Sarah forced herself to calm down. She had to think. Daniel was admitting that he believed there had been some conspiracy in years past, a plan to ruin her father. And he believed Graham Estis had been part of it.
"A good agent never believes in coincidence," Daniel said as he moved her toward the front door. "Familiar?" He looked back to find the cat was right behind him. "We have to get out of here, erasing every trace that we were at this house." As he spoke, he took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the bedroom and front doork.n.o.bs. "We didn"t touch anything else."
He guided her down the steps, glancing at the neighboring houses to see if anyone had noticed them. "Don"t cry," be said softly to her. "We can"t make any kind of scene. Don"t cry." He put her in the pa.s.senger seat, and Familiar hopped in with her.
Walking around the car, Daniel looked up and down the street. No one was about, for the moment. There had been no need to put a tail on them. Someone who knew every move they intended to make was already in Mississippi. Waiting to see if they"d come. Watching to see if Daniel and Sarah were on the right path.
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, Sarah, and possibly her mother, were in serious danger.
Daniel got behind the wheel. He said nothing to Sarah until they were coasting over the Biloxi Bay bridge and reentering the town of Biloxi. "Where does your mother live?" he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.
Sarah heard the fear that lay beneath his question. She gave the address only a block from the beach. "Hurry, Daniel," she whispered. "Please hurry."
THINGS HAVE GONE from bad to worse here. I don"t know who snared me from behind and threw me in the closet at Lucinda Watts"s estate. Even though I"d been knocked on the head-a most insulting attack against an agent of the First Cat-/ heard them rattling around in the oven. Since Dolly wouldn"t let me near the pork chops for a sniff, I had to take matters into my own hands on a hunch. I know someone tampered with those chops. As it was, I bet my lovely black hide on my intuition.
But I don"t have a clue as to who it was!
Another troubling thing is Lucinda. Her attack on Sarah was vicious, but very calculated. It was almost as if she"d planned this entire debacle. Except she didn"t count on me to make such a fiasco of the meal. I had the distinct impression that maybe she wanted someone to eat that bad meat.
I know, I could be prejudiced by the fact that she wanted to have me shot, or failing that, to have slices of my brain tissue probed under a microscope. That tends to make even the most docile feline a little aggressive.
I"ve had this feeling since we started this trip that someone was watching us. I could never put my paw on it exactly. There was a car behind us coming out of the airport. I"m positive. But they pa.s.sed us. Headed right over here to murder Graham Estis, I"ll bet.
I know we need to beat it from here before the cops arrive and charge Dolly and Bureau Boy with murder, but I sure would like a little more time to look around this place.
There are some awfully handsome antiques here. These things cost big bucks. Eleanor has a few of those posh magazines for interior decorating lying around the house. There"s been a significant number of the pages turned to miniature beds and miniature furniture. I get the impression that there may be an addition to the Curry family in the future, but they aren"t telling me-yet. And I"m keeping my kitty claws crossed that this interest in baby things is a pa.s.sing trend. Nonetheless, I"ve noticed a few of the prices for those pieces, and it"s enough to make a cat"s hair stand straight on end. Yikes! Ten grand for a baby bed. Right! That would outfit an orphanage.
But there were several pieces in the Estis house that looked to be expensive. I"m wondering how a cop made that kind of purchase. Family inheritance, possibly. Not from the wife"s side, though, or she wouldn"t have driven off and left them.
There"s plenty here to look into. Plenty. But Mora is the key concern right now. I can see by Dolly"s pretty face that she"s terrified. Bureau Boy isn"t exactly light of heart, either. This traffic isn"t helping matters. It just goes to show that just because people have two hands and two legs, they aren"t qualified to drive. I know dogs who could do a better job of operating a vehicle than some of the people on this road, and I don"t believe dogs have a lot of brain power.
Here we are, pulling into the yard. The place looks okay. No signs of a struggle. But there wasn"t a struggle at Graham Estis"s house, either.
Wait! What"s that out by that azalea bush? Oh, holy gizzards, it"s a woman lying out in the yard. Judging by Dolly"s face, it must be her mother.
Chapter Sixteen.
"Mom!" Sarah was out of the car before Daniel could even stop it. Leaves crunched beneath her feet as she ran the fifty yards to the still form that was sprawled across the gra.s.s. "Mom!" Sarah heard her voice break.
As she reached the body, she felt strong hands pull her back. "Let me," Daniel insisted. Pushing Sarah aside, he knelt beside Mora Covington"s pale form. Practiced hands felt for a pulse at her neck, and he gave a grim sound of encouragement. "She"s alive."
"Let"s get her in the house!"
