If Looks Could Kill Read online

  “George, this is a handwritten letter from Preston Winchell to Martika!” she said excitedly. “And it’s dated this morning. Winchell must have given it to Martika himself. How did Derek get hold of it so fast?”

  “Maybe when he left our suite, he went straight to his sister’s,” George suggested. “Martika was with us for a good five minutes after he left, remember? And then she went down to the dining room and was there without him, for at least a little while.”

  “Right!” Nancy agreed. “She was fidgety after he left. She must have suspected he was up to something. So she made a quick appearance at breakfast and then started tracking him down.”

  “What does the letter say?” George asked.

  “It says that in light of the fact that a murder has been committed at Cloud Nine, he is no longer willing to provide sole financial backing to keep the resort going. He’s demanding that Martika provide matching funds from her own reserves. He reminds her that he asked her to do so before the resort opened. She said she couldn’t swing it, so he went along. Apparently, he’s not willing to now.”

  “Sounds like Cloud Nine is in trouble,” George said.

  “Right,” Nancy agreed. Checking her watch, she added, “Bess and Derek may be coming back pretty soon. We’ve got to find that newspaper article. Now, where could it be . . . ?”

  Just then Nancy glanced up at a bookshelf across the room. A volume there was lying on its spine, with a piece of paper protruding from it. Nancy went over and took down the book. Opening it, she drew out a folded page from a newspaper. “I’ve got it, George!” Nancy cried triumphantly.

  The page was slightly yellowed, but there was no doubt it was the right one. The paper had been ripped across the upper right-hand corner, where the date and name of the newspaper had been. “Let’s get out of here, George,” Nancy said excitedly. “We’ll read it outside.”

  Nancy led George out of the suite and down the hall toward the side exit nearest the tennis courts. Outside, they found a quiet spot near a hibiscus tree and read the article.

  “ ‘November fifteenth,’ ” Nancy began out loud. “ ‘Peter McDaniel, of Auckland, was found dead in his home early this morning.’ It’s an obituary—for Maura’s father!”

  Nancy read on. “ ‘The sixty-five-year-old millionaire died of natural causes. He is survived by his only child, Maura, twenty-seven, who will inherit his entire estate.”

  “Whew,” George said. “That would have made Maura pretty rich.”

  Nancy kept on reading. “ ‘Mr. McDaniel, born Peter Sawin, had lived in Auckland since 1972, when he left the United States in disgrace after a brokerage scandal—’ ”

  Nancy’s jaw dropped. “Sawin!” She stared at George, who was staring right back at her.

  “George,” Nancy said softly. “Maura told me the night she died that she hadn’t made a will since she had no family. She did have a family, though! She just didn’t know about them. But one of them knew about her.”

  “I don’t get it,” George said, confused.

  “This means,” Nancy began, excitement flooding her voice, “that on Maura’s death, her entire fortune goes to her nearest living relatives. And they are her cousins—Derek and Martika Sawyer!”

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  NANCY AND GEORGE stood by the hibiscus tree a long moment before either spoke. On the exercise track ten feet away, guests were jogging by, utterly unaware of all that was going on.

  Finally Nancy said, “This changes everything, George.”

  “I’ll say,” George agreed.

  “After Maura was murdered, I passed Christina Adams talking to a bunch of people,” Nancy said. “She was wondering why anyone would want to murder poor Maura. At the time, I thought the same thing. I thought the murderer had to have mistaken her for Martika Sawyer. But I was wrong!”

  “Wait a minute, Nancy,” George broke in. “Somebody’s been trying to kill Martika, too. But who?”

  “It could be Derek,” Nancy said. “We know that he’s a sponger and a thief.”

  “I guess it runs in the Sawin family,” George said grimly. “Look at their uncle Peter.”

  “Good point,” Nancy said, nodding. “So, suppose Derek learned that Maura McDaniel was his cousin and that she had no living relatives. Maybe he even found out that she hadn’t made a will. He could have cooked up the contest, made sure Maura got an entry form, and fixed it so she won—meaning she had to come to Cloud Nine. He must have planned to kill her and Martika, so he’d end up with Maura’s money and his sister’s as well.

