The police would argue that the only reason to lie would be guilt.
But it could be fear, came the whip-quick thought.
I lifted an eyebrow. Somewhere within me lurked a champion for Craig Matthews.
Craig Matthews. A civilized, delicate face. And frightened eyes. Not a very truthful man. The police discoveries surely augmented that judgment.
All right. But there were facts in his favor. And being a liar can indicate either poor character or stupidity, but it hardly equates with being a murderer.
I’d driven fast. I was glad. If anything could be done for Margaret’s nephew, it had to be done quickly.
As a reporter I learned some horrifying truths about our legal system. I don’t call it our system of justice. It is, instead, an often haphazard process relentlessly affected by the participants, who can be bright, stupid, indolent, industrious, incompetent, or brilliant.
If you question that, read some true crime books. Or go down to the courthouse and sit in on a murder trial. Either exposure should scare the bejesus out of you.
Bottom line: The cops wouldn’t be trying to clear Craig; they would be busy amassing evidence so the D.A. could get a murder conviction.
I wasn’t a cop. Or a private detective.
But there’s no law against asking questions.
For whatever reason.
4
As I drove on into town, I spotted Patty Kay Matthews’s bookstore. Books, Books, Books was housed in a large redbrick building across the street from the upscale Fair Haven Mall. I had a swift appreciation of Patty Kay’s abilities as a businesswoman. Malls aren’t it in the 1990s. Separate shops with plenty of parking and easy access definitely are.
It was another couple of miles on tree-shaded Henry Avenue to the turnoff that led directly to the heart of old Fair Haven. As I neared downtown, plenty of bronze plaques attested to protected historic homes, both antebellum and Victorian. I parked near the town square. As always, I’m stiff when I first get out of a car after traveling. I gingerly stretched, admiring the worn granite statue of a Confederate soldier and the recently painted brickfront buildings, the colors ranging from apricot to gray to mauve.
I stopped first at a small cottage with a gilt sign proclaiming the Fair Haven Historic Society. I came out with maps, a history, and a quick summary of the efforts that had gone into refurbishing downtown and making it a tourist mecca. Patty Kay Prentiss Matthews’s name was all over the brochures.
Fair Haven can’t compete historically with neighboring Franklin, of course, home of the Carter House which was so central to the anguishing Battle of Franklin. Five hours of fierce fighting on November 30, 1864, resulted in 6,552 Confederate dead, 2,326 Union dead. But Fair Haven has its own grim stories of war, including brave women who carried information past Union troops beneath hoop-skirts and a handsome Confederate spy hung by the Yankees while a sobbing maiden looked on.
Today Fair Haven’s nineteenth-century main street was home to antique stores, funky little shops selling everything from handmade quilts to homemade jams and candies, and, of course, to Fair Haven’s most prestigious law firms.
The offices of Desmond Marino, Counselor at Law, were on the second floor of a mauve brick building at the corner of Main and First. I opened the frosted glass door and stepped out of the nineteenth into the late twentieth century.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the office of a successful lawyer from the reception area in an upscale funeral home. The same ice-toned gray predominates in the drapes, walls, and carpets, enlivened occasionally by a discreet flash of gold in a vase or painting. The subliminal message is that silver and gold are our ultimate objective, whether in the streets of heaven or on those of earth.
Desmond Marino’s Oxford suit was gray too, with the merest hint of a muted crimson stripe. His Hermès tie was jovial in comparison, a vivid carmine with a gold medallion pattern. One of those absurdly expensive watches glittered on his left wrist.
Marino had an interesting face, part monkey, part raccoon. A bright intelligence was apparent in the coal-dark eyes, wily caution evident in his careful smile.
Not that Marino was smiling overmuch after the initial though suitably muted (the circumstances) warmth of his greeting to Craig Matthews’s aunt (me) after his secretary, slim and blond in a gray silk sheath, showed me in.
I hoped to find out a great deal from Desmond Marino, but there was one urgent question.
“Where is Patty Kay’s daughter?”
