The dispatcher promised to do her best.
What had been a halfhearted breeze was now kicking up leaves and mussing my hair. To prevent further contamination of the rug, I set about rolling it up.
“Lauren!” Chantal’s shout from the kitchen doorway made me jump. “What are you doing?”
“Just a sec,” I told her as I hurried to cover the evidence in the folds of the old drape.
My phone rang.
“Oops, excuse me,” I said, then added, “Sorry. It’s, uh, personal.” Eavesdropping was no way to hear that your husband had been murdered.
“Oh, okay,” she said and, much to my relief, withdrew back into the kitchen.
“What’s so urgent?” Sheriff Troxell inquired evenly. From the background came the sound of cartoon laughter.
I explained about the rug and what I believed it proved.
Troxell’s pause lasted so long that I had to ask whether he was still there.
“Gimme a minute,” he snapped.
I gave him two.
“You’re positive about this?” Meaning, You’re sure you’re not seeing things just to prove your theory?
“You saw it yourself. It was an extremely messy death.” Understatement. A hundred fifty BBs to the head probably inspired the description ‘bloodbath.’
“Maybe the line I’m seeing now became more obvious when the blood dried. Hell, l don’t know. All I can say is it’s obvious now, and it’s the best evidence you’re going to get. If it was my career on the line, I’d store the thing in a guarded vault.” Refrigerated, I might have added, but I didn’t want to push.
Troxell grunted, not with delight. “Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered.
It couldn’t be helped. I reminded him he’d agreed to show me the crime-scene photos.
“Get ‘em from Pete Junior,” he said, and yes. Now he sounded peeved.
I placed that call before I went inside.
Chantal had returned to the sofa by the fire. I sat on the edge of the one opposite her and folded my hands on my lap.
“I have new information,” I began carefully. “Evidence that your husband was murdered.”
Chantal eyed me like a stunned bird too frightened to fly away.
Giving her time to process, I continued slowly. “The cleaners stored the rug from the gun room in the shed,” I said. “That’s what I was looking at outside. I could see that a string or cord had been pulled across it toward the doorway.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. Toby’s death was rigged to look like suicide.”
Chantal swung her legs to the floor and stared at her knees. “But…but that’s crazy,” said with a bitter laugh, “like something out of a book.”
“You believe it though, don’t you?”
She ignored me. Focused on the space beyond my shoulder. Finally met my eyes. Her breath hitched as she tried to speak. “I thought he had to be suffering, you know? Wrestling with something he couldn’t tell me.”
“He probably was,” I agreed, “just not in the way you thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“If it had to do with your father, he might have thought it was something you didn’t need to hear.”
“You mean the pension mess?” She waved her head. “All Dad did was approve a bad investment. Name one executive who hasn’t made that sort of mistake.”
“Not that. More likely it was something damning the public still doesn’t know about. Wouldn’t Toby try to protect you from something like that?”
“Yeah, possibly.”
“How about probably?”
Our eyes met again, and I watched her make the mental connection. “The fight with Mother, the money off the books.”
Smart guess, but not a healthy one for her to entertain.
I tossed a hand. “Maybe your dad was trying to replenish what the pension fund lost.” A lame suggestion, but it was all I could come up with.
Chantal wasn’t having it. “Roitman Industries has thousands of employees,” she rightfully pointed out. “The jewelry money wouldn’t begin to fix that problem. You didn’t really think that did you?”
I shrugged. “What do you think?”
She was done thinking for now, because she answered, “No clue,” and I must admit I was relieved.
The jewelry money had been spaced out over time, so whatever Frank needed it for had also been spaced out over time. To me, that suggested blackmail; and unfortunately, Toby might very well have been the blackmailer. Who would have known his father-in-law’s secrets any better?
Unfortunately, that made Frank the most likely murder suspect, although far from the only one. I could think of half a dozen leads to follow, none of them local to the Roitmans’ hunting lodge. Would Seth Troxell travel outside his domain to pursue those possibilities, or would he confine his investigation to the wild geese closer to home? I would soon find out.
