Wash Her Guilt Away (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 2)

by Michael Wallace

  “Am I invited?” said Peter.

  Rogers stood up and gave him a hard look.

  “No,” he said, and walked off toward the bar. Lilly had just walked in looking for him and the two had a brief whispered conversation before Gordon came up.

  “Get yourself a drink, deputy,” Rogers said. “It’s on me, then come to the interview room.”

  Lilly stepped up to the bar, where April was temporarily unoccupied.

  “Could I have a Coca-Cola please?” he said.

  She arched her eyebrows slightly.

  “Ooh, going for the hard stuff,” she said, leaning slightly toward him. “It has,” she paused dramatically, “caffeine, you know.”

  He simply nodded, so she took out a glass, filled it and pushed it across the bar toward him.

  “Your funeral,” she said.

  Back in the interview room, Gordon repeated the story Johnny had told that afternoon and his contention that there might be a connection between the local phenomena and the murder case. Rogers listened patiently and attentively. When Gordon finished, the detective turned to Lilly.

  “Well, deputy, you’ve been working with me on this. What do you think?”

  “About what, sir?”

  “Let’s start with the headless boatman. Was it real?”

  Lilly hesitated, then spoke carefully and deliberately.

  “I think the person it happened to believes it was. He told the story to enough people in town that it’s pretty widely known now. You wouldn’t tell a story like that unless it made a strong impression on you.”

  “Or, to play the devil’s advocate,” Gordon said, “you were trying to get it planted in the public imagination.”

  “That’s possible,” Lilly said, “but in that case I don’t see how it would relate to this murder. That story got out seven months ago, and I don’t think the Van Hollands were planning to come here at that time.”

  Rogers looked at Gordon.

  “He has a point,” Gordon said. “They weren’t even married then.”

  “All right,” Rogers said. “Let’s put this line of inquiry on hold.” He took a large gulp of his beer and set the glass down.

  “I’m going to level with you two because I have to talk with somebody before I report to the sheriff.” He looked Lilly and Gordon in the eye, one man at a time.

  “I’m stumped,” he finally said. “Stumped in a way I’ve never been before. I mean, I haven’t solved every case I’ve handled — no detective does — but usually I felt I had a pretty good idea of who the perp was and why. I just couldn’t prove it. But this time,” he paused for a swallow of beer, “I have no idea in hell what happened.

  “Usually when you follow leads and talk to people several times, you see a connection you hadn’t seen before, or somebody’s story changes and starts giving them away. It hasn’t happened here. We have a case where the crime scene was hopelessly corrupted, the forensic evidence is at odds with eyewitness evidence, several people have a good motive, and everybody has an alibi, but nobody really has an alibi. And nothing is coming into focus and nobody is cracking. It’s such a mess that even Gordon’s supernatural hooey is starting to sound plausible. Which it isn’t.

  “I hate to say this, gentlemen, but I feel this one slipping away. I’m losing hope that talking to people one more time is going to produce anything, and I can’t justify the taxpayers putting me up here much longer. Tomorrow morning, at eleven o’clock, I’m going to turn in my room key, check out, and release everybody to go home.

  “Unless you two can help me out.” He picked up the beer glass and finished it in two gulps.

  “Gordon,” he said, “I want you to rack your brains between now and when I leave. You were here three days before this happened, and you know all the suspects. I have to believe you saw or heard something you haven’t yet recognized the importance of. Go through it in your mind as carefully as you can, and let me know if you come up with anything. Anything at all.”

  He turned to Lilly.

  “Deputy, you’ve been really helpful. Maybe some day you’ll make detective, but before that happens, you have to learn to think like one. I want you to think like one now. Put yourself in my shoes, and tell me what you’d be doing to solve this case. Show me what you got.”

  Lilly drank a swallow of his Coke and took a deep breath. As he exhaled, he emitted a soft burp, followed by a blush.

  “Excuse me, sir. I’m sorry. I guess if it was me investigating, I’d take another look at the motives. It’s possible we just have part of a motive now, and if we had all of it, we could work on that person. Maybe no one’s cracked yet because they haven’t been made uncomfortable enough.”

