Death Rides a Pony, page 8
‘No, we didn’t have any idea—’ Hope began hastily.
‘But the cards did,’ Summer interjected. ‘The cards knew.’
Dylan raised an even more incredulous eyebrow.
‘You’re talking about the Tarot cards?’ Nate asked.
Summer waved her hand impatiently as though it was a gratuitous question. ‘Of course I’m talking about the Tarot cards. The cards knew all along what was going to happen. We didn’t realize it, obviously. If we had, we would have tried to warn Davis.’
Hope shook her head. ‘We couldn’t have warned Davis. He never would have listened to us.’
‘Exactly,’ Summer concurred. ‘That’s why I said earlier we couldn’t have prevented this. Davis would have merely brushed aside – or, more likely, laughed at – any caution that we might have given him. You saw how negative and skeptical he was toward all things mystical in the booth and the boutique. And he seriously thought that it was an earthquake in the shop!’
Dylan’s eyebrow went higher. ‘There was an earthquake in the shop?’
Not answering him, Summer continued to Hope, ‘Speaking of earthquakes, if there is an upside to all of this, at least we don’t have to worry anymore about Davis coming to the brownstone – nor will he be pestering us or Gram to put the place on the market.’
‘Well, yes, that’s true,’ Hope agreed hesitantly. She couldn’t refute the point, but she wasn’t sure that Summer should be making such statements in front of Dylan and Nate, let alone talking quite so freely about Death and the Tarot. With a small cough, she tried to give her sister a hint to be more circumspect.
‘It occurs to me,’ Summer went on, either not noticing or not caring about the admonition, ‘that there is another upside to Davis being gone. Now Gary will be forced to choose a different realtor. I can’t imagine that the new one could possibly be as bad as the old one, which means there might finally be a chance that the house will sell. And if the house sells, then the divorce can be finalized.’
Hope couldn’t refute that point, either. But now she was positive that Summer was saying too much – and far too cheerfully – regarding the benefits of Davis’s demise. Nate and Dylan were looking at Summer with troubled expressions. Again, Hope coughed, louder this time.
Undeterred, Summer pursued her stream of thoughts. ‘Once the divorce is finalized, Gary will be permanently out of the picture, too. That should make the attic happy, because then there can be no more egregious remarks from either Davis or Gary about the advantages of selling the brownstone. Maybe the attic will be so pleased that they’ll at long last consider giving up their grudge against me. That would be great! If they became even just a little less irritable, I might be able to go up to the third floor without always having to worry that …’
The sentence trailed away unfinished. There was an audible gulp from Summer. She turned toward Hope, her eyes stretched wide at a sudden horrifying possibility.
‘My god, was it the attic? Could the attic be responsible for Davis’s death?’
EIGHT
There was a moment of startled silence all around. Dylan and Nate stared at Summer with a mixture of astonishment and confusion, as though they couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly. Hope also stared at her sister, but for a different reason. The idea that the attic might have somehow had a hand – so to speak – in Davis’s death had never occurred to her. Even in the warmth of the night air, Hope felt herself shiver. But she answered Summer as quickly and definitively as she could, mostly in an effort to close Dylan and Nate’s sagging jaws.
‘Of course it wasn’t the attic,’ she said. ‘How could the attic be responsible for Davis’s death? The last time Davis was in the brownstone was two days ago, and nothing happened to him there. He died here – on the carousel. It was an accident.’
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Dylan corrected her.
‘What?’ It was Hope’s turn to be confused.
‘It wasn’t an accident,’ Dylan repeated. ‘Davis’s death was deliberate.’
‘Are you sure?’ Summer asked.
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Dylan responded with annoyance. ‘Not that you have to take my word for it. I’m only a board-certified physician who deals with the sick and the dying on a daily basis. I might not be able to tell the difference between misadventure and murder.’
‘Murder!’ Megan exclaimed, aghast. ‘But why? Who would do such a thing?’
‘Those are two excellent questions,’ Nate said, ‘both of which I intend on learning the answers to. In any event, Dylan is correct. The evidence is clear and allows for no other interpretation. Davis Scott was murdered. He was strangled to death.’
