Carolyn G. Hart_Henrie O_02 (3 page)

I said nothing.

He blinked; his mouth twisted in a small embarrassed smile. “Sorry. I can’t hold anything in my head. You said you were her guest. Sure.”

He was a man in shock. Talking about the price of chicken feed while the sky fell.

He shook his head, as if struggling to clear it, then once again got to his feet, as if belatedly remembering his manners. “I’m sorry. Awfully sorry. I woke you up, frightened you. I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t see your car. But I didn’t look. And it was dark … I’ll leave.”

But once on his feet, he simply stood.

“Where will you go?” I took my hand out of my pocket. I was in no danger from this scared, disoriented young man.

“… Chattanooga, I guess. I’ve got an old friend there.”

“Do you need a friend?”

“I’ve got to talk to somebody. I’m in trouble. Big trouble.”

He’d whispered,
I didn’t kill Patty Kay. I didn’t do it
.

Yes, I thought, he probably was in a shitload of trouble.

Killers come in all shapes and sizes. And it is domestic violence that can surprise you every time.

He didn’t look like a man who’d killed a woman.

I wasn’t afraid of him.

I know when to be scared.

He glanced toward the door, then back at me. His shoulders sagged. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what the
hell
to do.”

There was the tiniest suggestion of a plea in his voice, perhaps a flicker of hope in his eyes.

I knew what I was hearing, the tones of a man accustomed to letting someone else run the show.

I wondered when I’d been transformed from a Shakespearean witch to a succoring figure. If he were older, he would know better than to assume age renders its possessor harmless. But he was seeing me now as not only harmless but someone to help. The friend of his aunt.

I’d spent a lifetime among take-charge men. I’d butted heads with most of them. But even while insisting upon my rights and prerogatives, I’d admired their verve and spirit and, yes, the automatic masculine presumption of each and every one that by God, I’m in charge here. It’s a factor that makes news pools a living hell for real reporters. The testosterone level among newspapermen beggars description. As a class, it’s also true of lawyers.

So winsome I’ll-leave-it-up-to-you types don’t impress me.

But I hadn’t spent a lifetime asking questions to be able to ignore what was obviously a life-and-death drama. And this was Margaret’s only living family, the son of her beloved sister.

He was gazing at me with pleading spaniel eyes.

It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him. Talk didn’t commit me to anything. Not a single damn thing. After all, my night’s sleep was already ruined. Moreover, I had to find out if I could help Margaret’s kin.

And, yes, I admit it, I wanted to find out what had happened to Patty Kay. Who,
what, when, where, why, how
— they pulse in my blood and in my brain. Maybe I should have them scored on my tombstone. Or,
She Came, She Asked, She Wrote
.

So that’s how it began for me.

I said, “Who’s Patty Kay?”

“My wife.”

“What happened to her?”

The dazed, uncomprehending look returned to his eyes. “I came home and—and I went in the house and called out. But she didn’t answer. I went upstairs. She wasn’t anywhere. But she’d told me to come home. I mean, I thought she had. There was this message from her. But maybe it wasn’t from her because—”

I held up a hand. “Wait a minute. You came home.” I didn’t yet know where “home” was. There was so much I didn’t know. But it was critical to keep him focused. “You looked for Patty Kay. What happened then?”

“I went in the dining room. Everything was ready for the party.” Again disbelief flared in his frightened eyes. “We were going to have a party tonight. The table was set. The china. The silver. Crystal. Perfect, the way Patty Kay always has everything. So I thought she was probably in the kitchen and just hadn’t heard me. She cooks—Patty Kay always cooks everything herself. She doesn’t believe in having it done by a caterer. She always laughs and says she’s a better cook than any caterer. And she is. So I thought she was in the kitchen and I went in there and that’s when I
knew something was wrong, really wrong. Cheesecake was all over everything.”

“Cheesecake?”

“Patty Kay’s cheesecakes are famous—chocolate wafer crumbs and butter and creme de menthe and … Somebody’d taken the cake pan and thrown it up and there was stuff on the ceiling and the cabinets and the floor, and the pan with the chocolate—the one on the stove—had burned black. The smell was awful. And there was creme de menthe splashed on the floor and a whole bottle of creme de cacao emptied out too. I mean, it scared me. What the hell was going on? And Patty Kay wasn’t anywhere. Then I saw the back door was open. I wasn’t really thinking. I started for the door, too fast I guess, and I skidded and slipped.” He looked down at his trouser leg. “Got the stuff on my hands too. The liqueur. I picked up a towel and wiped my hands off, then I went out the back door. Everything looked okay, like it always did.” His voice lifted with remembered astonishment. “The deck and the pool. And nobody was out there. That meant Patty Kay had to be in the playhouse—if she was anywhere. So I ran down there.”

He came to a stop. His fingers gripped the worn sides of the armchair.

“What did you find?”

Just for an instant his eyes met mine. They were worried, uncertain, frightened—and sickened. “I—” He yanked a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “I’ve got to have something to drink.”

I went into the kitchenette, grabbed a glass, and filled it with tap water. He was close behind me. But I wasn’t frightened. He scarcely knew I was there.

I held out the glass to him.

He took it and drank in long, greedy gulps. He
slumped down at the rickety pine table. Sweat beaded his face. An unhealthy reddish flush overlay the paleness.

I took the seat opposite him.

I didn’t repeat my question.

But we both knew it wasn’t going to go away.

