After that, it had been quiet again until last week, when Morris was acquitted in the second trial. The paper had reported that fact, with another recap—still just the same old stuff—and then had reported Morris’s murder after he was found. The police were investigating the possibility that his murder was related to the murder of Natalie Allen, the article said. And ended with a little note saying that while the reporter had attempted to reach out to Natalie’s family for comment, the Allens had not responded to the inquiry.
Did that mean anything? Had they been afraid they were going to be asked whether they’d been involved in the murder? Or asked who they thought might be responsible?
Or maybe they just didn’t want to have to go on record with their glee that the man responsible for their daughter’s death was no more. Nothing wrong with that.
I was spinning my wheels, I realized. Mentally trying to solve a crime that better brains than mine had been noodling over for four years. Who did I think I was?
Besides, I was married to a cop. Another cop was my best friend. I trusted the police. If they said Steve Morris had done it, maybe he’d done it. And Tamara Grimaldi was in charge of the police department now. If Morris hadn’t done it, she’d figure that out, too. And then figure out who had done Morris. It was out of my hands and none of my business. I was a real estate agent, and I had a house to renovate and sell.
I turned to YouTube and started searching for videos on how to sand and finish hardwood floors.
* * *
The tile on the kitchen backsplash turned out pretty good.
OK, so maybe it wasn’t the most professional job I’d ever seen, but I’d done all right for my first time. The fact that we’d picked slightly irregular tile helped, too, because any little imperfections I may have left—and I’m not saying I’d left any, but for the sake of argument—were less noticeable.
I stepped back from it and tilted my head one way and then the other. Yes, this would do nicely. When the new cabinet doors arrived next week, and we put the new handles on, and added the new stainless steel appliances, it would look like a brand new kitchen.
Outside on the road, there was the sound of a car going by, and I scurried down the hall and into the front bedroom to peer through the window.
No, false alarm. The car—a dark sedan—continued on down the street and out of sight. I went back to the kitchen.
The second time, I was luckier. The car, a burgundy SUV of the ladylike, smaller type, slowed down as it passed the house, and then flicked on its turn signal. A few seconds later it turned into the Allens’ driveway and up toward the house. The garage door rose slowly—remote in the car, probably—and I saw a glimpse of another car in the next bay before the burgundy SUV disappeared inside and the door lowered again. I threw on my coat, grabbed the baby carrier, and hurried outside and across the street. As I walked past the picket fence and up the driveway to the yellow house, a light flicked on inside the living room. I climbed up on the stoop and applied my knuckles to the door.
A few seconds later it opened, and I found myself face to face with Mrs. Allen.
She was in her early forties, at a guess, and had her daughter’s curly fair hair—cropped shorter than in the picture of Natalie I’d seen in the paper—and round cheeks. “Yes?” Wary blue eyes moved from my face to Carrie and back. “Can I help you?”
I smiled politely. “Mrs. Allen? My name is Savannah Martin. Collier. I own the house where Steve Morris used to live.”
Or my sister did, but now didn’t seem like the time to go into the details.
“I thought you might have a couple of minutes to talk to me,” I added.
“About what?”
“Your daughter. Steve Morris. What happened.”
“Go read the paper.” She made to shut the door.
I got my foot into the gap just in time. “I’ve already read the paper. I had a couple of questions that weren’t answered in the paper.”
She looked from my foot up at me, but at least she stopped pushing on the door. “Why?”
Why? “I’m curious, I guess. Mr. Morris died in our house. My husband’s a cop. My best friend is the new chief of police. And I’ve lost a few people to murder. My sister-in-law was killed a couple of years ago. A good friend a couple of months before that.” In a situation similar to Natalie’s. “A couple of coworkers…”
And a lot more than that, actually, now that I started counting. A handful of classmates. Several other school-friends, or at least school-acquaintances. People I knew a little, and people I knew well. Some people I didn’t know at all. Friends of friends. Sometimes it seemed like my life since I’d hooked up with Rafe had been one long line of dead bodies, of friends and enemies alike.
