Chapter Thirteen
“Of course I’m pressing charges!” Horace said when he was informed of Ned Duke’s sideline business. “Right after I throw him out. I won’t have that thief under my roof another night.”
“He won’t be under your roof tonight,” Detective Camarillo said. “Tonight he’ll be in jail on a slew of charges, including involuntary manslaughter.”
Camarillo looked like he had stepped out of a magazine—possibly POLICE Magazine. He was pleasant and patient with Horace, and showed no sign that he thought Horace was a nut or making up stories to get attention. His partner, Detective Marin, had a nice smile and, unless Perry was losing his eye, was hiding a baby bump beneath that men’s suit jacket. She didn’t so much as blink at the two skeletons sitting at Horace’s dining table.
“The thing is,” said Nick, who was sitting next to Perry on the velvet sofa, “Duke isn’t the one sending you hate mail.”
“It must be Duke,” Horace objected. “He and his confederates were trying to scare me into abandoning Angel’s Rest so they could swoop in and steal all my treasures.”
Camarillo said, “We have to agree with Mr. Reno, sir. We don’t believe Duke was working with anyone. His story is credible.”
Horace stubbornly shook his head—and kept shaking it.
“Duke doesn’t have a motive,” Nick said. “The scenario you’re describing makes no sense.”
“Uh, Nick…” Perry said.
Nick qualified, “What I mean is, the last thing Duke wanted or needed was any kind of investigation, however informal, taking place at Angel’s Rest. He did not want the police paying you a call, let alone a PI coming to stay the weekend. From his point of view, those letters brought exactly the wrong kind of attention. Besides which, he doesn’t seem to have any particular grudge against you.”
“He likes the girl,” Camarillo said, and Marin nodded. “He wouldn’t do anything to harm her. We have a theory—and Mr. Reno shares it—that whoever was letting that alligator out of its pen and into the hotel needed a distraction.”
Was that the answer? Using an alligator as a distraction seemed kind of a bad idea to Perry. True, it would be an effective way to divert attention. But it would also be guaranteed to put everyone in the hotel on high alert. Wouldn’t someone trying to sneak in prefer to do it quietly and unobtrusively? Wouldn’t that offer a better chance of success? Especially in the middle of the night when there was a good chance everyone was asleep and not paying attention anyway.
But if Wally was not being used as a distraction, why was he being let loose?
“Then who is to blame?” Horace demanded.
Marin said, “We’d like to show you a photo of the young man who died here last night—”
Horace waved her off. “I don’t know him. I don’t recognize him.”
Awkward—given that Marin had not yet shown Horace the photo. Perry was trying to come up with a good excuse for having allowed Horace to visit the possible crime scene, when rescue came in the form of Nick’s ringing cell phone.
Nick pulled his phone out and checked it. He rose, saying, “I have to take this.” He stepped into the hall, closing the door behind him.
“This is a photo of Bennie Regan.” Marin offered the photo on her phone, apparently putting Horace’s response down to general crotchetiness.
Horace took her phone and turned it sideways and upside down. Perry wondered if he was pulling their leg, but he said finally, “I’m not sure. Now that I have a good look at him.”
“You’re not sure of what?” Camarillo asked.
“Maybe he does look familiar.”
Camarillo’s gaze narrowed. “You think you recognize him?”
Horace shrugged. “It’s hard to say. He may have been one of Enzo’s boys.”
“Enzo’s boys?”
“Enzo Juri. He used to be my bodyguard. He helps out at the YMCA. Teaches boys to box. Sometimes he’d bring them here to work around the place for a few dollars.”
Camarillo and Marin held a quick conference.
“We haven’t interviewed Juri yet,” Marin said.
“It makes sense,” Camarillo said. “The kid did some work, noticed there were items lying around that could be sold or pawned—kind of the same idea Duke had.”
The door opened, and Nick beckoned to Perry.
Perry joined him out in the hall. Nick was apologetic.
“Roscoe just called. I’ve got to go in to work. Grab your stuff, and I’ll drop you off at home first.”
Perry’s disappointment gave way to surprise. “I can’t leave.”
Nick frowned. “Of course you can. Of course you will. You can’t stay here.”
“Of course I can. Of course I will,” Perry shot right back. “I gave my word.”
“Perry, this isn’t— The situation here is still unresolved. I don’t think Regan has been sending Horace love notes for the last five years. He’d have had to start when he was about fourteen.”
Perry had already drawn the same conclusion. “I think I know who’s sending the letters—and why.”
“Who?”
“Wynne.” Perry quickly filled Nick in on his morning with Horace and the reasoning behind the deductions he’d made reading through the letters.
Nick heard him out in silence. “Not bad,” he admitted when Perry was finished. “In fact, as circumstantial cases go, that’s just about airtight. But are you sure you want to get in the middle of that?”
“No. I don’t. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. I could try talking to her—”
Nick said quickly, “I don’t like that idea.”
Perry gave him a look of exasperation. “I think I can probably hold my own against a seventy-year-old woman.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean, it’s not going to be pleasant, and I don’t think you want to be stuck here trying to mediate between the two of them. The Savitri girl has gone to try to bail out Duke, and God only knows what’s going on with Enzo. Plus, it’s Halloween. You don’t want to be here on Halloween.”
“I wasn’t actually planning on trick-or-treating,” Perry said.
It was Nick’s turn to be exasperated. “I know that. I’m not suggesting you’re a child or not strong enough to handle the situation. I’m just saying, why would you want to? This isn’t your problem.”
“Because I promised, Nick. I promised we’d stay through Halloween.”
“But the case is solved.”
