by Marni Graff
Declan hung his jacket over the desk chair, glancing through the glass partition into the next room to the white board set up at one end. A listing of known facts about Bryn Wallace had already been printed on the board. As they became known, more facts would be added to the compilation until several threads were connected and then more threads would weave themselves into a tight case that would let them prosecute their prey.
He turned his attention to the clear evidence envelopes on his desk. McAfee had used gloves on the originals to copy each, stapling the copies to the outside. Declan picked up the first one. The original was written on a garish lime-green card with a matching envelope; already he disliked the sender. The note was brief:
Bryn,
Why won’t you answer my calls? I need to talk to you,
Cam
Interesting, he thought, noting the sender’s address in his notebook. This must be Cameron Wilson, the former boyfriend, according to Val Rogan. He turned his attention to the second note, written on good-quality ivory stationery in an elegant hand:
My dear Bronwyn,
I must admit I owe you much more than mere words serve.
Please know that I am acutely aware of that fact, and I will make certain to never let you forget me. I will be in touch.
Your humble servant, Ted Wheeler.
Even more interesting, Declan thought, turning to the return address. He was not surprised to see an Oxford college address; the prose and handwriting alone suggested it. He jotted Ted Wheeler’s room number at Exeter into his notebook and wondered if this note didn’t also hold a discreet whiff of blackmail about it. The office was stifling, and he fanned himself with a batch of interview reports from his inbox before settling down to read them. Forty minutes later he had them separated into two groups.
The larger batch he initialed and threw into his outbox for filing; a few he kept out, lining them up for re-reading before the morning team report and his interviews. He looked at Watkins’ note and the statement from Althea Isaacs, the neighbor who had heard arguing. That must have been with Rogan. Declan checked his watch. It was after 9:30, but the subject indicated she worked largely from home and kept late hours. He was contemplating the merits of going over there before heading home when McAfee paused by the door on his way out.
“What did you think of the mail, sir?”
Fishing for a compliment, Declan thought. “Gold star idea, McAfee. Why don’t you get the particulars on these blokes and we’ll see them tomorrow afternoon?”
McAfee beamed at his superior. “Headed home, then?” he asked politely as Declan stretched and stood up.
“I’ve been trying to decide that. Do me a favor, will you, and call this number for me while I hit the machines? Ask Miss Isaacs if she would mind a brief interview tonight. If she isn’t keen, don’t press it. Just leave me a note, and I’ll see you in the morning for report. Thanks, McAfee.”
Heading down the corridor, Declan jiggled his pocket for change at the soda machine, wondering if he would be on his way to one more interview or home to open the windows and turn the fan on high in his flat, surely a steam bath after today’s heat. He knew he was driven, but he was also tired from a very long day.
Chapter Thirteen
“Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.”
— Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn
9:50 PM
Simon hefted their cases out of the back of the Celica, pulling up the handles to roll them across the driveway. One was decidedly larger than the other. Nora carried a smaller flowered bag and her purse.
“One thing that puzzles me about women is the amount of gear you seem to need for even a simple trip,” he groused as the wheels of the large case caught in the gravel of the driveway.
The long day was catching up with all of them, Nora thought, looking at the stone Victorian building that had been her home. A renovation in the eighties had split the house into six flats. She held the door open for Simon, helping him juggle the cases over the sill. The pungent smell of Indian food met them in the stairwell as they climbed up.
“Just how many stairs is this?” Simon asked, bouncing the cases up the stairs.
“Asks the man who will be helping me pack and load.” Nora allowed herself to smile. She unlocked her door and the cool air hit her like a wall.
“Put these in the bedroom for now?” Simon asked, rolling the cases down the hall.
“Yes, thanks.” She opened the bedroom door. “You sleep in here, I’ve got the couch.”
“We agreed I was taking the couch,” he protested.
“Just as we agreed I would help with the driving?” she answered. “Really, it will be easier for me out here. I get up so many times at night I would keep waking you, and the bathroom is closer. Besides,” she continued, “when I can’t sleep I’ll have all of those books to sort through and pack up.”
The pale-blue bedroom was only big enough for a double bed and one long dresser, but there was a sizable closet. The headboard was of old brass, sadly in need of a good polish, and from each post hung an assortment of scarves and laces Nora favored. At the foot of the bed stood a pine chest. Nora lifted the lid and took out a much-washed, thin blanket, then had Simon place their suitcases on top of it, side by side.
“We can work out of our cases,” Nora told him, opening the closet door and taking out a set of sheets. “I’ll just steal one of those pillows.”
Simon grabbed two of the pillows and followed her into the sitting room, adding them to the pile she made on the wing chair. “Are you taking that chair with you?” he asked. “It looks so comfortable and would make a great nursing chair.” He immediately colored. “If you were, I mean, to decide to nurse … ”
Nora laughed at his discomfort, her first genuine smile of the day. “I haven’t decided yet, but it’s a great reading chair, so I’d planned to take it and sell the couch.” She arched her back and rubbed the small of it. “Simon, would you please run up and see if Val has Janet settled? I don’t think I can take another set of stairs.”
