Jolly Dead St. Nicholas (13 page)

“Oh, we learned a few things,” Luke said. He folded his tall frame into the chair Mark Cardosa had just vacated. “Susan Hatfield was having an affair with Douglas Underwood. She didn’t know her husband followed her to the church or that he may have witnessed her sneaking into the preacher’s office before choir practice. It’s also possible that Hatfield saw the same thing Dora Carmody did as Mrs. Hatfield was leaving her lover that night.”

They were interrupted by the arrival of a surprise visitor. Dora Carmody stood at the dispatcher’s desk on the other side of the squad room. Day dispatcher Mindy Cooper was a petite woman in her mid-thirties with short blonde hair and luminous green eyes. She’d been with the department eight years. Daniel trusted her judgment implicitly, so when he saw her motion Dora toward his office he knew it must be something important. He had a feeling he knew the reason Mrs. Carmody was here.

Luke opened the door for the diner owner. Daniel smiled at Dora, who today sort of resembled one of Santa’s elves in a green pantsuit with a red wool hat. The tassel on top of the hat was gold. She was carrying a red full length coat over one arm. After sitting down in the chair opposite the desk, she draped the coat across her lap.

“I’ve been agonizing over this all night, Daniel. Finally I decided I needed to come see you about it.” Dora looked up at Luke as though his hovering made her nervous.

Daniel motioned for Luke to take the seat next to Dora, which he did immediately. “What’s wrong, Dora? Did something happen?” He indicated the recorder on his desk. “Mind if I record this interview?”

She agreed then sighed loudly. “This awful thing with Jerry Hatfield…I can’t take it in. It’s just unbelievable. I’m not sure if it means anything, but it just looked so…out of place….too intimate.” She went on to tell them about seeing the hand-holding incident on Thursday night.

Daniel exchanged glances with Luke. Although they already knew about it from his mother, Daniel was glad to hear it from the actual witness.

“They looked flushed…their hands were touching, as though they were just letting go of each other. I can still see it in my mind’s eye. When they saw me they—I swear they looked guilty!” Dora fidgeted in her chair, rearranging the heavy coat on her lap. “I told Adelaide about it. I’m surprised she didn’t tell you, Daniel,” Dora continued. “Or, did she?” She squinted at him with suspicion.

Daniel shuffled papers on his desk. “I can’t really discuss an ongoing investigation, Dora, you know that. Once your statement is transcribed, we’ll call you to come back and sign it. Thanks you for coming in. You’ve been a tremendous help.”

Luke escorted Dora from the office. Once Daniel was alone, he did some thinking while making notes at the same time. The interview with Susan was less than helpful. Obviously he wasn’t going to get her alone, not with that pit bull Cardosa hovering around her like he was guarding a bone.

I’ll just have to hand it over to Mother. She can pay Susan a visit, which I’m sure she plans to do anyway, unless I miss my guess. That way there will be no lawyer present.

He called his mother’s cell phone, not at all surprised to discover he’d been right. She intended to drop in on Susan that afternoon.

“So, she’s hired Mark Cardosa. So quickly, too,” Adelaide said thoughtfully.

“I’m not surprised. She’s got a lot to hide. She’s holding things back from him, also,” Daniel told her. “By the way, Dora Carmody gave us a statement about what she saw Thursday night at the church.”

Adelaide sighed. “I had a feeling she’d pay you a visit. I could tell she was really troubled by it.”

“The case against your preacher is building, Mother.”

“You don’t have to remind me of that, Daniel,” Adelaide said rather sharply.

“Let me know what you find out from Susan Hatfield… please,” he said before ending the call.

Moments later, Daniel’s attention was caught by another unexpected visitor. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he muttered as he watched Fran Underwood speaking with Mindy at the dispatcher’s console. His intercom rang. He pushed the appropriate button. Mindy’s voice said, “Mrs. Underwood is here to see you, Chief. She says it’s important.”

“Send her right in. Is Luke still in the building?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get him in here too.” Daniel released his hold on the button, cutting off the communication.

Daniel got up from behind his desk to open the door for the minister’s wife. She was wearing a dark green severely tailored suit with a crisp-looking white blouse. No coat was in evidence. Her hair was neatly in place although her pale green eyes were slightly bloodshot. Frown lines creased her forehead. Her lips were drawn into such a straight line they appeared almost invisible. She wore no makeup.