  “If that’s true, Derek Sawyer’s a dangerous man,” George said tensely.

  “We’ve got to find Bess,” Nancy said. “Come on, there isn’t a moment to lose!”

  Nancy took off down the path to the tennis courts, with George right behind her. When they got there, Bess and Derek were nowhere in sight. “Just what I was afraid of,” Nancy said under her breath.

  “What is it, Nan?” George asked.

  “If they aren’t playing tennis,” Nancy replied, “they may not be where people can see them. Which means, we’d better find them now.”

  “There’s Paul Flores,” George said. “Let’s ask him if he’s seen them.”

  Nancy and George ran over to the tennis instructor. “Was Derek Sawyer here with a blond-haired girl?” Nancy asked him.

  “They came by a little while ago,” the instructor said. “But the courts were full. So I guess they decided to do something else.”

  “Where could they have gone?” Nancy said.

  “The beach?” George suggested.

  Nancy’s eyes widened as she took off toward the cliff.

  Near the railing Nancy spotted a gardener trimming a hedge. “Have you seen Derek Sawyer?” she asked him.

  “Yes, he was with a young woman,” the man told them. “They went down to the beach.”

  “Uh-oh,” Nancy said.

  The two girls dashed to the stairs. About halfway down they stopped on a landing to catch their breath.

  George suddenly said, “There they are, Nan! Way down the beach!”

  “Bess!” Nancy called out. “Beeessss!”

  The wind was blowing against her, and the surf was crashing on the shore. Nancy knew there was no way Bess could hear. Derek had his arm around Bess’s shoulder and almost seemed to be leading her away.

  “Come on, George,” Nancy told her friend. “We don’t have a minute to lose!”

  The two girls flew down the remaining steps. Once they reached the beach, the going was slower because their feet sank in the glistening sand.

  “Beeess!” Nancy yelled again.

  The couple had stopped beneath the cliff. Nancy could see her friend’s blond hair whipping in the breeze.

  “Beesss!” George screamed.

  Now Bess heard them. She waved happily, while Derek stared, clearly not pleased. Nancy and George ran up to the couple.

  “Hello there,” Derek said with a tight smile.

  “Nan! George!” Bess said, acting bewildered. “What’s going on? Is something the matter?”

  Nancy nodded, but she addressed her words to Derek. “I want the truth, and I want it now, Derek. There’s no use lying—I overheard you on the phone saying that you had the newspaper article.”

  “I—I—” Derek stammered.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Nancy cut in impatiently. “Somehow you found out that Maura was your cousin and that her father had left her a lot of money.”

  “No!” Derek cried, his frustration apparent.

  “Yes,” Nancy replied. “You decided to get your hands on it, so you cooked up the scheme to get Maura to come to the opening so you could kill her.”

  “Stop,” he growled, his hands balled into fists.

  “Why should I?” Nancy said harshly. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  “No, no, no.” Suddenly he seemed ready to collapse, his head hanging to his chest. When he spoke again,
it was in a breathy whisper. “You don’t understand—”

  “What?” Nancy asked tensely.

  “It was Martika,” he said, shaking his head. “Martika. She killed Maura—not me. She lured her to Cloud Nine.”

  “Martika!” George gasped.

  “But someone was trying to kill her,” Bess said, incredulous.

  Derek stared straight at Nancy. “That’s what she wanted you to think. It was amazing, the way she set it up to look like she was in danger.”

  Nancy stood rooted to the spot, her heart pounding hard, the details of the case flooding through her brain. The silenced shot on the beach, the severed oxygen line, Maura’s makeover, and the gold lamé shawl, the spent firework Nancy had found, the loud bang Nancy had taken for gunfire, the newspaper article . . .

