” Tyra interjected. “Maybe she thought you
wanted her to be with Clay.”

“Of
course I did,” Carl was shaking. “Anyone could see why.”

“Did
you know that Kate was coming down here to meet Clay for the week-end?” asked Cindy
pointedly.

“Of
course I knew,” said Carl. “I told her I thought it was a good idea. She needed
distraction. She needed help forgetting Sean.”

“You
knew? You knew? You never told me that,” Tyra began sobbing again.

“Did
you also know that Sean and Riva are both down at the hotel here, too?”

“What?”
Tyra jumped off her seat.

Carl
grew pale. “Are you sure about that?”

“Positive,”
said Cindy, “and did you hear that someone was yelling and banging on Kate’s
door late that night?”

“No,
I did not,” Carl’s face grew white. “Get the police on it, and you talk to that
bastard right away.”

“Sean
and Riva at the hotel? Why? What are they doing here?” Tyra could not be
consoled. “It’s awful. What if they ran into Kate and Clay, what a nightmare
for everybody.”

“Get
right on this, Cindy,” Carl demanded, “you’re terrific, you’ve gotten to the
heart of the matter. Suicide, my ass.  If Sean and Riva are here that could be
the answer to our questions. It could lock things up.”

“I
am on it,” Cindy replied, as Carl stared at her, half admiringly, half afraid.

As
Cindy walked back to the hotel from the bar, she noticed the sky clouding over again
and winds blowing up. It was unusual in Aruba for the clouds to keep returning.
Usually the sun was constant and strong. Cindy wanted to get back to the hotel
quickly and freshen up before she and Mattheus met with Sean. The police had
called and informed him that they were coming and he was waiting for them. It
seemed strange to Cindy that no one had spoken to Sean yet. She wanted to proceed
wisely.

 Cindy
thought about having seen Sean briefly at Kate’s table the night before she
died. She realized that the girl he’d brought with him was Riva, the one he’d
cheated on Kate with. Sean had seemed agitated that night and now Cindy
realized why. But why would be bring Riva along to talk to Kate? It seemed
unnecessarily heartless, shoving their relationship in Kate’s face. It certainly
didn’t bode well for Sean.  As Cindy thought dwelt upon it, she felt uneasy
about seeing him again.  

As
soon as she walked into the hotel, Cindy checked for messages at the desk. The
clerk tapped his hands on the counter and then pointed to a couple sitting on a
settee a few feet away.

Cindy
turned and saw a striking, middle aged couple, sat on the edge of their seats,
eagerly.

“They’re
waiting for you,” the clerk said in a hushed tone, “Mr. and Mrs. Peters over
there.”

 Cindy
looked over. The minute the couple saw her looking at them, the two of them got
up, smoothed out their clothing, and walked to the desk. The woman was svelte,
with a perfect figure, dressed in a mauve linen summer suit and the man was
attractive, and well groomed, with thick, sandy, wavy hair. The two of them
looked as though they’d traveled the world together.

“Cindy
Blaine?” the woman reached out to shake Cindy’s hand. There was a stony
composure about her that made Cindy feel as though she were in disarray.

“Yes?”
asked Cindy, at first not realizing who they were, “can I help you?”

“I
certainly hope so,” the man said without hesitation. “Margaret and Dan Peters
here, Clay’s parents. Our plane just arrived a little while ago.”

Cindy
felt oddly startled. “So glad to meet you,” she said.

The
two of them stood before her unswerving, like a granite mountain.

“Our
son is totally innocent,” Dan pronounced immediately, staring at Cindy
pointedly. “The police will not give us any confirmation of this, or anything.”

“Your
son hasn’t been charged with anything,” Cindy answered professionally, feeling put
on the spot.”

“Let’s
not play with technicalities,” Dan spoke intensely. “My son’s been through a
horrendous nightmare. He doesn’t deserve this. He’s an incredible young man.”

“I’m
sure he is,” Cindy said promptly, “no one has suggested otherwise.”

