Smoke in Mirrors (7 page)

As much as he hated to admit it, Deke and Leonora might both have a point. One thing was certain, this situation wasn’t going to go away quietly. He knew that now.

“I might be able to work something out,” he said slowly.

“Excellent.”

The not-so-subtle triumph in her voice made him set his teeth. She thought she had won.

“Before we take this any further,” he said, “there’s something you should—”

“I’ll need a place to stay,” she said.

He gave that two seconds’ worth of thought. More possibilities.

“I recently picked up a fixer-upper with a view of the cove,” he said. “It’s solid and tight. It could work.”

“Perfect.”

“Before we call this a done deal,” he said deliberately, “there’s one stipulation.”

“What is it?” she asked. Careless in victory.

“If you decide to come up here to play girl detective, you’re going to have to do things my way.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Walker. Why on earth would I agree to a clause that puts you in charge?”

“Because if you don’t agree to it, I will come down there to Melba Creek and get the number of that offshore account out of you the hard way.”

“You handed in
your resignation?” Gloria put aside the yellow pad she had been using to make notes for her
hotel exposé and looked at her over the tops of her reading glasses. “Oh, my. Do you think that was wise?”

“No, but I didn’t have much option.”

Leonora picked up the two cups of toasty Hojicha green tea that she had just brewed in the tiny efficiency kitchen of Gloria’s apartment. She carried the cups to the small table near the window and sat down across from her grandmother. There was a plate with four shortbread cookies in the center of the table. Gloria had made the cookies.

“Bristol wouldn’t go for an extended personal leave unless I could give him a very good reason,” Leonora said.

“Such as?”

“Giving birth.”

“I see. Well, that would have been a bit difficult to manage on such short notice, I suppose.”

“I didn’t think he’d buy the concept of me playing Sherlock Holmes, either.” Leonora helped herself to one of the rich, buttery cookies. “The good news is that he made it clear that I was welcome to reapply for my position when I’m finished with my personal affairs.”

“That was very generous of him.” Gloria sipped her tea. “You say Thomas Walker has agreed to help you?”

“He’s not exactly enthusiastic about the deal, but he went for it.”

“Hmm.”

Leonora paused, the shortbread halfway to her mouth. “Hmm, what?”

“From what you’ve told me about your Mr. Walker, I have the feeling that he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be blackmailed unless it suited his own agenda.”

“He’s not my Mr. Walker.” She crunched down very hard on the flaky cookie and chewed grimly. “He was Meredith’s Mr. Walker.”

“Only for a very short period of time from the sound of it.”

“None of Meredith’s men lasted long.”

“True. Nevertheless, the fact that he was willing to assist you with your cover story makes me wonder about his own motives.”

Leonora shrugged. “I told you, his brother, Deke, apparently has a lot of questions about his wife’s death last year. Thinks there’s some connection to Meredith’s accident. I have a hunch that Thomas sees my plan as an opportunity to get some answers for Deke.”

“In other words, since you insist on getting involved, Thomas Walker has decided to make use of you.”

“I think that about sums up the situation, yes.”

Gloria smiled.

“Don’t go there, Grandma.”

“Do you know, dear, you get a certain gleam in your eye when you talk about your Mr. Walker.”

“For the last time, he’s not my Mr. Walker, and that look in my eye is extreme caution, not lust.”

“With you, dear, I’m afraid those two things go together. One of these days you’re going to have to take some chances. That’s how it works, unfortunately.”

“I took a chance, remember?”

“With Professor Delling? Nonsense. You didn’t take any real risks with him. You just sort of dabbled your toe in the water. You never really took the plunge.”

Leonora wrinkled her nose. “Even if I did happen to find Thomas Walker interesting, I can promise you that he definitely does not think very highly of me.”

“Opinions can change.”

“Something tells me that Thomas Walker doesn’t change his mind very often.”

She looked out the window at the gardens. The
morning exercise class was just starting. Three rows of seniors clad in loose-fitting sweats faced a zesty-looking young woman in tight spandex. The instructor was blond. Just like Meredith.

“She had such a difficult life and now it’s over too soon,” Leonora said quietly. “Talk about being born under an unlucky star.”

