and Mrs. Matthews are both members of the board of directors for the Fair Haven Public Library.
Supporters of the minister shouted in opposition to a recent library board decision, proposed by Mrs. Matthews, to add materials on prevention of AIDS to the library's Saturday morning reading programs for children.
Mrs. Matthews yanked the microphone from Reverend Holman, then challenged the protesters to admit that their opposition to the dissemination of information on safe sex would result in needless suffering and deaths. "You people will do anything to prevent abortions because you want to save lives, but you are willing to see young people die rather than permit them to discuss sexual activities. For shame," she cried.
Mrs. Matthews has mounted an active campaign to see Reverend Holman defeated in the next library board election.
The much- ballyhooed "striptease" was the highlight of the Revelry Dance Club's annual Christmas ball last year. Mrs. Matthews's "performance" was offered at an auction to raise money for Walden School and was the item bringing in the highest bid, 1,400 dollars. As promised in the auction offer, Mrs. Matthews divested to a skintone body suit at the dance to the accompaniment of drumrolls. She explained, with a laugh, that she had on more than most of her friends wore to aerobics and that raising money might as well be fun.
Last October, Mayor Jane French presented Mrs. Matthews with an Honored Citizens Award for her fund-raising efforts over the years. "I wish
we had more dedicated citizens like Patty Kay," the mayor said.
Oh, my, yes. Patty Kay loved to have fun-and to hell with anybody who didn't like it-or her.
It took only a few minutes to do the dishes and leave the newly cleaned kitchen immaculate. I had no intention of tackling the playhouse. Scrubbing would never clear away the dreadful remnants of bloody death.
Twenty minutes later I was showered and dressed for the day. I chose a navy knit with gold buttons. I was in the main hall, walking toward the telephone desk, when I heard a key in the back door. The lock clicked, and the door swung in.
"Mr. Matthews? It's me. Jewel." A small black woman in a neat gray maid's uniform bustled inside. She ducked out of a plastic rain cap and propped a wet umbrella in the corner, then looked up and saw me.
Jewel. Of course, the maid employed by both Patty Kay and Cheryl Kraft.
I smiled in welcome. "Good morning, Jewel. I'm so glad to see you. I'm Henrietta Collins, Mr. Matthews's aunt." The lie came easily.
She shifted a crocheted bag from one arm to another. "Oh, yes, ma'am. I did hear you was here.'*
It's a small town, for chrissakes.
She hesitated, then added softly, "I'm real sorry, ma'am. About the trouble." She cleared her throat and moved toward the door into the kitchen. "I guess I'll do my regular."
I followed her into the kitchen. "That will be fine. I'm going to be in and out today. I expect Mr. Matthews will be home sometime this afternoon."
Dark eyes slid quickly toward me, then as quickly away. She opened a broom closet, placed her bag inside.
"Jewel, you know the police have arrested Mr. Matthews?"
"Yes, ma'am." She continued to avoid looking at me as she closed the closet door.
The rain was heavier now, drumming against the panes.
"What do you think about that?"
She walked toward the sink. "1 reckon it's harder to get out of jail than get in jail. Least, that's true for black people. Jail is a bad place to be."
"Mr. Matthews is innocent."
Jewel bent down, opened a cabinet, began to lift out cleaning materials.
She didn't say a word.
"How long had you worked for Patty Kay?"
She picked up a pair of rubber gloves, then turned to face.me, crumpling the gloves in her hand. "I worked for her mama. I was with Mrs. Patty Kay when she and Mr. Stuart lived here. I was with her when Miss Brigit was born." Her mournful eyes glistened with tears. "No one had ought to have hurt her like that. No one."
"Craig didn't do it, Jewel."
"You have to be for your kin," she said quietly. "But I tell you, even nice men sometimes they goes after a pretty face and they do things they shouldn't have."
She yanked on the gloves, grabbed up a plastic pail, and walked swiftly toward the hall door.
She paused only long enough to say, "I don't know nothing but that Mrs. Patty Kay she was upset as she could be all day Friday and if I was you I'd ask Mr. Craig about that apartment he goes to so much. My grandson Matt
works the yard over there at those Sandalwood apartments, and he's seen him there. Plenty."
