"We knew you'd help out. Well." She rose from the table with a smile. "Come, Birdie. We'll brave that crowd out there and just make our exercise class, if we're lucky."
"They won't pay any attention to old ladies like us, Bea. Goodbye, girls. Don't get up. We'll see ourselves out. Will you two be here when we get back?"
"Here?" Quill asked blankly.
"The first of Dr. Bob's therapy sessions is going to be here at noon. Isn't it, Bea?"
"That's right."
"Here?" Meg shrieked.
"Tiffany thought it would be best." Birdie's shrewd old eyes twinkled. "The reporters know how to get here, you see. And she made an arrangement with Luis."
"Swell," Meg said darkly. "That's just swell."
"We'll see you then, I hope. Twelve sharp. Come along, Bea."
"Goodbye," Quill said. "Oh, Birdie? Did you happen to catch the name of the psychiatrist treating Corrigan Taylor?"
"Dr. Bittern, of course. He's quite qualified. Quite." Meg waited until the front door had closed, then picked up the dirty plates and threw them one by one, with great precision, against the refrigerator door. Quill watched her, arms folded. When the last plate had smashed, Meg bent over and methodically picked them up and disposed of them in the pail underneath the sink. "There," she said briskly. "Now I feel better. Any ideas about what to do next?"
"Oh, yes," Quill said. "Make a call on Verger Taylor's lawyer and attend Dr. Bittern's therapy session. I want to find out what's behind this bribe. And I'm very interested in Dr. Bittern's future plans."
"Tell me, what do you think really happened at Verger Taylor's mansion yesterday?"
"We've got two facts and a supposition. The facts are that we last saw Verger Taylor at six-thirty. The maid confirms he came home at six thirty-five and that the break-in occurred very shortly after. The shooting couldn't have taken more than ten minutes. The devil with the creaky shoes..."
"Maria didn't say creaky shoes. She said snap-snap-snap."
"... anyway, we didn't arrive at Cressida Houghton's until well after seven. From the map, though, Verger's is actually a short walk down the beach, so the boys could've waited for Verger, killed him, and jogged back on home well in time for our invited arrival at seven-fifteen. That's fact one.
"Fact two is that the bridge game so cleverly laid out for us was a ruse, copied directly from the winning grand slam in yesterday's paper."
"I don't think I'd call that a fact," Meg objected.
"I haven't drawn any conclusions yet, Meg! Now the supposition is that the boys were acting when they got that call from the so-called kidnapper."
"I know we can't prove it, Quill, but I'll be damned if that was acting."
"I agree with you. I think the kidnapper was the fire-breathing demon that opened the door on Maria and shut it. The kidnapping was separate from the murder. Frankly, I'm so convinced that, at least as working hypothesis, we're going to call it a fact. Okay? And I think the basic scenario is this:
"Evan and Corrigan Taylor planned a home invasion for the express purpose of killing their father and leaving his body for the authorities to find. Someone else came along, found the body, and disposed of it. For a reason we haven't discovered yet, the body snatcher can't have Verger Taylor dead."
"So who's got the best motive?" Quill continued rhetorically. "First, there's Chef Jean Paul. If he knew that the deal with Southern Fried wasn't completed yet, he'd have a chance at finding someone else to run his believed instituted."
"I doubt it, Quill. Chef Jean Paul is just like those rabbits. Timid and good only for cooking. Besides, I know three restaurants in New York that would hire Jean Paul in two seconds flat. For an enormous sum of money."
"Okay... let's accept that Jean Paul had a motive, but not a compelling one. What about the shrink? Dr. Bittern knew that Verger had made up his mind to prevent Tiffany from going forward with his multimillion-dollar project."
"Again - it's a motive, but not a compelling one. And besides, the man no idiot. He'd get the same result with Verger dead as Verger missing. Why go to the risk of concealing the body?"
"True," Quill said. "Linda Longstreet, who had the same motive as Chef Jean Paul."
"She's out of it," Meg said. "If she's a murderer, then I'm Paul Bunyan."
"You're right."
"I love it when you say I'm right."
"What about Tiffany?"
They looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Nah."
Meg giggled. "She made it pretty clear yesterday she was much better off being his combative ex-wife. Plus, she's got that spa alibi. You know, Quill, there's another suspect."
"Ernst Kolsacker? According to Birdie and Bea, he doesn't benefit in any way from Verger's disappearance. I can see where his death might benefit him - he could run Taylor Incorporated for a while, but my gosh, guys like that swap corporate jobs all over the country. Like Chef Jean Paul, Ernst could get a good job almost anywhere. Besides, if Birdie's accurate - and have you noticed how sharp she is about money, Meg?"
"No! Really?"
"It's amazing, isn't it? It's how the rich stay rich, I guess. Anyhow, unless we can turn up some reason for Ernst to benefit by Verger's being alive, but out of the picture, then I vote we table him as the body snatcher."
"Agreed. I wasn't thinking so much of Ernst as Mr. X."
Quill groaned.
"I'm serious. That business with the Murex stock bouncing up and down like that is curious, very curious. And you know what? I was so curious I looked at the business section of the paper this morning to track it." Meg reached under the counter and brought out the Palm Beach Post. "See that paragraph?"
" `The alleged kidnapping of real estate tycoon Verger Taylor has resulted in a suspension of the buyout of Murex Limited,' " Quill read.
"This news won't hit the Street... "
"The Street?" Quill said. "You mean as in Wall Street?"
"Go ahead. Mock. You'll mock on the other side of your mouth if I'm right. Anyhow, the news hasn't hit Wall Street or the stock exchange yet, but when it does..."
"When it does, what/"
Meg's lower lip stuck out and she scratched her head. "I don't know enough yet. But I want to check it out."
"Okay, but I think there's something even more important than our tracking down suspects in this case."
"What's that?"
"Finding Verger Taylor's body."
"Quill, there's no way we can do that. It's a job for the police. And it may not happen for years. It may not happen ever."
"Then we've got to find out who took the body, if not where it is. Because if we don't, we're going to have Cressida Houghton as an enemy for life. And it's good-bye to the inn and our reputations."
"Not to mention hello to our three-hundred-fifty-three-thousand-dollar mortgage. Okay, we're ready. We're committed. We're going to find the body snatcher. Now what?"
Quill held up Verger Taylor's address book. "Jerry Fairchild. We have to giver this to the police. It's a terrific excuse to see how things are going from the police end. And then I think we should inquire about hiring ourselves a lawyer. And after that, I want to come back here and check out Dr. Bittern."