Adrienne walked across the room and sat down on the bed beside Vicky, who promptly said, “Don’t say a word about me smoking. I haven’t had a cigarette for a year, but I think I deserve one now.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“How’s Rachel?”
“Okay, I guess. She’s in the kitchen with Mrs. Pitt. Skye was going to join her. You know Rachel likes Skye’s company.”
Vicky nodded vaguely. Adrienne looked at the wreck of her sister and asked, “What happened to Margaret?”
“She walked out of here at six yesterday, still giving orders, went home, and got herself murdered.”
“You mean someone was waiting at her house? She walked in on a burglary?”
Vicky shrugged. “I don’t know much. Only that she was found by her cleaning lady this morning.” She paused, as if deciding whether or not to divulge more information. “She was in the bathroom. She’d been savagely beaten. One reporter told Philip she was almost unrecognizable.”
“My God,” Adrienne breathed. “If she’d been attacked after just entering the house, she wouldn’t be in the bathroom.”
“I’ve told you all I know. All that matters.”
“All that matters?”
“Yes. She’s gone. For good. Out of our lives. To me, that’s all that matters.”
“Vicky, I know you didn’t like her. Neither did I, but she didn’t deserve to be beaten to death.”
“Didn’t she?” Vicky blew out a thin, swift stream of smoke. “We really didn’t know her that well. Not really. At least I didn’t. For all I know, she did do something awful and got exactly what she deserved.”
Adrienne sat silently, stunned by the virulence of her sister’s words. She realized that Vicky’s feelings about Margaret went much deeper than dislike or even jealousy. She had despised the woman and was glad she was dead, even if her death had been brutal. Adrienne felt a cold tingle run down her back as the knowledge of her sister’s pure hatred of the murdered woman sank in.
As shaken as Adrienne was, she concentrated on keeping her facial expression and voice neutral. “I wonder if they have any leads, as they say on TV?”
“I don’t know.” Vicky stubbed out her cigarette and immediately shook another one out of the pack. “You’re the one romantically involved with the local lawman. You have a much better source of information than I have. Hasn’t he been on the horn to you already?”
“No, Vicky, he hasn’t,” Adrienne said quietly. “Lucas has been a bit elusive lately.”
Vicky clicked her lighter and raised her eyebrows. “Is the romance cooling?”
“I wouldn’t say it was ever red-hot.”
“No, I never thought so,” Vicky said slowly. “He used to work for Philip, you know. I got to know him fairly well. He’s a good man, Adrienne.”
“I know.”
“Much more dependable than Drew Delaney.”
“What does Drew have to do with anything?” Adrienne heard her voice rise defensively. “I’m not seeing Drew.”
“I didn’t say anything about your actions. Just your feelings.” Vicky took another deep drag on her cigarette. “I think Rachel has a crush on him.”
Adrienne gratefully latched onto Rachel for a change of subject. “Drew is handsome and extremely charming. And she’s clearly not head over heels for Bruce Allard. I can’t say I blame her. He’s far too impressed with himself.”
“His whole life his parents have told him how wonderful he is. You should hear them. It’s sickening. No wonder he’s arrogant. But he’s harmless and close to Rachel’s age. I don’t mind him. But getting involved with Drew Delaney is quite another matter.”
“Who’s involved with Drew Delaney?” Philip demanded, striding aggressively into the bedroom as if ready for imminent battle. “Are you seeing Delaney, Adrienne?” Before she had a chance to answer, he rolled his eyes and sneered. “That would be par for the course. First Trey Reynolds, a Las Vegas lounge lizard, then the local middle-aged Lothario.”
Rage rushed through Adrienne. “How dare you speak that way about my dead husband?”
“It’s true!”
“Trey was a performer. So are you. And for your information, Philip, a lot of people have more respect for Las Vegas performers than political performers!”
Philip’s face turned crimson. “Don’t you ever compare me to him again!”
“Oh, I won’t. I just realized I’m doing Trey a great disservice.” Philip’s fists clenched but Adrienne couldn’t hold her tongue. “And I’m not seeing Drew, although if I were, it wouldn’t be any of your business!”
