The Case of the Questionable Quadruplet Page 18

  Sandy had struck me as pleasant and normal, too. A pleasant, normal sociopath.

  I still hadn’t pinned down her motives. Theft of Malerie’s money? Revenge, but for what?

  If she’d conspired with Winston to steal Malerie’s baby and lie about her death, it would have been vital to keep Celia’s existence secret. Yet any day, I’d have run into Jeremiah’s new nurse. Combine that with my investigation, and I understood why Sandy had wanted me dead. That sandwich she’d offered... damn, I’d had two close calls.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Celia said.

  My thoughts spun. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

  “Mom never told me I was adopted. Can we start with that?”

  “I’d like to hear it, too,” Jeremiah said. The receptionist seconded the request.

  “Thirty years ago, your mother worked with Mrs. Abernathy.” I received a nod, indicating she’d heard this part. “Malerie had an affair with a married man and expected him to leave his wife for her when she got pregnant. Then the child was born with a heart defect.”

  Understanding touched her quasi-familiar face. “Me.”

  “I’m not sure how Sandy ended up with you,” I noted.

  “Mom longed for a child,” Celia replied. “She said I was everything to her.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.”

  Frowning, she continued to work through her suddenly altered life story. “Mom claimed my father abandoned us because of the medical bills. The surgeries were expensive.”

  “No one provided financial assistance?” I couldn’t imagine Sandy accepting such an arrangement, however badly she’d wanted a baby.

  “My father paid for the first operation,” Celia said. “Then he dropped us.”

  The receptionist, who’d been following this tale avidly, beat me to the punch. “Why?”

  “Mom told different stories. She claimed he was broke and alcoholic. Then she’d get angry about how selfish and rich he was. She was mad at Mrs. Abernathy, too. She mentioned breaking an agreement,” Celia said thoughtfully. “When I asked what she meant, she’d snap at me.”

  If Winston had underwritten the initial surgery, the baby hadn’t been stolen. Given the reference to an agreement, it appeared Sandy had adopted the baby with his and Malerie’s permission. Then they’d stiffed her. Getting stuck with huge bills for further surgeries and treatments must have fueled Sandy’s resentment. If so, it had been a long, slow burn.

  Celia yanked me out of my reverie. “Who was my father?”

  “Winston Abernathy,” I said. “A doctor who practiced here. I knew him slightly.”

  “He was a distinguished anesthesiologist,” Jeremiah added.

  Celia hugged herself. “I spun fantasies about my dad showing up and loving me. Instead, he turns out to be a snob. I wasn’t perfect enough to be his precious daughter.”

  How strange to view Winston Abernathy, M.D., respected member of the community, through the eyes of the out-of-wedlock baby he’d apparently cast off. To avoid the scandal and expense of leaving his wife for his mistress? Because he couldn’t accept a child with heart problems? Or simply because he was a self-centered jerk?

  “Didn’t he and Mrs. Abernathy get married, though?” Celia asked. “I mean, obviously, they did. She was using his name.”

  “They got together after his wife died in a car accident,” I said. “You’d have been a toddler by then.”

  Whenever Malerie and Winston looked at the triplets, they must have seen the face of the baby they’d rejected. Surely there’d been regrets. Had they tried to see her or even reclaim her?

  There were a lot of pieces missing. “Why did your mother return to Safe Harbor?”

  “About a year ago, she lost her job in Boise,” Celia said. “Coincidentally, her old friend had a hip replacement and hired her for in-home care. Mom only planned to stay a few months, but she kept extending it.”

  Surely none of that would have occurred if Sandy and Malerie were at odds about their daughter. What had Sandy told her old friend—that her daughter had died? It would have been credible.

  Once Sandy arrived, she must have seen a chance to siphon off the money she believed was her due. In view of Malerie’s careless record-keeping, embezzlement would have been easy until Dee Marie stepped in to straighten out the mess.

  Celia’s arrival in Safe Harbor had ultimately exposed Sandy’s lie. “Surely your mother objected to your moving here,” I said.

