“Did you have any evening appointments during the last week while you were still here in Los Santos, Dr. Tolland?” asked Leo.
“No. Well, I went to the support group on — no, actually I — “
“What support group would that be, ma’am?”
“Why don’t you ask Elena?” suggested Sarah tartly. Then when he stared at Sarah, waiting, she added, “Oh, for heaven sake, it’s a divorced woman’s support group. She was the one who got me into it — after the infamous snail episode.”
“Maybe we’d better go back to that. Do you have any explanation of how Mr. McGlenlevie’s snail happened to explode?” The corners of Leo’s mouth twitched.
“I’m glad you find it amusing, Detective,” said Sarah. “Since that seems to be a factor in your suspicion that I may have murdered my ex-husband, I don’t think I’ll talk about it.”
“That’s certainly your privilege, ma’am.”
“You mentioned the support group,” Elena interrupted. “But you didn’t attend that last Thursday.”
“Well, for heaven sake, Elena, I left you a message. My plane took off at five-thirty the next morning. I had to pack.”
And murder your husband, Elena thought, testing out the idea when Sarah was actually in front of her. It didn’t seem at all convincing.
“And Gus was alive when I left. There’s a call from him on my machine, from Sunday evening I think it was. You can listen to it if you don’t believe me.”
Leo nodded and patted his pocket where the tape resided.
“Is there a date on the tape?” asked Elena. “I mean given by the machine or Gus?”
Sarah frowned. “The machine gives only the day of the week and time, but you can extrapolate the date from the other messages. I was gone — ah — three Sundays, and the messages are scattered over that time.”
Elena thought the telephone message from Gus could be a wonderful alibi. As an electrical engineer Sarah would know how to fiddle with the tape or the machine, and they might never be able to prove the tampering, any more than they could fix an approximate time of death beyond the evidence the murderer meant them to have. The unslaked lime had wiped out all possibility of using the body to provide that information. Or if Sarah had been at home, not picking up the phone, the message might have taken her to Gus’s apartment, where she killed him. The messenger with the two gift-wrapped boxes had been seen Sunday night. Could Sarah have dissolved him in the time she had between Sunday and her paper on Wednesday?
The biggest problem was that Elena couldn’t believe Sarah had done any of it. She was smart enough, certainly, and knowledgeable enough, just not vicious enough — at least Elena didn’t think so. Uneasily she remembered Bonnard’s remark about women “losing it.” But he hadn’t been talking about Sarah. Necessarily. Maybe I should be reassigned, Elena thought. I’m not a disinterested party.
“You were saying you flew to Chicago on May eighth,” Leo was saying. “What flight would that have been?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarah, “but I’ve got the plane tickets.” She fished through her purse and slapped them down in front of him. Leo started to pocket them. “Just take down the information,” said Sarah. “After all, I might need them as part of my defense.” Her voice was low and angry.
Elena, watching Sarah’s hostility grow, felt worse and worse about the situation. Sarah’s attitude wouldn’t make a good impression on Lieutenant Beltran, who liked pleasant women in subordinate positions, not hostile, self-possessed women in positions of authority, women who made better money than he and wore better clothes. Leo was copying down the ticket information. “The convention didn’t begin until May tenth,” Elena pointed out. “And you didn’t give your paper until May thirteenth.” She could see that Sarah was taken aback by the detailed information they had assembled. “How is it you happened to go two days early?”
“Because I’d been invited to give a seminar at the University of Illinois, Chicago. You can check that with Brett Harlingen of the E.E. Department. I was their guest for the two days in question.” Then she stopped talking for a moment, frowning. “And won’t that look wonderful,” she burst out, “if the police call a noted colleague to verify my whereabouts?” The calm, delicate lines of her mouth tightened.
“And then?” Elena prompted.
“And then I registered on Sunday, attended meetings, seminars, gave a talk myself on Wednesday — my God, have you been questioning conference officials about my whereabouts? What must they think?” She took a deep breath, striving for control. “I had meals with colleagues, cocktails, did a little shopping, all the usual things one does at a — “
“Did you at any time leave Chicago during this period, ma’am?” asked Leo.
“No, I did not.”
Elena was thinking that Sarah might have been able to hobnob at the University of Illinois Friday and Saturday and fly home Sunday to kill Gus. She might even have pre-registered so she didn’t have to be there Sunday at all, and she didn’t have to show up until her paper on Wednesday. There was plenty of time to dissolve him.