“She was a thief and a con artist, dear. She made a lot of her own bad luck.”

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Grandma. You have a way of putting stuff into perspective.”

“Unfortunately, it’s a talent that only comes with age.”

Leonora sat next
to Thomas in Deke Walker’s darkened living room and tried to conceal her dismay.

Thomas had told her that Deke was suffering from some kind of depression but she had not been prepared for the grooming issues. With his bushy beard, long, uncombed hair and rumpled clothes, Deke looked a little like a troll sitting there in the sickly glow of the computer.

There was a general air of gloom in the shadowy house. The fact that all of the blinds were pulled shut gave her the creeps.

Easy to see why local opinion held that Deke had gone off the deep end.

It was Wrench’s casual acceptance of the situation that reassured her the most. The dog lay sprawled on the floor, nose between his big paws, and radiated a complete lack of concern for his surroundings.

She glanced at Thomas, seated beside her. He appeared
accustomed to the morbid atmosphere, she thought. But unlike Wrench, he was worried. Maybe with very good reason, she thought. Deke Walker did not look like a prime candidate for National Mental Health Month poster boy.

“I have a good feeling about you being here, Leonora,” Deke said earnestly. “It’s like you’re a catalyst or something. I’m hoping that you might be able to help us stir things up a bit. Get us looking at the problem from a fresh angle.”

“Show Deke the book and the clippings,” Thomas said.

“Right.” Leonora rummaged around in her satchel, found the book and the photocopies and put them on Deke’s desk. “Meredith made it clear in her note that she wanted you and Thomas to see these.”

Deke shoved his glasses higher on his nose and pulled the book and the clippings closer. He studied the envelope with Bethany’s name and address on it for a long moment.

“Bethany must have made these photocopies and put them in this envelope,” he said. “I don’t think anyone else would have had access to her stationery, let alone used it.”

“The question is why?” Thomas stretched out his legs and lounged deep in his chair. “She couldn’t have had any reason to be concerned about a murder that took place thirty years ago.”

“Maybe it aroused her professional curiosity,” Leonora said. “The victim was a mathematician, after all.”

“But hardly an eminent figure in the field.” Deke shook his shaggy head. “He was just a junior member of the faculty who probably got the job because he was Eubanks’s son and heir.”

Leonora frowned. “Heir? I hadn’t thought about the financial angle. Was there a lot of money involved? Did someone get rich after Sebastian Eubanks died?”

“Eubanks left no heirs,” Thomas said. “His money went to the college endowment. That’s a well-known bit of local history. I suppose it’s just barely conceivable that one of the upstanding trustees murdered him in order to hurry things along, but I think that’s a bit of a reach.”

“And even if that did happen, why would it have interested Bethany?” Deke asked softly. “All she cared about was her work. I can’t see her bothering to investigate the details of that old murder case, even if she had some suspicions.”

“Say for the sake of argument that she had uncovered some new information on that old case,” Thomas said. He steepled his fingers. “I’m sure she would have mentioned the facts to you, Deke.”

“Sure.” Deke scowled. “No logical reason why she wouldn’t have said something.”

Leonora looked at Deke. “I went through that catalog of the antique mirrors in the Mirror House collection but I didn’t see any notes. The only odd thing is someone circled one of the illustrations in blue ink. Whoever did it must have been very old or very young or drunk. The line is quite uneven.”

Deke opened the book. “What page?”

“Eighty-one.”

He flipped pages to a point near the end of the catalog and paused. He stared at the picture for a long time, as though trying to read runes.

“The ink hasn’t faded,” he finally said. “The catalog was put together some forty years ago, but this picture must have been circled at some point in the recent past.”

“Do you recognize the mirror?” Leonora asked.

She knew exactly what it looked like in the illustration. She had studied it a dozen times, trying to see whatever it was that might make it important.

The antique looking glass was an eight-sided, convex
mirror, typical of a style that her research showed had been popular in the early 1800s. The frame was fashioned of heavy silver worked in a design that featured a variety of mythical creatures. Griffins, dragons and sphinxes cavorted around the edges of the dark reflective surface. A phoenix was perched on top, wings raised.

