Evidence of Guilt (37 page)

I nudged him with my elbow. "Thanks a heap. You really know how to lay on the compliments."

"It's a statement, Kali, nothing more."

"Those Gstring things are uncomfortable," I grumbled. "And lace scratches."

He grinned, held up his hands. "Okay, you win. It's an odd combination."

"You want to hear something else odd?" I told him about

the sketch of the man who might be Barry Drummond. "Do you think he could be here in town and no one would recognize him?"

"Sure, especially if he didn't want to be recognized."

'That's spooky."

"You think Barry Drummond might be connected to the murders?"

Tom's train of thought had followed my own, but the theory sounded pretty outlandish when I heard it aloud. Why would a man who'd disappeared from Silver Creek twenty years earlier return to kill a woman he'd barely known?

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe the sketch isn't Drummond. Or maybe Lisa ran across a picture of him and simply drew the face for artistic exercise."

"Maybe Drummond wanted his old home back."

"Enough to kill for? Not likely. Especially not after twenty years."

"It's worth quite a bit. And Lisa was inquiring about property records, remember."

I nodded. "The property angle was one of the first I thought of. There's apparently a fair amount of interest in the place. Some guy from San Francisco even called Cole because he has a client who's interested."

"How did he even learn of the property?"

"I have no idea. The guy's name is Simmons. I've been trying to reach him for days."

I stopped to pick a handful of wild blackberries. "Enough of this," I said, plopping a couple into my mouth. "It's giving me a headache. It's what one of my law professors called
flee-flow."

"Is that some fancy legal term?"

I laughed. "No, it refers to thoughts that flee as fast as they flow. You can't hold on to any of them."

I awoke Sunday morning with a kicker of a headache. Tom and I had taken in a movie, then come back and settled outside with a pitcher of margaritas. Tom mixes them strong, but they slide down so smoothly, I tend to forget.

It was after nine when I finally pulled myself out of bed. Tom had left early to spend the day with his children. I swallowed two Motrin, took a shower and fixed myself a cup of coffee.
The Mountain Journal doesn't
publish a Sunday paper so I was stuck with
The Hadley Times,
which ran the underwear discovery as front-page news.

There wasn't much in the way of hard facts, but the reporter used the opportunity to review the murders and the case against Wes Harding. He'd obviously talked to Curt Willis, though he hadn't called me or, to my knowledge, Sam. Curt was quoted as saying that the prosecution had a strong case, which had been made even stronger by yesterday's discovery. He felt confident tests would show the bloodstains to be the victims'. It wasn't a long quote, but it contained enough words like
justice
and
morality
that Curt came across like a white knight. I had no doubt the article pleased him immensely.

Sabrina called while I was still lingering over the paper. "Do you think there's a battered-mother defense to murder?" she asked.

"Who hit you?"

"No one, I just feel battered. I can't believe I'm raising such selfish ingrates. I asked Joey to take out the garbage this morning and you'd think I'd sent him off to work in the coal mines. Then, because he was mad, he didn't pay attention to what he was doing and dropped the bag right

on the new family room carpet. Coffee grounds, salad dressing, jam--I'm so infuriated, I might just strangle him."

I suppressed a smile. "Aren't you the one who's always telling me how much I'm missing by remaining childless?"

"Well, forget everything I ever said about it." She took a breath. "Anyway, how are things with you?"

"So, so." I told her about the latest developments. "I don't know how we'll do in a court of law, but the tide of popular opinion is certainly against us."

"You wouldn't have to deal with this stuff if you worked for the bank, you know."

"I told you, I--"

"Lighten up, Kali. That was a joke." There was a pause. "Why would a killer steal his victim's underwear?"

I told her my theories. "Sex, power, humiliation."

"I don't know. If you ask me, it sounds more like a childish prank." Her voice rose to a sing-song pitch.
"Isee Paris, I see France, I see Sabrina's underpants.
Remember?"

"What I remember is the way you clobbered the Jones boy with your lunch pail when he tried that at the bus stop."

"God, if I'd remembered how obnoxious boys could be I'd never have had any myself. Well, I'd better go clean up the carpet before the stains set in for good. I told Joey to pick up the garbage, but I'm going to have to work on the stains myself."

I was heating water for a second cup of coffee when Sabrina's words triggered something in my mind.

Have you ever been to Paris, France?

Oooh, la.

Boys will be boys.

Granger's words echoed in my head. Was he referring

to cigarettes and beer and girlie magazines? Or was there maybe something more?

It was a long shot, but one worth exploring.

I turned off the kettle and went to pay another visit to Bongo.

"Tell me again about the afternoon you discovered the bodies of Mrs. Cornell and her daughter."

Bongo was slouched on his living room couch, bare feet resting on the table in front of it. A bowl of popcorn was cradled in his lap, a can of Pepsi nearby. He'd yelled at his younger brother, Kevin, for letting me in while their mother was at the grocery, but he hadn't thrown me out I was hoping we could finish up before Mrs. Langley returned.