“Everything that reflects on my career is my business.”
Adrienne jumped up, glaring into Philip’s face. “I have nothing to do with your career!”
“You are my wife’s sister. What you do reflects on me. I wouldn’t expect you to consider that, though. You’ve always thought only of yourself with absolutely no regard for Vicky and me, not to mention Rachel.”
“You’re the one who shows no regard for Vicky and Rachel, not me!” Adrienne’s heart raced along with her rage. “Look, Philip, I know you’re shocked by what’s happened to Margaret, but that doesn’t give you the right to ride roughshod over everyone. Particularly not your wife, your daughter, or me!”
“He’s more than shocked by Margaret’s death,” Vicky suddenly said in a cold, metallic voice. “He’s crushed because he was in love with her.”
“Oh, good God!” Philip exploded, his furious gaze shifting from Adrienne to his wife. “Not this jealousy refrain again!”
“Yes, again.” Tears stood in Vicky’s reddened eyes. “I know Margaret had a lover, and that lover was you, Philip.”
Philip seemed to tighten and coil like a snake. Adrienne drew back from him slightly, wary of what was to come. At last he spoke to Vicky with cool contempt. “You are right about one thing, my dear. Margaret did have a lover. I just got a call from a contact I have on the police force. It seems Margaret’s cleaning lady knew her better than we did. According to her, Margaret had a hot and heavy thing going with Miles Shaw.”
“Julianna’s Miles?” Adrienne blurted in surprise.
“The one and only.” Philip continued to look at his wife. “So what do you make of that, Vicky?”
Vicky seemed to shrink into the bed pillows, looking stricken. Adrienne thought of how much Vicky had hated Margaret, how sure she’d been Philip was having an affair with her, and how terrible she looked, as if she’d been through some powerful, savage experience.
And Adrienne wondered where her sister had been at the time of Margaret’s murder.
3
A bead of sweat rolled down from Miles Shaw’s hairline, through the web of shallow crows’ feet shooting from his eyes, over his high cheekbone, and dropped off his jaw onto his black shirt. Sheriff Lucas Flynn stared at him across the table in the interrogation room at police headquarters. Lucas noted that Shaw was making a supreme effort to return an unflinching gaze and not quite achieving it. About every ten seconds Shaw’s green eyes skittered right, left, or downward at the slender artist’s hands he fought to keep serenely motionless.
“You know Margaret Taylor has been murdered,” Lucas began abruptly.
“I knew it when you came banging on the door of my studio this morning.”
“But not earlier.”
Shaw shook his head. “I’d just gotten up.”
“And you didn’t see it on the news.”
“I don’t watch the morning news.”
“And you didn’t see the body when you were in Ms. Taylor’s house this morning.”
“I wasn’t in her house this morning.”
“But you were last night.”
Shaw hesitated. His gaze shifted. Lucas watched closely as a number of thoughts flashed behind Shaw’s eyes. Finally he came out with, “Yeah, okay. I have no reason to lie. I was in her house last night.”
“Until what time?”
“Ten
o’clock.”
“Ten exactly?”
“Yes.”
“My goodness, you’re precise about times,” Lucas said affably. “Most people aren’t so exact.”
“Margaret has a grandfather clock. It was chiming when I went out the door.”
“Convenient.”
“I’d say coincidental.”
“And Margaret was alive when you left?”
“Of course she was alive,” Shaw snapped.
“Because later she suffered a hell of a beating. Somebody took something like a two-inch hammer to your girlfriend, Shaw. Her face was crushed. She must have been in terrible pain, but she didn’t die immediately.”
Shaw’s hands clenched and his jaw tightened. “Margaret was perfectly fine at ten o’clock when I left.”
Lucas smiled. “Want something to drink, Mr. Shaw? Coffee? A soft drink?”
Miles looked nonplussed at the change in tone. “I want a cigarette.”
“Sorry. No smoking in this building.”
“Figures.”
“You’ll live longer.”
“By skipping one cigarette?” Miles scoffed. “I doubt it.”
