There was a long pause. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to you tomorrow night. We’ll figure something out.” He hung up.
The children were quiet as I dished up our spaghetti: Karen, sauce on the side; Nathan, no sauce, butter, three tablespoons of parmesan cheese. We go through a lot of parmesan cheese at our house.
“Are you sad, Mommy?” Karen asked.
“‘Fraid so.” In truth, I was very close to losing my battle not to burst into tears. “Do either of you know any jokes to cheer me up?”
Nathan said, “How about a song?” He started singing in a loud voice, “Old MacDonald had a poop.”
I burst into laughter and tears, then postponed dinner for a lengthy three-way hug, while I assured my children that no matter what happened, everything was going to be okay because we had one another.
After tucking them in their beds, I lost track of how long I just sat on the couch, staring, trying to figure out why the killer wanted me to leave so badly that he was willing to call attention to himself. If it weren’t for the faxes, Mrs. Kravett’s death might have remained the perfect murder.
Although I ran everything around in my head countless times, I couldn’t answer that one. Finally, I took my frustrations out by composing a cartoon. A man on a bridge is reading a document entitled “Bungee Cord Assembly Instructions.” In his hand is the unfastened end of the cord, and in the background are feet in the air belonging to someone who has just jumped off the edge. The man with the instructions is saying, “Oh, wait a sec. I may have missed a step.”
Late in morning the next day, I trotted over to Lauren’s house. She looked exhausted and sorely in need of good news. I didn’t have any. I told her about Jack and my figuring out Mrs. Kravett’s password yesterday, and the disappointing outcome of finding only the one letter about Denise’s gambling.
I said, “There’s only one reason I can think of that someone would risk sending me threats and letting on that Mrs. Kravett’s death wasn’t a simple heart attack. Greed. Someone did this who might have inherited the money and hoped to get me out of the picture to stop the scholarship fund.”
“At one point, before Denise developed a gambling problem, she would’ve been the logical person for Mrs. Kravett to choose to control the fund. The two of them were very close. Maybe Denise was hoping to get rid of all the evidence about the gambling; and drive you away so she could take your place. Maybe her husband was in on it, too.”
“That could be. I wish we had some proof, though.” Lauren sank farther into her chair in the living room.
“What was the password?”
“‘Twenty years,’ like in my poem.”
She winced. “So Steve was trying to guess what Mrs. Kravett’s password was when he died. Maybe that explains why the police found my box of memorabilia from school in his office.”
“They did? Nobody told me that.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment, then said, “Your poem had been clipped out of my old newspaper.”
“Then that’s where someone got the copy of it to send to Mrs. Kravett. Why didn’t you tell me that right away?”
“When you first told me about it, I didn’t even stop to think it might have been from my old paper. I had my hands full with my marriage breaking up. Then, when the police showed me the clipped-out page after I’d been arrested, I figured you might think I did it.”
I paced, combing my fingers through my hair. “You were set up. First the killer makes it look like I’m a maniac, sending threats to my teacher. Then he makes it look like you’re behind it.” I headed toward Steve’s office. “Can we go through Steve’s office together?”
“Why?”
“I’ve got a strong feeling we’ve all overlooked something that might point to who really killed him.”
Lauren followed me into the office. His desk chair was gone, probably removed by the police as evidence. In the far corner was a storage box. Carlton Central was written on the side in Lauren’s handwriting. I pulled another chair up to his computer and tried not to think about the fact that this was Steve’s position when he died.
“I don’t know what you could possibly find,” Lauren said. “The police took everything they thought was important.”
I turned on Steve’s main computer and fax machine. “I don’t know how much you know about fax machines, Lauren, but they keep a running log of their most recent communications. The log shows when and where documents were sent to or received from. Except, of course, in my case with a couple of the death threats. Since the sender suppressed his phone number and user ID, all my machine recorded for those was the time and number of pages I received. Has anyone printed the log from this fax machine?”
“Yeah. The police printed it They showed me the log with three transmissions to your house and asked me to identify them.”
“What were they?”
“The first was that fax Rachel sent to Karen, and the second was your response. When you asked her to have me call you. The third turned out to be that bogus help message supposedly from Rachel. The police took the log with them, along with the original help message.”
“I’ll print another log.”
Moments later, Lauren and I were looking at the report; and just as she’d said, there were only the three transmissions to or from my business line.
I punched my thigh. “Damn. Another dead end.” I looked around the room making a quick appraisal of how many fax machines Steve owned. “He’s got a second printer and a couple of notebook computers. They may have built-in modems. We’ll have to check their logs.”
“Why? What are you looking for?”
“Even though my fax machine couldn’t record the number of the sender, the machine that sent the fax to me has to log my number, as the receiver.”
“What makes you think it’s one of Steve’s fax machines?”
“Because everyone knows phones can be traced. So the person who sent those faxes to me wouldn’t have wanted to risk using their own home phone or business phone.”
“So? If I were doing this, I’d, use a portable computer, go to a phone someplace where I wouldn’t be seen, call you, and send my threatening fax from there. I wouldn’t use someone else’s phone and fax machine.”
