Crossing The Lion Part 11

"Not that that little fight of ours was any different from the ones we've been having since I was a kid," he said, visibly fl.u.s.tered. "It was nothing more than the two of us going at each other like most fathers and sons, rehas.h.i.+ng the same old script."

But maybe this time, I thought, you improvised a different ending.

"The same goes for my brother and sister," Brock went on, speaking quickly, as if he was anxious to move on to a different topic. "My beloved siblings have the same att.i.tude, in case you haven't noticed. Missy and Tag both think I'm totally flaky."

"I did notice that Missy made a comment or two about your lifestyle," I agreed.

"Ha! She thinks everything I do is worthless." By this point, Brock's tone was scathing. "She always thought she was better than me, even back when we were kids. Now that we're adults, she makes fun of the way I eat, the way I dress, the fact that I choose to live in harmony with a bunch of other people of like mind ... She doesn't get that I'm on a quest to find meaning in my life instead of ... of frittering away my time shopping or pretending to be a do-gooder or whatever she does all day.

"And Tag isn't any better," he went on, still practically spitting out his words. "His spiritual side is zilch. The only thing he cares about is picking up flashy women and buying the latest car and ... and partying, preferably somewhere in the world that's bursting with yachts and champagne and who knows what else. Lately he's been talking about buying his own plane. Do you have any idea how selfish and decadent that is? It would never even occur to the guy to try to minimize his carbon footprint. He acts as if indulging in whatever suits his fancy at the moment is what life is all about."

Suddenly Brock leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes and noisily letting out a puff of air. I got the feeling that expounding on the topic of his siblings' wastefulness had drained him of all energy. In fact, he was pretty much back to the state in which I'd found him.

Interesting guy, I thought, studying him. Brock clearly has a disdain for money--or at least the ways in which most people choose to spend it, especially those with a lot of it. And that includes his sister and his brother.

Yet he yearns for money of his own, mainly to subsidize a lifestyle of spending every waking minute doing only what he loves.

I was certainly sympathetic to that, since I was someone who had also made sure I found a meaningful career. But given all the feeling behind his words, I couldn't help wondering just how far Brock would go in order to make that happen.

Chapter 7.

"Even a hare will insult a dead lion."

--Latin Proverb After Brock dragged himself off the couch and retreated to his bedroom, with Corky and Admiral padding happily after him, I checked my watch. I was surprised to see that it was already mid-afternoon.

That explained why my stomach was growling. I realized that Nick hadn't had any lunch, either. So I decided to put together a picnic that he and I could enjoy in the privacy of our own room, without any Merrywoods around.

I wandered into the kitchen. At first, I was disappointed that Cook was nowhere in sight. While Falcone had already talked to her, I was anxious to do a little questioning of my own.

But I quickly realized that the fact that no one else was in the kitchen left me free to do some poking around. I opened cabinets and checked both the restaurant-sized stainless-steel refrigerator and the pantry, which was practically a room in itself.

As I looked for the ingredients for a romantic meal for two, I also tried to get a sense of the room's layout. After all, since Linus's demise was believed to have been caused by his own birthday cake, the kitchen had played a key role on the night of his death.

The kitchen was huge, with lots of a.s.sorted counters and cabinets. Even more important, the room had no fewer than four different entrances. The most obvious was the doorway from the main hall, the way I'd come in. The second was the swinging door that led to the dining room. Cook had used that one the night before while serving the family dinner.

But there were two more ways to enter and exit the kitchen. One was a back door that led outside. Looking out through the gla.s.s panels set into it, I saw a walkway that appeared to curve around the house, leading in the direction of the dock. It occurred to me that if someone had switched the birthday cakes, that person could have used any one of these doors, with the one leading outside the house the best bet.

The fourth was an arched opening that led directly to a staircase. I suspected it connected with the section of the house that contained the servants' quarters.

On impulse, I decided this was a good time to find out.

I quickly piled an a.s.sortment of picnic goodies onto a tray: a hunk of cheese, the leftover croissants and fruit salad from breakfast, and, for the main course, the remaining Rock Cornish hens from last night's dinner. My booty provided me with a good cover. If I ran into anyone, I'd simply say I got lost while looking for a more direct route from the kitchen to my bedroom.

Clutching my tray, I tromped up the stairs confidently. When I reached a landing, I saw that I'd been correct about the layout of this part of the house. A short carpeted hallway jutted off to one side. Four closed doors led off it, two on each side. Given the fact that these doors were considerably closer to each other than those in the main part of the house, I surmised that these smaller bedrooms were occupied by Jives, Gwennie, and Cook.

As for the staircase, it kept going up. But it got narrower, as did the walls surrounding it.

Those walls also became curved, and instead of being made of plaster that was painted white, they were composed of craggy gray stone. I suspected that this particular staircase led up into one of the house's towers.

