Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_02 (28 page)

Across the room, ignoring us, Craig wiped his face with a handkerchief.

I stared hard at him. I didn’t care now that he was Margaret’s nephew. That concern seemed long ago and far away. What I had to know, what I must discover, was whether he’d murdered a helpless young girl because I’d talked too much.

The pitiless overhead light emphasized the weakness of his face, the self-indulgent mouth, the uncertain eyes, the defensive expression. He’d changed from the black pinstripe suit he’d worn to Patty Kay’s funeral into olive linen slacks and a cotton sport shirt with brilliant red, green, and blue vertical stripes. He wore brown alligator loafers. Fine clothes. Expensive clothes.

Craig Matthews could dress this way because he’d married an older woman with a great deal of money.

He must have felt my glance.

He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw both defiance and terror.

It was Craig who looked away.

The storeroom door opened again. A trim young woman carrying a large square black attaché case walked briskly toward us. She placed it on one of the tables. “Hello, I’m Lieutenant Margaret Berry. I’m here to take your fingerprints.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. “These are called elimination prints. It’s customary to take the prints of all persons on the premises of a homicide so that investigators can quickly identify and discard those that are irrelevant.”

It was the very best butter—and no hint that these prints might send someone to the electric chair.

Lieutenant Berry was pleasant, professional, and thorough. She took finger and palm prints. It was a tedious process. She took Stevie’s first, Craig’s second.

The businessman looked at the ink in distaste. “I just came here to buy a magazine,” he complained in a voice used to being obeyed.

“I understand Captain Walsh will begin the interviews as soon as the fingerprinting is completed.” Lieutenant Berry held up the roller used for palms.

He glared at her, then stuck out his right hand. “I’ve already missed my appointment.”

Todd shifted forward in his chair, his face pugnacious. The antagonism between them had become electric. “So who cares?”

I, too, was aware of the passage of time and beginning to watch the clock in earnest. It was almost five. The school board meeting was in two hours.

Each person in turn was directed to the bookstore’s
main office on the mezzanine in the order in which their fingerprints were taken.

Mine were taken last.

That it was deliberate, I had no doubt.

But why?

It was almost six-thirty when I was finally ushered into the main office on the mezzanine. Captain Walsh sat behind a paper-littered desk.

An attractive redhead nodded to me from her chair next to the desk. She had pulled a swivel chair away from a computer work station to face the door.

Walsh didn’t get up. He jerked his head toward the woman. “Assistant District Attorney Susan Nichols,” he said brusquely.

She nodded again.

“Hello, Captain, Ms. Nichols.”

Captain Walsh no longer looked movie-star handsome. The bristle of the day’s beard was dark on his cheeks; lines of tension were etched in his face. And he didn’t give a damn who I was related to.

Or maybe he did.

“I’d like to have your movements today.” He jabbed a blunt forefinger at a tape recorder on the desk. “Whatever you say will be recorded. If you wish to speak with a lawyer first, you can use the phone.”

It was decision time.

And I still hadn’t decided.

The police chief’s glance sharpened.

I’d taken just a little too long to answer.

So I delayed an instant longer. “That’s not a Miranda, Captain.”

“No.”

“Very well. I’ve no objection to being recorded.” I ignored the straight chair directly in front of the desk and instead chose a comfortable armchair. I quickly sketched my activities. Today’s activities. But nothing—yet—about my session last evening with Craig.

“You found the message asking you to call Amy Foss on the front door of the Matthews home?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“At approximately three o’clock.”

“You came directly here?”

“No. I went inside and called the bookstore. When I was told she’d disappeared—”

Walsh held up his hand. “Nobody said she’d disappeared. Todd Simpson said she couldn’t be found.”

“That’s correct. She couldn’t be found. In my judgment, Captain, objects or people who cannot be found may reasonably be considered to have disappeared. That’s when I got worried. I arrived here about three-twenty.”

“Describe your actions.”

I did.

The police chief’s cold, suspicious eyes never left my face.

The assistant D.A. made notes.

Walsh abruptly boomed: “How did you know she was dead?”

“I didn’t
know
. I was afraid she was.” I kept my voice relaxed. If he’d hoped for a nervous start, he didn’t get it.

“You went straight to the body.”

“No.”

“You started looking for a body. Simpson said so.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Zero hour.

To speak. Or not.

He hunched forward in his chair, his face forbidding.

When I confronted him, Craig ran away
.

I took a deep breath. All right. Jewel said it best, with a black woman’s painful wisdom: It’s a lot harder to get out of jail than get in.

So for now, one more time, I was in Craig’s corner.

I’d give it—and him—twenty-four hours.

If I didn’t know the answer by then, I’d come clean with Captain Walsh.

“We can’t be sure, Captain, why Amy was killed. But there’s one critical point to remember: Amy took the message Saturday that instructed Craig to go to the delicatessen and then home.”

“So?”

“I told her to be sure to call me if she remembered anything about that call, anything at all. I think she did remember something about that call, something that made her extremely dangerous to the murderer. And so she called me.”

It might be true.

Or it might be that I’d put Amy in terrible danger.

I would—before God—find out.

The chief’s handsome face curled into a sneer. “Oh. I suppose she had a sudden recognition of the caller’s voice.” The sarcasm was thick.

“I don’t know what it was.”

His tone became accusing. “How much money do you have, Mrs. Collins?”

“Sufficient, Captain Walsh.”

“Are you next of kin to Craig Matthews?”

Oh, what a ticklish, interesting, revealing question.

