High Heels and Homicide mkm-4 Read online

  «I'm thinking, I'm thinking. I want to get this right. I wish I could write it all out on file cards, then shuffle everything until I get it all in order.»

  «Let me help you there,» Saint Just offered. «We begin very early yesterday morning, with Mr. Undercuffler dining with a few members of our party.»

  «Right,» Troy said, as he had been a part of that small party. «That's when Sam told us about Maggie here, how she was being such a bitch about his screenplay.»

  «Gee, thanks for remembering that,» Maggie said with a near-sneer. «I saw Sam after you all ate breakfast, when he showed up in my room, and we came downstairs together, but I didn't see him after that—until I saw him hanging outside my window at—when was that, Alex?»

  «Much later,» was all Saint Just said, as he was concentrating on something else entirely. «The electricity became disabled sometime during the night, correct?»

  «Yes, but the generators kicked right in like clockwork,» Sir Rudy pointed out. «Until they got flooded. I sure want to know what idiot left those doors unlatched.»

  «Our killer, I would say,» Saint Just said, knowing he now had everyone's attention once again. «Tabby? I promise to forget everything you say once you answer my questions, and please forgive me, but where were you and Mr. Lloyd, from the time you left the main saloon until you were asked to join everyone there once more?»

  «Alex,» Tabby pleaded through clenched teeth. «Do we have to?»

  «Ah, Tabby, honey, I think we do,» Maggie said, stepping in front of Saint Just. «Because I think I can see where Alex is going with this. I… well, I went to your room around noon and you weren't there, but it looked like maybe you had been there?»

  «I'll pay you back for this some day,» Tabby said, stepping close to Maggie. «Yes, we were in my room all night. But then we went to Dennis's room around eleven or so in the morning because we'd run out of—well, just you never mind. He had some granola bars, too, because we were hungry. And we stayed there until someone told us to come downstairs, that the generators were out. There. Satisfied?»

  «I don't know, I usually do all of this on paper before I write.» Maggie looked at Saint Just. «Are we satisfied?»

  «Yes, I think we are.»

  «Well, good for you,» Byrd Stockwell said. «Now tell us.»

  Saint Just obliged. «Happily. I can verify that Sam Undercuffler was alive at nine o'clock yesterday morning. I understand that Miss Pertuccelli had requested that he investigate the premises, looking for possible locations to film outdoor scenes that, because of the flooding, would most probably be relocated inside the building.»

  «You only use dialogue in movies, not all my scene setting,» Maggie offered. «Although there'd be some reworking needed to change the rooftop duel to one on the stairs. Then again, this was supposed to be made-for-TV, so you guys will probably just fake it all. Not that Sam and Joanne probably weren't faking it, giving Sam a reason to disappear for a while.»

  «You know, Hollywood does make some quality films, Maggie,» Arnaud said, obviously smarting. «Although I will agree that sometimes we cut a few corners. I know you writers think you are more important, but, as Lloyd Kaufman said so well, 'It's up to us to produce better-quality movies.' «

  Maggie shook her head. «Kaufman? I don't know who that is.»

  And yet again, Evan came to the rescue. «Lloyd Kaufman produced that classic American movie Stuff Stephanie in the Incinerator . No lie.»

  Everyone laughed, and for a moment, the tension eased.

  «Where was I?» Maggie asked. «Oh, sorry, Alex. I was jumping ahead, wasn't I? Go on. I see where you're going. Bless you, Bernie.»

  «Thanks,» Bernie said after her loud sneeze, then blew her nose. «This had better be worth pneumonia, Alex. Come on, show us the secret passage.»

  «First things first,» Saint Just told her. «You will all please remember that what I'm about to say is conjecture only and I've no real proof. However, I believe that Mr. Undercuffler, a known criminal—»

  «Whoa! Back up, Sherlock,» Maggie said. «A known criminal? I thought we were just guessing that he was part of it. Is that what Steve told you? Sam was an actual criminal?»

  «Yes, indeed, although possibly reformed. But, following your example, I am getting ahead of myself, aren't I? We'll step back in time a moment and consider Miss Pertuccelli, shall we?»

