I paused at the door, looking back.
“My Jane knew how to smile. That she did.” Ms. Rigg burst into a new round of sobs.
I hurried away, somehow feeling that I should be mourning as well-but not for Jane. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and walked down the hill in the drizzle. A police cruiser was parked at the base of the drive, a burgundy-and-cream City of Del Gloria logo on the doors.
I met Portia and Dagger on their way back up to the house.
“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you,” Portia warned with a shake of her head.
“Thanks,” I said and kept walking.
Denton and a uniformed officer stood near the guardrail. Passing cars slowed to gawk in curiosity. A sedan arrived, angling next to the cruiser. A man in a trench coat stepped out and joined the men on the opposite side of the rail. I paused at the curb, not certain I wanted to involve myself in another death. At least this one couldn’t be blamed on me.
I made the approach, picking up Denton’s flustered voice.
“Maybe I was too hard on her. I don’t know. I couldn’t have her stay for supper when she was being rude to my other guests.”
The newest arrival nodded his head, but didn’t sound convinced. “Could have been her last straw, I suppose. But why set the purse down, then jump? Wouldn’t a woman take her purse with her when she goes?” He studied the scene, moving like the victim prior to her fall. “What do you think? Would you leave your purse?” The man turned to me, as if he’d sensed my arrival.
Flustered by his question, I stared down the cliff, watching a vehicle cross the sand toward the body, which was still hidden from my view by the ledge. A few more steps and the corpse would be in full, gory sight. I stayed rooted to the spot. “Umm… I guess if I was going to jump off a cliff, I wouldn’t even have brought a purse with me. I would have left it in my car or-” I swallowed at the whole gruesome thing, “-or whatever.” My voice trailed off.
“That’s what I was thinking.” He stretched out a hand toward me. “Detective Larson. And who are you?”
My eyes grew wide. “Uhhh, Alisha Braddock.”
“I thought you looked familiar. The Rooftop Heroine.” He gave a snort. “Well, Ms. Braddock. What do you think happened here?”
The question took me by surprise. “Well…” I made it up as I went along. “Maybe she was just getting in her car to leave when she saw someone she knew, and, I don’t know, came down the hill to talk to them. Then they pushed her over.”
“Good theory.”
I hated to tell him that dead bodies and I went back a long way.
Detective Larson looked at the uniformed officer. “Why don’t you go in and get statements from the others.” The detective turned to Denton. “I’m calling this one a murder. Don’t leave town.”
He hoisted a sturdy leg over the guardrail. He was at the double yellow line down the center of the blacktop when he stopped and looked back at me. “Same goes for you, Ms. Heroine. Don’t plan any trips ’til I figure out what a stolen ladder and a dead blackmailer have in common.”
Blackmailer? It sounded like Jane had figured out an easy way to get a raise in her allowance. But as a wealthy benefactor who’d already doled out money to cover my tracks, Denton probably considered Jane a mere nuisance, not a threat to my safety.
Rain trickled down my face as I watched the detective’s bulky shape cross to the lawn. A car pulled off the road and parked next to him, marring the wet grass with its tracks. A woman got out of the white midsize. As the detective talked with her, she bent inside the vehicle and emerged with an umbrella and a camera outfitted with a monster lens.
I swung around and caught Denton’s gaze. Maybe I was mistaken, but he looked as busted as I felt. Sherlock Holmes over there was on to us.
I stepped toward my host uncle. “What are we going to do?”
He pulled me to him and held on to me like he’d be sorry to ever let me go. “You heard him. You have to stay here.”
I nodded into his shoulder, an ache climbing from my chest to my throat. “What did he mean about Jane being a blackmailer?”
He pulled me tighter. His chest heaved and I thought for a minute he might be crying.
“She found out that you’re really Patricia Amble. From your notebook, as you suspected. She looked into your background, then held the information over my head.” He lowered his voice as the detective and his aide looked our way. “I paid her to keep it quiet.”
I pushed away and searched his eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“I didn’t have a choice. She threatened to expose you… and she had other information that would have disgraced my family.”
“Oh. You mean that thing about being your half sister? So what if she was? You could survive it.”
He shook his head. “She’s always wanted DNA testing to prove she was blood… that meant exhuming my father’s body. Based on the results, I might have been forced to turn over half my inheritance. So to let my father- and his good name-rest in peace, I’ve been paying her a healthy sum every month. But when she found out about you, she claimed grounds for a raise.”
“When I first met Jane, Ms. Rigg denied the ambassador was Jane’s father.”
“Knowing Ms. Rigg’s background, I’m not sure she can accurately say who Jane’s father was. But she saw in my father an opportunity to raise her child in America, and she convinced him he was the responsible party. When I was growing up, Ms. Rigg lived in my house and rubbed my father’s mistake in my mother’s face day after day. My mother was gracious. She took pity on the Irishwoman and her child and allowed them to stay, despite the torment she lived with every moment.”
“But you did have a choice. We always have choices. There had to be a better option than feeding Jane’s greed. Why not just do the testing?”
“That’s not what I chose. Perhaps you would have handled it differently.” His eyes squeezed closed for a brief moment. “I wanted to give her time to change her mind. But it’s too late to change things for Jane now.”
I nodded and watched a drop of rain roll down his face.
The investigators crossed to us. We stayed back as the camerawoman snapped photos of the red leather pocketbook and area around it. She leaned near the cliff’s edge for aerial views of the body.
The detective bagged the purse. “My wife’s tells her life story.” He dangled the clear plastic in the air. “I wonder what I’ll find inside this one.”
“Thank you, Detective. Anything you can turn up will be a great comfort to Ms. Rigg.” Denton touched the back of my elbow and steered me gently up the hill toward the house.
With a damper thrown on our holiday, I expressed my condolences to Ms. Rigg, bid my teammates goodbye, and headed up to my room. I tried to read, but the plight of Edmond Dantes only depressed me. Now that he had his treasure, he was bent on seeking revenge against those who stole his life from him. Somehow his transformation from victim to perpetrator grated on me.
I put the book down and picked up my journal. I wrote down the events from the past several days as well as outlining today’s tragedy. Finished, I set my pen on the bedside table.
The pages made a fluttering noise as I flipped through them in review. I couldn’t imagine ever looking back and having my life make sense to me. It seemed more like a spoof on a Three Stooges episode than a story with a plot. As much as I’d been going to church, attending Christian-based courses, hanging out with good people, and tossing up prayers now and then, I still lacked the faith that God could actually take this warped, wretched human being and make her life count. If God’s intent was to use me as an instrument to attract slugs from beneath rocks, then things were right on track. Maybe I just had to accept the humble role I’d been assigned.
My thumbs twiddled. I flipped onto my back, and stared at the canopy above. Maybe it was time I faced facts. Portia was right. There wasn’t going to be a phone call. It was practically December. I’d been in Del Gloria six months. In Rawlings, two towns ago, I’d only lasted a little over four months. And Port Silvan, the last town, was only a notch more than three. That made Del Gloria more home to me than either of the others. So, the question wasn’t really would Brad ever call. The question was, did I really want Brad to call?
I blew at a speck of dust floating over my head. The most honest answer I could come up with was no. No, I
