Murder On the Rocks (27 page)

I stared at the tan plastic box with mounting frustration. I was stuck in a cave with no easy exit, the police were after me, and it looked like the evidence I needed to clear myself might be locked in a box, two feet in front of me. I reached out and gave the lid a tug, just to be sure. It didn’t budge. Now what?

I slumped against the wall of the cave and forced myself to think. It wasn’t an expensive safe; if I knew anything about picking locks, I probably could have had it open in a few minutes. Unfortunately, however, burglary-the breaking part, anyway-wasn’t among the skills listed on my resume. How could I open it without the key?

I examined the safe again. It was a garden-variety safe; sturdy, but not bulletproof. I could try bashing it against the rock walls, but it looked as if it had been made to withstand that kind of abuse. I swept the beam of the flashlight around the cave, hoping to find something that would help me out of my predicament. The beam was swinging around a second time when my eye fell upon the shovels next to the entrance, and an idea flashed into my mind.

I pulled the box out toward the middle of the floor and laid it on its side, with the latch face-up. Then I walked over and picked up the newer of the two shovels. I slid the narrow blade into the space between the box and the lid, right under the keyhole, then gripped the spade with both hands and bore down with all of my weight.

Nothing happened.

I drove the shovel down again and again, frustration fueling my attack, until the arch of my foot throbbed from the impact and the palm of my hand began to blister. I was about to give up when the lid flopped open with a bang and a stack of files slid out onto the granite floor.

I tossed the shovel behind me and fell to my knees, grabbing the top file. I paused at the sound of an engine in the distancehad John discovered me?-but it didn’t seem to be getting any closer, so I turned my attention back to the green folder lying open in my hands. It was filled with invoices. I flipped through the pages; every bill was labeled For Construction Services. The amounts due were huge: a hundred thousand, three hundred thousand, even one for five hundred and fifty thousand-and the invoices had been issued on a regular basis over the past eighteen months. The billing company was Holding Construction Company, and Premier Resorts International was listed as the recipient on every single invoice.

I opened the next folder and found a stack of bank statements, neatly filed by date. The bank’s address was in the Bahamas, and the holder of the $4.2 million account was, once again, Holding Construction Company. As I grabbed the next file, two passports slid out. The sound of the boat bumping against the rocky shelf echoed in the cave as I opened the first little blue booklet. The name was unfamiliar-Dennis Wiley-but the face was well known to me. I opened the second one, and once again, though the name was wrong, the face was instantly identifiable. I slid the passports back into their folder and was about to examine the next folder when the familiar scent of a man’s cologne wafted into the small rocky chamber.

I whirled around. There, next to the opening to the cave, stood Ogden Wilson, the light gleaming off the thick lenses of his glasses. My eyes leapt to his hands, and the file folder slipped from my grasp. His pale fingers were wrapped tight around the handle of the rusty shovel.

I SCUTTLED TOWARD THE back of the cave like a crab, keeping the flashlight trained on Ogden’s pale, waxy face. He looked more than ever like some kind of cave-dwelling amphibian as he advanced a few steps toward me. My eyes shot toward the shovel I had cast behind me earlier.

“I might have known I’d find you here,” he said. He raised one hand to shield his eyes from the light, but kept a firm grip on the rusty shovel with the other. “You’ve been nosing into things that don’t concern you from the very beginning.”

“Nosing into things that don’t concern me?” Despite the fear coursing through my veins like liquid ice, I snorted. “That’s rich. First, your boss plans to build this huge eyesore right next door to my inn, and before long I find out he’s planning to bulldoze the inn entirely. Then he gets himself killed, and the police start asking me all kinds of questions, as if I’m the one who did him in. And you think that doesn’t concern me?”

“You should have just kept out of things,” Ogden said in a low voice, and took another step toward me. My eyes skittered around the room, coming to rest on the shovel I had discarded earlier. It was about five feet behind me. I had begun edging toward it when Ogden’s voice cut through the cave’s damp air like a knife.

“Don’t move” I froze; there was a tinge of iron in his voice I had never heard before. If I didn’t come up with a strategy fast, it looked as if I would be joining Bernard and Estelle.

“When did you come up with the idea of making up a fake construction company?” I blurted, hoping to buy myself a few precious minutes.

Ogden relaxed his grip on the shovel. “Holding Construction? I’d been toying with the idea for a long time,” he said.

