Measured Mayhem Read online

It was time to get back to the business at hand.

  Chapter 6

  “THANKS FOR GIVING ME some time and space to tell you at my own speed,” Autumn said as we sat in the living room, enjoying cocoa. I could have used some caffeine myself, since I was planning on staying up well past my normal bedtime, but hot chocolate had been our tradition when we’d been at school, and I couldn’t bring myself to refuse when Autumn had suggested it.

  “I know it’s not easy,” I said, “but remember, I’m on your side.”

  “I never doubted it for one second,” she said. “Okay, here goes. After I started hearing the voices, there were two incidents that told me things were escalating. Do you remember the gargoyles on our roof?”

  “They’re kind of hard to forget, aren’t they?” I asked. “You told me they were cut by the same artisans who made the ones at the Biltmore house. Remember that tour we took when you first moved here?” The house, an incredible mansion in the mountains built by the Vanderbilt family in the late 1800s, was a marvel to behold, and we’d taken the tour at Christmas to see the trees scattered throughout the estate. Almost as an afterthought, we’d signed up for the rooftop tour as well, which included close-up views of some of the many gargoyles that surrounded the perimeter. It had turned out to be the highlight of our visit.

  “It was amazing. Anyway, I was kneeling in the garden when something made me look up. One of the gargoyles from the roof was hurtling down toward my usual bench not ten feet away from me! At the last second I’d decided to stop and smell a rose when the carved stone beast crashed down and completely destroyed the bench I would have been sitting on if I hadn’t hesitated!”

  “Did you see anyone on the roof?”

  “No, I was so shaken that I screamed and kind of collapsed right there. It took Jeff forever to get to me, and Adam close on his heels. They each claimed to be busy in other parts of the house at the time, but I had the feeling that it was no accident.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Suzanne, what are the odds that a gargoyle would fall from the roof onto my bench at the exact moment I should have been sitting there? None ever fell before, and to my knowledge, none have since. It’s hard to believe that it wasn’t planned for me.”

  “Did you call the police?” I asked her. If she was so sure that it was attempted murder, that’s what I would have expected her to do.

  “I did, against everyone else’s wishes, but I had to know. As soon as the police officer showed up, I knew it was a lost cause, though.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It was Craig Pickens. He went to school with Jeff and Adam, and he’s done ‘favors’ for the family ever since he got on the force. There could have been a crowbar up there and he wouldn’t have mentioned it. I went up later myself, but I couldn’t tell if it had been an accident or if it had been planned. Still, I knew in my heart that it wasn’t just a warning. Someone was trying to kill me.”

  “Is that when you moved out?” I asked her. I was deeply worried about Autumn. The wear on her as she recounted the story was clearly growing, but if I had any chance of helping her, I had to know everything, no matter the cost to her.

  “No, it wasn’t until I was nearly killed on a hike on the back of our property the next day that I began to realize that I needed to get out.”

  She didn’t add anything to the story, and I really wanted to wait for her to volunteer more about the incident without prodding her. I gave her two minutes, but she still hadn’t told me anything new when I finally decided that I had to speak up, or we’d be sitting there all night. “Go on,” I prompted her.

  “There’s an overlook near the edge of the land that has a steep drop into a ravine. I like to lean against the rails and lose myself in my thoughts, and everyone around here knows it. I needed some space, so I hiked out to my favorite spot and started to lean forward, as usual. I’ve never been afraid of heights, and it was the only way to see the precipitous drop below. Anyway, I started to put a little weight on the railing when it broke free and nearly took me with it! As far as I could figure it, the nuts in back holding the railing in place had to be missing, but the bolts were still there. I double-checked on them before I leaned on it, that’s how paranoid I’d gotten. Whoever did it was careful, and if I hadn’t been as quick as I am, I would surely be dead now.”

  “How do you know the nuts were missing? Did you go down to check the railing that failed?”

  “No, it was too far down in the ravine,” she said, “but the wood was in good shape, so how else could it have happened?”

  “Couldn’t they have just loosened on their own?” I asked her.

  “Suzanne, don’t you believe me?” The panic in her voice was real enough.

  “Of course I do, but there might be a more reasonable explanation than attempted murder,” I said. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of this. Is there any chance we could hike out there in the morning so I could check things out for myself? I wouldn’t mind going up onto the roof, either.”

  “You are free to do as you please, but I’m not setting one foot back on that property.” She shrugged as she added, “Even if I agreed to go with you, it’s all been fixed, so there’s nothing to see. As a matter of fact, it was all taken care of so quickly that I couldn’t imagine somebody didn’t know ahead of time that both the railing repair and the gargoyle replacement were going to be needed.”

  “I’m sure the railing wouldn’t be that tough to replace, but there aren’t exactly extra gargoyles lying around, are there?”

  “You’d be surprised. Cecile found some through her antique dealer years ago and bought half a dozen spares for both homes, just in case.”

  “Do you suspect she might have been behind this?” I asked her.

  “She made my list,” Autumn admitted.

  “Do you actually have a real list, or is that just a figure of speech?”

