Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_02

by Scandal in Fair Haven

  Every minute might turn out to matter for Craig Matthews. I drove back to the Fair Haven Mall, pulled into the Books, Books, Books parking lot, glanced at my watch, and headed back across town to Hillsboro Pike. Twenty-five minutes later I turned into the parking lot of Finedorff’s, across from Green Hills.

  If Craig left the bookstore on Saturday at four o’clock—but Amy insisted it was a quarter to four—he would have arrived at Finedorff’s around four twenty-five. That would have given time for the fruit basket to be discussed and prepared, say by four-forty. Then Craig would have headed home. I’d clock that next.

  Finedorff’s smelled like a rich mix of pickles, pastrami, and sauerkraut. The first and the last from barrels near the meat counter, the second from the sandwich I was buying for my lunch. I also bought a Dr Pepper and two Baby Ruths, one for dessert, one for emergency rations.

  The small, intense woman behind the cash register, her dyed red hair piled in heavy ringlets atop her head, rapidly checked my purchases, including the latest newspaper.

  The headline below Craig’s indistinct photo read:

  HUSBAND’S ARREST SHOCKS

  FAIR HAVEN NEIGHBORS

  I pointed to his picture. “Were you here on Saturday when this man came in?”

  The red-haired woman finished sacking my stuff. Then she looked down at the photo. Her glance was shrewd, birdlike. “So why do you ask?”

  “He’s my nephew. I’d really appreciate it if I could visit with you for just a moment….”

  “Oh, so. You got trouble, bad trouble.” She looked across the rows of foodstuffs. “Eric!”

  A weedy young man with acne poked his head around a corner.

  She ordered him to take over for a minute. We sat in an oak booth. I unpacked my sandwich, pulled the tab on my Dr. Pepper, I realized I was very hungry and I started eating in earnest. Excellent pastrami.

  She pulled out a gold case, selected a long cigarette, and stuck it in a mother-of-pearl holder. “So he made me mad, that young man.” She stabbed the holder at Craig’s picture. “I told him, we don’t miss orders. We don’t lose orders. We don’t throw away orders. Orders, they are our bread and butter. But this one, he was in a real panic. Said his wife told him to pick up this basket. Said there’d be hell to pay if he came home without it. I wanted to tell him a man in the family should wear the pants, but, like I say, orders are our bread and butter. Maybe I’d get an order, so I don’t say it. He tried to call her; there wasn’t any answer. He left a message. ‘Patty Kay, I’m at the store and they don’t have an order, but I’ll get them to fix up a basket anyway and I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ So I fixed him up a basket, real nice. Pineapple, kiwi, golden delicious apples, everything the best. And I wrapped it in pink cellophane, pretty, with a red velvet bow.”

  I finished half the sandwich. And took a bite of the other. “He was here quite a while?”

  A shrug. “We got other orders ahead of his. So maybe fifteen minutes. I say fifteen max.” She said this with assurance.

  “Do you happen to know when he arrived?”

  Another shrug. “Afternoon. My feet hurt by then, I can tell you.”

  “He said he left here about twenty to five.”

  A swift frown. “Maybe so, maybe no. Me, I can’t say. It was busy, busy. Because we are the best. If you have a party, you come to Finedorff’s. We fix the meats, the cheeses, the vegetables, the dips. Everything. So, he came, he fussed, he got his basket. That’s all I know.” Her shrug was eloquent.

  I clocked the drive from Finedorff’s to 1903 King’s Row Road. I drove quickly, but I didn’t speed. I ate my dessert, the Baby Ruth, and thought about Craig Matthews. And time.

  If he left the bookstore at a quarter to four, arrived at Finedorff’s at five after four, spent fifteen minutes there, departing at four-twenty, he certainly would have arrived home in plenty of time to have quarreled with Patty Kay, then to have murdered her.

  The drive from the deli to the Matthews house took twenty minutes.

  And Craig pointedly said he left the deli at twenty to five.

  Did he?

  I unlocked the door. Inside, I called out Patty Kay’s name, then I walked quickly through the lower part of the house. I came back to the front hall. The fruit basket still sat on the butlers table. I smelled the sweet scent of too-ripe fruit.

