I didn't take time to answer. I plunged past him, gave only a cursory glance at the open floor of the store and the easily seen mezzanine, then hurried to the stockroom.
Todd followed. He quickly got the drift of my search. His eyes widened.
It didn't take long. There weren't that many places to check.
Some large cupboards in the storeroom.
The shipping crate that had held a new refrigerator for the coffee bar.
The dark shadows by the closed loading dock.
The dank old cellar no longer in use.
And, in the bricked alleyway, the dumpster.
The heavy rusted top shrieked when I propped it open.
I looked at the worn soles of low-heeled pink flats. And at thin grayish ankles. The blood had drained to her upper
torso. I was glad I couldn't see the congested, dark, purple skin.
Quick anger shook me. Damn, oh, damn, damn, damn. "Call the police," I told Todd, and didn't recognize the harsh voice as my own.
16
The lights overhead spilled down on the coffee area where we waited, capturing us in a sickly yellow pool of fluorescence. The only sound was the quiet murmur as the policewoman, Sergeant Roman, took down the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the employees and customers who were in the bookstore when we found Amy.
I, too, scribbled the names down. Not quite surreptitiously, but without advertisement.
I could hear the slight scratch of my pencil against the pad, feel the pressure of my fingers against the pencil.
I was alive, able to feel-and raging at myself.
Because poor little Amy with her oversize glasses and anxious eyes was dead in an alley dumpster.
And it could be my fault.
Mine.
I'd told Craig Amy was absolutely positive of the time he left the bookstore on the day Patty Kay died.
Goddammit, I told him.
The tip of the pencil snapped beneath the pressure of my fingers. I found another pencil, completed the list, and dropped pad and pencil into my purse.
The store around us, lights glaring down on unten-anted aisles, was somber, and vaguely threatening.
Occasionally someone rattled the locked front door, puzzled at the prematurely posted closed sign.
Police came and went through the entrance to the stockroom. Those of us sequestered in the coffee area miserably watched them in silence.
One of the clerks, a plump girl with a wide mouth meant for smiling, snuffled noisily into a damp wad of tissue. Todd Simpson, his face sympathetic and bewildered, patted her shoulder.
Restless, I walked over to the coffee bar, poured chocolate mocha coffee into a mug, and splashed in a generous amount of cream. The coffee did nothing to warm the hollow coldness in my stomach, but I sipped it as I glanced around the coffee area.
I didn't know any of the other clerks. Except, of course, Cheryl Kraft, the afternoon's designated socialite. She kept brushing back silver-blond hair from a suddenly gaunt face, and her huge pagoda-shaped silver earrings gave an eerie tinkle. The harsh light betrayed the telltale traces of plastic surgery.
A siren sounded from the alleyway.
Every head turned.
Captain Walsh came through the storeroom door. He glanced at a card in his hand. "Todd Simpson?"
Todd gave the plump girl another pat, then stood. "Sir?"
"Come this way, please."
About five minutes later Todd returnect He was sweating heavily.
I knew why. To identify the body of someone you know is a sickening experience.
Now the police could close the body bag on poor Amy.
I figured it would be at least an hour before Walsh interviewed those of us detained. The captain and his small investigating team had plenty to do: a painstaking examination of the actual scene, note-taking, sketching, photography (more than likely videocam taping too), the careful, tedious collection of physical evidence.
A mumble of voices drifted through the open stockroom door. Try as I might, I couldn't understand what was being said.
Suddenly the door swung shut. Now we couldn't hear anything.
I probably had an hour at most before I'd see the police chief.
I had a decision to make.
If I told Captain Walsh about my talk with Amy and my report of it to Craig, I'd be hand-delivering a class-A motive for Craig to commit murder.
The probable result: Craig's instant arrest.
But maybe that's exactly what I should do.
Only two facts held me back.
The search of Patty Kay's office.
Craig ran away when I confronted him.
But, nonetheless, the fifteen minutes that Amy would have sworn to was enough to put Craig back in jail.
The decision was mine to make.
The businessman who'd been pacing up and down by the psychology shelves swung toward the policewoman. "Look, I'm missing clients. I just dropped in here to buy Fortune. I've given you my name and address. My office is just across the street."
"I'm sorry, sir. No one can leave until Captain Walsh says so."
"Well, ask him, will you?"
"The captain requested that everyone remain here until further notice. He will speak with each of you as soon as possible."
"Dammit to hell, I've got a new client coming in at four-thirty. He's-"
Todd pushed up from the straight chair he'd straddled. He was a big young man, the kind who plays lineman for his high school team-trunk legs, a barrel chest, a big head. He wasn't large enough for college ball, but he made the businessman look small. His face still glistened with sweat. "Look, mister, Amy's dead. You may not care, but we do. And maybe you can help. Don't you want to help?"
Every face turned toward the complainer. He had the grace to turn fiery red. Then he slumped silently into a chair.
I had the clerks sorted out by now: Jackie, the plump, snuffling girl; Paul, cadaverously skinny, his long black hair in a ponytail, a golden ring in his left earlobe; Candy, serious gray eyes, a cheerful pug nose, a sprinkle of freckles that stood out now against shock-paled skin.
Cheryl Kraft, of course, didn't look like a clerk. Not in that turquoise floral silk jacquard dress. She was uncharacteristically subdued. The jeweled hands in her lap trembled.
The other customers made no complaint. A nursing mother turned her back to the group and cuddled a baby to her breast while she played a rhyming game with her restless toddler. Two well-dressed middle-aged women exchanged anxious whispers. A distinguished-looking man about my age calmly read a paperback of Suetonius.
Todd once again straddled the straight chair. He rested his sweaty face on his crossed arms.
I walked over to him.
"Todd, where's Stevie?"
