Thursday
CHAPTER 11
When I woke up the next morning, I found Alice-Ann in the kitchen drinking coffee and looking a lot better than she had last night. We hugged.
“Do you want a tranquilizer? Dr. Jones left some.”
“He’s such a thoughtful person. No drugs; I need to get my head clear. Right now I’m kind of numb and strangely ambivalent about Richard’s murder. It was such a horrible way to die, and I really am sorry it happened to him, but I can’t help feeling relieved that I don’t have to go through a divorce. That’s awful of me, isn’t it?”
She didn’t wait for me to say anything. “The worst is going to be telling Mark about his father’s death.”
Her hand shook as she lifted her coffee cup. I wished I could help her feel better, but only time could do that. The sound of a car coming up the gravel drive brought me to my feet. I looked out the window and saw a light blue Chevrolet with a red flasher light on top. A magnetic sign that said LCPD was stuck on the driver’s side front door. It was askew, as if it had been slapped on in haste this morning.
Garnet climbed out, saw me through the window, and waved.
“Gendarme,” I told Alice-Ann. “Want me to tell him you’re still asleep?”
She shook her head. “He’ll find me sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”
I ushered Garnet into the kitchen, where he helped himself to coffee before settling down across the oak table from Alice-Ann. I sat down next to her and took her hand. Garnet shook his head: “I need to talk to her alone.”
“I know that.”
“I’m sure you do, Miss Prize-Winning Crime Reporter.”
He’d been checking up on me! Before I had time to get out of the kitchen, another car pulled up in front of the house. It was getting to be a regular morning rush hour out there.
Again, I looked through the window. “It’s a beige station wagon,” I told Alice-Ann. “A couple of people are getting out. Mark is with them.”
“Tori, could you take him up to his room? Play with him for a few minutes while Garnet and I talk?”
I gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “No problem.”
When I opened the front door, the long, solemn faces on the couple standing there told me they knew. The happy smile on Mark’s face showed he didn’t.
“We thought it best …”
“Didn’t know how to …”
“It’s okay. Thanks for bringing him home.” I shut the door before they had a chance to say anything else. Upstairs, Mark and I raced his Matchbox cars until Alice-Ann entered the room.
“Your turn downstairs,” Alice-Ann said softly with a jerk of her head. “Thanks.”
“Tori,” Garnet began as soon as I walked into the kitchen, “tell me everything you remember about Tuesday night.”
He flipped open a stenographer’s notebook. “Last night you said you saw Richard take off on his motorcycle somewhere near eleven o’clock on Tuesday. You said the sound of a motorcycle woke you up much later, and you thought it was Richard coming home. Is that all correct?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me if Alice-Ann was home during that time?”
Now what do I do? I wondered. What had Alice-Ann told him? To lie or not to lie?
I remembered what Mark Twain had said, “When in doubt tell the truth.”
“She went out for a while … in the Volkswagen.”
“After Richard left?”
I nodded, miserable.
“For how long?”
“An hour …maybe more. I heard her come in, but I’d been asleep, so I don’t know what time it was. My watch is broken.”
“Was it before or after you heard the motorcycle?”
“After.”
“Earlier, when the three of you came home from the castle, what happened?”
Reluctantly, I told him how I had sat outside with the cats and overheard the argument about Twanya, then the fight, the smashing of dishes and furniture, and finally how I saw Richard strap his suitcase on his motorcycle and leave.
“What did you think he was going to do?”
“I figured he was taking some of his clothes and going to Twanya’s.”
“Where do you think Alice-Ann was going in the VW?”
“I thought she was going to go to Twanya’s to see if he was there.”
“The next day …did she say where she had been?”
“She didn’t mention it. Neither did I. It was her business, not mine.”
Garnet closed the notebook. “Alice-Ann told me she never left the house that night.”
“I’m not a liar.”
“No, I don’t think you are. I don’t think you’re stupid either. You must be aware that if Alice-Ann really left you alone in the house, neither one of you has an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“This is preposterous! What reason would I have to murder Richard?” I spluttered.
“From what I’ve been told, it’s no secret that you were against Alice-Ann’s marriage to Richard from the beginning. You two were very close until he
came along. Many murders have been committed because of jealousy.”
“Jealousy! Are you insinuating that Alice-Ann and I were …lovers?” I spat the last word at him.
“I’m not insinuating anything, Tori. Police have to look at all the possibilities. It’s routine.”
I knew that, but when I was the one being questioned, it didn’t seem like such a routine matter.
“Who stayed at the castle after the meeting, besides you and Richard and Alice-Ann?”
I thought back for a minute, trying to remember the unfamiliar names. “Dr. Meredith Jones, the cream-and-sugar priest, Judge Parker, Twanya Tweedy, the mayor, Mr. and Mrs. Seligman …and, of course, Michael and his mother and aunt.”
“Was Praxythea Evangelista there?”
“No. Michael said something about her being in town, but I didn’t see her on Tuesday.”
“What about LaVonna?”
“The housekeeper? Of course she was there. I thought you just meant guests.”
