Good Sister, The (26 page)

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Authors: Diana Diamond

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“What’s the matter?” she demanded.
“Catherine, did you hire the detective who took those pictures?”
She looked confused. “The photos of Padraig … and …”
“You,” he filled in for her. “The ones that Jennifer got in the mail.”
“No. Of course not. Did Jennifer tell you that?”
“No one told me. That’s why I’m asking.”
She laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Why would I want my picture taken in such an unflattering pose?”
“To break up your sister’s marriage,” he challenged.
“Peter, my sister’s marriage was already broken up, as the photos clearly showed.”
He turned back to his pacing. “If it wasn’t you …”
Catherine came around her desk. “Then what?”
Peter stopped abruptly. “Do you know where they were meeting? The name of the charter company? The boat? Anything?”
She was shaking her head. “No! Why would I know? Jennifer didn’t invite me along.”
Should he believe her? What she said made sense. There was no reason to have herself followed and photographed, and certainly no need to send the pictures to her sister. That would be a mindless act of cruelty.
It had to be Jennifer. And if she was the one striking back, then it was Padraig O’Connell who was in danger. Not that Peter cared about O’Connell, but he did care about Jennifer. Somehow he would have to find her and save her from herself.
Catherine’s secretary broke in. There was a call for Peter. He picked up the telephone on the conference table.
“Phil here,” the Los Angeles detective said.
“Go ahead,” Peter snapped.
“Catherine Pegan. She told him she wanted pictures, and she told him where and when. Only this is the crazy part. The photographer
didn’t know who the guy was until he printed the negatives. Then he saw a chance to make some real money, so he took the photos to Padraig O’Connell. O’Connell bought the prints and the negatives.”
Peter held the phone for a second and then reached out and drew Catherine near. “Phil, I want you to repeat that word for word. There’s someone here with me who needs to hear it.”
He gave the phone to Catherine, who put it up to her ear. For a moment her face was expressionless. Then her lips tightened and the color drained from her cheeks. “That’s a lie!” she suddenly snapped, and slammed down the phone. She and Peter were inches apart, Peter staring into her face, but she turned away from eye contact.
“Catherine … why? You and Padraig?”
She pulled away from him. “None of that is true. Not one word of it. They’re all lies, and I know exactly who planted them. That’s the way she is. She’s just covering up because she tried to kill me. It was Jennifer who hired that creep, and all this is part of her scheme.”
“It was your check. You hired the detective,” Peter reminded her. “Why Catherine? Why would you set out to destroy your sister? And for what? You have everything. What more could you want?”
“My sister,” Catherine scoffed. “Always my sister. Why do people always believe her? Well, she’s lying again. She tried to kill me, and all I’m doing is protecting myself. Ask Padraig. He knows what a conniving little bitch she is. That’s why he’s on my side. That’s why he’s helping me.”
“Helping you?” Jesus, was that what Padraig was doing? Helping Catherine get even with her sister? “Catherine, where are they? What’s the name of that boat.”
She turned away and went back to her desk. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. You’ll see. Padraig will tell you that I’m right. It’s Jennifer who did all this. She hired the photographer. She …” She stammered to a confused end, then she picked up
one of the papers on her desk and began reading it as if nothing had happened. She was back to work, as always. Everything was normal.
Peter flew through the door to her outer office. He ordered one secretary to get the airline on the phone. “Find out where they took Jennifer yesterday and how long it will take them to get me there.” He wheeled to face another of the young women. “I need you to go through all Catherine’s correspondence for the past month. Find anything on a boat-charter company someplace in Maine. Get it to me on my cell phone, or on the plane if I’m in the air.” Then he added, “And call for a doctor. Tell them that Catherine has been taken ill.”
He rushed into the hallway, nearly knocking over a mail boy, and ran to Jennifer’s office. Jennifer’s secretary jumped up, frightened, as he confronted her. “Did Jennifer have any correspondence about a boat in Maine? Anything about a charter or a vacation trip? A number where she can be reached?” He was pounding the questions so furiously that the girl wilted back against the wall, her hands to her mouth. Peter got a hold of himself. In a calmer tone, he apologized and asked her to sit down. Then he called the other secretaries to her desk and went through his questions carefully. “Someone must remember something,” he said to all of them. “We have to find her.”
“Okay, you’re dead in the water,” Jennifer called from the foredeck. Padraig hit the anchor-release button on the console. Like magic, the anchor dropped from the pulpit and plunged into the water, dragging the rattling chain behind it. A gauge counted the length of anchor chain that was being let out. “About seven times the depth of the water,” Mike had told him. “Then pull in just enough to make sure she’s set, and let it back out again.”
Jennifer watched the proceedings from the pulpit. In her days of racing with Peter, they had anchored often. But it had always been a hand operation by the crew members at the bow. She had
never seen it done automatically by an amateur on the flying bridge.
Padraig studied the depth indicator, and when enough chain was out, he engaged the anchor windlass. Then he waited as the boat moved away, powered by the wind and the tide. It drifted for several minutes until the chain finally stiffened. The sea began running by as the boat held still.
“By George, we’ve done it,” he called down to Jennifer.
“Are you sure?” she called back.
“Of course not. But we’ll keep taking bearings, and if we’re still here by nightfall, we can call it a success.”
They worked together, attaching the hoist to the dinghy and then putting the inflatable over the side. Padraig scampered down the ladder and stepped tenderly across. He started the outboard, ran a circle around
Maineman,
and then headed over to Pennobquit’s stony beach. He had promised to reconnoiter the island before he brought Jennifer ashore.
“What could be over there?” she had asked, dismissing his caution as unnecessary.
“Cannibals,” he answered seriously. “They might let me go, but they could never resist a tasty dish like you.”
