The Monet Murders (22 page)

I screamed in pain, but Morgan didn’t utter a sound. A look of stunned disbelief flashed across his face, and he slumped to the ground where he lay as peacefully as if he were in his soft, satin ultra-king bed.

I flung down the log and scrambled out of the ditch. Helter-skelter, not knowing where I was running to, I raced through the woods on sore feet, hoping for the best, hoping for the west, hoping for a manicured lawn, a ribbon of road. I was running from a dead man. And from myself. For now I knew what I was capable of, and I ran from that as much as from the thought of Morgan’s lethal hands crushing my windpipe.

On tortured feet, I ran and ran, knifelike undergrowth slashing my soles, branches slapping my face and clawing at my clothes, until like a madwoman I burst through the undergrowth onto a lawn like a carpet.

Relief brought me to my knees. I sank onto the manicured grass, gasping for air, spewing out a prayer of gratitude. I lay there panting, listening for the sound of pounding feet and angry hands shoving away branches. Nothing.

I had to get help.
I needed Rossi.

Pulling myself to my feet, I limped across the lawn to a huge Tuscan mansion sitting like a well-fed
duce
in the center of its elaborate gardens. My feet left a bloody trail on the stone entrance stairs. Wait till they see that, I thought, as I pressed the chimes. From inside the house, I heard a musical ring then the sound of footsteps. A few moments later, the door opened. A heavyset Hispanic woman in a white nylon uniform took one alarmed look at me and slammed the door in my face. No wonder. I probably looked like I’d been regurgitated.

I punched the chimes again. I’d keep doing that until someone inside called for help. And that’s exactly what happened.

After an eternity, the Bonita Bay security car rolled up the drive, and an elderly guard slowly climbed out from behind the wheel.

“Thank God you’re here,” I said, not giving him a chance to say a word. “Call the Naples Police.”

“You’re in Lee County, lady. Not Collier.”

“No matter, ask for a Lieutenant Rossi. His number is 555-8000. I want to report a homicide. Tell him I just stopped a man’s heart.”

The guard’s jaw dropped open.

“The man I killed was a cardiac surgeon. I got him in the chest. I don’t expect you to believe me, but it’s a case of poetic justice.”

He hesitated, then, without taking his eyes off me, trying to look tough, he stood at the bottom of the stone steps and dialed the number.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said, hanging up and pocketing his cell. “What’s your name, lady?”

“Deva Dunne.” I slumped onto the top step and let my feet hang over the edge.

“Good lord, how did that happen?” he asked, pointing to them.

“It’s a long story, sir. If you don’t mind, let’s wait for the cops. I’ve only got the strength to tell it once.”

Wary but willing, he nodded.

While we waited in an uneasy silence, I glanced around at the stone planters flanking the stairs. “Remind me to tell the owner these planters are the wrong scale for an entrance this size.”

“Okay, lady, sure,” he said, shifting from one foot to the other and giving his pants a hitch.

I knew he wouldn’t. I could tell he thought I was crazy.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The guard was right. I
was
crazy. Crazy from guilt. I’d done the unthinkable—killed another human being. Fought like a wild animal to save my own life—to smash the life out of Morgan. When he lay crumpled at my feet, pure, raw triumph had surged through my veins. I could remember the very
taste
of it.
Omigod, mea culpa. Mea culpa
.

Keeping his vigil at the bottom of the stairs, the guard stood with his feet apart. Though he wasn’t packing, he kept his hands on his hips cowboy style. Still trying to look tough, he stared at me without blinking, though in my current condition I was no flight risk. I couldn’t have taken a single step.

I didn’t know if he had called Rossi or not. Like he’d said, we were in Lee County and Naples police had no jurisdiction here. At this point, I was almost beyond caring. All I wanted was to lie down in a clean bed and lose the pain in my feet and in my heart.

Within minutes a Bonita Springs cruiser drove onto the circular drive. No Rossi then. Two officers emerged from the car and one approached the guard. “This her?”

He nodded. “Yes sir. I apprehended her right here.”

“Hey wait a minute,” I said. “He’s got it all wrong.”

