The Paper Caper, page 29
“Yes. If I were all alone out there in the city, anything could happen. I could be shot, or knifed. Or hit by a car.” He glared at Ella.
“He was out of his mind,” Ella said flippantly. “He didn’t care about you. He and my mother had it all planned out. They wanted you to marry me as soon as your first wife died.”
Joseph nodded. “Well, they got that much right. But you know, divorce is pretty easy to come by these days.”
“Divorce?” she shouted the word. “You dare and I’ll arrange it so that I get all of your money.”
“You signed a prenuptial agreement, sweetheart.”
“It’ll be null and void if you’re dead,” she said through clenched teeth.
Joseph laughed heartily. He looked at Derek and me and grinned. “Can you feel the love?”
All I could feel were shivers of fear. This woman was borderline psycho and wasn’t about to give up her husband’s fortune without a fight.
He stared at his wife. “You know, the night Hobson and I argued, I was on your side. I fought him because he was saying such awful things, claiming that he and your mother had rushed me into marriage in order to get ahold of my money.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, fluffing her hair back. “You married me because I’m hot.”
“You were,” he admitted dismissively. “But after a couple of months of marriage, the heat is gone.”
“You pig!”
Joseph waved her away. He was running out of steam. He sat back down, exhausted. “Hobson told me that at first he went along with Ingrid because, after my wife died, he was worried about me and thought I’d be happier if I were married. But recently he realized that you two women were only out for my money. He called you both grifters. And I defended you. What a fool I’ve been.”
Joseph looked deflated now, but I wasn’t ready to quit the fight. “What was that little stunt you pulled in the park?” I asked. “There was no bullet. Did you deliberately cut your own foot? Is that how badly you crave attention? Oh, wait. You were trying to throw us off the scent, weren’t you?”
“Shut up,” she shouted. “Who do you think you are?”
“Who shot off the gun?” I asked. “Was that Leland?”
She stomped her good foot. “I told you to shut up.”
I shook my head. “You’re pathetic. You faked a gunshot wound and you tried to pass yourself as completely ignorant of the Covington Library layout and the exhibits. I know you spent a lot time there, especially in the Poisoned Papers exhibit. You even bought a postcard of the exhibit and gave it to your lovely waitress, Carmen.”
Her gasp was full-throated. “No.”
“Yeah,” I said. “She told me all about you. So what do you think will happen if the police search your room? Do you think you got rid of all the evidence of the poison? There are so many ingredients involved. Are you sure you cleaned up everything? Maybe there’s some of that golden powder residue, or the adhesive mixture. Or maybe you’ve got a receipt for the delivery service. You probably ran a few versions of that fake return address label you used for the Covington Library.”
“Shut up!” she cried. “You’re just a nosy bitch who spends all her time working on books. I mean, how boring can you get?”
“Now, that was harsh,” I said. “But I have another question for you. Were you really trying to kill Hobson? What if Joseph had opened that envelope? He would be dead.”
She smiled. “Oh, boo hoo. Then I would have all of his money.”
I studied her. “I don’t think you were ready to kill your handsome wealthy husband yet. But Hobson had definitely worn out his welcome with you. I think you were actually targeting him.”
She huffed dramatically. “You don’t know anything.”
Inspector Lee finally moved forward. “Mrs. Cabot, I’m taking you in for questioning in the poisoning death of Hobson.” She frowned at Joseph. “Was that his first name or his last name?”
“His name was John Hobson,” Joseph said stoically.
“Right. I knew that.” She pulled a pair of handcuffs from her belt, then grabbed Ella’s left hand and turned her around.
“Stop that!” a voice shouted from the stairway. Footsteps pounded across the foyer and Ingrid appeared under the archway, holding a shotgun.
“Oh, brother,” I muttered. These women were horrible.
“I suppose you’re the one who shot the gun in the park,” I said.
“Isn’t that my shotgun?” Joseph said. “It’s supposed to be in the gun locker. How did you get hold of it?”
“Oh, please,” she said. “I know every secret in this house, including all of yours, Joseph.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t suppose they’ll be secret much longer.”
“I know plenty of your father’s secrets as well. Hobson kept nothing from me.”
“That sounds positively sordid,” he said drolly. “Were you sleeping with him?”
“I did what I had to do,” she said lightly.
“Were you sleeping with my father?”
She gave him a coy smile. “Your father had a healthy appetite for pleasure.”
“Ewww,” I said.
“Oh, grow up,” she snarled.
Inspector Lee shot me a glance and I clammed up quickly.
Ingrid turned back to Joseph. “You were a twin, you know.”
“What?” Ella cried. “Mother, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I couldn’t trust you to keep your mouth shut.”
Ella pouted. “That’s not fair!”
“Be quiet, dear,” Ingrid cooed. “The grown-ups are talking.”
From where I stood, I could see Joseph’s jaw drop, but he just said, “Do go on.”
“The boy was a sickly baby, always in and out of the hospital with heart problems. Your father had little patience for that, and finally hired a woman to take him and raise him as her own.”
