“You’ve probably heard most of it already. Peter changed his will. Seems to have cut Terry out.”
“Well, he left him a good amount of money.”
“No, not really.” I explained the business angles to her.
“Was this public knowledge? About the company?” she asked.
I thought about it for a second and then shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe not. Eric told me, and he didn’t swear me to secrecy, but he probably expected discretion. Which he would have gotten, had Terry not have been killed.”
“He still will. I’ll use it as background, ask some questions.” And use it to make everyone think you’re a freaking genius, I thought. Ah well, good for her. You had to use what you could, when you could. “The question is, did Terry know what Peter was planning? Even if he didn’t know exactly what was up, he must have sensed something. I’m sure that Peter was doing other things to make Terry wonder if the tide had turned.” I thought back to Terry’s one-finger salute toward the camera. Did he know where the camera was, or was he showing his father-in-law the respect he’d been given that day?
“All of which nicely provides motive,” Regina said. “Even before the will I would have said, strictly on gut, that Terry was the guy. I couldn’t figure out the proof.” She looked at me for a while, trying to make up her mind about something. “Apparently he did it, if you can believe the note on the computer.”
“Which said?”
“Can’t, sorry Sully.”
Damn. I tried a different tack. “Fingerprints?”
“Don’t know yet,” she said.
“Gun?”
“It’s the same caliber as the one that killed Peter Whitehall. The one we found Eric Whitehall dumping was also that caliber.”
“Didn’t ballistics show that the gun you found Eric with was the gun that had killed his father?” I asked.
Regina looked around and lowered her voice. “Not conclusively, no.”
Not conclusively? They were going to hang Eric out on the rails on inconclusive proof? What was that all about? Unless they weren’t going to hang Eric at all. Unless they were taunting their suspects with a false sense of security. And then the noose started to tighten, and Terry started to panic.
“Hell, Regina, this doesn’t make sense. Maybe it was suicide?”
“C’mon, Sully, you saw what I saw. The blood spatter, the way the body fell. The angle was wrong. If he’d shot himself like that, no way he would have ended up face down on the desk.”
She was right, of course. That’s what had bothered me too. That, and the gun by the dangling hand. If he’d shot himself, slumped back and then fallen forward, there was no way his hand would have ended up at his side like that.
“No one else in or out?” I asked.
“Not according to the guard.”
“And you’ve checked him out?”
“He’s clean. He was on the phone to Ireland this evening, talking to his family. His wife was in the booth with him.”
“Maybe Terry didn’t kill Peter?” It was hard for me to believe. But if both men had been killed by the same gun, and Terry also had been murdered, it just didn’t make sense.
“The guard caught Terry spraying the lens of the camera that faced his study, the day before the murder. It was probably hair spray. Just made it all fuzzy.”
“He sprayed the lens?” I thought back to the feed Frank had been watching. It explained the focus problems with the camera. “How do you know?”
“There was another camera facing Peter’s study door that Terry didn’t know about. And that camera caught Terry in the act of spraying the other lens. It also caught him coming in and out of the study that evening, possibly around the time of death.”
“Evening? I thought Peter died around daybreak?”
Regina hesitated, probably wondering how much to divulge. I could understand the battle. She considered me a source of potential information. Priming the pump with information could bring forth a well. That said, she’d begun to cross a line. Some of this information was police knowledge only. But since she’d crossed it, she must have decided to keep going. Maybe she trusted me more than I thought. Maybe she was sick of being relegated to babysitting. Maybe she was as tired as I was.
“No, closer to midnight, near as we can figure,” she finally said. “Someone had started a large fire that warmed up the room considerably, so it makes pinpointing a time of death pretty tough.”
“The warm room kept the body warm—”
“Which throws things off,” Regina said. “We know Peter was alive at midnight. Cameras, household members, and a long-distance call all confirm that. The time of death could be anywhere from shortly after midnight to 6:00 a.m.”