“At your service, Madam.” He saluted her and left.
The flat was silent when he’d gone. Nora didn’t know when she’d felt this exhausted, mentally and physically. Her back ached, and her feet felt swollen. She looked down and realized they were, her toes cramped sausages inside her shoes.
“Oh, cripes,” she muttered, throwing herself onto the sofa after slipping off the offending shoes. She lay back and raised her head on one pillow and her legs on the other. Early this morning she had thought packing up her life to start another was an emotional event. After the horror of Bryn’s murder, she realized moving was just a step in life’s journey. Her plight shrunk to a mere wrinkle when she thought of the loss Janet and Val were facing.
Nora ran her hand over her growing belly. When she first found out she was pregnant, she had been bewildered, forced to closely examine her feelings about abortion, adoption, and single parenting. Then one day, a memory on the fringe of her consciousness became clear. She had been five years old, huddled in the tiny upstairs hall of the Connecticut house that held the doors to their bedrooms, bathroom and narrow linen closet, like a fist opening its fingers. Behind her parents’ door, her mother’s muffled sobs were overlaid with low murmurs of consolation from her father. Her highly anticipated little brother had died in the womb. Nora knew without a doubt how her mother would advise her.
She remembered lying in bed in Bowness that night, wakeful, exhausted by the tension of such weighty ruminations. One thing she had learned in her thirty years was that every action she took would have a consequence she must live with, good or bad, sometimes with results she could never have fathomed but would never forget.
She’d fallen
asleep then, and when she woke in the morning she called her boss and told Mr. Jenkins she was quitting her job at the magazine to move to Bowness. She would live there and work on the second book in her series, living off her nest egg, having realized with a stunning clarity when she awoke that she wanted this baby.
*
The door opened, and Simon joined her. “They’re settled in, although I don’t know how much sleep either one of them will get tonight if they don’t take a sedative.” He lifted her feet and sat down, resting them in his lap, starting to gently massage them. “Your feet are swollen.”
“Oooh, that’s wonderful,” Nora sighed. “I should protest but I want you to keep doing it.”
“That’s the kind of statement I like to hear from you,” he teased, wondering if Nora meant to stick to sleeping on the sofa. “Would you like the bed tonight?” he asked.
“No, thanks, I meant it about being close to the loo. Can you hit that spot again?” She moaned appreciatively and closed her eyes. “Loos and little fat piggies—the joys of being pregnant.”
“When I was small, my mum would give me twenty pence to rub her feet in the evenings.” Simon described his mother’s social work, which took her all over the county. “She had a way of convincing young boys to stay out of trouble by having better expectations of them. One summer she organized a weeding group. They earned spending money keeping gardens tidy for the elderly who couldn’t do the work themselves.”
“Simon, what a great idea,” Nora said.
“She had T-shirts made up with a plant leaf on it that read: The Weeders. Some parents objected to the reference to pot, but it was clearly a dandelion, and the boys thought it was cool. Everyone benefited, and most of the boys stayed out of trouble when their parents were working that summer.”
“Your voice shines with admiration for her. I’d have liked to know her,” Nora said wistfully, placing her hand on her abdomen.
“She’d have loved you to bits,” Simon answered. “May I?” he asked, his hand poised over her swelling. Nora nodded, and he delicately placed his hand in a tender gesture. “Have you felt her moving yet?” He ignored the glisten of tears he saw under Nora’s lashes.
She cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. I get this feeling like soda bubbles popping, but I can’t say if that’s his waving about or not. Soon he’ll get bigger, and then I bet the little bugger will keep me awake punching and kicking. At least that’s what my book says.”
“You called it ‘he,’” Simon pointed out.
“I just feel it’s a boy, but I didn’t let them tell me at the sonogram. They said I could find out if I changed my mind.” As Simon moved his hand away, she wiggled her toes. “Forget the pence, I’ll give you a whole pound note if you keep on.”
“I’d want to know the sex, but I’m not the one who’s pregnant. Bet you a dinner it’s a girl,” he said, picking up a foot and tackling the heel.
“You’re on.” Nora sat up suddenly, whisking her feet down to the floor. “Simon, that poor woman—Janet must be devastated. To go through all of this,” she waved at her swelling, “and all of the hell and delight of raising Bryn and loving her and worrying about her—and then to lose her irrevocably in such a horrible way … ”
Simon put his arm comfortingly around her shoulders as Nora trailed off. “It’s not the natural order of things for a child to die before his parent,” he agreed. God, he was pathetic, in love with a pregnant woman and willing to take advantage of any opportunity to touch her.
“I hate to see Val so tortured by this. It’s not enough to lose her love, but then to be considered a suspect is just too much.” Nora looked up at him. “Simon, I’m afraid Barnes is missing something. He’s concentrating on Val when he should be out there looking for the real murderer.”
