The Ladies Killing Circle Anthology 4-Book Bundle. Barbara Fradkin
phone and punched 911.
“It’s Anna Marks. I’m calling because I’ve just found a woman nearly dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in Cabin Ten of the Bide-a-While motel on Highway 5.”
God. This was awful. Where had the carbon monoxide come from?
I stared down at her. Blonde hair framed a broad face. My own heavy bone structure.
The ambulance, the firemen and the police arrived. Without seeming to rush, the paramedics clamped an oxygen mask on her face and bundled her into the ambulance, which then shrieked its way toward the hospital. An officer, Constable Stern, suggested I wait in his cruiser. When he joined me, I asked: “Will she live? Were the fumes from a space heater?”
“Hard to say. Why did you think it was a space heater?”
“Because there wasn’t a car outside the cabin, and I’ve read that malfunctioning space heaters kill people. What was her name?”
He eyed me for what seemed like ten minutes before he said: “You don’t know her name, yet you dropped in to see her at what time—five in the morning? Not the usual hour to visit a person you don’t know.”
Nothing for it, the story had to be told. “It’s very weird, but here’s what happened.”
After I’d finished, he said, “Who else knew of this blackmail threat?”
“No one. The letter arrived yesterday and, except for talking to the director of the Children’s Aid, I haven’t told anyone.” I couldn’t wait any longer. “What is her name?”
“Her name? You really didn’t know?”
“No. She didn’t sign the letter.”
“Wilhemina Groenveldt.”
Wilhemina—like the Dutch royal family. Had my, my what, my biological grandmother named her after the queen, or was it a family name? And I was Julianna, the mother of Beatrix, today’s Queen. Tears clogged my throat.
“Are you okay?”
I swallowed. “No. But, if you’re finished, I should get back to training camp.”
“We’ll have more questions, but that’s it for now.
I’d missed the first rowing session. Back at the university, I sprinted from the parking lot to the gym, grabbed what I needed and joined the pack of runners stretching and jogging-on-the-spot while they waited for the laggards. On the two-hour run, my mind returned again and again to Wilhemina Groenveldt’s face. What if there hadn’t been a space heater? If there hadn’t, that meant that someone… I shook my head. Denial. It couldn’t be, but what if it was? What if someone had tried to kill her?
The letter. Could it have been because of the threat to keep me out of the Olympics? But no one knew about the letter. My pace slowed. I hadn’t told anyone except the director, but I’d given my keys to Bobbie. What if she’d snooped through my desk and found it? A surge of intense anger propelled me past other runners. As we traversed the edge of a steep ravine, I caught up with Bobbie.
“Why did you read my letter?”
“What letter?”
“You know damn well what letter.” I grabbed her arm and yanked her from the flow of runners. “Tell me.”
“Okay, okay, don’t have a fit. I was looking for an envelope. And the letter was sitting right there, so I read it.”
Sitting right there, my eye. “Who else did you tell?”
Her gaze slid away from mine. “No one.”
My fingers indented the flesh of her upper arm. “Who did you tell?”
Still not looking at me, she said, “I was really worried because of Daddy and what he’d say if we didn’t go, or went without you—because you’re the stroke, and it’s too late for someone else to take your place, and I knew we needed you to win a medal.” She inhaled and rushed on. “I was afraid you’d go all moral and resign. And even if you wanted to pay, I didn’t think you had the money.” She smiled. “Daddy always knows what to do, so I told him.”
I blocked her attempt to move away. “Who else did you tell?”
“Carol.”
“And why did you think you had to tell Carol?”
She looked at me as if I’d asked a ridiculous question. “Carol needed to know as soon as possible. If we had to persuade you, she’d want time to prepare her arguments.”
I released her arm.
“What are you going to do?”
“You’ll have to wait and see, won’t you?” I launched myself up the path.
After the run and before I showered, I called the hospital, asked for Wilhemina Groenveldt’s room and was told she was in intensive care, and no information was being released. At least she was still alive.
In the shower, as the warm water sluiced over me, I knew I didn’t want to join my team for lunch. But I had to eat. When you work as hard as we do, you load up on the calories. In the cafeteria, I picked up three wrapped sandwiches, two bottles of orange juice and a chocolate doughnut and took the bag back to the residence, where I dumped it on the desk and switched on the radio.
“The police, who are investigating an incident at the Bide-a-While cabins on Highway 5, are requesting that anyone in the vicinity between midnight and five this morning contact them immediately.”
An incident. What did that mean? Someone else had been involved, and that would make it… attempted murder! But had the attempt been connected to the letter? If it was, who could have done it? Not Marshall. He would have consulted a battery of high-priced lawyers and found the information the Children’s Aid had given me. Not Carol. She wanted the eights to win, but it wouldn’t change her life if they didn’t. Not Bobbie. Her father dominated her life—she’d do anything to please him—but I doubted if “anything” included murder. There had to be some other reason: if Wilhemina had threatened me, she’d probably done much worse things to other people.
During our second rowing session I dipped, pulled, lifted, turned the oars and dipped again as I reviewed the facts.
Out of the boat I detoured to the public phone in the hall of the gym and made two calls—the first to Constable Stern, the second to the hospital.
Inside the gym, we headed for various pieces of exercise equipment. I picked an elliptical trainer which faced Carol’s office. I was tired and wanted to click on “a walk in the park”, but if Carol happened by while the electronic printer flashed that info, I’d be in trouble. Reluctantly, I entered “a mountain hike”, set the level of difficulty at “max” and the time at sixty minutes. The machine and I began working our way up an imaginary mountain.
Fifteen minutes later, a plump, middle-aged man in a tan suit marched through the gym to the office.
Less than five minutes later Marshall Johnson followed the same course.
The machine said I still had thirty-seven minutes to go when Carol emerged, looked at her sweating crew and motioned for me and Bobbie to join her. The mountain would have to wait.
The man in the tan suit, who introduced himself as Detective Roston, sat behind Carol’s desk and faced me as I entered. Carol perched to his right and Bobbie sat in front of him. Marshall stood beside Bobbie’s chair. I took the empty seat beside Carol.
“Miss Marks, I’ve told these people that early this morning at the Bide-A-While cabins someone tried to asphyxiate Wilhemina Groenveldt.” Detective Roston paused and allowed his gaze to sweep the room. “Someone wanted her dead. We believe it was because of a letter she wrote to you which these three knew about.”
“I certainly can’t believe anyone would think I was involved in this sordid affair,”