by Irene Brand
Rissa was totally surprised at this revelation, but she wasn’t as shocked as she might have expected. The things she’d learned about her heritage the past few months had prepared her for anything. Speaking calmly, she reminded them, “She wasn’t his wife. He divorced her years ago.”
“Ronald never hated Trudy,” Winnie said. “He may have hated what she did to him, because no one likes to be betrayed. But I agree that I’m skeptical about his overt grief. That just isn’t like my brother.”
Rissa looked around the small room and its two floral chairs facing a small fireplace where gas logs threw out a ray of heat. She remembered her childhood days when natural logs burned in the fireplace and she and Portia had played in the room while Aunt Winnie had done needlework. Suddenly she wished they could go back to those days when they’d felt safe, even if their family relationships hadn’t been harmonious.
“What do you think, Rissa? Was he surprised?” Portia asked, startling her out of her reverie.
“I’ve never seen him carry on like that before, either, but I do think he was surprised to find her. I watched him closely when he came into the room, and he was caught off guard.”
“Enough about Ronald,” Winnie said. “What did they ask you?”
“Just to tell them what I saw and heard. The forensics people are here now—that’s why they let me leave. Isn’t it terrible to get our mother back and lose her at the same time? Are you sure it was her?”
“I didn’t get a very close look before Ronald came in, but as far as I could tell, it was Trudy,” Winnie responded, a faraway look in her eyes. “It’s been years since I’ve seen her, and twenty years in a mental institution would change anyone. She was a beautiful woman, and I could still see traces of that beauty on her face.”
Rissa suddenly realized that her legs were trembling and she dropped into a chair near her aunt. The silence in the room was broken only by the noise of the abating storm. She had always wished that she could remember her mother, and it was shattering to have finally seen her after she was dead.
She scanned the faces of her aunt and sisters, wondering what emotions they had experienced at the sudden return of their mother. The only positive point in tonight’s tragedy was to know that their father hadn’t killed his wife the night before in the gazebo. But since he had threatened to kill the woman he had met, it seemed to Rissa that the web of suspicion and intrigue had drawn more closely around her family.
The door at the end of the hallway was open when Drew investigated it, but he found no sign of forced entry. He called one of the forensics crew to dust the door for prints. With a high-beamed flashlight, he checked the hallway for anything the intruder might have dropped. He found nothing.
While the forensics team worked, Drew helped them by taking numerous pictures of the room and hallway. Mick made a pencil sketch of the area, focusing on arrangement of the furniture. It seemed as if nothing was out of place, so there must not have been much of a scuffle. Was it possible the woman had been killed elsewhere and later brought to the mansion to intimidate the Blanchards? But the coroner estimated that the body hadn’t been dead more than two hours, which would have been about the time that Rissa had heard the shot.
Mick removed the deceased’s scarf, which was spattered with blood, and put it in a plastic bag. They collected some strands of hair and the bullet from the splintered door, but when six women had entered the room after the woman had been killed, any one of them could have caught their hair on those splinters.
When the crime scene investigators and the coroner left, Drew went to Ronald’s office and tapped on the door. “Mr. Blanchard, you can come to the library now.”
Ronald swung open the door and brushed past Drew without a word. He paused on the threshold of the library, but he seemed to have his emotions under control. He stood beside his wife, and his expression grew hard and resentful as he looked down at her.
“We have to remove the body now,” Mick said. “Which funeral home do you want us to call?”
“I’ll take care of that,” Ronald said.
“You can call whoever you want, but the body has to be taken for an autopsy before the mortician touches it. We’re staying here until the body is taken away, and this room will have to be locked until we’re sure the investigation is complete.”
“There’s no key for this door.”
“We’ll see that it’s locked,” Drew said. “We don’t want anyone in here. That means family as well as outsiders. The door will have to be repaired anyway, so we’ll put a lock on it tomorrow. Which mortuary do you want?”
Ronald swung toward Drew with his right hand uplifted, his nostrils flaring with rage, his eyes blazing. Drew stiffened and he steeled himself to resist the man’s attack, but Ronald turned away and slowly lowered his hand.
He let out a long, audible breath. “Carson Brothers Mortuary,” he muttered in a harsh, raw voice. Turning on his heel, he left the library, and Drew heard the office door close.
“Whew!” he said, with a tense look at Mick. “That was close! Now what?”
“One of us should stay here tonight to be sure no one comes into this room until we put a lock on the door. We may have missed some vital piece of evidence.” Mick walked to the door and looked at the place where the forensics team had dug out a bullet. “We have to find the gun that matches the bullet we found. I hate to call anybody out at this time of night to guard the place.”
“I’ll stay,” Drew said. “I’m uneasy about the family anyway. Something’s wrong in this house, and I don’t think any of them are safe. I’ve got a Thermos of coffee in my car, and I’ll hole up here to protect the crime scene.”
When they walked out into the hall, Rissa and Portia stood at the head of the stairs. Mick motioned to Portia and she hurried down the steps to him. Giving them a private moment, Drew walked upstairs and Rissa invited him into the sitting room where Winnie and Miranda waited.
