My smile falls away. “I lost it.”
Detective Vick doesn’t ask how, and I don’t volunteer that information. Telling him I dropped it when I almost fell off the terrace will only make him more convinced that what happened to Mary wasn’t murder. Not that he doubts himself in any way.
“I knew it,” he says. “I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I really did. But please, enough of this bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, Kit. It’s the exact same thing you attempted this afternoon. You’re taking what happened to Mary—a very serious, very tragic event—and twisting it into a way to ease your guilt.”
“My guilt? You still think I’m making all of this up?”
“I’m not blaming you,” Detective Vick continues, as if I’ve said nothing at all. “I don’t even think you’re aware you’re doing it. But it’s obvious what’s happening. Your mother took her own life. How big of a role you played in that is still up for debate.”
“It’s not up for debate. It was an accident.”
“So you keep trying to convince me,” Detective Vick says.
I want to scream.
And cry.
And rip the phone off the wall and smash it against the kitchen floor. Considering its age and my rage, I suspect I’m capable of it. But common sense grips me harder than frustration. If I sound hysterical, Detective Vick will be convinced that I am. Which is clearly the only thing I can convince him of.
“I am telling you I think a woman was murdered,” I say. “Shouldn’t you take that seriously? Shouldn’t you at least investigate it?”
Detective Vick sighs. “I have investigated it. After talking to you and everyone else at that house, my conclusion is that Mary Milton took her own life.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“The coroner’s preliminary findings show that her injuries are consistent with a fall from that height. There were no defensive wounds, which there would likely have been if she had been attacked in the manner you suggest. I had officers search the grounds, the beach, even the terrace. They found nothing to indicate there was a suitcase or a struggle or a murder. In fact, they found nothing at all.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Detective Vick says. “I’m not the person you thought I was.”
I grip the receiver tight, flummoxed. “What?”
“Mary’s suicide note. That’s what it said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not the person you thought I was.’ Found neatly folded in the pocket of her uniform. The paper sustained heavy water damage, but it was still readable. Now, give me one reason not to hang up right now.”
“Lenora didn’t kill her family,” I say, more out of desperation than anything else. I certainly have no plan. But I hope dropping a bombshell like that will keep Detective Vick listening. “At least, I don’t think she did. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
“We?”
“Me and Lenora. I told you, we’re typing her story, just like she did with Mary. But there was a worker here. Ricardo Mayhew.”
“I know,” Detective Vick says. “I used to work there, remember?”
“Did you also know Lenora was in love with him? And that it’s possible he’s the one who killed her parents and sister? I’m pretty sure Lenora knew he did it and covered for him. Now I think she wants to come clean, maybe in the hopes that he’ll be caught, even though he vanished the night of the murders.”
When I finally give Detective Vick a chance to speak, his voice wavers between intrigue and wariness. “Are you sure about this?”
“You have access to the police report from that night,” I say. “Look at it and see. You’ll also see that there’s a whole lot of unanswered questions from that night. Mary had those answers. Now she’s dead. That’s not a coincidence. And it’s sure as hell not suicide.”
I hang up before Detective Vick can poke another hole in my theory, tell me I’m wrong, and then smugly trot out some other bit of evidence to prove it. I know I’m on to something here.
And it terrifies me.
Because Lenora’s also telling me her story, I could be next.
Yet that’s not the scariest part of all this. The truly chilling, scarier-than-Stephen-King part is that Mary wasn’t killed by some random stranger. In a twisted way, that would put me more at ease. But whoever pushed her off the terrace knew what she was up to.
They knew her.
Which means it was likely someone at Hope’s End.
Other than me and Lenora, only four people fit that description—Mrs. Baker, Archie, Carter, and Jessie.
Why one of them would feel the need to kill Mary over something Lenora typed is beyond me. I reach for the phone again, itching to call Detective Vick back. He needs to hear this, even if it’s doubtful he’ll believe me.
He hasn’t yet.
About anything.
I’m about to dial when I hear a noise behind me. Footsteps. Moving from the darkened dining room into the kitchen. I whirl around to see Carter halt in the doorway. Hands raised in innocence, he says, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Yet he did. My heart pounds so loud I suspect he can hear it. Adding to the pounding is this: Carter is one of the four people who could have shoved Mary off the terrace.
He sways slightly as he steps fully into the kitchen. He’s been drinking. A truth he acknowledges with an unapologetic “It’s been a shitty day.”
I remain with my hand on the phone, frozen. “It has.”
“I was out on the terrace and heard someone on the phone. Thought I’d come in and investigate.”
“How much did you hear?”
“Some of it.”
“Some of it or all of it?”
“Most of it,” Carter says. “And I get why you’re nervous right now. You should be. But not around me. I knew what Mary was doing.”
“Then tell me.”
“She was trying to help me.” Carter crosses the kitchen, drawing closer. Close enough for me to smell the whiskey on his breath. “And I think it’s my fault she died.”
“You have exactly one minute to tell me what you mean by that,” I say, fully aware that I sound exactly like Detective Vick.
“Not here,” Carter says.
I stay where I am. “Yes, here.”
I’m not about to walk off alone with a killer. If that’s what Carter is. While his words make it sound like he’s about to confess, his body language says otherwise. Hunched and shambling, he appears incapable of harm. But appearances can be deceiving.
“There’s something you need to see,” he says, adding, “And I can’t show you here. So you’re just going to have to trust me for five minutes.”
“You said Mary was helping you?”
“She was, yeah,” Carter says. “And now I want to help her by finding out what really happened. Because she didn’t jump. I know that, and judging by that phone call you just made, you know it, too.”
The fact that he believes me is the only reason I follow Carter to his cottage. Even then, I make him walk several paces ahead of me, hands where I can see them. Once inside the cottage, I stay by the door in case I need to make a run for it. But Carter’s movements are anything but threatening. After clearing the almost-empty whiskey bottle from the table, he pours himself a cup of black coffee to sober up.
“Want some?” he says.
“Coffee or whiskey?”
“Take your pick.”
“I’d rather see what it is you needed to show me so bad,” I say.
“In a minute.” Carter sits at his table for two and takes a sip of coffee. “First, I need to admit something. I lied about why I took a job here.”
I edge a half step toward the door. “If you want me to trust you, that’s the wrong way of doing it.”
“It is indeed,” Carter says. “But it’s important you know that. Now, remember that regular customer I told you about? The one who used to work here and suggested I take his place?”
“I do,” I say. “And I’m assuming he had a name.”
“Anthony,” Carter replies. “Although everyone called him Tony. Well, Tony did more than suggest I work here. He insisted on it.”
“Why?”
“He worked here for decades. Knew all the nooks and crannies. One day, he was poking around in the rooms above the garage. Some of the servants used to live there.”
“I thought they lived in the house or this cottage,” I say.
“In its heyday, Hope’s End was overrun with servants. There was a mechanic whose sole job was to look after Winston Hope’s collection of Packards. He had five of them. Archie told me that Mrs. Baker had to sell them over the years to help pay for this place’s upkeep.”