Not Guilty (37 page)

P
hil, I’m glad you could make it. Come on in.” Phil Stratton had received an urgent call from the local police department when he arrived at his office in the courthouse. Phil relied heavily on the work of the local police, and most often it was he who was calling Captain Ferris, requesting results from the local investigations. This time the situation was reversed. Phil felt pretty sure that this was connected to Maureen Chase’s suicide. All the law-enforcement professionals in the county were still reeling from the shocking news.

Phil entered the police captain’s office and was told, right away, to close the door behind him. “What’s up, Dave?” Phil asked.

“Have a seat,” said Dave Ferris. He was nearly sixty, but still trim, dressed in a tie and neatly pressed white dress shirt, with a full head of grizzled brown hair and a mustache. The only clue to his age was the trifocals that caused his eyes to look large and liquid.

Phil sat down in front of the captain’s desk.

Dave pursed his lips and then picked up a document and handed it across to Phil.

“I just got these reports from the lab,” he said. “Preliminary results of Maureen Chase’s autopsy.”

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” said Phil, shaking his head.

“I’ve gone over all the reports this morning. She was apparently fixated on this attorney who died, Mark Weaver?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Phil, leaning back in his chair, prepared to give the police captain a few of his insights into the situation. “I suspected there was a problem but—”

Dave interrupted him. “And this Weaver guy’s wife was the one who found her?”

Phil frowned. “Yeah. They had kind of an . . . acrimonious relationship, you might say.”

“Phil, how closely did you question the Weaver woman?”

“I questioned her. I mean, I treated it just as you would a homicide. I asked her why she was there, determined her whereabouts earlier in the evening.”

“She has an alibi,” Dave said.

Phil shifted around in his chair. “Well, yeah. I mean, actually a pretty . . . airtight alibi. We have people who can account for her comings and goings.”

“Phil, there’re going to be some additional tests blood tests made on the body. Toxicology tests.”

Phil looked at Dave in surprise. “What for?”

“Apparently, during the autopsy, the M.E. found a puncture wound.”

“A stab wound? There was no blood.”

“No. Like a hypodermic needle. She may have been drugged.”

“Drugged?” Phil frowned and dismissed the possibility with a wave of his hand. “Oh, Dave—she probably took something. There were tranquilizers and Prozac and . . . a bunch of stuff in her medicine cabinet. Maybe she injected herself with something—you know, to steady her nerves—before she went ahead with it.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Dave. “She didn’t inject herself.”

“What do you mean? Why not?”

“Look at the report. The puncture wound was in her neck.”

Phil felt as if his collar were tightening. “Well . . . maybe she . . .”

“The back of her neck,” said Dave.

“Murder?” Phil breathed.

Dave stared back at him.

“Shit,” said Phil.

“W
HERE HAVE YOU BEEN?
”
Keely cried. “I was looking for you.”

Wade Rovere backed away from the car window. “Hey,” he said.

“Well, it’s a little late now,” Keely snapped.

“Do you want gas or don’t you?”

Keely opened her door and stepped out of the car, still holding the newspaper. “Fill it with regular,” she said.

Wade lifted the flap over the gas cap and jammed in the pump nozzle. “Look—don’t bust my chops. I got a new job here. This is my first day.”

“Did you see this?” Keely asked, waving the newspaper. “Do you know anything about this?”

Wade wiped his hands on his gray coveralls. “I’m busy, lady. I can’t stand around here talking to you. I got other customers.” He gestured toward a late-model Volvo that had pulled up to the pump behind Keely.

“Let somebody else do it.”

“I’d better get it,” said Wade.

“Not so fast. I want my windshield cleaned,” she said.

Wade glared at her.

Keely wasn’t about to be intimidated by him this time. Dylan was safe. This time she didn’t need Wade Rovere’s help. “It says full service,” Keely said, pointing to the sign above the pump. “Shall I tell the boss you refused to clean my windshield?”

Wade scowled but obediently retrieved the squeegee from a nearby bucket as another jumpsuit-clad attendant came out of the island kiosk to wait on the Volvo’s driver. Wade leaned across the hood of the car and began to soap and scrape the windshield.

“Where have you been? What happened to you?” Keely demanded.
“I’ve been looking for you.”

“I left town for a few days,” Wade muttered.

“Without telling anyone?” Keely asked. “You were in an awful hurry.”

Wade finished the left side of the windshield and went around to the right. “That’s my business,” he said.