Chantal’s face had gone pink, and her eyes were pooled with tears. When she stood before me, her left hand trembled even in the grip of her right. “I…I have to…This is…” She wheeled around and fled out of sight.
I poked the fire but added no more logs. Then I systematically examined each room of the sprawling cabin, beginning with the kitchen and pantry, proceeding to the dining area and living areas, then the chilly screened-porch crowded with outdoor furniture. Having been unoccupied for about a month, they were cubicles of cold, damp air smelling of musty fabric and plaster and dust.
Since Chantal had sequestered herself in the first bedroom, the green one where Abby and Marsha slept the night of the birthday party, I continued onto the turn in the hall to finish my search. Procrastinating the inevitable gun room, I detoured into the tiny bathroom. Shower curtain concealing a dusty, gritty tub—moldy and gross. Check. Toilet tank, no surprises. Medicine cabinet: the usual aspirin, band-aids, Colgate toothpaste squeezed almost down to nothing.
“Quit stalling,” I scolded myself, then made sure the window was locked before moving on.
The afternoon light confirmed that the gun-room ceiling had been scrubbed; years of dirt still showed in shadowy swirls. The safe remained inaccessible, but no big deal. I doubted that the murderer had been in it anyway. Eight twelve-gauge Remington 870 shotguns hung in the wall cabinet behind glass and metal grids. No slots were vacant, so I assumed the murder weapon had been cleaned and returned to its rack among the others. Anyone hunting geese in the future would have no way of identifying which was which. Nor would I.
Once again leaning against the door jamb, I tried to envision the mechanics of the murder. Toby would have been seated facing the table, which, judging by the depressions in the rug, had been situated slightly forward from the window. He’d had a sedative in his system; Troxell admitted that. One of his feet would have been bare to pretend he pulled the trigger with his toe.
The stock of the loaded shotgun would have rested on the floor, the barrel positioned in the traditional spot. A string would have been temporarily looped around the trigger, which was spaced approximately a quarter inch from the back of its guard. The string would have run down from the trigger, under the rung between the chair’s front legs, then run at a right angle along the floor and under the closed door into the hall. Afterward the murderer would have reeled in the loosened string, temporarily hid it for later retrieval, or took it with him through the opened bathroom window.
Much commotion would ensue, and so on.
A horn honked. Sheriff Troxell had arrived.
I hustled out to the driveway to meet him.
Not Troxell after all. It had to be Pete Junior and Andy driving his repaired van.
Junior wore his light brown hair military-short and pointed his nose at me from a height of six-foot-five. Even in the cool spring weather a faded, olive-green t-shirt seemed to be enough warmth for him. His pale, ropy arms stuck out like handles ending in fists at his hips.
“Troxell’s pissed,” he said instead of hello.
; “I don’t care,” I replied, and the cleanup company designee/part time photographer had the grace to laugh.
“Know what you mean.”
Andy had walked over to the covered rug and appeared unsure of how to lift it.
I asked Pete if he’d noticed any unusual pattern in the spatters when he took the photos.
“Call me PJ. And no I did not.”
“Why do you suppose that was?”
“Because I’m not police and I was trying to hold onto my dinner.”
“You’re an honest man, PJ,” I observed.
“I try.”
“You know how to preserve the chain of evidence?” I wondered.
“Yes, ma’m. That I do.”
“Good, then you’ll want a copy of the pictures I took when I removed the rug from the shed. Got any pictures for me?”
“Yes, ma’m, I do.” He had an adorable crooked smile and the pent up energy of a young stallion. Not my type, but surely someone’s. A wedding band sparkled from his left fist.
He reached into the cab of the truck and handed over a nine by twelve brown envelope containing my requested photographs. Then he gave me his cell number and Troxell’s so I could forward the pictures I took that eventually the county prosecutor might need.
