PW01 - Died On The Vine
Page 8
by Joyce Harmon”, “See that?”
“Yeah, but – “
“That’s the directory for Kingdom of Qu’aot IV, The Battle For The Heartland. Retails for $49.95. I sure would like to see your warranty card on that. And the manual – which I wrote, I might add. If that isn’t a bootleg, you must have the manual.”
“I don’t know what Joe and Hank have been up to with this, but look, Mrs. Rayburn, do you really want to get these guys fired?” Dawson gave me his most bassetty look.
“Well-l-l.” I hesitated.
Gloria leaned forward eagerly. “What do you say I just erase this stuff and give those boys a piece of my mind?”
“Gloria, let me talk to Luther for a minute.”
“Huh? Okay, hon, I need to water these plants anyway.” Gloria picked up the watering can and bustled out of the room.
“How about an update on the investigation?” I asked Dawson, with what I hoped was a winning smile.
He was scandalized. “You know I can’t do that!”
I pulled a notebook out of my purse and began writing down the names of the directories. “Let’s see,” I muttered. “QIV is EveryWare. MMG? That must be Murder Most Gruesome from Players, Inc. DRAK. Everyone’s heard of Drak. Boy, won’t the guys at Synth be tickled to hear about this - “
“Okay, okay, okay. Put that away.” Luther surrendered. “Now I’m not going to name names, and I wouldn’t tell you a word if I thought either you or Mr. Rayburn had anything to do with this. But there’s a fellow up in Reston who threatened Winslow. Threatened to kill him, in a letter even. We found that in Winslow’s files. We’re running background on the guy right now.”
“Okay. And?” I prodded.
“Then there’s your Mary Nguyen that Mrs. Barstow told us about.”
“Julia told you about her?”
“Yes, about her being Winslow’s daughter and all. But she was definitely out of the country when your tools went missing – of at one of those wars in eastern Europe, I never can keep them straight. So she’s out unless we can find an accomplice.”
“That’s what Julia thought,” I admitted.
“We’re looking at a lot of things, ma’am. And now I’ve really told you all I can.” Poor Dawson was looking harassed.
“Okay then. That will do.” I frowned at him severely and began erasing files.
When Gloria breezed in a few minutes later, I was finishing up aiding and abetting. But I did take the Post-It note and slipped it into my purse.
And outside in the parking lot, I wrote down the password to the crime computer. You never know when something like that will come in handy.
Back home, I entered the house with no greeting from Polly. Unusual. I found her in the great room.
Jack was sacked out on the recliner, and Polly had joined him, half beside him and half in his lap. Her chin was on his shoulder.
Polly is a big dog, but she can move with a pickpocket’s stealth when in pursuit of a cuddle. Jack was fast asleep, and Tough Stuff had staked out prime territory on his lap.
Awww! Poor Jack looked so sad and tired. There wasn’t much room in that pile of mammals, but I sat on the arm of the recliner and put my head on his other shoulder.
I lack Polly’s delicate touch. Jack’s eyelids fluttered briefly and he muttered, “Jeez, Cis, you weigh a ton.”
Such a romantic! “Some of that’s Polly.”
He opened his eyes and Polly greeted him with a sincere look of devotion and a delicate lick on the chin. Jack chuckled and closed his eyes again. “My apologies. The two of you together weigh a ton.”
“Don’t forget Tough Stuff. He’s adding a few ounces here.”
“How could I ever forget Tough Stuff? He sounds like an outboard motor.”
“That’s a sweet little purr!” I rubbed T.S. under the chin, causing him to shift into high gear.
“So, how was the festival?” I ventured.
“Oh, great,” Jack said. His eyes were still closed. “Half the guys there think I’m a murderer.”
“What!” I sat up. “What did they say?”
“It’s not what they said, hon. It was the way they talked to me from a yard further away than usual. After a while, it’s hard not to notice that.”
“Well,” I searched for a term bad enough and gave up. “What a bunch of jerks.”
“You said it, kiddo. But after hanging around pumping me for information, they felt duty bound to buy some wine. First time I ever sold out at Bull Run.”
“They’ll probably serve the wine to their guests as a conversation piece. ‘The man who made this wine may have committed a murder’.” I grumbled indignantly. “That will start the sort of gossip mongering that never goes away.”
Jack sat up. “But the thing about that kind of gossip is that it’s free-floating. A year from now, people will remember that some Virginia winery was associated with a murder, but they won’t remember which one.”
