Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_02

by Scandal in Fair Haven

  Craig obediently shuffled to the first chair.

  I sat down next to him.

  “They think I killed Patty Kay. They think I shot her. They won’t listen to me.” His voice was inexpressibly weary and baffled.

  “I know. But Desmond and I believe you. We intend to find out what really happened.”

  “You’ve talked to Desmond?”

  “Yes. He’s given me the keys to your house.” Jails, of course, don’t permit prisoners to retain personal possessions. The contents of Craig’s pockets when he was jailed had been turned over to the lawyer.

  “You’re going to stay at the house? To help me? Why should—”

  “Because Margaret and I are the only family you have. And because I wouldn’t leave a maimed dog—even one I’ve never seen before—caught in a trap.”

  “A trap?”

  “Exactly. A clever, carefully devised, potentially deadly trap.”

  The muscles in his face flattened. This was a new idea, and the shock devastated him.

  “You mean—”

  “If you didn’t shoot Patty Kay—”

  He shook his head violently. The movement made his chains jangle.

  “—then you were set up. A diabolical little game of Gotcha. Because if you didn’t kill Patty Kay, someone else did. And that person deliberately set out to make you take the blame for your wife’s murder. Think about it. The two phone calls with no one on the other end. The message that brought you home. The cheesecake on the ceiling. Your gun. And why did the police arrive on the scene so conveniently? Because somebody called them. All of that tells us a lot.”

  There was a flash of life in that pale, frightened face. “Like what?”

  “The murderer was either at last week’s poker party or knows someone who was.”

  That brought him bolt upright in the chair. “The cheesecake—somebody threw the cheesecake because I—”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. But that’s not all. The murderer knew where you kept your gun. The murderer knew you well enough to be sure you’d come when Patty Kay called. And you know the murderer well enough to recognize his or her voice.”

  “Oh, my God.” His face crumpled like newspaper left out in the rain.

  I glanced at my watch. Twelve minutes left.

  “Listen, Craig. We don’t have much time.”

  He didn’t look capable of thought. His face was ashen, his eyes blank. I had some urgent, sharp, hard questions for him. But it was better to start slowly.

  I leaned close. “When did you leave the bookstore Saturday afternoon?”

  He hesitated. His eyelids flickered. “About—about four o’clock.”

  “Did you go directly to the deli?”

  “Yes.” He sounded more assured.

  “How long does that take?”

  “Twenty-five minutes. It’s in Green Hills,”

  The bookstore was on the outskirts of Fair Haven. I would time the drive to the deli in Green Hills, a Nashville shopping center.

  “How long were you at the deli?”

  “It took a while. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. See, I was sure they had an order and lost it or something. Because Patty Kay”—he cleared his throat—“didn’t make mistakes. At least, not very often.”

  “So you had them hunt for the order.”

  “And then, well, I decided I’d better get a fruit basket. I thought maybe it was going to be a gift for Brooke. Brooke Forrest. From the trustees.”

  “What trustees?”

  “Walden School. Patty was president of the board. Brooke—she’s a trustee too—headed up a fund drive for the school that brought in almost forty thousand dollars this year. Patty Kay was having the trustees to dinner that night.”

  My ears always prick up at the mention of money.

  “Forty thousand dollars? Where is that money?”

  “In the endowment fund, I suppose. They had a big party out at school last week, honoring Brooke.”

  “Could she have pinched some of it?”

  “Brooke?” Astonishment lifted his voice. “No, look, Mrs.—”

  “Henrie O,” I murmured.

  He cleared his throat. “Henrie O.”

  I hoped he managed not to sound quite so self-conscious when he spoke my name in the future.

  “Brooke wasn’t handling cash. She got pledges, checks, gifts. And besides, forty thousand dollars is peanuts to a Forrest. I mean, Patty Kay’s murder couldn’t have anything to do with the fund drive. But I thought that might be why Patty Kay wanted the fruit. I thought maybe it was going to be a surprise for Brooke, since the dinner party was a last-minute thing.”

