The Wolfe Widow (A Book Collector Mystery) (11 page)

“T
HE POLICE ARE
at the door.”

These are probably the worst words that any Kelly could ever hear. The Binghams share that view, although I am the only Bingham that I know.

“What did you say?” I opened my eyes after my morning nap.

“Police. At the door,” Uncle Mick said with a spasm in his jaw.

“Why?”

What had my uncles been up to? It was always better not to know. But really, since the events earlier this year (and we were still finding bullet holes) there was nothing, and I mean nothing, that remained in our home to implicate them in anything.

Uncle Mick was not too happy. And there was the fact from time to time that a great deal of material passed in and out of the back door for “projects.” It would be less than good if any such material was on the premises when the cops showed up, not that I would know anything about it anyway. Still, I thought I might wake up and panic.

“They’re here to see you,” he said. “Shall I tell them you’re unconscious?”

“But I’m not unconscious.”

“They don’t know that.”

“What do they want?”

“To talk to you about your hit-and-run.”

“I don’t really remember anything about it, but I’ll talk to them. Maybe they’ll be able to tell me something. Don’t you think it’s a good thing if they get on it and find out what happened to me and why?”

I could tell that he disapproved of this police business, despite the fact it made complete sense to use their expertise.

“It’s okay, Uncle Mick. I am sick of being in bed and I’m going to get up again and get going. Is it Tyler Dekker?” I knew that Tyler was probably not back from training, but I could always hope.

“Never saw this guy before. And I don’t think you should get up, my girl. You’re awful pale and a bit shaky.”

“Oh. Well, give me a few minutes.” I didn’t want to meet him looking like I’d been fished out of the garbage, although I guess I had been.

*   *   *

AS COPS WENT,
my interviewer seemed to be a one-off. True, he was middle-aged and kind of handsome in a slightly weary way. He was also pale and light on hair. His was almost translucent and buzzed close to his scalp. I figured he had it cropped short so people might not notice that there wasn’t much of it. It was a good haircut, though. I also would have guessed he was about six days from retirement. He hadn’t figured on having to waste any of those days on the hopeless job of interviewing me about a hit-and-run there was little chance of solving.

Although he didn’t seem too involved in the entire activity, he did manage to keep a wary eye on Uncle Mick all the time he was interviewing me. Uncle Mick returned the favor. He kept his arms crossed in front of his chest. Every ginger chest hair seemed dangerously alert somehow. Walter and Cobain were quite unimpressed with the detective as he didn’t appear to have any treats.

His name, if you can believe it, was Detective Jack Jones. He was a snappy dresser from the black cashmere blend sport jacket to the charcoal shirt and tie and the knife-edge crease in his pants that drew attention to his polished cordovan tassel loafers. No wedding ring or any pale indentation to show he’d recently had one. My guess was no wife and no kids in college equaled money for decent clothes. He sat down in the chair Uncle Mick had reluctantly provided, opened a small white notebook and clicked his pen.

He was not the stereotypical cop, but then again who is? In my experience, there’s no one type and you can’t go by experiences. I have yet to meet a police officer who’s in the least bit like Rex Stout’s Inspector Cramer or Sergeant Purley Stebbins. Nero Wolfe routinely made fools of the two of them. He might have had a harder time with some of the officers I’d met in real life. By way of background, as you know, my family attracts a lot of attention from the forces of law and order and so I have firsthand observations. For another thing there was the slightly bashful and occasionally blushing Officer Tyler Dekker, a sweetie if ever there was one. And not a fool.

But even if Detective Jones wasn’t a buffoon like Cramer could be, that didn’t mean I couldn’t finesse him for info. Certainly Archie Goodwin always managed that with Cramer and Stebbins. And I suppose I should admit that Wolfe did too.

I said, “Do you get a lot of fatal or near-fatal hit-and-run incidents here in Harrison Falls, Detective Jones?”

He stifled a yawn and shook his head. If I’d had any doubts that he was going through the motions, the yawn would have put an end to them.

I was pretty sure he wanted to say that he got to ask the questions. Cops love saying it and I’ve been on the receiving end of that comment more than once. But I was pretty pathetic with my bandaged head and pale face. The décor in my room would have added to the pathos. Anyway, the man was tired and looking forward to sleeping in for the rest of his life, starting soon.

“So that’s a no?” I asked.

“No,” he said, his eyes fixing on Care Bear.

“It’s not a no?”

“Yes, it’s a no,” he growled.

“I wondered. I’ve heard of another one and—”

He glanced at me and said, “Another one of what?”

“Another hit-and-run.”

“Here?”

“Yes. Well, not in Harrison Falls, but over in Grandville.”

He shook his head. “First I’ve heard about it.”

“Well, it was a while ago.”

“How long?”

“Nearly forty years.”

He laughed, and not in a nice way. “Before my time.”

I bet it was not
, I thought, but of course, I didn’t want to alienate him.

“Before my time too,” I said. “But I wondered if maybe it might not be connected.” I tried to bat my eyelashes, but it made me feel nauseated.

He really shouldn’t have scrunched up his face that way. It was not at all becoming and just had to be hard on the skin. I kept my beauty advice to myself. After all, I wasn’t doing too well in that department lately.

“Not every crime over a forty-year time frame is connected, miss. Maybe you’ve been watching too much television.”

“I’d rather read mysteries than watch TV. I’m more Nero Wolfe than
CSI
.”

He snorted. “Oh well, that will give you all the right answers.”

“My taste in entertainment aside, I feel that there is something worth checking into.”

He shrugged, yawned again. “There won’t be.”

“Well,” I said, “but some of the same people are involved.”

“Here’s an idea,” he said. “How about I ask you some questions about your hit-and-run here in this town two days ago and we deal with that? Let someone else deal with the forty-year-old crime.”

