Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_02 (24 page)

“Your wife was a good friend of Patty Kay’s.”

“Brooke is extremely active—and properly so—in this community. She takes her duties as a Forrest quite seriously. This is, as I’m sure you are learning, a very small community—”

It’s a small town, for chrissakes
.

“—and the women who preside over our social and artistic endeavors form an elite group. Brooke, of course, maintains cordial relationships with everyone.”

“So you wouldn’t say your wife was especially close to Patty Kay?”

“No. They were social peers. And she and Patty Kay enjoyed playing tennis. Patty Kay,” he added grudgingly, “was an excellent tennis player.”

“And cook?”

“Yes. Yes, she certainly was that.” Finally, a note of approval.

If Patty Kay’s spirit lurked near earth, I could imagine her thumbing her nose and chanting,
Frigging stuffed shirt
.

“Did you like her cheesecake?”

“I never eat dessert.”

“What did you think of Craig’s limericks, the ones he composed the night you played poker?”

He shook his narrow head firmly. “As I told Brooke, it was a disgusting display of disloyalty.”

“You didn’t think—”

The phone rang.

“Excuse me, please, Mrs. Collins.”

He lifted the receiver. “Hello.” He picked up a pen and began to mark on a notepad. “That’s no excuse, Dan.” He made a series of thick, dark Xs—XXXXXX—on the sheet. “A Forrest never quits. You are to engage in the competition. And I expect you to do your best.”

He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t say good-bye. He simply replaced the receiver and looked at me.

I finished my question. “—think Craig’s limericks were funny?”

“Most certainly not.”

Willis Guthrie kept glancing at his watch.

To an accountant, time is money, but not when spent talking to a fellow poker-player’s aunt.

“… may have mentioned the cheesecake jokes to Pamela.” He gave a quick, sniggering little laugh, then smoothed his wispy ginger mustache. “Or I may not. I don’t recall.”

His tight, spare face wasn’t improved by that kind of laughter. Abruptly, he was serious again.

“I know this is a difficult time for you and Pamela.”

The blankness in his pale blue eyes was so revealing. Finally, he got it. “Oh, yes, yes, of course. Such a loss.” His voice was fairly high for a man.

Over the telephone, could it be mistaken for a woman’s?

“You were shopping for a movie when the murder occurred?”

“I suppose so. I was out sometime that afternoon.”

“Would you have any ideas about who might have shot your sister-in-law?”

“Not really.” Those pale eyes slipped toward the clock on the wall.

I decided to shake his indifference. “How much money will your wife get from Patty Kay’s estate?”

Instead of outrage, Willis Guthrie looked at me with suddenly alive and shining eyes. “A substantial amount, Mrs. Collins.” Then he realized how callous it sounded. He added hastily, “Of course, my wife was already a wealthy woman.”

“But now,” I said softly, “she will be a very wealthy woman.”

I found a pay phone on the ground floor of Guthrie’s office building. It was almost five. I called Desmond’s office. A recorded message came on. I hung up.

I called the Matthews house. Another recorded message, the husky, unmistakable voice I’d heard on the tennis and birthday videos. Patty Kay’s voice.

“You have reached 555-0892. We aren’t here. We may be on the Amazon or around the corner at the soccer field. We’ll call back if you leave a number—and a good reason.” A ripple of laughter, the buzz signifying other messages, and finally a beep.

I hung up the phone.

So Craig wasn’t out of jail yet. Or, if he was, he wasn’t home. My guess was that he would hurry to the house for a shower and fresh clothes, trying to put the feel and smell of a cell as far behind him as possible.

I wanted to talk with my honorary nephew as soon as possible. I had, in fact, some sharp questions to ask.

I redialed the Matthews number, listened again to Patty Kay’s voice, so alive and vibrant and untroubled. This time I left a message. “Craig, please remain home until I get back. I should be there by six. I must talk to you.” My own voice was crisp and, if I do say so, compelling. I can sound like a city editor when need be. Unless I was completely wrong in my estimation of Margaret’s nephew—so unlike Margaret—he would dutifully stay put.

Of course, all things considered, perhaps I should be wondering if I hadn’t misread Craig altogether.

Was he quite the innocent, hapless victim I’d thought him to be?

