by Abigail Keam
“Hogwash,” refuted the man, reaching down and petting Baby. “He’s doing what comes naturally to an English Mastiff.”
At this point, Georgie squirmed so hard I almost dropped her.
“Here, here. Hold her like this. She’ll feel more secure in your arms.”
“The problem is I don’t want to hold her. She’s heavy for a little dog.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m in the middle of an examination of this site, and you two with your dogs can’t be here. It’s as simple as that.”
Eunice spoke up. “We are friends of Toby and Sandy Sloan. In fact, this is Sandy’s dog.” She pointed to the little mutt.
“Really?” said the man, looking at us with new interest.
Eunice continued, “Sandy left her dog with us on the day the house burned, but she hasn’t been back for her. Have you heard from Sandy or Toby Sloan?”
“What are both your names?”
“You first, buddy. How do we know you’re really an investigator? You could be a looter,” I accused.
Nonplussed, the man replied, “My name is Hunter Wickliffe, and I’m investigating this fire.”
“I’m Josiah Reynolds, and this is my business partner, Eunice Todd. We came over to see if Toby or Sandy might be here. Neither one is answering their phone.”
I spotted a look of recognition on Hunter Wickliffe’s face when I said my name, but it faded very quickly. “I should have known with the Mastiff,” he muttered.
Confused, I gave him the once-over again. If I had met him before I didn’t remember, but then I don’t remember a lot these days. However, he did look oddly familiar. I just couldn’t place him.
Eunice asked, “They’re not dead, are they?”
“We haven’t finished sifting through the debris, but neither one has shown up to see about their house.”
“They were not in the fire,” I stated.
Hunter Wickliffe asked, “Why do you say that?”
“Because their vehicles aren’t here,” I replied. “That means they weren’t here for the fire.” I didn’t mention that either Toby or Sandy could have started the fire and then left, and I was favoring Sandy at the moment.
Hunter Wickliffe gave me an amused look of approval. “He said you were smart.”
I asked, “Who said that about me? Have we met before?”
Hunter Wickliffe ignored my questions.
Eunice turned to me. “Is there anyone we can call who might tell us whether they’re safe?”
I answered, “They never talked about their families much. Sandy did have a brother near Charleston somewhere, but I wouldn’t know who to contact.”
“It’s whom.”
“Excuse me?” I fired back, shooting Hunter Wickliffe an irritated glare.
“It’s whom, not who,” he answered with a pedantic air.
I felt like I was back in my Freshman English class, being berated by my teacher. “Listen, mister. I’m worried sick about my neighbors, and wondering what to do with their dog. This is not the time for you to correct my grammar. You can go ****”
“Jo, you forget yourself,” admonished Eunice, elbowing me. “I’m very sorry my friend used those low-class words. She hasn’t been herself for a while. She’s usually more polite.” Eunice thought for a second. “Well, sometimes Mrs. Reynolds is more polite.” She began pulling me away. “C’mon, Josiah. Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute, ladies. I’ll need to interview you both, since it seems you had contact with Mrs. Sloan on the day her house burned. You might have useful information.”
I was clutching Georgie and pulling at Baby’s collar, giving Mr. Wickliffe the silent treatment.
Eunice answered after taking the squirming Georgie from me. “You can find us at the Butterfly. The address is . . .”
“Don’t bother. I know where Mrs. Reynolds resides.”
“The code to the gate is . . .”
“I know the code.”
Eunice and I exchanged glances.
“How do you know the code to my gate?” I blurted out.
Hunter Wickliffe answered, “A little bird told me.”
“I demand to know.”
“Mrs. Reynolds, I assure you that I work with law enforcement, and you have nothing to fear from me. I will be in touch to arrange an interview with you both very soon. Please excuse me, but I need to finish examining the house. I’m on a schedule.” Hunter Wickliffe turned and went back inside the smoldering house.
The fact that a stranger knew my address and the code to my fancy electronic gate was not good.
