with me for years. I discovered her when I was serving on the supreme court in Richmond, and she graciously agreed to return with me here. I’d be utterly lost without Calpurnia.”
He took a sip of his bourbon, set down his glass and put his hands together, his features now very serious.
“We must solve this thing, and soon, you know. It’s not like people are going to stop being killed simply because we wish it.”
“I know,” said King. He stood and faced them, his back to the fire. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, having had not much else to do while recovering from that deep draft I took of carbon monoxide. Now, there’ve been eight deaths thus far.” He held up the fingers on one of his hands. “But I want to talk about only five, at least at first. And I want to begin with Rhonda Tyler.”
“The dancer,” said Harry.
“The prostitute.”
“You’re sure?” said Michelle.
“I checked with Lulu. Tyler was one of the ones who opted for the ‘extra pay’ structure.”
“What’s that?” asked Harry curiously.
“A little sideline of the Aphrodisiac; it’s since been shut down,” said King vaguely.
Harry nodded in a knowing way. “I always suspected that was happening. I mean, you can’t let men watch naked girls, ply them with alcohol and not expect some to want more than to merely play voyeur.”
“Exactly. So Rhonda was a prostitute. Was that why she was killed?”
Michelle ventured an answer. “Well, prostitutes are probably the number one victim pool of serial killers.”
“Right again. So are we simply dealing with an ‘ordinary’ serial killer who opted to start with this ‘classic’ victim pool, or is there something else going on?”
“What do you mean, Sean?” asked Harry.
“I mean, was Tyler a symbol or was her death more personal?”
“How can we answer that with the little we know?” said Michelle.
“Let me answer a question with a question. Could Bobby Battle have enjoyed the services of Rhonda Tyler? She was at the Aphrodisiac before Bobby had his stroke. He was known to frequent the place, although Lulu was pretty vague on the last time she’d seen him there.”
“I hadn’t considered that angle,” said Harry quietly. “But let’s say he did sleep with her. Why would that make her a target for our killer along with at least four other people who seem to have no connection?”
“What if some of the other victims did have connections to Battle?”
“Such as?”
Michelle answered, “Sean thinks Steve Canney was Bobby’s illegitimate son. His mother had worked for Battle and probably gotten pregnant by him, and we think Roger Canney was blackmailing Bobby. We also think Bobby may have been involved in Mrs. Canney’s death three and a half years ago, and that’s when the blackmail started.”
“My God!” exclaimed Harry.
“But, Sean,” said Michelle, “I’ve been thinking about this too. Bobby openly had affairs with women, slept with prostitutes. If what you say is true, why would he care if the truth came out about an illegitimate son? Why would he allow himself to be blackmailed over a sexual encounter?”
“I think I can answer that,” said Harry. “Just about the time period you’re talking about Bobby was in the middle of selling his company. Many local lawyers I knew were working on the deal on Battle’s behalf, so I heard all the war stories about the negotiations. The buyer was a large multinational corporation with a sterling reputation. And Bobby was the very public face of his company.”
“So news of an illegitimate son wouldn’t have helped the negotiations,” said King.
“Precisely. As a matter of fact, the deal did go through and made Bobby more money than he could possibly have spent in several lifetimes. It was probably a good thing.”
“Why do you say that?” asked King.
“Battle had always been eccentric, but for some years he was growing more and more bizarre in his behavior. Violent mood swings, bouts of depression followed by times of unrealistic euphoria. And his mind wasn’t what it was. One of the most brilliant engineers and businessmen of his day, he was forgetting names and important items. I really wasn’t surprised about the stroke. In fact, I suspected he suffered numerous minor ones previously that had affected his mind. But we’re getting far afield from the topic of blackmail.” Harry turned to King. “Sorry for the detour.”
“No, we need all the information we can get. The timing of the sale of Bobby’s company makes me believe it was only Roger Canney who had the blackmail plan. One would think that Mrs. Canney would know who the father of her son was, or at least that Bobby could have been the father. Steven Canney was seventeen when he died. If she’d wanted to come forward and make a claim, she wouldn’t have waited all those years. It’s not like Bobby wasn’t rich seventeen years ago too.”
Harry picked up this line of reasoning. “But Roger Canney might have known Steve wasn’t his biological son and been waiting for his wife to die before putting the screws to Bobby. Perhaps he waited because his wife wouldn’t have gone along. He certainly would have known of the potential sale of the man’s company. That was publicly disclosed.”
“Or maybe,” said Michelle, “Roger Canney didn’t want to wait for his wife to die ‘naturally,’ so he sped up the process by running her off the road, freeing him to begin his blackmail scheme.”
“But it was Bobby’s car that was damaged right around the time of her death,” King said. “So it seems far more likely that Bobby killed her.”
“I’m just pointing out that Roger Canney might’ve had a motive to kill her too,” Michelle replied.