“Fine. But then, can I—”

“Back in the hospital you claimed to have no knowledge of who hit you. Have you changed your mind about that?”

This gave me something new to think about. For instance, I had no recollection of talking to the police at the hospital. I mentioned that. He didn’t respond.

“As I said, I don’t remember talking to you or any other officers at the hospital, although I remember being there. I recall nothing about being hit. Of course, people who’ve been whacked from behind by a truck often don’t notice all that much.”

“How do you know it was from behind?”

My turn to blink. “Oh. Well, if the truck had come from the front, I’m sure I would have seen it coming. That’s the kind of thing you notice, a truck hurtling toward you. As it was, the other reason I know it was a truck is that other people witnessed it. And I can’t imagine they’d make that up. So I accept it, unless of course, it’s not that I didn’t see it, but I don’t remember it.”

“So who do you think hit you?”

“I can’t be sure. Like I said before.”

“Any enemies?”

I hesitated.

He leaned forward. “It’s a good idea to share that kind of thing with the police after someone’s tried to kill you.”

“Well, who doesn’t have a few enemies, what with the Internet? . . . Anyway, the one person I could describe as an enemy has an alibi.”

“No offense, but we’re usually the judge of all that alibi stuff.”

“I realize that. But people I trust say that this person was at home when I was hit.”

“Who was it?”

“Let me start from the beginning.” I filled him in on the arrival of Muriel at Van Alst House.

“Van Alst?” he said. “Like Vera Van Alst.”

“None other.”

“Huh. Not too popular around these parts.”

I couldn’t help thinking this guy was a bit of a jerk.

Uncle Mick had an expression on his face, like maybe he’d swallowed a toad or something. I attributed this to the fact that he was in agreement with a police officer. That was obviously too weird for him.

“So,” I said. “I worked for Vera. I liked the job; I was good at it and it paid well. Until we had a visit the other day from this Muriel Delgado. The next morning I was out of a job and then Muriel moved in.”

“She took your job?”

“No, she didn’t. She doesn’t appear to be doing anything except sponging off Vera. She made sure that I was out of the way. There must be some reason for that. My best guess is that I would oppose whatever it is she wants to do to Vera.”

“Doesn’t sound like that has much to do with our investigation,” he said. “Unless she was driving the truck that hit you.”

“She wasn’t. In fact, she’s the person with the alibi.”

“So why are you wasting my time with this little fairy tale?”

“Because there was another hit-and-run involving the same family some years back.”

“But—”

“Muriel’s stepfather was killed by a hit-and-run driver outside the Grandville hospital back in the seventies. The case was never solved. I was hit by a hit-and-run driver on the street she used to live on while I was there visiting her former neighbors and asking questions about the Delgados.”

“And?”

“
And
I think that’s too much of a coincidence to ignore.”

That didn’t impress Detective Jones. “Maybe. Why would she want to harm you?”

“Like I said, I was asking people in her old neighborhood about her. And bam, I’m almost a hood ornament.”

He smirked.

I said, “I admit it’s a bit of a stretch. But I think she wants to damage Vera, maybe even take over her life and her home.”

“Let me remind you: Real life has to make sense.”

“It does make sense to me.”

“Can you prove that Muriel . . .”

“Delgado.”

“. . . Delgado is involved?”

“No. I’m not the person who finds the proof. I’m just the person who was hit by the truck. And if I hadn’t landed on those bags full of leaves, I would probably be dead or in a vegetative state. You asked me if I had any enemies. I believe that Muriel Delgado is my enemy and she has some reason to want me out of the way.”

“What reason exactly?”

“I thought I made that clear. Because Muriel’s trying to take over my boss’s life and I was digging around in her past.”

“Pretty unlikely motive. Anything else?”

“Yes. Did you talk to the Snows? And Audra Bennacke?”

“We talked to all the witnesses. They weren’t able to identify a driver, but they said the vehicle seemed to head right for you.”

“And did they say that vehicle was a green truck?”

He hesitated. Finally, he said, “A truck, but not green. The witness saw a red truck, and she also said it was driven by a male. There may have been a passenger and the truck may have had some kind of commercial decal on the side.”

“Oh.”

“You seem disappointed.”

I was. I’d been hoping for the same green truck that had delivered Muriel’s belongings. That would have established a link. I was disappointed in myself that I hadn’t grilled the Snows a bit about who had hit me. Instead I’d focused on the Muriel and Carmen questions.

“I am, I guess. A green truck delivered Muriel and her belongings to Van Alst House when she moved in. I thought it might be the same one.”

He scratched his nose. “’Course, there’s more than one green truck in this world. Half of Williams County drives trucks and there’s plenty of green ones.”

“I guess you’re following up.”

“We’re following up on
red
trucks. So do you have anything else to add?”

“Aside from the connection to Muriel Delgado and the other hit-and-run, no.”

He snapped his notebook closed. “We may need to talk to you again.”

“I won’t leave town.” As I was sitting there with my head still bandaged and my bruises threatening to bloom, I grinned facetiously.

“We don’t actually say that,” he muttered.

“By the way,” I said, “I have a good friend on the force.”

“Who’s that?” he said, taken aback.

“Officer Tyler Dekker. He’s only been here for less than a year.”

“I know Dekker. Good cop. On his way places.”

“I guess that’s what all his away training is about.”

Jack Jones raised an eyebrow. “Training? I don’t think there’s any training going on this week.”

My battered face must have fallen. He said, “But I’m probably wrong. I’m tied up with my re—other things lately.”

That would explain it. Jack Jones was putting in his last bit of time, probably not checking into what the young folks were doing. I hoped that was it, because if Tyler wasn’t training, why the heck wasn’t he around and why would he have lied to me?