I smiled at him. “It would take a bit of genealogy to
figure that one out, Captain. I’m more of a distant cousin treated as an honorary aunt.”

He leaned back in the chair, crossed his arms over his chest. “Just where were you, Mrs. Collins, when Patty Kay Matthews was killed?” His eyes were lethal as stilettos.

“Late Saturday afternoon I was en route to Monteagle.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“No.” I smiled gently. “But you can’t prove otherwise.”

“And you don’t have an alibi for the murder of Amy Foss.” Again that piercing stare.

“When,” I asked quietly, “was Amy killed?”

He didn’t have to check his notes. “Between two-forty and three this afternoon.”

“At that time, I was driving back from Nashville to my nephew’s home.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

His eyes said it all:
Same song, second verse
.

“Was Amy shot?” I asked abruptly. Where was Patty Kay’s gun now?

There was a flicker in his chilly eyes. He gazed at me thoughtfully, then shook his head. “No. Somebody knocked her unconscious. Then he—or she—strangled her.”

Oh, God. Poor Amy. Poor kid. “It’s hideous,” I said angrily.

But Chief Walsh wasn’t interested in my expressions of concern.

Instead, he snapped, “Was Craig Matthews’s arrival at your cabin Saturday evening prearranged, Mrs. Collins?”

It’s always nice to be able to tell the truth. “No.” I thought it had a ring of veracity.

“How did he know you were there?”

This was tricky.

“I always keep my family informed of my vacation plans.” Which I do.

Captain Walsh rubbed a bristly cheek; his eyes never left my face. “I want a copy of recent letters you and Craig Matthews exchanged.”

“I don’t keep letters, Captain.”

The assistant D.A. scooted her chair forward. She studied me like Bacall eyeing a bad guy. Her tone was cool as she spelled it out. “Craig Matthews is going to be extremely rich if he inherits his wife’s estate. He won’t inherit a cent if he’s convicted of her murder. And you’ve come to Fair Haven and repeatedly tried to divert police suspicion from him. We have to wonder if the circumstances of his wife’s murder weren’t arranged to look as though someone was trying to place the blame on Matthews.”

I met her gaze steadily. “Interesting thesis. But you’re going a little fast, aren’t you, Ms. Nichols? There are still some items to be explained. To whom did the beige sweater belong, the one Craig wrapped the murder weapon in?”

Walsh didn’t need to consult his notes. “Mr. Matthews said it was his wife’s sweater.”

Damn Craig. He was going to wrap a noose of lies around his own neck.

I handled it as well as I could. “Really? I suppose most men don’t pay too much attention to clothes. In fact, he could have made a mistake.” I looked at the assistant D.A. “I imagine you know quite a bit about clothes, Ms. Nichols. Suffice it to say, the bloodied sweater came from Lands’ End. If you check Mrs. Matthews’s closet, you’ll find a lot of far more expensive designer outfits.”

Captain Walsh looked faintly bewildered, but quick understanding flickered in Nichols’s eyes.

“Actually, Captain, Ms. Nichols, I recommend that you
take a look at the clothing worn by others who knew—or worked for—Mrs. Matthews.”

“More distraction, Mrs. Collins?” Walsh sniped.

I was pleasant but crisp. “I’m not into conspiracy, Captain Walsh. I’m just trying to get at the facts. I suggest you do the same.”

I was grateful I had the second Baby Ruth in my bag. I made it out to Walden School with two minutes to spare, the candy wrapper crumpled on the car seat, a surge of sugar in my blood.

I was torn.

I desperately wanted to know more about Amy’s last day at the bookstore. To whom did the girl talk? What did she do? I wanted to know what the others in the store had seen. I wanted to ask each of the customers when they last saw Amy, if they talked to her.

I didn’t know a damn thing. The last to be interviewed, the last out the door, I was left with all the unanswered questions and nobody there to ask.

Did Amy have a desk, a drawer, a cubbyhole, anything where she kept her things?

Where was Stevie when Amy disappeared?

Where, most important, most emphatic, was Craig?

Twenty-four hours, that’s all I’d give him.

And I keep my promises.

But I couldn’t miss the meeting of the trustees of Walden School. Amy was killed because she was a threat to Patty Kay’s murderer. To avenge Amy, I had to find out why Patty Kay was furious on Friday, the day after she went out to Walden School for her files. Walden School—its trustees were invited to a dinner canceled by Patty Kay’s murder. Walden School—its headmaster knew more than he was telling.

Walden School. Suddenly every path led to it.

Light spilled cheerfully from the tall windows on the first floor of the beautiful Greek Revival mansion.

I hurried up the steps, opened the front door—and cannoned into Chuck Selwyn.

The headmaster jerked back. Again he wore the navy blazer, Oxford cloth button-down shirt, khaki slacks, and tasseled oxblood loafers. But there was nothing boyish about the look he gave me.

“Mrs. Collins, the school is closed to visitors at the moment. I’ll have to ask you—”

“Henrie O, glad you could make it!”

Desmond’s welcome was warm, loud, and genial. He ducked around the headmaster, hand outstretched, to greet me, then looked toward Selwyn. “Mrs. Collins is here to represent the Matthews family tonight.” His tone was pleasant but final.

Brooke Forrest hurried in. “Oh, I hope I’m not late.” Her smile faltered. The dark smudges beneath her eyes emphasized her paleness. She actually looked ill. Her apple-green silk blouse was elegant with the charcoal linen skirt, but not perhaps the best color choice for her wan face.