"Not so fast," Daniel said, examining Mora for injuries and broken bones. "Get a blanket. Get several blankets," he ordered Sarah. Very gently, he pulled at the bottom of Mora Covington"s eye. The pale color of the tissue indicated shock. "Call an ambulance!" he called after Sarah.
Mora was cold, too cold, and he chafed her hands and legs as he waited for Sarah to return. When he heard the door slam, he looked up to see her running toward him, her face obscured by at least five blankets.
"What happened?" Sarah dropped down on the opposite side of Mora and began to help Daniel pile on the blankets.
"Shock, at least that much I can tell. Why, I don"t know." Daniel"s voice was terse with concern.
Sarah looked down at her mother and felt the tears threaten to destroy her self-control. Bitterly she fought them back. Mimicking Daniel"s gestures, she took her mother"s hand and began to warm it with brisk movements.
"She doesn"t seem to be hurt," Daniel said. He was trying to find anything-anything with a shred of truth in it-to give Sarah to cling to. He could see the anguish in her face. If only they"d come to Mora"s house the night before. If only they"d somehow warned her. If only... the two worst words in the English language.
"Listen." Sarah c.o.c.ked her head to the distant sound of a siren. "It"s the rescue unit." She spoke with a strange surety. "In small towns, you can tell the different sirens," she said, grasping at any bit of trivia to keep talking, to keep from breaking down. "That"s the rescue squad, and it"s coming this way. That"s who I called. They"ll be here in just a moment." She blinked rapidly. "In just a moment, Mom. Just hang on."
"She"s stable," Daniel a.s.sured her, knowing that his words would be of little comfort. "She"s going to be fine, Sarah, just fine. Really."
"What happened?" Sarah"s terrible grief made the question sound even angrier than she was.
"We don"t know." Daniel was gentle. "She could have been walking to the neighbor"s to borrow a cup of sugar."
"Right." The one word cut across Daniel"s gentle voice. "So where"s her cup? Where"s the sugar? Don"t you think it"s more likely that someone came up here, tried to get into her house, and she was running for help before she was frightened nearly to death?"
That was exactly what Daniel suspected, but he had no proof and he didn"t needlessly want to scare Sarah. Whoever had killed Graham Estis had more than likely come straight over to Mora Covington"s house with the intention of either killing her or frightening her into total submission. But what did Mora have to be frightened about? Cal was already dead, his reputation ruined.
"Daniel, you think someone was trying to hurt Mom, don"t you?"
Daniel looked up into Sarah"s eyes. She was angry, and she was afraid, but she was also thinking. Her intelligence and spirit made him want to reach out to her, to tell her that everything was going to be okay, that the bad guys were going to suffer for what they"d done. Trouble was, he wasn"t certain who the bad guys were anymore.
"I think she was frightened."
"By the men who killed Graham?"
"Probably."
"You think they were trying to kill her?"
Daniel swallowed. "No." He waited, hoping he had some other choice than what he was about to say. "I think they were trying to kill you."
Sarah blanched but she never stopped rubbing her mother"s hand and arm. She looked away from Darnel only when the emergency truck pulled into the front yard and two men rushed over and gently moved her away. Still stunned from Daniel"s statement, she stumbled over to a tallow tree and leaned against the trunk. She could remember that tree from when she was a child, climbing its tender young branches and earning a scolding from her father.
"How is she?" Daniel asked the paramedics who gave a quick examination of Mrs. Covington as they loaded her onto a stretcher.
"Heartbeat is regular." The paramedic shrugged. "We"ll know more when we run some tests. Jerry"s going to try to bring her around."
As he spoke, one of the paramedics broke a small vial under Mora"s nose. She struggled on the stretcher, lifting her hands as if to ward off a blow.
"Cal!" The one word was a cry of complete anguish. "Oh, Cal, I didn"t mean to hurt you. Don"t!"
"Easy, Mrs. Covington," the paramedic said as he eased her back to the stretcher. He wore a grin of satisfaction. "That ammonia brought her around," he said to his companion. Neither of the men saw Sarah, still standing at the tree. Every bit of color drained from her face. Daniel told the rescue squad that they would follow the ambulance to the hospital and waved them on their way before he went to Sarah.
"She was running from my father"s ghost." Sarah"s voice was dull.
"You"re jumping to conclusions." Daniel knew he would have a.s.sumed the same thing, but it wasn"t the only possibility.
"When Dad died, something broke in my mother. She became paranoid, unsure of herself, afraid of everything. The FBI questioned her over and over again. She almost had a breakdown. And I never understood why. She changed from a beautiful woman who laughed and played and planned jokes and parties to a rabbity woman who was afraid of her own shadow."