It was at that moment, of course, as I listened to the tattoo of the rain and grappled with a new and chilling consideration of Craig that the telephone rang. I reached for it.
"Hello."
"Henrie O, you're there."
And, for God's sake, it was Margaret.
I gave her a crisp factual report of everything-except the disturbing encounter with Jewel.
"Henrie O, you're wonderful. Of course that stuff was thrown after she was dead!"
"I'm making progress." But not all of it positive. "How are you feeling?"
She was, she said firmly, doing well.
But her voice was very weak.
"You concentrate on getting well. And don't worry about things here. I'll take care of everything." Oh, Henrie 0, such brave words. "I'll keep in close touch."
But I wasn't feeling cheerful when I hung up.
If Craig had a lady love…
Distantly I heard the growl of a vacuum.
The grandfather clock boomed nine.
I settled at the telephone table and found in my purse my copy of Patty Kay's useful numbers.
My first call was to Laverne. I was lucky. She'd had a cancellation for her ten o'clock. She could take me for a shampoo and set.
My second call was answered promptly. "Mt. Zion Revival Church."
"May I speak to Reverend Holman, please?"
"Our assistant pastor, Mr. Wickey, is taking Reverend Holman's calls."
"I'm sorry. I can speak only to Reverend Holman."
"Reverend Holman won't be back in the office for at least four more weeks."
"Where is he?"
Her voice quivered. "In Vanderbilt hospital. He had open heart surgery last Friday."
"I see. The matter will wait. Thank you."
I checked with Vanderbilt Medical Center. The Reverend James Holman was still in intensive care.
That answered that. I was sorry. I'd thought it might be quite interesting to talk to the reverend about Patty Kay Matthews. A pleasure I would have to forego.
My last call was to Desmond Marino. I'd left him with a list of things to do when we'd parted yesterday.
"Yes, ma'am," the lawyer said briskly. "I've got what you wanted." His voice oozed satisfaction. "An old friend from law s
chool's in the D.A.'s office. Now, in answer to your specific question, the lab didn't find any trace of the stuff in the kitchen on Patty Kay's clothes. Ditto her shoes."
"That makes an enormous difference."
"It does?" He sounded skeptical.
"Look, Desmond, the police theory is that Craig arrived home, he and Patty Kay squabbled about the fruit basket, she was cooking, he lost his temper and started flinging stuff around, and she ran out to the playhouse to get away from him."
"Right."
"So picture it. If Craig and Patty Kay quarreled and Craig started throwing liquids around, surely at least a bit of it would have splashed on her. Even if not, how could she have been standing there cooking and not have had to walk through the stuff to run out to the playhouse?
"The fact that her shoes have no trace of chocolate or
cream cheese or liqueurs has to mean that when she left the kitchen, nothing had yet been thrown.
"And the only reason to throw it after she'd been kitted had to be to incriminate Craig. Besides, the timing doesn't work. I'm going to check that out later today. If we get definite testimony about when he left that deli and when the police arrived on the scene, it won't leave enough time for a quarrel, the mess in the kitchen, and her murder."
"You should have been a lawyer." The highest praise any attorney ever gives. "I can use this today with the judge."
"Good."
"Oh, one thing more. The state police found a sweater in a roadside garbage bin that matches the snagged thread on the murder weapon. The sweater's stained with Patty Kay's blood." He sounded queasy. "The police think it belonged to Patty Kay and Craig tried to dump it because he'd used it to try to stop the flow of blood after he shot her. You know, remorse. Then he just took it with him in a panic."
A sweater. Patty Kay's sweater? If this were so, why on earth was Craig stubbornly refusing to admit it?
"Do you have a description of the sweater?"
A pause, a rattle of paper. "Here it is. One hundred percent cotton cardigan, beige, size large. Label from Lands' End."
I recalled Patty Kay's closet. Crammed with gorgeous, vivid clothes. Lots of natural fibers, of course. All designer label and extremely expensive.
I didn't recall a single item that looked like Lands' End.
I'd not checked all the labels. I could do that. But I was certain what I would find.
Nothing from Lands' End.
