One Hoof In The Grave

by Carolyn McSparren

  Chapter 11

  Monday morning

  Geoff

  “You going back to Atlanta?” Stan Nordstrom asked Geoff over coffee and sausage biscuits at a local café.

  “Not yet. My people in Atlanta are checking Raleigh’s business and personal affairs. They don’t need me there.”

  “I hear Raleigh was a womanizer. Maybe his wife got fed up with serial infidelity.”

  “Why kill him then and in the open? Fog or no fog, somebody might have witnessed the whole thing.”

  “Your girlfriend, maybe?” Stan wolfed down his third sausage biscuit and held up his cup for the waitress to refill.

  “She’d tell me.” Geoff hoped that was true. “I doubt the wife is strong enough to drive a stake through his head. She’s one step this side of a skeleton.”

  “I’m damn glad to be rid of this can of worms,” Stan said. He paid the bill and stood at the counter gossiping with the manager, while Geoff headed out with the intention of driving to Raleigh’s farm. He was glad to be on his own to question the suspects without Stan looking over his shoulder.

  Geoff had noted that while Stan didn’t quite pull his forelock when they’d spoken to Raleigh’s widow on Sunday, he’d definitely gone easy on her, and on Raleigh’s daughter, Dawn, as well.

  Geoff wanted both women to think he was going easy on them, too, as long as possible. In his preliminary interview yesterday, after they’d been notified of Raleigh’s death, neither had requested a lawyer. Good.

  An hour later, he pulled into Raleigh’s driveway between elaborate wrought iron gates hung between white four-board fences that stretched out of sight in both directions. He parked in the gravel turnaround in the front of the house. When he knocked, a uniformed maid opened the double front door and took his card.

  She nodded him in and left him standing in the cavernous front hall without a word or a smile. Definitely no sign of tears for the death of her master. No red eyes or trembling lips.

  She was no more than twenty, he guessed, and pretty, although beginning to plump up. Latina. No wedding ring. Possibly no green card either, but that wasn’t his problem. Knowing Raleigh’s reputation, he wondered whether she’d been one of Raleigh’s conquests, willing or not.

  He assumed she was going for her mistress. He used the time to check out as much of the house as he could see.

  In Gone with the Wind, Tara was actually fairly small and simple for an antebellum Georgia plantation house. Raleigh had therefore modeled his house on Ashley Wilkes’s Georgian mansion, right down to the double staircases in the front hall.

  Sarah Beth Raleigh had been an interior designer in Atlanta before she met and married Raleigh. It showed. The house looked as though it had been plucked from a Southern Living or Architectural Digest photo shoot, complete with a head high arrangement of fresh flowers on the round table in the center of the foyer. Depending on how regularly they were replaced, a year’s worth would cost a fortune.

  He bet money that the provider of the flowers would send a substantial spray to the funeral with an appropriate message of condolence. He supposed it was too early to deliver condolence arrangements, though they’d start showing up once people read Raleigh’s obituary.

  Although the credenza in the front hall looked like an old family antique, Geoff would have given eight to five it was an expensive reproduction. Through the arch on his left a double parlor ran the depth of the house. On his right a dining room held a mahogany table and twelve tall chairs. Everything looked brand, spanking new from the heavy silk drapes that pooled on the floor to the freshly-polished silver epergne on the sideboard.

  There was none of the shabby genteel elegance in houses owned by generations of the same wealthy family. He’d been in enough of those homes over the years. Those pieces were generally easy to spot, like the chip on the left corner of the plantation secretary where junior broke his tooth when he was seven, the fraying edge on the museum-quality Heriz in the living room, the marks of kitty claws in the Moroccan leather of a library sofa. Photos of children and pets in silver frames—not necessarily recently polished—that sat haphazardly on top of the baby grand piano, usually Steinway, Baldwin, or Bechstein, with keys yellowed from the touch of generations of fingers.