“He’s
the focus of the investigation though, isn’t he?” Margaret said, taking her
husband’s stiff hand in hers. 

“It’s
routine to focus on the person who last saw the victim alive,” Cindy said
softly.

“Supposedly,”
said Dan abruptly, the muscle under his eye twitching. “There’s no evidence
that Clay was the last person to see her alive, though, is there? How can they
be certain that someone didn’t break into the room while Clay was asleep?”

“We
have no idea how it even happened that the two of them were sharing a room,” Margaret
said, her face growing paler. “That is not Clay’s typical behavior.”

Cindy
was taken aback. Were Clay’s parents living in their own world? Clay was over
thirty.

 “It’s
not unusual for young men and women to go away for the week-end and share a
room,” Cindy said gently.

“We
knew nothing at all about this young woman, nothing,” Margaret spoke without
taking a breath. “Then we learn that Clay was away in a hotel with her and they
became engaged? After that she fell to her death the very next morning? The
whole thing is preposterous. The paper said Clay met her over the internet. I
don’t believe it. It never happened. It’s a setup, a complete scam. Someone is framing
Clay.”

“It’s
not hard to see why our son would be prey to scams like this, either,” Dan went
on. “Clay hasn’t ever dated much. He isn’t the kind who’s familiar with women
and their schemes. He’s always been close to his mother.”

“Too
close perhaps,” Margaret said through pursed lips, “but there certainly hasn’t
been anyone else in his life.”

“Have
the police researched our son carefully?” Dan stepped in. “He’s always been a
complete gentleman, had the best grades in school, graduated top of his class, amazing
writer, editor of the school paper. He’s quiet and thoughtful - and now this! Here
he is in the middle of a sordid situation with a young woman we never even
knew. I doubt he even knew her.”

“Oh,
he knew her alright,” Margaret chimed in. “I’ve seen the photos of them
together on the web.”

Dan
scraped his throat roughly. “Well, they may have gotten together in this hotel
for a few hours for nefarious reasons. But that’s it.”

“Like
what?” Margaret resented that.

“Sex,
dear,” he said. “The girl probably lured Clay in for reasons of her own, a romp
in the sack. With a high price to pay.”

“Not
Clay,” Margaret said bitterly as two red spots rose on her face.

“Clay
and Kate just became engaged,” Cindy said quietly. “They were planning a life
together. She announced it to all her friends.” Cindy felt a need to protect
Kate’s memory, to keep her from being reviled from those who would have become
her new family, her future in-laws.

 “Engaged?”
Margaret’s voice grew shrill. “Clay would never have become engaged to someone
without asking what I thought of her. He just wouldn’t. That’s not Clay.”

“Sometimes
we don’t know our own children or the ones we’re closest to,” said Cindy.

Dan
would have none of that.  “Preposterous, both Margaret and I know our son
thoroughly.  We have an excellent relationship. I see Clay every day, he works
for me. There is nothing hidden between us. Nothing at all.”

“Have
you seen Clay here yet?” Cindy asked softly.

“Of
course we have,” Margaret burst in. “He’s not himself, but how could he be? He’s
confused, rambling, imagining things. Keeps saying how much Kate loved him. I
said, Kate who? He said Kate, Kate, and opened the computer to show me her
picture online, and all the messages they’d sent and received.

“I
looked at her and said who is she Clay? She’s a stranger to me,” said Margaret.
“Then he looked at me and said look at the pictures of us together, Kate loved
me. It was positively horrifying.”

“I
can only imagine,” said Cindy.

“Clay
told us that Kate’s family hired private detectives to find out more about how
she died,” Dan interjected.

“Yes,
they did,” said Cindy, “that’s understandable, isn’t it?”

“No,
it isn’t,” said Margaret. “What have detectives got to do with this?”

“Either
the girl jumped on her own, or she was killed, “said Dan. “And our poor son had
to be the one to find her like that in the morning. But what else does it have
to do with him? They were strangers, absolutely strangers.”

“Strangers
who became engaged,” said Cindy.