‘Strangled to death?’ Summer was thoughtful. ‘The attic probably couldn’t manage that.’
Hope’s head snapped to her sister, but Dylan spoke before she could, his tone heavily deprecating.
‘No, your attic probably couldn’t manage that. Not unless your attic can take a piece of cloth, wrap it around a man’s neck, and then ensure that the ends are caught under the edge of the carousel platform as it rotates, thereby throttling the man.’
Megan grimaced. ‘How awful. Shouldn’t there be some sort of a safety mechanism to prevent such a thing from happening?’
‘There is a safety mechanism,’ Dylan replied. ‘In all likelihood, you heard it. Hope and I did.’
Hope was quizzical. ‘We did?’
‘It was that loud grinding noise,’ he told her, ‘followed by the series of high-pitched screeches. And it worked. The carousel and platform stopped. Unfortunately for Davis, however, it wasn’t soon enough. The cloth had already tightened around his neck, and he couldn’t get it loose.’
Nate nodded. ‘Based on the position of the body, he obviously tried hard to free himself. But it was a futile effort. He needed the cloth to tear or be cut away, neither of which occurred. And even that might not have saved him. I’ve seen it before. The force is simply too great. It’s the same with a necklace being pulled into a paper shredder or a sleeve being sucked into a wood chipper. The end result is never pretty.’
Summer frowned.
‘Sorry.’ Nate gave an apologetic shrug. ‘Curse of the job, I’m afraid. Sometimes my descriptions can get a bit grisly.’
He had misconstrued her reaction. Summer wasn’t dismayed; she was perplexed. ‘But your examples with the shredder and the chipper,’ she said, ‘those are accidents. Isn’t this an accident, too? What makes you think that it was deliberate?’
‘So you’re no longer blaming the attic?’ Dylan remarked drolly.
As Dylan and Nate exchanged an amused glance, Hope sighed. The course of the conversation wasn’t good. For starters, it was a bad idea to openly discuss the attic in such a manner. Somehow the attic always seemed to know and took a perverse pleasure in reminding you of it at the most inopportune moment. And second, if Summer wanted her relationship with Nate to grow, then repeatedly mentioning the quirks of the attic wasn’t beneficial. The attic might be many things, but amorous and sensual were not among them. Ghosts and goblins had a very different effect on romance than champagne and truffles.
‘I understand,’ Hope interjected swiftly, trying to move permanently off the subject of the attic, ‘that the safety mechanism is what stopped the carousel, but someone must have started it in the first place. Is that why you consider it to be murder? Because Davis couldn’t have turned on the carousel and throttled himself at the same time?’
‘An astute – and accurate – deduction,’ Nate complimented her.
There was a brief hesitation. Dylan and Nate glanced at each other again, this time not with amusement but questioningly, as though debating how much information to share with the others.
‘You’re the detective, so it’s your decision in the end, but I’m of the opinion that you should point it out to them,’ Dylan said. ‘They may recognize it from somewhere, especially with that distinct pattern.’
‘Recognize it?’ Summer and Megan echoed in unison.
‘What pattern?’ Hope asked.
They collectively stepped toward the fence, expecting Nate to reveal the item at issue. Nate hesitated a moment longer, and as they waited, Hope’s gaze returned to Davis. Now that the initial shock of discovering his lifeless body had passed, she looked at him more closely. As little as she had liked the man, she felt great sympathy for him. His final minutes must have been horrific, filled with a dreadful panic and fear, being aware of what was happening but unable to stop it. The way his torso was wrenched in one direction and his legs in another. His arms raised, and his hands desperately clawing at his throat.
‘Hope …’ Summer’s words came slowly. ‘The cloth …’
Hope didn’t have to ask her what she meant, because she was staring straight at it. The cloth that was wrapped around Davis’s neck. She had only glanced at it before, but now her eyes observed it fully. And as Dylan had supposed, she recognized it.
Megan drew a sharp breath, recognizing it also. ‘Good lord. Is that the missing scarf?’
It was indeed the missing scarf. Or at least it very much resembled the missing scarf. Although the material was creased and crumpled, its black-and-white chevron pattern was still clearly visible.