“Do you think you could locate people to verify your presence on the days you’ve mentioned?” Leo asked.
“Yes, I suppose I could,” said Sarah. “But I’ll be damned if I’ll do it,” she added. “Unless you’re arresting me. Are you?”
She ought to be anxious to clear herself, Elena thought. Cooperative, not surly. Maybe the whole alibi was fictitious.
“We’re not arresting you, ma’am,” said Leo. “This is just a routine interrogation. So when did you leave Chicago?”
“It’s on the ticket. You’ve already written it down.”
He checked the date. “And then you went to Boston?”
“To visit my brother, Dr. Mansard Tolland; I’ve already told Elena — before I realized I was a suspect in a murder. When I thought I was chatting with a friend.”
Leo frowned. Elena had to keep herself from glancing at the window, behind which Lieutenant Beltran was sitting, listening, hearing the suspect call an investigating detective her friend. Well, the friendship was undoubtedly a thing of the past, Elena thought sadly. Sarah would never speak to her again — either because she’d end up behind bars or because she’d remain free — and furious.
“And I was with him — my brother — the whole time — well, when he wasn’t attending to his practice, but then I was with his fiancée, as well as with colleagues at Boston University and Harvard. Oh, and I had lunch with some people at M.I.T.”
“We could get verification from all these people?”
“Certainly — if I gave you their names — which at this point,” she said, sarcastically echoing his words, “I don’t intend to do. Why bother them when you’re just conducting a routine interrogation?”
“There’s been a change made in your tickets, ma’am.”
“Certainly. I came home early. Does that seem like the action of a murderer?”
Good point, thought Elena.
“Could you explain why you did that?” Leo asked. “Like maybe you received a call from Los Santos. Phone records are available.”
“Well, check them,” snapped Sarah.
“Maybe you could just answer the question,” prodded Elena gently.
“No, I didn’t receive any phone calls. I came home because my brother had to fly to Brazil to do an operation on some soccer player — Evono — Evana — “
“Valenzuela?” asked Leo.
“Right.”
Leo was an avid soccer fan and watched games on Mexican TV. “I hope your brother’s good,” he said fervently.
“He is,” said Sarah.
“So you came back to Los Santos?” Elena pressed.
“Yes. I was supposed to return on Sunday, next Sunday. I came back today because there wasn’t any particular reason to stay on in Boston. My brother’s fiancée wanted to go to Brazil with him, and I didn’t want her to stay in Boston on my account.”
“Wouldn’t you h
ave to pay a penalty to change your tickets?”
“I flew first-class. First-class tickets can be changed or refunded.”
“Must be nice,” said Leo, glancing at the expensive wrinkle-free cream-silk blouse and tailored beige slacks she’d evidently put on when Elena asked to come over.
Sarah said nothing.
“Have you any idea why your ex-husband called you?”
Sarah shrugged. “He said he had a favor to ask and he’d call me back.”
“Has he asked you many favors since the divorce?”
“Several,” said Sarah coldly. “Although I can’t imagine why. I certainly didn’t encourage him.”
“So your post-divorce relationship was not friendly?”
“It wasn’t unfriendly. There was no relationship.”
“Yet in March you invited him and Ms. — ah — Kowolski, his fiancée, over to dinner.”
“With every intention of never seeing him again,” said Sarah sharply.
“Because you planned to kill him in what looked like a bizarre accident.”
“I did not plan to kill him, and I don’t intend to say any more about the snail incident, so don’t ask me. Aren’t you violating my rights by — “
“You’re here voluntarily, Dr. Tolland,” Leo reminded her.
Because it looked as if Sarah was about to insist on leaving, Elena asked quickly, “Did you see or talk to Mr. McGlenlevie after the snail incident, Dr. Tolland?”
“Except for that message on my answering machine, I haven’t heard from him, which, as you know, is just fine with me.”
As you know — Elena understood the emphasis. Sarah wasn’t letting her deny the friendship. And she did know that Sarah preferred not to hear from Gus, or at least she knew what Sarah had told her — at those dinners and meetings the last couple of months.
What would Sarah’s attitude have been during that time if she had, in fact, tried to kill Gus and planned to try again? She would have thought Elena an idiot to be taken in by a would-be murderer, to be providing group therapy for a woman who was using it as cover for a second murder attempt. Was Sarah that manipulative? Elena wondered uneasily. Was she even now counting on Elena to sidetrack the investigation? “So you didn’t see Mr. McGlenlevie after the snail incident?” Elena asked.
