Drowned Under Read online

  So I told him. About taking the medical supplies and the blood samples and mailing them to Dr. Paglia. And about the results. The only thing I didn’t spill was Esmeralda.

  The affection on his face turned pretty instantly to disgust.

  “Dammit, Cyd. How could you break into the Infirmary? Why didn’t you ask me? How could you take supplies? You didn’t take any of the drugs, did you?”

  I started to say no, then I remembered the seasickness pills. “Just one bottle.”

  He fell back against the wall. “That’s a felony. And I’m responsible. I have to account for all that stuff. Every bit of it. Oh, God, they’re going to think I took it.” He turned and ran down the hall without another word.

  Great. I wanted to sink into the ugly carpet. I banged my head against the door.

  “Come in and stop all that racket.”

  Sister Ellery was sitting up. Her color was almost back.

  “More water?” I reached for another bottle.

  She shook her head. I sat on the edge of the bed.

  She took my hand. “What is it?”

  “I did something stupid. Actually, about fifteen things that were stupid.”

  “I doubt that. I want you to tell me all about it and I’ll see if I can help. But first, did Ron get to Maria Island?”

  I froze.

  “Well, did he? I thought you were helping him.”

  “You know about all this?” I couldn’t believe that Brazil would put Sister Ellery in that kind of danger. I reminded myself to castrate him later.

  “He didn’t give me any details. Said it was better if I didn’t have them. He had to get ‘important cargo’ to one of the islands. I assume it’s an endangered animal. I’m pretty sure that’s what he really does. You must know that by now.”

  “I do know that. I just can’t believe that you do. And you’re still going to marry him?”

  “Oh, God no. He’s not my type. I mean, come on, those bow legs?” She laughed as I put my head in my hands. “I like a man with a little beef on him. But Ron’s doing something important, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.” I thought of Howard’s stuffed ancestors in the museum. “Very.”

  “That’s what I thought. When we met on the Santorini Dream, we hit it off right away. He cracks me up. Of course, I could tell in about five minutes he wasn’t who he said he was.”

  “How?”

  “Really, Cyd Elizabeth Sarah Redondo? Was there ever a single thing that happened at school that I didn’t know about?” There hadn’t been.

  “I’m a nun. We’re all-seeing. And, you know, the wigs.” I snorted. “I have mentioned it to him, but he’s a little sensitive about it. Anyway, aside from being all-seeing, nuns have good instincts about people. I knew he was all right. I offered to give him money to help out with whatever he was up to. He turned me down, but when I insisted, he said if I came on this cruise and pretended we were engaged, that would be a huge help. It would keep the other senior piranhas away from him. I said absolutely. So, did he get there?”

  “He got on the boat at least.”

  “Good.” She got up. “I have got to brush my teeth. Give me a second, and then you can tell me about the other thing.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  I woke Gary the driver. He had the same reaction to me that Sister Ellery had to the carolers. After I’d agreed to double his fee for working on a pre-holiday, he said he’d pick me up at the end of the wharf. The harbor was quiet, except for preparations for the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. Mary Lou and Jack had said most of the yachts would arrive midday on the twenty-seventh. I hoped Cal would get lucky and come in second to last this time.

  It was sunny and seventy-five degrees. I was in my newly-freed nude heels, a sleeveless forest green silk shell, and a dark brown silk miniskirt, as they were the closest things to camouflage in my wardrobe. I was sweating through them both by the time Gary pulled up.

  The passenger door un-clicked. I’d brought him a fruitcake from the ship gift store. He tossed it into the backseat, where it joined four others. Some holiday traditions were universal.

  “I’m not in a talkative mood.” They could probably smell the scotch leeching from his pores in Antarctica.

  “No problem.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  He handed me a mug and filled it from his thermos. It was pretty bitter, but Australians were touchy about their coffee, so out of politeness, I sucked it down.