“You smoked a different brand than Margaret, didn’t you?”
Miles glanced at him with a mixture of incredulity and humor. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s one of the ways Ms. Taylor’s cleaning lady, Ruby Fincher, knew you’d been around last night. You left cigarette butts in the ashtray that weren’t Margaret’s brand.”
“And I’m the only person in town who smokes Camels?”
“These cigarette butts were found in an ashtray on Margaret’s nightstand next to the rumpled bed on which we’ve found semen stains.”
“Which means I’m the man Margaret was involved with, right?”
Lucas shrugged. “According to Ruby Fincher.”
“She’s a regular Sherlock Holmes, isn’t she? Tell me, what were her brilliant insights that nailed me as Margaret’s lover?”
“Well, a few weeks ago Ruby found a clipping about you on Margaret’s desk. She noticed a new painting in Margaret’s house, one of yours, which Margaret gushed over to Ruby when she rarely bothered to bestow any conversation on the woman. And one time you left that chunk of turquoise you wear around your neck on Margaret’s nightstand along with an empty pack of Camels. Ruby recognized the necklace from the photo that accompanied the article clipped from the newspaper. You see, Mr. Shaw, it’s always the little things that trip you up.”
“Those and nosy domestic help.” Miles leaned back in the wooden chair and crossed his hands behind his neck. Lucas’s gaze was drawn to Shaw’s long, gleaming braid. No man in this area wore a braid woven through with a strip of leather like Shaw’s. Lucas had never paid much attention to it before, but suddenly it got on his nerves. It seemed pretentious and precious and self-consciously artsy. Shaw had the air of a damned peacock, Lucas fumed, showing off like he was really something, above all the rest of the unimaginative, untalented fray with which he must deal on a daily basis. “Is something wrong, Sheriff?” Miles finally asked, his voice faintly insinuating as if he already had an inkling his mere presence was pissing off Lucas.
“Not beyond the obvious.” Let Shaw make of obvious what he cared to, Lucas thought. “Why didn’t anyone ever see you with Ms. Taylor? Why didn’t the two of you ever talk about your relationship or go out in public?”
Miles shifted in his chair, his hands dropping from his neck. His fingers twitched with the habitual smoker’s urge to hold the stick of tobacco like a prop. “Keeping things quiet was Margaret’s idea. She said news of a romance might detract from Philip Hamilton’s campaign. I always thought it was more likely she was afraid he’d get jealous.”
“Do you think Philip Hamilton had romantic feelings for Margaret?”
Miles paused, absently running his ring finger over a black eyebrow. “I think the man is possessive of every woman who enters his sphere. He starts thinking of them as his property. They have to live up to his standards, behave in ways he finds suitable. And never pull attention away from him.” Miles looked directly at Lucas. “He even feels that way about Adrienne. You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed it.”
“Actually, I haven’t.” Lucas kept his voice calm although Shaw had ruffled his composure by dragging Adrienne into the interrogation. And the man was right about Hamilton. Lucas remembered Adrienne telling him how selfishly Philip had behaved when she was attacked, worrying only about the bad impression she might have made as his sister-in-law. Still, Lucas wasn’t going to give an inch to Miles Shaw. “Adrienne is extremely strong-willed. She wouldn’t let Philip Hamilton boss her around.”
Miles threw back his head and laughed, jarring Lucas although he tried not to show it. “Strong-willed is one way to describe Adrienne. I can think of more apt terms.”
Lucas stared hard at Miles, knowing the man was trying to bait him by implying he knew Adrienne more intimately than Lucas thought. But the sheriff wasn’t about to give Miles the satisfaction of appearing fazed by innuendo. “We need to establish your alibi, Shaw, if you have one,” he said coldly. “Where did you go after you left Margaret?”
“Heaven’s Door. That place out on Route 2.”
“What time did you arrive?”
“I don’t know. Between ten and ten-thirty.”
“No grandfather clock chiming to announce the exact hour?”
“No,” Miles said coolly. “But I went there directly after I left Margaret’s.”
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I didn’t feel like it. Too much energy to burn.”
“And you like to dance.”