I expanded on the idea. “They’ll be stopping by every winery in the state asking one another, ‘Isn’t this the place where – ?’”
“And most of them won’t have the guts to ask the proprietors.”
“So by next year, those fellows will have their customers standing a yard further away than usual,” I finished. “I love it.”
“That’s assuming I’m not arrested in the meantime,” Jack said glumly.
“That reminds me! Luther Dawson told me they were looking into some man who threatened to kill Winslow. He wouldn’t tell me the name.”
“The name is Wayne Harkey,” said a voice from the door. We turned to see Julia entering. She took in the sight of all of us overflowing the recliner and beamed. “Isn’t that cute.”
Polly broke up our cuddle bundle, surging off the recliner with several kicks to human stomachs. She approached Julia with her tail plume whisking hopefully.
“Does she sit?” Julia asked in a high silly voice. Polly sat. Her tail continued to whisk. Julia rewarded her with a piece of freeze-dried liver. Julia is never without a few bits of freeze-dried liver.
“Wayne Harkey,” she continued briskly, “is the son of Flora Harkey, whose husband was listed as missing in action in 1969. It seems that Mrs. Harkey has been contributing to the despicable Colonel Winslow for quite some time. To the point where she now has nothing left to contribute. She had to sell her house and now splits her time between her two grown sons.”
“Where did you get that?” I demanded.
“It was in Mary’s notes. Wayne wrote to Winslow, demanding his mother’s money back. Later letters warned Winslow to keep looking over his shoulder because Wayne would get him sooner or later.”
“Winslow had probably already spent the Harkey money,” I guessed. “But isn’t it odd? That story wasn’t in the manuscript of Mary’s book.”
“She had quite extensive notes on it,” Julia said. “I can’t imagine why
it wasn’t in the book.”
TEN
“Because my goddamn publisher made me take it out,” Mary said, striding restlessly around the kitchen. I had pulled out the ashtrays that I kept for Deb’s visits, and Mary was puffing furiously. “That was the best story in the book, but Wayne Harkey threatened to sue me and my publisher if we put anything about his mother in the book. So the publisher caved.”
It was the next morning, and I was stoking the furnace with coffee. “Would he have won?” I asked.
“Of course not. I didn’t have anything in there that couldn’t have been proved six ways from Sunday. But it was the cost the publishers are worried about.”
“And you just rolled over and took it?” I asked skeptically. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
Mary flopped angrily into a chair. “I’m an article writer. I have a Rolodex of magazine editors that some writers would kill for. But this is my first book. I just don’t have pull with the book publishers. I’m no John Grisham.” She thought a moment and added forcefully, “Yet.”
“Okay, so you agreed to take the Harkey story out of the book. But you researched it, so you met Wayne Harkey?”
“Yes. The interview did not go well. It was Wayne Harkey who wrote the threatening letter to Winslow, but the older brother seems to have taken charge of the whole issue. He’s suing Winslow. He’s a lawyer.”
“Whoa! Never scam a lawyer’s mother!”
“Right. Big brother Bob has managed to get through to Wayne the value of keeping his mouth shut. So he didn’t have much to tell me. But when he realized I was working on a book, he told me that there had better not be anything about the Harkey family in it, on pain of lawsuit. Big brother followed up with a letter to my publisher, and there we are.”
“So you’re saying that Wayne and Bob Harkey aren’t likely to want to talk to you.”
“Not likely. I wonder what Winslow’s death does to the status of the lawsuit?”
“They’ll probably just continue the suit against the estate.”
“Probably. I can’t see a lawyer giving up when there was still money left,” Mary said cynically. “But you might get in to see them. You’re a possible victim of Winslow’s shenanigans yourself; they might feel like you were part of the same victim group.”
“Oh, boy, just what I always wanted; membership in a victim group.”
Mary laughed. “If you are inclined to go looking for them, you would probably find that you are a member of many victim groups. For starters, you’re a woman. Then you were a military wife and widow. Freelance writer, now there’s a victim group! I did an article on the culture of victimhood. That piece got me more hate mail than anything I’ve ever done.”
“So you think Wayne might talk to me?”
“The worst that can happen is that he says no,” she pointed out.
“I like that attitude,” I told her.
So after Mary left (“places to go, things to do, people to meet”, she said vaguely), I called the number she had given me for Wayne Harkey.