“No
one has proved that yet,” Dan insisted, “a few messages on Facebook doesn’t
prove anything.”

“The
girl was obviously seriously disturbed,” Margaret continued. “She created some
kind of web around Clay, sucked him right into it. He was helpless to say no.”

“Clay
doesn’t seem like the helpless kind,” Cindy responded, “and they weren’t
strangers. Seems they had quite an internet correspondence going, and they’d
also met in person a few times.”

“Have
you read their correspondence?” Dan asked quickly.

“Not
yet,” said Cindy.

“Well,
you don’t know him then,” Margaret’s voice became more strident. “Clay could
become helpless at times, he’s so trusting, poetic, only wants to see the best.
Sometimes he becomes terribly disappointed with the way this world is. He and I
have talked about it.”

Dan
then took a step closer to Cindy. “Back away from Clay,” he said. “He’s having
a hard enough time enough as it is now.”

“What
makes you think I’m moving in on Clay?” Cindy shot right back at him.

“I
didn’t say you were moving in on him, I just said back away,” Dan corrected
himself. “We’re going to have a long talk with Clay tonight and get straight
about everything - how he met the girl, what he was doing down here with her,
and why he never said a word to us.”

“That’s
wonderful,” said Cindy, “and when you find out, I hope you’ll let me and my
partner know.”

*

Dan
and Margaret Peters left quickly to return to their son, and Cindy took the
elevator up to her room. It seemed they felt that Cindy was their enemy and she
wondered why? Was there something they were hiding about Clay, or was it just
the shock of finding their son engaged to someone they’d never met. And then
finding that young woman suddenly dead. It all had to be overwhelming for them.

Cindy
got to her room and went into the bathroom to shower and change. She turned on
the shower and let the hot water beat down on her back, soothing and refreshing
her. She stood like that for a long time, until she heard someone come to the
bathroom door.

“Let’s
get going Cindy,” it was Mattheus. Cindy hadn’t heard him come in. “Sean’s in
the gym and he’s expecting us.”

Cindy
had half hoped that Mattheus would come all the way into the bathroom to find
her, that they’d have a moment or two for themselves. Right now she needed the
comfort of being alone with him, spending a little while in his arms. But it
was true, once the energy of a case got going it took on a life of its own.
Before long it ran rough shod over all personal feelings and desires.

Cindy
quickly got out of the shower, dried off and pulled on a brightly printed, silk
summer dress with sprays of hand painted tropical flowers on it. Then she went
out to greet Mattheus.

He
looked at her slowly for a moment and whistled.

 “Fabulous”
he said, “sexy, enticing, inviting.”

Cindy
laughed. “Maybe we could find a way to take some time to ourselves, in between
interviews,” she snuggled up to him.

Mattheus
raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Not so easy is it?” he said.

“Who
said it has to be easy?” said Cindy. “After we talk to Sean and Riva, and go
through Kate and Clay’s online correspondence, we should be able to grab some
time. Don’t you think so?”  Cindy felt eager to be closer to Mattheus again.

“Everything
is possible, anything can happen,” said Mattheus, backing slightly away. “We
could even get a few hours to go kite boarding at Fisherman’s Hut. But first we’ve
got to focus and get the basics under our belt. There’s a lot to do and time is
short.”

Cindy
knew he was right and greatly appreciated his dedication.

“That’s
what first made me fall in love you with Mattheus,” she said, playfully.

“In
love with me?” He truly looked surprised. “What made you feel that way?”

“The
fact that you care about what you’re doing, and do it with all your heart.”

Mattheus
took a few steps back, held Cindy at arms distance and smiled. “That’s what intrigues
me about you,” he murmured, “the way things go up and down with us, high tide, low
tide.”

“It’s
natural, isn’t it?” asked Cindy.

“Maybe,”
Mattheus replied, “but also a bit dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”
the word struck at Cindy.

“Yes,”
Mattheus said softly, “it can be rough and confusing never knowing what’s
coming next.”