But Mrs. Allen’s eyes were widening, so it was probably better if I didn’t go into any more detail. I was already starting to sound like the homicide equivalent of Typhoid Mary, and if I wasn’t careful, she’d shut the door on me in self-defense, because anyone found talking to me would surely be next in line.
So I pasted another friendly smile on my face and backtracked. “I just wanted to talk for a couple of minutes.”
She hesitated. And then she sighed and stepped back. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. We’re neighbors, after all. And your husband’s a cop, you said?”
“Yes, ma’am.” I carried the baby carrier across the threshold. “For the Columbia PD. He came down from Nashville with Chief Grimaldi at the beginning of the new year.”
Not entirely accurate, but there was no point in going into the details of Rafe losing his job with the TBI and then getting it back and all the associated intricacies. As far as Mrs. Allen went, the fact that he’d come down with Grimaldi was good enough. It was true, if not entirely accurate.
“Is he investigating Steve Morris’s murder?” She waved me to a seat on the sofa. I kept my coat on, since she hadn’t offered to take it. She had her own coat on, if it came to that. Maybe that’s why she’d come into the living room, to hang it in the coat closet by the door, and then I had interrupted her.
But in any case, I deduced she wasn’t entirely sold on having me here, and I’d better talk fast, or she’d change her mind.
“Detective Jarvis is doing that,” I said. “He was the detective who investigated your daughter’s case. Since Morris’s death is likely to be related, he’s investigating that, too.”
“We’ve spoken to him,” Mrs. Allen said. “So what can I do for you, Mrs…. Martin, was it?”
“Collier.” When I’m asked point blank like this, I remember who I’m supposed to be. I may not always remember the rest of the time, but in these situations I do.
She opened her mouth, almost like she was going to say something. Then she must have thought better of it, because she closed it again. Maybe she remembered Rafe. Everyone in Sweetwater knew who he was back when he was a teenager, but he wasn’t as well-known—or notorious—in Columbia. Still, she might have known his name.
If she did, she didn’t say anything about it. Just nodded for me to go on.
“I found Steve Morris’s body,” I said. “Or my sister and I did, when we walked into the house on Saturday morning. He’d been stabbed with a screwdriver we’d left lying around.”
She nodded.
“Did you think he killed your daughter?”
She blinked. I guess maybe that had been a bit too abrupt. But I was afraid that if I didn’t get to the point, she’d show me out.
So I waited, and eventually she said, “Not at first. We knew Steve. He’d lived down the street for a few years by then. He’d always seemed like a nice man. Quiet and polite. And we didn’t think anyone we knew would be capable of something like… like what happened to Natalie.”
“When did you start to suspect him?”
“We didn’t,” Mrs. Allen said. “The police investigated Natalie’s boyfriend—”
“Rodney.”
“—and that friend of his, Kyle.”
“They a
lways investigate the boyfriend,” I said.
She nodded. “But they were together at the movies when Natalie…” She swallowed, and went on as if there’s been no pause, “and the police said it couldn’t be him.”
“Did you think it might be him?”
“We thought it was a stranger,” Mrs. Allen said. “We didn’t think it could be anyone Natalie knew. Who would kill our beautiful daughter? She wouldn’t harm a fly!”
Her voice had risen, and I gave her a few seconds to calm down and get her breathing under control before I asked my next question. “Did you like Rodney?”
She made a face. “I thought she could do better. Not that there was anything wrong with him, that I knew of. He didn’t do drugs or anything like that. And he treated her well. He just didn’t seem like he’d be a good bet for the future. Not enough drive.”
“But you didn’t think he could have killed her?”
“Why would he?” Mrs. Allen said. “They were getting along fine. She’d stayed home instead of going to college so they could be together. He had no reason to kill her.”
“What about Kyle?”
“Rodney’s friend?” She shrugged. “I only met him once or twice. He was another Rodney, I thought. No ambition. He’s working on cars now, I think.”