‘Could it be a different one?’ Megan began. ‘What are the chances that—’
‘No,’ Summer cut her off emphatically. ‘It can’t be a different scarf. It can’t be a coincidence.’
As a rule, Hope was considerably more open-minded about the possibility of coincidences than her sister, but in this instance, she was obliged to agree with Summer. ‘It must be the same scarf. The odds of an identical one being found here – tonight, in this location – are infinitesimal.’
Nate looked at them, then at the cloth, and back again. ‘It’s a scarf?’
Summer gave an affirmative nod.
‘And not just any scarf,’ Dylan – proving himself quick on the uptake – informed Nate. ‘If I understand correctly, this particular scarf mysteriously vanished earlier in the evening, and everyone has since been searching for it, while at the same time searching for Davis.’
The affirmative nod now came from Hope.
‘How interesting,’ Dylan mused, ‘that the missing scarf and the missing man should be found together.’
‘Very interesting,’ Nate agreed. ‘And from a professional perspective, also potentially very helpful. From a personal perspective, however …’ He turned to Summer. ‘I sincerely hope that the scarf doesn’t belong to you or your sister?’
‘It doesn’t,’ Summer responded cheerfully.
Nate exhaled with relief. Hope didn’t want to amend Summer’s answer, but she knew that she had to.
‘The scarf doesn’t belong to us now,’ Hope clarified, ‘because we sold it two days ago at the boutique.’
The exhalation of relief was replaced by one of frustration. There was some indistinct muttering from Dylan.
‘To make it completely clear and leave no room for misinterpretation, you’re telling me that this scarf’ – Nate pointed at the chevron-patterned cloth wrapped around Davis’s throat – ‘was previously in your possession and under your control?’
Hope winced. When he put it that way, it really didn’t sound good. For all intents and purposes, the scarf was the murder weapon. Admitting to having been the owner of the murder weapon could not possibly be considered advantageous.
The same thought must have occurred to Summer, because she replied with deliberate vagueness, ‘Maybe. Or maybe not. It’s impossible to say for certain. Although at first glance the scarf on the carousel appears to be substantially similar to the one that Hope and I previously had contact with at the boutique, upon closer examination there could be subtle but significant variations between the two. They may, in fact, be entirely different scarves. It might be a case of mere happenstance.’
Nate folded his arms across his chest. ‘Less than a minute ago, you made the exact opposite statement. You said that it couldn’t be a different scarf, that it couldn’t be a coincidence.’
Summer folded her arms back at him. ‘I was confused. I may still be confused. It’s been a long, hot, stressful day – and evening. Poor Megan can scarcely draw a breath in that hideously sequined dress. We’re all hungry and thirsty and thoroughly worn out. We can’t give you an absolute assurance or guarantee regarding a scarf that Hope had hardly even finished unpacking from the shipping box before it was scooped up by an eager customer and purchased. These are extremely trying circumstances, and we’re attempting to be as helpful and cooperative as we can.’
Megan struggled to suppress a laugh. Hope likewise restrained a smile. All the time and money that Summer had been forced to expend on a divorce attorney was evidently paying off – if not in terms of actually facilitating her parting from Gary, then at least in regard to learning nebulous legal speak to use when dealing with difficult questions from the police.
Nate sucked on his teeth. He was patently displeased. ‘Can you manage to give me a remotely straight answer as to who you sold the scarf to? Or is the customer’s name also subject to your alleged confusion and dehydration?’
‘Of course I can give you an answer.’ Summer offered a winsome, conciliatory smile. ‘Rosemarie Potter.’
There was a pause. Nate turned and made some comment to Dylan. It was too quiet for Hope to hear. Summer, however, caught a portion of it, and her smile faded.
‘Did I hear you right?’ she said to Nate. ‘You can’t seriously think that Rosemarie might have been involved in Davis’s death.’
Now Megan did laugh, although it was limited by the bodice of her dress to a stifled chortle. ‘Rosemarie Potter a murderer? How absurd!’
‘Completely absurd,’ Summer agreed. ‘Rosemarie is as gentle as a lamb.’
That argument didn’t hold sway with Nate. ‘In my experience, given the right conditions, someone as gentle as a lamb can lose control just the same as someone as ill-tempered as a grizzly – with a similarly grievous outcome.’