“You’ve been pulling it off for a year and a half. When did Stanley get involved?”

“Stanley?” Ogden smiled. “Stanley was involved from the start. Once Estelle got her claws into Bernard, Stanley started to get nervous about the will. So we figured out a way to get around it.”

“How did you manage to get those huge invoices past him for all those months?”

“Easy,” he said. “Bernard is … pardon me, was … a schmoozer, a delegator.” Ogden sneered. “He didn’t want to handle piddling little things like paying bills, or auditing accounts. He just relied on good old Ogden to do his bidding, and look out for his interests, like a faithful servant.” His teeth gleamed as he smiled. “So I just started issuing and paying the invoices, and I made up some fake balance sheets for him to look at from time to time, to give him a false sense of security-that’s all he needed.”

“Where did the will come into things?” I asked, trying to keep the flashlight beam immobile as I edged toward the glint of the shovel behind me.

Ogden sighed. His eyes were black coals against the stark white of his face, and I had to force myself to breathe. “Stanley was worried his father wanted to-shall we say formalize his relationship with Estelle. The choice was to kill Bernard before things progressed any farther with Estelle, or find a creative way to move the money. Stanley chose deception. I was more than happy to help.”

I was confused. “If you had already moved the money, though, why kill Bernard? And why keep hanging around?” I glanced at files spilling out of the upended safe. “All you had to do was head to Rio.”

Ogden grimaced in the glare of the flashlight. “Bernard found out that Stanley and I were together. He tailed us one night-the night of the storm-and stood outside while we met.”

“At the cabin?” I asked.

His pale face registered surprise. “You know about the cabin?” I nodded. “Stanley found it a long time ago,” he said, “when he was a kid. Anyway, I don’t know how Bernard found out about it, but he was there.”

“He had one of your notes in his room,” I said. “It took me a while to figure out who Ess and Oh were, but Bernard Katz must have caught on quicker than I did.”

“Ah, yes, Ess for Stanley and Oh for Ogden. Stanley’s little pet names.

“I found it the night you hit me over the head.”

Ogden’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Hit you over the head?”

“In Bernard Katz’s room. The night after he died.”

“No,” Ogden said, looking puzzled, “that wasn’t me. Someone else must not like you much either.”

I scooted a few more inches toward the shovel and shifted back to the subject of Bernard Katz. “What did Katz do when you left the cabin?”

“When we came out, Bernard was standing outside the door.” Ogden’s face twisted with anger. “He called us perverts, called his own son a fag. He said he would disown him.” Ogden’s smooth voice was suddenly ragged with rage. “Then he told us he’d found out about Holding Construction, and that he was reporting it to the police the next day. Everything we’d worked for, planned for … it was all going to go up in smoke”

“Did Stanley kill him, or did you?”

It was Ogden’s turn to snort. “Stanley? Stanley’s not good with confrontations. He just ran into the woods, sobbing. It took hours to console him, afterwards.” I wondered if Stanley’s flashlight had been the one Claudette had seen, retreating toward Cliffside.

“No,” Ogden said, “it was just me and Bernard.” His eyes darkened, and he looked as if he were reliving the scene a second time. I took the opportunity to inch a little closer to the shovel. “I couldn’t stand to see everything we had worked for destroyed,” he said. “So I grabbed the shovel . . ” His eyes strayed down to the shovel in his hand. “It was lying next to the door-had been there for years, I guess-and I whacked him over the head with it. After all that bluster, he just crumpled up there on the ground” Ogden was quiet for a moment before he continued. “Afterwards, I dragged him up the path to the cliff, and tipped him over the edge. I figured it would look like an accident that way … as if he slipped and fell.”

“Why didn’t you leave immediately?” I asked. “You had the money, so why not skip town?”

“If we did that, the police would be suspicious,” he said. “Rio’s nice, but I’d prefer to be able to come and go as I please. I was hoping the death would be ruled an accident.”

“Did Stanley know you’d killed his father?”