  Surely Craig had hesitated, called out again, then started upstairs.

  I hurried up the steps.

  The bedroom. Patty Kay’s study. The bathroom.

  And back downstairs.

  Four minutes. It would have been four minutes past five on Saturday.

  Out to the kitchen.

  Shock would surely have held Craig motionless for a moment.

  Out the back door. Skidding on the sticky floor.

  The gun on the grass—

  Gina’s words echoed in my mind: Craig hates guns.

  I took time—just an instant—to wonder if that was another lie that Craig had told.

  Oh, yes, without question, he had found the gun, taken it, tried to throw it away.

  But I’d bet my little MG he didn’t find it on his lawn between the kitchen and the playhouse.

  The interesting thing about lies is that the smart liar clings to the truth as much as possible.

  What matters is to sift out the facts.

  I didn’t doubt Gina’s report on Craig’s aversion to guns.

  So, in walking out to the playhouse, even if he saw a gun, he would be very unlikely to pick it up.

  But he did pick it up.

  That told me he must have had an overpowering reason to do so.

  What if the gun lay near his wife’s body along with a familiar beige sweater? And a police siren shrilled closer and closer?

  Yes, then he’d snatch up both of them and run away.

  I stood in the playhouse doorway. I stared down at the foul-smelling, darkly-stained rug.

  Two minutes.

  That would have made it six minutes after five. The dispatcher received the call reporting a body at six minutes after five.

  Craig knelt by his wife, tried to help her.

  That was when he’d seen the sweater. And the gun. His gun.

  I plunged out of the playhouse, ran to the house, into the kitchen, through the hall, and out the front door.

  Two minutes.

  So there was just a tiny space of time for Craig to get in his car, stuff the damning sweater and his gun beneath the seat, drive around the house, and take the alley out before the police arrived at nine minutes after five.

  It checked, it worked. If—a huge, enormous, unresolved if—Craig left that deli at twenty to five.

  But if he left the store sooner, the prosecution would have lots of elbow room to argue that there was plenty of time for Craig and Patty Kay to engage in a violent quarrel. The D.A. would claim that Craig went directly to the kitchen, Patty Kay ragged him about the basket, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t the one, they quarreled, he threw the cheesecake (But look at it, gentlemen, really look at it and explain why Mrs. Matthews bore no stains from that encounter), then raced out to his car, got his gun from the glove compartment, and—

  If the police were correct, what was Patty Kay doing while her husband armed himself?

  If the quarrel reached that level of violence (which was so unlike the amiable Craig Matthews everyone described), surely she would have made an effort to protect herself?

  Quickly, I walked back through the house and out the back door.

  Patty Kay’s car was parked outside the garage.

  What was it Gina had said? His and her guns. For protection in their cars.

  Patty Kay’s blue Lexus was unlocked.

  I opened the car door and immediately saw why I’d not found her car and house keys in her purse. Patty Kay’d left them in the ignition. Certainly an intruder on Monday afternoon could have used these keys to open the back door.

  But why replace them in the ignition?

&nb
sp; I was afraid—very afraid—I knew. After the search of the office, the intruder brought the keys out to the car, turned on the ignition—

  I turned on the motor and popped open the glove compartment.

  Patty Kay’s glove compartment held maps, an unopened packet of Kleenex, insurance papers, vehicle safety receipts, a small bag of taffy.

  But no gun.

  No gun at all.

  Desmond Marino’s secretary put me right through.

  “Patty Kay’s gun is gone.”

  “Patty Kay’s gun—”

  “Everyone says she kept one in her glove compartment.”

  “That’s right. I’ve seen it.”

  When? I wondered. I said, “The gun’s gone.”

  He asked sharply, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I looked everywhere. The playhouse. The yard. The shrubbery. The swimming pool.”

  “What the hell do you suppose that means?”

  “My best guess is that Patty Kay’s murderer has that gun. Who else would have taken it?”

  “I’ll call Walsh. Immediately.”

  “Good. If I were Walsh, I’d announce this to the press, warn the community.”

