Lexie Starr Cozy Mysteries Boxed Set Page 12

  Earlier that day, we had picked up the reprints we'd ordered from Jake's negatives. Stone had requested enlargements of the photo of Clay with the dead moose on April twelfth, and the one of Jake and Clay together. In the larger version of the moose photo, we could just make out an unusual etching of an eagle on the front door, as if the carved wooden door had been specially made for the cabin. The only other interesting thing we learned from the photo was that there was a high-powered rifle propped up against the head of the moose, between its left antler and Clay. Stone thought it was probably a thirty-aught-six, often used for hunting big game. "You know, Lexie, Clay didn't kill that moose with his bare hands," Stone reminded me. "Or thump it over the head with a rock."

  Chapter 19

  Wendy's flight was scheduled to leave KCI airport at ten-fifteen Monday morning. She'd change planes in Atlanta and arrive at JFK in New York just after four in the afternoon. At nine o'clock Kansas City time, ten o'clock eastern, Stone's cell phone rang, startling us both.

  We were in a small cafe, halfway to JFK Airport, having English muffins, coffee, and a light-hearted conversation about the unusual reasons we'd had to visit the hospital emergency room when we were kids. Stone had gotten his tongue stuck to a freezer door at the grocery store one day, and another time he'd broken an ankle jumping off the roof of his house, using a beach towel as a cape. I had super glued my lips together by trying to remove the lid of the tube with my teeth, and once I had shoved a kernel of corn up my nose just to see if it'd fit. It did, but then it wouldn't come back out on its own. We laughed at ourselves, and at one another's childhood mishaps.

  We were lingering over breakfast because there was time to pass. We'd left Schenectady in the wee hours of the morning in order to allow extra time to negotiate the traffic between Schenectady and New York City. We'd brought my Jeep since Stone's Corvette was a two-seater, and we'd have three people and Wendy's luggage on our trip back to Schenectady. Stone understood I wanted to arrive early rather than risk Wendy exiting the plane and finding no one waiting for her.

  Stone's nephew Andy would be registered into his room at the Camelot B&B by the time we arrived with Wendy. I had booked the last of the four bedrooms on the second floor for her. She would share my bathroom, and Stone and Andy would share the other upstairs bathroom. Andy was only five years older than Wendy, so Stone and I hoped they'd have a lot in common. It might also make it easier for her to accept my relationship with Stone, which at this point was strictly platonic. I hoped for my daughter's approval before I opted for a more personal relationship with Stone.

  When Stone answered his phone and handed it to me, I feared that Wendy had changed her mind about making the trip East. "Who answered your phone, Mom?" Wendy asked. "That Stone guy? Are you with him now?"

  "Yes, Wendy, that was Stone. It's Mr. Van Patten's phone number you called. Where are you, honey?" I asked, changing the subject as quickly as possible.

  "I'm at the Kansas City International Airport. I just got my flight information, and I think they've screwed up and booked me onto the wrong flight."

  "What do you mean?"

  "They've listed my destination as JFK in New York."

  "Well, actually that's the way I booked it."

  "Why? I thought you were in Myrtle Beach. I thought I'd be flying into Charleston. Clay brought me to the airport, and he's really upset and concerned that my plane is going to New York, and not South Carolina."

  "No reason for him to be concerned. Right after your arrival, Stone is taking us to Maine and New Hampshire. That's where the fall colors are the most vivid, and since New York is on the way, it just made sense to pick you up there."

  "I don't know about this, Mom. I don't think I should go out there. Clay's all stirred up, and I'm not sure I'm up to meeting your new boyfriend right now. You know, you should have told me he'd be with you."

  "Wendy, listen to me. I couldn't tell you that at the time," I said sternly, talking to her as if she were thirteen again. "Whether or not Stone is my boyfriend is irrelevant at the moment. And I don't give a damn how stirred up Clay is right now. I want you on that plane at ten-fifteen. Do you understand me?"

  "Or what? Are you going to ground me? Jeez, Mom! Why are you acting this way? What's going on?" Wendy was losing her composure as fast as I was. I knew she thought I was hanging on to my sanity by a very thin thread.