He was a suspicious man. “Are you with the police?” he asked when I introduced myself.
“No,” I explained carefully. “I’m the person who found Winslow’s body. Someone stabbed him on our property. I’m worried that the police might try to blame me or my family.”
“How did you hear about me, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m a writer – word gets around.”
That didn’t fool him for a minute. “You’re been talking to that gook reporter lady, haven’t you?”
I was glad he couldn’t see me wince at the slur. “Mary Nguyen has been very helpful to me, Mr. Harkey. Winslow came here several days before he died, claiming that my husband was still alive. Mary has done a lot of research on Winslow.”
“So your husband was in Nam?” Now I had his interest.
“Yes, but he was reported killed, not missing. I’d like to meet you, find out what you know about Winslow. It might help find out who would want to kill him.”
He laughed sharply. “Besides me, you mean? Well, come on by this afternoon. Around 4:30. That’s before I go to work, and Mom will be getting her hair done.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want her bothered about this.”
I was writing busily. “Where are you? I’m down in Passatonnack County. Could I get there by 4:30?”
“Sure, we’re in Reston.” He gave me the address.
After I hung up, I called Julia for reinforcements. I was feeling shy about quizzing total strangers about their personal lives, but knew that Julia would have no qualms. Sure enough, she was up for the expedition.
“My car,” Julia said when she pulled up. I wasn’t going to argue. I got in and patted the plush seats as we pulled out of the yard.
No one who had seen Julia’s office would consider her house-proud, so she must be car-proud. This vehicle was always immaculate. Even the Doctors Foster and Smith car seat covers seemed devoid of dog hair. I can only guess that she launders them every other day. I admire her persistence, but I gave up the pet hair battle long ago.
Maybe that’s why Julia decided to drive. We swung through the Burger King drive-through on the way. I settled back in plush comfort as we headed north on cruise control and french fry fumes.
As we entered the D.C. commuting area, we passed an area where new construction was going up. It’s what I think of as ‘executive tract housing’, two million dollar homes on half-acre lots.
“I don’t understand that,” I said, waving at the houses. “If you’re going to buy a manor house, isn’t it supposed to be on an estate?”
“June says the younger two-income families like them,” Julia said. Her daughter June sells real estate. “Not as much yard to worry about. She says they think it’s cozy.”
“Cozy, I’ll say. If I was going to spend that much money for a house, I’d buy something where the next door neighbors couldn’t peer right into the breakfast nook.”
“The owners aren’t doing anything scandalous in the breakfast nook,” Julia answered wisely. “They’re too tired.”
“Poor things.”
There’s new Reston and old Reston. Old Reston is a figurative term; there are cars still on the road that are older. The houses were Sixties ranchers and bungalows, the trees and shrubs are well-established, and most yards were enclosed with chain-link fences to give the dogs some room to run. There was a nice solid middle-class feel to the area.
These houses were built back in the days when a single income blue-collar family could afford a nice home in the suburbs. Now they sat on lots that were worth more than the houses.
Wayne Harkey lived in one of these chain-link domains. He had lavished a great deal of attention to the yard. The walk was edged with iris and hosta, and I could see a rose trellis in the side yard.
We entered the gate cautiously, but met no dogs. The man who answered the doorbell seemed a nondescript sort. He was dressed for work in a one-piece jumpsuit with the name of a delivery company on the pocket. He had a receding hairline and donut belly. “You Mrs. Rayburn? Come on in.”
“This is my friend, Julia Barstow,” I told him as we entered.
“Your husband lost in Nam?” he asked her.
“Oh, no,” Julia answered. “I’m just driving for Cissy.”
We were escorted into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I felt foolish and uneasy, unsure where to start. Thank God for Julia. She leaned forward and confided with Sunday School earnestness, “You see, Mr. Harkey, we’re both worried about Jack – that’s Cissy’s husband. This Winslow showed up at the Rayburns’ place with some cock and bull story about Cissy’s first husband being alive, and then a few days later, he’s stabbed with Jack’s pruning shears. The police seem to think that Jack has a motive, but those of us who know him know that he’d not hurt a fly.”
“What kind of cock and bull story?” Harkey wanted to know.
“That’s just it!” I entered the conversation eagerly now. “He had a pic
ture that he said might be Jimmy, but we’ve tracked it down and it’s someone totally different, and Winslow had to have known that.”
