Liz had been right about the dumbwaiter being used. Edward said that David had waited until he saw Fenton leave for the emporium, then checked that the outside door to the office was open. Later, when David went down to the ice machine, supposedly to retrieve ice for his wife’s knee, she was actually already dead. At that time, he let Edward in and brought him up to the Oceana Suite. After Edward stabbed David, he took the dumbwaiter back down and exited via Fenton’s office, leaving behind a drop of David’s blood from the knife he later threw in the lagoon. David faked the scuffle with his supposed knife-wielding assailant after he was sure Edward had safely exited the Indialantic via Fenton’s office. The faked scuffle gave Edward an alibi, because he was safely on a bar stool at Squidly’s at seven thirty. David got the idea of having Edward enter the hotel from Fenton’s office on the same day Regina accused Liz of stealing her necklace. After Regina’s fall, David watched Ryan carry his wife through Fenton’s apartment and into the interior of the hotel.
Prior to the murder, David had been loading up on painkillers, so that when Edward stabbed him, the pain wouldn’t be as intense—he was “premeditatedly medicated.”
After Liz told Edward about the ring Brittany was wearing, he got a call from an irate David Worth, who’d just confirmed with Detective Pearson and Fenton that the ring was Regina’s. David told Edward to meet him on the dock so they could come up with a plan. When Edward arrived, David whacked him on the head and dumped him in the water, planning on planting evidence that Edward was his wife’s killer. Luckily, Liz and Nick showed up shortly afterward.
Liz also found proof of Edward and David’s collusion. In the video Kate had texted to Liz while she was still in Manhattan of the Emporium by the Sea’s grand opening, there was background footage of Edward handing something to David in a small box. No doubt, it was a forgery of a piece of jewelry from the San Carlos.
A week after David Worth’s death, Agent Pearson’s officers also found something interesting on Regina’s father’s yacht—a bottle of her father’s heart medication. It was found in Regina’s stateroom, under her mattress. The only fingerprints on the bottle were Regina’s and her father’s. No one would ever know whether Regina had kept the bottle from her father that day on the yacht, ultimately causing his death, but there were odds-on that she had.
“Here they are, Lizzy!” Aunt Amelia said excitedly, as she dug through her TV costume trunk. She pulled out an unopened package of what looked like small, white oval pillows and held them up in the air. “I stuffed two pairs of these babies in my brassiere for the episode of The Wild Wild West in which I played a saloon showgirl. I didn’t have a speaking part, but I did get to stand next to President Grant’s Secret Service agent extraordinaire, James West, I mean, Robert Conrad. I gazed into his ice-blue eyes, then gave him a wink and a great big smacker on his cheek. He was only an inch taller than me. Did you know he did all his own stunts?”
Liz would have sworn that over the past twenty-three years, she’d seen every part her great-aunt played. “No, I didn’t. You never told me about that role—just the one in which you and Artemus Gordon had a three-episode flirtation.”
“Ahh, Ross Martin. Boy, did we have more than a few laughs. I adored his sense of humor.”
Liz opened the package, reached under her cropped T-shirt, and stuffed one of the pillows inside her bra. “My favorite part of the series is when the drawn pictures are filled in after each cliff-hanger scene, right before the commercial break.” She stepped toward the full-length mirror hanging from the back of the door. “What do you think?”
Aunt Amelia said, “Bigger. Go bigger, I always say.”
She looked at her great-aunt’s colorful floor-length Japanese kimono embroidered with silk butterflies and cherry blossoms, and her brightly made-up face. Her long, wavy flame-red hair was held back by a large braid that was really a headband. If Aunt Amelia was going for demure, subservient geisha girl, something had gotten lost in the translation. But, as always, the total look was 100 percent Amelia Eden Holt.
Aunt Amelia handed Liz another package of falsies. “That should do it. Those Mary Quant hot pants look great on you. I can’t believe I was once your size. Guess there’s just more of me to love now.”
“You’re as beautiful today as you