  After a few seconds of silence Gordon said, “I’m not in your profession, but that sounds like a good answer to me.”

  “It is a good answer,” Rogers said, “and one I’d already thought of. But just for the sake of thoroughness, let’s see if you two see anything in the suspects that I haven’t. We’ll start with Charles Van Holland. Motive: He’s just found out that he left his first wife to marry a younger woman who’s a lying, cheating, grasping slut.” He looked at Gordon and Lilly. “There’s a reason we usually look at the husband first. Your thoughts, deputy?”

  Lilly coughed. “No question he has a good motive, sir. But some things don’t fit. He didn’t really know about her past until after she was dead and we told him. And watching him when he found out, I’d say that’s when he went over the edge. The motive usually comes before the crime, not after.”

  Rogers looked at Gordon.

  “I think Eldon’s right,” he said. “My sense is he was just beginning to realize his mistake after the scene on Tuesday night. And his temperament’s all wrong for this murder. It was calculated and well planned. Charles is a conventional, nice guy, and I don’t see any cunning in him at all. The way his mind works, Wendy was headed for a divorce, not a grave.”

  Rogers nodded. “All right, then. Drew Evans. Motive: He was about to marry into money and society, but our lady from Syracuse compromised him. Which probably didn’t take a whole lot of effort on her part. He stood to lose a sweet deal if it came out. Gordon?”

  “My question would be how would it come out? The bride-to-be is in the Bay Area, and I don’t see Wendy making a point of calling her when she got home to spill the news. She got her thrill by pulling off the seduction; after that, she lost interest. Unless there’s something we don’t know, the motive seems weak.”

  He turned to Lilly.

  “And like you said about Van Holland, Mr. Gordon. He’s not the right type for the crime. First, I don’t think he’s smart enough, and second, I don’t think he’d feel it was necessary. I knew his type in high school — cocky and totally confident he could talk his way out of anything. That’s what he’d try to do if his fiancée found out.”

  Rogers sighed. “Next up, April Flowers. Motive: She didn’t like Wendy, and she almost lost her job when Wendy humiliated her in front of everybody and provoked a fight. The fact she responded to the provocation shows an impulsiveness and temper that could figure into this. Who wants to lead off?”

  Gordon, after a brief silence, went first. “The temper works in her favor as far as I’m concerned. Maybe I’d look at her if this was a crime of spontaneous passion, and even there I’d almost have to figure it was a mistake. Like she shoved some one and they hit their head falling down. She may be easy to provoke, but she cools off just as fast. I don’t see it.”

  Rogers looked at Lilly.

  “Me either, sir. I think she’s naughty, not wicked, and this was a wicked crime.”

  Rogers picked up his beer glass, then realizing it was empty set it down.

  “Moving right along,” he said, “We come to Rachel Adderly. Future governor of California if this scandal doesn’t do her in. Or so I’m told. Motive: One of the oldest in the book. Wendy seduced her husband. Who seems to have given in a little too readily, if you ask me.”

&nb
sp; “You go first,” Gordon said to Lilly.

  “It’d be a good motive, sir, if she knew it was happening. But we don’t have any evidence she did. If it hadn’t been for the murder, Mr. Gordon wouldn’t have told us about her husband, we wouldn’t have broken Mr. Bingham down, and she may never have known. And she was pretty broken up when she found out. Unless she’s a great actress, she had no idea until we told her.”

  Gordon shifted in his chair. “She’s a politician, so of course she’s a bit of an actress — but not a great one. Watching the two of them before the murder happened, I don’t think she knew. And being a politician, especially running a city, her natural impulse is to make things work. She wouldn’t go after Wendy. I think it’s more likely she’d put her husband in the doghouse for a while … ” he took a deep breath, “and trust me, you don’t want to be in her doghouse, but then she’d stand by her man and give him at least one more chance.”

  Rogers arched an eyebrow and looked at Lilly.

  “What do you think, deputy, does he know what her doghouse is like?”