Harkey’s face darkened. “That bastard!” He stood up. “Wait a minute, I want to show you something.”
He left the room and we heard him go into the kitchen and rummage through a drawer. When he returned, he had a photograph in his hand. He handed it to me. “What do you think of that?”
I looked at it in bemusement. “What is it?”
“It’s an aerial photograph.”
“Oh. So these little sticks are trees?” He nodded. “And this must be a river. Well, so what?” I handed the photo over to Julia, who looked at it one way, then turned it around and looked at it again from that angle.
Harkey grinned. “Don’t you see the signal?”
We both looked at him and shook our heads.
“This is the photo that supposedly proved my dad is still alive. See there,” he traced some lines on the photo. “That’s where he made his marks in the dirt – it’s supposed to say ‘7/9/69’, which is his shoot-down date.”
Julia and I hunched over the picture again, trying to see the marks. Finally I sat back and shook my head. “I think this is something like those people who claim to see an image of the Virgin Mary in a waterstain on the ceiling.”
Harkey nodded as if I was on to something. “It would have to be something a person wanted to see. Anyway, that picture convinced Mom that Dad was still alive in some POW camp that no one in the Western world knew anything about. She was sending money to Winslow, a lot more than she could afford.”
“Didn’t you try to talk to her about it?” I asked.
“I didn’t know!” he said defensively. “She lived in Chicago then. Had her own little house. When we talked on the phone, she would talk about the Lest We Forget organization, but I thought she was sending them maybe ten dollars at a whack. I didn’t know how bad things were until she had already lost the house.”
“So that’s when you threatened Winslow?” Julia asked.
Harkey flushed. “Yeah, I threatened him, I’ll admit it. I was so damn mad. But Bob said we should sue to get the money back, so that’s what we’re doing.”
I turned to see Luther Dawson looking over my shoulder. “Bootlegging,” I told him impressively. “Piracy. What do you know about these programs?”
Luther shrugged. “Some of the guys brought some disks from home to have something to do on the slow night shifts, which we have a lot of around here. What’s the big deal?”
“The big deal is that it’s copyright infringement,” I answered.
“And that’s a felony,” Gloria added helpfully.
“Come on, a few lousy games! Who’s being hurt?”
“The software designers are being hurt,” I told him. “You know, the folks I work for? Any time you copy a disk that’s copyrighted, that’s the same thing as stealing a copy from the company that produced it. I know the boys at EveryWare are just looking for a bootlegging case that would give them big headlines, to put the fear of God into all the small time pirates out there. I think a sheriff’s office would fit that criterion quite nicely.”
Dawson held up his hands. “Now just a minute, Mrs. Rayburn – “
I pointed at the screen, to the line that said, “QIV
“Yeah, but – “
“That’s the directory for Kingdom of Qu’aot IV, The Battle For The Heartland. Retails for $49.95. I sure would like to see your warranty card on that. And the manual – which I wrote, I might add. If that isn’t a bootleg, you must have the manual.”
“I don’t know what Joe and Hank have been up to with this, but look, Mrs. Rayburn, do you really want to get these guys fired?” Dawson gave me his most bassetty look.
“Well-l-l.” I hesitated.
Gloria leaned forward eagerly. “What do you say I just erase this stuff and give those boys a piece of my mind?”
“Gloria, let me talk to Luther for a minute.”
“Huh? Okay, hon, I need to water these plants anyway.” Gloria picked up the watering can and bustled out of the room.
“How about an update on the investigation?” I asked Dawson, with what I hoped was a winning smile.
He was scandalized. “You know I can’t do that!”
I pulled a notebook out of my purse and began writing down the names of the directories. “Let’s see,” I muttered. “QIV is EveryWare. MMG? That must be Murder Most Gruesome from Players, Inc. DRAK. Everyone’s heard of Drak. Boy, won’t the guys at Synth be tickled to hear about this - “
“Okay, okay, okay. Put that away.” Luther surrendered. “Now I’m not going to name names, and I wouldn’t tell you a word if I thought either you or Mr. Rayburn had anything to do with this. But there’s a fellow up in Reston who threatened Winslow. Threatened to kill him, in a letter even. We found that in Winslow’s files. We’re running background on the guy right now.”
“Okay. And?” I prodded.
“Then there’s your Mary Nguyen that Mrs. Barstow told us about.”
“Julia told you about her?”