  “No, I’ve been writing one since the last event,” Autumn said as she reached into a drawer in the end table beside her and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

  I studied it after she handed it to me, and in her careful handwriting, I saw her list of suspects.

  Jeff

  Adam

  Cecile

  Dr. Morganton

  Annie

  “Do you have motives for any of them?” I asked her as I handed it back to her.

  She went down the list. “Jeff might be tired of me, or he might want me dead for the money.”

  I had to interrupt her. “Money? What are you talking about? When we were in school, you were even more broke than I was.”

  “I have a million-dollar life insurance policy, and accidental death pays double,” she said with a frown.

  “Wow, I never want to be worth more to someone dead than alive,” I answered without thinking about the ramifications of what I was saying. “Strike that.”

  “No, it’s true enough,” I said.

  It was time to change the subject. “How about Adam? What possible reason would he have to want to see you dead?”

  “Jeff is in charge of the family’s finances, and he can’t seem to say no to his brother, at least he couldn’t until he married me. I’ve put a stop to Adam raiding the bank accounts, and he’s taken issue with it. I have to believe if I’m out of the way, he feels as though he can manipulate Jeff into doing just about anything he wants to.”

  It was hard to hear, and I was certain it was equally hard to admit, but at least we were getting somewhere. “Surely Cecile can’t have a strong enough motive,” I said.

  “Before Adam came, I would have agreed with you, but she has a blind spot when it comes to her black sheep of a son, and I’m sure he’s been poisoning her with lies about me ever since he’s been back.”

  “Do you honestly think the doctor could have a motive?” I asked her.

  “No, but the Marburys have something powerful on him, and he might be blackmailed into doing something.”

  “That leaves
Annie Greenway,” I said. “I know she’s no fan of yours, but why would she want you dead?”

  “She’s been showing up around the family a lot lately, undermining me every chance she gets and flirting shamelessly with my husband, which Cecile seems to encourage. If anything were to happen to me, I’m certain that she believes she’ll be able to slip right into my place.”

  I thought about everything Autumn had just told me. Looked at one way, it was all possible, but I had to admit that the overwhelming feeling I got was that this all just might be in her head.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

  “I just wish we had some real proof,” I said. “We can’t do much about it until we have something a little more concrete.”

  “Then I don’t stand a chance. Whoever is behind this is clearly too good to slip up,” Autumn said, sounding defeated by the overwhelming odds against her.

  “Don’t be so sure about that.” I started thinking about her situation. “Is there anyone you can trust?”

  “Lee Graham,” she said quickly. “I met him when he did some work for the family, and we became friends almost immediately.”

  “He’s done things on your home with Jeff, too?” I asked.

  “Lots of it,” she admitted. “Why?”

  “I’m not sure yet, but I need to speak with him. Can you give him a call for me?”

  “Sure,” she said as she noticed me yawn. “Do you want to wait until tomorrow morning, though? I know your body is on some kind of crazy internal schedule to allow you to get up in the middle of the night to make donuts, so you must be beat.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Besides, I’m not sure this can wait.”

  “Then I’ll see if he’s free,” she said.

  Chapter 7

  I wasn’t all that surprised when the young handyman showed up fifteen minutes later, given the way Autumn had described his willingness to do just about anything for her. He nodded toward me as Autumn introduced us, but it was clear that he only had eyes for my former roommate. I didn’t care how old he was, the man was obviously smitten with her. “Like your Jeep,” he said to me before turning back to Autumn. “What’s up? It sounded urgent on the phone.”

  “Actually, it’s not. At least I don’t think it is. Suzanne wanted to ask you a few questions.”

  He frowned for a moment when he found out the reason he had been summoned to Autumn’s side, and she added, “It would mean a lot to me.”

  The frown vanished, and a bright smile replaced it instantly. “You know if there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll do it,” he said.

  “What do you know about the gargoyle that fell near Autumn, and the railing that suddenly gave way on her?” I asked him pointedly.

  Lee scowled for a moment when he heard my questions, and I had to wonder if it was at me or because of what someone had attempted to do to Autumn. “I didn’t understand any of it when I heard about it, and I still don’t,” he said.

  “So, you don’t think they were both just coincidences either?” I asked. I wanted to know if he’d ever heard strange voices around the estate as well, but first things first.

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” he said. “Have you ever seen a gargoyle up close?”

  “We took the Biltmore tour,” Autumn said. “It went all across the rooftops, so we got a good look at a bunch of them in college.”

  “The gargoyles weren’t in college; we were,” I said with a grin.

  “That’s what I meant,” Autumn said with the tremor of a smile.

  “So you know how massive they really are,” Lee said. “I can’t imagine the circumstances where one would break loose and fall, not even in the middle of a hurricane.” He paused a moment before adding, “Well, maybe then, but nothing short of that. Not only are they secure by their weight alone, but they are also bolted in two places on the roof of the Marbury place,” he explained.

  “Did you get a good look at the pedestal where the one fell from?” I asked. “Had it been tampered with in any way that you could see?”