  I tried to sound calm so she wouldn't get any more upset. "Is Clay there beside you right now?"

  "No, he went to get us some coffee to drink while we're waiting for my boarding time. But now I'm thinking maybe we should just turn around and go back home."

  "No! You cannot go back home, Wendy! I mean it! Dammit, listen to me for once."

  "Why? Why, Mom? Why are you doing this to me?"

  "Honey, I'm not trying to do anything to you," I said with a sigh. I hadn't wanted to tell her about her husband this way, but I had run out of options. "I'm trying to keep Clay from doing something to you. That's what I'm trying to do!"

  "What?" Wendy yelled into the phone. "What are you talking about?"

  "Wendy, listen to me. There are things you don't know about Clay's past that you need to know to protect yourself. He's not the guy he appears to be. Trust me."

  "You've got to be kidding, Mom. Is that Stone guy putting you up to this?"

  "Stone has nothing to do with this—whatsoever." I glanced up at Stone with a look of apology. He smiled reassuringly and nodded. He was letting me know that I was taking the right approach. I had to get my daughter on that plane, even if it took scare tactics to do it. But I really didn't know how much to tell her at this point. I didn't want to scare her, or upset her, at least not to the point where she wouldn't behave in a normal way around Clay when he came back with the coffee. But I had to scare her enough to make sure she got on her scheduled flight. "Wendy, did you know that you're Clay's second wife? Are you aware that Clay has been married before?"

  "He has not!"

  "He has, Wendy. I have proof of it. When his first wife was six months pregnant with his child, she disappeared and was found by a hiker a couple of weeks later. She'd been murdered in the Adirondack Mountains, beat to death with a rock. Clay is a suspect in her murder."

  Wendy gasped over the phone. "Huh? What do you mean? Clay went to a cabin in those mountains all the time. To kill moose, Mom, not pregnant women."

  "Yes, he bagged his moose illegally too, but that's the least of our concerns right now. Does the log cabin Clay stayed in have an eagle etched in the door?"

  Wendy gasped again. She began to whisper, "Yes. Oh, jeez—oh my goodness. How did you know that? He took me there once and it—oh my—no, no, Mom. It must be all a mistake. Clay would have told me. Wouldn't he, Mom? Wouldn't he tell me something as important as that? A murdered wife and child, for goodness sake!" She sounded as if she were going into shock, becoming hysterical. She didn't want to believe what I was telling her. I can't say I blamed her.

  Memories of Wendy as a child flashed through my mind. She'd be shaking her head violently, her eyes squeezed shut, and her hands over her ears, when she was being told something she didn't want to hear. I could picture her standing in the airport doing the exact same thing right now. At least she was beginning to believe I knew too much for it all to be coincidental. She surely knew by now there had to be at least a grain of truth to all I'd told her. She also knew I'd never invent a story just to hurt her. I'd hurt myself before I'd intentionally hurt her.

  "Apparently he didn't tell you about any of it, honey. Do you happen to know his old roommate in Boston?"

  "Jake?"

  "Yes, Jake Jacoby."

  "Uh-huh. Clay moved in with Jake shortly before Clay and I started dating. Clay told me he'd met Jake after Jake joined the same gym. Jake is the guy who owns the little cabin in the mountains. He inherited it from an uncle, I think Clay said."

  "Wendy, did Clay ever tell you his roommate, Jake Jacoby, was gay, or that he's a cocaine addict?"
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br />   "Jesus, Mom! How do you know all this?"

  "Stone's been helping me investigate the situation. We've found out a lot of things you should know. Enough that we're concerned for your safety in regards to Clay."

  "Oh, Lord—do you think Clay would hurt me? You do, don't you? Why does all this have to happen now? You know, I wondered sometimes if Jake was gay—"

  "He's a stripper."

  "At some club."

  "At an all men's club, Wendy."

  "Oh, good God. No kidding? Well, Jake hated me, Mom. I can tell you that much, anyway. He tried everything he could to get Clay to break up with me. He didn't want Clay to have anything to do with me, almost as if he was jealous of our relationship. I knew Jake did coke occasionally. He even turned Clay on to it. But Clay knows I'm against drugs of any kind, and he swears he's not doing any now. I found some in the glove compartment of his truck the other day, but he told me it wasn't his."