  “What you’re saying,” she began slowly, “is that Martika planned to kill Maura, but to keep from being a suspect, she arranged it so she appeared to be the intended victim.” Nancy took a long, ragged breath. “So I wasn’t invited here to be Martika’s investigator. I was invited here to be her alibi.”

  “You got it,” Derek said, relieved that he’d made Nancy believe him. “But don’t be too hard on yourself. My darling sister was incredibly clever.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bess said, perplexed.

  “You see,” Derek began, “just before our father died, he told us that his brother had fled to New Zealand after the scandal. I never thought much about it, but Martika was obsessed by it. She was old enough when the scandal happened to know what our family went through. She started reading newspaper clippings about it, going through New Zealand phone books trying to find Sawins. She didn’t know Uncle Peter had changed his last name, too, which was only natural, of course.”

  He sighed for a moment before continuing. “She went off on a job in New Zealand last November. She read the obituary and knew Peter was our uncle and Maura our cousin. Next thing I knew, she told me she’d run a contest in New Zealand to pick a guest to come to our opening for free. All Martika told me was that this Maura person had won, and I was to write and tell her so. I never suspected till I found that article in Martika’s room this morning. Then, of course, I figured it all out. I don’t know why she kept the article.”

  “A kind of vanity,” Nancy explained. “She assumed she’d never be caught.”

  “And what about the murder attempts?” Bess asked.

  “All faked,” Nancy said. “Each and every one of them. Starting with the notes. Easy enough to forge, misspellings and all. She must have mailed the first two from Saint Thomas and dropped the last one on the floor in her room so she could find it while I was there that first day. Martika had to pin Maura’s murder on someone, and Kurt was the obvious choice. She acted upset when he was arrested, but she must have planted the gun under his pillow herself.”

  “And it would have been easy enough for her to let the snake out of its cage before she went down to the dock to greet us,” Bess speculated.

  “Right,” Nancy said.

  “What about the shot somebody took at Martika that first night?” George asked. “How could that have been faked?”

  “She could have fired the gun through her blouse sleeve earlier,” Nancy reasoned. “Then she probably dropped the shell in the gazebo before she invited me for a walk down on the beach. At just the right moment she raised her arms over her head, pretended to hear something whiz by, and waited for me to do the detecting work. I always assumed that because I heard no bang, the shooter was using a silencer. But there never was a silencer. There was no bang because there was no shot!”

  “But what about the other murder attempt?” George asked.

  “The diving accident? She could have hidden a knife under the sleeve of her wet suit and cut the line herself. She said she didn’t see anyone in the water, and I believed her. Someone could have come up behind her without being noticed.

  “And now comes the most brilliant part of Martika’s scheme,” Nancy continued. “When she had me convinced that someone was trying to kill her, she set the stage for Maura’s murder.”

  “Because it was Maura she wanted dead all along,” George half-whispered.

  “She did a make-over on her cousin, so that Maura looked just like her! Then she lent her the gold lamé shawl. While the fireworks were going on, she must have invited Maura down to the beach. She showed Maura the obituary and told her who she really was. Maura must have turned and moved away from Martika while she was reading. All Martika had to do was wait for a big fireworks blast and shoot. When Martika grabbed the obituary back, she didn’t notice the small piece that remained in Maura’s hand.”

  Nancy watched Derek’s face turn ashen. The whole plan was too much for him to take in.

  “So after Martika killed Maura, she ran up the steps and planted the gun under Kurt’s pillow. Right?” George asked.

  “She had a master key,” Derek said quietly. “In fact, she was the one who probably took mine.”

  Nancy nodded. “Then she went back outside and invited me to go walking with her. But on the way down the steps, she pretended to feel cold and ran back up to get a wrap.”

  “I get it now,” Bess exclaimed. “That’s when she lit the firecracker and threw it down the cliff.”

  “Exactly,” Nancy said. “I was already a little way down the stairs. Her timing was perfect. The firecracker must have had an extra long fuse—easy enough to arrange. Presto—an instant alibi for Martika. Hearing the bang, we ran down onto the beach and found Maura. The charade was complete. The police located the gun and arrested Kurt. Everything was perfect until Derek found the obituary and tried to blackmail her.”

