“Murder?” The bluster left her and for once she looked as young as the image she tried to project.
Hughes nodded. “So we’ll need to ask you a few questions.”
“Hey, wait a second.” Emmy’s eyes darted nervously. “What has this got to do with me? I hardly knew the man. I only came to the place a couple of times, you know, and I had Betsy with me. Ask her. She can tell you.”
“We have already questioned her, and everyone else,” Hughes said. “There are just a couple of points I’d like to check on.” He went to usher her back into the building.
“We can talk out here,” Emmy said. “I hate being cooped up inside.”
“As you wish.” Hughes nodded. “Your name is Emmy Court, is that correct?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Do I take it that is an affirmative?” Hughes asked dryly.
“Yes.” She looked away.
“And you are a student?”
“I’m a Ph.D. candidate—paranormal psychology. University of Pennsylvania. My thesis is on second sight among the Celtic populations. Which is why I came here to do my research.”
“And what is your connection to the Sacred Grove?”
“I read about it when it opened last year. Randy Wunderlich had a great reputation, so I thought I’d use him to verify my findings if I came up with a truly psychic person. Betsy seemed to have strong psychic potential, so I called Mr. Wunderlich and asked if he’d test her independently. He agreed to do so. I took her down to the center. We met with him once for testing. He was impressed and wanted to work with her … and then he vanished. End of story.”
Evan detected a veiled bitterness in her voice. Was she annoyed that her potential thesis material had been ruined?
It was past one o’clock when Evan finished interviewing the staff. His stomach reminded him that it was a long time since breakfast. He found himself longing for the meals at Mrs. Williams’s house. He had complained that she was overfeeding him, but right now he would have given anything for a generous helping of steak-and-kidney pie.
He came out into bright sunshine and stood on the terrace with the wind from the ocean blowing on his face. The pseudo-Italian village below him glowed in the sunlight. It was hard to believe he was still in his own corner of Wales. It was hard to believe much about this peculiar case. If you wanted to kill someone, wouldn’t there be easier ways than drugging him and then leaving him to drown in a cave? Why the cave? Annabel was the only one who mentioned that Randy had gone there before for its fantastic vibes. Had somebody known he was planning to go there that afternoon, or had the murderer somehow dragged him, unconscious, to the cave and left him to die? What sort of person would have done that?
Evan glanced at his list of notes from the staff. One or two interesting things had emerged: Several of the staff reported that Randy and Rhiannon had had disagreements. The day before Randy disappeared, the groundsman had heard his raised voice yelling, “And if you don’t like it, you can always leave, you know.”
That same groundsman had been mowing the lawns on the fateful afternoon. He remembered seeing Annabel coming down the steps toward the meditation building, then returning shortly after. He also remembered seeing Ben Cresswell striding out across the property.
Not one of the staff remembered making the cup of coffee that Betsy took to Randy Wunderlich, or telling Betsy that Randy wanted a cup of coffee. Evan frowned. This wouldn’t look good for Betsy. She had admitted taking him the coffee, which might have contained the sleeping pills, but she had nobody to corroborate that she had been instructed to do so. No one even remembered seeing her in the kitchen after lunch.
Not one of them had seen Randy Wunderlich after he went into his office in the meditation building around two.
Most interesting of all—Bethan reported that Lady Annabel and Randy had had several arguments recently. She had overheard things when she was making beds in the big house.
So there had been plenty of friction at the Sacred Grove. But arguments didn’t always lead to murder, did they? Well, it wasn’t any of his business. D.C.I. Hughes and his team would be handling the investigation from now on and Evan would be lucky if he heard how it was progressing. He should take Betsy home, make his report to D.C.I. Hughes, and get on with the task of changing Bronwen’s library books. But he found he was looking down toward the meditation center and the path beyond, leading down steps to the swimming pool and then the beach. He had to go and take another look at that cave for himself.
Evan hurried down the long flight of steps. As he passed the pyramid, a pale-faced woman in a turban and robe came out and stood blinking in the sunlight.
“Amazing,” she said to Evan. “I’m a new person. Even my skin feels younger. Amethyst, you know.”
Evan nodded politely and went on his way. Down the last steps and onto the beach. The tide was still quite high at this time of day and Evan had to pick his way along a thin strip of beach. Where the tide had receded, the sand was still waterlogged and each footstep sank in with a deep sucking sound. How could anyone have possibly dragged an unconscious man this way—unless there was more than one person. He paused to consider this thought. Was it possible that several of them had conspired to get rid of Randy Wunderlich—Rhiannon and Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Roberts and Ben Cresswell, even Annabel and Michael? All of the above? Such alliances seemed highly unlikely when he considered them, but desperation has driven people to even stranger alliances.
After five minutes of slithering along the water’s edge, he came to the rocks before the cave. He scrambled up nimbly and stood at the entrance. He knew that forensics had given the cave a thorough going-over, and the sea had been in and out a number of times since the body was discovered. Even so, he ducked his head and went inside, wrinkling his nose at the dank, rotting smell. He found himself shivering as he looked around. As he had expected, he found nothing and was thankful to step out into the sunlight again. He couldn’t imagine that Randy Wunderlich would have chosen to meditate there.
Now the higher, dryer cave definitely looked more inviting—a wide hole above the waterline, the sort of cave that would have attracted a boy wanting to play at smugglers. He scrambled up to it, using all fours over the precariously loose rocks, and stood peering into the darkness. He could see where the sea level reached the entrance. There was a line of seaweed and jetsam about three feet into the cave. Beyond that, however, the floor was sandy and dry. He noticed footprints in the sand, but they were indistinct and there was no way of knowing how long they had been there. As he turned back to face the entrance, he was met with a stunning view. The whole estuary of sparkling blue water spread before him, with the green hills rising on the other side to Cader Idris, second in height only to Snowdon.
He could see that somebody would want to come to this cave to get away from it all and think. In fact, Emmy Court had assumed the same thing. He remembered how she had tried to convince Betsy that she was heading for the wrong cave. Well, anyone would have assumed the same thing, wouldn’t he? He then realized something else about Emmy Court. When she had woken him that night, she had been bubbling with excitement as if the whole excursion was a grand adventure. But that had changed when they discovered Randy’s body. He remembered her wail of horror, “He can’t be dead!”
And yet today, in her interview with Hughes, she had acted as if Randy’s death was merely a nuisance, a hitch in her plans. Evan turned and carefully skirted around the edge of the cave, examining every inch of the floor. There was really nothing to see. There was no jetsam above the high tide line, just sand and rocks. Toward the back of the cave his eyes strained in the darkness and he wished he had brought the flashlight he kept in the glove compartment of his car. He could see something on a small rock ledge. Evan reached for it. It was a wrapped granola bar. Half-buried in the sand beneath it was a full bottle of water and beside that a miniature torch. Using his handkerchief, Evan retrieved the torch and wrapped it carefully before tucking it into his pocket. It might be nothing more than kids playing at camping out, but it could also mean that someone recently intended to spend some time in this cave.