“Oh, Brigit’s okay. She’s home.”
“In that house. By herself?”
Desmond Marino looked surprised. “She lives with her dad. Didn’t you know that?”
Fake aunthood obviously was going to have many pitfalls. “Oh, I suppose I misunderstood a recent letter from Craig. I thought Brigit had moved back with her mother and Craig.”
“Not likely.”
I needed to get away from this subject pronto. I managed a smile. “I’m so glad I misunderstood. So there’s no one at the house now?”
“That’s right. Unless I can get bail for Craig.”
“What are the chances?”
Marino waggled his hand. “Maybe so, maybe no. Judge Lehman’s hard to figure. We’re on his docket for tomorrow. The thing of it is, Craig’s in a tough spot, Mrs. Collins. Not only did the police find the murder weapon where he’d dumped it, they’ve got the shirt he wore that day and it’s—”
“Bloodstained. I know.”
“The gun is his, one of a pair of Smith and Wesson .38 handguns he and Patty Kay owned. And his footprints are all over the place in the kitchen and the playhouse.”
“How about Patty Kay’s footprints?”
The lawyer looked puzzled.
I was patient. “In the kitchen. Are her footprints in the mess from the cheesecake? And how about on the path to the playhouse?”
“That damned cheesecake.”
It wasn’t responsive to my questions but the exasperation in his voice intrigued me. I would pursue it in a moment. Right now I wanted to know if Patty Kay’s shoes had also tracked sticky remnants of the dessert.
I repeated my questions.
“How would I know?” He was perplexed.
“Haven’t you been to the crime scene?”
He looked horrified. “God, no. That’s for the police.”
This man wouldn’t win anybody’s defense-lawyer-of-the-year award with that attitude.
“Mr. Marino, at this moment the police are looking solely for evidence to convict my nephew Craig. Nothing else interests them.”
Anybody who thinks cops carefully peruse all evidence, keeping an open mind as to a suspect’s guilt as they do so, probably believes politicians seek the greater good instead of snapping at the best deal for their constituency (i.e., themselves). Once an arrest is made, the cops are trying to build a case. All other evidence is extraneous.
“Mrs. Collins,” Marino inquired briskly, “what does that have to do with Patty Kay’s footprints?”
“Quite a bit. If her footprints are in that mess, obviously the cheesecake was thrown at the ceiling while she and her murderer were in the kitchen. If there are no footprints from Patty Kay, what does that tell us?”
It didn’t come quickly enough to make him a star pupil, but it came. “She wasn’t in the kitchen when the cheesecake splattered?”
I nodded encouragingly. “And?”
“If she wasn’t in the kitchen …” His brow crinkled. “Was she already shot?”
“Yes.”
“But why would anybody throw …” His face flattened out like a man who’d just taken a fist in the gut. “Oh, God.”
Flashing neon couldn’t have made it clearer that the lawyer had a story to tell about Patty Kay’s famous dessert. “So what about the cheesecake?”
“It was bad enough—what I thought before. But now …” The bright eyes peered at me unhappily. “You see, I was afraid the police would hear about last week and—and think Patty
Kay and Craig had a fight.”
I waited.
Marino’s face screwed up in concentration. “We play poker once a month.” He looked up, down, away, but, finally, reluctantly, he continued. “A bunch of guys. We played last week and”—he eyed me doubtfully—“well, Craig drank a little too much. I mean, Craig’s not really a big drinker, Mrs. Collins. But everybody overdoes it sometimes.”
Everybody doesn’t overdo it sometimes. But that wasn’t the point here. “All right. Craig had too much to drink that night. What happened?”
“Last week the game was at my house. The wives do the desserts, but I’m a bachelor, so Patty Kay sends over her cheesecake. And Craig—oh, Christ—he got loud and obnoxious and started making up limericks about what he’d like to do with Patty Kay’s cheesecake, how he hated the damn thing and how she always insisted he eat two damned pieces.”
Cheesecake on the ceiling.