“Oh, of course, I saw him,” Sarah replied. “To say hello to on campus. I didn’t have a conversation with him — or kill him — or go to his office or his apartment or his fiancée’s apartment — or wherever he was when he was killed. You still haven’t said.”
“In his apartment,” said Elena, thinking of Sarah’s fingerprints, which had been found on a framed photograph in Gus’s apartment. Sarah had lied.
Leo was frowning at her, but what did he expect? Elena wondered irritably. All Sarah had to do was ask someone or look up back issues of the newspapers, which had published about as much information as the police had obtained.
“In his apartment?” Sarah exclaimed, looking pale. “That’s right upstairs!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Leo. “Now we’d like to ask you for some information about your husband.”
“Ex-husband,” she corrected.
Leo nodded. “What can you tell us about his health?”
“His health?”
“Did he have a doctor?”
“Not during the time we were married. Gus was disgustingly healthy.” She stopped, looking to Elena very tired. “I guess that’s not a sensible way for the suspect to talk about the victim.”
“He didn’t have a bone disease?”
Sarah looked puzzled. “I don’t think so.”
“What about his teeth? Did he have a dentist?”
“Not unless he acquired one since the divorce. I never knew him to have any trouble with his teeth. In fact, I remember him bragging that he’d never had a cavity.”
Elena and Leo exchanged glances, realizing that this was the second time Sarah had told an identifiable lie. “No cavities,” said Elena, writing that down. The remains in the bathtub had fillings. That’s why Elena had called all those dentists, assuming the work would be on record somewhere.
“Well, I suppose he might have acquired some since the divorce. I wouldn’t know.”
Not that many, Elena thought. Why would Sarah lie about his teeth? Unless she wanted to further confuse the issue by raising doubts about who had died in that bathtub. If it wasn’t Gus, Sarah’s motive disappeared. But it had to be Gus. If not him, who else? There would have been a missing person report by now, and Elena had someone checking those both locally and nationally — just to be on the safe side. She didn’t doubt that the bones were those of Gus McGlenlevie. She did doubt that Sarah had killed him. Still, the killer had been so devious. A defense attorney would have a ball with the case once they’d made an arrest. And Sarah — well, Sarah was smart enough to have planned the whole thing.
“So as far as you know, there’s nothing wrong with his teeth or bones?” Leo prodded.
Sarah frowned. “Is this some calcium-related thing?” she asked.
“Now, Dr. Tolland,” said Leo, ignoring her question, “about the unslaked lime you ordered.”
“The what?”
“Unslaked lime. It was delivered to the storeroom of your department, addressed to you, and picked up — I’ve forgotten the dates.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know what unslaked lime is, but it’s certainly not something we use in electrical engineering.”
“Computer records show it was shipped to your department. Your man Aberdeen logged it in.”
“Well — “ Sarah ran trembling fingers through her short blond graying hair. “Who signed it out?”
“It wasn’t signed for. Someone who had a key just took it out of the storeroom. Who has keys, Dr. Tolland?”
Sarah leaned her head against her hand. “Aberdeen does. And I do,” she admitted. “Karl Bonnard does. He’s acting chairman when I’m out of town.”
Elena shifted uncomfortably on her utilitarian brown seat, thinking hard. She couldn’t scrape up any solid reason to connect Karl Bonnard to the case. What would his motive have been? Granted he was probably next in line for Sarah’s job, but killing your chair’s ex-husband and framing her seemed an extreme measure to advance yourself professionally, not a “logical” solution to a problem, which Karl maintained was an engineer’s way of handling things.
“Actually, there may be other keys floating around. All of us lend them,” said Sarah. “They could have been copied. What is unslaked lime, anyway, and what does it have to do with Gus?”
“One last question, ma’am. You must realize that we wanted to get hold of you as soon as his — ah — body was discovered, but your secretary had no telephone number for you after you left Chicago.”
“So she told me, but you can be quite sure I gave her that information. I even watched her type it into the computer, and she’s not one to erase data through carelessness. She’s a very efficient woman.”
“She told us,” said Leo, a smile almost breaking through. Elena assumed that he was remembering a conversation with the formidable Virginia. “So if she didn’t erase it, maybe someone else did.” He stared at Sarah hard.
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