<
br /> "Ma'am, the captain said no talking." The policewoman was pleasant but firm.
I nodded, returned to the coffee bar, and sat on a stool. I got out my notebook again. Okay. No questions now.
But I'd damn sure ask questions later.
I'd just started sketching down my thoughts, when the front door opened.
We all turned to look.
A patrolman ushered in Craig Matthews and Stevie Costello.
Craig looked at me, looked quickly away. He took a seat at the periphery of the cafe area.
Stevie slid onto the stool next to mine. "Tell me-"
"No talking, please." The policewoman stepped toward us. Stevie nodded jerkily. She didn't look toward Craig.
Across the room, ignoring us, Craig wiped his face with a handkerchief.
I stared hard at him. I didn't care now that he was Margaret's nephew. That concern seemed long ago and far away. What I had to know, what I must discover, was whether he'd murdered a helpless young girl because I'd talked too much.
The pitiless overhead light emphasized the weakness of his face, the self-indulgent mouth, the uncertain eyes, the defensive expression. He'd changed from the black pinstripe suit he'd worn to Patty Kay's funeral into olive linen slacks and a cotton sport shirt with brilliant red, green, and blue vertical stripes. He wore brown alligator loafers. Fine clothes. Expensive clothes.
Craig Matthews could dress this way because he'd married an older woman with a great deal of money.
He must have felt my glance.
He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw both defiance and terror.
It was Craig who looked away.
The storeroom door opened again. A trim young woman carrying a large square black attache case walked briskly toward us. She placed it on one of the tables. "Hello, I'm Lieutenant Margaret Berry. I'm here to take your fingerprints." Her voice was matter-of-fact. "These are called elimination prints. It's customary to take the prints of all persons on the premises of a homicide so that investigators can quickly identify and discard those that are irrelevant."
It was the very best butter-and no hint that these prints might send someone to the electric chair.
Lieutenant Berry was pleasant, professional, and thorough. She took finger and palm prints. It was a tedious process. She took Stevie's first, Craig's second.
The businessman looked at the ink in distaste. "I just came here to buy a magazine," he complained in a voice used to being obeyed.
"I understand Captain Walsh will begin the interviews as soon as the fingerprinting is completed." Lieutenant Berry held up the roller used for palms.
He glared at her, then stuck out his right hand. "I've already missed my appointment."
Todd shifted forward in his chair, his face pugnacious. The antagonism between them had become electric. "So who cares?"
I, too, was aware of the passage of time and beginning to watch the clock in earnest. It was almost five. The school board meeting was in two hours.
Each person in turn was directed to the bookstore's
main office on the mezzanine in the order in which their fingerprints were taken.
Mine were taken last.
That it was deliberate, I had no doubt.
But why?
It was almost six-thirty when I was finally ushered into the main office on the mezzanine. Captain Walsh sat behind a paper-littered desk.
An attractive redhead nodded to me from her chair next to the desk. She had pulled a swivel chair away from a computer work station to face the door.
Walsh didn't get up. He jerked his head toward the woman. "Assistant District Attorney Susan Nichols," he said brusquely.
She nodded again.
"Hello, Captain, Ms. Nichols."
Captain Walsh no longer looked movie-star handsome. The bristle of the day's beard was dark on his cheeks; lines of tension were etched in his face. And he didn't give a damn who I was related to.
Or maybe he did.
"I'd like to have your movements today." He jabbed a blunt forefinger at a tape recorder on the desk. "Whatever you say will be recorded. If you wish to speak with a lawyer first, you can use the phone."
It was decision time.
And I still hadn't decided.
The police chief's glance sharpened.
I'd taken just a little too long to answer.
So I delayed an instant longer. "That's not a Miranda, Captain."
"No."
"Very well. I've no objection to being recorded." I ignored the straight chair directly in front of the desk and instead chose a comfortable armchair. I quickly sketched my activities. Today's activities. But nothing-yet-about my session last evening with Craig.
"You found the message asking you to call Amy Foss on the front door of the Matthews home?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"At approximately three o'clock."
"You came directly here?"
"No. I went inside and called the bookstore. When I was told she'd disappeared-"
Walsh held up his hand. "Nobody said she'd disappeared. Todd Simpson said she couldn't be found."
"That's correct. She couldn't be found. In my judgment, Captain, objects or people who cannot be found may reasonably be considered to have disappeared. That's when I got worried. I arrived here about three-twenty."
"Describe your actions."
I did.
The police chief's cold, suspicious eyes never left my face.
The assistant D.A. made notes.
Walsh abruptly boomed: "How did you know she was dead?"
"I didn't know. I was afraid she was." I kept my voice relaxed. If he'd hoped for a nervous start, he didn't get it.
"You went straight to the body."
"No."
"You started looking for a body. Simpson said so."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Zero hour.
To speak. Or not.
He hunched forward in his chair, his face forbidding.
When I confronted him, Craig ran away.
I took a deep breath. All right. Jewel said it best, with a black woman's painful wisdom: It's a lot harder to get in jail than get out.
So for now, one more time, I was in Craig's corner.
I'd give it-and him-twenty-four hours.
If I didn't know the answer by then, I'd come clean with Captain Walsh.
"We can't be sure, Captain, why Amy was killed. But there's one critical point to remember: Amy took the message Saturday that instructed Craig to go to the delicatessen and then home."
"So?"
"I told her to be sure to call me if she remembered anything about that call, anything at all. I think she did remember something about that call, something that made her extremely dan�
�gerous to the murderer. And so she called me."
It might be true.
Or it might be that I'd put Amy in terrible danger.
I would- before God-find out.
The chief's handsome face curled into a sneer. "Oh. I suppose she had a sudden recognition of the caller's voice." The sarcasm was thick.
Scandal in Fair Haven Page 25