Luke slid into the room behind the woman, closing the door.

Daniel looked at the clock on his desk. It was two-twenty. The preacher was due at three. He wondered idly if Mrs. Underwood had informed her husband of this visit. He guessed not.

He excused himself and hurried out to tell Mindy that if Reverend Underwood arrived while Mrs. Underwood was still in his office, she should escort him upstairs to one of the interview rooms. He then came back into his office and closed the vertical blinds covering the large window next to the door. They now had complete privacy.

Luke and Mrs. Underwood were seated in the two chairs facing Daniel’s desk. Daniel slipped into his well-worn swivel chair. “Do you mind?” he asked Fran Underwood, indicating the tape recorder.

“Makes no difference to me now,” was her terse reply.

After turning on the recorder, Daniel stated the names of all present and the date. After that, he refocused his attention on the woman sitting across from him. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Underwood?”

“He made me lie,” she stated succinctly.

Daniel could see the anguish on her face. “Who made you lie? What did you lie about?” He felt his stomach tighten.

“Douglas. About him being with me in Marietta when poor Mr. Hatfield was murdered.” Tears formed in her eyes, threatening to spill over onto her cheeks.

Luke quickly reached for the tissue box sitting on the corner of Daniel’s desk. Pulling one out, he handed it to Fran. She dabbed at her eyes and snuffled a few times.

She slowly shook her head. “I can’t live with these lies any longer. It’s all true. He was seeing that…woman, Susan Hatfield. I suspected as much for months. It was disgraceful.”

“Tell us about the afternoon Jerry Hatfield was killed,” Daniel said.

“There were things before that,” she said.

“Then start there,” Daniel told her.

Fran drew in a deep breath. “Douglas and I argued about…her…on Thursday night, before he left for the church. He never used to go near the church on choir practice night. He said the noise was too distracting for him to concentrate. All of a sudden, though, he was going down there
every
Thursday evening. I should have realized something was wrong. But I just couldn’t believe it was happening again.” She blew her nose, then looked around for somewhere to put the soiled tissue. Luke leaned forward and retrieved the wicker waste basket sitting next to Daniel’s desk, placing it beside her chair. She threw the used tissue into it.

Daniel made a mental note—
So the rumors were true. Underwood has cheated before.

Fran continued. “He promised when we moved here that those days were over. He promised!” She pounded one fist on her lap.

Luke handed her the tissue box. She blew her nose again, disposing of the used tissue in the waste basket.

Once Fran composed herself, she said, “I didn’t go to the church on Saturday. Friday was quite enough for me, thank you very much. Watching that woman flaunt herself around, casting glances at Douglas, mooning around like a forlorn romance novel heroine. It was deplorable. I left early on Friday with a migraine, as a matter of fact. There was no way I was going to put myself through that again on Saturday, so I stayed home.

“Around twelve-thirty I decided to go into Marietta. I assumed Douglas would be at the church all day because of the bazaar. I spent the afternoon shopping. I also had a late lunch at a small cafe there. I returned home around six. Douglas came home shortly thereafter. He was frantic. It soon became obvious to me he had not been at the church all afternoon. He said he’d heard about Mr. Hatfield’s murder on the car radio on his way home. I hadn’t heard about it at all until he told me. I didn’t have my car radio on and I’d shut my cell phone off before leaving home.”

Daniel asked, “Why didn’t you leave your cell on?” He’d doubted her first explanation that her battery was running low. Fran Underwood didn’t seem like the kind of woman who would neglect to recharge her cell phone.

Fran sighed and her face colored a little. “I lied about that on Saturday night. My cell phone was in perfect working order. I just didn’t want Douglas to be able to reach me. I guess I wanted him to know what it felt like to wonder where his spouse was.”

“Any particular reason to think he might want to reach you by phone that afternoon?” Luke asked.

“Douglas
always
needed me to do
something
for him. Usually something that served his purposes. He insisted that I be available at all times.”

“Please continue,” Daniel urged.