"Sarah, some people-"
"Why would she be afraid of my father"s ghost? Why would anyone be afraid of Dad?"
He took her arms and gently rubbed them. She was cold, too. The morning was brisk even though the sun was shining. "She could have been having a nightmare, some twisted vision of the past. It doesn"t mean anything, Sarah, and you"re jumping to some conclusions you might well regret."
"There"s something here," Sarah insisted.
"I agree, but I"m not certain it"s what you think it is. Now take the car to the hospital. That blasted cat is around here somewhere and I"ll find him." He lifted her chin so that she had to look at him. "And I"ll check the house for some clues. You haven"t even considered that maybe someone broke into the house and terrified your mother."
Sarah hadn"t mentioned the possibility. Maybe it was something that had happened to her after Cal"s death. There was plenty about the Covington family he wasn"t clear on yet. But the more he saw, the more he wanted to be with Sarah at the hospital.
"Meow!" Familiar"s playful voice came from a room down the hallway.
"d.a.m.n it, cat, get back in here." Daniel felt his control slipping. His need to be with Sarah increased with each pa.s.sing moment.
"Meow!" Familiar"s silky voice came from the end of the hallway.
"You"d better not be playing a game," Daniel warned him. He hurried toward the room from where Familiar was calling.
He pushed open the last door on the hallway and knew immediately he was in Mora Covington"s bedroom. The sense of being an intruder was almost too strong for him to ignore as he hit the switch for the overhead light and finally located Familiar on the dressing table. The cat was pawing at a mirror as if he was playing with his own reflection.
"Great. Sarah"s at the hospital and you"ve gone bonkers on me." Daniel scooped the cat into his arms, unprepared for the writhing ma.s.s of claws and teeth. Familiar had never, never behaved like such a wild thing! He dropped the slashing fur ball to the dresser and was amazed to see Familiar completely calm as he pawed at the mirror again.
Daniel noticed the pictures tucked into the edge of the silvered gla.s.s. Tugging carefully, he pulled out the one Familiar was pawing. In it were two men and two women. One man was Cal Covington and one woman, Mora. She was incredibly beautiful, and the way Cal looked at her would make an innocent girl blush. There was love and hunger in that look, and Mora basked in it. The third man, looking on with an indulgent smile, struck a chord with Daniel. He recognized him almost immediately as Sarah"s beloved Uncle Vince, with his arm around a pouting Lucinda Watts.
In a flash, Daniel knew what Sarah had never realized that Vincent Minton had been drawn to Mora Covington. He might have been a longtime friend of the family, but it was Mora who held him, not Cal, as Sarah had always supposed.
Daniel carefully replaced the picture. "That"s a triangle where two sides don"t know the third side exists," Daniel said. Mora"s words came back to him. She"d said she hadn"t meant to hurt Cal. Maybe Mora had been aware of Vincent Minton"s feelings for her. Maybe she"d acted on them. Maybe that was why Vincent was always looking out for Sarah. And just maybe that was why Mora was living in a time warp and suffering from a guilty conscience. The pieces clicked into place.
"Meow." Familiar watched the expressions pa.s.s over Daniel"s face.
"I don"t want to be the one to bring this up to Sarah," Daniel said. He saw the ripple effect of what his discovery might mean. If Cal had been aware that Mora was unfaithful to him, he might have become depressed and carelessly lost his life.
An unfaithful wife on top of an FBI investigation would do even the stoutest man in.
"But we don"t know that she was unfaithful," Daniel reminded himself and the cat. "We"re getting as bad as Sarah, jumping to conclusions all over the place."
He scooped up the cat and held him as he took in the room again. The bed was slightly rumpled, as if Mora had gone to sleep at some point in the night. He noticed the chenille bedspread and the glazed lamp beside the bed. The past. Perhaps a time when Mora and Cal had been happy. They would have been newlyweds with only a dream of Sarah in mind. Sadness touched him and he left the bedroom, taking care to close the door.
Maybe it would be easier for Sarah not to go back. Digging into the past could sometimes turn up things that no one wanted to know about. Skeletons in the closet. Relatives who"d been hung as horse thieves. He sighed and felt Familiar break into a purr against his chest.
"I gave Sarah the keys, big boy. Looks like we"ll have to wait here."
"Meow." Familiar wriggled to get free and Daniel put him on the floor. He went straight to the telephone and stared at it.
"I could call and see if the test results are in," Daniel said. He checked his watch. Sarah had been gone for less than an hour.
He withdrew the number to the private lab from his pocket and dialed. Familiar hopped into his lap as he sat at the table and counted the rings. When he finally got an answer, he was already champing at the bit.
