CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Were they telling the truth this time?" I asked Tom as we walked down the hall. "Constance and Bill?

"We're getting closer to it."

I was fascinated. I'd helped Tom with investigations before, but I'd never had a chance to watch him question witnesses.

We had another hurried discussion with Jamie and Pete on the landing. They were there, waiting, when Tom and I came out of Lascelle's room.

"Anything?" Tom asked.

"We woke the kid out of a sound sleep. When we told him we were cops, he was terrified—and barely coherent after that. When we told him the man was murdered, I thought he was going to levitate off the bed. I hated to leave him, to tell the truth; he was so freaked out."

"One interesting thing," Pete added. "His mother was here tonight. Works for the caterer."

His mother. She had to be the woman Carol Trevett had said was named Mel. I squinted, trying to see if there was a resemblance. They were both tall, but he was lanky and loose-jointed, while she had been rigid, ramrod straight. Her hair was dark, almost black, and his was sandy. Maybe there was something around the eyes? The bigger question was, why hadn't Jordan mentioned this, or introduced his mother when they came off the boat or when I found him talking to the caterers in the kitchen? He was young and shy, and maybe he'd forgotten his manners.

"What about Lascelle?" Pete asked.

"It turns out he did know the victim from before," Tom told him. "And Clarkson owed Lascelle money. From a gallery show where allegedly all the pieces were sold, but Lascelle and his agent were never paid."

"His agent was Derek Quinn." I added.

"All these people are connected," Jamie said.

"Not unusual at a wedding," I responded. "These are Zoey's friends."

"Except the victim," Jamie reminded us. "She'd met him once, last Tuesday."

"What's next?" Pete asked.

"We're going to talk to Derek Quinn," Tom told them. "If Clarkson owed Lascelle money, he owed Quinn, too. Why don't you two go down and check on Sonny?"

Jamie gave a longing look at the closed door of my apartment at the other end of the hall. No light showed from under the door, but that didn't mean there wasn't one on in the separate bedroom. I hoped Zoey was asleep, even though that meant we'd undoubtedly have to wake her at some point.

Jamie turned back, and he and Pete clattered down the staircase.

* * *

"Would you invite Chris to our wedding?" Tom asked as we climbed the stairs to the third floor.

"Are we having a wedding?" I kept my tone light.

"This is a theoretical question."

"Then, no," I answered. "We didn't have time after we broke up to become real friends." I hesitated. "I think we were in a good place when he moved to Florida, but we haven't communicated since, so I wouldn't say we were friends." In a weird way, Chris and I had grown into adulthood together, and I would always love him, or at least the memory of him. But no.

"Glad to hear it," Tom said.

"You're not in a position to ask me that," I countered. "Given that your ex-fiancée is now married to your brother. She'll have to be at this theoretical wedding."

"Now you see why I avoid family gatherings."

"But you won't forever."

My family was a magnet for strays, people with no other family who joined the circle. Chris had been one, the captain another. So was Zoey, though now she was gaining a huge family through Jamie. But I didn't think of Tom as a stray, and I didn't want him to be. I knew he talked to his mom at least once a week. He wouldn't stay outside their circle much longer.

I didn't think anything of the "theoretical wedding" conversation. It was a game most couples who'd been together for a while played. Chris and I had played it, and we'd never had a wedding.

We were outside Derek and Amelia's door by this point. Amelia answered immediately when Tom knocked. "It's you," she said, stepping back, clearly not happy to see us. She was wearing the Snowden Family Clambake T-shirt, which fell to mid-thigh.

"Were you expecting someone else?" Tom asked.

"No. Just hoping." Amelia turned away and flounced toward the bed. Derek was the one in it this time, sheet pulled decorously to his waist. "Why are you here? It's almost midnight."

Tom stepped inside the room, and I followed, closing the door behind us. "We're back because we have news," he said. "The man who we presumed had an allergic attack earlier, we now have indications that he may have been murdered."

Tom stopped talking while Derek and Amelia made appropriately shocked noises. Derek's mouth hung open, and he breathed heavily, in and out. He looked like a landed fish. Amelia looked more puzzled than surprised, even as she was demanding to know what had happened and how we planned to protect them.

"That's why we're telling you this," Tom explained patiently. "So you're aware and can protect yourselves. Keep the door locked, and don't answer it unless it's me, Julia, Jamie, or Pete Howland on the other side. I told you before I was with the state police. To be more specific, I'm a detective with the Major Crimes Unit."

"You're a what?" Amelia blinked.

"A Maine State—"

"I heard," she interrupted. "I just couldn't believe it. You don't seem smart enough."

Tom ignored her. He'd heard worse insults, I was sure.

"How?" Derek asked. "How was he murdered?"