“He saw the packages I’d brought home from the mall in Marietta. They were sitting on the sofa. Christmas presents. I could see the wheels turning in his brain. He demanded that I tell anyone who asked that we’d made that shopping trip together. When I asked him why, he grabbed my arms and shook me. His face was red as a beet. He told me to do as he said and not ask questions unless I wanted to be humiliated in front of the whole town.”

“Didn’t you ask him where he’d been all afternoon?” Daniel asked.

“I didn’t have to. There were only two choices. Either he’d been with that harlot, or he’d murdered Mr. Hatfield and needed me as an alibi.” She met Daniel’s gaze. “Frankly, it is irrelevant to me now which scenario is true.”

Luke cleared his throat. “You know about spousal privilege, don’t you, Mrs. Underwood?”

She squared her shoulders, sitting up straight in the chair. “As a matter of fact, I do. My brother, Alex, is an attorney. It applies to things discussed between spouses—the fact that they are privileged communications. However, what I’m telling you today doesn’t seem to fall under that stipulation. I’m not revealing any confidences Douglas shared with me. I’m simply telling you that I went to Marietta
alone
but was asked to lie about it. Besides, isn’t it legal to revoke spousal privilege if one spouse refuses the keep the confidence? From what I understand, in our state a spouse can break spousal privilege if he or she wishes to do so.”

Daniel turned off the recorder. “If I have this typed up, will you sign it, Mrs. Underwood?”

“I didn’t come here to engage in idle conversation, Chief McBride. I will sign the statement, once it is put in written form,” Fran Underwood promised. “I’m sure you’re thinking about the credit card receipts from my purchases. They were all signed by me. Oh, and I had lunch at
The Bistro,
a small café in town where I often eat when I visit Marietta. The waitress there, Tess, will tell you I was alone, which is also verified by the receipt. I don’t know how Douglas thought this alibi would stand up to a thorough investigation. But then, Douglas has been thinking with the wrong head for some time now, so I shouldn’t be surprised.”

Getting up, she went to the door. “Let me know when that statement is ready to sign and I’ll come back in. I hope it is soon. I’m leaving for Columbus in a few days to spend some time with my parents.” She walked out of the office without closing the door, making her way purposefully through the squad room into the main hallway.

“I smell a
D-I-V-O-R-C-E
in the air, don’t you?” Luke glanced at his watch. “Almost ten till three. Good thing she came in before her husband was due to show up, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Daniel said thoughtfully, “very opportune.”

Mary Ellen Oliver lived in a beautifully preserved Queen Anne style home on the northern end of Hawthorne Avenue. In fact, she’d grown up in the house, inheriting it when both her parents died in a fiery auto crash in 2006. Since she was an only child, she’d also inherited a substantial amount of money. Her sudden wealth had made her one of the most sought after women in Crescent Falls, but Mary Ellen shunned every suitor, preferring instead to live a placid life unencumbered by romantic entanglements.

Adelaide admired Mary Ellen’s restraint as well as her savvy. Most women in her position might have fallen for the first man with a smooth line, but not Mary Ellen. “I like my life just as it is. I have my job at the library, I have friends and I have things that keep me busy. There’s the Historical Society, the church coalition board, my volunteer work at the thrift store…I live a full life,” she’d told Adelaide one day when they’d shared a booth at the diner during a busy lunch hour.

Adelaide trudged up the front walk leading to the deep, shadowy front porch of Mary Ellen’s home and rang the doorbell. In her arms she held the quilt, enclosed in a protective plastic zipper bag.

The Oliver house had always fascinated Adelaide. It was painted a light robin’s egg blue with dark brown shutters at the windows. The spindled porch supports were painted the same shade as the shutters. The contrast was striking yet pleasing to the eye. The heavy mahogany door had three diamond-shaped, beveled-glass insets at eye level. Long, narrow glass windows on both sides of the door sported white sheers gathered at the top and bottom on spring tension rods.

When Mary Ellen answered the door, her face beamed with delight. “I couldn’t believe it when you called to tell me I’d won that beautiful quilt! Come in, I can’t wait to see it spread out.”

Adelaide gratefully stepped into the toasty warm foyer. A cold, gusty wind had whipped up during her two-block walk from home. She could feel the moisture gathering in the air signaling another snowfall, probably before evening. Overhead, gray, leaden clouds hung low over the town, another indicator of an approaching storm.