  Lee shook his head. “They wouldn’t let me near it. Mrs. Marbury flew some expert in from New York to secure the new one and check the old ones out as well. He claims that he found nothing amiss, but I never got a chance to speak with him myself.”

  “What did the police say?” I asked.

  “You’re kidding, right? They sent Craig Pickens out to investigate. What a joke.”

  “He’s not a good cop?” I asked. I knew my husband had told me stories of officers both good and bad in his tenure as a state police investigator. I supposed it was like anything else. I knew there were bad donutmakers out there, too, though I’d never run across one myself.

  “He can be, at least when he’s not holding out his hand for a ‘tip’ from the richest folks in town,” Lee said. “My older brother knows him pretty well, and one night he and Craig were drinking. Craig told him how there were two sets of laws, one for us commoners and the other for the very rich. He said he wasn’t about to turn down what he was offered, and then he suddenly shut up, realizing that he’d probably said too much. After Larry told me about it, I started keeping my ears open, and I found out soon enough that it was true. Unless I miss my guess, Craig never even went up on that roof before he wrote up his report. I don’t guess we’ll ever know what really happened there.”

  It was a dead end, and though I was frustrated by it, it wasn’t all that unusual for me to run into a stonewall or two along the course of my investigations. “How about the fence?” I asked.

  “All I know is that all of the railings around it were fine,” Lee said.

  “Is there any chance it was an accident that Autumn nearly fell into the ravine?” I asked. My friend had remained remarkably silent during the conversation. I’d asked her to let me handle it, but I hadn’t expected that level of passivity on her part. She must have truly been beaten down by current events, maybe even more than I’d realized.

  “I wish I could say,” Lee answered. “My gut tells me that the nuts that were supposed to be holding that section of railing weren’t there, but it might not have been because of malice.” He looked at Autumn apologetically. “I’m sorry, I know that’s probably not the answer you were hoping for.”

  “Don’t ever apologize for telling the truth,” she said, offering him the slightest of smiles.

  Lee accepted it and then turned back to me. “The truth is that I didn’t install those railings. It could have been deliberate, or a worker could have knocked off early on a Friday afternoon and forgot completely about attaching that particular section.”

  “Were any others unbolted?” I asked him.

  “No. I checked them all along the edge, and the rest of them were fine. I’m just saying that it’s possible that it was a mistake, and not an attempt on Autumn’s life. After all, how could someone possibly know she was going to lean against that exact spot?”

  “I’ve been known to go there in the past when I was troubled,” she admitted.

  “Can you be certain it was at that exact section, though?” Lee asked her sympathetically.

  “Not one hundred percent,” she said and then added to me, “Suzanne, aren’t you going to ask him about the voices?”

  I could tell that it took a great deal out of her asking me that, and Lee looked troubled at the question. “You’re hearing voices?”

  “It’s not like someone’s dog is telling me to kill some stranger,” Autumn said. It was clear she regretted that choice of words instantly. “Sometimes at night I swear I can hear people whispering things, but when I check to see who it might be, no one’s ever there.”

  “Are they talking about you?” Lee asked her. I hadn’t even thought to ask that. It was an insightful query that might help me, and it just showed me that I wasn’t the only one capable of asking just the right question.

  Autumn paused just a little too long for my taste, and while I was pretty c
ertain that Lee hadn’t caught it, I surely had. “Of course not.”

  She was lying.

  At least some of the voices must have been talking directly about her, and I began to wonder if it were possible that my dear friend might actually be losing her mind after all.

  Autumn took Lee’s hands in her own, and I could see a reaction in him as though her touch had been electrically charged. “It’s very important that you don’t tell anyone about this conversation tonight,” she said earnestly. “Anyone.”

  “I’ll take it to my grave,” he vowed, and I didn’t doubt it for one second. Autumn might not be interested in him, but the younger man was surely interested in my friend.

  “Hopefully it won’t come to that,” she tried to say lightly. “We’ve kept you long enough, Lee. Thanks for coming by.”

  “Anytime,” he said. “Listen, if there’s anything I can do, and I mean anything, don’t hesitate to ask me, okay?”

  “Okay. I promise,” Autumn said.

  Lee nodded once, and then he left.

  “Be careful with him,” I told her once Lee was gone.

  “Why, don’t you trust him?” Autumn asked, clearly shocked by my statement.

  “It’s not that. I don’t have a feel for that one way or the other yet, but there’s no doubt about one thing; he’s in love with you, Autumn, or at least he thinks he is.”

  She looked startled. “I told you before. We’re just friends, Suzanne.”

  “Maybe in your mind, but not in his,” I said.

  “That’s just crazy talk,” she answered.

  All I could do was shrug. There was no point in saying anything else about it. I’d made her aware of the situation, so how she handled it from there on out was entirely up to her. “What else is on tap for tonight?”

  “I’m going to read some, but you’re going to bed,” she said as I yawned in spite of myself. “I know just how late it must feel to you. Suzanne, we’ll get a fresh start in the morning, but let’s call it a night now.”

  “I can do that,” I said. “I want to touch base with Jake, and then I’ll take you up on your offer.”

  As I started toward the guest room, she said, “Give him my love.”