"We can't be sure of anything yet, without a postmortem," Tom turned to Derek. "Mr. Quinn," Tom began, all the informality of the previous conversation dropping away, "Bill Lascelle has told us you were his agent some time ago. And that you and he did business with Kendall Clarkson. Yet you denied it when I asked you if you knew him. You denied knowing that he owned a gallery."

Derek swung his legs out of the bed. Apparently, this wasn't a conversation he wanted to have lying down. I turned away as he shrugged into his shorts and caught a glimpse of Amelia's wide-eyed expression. She hadn't known about Derek's association with Clarkson either.

Derek came closer, and we all remained standing. "It was years ago. It had nothing to do with tonight. I thought it would just confuse things."

"We're not so easily confused." Tom didn't like Derek, I could tell, but he remained professional. If Tom had been rude to the guy, it would have been because he thought it would get him what he needed. "According to Bill Lascelle, Clarkson stiffed you both," Tom continued. "Maybe that gives you a motive?"

"Look, man," Derek said, "when you asked before, I didn't know it was murder. You didn't ask me if I had a motive to kill him. You asked who he was. I figured there were a lot of other people around here who could tell you."

"Like Bill Lascelle," I suggested.

"Like Zoey," Amelia countered. "Obviously, she must have invited him."

Tom cut in quickly. "Why don't you tell us what happened with Mr. Clarkson, Derek. We've already heard what Bill Lascelle has to say."

Derek did sit down, suddenly, on the bed, like his legs had gone to jelly. "I'm sure it will be the same story because it happened to both of us, although Bill blamed me. He was right. I saw this big opportunity for him—and for me—and I ignored the red flags."

"Which were?" Tom asked.

"The gallery was new. When I asked Clarkson about other artists who had shown there and what sales were like, he was vague, very, very vague. But he was smooth as glass. He seemed to know everyone. The opening night was amazing. I've never seen so many rich people in one place from that day to this. The arts press covered it. I thought we'd hit the big time.

"But Clarkson didn't pay us. I nagged him politely and then less politely. Bill was on my back every day. Clarkson stopped answering my calls. Then his number was no longer in service, and his emails bounced. I went to the gallery, but it was gone."

"Did you go to the police?" Tom asked.

"I did. They couldn't find Clarkson either, though apparently they knew who he was. He'd already been in jail a few times for similar stuff."

"And that's the last you saw of Mr. Clarkson until tonight?" Tom asked.

"Yes," Derek answered. "Five years after all that happened, an FBI agent came to see me. The feds had Clarkson by that point. He was in prison for something else. The charges they had Clarkson on, which I think were forgery, weren't going to keep him in prison long. They wanted more. The agent asked me the same questions I'd answered five years earlier. I never heard from him or anyone else again."

"Do you remember the agent's name or what field office he was out of?"

"No." Derek shrugged.

"Do you know if this FBI agent talked to Lascelle?" Tom asked.

"No idea."

"How much did Clarkson steal from you?" I had no idea how much it would be.

"Every piece in the room sold. Bill and I would have netted about a hundred thousand dollars."

A lot of money.

Tom squared his shoulders and stared down at Derek. "You can see why we need to know anything, anything at all, that you heard or observed at the party, on the boat, any time."

"Nothing." Amelia answered instead of Derek. "I never saw him before tonight. And I'm not sure I saw him even then. You were all crowded around him when he fell over, and then you hauled him off somewhere."

Derek, however, was quiet, staring down at his lap. "I didn't see the man or speak to him at the rehearsal dinner," he said slowly. "But I have seen him this week, since we got to Busman's Harbor."

I stared at him, startled by the admission.

"Tell us when and where," Tom said.

Derek nodded and sat up straighter. "We've been here for a week. We figured if we were going to come all the way east for the wedding, we'd make a vacation of it. The first day we were here, Tuesday, I went along to let Zoey know we were in town."

Amelia's sharp glance at her boyfriend told me she was hearing this for the first time. It had been a night of revelations for her.

"When I arrived at the shop, I went to the studio door, hoping to catch Zoey alone." This drew a venomous look from Amelia. "As I came around the corner, Zoey was letting Clarkson out." Derek stopped talking, but he wasn't done. I could feel the three of us holding our breath. "She hugged him good-bye. She was crying. I turned around and left. I didn't want to disturb her."

"You're sure it was Clarkson?" Tom kept his voice even.

Derek shrugged. "Yes. I almost had a heart attack when I recognized him."

Who else would it have been?Livvie had already told us the dead man was at Lupine Design on Tuesday. And Zoey crying when he left was a pretty clear indication it hadn't been a conversation about a business opportunity.

Tom shifted his weight forward, ready to turn around and depart. "Thanks. Don't forget about the door," he told them when we reached it. But Amelia had followed behind us and was already swinging the old oak door shut.

* * *

"He's a liar!"

Jamie didn't take the news well. Tom told him, in a calm, low voice, that Derek Quinn claimed to have seen Clarkson leaving Lupine Design—and Zoey in tears—on Tuesday in the late afternoon.