“Did you hear or see anything to make you think Richard was planning to meet one of them later on?”
“He and Twanya looked like someone had stuck them together with Krazy Glue. It’s possible they might have made a date.”
Garnet placed something on the table. “Ever seen this before?” I caught my breath in shock. It was a plastic bag containing a heavy-duty claw hammer. Even through the plastic, I could see dark stains that didn’t look like paint.
“The murder weapon? Where did you find it?”
“Have you ever seen it before?” he countered.
“I don’t know …”
“You have. Alice-Ann identified it as hers. It has an AA engraved on the handle. She used it at the castle Tuesday night to hang the first Sylvia’s painting.”
“She must have left it there. We couldn’t find it yesterday afternoon when we were opening the cave entrance downstairs.”
“You found a cave entrance here? Promise me you won’t go exploring without me.”
“Promise,” I said. “Where’d you find the hammer?”
“You must have been a good reporter—or at least a persistent one. There’s no point in not telling you. We found it in a flower bed just below the front terrace of the castle. We also found traces of blood on the terrace. Someone had tried to scrub it up, but …”
“But you never can get it all, I know.”
He continued, “It looks like Richard went back to the castle after he left here—maybe to meet someone—and was killed there.”
“You think he was killed by the person he went to meet?”
“Or by someone who followed him there.”
“Is that all then?” I asked.
“For now. See you at six.”
“What?” What was he talking about?
“Dinner. Did you forget?”
“Sorry. I guess I did. Will yo
u have time? What with investigating me and Alice-Ann and all?”
“I’ll make time,” he said with an infuriating, engaging grin. “Besides, I’ve got those cave maps you wanted to see.”
“Six it is!” I confirmed heartily.
After Garnet left, Alice-Ann appeared in the kitchen and slumped into a chair. “Mark’s sound asleep, bless his heart. He cried a bit, but really took it like a little man. I don’t know what I would do without him.”
“He’s adorable.”
“Your friend, the police chief, certainly spared no punches with me, Tori. I seem to be suspect number one.”
“That’s because most murders are committed by spouses or close friends. That’s where the police always start.” I was trying to make her feel better, but it didn’t work.
“Et tu, Brute? You almost sound as if you think I’m guilty, too.”
“Nobody thinks you’re guilty. It’s just normal investigative procedure. He’ll be interviewing everybody. And we’ll all have to prove where we were when …when it happened.”
“Well, I told Garnet we were both home in our beds, so that takes care of our alibis.”
I breathed a deep sigh. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“How could you have told him that?” she said angrily when I was finished.
I felt terrible. “Lying only delays things, Alice-Ann. Someone always finds the hole in a lie.”
“I lied because I was scared. I knew at the time it was a stupid thing to do. Then I didn’t know how to get out of it. At least you took care of that for me.”
She sat up straight. “I need your help, Tori. I want you to find Richard’s murderer for me.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because Garnet thinks I did it, and he’s so overworked and understaffed that I don’t think he’s going to waste much time looking any further than the end of his nose. Think of Mark, Tori. If I’m in jail, he won’t have any parent left.”
“What makes you think I can help?”
“You’ve been a crime reporter. You know what needs to be done.”
“Look, Alice-Ann, reporting about a crime is a lot different from investigating one.” But I was thinking—is it really so different? I knew the procedures and thanks to Garnet, I knew the how, when, and where—all I needed to do was find out who and why.
“I think I’ll get dressed and head over to the castle. After all, I did promise LaVonna I’d come talk to her this morning. Maybe I can find out a thing or two.”
Alice-Ann jumped up and hugged me. “I knew you’d do it,” she squealed.
CHAPTER 12
No one was around when I climbed the steps to the terrace, so I walked the length of it, checking the flagstones for bloodstains. Not surprisingly, I didn’t find any, but I did find an area to the right of the door that looked cleaner than the rest.
It was Rose, not LaVonna, who opened the castle door for me in answer to my ring. She looked flustered, certainly understandable under the circumstances.
She stared at my SURRENDER, DOROTHY T-shirt for a few seconds, then looked at my face. At first, I wasn’t sure she knew who I was, but she finally said, “Oh, Victoria. Come in.”
“Where’s LaVonna?” I asked her, as she swung the front door closed.
Rose heaved a deep sigh of exasperation. “Can you believe she left last night? And me with this whole castle to clean up, and Michael and his crew making a mess with building scenery in the ballroom, and—”
“She left? Why?”
“Something about her sister being sick. I don’t really know. She left a note on the kitchen table and just upped and left in the middle of the night. You can’t depend on anyone these days.”
Hardly a fair thing to say about someone who had been a faithful employee for more than thirty years.
“I thought she didn’t have any family,” I commented, remembering that yesterday she had said her family was “all.”
“Oh, maybe it wasn’t her sister … I don’t know. Sylvia threw the note away. What difference does it make? She’s not here. That’s what matters.”
The chiming of a bell filled the great center hall where we stood.