“What’s Rodney doing?”
“Some kind of retail. Maybe a pawn shop?”
Maybe. It was a little tidbit I could share with Rafe, anyway. “So you didn’t think Rodney had anything to do with happened to your daughter. And you didn’t think Steve Morris did. What did you think when the police arrested him?”
“That they’d made a mistake,” Mrs. Allen said.
“What about the argument Mrs. Burns said she overheard? Between Morris and Natalie?”
“It wasn’t Natalie,” Mrs. Allen said. And added, “Or if it was, it wasn’t Morris. She had no reason to argue with Steve Morris. They barely knew each other. And he wasn’t the type to get into an argument where the neighbors could hear, anyway. He was a quiet man, not the type to get involved in other people’s business.”
And then she seemed to think she’d said too much, because she shut her lips with a snap, her cheeks turning pink.
“Was someone else the type to get involved in other people’s business?”
But she shook her head. “I don’t know anything about an argument. The cop would get on Natalie and Rodney sometimes, for sitting in the car and steaming up the windows, but I’m sure that wasn’t what poor Mrs. Burns was talking about.”
“The cop?”
“Carl,” Mrs. Allen said. “Across the street.”
Enoch? There was someone I hadn’t considered. “What was his relationship with Natalie?”
She gave me a sort of weird look. “He didn’t have one.”
“They knew each other, obviously.”
“Of course,” Mrs. Allen said. “Carl has lived here five or six years. Since a few years before Natalie…” She swallowed.
“Were they friends?”
“Friendly,” Mrs. Allen said. “Neighborly. The same way she was with Steve and with old Mr. Ferguson in number 113.”
“You said Enoch would get on Natalie and Rodney sometimes. Why?”
“I guess he didn’t like to watch them sit in front of his house and make out.” She shrugged.
That was a little weird. Not like it was any of his business, after all. But strange that he’d care.
Unless… “Did the police investigate him?”
She gave me a weird look. “You’d have to ask them.”
“Did you tell them—tell Detective Jarvis—that maybe it was Enoch Mrs. Burns had heard arguing with Natalie?”
“I’m sure we did,” Mrs. Allen said. “When he came to tell us our daughter was dead, we told him everything we could think of. Anything that might help him figure out what happened to our Natalie.”
She glanced at the kitchen and beyond it, to the hallway to the bedrooms. “We didn’t even know she hadn’t come home the night before. We thought she was just sleeping late. She often did when she’d worked the night before.”
I nodded.
“So we told him about Rodney, that they’d been dating for a few years. And about the job she took to be home with Rodney instead of going to college. He came back the next day and said that Rodney had an alibi. That he’d been at the movies with a friend when Natalie died. And he also said that they’d talked to everyone at the bar where Natalie worked, and no one there seemed to be involved. He said one of the neighbors had mentioned overhearing an argument a couple of days before, and he wanted to know if she’d had any altercations with anyone over anything…”
“And did you tell him about Enoch? About Carl?”
“I’m sure I mentioned it,” Mrs. Allen said. “I mean, there wasn’t anyone else. She and Rodney didn’t even argue. She was a sunny girl. Almost always in a good mood.”
“But then they arrested Steve Morris.”
She nodded.
“What did you think about that?”
“At first I couldn’t believe it. But then Carl told us that he’d raped a girl in Alabama before he came here.” A shadow crossed her face. “And they arrested him… I figured they knew what they were doing, and it was because he’d done it.”
I would have figured the same thing, I guess. It’s the police’s job to catch the bad guys. When they arrest someone, we tend to believe it’s because that person’s guilty.
“But then he was acquitted,” I said. “Were you angry?”
“No,” Mrs. Allen said, shaking her head. “I never believed he’d done it. Not in my heart. I tried to convince myself, after he was arrested, that maybe I was wrong, and I didn’t really know him. But when the jury believed he hadn’t done it, either, I knew I’d been right all along.”
