Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (16 page)

Nate whistled. Edgy pried off the lid of the take-out cup and asked, “The golden-tressed Felicia? Is she around?”

God, these guys knew Dale so much better than she did. Why the hell hadn’t they taken him to the beach? She said, “Yeah, very interesting. She and her son drove down from Harrisburg last night and arrived a few minutes after the police.”

“My, my,” said Nate. He seemed pleased rather than jealous that she’d brought in this tidbit. Not ambitious, was the newsroom scuttlebutt about Nate. Not hungry enough. But it made him easier to work with. He asked, “Did she say why she came after all this time?”

“She said Dale was supposed to pay Mark’s tuition and he hadn’t.”

“I see. Money. Her usual topic.”

“Any truth to her story?” Olivia demanded.

Nate shrugged. “I don’t know the legal situation. Dale was pretty burned up at her, yeah. Complaining how there was no getting away, she was always trying to boss him around. She sent the divorce papers right to this office, way back when.”

“Before my time,” said Edgy.

“Yeah, Mueller was still editor. He thought it was a hoot. But Dale was furious. Muttering about castrating females. Said he’d never give her a penny.”

Olivia, hackles rising, said, “I don’t think she wanted it herself so much. She just thought Mark deserved support.”

Nate shrugged. “Same difference.”

“Nate, you know it’s not! Mark was his son too! Why should the woman be stuck putting in all the time to raise him, and all the money too?”

“Who says life is fair? Anyway, I just meant—”

“The whole Judeo-Christian tradition says we should try to make it fair!”

“Okay, okay,” Edgy put in. “Now we all understand Felicia’s side of it. Are the police checking her alibi?”

“They’re checking all our alibis,” said Olivia. “Yours and mine too.”

Startled realization flitted across Edgy’s face. Like Nate, like her too, he came a little late to understand the peculiar dual role they played in this murder. He turned to the coffee urn, verified that no one had started it yet this morning, and said in an annoyed tone, “Cops’ll be here too, won’t they?”

“I’m sure,” said Olivia. “The detective in charge seems very thorough.”

“Does he know yet how the killer got out of that room?” Edgy asked.

“If so, she’s not talking,” said Olivia, enjoying the momentary confusion the pronoun caused. “So it seems to me we should look for motives. We know as much about Dale as anyone. I know he stayed home to work on the plane crash story. So maybe we should compare notes.”

“Right.” Two more early arrivals came through the door, scattering raindrops onto the floor. Edgy turned, picked up his stuff from the table, and beckoned Nate and Olivia with a jerk of his head. “My office,” he said.

Sitting on the worn pads of the visitors’ chairs in his office, Olivia and Nate told him about Mrs. Resler’s call and Felicia Colby’s visit. In the big room outside the Venetian blinds of the door, people filed in, wet and grouchy, to begin work. Olivia concluded the account and said, “That’s what we know about those two. We were wondering about Leon Moffatt too.”

“Moffatt?” asked Edgy.

“He wasn’t very happy with Dale yesterday,’’ Nate reminded him.

“No, he wasn’t.”

“Did he tell you why?” Olivia asked.

Edgerton tented his fingertips and frowned at the acoustic tiles in the ceiling. “Basically he wants this investigation to go away. His father’s estate is on the verge of being settled but, he says, every time there’s a new story the estate’s lawyers hedge again. I told him they’d hedge anyway.”

“They think Moffatt might have blown up the plane?” exclaimed Olivia. If he had—

“Right. They’d look like fools if they turned over the bucks to him and then found out he’d arranged the accident himself.”

“What kind of guy is he?”

Edgy shrugged. “I was a senior at Maryland when he was a freshman. Came on a football scholarship, but he flunked out his second year. Ended up working on road crews. Finally his dad took pity and helped him get started in this construction firm.”

Tarnished son of a successful father, then. Skilled at sports but not able to fulfill the dream of college. She asked, “How is he as a businessman?”

“Haven’t heard any complaints,” said Edgy.

“He was mad at Dale, though. Like Nate said.”

