They were in the sitting room of the cottage. The sliding glass door was open, and a refreshing cool breeze from the Pacific had cleared the midday heat.
Running footsteps sounded from the patio outside, then suddenly Nadine was pushing open the sliding screen. “Alvirah, help me,” she sobbed. “Bobby is going to confess to murdering Cotter. Stop him, please stop him.” Then she saw the sheriff. “Oh my God!” she wailed.
Scott stood up. “Mrs. Hayward, I’d better go find your son and hear what he has to say. And I suggest you look into your own heart and decide why he suddenly felt the need to confess to murder.”
* * *
Flanked by Scott Alshorne and two sheriff’s deputies, Bobby Crandell was taken to the Monterey County police station. A few minutes later, Alvirah and Willy accompanied Nadine, as they followed in the spa limo.
Nadine was no longer sobbing. Wordless on the brief drive, when they reached the station she demanded to see the sheriff. “I have something very important to tell him,” she said.
Alvirah sensed immediately what Nadine was going to do. “Nadine, I want you to get a lawyer before you say one word.”
“A lawyer can’t help me. No one can.”
They were escorted to a waiting room, where they sat until Scott sent for them an hour later. By then Alvirah was so worried that she almost forgot to turn on the recorder in her sunburst pin.
“Where is Bobby?” Nadine demanded when they were finally escorted to Scott’s office.
“He’s waiting for his confession to be typed up.”
“He has nothing to confess to,” Nadine cried.
Scott interrupted her. “Mrs. Hayward, don’t say another word until you listen to me. You’ve heard of the Miranda warning?”
“Yes.”
Alvirah felt Willy’s hand reach to comfort her as Scott read the Miranda warning to Nadine, gave it to her to read, asked her if she understood it.
“Yes, yes, and I know I’m entitled to have a lawyer.”
“Very well.” Scott turned to a deputy. “Get the stenographer. Alvirah, you and Willy wait outside.”
“Oh no, please let them stay.” Nadine was trembling.
Alvirah put an arm around her. “Let me stay with her, Scott.”
Nadine’s confession was straightforward. “I phoned Cotter at the condo. I told him I had to talk to him.”
“What time was that?”
“I . . . I’m not sure. I was in bed. I couldn’t sleep.”
“What did you want to talk to him about?” Scott asked.
“I was going to tell him about the jewelry being stolen and beg him not to report it. Alvirah, you’re so smart. I thought maybe, just maybe, you’d find out who took it. I did wear some of the pieces the other night. A number of people admired them and all those same people are here. Maybe everything is in a safe in one of the cottages.”
“Did he agree to meet you?” Scott asked.
“Yes, on the golf links.”
“Why not in the condo?” Alvirah asked. “You’re his wife.”
“He . . . he said he felt like a walk and that would make it just about halfway for the two of us. He told me exactly how to get there.”
“Why did you bring a golf club?” Scott asked.
Nadine bit her lip. “Cotter could become quite violent. I was afraid that if he became enraged . . . And that’s just what happened. When I told him about the theft and the premium, he was so angry. He raised his hand and tried to hit me. I backed off and raised the club and . . . ” Her voice trailed off. Then she whispered, “I don’t remember hitting him, but then he was lying there, and I knew he was dead.”
“You put the golf club back in Elyse Hayward’s car?”
“Yes. I just wanted to get rid of it.”
“Why her car?”
“I knew she had clubs there. I’d seen her with them. On the way out of the spa, I cut through the parking lot.”
Not only his forehead, but Scott’s entire face appeared to be creased in thought. “You make a more credible confession than your son did,” he said. “I’m sorry for you, Mrs. Hayward. You’d have done Bobby a much bigger favor letting him face the music for cashing the insurance premium check. He could have handled it. He was willing to face the gas chamber rather than let you be arrested for your husband’s murder. I can tell you now that his confession didn’t hold water.”
Scott stood up. “When your statement is typed up and signed, you’ll be formally arraigned. As of now, you are under arrest on suspicion of murder in the first degree.”