“That’s downright medieval,” Joseph said lightly. But he had to be seething inside.
“But that allowed you to gain everything,” she said. “So that can’t be all bad.”
But it was, I thought. And Joseph’s expression said the same thing. His father sounded like an awful man.
“My father was a son of a bitch,” Joseph said, confirming what I had just thought. “I spent half my life trying to undo all the damage he caused.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ingrid said. “The man was quite happy to deal in blood diamonds and of course he enslaved his workers in his uranium mines in South America.”
With each offense she named, Joseph grew paler.
“He found it humorous to hear about all your good works. Were you trying to blot out his legacy? Trying to make up for his misdeeds? He had many good laughs over your bleeding heart tendencies.”
“That’s enough,” Joseph said.
“Really? But I haven’t even gotten to his war correspondence with Mengele, the so-called angel of death. As you must know, he sympathized with the Nazi cause.”
“Enough!” Joseph said, turning to face Derek. “I have my own horror stories. Did you know that when my wife was diagnosed with cancer, my father told me I should divorce her before I got saddled with all her medical bills?”
“Nice guy,” I murmured.
Ella suddenly screamed, “I hate it when you talk about your first wife! Mother, just shoot them.”
“Don’t shriek, sweetkins,” Ingrid said.
“But I’m tired of all of them.” Ella pointed at Inspector Lee. “She was going to arrest me!”
Ingrid sighed. “I’ll shoot them if I must, but it will cause us more problems than we already have.”
The woman had a healthy amount of self-esteem, if nothing else.
“There’s no way out of this, Ms. Norden,” Inspector Lee said. “I need you to surrender your weapon. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”
“What about my daughter?” Ingrid said.
Inspector Lee gave a slight shrug. “Your daughter’s case is more complicated.”
“No, it’s not. She’s innocent. Now, she and I are going to walk out of here and you won’t be able to stop us.”
She was obviously used to getting her own way around here, but that had to end now.
“Your daughter killed Hobson,” I declared. “He was your ‘protector’ and she killed him. Why would you want to help her escape?”
“Brooklyn, no,” Inspector Lee whispered, but it was too late.
“Blood is thicker than water,” Ingrid explained, then pointed her shotgun in my direction.
I couldn’t breathe.
Suddenly the front door opened and two more officers walked in. Startled, Ingrid started to swing the gun around and Derek took advantage of the distraction. He grabbed the gun from her hands and tossed it onto the carpet. Then he spun her around and pulled both of her hands behind her back.
“Let me go!” Ingrid cried.
Ella was ready to make her move and instantly headed for the shotgun. Without a second thought, I stuck out my foot and tripped her. She fell like a tree and I jumped on top of her.
She screamed even louder than her mother.
“Good job, guys,” Inspector Lee said to the officers at the front door, then grinned at me. “You, too.”
“Thanks.” I was still sitting on Ella’s back, despite her attempts to buck me off. A few seconds later, Joseph patted my shoulder. “Thanks, Brooklyn. I’ll take over here.”
I barely heard him. I was frozen in place, not at all willing to let Ella loose. She was a cold-blooded killer and her mother wasn’t any better. The two of them deserved to rot in jail.
Joseph touched my arm. “Brooklyn. It’s all right.”
I exhaled. “Yes. Okay.”
I stepped off Ella and Joseph yanked her to her feet. “I’ll have the divorce papers delivered to your jail cell tomorrow.”
Ella screamed.
“Oh, shut up,” I muttered. I couldn’t believe I had once thought she was a nice person. Was I naïve? I wasn’t sure, but I could really kick myself sometimes.
Within seconds, Ingrid and Ella were both handcuffed and tucked into the back of a patrol car. We could hear them bickering all the way across the front terrace and through the gate.
“Wow. They were not going to go quietly,” I said.
Joseph shook his head. “No. Never.” He looked at Derek and me. “Thank you. You both saved my life, in more ways than one.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and gave him a hug.
“Don’t be,” he said. “I should’ve paid more attention to what was going on around me.” He sighed. “But ever since my wife died, I’ve allowed parts of my life to drift along aimlessly. I guess that made me a good target for grifters. I swear to you, here and now, those days are over.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Derek patted his back. “Will you be all right tonight?”
“Yeah. Thanks for asking.”
That’s when I realized that Joseph was truly alone. I felt so sorry for him, but he was probably better off alone than the alternative. “We’ll check on you tomorrow and then stop by the hospital to see how Wyatt and Tom are doing.”
“You’ll probably find me there,” he said. “I want to spend some time getting to know my brother.”
Epilogue
I finished gilding the cover of The Prince and the Pauper without the benefit of an audience. Ian didn’t care; he was thrilled with the beautiful work I’d done and promptly displayed it with other Mark Twain works as part of the permanent collection.
Happy with his praise and finished with that task, I was able to take off for the weekend guilt-free. We drove to Dharma as promised and arrived at our beautiful new home Friday evening. We sat outside on our deck in our new Adirondack chairs, staring out at the terraced hills covered in grapevines. The sun was just setting behind the farthest hill and Derek had opened a wonderful bottle of cabernet sauvignon to accompany the gooey Brie and rustic crackers we’d brought with us.
