Sweet Revenge (14 page)

Mrs. Tagley was sitting as if paralyzed, her face so pale that Nancy was afraid she was going to faint. And Jake was biting his lip as if he, too, feared that he might cry.

There were tears in Bess's eyes as well. “I—I
can't believe it,” she said in a trembling voice. “I thought he was doing so much better!”

Great acting, Bess! Nancy cheered silently. In a sober voice she said aloud, “He was. But the doctor says his system was so weak that when he ran a fever, his body couldn't hold out against it.”

“Then that makes it murder we're dealing with, doesn't it?” asked George, her brown eyes wide as she looked around the room. “Now that Brock is dead, one of these people is a murderer,” she said in a hushed tone.

“That's right,” said Nancy. She, too, eyed the roomful of people. “One of you is Brock's killer.”

Mrs. Tagley shook her head in disgust. “This is all a little melodramatic, isn't it?” she asked harshly. “Do you suspect one of us in particular, or did you just bring us together for the fun of it?”

“You're all suspects,” Nancy replied. “And since you started this conversation, Mrs. Tagley, I'll start with you.”

Taking a few steps toward Samantha's mother, Nancy said, “From the very beginning there seemed to be two different ways to read this case. It was possible that someone was out to sabotage the Chocolate Festival. It was also possible that someone was out to get Brock. In your case, Mrs. Tagley, sabotage was unlikely. But there was a good reason you might be out to get Brock.”

Nancy met the older woman's glare steadily. “In fact, you probably had the strongest motive of anyone in this room,” she said. “Brock's father
ruined your first husband's life. You could even say he killed him.”

Samantha turned to stare at her mother. “You never told me that!” she breathed.

“It wasn't worth telling,” Mrs. Tagley answered in a strained voice. “It was all in the past.”

“But was it?” Nancy continued. “Your life was very difficult for a long time after Mr. Patton's death. Any sane person would feel a grudge toward the son of someone who'd inflicted such a terrible wound.”

“But he and I talked that whole mess over,” Mrs. Tagley burst out, her face red. “Brock wasn't my favorite person, but I would never have poisoned him!”

“That's what you say now,” said Nancy. “But I'm not sure I believe you.

“You had a strong motive, too, Tim,” she went on, turning to face him. “Jealousy
is
one of the most common motives for murder. You could see that Brock's feelings for Samantha hadn't disappeared—and that her feelings for
him
might be stronger than she thought.”

Tim just stared sullenly at the floor, but Samantha cried, “No! I was just being polite!”

Nancy paid no attention. “You also had reasons for wanting to sabotage the Chocolate Festival,” she told Tim. “It was eating up a huge amount of Samantha's time. Maybe you were jealous of the festival instead of being jealous of Brock. Maybe you poisoned Brock without actually wanting him to die.”

Tim raised his head to glare at her. “You're being ridiculous,” he growled. “I thought you were a lot smarter than this, Nancy. Anyone who would come up with such a stupid solution has to be pretty dumb.”

“I didn't say it was
the
solution,” Nancy reminded him. “I just said it
might
be.”

Now Nancy turned to Jake. “Jealousy might be your motive, too. I couldn't help noticing that even though you've been very helpful all week, it's Samantha who gets most of the attention in your family.”

Samantha and her mother flinched guiltily at that, Nancy noticed.

“You've had some good ideas over the past few days—ideas everyone has ignored,” Nancy continued. “Has it been too hard for you being around a stepsister whose rank at the inn is so much higher than yours? Did you feel left out in the cold?”

Jake was stunned. “I didn't
think
I did,” he said at last. “I mean, sure Samantha's done a lot better than I have—but she's already graduated from hotel school. When it's my turn, I'm sure I'll do just as well. And as for Sam getting more of the attention”—he smiled crookedly—“well, that's just the way families are. Dad gets less attention than my stepmother. He and I are just background people, I guess.”

Glancing toward the love seat, Nancy thought she saw Mrs. Tagley's stern veneer crack once more. “You're not background people to me,” Mrs. Tagley said, dabbing at her eyes.

“And, Samantha—” Nancy wanted to be professional, but she couldn't help speaking more gently to Samantha than she had to the other suspects. “It's hard to believe that you would try to hurt Brock
or
sabotage your own festival. But I've been wondering whether you might have cracked under all the pressure. Was it too much for you? Did you decide you had to put a stop to the whole thing—without losing face?”

Samantha's expression was more hurt than angry. “I—I can see why you'd think that, Nancy,” she faltered, staring down at her clasped hands. “What you say—what everyone has been saying—is true. Running the festival
has
been too much for me.”

Then, as if she remembered the reason they had all been brought to the library, she stared defiantly up at Nancy. “Still, I'm not guilty of those dumb, vicious pranks, and—and I'm especially not guilty of killing Brock. You'll just have to believe me.”

“I wish I
could
believe all of you,” Nancy said quietly. “Unfortunately, I can't. One of you is lying.

“Luckily someone has offered to help the liar come forward with the truth,” Nancy continued. She turned to the living room doors. “Here he is now.”

The handle turned, and the doors pushed slowly open. Brock Sawyer stepped into the room.

“I've come to see justice done,” he announced in a solemn voice.

Never in her life had Nancy heard a sound like the eerie, shrieking wail that rose from Jake Tagley's lips at that moment.

Jake jumped to his feet, staring wild-eyed at Brock. His cheek was twitching uncontrollably, and sweat was pouring down his face.

“No! No!” he screamed. “Don't come near me! Or I-I'll kill you again!”

Still making that unearthly noise, he stumbled across the library and out the door.

“Well,” Brock said. “That has to be the best acting I've ever done.”

