Last Whisper (22 page)

“That’s not what you said before.”

“Well, there was a lot of back-and-forth, you know how those things go, and I guess I’m the one who actually suggested we just not see each other anymore, and he agreed to the suggestion.”

Hal Myers frowned. “If he was so agreeable to it, why was he phoning and following you?”

“Uh . . . he wanted to talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Just . . . I don’t know.” She was starting to breathe faster, well aware Myers knew she wasn’t telling the truth. “Maybe he wanted to apologize.”

“For a mutual breakup?”

Brooke sighed. “Oh, hell. I’ve been lying.” She looked into Myers’s face. It was serious. There was no humor in his dark eyes, but he didn’t look angry. Yet.

“I broke off things with Robert because I found out he was gay. He didn’t want anyone to know, especially his father, because he adored his father and thought he wouldn’t understand and wouldn’t love him anymore. . . . I don’t know. . . . I’ve met Reverend Eads and I think he might have been surprised and confused, even hurt, if he found out the truth, but he would never have stopped loving Robert and he would have eventually come to understand, at least I believe he would have, but Robert didn’t believe it and he was frantic that I was going to tell, so he kept after me, begging me not to tell anyone, which I wouldn’t have done anyway, and—”

“You’re running out of breath and you’re going to pass out,” Hal Myers said calmly. “I get the picture. Take a breath, then tell me why was Eads so certain you were going to tell his big secret?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know, but he was convinced. He did say something about a call that had been made to . . . his lover, and he also mentioned a threatening letter. I guess he thought I made the call and sent the letter. Of course I didn’t. I tried to tell him that, but he wouldn’t believe me. He even offered me money to keep my mouth shut, for Pete’s sake.”

“Hold on now, Brooke. Someone called the lover. Who
was
Eads’s lover?”

“Oh God, please don’t make me tell that, too.”

“Miss Yeager, we are talking about a homicide case here. Murder.” Myers’s voice had become stern. “This is not the time for secrets, no matter how well-meaning. After all, considering the murder weapon . . .”

“What about the murder weapon?” Brooke asked sharply.

“You go first. Who was Eads’s lover?”

Brooke sighed. “Aaron Townsend of Townsend Realty. I work for him. That’s how I found out about Robert. I went back to the office late one night to pick up some papers I’d forgotten and I found them together.”

“What did you do?”

“I was shocked. I said something—I don’t remember what, but it certainly wasn’t threatening—and I left.”

“But you weren’t furious?”

“Furious?” Brooke shook her head no, then decided absolute honesty was the only way to go now that Myers had already caught her in one lie. “Yes, I guess I was furious, but not at that moment. Later. It wasn’t fury over losing Robert, though. It was fury over his using me as a smoke screen.” She frowned. “ ‘Fury’ is too strong a word. If I’d loved Robert, I might have been furious. But I didn’t love him. I thought he was a nice guy—I’ve known him since I was a child and we went to his father’s church—but as a boyfriend, he was actually kind of boring. No wonder. I wasn’t the person he wanted to be spending evenings with. I was already thinking of ending things, although I probably would have let them drift for a while. It wasn’t as if I was unhappy dating Robert or anything. We got along fine. There just weren’t any sparks, if you know what I mean.”

She stopped abruptly and groaned. “I’m babbling. All I can say is that I didn’t hate Robert. And although I was getting tired of his recent harassment, especially when it was so unwarranted, I wouldn’t have done anything to him to stop it, except maybe get a restraining order or something if he didn’t quit.” Brooke took another deep breath. “All right. I’ve told
you
everything I know. Now you tell
me
what you meant about the murder weapon. I don’t even know what it was. Why did you think mentioning it would frighten me into telling you the truth?”

Myers paused a moment, looking at her closely as if
sizing her up. Even though the morning was comfortably cool, Brooke felt sweat pop out on her—sweat caused by fear of the unknown.

At last, Myers said, “The murder weapon was lying right beside Eads. It was a silver envelope opener—shiny and very sharp.” Brooke stared at him, baffled. What did a letter opener have to do with her? She didn’t even own one.

“I don’t get it,” she said flatly.

