“You’re sure this wasn’t just . . . well, just wishful thinking on your part?”
The socialite managed a bit of a smile at that. “It wasn’t my idea, Detective,” she replied. “It was Richard’s. There would have been no reason for him to lead me on. I was quite content with our relationship as it was. As you may or may not already know, I haven’t exactly been a stellar success story in the marriage department.”
“May we keep this recording, Ms. Burdick?” Dusty asked, not sure why yet.
“Yes,” Stephanie replied, handing the machine over. “Keep it as long as you like.” She hesitated for a second or two. “But then I’d like to have it back, if you don't mind” she added. “And I’d appreciate if your people were careful with it.”
“Of course,” Erin murmured. The woman wanted a keepsake. They would do their best to make sure it was returned in the condition that it was received.
“I assume we can contact you, should it become necessary?” Dusty inquired.
The woman sighed. “If you mean, will I make a formal statement or testify at a trial, if it comes to that -- the answer is yes. I wouldn’t have come to you in the first place if I hadn’t been prepared for that.” She stood up and turned to leave. “Thank you for your time. I trust you’ll do the right thing with this.”
“We’ll look into it,” Dusty assured her.
They watched her go. Then they looked at each other.
“What’s going on here?” Erin wondered, a baseball-sized rock beginning to form in the pit of her stomach.
“Maybe more than we thought,” Dusty replied.
“But it doesn’t make any sense. The stalker is real. We know he is. We’ve got him on tape. And we know he ran Clare off that road and almost killed her.”
“True,” Dusty said with a sigh. “But now we know something else, don’t we?”
Erin frowned. “Do you think she knew about Stephanie Burdick? Do you think she knew her husband was planning to divorce her?”
Dusty shrugged. “I think we’d better find out.”
***
“Detective Hall,” Clare said, her face lighting up as she opened the door to find Erin standing on the other side.
“Hello,” Erin acknowledged.
“It’s so nice to see you,” Clare said. “Come on in out of that miserable rain, and let’s get you warmed up. I have a good fire going in the library.” She led her visitor into the well-used room.
“I was about to take a little break and have some tea. Let me just go tell Doreen to make it a tray for two.”
She disappeared down the hall in the direction of the kitchen before Erin could say a word. The library was inviting, with built-in bookcases and rich wood paneling and luxurious leather furniture that all glowed in the firelight. The detective stood in front of the crackling blaze, warming her fingers and toes. It felt wonderful. Erin loved everything about the Pacific Northwest except the November rains.
“Heating systems are fine, but there’s nothing like a warm fire on a wet day,” Clare said coming back. “Tea is on its way.” She sat down in one of two leather chairs that were drawn up close to the hearth, and gestured for Erin to take the other.
“Thank you,” the detective murmured, settling herself in the proffered chair.
“No, thank you,” Clare said. “It’s nice to have a visitor. It’s funny, you know. For days after Richard died, this place was filled with people, wall to wall, wanting to offer comfort and support. We couldn’t get them to leave. But as soon as the funeral was over, poof! They vanished -- like a switch that flips on and then off. I guess they figured it was time for me to move on and time for them to get back to their own lives.”
“It’s like that,” Erin agreed.
“But the thing is, the grief doesn’t end at the funeral” Clare said. “I was in such a daze that whole time, anyway, I barely knew that anyone was here. And I find that it’s now that I need the comfort and the support, now that it’s beginning to sink in that Richard’s really gone and the children and I are alone.”
“I lost my father a while back,” Erin found herself revealing. “So I know what you mean. My mother still isn’t over it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Clare said with genuine sympathy. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent, too. Both of mine are gone now. I hope your mother will be okay. Mine never really was. I sometimes think she died the same day my father did. It just took her body a few more years to figure it out. Anyway, now that I know you understand, I’m even more pleased that you came to see me.”
“Yes, well, this isn’t just a social call,” the detective had to admit.
“It isn’t?” Clare responded. “But I thought the investigation was over and the case was closed.”
“Pretty much,” Erin said smoothly. “There are just a few more loose ends to tie up.”
Doreen arrived with the tray at that moment, temporarily halting the conversation. The tea service was Wedgwood, Erin couldn’t help noting, and it was accompanied by a basket of muffins, so fresh that the steam was still rising from them.
The housekeeper set the tray down on the exquisite Louis XIV side table positioned between the two women, smiled at Erin, and departed.
Clare did the pouring. “Cream and sugar?” she asked politely.
“Just sugar,” Erin replied.
Clare passed her a cup and nodded at the basket of muffins. “Those are honey almond,” she said. “Doreen’s famous for them. I highly recommend you try one.”
“Thank you,” Erin said, unable to resist, in spite of herself. The detective had never been to tea before in her life. She put down her cup, placed a muffin on a plate, balancing the plate on her knees while she retrieved her teacup, and then did her best to juggle both. She felt awkward, way out of her element, and she wondered if Clare knew it, and if it was intentional.
“You were saying something about a few loose ends,” her hostess prompted a moment later.