King looked at her admiringly. “That’s a good point, Michelle. I hadn’t really considered that.”
“So where does that leave us?” she wanted to know.
The bell for dinner interrupted them.
“I’ve told Calpurnia that a dinner bell is quite old-fashioned, but she claims my hearing’s not what it was, and it’s the only way she can get my attention without trudging all over the house to find me. Shall we?”
CHAPTER
75
SEAN HAD UNCORKED
both bottles of wine upon his arrival so that they could properly breathe before dinner. At the table he poured out the first one. “This is a La Croix de Peyrolie out of Lussac-St-Emilion.”
“And I’m sure it has some wonderfully nifty history,” said Michelle as she smelled it.
“It’s made by the appropriately named Carole Bouquet, who used to be a famous model and was a James Bond girl in one of the films—For Your Eyes Only, I believe. The other bottle is a Ma Vérité de Gérard Depardieu, Haut-Médoc.”
“Let me guess, made by the actor of the same name,” chanced Harry.
“Yes. These wines are really up and coming, and I only bring them out on special occasions.”
“Harry and I feel so honored,” said Michelle, smirking.
They toasted and began their meal, which was served by Calpurnia. She was about sixty years of age and over six feet tall, blocky of build and with thick gray hair pulled back in a harsh bun. She looked like every child’s worst school-cafeteria-worker nightmare. Yet the food was spectacular.
As Calpurnia left them, Harry said, “Now, Michelle was asking where your speculations about Steven Canney’s lineage and Rhonda Tyler’s possible liaison with Bobby Battle left us.”
“With the fact that two of the victims might be connected to Bobby Battle. Does it stand to reason that more are as well?”
“Janice Pembroke?” said Michelle.
“No. I figure her simply as a person in the wrong place at the wrong time,” answered King.
“Diane Hinson? She was a lawyer. Maybe she was working on some corporate deal with Bobby,” Michelle suggested.
King shook his head. “Doubtful. She was a trial lawyer, mostly criminal work. I made a lot of inquiries and could find no one who could place them together at
any time. Let’s leave Hinson for the moment and move on. Next up is Junior Deaver. He had a clear connection to the Battles.”
“Right. He worked for them and was also accused of stealing from them,” said Michelle.
“But the burglary occurred after Bobby had his stroke,” said Harry.
“I never thought that Bobby was killing anyone,” said King, “perhaps other than Mrs. Canney. But we have three people with possible connections to Bobby Battle. Each was killed using the M.O. of an infamous serial killer, a watch was placed on the wrists and a letter was subsequently received.”
Michelle looked unconvinced. “Granted, Pembroke might have been killed merely because she was with Canney, yet Hinson was killed in the manner of the Night Stalker. But you say she has no connection to Battle.”
“Her watch was set to one minute past four,” said King. He paused and said, “And remember, Pembroke’s watch was set to one minute past two. The others were right on the hour.”
“So Hinson’s and Pembroke’s were one tick off,” said Michelle slowly.
“Exactly.” King looked at her puzzled. “One tick off? There’s something familiar about that phrase, but I can’t think of what it is.”
“So the killer is intentionally telling us, via the watches, that some victims are, what, slightly off?”
“I think he’s telling us that Tyler, Canney and Junior were killed intentionally because of their connection to Bobby. Pembroke and Hinson were not specifically targeted, because they had no such connection.”
“All right, let’s assume Pembroke was killed because she was with Canney. Why was Hinson murdered?” asked Michelle.
“So we’d run down numerous paths trying to have it all make sense but it never would. For our killer’s purposes having Pembroke die at the same time as Canney was simply gravy. It muddied the waters even more. If Canney had been alone, I bet we’d have had another murder like Hinson’s to cover up the connection to Bobby. And it also explains why the killer used the word ‘kid’ instead of ‘kids’ in his letter following the teenagers’ deaths. Only one kid was his target: Steve Canney.”
“But, Sean, if the killer really wanted to throw us off, why set some of the watches so they were one tick off? If he’d kept them all on the hour, chances are you’d never have stumbled on this line of reasoning.”
“For some reason I think this guy is trying to play fair by giving us a legitimate clue.”
“Or he’s just screwing with us,” said Michelle.
“Possible, but I don’t think so.”
Michelle still looked skeptical. “All right, let’s assume all that’s true. Now we have Bobby Battle as a possible common denominator. But you don’t think he was killed by the same person. Isn’t his being linked to yet another killer too huge of a coincidence? And then we have Kyle and Sally. How do those deaths fit in?”
“Despite what Sylvia found, Kyle may have been a suicide. And Sally may have been killed because she didn’t come forward about the alibi for Junior.”
“I’m not following, Sean,” said Harry.