He didn’t look at me. He spoke as if each word were a burden. Was he picking his way or was the recollection too painful?

“I ran down the path. The playhouse door was partially open. But when I pushed, it didn’t move. I kept shoving and shoving. Finally I squeezed inside.” He shuddered. “You don’t ever think that something like this can happen to you. Not—not murder.”

He stared down at the table, but I knew that wasn’t what he saw.

“The door wouldn’t move because Patty Kay was bunched up on the floor behind it. I got down on my knees. I lifted up her head”—His voice cracked. His fingers sought his blood-encrusted shirt—“and her face … there was blood—” He buried his face in his hands.

“Why didn’t you call the police?”

His hands fell away. His head jerked toward me. “How’d you know—”

“You’re here. You ran. Why?”

“Because—” His eyes flickered away.

I leaned forward.

“The siren. I heard a siren. Coming closer and closer. I knew it was coming there.”

“Why did you run?” I insisted.

His fingers plucked at the bloodied sleeve. “I don’t know.” There was just a trace of sullenness in his voice. “God, wouldn’t you? Come home, find your wife bloody and dead. Hear the cops coming. Why? Why were they coming? And they always blame the husband. Pick up a
newspaper, any newspaper. You read about it almost every day. You know that.”

I knew it better than he imagined.

But with good reason.

So often, so very often, death wears a familiar face.

Of course, those statistics are changing. We live now in a drive-by-shooting society. More and more often death is a stranger. That’s why the homicide solve rates have plummeted.

“They’ll put me in jail.” Fear lifted his voice.

“They certainly will if they pick you up as a fugitive, Craig. You must go back.”

Like a bereft child, he looked at me. “What am I going to tell them?”

“Whatever your lawyer advises you to tell them.”

“Lawyer?”

“Don’t you have a lawyer?”

He shrugged. “Not me. Patty Kay does. Mr. Fairlee.”

I felt like a kindergarten instructor. “Call him.”

Craig massaged his temple. “He doesn’t like me.”

I waited.

“He—he thought Patty Kay and I got married too quick.” He didn’t look at me.

Something interesting there. Why shouldn’t Patty Kay’s lawyer like him?

“You must know other lawyers.”

Craig’s head jerked up. “Oh, yeah, sure. One of the guys I play poker with. I’ll call him.” He looked around the room.

“I’ve got a cellular phone in my car. I’ll get it.”

When I came back into the cabin with the phone, he took it obediently.

He held the handset tightly, punched in the numbers.
“Desmond, this is Craig. Listen—” He broke off, his eyes widening.

When he spoke again, his voice shook. “No, no, I haven’t seen the news. No. Oh, God … no, no, I didn’t do it, I tell you. I didn’t kill her. I don’t know what happened. I found her this afternoon, and”—he swallowed and nodded—“yeah, yeah, I want to come home but”—he shuddered—“no, no, I didn’t run away. I—I was supposed to—I came to see my aunt. She has a cabin near Monteagle. I was upset, I didn’t know what to do. So I thought I’d talk to my aunt.”

He carefully did not look my way.

I watched him with a good deal of interest. Quite a nifty little liar under pressure.

“… in the morning at your office? Yeah, I can be there by nine. You’ll talk to the police for me?”

I could imagine the lawyer’s call: “My client is quite willing to cooperate with the authorities … in shock from the brutal slaying of his beloved wife … fled the scene of such horror to seek family support … surely that’s an understandable human reaction, nothing sinister at all … will be willing to talk with the police at my office at …”

Unaware, of course, that Patty Kay’s husband’s clothing was bloodstained, and dealing with an obviously affluent member of the community and without eyewitnesses, the police would be patient.

When he ended the connection, my visitor reluctantly turned to face me.

“Your aunt?” I asked quizzically.

His eyes slid away. “Sorry.” Then he visited me with a rueful, studiously charming glance. No doubt it had worked for him for a long time. Now it was habitual. Only
with women, of course. “Aunt Margaret’s all the family I have. I wish you were my aunt too,” he said in a rush.

It was designed to evoke sympathy.

It didn’t.

But Margaret is my friend. There was no way she could help her nephew now.

I could.

He took a deep breath, started to push back his chair. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “thank you for helping me. I’ll go now. There’s a motel—”

“That’s all right. You can sleep on the couch.”

He accepted. Which didn’t surprise me.

And stood by while I made his bed. Which didn’t surprise me either.

As I turned to go to the bedroom, he said, “Listen, thanks for everything, Mrs….” He didn’t remember my name. But then, he had plenty on his mind.

“Mrs. Collins. My friends call me Henrie O.”

“Henrie O. That’s nice. Good night, Henrie O.”

This time I did close the door to the bedroom behind me. I also wedged a straight chair beneath the knob. I may sometimes be a soft touch.

I’m not a damned fool.

I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d slipped away in the night. That was my first thought when I awoke. I had no confidence in Margaret’s nephew. But Craig Matthews still slept heavily on the couch, his hair tousled, one arm flung over his face, the blankets dragging the floor. He looked vulnerable and utterly innocent.

Isn’t that true of all sleeping creatures?

I can shower, blow-dry my hair, and dress in twelve minutes. When I came out into the living area, Craig was struggling awake.

“I’ll get breakfast,” I told him briskly. “You’ll find shaving cream and a fresh disposable razor in the bathroom. All I can offer in the way of clean clothes is a sweatshirt.” It would be large enough because I like them loose and floppy. Clean trousers I couldn’t provide.