Deke shook his head. “No. But I never paid much attention to those old mirrors in the mansion. I’m not into antiques.”

“Neither was Bethany,” Thomas said. “I can’t see her marking one of those illustrations.”

“I suppose it’s possible that Meredith drew the circle around the picture,” Leonora said hesitantly. “But why?”

Thomas’s jaw hardened. “A lot of those old mirrors are very valuable. Maybe she planned to steal one or two on her way out the door.”

Leonora shot him a disgusted glare. “That’s ridiculous. Meredith wasn’t into the antiques market.” She paused and then exhaled slowly. “Besides, her attention was focused on that endowment fund money. She wasn’t the type to let herself be distracted.”

“I haven’t heard that any of the mirrors are missing,” Deke said absently.

“How would we know if Meredith or anyone else had ripped off a couple of looking glasses?” Thomas asked bluntly. “Every room and corridor in that old house is covered with antique mirrors. I doubt if anyone would notice if a half dozen disappeared. Especially if they were removed from some of the unused chambers upstairs on the third floor or the attic.”

“True.” Deke adjusted his glasses a little and slowly paged through the book. “We’d have to conduct a complete inventory to see if one of the mirrors has been stolen. That wouldn’t be easy.”

“It would also be a waste of time,” Thomas said. “It
would take days, maybe weeks to organize and carry out a thorough inventory, always assuming we could talk the Alumni Council into it. And what would it prove if a couple of old mirrors did turn up missing? It’s been forty years since that catalog was put together. The theft could have occurred at any time since it was published.”

“Motive.” Deke yanked his glasses off his nose and jabbed at the book with his forefinger. “As you just pointed out, some of those mirrors are very valuable.”

“Take it easy,” Thomas said. “We’re talking about murder here. People don’t get killed over old looking glasses.”

“People get killed for all kinds of stupid reasons,” Deke growled.

Leonora waited a beat.

“Like drugs,” she said quietly.

Both men looked at her.

She spread her fingertips on the desk. “That’s one of the connections between Meredith and Bethany, remember? Rumors of drug use.”

“Bullshit,” Deke said. “Bethany would never have used crap.”

“Meredith didn’t use it, either. I’d swear to that.” She looked at Thomas and Deke in turn. “Do you have a source for those rumors you said circulated after Bethany and Meredith died?”

Thomas sank deeper into his chair. “Ed Stovall mentioned them. When I pinned him down about Bethany, demanding details, he said he’d heard the story from a kid he picked up for possession of pot. Stovall said the kid knew nothing solid. Just mentioned some gossip that was going around the local scene about a designer drug, a new hallucinogen that had appeared from time to time in the past couple of years.”

“Hallucinogen?” Leonora repeated.

“Something the drug crowd has labeled S and M, apparently,” Thomas said.

She frowned. “As in sadomasochism?”

“No. As in Smoke and Mirrors. Ed said that’s what the kid called it. There was no way to confirm the talk.”

“Because Bethany never used drugs,” Deke said fiercely.

“Take it easy, Deke,” Thomas said quietly. “No one’s arguing that point. Not even Stovall.”

“Ed Stovall is an idiot.”

“I don’t think so,” Thomas said. “He’s definitely anal-retentive, but that’s probably a good thing in a cop.”

“How, exactly,” Leonora asked, “did Bethany kill herself?”

“She jumped off a bluff on Cliff Drive,” Thomas said quietly.

Leonora studied her hands. “People have been known to think they can fly while under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. A person might jump off a cliff or crash her car while under the influence.”

“But we’re all certain that neither Bethany or Meredith would have used heavy drugs, remember?” Thomas said. “And in this case, we’ve got the authorities on our side. They’re not saying the deaths were drug-related.”

Deke looked up from the catalog. “Doesn’t mean some bastard couldn’t have slipped some unique kind of poison into their food or a glass of orange juice. The routine tests done at the time of death wouldn’t catch something as new and exotic as this S and M stuff, anyhow. It takes a lot of expensive, time-consuming testing to pick up that kind of crap.”

“But why?” Thomas asked patiently. “Where’s the motive?”