No Sign of Murder

by Alan Russell

  “Complications?”

  She was past the blushing stage, and decided to get blunt. “Terrence found out I was seeing another man.”

  “When was that?”

  “At least fifteen years ago.”

  “And what happened?”

  “He made all sorts of accusations. Claimed he hadn’t fathered Anita. But that was ridiculous. And claimed the physical shortcomings of our marriage were my fault. And that was even more ridiculous.”

  I believed her, didn’t even have to stretch my imagination. I wondered how many other men she had entertained over the years, but that wasn’t an important concern. I scratched a few words down on paper, and took a moment to look at her eyes. They were dry. “You still haven’t told me why you stayed together.”

  “Maybe we don’t know ourselves.”

  “What kind of a father was he to Anita?”

  “Terrence didn’t seem very interested in being a father. Sometimes he’d yell at her, think that volume could overcome Anita’s deafness.”

  “And what kind of mother were you?”

  “I probably should have spent more time with Anita, but she always had tutors, and a housekeeper who looked after her, and after age twelve she was away at school.”

  “How did that come about? Her going away to school?”

  “It was at Anita’s urging, actually. She was rather adamant about leaving.”

  “And you didn’t think that was—suspicious?”

  “Suspicious? I don’t understand.”

  I shrugged, and let it pass for a moment. “I understand you’re very active socially.”

  “Yes.”

  “In many ways you trusted Anita’s upbringing to others?”

  She nodded.

  “What would you say if I told you I suspect your husband molested Anita?”

  I watched the emotions surface to her face. Her mouth was open, and little sounds of retort kept coming out. It took her several seconds to make a sentence.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  I explained my reasons, told and showed her a few things I had withheld before. I took pieces of her world out, bit by bit, and turned them around, molding them into portraits that weren’t very pretty. When I finished, her denials were no longer loud or emphatic. They were more like whimpers.

  “I’ve told you these things,” I said, “so that I could ask you one question: could your husband have murdered Anita? Or could he have hired someone to murder her?”

  She denied that possibility, and I think she believed what she said, but there were doubts. She was beginning to wonder if she knew her husband at all.

  “I want you to look through his belongings,” I said, “while I search her room. Look for anything out of the ordinary. See if he wrote her personal checks. See if he might have left notes, anything.”

  She nodded, but I couldn’t be sure she was listening. Then she spoke, but it was more to herself than me. “They say the wife is always the last to know,” she said, “but not the mother. The mother should know.”

  “Mrs. Walters,” I said, “please take me to Anita’s room.”

  She led me there, then went away on her own search. I had given her a task, not really expecting she’d find anything, but as something for her fingers to do while her mind sorted out the shock. I wondered what I’d be thinking if someone showed me naked pictures of a grown daughter, and then said she was dead; exposed a spouse as a possible child molester, and then asked me if he was a murderer. There was a reason for my not being invited to Piedmont very often.

  Anita’s room awaited her return. Raggedy Ann and Andy smiled from atop pink pillows. She didn’t keep any diary, but there was some haiku, and papers, and pictures. I leafed through a life. It was uneven reading, but that was Anita.

  If I had gone by the book, I would have looked through Anita’s belongings in the beginning of my investigation, but other leads had detoured me from the obvious. I had learned a lot of interesting and maybe useless things on my roundabout way, and now wondered where the hell I was going.

  Tammy Walters finished her search the same time I did. She hadn’t found anything either, even if her face did have a not very pleasant look of discovery. I had warned her when we first met about the dangers of cleaning. Sometimes you polish too much and you rub away the veneer. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t said anything, had let her continue in her loveless but decorated marriage. Tammy had hired me to find her daughter, and I was telling her that the Anita she thought she knew had been missing from her for quite some time, maybe even a lifetime.

  “When does your husband usually get home?” I asked.

  “He should arrive any minute,” she said.

  “I’d like to talk to him in private.”

  “I’ll take you to his den.”

  I didn’t need to leave a breadcrumb trail, but a house with eight rooms spread out over three floors is annoyingly large. It would have been hard not to have privacy in that house. The thought, under the circumstances, was disquieting. I remembered the kind of fact that game shows don’t announce: over ninety-five percent of all child molestations occur in the home. For some reason I remember facts like that, even though I would have preferred the blessing of selective amnesia.

  Terrence Walters’s den was much like his office—it was neat and impersonal. The library consisted mostly of legal texts and tomes. I scanned the titles. No Lolita. And the only subject that hinted of ostentation was an ornately done ship in a bottle. The ship took up one bookshelf. Hanging on the walls were a few framed diplomas, and good citizenship kind of proclamations. Walters’s desk was organized, correspondence arranged in several boxes. The drawers were locked, but I picked the locks easily. I rifled his files and found only legal papers, and uninteresting ones at that.