“Mick and I don’t want you to be alone,” he said to the women. “We need to watch the library until we can put a lock on the door. I’m going to stay in the house tonight, so you can go to bed now and get some rest.”
“We’ll prepare a room for you, Mr. Lancaster,” Winnie said. “We have an empty guest room on this floor.”
“Not tonight. I’ll stay in the library, but if we decide that you need some continued protection, I may take you up on the offer.”
Rissa walked down the stairs beside Drew. Portia kissed Mick goodbye and the twins went into the living room. Drew went to Mick, who waited beside the front door. In a low voice, he said, “I don’t like to involve the family in this, but who else would have had a motive or opportunity to commit this murder?”
“We have to remember that the murdered woman has been gone for twenty-some years. She may have collected several enemies during that time and one of them might have followed her to the Blanchard property.”
Realizing that Mick didn’t want to implicate his fiancée’s family, Drew said, “I’ll spare you as much of this investigation as I can. I don’t intend to do much sleeping tonight, so I’ll try to get Mr. Blanchard’s story.” He patted the small recorder he carried in his pocket. “We don’t have to make public anything that doesn’t have any bearing on the case.”
With a worried sigh, Mick said, “We’re cops first and foremost, so I’ll have to forget my emotional ties to this family. We’ve sworn to uphold the law no matter who’s involved.”
“At times like this, I sometimes wish I hadn’t taken that vow. The women of this family are too kind and gentle to have to deal with such a nightmare.”
“I know what you mean, buddy! Watch your back,” Mick warned as he let himself out of the house. Drew turned the lock and walked down the hallway to Ronald’s office.
He knocked quietly several times, pausing for a short interval between each knock. Fearful images flashed through his mind. Had Ronald killed his wife and then taken his own life? Would Rissa be deprived of both father
and mother in such a short time?
Feeling desperate, he knocked vigorously.
“Who is it?” Ronald shouted.
“Detective Drew Lancaster, Mr. Blanchard.”
“Can’t you leave a man to his grief? The door’s not locked.”
With a sense of relief and some apprehension, Drew turned the knob. Slouched in a leather chair, Ronald stared at him with belligerent eyes. “What do you want?”
Drew almost apologized for intruding, because the man did look wretched, but from what he’d heard of Ronald Blanchard, he had no respect for anyone he could intimidate. He paused when he was close enough to look Ronald squarely in the eyes.
“I want some answers about this murder. If you give the right answers, I won’t intrude on your grief very long.” His sarcastic tone hinted that he doubted if Ronald was truly grief-stricken.
“Anything to get rid of you and your kind! What do you want to know?”
“For starters, I’d like to know where you were when the murder was committed.”
“I was in this room, sitting in this chair. It happens to be my favorite spot in the whole house.”
“Why did it take you so long to get to the library? From what Rissa reported, it must have been at least ten minutes from the time someone shot at her before she and Miranda went into the library.”
“I didn’t hear a shot.”
“Why not? Were you asleep?”
Ronald vaulted out of his chair but Drew held his ground.
“If you’d ever experienced a thunderstorm in this house, you’d understand why I didn’t hear a shot. Blanchard Manor receives the full blast of a storm sweeping in from the Atlantic. For almost two hours we were barraged with this storm. The wind howled around the turrets, tree limbs smacked against the side of the house and thunder rolled like cannons across the roof. Sleep? Impossible! And as for hearing a gunshot, I couldn’t have heard a full-fledged artillery battle taking place in the front yard.”
For the next half hour, Drew threw question after question at Ronald without getting much information. After his first rage at having Drew disturb him, he settled down and his answers were terse, his face like a stone mask. He maintained that he had spent the evening reading, rather than going to bed, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He wasn’t aware of what was going on in the library until during a lull in the storm he had heard someone running and his sister’s voice in the hallway. He had entered the library and found the body of his wife, whom he hadn’t seen for twenty-three years.
“Then let me ask you a few questions about the previous night,” Drew said. “I understand that you and a woman had quite an argument in the gazebo. Are you sure you didn’t see your wife then?”
“Don’t you think I’d know if I met my wife? It wasn’t my wife—I told you, I haven’t seen her for years.”
“Then who did you meet?”
“None of your business.”
“But it may be some of my business, Mr. Blanchard. If you refuse to answer questions and don’t cooperate with the authorities to solve this murder, you can be arrested and jailed for impeding a police investigation.”
Ronald laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “And just how long do you think you could keep me in jail in Stoneley? You still have a lot to learn about the influence of the Blanchards, Detective.”
Determined not to be intimidated by the man, Drew asked, “Do you own a gun?”
“Again, that isn’t any of your business. If you want to question me, you’re going to do it when one of my lawyers is present. Get out of here and leave me alone.”
Turning to leave the office, feeling defeated but hoping his feelings weren’t apparent, Drew said, “Mick and I have decided that your family needs police protection. For tonight, I’ll be staying here, protecting the house and preserving the crime scene.”
“You’re not welcome in my home.”