  The timing of a dinner party hardly seemed a matter of cosmic importance. But nothing in Patty Kay’s life that fateful Saturday could be overlooked.

  “Really? When did Patty Kay plan it?”

  “Friday, I guess. I didn’t know about it until I got home from the bookstore Friday afternoon. Patty Kay said she’d changed our playhouse tickets—we were supposed to go to Charley’s Aunt Saturday night—and instead she was having the trustees over.”

  A spur-of-the-moment dinner party. Interesting. “Why?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “You didn’t ask her?”

  He shot a glance toward the open doorway, then hunched closer to me. “She wasn’t in a good mood Friday.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’d been fighting with somebody. Her eyes—Patty Kay’s eyes glinted when she was mad and her face turned red.” He gave a small shrug. “I thought maybe she and Pamela had gotten into it again.”

  Pamela. The not-close sister. This, too, needed to be pursued. But time was slipping away. Eight minutes left. So little time. So much that I wanted to know. Like: Did you love your wife? But I thought I knew the answer. Craig was distraught, upset, shocked by violent death, but I had no sense of soul-searing grief. In balance, I had no sense of smoldering anger either.

  Right now the last-minute dinner party took precedence.

  “Tell me about Walden School.”

  “Kindergarten through high school. Everybody sends their kids there.”

  “A private school?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  So, not everybody.

  “How many trustees on the board?”

  “Six. Including Patty Kay.”

  I wrote down their names: Desmond Marino, Brooke Forrest, Stuart Pierce, Willis Guthrie, Cheryl Kraft.

  Desmond Marino was Patty Kay’s old friend.

  Brooke Forrest was an active volunteer.

  Stuart Pierce was Patty Kay’s first husband.

  Willis Guthrie was her brother-in-law.

  “Cheryl Kraft?” I asked Craig.

  “Oh, Cheryl’s into everything. Just like Patty Kay and Brooke. She’s president of AAUW right now, I think. And she’s on the city council. Patty Kay liked Cheryl a lot.”

  “They were all invited, including husbands or wives?”

  “Yes. And the headmaster, Chuck Selwyn.”

  Seven minutes.

  “Okay, Craig. Back to Saturday. What time did you leave the deli?”

  “Twenty to five. I noticed the clock on the wall behind the cash register.” His face brightened. “I think the lady at the deli’ll remember. I mean, I made her kind of mad because I thought they’d lost the order. I was in a hurry. I was afraid maybe I’d taken too long and Patty Kay would be mad. So I drove fast. It was right at five when I got home.”

  “Was there anything out of the ordinary when you pulled into the driveway?”

  “I don’t know.” He lifted his hands and the manacles rattled. He glared down at the shiny steel peevishly. “Damn things hurt.” His tone was plaintive.

  “You got home,” I reminded him.

  “I jumped out of the car and hurried inside. With the basket. And you know the rest.” He was suddenly weary.

  “No, there’s much I don’t know. Don’t quit now, Craig. Think about what you saw. Think about it. Pic
ture it.”

  He moved restively, the steel shackles clinking, but to my relief he frowned in concentration.

  Six minutes.

  “Go back to it. You’ve just walked into the kitchen. Look at the floor. Remember the floor. What did you see?”

  “The stuff was so dark against the wood. See, the kitchen’s all light golden wood, the cabinets, the floor. There was liqueur splashed on the cabinets and all over the floor by the back door. The creme de cacao bottle was on the floor. The room smelled like a bar. I leaned over and picked up the bottle and put it on the table.”

  The fly had certainly made it easy for the spider. But there was no point in scolding him now.

  “Did you step into the mess?”

  “Not then. When you come into the kitchen, our breakfast room is to the right. Straight ahead is the back door, oh, maybe fifteen feet. There are cupboards and counters and the sinks and dishwasher to the left. There’s a long built-up thing in the middle of the kitchen. Patty Kay called it a cooking island. It has cupboards above it. The ovens and the microwave are on the wall to the left as you first step inside.”

  The gourmet cook had apparently enjoyed a luxurious kitchen.

  “The liqueurs and cooking stuff were spilled all around the island.”