  “She went ballistic,” Celia admitted.

  “Hence your arguments with her,” Jeremiah observed.

  “Why’d you come, then?” asked the receptionist.

  “We’d always been close. It seemed natural for me to join her,” his nurse answered. “I missed her, and I wanted to find out more about my father.”

  “Didn’t she tell you he’d died?” I asked.

  “Yes, but Mom fudges the truth when it suits her.” Now, there was an understatement. “Like I told you, she couldn’t keep the stories straight. She claimed he’d been abusive, like her father, and that I should be grateful he was gone, but the tale kept growing until he practically had horns and a tail. I started to hope she’d invented the whole thing and he might be alive.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Winston died of a stroke four years ago.”

  “I’ll never meet either of my birth parents.” Tears darkened Celia’s lashes. “I had no idea I was adopted or that I had sisters.”

  “One of whom Sandy murdered,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” I no longer had any doubts.

  “There might be a reasonable explanation,” offered the receptionist, obviously unaware of the extent of Sandy’s depravity. Or perhaps she was one of those overly evolved beings whose survival instincts had been bred out of her.

  “Mom swore terrible stuff would happen if I searched for my father,” Celia murmured. “If I hadn’t, would those people still be alive?”

  “An interesting conundrum,” Jeremiah remarked.

  “Your sister Dee Marie was murdered six months ago,” I pointed out. “Long before you got here.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Darcy.” Celia wiped her eyes with a tissue. “I’m glad I’m not to blame for that, at least.”

  “You’re not to blame for anything,” the receptionist assured her. That part, I agreed with.

  “I’ve kept you all too long.” Celia picked up her purse.

  “You ride the bus, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Mrs. Abernathy spotted you. She lost sight of the bus before she could catch up.” On impulse, I added, “I’ll give you a lift to your place. Where are you staying?”

  She named a motel, and accepted the ride. I could be running a risk; her physical resemblance to the Abernathy triplets didn’t preclude an inner landscape as dark and twisted as Sandy’s. Maybe Celia was part of this plot and played a role in an escape plan.

  I doubted that, however. And I had the syringe in my tote, for whatever it was worth.

  Jeremiah accompanied us to the parking structure. For once, I didn’t mind. In fact, I appreciated having a reinforcement in case we were waylaid.

  At the charging station, Celia blinked at the identical cars side by side. “You guys have a twin thing?”

  “We possess similar tastes,” Jeremiah remarked.

  “I guess you do.”

  She buckled herself into my passenger seat. A minute later, as we rolled down the hospital’s drive, she spoke again. “Dr. Schwartz seems fixated on you. What’s with that?”

  “He’s a bit eccentric.” Accurate enough.

  “He sure is,” Celia said. “I like him, though.”

  That spoke well of her. However, I faced a decision, whether to proceed inland to her motel or take her home with me. Not that I had designs on Celia. Yet if Sandy contacted anyone, it would be her daughter. We had to catch her before she devised yet another vicious plot.


  “Look, I can drop you at your place, but the homicide detective recommended I go home and lock the doors.” He’d also mentioned staying at a hotel, but I’d rather not. “You’re welcome to join me. There’s no telling what your mother will do if she feels cornered.”

  “She’d never hurt me!”

  “She might harm someone else.” Would Celia deny that Sandy posed a threat? I wondered.

  Slowly, she said, “At your place, I can keep tabs on the investigation better than at the motel, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Okay.”

  I steered toward the ocean. Beside me, Celia fiddled with her purse. “What if someone’s framing her? It’s possible.”

  “I’d agree if I hadn’t seen it for myself.” I described my near-electrocution in the bathroom. “It was so smooth, it didn’t even register with me until later. Or do you think I’m overreacting?”

  Celia pressed her lips together before replying. “My mother wouldn’t be that careless,” she admitted. “She’s warned me about unplugging devices before I run the water. Especially anything other than a hair dryer, because they have an automatic shutoff.”

  As the traffic thinned, I accelerated southward. “By the way, were you at the harbor last night?”

  She gave me a startled glance. “Yes. You saw me?”