  "Honey, think about that for a minute. How often do people put expensive, illegal drugs in someone else's glove compartment and then forget about them? Not too often, wouldn't you say? That's just an excuse, a cop-out."

  "Yeah, I know," Wendy said, with resignation in her voice. "I knew in my mind the drugs belonged to Clay. But my heart didn't want to believe it. I was in denial, I guess. I wanted to ignore the evidence in hopes it'd go away."

  Wendy had fallen silent. I could hear her breathing hard over the phone, almost hyperventilating. I tried to comfort her, tried to calm her down as much as I could and assure her everything would work itself out. "Everything will be okay, Wendy. Don't worry, honey. Stone and I, and Andy—Stone's thirty-two-year-old nephew—will take care of everything. Among the four of us we'll get things worked out. I don't want you to be concerned about anything but getting on the plane, Wendy."

  My right hand was on the table next to my coffee cup. It had begun to tremble as if afflicted with a temporary palsy. Stone reached over and clasped my hand in his. He was trying to calm me, as I was trying to calm Wendy.

  "I can't believe all this, Mom." Then her whispering grew even fainter, and she sounded panicky. "You know, Mom, I didn't want to tell you this, but Clay's whole personality seemed to change when he found out I was expecting a baby. He became almost hostile to me, as if I'd done something wrong, something intentionally designed to hurt him. He acted as if I'd betrayed him. I still can't understand why he reacted the way he did to my pregnancy. But when I lost the baby, he seemed almost relieved—like a tremendous burden had been lifted from his shoulders."

  "Do you know what Clay's childhood was like?" I asked. "Has he ever talked to you about it? From what I found while talking to his mother, Wanda—if you can believe her, anyway—his childhood was pretty grim. Clay's father was an alcoholic and a child and spouse abuser. His mother is in a home for the mentally ill. Wanda said she'd been there for around sixteen years."

  "You talked to Clay's mother?" Wendy asked, incredulously. "I knew Wanda was alive, and his father, Homer, was mean. Clay said his mother was unable to come to the wedding because of health problems, but he never said she was mentally ill. He didn't mention his father at all, remember? Clay never said much about his family, though, other than he was an only child like me. He left home when he was about fifteen and joined the Navy soon after."

  Wendy's voice dropped even lower. I could hardly make out her next words. "Here comes Clay, Mom. I see him walking this way. I don't know what to do—oh, Lord—what do I do? What do I do, Mom?"

  "Listen to me, Wendy, and do exactly as I tell you. Behave as normally as you possibly can. Tell Clay you talked to me and we're all heading up to Maine and New Hampshire from here, so I thought it'd make sense to have you fly into JFK instead of Charleston. Don't mention anything about the rest of this. Okay? Promise me that, Wendy. Not one word that anybody suspects him of anything. Promise!"

  "I promise," she whispered. She sounded a little calmer, but I still worried she wouldn't be able to pull it off in front of her new husband. "What if he doesn't believe me, Mom? You know I never was a good liar. Oh gosh, I've got to go. He's almost here now. He's almost here. I heard him on his cell phone. I think he's talking to Jake. I heard him say Jake's name. Jake still calls him every day. What do I do? Oh, God, what do I do?"

  "Stay calm. Don't say anything to Clay about anything. Just get on the plane. Whatever happens, Wendy, just get on that plane! We'll take care of you once you get here. Not a word to Clay about anything now, you hear me? Tell him he doesn't need to stay with you while you wait to board the plane. Tell him he can go back to the house—that you'll be fine waiting there by yourself." I was whispering into the phone now. I tried to reinforce the things she'd need to do, and keep her calm at the same time. "We'll see you in a just a few hours. Okay, honey? Act normal now, okay? I love you."

  "Me too," she said. And then the phone went dead and I collapsed in nervous tears.

  Chapter 20

  The engine sputtered as Stone guided my Jeep Wrangler to the shoulder of the road. The vehicle took one final gasp and died. It rolled to a stop along the busy interstate. I noticed in alarm that steam was pouring out from under the hood.

  "Damn!" Stone swore and pounded the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. "I knew I should have checked this car over while I was tuning up the Lincoln!"