  As we drove, I reviewed my plan. I’d gotten as much information about The Fountain as I could from Sister Ellery—including what she could remember about the layout—and checked that Mary Lou and Jack had gotten back safely. I’d found the Koozer and arranged for him to keep an eye on Sister Ellery until I got back. I was happy to see he had “I spent the night with Esmeralda” written all over him, chapped lips and all. I hoped it hadn’t been in the morgue.

  Then I’d gone to see Margy at the Cruise Director’s office, to let her know that Sister Ellery was improving, and asked her what I should do on our last free day in Hobart.

  Although she’d seemed genuinely concerned about the former nun, I was now following Ron Brazil’s policy of trusting no one. I threw in a question about The Fountain in the middle of my conversation and she mentioned that it was closed between now and Boxing Day. Perfect.

  Now that we were docked, my BlackBerry had erratic reception. I called Sandra to see if she’d heard from Fredo. She said no. I needed all the info on Pierce Butler, so I risked calling Frank.

  Eddie answered. He said he’d been crashing there for a few nights. Being gone for the holidays made me feel awful enough, but it was especially brutal to think I couldn’t be there for my brousin when it looked like his marriage was falling apart.

  “God, Eddie, you can stay in Mrs. Barsky’s if you want. The keys are in the lockbox in my bottom drawer.”

  “Um, that’s nice of you. But thanks, anyway. I need to be distracted.” More guilt. I could hear my nephews, David and Louis, screaming in the background.

  “Do you want to help Frank help me catch a guy who’s drugging senior citizens with methadone?”

  “You bet,” he said.

  After the call, I made sure I had the Narcan. If I didn’t use it, I would sneak it back into Doc’s cabinet. I’d tried to find him and apologize, but he wasn’t in his office, his cabin, or any of the other places I looked. It was just as well. I’d involved him in enough illegal activities.

  “So it isn’t a date this time?” Gary growled.

  “It wasn’t a date last time.”

  “You could’ve fooled me.”

  “I’m not in a talkative mood, either, Gary. May I?”

  I reached for a fruitcake. As usual, it took five minutes to unstick the cling wrap. Just as I’d broken off a piece, Gary slammed on the brakes. The seat belt kept me from pancaking on the windshield, but the fruitcake didn’t make it.

  “One down, three to go,” Gary said.

  “What just happened?”

  He pointed. To the right of the road, a chubby brown creature waddled toward the trees. I jumped out of the car and tried to snap a picture, then noticed the wombat crossing sign I’d missed, due to cling wrap. I felt dizzy from the wonder of it. I climbed back in the car.

  “Wow. I’ve actually seen a wombat. I can die now.”

  “Good to know,” Gary said.

  “I thought they were nocturnal.”

  “They usually are. Holidays don’t count.”

  I saw The Fountain ahead. “You can just drop me off here. I feel like walking. I’m assuming the holiday doesn’t screw up your arrangement at the inn?”

  “No, it doesn’t.” He didn’t stop, or even slow down. At the same moment that I started to wonder what was up with Gary, I started to feel even more dizzy. Also
spacey and weird. Drugged, in fact.

  The coffee.

  I bent forward and shielded my Balenciaga as I went through it.

  “Problem?”

  “Allergies,” I was careful to hide the logo as I sniffed up my special Narcan nasal spray and shoved the bottle back into one of my secret compartments.

  Gary pulled up beside Pierce Butler, who was waiting with a wheelchair. I didn’t know what the methadone or the Narcan would do to me, or how long either would take to do it, so I decided to “play marsupial” and let them think they’d tricked me. I anchored the strap of my Balenciaga across my body, thankful I’d worn a Chantelle minimizer bra, and held it with one hand as I got out of the car. They got the wheelchair under me just in time.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  I didn’t remember being wheeled into the “Relaxation Center.” The Narcan had weakened the effect of the methadone, but not completely. I felt dizzy but not crazy, at least to myself. That might not count. I cracked my eyes long enough to see I’d been tied to the wheelchair in a room filled with human-sized, white objects laid on their side, like mutant maggots. Were those the isolation tanks? Were they going to put me in one? I heard someone moving behind me and slammed my eyes shut, in fear my normal-sized pupils might give me away.