“Yes, about her being Winslow’s daughter and all. But she was definitely out of the country when your tools went missing – of at one of those wars in eastern Europe, I never can keep them straight. So she’s out unless we can find an accomplice.”
“That’s what Julia thought,” I admitted.
“We’re looking at a lot of things, ma’am. And now I’ve really told you all I can.” Poor Dawson was looking harassed.
“Okay then. That will do.” I frowned at him severely and began erasing files.
When Gloria breezed in a few minutes later, I was finishing up aiding and abetting. But I did take the Post-It note and slipped it into my purse.
And outside in the parking lot, I wrote down the password to the crime computer. You never know when something like that will come in handy.
Back home, I entered the house with no greeting from Polly. Unusual. I found her in the great room.
Jack was sacked out on the recliner, and Polly had joined him, half beside him and half in his lap. Her chin was on his shoulder.
Polly is a big dog, but she can move with a pickpocket’s stealth when in pursuit of a cuddle. Jack was fast asleep, and Tough Stuff had staked out prime territory on his lap.
Awww! Poor Jack looked so sad and tired. There wasn’t much room in that pile of mammals, but I sat on the arm of the recliner and put my head on his other shoulder.
I lack Polly’s delicate touch. Jack’s eyelids fluttered briefly and he muttered, “Jeez, Cis, you weigh a ton.”
Such a romantic! “Some of that’s Polly.”
He opened his eyes and Polly greeted him with a sincere look of devotion and a delicate lick on the chin. Jack chuckled and closed his eyes again. “My apologies. The two of you together weigh a ton.”
“Don’t forget Tough Stuff. He’s adding a few ounces here.”
“How could I ever forget Tough Stuff? He sounds like an outboard motor.”
“That’s a sweet little purr!” I rubbed T.S. under the chin, causing him to shift into high gear.
“So, how was the festival?” I ventured.
“Oh, great,” Jack said. His eyes were still closed. “Half the guys there think I’m a murderer.”
“What!” I sat up. “What did they say?”
“It’s not what they said, hon. It was the way they talked to me from a yard further away than usual. After a while, it’s hard not to notice that.”
“Well,” I searched for a term bad enough and gave up. “What a bunch of jerks.”
“You said it, kiddo. But after hanging around pumping me for information, they felt duty bound to buy some wine. First time I ever sold out at Bull Run.”
“They’ll probably serve the wine to their guests as a conversation piece. ‘The man who made this wine may have committed a murder’.” I grumbled indignantly. “That will start the sort of gossip mongering that never goes away.”
Jack sat up. “But the thing about that kind of gossip is that it’s free-floating. A year from now, people will remember that some Virginia winery was associated with a murder, but they won’t remember which one.”
I expanded on the idea. “They’ll be stopping by every winery in the state asking one another, ‘Isn’t this the place where – ?’”
“And most of them won’t have the guts to ask the proprietors.”
“So by next year, those fellows will have their customers standing a yard further away than usual,” I finished. “I love it.”
“That’s assuming I’m not arrested in the meantime,” Jack said glumly.
“That reminds me! Luther Dawson told me they were looking into some man who threatened to kill Winslow. He wouldn’t tell me the name.”
“The name is Wayne Harkey,” said a voice from the door. We turned to see Julia entering. She took in the sight of all of us overflowing the recliner and beamed. “Isn’t that cute.”
Polly broke up our cuddle bundle, surging off the recliner with several kicks to human stomachs. She approached Julia with her tail plume whisking hopefully.
“Does she sit?” Julia asked in a high silly voice. Polly sat. Her tail continued to whisk. Julia rewarded her with a piece of freeze-dried liver. Julia is never without a few bits of freeze-dried liver.
“Wayne Harkey,” she continued briskly, “is the son of Flora Harkey, whose husband was listed as missing in action in 1969. It seems that Mrs. Harkey has been contributing to the despicable Colonel Winslow for quite some time. To the point where she now has nothing left to contribute. She had to sell her house and now splits her time between her two grown sons.”
“Where did you get that?” I demanded.
“It was in Mary’s notes. Wayne wrote to Winslow, demanding his mother’s money back. Later letters warned Winslow to keep looking over his shoulder because Wayne would get him sooner or later.”
“Winslow had probably already spent the Harkey money,” I guessed. “But isn’t it odd? That story wasn’t in the manuscript of Mary’s book.”