  No one said anything for a long moment. At last Derek cleared his throat, though his voice remained hoarse with emotion. “It was strange. When we were in your room this morning, something just clicked. I had no idea how intricate Martika’s plot was, but I suddenly knew she had to be behind everything.”

  “So you went to her room . . .” Nancy prompted him.

  “Yes,” he went on. “And found the article. I know I should have tried to stop her, but I decided to cash in on the situation by blackmailing her instead. Martika deserved it.”

  “And you needed the money,” Nancy said. “Who were you talking to on the phone that first evening when you took Martika’s check?”

  “A man on Saint Thomas,” Derek said. “I owe him some money. You see, I gamble quite a lot.”

  “Derek—” Nancy said, but suddenly she stopped. She could hear pebbles ricocheting down the cliff. One bounced off her shoulder, stinging her.

  “Hey,” Bess said, dodging a pebble. “What’s going on?”

  Raising her eyes to the cliff top, Nancy gasped in horror as a roar sounded.

  “It’s a rock slide!” Nancy cried. “Everybody run.”

  Just then, though, a large boulder started to move above them. It came loose with a grinding sound and then hurtled down the cliff, headed right for them. In another moment one of them would be crushed!

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  LOOK OUT!” Nancy screamed, grabbing Bess and yanking her away. The two of them fell to the sand and rolled away just as the boulder hit the beach.

  “George!” Nancy cried out as soon as the big rock landed.

  “I’m okay, Nan,” came George’s voice from nearby. Nancy and Bess both heaved sighs of relief.

  “Me, too,” Derek said, “but let’s get out of here before another one falls.”

  They all ran down the beach, pausing at the steps leading up to the gazebo.

  “That was close!” George gasped.

  “Too close,” Nancy agreed, checking the spot where the slide had started. “I bet this was no accident. Come on, everyone. We’ve got to stop Martika before she does any more damage!”

  Nancy led the group back up the steps at a breathless pace. They emerged at the top to find the patio mostly deserted. Nancy took off running toward the spot at the top
of the cliff where the slide had started. It was well beyond the end of the railing. When she reached it, she saw a little path leading down to a perch in an outcropping of rocks. She followed it, gripping the boulders along the sides of the path with her hands.

  When she came to a stop, she found herself at the very edge of the cliff. There, abandoned on a ledge, was a large wooden plank.

  George was right behind her. “What is it?” she asked.

  “I believe Martika’s been here,” Nancy said. “This must be what she used to start the rock slide. She could have jimmied a couple of rocks free and pushed them over.”

  George inhaled sharply.

  “Let’s go back up,” Nancy said.

  When they reached the top, Derek and Bess were waiting for them. “Obviously, Martika must know that we’re onto her,” Nancy told them. “That’s why she tried to kill us just now. You’re her brother, Derek. Where should we search for her?”

  Derek shrugged. “She must have seen that we were still alive. If I were Martika, I’d be running for dear life at this point. And since this is an island, that means the dock.”

  “Right,” Nancy agreed. The four of them ran back to the main building and through the lobby, exiting out the front door. They scanned the entire harbor area and saw no boats except for the ones moored to the dock.

  “Let’s check Martika’s suite,” Nancy said, swinging around almost without skipping a beat.

  When they reached the model’s room, Nancy was surprised to find the door open. She exchanged wary glances with her three companions before leading them into the suite.

  The main room was empty. Nancy made a quick check of the bedroom and bathroom. Squeeze was sleeping in his cage, but Martika was gone. One thing was obvious—she had left in a hurry. Martika had seen that the game was up and had gone through her papers in a rush. She had probably destroyed anything that could possibly implicate her.

  Nancy was about to suggest that they split up to search for Martika, when the bookshelf on the wall next to the desk caught her eye. There was something wrong with it. It seemed to have been moved away from the wall.