She watched him secure the dinghy, wave back to her, and then disappear into the brush. Jennifer was mildly disappointed. She had come for a serious discussion. She had no interest in requalifying as a Camp Fire girl.
He returned in less than an hour, bubbling with enthusiasm. There were campgrounds with lean-tos and stone fireplaces. There was a captured pond on the other side, shallow so that it probably heated a bit in the sun. And the view from the cliff edge was spectacular.
“Could you rustle us up a bit of lunch?” he asked. “I think the microwave is self-explanatory. And maybe a nip of Scotch.” Then he went to his cabin to put on dry clothes. The spray in the dinghy had soaked through his trousers.
Jennifer quickly selected a packaged quiche from the cabinets
in the galley. In the ice chest, she found the makings of a salad, and the liquor cabinet yielded a fifth of Padraig’s favorite malt. Then she started through the drawers, looking for the silverware and serving utensils. It was in the first drawer that she saw the folder with the charter contract. She almost had the drawer closed when she spotted the name hand-lettered on the folder: Catherine Pegan.
She glanced around quickly. Padraig was still down a level in his forward cabin, the door shut. She could hear him humming as he dressed. She opened the folder. There was a list of provisions signed for by Padraig. She dug deeper and found the contract, signed by the broker in one place. The signature next to it was Catherine’s, a flourish Jennifer had seen thousands of times in her adult life. And then, pinned to the contract, was a copy of the check. It was Catherine’s check, again with her signature. Jennifer pushed the papers back into the drawer and eased it closed. Quickly, she located the silverware and had the place settings in her hand when Padraig came up to the galley.
“Quiche?” he said, picking up the package. “Real men—”
“You stocked it,” she interrupted. She took a knife and began preparing the salad.
Padraig read the directions and popped the paper tray into the microwave. Then he was back to his description of the wonders of Pennobquit. He was making it sound as inviting as Capri.
Jennifer was nodding, smiling when it was called for, and frowning when Padraig seemed concerned. But she wasn’t listening. While he ate, drank, and held court, she was facing up to the reality that she had found in the drawer.
This wasn’t just Padraig’s idea. It was Catherine’s as well. She had arranged the boat, picked the location, and paid the cost. Yet she claimed that Padraig had turned on her just as he had on Jennifer. It was never love. It was always the money, she had charged. She would stay with him in Leprechaun Productions just long enough to get her money back. Then, according to Catherine, she would cut the lying bastard off at the legs.
Then why had she made the arrangements and paid the costs
out of her personal account? What was she hoping to gain?
And Padraig had insisted that there had never been anything between Catherine and him. He had simply let himself be seduced by his desperation for money. Now, if Jennifer believed him, he was truly repentant.
Then why was he sharing his personal life with Catherine and letting her finance his reconciliation?
The trip was a lie, and she was the one being lied to. But why? What were the two of them scheming?
Once again it was Peter’s warning that she remembered. As of this moment, Padraig was her husband and heir to a good part of her fortune. And then she understood. She was all alone with the one person who had the most to gain by her death. And he had lied to her and conspired with her sister to get her here.
Jennifer was suddenly certain that she was about to have another accident.
“West Trenton, Maine,” the pilot said while Peter was stepping aboard. “It’s a small strip right at the causeway to Mount Desert Island. We had to look it up ourselves.”
“And from there?” Peter asked.
The pilot shrugged. “Someone picked her up in a car. No one told me where they were going. I’m supposed to go back for her on Sunday night.”
So that’s where they had to be. Someplace close to Mount Desert Island. Otherwise why pick such an obscure airport.
They had found the charter-company arrangements in Catherine’s desktop folder. The secretary who called had given Peter a company name and an address in Camden. Then she had called back to tell him they had found the check entered in her checkbook. Peter had called and spoken to the rental agent. “Yes sir, Padraig O’Connell himself. I tell you, my girl nearly wet her pants. Handsome fella! Gave me his autograph.”
He described the boat and gave Peter its radio call letters. Then he remembered that a charter captain had taken O’Connell
to Blue Hill. “Guess that’s where he was setting out from. But I have no idea where he was headed.”
“Some obscure island off the coast,” Peter told him.
“Not much help theyuh. Has to be a couple of thousand of those.”
Then Jennifer’s office telephoned with nothing to report. She had left no record of her arrangements, nor any way that she could be reached. All they knew was that she was due back on Monday.
Peter had contacted the Coast Guard but had found an unsympathetic day officer. “Mister, we’re not in the business of tracking down girlfriends. If the yacht is in trouble, we’ll go get it. Or if there’s a crime reported. But we don’t have the right to butt into a private party.” Peter was then kicked up the chain of command. “I have good reason to believe that a woman aboard that boat is in great danger,” he explained. The officer responded that it sounded like a police matter. “If the police call us for assistance, we’ll cast off in a minute. But without a boat in physical danger, and no federal crime in progress—”
Peter had begged. Of course he would contact the police. But there was no time to lose. Something in his voice rang true, because the officer promised unofficially to have his patrol flights look for the trawler in the vicinity of Mount Desert Island. “But,” he warned, “it’s a big area with lots of coves. And most of the boats up here are workboats. So I can’t promise we’ll find her.”
Peter tried to relax but found himself pinned to the edge of the seat. He recognized the cape off to his right, and Boston bathed in the light from the sun that was settling in the west. It would be dark by the time he found the spot where Jennifer had boarded the
Maineman,
and there was little chance of finding the boat at night. But at least he could get into position and enlist the help that he needed. Then he would be ready to go out and find her. He had stood in a doorway once and watched a friend die in a burning building. But not this time! This time he was going to rush into the fire.

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