  “Well, sir, they are married.”

  “Actually, I meant Gordon, not Stuart, but we’ll let it go. How about Stuart, then? Motive: He’d cheated on his wife, was probably scared shitless she’d find out, and Wendy was a loose cannon who could have blown his cover at any time. Not a bad motive at all. Deputy, what’s your take?”

  “I agree with you, sir, that it’s a good motive. Probably the best one so far. I could see him maybe going over to talk to her, tell her to keep quiet about it, and then things got out of hand. That’s plausible. But then we have the question of the snow in front of his cabin and hers the next morning with no footprints. And I don’t know that he’d want to take a chance on leaving the cabin without waking up his wife. Actually, when you come to those two, the problem is that each of them is only half a good suspect. He has the motive but not the temperament. She’s smart enough and cool enough to do it, but she didn’t have a motive until after the crime was committed.”

  “Gordon?”

  “I think Eldon’s right all around. Well, almost. I can’t see Stuart even going over to talk to Wendy. I had a good talk with him yesterday, and I think he was scared to death of her. She got him to do something he knew was wrong and didn’t think he was capable of. If you ask me, he was lying low and hoping he’d get out of Harry’s without being found out. Poor bastard. He almost did. And if he’s innocent like I think he is — of the murder, anyway — he and his marriage are collateral damage.”

  Rogers picked up his empty beer glass and tapped it on the table three times.

  “You guys aren’t much help,” he said. “Let’s try my last suspect.” He looked at Gordon. “Your friend, the doctor.” Gordon started to object, but Rogers held up his hand. “Motive: None known, but something might turn up if we keep digging. Reason for suspicion: His fingerprints, metaphorically speaking, are all over this case. We only have his word that the light went out in the victim’s cabin at a time that contradicts the medical evidence, and he was pretty eager to get to the crime scene after it was discovered and go in by himself. Maybe he thought he’d forgotten something. Then he was the one who found the witches’ shrine and wasted the better part of my morning. Plus, I don’t like his attitude very much. He has the arrogant confidence of a cold-blooded killer, and Gordon said he was sleeping like a brick that night, so the doctor had an opportunity to slip out and do it.”

  He looked at Lilly. “Gordon has a conflict of interest on this one, so you go first, deputy.”

  “I don’t really like him, sir. Not as a person — sorry, Mr. Gordon — or as a suspect. There’s not a hint of a motive for him, not even a speck of evidence to build on. He seems to be the only man here that Mrs. Van Holland didn’t, well, flirt with, and he was pretty much sitting on the sidelines enjoying the show she was putting on. Unless you can give me a motive, sorry.”

  Both sets of eyes turned to Gordon.

  “All right, I’ll concede that Peter can be impossible at times, and he’s brilliant enough to plan a complicated crime. Actually, he might enjoy doing that. What I can’t see is him caring enough to follow through with it. Wendy didn’t frighten him or anger him. She amused him. Even if you could come up with a circumstantial reason for him to kill her, I’d still argue against it because there wouldn’t be an emotional reason.”

  “What if,” Rogers said, “it wasn’t emotional? Suppose he’s a psychopath with a high IQ who’s hidden that side of himself from everybody, including you? People like that exist, you know. If you look at all the ways he’s been involved in this case from that perspective — well, you at least have a coherent theory. Plus he’s been married five times, so he might, just might, have some issues with women. And hasn’t it struck you as odd, Gordon, that every time your friend needs to pee, he comes up with a clue?”

  “I’m still not buying it,” Gordon said.

  “Then just for the record, answer this question yes or no. On the night Wendy Van Holland was killed, could Dr. Delaney have left your cabin for half an hour to an hour without your noticing it?”

  Gordon smiled. “I already told you, detective. The way I was sleeping that night, Bigfoot could have broken down the front door and taken the wallet out of my pants and I wouldn’t have noticed it. So, yes, Peter could have gone out of the cabin, but I’m telling you, he didn’t.”

  Rogers looked at Gordon and said nothing for 15 seconds.