“There’s that damn doorbell again. I could just wring her neck,” Rose said between clenched false teeth. She threw open the front door. “Oh, hello, Luscious. All finished destroying my flower beds? You’ll find your boss ensconced in the large drawing room, interrogating innocent bystanders as if we were a bunch of criminals or something.”
The sergeant stepped inside and she banged the door shut behind him. I said to her, “I have something I promised to give to LaVonna. Do you mind if I just put it in her room?” I was counting on Rose’s irritation distracting her from what I was really saying. It worked.
“Whatever, I don’t really care. Her room is the first one down there.” She flapped a hand in the general direction of a hall that led into a wing I hadn’t been in before.
I ducked out before she decided she did care and
quickly found LaVonna’s room was the first door on the right facing the front of the building. More accurately, I should say rooms, since there was a small sitting room as well as a bedroom and bath. Everything looked in order in the sitting room. Comfortable chintz-covered chairs and a couch faced a marble fireplace, over which hung a hologram of a blond, blue-eyed Jesus. The only personal touch was a silver-framed, black-and-white photograph of a young man, wearing an old-fashioned black suit and a serious expression on his angular face.
The bedroom was also in order. Too much so, it seemed to me, for someone who’d had to rush out on a family emergency in the middle of the night. Even the bed was neatly made up. The only other furniture in the room was an ugly “waterfall” dresser, a small chair, and an enormous walnut wardrobe with mirrors on the fronts of the double doors.
What had prompted her flight? Had she murdered Richard MacKinstrie, then run off after his body was found? I remembered the little smile on her face when Garnet announced that Richard was dead. Though what her motive might have been was something I couldn’t even imagine.
I pulled open one dresser drawer after another. All full of neatly folded clothes. What had she taken with her?
The wardrobe seemed to loom larger. Too many late-night horror movies, Tori. You’re afraid you’ll open it and a body will topple out. I took a deep breath, pulled the doors open, and jumped back. Nothing there but clothes. I breathed again.
Six cotton dresses hung from the rod. On a shelf above them was a soft-sided suitcase. On the floor was a row of shoes: three pairs of sneakers and one pair of sensible black dress shoes with two-inch heels. Next to the dress shoes, in the corner, was a black purse. It could have been a spare, but somehow LaVonna didn’t strike me as someone who would have an extra pocketbook.
I took it out of the closet and emptied its contents on the neat white chenille bedspread. It held the typical mess found in most women’s purses—crumpled tissues, loose coins, two toothpicks in paper wrapping from the Cross Keys Dinette, a package of artificial sweetener, breath mints, comb, mirror, paper clips, safety pins, a white button, a miniature sewing kit, colorless lip gloss, and a wallet.
The wallet contained about twenty dollars in bills and change, a Visa card, and LaVonna Hockenberry’s driver’s license. Wouldn’t a person “on the lam” take that with her?
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, young woman?” Rose stood in the door like an avenging fury.
I was so startled I dropped the wallet and watched the coins scatter on the rug. I tried to stammer out an excuse, but she wouldn’t listen.
“Get out. Now. How dare you snoop around my house like this?”
She stood to one side as I scuttled past her. Before I left LaVonna’s sitting room I looked back and saw Rose replacing the contents of the purse. From the
back, with her red curls flouncing, she looked like an irate Raggedy Ann.
Since she was occupied for the present, I followed the so
und of carpenters at work and found the ballroom, where Michael and six others were involved in a major construction project.
He saw me at once and waved me in. “Great, you did come. Briana, come meet Tori—she’s the wonderful writer I told you about.”
Briana Evans immediately put down her saw and came over to Michael’s side. She was even lovelier in person than on TV. Her face was makeup free, and her blond hair was pulled back in a shiny, bouncy ponytail. She wore a fuchsia outfit, shorts and matching top, and her long, tanned legs didn’t even have a single cellulite dimple. Who said life was fair? We chatted for a bit about her TV show, the play she was in at the Whispering Pines, and her role in the upcoming Mystery Dinner. Not a word about my book, but still, I couldn’t help liking her, despite her self-centeredness.
Michael introduced me to the others, all Equity membership candidates, then explained, “We’re building a screen to hide the doorway into the next room, since we have to use it as a combination pantry and dressing room.”
One young man wiped the sweat from his forehead with a red bandanna and laughed. “And I chose acting because I thought it was a glamorous profession.” He picked up something that looked like an oversize black gun and touched it to the half-built wooden structure.
Zing! Zing! Zing! In one second it shot three nails into the wood.
“What is that? It looks deadly,” I remarked to Michael.
“It’s a cordless, power framing nailer. Pretty safe to use—it has to be in contact with the wood when the trigger is pulled. Imagine how long it would take to put all these three-and-a-quarter-inch nails in by hand.”
I decided to be open with him and tell him the real reason why I was there this morning. After I explained about Alice-Ann’s fear that she was Garnet’s only suspect, he told me he’d do anything he could to help.
“Did you hear Richard return Tuesday night? Or hear anything suspicious?” I asked.
“Sorry. I left as soon as everyone went home. Met Briana at the theatre and we spent the night at the former caretaker’s cottage which we’ve converted to a rather cozy home.”
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