Geraldine’s wrath finally pushed her to her feet. “Oh, these lies, Renee, these lies; they fit you like the glove to hand. And you should know, Renee, that Marcus Whitby saw the agreement Calvin and Olin signed together. Whatever was in that agreement, Julius Arnoff has a copy of it.”
Before she could go further, her bad foot gave way and she collapsed, scrabbling at Blodel’s arms on her way down. My deputy let go of me to help get Geraldine back into a chair, and to make sure she hadn’t suffered further hurt. While their attention was on Geraldine-and on Renee, who was saying, “Oh, Geraldine, must you always play the victim to garner attention?”-I retreated to a corner of the living room with my cell phone.
My first call was to Freeman Carter. My lawyer wasn’t happy to hear from me at four in the morning, but he took in a summary of what had happened. He said he knew a lawyer in Rhinelander, the nearest big town, and put me on hold while he looked up the number. When he’d given it to me, he told me to wait half an hour before phoning so he could put the local guy in the picture.
I called Bobby Mallory next. Years of midnight emergencies brought him to the phone grouchy but coherent.
“I’m in Eagle River, Bobby. Renee Bayard just shot Benjamin Sadawi.” “Give it to me fast, Victoria. And straight, no frills.”
I gave it to him straight. Mostly straight. Not too many frills. I told him how Catherine ran away with Benji yesterday afternoon, at which he interrupted: How did I know? It wasn’t because I had known where Benji was and helped him escape?
I sidestepped that issue and told Bobby about the phenobarb, about
Calvin Bayard’s nurse with her seizures. I even told him about Calvin’s secret deal with Olin Taverner, although I choked over the words, hardly able to utter them.
“Renee helped broker that deal fortyfive years ago, Bobby. Marc Whitby stumbled on it and went to ask her about it. She wasn’t going to let Calvin’s secret see the light of day. She’d built her life around making him into the great man; she wasn’t going to let the world see him as lesser. She probably killed Olin, too.”
“Your say-so?” Bobby was sarcastic.
“The family lawyer has a copy of an agreement Calvin Bayard and Olin Taverner both signed. I don’t know its details, but the firm is Lebold, Arnofl: If he’ll let you read it, it may make everything clearer.”
Bobby grunted in my ear. “So what got the kid involved in this?”
“He saw Renee Bayard put Marcus Whitby into that pond last week. Right before he died, Benji said he saw Renee drive up in some kind of vehicle that wasn’t a car; he watched her put Marc’s body into the pond. Remember that golf cart I told you about on Sunday? It would have been so easy for her.”
I had been picturing how she’d worked it. She would have invited Marc to meet her-privately: “Keep it to yourself so there isn’t a possibility of Llewellyn hearing about it,” she would have said. “You don’t want to ruin your career by having him know you talked to me.” Marc played his cards close to his chest-everyone agreed to that-so Renee could have counted on his silence.
Catherine was spending that Sunday night in New Solway; Elsbetta had the night off. Renee invited Marc to Banks Street, gave him his favorite bourbon doctored with Theresa’s phenobarb. As soon as he started feeling ill, before he lost consciousness and couldn’t walk, she would have hustled him to his car-“I’d better get you to the hospital,” I could imagine her saying, the organizational genius at work.
When Renee reached Coverdale Lane, Marc would have been barely conscious. She could safely leave him in the car, go under the culvert, get a golf cart, push his body from car to cart and drive him to the pond.
Bobby listened to me all the way through, but he was skeptical when I finished. “Picturesque, but no proof.”
I almost stamped my foot in frustration. “If I’m right, that cart in the equipment shed will have evidence for your forensic techs to find. It would be great if they got to it before the golf course repaints it or trashes it.”
He paused. “All right. I’ll move that up the priority list, but what does your fairy tale have to do with the mess you’re in now?”
“Renee hightailed it up here to silence Benji, so he couldn’t identify her. But Geraldine Graham and I both heard him say he’d seen her put Marcus Whitby into the pond when he was up in the Larchmont attic.”
“Yeah, hearsay testimony of a dead terrorist. I’m not even going to try to take that into court.”