Murder Most Maine (23 page)

There was a cracking sound, and an explosion of pain in my hand.

But the pressure lightened.

I pushed against the pillow as hard as I could; it moved a bit, enough for me to get a lungful of air, before it came down hard, again.

I swung again, but hit only air. And again. I was about to succumb to darkness when my fist made contact one more time—and this time I heard the crack of the bones in my fingers. But the pressure faltered—this time, enough for me to shove the pillow off my face.

With the pillow off my nose and mouth, I gasped for breath and rolled off the bed, struggling to get to my feet. Caterina was up, blood running from her broken nose, eyes just as wild as before. She reached for the lamp on the floor—before I could stop her, she had it in her hand and was swinging it at me.

“Help!” I yelled, my voice hoarse. I ducked just in time and stumbled toward the door. “Help!” My voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well.

“Shut up!” she hissed, advancing on me as I scrabbled at the door. I was trying to turn the knob when there was a crack, and pain exploded in my head.

“No,” I said, my knees buckling beneath me. Then I was on the hard, cold floor, looking up at Cat’s mad eyes as she dropped to her knees beside me, reaching for the pillow on the floor behind her. She smashed it into my face again, but I scooted backward and kicked out with everything I had, feeling the soft, sickening thud as my foot made contact.

There was a short gasp. Then the pillow fell away and Caterina crumpled to the floor beside me.

I was struggling to my feet when the doorknob jiggled. “Open up!” came a voice from the other side.

I reached for the knob, and realized hazily that the door was locked. It took three tries before I managed to slide the deadbolt back; then the red-haired cop exploded into the room.

“What happened?” he asked, taking in my wild appearance, the woman sprawled on the hardwood floor, blood leaking from her smashed nose.

“She killed Dirk,” I whispered. “Ephedrine—in her makeup bag, in the bathroom. Killed Boots, too,” I said. “John—he’s innocent. She framed him.”

“Calm down, ma’am,” he said. “I need to get a paramedic out here—both of you look like you’re in pretty bad shape.”

“She’s a murderer,” I said, my voice hoarse. I pointed at the pillow on the floor beside Cat. “She tried to kill me with that. Just like she killed Boots.”

“Let’s get you settled down,” he said, “and you can tell me everything. From the beginning.”

Once they’d made sure
I wasn’t suffering from any potentially fatal injuries—I had a mild concussion from the lamp, and some bumps and bruises—I’d told the police everything I’d discovered. They’d searched Caterina’s room, and after finding the scrap of ephedrine packaging in the bathroom—and getting something of a confession from Cat herself—they’d escorted her from the inn in handcuffs.

I knew because I’d heard her yelling all the way down to the path. “He deserved it!” she screamed. “He killed my daughter! My only child!” Then, a moment later, she started moaning. “Ashley. Ashley. I miss you so much …”

Goosebumps rose on my skin at the plaintive call. Her cries were heartrending—but not enough for me to regret that she was being escorted off the premises. The woman had, after all, just tried to kill me.

They took me to the mainland hospital for a checkup, then spent an hour or two quizzing me on the details of what had happened upstairs with Cat, but I was back on the island—and in my re-opened kitchen—in time to cook dinner. Gwen had insisted I lie down, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it; concussion or no concussion, I still wanted to make things right at the inn. And I was still upset because I hadn’t heard from John. I needed something to distract me.

Tonight, I’d decided, I was boiling up the lobsters Tom had caught earlier in the week. Of course we wouldn’t be using melted butter, but I was looking forward to a dinner of the sweet, tender meat with fresh corn on the cob on the side.

Since three of our guests wouldn’t be joining us, there were more than enough lobsters to go around, so I asked Gwen and Charlene to join us; Marge had already left for the day, and I hadn’t been able to get in touch with her. I’d wanted to ask John, too, but he hadn’t turned up. And there was no way I was going down to talk with him—even though Gwen told me he was back on the island. Why hadn’t he come to see me? I wondered, feeling acid burn in my stomach.