  “I ate dinner at the pier.”

  “A guy invited me to a party on his boat. Turned out to be a party of just him and me.” Celia smiled ruefully. “I high-tailed it out of there.”

  “I tried to follow, but you disappeared.”

  “Mom picked me up,”

  What if I’d seen Sandy? But, typically, I hadn’t. She’d been a presence in the background the past few weeks, at Doreen’s condo, at the funeral, at my house. Without my suspecting a thing.

  Anger gripped me. She’d violated my home, not once but repeatedly. No doubt it had been Sandy who broke in and stole Malerie’s file.

  Now that I thought about it, Morris had hired her based on business cards dropped off by would-be cleaners, which meant she’d probably planned the theft in advance but grown impatient. Ironically, if she’d delayed a few more days, we might have employed her as a housekeeper and she’d have been able to steal the file with no one the wiser.

  And I wouldn’t have lost Lydia’s jewelry. What had she done with it?

  We traced side streets to the cul-de-sac where my familiar home welcomed us, dark half-timbers punctuating pale-gray brickwork.

  Beside me, Celia sighed. “You live here? It’s beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” I parked in the driveway, sparing her the clutter of the garage. “It belonged to my parents.”

  “It’s like being invited into Sleeping Beauty’s castle.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  Outside, I moved past her up the front walk and unlocked the door. As I swung it open, from the corner of my eye, I recognized a vehicle parked down the street, a white van with gold trim and brown lettering. Despite a palm tree screening the view, it was unmistakably Morris’s.

  I heard no beep-beep from the alarm. Morris had beaten me home. And left a note on the side table, a printed-out letter signed with his rounded flourish.

  This was wrong. When he left a note, he scribbled it by hand.

  He’d last been seen in the van with Sandy. “Celia, stay back.” I took out my phone to call for help.

  “This place is amazing.” Oblivious to my anxiety, the nurse gazed upwards at the elevated ceiling. And the curving staircase, where—brief mental disconnect—two people poised at the top in an arrangement that made no sense.

  Sandy grimaced at us. At this angle, she appeared misshapen in her black-and-white catering uniform. Beside her, a black apron over his clothes, my dazed father-in-law balanced precariously atop a stool.

  The electrical cord wrapped around his neck was fastened to the railing. We’d caught Sandy about to stage another death.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  One wrong move and she’d shove my petrified father-in-law over the rail. Judging by his slack muscle tone, Sandy had drugged him. Funny, fierce, loving Morris, who’d gathered me into his big heart, depended on me to save him.

  Trying to cover my movements, I tapped a message to Keith. “Sdy at my hs,” and hit Send.

  “Let him go,” I shouted to my so-called housekeeper. “You can’t trick us into believing it’s suicide.”

  Renewing her hold on the shorter man, Sandy licked her lips. She hadn’t reacted to Celia’s presence, perhaps because the nurse stood behind me.

  Behind me. Which meant, blocking my path. If they’d set a trap, I’d walked right into it.

  Inside the tote, I touched the syringe. But it would be impossible to sedate them both.

  “He begged me to assist him,” Sandy cried. “He can’t bear the guilt. Read his note. He stole from Malerie and schemed to kill her. Isn’t that right, Morris?”

  When she yanked the cord, his terrified eyes begged me to stop her. I had no super powers, nothing to halt her except my wits, which under the circumstances didn’t amount to much.

  On the plus side, Celia hadn’t attacked me yet. As far as I could tell with my peripheral vision, she stood frozen.

  Stalling, praying for Keith’s hasty intervention, I snatched the paper from the table and scanned the lines. “Morris stole from Mrs. Abernathy and murdered her and Dee Marie and Rafe? You expect me to believe this?”

  Sandy ignored the comment. “You shouldn’t have brought Danielle. I hate those girls. They grew up rich while my daughter suffered.”

  The red-haired woman edged around me. “Mom?” came Celia’s trembling voice. “What are you doing?”

  Shocked silence. After a heartbeat, it yielded to anger. “I told you to stay out of my business,” Sandy roared. “Why are you here?”