  It was something to do. But not enough. I had a dreadful sense of urgency. The missing gun worried me terribly.

  “We must warn everyone on King’s Row Road. Call Cheryl Kraft and ask her to do it.”

  “Fine.”

  I wished there were something more to do. Then I realized Desmond was talking.

  “… could have been worse. Judge Lehman decided to grant bail, but he set it at a hundred thousand. The bad news is that Craig doesn’t have ten thousand to put up with the bonding company. I talked to Braden Fairlee. The estate can’t do it when the charge is murdering the legator. But I’m working on it. I think I can line up the money this afternoon. Craig should be home this evening. Now, about the other matters—”

  Ah, the tasks I’d assigned Desmond this morning. I pulled a pad from my purse.

  “None of the poker players have alibis between four and five on Saturday.” He cleared his throat. “Including me. I’ve got a hammock out in my backyard. I was in it. Reading.”

  “What?”

  “The new biography of Merton.”

  What you eat shapes your body. What you read shapes your mind.

  “All alone, I suppose?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes…. I didn’t know I was on your list.”

  “Don’t take it personally. Everyone’s on my list.”

  “Yes, of course. Willis Guthrie says he was in the video store at Haycroft and Alexander. Nobody to confirm it. David Forrest was at his office. So what else is new. No confirmation there either. No other workaholics in his firm—”

  “Firm?”

  “He’s a lawyer too. Anyway, David says he was there all day. No way to prove it.”

  Or disprove it. “And Stuart Pierce?”

  “He was out jogging.”

  “Where?”

  “In the neighborhood.”

  “King’s Row Road?”

  “Exactly.”

  I checked addresses in the phone book. Now I could put a face to every house in the neighborhood. I walked by the Hollis house. There were still a great many cars parked in the drive. The Neal house looked untenanted despite the light shining through drawn drapes. The Forrest house was of the kind of perfection celebrated in Architectural Digest—smooth rolling lawn, freshly painted Doric columns, and three-story magnificence. The Guthrie house was boring—a huge gray stone house, squat and bleak like an English fortress. Gina Abbott’s white colonial looked a little shabby. Part of the guttering was missing along the second story.

  The Pierces’ French mansard home was around the corner from the Abbott house. It certainly had easy access to the alley that ran behind the homes fronting on King’s Row Road.

  I looked at the Pierce home for a moment. Did it harbor a murderer behind its elegant façade?

  13

  One of a reporter’s toughest tasks when a story involves murder or scandal is to get anybody on the inside to talk.

  After all, why should they? Not unless they enjoy being blazoned in headlines coast to coast. Most people don’t, notwithstanding the constant parade of soul-barers on the national talk shows. Statistically the I-can-tell-more-than-you-can-tell folks are a tiny minority.

  So I’d be on the outside looking in if I were trying to cover Patty Kay’s murder.

  But I wasn’t trying to cover it.

  I was Craig Matthews’s aunt.

  It worked one more time.

  Pamela Prentiss Guthrie wasn’t thrilled to see me. But she wasn’t quite willing to be rude.

  Everything about Pamela Guthrie bulged—her eyes, her bosom, and her butt. She was a fat Patty Kay without the appealing vigor and charm. Pamela’s irregular mouth turned down at the corners, her greenish eyes were dull, her black hair indifferently combed. Yet it was eerie how strong was the resemblance to Patty Kay.

  “Oh. Mrs. Collins.” She didn’t quite mask a pettish sigh. “Come in.”

  I followed my hostess into a living room that should have been declared a fire hazard. Heavy as she was, Pamela managed to find a path among the mahogany tables and needlepoint benches and massive glass-fronted cabinets crammed with collectibles. I followed, stepping carefully, afraid if I caromed into one piece, it might trigger an avalanche.

  The room was like a curio shop stocked by Imelda Marcos: Hundreds of pieces of Liberty silver cheek by jowl with Chinese Lohan figures (always sizable), plus more than a dozen (two dozen?) alabaster, marble, and bronze statuettes of Pierrot, hand-painted porcelain cats, seventeenth-century Russian icons, antique jewel boxes, carved African wooden animals, cut-crystal vases, Mexican wooden angels, and more, much more, all reflected ad infinitum in Venetian engraved mirror panels.