As I continued up the stairs, still clutching my tray, I realized that my palms were damp and my mouth was dry.

Calm down, I scolded myself. You've read too many fairy tales. Chances are there are no ogres locked up in this tower.

In fact, there's probably no one up here at all, except maybe some mice. And definitely a few spiders, I thought, as I veered away from a web the size of a cafe curtain.

This tower turned out to be much higher than the one Aunt Alvira called home. I was out of breath by the time I reached the top. By this point, the stairs were so tiny that I had to walk up them on tiptoe. And simply holding on to the tray became a challenge, since I would have much preferred to use my hands to brace myself against the cold stone walls.

A handrail would be nice, I thought grimly. So would a light.

Once again, I cursed myself for not carrying a flashlight as standard procedure. Of course, like the tray piled with food that was starting to seem more burdensome than tempting, it would have been difficult to hold, anyway.

Still, at least I'd made it all the way up. In front of me was a wooden door with a curved top, the kind that's usually featured in gnomes' huts. It was also only as tall as your usual gnome--without his gnome hat.

There was probably nothing up here but an empty room, I decided. After all, this place was too inaccessible for anyone to have turned it into living s.p.a.ce. It wouldn't even be useful for storage, since it would be impossible to drag up anything bigger than a s...o...b..x.

I decided it must have been built as a lookout. Either that or the architect thought it would look cool for his castlelike structure to have a tower. At any rate, I intended to find out, no matter how creepy it was.

Balancing my tray on my forearm, I placed my free hand on the tarnished metal doork.n.o.b. My palm was so sweaty that I was afraid I wouldn't get enough traction to open it even if it wasn't locked.

So I was surprised when it turned easily in my hand.

I pushed open the door, immediately coughing as a cloud of dust puffed in my face. The hinges creaked loudly, making screeching sounds that were almost eerie enough to send me running back down those stairs.

But I'd come this far. Besides, by this point I was convinced that I'd find nothing but an empty room.

Sure enough, that was pretty much what I saw once I stepped inside. But while there was little light in the small round room, there was just enough that I could make out some shadowy shapes along the back wall. While they weren't readily identifiable, I was glad that none of them appeared to be shaped like the hunchback of Notre Dame.

But while Quasimodo might not have been up here, I got the feeling someone else was.

At first I thought I was imagining it. But as I stood inside the doorway, I could definitely hear something that sounded like short, quick breaths.

There was someone up here.

Or maybe something.

My heart was beating as loudly as the telltale version immortalized by Edgar Allan Poe as I squinted in an effort to adjust to the dim light, meanwhile bracing myself for whatever I might see. Some supernatural being, perhaps, or some grotesque soul who for some horrific reason was forced to live his or her life hidden away from the rest of the world.

And then something moved. One of the shadows rose from the floor and began moving toward me, into the light ...

"Tag?" I cried, blinking.

As he emerged from the shadows, I could see a look of terror in his eyes. "Jessie?" he asked in a strained voice. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me," I replied crossly, nearly collapsing as a wave of relief washed over me. Now that I'd discovered that the ghoul hiding at the top of this tower was only Tag Merrywood, I felt like a complete fool. "What are you doing up here?"

"Uh, just looking through some old things."

By now I was able to see quite well, and I glanced around the small room. I immediately realized that he couldn't possibly be telling the truth. The entire s.p.a.ce was empty, aside from an impressive number of dust bunnies that had grown to the size of tumbleweeds.

Which could mean only one thing: Tag was hiding out up here.

"I was so pleased to find that old tennis racket," he babbled on, "that I figured I'd poke around the house to see if there was anything else I could bring back home with me."

"In that case," I said dryly, "wouldn't it help to have some light?" Or, even better, something to actually look at?

Sheepishly, he said, "I thought I might find some stuff from my childhood up here. I was particularly interested in, uh, my old baseball-card collection. But I realize now that nothing's stored here anymore. I guess somebody cleaned this place out since the last time I came up."

"That would explain it," I agreed, still puzzling over what all this was about.

"So, uh, who came to the island just now?" Tag's voice was strangely thick as he added, "I saw someone sneak over here on a little boat a while ago. A man. Who was he?"

It took me a couple of seconds to figure out what he was referring to.

"Nick," I finally replied. "My husband. He's a busy law student, but he decided he could get just as much studying done here as at home. So he found someone to bring him over."

Tag let out a deep, relieved sigh. "Is that all," he said breathlessly.

He really is hiding, I thought, startled. And not from his family, either.

There's someone out there he's afraid of.

That realization led to another: Tag was in some sort of trouble. And from the deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, I got the feeling it was rooted in something a lot more serious than an angry ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.

"What about you?" he asked in an accusing tone. "What brought you all the way up here?"

Now it was my turn to do some quick thinking. My tale about getting lost en route to my bedroom wasn't going to fly.