“Are you sure?” Myers asked coolly. “Because the opener was engraved with the letters
ALY
on one side and ‘I love you’ on the other side. I’ve studied a lot of Sam’s notes from your mother’s case, Brooke. I know—”

Brooke didn’t hear the rest of what Hal Myers was saying as her mind spun back. She could see her mother sitting at a small desk, her beautiful mother with the sun shining on her blond hair and glinting off the silver letter opener given to her by her husband Karl, a letter opener engraved with the letters
ALY
—Anne Lindstrom Yeager.

Brooke sat in a wooden rocking chair beside the stereo, Elise at her feet, listening to
Lakmé
by Delibes. She stared straight ahead, but she didn’t see her cheerful saffron yellow chair or hibiscus pink embroidered pillows or the violets growing at the window. All she saw was a trench coat covered with rust-colored stains and Robert’s soulless eyes staring up at the beautiful sky.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting in the cherrywood chair her father had made until someone knocked lightly on the door, then opened it. Vaguely, Brooke saw Stacy standing in front of her, kneeling down and covering her cold hands locked on the chair arms with her own strong, warm ones.

“Brooke? Brooke, look at me.” Obediently Brooke looked, but she didn’t really see. “Brooke, it’s Stacy.”

“I know.”

“Then look like you know it.” Stacy’s words were firm but not harsh. “Honey, snap out of it.”

“Stacy, you should have seen him.”

“I’m glad I didn’t, and you shouldn’t have, either. I know all about it. Jay’s down there now, talking with some other detectives.” Stacy stood up and looked around. “First, we’re going to turn off this unbearably depressing music. Robert gave you this CD, didn’t he? I’ve always hated it.” She snapped off the CD player. “And now I’m going to fix you something to drink.”

“I don’t want anything.”

Stacy was already in the kitchen. “I’m putting on a pot of coffee.” In a moment she was back, handing Elise a dog biscuit. “No matter what the tragedy, you can always count on Elise to drown her sorrows in beef-basted biscuits.”

For some reason, this struck Brooke as funny, and she started to laugh. And laugh. Louder. Harsher. Then Stacy was shaking her. “Don’t make me slap you, Brooke Yeager, because you know I will.”

“And enjoy every moment of it.”

“Damned right.”

Brooke almost immediately calmed down, tears starting to flow, the awful laughter stilled. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m used to it. Jay cries all the time. Sometimes I have to slap him senseless.”

Brooke smiled through her tears and Stacy smiled back. “Feeling better?”

“Not better, but not hysterical.”

“Well, that’s a start.” Stacy handed her a tissue. “I don’t mind tears, but your nose is running.”

Brooke blew, wiped, accepted a fresh tissue from Stacy to dab at her dripping eyes, then tossed the tissue in a nearby wicker wastebasket. “What a way to start out a morning.”

“It’s nearly noon,” Stacy said, looking at her wristwatch. “But I’ll bet you haven’t had a thing to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Okay, I can understand that. But you’re having coffee, whether you want it or not.”

Brooke heard cabinet doors opening in the kitchen. “Have you forgotten where the coffee cups are?” Brooke called.

“No.” In a few moments Stacy reappeared with a gigantic mug with a rooster painted on the side. “Christmas present from Harry last year. Remember?”

“How could I forget?” Brooke took a sip of the steaming liquid, winced, then smiled. “Now I know why you were opening all those cabinet doors. You were looking for the brandy. Exactly how much did you pour in here?”

“Enough to put you back on your feet.”

“Or send me straight to bed.”

“Either one will do you good. But while you’re still conscious, do you mind talking to me a little?”

“I don’t mind. I
need
to talk.”

Stacy sat down on the floor, almost at Brooke’s feet. She didn’t seem to care how close she was to Elise, although she was allergic to dogs. “I know from Jay that you found Robert stabbed to death beside the Dumpster. I also know the section of the fire escape that leads practically to your bedroom window had been pulled down.”

Brooke’s eyes widened. “I didn’t notice that.”

“They’re dusting for fingerprints, but God knows how many people have touched that thing, even though it’s high. Kids jump up there all the time trying to grab it.”

“But it was down, and Robert was only a few feet away.” Brooke looked at Stacy. “Do you think Robert pulled it down? That he was planning to break in here?”

Stacy shrugged. “We were home and we didn’t hear anyone banging on your door. Did he phone you?”