Whether my precautions would hold up in court I really couldn’t say. Somebody was probably going to have to build a convincing circumstantial case as well, and since Troxell had delegated the pickup of what I’d described as the best evidence he was going to get, I suspected that person might have to be me. After all, the sheriff had signed off on the suicide, and he had implied that I’d imagined the string marks to justify my murder theory.
“Nuts,” I thought. “PJ, you got any paper to wrap the rug in?”
“Sheriff didn’t say nothing about paper.”
“Plastic speeds decomposition. Better if organic matter can breathe.”
PJ made a scoffing little huff. “If you say so.”
Honest, but not police, I reminded myself. Give the guy a break. “Then just take it the way it is. Yeah, in the drape, but wrap it in paper when you get…wherever you’re going, okay? Will wherever that is have air-conditioning?”
“I’ll ask.”
“Fine.” Only so much a volunteer can do.
Of course if the rug got thrown out as evidence, all the circumstantial support in the world might not assure a conviction.
In that case, somebody just might have to confess.
Chapter 36
PJ did give me a receipt for the rug, written on a Warren and Son tablet with an old-fashioned carbon copy underneath. He and Andy loaded the rug in its paint-spattered drape into the back of his Chevy van, and they lumbered back to the road on the bumpy lane. I did not have high hopes for the rug’s use as evidence, and that gave me a rattled, panicky feeling. Still I saw what I saw and had a load of previously gleaned raw material to process.
And maybe Sheriff Troxell would surprise me and arrest somebody all by himself.
In the meantime I still had at least one leg to stand on, my ersatz assignment to protect Chantal, which, unfortunately, had gained legitimacy in the last couple of hours.
I sidled up to her in the doorway to the gun room, where she stood sniffling and hugging herself.
I rubbed her shoulder in sympathy. “After the shot,” I began, “who was the first to arrive here?”
“What difference…who cares…?”
“We both should,” I replied honestly. “Finding out who killed Toby—and why—will tell us whether you and the baby are safe.”
She made a dismissive sound. “You really think…?”
“Yes,” I insisted. “So please tell me. Who got here first?”
“Dad did.”
“Was he staggering drunk at that point?”
Chantal riveted me with a look. “No,” She seemed surprised to be saying that. “No. He was fine. Took charge the way he always does.”
“Okay. Who was next?”
“Me. I was right behind him.”
“Was the door open or closed when you got here?”
“Closed. I remember seeing Dad hesitate before he turned the knob.”
PJ’s pictures had confirmed that the body fell to the left, the shotgun to the right, and, as was obvious from the rug, the room was a helluva mess.
I steered Chantal back to toward the couches, questioning her along the way.
“Again. Did Toby say anything to you about what was going on at work around that time? Anything at all?”
“Just that the lawsuit was a huge worry, and he would be glad when it was over.”
“The antilock-brake one, right?”
“Yes.”
The fire would be out in a few minutes, which was good. I didn’t want to risk cracking the hearth by dousing it. “Anything else?” I asked.
Chantal rubbed her hands together and reached for the fleece comforter. “The week before the birthday party Toby came home in a mood. I asked him what was wrong, and he admitted he’d had a tough talk with Dad. ‘Another tough talk,’ I said, but he didn’t laugh, just left the room for a while.” She shook her head. “Funny, I’d forgotten about that until now.”
“Toby didn’t mention anything about the company’s stability.” Or lack thereof.
“No, not really.”
The fluffy ashes were finally ready to spread thin with the poker. After I closed the flue and secured the screen, Chantal locked up and we sauntered out to the car.
Rush hour on the back roads of Maryland would still be rush hour. I phoned Karen to let her know we would be late for dinner.
We arrived at the farm an hour and a quarter later. Twilight had pillowed our surroundings by then—the long stretch of plowed and planted fields, the distant tree lines of neighbors, the utility poles, the powder blue sky fading to pink. Nightfall on a farm always comforted me, the restful sight of work done and the promise of what it would yield.
