Murder Well-Done (19 page)

There was a place on her desk where Nora's PC had a been, marked by cables and an extra battery. Quill flipped through the file case of computer disks. They were all pre-formatted and, as far as she could tell, unused. Were they really empty? Quill wasn't sure. If she were an investigative reporter, she wouldn't label files. She slipped the disks into her shoulder bag.
The desk drawers were filled with stationery, envelopes, a folder of bills neatly marked "paid" with the date of payment, used check registers, and a few bank statements. Nothing unusual, except for the fact that Nora's affairs were so orderly. That was suspicious itself.
The front door opened into the living room, and someone walked in.
Quill swallowed so hard she choked. She stepped to the office door. A man in a suit stood in the center of the living room, behaving much as she had done, casting swift, appraising glances around the room.
Quill's visual memory was good; where Meg could separate flavors into component parts of recipes, Quill's artist's eye, like a good cop's, could categorize age, background, and dress. The man in the living room was from somewhere around the Mediterranean; her guess would be Northern Italy. He was wearing a medium-priced suit with a cut at the edge of this year's fashions. Like his haircut. There were a lot of guys like this one on the streets of New York, lawyers on their first job, mid-level bankers, entry-level stockbrokers.
Quill stepped into the living room. "Excuse me." She kept her voice as well under control as she could, but thought she could hear a nervous quaver. She scowled to cover it.
The guy in the living room didn't jump. This made Quill uneasy. Any friend of Nora's would have assumed the apartment was empty.
"Hi. You're Nora's sister, Sarah?" He stuck out his hand. "Joseph Greenwald."
Well, south of Northern Italy, Quill thought. Very south.
"Rita at the station thought you might be here." Quill looked at him.
"Nora told me quite a bit about you two as kids." He grinned. Like a shark. "You don't know who I am?" Quill cleared her throat. "I can't... that is, Nora never mentioned you."
"No? We've been dating almost a year. But she was pretty goosey about letting anyone know about us. Even you. Her favorite. Sister."
"Why?"
His eyelids fluttered. "She thought the single-minded career woman bit would keep the station focused on her performance. Was she as determined to make it big-time when you two were kids?" He shook his head, clicked his tongue against his teeth, and said admiringly, "That Nora. God. She was one focused lady. I miss her, you know? What a shame. What a rotten shame." He took a step toward her. Quill dodged and moved left, out into the living room, toward the front door.
"Rita said she'd given you the box of Nora's things from the office. If you don't mind, I'd like to take a look. Have you been through it yet? There was a picture of the two of us that I'd like to have, as well." He glanced around the living room. "It's why I came here. To pick it up. She used to keep it on the shelf right here. But it's gone. Was it with her stuff from the office?"
"I haven't had a chance to go through it." Quill added cleverly, "If you leave me your address, Joseph, I'd be happy to mail it to you."
"I'll see you at the funeral, won't I? Could I get it from you there?" He frowned at her expression. "You have been making the arrangements, haven't you? The police wouldn't tell me a damn thing. Just told me anyone could walk off the street and claim they'd known her and I had no proof that we'd been dating." His voice sounded bitter. "She was right on her way to being famous, you know. So anyone could take advantage. People are scum. Just like whoever killed her is scum."
Did Nora have a sister? Suddenly, Quill felt like the worst kind of liar, the most offensive kind of intruder. She was exploiting a tragedy.
Joseph Greenwald sat down on the couch. He looked sad. He also looked as if he had been there before. "The police must have told you if they have a lead on who did it. They'd let family members know."
"I haven't really heard anything," Quill said cautiously.
"You want to sit down? I'll make us some coffee." His expression was wistful. "I haven't been able to talk about her to anyone yet. She didn't want anyone to know about us."
"Was there a reason she didn't? I mean, other than the fact that she thought it'd be better for the station not to know she had a personal life?"
"God, I don't know. I teach ninth grade math at the University High School. Nora knew a lot more about the real world than I did."
"You never went to law school?" Quill asked. "Or banking? You were never interested in banking?"
"Me? Heck, no. I like kids. I've always liked kids. That was the one area Nora and I never did agree on. I wanted to get married and she - Say, are you sure you wouldn't like me to make you a pot of coffee?"
"No. Thanks." Quill, feeling more traitorous every minute, was positive that her cheeks were red. "I've got to get back to the, um, hotel."