Simon rubbed her shoulder. “I’m sure it only looks that way. He’s a professional, Nora. He’ll be looking at all sorts of people and angles.”
He felt Nora tense up. When she spoke, her voice was very small. “You—you don’t think Val could have had anything to do with this, do you?” Before he could answer, Nora shook herself. “Forget it—I don’t know why I even said that. I’m just so tired, you know?”
“I do know.” He drew little circles on her shoulder with the hand he was using to support it, feeling Nora relax against him as they sat in silent contemplation.
Once her breathing became regular, he knew she had dozed off. Simon pulled his head away to look down at the sleeping woman he loved. In repose she looked vulnerable and delicate. This close he could see the freckles across her nose and the fine reddish hair on her arms. Her hands were small, too small for the big grabs she took at life sometimes, he thought. He had the sensation of wanting to protect her forever from the dangers of being out in the world, a foolish notion, he knew intellectually. But sitting here in the aftermath of the strange and sad day they had been thrown into, Simon wanted nothing more than to wrap her up, to cocoon her away from people like the one who had committed murder last night, so that nothing and no one could ever hurt Nora again.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is a true story but I can’t believe it’s really happening.”
— Martin Amis, London Fields
10:10 PM
Heading down the hall toward Bryn Wallace’s neighbor, Declan consulted the note Watkins had left: “Althea Isaacs, bl/bl Jamaican, 50’s, lect/Trinity; hrd arguing near 12M.” He decided Miss Isaacs was black, but the second “bl?” Of course, blonde. Declan rang the bell, expecting it to be opened by a statuesque black Juno with blonde cornrows, perhaps adorned with noisy stacks of bracelets covering one arm and a brightly colored silk wrap thrown over a shoulder.
The woman who opened the door was of medium height with short, curly black hair streaked with grey, wearing dark glasses even at this time of night and dressed in a sleeveless black linen dress and comfortable black flats. Althea Isaacs had a tasteful gold chain hanging down the front of her dress. The only other spot of color in her attire was her matching gold earrings. She smiled politely, looking cool but troubled, as he introduced himself and produced his warrant card, which she ignored. So much for preconceived notions, he thought.
“Please come in, Inspector Barnes.”
Her educated voice had no hint of the lilt he’d expected. The door opened directly into her sitting room. She turned and led the way to two chairs set near the fireplace and slid in front of one chair, feeling it with the back of her leg, sitting as she pointed to the one opposite her. Declan sat, taking in the calm room decorated in soothing beige, cream, and gold without a jarring note. A ceiling fan kept the flat comfortable, and as he withdrew his notebook he took the opportunity to look around, realizing that except for stacks of DVDs piled on a back table, the only ornament was a jasmine plant that wound its way over the low table set between them, its sweet perfume reaching him as he wrote her name, the time, and the date on a new page.
“I appreciate your seeing me this late, but I’m sure you’re aware time is so important in cases like this,” he said.
“Of course. Time has little meaning for me anyway, and I want to help in any way I can—Bryn was a lovely girl and I am greatly grieved by her death.” Isaacs’ voice was composed but she cleared her throat after this speech and slid back deeper into her chair.
“How long have you been Miss Wallace’s neighbor?”
“Since she moved in almost two years ago. I’ve been in this flat for nine years.”
Declan looked around him. “It’s very peaceful in here.” Isaacs nodded in acknowledgement with a slight smile. “Did you know her well? Can you describe what kind of person she was for me?”
She flinched at his use of the past tense. “I knew her only as a caring neighbor. If the weather was poor and I didn’t go out, she always made certa
in I had provisions. Davey from downstairs would bring her pastries from his bakery, and she shared them with me on many occasions. She didn’t have loud parties, and her stereo was not usually kept on too late. I had no complaints.”
Declan nodded in understanding. “And where do you work?”
“I lecture on Thomas Hardy at Trinity two days a week but work largely from here—I’m finishing a biography on Fanny Burney, an influence on Jane Austen and others.”
He heard the pride in her voice and remembered the name from an enthusiastic literature teacher in school. “Satire was her specialty, right?” he ventured.
Miss Isaacs nodded and smiled. “I’m impressed, Inspector.”
He smiled back. “I understand you heard arguing last night from Miss Wallace’s flat. Can you tell me what you heard, from the beginning?”
“I’ve been going over and over it in my mind all day—I know it’s important. The stereo was on low, later than usual for Bryn, but I decided she must have had company. I was working in here at that time. I heard raised voices just before the 11:15 chime—my mantel clock chimes every fifteen minutes. I have acute hearing, and it was the first time I’ve heard arguing from her flat.”
Declan leaned forward. This must be the argument Val Rogan admitted to. Could you hear anything that was said or identify the voices?”
“Not really. I mean, there were two voices and both were female registers, so I assume it was Bryn and another woman. But I couldn’t hear distinct words and I wasn’t trying to.”