“Yes,” Erin responded, deciding not to sneak up on the subject, but to go right at it. She swallowed a bite of her muffin, and set down her cup of tea. “Are you acquainted with Stephanie Burdick?”
The brown eyes across from her flickered, so slightly it was hardly noticeable. But Erin was trained to notice such things.
“We’re not what you would call friends, if that’s what you’re asking,” Clare said. “But of course I know her. We’ve served on several committees together.”
“But you and your husband didn’t travel in the same social circle?”
“Hardly,” Clare informed her guest. “Richard and I might have been active in the community, but that didn’t put us in Stephanie Burdick’s league. After all, I’m the daughter of a Greek immigrant, and Richard came from a trailer park in Lacey.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Me?” Clare was genuinely amused. “Heavens, no. Let me assure you, Detective Hall, that I’ve always been quite comfortable with who and what I am. I have no social aspirations.”
“And your husband?”
“Well, normally I would say that you would have to ask him about that,” the widow said without even a hint of irony. “But under the circumstances, I’ll simply say that Richard may have been ambitious in ways that I am not.”
“Was your marriage a happy one?” Erin asked.
“I always thought it was,” Clare replied. “At least, as happy as most marriages are, I suppose. But of course, I can’t speak for Richard on that account.”
“Was there ever any talk of divorce?”
“Divorce?” Clare echoed. “Other than in the heat of an argument, as sometimes happens in the best of marriages, the answer is no, not really.” She gave the detective a long look. “Why are you asking all these questions?”
Erin sighed. “I’m not sure yet,” she admitted.
“Are you perhaps trying to find out if my husband was having an affair?”
“Not exactly,” Erin replied, taking full advantage of the
opening. “What I’m trying to find out is if you knew your husband was having an affair.”
Unexpectedly, Clare laughed. “In the fourteen years we were married, I think I probably knew more about Richard than Richard knew about himself,” she said. “And in all that time, I never knew him not to be having an affair.”
Erin blinked. “You knew your husband was involved with Stephanie Burdick?”
“You mean did he flaunt it?” Clare queried. “No. Richard could be very discreet when he wanted to. But then, he always had a keen eye. I had no idea who his current fling was with, but I must admit, she’s certainly a lovely girl.”
“Well,” Erin said, shifting a bit awkwardly in her chair, “the lovely girl in question seems to think that you knew your husband was returning a day early from his business trip.”
Clare looked blank. “I think Stephanie must be mistaken,” she said after a moment. “I did speak to Richard that afternoon, but as far as I knew, he was still in Vermont. He was at the Burlington plant for a series of tests on a new product he was pretty excited about. We talked about the tests. But I certainly don’t recall him saying anything to indicate that he was cutting his trip short.”
“Had he ever done that sort of thing before?” Erin inquired.
“What?” Clare responded. “Cut a business trip short so he could spend a clandestine evening with a mistress?”
“Well, cut a business trip short, and not tell you about it.”
“If he did, then how would I know?” Clare asked politely.
“Obviously, what I mean is, did you ever find out that he had done that before?” Erin rephrased the question.
“No,” Clare replied, and then frowned. “Where are you going with this? What is it you’re trying to get me to say? That I was finally so humiliated by Richard’s years of infidelity that when I heard he was coming home early I decided to shoot him?”
“Did you?” Erin countered.
Clare sighed. “I loved my husband very much, Detective Hall,” she said. “But I suspect he was just like any other man. He had his strengths and he had his weaknesses. I valued the strengths and I learned to live with the weaknesses.”
“And you’re saying you didn’t know your husband was coming home early, and you didn’t shoot him on purpose,” Erin clarified for the record.
Clare was just about to respond when the telephone rang. She put down her teacup and rose from her chair. “Richard’s death was a terrible thing, and I will agonize over it for the rest of my life. But I shot what I believed was a man who was coming to kill me -- what you believed was a man who was coming to kill me,” she reminded the detective as she crossed to the desk and picked up the receiver.
“Hello, Clare,” the voice said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve spoken, hasn’t it?”
Her startled gasp was clearly audible, and even from halfway across the large room, Erin could plainly see the panic in her eyes. “What do you want?”
“I would have called sooner, but I know how busy you’ve been,” the voice said. “All those people, in and out, day after day. For a while I thought they would never go home. And all I wanted to tell you was how sorry I am about your husband.”
“Sorry?” Clare cried into the receiver. “It was all your fault, you sick son of a bitch! It was you I meant to shoot.”
There was a deep chuckle at the other end of the line. “Why Clare, I do believe you care. And all this time I didn’t think you did. Oh, we really have to get together, you and I. And I can’t think of a single reason why we shouldn’t . . . now that you’re free. Let’s make it soon, too . . . very soon. In the meantime, I just want you to know that I thought you put on a beautiful funeral, very touching, very uplifting.”
Clare stared at Erin in alarm. “You were there . . . at the church?” she whispered.
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” the voice said, and hung up.
Clare stood there, with the dial tone ringing in her ear, for perhaps half a minute. Then she replaced the receiver and returned to her chair.
