Claudia Steele lounged against the bar while I led the officers to the wine cellar. The door, of course, was locked.
"They keep the key under the chalkboard," I told Tracey.
Once inside the wine cellar, I stared in disbelief. It had been only twelve hours since Naddie and I laid waste to the room, yet not a single bottle was out of place. There was no trace of the wine we'd spilled on the floor, no hint of a stain in the grouting. I looked up. The damage I'd done to the air conditioner had been repaired. I went to the door and looked down: even the carpet was miraculously clean. I felt like a fool.
As I wandered around the wine cellar, muttering, Claudia Steele stood next to the decanting table, holding the key in her hand and glaring at me with ill-disguised contempt. "I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Mrs. Ives. You'd think if somebody had been tossing wine bottles around my cellar, I'd have noticed."
I didn't believe for a minute that C. Alexander Steele had cleaned up the mess by himself, and Nick Pottorff and his buddy Chet had been otherwise occupied. Tracey would interview the maid, I was sure. Perhaps she'd tell a different story.
Mrs. Steele's arms were folded over her chest. "Will that be all now?"
"One more thing," I said, turning to Officer Tracey. "Our fingerprints will be all over the place, of course, but I think I can save you a little time. If you'll look over there? Next to the door?" I pointed. "Count nine bottles up and seventeen bottles over. You should find a bottle of pinot noir."
Mike Tracey started to cross the room, but Claudia Steele stepped in his path, blocking the way. She was used to being in control; my giving orders didn't seem to suit her. Tracey simply stared, waiting her out. "Will you excuse me, ma'am?"
Her face a mask of loathing, Claudia Steele stepped aside.
Tracey turned to a technician. "Gloves?" He snapped them on, then counted the bottles. "… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." He stopped, his gloved finger touching the neck of the bottle, my special bottle. I held my breath as he withdrew it from the slot and set it on the tasting table.
With slow deliberation, Tracey patted his pockets, searching for his reading glasses. Once the glasses were on his nose, he laid the bottle in his palm and bent over it. "'Michael LeBois Pinot Noir,'" he read.
"That's right, 2001, if I'm not mistaken."
"The bottle's been opened."
Claudia Steele's eyebrows shot up.
Mike Tracey wrapped his fingers around the cork and twisted, but it wouldn't budge. He scanned the room, spotted the corkscrew. "Do you mind?"
Claudia Steele shrugged. "Do I have a choice?"
Tracey removed the cork, shook the bottle, then peered inside. After a thoughtful moment, he tapped out the note I'd written to Paul. He unrolled the note, scanned its contents, his face passive, then handed the note to the technician, who sealed it inside a Baggie. "We'll need it for evidence, of course, but after that-" He looked at Paul. "I'll think you'll want to have it, Ives."
"Well," Claudia Steele huffed. "I don't have the slightest idea how that got there. I haven't been home. I spent the weekend with my mother in Pennsylvania. You can check."
Strangely enough, I believed her. There hadn't been any cars in the garage when Chet pulled in with the van.
"I have nothing to do with my husband's business, or with his associates," she insisted.
Tracey reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a photo lineup, six mugs to a page. He laid it on the tasting table. "Do you recognize any of these men, Mrs. Steele?"
Claudia Steele tapped Pottorff's face with the tip of a French manicured nail. "That's Nick Pottorff. He's a messenger for MBFSG. My husband does a lot of business with them." She waved a hand. "I don't recognize any of these others."
"Where can we find your husband, ma'am?"
"Where you can always find him on Monday," she commented dryly. "At his office."
Leaving the evidence technicians to do their work, Paul and I left with Officer Tracey. As I climbed into the car, I turned to Paul. "Remind me to find out who her cleaning lady is."
Late Tuesday evening my brother-in-law showed up after dinner, bringing us a progress report. While we waited for the decaf to brew, I telephoned Daddy. Within ten minutes he joined us at the kitchen table, where I was already serving dessert.
"I don't even know his last name," I said as I set the container of half and half on the table.
"Whose name?"
"That gardener, Chet."
"He goes by Laidlaw," Dennis told me. "But he's got a record in Louisiana under Charles Lewis, the name his own sweet mama gave him."
"So, what's happening with those creeps?" I asked, sitting down.
"There's a whole lot of speechifying and finger-pointing going on, and that's just the lawyers!" He grinned. "It'll take Tracey and his crew a couple of days to sort it all out, but Chet Laidlaw's been a busy boy, implicating Pottorff and Jablonsky in the murders. They've got Laidlaw dead to rights on the shooting of Gail Parrish. The slug we took out of her body matches the gun he was carrying. As for the others." He held out his cup for a re-fill. "Tracey's getting an exhumation order for Clark Gammel and Tim Burns. After that, we'd see."
"Chet Laidlaw admitted to smothering those people," I reminded him. "So, what are they looking for?"
"If they were burked, there'd be petechiael hemorrhages in the eyes, perhaps some blue-hued congestion about the face and neck caused when blood with a low oxygen content got trapped above their lungs."
"Oh," I said simply, thinking again about Valerie and being almost sorry I asked.
"How about Steele?" my father wanted to know. "He's the one I want to see behind bars."
Dennis sipped his coffee. "Well, Jablonsky is pointing the finger back at Steele and being quite forthcoming in describing their joint role in a multistate viatical investment scam."
Daddy shook his head. "But I still don't understand why Jablonsky wanted Valerie Stone, Gammel, that Burns fellow, and all those others dead. Jablonsky already sold their policies. It was Steele and his investors who stood to gain by their deaths."
"I think I can answer that question," I said. I'd spent the afternoon with Donna Hudgins and Harrison Garvin at Victory Mutual, briefing them on my report. It had turned out to be a very interesting meeting.
"At first," I said, "Steele either didn't know or didn't care that the policies he was buying from Jablonsky were bogus. Steele was under pressure to purchase more policies for the investor money that kept pouring in, some of which he used not to buy policies, but to support his lavish lifestyle."
"Lavish," my husband remarked. "That's putting it mildly."
"Opulent, then." I gave Paul a friendly punch in the arm. "So, when some of Steele's investments turned sour and a significant percentage of ViatiPro's policy portfolio was rescinded by the insurance companies that issued them, it put a serious crimp in his cash flow."
"He would be facing ruin," Daddy interjected.
"Exactly. I figure Steele threatened Jablonsky. Either Jablonsky could arrange for the legitimate policies he sold ViatiPro to 'mature' or Steele would blow the whistle on him."
"Enter Nicholas Pottorff and his good little Do-Bee, Chet Laidlaw," Daddy said.
During the whole course of our conversation, something Dennis hadn't mentioned kept nagging at me.
"Dennis, you haven't said anything about Valerie Stone."
Dennis leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "Hannah, Laidlaw has copped to the murders of Gail and all those folks out at Ginger Cove, but he insists he had nothing to do with any 'Hillsmere broad.'"
"I can't believe you're telling me this! He must have done it! It can't be just a coincidence!" I shook my head angrily. "Absolutely no way!"
Dennis waited for me to finish sputtering before he continued. "Anne Arundel County is working with the New Jersey D.A. for an exhumation order, but Valerie's family is throwing up road blocks. Eventually I think they'll allow the exhumation rather than put up with all the negative publicity, but so far they're adamant. Nobody's going to dig their daughter up."