We both sighed. The fact of the scientific matter was, and is, that time of death, absent an eyewitness to pinpoint the time, can only be narrowed down to a four-hour span. A warm fire would prevent the body from cooling off at a normal pace, which would further complicate the time. Whoever murdered Peter was either lucky or very smart. Regina’s next comment made me bet on the side of luck.
“The camera did pick Terry up around two a.m. It looked like he was carrying something.”
“Any idea what it was?”
“The lab is working on it.”
I repeated those last few words with her. Television has made the lives of forensic scientists difficult—everyone expects it to take less than the time of a thirty-minute episode to run tests and get photo enhancements, DNA, and ballistic results. In real life, crime labs are understaffed and underfunded, and science takes a while. Especially if you want the evidence to stand up in court. And if the Trevorton Police were going to arrest Terry Holmes for murder, it damned well better stand up in court. Because with guys like him, you didn’t get a second chance.
I wondered if that was why he was killed. To make sure he didn’t get a chance to get away with the murder?
Once again, then, the list of suspects would include anyone in the house. And considering that Eric had been set up for Peter’s murder—presumably by Terry—this put my old friend near the top of the list. Damn.
• Nineteen •
As if on cue, the door to the living room opened and Eric walked in. He was about to say something when he noticed Regina sitting on the second couch. I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
“Hi, Sully. I didn’t know you were still here, and then Mrs. Bridges asked me to come in and get your keys. They need to move your car to make room.”
“Should I move it to the street?”
“That may be easier said than done. There are a lot of cars out there. I think I may have seen a news van, but I’m not sure.”
“Damn.”
“My thoughts exactly. Being trapped in this house again … I don’t know if I can take it.”
“Conscience getting to you, Mr. Whitehall?” That was from one of the suits who’d come in earlier. I had no idea who he was, but I knew what I thought of him. “Pompous jackass” came to mind. I looked around the room and noticed that the opinion seemed shared. From the look on Eric’s face, I guessed that the two weren’t strangers.
“As I told you earlier, Lieutenant, my sister Amelia and I were together all afternoon until I went to the theater. Then she went to the greenhouse. Our gardener was with her, they were doing a—”
“Hardly the most rock-solid alibi.”
“Perhaps your sister would not be a good alibi, Officer. My sister, however, is an impeccable alibi. Obviously your colleagues agree.”
“For now.”
“Can Ms. Sullivan leave, Lieutenant?” Regina asked.
“I suppose so, but I want her to stay around town.”
“She’s not going anywhere.”
“Fine. We’re getting ready to move the body. You want to come back?”
“
Sure.” Regina took a final sip of her cold tea, then turned to me. “See you later, Sully. Will you be at the theater tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but I have to go by my office first. Call me on my cell if you need me. It’s the best way to get in touch.”
I watched Regina follow Lieutenant Nameless back toward Terry’s office. Man, I’d been there, more often than I cared to remember. Ignored for hours, then thrown a bone that I accepted gratefully. Technically, this was Regina’s case, since she was the first on the scene. But again, Whitehall justice worked a little differently, and the case seemed to have landed much higher in the food chain. At least they were keeping her in the loop. I wondered if that extended to Eric.
He flopped onto the couch Regina had vacated. He lowered his head into his hands and stared at the floor. I sat on the couch’s arm and put my arm around his shoulder, squeezing it gently.
“Can you leave?” I asked.
Eric shook his head. “I don’t know. Probably not. Besides, I want to stick around for Emma and Amelia.”
“Emma seems to be coping pretty well.”
“Emma always seems to be coping pretty well. And she usually is. But this isn’t usual. Hell, there was no love lost between Terry and me, but even I’m sorry that he felt he had to … ”
I debated the ethics of holding back but decided against it, since it was so contrary to my nature. I’ve always found that holding information back should be done sparingly. If you have a reputation for forthrightness, which I do, then occasions when this principle is not true are rarely, if ever, apparent.