“So you wouldn’t have minded if he came back to Fulton Street?”
“He did come back,” Mrs. Allen said, and then flushed.
“You saw him?”
“In the afternoon.” She sounded reluctant to admit it, but she did. “He was leaving your house—the house you’re renovating—and getting in his car.”
“You didn’t talk to him?”
She shook her head. “I waved. But he didn’t stop. I figured he didn’t want to talk to me. He probably thought I was going to yell at him. That we all believed he was guilty.”
“Did your husband agree with you? That Morris was innocent?”
She gave me a quick look. “He wasn’t as sure as me. You have to understand, she was our baby. Our only daughter. Gary wanted someone to pay.”
I had no problem understanding that. If anything happened to Carrie, Rafe would want someone to pay, too. And would probably take care of arranging that payment himself.
Just as Gary Allen might have done.
I decided to just come out and ask, point blank. If nothing else, I could watch her reaction if I did. “Did your husband kill Steve Morris, Mrs. Allen?”
“No,” Mrs. Allen said, and didn’t seem to get upset that I suggested it. Or if she did, she hid it well. “The police asked. We were together that night. All night. Besides, Gary wouldn’t kill anyone. And he wasn’t sure Morris was guilty, either. Not after the jury acquitted him. Not after the girlfriend explained about that other police record…”
They’d been there in the courtroom for Sarah’s testimony. Of course they had. It was their daughter who died; of course they’d have been there. “You believed her?”
“She had no reason to lie,” Mrs. Allen said. “And I spoke to her afterwards. She swore it was true. That she wouldn’t have lied for him if it wasn’t. I believed her.”
I’d believed her, too. Even if all I’d done, was read the trial transcript.
“Who do you think killed him?” I asked.
“The same person who killed Natalie,” Mrs. Allen answered, without even a second’s pause.
“And who was that?”
But there she faltered. “If
I knew, don’t you think I would have told someone? I guess in the end it must have been just some random person, someone who saw her walking home and…”
Maybe so. But then, who killed Morris?
It didn’t sound as if she knew anything more, though, so I thanked her for talking to me and apologized for bringing up her daughter’s murder.
She gave me a smile. “It’s been long enough that we can talk about it. At first it was almost more than we could bear. But it’s been long enough now, that we can be grateful for having had her for nineteen years, more than be angry because we lost her.”
That was big of her, and I said so. “Do you think the police are going to look into Natalie’s case again, now that Steve Morris has been acquitted?” And killed.
“If they are, no one’s told us,” Mrs. Allen said, walking me to the door. “That detective from before—Jarvits, did you say?”
“Jarvis,” I said.
“He came by on Saturday to ask us about the night before. To make sure we hadn’t had anything to do with Steve’s murder. But we haven’t heard anything since then.”
“Rodney was here this morning,” I said. “I saw him leave.”
She nodded. “He stops by once in a while. Less now than he used to. We’re all moving on. Even Carl’s a little less devoted than he used to be.”
Devoted? Enoch?
“He found Natalie,” Mrs. Allen said. “He was out jogging before work, and saw her from the sidewalk.”
“That wasn’t in the paper.” Or even in the trial transcript, as far as I could recall.
She shrugged. “It’s what happened.”
“I can see why it would be personal for him, then.”
Although it did make me wonder whether Jarvis had ever considered Enoch for the murder. All the things I had attributed to Jarvis applied equally to Enoch. He knew Natalie. If he’d killed her, he had incentive to want someone else—like Morris—to go down for the murder. The person who discovers the body is always suspect, of course, and now that I thought about it, Enoch had been Johnny-on-the-spot when Morris died, too. Darcy and I had found him, but Enoch had shown up before we could call for help. And he’d come to check on Charlotte and me when we were standing on Mrs. Oberlin’s stoop waiting for Jarvis to show up the other day. Enoch had even walked into Mrs. Oberlin’s bedroom to ascertain for himself that she was really dead.
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