Pete and Sonny had been sound asleep in the satiny chairs in the billiards room, heads thrown back, mouths open and snoring, when Tom and I had entered. Jamie had been on his feet, pacing, fists clenched, ready to hit someone. And that was before we told him what Derek had said.

"Whut?" Sonny came to, blinking, awakened by Jamie's shout. Pete woke up, too.

Someone had fetched a sheet and draped it over the body. It was seemlier to have Mr. Clarkson covered, but I vowed to take the sheet to our firepit and burn it as soon as it was removed.

"It's obvious Quinn killed this guy." Jamie gestured toward the sheet. "Now he's trying to set Zoey up to take the blame."

The words, "But Derek loves Zoey!" almost burst out of me, but I restrained myself at the last moment.

"Let's take a breath, sit down, and figure out what we know and what to do next." Tom, leading by example, sat, and I did, too. Jamie looked around, made a gesture of submission, and fetched another chair from the main salon.

"We'll start at the beginning," Tom said. "A man is dead, quite possibly—no, probably—he was murdered. He has an injection mark behind his left ear."

Everyone nodded their agreement.

"His name, at least currently, is Kendall Clarkson. He may earlier have called himself Kenneth Clark, according to Constance Marshall. She had a relationship with the dead man forty years ago."

"Is that a motive?" Sonny asked.

"It happened decades ago," I answered. "She doesn't seem to have had a terrible life or anything. Just the opposite, according to Zoey. Why would she hold on to a resentment that long?" I paused, thinking. "She was angry because he didn't recognize her at the cocktail party."

"This murder was the opposite of spontaneous," Tom reminded us. "Whoever did it had to bring the poison and syringe. Ms. Marshall claims she didn't know the victim would be here. She didn't know he had any connection to Zoey."

"He didn't have any connection to Zoey," Jamie objected.

The rest of us ignored him, and the conversation moved forward.

"Which brings us to Quinn himself." I sensed Tom had led the discussion to Derek Quinn next to keep Jamie from imploding. "He had an old association with the dead man, which he concealed. And the dead man owed him money."

"Not that much money," I pointed out. "What would the agent's share of a hundred thousand dollars be? And it was over ten years ago. Would you murder someone for a negligible debt, one you'd more than recovered from, that far in the past? Bill Lascelle lost a lot more."

"We'll get to him," Tom said. "Also, Quinn knew Clarkson was in town." He held a hand up in Jamie's direction to stop the expected protestation. "Quinn says he saw him at Zoey's studio on Tuesday. He could have reasonably concluded Clarkson would be here tonight, or at least hoped he would."

"I don't see it," Pete said. "It's a stretch. If Zoey was crying when Clarkson left, why would Quinn assume he was invited to the wedding?"

"Unless we don't know the whole story." Jamie was practically horizontal in his chair, arms folded across his chest.

"Mr. Lascelle," Tom continued, "he also initially concealed his association with Clarkson. He also lost money. More money than Quinn, as Julia says."

"Same issues," I said. "It was a long time ago. Bill's a successful businessman. It may have been a material amount of money at the time, but is it now? Besides, we have no indication he knew Clarkson would be here."

"Could Lascelle and Quinn have done it together?" Sonny had been listening right along but hadn't spoken. He hadn't done any of the interviews and didn't really know the players.

"Those guys can't stand each other," Tom said. "Makes it hard to believe."

"Could that be an act?" Pete asked.

"I don't think so," I answered. "I think they really hate each other."

"Something more than a business deal gone bad," Sonny suggested.

"Maybe." Tom said the word slowly, considering.

"Where does that leave us?" Pete asked.

Head down, Tom looked at Jamie from under his eyebrows. "We need to get Zoey to tell us what's really going on."

That brought Jamie to his feet. "No way!"

"Jamie—" I started.

"She's exhausted. Her wedding is ruined. She's been planning it for so long. She's worn out and disappointed."

And pregnant.I didn't say it.

"Think about it," Jamie continued. "Would she destroy her own wedding by killing this guy, whoever he is to her?"

And your wedding, too.As hard as he was working to protect Zoey, Jamie had to be feeling all those emotions as well. He'd dreamed of marriage and a family for years.

"We could all give up and go to bed," Sonny suggested. "Things might look different in the morning."

"That's just it," Tom said. "Things will be different in the morning. The storm will be over, and at some point, the phones and internet will return. Or one of us will go to town to call my office. Professionals will be arriving, lots of them. If Zoey keeps lying, it will be bad for her." He stared directly at Jamie. "We should try, one more time, to persuade her to tell the truth. For her own sake."

The room was silent as we digested this.

"I'm coming with you," Jamie said.

It didn't seem like a good idea, but Tom didn't argue. The three of us stood and moved toward the door.