I'm not knocking the clothes from that giant catalogue
company. I'm very fond of them myself. There was a black ' Lands' End cardigan upstairs in my suitcase.
But it wasn't Patty Kay's kind of sweater.
"Desmond, are the police sure the cloth fragment on the murder weapon came from this sweater?"
"Yep. Absolutely. They've got details about microscopic evaluation of fibers in here." The papers rustled again.
"All right," I said slowly. "We're on to something here And the police have it all wrong. Craig may have grabbed that sweater up in a panic, that's true enough. But the rest of their theory's wrong. Either the sweater belonged to the murderer or the murderer brought it to the scene and deliberately sopped it in Patty's blood, then left it."
"Jesus, why?"
"Because, Desmond, the police will discover ultimately that the sweater didn't belong to Patty Kay."
"Why not? It's a woman's sweater. It must be the right size-"
"It isn't the size that matters. It's its modest provenance. And its color."
"Huh?"
"Desmond, Patty Kay never owned a beige sweater ordered from a catalogue in her life."
"But why would somebody leave some other woman's sweater there and why would Craig-" He stopped short. "Oh, Christ. You mean it belonged to some other woman and Craig recognized it?"
"I'm afraid so."
He groaned. "God, that'll make it worse for Craig."
"Not if we can prove that sweater was a plant and Craig ran away because of panic over the presence of the sweater and not because he shot Patty Kay."
"Oh, sure. Walsh is really going to believe that."
"Don't sound so glum, Desmond. Panic is better than guilt."
"But I can't go to the police and say there was another woman-you know damn well how that's going to sound -and Craig was trying to protect her. Hell, Mrs. Collins, that's all he needs."
"Don't do it, then. Let's keep poking around." I had one final question. "Obviously, someone who knew Patty Kay well murdered her. Who do you think it might be?" My tone was encouraging.
I expected the usual lawyer's spate of words ending in a firm refusal to do anything as outrageous as make an accusation against anyone.
Instead, after a somber, lengthy silence, Marino surprised me. "She made enemies. You'll find that out. The problem was that Patty Kay never took anything too seriously and she didn't have the imagination to see how other people could be so, well, so deadly serious. I'm thinking about a preacher here in town-"
"The Reverend James Holman?"
"So you've already dug that up?"
"It didn't take genius," I said dryly. "And I've not only dug it up, I've reburied it," and I told him why.
"Oh."
"Is there anyone else Patty Kay had infuriated?"
"No. No, I don't think so."
Craig had said to Brigit, It's a small town, for chrissakees.
But not small enough, apparently, for Desmond to offer any other suspects. The Reverend Holman was the only candidate Desmond was ready to propose. His lawyerly instincts hadn't deserted him. Far be it from him to focus on anyone in his own poker group.
"In any event, we need to check on the whereabouts of
the poker players when Patty Kay was shot. Will you do that?"
He didn't sound overwhelmed with joy at the task, but he gruffly acquiesced.
"What are you going to do?" he demanded.
"Talk to people. Lots of them."
The funeral procession was a long one. I pulled over to j await its passage. The heavier rain had eased, but a steady sprinkle spattered against the windshield. The trees along the street looked sodden, their spring glory dimmed. It was a fitting day for grief. Patty Kay's funeral would be tomor- I row. Surely Desmond would be able to get Craig out of jail by then.
Finally, the long cortege was past. I drove out to the Fair Haven Mall. There were plenty of parking spaces in front of Books, Books, Books.
I shook my umbrella and left it dripping in the entry-way. Books, Books, Books was a booklover's dream. Perhaps twenty thousand square feet, islands and islands of books face out (book business lingo for the cover showing instead of the spine), and a coffee and surprisingly lavish dessert bar.
It took only a moment for me to find Amy shelving new books in the history and politics section. The clerk Craig had mentioned was small, dark, a
nd very thin. She wore her hair in two lengthy braids. Oversize glasses magnified her eyes. She wore a name badge: amy foss.
"Pardon me."
'Tes, ma'am?"
"Amy, I'm Mrs. Collins, Craig Matthews's aunt."
Amy got that look of dumb anguish that afflicts people confronted with a situation they haven't the faintest notion
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