Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

Then it was their turn. Sunny and Cale both successfully landed their shots, reducing the Neals’ cups from five to three.

“That’s the closest score you’ve had in a while,” Carson said when he finally returned through the gate.

“How is Peter?” Sunny asked.

Carson shrugged. “I put him in bed with a large bucket—just in case. But he passed out before he got sick.”

“Are we playing doctor or beer pong?” Tommy demanded, turning them back to the game. He and Yardley tried to make a comeback. Tommy managed to land a toss, reducing Sunny and Cale to a single cup. Then Yardley tried to bounce the ball at the lone survivor.

“De-fense! De-fense!” Carson and Cillie chanted, and Cale came through, flicking the ball away.

Now it was Sunny and Cale’s turn. He tossed his ball unerringly into one of the Neals’ remaining cups. Course, it’s easier for him, Sunny thought. He’s sober.

She went to toss her ball, and her foot slipped on spilled beer. Her shot looped high, hit, and flipped up, catching an astonished Tommy in the forehead . . . and dropped into the cup.

“We won! We won!” Sunny jumped up and down, waving her arms in triumph.

“But we won the most games.” Yardley tried for dignity, but she was swaying a little as she spoke.

“I’m just glad we won one.” Sunny stopped jumping. She was beginning to feel the beer, too.

“I think it’s time we called it a night, before one of us falls into the pool.” Priscilla bit her lip, belatedly realizing her comment was a little too close to what happened to Eliza. Nobody else said anything, but Sunny could feel that cloud of constraint setting in again.

She looked at her watch. It was getting late. Will would be getting off soon. She should share what Beau had told her about his fight with Eliza.

They dragged the damning evidence into the cabana, cleaned up what they could, and headed down the path to the guesthouses. Cale waved a silent good-bye as he set off in the opposite direction to the mansion.

“I think I’m going to take a little walk,” Sunny said when they got to the front of the girls’ house.

Priscilla laughed as she held onto Carson’s arm. “Trying to clear your head?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.” Sunny watched Cillie, her fiance, and the Neals go in, then turned to pass the roadblock. A quick turn at the first intersection, and yes, there was Will in his police cruiser. She got in on the passenger side, and he set off through the neighborhood. “You look a little wobbly tonight,” he observed. “Were you trying to dig up clues over brandies by the fireplace?”

“More like trying to get the suspects to let their hair down over beer pong,” Sunny admitted. “Not much to report there. But I got Beau Bellingham alone earlier. We talked about his relationship with Eliza and that fight they had.”

Sunny stopped, realizing that Will wasn’t listening. He’d slowed the car and was peering off into the distance. This was a quiet residential block in a part of town that didn’t run to streetlights. Whatever he was staring at stood in an even deeper patch of shadow from a huge pine tree. “That’s Nesbit’s car,” Will said.

Now Sunny looked harder, barely able to make out the fact that a car was parked in the shadows. She knew that the sheriff often drove an unmarked county car, but how would Will recognize it all the way over there?

“It’s the whip antenna,” Will explained as if he’d overheard her thought. “I just caught the silhouette, but that’s something we all keep an eye out for. It means the boss is around.”

He drove up behind the mystery car, his headlights revealing that someone was behind the driver’s wheel. The driver didn’t turn around, though.

Will stopped the car and got out. He looked in the window and recoiled, trying to stop Sunny as she got out to join him.

But he was too late. She got an eyeful of Frank Nesbit’s trademark mustache and pale face, now twisted in a rictus of pain and surprise, his glazed, staring eyes—and of the bloody wound across his throat. All the beer Sunny had drunk made a sudden attempt to leap out of her stomach, and she stumbled back, fighting for control.

Will would kill me if I threw up on his crime scene, some part of her brain commented.

Will stepped back and took out his flashlight, playing it over the interior of the car. Sunny wished he hadn’t. All it seemed to show was drying blood all over.

“I think he knew whoever did this.” Will turned to Sunny, took in her pale face, and went to her, but she waved him off.

“I’m okay.” She gulped heavily. “I think.” Then she asked, “What makes you say that?”

“He let him get close enough to slit his throat,” Will’s face was grim. “I know that Nesbit always carried a gun in a shoulder rig. He said it was one of the perks of the job. But when I looked now, his jacket was zipped closed. If he’d had any suspicions at all, he’d have wanted free access to his weapon. That jacket would have been open. Instead . . .”

Will shook his head. “It looks as though he made the mistake of bringing a gun to a knife fight.”

12

The quiet neighborhoodwas neither quiet nor dark for long. Large floodlights threw a harsh glare over Frank Nesbit’s car, and a steady rumble came from the gasoline-powered generators providing juice for the lights. Radios chattered from shoulder-mounted units on state troopers as well as from several state police vehicles; along with the red flashers, it was like a scene from a movie. Troopers moved around setting up a perimeter, and Sunny spotted Ben Semple’s shocked face beyond the crime-scene tape.

“Ben Semple already called in the news to headquarters in Levett,” Will told Lieutenant Ellis Wainwright. “They’re rousting Captain Ingersoll”—who Sunny recalled was the sheriff’s second in command—“out of bed to get over here.”

Wainwright nodded. “In the meantime, I’m hoping you can give me some answers. What the hell was Nesbit doing here?”

“I have no idea,” Will replied. “He didn’t share his schedule with me. As far as I know, he had no reason to be around here at this time of night.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’d say this was a good spot for a quiet meeting, though.”

“Mmmph.” Wainwright made an indeterminate noise and glanced at Sunny. “As you were doing with Ms. Coolidge.”

“She came out to share anything she’d heard in the compound,” Will said stiffly.

“Anything that didn’t fit in her blog, I suppose,” the state police investigator cut in. “Lee Trehearne is still unhappy with the way you publicized the wedding presents.”

“Did you read the post? Do you think I endangered the security of the gifts or the house, Lieutenant?” By now, Sunny’s nausea had transformed into anger. “I tried to point out what a good job Trehearne’s doing, but the fact is, he just doesn’t want me around. Does the same go for you?”

“I guess that depends on what you can tell me about the movements of any of the people in the compound,” Wainwright replied. “You were spotted with Priscilla Kingsbury, Carson de Kruk, and several of their friends at the guesthouses before you set off on your little walk to meet Constable Price here. What were you all doing prior to that?”

“We were having a little . . . entertainment.” Sunny silently cursed her beer-thickened wits. How much would she have to tell?

Wainwright gave her a cool but penetrating cop’s gaze. “Yeah. I could smell the ‘entertainment’ on you. At a guess I’d say it was some kind of drinking game. Who was participating?”

Sunny could feel her face growing warm. And Will was no help, studiously keeping his eyes averted. He was leaving her on her own—or, rather, silently telling her not to cover things up.