“Let me tell you something I’ve learned in the last few weeks, Detective Hall,” she said softly. “It really doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do. It doesn’t matter how good we are or how hard we try. None of us is going to get out of this world alive. You can’t protect me from this maniac. Look what happened when you tried. I’m on my own, and I know it. I can only hope that when he finally does come for me, it’ll be quick and painless, like it was for Richard. And that he takes me someplace where no one will ever find me, so that my children won’t ever have to see what I saw that night after I turned on the bedroom light.”
***
Erin got back to headquarters just as Dusty was cleaning up his desk for the day.
“What?” he asked, seeing the expression on her face.
“He called again, while I was there,” she replied. “To tell her he was at the funeral.”
“He’s really playing this for all it’s worth, isn’t he?” Dusty said thoughtfully. “Do you think he was telling the truth? Do you think he was at the funeral?”
“Who knows?” she said with a touch of frustration. “We didn’t even think to video the service.”
“No, we didn’t,” he conceded. “But there’s no point in beating ourselves up about it now.”
“I won’t, if you don’t put your coat on just yet,” she told him.
“What’s up?”
Erin shook her head. “There’s something going on here that we’ve missed. Call it woman’s intuition, call it PMS, call it anything you need to call it, but there’s something here that just doesn’t feel right.”
“You’ve said that before,” Dusty reminded her. “Can you maybe give me just a little hint about what it is you’re thinking?”
“That’s the problem,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s clear we’re being manipulated. It’s just that I’m not sure anymore by who.”
“What does that mean?” Dusty asked.
“It means I want to go back and take another look,” she told him, starting to shuffle things around on her desk in her search for the relevant files.
“Another look at what?”
“At everything, right from the beginning. I want to talk to people we’ve already talked to, only I want to ask different questions this time. I want to get a better handle on what was really going on. And I want to go back to that house, and replay that night.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Erin replied slowly. “But there was something Clare said. . . . something about the light.”
***
Dr. Ahrens had not yet cleared Clare to go back to work. “All things considered,” he said, “it really won’t hurt you to take another week or so off.”
So Nina continued to play courier between Thornburgh House and Laurelhurst. “It gives me a good excuse to come see you,” she announced, arriving at the house that evening with a manuscript in hand.
“And it gives me someone I can really talk to,” Clare said, smiling at her friend.
It didn’t take much convincing to get Nina to stay for dinner. They ate in the breakfast room with the children, and then they took their coffee into the library.
“How is it going?” her confidante asked, sinking into the same leather chair that Erin had occupied not three hours earlier.
Clare sighed. “It’s hard,” she said. “Being alone, on my own, for the first time in my life, really. Even when Richard wasn’t here, he was still here, if you know what I mean.”
“I’d like to say that it’ll get better, it just takes time, but I’m not sure that’s what you want to hear,” Nina said. “Of course, in my case, my exes aren’t dead -- just deadbeats. After I got rid of them, life got better very quickly.”
“Oh dear, you really are too much,” Clare exclaimed, laughing in spite of herself.
“There,” her friend said with satisfaction, “at least I got a chuckle out of you.”
They beg
an talking about Thornburgh House then, Nina filling her in on all the latest gossip, and about the manuscript Nina had brought that Clare was going to be reading, and about a new author that Nina had discovered. They were on their second cups of coffee when they heard the doorbell ring, and a moment later, Doreen brought James Lilly into the library.
“Why James, how nice to see you,” Clare said graciously, although it was just past eight o’clock, and an odd time for him to be calling. “Nina and I are having coffee. Will you join us?”
“No, but thank you for asking,” he said, smiling a bit shyly at the two women. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I really just stopped in to say good-bye.”
“You’re not interrupting” Clare assured him. “But what do you mean, goodbye? Are you going away?”
“I’m going to be leaving Nicolaidis Industries.”
His announcement clearly took Clare by surprise. “Leaving? Good heavens, why would you do a thing like that?”
“Well, there’s a new CEO running the place now, and he has his own assistant, who’s been with him for years, that he wants to keep,” James explained. “I certainly don’t blame him, but that means there really isn’t any place for me.”
“But you’ve been a wonderful employee, and not one we can afford to lose,” Clare said firmly. “Surely, we can find something else for you. I’ll talk to Doug Potter about it, personally. In fact, I think I’ll call him right now.” She started to get up.
“Oh, no, please don’t,” James said, stopping her. “He’s already offered.”
“Then I don’t understand – why are you leaving?” she asked.
“Well, the thing is,” he said with a diffident shrug of his shoulders, “once you’ve been the assistant to the CEO, it’s kind of hard to go backwards.”
The light finally dawned. “You mean because it might be seen as some sort of a demotion?”
“I don’t see as how it could be anything else, really,” he said. “But don’t get me wrong. These things happen and there are no hard feelings. I’ve had some wonderful years at Nicolaidis. Your husband gave me the chance to learn, and I learned a lot. And I’ll be able to take all that experience with me to my next position. I’ll always be grateful, to him and to the company.”
In Self Defense Page 13