  I didn’t want to lead my witness, but I had to know. Four minutes to go.

  “How many footprints did you see?”

  “In the stuff on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  Abruptly, he shook his head. “There weren’t any footprints. Just stuff, splattered.”

  No footprints at all.

  “Okay, Craig. Quick. Where did you keep that gun?”

  He flinched.

  “Look, I know you found it there—somewhere—and that you took it with you when you ran. And didn’t say anything about that little fact when we talked at the cabin. But that’s behind us. For now. Where did you keep the gun?”

  Two minutes.

  He stared at the dull green floor. “In the car pocket.”

  “The pocket of your Porsche?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you last see it?”

  He lifted bewildered eyes. “I don’t know. I never paid any attention. This was a thing Patty Kay had. She said you couldn’t tell what might happen out on the road and she wanted each car to have a gun in it.”

  “So you found the gun. Where?”

  He stared down at his manacled hands. “In the grass. Near the playhouse. I picked it up. I didn’t know what had happened. I just saw it. I knew it shouldn’t be lying there.”

  One minute.

  It wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Why did you try to hide it?”

  His eyes shifted away from mine. His mouth folded in a stubborn line.

  “What did you wrap it in?” I persisted.

  He didn’t answer.

  Only seconds left now. I had one more vital question to ask.

  “Craig, look at me.”

  He didn’t want to, but slowly, reluctantly, he lifted his head.

  The jailer’s footsteps sounded in the hall.

  “Who would want to kill Patty Kay?”

  Something—uncertainty? fear? horror?—flickered in his eyes for just an instant. Then, violently, he shook his head. “It’s crazy! I tell you, it’s crazy. Nobody’d want to kill her. Nobody!”

  I followed the dispatcher down the hall. Near the front entrance, I saw gold letters on a door to my right: CAPTAIN J. T. WALSH.

  I stopped and knocked.

  The dispatcher gave a little gasp. “You can’t—”

  “Of course I can.”

  “I’m supposed to—”

  Guard the portal, obviously. But the door was already opening.

  I held out my hand. “Captain Walsh, I’m Henrietta Collins. Craig Matthews’s aunt.”

  Captain Walsh was tall, dark, lean, clean-shaven, and handsome, a 1950s moviemaker’s dream of a policeman. Before Central Casting went in for real faces.

  I recognized the type, not common among police. A politico, the kind of cat who would always jump the right way. Not quite smarmy, but close.

  His handshake was just right, firm but not too firm.

  “Hello, Mrs. Collins. I hope your meeting with your nephew was satisfactory.” His voice was smooth and deep.

  “Very. I’m confident Craig is innocent, Captain.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His tone remained polite, his strong-boned face impassive.

  I could imagine Walsh’s dilemma. He was accustomed to treating the well-to-do inhabitants of Fair Haven with deference. He certainly didn’t want to be discourteous to a relative of a rich resident—just in case Matthews did turn out to be innocent. Obviously, the captain had agreed to permit my meeting with Craig in order to remain on good terms with Desmond Marino.

  Perhaps I could take advantage of his ambivalence and also of his probable inexperience with murder. I doubted that Fair Haven was a hotbed of violence, either street or domestic.

  I smiled up at him. “May I visit with you for a few minutes, Captain?”

  His expression didn’t change. “Of course, Mrs. Collins.” He stepped aside for me to enter his office.

  This office, too, was light-years distant from big-city realities. Instead of desks jammed corner to corner or a dingy cubicle that smelled like old cigarette butts, takeout hamburgers, and sweat, Walsh’s office was bright and airy. There were framed diplomas on one wall, a large-scale map of Fair Haven on another. The thick scent of cherry pipe tobacco provided a fusty but distinctively masculine aroma. Walsh waited until I was seated in an unexpectedly comfortable chair, then he took his place behind a shiny gray metal desk.

  “Captain, I would be very grateful if you would describe the course of your investigation. Beginning with the call that brought your officers to the Matthews home.”

  He fingered a bright orange manila folder. “The goal of the Fair Haven police is to serve our community, Mrs. Collins. I am happy to make available to you the final report provided to the news media.”