  "What's wrong with it?"

  "It's overheating. I'd guess the radiator fluid level is low. I'll take a look."

  While Stone stepped out of the Jeep, I checked my watch to see how much time we had before Wendy's flight arrived. We had an hour and ten minutes. I tried not to panic. By my estimate, we weren't more than twenty minutes from JFK Airport. Stone had worked on Harriet's car, so he must have some mechanical skills, I told myself. I bent my head and said a quick prayer that he'd have the Jeep running and back on the road within a few minutes. I looked up as Stone approached my window with something in his hand resembling a rubber snake.

  "Here's our problem," he said in a disgusted voice.

  "What's that?"

  "It's the fan belt."

  "Oh, my! It'd been running rough recently. I had it serviced just before I left Kansas. Kenny said the fan belt was still like new, or I would have had him replace it. He said the engine didn't need a complete tune-up yet. He just thought the air filter was probably clogged so he replaced it with a new one. It must have needed a complete tune-up."

  "Kenny was probably correct. I doubt it needed a complete tune-up. It's possible it may need the timing adjusted, but that has nothing to do with this fan belt. See this smooth edge? Then it is jagged at the very edge." Stone held it up for my inspection. "Someone took a knife to it. It must've snapped in two a few minutes ago. Without the belt to run the fan, the engine overheats and shuts down the motor. It won't start again now until it cools off."

  "We have over an hour before the flight is due," I said. "If we wait for it to cool off, could we make it—"

  "No," Stone cut in with impatience. "After the engine cools down it will start, but we won't get far before it overheats again."

  "But why would someone cut my fan belt? And who?"

  "I don't know. Someone sabotaged your vehicle, I'm sure. I don't think it was a random act. Who knows you're here besides Harriet, Wendy, and me?"

  "No one I'm aware of, Stone."

  "Well, we'll have to worry about that later. Right now we need to find a way to get to the airport." Stone removed his cell phone from his belt clip and a plastic card from his wallet. Studying the card, he punched in a number. He spoke briefly into the phone, then dialed a second number. After he replaced the phone in the clip, he led me toward the grassy area beyond the shoulder, away from the Jeep and the heavy traffic on the busy interstate. The Jeep had stalled next to a green mile marker sign.

  "Stand back here while I put the hood up on the Jeep and turn on the hazard lights. I have AAA on the way to tow the Jeep and a taxi coming to take us to the airport."

  "Okay. Be careful."


  I paced nervously on the shoulder while we waited for the taxi to arrive. By the time we were in the cab and on the way to JFK again, it was only a half hour before Wendy's flight arrived. I had always assumed all NYC taxi drivers drove ninety miles an hour and used curbs and sidewalks as passing lanes, often missing pedestrians by mere inches. In fact, I thought as a rule they ignored traffic laws altogether. So why'd we have to get the only law-abiding taxi driver in the whole darn city who was never within ten miles of exceeding the speed limit? Didn't this guy realize he was driving Miss Crazy, not Miss Daisy?

  Our driver slowed down when anything crossed our path, whether it was ten feet or ten miles away. I was beginning to think he might have a depth-perception problem. Pedestrians darted across the street in front of us. At times they stood in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. I didn't actually want to see anyone get hurt, but I would have gladly nudged a few people out of the way with the cab's bumper.

  Traffic slowed and became more congested as we neared the airport. Cars cut in and out in front of us and honked their horns incessantly as they swerved from lane to lane. We could hear a siren several blocks away. Before we knew it, traffic had come to a complete stop. I looked out the window and could see the airport up ahead. Stone saw the look of concern cross my face after I once again checked my watch.

  "We'll get out here," he said to the cabby, as he handed the man forty dollars. Stone helped me out of the back seat and then held my hand as we zigzagged through traffic toward the terminal. Drivers honked and glared at us as if they wanted to nudge us out of the way with their bumpers. How rude!

  We were winded by the time we entered the building, but we didn't slow down. I was surprised we weren't stopped and questioned by security until I noticed how many other agitated people were running at top speed through the terminal. It was over twenty minutes past the time the flight had been due to arrive. With any luck at all, the flight had been delayed.