Three days ago we had been face-to-face with a crazed, shotgun-toting Swedish mother and her even more crazed, delusional daughter. It was hard to believe that the two of them had managed to brainwash the under-butler and the housemaid to behave badly on their behalf. From where we sat now, it all seemed like a bad dream.
We went to bed early, slept wonderfully well in our new bed, and arose to make coffee and toast, which we enjoyed out on the deck.
I smiled at Derek. “I have a feeling that when we come up here, we’ll be spending most of our time right in this spot.”
Derek held my hand. “I can’t imagine anything better.”
Saturday afternoon our friends and family showed up with enough food and drinks to provide sustenance for the whole town. And I was pretty sure the whole town had shown up here for our little party.
When Ian and Jake walked into the yard, I looked at Derek. “What is going on?”
Mom grabbed both men’s arms and faced the crowd. “Everybody here knows Ian and his husband Jake. Well, this week they officially became fathers to a darling set of twins, Priscilla and Nathan.”
I gasped. “Are you kidding? Oh my God, I’m so happy for you!” Then I burst into tears and grabbed them both in a three-way bear hug.
After a long moment, I glanced around and saw that all my sisters had tears in their eyes. Like me, they couldn’t allow anyone to cry alone.
“You guys, I just saw you a few days ago. How did you keep this quiet?”
“We knew you wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret,” Ian said. “Your mother was the only one who knew.”
“My mother.” I stared at Mom through narrowed eyes. “Did you work some kind of spell?”
She laughed. “Oh, sweetie. It doesn’t work like that.”
Ian and Jake moved through the crowd, sharing photographs of their darling tiny babies, who were still in the hospital and would hopefully come home next week. I could hardly catch my breath from that announcement when I saw Tom and Joseph walk onto the patio.
“Tom?” I stared at Joseph. “Joseph? What are you two doing here?”
“Derek suggested that we might enjoy a day or two away from the city, so I drove Tom out here and . . . well, here we are.”
“I’m going back first thing in the morning,” Tom said. “I want to check on Wyatt.”
“How is he doing?” I asked as Derek walked over and slipped his arm around my waist.
“A lot better,” Tom said. He glanced around at the surrounding hills covered in lush grapevines. “I wish he could’ve come out here with me. He grew up surrounded by apple orchards so I think he would dig this.”
“Bring him back,” I said. “We would love to have you both visit.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” he said.
“Everything is changing,” I said to Derek a few minutes later when we were standing alone.
“Mostly for the better,” Derek said.
“Yes. Much better.” I glanced across the deck at Joseph. “I hope he knows he’s better off.”
“It might take a while, but he’s strong. He’ll get through this.”
I nodded.
My sister China approached us. “Have I told you how much I love your house?” she said. “It’s so clean.”
I had to laugh. “We don’t live here, that’s why.”
“That was really smart,” she said, swilling a fruit-jar-sized glass of lager.
“Do you want another beer?” I asked.
“No. I-I can’t. I mean, thanks, but I’m full.”
“Wait. What did all that mean?”
“Oh, damn it. I mean, darn it. I’m not supposed to swear around Hannah.”
“Hannah’s in the bedroom playing Barbie dolls with the other girls. What’s going on?”
She let out a heavy sigh. “I’m pregnant.”
“What? Are you kidding?” I grabbed her glass. “You should be drinking water.”
“It’s okay. It’s nonalcoholic.”
“But . . . well. What’s going on around here? There are babies springing up all over!”
She laughed.
I waved my hands. “What am I thinking? Come here.” I grabbed her in a big hug. “Congratulations, sweetie!”
“Thanks, Brooklyn. Don’t say anything, okay? I haven’t told Mom or anyone else.”
“You know that’s a big mistake, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. She probably knows already. She checks her scrying mirror daily.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Of course she knows. But why aren’t you telling everyone you’re pregnant? It’s wonderful news.”
“Here’s the thing,” China said. “Robin just had little Jamie six months ago. She should be basking in the joy of everyone lauding her and bringing her presents and rubbing her feet. And now Ian and Jake have just told everyone about their darling little twins. If I announce that I’m pregnant, I’ll steal their thunder.”
“That’s a load of nonsense.”
“And Mom will go crazy.”
“Everyone will, in a good way, including Jake and Ian. And especially Robin.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“Robin loves you,” I said. “And she’ll be extra thrilled to know that Jamie will have a little playmate in nine months.”
“Five months, but who’s counting?”
“What are you two talking about?” Robin asked, coming up behind me. “You both look very serious.”
I stared at China and she stared back. Then she rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and tell her. You won’t be able to keep it secret for another minute.”
“Let’s get Mom over here,” I said.
“You guys,” Robin said. “What’s up?”
China dragged Mom over to our little group and said to me, “Okay, go ahead and tell her.”
“Wait. I’m not the one who’s going to tell them. You are.”