“Exactly. But if you wanted to make someone, else look guilty, you’d use their machine and their phone, right?”
“Oh! I see what you’re getting at,” Lauren said. “But wouldn’t the police have already done this?”
“Probably. And that’s just what the person setting you up wanted.”
Lauren said, “The thing is, though, with our house alarm, nobody could— Preston! Oh my God. What if he really was trying to break in through the office window?”
We printed out Steve’s second fax machine’s log. The last entry was for a single-page document sent to my fax line. It was made a few hours after my party, a couple of minutes after midnight I pounded the desk with both hands. “I knew it This was when I got an anonymous fax accusing me of not being a good wife.”
Lauren grabbed both of my shoulders. “I’m cleared! This proves I didn’t do it!” She put a hand to her chest. “I at the hotel fighting with—” She stopped suddenly, then winced and cried, “Oh, crap!
“I just thought of something. This may not have anything to do with Steve’s murder. Steve might have sent you threats himself.”
“What?” I cried, utterly shocked.
“That Friday, it was all so crazy. Steve followed us to the hotel and grabbed Rachel. I sneaked back home a couple hours later, snatched her out of bed, and checked into a different hotel. He might’ve sent the threat when I wasn’t around,”
Still stunned. I stared at her. “Why would Steve have sent me threats?
“I don’t know. He went a little crazy when he first found out about my affair. He put his fist through a wall, and I had to hire someone to come fix it.”
“Man of Bob,” I murmured as I studied the guilty fax machine. That would have been the
unexplained repair call to our street. “But Lauren, this fax machine is programmable. You can read a fax into its memory and specify the time it will be sent. You don’t need to be physically here, operating it.”
Lauren’s spirits deflated so abruptly it was like watching the air go out of a balloon.
“Besides, it couldn’t have been Steve. I got another threatening fax just a couple days ago. I never told anyone but the police about it. That one was sent from the self-service center.”
Lauren chewed on her lip. At length she said, “It doesn’t look good for me. This is just one more piece of evidence pointing at me. Tommy won’t believe I didn’t know how to program the fax.” She searched my eyes. “You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I averted my eyes. I did believe her. But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t prove it. I combed back my hair in frustration.
“Wait.” I whirled around in my chair to look at the box in the corner. “When did your storage box get moved down here?”
“I have no idea. I keep all that stuff in the attic, and I rarely go up there or into Steve’s office. Why?”
“That poem was sent to Mrs. Kravett before her death. So when Steve brought this stuff down to his office, he saw that the poem had been cut out. Didn’t he ask you about it?”
She shook her head and said, “We were barely communicating by then. The last thing he cared about then was— She broke off abruptly and her eyes widened. “I just remembered. You told both of us about Mrs. Kravett’s getting that poem when you picked your kids up after the PTA meeting. Afterward, Steve didn’t say anything about it. But then, just before your party, he asked me if I remembered what the poem said, and I recited what I remembered and told him he could find it in the attic if he was so curious. Then he made some remark like ‘You can’t be truthful about anything.’ I never found out what he meant.”
“He might’ve meant that he’d already learned the poem was missing.”
Lauren nodded, her face pale. She wrapped her arms around her waist and doubled over as if ready to be violently ill. “I have a terrible feeling. He thought I was responsible.”
Lauren looked so wounded by this realization, it wasn’t my place to point out to her that only minutes before, she’d accused Steve of the very same crime.
It hit me then how truly evil this murderer was. It wasn’t enough to kill someone, or even two people. All the survivors wound up mistrusting one another. My friendship with Lauren was perhaps irreparably damaged. Lauren’s memories of her husband were destroyed.
Here at last was the motive I could never find for Stephanie Saunders. She’s pregnant. She learns her husband is having an affair. She wants revenge against his mistress. Perhaps she knows Lauren has a habit of going through people’s medicine cabinets. She kills Mrs. Kravett merely to make Lauren look guilty and points a finger at me as well, to keep Lauren’s best friend from rallying to her defense. Then she kills Lauren’s husband, as the ultimate way to get even.
“That’s it!”
“What’s it?” Lauren asked.
I grabbed the logs from the two fax machines. “Listen, I’m going to run home and check these against the log for my machine. Can you meet Nathan’s bus?”
“Sure. But what did you just figure out?”
“I think I know who the killer was. But I still don’t have any proof, so I don’t want to say just yet. Bring Nathan to my house. Maybe by then, I’ll have this figured out, all right?”
My head was in a whirl as I went home. All I could think about was what Tommy would say as I tried to explain my reasons for suspecting Stephanie. He would tell me again about needing evidence, not women’s intuition.
My theory had one craterlike flaw: the Wilkinses’ alarm system. Even if Stephanie had managed during a social call at the Wilkinses’ to sneak unseen into their office and program the fax in advance, she couldn’t know that Steve wouldn’t be in his office at that time. After my party, Steve had been arguing with Lauren in a hotel lobby during the transmission. Maybe she was watching the Wilkinses’ house then, but she should have been home with Preston. Eating cheesecake. Therefore, she’d have to have defeated the alarm, given Preston an excuse for being gone, and then spied on the Wilkinses’ house till they left, not knowing in advance that they would leave.