  They didn’t appear to be in league. Still, the nurse remained an unknown quantity.

  “You should have told me I’m adopted.” Celia’s words echoed in the hall. “I wouldn’t have cared.”

  “You’d have left me for them.”

  “No, Mom. Why are you killing people? It’s crazy.”

  Beneath the tense exchange, I heard a scraping noise in the garage. The overhead door hadn’t groaned open, and the only person with a key to the side entrance was Tory.

  Please don’t let her burst in here. She’d be as powerless as me. Worse, any sudden intrusion might cost Morris his life.

  Sandy remained riveted on her daughter. “Don’t believe whatever Dr. Darcy tells you. He’s on their side.”

  “Whose side? My birth family’s?”

  “Let me tell you about that family,” Sandy spat. “They’d have dumped you in a ditch if I hadn’t taken you. You weren’t perfect enough for Dr. Abernathy and his greedy mistress.”

  “I agree they should have paid for my medical care,” Celia began. “But...”

  “You think this is about money?” Sandy boomed. “After they finally got married, they tried to buy me off. A quarter of a million dollars for the baby they’d thrown away. Like I’d sell you!”

  “You had a right to refuse,” Celia protested. “You adopted me legally, didn’t you?”

  Had Keith read my message? Where was he? I heard no sirens, just a thump from the rear of the house that no one else seemed to notice.

  “Sure, but they had money and lawyers.” Sandy barely paused for breath. “When I said you died, they acted like I broke a vase. Oh, gee, too bad.”

  Morris wobbled on his stool. I had a nightmarish image of my father-in-law tumbling off the landing, only to be jerked short by the cord. At this height, it would be likely to break the spine. Blood pressure would drop to zero almost instantly, with brain death occurring in minutes.

  Sometimes a doctor can know too much.

  “But why murder them now?” Celia demanded. “It might have been awkward if they learned I was alive, but I’m an adult. What could they do?”

  “Take you away
.” Pain twisted Sandy’s square face. “Rich mommy, beautiful sisters. What did I have to fight with? I’m a used-up old woman. Barren, thanks to my family. After my stepfather raped me, my mother forced me to get a backroom abortion. I nearly bled to death.”

  Despite everything I knew about Sandy, my gut twisted at what had been done to her as a young girl. Rage had been bottled up waiting to detonate long before the Abernathys entered the picture.

  “That’s awful.” Celia stared at her. “I knew your parents were abusive, but you never told me about the abortion.”

  “If I’d admitted having a hysterectomy when I was fourteen, how would I explain giving birth to you?”

  “Oh, Mom, I love you,” Celia said raggedly. “There’s room in my heart for you and another family. You wouldn’t have lost me.”

  “I told you to stay in Boise,” Sandy growled. “This is your fault. And yours, Dr. Darcy, for poking into my business. Now I have a surprise for both of you. They’re all dead, everyone you care about. I’ve poisoned them, including your nosy sister-in-law. Here goes the last of them.” Baring her teeth, she tightened her grip on Morris.

  “Stop!” Celia screamed.

  I raced for the stairs, hopelessly late. Above me, movements blurred. Someone—Tory, very much alive—flashed into view. Pulled Morris from the stool. Shouldered aside the furious Sandy.

  With Tory handicapped by the need to shield her father and Sandy obsessed with carrying out her plan, a wrestling match put all three of them in jeopardy. When I reached their level, the writhing bodies frustrated my attempts to tackle Sandy, let alone inject her.

  Below, someone smashed open the door. “Police!” Celia shrank aside as Keith raced in.

  Sandy launched a desperate leap toward her prey, catapulting from the stool to gain an advantage. Bigger, stronger and better trained, Tory deflected the assault.

  There was a surreal moment when Sandy rose above the railing, flailing wildly. With eerie slowness, as if in one of her own staged set-ups, she pitched over it head-first. My brain tried to avert the horror by imagining a gymnastic twist and a cushioned landing on hands and feet. Instead, she hit the floor with a sickening crunch.