  A drafting table stood in the other corner of the den. Terrence Walters was in the process of designing a new garden deck. His lines were very precise, and his writing mechanically straight and spotlessly neat. The planned deck was small and cautious. It would probably go unnoticed, which was undoubtedly how he wanted it

  I wondered at his caution. Was Terrence Walters’s den a reflection of his self? I walked to the entry of the room and started my appraisal over again. I checked the lock. It wasn’t standard, but had a dead bolt. The door was also a special order, not the pressed or thin wood of most doors, but thick. Voices would be muffled, and ears that tried to pry stymied. I examined his desk. Its less-than-secure locks bothered me. The locks shouldn’t have satisfied Walters’s cautious nature unless he didn’t care about the papers—or unless he had another safe place. I searched for his hidden assurance, and in two minutes I found it, a floor safe. It was fireproof, probably dynamite-proof, and certainly private investigator-proof.

  I made another guess, one based on experience. We are an impatient race, especially when it comes to satisfying our vices. The bulk of all valuables, be it drugs or jewelry, are usually secured, but not everything. There is not that much difference between a hoarder and an addict. Be it miser or user, they both have a physical and psychological need for immediate access to their desire. They’ll protect the bulk of their investment, but not all. They don’t want to wait for tumblers to be clicked, or keys inserted. And Terrence Walters, I thought, was probably a quiet addict. I guessed his vice—or at least one of his vices—was kiddy porn. And while most of the time he would be able to wait to get into his safe, could hold off looking at his hidden booty, there would be moments when he’d have to satisfy his need quickly. I took another look around the room to see what didn’t fit.

  The room could have passed the marine white-glove test. A maid obviously cleaned and dusted frequently. For a moment I thought about finding the maid and asking if there were any special cleaning requests attached to the room, but I didn’t want to run into Terrence Walters on the way. Time was short. I looked for an obvious answer.

  And then it came to me. The ship in the bottle. It was the only nautical m
emorabilia in the room. Putting the fear of God in a maid about harming the ship would have made the shelf it rested on a forbidden area. I removed the bottle and felt around the bookshelf. It seemed solid enough, but my fingers touched on two catches. I loosened the catches, and then removed the shelf backing. A cache had been dug into the wall.

  There were three magazines, and a collection of photographs and drawings. One glance was enough. I gathered his collection, and found a manila envelope to house it. I could see him unwinding at the end of the day, a glass of port in one hand, and his kiddy porn in the other. And maybe his memories, his memories of Anita.

  I had time enough for some deep breaths, and mentally recited a mantra of “control.” Calculated poise is a lawyer’s best friend, and I didn’t want Terrence Walters to beat me by being more composed. Miss Tuntland always warned me on the phone about my rambunctiousness. “Take a poise pill,” she often said. When Terrence Walters walked in the den, I was just another shark in a Brooks Brothers suit. But there was some blood in the water.

  He tried to look unflappable, but appeared annoyed I was in his domain. “I understand you wanted to see me, Mr. Winter.”

  He took a seat at his desk, and was able to look down at my position on his couch. All he needed was the black robes.

  “Yes,” I said. “I called your office yesterday.”

  “I received your—message. Work demands precluded my calling back.”

  He was almighty sure of himself. I guessed his wife had said nothing to him yet, or maybe he didn’t think I could touch him. I built my case slowly, told him about Anita’s quirks. I mentioned her unusual behavior with Darren Fielder, and Will Harrady, and Kevin Bateson. These were indicative, I said, of behavior that resulted from child abuse.

  “That’s an interesting theory, Mr. Winter,” he said, “but one I’m afraid can’t be substantiated. And how would we find a culprit? Your list of suspects would be endless—workers in the house, friends, strangers, teachers . . . ”

  “Even fathers?” I asked.

  He stared at me, but showed no emotion. “In an unabridged list,” he said, “even that, I suppose, would be possible.”

  “Will Harrady said Anita hated you.”

  “That’s a rather extreme case of the pot calling the kettle black. Isn’t he the teacher who was involved with Anita?”

  I was surprised he had heard about that. In court he might have won his case on that question. He would have discredited the witness and the lawyer. He couldn’t keep the smugness from his face. I tried to keep my voice level.

  “I’ve kept asking myself why Anita acted like she did,” I said, “and the only thing I can come up with is that you sexually abused her.”

  “That is a very serious accusation,” he said, “one you will likely be held accountable for.”

  “On December thirty-first,” I said, “Anita suffered a traumatic experience. She incurred a wound that required many stitches. She was in a state of shock. When she was approached by a man, she thought he was you. And she kept signing, ‘Stop it.’ And, ‘Go away.’ And, ‘No more.’ ”

  “So what? You said she was in a state of shock. Obviously, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

  “Last December Kevin Bateson traumatized your daughter. He slapped her around and then took some photos. Would you like to see them?”

  I threw the pictures on his desk, and he looked at them, one by one. His daughter had grown up. She had full breasts, and a pubic patch that told her years. He didn’t flinch at the photos, merely looked at them, and then at me.