  «Why?» Nikki asked, blowing on another recently filed nail. «She's dead. They're both dead. Can we go downstairs now? What do we care about secret passages?»

  «I want to see the secret passage first,» Sir Rudy protested. «I paid for it.»

  Saint Just, always accommodating, proceeded to drop to one knee and run his hand down the side of the mantelpiece until he felt the slight indentation, then pushed.

  As before, the opening appeared, this time to oooh's and aaah's and one heartfelt «And it's all mine!»

  «I think it best that we don't further disturb anything inside the passageway until the constable has been,» Saint Just told them, shutting the panel once more. «Fingerprints, that sort of thing. But I will tell you all my theory.»

  «Our theory,» Maggie added. «I give you credit.»

  «Our theory,» Saint Just concurred. «It is our theory that Miss Pertuccelli was aware of Mr. Undercuffler's dubious background and, either by plan or happenstance, enlisted him in her hunt for the missing jewels, the jewels allegedly hidden somewhere in Medwine Manor by the late and reportedly lingering Uncle Willis.»

  Maggie shrugged. «Okay, so I didn't know about his record until now, but I was right about her hiring Sam as a partner in crime.»

  «Possibly. Probably.»

  Sir Rudy clapped his hands. «The stolen jewelry, of course! That's where Uncle Willis hid it all. They found it? I'd always hoped, but they really found it? A fortune in jewels?» He dropped his hands to his sides. «Oh. That's not good. Because they're gone again, aren't they?»

  Maggie nodded her agreement. «Right. But let's get back to Sam because he's our first victim and the murders are more important than the jewelry.»

  «Says you, missy,» Sir Rudy grumbled, looking crestfallen.

  Maggie pushed on. «Instead of sending Sam looking around for places to shoot the movie, Joanne was really sending Sam off to look for the jewels. Except she already had a pretty good idea where they were, and I don't think we understand that part yet. Do we, Alex?»

  «A detail that will fall into place in time,» Saint Just told her. «For the nonce, we'll concentrate on Sam, as you call him, and Joanne. Joanne sent Sam off, the hiding place for the jewels was discovered, and the jewels recovered, all via this room and the secret passage. At which point there may have been a general falling-out or a planned severing of an uneasy partnership.»

  «She killed him and left him in the attic room, maybe even dragged him up there,» Maggie clarified for their very attentive audience. «Sam didn't hang himself or get himself hanged. We told you it was murder, but I don't think we told you how we knew. He was strangled with Joanne's stopwatch cord and not hung up until hours later. That can be proved by the marks on Sam's neck, but we won't go into the how of that right now, either. We found the stopwatch behind a bureau up in the attic room right above us. We're figuring he died maybe an hour after I last saw him.»

  «But then there was a problem, as is often the case with impulsive acts,» Saint Just said, taking up the story, pleased as he could be at how he and Maggie seemed to so neatly dovetail each other. «It would seem that Tabby and you, Mr. Lloyd, had decided to adjourn to this room, with the first murder committed and Sam's body still in the attic above you. And, quite possibly, the jewels were still there as well. You had to be removed from the room. Thus the open doors to flood the generators.»

  «Why not just climb the stairs to the attics, Saint Just?» Sterling asked.

  «A good question, but I believe I have the answer. The dust. Once the murder was done, the murderer or murderers had time to think, to come up with a plan. F
ootprints in the considerable dust would leave a trail showing that more than one person had climbed those stairs and walked those attics, both coming and going—that one person being the supposedly suicidal Sam Undercuffler, who could not possibly have made two tracks of footprints if he was dead by his own hand.»

  «They could have just swept the attic and gotten rid of the whole dust problem,» Maggie said.

  «True, but we've had more time to consider alternative possibilities. The murderers did not. They were, as you would say, winging it. To continue, the lack of footprints in the dust also would delay anyone's curiosity in searching for the writer in this particular attic of this very large pile, at least long enough for the murderers to make good their escape.»

  «Besides,» Maggie interrupted yet again, «Sam was only the writer. If Joanne didn't ask about him, nobody would probably even notice he was missing. Except they didn't count on us.»