I drove again to King’s Row Road. Craig wasn’t at the house. I hesitated in the hallway for a moment, then went out the front door and walked swiftly down the drive, retracing my steps of the evening before.

Cheryl Kraft’s black silk slacks hung on her bony hips. Not even the brilliant brocade of a mandarin jacket made her emaciated frame substantial. She brushed back that silver-blond hair. “Mrs. Collins—I’m so glad you’ve come. I’ve been dying to know what’s happening. Come on in.”

Once again we descended into the man-made rain forest. Cheryl headed straight for the wet bar. “A gin and tonic?”

I had to give her good marks for a noticing eye.

“That will be fine.” And it was, tart yet sweet.

For herself, she fixed a martini as dry as the Sahara.

We settled on opposite redwood benches.

The high collar of the brocade jacket emphasized the reedlike thinness of her throat, the product of a sustenance-deprived
body reduced to an almost skeletal frame. It’s interesting how our society defines beauty. Heavy gold earrings glittered against scalpel-tightened skin.

“What have you found out?”

I took a sip of the gin. “That Patty Kay’s life was quite complex.”

She nodded approvingly. “Yes, oh, yes. That’s certainly true. Stuart. And Louise. And poor, dear Craig. Of course, I’ve known Patty Kay for a million years….”

It took only an occasional murmur to keep the flow going. I felt like a gold hunter with a sluice pan, hoping for a nugget, getting mostly gravel.

“… known each other forever. Patty Kay was so upset when Stuart moved out. She couldn’t believe he’d leave her. She was absolutely furious when he married Louise. She married Craig just six weeks later. Eloped to the Virgin Islands.” A spurt of laughter. “I thought that was
so
funny. But it all seems to have worked. And then to have both Patty Kay and Stuart serving as Walden trustees! But they treat each other very politely at board meetings. Actually, I was looking forward to seeing Stuart at Patty Kay’s house for dinner … that night. So far as I know, it would be the first time he’d set foot in that house since he walked out. But lately, it seems to me like they were almost
too
polite at board meetings.”

Cheryl couldn’t know that she was hot and getting hotter. But this was no longer a puzzle to solve.

“… Patty Kay and Pamela never could get along. Pamela’s such a pig, you know. About everything. So grossly fat.” The throaty voice dripped disdain. “But she had enough of the Prentiss spunk that you can’t count Pam out. None of them ever like to lose. Their great-grandfather was in a duel and everybody always said he shot before the count was up. But it couldn’t be Willis.” A moue of contempt.
“He’d do anything for money, but Willis Guthrie was no match for Patty Kay. He was terrified of her and of course that’s why I’m sure Craig didn’t—” She clapped a hand to her crimson mouth.

I smiled. “That’s quite all right. And very perceptive of you.”

She downed half the martini. “Oh, of course, I suppose in a family things are understood, though I wouldn’t for the world say the wrong thing.” She leaned toward me, gesturing with her drink. “The truth is, Craig’s very nice but he’s not rugged. Not the kind of man to shoot anyone. Or anything, for that matter. My husband hunts.” Quiet pride underlined the declaration. “And I told Brooke when she described that mess in the kitchen to me …”

It’s a small town, for chrissakes
.

“… that it certainly didn’t sound like the Craig Matthews
I
know.” She finished her first martini, popped up, and poured another.

I nodded, but I had the thought that though Craig might not be rugged, he was intelligent, and if he planned a murder, he might well set it up to look like something he would never have done….

She plopped back on the bench and leaned toward me. “Of course, there is one thing I’ve wondered about.”

I caught the faintly smutty tone to her voice. The gin was definitely loosening her tongue.

So I encouraged her. “It’s better if all the truth comes out.”

“Of course, since I work at the bookstore, I couldn’t help noticing how
well
Craig and Stevie—she’s our dear,
cute
little assistant manager—how
well
they get along.” Her eyes gleamed.

Women notice a lot. Especially what goes on between men and other women.

If Cheryl had noticed, so might have others.

I was certain Craig and Stevie thought no one knew.

They were wrong.

Now I had my nugget.

Cheryl had picked up on Craig and Stevie. Other women who knew Patty Kay and Craig worked at the bookstore—Pamela Guthrie, Brooke Forrest, Edith Hollis, Louise Pierce. Women notice. And women talk.