  “I’ve put those photos in the order in which they taken,” I said, “and the interesting thing is that they tell a story. You’ll notice her hands in the beginning. I don’t think she knew what she was doing, not consciously, but do you know what she’s saying?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” I said. “You never bothered to learn sign language. What she told the camera is, ‘No, Father, no. No more.’ I’m willing to bet you’ve seen those signs before. And probably didn’t acknowledge them then either.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said, but his shirt, stain free after a long day at work, was marked now under his armpits.

  I sat and regarded him calmly. And then I threw the manila envelope. It hit his shoulder and face, and one of his magazines spilled out on the desk.

  “I found that pile of shit behind your bookshelf,” I said. Then I paused, took a moment to get the anger out of my face, and replaced it with my best wolf smile. I patted the bag next to me. “And these I took out of your floor safe.”

  His face blanched. He shot a look over to the floor, then looked back at me.

  “Check it,” I said, “check your bookcase too. You won’t find anything.”

  He started to rise, then fell back in his chair.

  It was difficult to hear his whisper. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like you to stop lying, and tell me the truth.”

  His breath was drawn, but had started to think again. “Give me what’s in your sack.”

  “Only after I hear what you have to say.”

  “Then tell me what’s in it.”

  “Why should I?”

  The color started coming back to his face, and his breath became more regular. He had paid a lot of money for his safe. He was ready to call my bluff. I had thought it might come to this, had thought about what I would say if it did.

  “Why should I give it to you,” I said, “when I could hand it over to the DA? Wouldn’t he be the one interested in your photographs? And what about your skill with the camera? Everyone thought Kevin Bateson was the first to photograph your daughter. Everyone was wrong, weren’t they?”

  My guesses worked. His pallor returned with my words. “What do you want to know?”

  “How about an easy one for openers: Did you kill Anita?”

  “No.”

  “No? You took advantage of her, abused her, but stopped short of murder. That’s right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you don’t know anything about her disappearance?”

  “No.”

  “She was angry. Did she ever threaten to expose you?”

  “We’ve avoided each other for years.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “She hated me with her eyes. I was afraid of her, but she never threatened me openly.”

  “Have you abused any other children?”

  “No.”

  I stared at him, and he must not have liked my look. “I wasn’t Anita’s father,” he said, “Tammy—she had another lover.”

  “I wondered what you kept telling yourself every time you forced yourself on her,” I said. “So that was your line. She’s not really my flesh and blood. When did you start abusing her?”

  “When she was eight.”

  “She looked younger in your photos. She looked like she couldn’t have been more than four or five.”

  “She looked young for her age. I swear she was six.”

  “And this continued?”

  “Until she was twelve.”

  “And I suppose she enticed you? Really wanted to do it? At least you never heard her say she didn’t want to, right?”

  He started crying, but his tears enraged me. Crocodile or real, I didn’t care. And what I hated most was that he hadn’t murdered her. Inside I knew that. And if I couldn’t make him pay for that crime, and she was dead, there wasn’t a hell of a lot more I could do.

  I got up, and I didn’t realize it, but the sack was in my hand. He didn’t miss a beat in his crying, but between sniffles he did point to the bag. He thought his life was walking out of the room, and his repentance went at least that far. “You said you’d give that to me.”

  He didn’t have to ask a second time. When I left the room, he was groaning on the ground. That’s what happens when you really throw the book at someone. I had put one of his law books in the bag, and I doubt it e
ver served a better purpose. The tome caught him in his rib cage, threw him from his sat, and when I left, he didn’t even have the breath to threaten legal action against me.

  I stopped to see Tammy Walters before I left. She was sitting in a chair, and staring into space.

  “You’ll find him in his den,” I said. “He’s hurting, especially on his left side. He’s probably going to need your help to get up. I wouldn’t let him up until he tells you something. He has a floor safe. It’s in the northwest corner of the room. If you fiddle a bit with the carpet you can see it. Get the combination from him. I suggest a thick instrument in the ribs, one or two of which I think you’ll find are broken. I don’t think he’ll need much persuasion to talk. What you’ll find in his safe will sicken you. I encourage you to hand everything over to the authorities.”

  She looked at me, and she understood. She might have understood a little too well. “Don’t kill him,” I said. “He’s not worth it. I want your promise you won’t.”

  She looked at me for a long time, fought with the guilt of her lapsed motherhood, and finally said, “I won’t kill him.”

  Her voice, her pretty voice, was suddenly ugly. I wondered if the change was permanent. I walked to the door, then stopped and turned to Tammy. She was rummaging in the hall closet. I watched her test several umbrellas, but they weren’t to her liking. She reached further into the closet and pulled out a cane. From a distance it looked thick, and of substantial wood. Probably oak. Good for walking on treacherous terrain. She took it with her and climbed up the stairs, ready to claim another rib.

  I left, not because I didn’t want to see him tortured, but because I would have enjoyed it.

  17

  “NORMAN,” I SAID, “LET’S go for a walk.”

  Norman looked up from his dictating. He was surprised by both my appearance at his office, and my suggestion. His receptionist had waved me by, sure no doubt that he expected me, but he hadn’t. He turned off his voice recorder.

  A flip remark would have been in order, but Norman refrained. My poker face evidently needed some practice.