"Where're you staying?"
"The Hyatt," said Quill. There had to be a Hyatt in Syracuse. Every large town in America had a Hyatt.
"I didn't know we had a Hyatt," said Joseph.
"Could you give me your phone number?" Quill said desperately. "I'll be sure to call you about the... you know."
"The funeral. Yeah. You have a piece of paper?"
Quill drew her Investigations notebook out of her purse and took out a pen.
"It's a local area code, 315. And it's 624-9123."
Quill wrote this down. After this was all over, she could call and explain and apologize. He might forgive her. By the next millennium. "I'll let you know as soon as everything's been completed." She shoved the notebook back in her purse, dislodging the computer disks she'd stolen from Nora's desk. She laughed, "Ha-ha!" stuffed them clumsily into the depths of the purse, and held out her hand. "Goodbye, Joe. I'm so sorry."
"Yeah. Can I drop you off at the Hyatt? It must be new. Of course, you know us teachers. Never pay much attention to anything outside of test scores."
"It's really more toward Rochester." She shook his hand. "We'll keep in touch."
She clattered down the stairs, her purse banging against the wall, warm with embarrassment. No detective she'd ever read in any of her favorite fiction, from Philip Marlowe to Dave Robicheaux, ever got embarrassed in the middle of an investigation. And they were sensitive guys. She'd have to work at being tougher.
She pushed outside to the sidewalk. The snow was falling faster now, and the temperature had dropped. She slid on the sidewalk. The OIds' windshield was covered with a thin coat of icy mush. She scraped it free with her bare hand, and removed the flyer some enterprising entrepreneur had stuck under the wipers with a click of irritation. She balled it up and wiped futilely at the glass, then turned and opened the driver's door. She glanced up. Joseph Greenwald stared at her through the living room window. She forced a smile, waved, and caught herself just before she tossed the flyer in the street. "Red-haired, early thirties," Greenwald would tell the cops. "Said she was Nora's sister. No, we've never met. But Nora told me a lot about their life together as kids. And I tell you this, Officer, Nora's sister was no litterer."
The OIds started, as always, with a cough and reliable roar. Quill buckled herself in and took a right off Westcott onto Argyle, from Argyle to Genesee and from Genesee to the entrance ramp of 81 north without really seeing anything at all.
She became aware of the intensity of the snow when she almost hit the car in front of her.
Its taillights flashed. Quill braked automatically, and the Olds skidded on the rutted slush, narrowly missing the car on her left. There was a blare of horns, a shout, and the Toyota next to her swung wide. She swerved into the skid and came to rest against the ramp curb. Behind her, a line of cars slowed, and inched by her stopped vehicle, an occasional hollered curse adding to her misery.
She pounded the wheel and yelled, "Ugh. Ugh ugh, UGH!"
It snowed harder as she watched, moving from a veil to a heavy curtain in minutes. She waited until her heart slowed and her breath was even, then inched out into the traffic. She made it to the expressway. The snow was thick, gluey, and treacherous. Her windshield wipers were on full speed, but the snow fell faster than the blades were moving. Quill hunched forward in the classic posture of the snow-blind driver and followed the taillights ahead of her.
She switched the radio on, punching the buttons until she hit the Traffic Watch.
"Seven to eight inches expected before nightfall," came the announcer's excited voice. "Most major thoroughfares have been closed to all but emergency traffic. High winds are expected to pick up as a front moves in from Canada. Our travel advisory has become a snow emergency. The sheriff's office has ordered no unnecessary travel, I repeat, no unnecessary travel."
Why, thought Quill, do these weather guys always sound as though we're about to be bombed by Khaddafi? Half of her anxiety about driving in snow came from the we-who-are-about-to-die-salute-you tone of this guy's voice.
She drove on, keeping her speed under thirty, and told herself that somewhere on the continent the sun was shining, the roads were dry, and the outside temperature wouldn't kill you if you fell asleep in it. She imagined a map of the United States, with the sun shining everywhere but this little stretch of Interstate 81 north. She pretended that all she had to do was drive a few miles more, and she would break into clear roads and blue skies.
The line of cars in front of her exited at the off ramp at 53. She looked in the rearview mirror. There were a few sets of headlights in back of her, not many. The snow whirled and spun like a immense bolt of cotton, now obscuring the road altogether, now whipping aside to reveal snow as high as her knees.
