Wedding Bell Blues Page 9

  Bill pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket and consulted it. “Short, bald, with a scar across his right cheek. Not the kind of guy, Garth said, who would listen to reason.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Garth called 911 on his cell phone when he reached his car. Figured he’d let the sheriff’s office handle it, especially since he wasn’t armed.”

  “Did they?”

  “Eventually. Must have been a busy night. But, according to Garth, the Hispanic intruder bailed out over the fence a few minutes after Garth did and took off in his truck before the deputies arrived.”

  “And Garth didn’t get the tag number while he waited?”

  “Too rattled, he said.” Bill frowned. “But here’s the oddest part. Garth says that when the deputies arrived, some woman answered the intercom and wouldn’t let them in, either. She insisted there was no problem and everyone else in the compound was asleep.”

  “You think Garth’s telling the truth?” I asked.

  Bill shrugged.

  “If Garth placed the 911 call,” I said, “it will be logged in. Another bit of info Keating neglected to share.”

  “Info that shakes his case.” Bill flipped his notebook closed and returned it to his pocket. “Instead of just Ashton’s wife and Alicia, we now know there were two others on the premises the night before the murder who might have placed deadly nightshade in the food in the refrigerator.”

  I considered the possibilities. “That fact might be enough for Terry to plant reasonable doubt in a jury’s deliberations.”

  “But, if we’ve misjudged Swinburn, this story could be merely a ploy to throw us off track. We have only Garth’s word that there was an intruder,” Bill reminded me.

  “Unless we can find him.”

  “Middle-aged Hispanic in an old pickup? The state’s crawling with immigrants. Needle in a haystack.”

  “I love a challenge,” I admitted. “First, we check out Hector Morales, the groundskeeper. If the intruder wasn’t him, he may know who it was.”

  Bill pointed out the envelope of digital pictures I’d brought in from my car. “We have good shots of the tire tracks. Those photos may come in handy if we need to match a vehicle.”

  “Celeste still tops my list of suspects,” I said.

  “Because she’s the vic’s wife?”

  “That and the fact that, according to Alicia, Celeste buys the groceries.”

  “Time to pay her a visit.” Bill stood and pulled me from the sofa. In a deft move, he slid his arms around my waist and tugged me against him.

  I gave him a fierce hug and broke away. “Better not get sidetracked. We have a case to solve.”

  “All work and no play—”

  I stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly. “We can play later.”

  CHAPTER 11

  At Grove Spirit House, we were surprised when Celeste responded to our call on the intercom by opening the electronic gate.

  Bill drove the SUV down the crushed-shell drive and surveyed the surrounding vegetation.

  “Damned shame how these trees have been neglected,” he observed.

  Bill’s father had been a citrus grower all his life, and Bill had inherited a thousand acres of groves when his dad had died. A foreman continued to operate the groves for Bill, who was under constant pressure by developers to sell. The land, near Plant City east of Tampa, was worth millions, but Bill hated to see the trees ripped out and the soil paved over with cheek-by-jowl houses and concrete networks of streets and sidewalks. He, like me and other natives, considered population growth an insidious disease, eating away acre by acre at what was left of Old Florida, destroying groves, wetlands, natural habitats and a way of life that would soon be only a memory.

  We didn’t consider ourselves in the same league as rabid environmentalists or idealistic tree huggers, but we mourned the loss of the state’s rural character that had been an integral part of our youth. We’d grown up with isolated pristine beaches lined with dunes and sea oats instead of condos, and miles of rolling pastures, pine woods and citrus groves. Today’s young Floridians experienced primarily high rises, concrete, traffic and Disney World.

  The grounds at Grove Spirit House reminded us of what we’d lost. Late-morning sunlight glistened on the calm surface of the lake, ringed by cypress swamps. The trees with their distinctive knees rose from the dark waters and their branches were filled with great white herons and anhingas, wings spread to dry in the sun. A trio of galinules that had somehow avoided becoming gator bait glided among the cattails near the shore. The scene was soothing, peaceful, not the place you’d expect to find murder and mayhem.

