The Good Die Twice (21 page)

Dagger yelled, “NO,” and buried his face in
his hands. He rolled away from the carnage and lay on his back, the
palms of his hands pressed against his eyes. “God, Sara. What have
I done?” The smell of dirt and wet leaves filled his nostrils. The
crackling fire sounded distant and then the smell of melting metal
filled the air. And there was something else. A rippling, a sound
like a huge flag flapping in the breeze. Dagger stared up at the
sky and turned his head in time to see the gray hawk flying out of
the quarry and landing on a huge branch overhead.

Dagger blinked quickly.
Sara?

I’m sorry about your car, Dagger.

Dagger rolled onto his stomach. His quiet
sigh of relief swelled to uproarious laughter. He could feel tears
welling so he covered his face and laughed even harder.
Damn, I
envy you
. He pushed himself to a kneeling position.

Dagger, I can’t shift back. I don’t have any
clothes.

The detective stared at the hawk, it’s
brilliant blue eyes that pierced the haze.

Well, Sweetheart. I think you have a
problem
.

“See, you still beat me back.” Dagger placed
a cup of tea on the coffee table for Sara, who was drying her hair
with a towel. She had already showered and changed into shorts and
an oversized shirt. He was amazed. The entire ordeal didn’t appear
to have even phased her. “Come here,” he whispered.

Sara dropped the towel on the bar stool and
combed her hair with her fingers. She tentatively approached, only
to have Dagger pull her toward him and wrap his arms around her.
Her hair smelled of oranges and bananas and her body no longer
shook when he touched her. He broke the embrace and held her at
arm’s length. “You scared the hell out of me.”

She smiled timidly and repeated, “I’m really
sorry about your car.”

“No problem. I’ll get another.”

She sat on the couch gathering her legs under
her. And as she sipped her tea Dagger told her about the second
earring. He lifted his shirt collar and used it to wipe the dirt
from his face. The shirt smelled like smoke, and pieces of damp
leaves still clung to the fabric.

“Padre had us lock everything back up and
then he called Sergeant Duranski in on the case since we found the
body in his town. And if he found me standing there with a dead
body and a lock pick in my hand, what we found in the freezer would
not be admissible in court. So Padre was going to tell him the back
door was unlocked and we were suspicious of the locked
freezer.”

“When are you going to tell Mr. Tyler?”

“Padre will tell him in the morning.”

CHAPTER 34

Robert Tyler was up early the next morning.
After Padre had called about Rachel, Robert couldn’t take his eyes
off Rachel’s portrait. He wanted to lash out at someone, wanted to
line up the family members and find out what role everyone played
in Rachel’s disappearance five years ago. But another part of him
didn’t want to know, didn’t want to think that any member of his
family could be that cold and vindictive.

Padre told him Dagger would be stopping by
with news about the earring he had found at the murder scene.
Robert couldn’t think of anything else after Padre hung up. It was
bad enough someone in the family might be a prime suspect in
Rachel’s murder. Now, he had to wrestle with the thought that his
beloved Rachel was involved in a robbery.

Eric entered the dining room dressed for his
usual weekend round of golf. “Coffee fresh, Dad?”

“Hmmm?” Robert, lost in thought, pulled his
attention from the portrait hanging on the wall. “Oh, yes. They
just brought the coffee out.” He watched his elder son load his
plate with a sample of everything on the buffet table. Eric jammed
a celery stick in his mouth and carefully maneuvered his
overflowing plate to the table.

The wall of windows in the dining room
displayed a sky of fast-moving clouds, residuals from last nights
storm. Behind those clouds was a blue sky and a promise of clear
skies for the remainder of the day.

Robert’s chest tighten as he studied the
white stripe in Eric’s hair and how much his son resembled his
mother, Theresa. Nicholas, on the other hand, took after Robert’s
side of the family. But Eric had his business drive; Nick had his
mother’s wanderlust.

Although Robert had promised Dagger he
wouldn’t bring up the subject, he thought a subtle mention couldn’t
hurt. “With everything that has happened, I thought I would take a
few days off, maybe go up to The Abbey.”

Eric’s coffee cup hovered, his eyes held
Robert’s gaze.