“Yeah, he wants it all over with. Who wouldn’t?”

“Does he have an alibi for the plane crash?”

“No one does,” said Nate. “The explosive was put on board before the plane was fueled for the flight, but no one knows when. Could have been almost any time on the three days before the crash, at a poorly guarded little airfield. Can you prove you weren’t there?”

“I see what you mean,” said Olivia, glad for being alibied by so many others yesterday at the beach. Still, she preferred Moffatt to Felicia Colby as Dale’s killer. Knee-jerk feminist, she scolded herself. If women are equal they can kill too. But there were objective things that made Moffatt seem more likely. She said, “The kid next door to Colby’s saw a man arrive around three-thirty yesterday.”

“Really?” Edgy and Nate spoke almost together. “Is that when it happened?” Edgy added.

“They don’t know yet. But I bet it works out that way.”

“Well, we can’t ignore other possibilities until it’s official,” Nate chided her.

“Okay, I know. But I think we should find out where Leon Moffatt was yesterday afternoon. I’ll talk to him.”

“Hold it!” Edgerton held up his damp beefy palm. “Nate talked to Moffatt before. He’s the logical one to interview him now.” Nate, who had been frowning at his shoes, looked up and nodded.

Olivia swallowed her fury. Didn’t want Edgy to think she was an emotional female. “I found the body,” she reminded him coolly. “I’m the logical one to do this story.”

Edgy gave her a tight smile. “Never said you weren’t. There’ll be a lot of people to interview. You’re both on it. For starts, Liv, you draft something on the discovery of the body. Nate, do a sidebar about his career. You do the obit too. Don’t mention the stories he was working on yet, but get out and do those interviews. I want Nate on Moffatt, Liv on Mrs. Resler. You two divvy up the rest.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll talk to you again about two, okay?” They both nodded, and he added, “If you’re quick enough right now you’ll be out of here before the police catch you.”

“Good point,” Olivia said. Schreiner could hold them up for hours. She followed Nate back into the main room. “So what do you say?” she asked him. “Any problems with Edgy’s plan?”

“No, it’s a good idea for you to take the widow Resler. She’ll remember my alleged unfairness. But I’d like to see Bates. How about we write this stuff, then I’ll catch Moffatt, you catch Resler, and we’ll meet Edgy back here after lunch? Maybe hit the congressman’s office this afternoon.”

“Fine.” If she was quick enough at Resler’s, she might also be able to squeeze in the pilot’s friend that she’d heard about last night at the bar. Nate would be finding stuff too, he knew so much about Dale. She started for her cubicle, then paused and looked up at Nate’s sad eyes. “I didn’t mean to be prickly in there. I’m glad we’re both on it, Nate.”

“Don’t sweat it.” He punched her shoulder lightly with his fist. “A little determination never hurt a reporter, kid.”

“Damn right, old man.”

They popped into their respective cubbyholes to bang out the first reports of Dale Colby’s murder.

10

At first light Holly revisited the Colby house. Couldn’t sleep, might as well detect. The day was rainy and gusty and there wasn’t much chance of finding anything outside. Still, she wanted a daylight view. She waved at a red-eyed Officer Pollard on the slab porch and started around the house, trying to keep her mind open to possibilities. Last night also the garage door had been open, the Pinto in the drive. At the back of the garage was the door to the backyard, a pegboard hung with tools next to it. Bikes, other typical suburban garage stuff, but neater than most. She moved on to the side yard, a narrow strip of grass between the Colby garage and the Morgan house. Bo’s bedroom windows at the front corner, blinds down now. Probably still asleep. Farther along, a disturbance in the mud next to the garage wall. She squatted. Looked like a floor plan. A little foundation for a mud house, now melting in the rain. She used to build houses like that. Clay dirt, that was the best, stuck together for nice solid walls. Her brother helped, sometimes. Other times buzzed it on his scooter, pretending to be a bomber, destroying it just as thoroughly. Holly’s wails didn’t stop him. Important lesson there: wailing was not a good weapon. The next time around, she’d built her mud house behind anti-scooter fortifications of brick and rock.