  Celeste was waiting for us in front of the fountain. She wore black slacks and an embroidered black tunic top, and her feet were bare. Her long dark hair had been plaited into two braids that hung over her shoulders. Her pale face was devoid of makeup and expression.

  “We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Ashton,” Bill said gently, “and regret this intrusion on your grief.”

  “I don’t understand why you’re here,” she replied. “The police said they’d completed their investigation.”

  Bill repeated our names, which he’d given her at the gate, and explained that we were private investigators. “We’ve been hired by Ms. Langston’s defense counsel. In order for Alicia to receive a fair trial, we need to investigate everything that the police had access to.”

  “She killed my husband,” Celeste said in a strange, uninflected voice. “I’m not inclined to help her in any way.”

  “If she’s guilty, nothing we do will change that,” I said.

  Celeste scrutinized my face. “You were here the day he died.”

  I nodded. “I’d been hired by Alicia’s parents. She’d gone missing, and they wanted to know whether she was all right.”

  “You tricked us,” Celeste said in the same flat tone.

  So far, the woman had shown no emotion of any kind, apparently in shock over the death of her husband and suffering a blessed numbness that would probably wear off all too soon. Or she was in shock from having killed him. Which one, I’d have to find a way to prove.

  “I had to find Alicia,” I said, “and you wouldn’t let me in.”

  “It’s a private retreat. You had no right.” Strong words, but also spoken with no affect, as if her body were a dwelling into which her spirit had retreated and bolted the door. Nothing escaped except the dullness of her words.

  “My colleague had the right to reassure frantic parents when their only child had gone missing,” Bill said in his most consoling tone. “Mind if I have a look around while she asks you some questions?”

  Celeste shrugged. “I have nothing to say and there’s nothing to see. And if you’re trying to prove that murderer’s innocence, then you’re wasting your time and mine.”

  “You want your husband’s killer convicted, don’t you?” Bill asked in his most reasonable voice.

  Celeste nodded.

  She was saying the right words, but their lack of any feeling was giving me the creeps. She wouldn’t look us in the eyes, but gazed past our shoulders, her dark brown, almost black eyes appearing slightly unfocused, like a near-sighted person without her glasses or someone high on drugs. With her gaunt pale looks, straight black hair, and dark clothes, she reminded me of Morticia from TV’s Addams Family or Elvira, but without the curvaceous voluptuousness of the Mistress of the Dark. The woman was full-blown weird, but that didn’t make her guilty.

  “If the defense team is denied access to the crime scene and other evidence and witnesses,” Bill explained, “even if Alicia is found guilty, her conviction could be overturned on appeal. Better to go by the book if you want a verdict that sticks.”

  For a moment, Celeste said nothing, as if she hadn’t heard or understood. She continued to gaze at the lake with unfocused eyes.

  “Let’s get this over with,” she finally agreed. “I have arrangements to make.”

  I stayed with Celeste, an
d Bill set off for a tour of the grounds and dining hall. His digital camera dangled from a strap on his shoulder. The CSU had removed whatever evidence they’d found, but, if they’d missed anything, Bill could photograph it. We had no authority to take anything from the scene, unless Celeste gave us permission. She’d already made it clear, however, she’d do nothing to assist Alicia’s case.

  The June sun was beating down, sucking the moisture from the air into anvil-shaped clouds that promised afternoon thunderstorms. A trickle of sweat slid down my backbone. I pointed to the gazebo by the lake. “Can we talk in the shade?”

  Like a sleepwalker, Celeste turned, strode across the yard and climbed the gazebo steps. In the relative coolness of the vine-covered structure, she sat on a built-in bench that circled the balustrade.

  I sat beside her, a few feet away. “What makes you so sure that Alicia killed your husband?”

  Again, Celeste stared at the lake before turning her dull gaze on me. “The girl was obviously disturbed.”

  “Insane?”

  “Wildly in love.”

