“I think I can answer that,” said Harry. “Just about the time period you’re talking about Bobby was in the middle of selling his company. Many local lawyers I knew were working on the deal on Battle’s behalf, so I heard all the war stories about the negotiations. The buyer was a large multinational corporation with a sterling reputation. And Bobby was the very public face of his company.”
“So news of an illegitimate son wouldn’t have helped the negotiations,” said King.
“Precisely. As a matter of fact, the deal did go through and made Bobby more money than he could possibly have spent in several lifetimes. It was probably a good thing.”
“Why do you say that?” asked King.
“Battle had always been eccentric, but for some years he was growing more and more bizarre in his behavior. Violent mood swings, bouts of depression followed by times of unrealistic euphoria. And his mind wasn’t what it was. One of the most brilliant engineers and businessmen of his day, he was forgetting names and important items. I really wasn’t surprised about the stroke. In fact, I suspected he suffered numerous minor ones previously that had affected his mind. But we’re getting far afield from the topic of blackmail.” Harry turned to King. “Sorry for the detour.”
“No, we need all the information we can get. The timing of the sale of Bobby’s company makes me believe it was only Roger Canney who had the blackmail plan. One would think that Mrs. Canney would know who the father of her son was, or at least that Bobby could have been the father. Steven Canney was seventeen when he died. If she’d wanted to come forward and make a claim, she wouldn’t have waited all those years. It’s not like Bobby wasn’t rich seventeen years ago too.”
Harry picked up this line of reasoning. “But Roger Canney might have known Steve wasn’t his biological son and been waiting for his wife to die before putting the screws to Bobby. Perhaps he waited because his wife wouldn’t have gone along. He certainly would have known of the potential sale of the man’s company. That was publicly disclosed.”
“Or maybe,” said Michelle, “Roger Canney didn’t want to wait for his wife to die ‘naturally,’ so he sped up the process by running her off the road, freeing him to begin his blackmail scheme.”
“But it was Bobby’s car that was damaged right around the time of her death,” King said. “So it seems far more likely that Bobby killed her.”
“I’m just pointing out that Roger Canney might’ve had a motive to kill her too,” Michelle replied.
King looked at her admiringly. “That’s a good point, Michelle. I hadn’t really considered that.”
“So where does that leave us?” she wanted to know.
The bell for dinner interrupted them.
“I’ve told Calpurnia that a dinner bell is quite old-fashioned, but she claims my hearing’s not what it was, and it’s the only way she can get my attention without trudging all over the house to find me. Shall we?”
Chapter 75
Sean had uncorked both bottles of wine upon his arrival so that they could properly breathe before dinner. At the table he poured out the first one. “This is a La Croix de Peyrolie out of Lussac-St-Emilion.”
“And I’m sure it has some wonderfully nifty history,” said Michelle as she smelled it.
“It’s made by the appropriately named Carole Bouquet, who used to be a famous model and was a James Bond girl in one of the films—For Your Eyes Only, I believe. The other bottle is a Ma Vérité de Gérard Depardieu, Haut-Médoc.”
“Let me guess, made by the actor of the same name,” chanced Harry.
“Yes. These wines are really up and coming, and I only bring them out on special occasions.”
“Harry and I feel so honored,” said Michelle, smirking.
They toasted and began their meal, which was served by Calpurnia. She was about sixty years of age and over six feet tall, blocky of build and with thick gray hair pulled back in a harsh bun. She looked like every child’s worst school-cafeteria-worker nightmare. Yet the food was spectacular.
As Calpurnia left them, Harry said, “Now, Michelle was asking where your speculations about Steven Canney’s lineage and Rhonda Tyler’s possible liaison with Bobby Battle left us.”
“With the fact that two of the victims might be connected to Bobby Battle. Does it stand to reason that more are as well?”
“Janice Pembroke?” said Michelle.
“No. I figure her simply as a person in the wrong place at the wrong time,” answered King.
“Diane Hinson? She was a lawyer. Maybe she was working on some corporate deal with Bobby,” Michelle suggested.
King shook his head. “Doubtful. She was a trial lawyer, mostly criminal work. I made a lot of inquiries and could find no one who could place them together at any time. Let’s leave Hinson for the moment and move on. Next up is Junior Deaver. He had a clear connection to the Battles.”
“Right. He worked for them and was also accused of stealing from them,” said Michelle.
“But the burglary occurred after Bobby had his stroke,” said Harry.
“I never thought that Bobby was killing anyone,” said King, “perhaps other than Mrs. Canney. But we have three people with possible connections to Bobby Battle. Each was killed using the M.O. of an infamous serial killer, a watch was placed on the wrists and a letter was subsequently received.”
Michelle looked unconvinced. “Granted, Pembroke might have been killed merely because she was with Canney, yet Hinson was killed in the manner of the Night Stalker. But you say she has no connection to Battle.”
“Her watch was set to one minute past four,” said King. He paused and said, “And remember, Pembroke’s watch was set to one minute past two. The others were right on the hour.”
“So Hinson’s and Pembroke’s were one tick off,” said Michelle slowly.
“Exactly.” King looked at her puzzled. “One tick off? There’s something familiar about that phrase, but I can’t think of what it is.”
“So the killer is intentionally telling us, via the watches, that some victims are, what, slightly off?”
“I think he’s telling us that Tyler, Canney and Junior were killed intentionally because of their connection to Bobby. Pembroke and Hinson were not specifically targeted, because they had no such connection.”
“All right, let’s assume Pembroke was killed because she was with Canney. Why was Hinson murdered?” asked Michelle.
“So we’d run down numerous paths trying to have it all make sense but it never would. For our killer’s purposes having Pembroke die at the same time as Canney was simply gravy. It muddied the waters even more. If Canney had been alone, I bet we’d have had another murder like Hinson’s to cover up the connection to Bobby. And it also explains why the killer used the word ‘kid’ instead of ‘kids’ in his letter following the teenagers’ deaths. Only one kid was his target: Steve Canney.”
“But, Sean, if the killer really wanted to throw us off, why set some of the watches so they were one tick off? If he’d kept them all on the hour, chances are you’d never have stumbled on this line of reasoning.”
“For some reason I think this guy is trying to play fair by giving us a legitimate clue.”
“Or he’s just screwing with us,” said Michelle.
“Possible, but I don’t think so.”
Michelle still looked skeptical. “All right, let’s assume all that’s true. Now we have Bobby Battle as a possible common denominator. But you don’t think he was killed by the same person. Isn’t his being linked to yet another killer too huge of a coincidence? And then we have Kyle and Sally. How do those deaths fit in?”