“It’s not solved. Not entirely. You just said yourself the situation was unresolved.” Perry wasn’t quite sure why he was getting irritated with Nick—probably a lot of it was the disappointment of their weekend together being cut short. Not that he didn’t understand, but it was still a letdown.
“It’s solved enough for now,” Nick snapped, also getting irritated. “It’s solved enough for tonight.”
“I’m not leaving with you,” Perry said flatly. “I can’t leave until Monday morning.”
Nick’s face tightened. He opened his mouth to say something he immediately thought better of. He scowled and said instead, “All right. If that’s your decision, I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. You can text me when you’re ready to go.”
Perry’s heart sank. He and Nick never argued about anything. Not even little silly things. They just didn’t. He hated feeling he was behaving unreasonably, or that Nick was angry with him, but he had given his word. Horace didn’t know the source of the letters yet, and he was still frightened.
Perry nodded, and Nick eyed him unsmilingly. “Okay. Well. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Talk to you later,” Perry clipped out because his throat had closed unexpectedly. He hesitated—he did not want to say goodbye on these terms—but Nick looked unbending, and it was hard to make the move to kiss someone who looked so…stony. After all, Nick was not making any move to kiss him.
Perry turned and went back inside Horace’s apartment.
After speaking with Horace, Detectives Camarillo and Marin interviewed Enzo. Perry knew that because Enzo came straight to Horace afterward and called Horace a horse’s ass for believing that Enzo could ever have been part of a scheme to terrorize and defraud him.
“If you want to suspect someone,” Enzo shouted, “maybe you should look at those leeches Sissy and Jonah. They hired Bennie and his friends to paint their apartment last summer.”
Horace surprised Perry then, because instead of getting mad at Enzo, he cried and assured him he never believed it for one second. Which Perry was able to confirm. Camarillo and Marin had toyed with that scenario for a few minutes, and Horace had steadfastly refused to believe that Enzo would steal from him.
Enzo had seemed so enraged that morning, Perry had not expected a peaceful outcome, but by the time the two had argued it all out—and both had shed tears over Wally the Alligator being removed by Animal Control for relocation to a nice cozy zoo where he might actually get enough to eat—it looked like their friendship had been safely patched up.
The afternoon passed with no word from Nick.
Listening to Horace ramble on and on, Perry couldn’t help thinking Nick could have been a little kinder about his decision to stay. It wasn’t like Perry was having a great time at Angel’s Rest. He was trying to do the right thing, which was something Nick usually approved of.
Anyway, virtue was supposed to be its own reward, so Perry did his best to enjoy the sight of Horace happily poring over his old photo albums while the bright afternoon slowly faded.
“This is when Sissy and Jonah moved in.” Horace pointed to a Polaroid photo of a much slimmer Sissy and a more dapper Jonah sitting on the terrace of Angel’s Rest. The Nevinswere holding wineglasses and smiling. They looked like completely different people, but then they had been different people. They had been in their twenties back then. Angel’s Rest looked different too. Not nearly as derelict and dilapidated.
“When was this taken?” Perry asked.
Horace made a face. “When I got out of the hospital. After Troy left.”
“I didn’t realize you were injured,” Perry said. The way Sissy had told the story, Horace had stabbed Troy.
“I wasn’t. It wasn’t that kind of hospital,” Horace said vaguely, still studying the photo as though looking for something hidden in the corners.
“Oh.”
Horace looked up and smiled at Perry’s expression. “I thought you knew the story?”
“Well, some of it.”
“Ah. Well, I told you the important parts last night. Troy came home and found Wynne and me in bed together. We’d been smoking pot, of course, but I make no excuses. He tried to stab me, but ended up stabbing Wynne. Then I got the knife away from him and stabbed him.”
Perry could not think of anything to say. Horace sounded almost breezy about it all.
“Not seriously, mind you. It was a flesh wound, but we were all quite upset, as you can imagine. The police were called, and the fact that we were doing drugs did not work in our favor. We were all arrested, and I was kicked off the movie I was doing at the time. Wynne went back East and did some Off-Off-Broadway. Troy was sentenced to a year, but was out in six months. I had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for a few months, and during that time, Sissy and Jonah moved in.” Horace turned the page of the photo album.
“Did you ever see Troy after that?” Perry asked. Horace had said no the night before, but Perry wasn’t sure if the story would be the same in the daylight.
“No.” Horace’s smile was twisted. “I shouldn’t admit this, but I did try. I offered to forgive him. He still wouldn’t come back.”
Perry absorbed this for a moment or two. “You changed your mind about marrying Wynne?” That would probably have been the final straw for Wynne, the thing that had set her off on her years-long campaign of terror. Her bitterness must have festered and grown—
But Horace laughed. “Oh no! I’d have happily married her. I adore Wynne. And it would have solved the problem of Sissy and Jonah digging themselves in for all eternity on the pretext of looking after me. No, Wynne wouldn’t have me after that. She said we were both safer sticking to friendship.”
Perry could hear his theory about the authorship of the poison-pen letters crashing and burning. Not Wynne. And probably not Troy.
Both Wynne and Troy had passed on the opportunity of a future with Horace. While Perry was no expert on obsession, common sense indicated that obsessed people did not decline the chance to engage with the object of their obsession.
And another thing. Since when was obsession seasonal? Why did the letters start arriving every Halloween? That seemed weirdly calculated. Like Halloween was the scariest time of year, so that might be a good time to start up again? Or Halloween might provide some cover because a lot of loony things happened then? Or…
“What time of year was it when all that happened with Troy and Wynne?” Perry asked.
“What time of year?” Horace seemed puzzled.
“Right. Because you said last night Troy had returned from meeting with his coven. Was it—”
“Halloween,” Horace said promptly, understanding. “It happened on Halloween night.”