Not good at all.
5
It was a bright, cheerful afternoon four days later, when Hunter Wickliffe sat at the Nakashima table in my great room. He handed me his business card. “Please call me Hunter.”
“You may call me Mrs. Reynolds.” Studying the card, I said, “So you’re a forensic psychiatrist.” I looked at the other man sitting beside Hunter. “And who might you be?”
The gentleman handed me his card and showed a shield as well. “I am the Fire Department investigator for this case. My name is David Barbaro.”
“I see.” I gestured to the chair beside me. “This is my attorney, Shaneika Mary Todd.”
Both men nodded in acknowledgement.
Hunter shook Shaneika’s hand. “We met yesterday when we interviewed Ms. Todd’s mother. I’m curious as to why you both feel you need a lawyer present to do a routine interview.”
Shaneika and I chuckled.
I replied, “I don’t talk to anybody above the rank of dogcatcher without a lawyer present. As for Mrs. Todd, I can’t tell you why she wanted her daughter representing her, Mr. Wickliffe.”
Hunter Wickliffe looked impatient as he took out a legal pad and a form from his expensive leather briefcase. “As I requested–call me Hunter. May we begin, please?”
I nodded.
“State your full name, please.”
“Josiah Louise Reynolds.”
“Age?”
“Fifty-two, soon to be fifty-three, and I’m white as well,” I replied, leaning over trying to get a look at the list of questions.
Hunter looked up and said, “I can see that, Mrs. Reynolds. There is no need to be defensive.”
“Was I defensive? I thought I was being sarcastic.”
“They’re one and the same. We are just trying to do our jobs.”
“Then tell me what happened to my friends.”
“We were hoping you’d throw some light on the situation.”
Mr. Barbaro interjected, “May we continue?” He looked at his watch.
“How well did you know the Sloans?” Hunter asked.
“Pretty well. I was closer to Sandy.”
Hunter asked, “Why was that?”
I frowned. “Besides the obvious, Sandy was an artist, one of the best. I love art, so naturally Sandy and I were friends. I used to teach art history at UK.”
“I see you enjoy paintings,” commented Hunter, looking at the concrete back wall of the great room. “You have quite a collection.”
“It used to be larger, but I had to sell some to keep the bill collectors from tarring and feathering me.”
Hunter waved a pencil at the paintings. “Any of those by Sandy Sloan?”
I turned and pointed. “The large landscape of the river on the right.”
The men appraised the painting. David Barbaro made a brief sketch of it in his notes.
Hunter chewed on his pencil eraser while studying the painting. “Did Sandy always paint landscapes?”
“Mrs. Sloan.”
“What?”
“Call her Mrs. Sloan. Show some respect. She is not and was not your friend. You should not use her first name.”
Hunter shot Shaneika a look of disbelief.
Shaneika leaned forward. “I think it would be best if everyone uses last names with the proper prefixes during the interview. Mrs. Reynolds believes strangers and children should not address adults by t
heir first name without permission.”
“Or their elders,” muttered Hunter.
“What was that?” I asked.
“May we call you Josiah for convenience sake?” asked Hunter.
“No, you may not.”
Hunter drew back in the chair. “Okay, then. Let’s proceed. Did Sandy, err, Mrs. Sloan always paint landscapes?”
“Yes, she was a plein air painter.”
Mr. Barbaro asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s French meaning open air. It describes painters who paint on-site rather than in a studio,” I replied.
Hunter asked, “Did you think she was a good painter?”
I replied, “She has a national reputation. Sandy is very good. You keep using past tense. Should that tell me something?”
“Do you have any more of her paintings?”
“Just the one. She’s out of my price range now.”
“Did–does she ever work out of her house?”
“Yes, she had a back porch converted into a studio.”
“Is that where she stores her paintings?”
“Yes, and they had better still be there, because I noticed the back porch had not burned.”