  «Thank you, Maggie. And once a serious search party was mounted, there would be so many footprints that the former lack of them would never be noticed. And not to offend the ladies, but the cold would also have served to keep Undercuffler's body undiscovered.»

  «So they could just have left him in the attic room,» Evan Pottinger said, obviously not as drunk as he might appear. «Why'd they go back and hang him out the window? Oh, right, maybe they had to go back for the jewelry anyway. And the suicide angle. You're figuring they didn't decide to fake the suicide until after he was already dead. I forgot. And we're saying murderers now. Plural. There's more than one?»

  Maggie jumped in to answer. «Joanne's stopwatch cord may have been used as the murder weapon, but the woman most certainly did not lift Sam's dead weight up and out the window while tying him to the scaffolding. Not alone.»

  «She's right,» Arnaud said, shaking his head. «It took the two of us just to cut him down again. Joanne couldn't have done it alone. But she killed him?»

  «I'm afraid we can't ask her that,» Saint Just said, stepping away from the fireplace. «But there you have it. Unbelievable as it may seem, it appears that Joanne Pertuccelli and Sam Undercuffler, and one as-yet-unnamed cohort in crime, heard about the missing jewels, discovered the hidden passage, found the jewels, and then had a falling out that ended in the murders of two of the three accomplices. It is only left to discover that third party, who is, sadly, one of us, unexpectedly trapped here with us at the moment. And the jewels, of course. When we discover the one, we will find the other.»

  «I don't understand,» Troy said, frowning. «How did they know about the jewelry?»

  Saint Just, who had previously been annoyed with Troy Barlow's thick skull, wished the man hadn't taken this moment to at last appear incisive.

  «We don't know. We're working on that, just as I am still wondering why the miscreants didn't simply shut Sam's body in the secret passage and be done with it, allowing everyone to think he'd simply gone missing—at least until the heat of summer. Perhaps the faked hanging was a natural thought progression for someone in the very visual movie industry? Or perhaps the method of demise for Uncle Willis spurred their imaginations?»

  «Stuff him behind that wall? And you said summer. Eeeeuuuwww , you mean he'd start to smell when it got hot.» Marylou put her hand to her mouth, then buried her head against Sir Rudy's chest. «That's just too gross.»

  «Indeed,» agreed Saint Just. «Now, if there are no further questions, and if no one is prepared to confess, I suggest you all adjourn once more to the main saloon and the warmth of that quite delightful fire while we await the arrival of the constable.»

  «That's it? That's all? Sam and Joanne were bad guys, and they're dead—and so what? And there's still a killer in the group? No way.» Evan Pottinger lifted the lead crystal stopper from the decanter he held and threw it in the general direction of the bed. «I say let's frisk everybody, find the jewels. I get to pat down Boffo girl.» Then he drank straight out of the decanter.

  Saint Just was tempted to agree with at least the spirit of Evan's suggestion. It was time every guest's bedchamber was searched, as, judging by the size of the outline in the dusty stone niche, the amount of jewels was considerable, certainly more than could be concealed on anyone's person. «I think personal searches are unnecessary, Evan. However, as you all return to the main saloon, please, Maggie, Sterling, and I will conduct searches of each bedchamber until such time as the constable can ford the flood.»

  «I don't want you poking around in my room. You're no cop,» Troy said, pouting. «I'm going with you.»

  A chorus of «me, too's» followed. Naturally.

  «Very well. But we'll all go together, room to room.»

  «Like a group toidy,» Bernice said, and Maggie giggled.

  «Please don't explain that, ladies,» Saint Just said. «Now off you go, two by two, as has already been suggested.»

  «She's gone.» Byrd Stockwell turned in a full circle. «Nikki's gone! Son-of-a—»

  «Nikki?» Maggie looked up at Saint Just, wide-eyed. «No. She's the third one?»

  Saint Just was confused. Really, really confused. How could he have been watching the wrong suspect? «There was always the hope someone would, as you Americans say, make a break for it. But Miss Campion? Perhaps she, too, had need of the facilities?»