  I couldn’t deny her charge. I’d witnessed Alicia’s infatuation. “Alicia had only been here a few days. How could she have fallen that deeply in love so quickly?”

  “She had only lived at Spirit House a few days. But she spent hours at a time with my husband for weeks before her entry here, while she was working on her dissertation. She called it research. I think she just wanted to be near him.”

  “But if she loved him, why kill him?”

  “Because if she couldn’t have him, no one would.” Celeste clasped her long fingers in her lap and studied them. “She was trying to kill me, too. I would have died, if I’d been on time for lunch. The salad Alicia prepared had been intended for both of us.”

  Chilled, in spite of the heat, by Celeste’s cold, deadened tone, I waited for her to continue.

  “I was leaving our quarters for the dining hall when the phone rang. It was a client canceling his reservation for the retreat this weekend and arguing about a refund. Now the entire retreat is canceled.”

  “And your husband started lunch without you?”

  “He was a man of great appetites.”

  She’d opened the door, so I stepped through it. “Apparently his appetites extended to Alicia Langston. According to her, he embraced her frequently. That must have bothered you.”

  She lifted her head, cast her eyes in my direction, but even her body language was devoid of emotion. “He embraced all the novices, men and women alike, a symbolic gesture of their oneness with the Universal Spirit.”

  “And you were never jealous?”

  At last, something flickered in the depths of those strange, almost-black eyes. Anger? Annoyance? Regret? I couldn’t tell.

  “Never,” she said.

  “How long had you been married?”

  “What does that have to do with Alicia Langston?”

  “Did she know you and The Teacher were man and wife?”

  Celeste shrugged. “She knew we shared quarters. She wasn’t here for a social visit but to ascend to her spiritual potential. Our private lives were irrelevant.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Celeste.”

  “Last name?”

  “Ashton.”

  “Maiden name?”

  She stood. “The police have all that information. I have a funeral to plan.”

  She walked toward the gazebo entrance.

  “Just one more question,” I said.

  She turned, waited.

  “Where did you live before coming to Pelican Bay?”

  “A better question,” she responded in the same flat voice that had failed to come alive during our entire exchange, “is where will I go now?”

  She declined, however, to provide an answer for either query. Again in sleepwalking mode, she left the gazebo and crossed the lawn toward the building hidden by trees behind the dining hall.

  I left the gazebo and met Bill at the fountain in front of the main building. “Find anything?”

  He shook his head. “Just a daylight view of the path beaten through the grove from the street and the profusion of deadly nightshade growing throughout the property. How about you?”

  “Celeste claims Alicia had an unrequited love for Ashton, and, since she couldn’t have him, she killed him. And would have killed Celeste, too, if she’d been on time for lunch.”

  “Looks bad for the home team,” Bill admitted.

  “Apparently Alicia had motive, means and opportunity. And no alibi.”

  “Celeste has motive, means, and opportunity, too,” Bill noted, “but for some reason Keating’s letting her off the hook.”

  “Maybe Celeste passed a polygraph,” I said. “She’s very convincing when she claims that Alicia’s guilty.”

  Bill sighed. “Unless we can drum up other suspects, like the Hispanic visitor Swinburn ran into, the prosecutor’s going to hang Alicia out to dry.”

  “Garth’s stranger may prove as elusive as The Fugitive’s one-armed man. Let’s hope Hector Morales, the lawn man, can lead us to him.”

  CHAPTER 12

  We left Grove Spirit House, picked up sandwiches at Scallops downtown and stopped at my condo to eat. Roger met us at the door and threw himself at me as if I’d been gone for a month. Roger was a very social pooch who hated when I worked weekends. During the week, if I was out on a call, he stayed with Darcy at the office. On weekends, however, he had to remain alone in the condo. Bill assured me that Roger probably slept the entire time I was away, but his exuberance at my return always made me feel guilty that I’d left him behind.