Hunter Wickliffe and David Barbaro wrote furiously on their notepads.
Looking up from his writing, Hunter asked, “Can you tell us when you last saw Toby Sloan?”
“I haven’t seen Toby for weeks. Maybe a month.”
“Sandy Sloan?”
“It was six days ago, about nine in the morning.”
Both men jotted down the information.
“What was she wearing?” asked Mr. Barbaro.
Shaneika interjected, “Gentlemen, I need to have only one person ask the questions. Mrs. Reynolds has had health issues since her accident several years ago, and double-teaming might throw her memory off. I’m sure you understand.”
Both men nodded in agreement and looked at me with wary curiosity, as though I was a basket of bruised fruit.
Maybe I was. I took my time responding. “Um, she was wearing a red blouse over jeans and tennis shoes, I think.”
“Were the jeans short or long pants?” Hunter asked.
“Long.”
“What kind of blouse was Mrs. Sloan wearing? Did it have any buttons?”
“It was more like a T-shirt. Cotton. Yes, now I remember. The shirt was definitely a red cotton T-shirt. The kind you pull over your head.”
Both men wrote furiously on their respective notepads.
Hunter looked up. “Can you describe her shoes?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t notice. It could have been tennis shoes, or sandals for that matter. I just have a faint impression she was wearing tennis shoes, but I couldn’t describe them to you. I couldn’t swear to her shoes.”
Hunter asked, “How would you describe Mrs. Sloan’s demeanor?”
“She seemed chipper, but the conversation was odd.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Sandy asked me to watch her dog, Georgie, because she was going to help her mother, who was ill.”
“And?”
“Well, that’s the problem. Her mother’s been dead for some time.”
“Did you say anything to her about it?”
I shook my head before taking a sip of water from a glass on the table. “No. I just took Georgie.”
“Why didn’t you confront her?”
I sighed. “Sandy has had issues in the past. She sometimes gets confused. My first thought was she wasn’t taking her medication. The last thing I wanted to do was confront a person having some sort of a mental episode when I was alone.”
“Were you afraid of her?”
“Not really. I just didn’t want to deal with a scene. I go out of my way to avoid confrontation.”
Hunter Wickliffe looked up from his notes in disbelief. “Could have fooled me,” he muttered.
“What was that?” I asked. “I can’t hear you when you mumble.”
Ignoring my remarks, Hunter pushed on. “Has Mrs. Sloan ever been violent?”
“Not with me, but with her husband, Toby.”
“Can you tell me what you know about that?”
“Toby ran over here claiming Sandy came at him with a butcher knife.”
“When was that?”
“About six months ago, I guess.”
“What happened?”
“I called the police. They took Sandy in for an evaluation, and Toby went home.”
“Did she attack the police?”
“I heard they found Sandy calmly eating a piece of pecan pie with a glass of milk. She even offered them some.”
“Do you happen to know what the professional evaluation indicated?”
“I don’t know. Neither Sandy nor Toby ever discussed the incident with me again.”
“Did you believe Toby’s story?”
“I know Sandy to be a sweet and gentle person. She does have a bipolar disorder and suffers from depression, but I’ve never known her to be violent.”
“You didn’t answer my question. Did you believe Mr. Sloan’s story?”
I hesitated before speaking. “Well, no. I like Toby very much, but I can’t imagine Sandy chasing him around the living room with a butcher knife. Toby likes to exaggerate.”
“Would there be any reason Mrs. Sloan would be angry with her husband?”
I shot Shaneika a quick look.
“Mrs. Reynolds, we need to know all the facts if we are to help your friends.”
“Word drifted around that Toby was messing with some filly over in Winchester and wasn’t being very discreet about it.”
“Do you know the woman’s name?”
“I learned about it from my neighbor, Lady Elsmere.”
Hunter Wickliffe sighed. “Please answer the question.”
“Carol Elliott.”
“Did Lady Elsmere tell you how she knew?”