"I was searching for a good place to have a picnic," I explained, holding up the tray of food as proof.

"By yourself?" he asked suspiciously. "That seems like an awful lot of food."

"I'm starving," I said with a shrug. "It's way past lunch. I lost track of the time, since I got involved in looking at a b.u.mp I found on Admiral's neck. Brock and I started to talk, and--"

"Ah, yes, Brock," Tag said coldly. "I've been thinking about him myself. In fact, now that we all know that somebody did our poor father in, I've been thinking about little besides Brock."

"What do you mean?" I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew exactly what he meant.

His unnervingly blue eyes glittering coldly, Tag said, "I'm convinced my brother is the one who did the old man in."

I just stared at him, too astonished to speak. "Why would he do such a thing?" I finally demanded.

"The oldest reason in the book," he replied with an icy smile. "Money. That is, the money he's bound to inherit now that the old man is gone."

I guess my expression showed my surprise, since he added, "I know it looks as if I'm the spendthrift of the family. And it's true that I like fine things. The Ferrari, the yacht, the houses in Cap d'Antibes and St. Bart's ..." With a boyish grin, Tag added, "Nothing wrong with living the good life, is there?"

"Not if you can pay for it," I muttered, wondering how he managed to do so--especially since he'd just told me his high-priced car was only the beginning. While all along I'd simply a.s.sumed that all three of Linus's children benefited from trust funds or some other form of family money, I now knew otherwise, thanks to my conversation with Brock.

"And Brock isn't good with money?" I asked.

Tag laughed. "My brother may pretend he's a non-materialistic hippie, but don't believe it for a second."

"Really? He certainly had me convinced."

"He doesn't crave things like cars and nice clothes," Tag said. "But he wants the means to support his current obsession. Sometimes it's a cause, like saving the planet. And other times it's something that sounds as if it could turn into an actual career. But he never follows through."

"Missy did make a comment about that over dinner last night," I noted. "She mentioned that he'd expressed interest in architecture and computer graphics and some other fields at different times."

"Exactly," Tag said. "He's gone through one phase after another. He'll find some path he's convinced is right for him, and it's all he talks about. A few weeks later he's moved on to something else. Of course, he never actually does anything about pursuing his pa.s.sion-of-the-month, like applying to programs in whatever he's so focused on. He's simply unable to stick with anything."

"And it sounds as if his current pa.s.sion is making beaded jewelry," I observed. "But it doesn't seem as if you think this new business of his is going to fly."

"Ha!" Tag said with a snort. "I find it hard to believe Brock would ever be capable of running a business, even on a small scale. Not when he's always been such a disaster when it comes to money."

Winston's words about Linus Merrywood's disappointment in his children's potential for running the business that had prospered under his leaders.h.i.+p echoed in my head.

"And not only does Brock lack any business sense," Tag went on. "He also lacks common sense. He's spent his entire life trying to find some get-rich scheme that will set him up for life. Since he never had any money of his own, he was always trying to get our father to lend him money to invest."

"Did he?"

Tag scoffed. "The old man was much too smart for that. So he'd turn him down, and then Brock would throw a temper tantrum. Eventually he'd find out what a bad investment it would have been anyway." Shaking his head in disgust, he said, "You wouldn't believe some of the crazy stuff Brock wanted to waste money on."

"Try me."

"One of my favorites was a biodegradable lunch bag some guy up in Vermont had invented," Tag said. "The idea was to keep schoolkids from generating garbage. The problem was that its revolutionary 'green' material biodegraded too fast--in just a few hours. The poor kids who were testing it ended up with apples and peanut b.u.t.ter sandwiches flying around their backpacks about ten minutes after they got to school."

He laughed coldly. "Then there were the dot-com guys who claimed they were going to create the next Google."

"They weren't up to it?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer. After all, if a search engine that was better than Google was out there, I had a feeling I would have heard about it. Switched to it, in fact.

"No one ever found out," Tag said, "since they skipped the country with everyone's money before you could hit enter."

"Okay, so your brother doesn't exactly have a nose for running a business or making worthwhile investments," I said. "That doesn't mean he's capable of murdering someone. Especially his own father!"

Tag's eyes narrowed. "There's more to it. You don't know Brock, so you have no way of knowing how compet.i.tive he is."

"Do you mean he felt compet.i.tive toward your father?" I asked.

"No. Toward me." Tag stood up a little straighter, as if being the object of his younger brother's compet.i.tiveness was something to be proud of. And that was apparently the exact message he was trying to communicate, since he added, "I must admit, I'm a pretty hard act to follow. Living with the pressure of being the younger brother of Taggart Merrywood wouldn't be easy for anyone."

Maybe that's your take on the family dynamic, I thought, but according to Winston, all three of Linus's children disappointed him--including you.

"Brock's spent his whole life trying to show me up," Tag continued. "And my father had no qualms about letting him know what a disappointment he was."