“The Abbey?” Edie echoed from the doorway.
She glanced at Eric as she walked to the buffet table, her white
sandals clicking along the solid oak floor. “But that place is so
dark, Robert. If you want to get away, there is no place like one
of the islands.” Edie surveyed the buffet table and settled on a
plate of fresh fruit and a blueberry scone. Sitting down, she
glared across the table at her husband.

Nick arrived dressed in tennis whites and
looking well-rested. “Well, it’s unusually quiet in here.” He
poured himself a glass of orange juice, grabbed a bagel and cream
cheese and sat down next to his brother.

“And where were you last night?” Edie tried
to turn the subject to Nick.

Nick eyed her over his glass of juice. “I
stayed up most of the night talking to a friend.”

Robert checked his watch and was relieved
when Lily appeared with Dagger trailing behind.

Dagger waited for Lily to leave and smiled at
the curious stares from the Tyler brood.

“Well, well.” Edie was the first to speak.
“Don’t you usually hi-jack planes on Saturdays?”

Edie had once commented that Dagger’s
appearance…his penchant for wearing black clothing combined with
his long hair, dark eyes, and a deep summer tan that failed to fade
in the winter, must make people want to change planes when they saw
him boarding.

“That’s Tuesdays. Airports are too crowded on
weekends.”

Robert rose and shook Dagger’s hand.
“Coffee?”

Dagger declined. He noticed that the only
person who seemed relaxed was Nick. Maybe his soul searching talk
with Sara last night cleared the fuzziness in his memory even more.
Dagger would be curious to get Nick in a one-on-one.

“Let me guess.” Eric dabbed a napkin to his
mouth. “Someone spotted Rachel hitchhiking last night.”

Robert’s face turned ashen and Eric made an
abrupt apology.

“Please have a seat,” Robert offered.

“I can’t stay. I just thought you might be
interested to hear about the earring I found at the crime scene.”
He dug into his pants pocket.

“Not that again.” Edie sank back in her
chair.

Dagger set the earring on the table.

“Wait.” Edie sat up. “I thought the earring
was black?”

Dagger said, “Cleaned up rather nicely, don’t
you think?”

“My god,” Robert said as he picked up the
earring. “What is it?”

“You are looking at a pink diamond.”

Edie’s face turned pasty white. Her fingers
twitched and Dagger could sense she was itching to touch it.
Typical female? Would Sheila’s reaction been the same? As if trying
to distance herself, Edie pushed away from the table, stood, and
gripped the back of the chair.

“Where on earth would Rachel get a pink
diamond?” Edie turned to Robert.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t buy it for
her.”

“It’s fake,” Eric said, picking up the
diamond and holding it up to the light. His gaze shifted to Dagger.
“Right?”

Dagger smiled. “No. Rachel went through a lot
of trouble to camouflage these. And where there’s one, there should
be another.” He let that statement hang in the air.

Nick grabbed for the earring and felt the
weight. “Dad?” He turned toward his father. “Do you think this is
why Rachel disappeared five years ago? Maybe she was hiding out
from whomever she stole it from.”

Robert steepled his fingers in thought.
“Rachel would never have done something like that.”

Dagger should have been busy watching to see
whose imaginary wheels were churning, whose eyes resembled the
proverbial deer in headlights. Instead, he found himself gazing at
Rachel’s portrait and then Edie who was standing just in front of
it, back up to Rachel’s picture. Then a sudden thought struck
him.

Dagger picked up a picture of Edie lying on
his desk and scanned it into the computer. Using computer graphics,
he changed her short red hair to long blonde. The thought had
struck him when he saw Edie standing next to Rachel’s picture.
Except for the hair and eyes, there was some resemblance. They
couldn’t pass for twins but they had the same nose, bone structure.
It wasn’t unusual for close friends to dress alike, wear their hair
the same.

The first call Dagger had made was to Worm.
He asked the reporter to search Rachel’s yearbooks and pictures
from college for a classmate by the name of Edie Winthrup.

Sara had mentioned that Edie wore contacts.
Dagger changed the eye color of the image on the screen to blue. He
printed out the color picture and held it next to the picture of
Rachel.

“Damn.” Dagger picked up the phone and called
Robert.