  Raleigh’s house, on the other hand, was perfect. And soulless. Like an upscale funeral home. Surely there was at least one room where these people actually lived.

  Sarah Beth came down the stairs to meet him. God, the woman was thin! She reminded him of his ex-wife Brittany. She wore a black cotton turtleneck and black silk slacks. Her streaky blonde hair and makeup were flawless. Her eyes were neither red nor swollen, but these days that could mean she used good cosmetics and prescription eye drops.

  Like the house, she was built for show. He had yet to discover whether she was soulless as well.

  She extended her hand palm down. For a moment Geoff wasn’t certain whether she expected him to shake it or kiss it. He shook. It felt frail and boneless. “What do I call you?” she asked. “Agent Wheeler?”

  “That’s fine.” As formal as possible for as long as possible. If he needed to get chummy later to convince her he understood why she’d killed her husband, the contrast would be greater.

  “I hate speaking in the living-room,” she said and walked down the hall between the two staircases. “I’m having coffee served in my morning room.”

  He followed her into a relatively small room at the back of the house with French windows opening out onto a perfect garden. This must be where she did what living she could. It was as over-decorated as the rest of the downstairs, but the chintz-covered sofa and chairs looked comfortable, and the soft peach toile on the walls and at the windows looked feminine and cheerful. Beside the sofa sat a big basket full of some kind of needlework.

  A white computer desk with printer sat in the corner. Good Feng Shui to sit with her back to the wall and her face to the door? Or did she want to be certain she was not caught unawares?

  After they had settled themselves with excellent coffee brought on a silver tray by the maid, she asked, “What can I tell you?” Still no demand for a lawyer. Good.

  “Why was your husband driving his team in the fog at six-thirty in the morning?”

  She caught her breath. “I really have no idea. I didn’t even know he’d gotten out of bed, much less that he’d put the horses to.” She looked down. “I took a sleeping pill Saturday night. I had a migraine. That’s why I didn’t go to the exhibitors’ party.”

  “Would you mind pushing up your sleeves?”

  She jumped as if he’d struck her. “What on earth for?”

  “Please. Is there any reason not to?”

  She stared at him for a moment with her mouth open and her pulse beating in her throat. Then she shrugged and shoved her left sleeve up to her elbow. She took a deep breath, then shoved back the right. “When I get migraines, sometimes I get dizzy. The kitchen in the trailer is so small, sometimes I bounce off the counters.”

  “I see.” He let the silence between them lengthen. “Hard to conceal bruises on your arms. Makeup tends to clump in your arm hairs.”

  She tried a laugh, but it came out more like a wheeze. “I really am clumsy. Ask anyone.”

  “Mrs. Raleigh,” he said gently, “I’ve been a cop a long time. I am an expert on bruises. I know fingerprints on skin when I see them. Should I get a warrant and bring in a female officer to check you over, or would you rather just tell me?”

  “You can’t do that, can you?”

  “Yeah, I can, but I’d rather not. Let’s be hypothetical. If that officer were to take off your sweater, would she find more bruises?”

  She lowered her eyes and began to cry silent tears.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.

  She shook her head but without looking up at him. “I swear he never hit me. It’s just that sometimes he grabbed on to me a little hard. I bruise easily.” Now she met his eyes. “I didn’t kill him.”
>
  Geoff nodded. “If you fought back when he beat you, any good lawyer will get you off on self-defense.”

  “I’ve seen The Burning Bed and read all the books. If I waited until later and then killed him, it’s first degree murder.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I told you, I didn’t even know he’d left the trailer. I was still in bed when they came to tell me what happened.”

  She’d certainly seemed to be in bed. Stan said she’d answered the door of the trailer wearing slip on shoes and a silk robe, but she could have raced back from the murder and climbed into bed before Merry found Raleigh. Nobody had checked her shoes or the hem of her robe to find out if they were damp. By the time the CSIs checked, everything was dry and her shoes were clean.

  “Why not divorce him?” Geoff asked.