To the police, it would be one more indicator of Craig’s guilt. The husband loathes his wife’s cheesecakes. He comes home, they quarrel, he takes the despised dessert and hurls it around, then chases his wife to the playhouse. There he guns her down.
But there was another possibility, and it was this interpretation that was spooking Marino. Someone at last week’s poker party—or someone who’d heard the story of Craig’s indiscretion from a poker player there that night—set up the death scene to look exactly like the result of a domestic nap.
“Who played poker that night?”
Marino hunched over his desk. He picked up a letter opener, held it like a lifeline. But, grudgingly, he gave me the names.
I got out my notepad and wrote them down: Stuart Pierce, Willis Guthrie, David Forrest. And, of course, Marino and Craig.
One name I recalled from the news stories. “Stuart Pierce. Patty Kay’s first husband?”
“Yes.” Marino looked like a root canal would be more fun than my questions.
“So Husband One and Husband Two were in the same poker group. Chummy.”
“Fair Haven’s a small town, Mrs. Collins.”
“I’d still say that was chummy. One of those so-called amicable divorces?” An oxymoron of the first order.
“Uh. No.”
I waited.
The beautifully tailored suit barely moved when the lawyer shrugged. “Well, you know what Patty Kay was like.”
That was the problem, of course. I had no idea—or at least only the dim beginnings of an idea—about the late Patty Kay Prentiss Pierce Matthews. But Craig’s aunt couldn’t admit that. Quite.
“I’d met her only a few times,” I responded blandly.
“What you saw was what you got, Mrs. Collins.” His face softened. “Patty Kay never did anything by halves. Ever. When we were little kids, she climbed highest in the tree or set off the most firecrackers. We got a little older and she danced the most dances. And that woman was crazy about Stuart. Nuts about him.”
I couldn’t quite identify the tone in his voice. Remembered anger? Wry dismay?
“Anyway, she came on too strong. She overwhelmed Stuart, never left him enough turf.” Now he spoke briskly, telling a familiar tale. “Patty Kay was devastated when he walked out on her. And when he married Louise within a year, well, she took it hard. She couldn’t stand being single. She was humiliated. She met Craig at a party at Cheekwood; three weeks later they got married.”
“On the rebound.”
He tugged at his collar, avoided looking at me. “I don’t mean she didn’t care about Craig. I think she did. But …”
Murky waters here. Had Craig realized he was a make-do replacement for an adored husband? How would that affect a man? Or had Craig deliberately taken advantage of an emotionally distraught woman, picking up a very rich wife with little effort? Had Patty Kay decided that Craig married her for her money? Because it was quite clear who had the big bucks.
Some questions Craig’s aunt couldn’t ask.
Some I could.
“This quick marriage—is that the reason Patty Kay’s lawyer”—I frowned, trying to remember the name— “doesn’t like Craig?”
Marino looked embarrassed. “Mr. Fairlee’s older. Very formal. He thought … well, Craig’s younger than Patty Kay. And he quit teaching right after they got married and just worked at the bookstore….”
I got it. Patty Kay’s lawyer thought a younger man married an older woman—no matter how attractive—for her money.
I let Marino off the hook. “Who was Patty Kay’s best friend?”
He thought about it. “Gina Abbott. She’s an interior decorator here in town. They grew up together.”
“Patty Kay’s sister lives here too, doesn’t she?”
“Right.” There was no inflection at all.
“Mrs. Willis Guthrie.” I recalled it from the news story. “The Willis Guthrie at the poker party. Is that her husband?”
“Yes. Willis is an accountant. Down the hall from me.”
The little poker group got more interesting by the moment. “Were Patty Kay and her sister on good terms?”
Marino’s gaze dropped. He studied the letter opener like an archeologist with a newfound artifact. “Patty Kay and Pamela were not close.”
Hmm.
Finally he looked up at me. “Mrs. Collins, do you really think somebody knew about Craig’s smarting off at poker and that somebody deliberately threw that stuff to make it look like Craig and Patty Kay had a fight?”