I stood and started to fiddle with the tchotchkes on the mantle. Nice tchotchkes, but tchotchkes nonetheless. I wondered who had put them there—Brooke, a decorator, or maybe even Peter’s first wife? Did they mean anything, or were they here for show? The room seemed rarely used, probably a company-only room like most living rooms, so I guessed that the objects were probably here for show. Offices, sitting rooms, and bedrooms were more reflective of individual taste. I pulled my mind back to the present and turned and looked at Eric, who was still studying the carpet.
“Eric, he didn’t kill himself. Someone else did.”
“What? But why didn’t someone say something? Ah, so that’s why all the questions? Not a formality? I assumed Terry had confessed to killing Dad and they were trying to tie up loose ends.”
Eric seemed so dumbfounded that I felt bad about telling him the rest. But better me than someone else, someone who didn’t care as much about him or his sisters.
“Eric, I hate to be the one … the thing is, I don’t think you’re off the hook. Knowing the way the police think, you may be one of the prime suspects in Terry’s death. After all, you’re the man he framed.”
“Now it makes sense, why they were asking me all those questions … why they seemed so pissed I had an alibi. I didn’t do it, and they couldn’t pin it on me.”
“What alibi?”
“I was with Amelia.”
“Eric, Lieutenant Sunshine had a point. That’s hardly airtight.”
“We were giving the North Shore Birding Society a tour of the gardens. Amelia does it every year around the holidays. It’s less of a tour, actually, and more of a party for the birders. She didn’t feel up to it this year, but she didn’t want to cancel either. So I was with fifteen or so devoted amateur ornithologists in the greenhouse, toasting the holidays and discussing Amelia’s plans for the Anchorage. She’s thinking about putting an aviary on the grounds and opening it up to the public.”
“I’m sorry—”
“No, I’m sorry. You let me know what they’re thinking, which is really helpful. Once I knew Amelia was okay, I left her with her birder friends making plans. Then I headed over to the theater.”
“I was there,” I said. “I didn’t see you.”
Eric paused and looked hurt. “Et tu, Sully?” he asked. “I snuck backstage to see Harry. We shared a sandwich in the dressing room. Stewart was there.”
“Good. I just want to make sure you can account for your time.”
“I appreciate it, I really do.” He paused. “Are you sure Terry was murdered?”
“Shhh, I don’t know if that’s for broadcast. I don’t know anything for sure, but it looked like murder to me, and if it looks like that to an ex-cop who isn’t even in the room, it’s murder.” I sat back on the arm and stared at the tea service. “Eric, do you know where everyone else was from six p.m. on?”
“Six?”
“He was seen at six, found at seven thirty.”
“Checking up on us?”
“Just curious, you know how that is. Was Mrs. Bridges in the greenhouse with you?”
“Off and on. Mostly on. Wait, let me think. She was in the house during that time.”
“Where was Brooke?”
“She left around five, five thirty. She was going into the city.”
“Really? Why didn’t she just stay there after the reading?”
“She came back home with everyone else. Then she decided she wanted to leave. Really, it was the first decision she’d made all week. No one tried too hard to talk her out of it—she’s been more difficult than normal, which is considerable. Besides, she had the right idea—it was a little tense around here this afternoon, to put it mildly. From what Amelia told me, Emma and Terry had really gone at it when she got back. She asked him to leave.”
Not quite the same scenario Emma had painted. “Did he go?”
“Emma said they’d taken a break and were going to talk again later. I told her I’d go with her. He was going, one way or the other.”
The timing was tight, but maybe Emma had done more than talk.
• Twenty •
I had to wait in my car for a couple of minutes while the police cleared a path for me to leave. I called Connie on my cell and got her voicemail, which made me think that the run-through was still going on. The disconnect between the two activities was difficult to comprehend—Terry’s murder and the ensuing police deluge had seemed to take forever, but meanwhile, a tech run-through was still plodding along at the high school. I didn’t want to be alone anyway, so I decided to stop by the theater and see how it was going. I hoped I wouldn’t find the Ghost of Christmas Present stuck mid-flight, or the Cratchit children running amok backstage, but even those diversions would be welcome.