"I told you about it last time you were here," Bongo grumbled.

"I know, but sometimes it helps for me to hear things a second time."

"What part do you want to hear again?"

"All of it. It was a Sunday, I believe."

Bongo nodded, took a swig of soda, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"In the afternoon," I coached.

"Yeah."

"Were you supposed to meet someone in the barn?"

"No, I just thought... I thought my brother might be over there." He looked quickly at Kevin and then away.

Kevin straddled a straight-backed chair as though he were riding a horse. "Why were you looking for me?"

"I just was, all right."

"So you checked inside the barn," I prodded.

"Yeah. I just sort of poked my head in. The place stunk something awful. When I saw those bodies all bloody and swollen I took outta there. Just about lost my lunch."

"And that was it?"

"I told my mom and she called the police."

"And now he's afraid to go back," Kevin said smugly. "I bet him my whole month's allowance he couldn't spend ten minutes alone inside the barn."

"I don't want your stupid money."

"Oh, yeah?"

I tried again. "So you weren't there long. Probably less than a minute?"

"A lot less."

"Thirty seconds?"

"Not even that long. I told you, it was gross."

"What strikes me as peculiar," I said off-handedly, "is the way you saw the two bodies straight off. Not only noticed them, but knew right away the condition they were in. All in less than thirty seconds."

He shrugged.

"I've been inside the barn. It's dark in there. Coming in from the bright afternoon sun, it took my eyes awhile to adjust. Until they did, I couldn't see a thing."

Bongo popped the metal on his soda can. "Maybe it was

longer than I thought. A scare like that makes it hard to remember straight."

"Still, it seems funny that the first thing you'd focus on would be inert shapes at ground level, clear on the other side of the building."

Bongo shrugged, but his face had paled considerably.

"I think you're not being completely straight with me," I said.

"What'ya mean?"

"I think maybe you spent more time inside the barn than you're admitting to."

He shook his head vehemently. "No way. It was a minute max. They were disgusting. They hardly looked like people at all. I wouldn't even have recognized them if I hadn't--"

"Hadn't what?"

"Nothing." Bongo's breathing was rapid and shallow. A fine film of perspiration covered his forehead. He tossed Kevin his pocket knife. "Go see if you can find a piece of wood for that boat you been talking about making."

"I don't know what to look for."

"Yes, you do. About this size." Bongo cupped his hands into a shape the size of a football. "You can start by peeling off the bark."

"Mom don't like me using a knife when no one's around."

"I'll be there in a minute. You go wait for me, okay?"

Kevin hesitated, then swung his leg over the chair and shuffled out. I waited for Bongo to continue, but instead he finished off his can of soda.

"You were telling me about finding Mrs. Cornell and her daughter," I reminded him. "You wouldn't have recognized them if you hadn't what?"

He looked up and then away quickly. "I don't know. I guess I knew it had to be them 'cause it was their property and all."

"You keep stalling like this and we're going to get to the dicey part about the time your mother gets home. You want to have this conversation in front of her?"

Bongo crushed the can in his hands. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"They found the underwear, you know."

His head jerked up. "They couldn't have." Then he realized what he'd said and his eyes took on a glint of panic.

"Both pairs. They were in a trash bin. The police are going to be able to trace them back to you," I said, lying through my teeth. "Modern forensics is truly amazing."

Bongo swallowed hard.

"It wasn't me," he protested. "It was Tim. And they were already dead. We didn't have nothing to do with that. All we did was take some of their clothes."

"Who's Tim? I thought you were alone that afternoon."

There was a moment's hesitation. "I was. But Tim and me were there Friday night too."

"That's when you found them, Friday night?"

He nodded, his eyes averted.

"And you undressed them?"

"It was Tim's idea, I swear. I just took a quick peek."

"Sure." I made no effort to hide my disgust.

"They were dead; they weren't going to care." His voice held a touch of insolence.

"Was it Tim who took the underwear?"

Bongo nodded, pulled himself up straighten "He said it was kind of like a souvenir."

"So why'd he toss them into the trash?"

"Beats me. It was only yesterday he brought them
on
so we could take another look. I think he'd had plenty of looks himself in between. He kept them hidden under a loose floorboard in his closet."

"Yesterday?"

He nodded.

If Bongo was right, then the garments found in the compost bin weren't Lisa's and Amy's. I leaned forward, "You're sure it was yesterday?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Tim didn't say nothing about getting rid of them either."

I sat back a bit. "Why didn't you report the deaths on Friday when you first discovered them?"

He shrugged.

"We're going to get to the bottom of this one way or another," I told him. "If not here, then down at the police station." When he didn't say anything I stood. "Okay, if that's the way you want it."

"Wait." The word squeaked out.