“She had quite extensive notes on it,” Julia said. “I can’t imagine why
it wasn’t in the book.”
TEN
“Because my goddamn publisher made me take it out,” Mary said, striding restlessly around the kitchen. I had pulled out the ashtrays that I kept for Deb’s visits, and Mary was puffing furiously. “That was the best story in the book, but Wayne Harkey threatened to sue me and my publisher if we put anything about his mother in the book. So the publisher caved.”
It was the next morning, and I was stoking the furnace with coffee. “Would he have won?” I asked.
“Of course not. I didn’t have anything in there that couldn’t have been proved six ways from Sunday. But it was the cost the publishers are worried about.”
“And you just rolled over and took it?” I asked skeptically. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
Mary flopped angrily into a chair. “I’m an article writer. I have a Rolodex of magazine editors that some writers would kill for. But this is my first book. I just don’t have pull with the book publishers. I’m no John Grisham.” She thought a moment and added forcefully, “Yet.”
“Okay, so you agreed to take the Harkey story out of the book. But you researched it, so you met Wayne Harkey?”
“Yes. The interview did not go well. It was Wayne Harkey who wrote the threatening letter to Winslow, but the older brother seems to have taken charge of the whole issue. He’s suing Winslow. He’s a lawyer.”
“Whoa! Never scam a lawyer’s mother!”
“Right. Big brother Bob has managed to get through to Wayne the value of keeping his mouth shut. So he didn’t have much to tell me. But when he realized I was working on a book, he told me that there had better not be anything about the Harkey family in it, on pain of lawsuit. Big brother followed up with a letter to my publisher, and there we are.”
“So you’re saying that Wayne and Bob Harkey aren’t likely to want to talk to you.”
“Not likely. I wonder what Winslow’s death does to the status of the lawsuit?”
“They’ll probably just continue the suit against the estate.”
“Probably. I can’t see a lawyer giving up when there was still money left,” Mary said cynically. “But you might get in to see them. You’re a possible victim of Winslow’s shenanigans yourself; they might feel like you were part of the same victim group.”
“Oh, boy, just what I always wanted; membership in a victim group.”
Mary laughed. “If you are inclined to go looking for them, you would probably find that you are a member of many victim groups. For starters, you’re a woman. Then you were a military wife and widow. Freelance writer, now there’s a victim group! I did an article on the culture of victimhood. That piece got me more hate mail than anything I’ve ever done.”
“So you think Wayne might talk to me?”
“The worst that can happen is that he says no,” she pointed out.
“I like that attitude,” I told her.
So after Mary left (“places to go, things to do, people to meet”, she said vaguely), I called the number she had given me for Wayne Harkey.
He was a suspicious man. “Are you with the police?” he asked when I introduced myself.
“No,” I explained carefully. “I’m the person who found Winslow’s body. Someone stabbed him on our property. I’m worried that the police might try to blame me or my family.”
“How did you hear about me, anyway?”
“Oh, I’m a writer – word gets around.”
That didn’t fool him for a minute. “You’re been talking to that gook reporter lady, haven’t you?”
I was glad he couldn’t see me wince at the slur. “Mary Nguyen has been very helpful to me, Mr. Harkey. Winslow came here several days before he died, claiming that my husband was still alive. Mary has done a lot of research on Winslow.”
“So your husband was in Nam?” Now I had his interest.
“Yes, but he was reported killed, not missing. I’d like to meet you, find out what you know about Winslow. It might help find out who would want to kill him.”
He laughed sharply. “Besides me, you mean? Well, come on by this afternoon. Around 4:30. That’s before I go to work, and Mom will be getting her hair done.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want her bothered about this.”
I was writing busily. “Where are you? I’m down in Passatonnack County. Could I get there by 4:30?”
“Sure, we’re in Reston.” He gave me the address.
After I hung up, I called Julia for reinforcements. I was feeling shy about quizzing total strangers about their personal lives, but knew that Julia would have no qualms. Sure enough, she was up for the expedition.
“My car,” Julia said when she pulled up. I wasn’t going to argue. I got in and patted the plush seats as we pulled out of the yard.
No one who had seen Julia’s office would consider her house-proud, so she must be car-proud. This vehicle was always immaculate. Even the Doctors Foster and Smith car seat covers seemed devoid of dog hair. I can only guess that she launders them every other day. I admire her persistence, but I gave up the pet hair battle long ago.