  With that he (lipped open the folder, picked up a computer printout, and leaned across the desk to hand it to me.

  I read it swiftly.

  There were several interesting items:

  A call reporting a homicide at 1903 King’s Row Road was received at 5:06 P.M. Saturday by Dispatcher Harriet Keys. The caller spoke in a deep whisper and hung up when asked to repeat the information. Dispatcher Keys contacted car three on patrol in that area. Car three arrived at the Matthews residence at 5:09 P.M. Patrolman Wesley Adkins found the front door open. No one responded to Adkins’s repeated calls. He searched the premises and at 5:12 P.M. discovered the body of a middle-aged white female (later identified as Mrs. Patty Kay Prentiss Pierce Matthews) in a structure behind the main house. Patrolman Adkins immediately notified …

  The timing fit in with my theory that the murderer had watched the house then alerted the police as soon as Craig arrived.

  The second interesting item concerned the murder weapon. Not the fragment of Craig’s fingerprint found on the trigger rim, but the snag of beige cotton adhering to the gun barrel.

  I skipped down the report and continued reading:

  With a search warrant, Captain Walsh examined the 1994 Porsche belonging to Craig Matthews. Included in the materials found in the car was a plaid cotton shirt. Bloodstains on it later were identified as matching Mrs. Matthews’s blood type. The shirt, which belonged to Mr. Matthews, was stained on the left sleeve from the wrist to the elbow. Fibers of the same composition as the snag of cotton found on the revolver were discovered beneath the driver’s seat. Captain Walsh concluded that the suspect wrapped the weapon in a beige cotton article before fleeing the crime scene.

  I scanned the rest of it. Not much I didn’t know. Cause of death was a gunshot wound in the chest, rupturing the aorta. Wounds in the cheek and shoulder would not have been fatal but contributed to the massive blood loss. The bullets we
re from a .38 Smith and Wesson revolver identified as belonging to the suspect.

  I folded the sheets, put them in my purse. “Chief, who made the call to the police reporting the murder?”

  He leaned back in his chair. His face remained agreeable, but disdain flashed briefly in his eyes.

  “If we knew who called, Mrs. Collins, it would not be listed as a call from an unidentified person.”

  “Have you made an effort to discover the caller’s identity?”

  He nodded amiably. “Of course. We have asked the news media to invite the caller to contact us.”

  “Has it occurred to you that the caller may have committed the murder after arranging for Craig to conveniently arrive on the scene?”

  “In police work, it is extremely common to receive tips from people who don’t want to be involved, Mrs. Collins. It seems quite probable that someone came to that house, discovered Mrs. Matthews’s body, knew the police must be called, but chose not to get dragged into our investigation.”

  “Do you know that Craig received two uncompleted calls at the bookstore and that immediately after that a clerk received the message asking him to pick up a fruit basket and bring it home?”

  His tone was patient. “There is no confirmation of the purported hangups. But even if they occurred, that kind of thing happens all the time. A wrong number. Caller hangs up. Redials. Makes the same mistake. Hangs up again. Those calls prove nothing. As for the fruit basket”—he shrugged—“there’s no proof at all that the caller wasn’t Mrs. Matthews.” He picked up a silver pen, rolled it in his fingers. “Has it occurred to you, Mrs. Collins”—there was only a shadow of an edge to his tone—“that the mixup over that fruit basket may have set off the quarrel?”

  “What quarrel?”

  “The quarrel between Mr. Matthews and his wife. Obviously, he came home and a violent argument ensued. Maybe it made him mad that she called and treated him like an errand boy. Apparently, she was good at that. Or maybe there was a fruit basket somewhere else and she was furious he didn’t go to the right store. We’ll never know exactly what happened. But anybody can see that they had a real row and he went crazy. He threw the cooking stuff around, then stalked after her to the playhouse and shot her.”

  “When did he get the gun?”

  “He was mad. He stormed outside. He kept his gun in the glove compartment. He got it, ran back through the house to the playhouse. Bang.” His tone was impatient.