“No, I don’t like to dance, but I do like to listen to music. They have a good band.”
“Several bands play at Heaven’s Door. Which band was playing there last night?”
“Nepenthe. The word is Native American for peace.”
“Thank you for the vocabulary lesson, Mr. Shaw. Have you ever gone to Heaven’s Door before?” Lucas asked.
“Several times.”
“Alone?”
A slight hesitation. A slight waver of the eyes. “I’ve always gone alone, yes. But sometimes I meet someone there.” “Anyone in particular?”
A pause. “Well, yes. There’s a girl. Her name is Nikki. That’s all I know about her. And before you ask, I’ve left with her.”
“Care to give me more information so I can check your alibi with her?”
“She’s about five six or five seven, dark-haired, attractive, young. I don’t know her last name. I don’t know where she Uves. We never go back to her place. Relatives live with her. And she wasn’t there last night, so you couldn’t check anything with her anyway.”
“Really? Nikki with no last name, no known address, and missing last night just when she could provide an alibi for you. Once again, very convenient, Mr. Shaw.”
Miles fell silent, clearly trying to control anger. And maybe a growing sense of fear. Finally, he lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Look, I can’t help it. I’ve only been with Nikki a couple of times, and believe me, if I could use her for an alibi, I sure as hell wouldn’t hold out on you. But I can’t be the only person who’s seen her at Heaven’s Door. And I’m sure people must have seen me at Heaven’s Door last night.”
“You? Oh sure. What was I thinking? Fans must be all over a famous artist like you. Sort of the local Andy Warhol, aren’t you? Do they drive you nuts for autographs, that kind ofthing?”
“I’m not a thing like Andy Warhol, although we share something in the looks department. Distinctiveness, Sheriff Flynn,” Shaw said in a maddeningly self-satisfied voice. “I am six feet four inches tall. I have black hair that is almost waist length. I have definite Native American looks. Good looks. In other words, I stand out in a local crowd.”
Shaw smirked at Lucas, then lounged back in his chair like some smart-ass juvenile delinquent. Lucas felt like kicking the
leg out from under Shaw’s chair.
“Well, Mr. Shaw, you’d better hope you stand out in a crowd,” Lucas said with quiet force, “because otherwise you have no alibi. Without an alibi, the prosecuting attorney and I are going to think you savagely murdered and mutilated a young, respected, innocent woman who just happens to be the campaign manager for a gubernatorial candidate. And if we arrest you for that murder, don’t expect a groundswell of support, because people aren’t going to have much sympathy for you, Miles my boy. Not much sympathy at all.”
TWELVE
1
At six o’clock, Adrienne and Skye sat down to watch the evening news. Raptly, they listened to the opening jingle, which ended to show the face of a twenty-something anchorwoman with the orthodox, polished good looks of a thousand other anchorwomen. She beamed at her audience. “Good evening, everybody! Thanks for joining us!”
Immediately her sparkling expression turned solemn. “First tonight, police tell us thirty-two-year-old Margaret Taylor was beaten to death in her home in Point Pleasant some time around midnight. Ms. Taylor was the campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate Philip Hamilton.”
The image of the anchorwoman vanished to be replaced by a still picture of Margaret alone, her olive-skinned face touched by a gentle smile, her almond eyes lovely and vulnerable, her black hair uncharacteristically falling in shining waves over her shoulders. Next flashed a photo of a trim and smartly dressed Margaret smiling radiantly up at Philip with Vicky pushed slightly into the background looking careworn, narrow-eyed, grim, and a bit hostile. “Oh no,” Adrienne moaned.
Back to the solemn-faced anchorwoman. “Ms. Taylor was found in her home at seven o’clock this morning by her cleaning lady, Ruby Fincher.” On came a video. A woman’s eyes darted nervously sideways as someone obviously motioned her to “go.” She then looked bug-eyed at the camera and drew a deep breath. “I’ve never seen anything so terrible in all my thirty-five years!” Ruby began with gusto. “I was horrified! Terrified! Sick to my stomach! Why, I had to go take a nerve pill!”
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