Maybe that’s why Julia decided to drive. We swung through the Burger King drive-through on the way. I settled back in plush comfort as we headed north on cruise control and french fry fumes.
As we entered the D.C. commuting area, we passed an area where new construction was going up. It’s what I think of as ‘executive tract housing’, two million dollar homes on half-acre lots.
“I don’t understand that,” I said, waving at the houses. “If you’re going to buy a manor house, isn’t it supposed to be on an estate?”
“June says the younger two-income families like them,” Julia said. Her daughter June sells real estate. “Not as much yard to worry about. She says they think it’s cozy.”
“Cozy, I’ll say. If I was going to spend that much money for a house, I’d buy something where the next door neighbors couldn’t peer right into the breakfast nook.”
“The owners aren’t doing anything scandalous in the breakfast nook,” Julia answered wisely. “They’re too tired.”
“Poor things.”
There’s new Reston and old Reston. Old Reston is a figurative term; there are cars still on the road that are older. The houses were Sixties ranchers and bungalows, the trees and shrubs are well-established, and most yards were enclosed with chain-link fences to give the dogs some room to run. There was a nice solid middle-class feel to the area.
These houses were built back in the days when a single income blue-collar family could afford a nice home in the suburbs. Now they sat on lots that were worth more than the houses.
Wayne Harkey lived in one of these chain-link domains. He had lavished a great deal of attention to the yard. The walk was edged with iris and hosta, and I could see a rose trellis in the side yard.
We entered the gate cautiously, but met no dogs. The man who answered the doorbell seemed a nondescript sort. He was dressed for work in a one-piece jumpsuit with the name of a delivery company on the pocket. He had a receding hairline and donut belly. “You Mrs. Rayburn? Come on in.”
“This is my friend, Julia Barstow,” I told him as we entered.
“Your husband lost in Nam?” he asked her.
“Oh, no,” Julia answered. “I’m just driving for Cissy.”
We were escorted into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I felt foolish and uneasy, unsure where to start. Thank God for Julia. She leaned forward and confided with Sunday School earnestness, “You see, Mr. Harkey, we’re both worried about Jack – that’s Cissy’s husband. This Winslow showed up at the Rayburns’ place with some cock and bull story about Cissy’s first husband being alive, and then a few days later, he’s stabbed with Jack’s pruning shears. The police seem to think that Jack has a motive, but those of us who know him know that he’d not hurt a fly.”
“What kind of cock and bull story?” Harkey wanted to know.
“That’s just it!” I entered the conversation eagerly now. “He had a pic
ture that he said might be Jimmy, but we’ve tracked it down and it’s someone totally different, and Winslow had to have known that.”
Harkey’s face darkened. “That bastard!” He stood up. “Wait a minute, I want to show you something.”
He left the room and we heard him go into the kitchen and rummage through a drawer. When he returned, he had a photograph in his hand. He handed it to me. “What do you think of that?”
I looked at it in bemusement. “What is it?”
“It’s an aerial photograph.”
“Oh. So these little sticks are trees?” He nodded. “And this must be a river. Well, so what?” I handed the photo over to Julia, who looked at it one way, then turned it around and looked at it again from that angle.
Harkey grinned. “Don’t you see the signal?”
We both looked at him and shook our heads.
“This is the photo that supposedly proved my dad is still alive. See there,” he traced some lines on the photo. “That’s where he made his marks in the dirt – it’s supposed to say ‘7/9/69’, which is his shoot-down date.”
Julia and I hunched over the picture again, trying to see the marks. Finally I sat back and shook my head. “I think this is something like those people who claim to see an image of the Virgin Mary in a waterstain on the ceiling.”
Harkey nodded as if I was on to something. “It would have to be something a person wanted to see. Anyway, that picture convinced Mom that Dad was still alive in some POW camp that no one in the Western world knew anything about. She was sending money to Winslow, a lot more than she could afford.”
“Didn’t you try to talk to her about it?” I asked.
“I didn’t know!” he said defensively. “She lived in Chicago then. Had her own little house. When we talked on the phone, she would talk about the Lest We Forget organization, but I thought she was sending them maybe ten dollars at a whack. I didn’t know how bad things were until she had already lost the house.”
“So that’s when you threatened Winslow?” Julia asked.
Harkey flushed. “Yeah, I threatened him, I’ll admit it. I was so damn mad. But Bob said we should sue to get the money back, so that’s what we’re doing.”