Karen met us at the end of the walk. Wrapping her arm around Chantal’s neck, she told her other sister-in-law, “I’m so glad you’re here! We’ll put you in Lauren’s room.” A sideways glance at me. “You can do the sofa for a night, right Lauren?” Then the usual more welcoming chatter. “Hope you like chicken pot pie…I’ll put towels on your bed…”
I tried not to mind their instant bond. Mine was a familiar face, and Karen and Chantal were joined by a mutual grief.
Still, I allowed myself to lag behind. Light from Ron’s barn office was spilling onto the driveway.
“Be right in,” I called across the growing distance.
Karen glanced back from the porch and waved her assent. My dinner had been held this long. What were a few more minutes?
I caught Ron dozing on the unforgiving chair, his booted feet crossed at the ankles on his desk, an International Harvester ball cap shadowing his eyes.
“Hey, bro,” I greeted him from the doorway.
He grabbed the cap and thumped his feet to the floor. “Jesus, LB. You about knocked me over.”
Naturally, I flashed back on the day I’d done that literally, floored him the way I’d dumped Gavin Roitman on the sand. Ron had remarked that the police academy seemed to be overtraining me for “walking the streets.” Exhausted by the rigorous obstacle course I’d completed that day, his attempt at a joke did not go over well.
“Patrolling,” I corrected with venom.
To me, his offhanded, “Whatever,” was the last straw. I flexed my knees and circled. “Try me,” I dared. “Make my day.”
Ron laughed, so I grasped his arm and flipped him onto the front lawn. His expression as I helped him up haunts me to this day.
“How’s it going?” I inquired mildly. The barn office possessed only one chair, so I leaned against the shelves of dusty cow catalogs left behind by the farm’s previous owner.
Elbows resting on his thighs, Ron considered how much or how little to disclose, which was revealing all by itself. Whatever ground I’d gaine
d living here had receded back to the line he’d drawn between us so many years ago.
Disappointment made my chest ache. I wanted to be reassured that everything was okay between him and Karen. I wanted to know that whatever had prompted him to drink was resolved. I wanted to know if he loved me as much as I loved him.
I wanted to know whether he loved me at all.
“Miss me?” I opened when he still hadn’t answered, and because we were so very far apart.
“Like jock itch.” He laughed. “How’s it going with you?”
“It’s…it’s going,” I said.
Ron bobbed his head as if my non-answer satisfied him. “Good. Good,” he parroted. “You want a drink?”
My mouth opened, and my face reddened to the roots of my hair.
His hands shot out in a ‘whoa-there’ gesture. “Joke!” he said. “That was a joke.”
I pretended to wipe sweat from my brow. “So you and Karen have figured things out?”
Ron feigned a reflective pose. “Seems that way. For now.”
I said “Hmmm,” as if I’d received real information, too. “Happy for you.”
“Thanks, Sis.”
“Well, um. Dinner’s waiting.”
“Yup. Yup. Can’t let dinner wait. Not in this house.”
I wanted to cry. Instead I walked over and lightly tapped the shoulder seam of my brother’s brown plaid shirt, impersonally, the way you touch an ATM machine or dial an iphone.
“Love you,” I said. Then I turned tail and got out of there.
Let him handle his astonishment and horror in his own way. If it involved opening the bottom desk drawer with the key in his muck boot, so be it. He was an adult.
And so was I.
The fragrance of chicken pot pie filled the kitchen. Karen was about to pour Chantal some coffee, but Chantal hastily turned over her mug. “Can’t touch the stuff,” she remarked. “Not since…”
Karen gasped. “Oh, sweetie. Really? A baby? I’m going to be an aunt?”
Chantal’s eyes misted over in spite of her smile. “Early October.”
“Wow.” Karen spun on her heel with glee before landing on the chair next to the mother-to-be. “That’s absolutely fabulous.” Her fingers twined in her fine platinum hair as if to hold her head erect. “Wow,” she repeated.
Guilt Trip Page 17