  I could smell Ralph Lauren cologne. Pierce Butler was in the room. It was the natural cologne accessory for a condescending ass. I could also smell whiskey sweat. Gary.

  “Get these new bank details entered, Gary. We need to take a breather here and push the opening of the facility on Macao. We’ll move the money there.”

  “Do you want everyone’s financials?”

  “Just the fours. No reason to take a chance on curious heirs at the moment. Lele’s marked the single ones over eighty with at least million in stocks and hedge funds. From those, pick the ones at high risk for heart attack or dementia. The medical assessments are in the blue folder.”

  God, that was what the numbers meant. The seniors were rated one to four. Ones were a bad risk—too young, too many kids, or not rich enough—and fours were the best bets—no family, in bad health, with trust funds. Like Sister Ellery.

  The other numbers on Harriet’s list must be financial accounts. How diabolical could you get? And who the hell was Lele?

  “Actually,” Butler said, “hide the one through threes in that travel agent’s cabin. She services seniors, she’s the perfect fall guy. We’ll uncover the scam ourselves and be heroes.”

  I beg your pardon, I thought. Fall woman.

  “So we’re letting her go back?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  I should probably figure out what to do before he decided. I wondered whether “Lele” was on the property, or if it was just Pierce and Gary. Gary, at least, was hungover.

  “And what about him?” Gary said. “Did you get his cashier’s check in the bank?”

  “They closed early. Holidays. I’ll do it on the twenty-seventh. He got the cashier’s check in town. It’s his signature. The courts don’t have a lot of sympathy for buyer’s remorse in these cases.”

  “We can make sure. He’s got to be close to cooked by now.”

  I got an awful feeling. Investment opportunities. Isolation tank.

  “Not worth it. We’re responsible for doing the timings on the tank. We don’t want a lawsuit following us to Macao. His wife strikes me as the litigious type.”

  “Nah,” Gary said. “If she were, she’d have sued that hairdresser.” They did a convincing sportscaster’s laugh.

  The wife had to be Sandra. Which meant it was Fredo who was medium rare. Greedy moron that he was, he must have invested with Butler. It served him right. But there was Barry. And Barry, Jr. Or Angie, Jr. Dammit.

  I had two advantages. No, three. I was awake. My arms and legs were tied to a chair with wheels. And the idiots had left my purse in my lap. Then, I got a fourth. I heard Gary leave.

  I couldn’t see what Butler was doing or whether he could see me. My bonds felt like yoga straps, not that I knew what yoga straps felt like—I found yoga undignified. The fabric was strong, wide, and thick. It couldn’t be tied that tightly. I also couldn’t undo it with my teeth. I pressed against the straps. They weren’t tight. I guessed Gary assumed I was drugged, so they’d just tied me to keep me from slumping out of the chair.

  I heard a zipper behind me. I pushed my luck and managed to work the strap on my right hand all the way off the arm of the wheelchair. I had no way to know if Butler noticed. I freed my hand and felt for the wheelchair brake—when you represent seniors, knowing where the wheelchair brakes are is part of your training—and undid it, then put my hand back where it had been, with the strap lying over it.

  Footsteps moved my way. I let my head loll down enough to crack my eyes one more time. Butler walked to the tank beside me. I saw a floor-to-ceiling column on my right.

  How did an isolation tank work? Was Fredo completely submerged, with mask and oxygen tank so he could breathe? Or was his head above water? I clearly needed more time at the spa. Or in clinical trials.