* * *
Alvirah and Willy had gone to the police station with Nadine and now they returned from it with Bobby. A study in misery, he sat hunched in the car, his chin resting on his clasped hands, his eyes half closed. Alvirah’s maternal instincts coursed through her entire being. He hurts so much, she thought, and he’s blaming himself. Finally she spoke to him: “Bobby, you’ll stay in your mother’s cottage, won’t you?”
“Yes, if Baroness von Schreiber allows it. My mother was only supposed to stay till Saturday.”
“I know Min will have a place for you.” She turned to Willy. “I think you and Bobby should stick together the rest of the day. Take him over to the gym or the pool.”
She closed her lips, not wanting to promise what she couldn’t deliver. But as the limo cruised along the Seventeen Mile Drive, she decided to say her piece. “Bobby, I know you didn’t kill Cotter Hayward and I’m just as sure your mother didn’t kill him, either. She thinks she’s protecting you, just as you thought you were protecting her. Now I want the truth. What happened after Willy and I left you the other night?”
The faintest hope brightened Bobby’s face. He brushed back the dark blond hair that was so like his mother’s. “Mom and I were pretty wrung out. She said that she knew Cotter would start thinking about her not wearing any of the jewelry at dinner, and it might be better if she told him what had happened instead of waiting till Saturday. We both went to bed. I could hear her crying for a while, but I didn’t know whether I should go to her. Then I fell asleep.”
He glanced nervously at the front seat, then realized that Alvirah had pushed the button that raised the privacy glass between them and the chauffeur. “I woke up about five o’clock and looked in on Mom. She wasn’t in her room. I found her address book and called Hayward’s condo, but there wasn’t any answer. I was scared and decided to go over there. I was afraid that she’d gone to see him and that maybe something had happened to her. I jogged over, but when I got there I saw police cars; a maintenance man told me what had happened. After that, I just kind of panicked. That’s why I confessed to the murder. Because if my mother did it, she did it for me.”
Alvirah looked at the young man, his face a mask of misery. “I don’t believe she did it. Bobby,” she said, “I told Sheriff Alshorne that there may have been other people who had a good reason to kill your stepfather. Now my job is to find out which one did it.”
* * *
There was a large manila envelope waiting for Alvirah in the cottage. It was the material she had requested from Charley Evans, her editor at the New York Globe, volumes of newspaper and magazine clippings and stories about Cotter Hayward. Alvirah almost forgot that she had missed lunch as she began to dive into them, then she remembered the breakfast mini-muffin and realized that her looming headache was not caused by stress alone. She phoned room service.
Ten minutes later a smiling waitress appeared with a glass of spring water, a pot of herb tea and a carrot and cucumber salad, the luncheon menu of the day. Alvirah thought longingly of a nice, juicy hamburger, then remembered Barra Snow’s remark about her sister getting a McDonald franchise in her divorce settlement. She half smiled, thinking that at this moment she felt as though she could eat the sister’s profits in one sitting.
* * *
Alvirah found that the voluminous material on Cotter J. Hayward actually did make fascinating reading. He had been born in Darien, Connecticut,
the grandson of the inventor of a circuit carrier for longdistance telephone calls who had sold his invention to AT&T for sixty million dollars.
“Huge money in those days,” Alvirah thought as she made a note on her pad. That was when Cotter the first bought the jewelry for his wife. Because he was a notorious skinflint, the purchase made headlines. The jewelry was passed on to his son, Cotter the second, the playboy whose four wives each in turn got to wear it. But while the jewels may have remained intact, his lavish living and matrimonial settlements much diminished the family fortune.
Cotter the third, Nadine’s late husband and Elyse’s late ex-husband, seemed to be something of a chip off both blocks. There were dozens of pictures of him in his younger days, escorting film stars and debutantes. He had married Elyse when he was thirty-five, and like his grandfather, was known for his parsimony. He did his own investing and was rumored to be worth over one hundred million dollars, but no real figures were available.
He must have been a terrific golfer, Alvirah decided. Many of the pictures of him were taken on the golf course, playing with people like Jack Nicklaus and former President Ford. The older pictures showed him and Elyse, arm in arm, dressed for golfing, sometimes accepting awards together. The most recent pictures, those taken in the last three years, showed him with Nadine at social events, but there wasn’t a single one of her at the golf outings.