“If Junior was killed only because he stole from the Battles, then once the killer found out he really hadn’t committed the burglary, that meant Junior was killed for no reason. The killer revenged himself and in his sick mind perhaps thought he was avenging Junior as well by killing Sally. He might have foregone his trademark watch and infamous serial killer indicia in her case because he was too incensed or didn’t consider her to be important enough. And he didn’t have much time to plan it. Sally only told me the truth barely seven hours before she was killed.”
“Well,” said Michelle, “her face being crushed by repeated blows after she was dead maybe fits with the theory of revenge. Someone in a rage.”
“Right. A man capable of ferocious attack and—” King froze. “Seven hours.”
“What is it, Sean?” asked Harry.
“I’m not sure,” he said at last. “What I just said about seven hours, it struck me somehow, but not the way I thought it would.” He thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Sorry, probably a slightly premature senior moment.”
“What about Chip Bailey’s theory that Sally lied about being with Junior and committed or helped commit the burglary?” asked Michelle.
Harry’s eyebrows went up. “That’s an intriguing conjecture.”
“Yes, it is,” said King slowly. “And not one we can entirely discount right now, although my instincts tell me he’s wrong.”
They continued with their meal and also finished off the second bottle of wine. Afterward in the library they sipped coffee that Harry poured for them. He offered them an after-dinner cognac, but they both declined.
“I have to drive home,” said King. “The wine was plenty.”
“And I have to look after him while he drives us home,” added Michelle, smiling.
The room had grown chilly, and Michelle stood in front of the fire warming her long legs. “Dresses can be very drafty,” she said self-consciously.
Harry turned to King. “What’s your opinion of Dorothea?”
“Well, the source of the drug Eddie was given wasn’t the wine, nor did they find any of the drugs Dorothea had purchased from Kyle,” said King. “However, I checked with Sylvia. The morphine sulfate Eddie was given was a drug she kept in her pharmacy and may have been one of the drugs Kyle brought to Dorothea at the Aphrodisiac. And Dorothea has no alibi for the time Kyle was killed. She said she was at home, but Eddie didn’t see her.”
“Actually, he was out in his studio all night painting a picture of me,” said Michelle in an embarrassed tone.
King eyed her closely but said nothing.
Harry looked at her curiously for a moment and then said, “So she was buying the drugs, and she’s a possible suspect in both Battle’s and Kyle Montgomery’s deaths. She was also the person who had the best opportunity to drug Eddie, and lived very near where Sally was killed. All circumstantial obviously, but still compelling.”
“And she’s been depressed due to the financial setbacks and family issues she told us about,” said Michelle. “A troubled woman all around.”
King replied, “I don’t disagree with you, but I’m having a hard time finding her motive. She said Bobby had promised to change his will to benefit her, but he didn’t. So there goes her motive to kill him.”
“Unless she found out he hadn’t and was so furious she murdered him,” said Michelle.
Harry rose and stood next to Michelle in front of the fire. “At over seventy, one’s whole body becomes drafty regardless of the amount of clothing or the relative heat of the room,” he explained.
Returning to the discussion, he said, “There might be a third possibility. We’ve been focused on what was taken from Remmy’s closet, but what was stolen from Bobby’s closet?”
They both stared at him but said nothing.
Harry continued. “The will that left everything to Remmy is the one that’s being used by the lawyers. It was drawn up many years ago.”
“How do you know that?” asked Michelle.
“The lawyer who drafted it was a former clerk of mine, currently a partner at a firm in Charlottesville. They had the original, and that’s the will that’s being probated.”
“Did anyone look for another, more recent will?” asked King.
“That’s the point. I don’t think so. But what if a later will was the thing stolen from Bobby’s closet during the burglary?”
King said, “But if it was in Bobby’s secret compartment, which Remmy told us she was unaware of, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to destroy it.”
“I’m not saying it was Remmy. Bobby had a stroke, he was delirious, talking gibberish at the hospital, so I heard,” said Harry.
“And maybe he mentioned another will,” said King, snapping his fingers.
“So anyone who heard him could have committed the burglary,” said Harry.
“If Dorothea had it, though, she would hav
e made it public, wouldn’t she?”
“But there’d be the little matter of where it came from,” said Harry. “I don’t think she would want to confess to burglary.”
King looked puzzled. “But, Harry, we’re overlooking something. Bobby’s death was well publicized. Whoever drew up the new will would have come forward.”
“Maybe he didn’t use a law firm to draft it.”
“If he did it himself, he’d still need witnesses.”
“Not if it were a holographic will, entirely in his handwriting.”
“So if there is such a will, who has it, and why aren’t they making it public?”
“A question to which I would dearly love the answer,” remarked Harry as he finished off his snifter of cognac.
CHAPTER
76
KING AND MICHELLE SAID
good night to Harry and drove off. The weather was still nice enough