The younger of the two, the one without the paunch, strode up the steps. “I’m Officer Casey. Why don’t you tell me what happened.”

I waved an arm at the wooded lot. “He’s in there somewhere.”

“Who’s in there?”

“The man I killed. Dr. Morgan Jones.”

“You killed a man?” Officer Casey upped his chin at his partner. “Take this down.” He turned back to me. “What is your name, ma’am?”

“Devalera Dunne. Mrs. Devalera Dunne.”

Paunch poised his pen over his clipboard. “Spell your first name please,”

“Oh for God’s sake. I’ve been spelling that damned name my whole life. Forget about it. Just go find the body.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am. If there’s a body, we’ll find it.” From the soothing tone of Casey’s voice, I could tell he had gone into hysteria-control mode. It infuriated me.

“What’s your address, ma’am?” he asked, his voice super soft.

“What are you whispering for?” I glanced over a shoulder at the quiet house behind us. “Nobody in there can hear a bloody thing. Not unless you bang on the door.”

“Where do you live, ma’am?” he asked.

I turned back to him. “In Naples at the Surfside Condominiums. Gulf Shore Boulevard. Satisfied now?”

“Do you have any ID?”

“What’s the matter with you people? Do I look like I’m carrying ID?”

The two officers exchanged glances. “Have the guard call an ambulance,” Casey ordered.

“I don’t need an ambulance. I need you to listen to me.”

“We are listening, ma’am. You need medical attention.” He pointed to my cut and bleeding feet. “How did that happen?”

“I already told you. In the woods over there. After I ran out of the house.”

“What house?”

“The big deconstructionist one.”

He frowned so deeply his brows collided. “What house is that?”

“The white one. Down the road on the left. Ilona is probably still in there.” I gasped as a thought struck me. “Unless my car got fixed and Bears’ Plumbing dropped it off. If so, she could have swiped my keys and left in the Audi. She’s in on it, you know.”

“In on what?”

“The art theft and the murders.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t. You think I’m deranged.”

The two officers exchanged another glance. One of
those
glances.

“Okay, you want proof? You want some ID? Go to 1900 Bonita Bay Road. You’ll find my purse on the kitchen island. At least that’s where I left it when I ran out of the house. I was fleeing from Dr. Jones. He had already killed three people, and I was next on his list.

“Anyway, look for a lime green hobo. A Kate Spade. It was expensive as sin, but not as extravagant as you might think. I’m an autumn on the color chart, so the green goes with a lot of my outfits.” I glanced down at my soiled, torn skirt. “I probably shouldn’t have worn it with this orange skirt, but sometimes a girl has to think outside the box.”

That was when Casey’s face got all fuzzy. Determined not to pass out and bonk my head on the stone landing, I leaned against one of the planters and listened to sirens screaming in the distance. Before I knew it, a medic was bending over me.

“This chair is hard,” I told her. “It needs cushions. An indoor-outdoor fabric would be good.”

“Yes, it is hard,” she said, her voice soothing. “We’re taking you where you’ll be more comfortable.”

“The gas chamber?”

“Close your eyes,” she said. “You’re going to be all right now.”

The ambulance crew lifted me onto a stretcher. As I passed the guard, I said, “You didn’t call Rossi like I asked you to.” He looked puzzled as if he didn’t know whom I meant, but he knew all right. “It’s okay,” I assured him. “These guys are doing fine.”

“That’s a relief, lady,” he said as the medics slid my stretcher into the back of an ambulance.

The green, groomed landscaping of Bonita Bay passed by in a blur, and we were soon racing along the Tamiami Trail heading into Naples, sirens screaming, and no doubt blue roof lights whirling. What was the hurry? I wondered. Morgan was no longer a threat to anyone. What were we racing toward? My fate?

* * *

I woke up in a hospital bed, my feet wrapped in bandages. A pair of liquid brown eyes were inches from my own. I knew those eyes and the stern, stubbled face they belonged to. I even recognized the shirt—lush hula girls swayed in the breeze clear across Rossi’s chest.

“So they finally called you,” I said.

“Yes. Sorry I wasn’t there, Deva.” He took my hand. “You did well.”