“That’s obvious, but you don’t have any choice, Mr. Blanchard. A crime has been committed here. It’s our duty to find out who committed that murder. If you didn’t kill your wife, I’d think you would be eager to see the murderer caught and brought to justice instead of opposing our efforts. We also intend to place your family under police protection to insure their safety.”
Drew turned on his heel and walked out of the room. Ronald slammed the door behind him.
Deciding he needed to become familiar with the layout of Blanchard Manor, Drew walked upstairs and surveyed the two hallways that branched off into a large number of rooms. He had heard that the mansion had fifteen rooms.
Winnie Blanchard met him at the top of the stairs. “Mr. Lancaster, let me show you to the room we’ve prepared for you.” She turned toward the hallway to the left and he followed her. Pointing to the first door, she said, “That is Ronald’s room, and yours will be across the hallway from his.”
She opened the door into a spacious bedroom that was almost as big as his house. A massive four-poster bed with a quilted floral bedspread and matching pillows was placed along one wall opposite a white marble-faced fireplace with gas logs burning. An easy chair was placed beside a table with a reading lamp on it. Framed prints of Maine’s seacoast hung around the walls.
“I turned on the gas logs to take the chill out of the room. You can adjust it to suit your needs.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I won’t spend much time in the room. I’m here only to watch out for your family. Tonight I’ll be guarding the library. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be patrolling the hallways at night.”
“I sleep down this hallway, the next door on the left, and you can call me at any time. The girls’ bedrooms are in the opposite hall.”
They returned to the central hallway and Drew pointed to another stairway.
“The third floor is occupied also. My invalid father and his caregiver have rooms there. I’d appreciate it if you would avoid disturbing my father if at all possible. He has Alzheimer’s and he’s easily upset.”
“I’ll be as respectful of your situation as much as possible,” he said, “but a crime has been committed and we’ll have to investigate. That means checking out the entire house.”
“I understand,” she said, with unmistakable sorrow in her warm hazel eyes. Although Rissa’s aunt must have been in her sixties, she was still slender and rosy-cheeked with a beautiful luster to her faded red hair.
“Do your servants live in?” he asked.
“We have a housekeeper, a chef, a chauffeur and two maids. They have rooms in the wing beyond the kitchen. One maid lives in Stoneley and commutes. Our gardener and other outside workers are only here during the daytime.”
Drew didn’t want to cause any further stress for the family tonight, so he called a patrolman to keep guard on the servants’ quarters so none of them could escape if they had killed the woman. Determining to question them in the morning, he returned to the library and pulled a chair close to the door, so he could see the stairway and much of the central hall. It seemed logical that Ronald had met his estranged wife in the gazebo the night before and had gotten her to come back to the house tonight so that he could kill her. The murder might have gone off without a hitch if Rissa hadn’t come downstairs and discovered what was going on. But if Ronald was telling the truth, and it hadn’t been his wife in the gazebo, then whom had he met? Drew was convinced that Ronald had deliberately destroyed the tire marks left by the woman’s car.
Briefly, Drew wondered if he was trying to fix the guilt on Ronald because he didn’t want to acknowledge that Rissa was the most logical suspect. They had only her word that there had been another person in the library. She could have killed her mother and then fired the shot into the door during a peal of thunder. She had the opportunity, but what motive would she have had? Rissa had only been a toddler when her mother had disappeared.
Recalling his conversation with Winnie, Drew counted ten other people who had been inside Blanchard Manor tonight. He knew that most Alzheimer’s patients were
mobile, and if Howard Blanchard had left his room and killed his daughter-in-law, because of his condition, the whole family would be inclined to protect him.
Drew poured come coffee from his Thermos, and while he sipped on it, he replayed Rissa’s story in his mind. Although she’d been nervous, he hadn’t noted any sign of deceit in her testimony. He recapped the Thermos and stretched out his feet. His hands dropped to his sides and he flexed the fingers of his right hand. They slid down the side of the cushion, and he bolted upright. His fingers closed around two tablets of medication. He lifted them gingerly and inspected them. Had they been in the chair for months or could they have been dropped there tonight? Or had someone dropped them after the murder? Regardless, how had the forensics team missed them?
Angry at what he considered a serious oversight, Drew pulled an evidence bag out of his jacket pocket, dropped the pills inside and sealed it. He saw headlights beaming in the windows, and he hurried outside to the police cruiser Mick had sent to patrol the grounds. He hailed the car, and the driver pulled into the circular driveway and lowered the window.
“Take this to Mick at headquarters and tell him I found these at the scene. They need to be analyzed. I’ll report to him tomorrow.”
Drew inhaled a deep breath of the moist air and halted on the threshold before he returned to the mansion. He wasn’t keen on spending all of this extra time in the Blanchard Manor. He felt like a fish out of water, and he was aware that a few days living in this house would only point out more vividly the wide gulf existing between him and Rissa Blanchard.
Generally, Drew was pleased with the profession he had chosen, but he had a feeling that solving this murder would create an irrevocable gulf between him and the Blanchard family. He didn’t want that, and he sensed that Rissa shared similar feelings. But how could he do his duty as a cop and still pursue his interest in Rissa?