“You know,” said Keely, “I almost paid you. I was getting ready to give you the money. But of course now I already know what the information was that you were selling. It was her, wasn’t it? Maureen Chase,” she said, brandishing the newspaper in front of him. “Did you blackmail her? Is that what happened?”

Wade stepped back from the car. “It’s done,” he said.

“It’s streaky,” said Keely defiantly. “Do it again.”

Wade shook his head and snorted. “That’s what you think. She wasn’t afraid of me,” he said. “Look, I don’t want to be involved with any of this.”

Keely stared at him, realizing that he had just confirmed her suspicions. “So it was Maureen Chase that you saw at my house.”

“I saw her, yeah.”

For a moment, Keely felt almost lightheaded with relief. The mystery-visitor had a face, a name—and even an insane reason for causing the accident. Her search was over. “What happened?” Keely demanded. “How did you know it was her?”

Wade sighed. “She and I have butted heads a few times. She was the one who put me away. Madam Prosecutor.”

“So, what happened that night? You saw her at my house . . .” Keely prompted.

“I walked up to the house with the pizza. The front door was open, just the screen door was shut. I looked through the screen door, and there they were.”

Keely looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

It was Wade’s turn to look at her suspiciously. “I thought you said you knew,” he said petulantly.

“What do you mean ‘there they were’?”

“He was sticking it to her,” Wade said gleefully. “Standing up. Right there in the entrance hallway-—foyer . . . whatever you call it.”

Keely stared at him.

“I’ll never forget the look on her face when she saw me watching them through the door. She screamed, and your old man got all bent out of shape. Said they never ordered a pizza and to get the hell out of there. And all the time he’s trying to zip it up.” Wade chuckled, remembering.

“Anyway, when you wouldn’t pay, I went to see her—Miss Chase. She remembered seeing me there, all right. But when I asked for the money, she just laughed in my face. She told me to shut up and get out of town or I’d end up back in jail. And she wasn’t kidding, either. She could put me there. Who was going to listen to me over her?

“So I blew everything off for a few days. I was trying to figure out my next move when I heard about this on the television.” He poked an oil-stained finger at the newspaper. “I figured it was safe to come back now.” He glanced at the picture on the front page and shook his head.

“She’s not gonna get anybody, anymore.”

“What do you mean, ‘he was sticking it to her’?” Keely demanded.

“Hey, how old are you? You need me to draw a picture?” Wade sneered.

“Yes,” said Keely. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care,” said Wade. “I saw them. When she saw me standing there, watchin’ them, she started yellin’, and they jumped apart like I’d stuck ’em with an electric cattle prod.”

“You liar,” Keely said. “You’ll say anything.”

Wade shrugged. “Tell yourself whatever you want. He was bangin’ her right there in the hallway. Standin’ up, like they couldn’t wait another minute.”

Keely opened her car door and slid back into the seat. As Wade went back to remove the nozzle and hang the hose back on the pump, Keely stared, unseeing, out the windshield, trying not to imagine her husband and Maureen, but it was no use.

“You liar,” she muttered again under her breath.

Wade reappeared at her window. “Twenty-two dollars,” he said, leering at her. “Cash or credit?”

M
rs. Weaver,” said Sylvia, getting up from behind the wide reception desk in the vestibule of Weaver, Weaver, and Bergman. “What a surprise!”

For me, too,
Keely thought. She struggled not let her distress show on her face. “Hello, Sylvia,” she said. “Nice to see you again, too.”

“How are the children?” the older woman asked, and Keely could see, by the guarded look in her eyes, that Sylvia knew about Dylan’s suicide attempt and wanted to avoid specifics.

“Doing fine,” said Keely. “Abby’s with her grandmother this afternoon. Dylan is back in school.”

“Well, that’s great. I’m glad to hear that,” said Sylvia.

“We’re all fine.”

“That’s good. I’m sorry, but Mr. Weaver isn’t here right now.” Sylvia said.

“Actually,” said Keely, looking down, trying to keep control of her voice, “I was thinking today might be a good day to finally . . . clean out that office. Mark’s office.”

“There’s no hurry,” said Sylvia. “I’m sure Mr. Weaver told you that.”

“He told me,” said Keely stubbornly. “I want to do it today.”

“Well, fine. You go ahead. Don’t you need a bag or something to put things in?” Sylvia asked.

Keely shook her head. “I’m not . . . planning to take anything with me today.”

“Okay,” said Sylvia slowly. “Whatever you say.”

“It was kind of a . . . spur of the moment decision. I was in the neighborhood . . .” Keely said. “I just want to sort through a few things. Throw some things away.” She was not about to tell Sylvia that she was
here to look for information, evidence, proof of what she had heard from Wade Rovere.

