Murder on the Candlelight Tour (16 page)

Jon smacked his forehead. "Poker handle! Hold on a minute, I just remembered something. Rachel's fingerprints should have been on that poker handle too. I was over here the day before the tour. Rachel was adding holly berries to the mantel greenery. I distinctly remember seeing her pick up that poker and move it out of the way. She moved the other fireplace equipment too. Then she set it all back in place."

"See, Nick!" I cried. "I told you."

"Thus," Binkie said, "the murderer either wiped off the poker handle or wore gloves that smudged Ashley's and Rachel's prints."

Nick looked at Jon. "I wish you'd told me that sooner."

Jon arched his eyebrows. Don't blame me, he seemed to be saying. "Well, you didn't ask me. I wish I'd remembered sooner too."

"Let's remain focused," Binkie said. "The next thing that happened was Rachel was murdered in the same manner as Sheldon. We don't have that murder weapon. And Ashley was attacked, also by a blow to the head. We don't have that murder weapon. So if Eddie killed Rachel, and tried to kill Ashley because he feared she'd identify him, what we've got to figure out is, why did Eddie kill Sheldon? What was his motive? He was here that night. Ashley says he was the second guest on the tour."

"I thought he was with Earl Flynn," I said again. "I can't say why. I just got that impression. So if they were together, how does Flynn fit into this?"

Nick was still leaning back in his chair, his arms clasped behind his head. He seemed to be in deep thought.

"Well, we can't connect Eddie to that corpse buried by the gazebo. Eddie wasn't born when that guy bit the dust," Jon said.

The front legs of Nick's chair hit the floor with a thud and the kitten jumped. "Be careful," I warned. "You're scaring Spunky."

"Oh, sorry. It's too much of a stretch to think that the current murders, and Jimmy Weaver's, were committed by the same person. There's too much time in between. It's a coincidence."

Binkie crossed his arms across his chest. "I don't believe in coincidences."

"Neither do I," Jon said.

I chimed in, "Ditto for me."

21

The City Council chamber was jam-packed. During the day, word of the meeting had spread through town, bringing at least two hundred Wilmingtonians to City Hall. The mayor and the five council members presided over the chambers. At a table up front sat eight members of the Historic Preservation Commission. The ninth chair, Sheldon's, was empty. Binkie, a member, chatted with fellow commissioner Betty Matthews. The Matthewses had cut short their winter vacation to return for the emergency meeting. It was so typical of Betty; she was as dedicated to our town as Binkie.

I spotted the city manager and the city engineer and various members of the Planning Commission in front rows. Members from the Historic Wilmington Foundation, the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society, and the Historic Preservation Society milled about, voices excited, body language militant.

A model of the proposed hotel was exhibited under spotlights. "I want to get a good look at that," Jon said. Making our way to the dais was slow progress. Everyone wanted to talk to us. They wanted to hear the latest news on the murders. When we said we didn't know any more than was in the papers, the topic changed to: "Don't you think this hotel business is ghastly, Ashley?"

Well, yes, I did. And to think my own sister was at the heart of it. "Dreadful," I responded.

The model of the hotel and its environs was built to scale. There was the towering hotel itself, a parking deck, the grounds, even a swimming pool made from a small mirror. Tiny green plastic trees and shrubs dotted miniature astro-turf.

"Twenty stories!" I exclaimed. "That's more than was quoted in the paper. It'll distort the skyline."

Jon shook his head, disgusted with the whole project. "Let's find some seats." In reverse order we bucked the same agitated crowd, squeezing into the sixth row and settling down to wait for the gavel to fall. Someone up front waved a sign in the air. "REMEMBER LUMINA," it read, referring to the destruction of the historic Lumina ballroom, a turn of the century landmark on Wrightsville Beach.

"Joel's added a penthouse tower," Jon groused as the mayor called the meeting to order.

He asked for quiet. He asked everyone to find seats. Eventually everyone settled down but they never did get quiet. He explained that this was an informal meeting, that Mr. Joel Fox and his associates had requested an opportunity to make a presentation. Mr. Fox, he explained, was reimbursing the city for all costs associated with this unscheduled meeting. The tax payers would not be charged. Mr. Fox was merely asking for an opportunity to show how his resort hotel would benefit the community. Some members of the business community, he added, believed the hotel complex would bolster economic growth for the city.

He was about to turn the mike over to Joel when Betty Matthews claimed it. She said she was sick and tired of responding to emergencies. "Preservationists are not bein' apprised of zoning requests in a timely manner. We're always bein' forced into rushin' in at the eleventh hour to stay the wrecking ball!"

"Hear! Hear!" roared the crowd.

She sat back down amid cheers and whistles. Binkie patted her on the back.

Joel strode out onto the platform and introduced himself as if we didn't know the name of the trouble maker in our midst. He did not fit in with our down-home Southern style. Boooos erupted from the rear of the auditorium. Undaunted, he stepped to the podium. What does Melanie see in him, I wondered again.

He reminded us that he'd turned down offers from big cities like Charlotte and Atlanta to relocate his development company to little Wilmington. He got overly sentimental when he talked about our small-town atmosphere and sense of community. He called it a wholesome place where he'd like to settle down and raise a family.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I told Jon. "What a lot of phony baloney."

Joel told us how he believed we could all work together for our mutual profit. If only we'd do things his way.

"He thought we wouldn't fight back, is what he thought," Jon said.

At this point, a heckler in the back of the auditorium shouted that Fox should pack up his development plans and take them and himself back to L.A.

The mayor tapped his gavel and cried, "Order! Order!" But he didn't have the heckler removed.

"He's on our side," Jon said.