“No. No one came to the door and no one called. I read all evening.”

“And listened to that awful music. We could hear it.”

Brooke managed a faint smile. “I’m sorry if I had the stereo on too loudly, but
Lakmé
isn’t awful. You just don’t like classical music.”

“It’s depressing. Anyway, my taste in music has nothing to do with this murder.” Stacy frowned. “Jay says the murder weapon was a letter opener with initials engraved on it.”

Brooke nodded, this time taking a gulp of the brandy-laced coffee. “The initials were
ALY
. Anne Lindstrom Yeager. On the other side was engraved ‘I love you.’ My father had it made for my mother because she was always so particular about her nails. She had long red nails. She always complained about opening envelopes tearing her nails or chipping her polish.”

“How can you be sure it’s the same letter opener?”

“How many letter openers of exactly that description do you think are floating around out there? Besides, my grandmother mentioned in the police report after my mother’s murder that the opener had gone missing shortly before her death. The detective in charge of the case now, Hal Myers, had read the report. He remembered the opener.”

Stacy looked at her blankly for a moment. “How did Robert get your mother’s letter opener?”

“I don’t think he did. It would have been too much of a coincidence if he’d come across it somewhere.” Stacy kept looking at her in confusion. “I remember that a few days, maybe a week, before Mommy was killed, she was looking all over the place for her letter opener. She accused me of taking it. Of course I didn’t. I wasn’t even allowed to touch it. She kept it in a felt wrapper that was supposed to prevent tarnish and she didn’t want
anyone
touching it. One time she caught Zach handling it and she had a fit.”

“Because it was a gift from your father.”

Brooke nodded. “Zach was jealous that she was so possessive of something given to her by Daddy. I remember he threw it on the floor and stormed out of the house. By then, their arguments were getting fairly regular, but my mother cried over that one. She didn’t see me watching her, but she wiped the letter opener over and over, as if to get every trace of Zach’s handprint off it, then wrapped it again and hid it in a bookcase. A couple of days later, she couldn’t find it.”

“Zach took it.”

“Probably. And her wedding ring from Daddy. It had a tiny diamond in it and on the inside was engraved ‘Anne and Karl.’ She kept it in a small blue felt jewelry box in her lingerie drawer. When she found it missing the same time as the letter opener, she was nearly hysterical.”

“The ring disappeared the same time as the letter opener?”

“Yes. At least, my mother discovered that it was missing the same day. The ring could have been gone for several days or even weeks before she noticed it, but I don’t think so. I have a feeling Mommy looked at that wedding ring almost every day.”

Stacy tapped her fingers on her thigh, as if thinking. “The ring aside, Zach couldn’t have kept a letter opener all this time he’s been in prison.”

“No. He must have had it hidden somewhere.”

“Why wouldn’t he have just thrown it away?”

“Stacy, I have no idea. Zach Tavell was always a mystery to me. Even though I was only nine when my mother married him, I couldn’t understand why she did it. They’d known each other less than three months. He was completely different from my father—serious, quiet, almost gloomy.”

“It must have been a rebound relationship for your mother.”

“That’s all I can figure out, not that I understood such a thing at the time. I just remember I wasn’t happy about the marriage, although I tried to pretend I was because I thought it made my mother happy. But it didn’t. I’m sure she would have divorced him.” Brooke almost choked on a humorless laugh. “But she didn’t get a chance because he killed her first.”

“Drink some more of your coffee,” Stacy said briskly, obviously afraid Brooke was going to burst into tears or worse. “Just remember, they aren’t sure the letter opener was the murder weapon.”

“No, it just turned up after fifteen years next to a man who’d been stabbed God knows how many times.”

Stacy sighed. “Okay. Let’s say that Zach has had this letter opener hidden someplace for fifteen years. Why would he kill Robert with it?”

“He had it with him. It was a weapon of convenience.”

“I repeat,
why?
Why would Zach Tavell kill Robert?”

“Because Zach has been following me. Therefore, he must have seen Robert following me, too. When he saw Robert trying to break into my apartment last night, he killed him.”

“To protect you?”

Brooke drained her cup, then gave her friend a grim smile. “No, Stacy. Because
Zach
wanted to be the one to kill me.”