Tears flooded my eyes and leaked down my chin onto the sprigged hospital jonny someone had dressed me in.

“How can you say I did well? I’m no better than Morgan was. When he came after me, Rossi, I lashed out with everything I had. I didn’t know I was capable of…of…” The word wouldn’t come out.

“We’re all capable of the same thing, Deva,” he said, yanking a fistful of tissues out of a box on the bedside table and wiping my eyes. But the tears wouldn’t stop. “Keep that up and we’ll be having a wet T-shirt contest in here.” He grinned, giving me a flash of even white teeth. “Maybe you should just let the tears roll.”

I grabbed the tissues out of his hand. “That’s not funny, Rossi. I killed a man.”

He sobered immediately. “No, that wasn’t funny,” he agreed. “But you haven’t killed anyone.”

I blinked and swiped a hand at the wetness. “No?”

“No. Morgan’s alive. Bruised and battered, but alive. Two floors down, under twenty-four-hour police guard.”

Relief like a drug flooded my soul. “Oh, thank God. To have a death on my conscience was awful.”

“I know,” he said, his voice as soothing as the paramedic’s. But this time, it sounded good to me.

“What about Ilona?” I asked.

“We found her on Alligator Alley, halfway to Miami. But not to worry. The Audi can be repaired.”

I reared up on my elbows. “What? I
knew
it.”

Rossi pressed my shoulders back onto the pillow. “Relax. I’ll see that the repairs are made and Trevor’s given the bill.”

“Really?”

“Of course. He’s legally responsible. Ilona’s still his wife, technically anyway. The divorce hasn’t gone through, and from what Trevor said it won’t. He still wants her. He’s hiring Alan Dershowitz as her defense attorney.” Rossi shook his head. “I thought I’d heard everything, but this one tops all. Trevor said he bought her, lock, stock and barrel, for three hundred thousand dollars. And he has no intention of losing his investment.”

I nodded. “Ilona told me all about the yenta who negotiated their marriage. I’m just glad he’ll take care of the Audi.”

“Repairing your car won’t even be a blip on his radar. According to a piece in today’s paper, he’s an extremely wealthy man. Recently bought a huge parcel of land in Estero and intends to develop it. Simon Yaeger is his partner in the deal.”

Ohhhh. I blew out a pent-up breath. So that was why Trevor had made those massive withdrawals I’d stumbled across on his study desk. And that’s why when Simon called that day, he wanted no one except George to find out about the deal—not until it was consummated. Not even the Dunne woman, I sniffed.

But that was all right. Actually Simon had done me a favor. Since then I’d known without a scintilla of doubt that we would never be more than casual friends. As for Rossi standing by my hospital bed with that attractive all-night stubble on his face, who knew?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A week later, back at the Surfside condo, my bandaged feet propped up on the living room couch, I watched Rossi stride in with a pizza box and a six-pack of Coke.

I sighed.
A pizza.
“Rossi, we need to talk. I don’t think I can swallow another bite of pizza. I need a salad. Fresh fruit.”

“You don’t like my cooking?” he asked, lowering the pizza and the soda to the coffee table.

“I’m grateful for all you’re doing, and I mean that, but in a word, no.”

He waggled a finger at me. He liked doing that. “The rest of the stuff’s in the car.”

“The rest?”

“Yeah, the girl food. Be right back.” He returned in a few seconds with two bags full of groceries. “Salad greens,” he announced. “Strawberries. Grilled chicken tenders. Thin-sliced bread. Danish butter. Something called tea cookies.” He cocked an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re a genius.”

“Correct. Let me stash this stuff. Give me a sec.” The refrigerator opened and closed a few times before he reappeared and handed me a Coke. Then he sank onto a club chair across from the couch where I lay stretched out like a pampered invalid.

He smiled across at me. “You look nice sitting there, Deva, like Cleopatra on her barge or something.”

I sipped the Coke. He had put ice in the glass just the way I liked it. “That was positively poetic, Rossi.”

“Yeah, I’ve got a gift for words.” His eyes narrowed. “The problem is what I’m doing is stop gap. You need somebody staying here with you.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You know, somebody to cook. And help you shower and stuff.”