  «Yeah? Well, let's go find out,» Maggie said, already heading for the doorway to the hall, hard on Byrd Stockwell's heels.

  «You go with the others, Robin,» Saint Just said, taking hold of the man's arm and turning him about. «Sterling? Please see that our Robin Redbreast remains with the others.»

  «Really?» Sterling blinked several times, then stood up very straight. «Perry and I will see to it, Saint Just, have no fears on that head. Perry? You take his left, I'll take his right.»

  «Anything you say, Sterling.»

  «Don't you dare,» Byrd said, backing away, only to bump into Bernice, of all people, who had picked up a very substantial-looking brass figurine and was now holding it with the same intensity with which Saint Just's favorite New York Met, Mike Piazza, gripped a baseball bat.

  «Go on, try to run, I dare you,» Bernie said. «I've been looking for someone to beat on all night. If I can't drink, I can get my jollies this way.»

  «Thatta girl,» Maggie said, then took off for the other wing, Saint Just beside her. «I know which is Nikki's room. I saw it yesterday morning.»

  «This doesn't make sense,» Saint Just told her as they broke into a jog. «You saw the robin look at the wall when I announced we'd found the passage—before I revealed the location of the opening?»

  «I did. And he's logical. Nikki isn't. One thing's for sure—the robbery itself was planned . Only the murders were unplanned.»

  They were past the main staircase now, and Maggie suddenly stopped, then turned back.

  «I thought you said you knew the location of her bedchamber.»

  «I do, but she went this way,» Maggie said, holding up her flashlight as she grabbed the railing and started down the stairs toward the candlelit first floor.

  «How do you know that?»

  «Because I can smell her perfume, and the smell died off when we got past the staircase,» Maggie said, moving faster on the stairs than Saint Just ever would have supposed; obviously a woman on a mission. «She went this way.»

  «Very good, Maggie.»

  «Not really,» she said as they reached the bottom of the staircase and then sniffed again before heading back toward the study and, beyond that, the servant staircase leading to the kitchens. «She pours on the perfume. A Chihuahua with a deviated septum could follow her scent. Come on, Alex, she's getting away!»

  Chapter sixteen

  Maggie ran until she realized she probably should slow down before she fell and broke something— most probably herself—and then hesitated as she and Alex got to the servant stairs.

  «She went down. And you know why? Because she knows to go down. Do you know why she knows to go down?»

  «Maggie, she's down. And very so
on to be out and about, so we can probably leave this discussion for later, yes?»

  «Good point. But I know how she knows how to get out, so file that—I knew first.»

  «My compliments,» Alex said, indicating with a slight bow that she should precede him down the stairs to the kitchens.

  Maggie felt the breeze before she saw the door open to the outside, and she was off again, hot on the heels of a woman who really, really got on her nerves… and it had nothing to do with Nikki's great looks or her even greater body. Really, it didn't. At least not much.

  «We'll need Wellington boots and raincoats,» Alex said, grabbing her arm as she was halfway out the door into the downpour and the growing gray light of dawn.

  «We don't have time for those.»

  «We do if we have to go more than ten feet to find her, and I'm sure we do. We've been out there before, remember? At least the Wellingtons, Maggie. You'll fall without them.»

  «Sure, okay, you're right,» she said, smiling at him. Then she waited until he'd sat himself down on the old wooden bench before she bolted. «She's mine , Alex!»

  The cold rain hit Maggie with only a little less than the impact she'd expect from a bucket of ice water being thrown at her, and she blinked, sputtered… and pressed on, already knowing the location of the path Alex had investigated earlier.

  She felt her feet slipping out from under her as she staggered along, rethinking her refusal of those time-consuming rubber boots to cover her leather-soled shoes. But she kept the flashlight beam headed straight ahead, not down, and kept moving along the narrow path that just barely rose above water, water, and more water.

  «Maggie! Maggie, come back here!» Alex yelled—gosh, he'd actually yelled .

  «I can't. She's got a head start,» Maggie yelled back at him.

  And then she saw a figure, darker than the dawn around it. Nikki Campion. Nikki Campion, who'd taken the time to pull on rubber boots and one of those ugly yellow coats.