  This time the smile she gave him was so feral he nearly choked. “If I stick it out another year, I get three million dollars when I leave. Call it severance pay. I intended to stick it out whatever happened.”

  “Even if he kept, as you say, grabbing you?

  “He would not have kept—grabbing me.”

  “Men do.” Even now she refused to admit her husband had actually hit her, although Geoff would have bet his pension that he had.

  She hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind. “All right, he hit me. Not often, but I decided to make it stop.” She nodded at the corner of the room over the door. “Nanny cam. I knew sooner or later he’d go for me in here. A couple of weeks ago he did. My lawyer has the tapes and a letter that says if anything happens to me, if I wind up in the hospital or die, those items go straight to the district attorney. With a backup copy to the Federal agents, in case the Georgia Department of Justice is as corrupt as everybody else Giles knew and owned.”

  “Your bruises are new.”

  “I just told him about my protection on Friday night. Unfortunately I told him after he shoved me. He was livid. He stormed out to go beat up on somebody else.”

  “Physically?”

  “Or psychologically. He must have caused somebody some pain, because when he came to bed he was cheerful.” She pulled her sleeves down and wrapped her arms around herself.

  “Why was he angry at you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I was handy. He thought his dressage scores should have been higher. As though it mattered.”

  “Why did you marry him? I thought his reputation with women was well known.”

  “Not to me. I’d just moved to Atlanta from Richmond to work for McCallum‘s. Wealth and power are very sexy, but I didn’t marry him for his money. I fell in love with him. When he wants something, he can be so charming. The night he asked me to marry him, he took me for a moonlight drive in the carriage to an arbor where he’d set up a picnic with champagne and foie gras . . .” She caught her breath. This time when she raised her eyes to look at Geoff they were full of tears. “He said I’d disappointed him.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  She shook her head.

  “When did he say that?”

  “The first time he hit me. He actually cried when he calmed down. He swore he’d never do it again and claimed everybody always disappointed him. If you disappoint somebody, how can you ever get past that?”

  “It would seem someone decided to stop trying to get past that and got rid of the problem.”

  “Not me. I don’t have the nerve or the strength.”

  “So, if you didn’t kill him, who did?”

  She twisted her hands in her lap. “I truly don’t know.”

  “He had an argument with your stepdaughter Dawn at the party Saturday night. Any idea what that was about?”

  “Probably Armando Gutierrez, a polo player. She wanted to marry him. Giles told her he’d cut her off without a cent and fire her from the company if she did. He was pulling strings to get Armando’s green card pulled so he could be deported to Argentina.”

  That added two suspects to his list. “Was he successful?”

  “I don’t think so. Not yet. But he had very powerful friends.”

  “How do you and your step-daughter get along? You can’t be much older than she is.”

  This time she smiled. No wonder Raleigh was besotted. The woman was Angelina Jolie Catherine Zeta-Jones gorgeous. “I am actually four years older than Dawn. She’s twenty-six.”

  “Do you get along?”

  “Most of the time. She has a perfect right to marry Armando. He’s a hard-working professional horseman. He loves her. I tried once to talk to Giles about it.” She touched her cheek as though remembering a slap. “I didn’t try again.”

  “Did your husband think Armando was a fortune hunter?”

  “He thought every man who came near Dawn who wasn’t a multi-millionaire was a fortune hunter. Giles desperately wanted an heir to his empire. Since Dawn was an heiress, she was expected to marry the putative heir with his own fortune. Until she does, and produces at least one son, Dawn does the scut work, Giles makes the decisions.”

  Interesting that she kept speaking of her husband in the present tense. “Thank you for speaking to me so frankly, Ms. Raleigh.” He stood. “Now, do you know where I can find your step-daughter?”

  “I’m sure she’s at the stables. The horses still take priority, so she tries to work from home whenever she can.”

  “Did Mr. Raleigh have a home office?”