I noticed he didn’t ask who Lady Elsmere was.
Everyone either knew Lady Elsmere or had heard of her. I answered, “She never divulges her sources, but she knows everything going on around here. Lady Elsmere is an absolute whore for gossip.”
“Another woman sounds like a perfect excuse for a wife to become angry and chase her husband with a butcher knife.”
“I’m not sure Sandy knew. She never mentioned it to me.”
“Could Mrs. Sloan have started the rumor for some unknown purpose?”
“No. Sandy is a shy person. This is something she would not want known about her personal life.”
“Do you believe the rumor about Mr. Sloan having an affair?”
“I don’t have an opinion, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” I winced at my choice of words. “Like I said, I like Toby. He can be very charming, but he is a sneaky son-of-a-gun.”
“About what?”
“Oh, silly things, nothing serious.”
“Give me an example.”
“I gave an outdoor party once. Sandy and Toby came early to help. I had a large tub of ice filled with beer outside on the terrace. When I checked the tub before the party started, most of the beer was gone. I asked Toby about the missing beer. He told me he saw the Dupuy boys take the beer.”
Hunter Wickliffe interrupted, “Excuse me. Who are the Dupuy boys?”
“They are the grandsons of Charles Dupuy, who is Lady Elsmere’s heir.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow while David Barbaro formed his mouth to make a silent whistle. They both knew that would involve millions.
I continued, “They were helping me also. Well, the boys were young teenagers at the time, so it was plausible, but I had a hunch. I checked the back of Toby’s pickup and found the beer under some tarps.”
“What happened?”
“I put the beer back and didn’t say a word about it.”
“How did Mr. Sloan respond?”
“Nothing. He didn’t act guilty or offer an excuse or an apology. Nothing. If I remem
ber correctly, he had a good time, but he and Sandy left early.”
“Why do you think Mr. Sloan chose to run to your house when he claimed he was being attacked? Why didn’t he go to one of his closer neighbors or call on his own phone?”
“Maybe his phone was dead. The neighbors on the right were in Florida, and they don’t have a landline, just cell phones. The neighbor between the Sloans and me is a mean old fart. If you were on fire, he wouldn’t pee on you unless there was a buck in it for him. Sorry for the analogy, but there it is.”
Why did I keep bringing up fire?
The corners of Hunter’s mouth turned up, but quickly faded. “Do you know of any insurance policy the Sloans have on their property?”
“No.”
“Have you had any contact with either Sandy or Toby Sloan since the fire?”
“I have not.”
“Do you know of anyone who has had contact with Sandy or Toby Sloan?”
I shook my head. “I’m worried sick about them. If you’re asking me about them, that means they’re still alive, and you didn’t find any bones in the fire debris.” I leaned back in my chair. “Thank the Lord.”
Hunter said, “I’m sure you understand we can’t comment on anything, since the incident is still under investigation.”
Shaneika agreed. “We understand, but any information you might give Mrs. Reynolds will be appreciated–after you finish your report, of course. Mrs. Reynolds is taking care of Mrs. Sloan’s dog and would like to be relieved of this obligation.”
Hunter asked, “What’s the dog’s name?”
I answered, “Georgie after Georgia O’Keeffe.”
Mr. Barbaro butted in while making notations. “Who’s that?”
“A woman artist who painted large flowers that symbolized female genitalia, but she always denied it, of course,” I said. “Not Sandy Sloan, but Georgia O’Keeffe.”
“Oh!” said David Barbaro, looking up from his notes, rather embarrassed.
“Just one more question,” queried Hunter, ignoring my banter. “Do you know of any reason why Sandy or Toby Sloan, either together or separately, would set fire to their property?”
So the Fire Department was thinking along the same lines as me. I was wondering when the question of arson might come up. It had bothered me that Sandy had taken such pains to make sure Georgie was safe and away from the house on the day of the fire, but I still couldn’t believe it of either one of them.