I kept flashing back to Terry’s body and knew the images would keep me awake tonight, at least. I’d never gotten hardened to unnatural death, even when I was on the job. Being horrified kept me on my toes. Violent death should never be routine. Even when the victim is far from an ideal human being, he, or she, deserves better. I shivered and turned up the heat in the car.
As I drove, media vans were approaching from the other direction. Eric was right. The Anchorage was going to be a media zoo. Lucky Brooke. She’d made it out just in time.
Dimitri was in the process of giving technical notes to the production staff when I walked into the theater. Connie sat by his side, prompt script splayed across her lap, writing furiously. Dimitri stopped talking when he saw me coming down the aisle. I was waiting for the “where the hell have you been?” barrage, but it didn’t come. Connie must have warned him off giving me a hard time. She was pretty good at assessing when I could be pushed and when I couldn’t. Another one of those stage manager traits.
“I hope to hell you can run sound,” he said, hands on hips. “We think that our sound engineer has been arrested.”
“Dimitri, we don’t know that,” Connie said. “They said they had questions for him. No one said anything about being arrested.”
I was caught between worlds for a minute. Should I fill them all in, or let it go and catch hell tomorrow for not keeping them ahead of the gossip wave? I decided that hell tomorrow was a better deal, because I couldn’t take much more tonight. I did have to talk to Harry. I’d promised
Eric that I’d let him know what had happened.
“How is rehearsal going?” I asked.
“Aside from our sound engineer being gone?”
I didn’t bite. I knew Frank would still be tweaking things, but that Connie and her assistant stage manager would be running the sound for the show. Worse came to worst, we’d make it through.
“Aside from our sound engineer being gone,” Dimitri intoned a little less dramatically, “it was not nearly as horrific as I had feared.”
“Not nearly as horrific” are not words a general manager wants to hear. Granted, the show was sold out for the most part, but I didn’t like the idea of delivering a bomb to our community for the holidays. I looked to Connie for clarification.
“The second act needs work. A lot of work. Stewart has asked for a rehearsal tomorrow afternoon to go over the Future scene, and Patrick agreed.” I winced. Overtime for union actors. I didn’t even have to say it aloud; Connie knew. “I know, Sully, but it could help it go from passable to pretty good.”
“Just pretty good?”
“After a couple of performances, it may even be great. The earbud Frank suggested is working out very well. Patrick only needs it during the third act. We do have some fine-tuning to do … I hope we get Frank back before tomorrow afternoon.”
Connie caught me up on some more of the production issues. She also told me that Stewart, Harry, and most of the rest of the cast had just gone out for a drink. She was heading over to join them; did I want to go? I didn’t have to ask where they were. Despite it being decidedly off-season, there were several local watering holes available, yet the theater folk, such as it were, all went to the same place: the Beef and Ale.
The Beef and Ale was a decidedly not-hipster-chic bar that had a dozen kinds of local draft beer and really cheap, comforting, dense, fat-filled food. Tired as I was, I knew that I was too wired to sleep. Good greasy food and a couple of beers might cure what ailed me. Probably not, but it was worth a shot.
The Beef and Ale was close enough that driving seemed like a wasted effort, so I left my car at the high school. Connie decided to drive, since it was on her way home. I was grateful for the peace and quiet. I was dancing the limbo between incredible physical exhaustion and mental insomnia. The beautiful winter night at least helped me feel more in balance with these two warring factions. The cold night air woke my physical self, while the sharp beauty of the isolated harbor helped my mind find a modicum of peace. The high school was on the midpoint of the harbor, set back a few blocks from the water. When I walked toward the shore, to the left I could see the summer home of the Cliffside Theater Company butting up to the edge of the water. I even saw the potential site of our new production center, and made a wish upon a star that we could make that happen this summer. On the other side of the harbor was the Beef and Ale, and the rest of what passed as the waterfront of Trevorton. I’d been spoiled since moving back. Daily water views were my new elixir.
A Christmas Peril Page 17