“Well, okay,” said Sylvia. “Of course, we’ve distributed the papers that dealt with clients’ business to the associates that are handling that business. There’s only your husband’s personal belongings left to sort through.”

“I want to be able to take my time,” Keely said.

“Perfectly fine,” said Sylvia. “Take all the time you want.”

Keely took out the key, whispering her thanks, and clutched it in her damp palm. The cut edge of the key gouged her skin because she was gripping it so tightly. She walked down the carpeted corridors of the law firm until she arrived at the locked door with Mark’s name on it in gold letters. She jammed the key in the lock.

She had the urge to kick it open with the toe of her boot, but she resisted. No matter how satisfying doing so might feel, it would attract too much attention. Keely entered the office and flipped on the light switch. The heavyweight brass desk lamp with the tortoiseshell shade came on and gave a warm glow to the otherwise rather impersonal room. Everything was just as Mark had left it. The leather blotter and stuffed pencil cup on Mark’s desk, the law books behind it. The map she had framed for him of St. Vincent’s Harbor hung over the computer monitor. She thought for a minute that she should start with the computer, but then she hesitated. All the computers in this firm were linked. Surely he wouldn’t put incriminating evidence of an affair where everyone in the office could see it.

The desk calendar was opened to the page of the day he died. No one had bothered to turn it.
That’s what I need,
she thought. She walked around the desk. The expensive carpet cushioned her steps. She stared at the calendar.
No, it couldn’t be there,
she told herself.
That would be too easy.
She decided to hold off on her best hope until she’d exhausted the other possibilities.

She went to the closet and rummaged through the pockets of Mark’s spare jacket and his raincoat. She felt along the closet shelf for something, anything that would give him away. She opened the drawers of his desk. Every pen cartridge and paper clip was in its place, and
there was little else to see. Clearly, the contents of these drawers had been emptied, as Sylvia said, of all the clients’ paperwork, and only a few isolated folders still hung there. Keely looked in each one, searching for restaurant, hotel, or motel receipts. Nothing.

Surely, if he’d been having an affair, she thought, he’d taken Maureen places, bought her gifts. Mistresses demanded gifts as proof of love from a man who wasn’t free—flowers, jewelry. And then it struck her. The smoky quartz bracelet with the gold links. She hadn’t found it at home, when she’d gone through his closet looking for the stash of bills. If he had truly intended to give it to Keely, it had to be here, in this office. And if he hadn’t intended to give it to his wife . . . All along, something had bothered her about that bracelet. She looked best in pearls, silver, and platinum. That was something that Mark had pointed out to her. She’d never given it much thought. Never had that much jewelry purchased for her. But now she knew. Smoky quartz and gold? Those were not her colors. Those were colors for a . . . redhead. Keely felt her face burn with shame, and she was glad she was alone in the office. Who else had known about this? Had Mr. Collier, the jeweler, been lying to her? Or Sylvia?

It would be foolish to accuse Sylvia of covering up for Mark before she’d even looked at the calendar. Keely sat down in the swivel chair behind the desk, and her gaze fell on the picture of her and Mark that he’d kept on his desk.
Who were you? What were you doing?
she wondered as she stared at the imperturbable expression on his handsome face. She put the picture facedown and on the desktop, then pulled the calendar toward her across the blotter. She began to thumb back through the pages, trying to think of dates and times when Mark had stayed late for business reasons, or gone out of town.

At first it was difficult to try to think of dates. Her whole life seemed like a blank to her as she looked back on it. But gradually, as she leafed her way through the spring and summer months, she was able to remember. A hiking trip and a picnic canceled here, a foray to the mall to shop for new furniture postponed there. She had never protested. It was his work. It was what he had to do. But when she was able to remember a date, a specific date, and look it up, there was nothing
unusual about the page. A client’s name, information about meeting times and places scrawled across the page in Mark’s expansive hand. There was no mention of Maureen anywhere. It was as if she didn’t exist.

She came across the day of her birthday and stopped there. She remembered that day all too well. He had promised her a night out on the town, starting with dinner at her favorite French restaurant. She had dropped both kids at Ingrid’s and gotten herself perfumed and dressed for the occasion. He’d called, miserable about a last-minute meeting. She went out to a movie by herself and wouldn’t speak to him when she got home. He’d pleaded and apologized and wooed her until they’d ended up making love, then eating Chinese takeout in bed. When she was laughing again, he’d given her a necklace of cultured pearls that was breathtaking. She stared at the calendar page, remembering how she had forgiven him, how silly it had all seemed.