“Not until you told him, that day when you were out at Cliffside. He suspected, but he didn’t know.” Ogden shook his head. “Bit of a nasty shock for him, I’m afraid. But he came around when I explained how it was.” I remembered how shaken Stanley had looked; now I understood. Ogden continued. “And when the police figured out Katz was murdered, I was guessing that you would be the one to take the fall for it-after all, Grimes was hot on your tracks. I helped that along with a little leak to the local paper about PRI’s plans for your inn. A little something to help establish your motive.” His thin lips jerked into a smile. “Stanley didn’t want to leave, either-he thought there was still a chance he might inherit something. He’s hungry for money. I’ve kept him on a pretty tight leash, just to make sure his resolve doesn’t waver.” He grimaced. “If we’d played our cards right, we could have settled down and not had to leave the country-we might even have been able to stay at Cliffside, after we sent that tramp Estelle packing. Even if PRI went under, we’d still have a hefty cushion to fall back on.”

“So what happened with Estelle?”

“Stanley was careless. He left some papers where he shouldn’t have, and didn’t notice when Estelle followed him out to the cabin. She confronted us, just like Bernard had” Ogden shrugged. “I really had no choice”

“Same shovel?”

“No, not this time,” he said. “I walked her out to the cliff and bashed her head with a rock. Then I tossed her over. I was just coming down here to clean up. I’m afraid we’re headed out to Rio, after all.”

“She’s still alive, you know.”

Ogden’s eyebrows rose. “Not conscious, I hope. She certainly wasn’t when I left her.”

“I don’t think so; she may be in a coma.”

He looked relieved. “Well, then, that’s nothing a little visit to her hospital room won’t fix.” He advanced toward me, raising the shovel as he came.

“How long have you and Stanley been together?” I asked, desperate to buy more time. I inched a little farther toward the shovel, which was still just out of reach.

“Since just after we met, about two years ago.” He smiled dreamily. “It was kismet, I guess you’d call it.” He took another step forward.

“Were you the one who cleared out the cabin?” I tossed out as my arm stretched out behind me, trying to close the gap between my hand and the shovel on the ground before Ogden attacked.

“If Estelle could figure out where it was, anybody could. There wasn’t much to incriminate us in there, but I figured better safe than sorry.”

“How did you find out about Smuggler’s Cove?”

“Once again, another find from Stanley’s youthful summers. I explored it after taking care of the terns’ nests for Bernard.”

“So you destroyed the nests?”

“Boss’s orders. Anyway, once Bernard found the cabin, I decided this would be a much safer place for sensitive documents.”

“But it’s hard enough getting here in calm weather … how did you do it during the storm?”

He laughed. “Fortunately, I know my way around a boat.” He glanced back toward the cove where what was left of the Little Marian was moored. “Better than you do, evidently. And now,” he said, “enough chatter. I’ve got a timetable to meet”

I glanced back wildly. Another foot to go. “How does Stanley feel about the fact that you murdered his father?” I scooted backward as I spoke.

“Stanley?” He shrugged. “Oh, he’s still a bit shaken up, but it’s nothing that a few months sunning ourselves on a beach won’t fix. In fact-” he glanced at his watch, “as soon as I’m done dealing with you, we’ll be headed to the airport. We were originally going to wait until the will was probated, but now. . “He moved closer.

I glanced back at the shovel; I was still six inches shy of where I needed to be. “Did you throw the rock through the window?” I blurted in desperation. “And cut my brake lines?”

Ogden’s eyebrows rose higher on his pasty forehead, and he paused. “My, you really are unpopular, aren’t you?” he said. “No, I must say, I was unaware of any of that.” He stepped forward again; he was only a few feet away from me now. “At least I’ll have the pleasure of knowing you won’t be much missed.”

In a flash, he raised the shovel over his head and brought it down toward me. I dropped the flashlight and rolled backward toward the shovel on the ground, and as my hand closed on the handle a searing pain exploded in my left thigh. I grabbed the shovel and held it in front of me like a shield. The beam of the flashlight illuminated Ogden, standing over me like a demon from hell, pale face twisted into a horrific mask, shovel upraised.

“Let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be, Natalie,” he said. Then he brought the shovel thundering down at me again. I gripped the handle of my shovel as hard as I could, but it still threatened to leap out of my hands as I deflected the blow. As he raised the shovel again, I tightened my grip and lurched forward with all of my strength, slamming the blade of my shovel into his stomach. His bulging eyes widened in surprise, and he stumbled backward toward the mouth of the cave before raising the rusted shovel a third time. I could feel blood pouring down my leg as I staggered to my feet and lifted my own shovel. Before he had a chance to strike another blow, I squeezed my eyes shut and brought it down on his head.