“Somebody” was such a nicely vague, undamning term. The lawyer didn’t ask me if I thought a poker player had done it—or someone who’d heard the tale from that exclusive group.
There’s more than one way to answer a question. I responded with one of my own. “You’re Craig’s lawyer. Do you believe he murdered his wife?”
“No, ma’am.” His response was muted but definite. “No. Craig says he’s innocent. I believe him.”
“Why?”
He squinted pensively. “I’ve known Craig for five years. I’ve never seen him lose his temper. Not once. And that cheesecake—that sounds like a slambang, out-of-control fight happened there.” He shook his head violently. “No. Not Craig. And besides, there isn’t any motive. Oh, the cops probably think it’s money. Patty Kay’s money. There’s a lot of it. Several million. And Craig probably gets a third. But he doesn’t even think about money.”
I eyed the lawyer carefully. Naiveté didn’t become him. It’s fairly easy not to think about money when married to pots of it. But the possibility of losing that status might have brought it sharply to Craig Matthews’s mind.
And even easygoing people can go berserk—with enough provocation.
The problem was simply that I had no idea whether there was provocation.
I doodled a little on my notepad, a series of footsteps. “Either Craig lost his temper, threw the cake around, and then shot Patty Kay, or someone used guile and care and a great deal of thought to tangle him in a web of circumstantial evidence.”
“That’s a pretty sickening idea.”
“Murderers generally are not very attractive people.”
His mobile face scrunched up in distress. “Oh, God,” he repeated. “What can we do?”
I told him.
5
A big city jail—the smell, the sights, the sounds—can make you want to cash in your card as a human being to spend your time with a higher order. Like snakes. Or weasels. Or maybe a convivial road crew of leprosy-carrying armadillos.
In comparison, the Fair Haven city jail was a palace. Three blocks from Main Street, it was a compact two-story redbrick colonial building with a shining white front door. I stepped inside, noted a golden-oak bench with a stack of recent magazines on an end table, a clean tile floor (this alone was light-years distant from most jails), and a counter opening to the dispatcher’s office.
“… address is 1619 Willow Lane. The alarm went off five seconds ago. Check it out and call in.”
By the time I reached the counter, the dispatche
r was standing behind it, a helpful expression on her face. Fortyish. A fading blonde. Buxom. “Yes, ma’am?” Her greeting was very polite.
I could, after all, easily be one of Fair Haven’s well-to-do matrons, reporting a lost dog or seeking a permit for a fund drive.
“I’m Mrs. Collins, Craig Matthews’s aunt. I believe you’re expecting me. Mr. Marino called.”
She didn’t have the blasé weariness of the big city. Her curious eyes swiftly took in every detail of my appearance. I’d make a good story to relate to her family and friends. “Oh, yes, ma’am. If you’ll come this way.” She moved to the gate beside the counter and held it open for me.
We walked down a short hall. It ended at a metal door. Yes, this was a jail.
She punched buttons on a shoulder-high panel.
Once past that door, the dispatcher led me through a metal detector into a small bare cubicle with two chairs. Here she left me.
I didn’t have long to wait. A uniformed officer brought Craig in.
I’ve never discussed with a criminologist or sociologist the effect of jail uniforms. I suppose their purpose is to make it easy to identify a prisoner. Certainly the uniforms achieve that goal. Bright orange coveralls are distinctive, all right.
And demeaning.
As were the shackles on Craig’s wrists and ankles.
He shuffled slowly through the doorway.
The coveralls were too big. He looked skinny and insubstantial. His narrow face was white and strained, his eyes dulled by despair.
It took him a moment to focus on me.
Then he simply stood there.
“Craig, I’ve talked to Desmond. He’s trying to get you out on bail. But I wanted you to know I’ve come to town to help.”
The officer, stocky, blond, and impassive, pointed at the chairs. “You can sit there, Matthews. Ma’am, you’ve got fifteen minutes.”
The officer departed. I wondered if someone stood close to that open doorway to listen or if Craig and I were being taped.
It didn’t matter.
I had no secrets. At least, none that I intended to mention here.
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