Thrown off stride, Joel smoothed back his slicked-down hair. He leaned into the microphone to explain how his commercial enterprise would provide direct and indirect revenues to the city. He then introduced Murray Caulfield of the Los Angeles law firm of Caulfield, Zimmer, and Zeiss who would make the presentation for him.

More boos, joined by a few hoots.

Joel Fox and Murray Caulfield could have been twins. Or else their hair stylists were twins. Same long slicked-back hair, same black on black outfits, same arrogant stance and haughty way of speaking down to us "backwoods" North Carolinians.

"Bet he thinks we all left school in the eighth grade and that we're sitting here with bare feet," I said.

Caulfield had slides and one of those telescopic pointers with a light on the tip that he waved around over bargraphs. He had a graph for revenues, and a graph for taxes, and a graph for traffic flow, and another graph that predicted how the influx of hotel guests would boost business for local restaurants and retail establishments.

One of the downtown restaurateurs leapt to his feet. "I'm not falling for this crap. You'll have your own restaurants in that hotel. This is just a ploy to get us to go along with you. I oppose your hotel on the grounds it'll destroy the quaintness and charm that brings tourists to Wilmington and into my restaurant in the first place!"

The auditorium erupted in cheers.

Caulfield's grin was toothy.

"He looks like the wolf in 'Little Red Riding Hood,'" I told Jon. There was no need to lower my voice. The noise level around us was escalating.

Then I saw why. Melanie had just slipped in through a side door. She was vivid in a red suit. Wrong choice of color, sister, I telegraphed.

An irate woman headed her off as she started down the aisle to join Joel.

On the dais, Caulfield was saying, "We do plan to have a restaurant, but it will not be large enough to accommodate all our hotel guests. Many will seek out local establishments." A flash of wolf teeth. "There'll be more than enough business for all of us. And a fresh supply of money will pour into Wilmington. We'll all profit. And with our luxury resort hotel, the famous stars who come here to make movies will have a quality place to stay."

Someone yelled, "They already got quality places to stay. I rent'em my beach houses!"

The woman cornered Melanie in the side aisle and pressed her against the wall. Melanie cast about frantically, seeking a way out. "How can you consort with the enemy?" the woman roared. "You're one of us. Why, my folks played bridge with your mama and daddy."

A commotion in the center aisle diverted attention away from Melanie and her predicament. I recognized the man who was charging down the aisle to stick his face in Caulfield's. He owned a popular downtown nightclub. "I don't buy none of this." He turned to the audience. "And if the rest of you do, you're bigger fools that I thought."

A man joined the woman who was rebuking Melanie, shouting, "You'll never sell another house in this town!"

An elderly woman sprang to her feet. She was near hysteria. "I own a gift shop and hardly make ends meet. I can't afford to retire. Those hotel people will be good for my business. What's wrong with you knuckleheads?"

Melanie spotted me and waved, a big smile plastered on her face as if this was all a huge misunderstanding. "Ashley, sugah! Thanks for saving me a seat." She waded through the angry mob toward me. I could see her mentally calculating her choices. She turned to the threatening mob and smiled prettily. "My sister and I are opposed to this hotel. We're for historic preservation. For keeping our town small and quaint."

On the dais, Murray Caulfield was tapping his telescopic pointer on yet another graph. He grabbed the microphone off the stand and held it to his lips as he paced. His was the only voice heard over the din. "Thank you, madam, for that excellent observation. You are so right. Our accountants project that sales at gift shops and boutiques will triple."

The mayor rapped his gavel and called for order, but the decibel level was so high no one heard him.

The lady who owned the gift shop whipped out an umbrella and started whacking it across the shoulders of the nightclub owner. "You wanna see an old woman starve to death!"

Raising his arm defensively, he screamed at her, "You old fool, they'll have gift shops in the lobby. Are you insane? Get away from me!"

At the head table, a dignified Binkie rose to his feet, seized the microphone from a startled Caulfield, and asked everyone to please remember our Southern heritage of courtesy to strangers and to one another. He launched into a lecture about how we'd overcome the Yankee carpetbaggers, and how we'd overcome the Hollywood carpetbaggers as well.

Just when I thought nothing more could go wrong, thuds, punches and loud shouts erupted at the rear of the auditorium. One man pulled back his fist, about to punch the daylights out of another man. Someone behind him grabbed his arm, and the man who was about to be hit let go with a punch of his own. The first man dropped against the man who was clutching his right arm and they both went down for the count.

"FIGHT, FIGHT," came loud, testosterone-driven cheers.

Melanie's eyes blazed. "Who are those rednecks? I'll bet you arranged this. You and your culture-vulture historic society friends, turning this meeting into mayhem so we'll never get a fair hearing."

Up front, in a seat far off to the right, Joel Fox held his moussed head in his hands. It was the one sight in the room that restored my faith in the democratic process. Joel was getting a good lesson in how things got done in rebel territory. He was just lucky no one had pulled a pistol on him.

22

On Tuesday, the day after the disastrous City Council meeting, Jon and I walked to Joel's office on Market Street. When we'd parted last night--after the cops had broken up the fights--Melanie had insisted that we meet her and Joel for lunch the next day. If only we'd get to know Joel better, she'd said, we'd see what a great guy he was, and we'd trust his judgment about the resort hotel being good for Wilmington. With two of the town's leading preservationists on his side, she'd argued, referring to Jon and me, Joel might stand a better chance of rallying support for the project.

I argued and argued, said no again and again. But when Melanie started to cry, Jon patted her arm and said we'd come. "What can it hurt?" he asked me later. "There's nothing Joel can say that'll change our minds."

Entering Joel's office suite, the receptionist stood up to greet us. And I watched as Jon did a double take. I've never seen him so enthralled with any woman, but I had to admit, this young woman was a beauty. Glossy long brown hair, big brown eyes, curves, and breasts out to there.