  The chintz-covered sofa with its dainty blue and yellow forget-me-nots seemed absolutely ordinary and out of place. It was also quite comfortable. “I’m so glad I caught you at home, Pamela.” It was odd to address her by her first name, but it was appropriate for Craig’s aunt in talking to Patty Kay’s sister. “As you know, I’m trying to find out who might have been angry with Patty Kay. And since you are her sister—” I paused meaningfully.

  Pamela Guthrie sank into an Empire chair. She gazed at me with bulging, unreadable green eyes that reflected no sorrow. “I don’t see how I can help you. I hadn’t seen her for a while.” She picked a mint out of a cut-glass bowl and popped it into her mouth. She chewed for a moment. “But I’m not surprised someone killed her.” Pamela’s voice was light and high and sour. Like pink vinegar.

  “Really. Why is that?”

  She chose another mint. “My sister was absolutely impossible.”

  “How?”

  “So stupidly pigheaded. She always had to have her way.” Pamela gazed down at her right hand, held it so the light reflected from the rings on her fingers. Not one ring, of course. A half dozen. Ruby, pearl, diamond, amethyst, emerald, turquoise.

  “When did you last talk to Patty Kay?”

  Her dull green eyes passed over me without interest. They focused on a bronze elephant with upraised tusks. “I don’t know. Last week probably.”

  Impulsively, I decided to see what a sharp poke might do. “Craig thought you were coming over Saturday afternoon.”

  But she remained as placid as an overfed dog. “Craig’s mistaken. I didn’t leave the house Saturday. Willis was here too.”

  Hmm. Not according to what Willis Guthrie told Desmond. Not according to what they’d said at Cheryl Kraft’s neighborhood-alert session. I played out the line. “So you and Willis were both here around four?”

  She nodded complacently.

  Time to pull her in. “I thought he’d gone to the video store.”

  Those dull eyes widened. Her face hardened. “Not at four. He was home at four.”

  “Were you together?”

  She thought just a moment t
oo long, then, resentfully, snapped, “No. I was upstairs. Cataloguing buttons.” Her face softened. “I have a wonderful button collection. Would you like to see it?”

  “Perhaps another time.”

  Disappointment crossed her pudgy face. “Oh, well. I don’t suppose you collect.”

  “No.”

  “Neither did Patty Kay.” Disinterest was clear again in that light, oddly high voice.

  I wondered if Pamela Guthrie was quite sane.

  “What will happen now with the tract of land you want to develop?”

  Pamela’s thick lips curved into a slow, satisfied smile. “Why, the deal will go through. When it does, when it does, I think I’ll go to India. There are so many lovely pieces there—and so much cheaper if you do your own buying. I can buy so much more that way. Won’t that be wonderful?”

  Louise Pierce barred the doorway of her elegant house. The second Mrs. Pierce listened patiently to my explanation of my presence. But that was all the patience she intended to show. “I’m just on my way out, Mrs. Collins.” Her heart-shaped face and violet eyes reminded me of daguerreotypes in old lockets. Her slender, athletic figure was clad in immaculate tennis whites; she carried a white leather racquet case. A dark pink warm-up jacket was draped over her shoulders. Stepping out onto the porch, she shut the door firmly behind her. “I doubt I could be helpful. I saw very little of Patty Kay.” She spoke pleasantly but briskly, as if she were discussing the weather.

  “You didn’t see her Saturday afternoon? About four-thirty?”

  “No.” Her smooth face remained unchanged, but her violet eyes were steely.

  “Where were you then?”

  “Here.” She sounded untroubled. “Working on some needlepoint.”

  She started down the steps.

  I kept pace.

  That brought a tiny frown. She suddenly looked much less pleasant.

  “Surely as Brigit’s stepmother you had some dealings with Patty Kay?”

  We were walking briskly around the side of the big house to the driveway.

  “Some.” All trace of a smile was now gone.

  “I understand Brigit was terribly upset at the idea of being sent away to school.”