She straightened and moved on, around the back corner of the garage. Downspout at the corner, rainwater dribbling out now. Yard mostly grass, a few bushes near the foundation, one tree. Here was the door next to the tool pegboard, a little slab of bare cement probably billed as a patio. High windows over the kitchen sink inside. The compressor for the air conditioner next, painted buff to match the house. The maple tree in the yard shaded the big dining-room windows. More foundation bushes along the house wall. The small bathroom window next. And then the windows of Dale’s den. The second of the three on this side was the cracked one. Under it, bushes and muddy earth. It had been photographed last night under floodlights but she still was careful where she put her foot when she stepped closer to peer in. Yes, Maggie Ryan’s story checked out; she could have seen the body in enough detail to know there was a problem. Then run back to the garage door, grab the crowbar from the pegboard, run through the kitchen and hall to break in. Holly looked carefully at the windowpanes and frame. Putty smooth, frames unmarred. No way to open them from outside. Everything solid, sealed, neat.

At the corner, another downspout oozing water. She squinted at the guttering along the roofline. No holes there either. Crime Scene had checked the roof last night, the attic crawl space too, but she made a note to be sure they’d remembered the gutters. But everything looked airtight from here. Same thing around the corner on the west side of the room. Here, instead of evergreen bushes, a narrow gravel strip divided wall from lawn under the den windows. But there was no way into that room.

At the front corner of the house, windows to Dale and Donna’s bedroom, curtains drawn. Another downspout. More evergreen plantings. Next, the girls’ bedroom window. And then back to the front door, the slab porch.

A fruitless survey.

She sighed, waved good-bye to Pollard, and headed for the station house. Felicia Colby would be arriving in half an hour to make her statement.

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Colby.” Holly took the typed statement that Felicia Colby had just signed and smiled officially at her. “I’m sure you want to be on your way. We appreciate your stopping by.”

“Sure.” Felicia Colby stubbed out her cigarette and gathered her handbag and clear plastic scarf into her lap. “This is so unbelievable. You’ll keep me posted about what’s happening, won’t you?”

“We’ll be back in touch,” said Holly. Gabe had already tried to contact Nan Evans, the woman that Felicia said she’d spoken to yesterday afternoon. But Mrs. Evans was apparently en route to work, since no one was answering either at home or at her office.

“You see, it’s just that we’re so far away,” Felicia explained, tying on the plastic rain scarf. “It’s hard to keep up. And it’s pretty important to us.”

“Yes. Well, of course we can’t give separate news bulletins to all the interested parties. Perhaps you could arrange something with the newspaper. I’m sure they’ll have full coverage.”

“Oh. Maybe Olivia. That redhead.”

“You know Olivia Kerr? Did your ex-husband introduce you?”

“No, I just met her this—” Felicia stopped, eyes narrowing. “Hey, I’m not getting her in trouble, am I? Or me?”

Wonderful. This witness primed by the news hounds already. Holly asked, “She found you and talked to you already?”

“Yeah. Reporters do that, you know.” Felicia clutched her bag defensively. “They asked me the same things you did, pretty much.”

“They?”

“You know that woman with the black curly hair? Maggie. The one you were talking to yesterday?”

“Yeah. I know.” Holly closed her eyes a second.

“Well, she was there too.”

“No doubt.” Holly had a sudden surge of nostalgia for the Kelly case last month, decent hardworking witnesses who spoke their piece, shut up, and stayed out of the way. But hell, you had to take them as they came. Dale Colby had been a reporter. Naturally he’d know other reporters. And naturally they’d be curious.

No excuse for Maggie, though.

“Well, if it’s okay I’ll get in touch with her,” Felicia said.

“Sure.” Holly stood up and Felicia did too. “We’ll let you know if there are any developments that concern you. And of course as the investigation proceeds we may have further questions you can help us with.”

“Okay.”

Holly walked her to the waiting area where Mark was sitting. The boy looked haggard, as though he’d been walking point on a night patrol. He stumbled to his feet as they approached. “Thank you both for your help,” Holly said.