  After finishing lunch, we took Roger for a walk along the waterfront. The onshore breeze and the usual early afternoon drop in humidity made the stroll tolerable. If you could call it a stroll. We had to stop every few feet for Roger to sniff where other dogs had passed and to make his own mark on the territory. No wonder he drank so much. He utilized every drop in his determination to leave calling cards for other canines that used his route.

  “Remember,” Bill reminded me as we waited for Roger to water a sago palm, “we’re invited to the Adlers’ for a cookout tonight.”

  Roger, who I swore understood every word we said, turned around and gazed at us with big sad eyes.

  “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “You’re invited, too.”

  Apparently satisfied, Roger resumed his walk.

  “We can ask Adler tonight,” I said to Bill, “whether he wants to work security for the wedding reception at Sophia’s.”

  “Damn,” Bill said. “With Ashton’s murder, I forgot all about the Burns-Baker feud. I’d hoped to talk to the families and get a take on their attitudes before we accept—or decline—the job.”

  “Why don’t you interview Hector Morales this afternoon,” I suggested, “and I’ll visit the war zone.”

  “War zone?”

  “Pineland Circle, where the Burnses and Bakers live.”

  “You’ll need a cover.”

  I nodded. “It won’t be good for Antonio’s business if the feuding families suspect that he doubts they’re capable of behaving themselves.” I thought for a moment. “I could tell them I’m the events coordinator for Sophia’s, visiting to finalize details. I’ll go by the restaurant and ask Antonio for a copy of their contract on my way over there.”

  With Roger’s bladder finally depleted, we returned to my place. I unleashed the dog, and Bill went to the phone. Earlier, in the dining hall of Grove Spirit House, he’d found Hector Morales’s number scribbled on a note tacked to a bulletin board hanging above the phone. Now he called the number to ask directions. A young boy, who identified himself as Hector’s son, said his father was working. When pressed, the kid gave Bill an address.

  “Hector’s mowing the lawn of one of his clients on Pelican Pointe,” Bill said. “I’ll see if I can catch him there. And I’ll pick you up at six to go to the Adlers’.”

  Bill left, and Roger m
oped, dogging my steps as if he was aware that I’d be leaving soon, too. His spirits perked up when he followed me into the kitchen and watched me stuff a hard rubber bone with peanut butter, creating a real doggie dilemma. He didn’t want to be abandoned but knew he wouldn’t receive his treat unless I departed.

  When I arrived at Pineland Circle, the cul-de-sac where the Burnses and Bakers resided uneasily side by side, I noted instantly one facet of their years-long dispute. The Baker property was well-maintained. The house sparkled with a fresh coat of paint, and the lush lawn and attractive shrubbery had been neatly cut.

  The Burnses’ residence was a study in contrasts. The carcass of a 1956 Chevy stood on concrete blocks in the side yard, surrounded by weeds. Garbage cans and gardening supplies had been piled haphazardly in front of the double garage doors. The home’s walls needed paint; the tile roof was black with mildew; and what should have been a lawn sported large patches of barren sand, punctuated by clumps of sandspurs and weeds.

  I’d done some checking on the Burnses. Linda’s father owned a plumbing company with a fleet of a dozen trucks. He apparently made good money, so their property’s neglected state was a reflection of bad habits rather than lack of income.

  Mrs. Burns, a tall, thin woman with skin prematurely aged by sun and cigarettes, one of which dangled from her narrow lips, answered the door. She had her dyed-blond hair pulled back in a scrunchie that accentuated her graying brown roots and wore faded shorts and a skimpy halter top that provided no uplift for her sagging breasts.

  “What?” she demanded in a voice hoarse from too many smokes.

  I faked a smile and tried to look perky. “I’m Margaret, events coordinator from Sophia’s restaurant. Mr. Stavropoulos asked me to stop by to go over the details for Linda’s wedding reception.” I flashed the copy of the contract to verify my claim. “If now’s not a good time, I can come back later.”

  “Come on in,” she said without enthusiasm. “Carl’s gone to the hardware store, so now’s good. It’s best he’s not here. He’s already griping about how much money this wedding is costing. I don’t want to rattle his chain.”