All of a sudden she noticed, under the number of the date of her birthday, a black zigzag mark made in pen. At first glance it appeared to be a zigzag. But then she realized it could be something else. It could be an
M
widened out. She flipped back to the other late nights and canceled plans she had been able to remember. The same zigzag appeared beneath each date. Keely’s face flamed as she looked at it, remembering how, when she was a girl, she had used to write a giant
C
for
curse
in her diary around the date of the days she got her period, so that no one but herself looking at her diary would know.

This doesn’t prove anything,
she thought. It could be a doodle, made idly while he was talking on the phone. She rested her face in one hand and felt a vein throbbing in her forehead.
You’re being dense if you don’t take this as proof,
she told herself.
You don’t really want to know.
But she couldn’t get the image of him, her romantic husband, tenderly fastening those pearls around her neck, out of her mind. He couldn’t have. Not that very same day. Keely felt as if she was going to throw up.
I have to know for sure,
she thought. She looked at her watch, then reached for the phone.

Ingrid, who was minding Abby, answered on the first ring and declared that she would be delighted to pick up Dylan after school and
keep both children until Keely got back. “Where will you be?” Ingrid asked.

“I have some errands to do,” said Keely. “There’s something I . . . it can’t wait, I’m afraid.”

Ingrid assured her again that it would be no problem, and Keely thanked her. As she hung up the phone, she heard someone speak her name in a soft voice. She turned around to look. Betsy was standing in the doorway, wearing a Tyrolean-style jacket over gray slacks. Her plain features wore a worried expression.

Keely couldn’t manage a smile. “Hi,” she said quietly.

“I heard you were here,” Betsy said.

“Yes,” said Keely, not wanting company.

“Sylvia said you’re cleaning out Mark’s office.”

“Yeah, I thought I would,” said Keely vaguely.

“You haven’t gotten very far,” Betsy observed.

Keely shook her head. “I’m not really cleaning . . .” she admitted.

Betsy glanced down the hallway. Then she looked back at Keely.
“May I come in? I’m waiting for Lucas.”

“Sure,” said Keely.

Betsy walked into the room and made herself comfortable in the armchair opposite Mark’s desk. “So,” she said, “if you’re not cleaning, what are you doing?”

Keely avoided her gaze, too embarrassed to confess her purpose, not knowing how to say it.

“What?” Betsy asked. “What’s the matter?”

Keely made up her mind to tell Betsy, in spite of her embarrassment. “Do you remember when I called you the other day? About Mark’s phone calls to Maureen?”

Betsy nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“Well, today I ran into . . . someone. He told me that he saw Maureen and Mark . . . together. You know—together.” Keely’s face reddened.

Betsy made a little huffing noise of disbelief. “Who said such a thing?”

“Someone. It doesn’t matter.”

“Someone reliable? Someone you trust?”

“No,” said Keely. “Someone completely untrustworthy. But still . . . Betsy, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I don’t want to believe it, but it’s all I can think about,” Keely said. “I’m searching for something that will settle it in my mind. I can’t make myself believe that Mark was so two-faced.”

“You want proof,” said Betsy.

“Exactly. I mean, he came home every night, so thrilled with our new home and the baby and our life together. I never intended to get married again so quickly. But he was . . . insistent. He wouldn’t be denied. Do you know what I mean? And now this. I never would have suspected it in a million years.”

Betsy sighed. “He often said how happy he was after you got married. He told me that himself.”

“I know,” Keely cried. “But there were all those phone calls. And this . . . person claims to have seen them, together . . . you know . . .”

“Together, as in . . . ?”

“Right,” said Keely. “He says he saw them doing it.”

“Oh my God,” said Betsy. “If that’s true, what a betrayal.”

“Exactly.” Keely looked at the plain, dignified woman sitting across from her. “I know you and Lucas want to protect me, but I need to know. Did Mark ever confide in you?”

Betsy shook her head sadly. “Oh, I’m not the one to ask. He wouldn’t have confided in me, dear. We were never that close. You know, when we adopted him, he was a teenager already. It was Lucas’s idea. I went along with it because, well, it seemed like a decent thing to do. And you know, Prentice was off at college. The house seemed empty. But, of course, we sent Mark to that prep school, International Academy in D.C., so I only saw him on weekends. We just never—what do they say now—bonded. Now, Mark and Lucas, that was a different story. They were so much alike. Lucas saw something in Mark that he didn’t see in his own son. . . . Anyway, you might ask Lucas, because they were always very close.”