  I was pretty sure, at the very least, I should wait until Butler showed me how to get the top off. As soon as he hit a button on the side of the machine and I heard a low hum, I managed to untie my left hand and sneak it into my Balenciaga. When the top was unlatched, I was ready.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  I used the column to push off and hurtle toward Butler. As soon as I’d rammed him up against the tank, I jerked on the brake, trapping him there. Then, I used the last of Doc’s stolen syringes to inject him in the thigh with the Dolophine I’d snagged in the hold.

  I had no idea how fast it would work.

  Not fast enough.

  He was as adept with wheelchairs as I was. He unlocked the brakes, shoved the chair, and bashed me into the wall before I could brain him with my Balenciaga. The chair spun, throwing my forehead into the concrete wall. I saw cartoon-grade stars, while he ran to the table for what looked like a Taser. Dolophine, a head injury, and Tasing was not a good combo. I had to stay out of range.

  Luckily, I had spent the greater part of my youth trying to ram my brousin Jimmy at the bumper cars on Coney Island—I understood the physics of impact. I hurled the chair toward the table at a forty-five-degree angle, knocking it sideways. The Taser flew off, just out of his reach.

  As he dove for it, I ran over his arm with the chair, suddenly grateful for that extra ten pounds I was carrying. He cried out and I thought I had him, until he used his free hand to jerk out a pen knife and slash the wheelchair wheels. I sank to the floor, immobilized. In knife range. One jab to my femoral artery and that would be it.

  “I’ve already reported you to Interpol.”

  He chuckled. “Right. I’m sure they put a two-bit travel agent right through.” His tone was pinched. I hoped I’d broken his forearm. To make sure, I did a little jog up and down on the wheelchair seat and heard something crack, hoping he was smart enough to know my dead weight would be harder to move. He curled up on the floor.

  “Look Ms. Redondo, I understand it’s your rage as a professional woman that’s brought this on. It’s so hard for women in the workplace.”

  “Seriously? No wonder Harriet never told anyone she’d been married to you. Is this why you killed her? She found out what you were doing?”

  He went still. Was the Dolophine finally kicking in? If my feet hadn’t been tied together— and to the chair—I could have done an easy roundhouse kick at the knife.

  “Killed her? I didn’t kill her. I was trying to get her back. That’s why I met her in Melbourne. We were trying to reconcile.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Seriously. She was the best thing that ever happened to me. I was devastated when she left.”

  I eased myself a little sideways. “Harriet wouldn’t reconcile with a murderer.
”

  “I told you, I’m not a murderer.”

  I managed to reach the side pocket of my bag. “What, technically? You don’t get your hands dirty, Gary does?”

  “What Gary does on his own time is not up to me. I’m a con man, doing the easiest con in the world. You work with seniors, you know.” He was still waving the knife, but slower. “They’re lonely, most of their children ignore them. They have money, but not the sort of security measures they need for their investments. They’re just looking for anyone who’ll listen to them. To see them. I see them. And, in poker parlance, I raise them.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Businessman. But not a murderer.”

  “What about the methadone?”

  He jerked a little at this. “The government sends it to me. It’s standard for treating opioid addiction, and by the time people are in their eighties, lots of them are on permanent pain medication. It’s responsible to have it on hand. Gary convinced me I had to neutralize you today and suggested methadone syrup as an easy way to make you pliable. I don’t usually need it. Between my bedside manner and the isolation tanks, I can usually work anyone who drops by.” He grinned up at me.

  I untwisted the top of the travel-sized bottle of Listerine I always had with me and threw the minty germicide into his eyes. He stabbed himself with his knife as he reached for his face.

  That gave me time to untie my feet, plant a four-inch heel in his back, and bind his hands with the plastic handcuff ties policeman Frank insisted I always carry.

  Suddenly, there was banging. From inside the tank. Fredo.

  I dug my heel further into Butler’s back. “How do I get him out of there? What do I do?”

  Butler slumped down, out on Dolophine.

  Chapter Forty-nine