  “That remains to be seen,” he finally said. “Anyway, as stimulating as this conversation has been, it hasn’t advanced the investigation by even a millimeter. Let’s drop it and get something to eat.”

  He stood up and scooped his beer glass off the table in one motion.

  “And by the way, Gordon, I hope you sleep well tonight.”

  6

  CYNTHIA HENLEY WAS WAITING TO POUNCE as they came back to the lounge. Rogers saw her before she saw him, and he muttered under his breath to Gordon.

  “Bloody hell. The Fourth Estate. Now I’ve got to feed her a line about how we’re getting closer to a solution. They don’t pay me enough for that, and it’s getting old. Like me.”

  She saw him and rose from her chair, making a beeline for the bar, where he was headed. He got there first and set his drink in front of Don.

  “Another?” Don asked.

  “Might as well. And allow me to buy one for Miss Henley, as long as it’s understood it’s my personal treat and not on the county expense account. What will you have?”

  “Thank you,” she said. “Just a 7-Up. I still have to write my story.”

  Rogers turned to Lilly. “Did you hear that, deputy? I think we may have found your soul mate.”

  Lilly blushed. Rogers and Don laughed. Cynthia and Gordon remained deadpan.

  “Where’s April?” Gordon said.

  “Just left on her break. Anything for you, Mr. Gordon?”

  “Not right now, thanks.”

  Don drew the drinks and set them on the bar.

  “I have some questions about the medical evidence,” she said.

  “You have the right to ask questions, and I have the right to remain silent,” Rogers said. “But I’ll answer what I can. Let’s go over to that table by the window, where we can be alone. Thanks for your help, Gordon.”

  Peter approached. “You were in there a long time,” he said. “Fortunately, the establishment maintains a well stocked bar.” He was slurring his words slightly.

  “I’m starving. Let’s eat,” Gordon said. “Would you like to join us, Eldon?”

  “Thank you, sir, but I need to wait and see if Detective Rogers needs me for anything else.”

  Peter and Gordon walked across the entryway to the dining room. It was 7:30 on a Friday night and a different scene altogether from what it had been earlier in the week. Several new guests at the lodge, combined with an influx of locals, had filled the dining room nearly to capacity. Compared to the quiet of previous days, the room was now
a cacophony of loud and louder voices, clanking plates and silverware. Sharon was waiting tables, along with another waitress Gordon hadn’t seen before; both were busy and moving rapidly.

  Sharon saw them and came over as soon as she finished the table she was working.

  “There you are,” she said. “I’ve been holding the last table in the room for you. Sorry it’s where it is, but I couldn’t hold a window table any longer.”

  They sat down, and Peter raised his empty beer glass in a gesture asking for another. Gordon reached across the table and put his hand on Peter’s forearm.

  “Could you make it a coffee right now, Peter? I need to tell you something.”

  Peter looked at Gordon, and Sharon looked at Peter, ballpoint pen poised above her order pad.

  “I guess my friend knows best. Make it a coffee.” She wrote the order down. “But come back a few minutes after you’ve brought it.”

  She left them, and an uncomfortable silence ensued. Outside the large windows of the dining hall, the lights were illuminating the deck, and even from their table deeper inside, they could see a hard rain falling. They looked at the rain for a few minutes until Sharon returned with Peter’s coffee. He took a sip.

  “We didn’t really need a window table,” he said. “The rain looks the same as it has all week.”

  Gordon looked at Peter, trying to think of what Rogers had said. Finally, he leaned across the table and, in a lowered voice, said:

  “Peter, we need to talk.”

  “You’re starting to sound more and more like my fourth wife, Gordon. And that’s not a good thing.”

  “Can you be serious for a minute? Rogers just gave me a hell of a scare, and it had to do with you.”

  Peter’s eyes narrowed and his body tensed slightly. He put down the coffee cup and leaned across the table to better hear Gordon.

  “All right. You have my attention,” Peter said. “What’s this all about?”

  “There’s no nice way to say this, Peter. You’re on his short list of suspects.”