“Mr. Tyler, tell me again everything Rachel
said to you when she called.”

“Not again.”

“You have to face the fact that the
Williamsburg Collection was stolen and the last person who had it
was your wife.”

“I just can’t…” Robert inhaled long and deep.
“Damn, I can’t believe this is happening.”

Dagger gave Tyler a few moments. Finally,
Tyler repeated what he remembered from the night Rachel called.

“Are you sure? Maybe there was something she
said which you thought unimportant at the moment.”

“Wait. Yes, I remember now. She asked if I
still had the kangaroo.”

“The kangaroo?”

“Yes, and I don’t for the life of me know
what it means.”

Dagger told him it might be a clue as to
where the necklace is and he should spend the time thinking back on
everything Rachel had said, done, purchased, whatever might jog his
memory. After he hung up, Dagger grabbed the picture of Rachel and
composite of Edie and left.

The ivory elephants danced on the wall as the
front door rattled.

“WORM, I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

Worm cast a look of disgust at the door and
mumbled, “Go away.” He hadn’t expected Sheila to actually camp out
on his doorstep. He read his last entry on the monitor and added
another sentence, his long fingers dancing across the keyboard.

Padre had kept him updated on the discovery
of Rachel’s body and he wanted to get that portion of the story
written while it was still fresh in his mind.

Sheila banged on his door again.

“I’LL BE RIGHT THERE,” Worm yelled. He
gathered up all his notes littering the table, floor, couch, and
shoved them in his briefcase. He added Rachel’s yearbook, which he
had just started to check through for an Edie Winthrop, just as
Dagger had requested.

“WORM!”

“All right, already.” Worm picked up his
notes on Sara and tossed them generously around the living room.
“Oops.” He closed out the document on the screen of his laptop.

Straightening the elephant wall hangings,
Worm checked his flushed face in the mirror before opening the
door.

“It’s about time.” Sheila charged past
Worm.

“What’s the problem, Sheila?” He closed the
door and watched with amusement as she surveyed his
furnishings.

“Who do you think you are to just call and
leave a message that you’ll be working at home, not one but two
days in a row?” She tossed her purse on the couch and went
immediately to the papers on the table. “You don’t answer the
phone, don’t return phone calls.” She cast a cursory glance toward
him. “Don’t keep me updated.”

“When I have something to report, you’ll be
the first person I call.”

“Wonderful.” She jerked a chair out from the
table, saw the threadbare seat and nicked wood and thought better
of it. Her head swiveled from side to side, checking the ceiling,
the floor, her feet, as if half-expecting something to crawl up her
leg. “You know, we pay you a pretty good salary. Can’t you find a
better apartment?”

Worm ignored her and sat down, shuffled some
papers together, pulled out a notepad. He had no plans on offering
her anything to drink. After a few moments of silence he asked,
“Don’t you have something better to do?”

Sheila spied Sara’s name on a document lying
on the coffee table and smiled. She settled on the couch and
started reading.

“That doesn’t reveal much.” Worm checked his
watch. He had a meeting with the editor of the Porter County
Tribune to show him the story he was developing.

“You’re right.” She tossed the document down
with disgust. “Maybe I picked the wrong man for the job.”

Worm picked up the discarded report and added
it to another pile. “If you think someone else can get faster
results, then by all means.” The words caught in his throat. This
was not the time to act cocky, especially since he didn’t have
another job yet. He leaned forward, hands mapping out a story on
their own, part of the genes from his mother’s Italian side of the
family.

“You know, Sheila, I’m kinda between a rock
and a hard place here. If I stay in the office, I get sidetracked.
When I work at home, I’ve got this family thing going.” His hands
swayed to the left, then the right, back and forth. “Part of the
agreement of paying such low rent is I gotta help my uncle in the
greenhouse on the weekends. If I try to work on this,” he pointed
to the short pile of notes on Sara, “then I have my Mom calling
asking why ‘donna you help Uncle Maggio’.” He forced a smile.
Sheila wasn’t smiling. Now the hands splayed open, palms up.
“What’s a guy to do?” He glanced at her white shorts and sleeveless
top. “You look great. Going to the yacht club?” Compliments with
Sheila always worked.