“You're—you're not dead!” Samantha rushed over to hug Brock, laughing and crying at the same time.

Mrs. Tagley rose shakily to her feet. “Then it was Jake who—who—”

“I'm afraid so,” said Nancy urgently. “And now we have to find him because I think he may be dangerous.”

Bess, George, and Tim were already on their feet racing out the door.

“There he is!” Bess cried, pointing down the hall. Jake was just disappearing down the stairs to the basement.

Nancy and Tim thundered down the hall after him, shooting past the dining room. The ballroom music that floated out into the hallway sounded horribly out of place.

When they reached the stairs, Nancy took them two at a time.

“He went that way!” Tim shouted, pointing right. “Toward his father's workroom!”

That's strange, Nancy thought. Why run to a place where we can corner him?

But there was no time to think about that. In a flash they had reached the doorway to the storeroom.

“Don't come any closer!” Jake screamed.

His four pursuers froze just inside the room.

Jake was just yanking his father's circular saw off its stand, the long electric cord still plugged into the wall outlet. He pressed the On switch and held the saw, whirring ominously, up in the air.

Then—with a taunting smile on his face—he moved it up to a pipe on the wall.

“That looks like a gas pipe!” Tim shouted hoarsely.

“Right you are.” Jake gave a mirthless laugh and inched the saw closer to the pipe. “It's the main gas line, and I'm going to saw through it now,” he growled.

“But you can't!” George cried. “The sparks will ignite the gas!”

“Right again. The sparks will ignite the gas.” The whirring blade was only a fraction of an inch from the pipe now.

“And then,” Jake went on, “this whole building will go up in a fireball.”

I
'
VE GOT TO
stall him! Nancy thought desperately. It's our only hope!

Forcing a light tone into her voice, she said, “I hope you're not planning to kill us before you explain how you pulled this off.” She had to talk loudly to be heard over the whirring of the saw. “That would be a little unfair, don't you think?”

Jake gave her an icy stare. “The old stall-the-bad-guy ploy, huh?” he said, to Nancy's dismay. “Well, it won't work. I've seen too many detective movies. Besides,” he added bitterly, “I
didn't
pull it off. You tricked me into confessing. Old Jake messed up yet again.”

“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Bess said behind Nancy. “You did a fantastic job. Anyone would have freaked out when Brock walked in like that. I practically had a heart attack myself.”

Good, Bess! Nancy thought. Keep it up!

But Jake wasn't going to fall for that trick either.

Scowling, he said, “You're the last person I'd listen to, you traitor. I thought you liked me, not Brock! I should have known I was only your second choice— Well, I'm used to second place now. After all, I'm always second to Samantha.”

“I'm surprised to hear you say that,” George spoke up. “It seemed to me you were doing as much to keep the inn going as she was. I mean, look at the way you met us at the door when we first got here.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Nancy could see Tim edging slowly toward the door.

“Yeah, but did I get any credit for meeting you?” Jake spat out. “No! Samantha acts like she doesn't even want me around!” Nancy could see Jake had gotten even more worked up. “Boy, when I think of the times she's insulted me—and I've just smiled and pretended not to care—Well, I'll pay her back now.”

“You certainly will,” said Nancy—and she meant it. “I've got to congratulate you, Jake. I thought you
really
didn't care. You always seemed to be so reasonable about everything. You were always calm when everyone else was going crazy.”

Tim was standing in the doorway now, poised to slip out into the hall.

“It's not hard to stay calm when you know you're about to get even in a big way,” said Jake. “I've been planning this a long time. It doesn't
even matter that you caught me, Nancy. I'll die in this fire, but so will everybody else. I think that's a pretty fair trade-off.” He lifted the saw toward the pipe again.

“Oh, come on,” Bess coaxed. “You've got to tell us how you did all this. I already knew you were smart, but don't you want everyone else to know?”

To Nancy's astonishment, that seemed to do the trick. Jake kept one hand poised on the handle of the saw—but he let go of the On button and lowered the saw to its stand. He didn't seem to notice that Tim was gone.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “What do you want to hear before I torch you?”

“Everything,” said Nancy promptly. “Start at the beginning. You rigged the scale, didn't you?”

Jake chuckled. “Of course I did. That was hilarious. Seeing Mr. Beautiful chocolate-coated really made my day. Plus I knew my stepmother would give Samantha a lot of grief for it—which is mainly what I wanted. Messing up Brock was secondary to wrecking the festival.”

“Well, that was a good start,” George said approvingly. “You grossed out a lot of people.”

“Yeah, but the ants were even better, don't you think?” said Jake.

Nancy shuddered. “They really were. Where did you ever find so many?”

“I just bought a few ant farms,” said Jake offhandedly. “I poured all the ants into a jar—they
came in these little packets—and hid them in the back of the refrigerator. You know that old joke about how no one ever knows what's back there? Well, that's even more true in a big restaurant refrigerator.

“I went out to the kitchen to help bring in some dishes,” Jake went on. “When no one was looking, I opened the jar and dumped the ants all over the cake. That wasn't too hard. The cake was already set up on that rolling table, with the cloth over it. So I knew my surprise wouldn't be ruined. Pretty slick, huh?”

Nancy nodded. “Very. But the sweetener was your biggest project of all, of course. You must have found the calomel when you were working in the east wing—is that right?”

“Right,” Jake said proudly. “It was in an old medicine cabinet. I read the label and thought, What a weird thing—medicine that's
supposed
to make you sick to your stomach! Then I realized it might be kind of funny to make Brock sick. Especially when he kept blabbing on about that stupid nutritionist with her stupid sweetener. I thought it would really serve him right when his sweetener made him sick!”