One picture in particular caught Alvirah’s eye. It showed Elyse and Barra Snow being awarded matching trophies at a charity outing at the Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey and Cotter Hayward as chairman of the outing presenting them. That was only six weeks ago, she thought.
Cotter’s smile that day seemed very genuine as he stood between the women. Elyse was smiling up at him. Love/hate, Alvirah thought. It’s what Elyse felt for her ex. She read the caption under the picture and then raised her eyes. Oh my, she thought. Oh my.
Reaching for the phone she called Charley at the Globe, thanked him for the material he’d sent and requested him to have other material faxed as soon as possible. “I know it’s eight o’clock in New York, but if you could put someone on it right away, I’ll ask Min to let me have a key to the office so I can collect it tonight. Thanks a lot.”
Her next job was to play back the recordings she had made at the dinner table last night, at Nadine’s cottage and at lunch. As she listened, she made notes.
An exhausted Willy came in at six o’clock. “We swam, we did those exercise machines. Bobby knows all about using them. Then we had a glass of orange juice together and talked. He’s a nice young fellow, honey, and knows his mother is in this situation because of him. I tell you, if somehow the real murderer can be found and Nadine gets off, Bobby Crandell won’t so much as buy a lottery ticket again.” Then Willy noticed the piles of clippings sorted on the table. “Any luck?”
“Not really, but I’m not sure. Anyhow, dinner should be interesting.”
* * *
To Alvirah’s relief, their entire table was in attendance. She’d been afraid that Elyse might decide to have dinner served in her cottage. But the first Mrs. Hayward, still icy in her composure, was elegantly dressed in a dark blue ankle-length sheath.
Barra Snow was wearing a white silk pantsuit that showed off her silver-blonde beauty. But she’s not as gorgeous as her pictures in those ads, Alvirah thought—little lines were visible around Barra’s eyes and mouth.
The discussion seemed to focus on Nadine’s arrest. “I hope she realizes that if she’s convicted, she won’t collect a dime of Cotter’s money,” Elyse said, an unmistakable note of satisfaction in her voice.
“As you say, the ninth commandment must be obeyed,” Alvirah prodded. “I mean when you think about it, if you and Mr. Hayward had patched things up four years ago . . . I guess you did that a lot didn’t you? Fight and make up, fight and make up? Then you’d be his widow. Instead of that, he turned to Nadine. I’m sorry for you too. We all hate to lose a husband, but there’s nothing the matter with being a rich widow.”
“I really don’t appreciate your observations, Mrs. Meehan,” Elyse said sharply. “I’ve been made aware of your reputation as an amateur detective, but please spare me your ruminating.”
Alvirah made herself look distressed. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” She hoped she looked properly penitent. “I’m just so sorry for Nadine. I mean, she’s not a golfer. She has such fair skin, and her son told Willy that she is the world’s worst athlete. She’s more the artistic type, I think. Anyhow, what I mean is that it was just bad luck for everybody that Cotter and you didn’t make up, wasn’t it? And bad luck for her that, of all things, she carried your golf club when she went to meet him. I certainly hope she wasn’t trying to throw suspicion on you. But then sometimes murderers get so rattled they make mistakes.”
Elyse pointedly ignored Alvirah and her comments and began chatting exclusively with the Jennings couple, while Barra flirted halfheartedly with the former congressman. Over dessert, Alvirah was dismayed to hear that Elyse was leaving on Saturday.
“I just want to get a million miles away,” Elyse said. “This place is totally depressing, and I never played worse golf. I knew I’d be lousy today.”
Then Barra said, “I’m leaving too. There was a call from my agency. I have to do some retakes in New York on a photo shoot for Adrian. I’m canceling my second week here.”
Alvirah found it hard not to stare at Elyse. The microphone was on, and later she’d have to listen to every word they’d said at dinner. Elyse had given something away. What was it?