My turn to cock an eyebrow.

He ignored it. “Somebody to get you to your doctor’s appointments. Go for pizzas. You can’t drive yet with your feet like that.” He cleared his throat. “In case you haven’t guessed, I’m volunteering for the job.”

“I guessed, Rossi, and I thank you, but no thanks. Besides, the stitches should come out next week, and if everything’s healed, I can ditch the crutches. Probably walk a little. At least long enough to stand up and do a few chores. Maybe even go into the shop part of the day. And Lee stops by, too. So no need to worry about me. I’m fine, really.”

He shrugged a little. “About staying here…I was shooting in the dark, but thought it was worth a try.”

“I have my Irish grandmother to worry about.”

“I thought she had passed.”

“Well she has, but you never know.”

“That’s logical,” he said, but he laughed, and to my relief changed the subject. “The next few weeks are going to be difficult. So I hope you’re right and that you’ll be up to the challenge physically. When the trial starts, you’ll have to testify. There’ll be cross examinations, attempts to twist your testimony, shake your story. None of that’s going to be easy. And of course, Jones is claiming he’s innocent. That you’re lying about what you heard. His testimony won’t stand up under scrutiny, but it will make for a tense trial.”

“How’s Morgan doing these days?”

“He’s well enough to stand trial. The force of that blow knocked his heart out of rhythm for a while, but he’s pretty well recovered. Though I hear his whole chest is bruised black.”

My relief that Morgan had survived was far greater than anyone knew. During the past week, Rossi had spent a lot of time telling me I had only done what I had to do. My God-given instinct for self-preservation had gone to battle for me. And had helped stop a killer. Still I grieved for all the lost and destroyed lives—most of all for Maria and Jesus and George. But for poor, misguided Ilona, and Trevor, too. He must be hurting. For ill-fated Morgan and for Jessica who was standing by him despite what he’d done. She’d even stopped her divorce proceedings, at least until the trial ended.

The Bonita police had believed me after all and had sent a search and rescue team into the woods, where they found Morgan wandering about, dazed and disoriented.

I guess he had never been a Girl Scout either.

“Any further news about Ilona?” I asked Rossi.

“She’s out on bail and singing like she’s on
American Idol.
We’re keeping an eye on her. She’s a flight risk. But that’s nothing new. She has been right along.”

“What’s that mean? Right along?”

“Since the Monet was stolen. Her polygraph was inconclusive.”

“You never let on. You held out on me, Rossi.”

“Had to. That’s my job.”

“Well, she knew where the painting was, and she knew who had killed Maria. No wonder she flunked the test.”

“Well, flunk is strong. Let’s say the results were cloudy. The technician thinks she did something to skew her answers.”

“What could she do? I thought the answers were involuntary?”

“They are. But when you answer the baseline questions, if you bite your lip or your tongue, or step on a tack in your shoe, the pain can change your response.”

“So it’s harder to spot a lie on the graph.”

“Exactly.”

“I was at the house the day Ilona took the polygraph exam. Afterwards, when Trevor kissed her, he had a trace of blood on his lips.”

Rossi nodded. “That could be the answer. Chances are the blood came from Ilona. Trevor passed the poly with flying colors.”

“So you were on to Ilona from the get go?”

“Pretty much. The feds followed her to Hungary after Christmas. She called on an art dealer in Budapest with known ties to the Russian art world.”

“A fence?”

Rossi shrugged. “Probably. We couldn’t do a thing without proof. You supplied that when you figured out where they hid the Monet. Good detective work, Deva.”

“But I was dead wrong about George Farragut. He was innocent all along.”

“Told ya.”

“Okay, you can gloat.” I was too ashamed to mention I had also harbored suspicions about another innocent guy, Simon Yaeger.

But before I could beat up on myself anymore, Rossi said, “Not all leads are good, not all suspicions are correct. The thing to remember is that some are right on the money. You lose a few, you win a few. And Deva, you won the lottery—you found the painting and you found the killer. Those are A pluses in anybody’s book.”

What do you know? For the first time in my life, I was on the A list.