She switched the radio, found Pachelbel's Canon, which she'd come to loathe, then a mournful harpsichord version of Claude-Marie deCourcey's Spring Fate.
"Oh, humm," Quill sang. "Hummmm hummm." She shivered, despite the fact that the heater was going full blast.
She checked her watch. Three-thirty. At the rate she was traveling, she wouldn't be home before five. When it would be dark.
"This is stupid," she said aloud. She'd take the next exit, find a motel, and call Myles, then Meg, and tell them not to worry, she'd be back home in the morning.
The miles crawled by. On her left, headed south, two exits went by. The next one northbound would be 50. It was on the outskirts of the city, and her chances of finding a motel right off the ramp were not good, but at least she'd be close to the ground, near a gas station or a diner, where there would be light, and the warmth of human beings, and an end to the white that so ruthlessly wrapped the car.
She checked the rearview mirror. The traffic was gone, the road almost empty but for a pair of headlights traveling at speed in her lane. She slowed again, to under twenty-five, and signaled a move into the far right-hand lane. The headlights moved, too. They were high above the ground, shining eerily above the piled snow, plowing through the drifts like a fish through water. Four-wheel drive, Quill thought glumly. I should have taken the Inn pickup.
She turned her attention to the road in front. The Olds was lugging a little, the snow was halfway up the hubcaps. Her headlights were almost useless, bumping above the snow as often as they were obscured by drifts.
High beams flashed in her rearview mirror. She ducked, swerved, and cursed. She regained control and then the Olds jumped forward, like a frightened horse.
"No," said Quill. The high beams filled the car, drenching the inside with light. Quill slowed to a crawl. The truck behind her was pushing now, its bumper locked into position. Quill leaned on the horn, the noise whipped away on the flying wind, driven on the snow. She blasted the horn once, twice. The headlights behind her dimmed and flared in answer.
The truck backed off. Quill remembered to breathe. The headlights filled her mirror again, and she peered frantically out the windshield, looking for a place to stop, to let the bastard pass. The truck didn't hit her again, just hung there like a carrion bird, the headlights hovering.
The world was filled with snow. The dark was coming.
She looked at her watch. A quarter to five. The exit to 96 had to be coming up next. She searched the side of the road. A green sign crawled by. Two miles. If she could just make it two miles.
The lights from behind filled her vision.
She squinted. She drove on. She rubbed her right hand down her thigh, pushing hard against the muscle to calm herself. Her gloved hand brushed the flyer she'd dropped in the seat beside her. "Pizza," she said, just to hear the sound of a voice. "Oh, I wish I had a pepperoni..."
She smoothed the paper out.
FREE DELIVERY!
"Lot of good that'll do me." CALL 624-9123-ANYTIME!
"624-9123, 624-9123," Quill chanted, fighting a hopeless battle against the choking fear.
It's a local area code, 315. And it's 624-9123, Joseph Greenwald had said.
And then, from days ago, Nora Cahill's voice: No offense, but if you tell me you've got your love life socked, too, I'm going to hit you with a stick. / haven't had a date for eight months.
She got mad.
"You idiot!" she yelled. "You bonehead! You twink!"
/ could pull over to the side, wait for him to come up to the car, and hit him with... what?
The tire iron was in the trunk. And she wasn't sure she could use it on flesh and bone no matter how mad and scared and stupid she was.
HEMLOCK FALLS, 10 mi., the green sign said.
Quill thought about the exit ramp. At this juncture of 81, the exit ramps were on a gentle upward slope to 96, which ran along a drumlin left by glaciers. So the snow wouldn't be any higher at the exit than it was now - more than likely less, since the wind would blow it downward. And the highway department always started plowing 96 here first, at the boundary of Tompkins County.
Unless the blizzard was too much for even the plows.
"Nah," said Quill.
Then...
"It's just like the West End at rush hour," she said aloud, to reassure herself. "And you remember the West. End at rush hour. Oh, yes, you do. In your short - and unlamented career as a taxi driver...."
She gunned the motor. The OIds leaped forward. Thank God, she thought, I never got a lighter car. Thank God...
She signaled left and instead swerved into the center lane.
The truck behind her faltered, moved left, and spun briefly out of control. She had time. A little time.