I could imagine Tommy’s face as I tried to sell him on that story. Something still wasn’t adding up.
I printed my fax log. Maybe I could find older fax logs that showed one Steve had sent me. I wanted to see if his number and ID were suppressed.
I flung open my file cabinet to search for an older log sheet. I grabbed a handful of my last twenty or so designs and started to flip through them, searching for the listing.
Could I really trust my instincts and let Nathan be alone, even briefly, with Lauren?
By God, I’d been manipulated enough. My loyalty for thirty years of friendship was not to be second-guessed. I owed her—and myself—at least that much.
“Oh my God!” I froze and stared at one of my designs. I had indeed missed a step. My subconscious had not. The answer was right there in one of my greeting cards.
My heart pounding, I called Tommy Newton and got his recording. I left a message saying to get over to my house the instant he got this message, that I knew who the killer was. As a precaution, I scanned and then sent him the eCard itself, along with a quick note of explanation. I had to get Nathan home safe behind locked doors.
I looked out the window and saw my son walking toward our house, hand in hand with the murderer.
Chapter 21
We’ve Got Each Udder
I rushed out of the house toward them, willing myself to stay calm. If I could just hang on and pretend not to be upset, maybe she’d go home.
After all, there had to be a simple explanation for her being here. Surely she hadn’t just shot Lauren dead at the bus stop. If that were the case, Nathan would’ve looked upset. Instead, he smiled and waved at me.
“Hi,” I said. “Uh, what happened to Lauren? She was going to wait at the bus stop till I could get there.”
“She got a phone call from her lawyer, who said it couldn’t wait.”
I stood directly in her path, but she walked around me as if she was supposed to lead the way into my house.
“I told Carolee I’d show her my truck collection,” Nathan explained.
“This isn’t a good time. The house is a mess, and—”
“I promised Nathan I’d see his trucks,” Carolee said firmly. “And there’s something important that you and I need to talk about.”
This is still going to be okay, I thought. In a few minutes, Tommy would get my message. As long as Carolee and Nathan weren’t left alone, everything would be fine. Besides, I knew Carolee was guilty, but was still extremely short on proof. Maybe I could trick her into saying something incriminating.
I let Nathan lead us into the house, watching Carolee.
Maybe I should send Nathan to Lauren’s house. No, that would mean that unless I could keep Carolee with me until she was arrested, I would eventually be letting both Nathan and Carolee out of my sight. Best scenario was Nathan and me getting rid of Carolee until the police arrived. Second best was me keeping Carolee far away from Nathan till help arrived. I left the front door wide open, shutting only the screen door, in anticipation of the troops arriving.
Nathan showed Carolee the trucks in the cabinets in the family room. She did an admirable job of feigning interest; a better acting job than my current nothing’s wrong routine, complete with a sweaty upper lip.
“There’s some more upstairs in my room,” Nathan said, rising to lead the way.
“That’s all right, sweetie. Why don’t you watch some TV while I talk to Carolee in my office?”
“But there’s nothing on.”
“Put a DVD in.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then go to your room! Now!”
Nathan took a look at my face, which
was no doubt showing my panic. He started crying and went up the stairs. Good. Soon there would be two whole flights between him and Carolee.
She narrowed her eyes at me but said nothing.
“I was a bit harsh on him. It’s hard to be a parent, let me tell you. Come on downstairs and we can talk.”
She dutifully followed me down the stairs, though turning my back on her even momentarily was scary in and of itself. I kept expecting to feel a knife between the shoulder blades at any minute. We reached the office.
“So, you said we had something important to talk about. What’s up?” I pulled my chair way back so that I’d be nearest the door and able to watch her, but she grabbed it from me and sat down, which meant I had to take the director’s chair in the corner.
She didn’t answer. She reached over and grabbed my stack of greetings. “I’ve never actually seen your cards before. Mind if I flip through these?”
“Not at all.”
The incriminating one was in the original document tray in the back of my printer. She would never think to look for it there. I hoped. While she read through the ones in her hand, I looked at my scanner, unable to keep my eyes off it, trying to calculate how visible the drawing I’d sent to Tommy was. It wasn’t in sight. I was fine. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The fax machine began to whir with an incoming fax. I cringed. Her attention was drawn to my all-in-one printer, with its original-document tray.
“So this is how your fax machine works?”
I nodded, knowing she knew at least as well as I how to operate a fax machine. My throat felt dry. My lips were sticking to my teeth as I tried to smile at her.
“Have you gotten any more of those threats lately?”
“Threats? You heard about those?”
“From Lauren.” She reached over and snatched up the faxed message. Please don’t let this be a response from Tommy!
She glanced at it, then held it out toward me. “Here. It’s from someone named Mrs. Wesley Styler. You do Christmas letters for customers?”
Death Comes eCalling Page 20