  “Obviously he couldn’t work in here.” She waved a hand at the peach toile. He has a private study upstairs.”

  “I’d like your permission to search it.”

  “Don’t you need a search warrant?”

  “Not with your permission.” He saw her stiffen.

  “I don’t think I can give it.”

  When he raised his eyebrows, she said, “I don’t know what he had in there, Mr. Wheeler. You might find something that could hurt the family but had nothing to do with his death. I’m not even certain the house is still mine. So I guess you better get that search warrant.”

  Geoff nodded, although he knew no judge would sign a search warrant for what would essentially be a fishing expedition. Any search warrant would have to show probable cause to look for a specific item in a specific place. Not gonna happen as things stood.

  “I understand.” He did understand, but he was still annoyed. “It would, however, be in the family’s best interests not to destroy or conceal anything that might turn out to be useful in solving the crime. The state of Georgia takes obstruction of justice very seriously.”

  “I’m not a fool. I locked the office first thing when I got home Sunday evening. That sheriff took Giles’s keys. I have the only other one.” She came off the couch in one elegant move, started toward the door of her office and asked too casually,” What would you look for?”

  “His will.”

  She caught her breath, but kept walking.

  He’d rattled her. Maybe nothing was hers since Raleigh’s death. So long as no one knew about the disposition of Raleigh’s assets, she would remain the lady of the manor. It was a manor worth fighting for.

  “Do I need a lawyer?” Her hand went to her throat and grasped the gold chain at the neck of her sweater.

  “Do you think you need a lawyer?” he asked.

  “Actually, I do.” Suddenly cold and formal. “Please call my attorney in Atlanta, Agent Wheeler.” She reached into the pocket of her slacks, pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “This is his number. If you want to talk further, make an appointment. The next time we speak, he will be present.” So she’d had her lawyer’s card all ready to hand him.

  He could only accede gracefully. “Certainly. Of course, that will mean you’ll have to come to me. Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Raleigh. I’ll see myself out.”

  At the door, he turned back to her and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  As he closed the door behind him, he swore he heard her whisper, “I’m not.”

  Dawn Raleigh might be four years younger than he
r stepmother, but she looked five years older. Her chestnut hair was short, and she wore little or no makeup. If she’d had on lipstick, she’d chewed it off rough lips. Her skin was starting to show the results of too much time in the sun. Not only were there crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, she had shallow parenthetic lines on each side of her mouth. Frown lines. She was handsome enough, and had a lean, taut body, but she wouldn’t be launching a thousand ships anytime soon. She had, however, inherited her father’s piercing blue eyes. When she spotted Geoff, the mouth lines deepened and her nostrils flared.

  “Can’t you leave us alone to mourn?” She handed the leather horse collar she held to a stable hand “Clean it properly this time, please, Manuel,” she said. “Then hang it with its harness. Gracias.” She turned on her heel and walked toward what looked like an office door.

  He followed her into a handsome paneled room that was part library, part office, and part lounge, with a stone fireplace in one corner, and a galley kitchen across the back. “Is that what you’re doing?” he asked. “Mourning?”

  Those blue eyes blazed at him, then she smiled. She might not be Helen of Troy, but her smile transformed her handsome face into something approaching real beauty. “Actually, I’m celebrating. Ding Dong, the wicked warlock is dead.” She sat on a battered maroon leather couch and motioned him to an equally battered club chair across from her.

  Ah, here was where at least one member of the family lived. Sarah Beth had her peach morning room. Dawn had this room.

  “If you don’t mind, I have a few questions for you.”

  She waved a hand. “Ask away. I didn’t kill him. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Not even your attitude?”

  “Not even.”

  “Or your fiancé?”

  The smile vanished. “You leave Armando out of this, cop. He’s on his way back from Wellington as we speak. You know where Wellington is?”

  “South Florida, by Palm Beach.”

  “Right. He’s been refereeing a tournament in Wellington all week. Plenty of people can vouch for him.”