Gwen had run upstairs to grab a sweater when I heard a male voice on the other side of the kitchen door.

I walked to the door, my heart in my throat, hoping it was John, and pushed it open.

Greg stood there, his broad back to me, talking on a cell phone.

“I’m telling you, I can’t continue to represent your interests. Her behavior has been above reproach,” he said, pacing back and forth across the peach and blue rug. “Even in very trying circumstances. But yours, sir—you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

There was silence yet again, and then he said, “You’ve been a serial adulterer! She told me about the phone bills, about the credit card charges for hotels, the trip to Hawaii with your ‘business associate’. She knows you were planning to divorce her and abandon her, along with your only child. You were trying to entrap her when she was at her most vulnerable.” His voice rose so that he was almost bellowing, and I eased the door partially closed.

There was another pause; then he said formally, “I must inform you that I am resigning from the case, effective immediately. I will return your deposit when I get back to my office.” After another moment, he said, “And a very good day to you, sir!” and jabbed at a button on the phone with an index finger, breathing heavily.

I slid away from the doorway and busied myself shucking corn. So
that’s
who Greg had been investigating! It hadn’t been Dirk at all; it had been Megan!

Well, I thought as Gwen hurried down the stairs behind me, that was one mystery solved.

But there was still another that remained unresolved. And I wasn’t thinking of the body in the lighthouse, either.

My eyes drifted to the window—and John’s carriage house down the hill. I knew John had been released, but I still hadn’t heard from him. And despite my relief at the discovery that he wasn’t involved in Dirk’s death—or Boots’—my heart ached that he hadn’t come to see me.

Maybe, I thought, my heart feeling swollen and painful, it really was over between us.

“I almost forgot to tell you,” Gwen said as she filled a huge pot with water. “Gertrude called again—so did someone from the Bangor paper. I told them both there had been an arrest, and that you—and the inn—had nothing to do with it. You might want to talk to them, though.”

“I’ll call them tomorrow,” I said, my eyes still glued to John’s front door.

“I still can’t believe her own friend killed her,” Gwen said, shaking her head as she walked up beside me. “Dirk I can understand—but poor Boots. She didn’t deserve what Cat did to her.” Gwen paused, peering at me as I stood staring at a half-husked corncob. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said, swiping at my eyes and tearing off another wad of husk. “Just fine.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go upstairs and lie down?”

“Positive,” I said, pasting on a smile. “Let me just finish husking this corn and we’ll put together a salad, okay?”

My niece assented, shooting me worried glances as she filled the second pot and pulled a bag of lettuce out of the fridge.

___

Just as I was about to put the first lobsters into boiling water—feeling guilty, as I always did, at being the agent of death—there was a knock at the kitchen door.

It was John.

I put the lobster back into the sink and walked over to answer it, feeling both numb and apprehensive at the same time.

He was wearing a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and the wind filled the steamy kitchen with his clean male scent as I opened the door.

“Hi,” he said, his eyes darting to the lump above my right eye. He reached out to touch it, but I shied away.

“Come in,” I said tonelessly, and as he closed the door behind him and slid into one of my kitchen chairs, I grabbed the lobster again.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked. “I heard she gave you a concussion.”

“I’m fine,” I said, closing my eyes as I put the first lobster into the pot.

“Good,” he said.

The kitchen was silent except for the bubble of the water as I put the rest of the lobsters into the big pot and then dropped the corn into the smaller pot next to it. When everything was in, I set the timer and turned to look at him. “Why did they arrest you?” I asked.

“They found sawdust in Boots’ room,” he said. “Caterina put it there. She knew I was a suspect—she was trying to frame me.”

I nodded, then took a deep breath. “I need to know, John,” I said, focusing on his deep green eyes, his familiar, weathered face. “If you want to be with Vanessa, that’s fine. But tell me the truth.”

“I want to be with you, Natalie,” he said, and I could hear the urgency in his voice. It pulled at something deep inside me.

