Murder Most Persuasive

“Yes, that again,” said Scott through gritted teeth. “I realize this is a difficult time, but it’s best we get this sorted out as soon as possible.”

“I understand that,” she replied. “And I fully intend to do just that. When I get back.”

“But—”

Bonnie interrupted. “But nothing! I need to get away. I realize that everything’s in a jumble right now, but it’s not as if we can’t sort it out when I get back. I know you think the proceeds are to be split among the three of you, but I don’t agree that that was what Martin wanted. I’m sure he meant for me to have a fourth. However, we can discuss it when I get back.”

“But—” Scott continued.

Again, Bonnie interrupted him. “But nothing!” she said, her voice becoming petulant. Over the years, I’ve seen only two sides to Bonnie’s personality—flaky and petulant. She was a spoiled child in a woman’s body. “We’ll deal with it when I get back,” she said. “But I have to say, I don’t think the proceeds on the house are the problem.”

“What do you mean?” asked Scott.

Bonnie placed both of her hands on the table and leaned forward. Lowering her voice, she glanced furtively at the flag before continuing. “What I mean is that I can’t shake this feeling that poor Martin’s death was … well, as God as my witness, it was wrong.”

“What do you mean, ‘wrong’?” Reggie asked, hastily setting down her empty martini glass.

“I mean murder,” came the breathless response. Pressing her hand to her chest, she moaned, “Oh, my poor, poor Marty!”

Bonnie’s oft-repeated sentiment of the day was again met with silence. But this time, we weren’t ignoring her. Based on the horrified expressions around me, I suspected that for the first time today, Bonnie held everyone’s complete attention. 

Chapter 2

My sore-throats, you know, are always worse than anybody’s.

—Persuasion

“Murder!” Reggie shrieked. She sat upright in her chair as if someone had just dumped several ice cubes down the back of her dress and glared at Bonnie. “Just what the hell are you talking about?” Reggie’s temper was almost as legendary as her beauty. Even though her anger wasn’t directed at me, I still squirmed uncomfortably in my chair.

Bonnie’s pale hands fluttered before her face as she tried to explain. “Well, the suddenness of it, of course! I mean, didn’t anyone else think it was … well, strange?” Her large blue eyes stared questioninly at us.

“Strange in what way?” asked Ann, her voice struggling for composure.

“Well, that nurse, for one.” With a cautious glance around her, Bonnie lowered her voice an octave. “I think she was foreign.”

Bonnie was forever suspicious of “foreigners.” Last year, a series of prank phone calls in which the caller said nothing and hung up after a moment were also blamed on this demographic. When asked how she could possibly know the identity of the caller, as he or she did not speak, Bonnie calmly replied, “The breathing; it was foreign breathing.”

“For Christ’s sake, Bonnie,” Aunt Winnie snapped now, her patience gone. “There are so many levels of wrong with what you just said, it truly boggles the mind. But for starters, of course she was foreign! The girl’s name was Rona Bjornstad and she spoke with a heavy Dutch accent. You’re just figuring out now that she wasn’t born here?”

Someone snickered. However, Bonnie, unaffected by Aunt Winnie’s tirade, merely sniffed. “I read the papers,” came her enigmatic reply. “I know things.”

“My dear Bonnie, skimming the headlines on the gossip rags doesn’t count as papers,” Aunt Winnie shot back. “You make Sarah Palin look well-read.”

“Oh, I love her!” Bonnie gushed.

Aunt Winnie grimaced and muttered something. I leaned in to her. “Did you say what I think you just said?” I asked, aghast.

“Of course not,” she retorted primly. “That’s just your vulgar imagination.”

Across the table, Frances brushed an errant strand of brown hair off her face and leaned forward. “Bonnie,” she said, her tone full of exasperation, “Nurse Rona was wonderful with Dad.”

“That’s my point,” Bonnie countered with a tip of her blond head. “Maybe she was a little too wonderful.”

Frances’s brow furrowed. “Meaning?”

Bonnie pursed her lips. “Meaning, I think she liked him. You should have seen the way she was always hanging over him and trying to hold his hand.”

“She tried to hold his hand?” asked Ann.

Bonnie gave an emphatic nod that caused the lace on her black ensemble to shudder. “Of course, when I called her on it, she claimed that she was just trying to take his pulse, but I knew better. Oh, if I wasn’t a lady, what I wouldn’t tell that woman.”

There was an awkward pause as everyone around the table tried very hard not to laugh.

With monumental effort, Ann finally said, “Bonnie, I don’t think Rona had any designs on Dad and I don’t think he was … murdered.” She briefly closed her eyes, as if the sound of her voice calmly uttering this statement in the dining room of the Hotel Washington was too much to bear. “I think you’re very tired. We all are. Go on your spa retreat and get some rest. You’ll feel better when you get back, and all these thoughts about murder will be gone.”

Bonnie sniffed again. “All right. If you say so, Annabel.”

The muscles in Ann’s jaw bunched, and I made a private bet that while Bonnie’s thoughts about murder might disappear, others’ would only grow stronger.

* * *

“Good God, but Bonnie is a piece of work,” Aunt Winnie said to me after we left the restaurant. We were in my mother’s car on the way to the airport. Aunt Winnie had to catch a flight back to Cape Cod, where she and her boyfriend, Randy, own and manage a bed-and-breakfast. Randy had stayed behind to keep things running.

“Marty could be a cold son of a bitch at times,” Aunt Winnie continued, “and he certainly bamboozled Bonnie into marrying him all those years ago, but there are times when I think that her utter craziness helped somewhat to redress that balance. Life with her could not have been easy.”

“Where on earth do you think she got the idea that Uncle Marty was murdered? The man had been hanging on by a thread for years. I can’t believe she was surprised by his death,” my mother asked.

“Yes, well, that’s Bonnie for you. Never met a fact she couldn’t ignore,” Aunt Winnie replied, her mouth twisted into a small red smirk.

“So you don’t think there could be any truth to what she said?” I asked.

From the front seat, Kit let out a whoop of laughter and swung around to face me. “I knew it! I knew it!” she crowed. “As soon as Bonnie began all that nonsense about Uncle Marty being murdered, I knew you were going to get all weird. Just because you were around when a murder happened doesn’t make you Nancy Drew!”

“I never said I was Nancy Drew!” I shot back. “And for your information, I was involved in two murder investigations, not just one, and I helped solve them both!”

“Oh, please,” said Kit, with a lofty air of superiority. “Not this again.”

The thing that drove me crazy was that I had been involved in two murder