The nightly entertainment was a slide show and lecture on fourteenth-century Spanish art. As people drifted into the back parlor where chairs had been placed, Alvirah asked Min for a key to her office. “I’ve got more faxes coming later, and I want to see them tonight.”
Min’s warm smile was for the benefit of observers. When she spoke, her voice was anxious. “Six guests canceled their next week’s reservation. They are furious at the way the media is swarming outside the gates. Alvirah, why couldn’t Nadine have killed Cotter with one of his own golf clubs? Why did she have to take one from these premises? Was she trying to make it look as though Elyse had committed the crime?”
“That’s what’s been bugging me,” Alvirah replied, nodding. “I don’t get it either. Why replace a club with blood all over it unless you want it to be found?”
* * *
The next morning, at Alvirah’s request, Scott Alshorne came to Tranquility cottage for morning coffee. “Are you satisfied?” she asked him point-blank. “I mean totally, completely satisfied that Nadine killed her husband?”
Scott studied the contents of his cup. “Good coffee.”
“You didn’t answer Alvirah’s question,” Willy told him sternly.
Alvirah smiled to herself. She knew Willy was still a little miffed at Scott for the way he’d talked to her yesterday.
“I’m not sure I can,” Scott said slowly. “Nadine has confessed. She had a motive, a very strong motive. There are two local telephone charges on the bill for her cottage. One was made on the ninth. That was Wednesday. One was made on the tenth. That was yesterday and would be consistent with her saying she called Cotter Hayward Wednesday night and Bobby saying he tried to reach Cotter early Thursday morning. So what have I got to doubt about her statement?”
“Sheriff, have you ever spread a rumor to flush out a killer?” Alvirah asked. “I mean defense attorneys in California do it all the time to protect their clients, so why not do it when it might accomplish some good?”
As he shook his head, she said persuasively, “Scott, it all has to do with the jewelry. Don’t you see that? The jewelry is still missing. Let’s suppose Nadine knew that Cotter Hayward was getting ready to dump her and staged a robbery so that at least she’d come out of the marriage with jewelry she thought she could find a way to sell. The minute she called Bobby to report the loss and found out that he’d let the policy lapse, all she had to do wa
s cancel the robbery. She called Bobby before she told Min about it. And let me tell you, when I met her, Nadine was frantic.”
“All right, she didn’t steal her own jewelry. I’ll buy that.”
“Are you sure Bobby was still in New York the afternoon of the theft?”
“Yes. We had his movements verified.”
“Then somebody else stole that stuff, and dollars-to-doughnuts that person is the killer. Scott, go along with me on this, please.”
* * *
It was a beautiful day. The morning sun beamed warm and bright over the Olympic-sized pool and the surrounding tables with their rainbow-colored umbrellas. At one of the tables a portable radio was tuned in to a local newscast, its volume on high. Riveted attention had replaced the quiet languor of guests who’d mixed a morning of exercise with facials and seaweed wraps and massages.
The voice on the radio was reporting that there was a rumor that the sheriff had been keeping a lid on important evidence. Several clear footprints had been discovered in the wooded area near the sixteenth hole, where Cotter Hayward had been murdered. The sheriff was said to believe that they were the footprints of the killer, who apparently had been hiding and waiting for Hayward. What made this discovery especially significant was that these footprints, while clearly those of a woman, were definitely larger than the confessed killer’s size, which was five and a half.
“And the shocker,” the broadcaster continued, “is that the stolen jewelry was actually paste copies, which Hayward had made when he switched insurance policies. He was always concerned that Bobby Crandell would do exactly what he did— cash the premium check and let the policy lapse. So it looks as if whoever stole the Hayward jewelry is stuck with fool’s gold.”
Alvirah was not able to sit at Elyse Hayward’s table this afternoon, but she did manage to capture a spot at one next to it. She switched on her recorder and turned her chair toward Elyse, then in a voice that was sure to carry, said: “That’s not the whole story. You know I nose around a little, and I hear they’re so sure the killer is a guest here that the sheriff is getting a court order to check the shoe sizes of all the women at the spa. If he finds a match, the judge will let him search the cottage and belongings to look for the jewelry.”