“I want to believe you,” I said. “But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve seen you together. You hugged her, in the doorway of your house that night—when you argued with Tom.” I looked away from him, at the grain of the wood on the floor. “And you called her ‘sweetheart’,” I whispered.

He let out a long, deep breath. “Many years ago, we had a summer together. It was fun, but … we’re not right for each other. We both know that.”

I said nothing.

“After Dirk was found dead, Vanessa came to me with a problem—she asked me not to say anything about it.”

“What problem?”

“Nat,” he said. “If I tell you, you must promise not to breathe a word.”

I swallowed. What could it be? Everyone knew she was having an affair with Tom. “Promise,” I said.

“Vanessa is a bulimic,” he said. “Her entire business is built on her ability to stay thin—and she’s suffered from an eating disorder for years.”

I blinked. “She eats and throws up?”

He nodded. “After every meal. Sometimes she takes laxatives, too—but she left them home on this trip. She’s taking in almost no calories, and she’s destroying her throat—that’s why her voice is so rough sometimes. From the acid.”

“You’re kidding me,” I said, trying to grasp the fact that beautiful, totally together Vanessa was actually spiraling out of control.

“She was going to try and get over it on this retreat, but she’s been stealing food since she got here. She’s so distraught she’s almost suicidal.”

I thought of the disappearing chocolate, the missing cookie dough—and the shifty look on Vanessa’s face when she’d come into the kitchen the other day. “I never would have known,” I said, leaning against the counter.

“She was struggling when she got here. She was getting so much attention for her program—book deals, attention from Oprah—and the whole thing was based on a lie. It was getting harder and harder for her to keep things together. Then, when Dirk died, she kind of went over the edge.”

“So you’ve been counseling her,” I said. “All those times she went to visit you, you were counseling her.”

He shrugged. “She didn’t have anyone else to talk to. And then there was this business with Tom, and that reporter following her around and asking all kinds of questions, on top of everything else. I wanted to tell you, but I’d promised not to.”

“Why tell me now, then?” I asked.

He stood up and closed the distance between us. “Because I was afraid if I didn’t, I’d lose you,” he whispered.

As the corn bobbed in the pot next to me, he leaned down and kissed me gently. Warmth spread through me at his touch, and for the first time in days, I felt myself truly relax.

When we came up for air, I said, just to be sure, “There’s really nothing between you and Vanessa?”

“No,” he said. Then he reached for the pocket of his shirt. “I was planning on waiting awhile to do this, but I think this may be the time.” As I watched, he pulled a little box out of his shirt; then he dropped to one knee in front of me and lifted the lid.

A small diamond glinted up at me from a bed of dark blue velvet.

“Natalie Barnes,” he said, his voice husky with emotion, “will you marry me?”

At that moment, Gwen pushed through the kitchen door. She took in the scene and gasped—then, blushing, hurried back the way she had come.

I looked down at the man kneeling before me, his dark blond hair, the smile lines on the corners of his deep green eyes, the hopeful look in his face. I believed what he had told me about Vanessa; there had been no lie in his eyes.

And he had just asked me to marry him.

“I know it’s kind of sudden,” he said, the hope in his eyes starting to dim a little. “If you want to think about it …”

I thought of Vanessa, and the way he’d distanced himself from me after her arrival. I shook my head slightly, just thinking of it.

He seemed to deflate. “No?”

“No … it’s not that. It’s just …”

“You want to think about it?” he asked, looking hopeful again.

“Yes,” I said, staring down at the ring he held in his hand. A small stone winked up at me from an antique silver setting.

“It was my grandmother’s,” he said.

I closed his hand around it and kissed him on the forehead. As much as I was yearning to say “yes,” I couldn’t. Not yet.

“Thank you for asking,” I said. “Give me a little bit of time, okay?”

“As long as you need,” he said. He rose to his feet, touching my chin gently, then tilted my head toward him and kissed me. I don’t know how long the timer had been going off when he finally let go. And to be honest?

I really didn’t care.