Three minutes later he replaced the receiver and automatically began to tug at his hair. All of the pork chops had been sprinkled with a dusting of a.r.s.enic. It would have been enough to make everyone who touched them sick as dogs. Possibly even deathly ill. Daniel had expected another poisoning, but something more in line with the ipecac-not a potentially deadly poison. Certainly not one as easily traceable as a.r.s.enic.
It wasn"t that hard to obtain, but who would do such a thing? He thought back over what little he knew about the poison. In one big dose, it could be fatal, but in small quant.i.ties, it often took a long time to have a deadly effect. In the early 1900"s, a.r.s.enic had been used by society ladies to maintain a pallor that was thought to enhance the porcelain qualities of their skin.
But whoever was at work at Lucinda"s party hadn"t intended to produce cosmetic results. There was enough to create sickness, and in certain cases, death.
Who and why were the immediate questions.
Suspects immediately popped into his mind. Lucinda Watts bad been in the kitchen, as had the serving staff. And Sarah. And... He couldn"t think of anyone else, but there had been times when the kitchen was empty. He wanted to kick himself. It had been a good idea to get Sarah to check out the guests, but in doing so, they"d left the kitchen vulnerable.
And someone had taken advantage of that.
Why was a harder question. Why would Lucinda sabotage her own party? That could be answered a million ways, especially in light of the photograph he"d just seen in Mora"s bedroom. And the fact that Lucinda might have a motive certainly didn"t rule out the possibility that any one of the guests or servants might have done it. He shook his head with the futility of trying to reason it out. And the case was compounded by the murder of Graham Estis. Somehow it all tied together, and Sarah was at the heart of it. That was all he knew for sure.
"While we"re waiting for Sarah, let"s check out the rest of the house," Daniel said to Familiar. As he slowly got to his feet, Familiar sprang down beside him and gave his shin a playful nip.
BUREAU BOY is finally beginning to see the complexity of this picture. It"s like a giant coil, with everything spiraling out from the core of the past. I haven"t gotten everything worked out, not completely, but I think this trip to Mississippi was a good move. I won"t get into a discussion about my traveling accommodations-stuffed into an overnight bag like a pair of dirty socks. But at least I got here, and I didn"t have to travel with the luggage.
There"s something that"s been troubling me since we left that deputy"s house. I"m sure Bureau Boy noticed it, but he hasn"t commented. Probably his inferior brain hasn"t linked it all up yet. But Graham Estis was either shot while he was asleep, or he knew the person who shot him. How do I know this? Because there was no sign of a struggle. And I believe he knew the killer. Why? Because the bedside light was still on, as if he"d been up talking with someone. Which is what I think happened.
Like Bureau Boy, I believe Graham"s killer came straight over here to Mama Covington"s house and scared her half to death. The question is, how? Mama Covington was in a housedress, but her hair was combed, as if she"d been awake. My best guess is that she wasn"t in the yard more than an hour. Maybe daybreak. Strange that none of the neighbors noticed her. Why didn"t someone see Mora? Or at least hear her if she screamed? That"s a very good question, and I know Agent Dubonet will address it, as soon as it occurs to him. Or as soon as I figure out a way to make him think of it.
He"s poking around the house now. Careful not to touch anything. All of the doors look good. If someone entered the house without permission, they came through an unlocked door. Nothing is disturbed. Jeez, maybe these lamps are glued to the table. Like a television set. I keep thinking Lucy and Ricky are going to enter, stage left, and do a skit. They"d be right at home here. Maybe we should check next door and see if the Mertzes are around.
Or maybe we should just check next door. Ask a few pertinent questions, like, did you see or hear anything unusual? I"ll try a claw at the portal. Ah, that got Daniel"s attention. Remarkable how the sound of shredding wood can make a human snap to attention. That and claws sharpening in the sofa. Better than any alarm clock ever invented. And so much more fun on those dull and rainy afternoons when a cat has to be confined inside.
Well, holy Toledo, here comes Dolly herself, pulling into the yard in a blast of gravel. Who"s in the front seat with her? d.a.m.n! There"s the phone.
"WAIT!" Sarah rushed across the yard, leaving her pa.s.senger in the car. "Let me answer it." She gave Daniel"s shoulder a squeeze as she ran by to the ringing phone. Taking just a second to catch her breath, she said h.e.l.lo in a voice that sounded very timid, very afraid.
"Mora?" The voice carried a slightly French accent.
She held the receiver away from her ear so that Daniel could hear.
"Mora. We have to talk."
Very carefully she replaced the receiver.
"Did you recognize the voice?" Daniel asked. He couldn"t be certain. He"d heard it before, but he couldn"t be sure where.
"Yes." Sarah swallowed. Never in a million years had she expected to hear that voice. "It was Chef Andre."