It’s a small town, for chrissakes
.

And everyone who was anyone in Fair Haven shopped at Books, Books, Books. So the murderer could easily have taken Stevie’s sweater, deliberately planted it beside Patty Kay’s body, and hoped it would implicate Stevie or panic Craig.

As it had.

“Do you think Patty Kay knew?”

Cheryl considered it, turned the idea over and over, then rejected it, reluctantly. “No. I saw Patty Kay at the store when I was there last Thursday. She treated Stevie just as always.”

I definitely caught a faint note of regret in her voice.

It was almost six when we started back up the atrium stairs, Cheryl, a little unsteady, using the handrail for support.

She said farewell, her thin frame leaning against the huge teak door. “Now, you be sure to come back, Mrs. Collins, if I can do anything else to help. And do give dear Craig my love. Such a
blow
.”

I smelled cinnamon aftershave. His blue and white striped pincord slacks and yellow linen sport shirt were crisp and fresh.

But Craig’s weakly handsome face was haggard.

And his glare sullen.

“Jesus, why do I have to answer
your
questions? All I’ve done is answer questions, talk, talk, talk about it. I’m sick of talking about it.”

His hand flung out, struck the flank of a black carousel horse. The tinny music started, stopped.

“Stupid goddamn horse!” Craig snarled.

I opened the small refrigerator in the wet bar, grabbed a handful of ice for my glass. Plain soda this time. “Until Patty Kay’s murder is solved, you’re going to have to talk— and talk a lot.” My voice was sharp. I was tired. A squabble with Craig was just one more problem. His temper tantrums were another. I was already dreading a call to Margaret.

Craig walked to the mantel, put out his hand, gripped it hard. He was dangerously close to exploding.

Maybe it was time to go easy. “Simmer down, Craig. I just want you to think about last week. Did Patty Kay say anything, do anything out of the ordinary?”

He shrugged impatiently. “Christ, I don’t know.”

I wondered abruptly just how much attention—real attention—Craig had paid to his wife’s actions.

“How often did Patty Kay do things on the spur of the moment?”

He pushed off the mantel, walked to a barstool, and straddled it. His face was resigned. “All the time. She always said she wasn’t a prisoner of a schedule, anybody’s schedule. One time she saw a story in
The Tennessean
about white-water rafting in Idaho and we had reservations to go the next morning.”

“What about her commitments? Like the class? Or parties?”

“Oh,” he said vaguely, “I think that was in the summer
sometime. But she’d just get a substitute or call and say we weren’t coming.”

It must have made Patty Kay a popular guest.

But as a hostess?

“So this last-minute dinner for the trustees wasn’t that unusual?”

He shook his head. “One time she decided to have a New Year’s Eve party and sent telegrams inviting everybody just the day before. But generally, she planned dinners ahead. Because she really loved to cook and she liked to think about the dinner and work on it and order special foods and things. Like reindeer meat for a Twelfth Night party.”

Maybe the timing of that night’s dinner didn’t really matter. But there were regularly scheduled board meetings. If Patty Kay had something to present to the trustees as trustees, why not do it at a regular meeting?

I got my notebook out of my purse. “I copied down Patty Kay’s appointments for Friday and Saturday. Does this suggest anything to you?” I handed it to him.

He scanned the notes, then pointed at
Friday - 9 a.m. Class
. “I don’t know if it matters, but she left for school earlier than usual. Usually she left about a quarter to nine. Friday morning she left earlier. About eight, I think.”

“Did she say anything?”

“No. She was in a real hurry. She looked grim, so I kept my mouth shut. That was the best thing to do when Patty Kay was frosted about something. She looked like she was spoiling for a fight.” His brows drew down in a puzzled frown. “Hey, you know what’s funny? The night before, she was fine. We played tennis, took a swim together. Everything was great.” His eyes widened. “Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute. Okay, late Thursday night, we’d just turned off the TV and started upstairs and she said, ‘Oh, damn, I
forgot the files.’ And she decided to run out to school and pick them up.”

“What files?”

The eagerness seeped away. He shrugged.

“Did you see her after she went out to the school?”

“No. I didn’t even hear her car. I went right to sleep.”

“Do you know when she came to bed?”

“No.”