‘Yes, certainly. There’s no doubt of your expertise.’ The winsome smile resurfaced. ‘But with regard to Rosemarie, it’s simply unimaginable. She’s as far from a cold-blooded killer as they come.’
‘No one claimed that she was a cold-blooded killer,’ Dylan responded.
Once more, the smile faded, and Summer’s brow furrowed. ‘But I heard Nate say to you—’
‘If you’re going to eavesdrop,’ Dylan cut her off sharply, ‘then you should at least make sure that you’ve overheard the conversation correctly before tossing around your own absurd accusations.’
Nate did not disagree.
Summer’s face flushed with anger – and embarrassment. ‘Don’t lecture me,’ she snapped at Dylan. ‘I’m trying to support and defend my friend Rosemarie. Go back to your own friend, Little Miss Larkin. Why are you here bothering us anyway? Shouldn’t you be having dinner or whatever with her?’
Dylan’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but Nate was the first to speak. While not bitter, his tone also couldn’t be considered convivial.
‘I asked Dylan a minute ago, and now I’ll ask the three of you: what connection was there between Davis Scott and Rosemarie Potter?’
‘Rosemarie and Davis were dating.’ Hope made an effort to keep her own tone light. It was clear that everybody’s nerves were frayed, and she didn’t want to inflame the situation further. ‘That’s one of the reasons it seems so improbable to us that Rosemarie could have had any involvement in what happened to Davis. Although I didn’t discuss it with her, I had the impression that she liked him quite a bit.’
‘Do you want Nate and me to recite the statistics regarding the percentages of people who have ended up in the emergency room and the morgue because their domestic partners liked them quite a bit?’ Dylan rejoined.
This time, it was Hope’s eyes that narrowed. Although she knew what Dylan said was true, she didn’t appreciate his condescending tone. ‘Thank you for pointing that out to me,’ she replied dryly. ‘I’ll keep it in mind when deciding who not to date in the future.’
Dylan was sufficiently perceptive to catch her inference. His frosty gaze met hers.
Making her own attempt to ease the growing tension, Megan said with a touch of humor, ‘All else being equal, Rosemarie couldn’t possibly have harmed Davis, because she had Percy with her. She’d never take the risk that Percy would somehow be injured in the process. She loves that dog far too much.’
Unamused by the contribution, it was Nate’s turn for a dry reply. ‘If being a loving dog owner automatically disqualified a person from making stupid choices, then we’d have a hell of a lot less crime in this country.’
Megan’s gaze now also became frosty.
Summer’s expression wasn’t much warmer. She looked ready to provide her own biting remark, but suddenly she threw her head back and laughed instead. It was a shrill, almost frenzied laugh, sounding frighteningly like someone on the verge of a nervous collapse.
‘I’ve solved the case!’ she cried. ‘I know who the murderer is! Yes, Rosemarie bought the scarf from us at the boutique. But she didn’t keep it. She gave it away. Do you remember to whom?’
Hope blinked at her in speechless surprise.
‘That’s right!’ Summer laughed harder. ‘Forget the attic. And forget Rosemarie. They weren’t to blame for Davis’s death. It was Percy. The pug did it!’
NINE
If the pug had done it, he couldn’t be questioned on the matter that evening, because – his lack of conversational English aside – neither he nor Rosemarie appeared at the carousel, or, for that matter, anywhere else on the festival grounds. When Hope and Summer briefly returned to their booth to collect their belongings, they found no indication that anyone had been there in their absence. Where Rosemarie and Percy had disappeared to was a mystery, but Hope and Summer were prohibited from solving it. Before permitting them to leave the crime scene, Nate strictly forbade them from having any contact with Rosemarie until further notice. He was going to be the one to inform Rosemarie of Davis’s death, so that he could gauge her initial response. Under other circumstances, Hope and Summer might have been tempted to violate the injunction, but Nate didn’t mince words. He sternly informed them that any breach of his directive would be considered interference with a police investigation. Although Hope doubted that Nate would go so far as to arrest them on such a dubious charge, she also thought it best not to take the chance. Tensions were running too high for them to push their luck.
