The Deepest Water (2 page)

That was how she had been all week, unable to focus on any one thing for more than a few seconds, and left with no memory of what she had been thinking. A persistent thought recurred: if he had had a fight with his father, he had to make amends now, before it was too late.

Just then the doorbell rang. She had forgotten that the policeman had said he would come at ten, and she glanced down at herself in dismay; she was in jeans and an old sweater.

“Finish your coffee,” Brice said. “I’ll take him to the living room.”

She left the coffee and followed him to the front door, where he was admitting the policeman and a woman with short brown hair so curly it was almost too frizzy.

“Lieutenant Caldwell, and this is Detective Varney,” the policeman said politely, as if aware that she had no memory of their names.

She nodded, and Brice said briskly, “Well, come on in. Do you want to take off your jacket and coat?”

Caldwell was wearing a windbreaker, Detective Varney had a long dark green raincoat. She pulled it off, then held it, but he shook his head. “It’s okay. Beautiful day out there, just right, not too hot, not too cool. And not raining,” he added, making a leisurely examination of the foyer, of Brice and Abby, everything. He was a stocky man, in his forties, heavy through the shoulders and chest, with dark hair turning grey at the temples, and dark eyes. Everything about him seemed too deliberate, too slow, as if he never had rushed in his life and would not be rushed now.

“This way,” Brice said, steering them toward the living room, where he and Abby sat on the sofa, and the lieutenant and detective sat in identical tapestry-covered chairs across a coffee table from them. The detective did not relax, but Caldwell settled back, crossed his legs, and examined the living room with the same methodical scrutiny he had given the foyer.

“Nice house,” Caldwell said finally.

Abby could feel her stomach muscles tightening harder and harder. The house was nice, with good, maybe-Danish furniture, good original art on the walls even if not very much of it. There was a grouping of netsukes on the mantel; the lieutenant’s gaze lingered on it as if in appraisal.

Expensive, she wanted to say. Too expensive. Brice had brought home two of them from a trip to Los Angeles, her first anniversary gift, startling her. Take them back, she should have said; we can’t afford them. But they were so beautiful—

“Well, we’re not selling and you’re not buying, so let’s get on with it,” Brice said, glancing at his watch. “I already told you we’ve given statements to the local police. What more do you need?”

Lieutenant Caldwell faced Abby and Brice then. “You see, Mr. Connors, that place where the crime happened is sort of in a no-man’s-land, the lake and all. Part in one county, part in another, it makes for confusion. In cases like this they often call in the state investigators, and that’s what happened this time. And just to keep things straight in my own head, I’d like to go over your statements again, get it first hand, so to speak.” He shrugged, almost apologetically, it seemed. “And, of course, you might have remembered something during the past few days that you didn’t think of when the sheriff talked to you.”

“I can only repeat what I said before,” Brice said wearily. “On Friday I drove to Portland for a business meeting with associates from my company. We had dinner together and talked until about ten-thirty. I went to bed around twelve. I had to make notes about the meeting; it took awhile. On Saturday morning I checked out, drove down to Salem and had breakfast there, and then I drove home. I gave the sheriff copies of the log of my trip and my receipts. And they already took our fingerprints, they said for elimination purposes. That’s all I can tell you.”

Caldwell had been listening intently, consulting a notebook from time to time. He nodded. “Your firm is Hartmann and Fine Financial Services?”

“Yes. The head office is in Bellingham; there’s an office in Spokane, one in Olympia, in Portland, Salem, and here in Eugene. A representative from each office attended the meeting.”

“Your company in trouble?”

“No. It’s not like that! If you read the newspapers, you know how the market’s been for over a year, crazy swings up and down. We have clients who get antsy when it gyrates like that. We’ve been having these meetings once a month over the past year. Purely routine.”

“You always go?”

“No. There are three of us here in the Eugene office: we take turns. They aren’t exactly pleasure jaunts, Lieutenant. It happened to be my turn.”

Caldwell nodded, as if everything Brice said checked out with the notes he had. Then he said, “I understand that some of the associates share rides. Do you do that?”

“No,” Brice said stiffly. “Dave Fulton is in Salem, and I would have stopped and picked him up, but I planned to stay over Friday night, and he didn’t. So we drove up separately.”

“Do you usually stay up there overnight?”

“That was the first time,” Brice said. “The other times I went I didn’t get home until after two in the morning. We never know when the meetings will end, and no matter when I go to bed, I’m awake by six-thirty. I decided to stay and get some sleep this time since Abby would be gone.”

“Did you check in at your office here in town before you drove up to Portland?”

Brice’s impatience was clearly strained almost past endurance. “I already told them. No. Abby didn’t have to go to work until nine, and we lazed about that morning. I left when she did.”

The lieutenant asked more questions: where he had stayed, the names of his associates, where they had met, had dinner, where he had had breakfast. All things Brice had gone through with the sheriff, all things already in his notebook, Abby felt certain. Brice’s tension was almost palpable; she took his hand and held it. At first he was as stiff and unresponsive as she had been all week, then he squeezed her hand and she could feel his tension ease. They were both like that, she thought fleetingly, coiled so hard and tight that a word, an expression, a breeze might make either of them erupt in some predictable way.

“Okay,” Caldwell said at last, and turned to Abby. “Mrs. Connors, you want to tell me about Friday?”

She moistened her lips and released her hand from Brice’s grasp, which had grown increasingly hard. “I was at the coast with friends.”

He smiled at her. “In just a little more detail, maybe?”

“Jonelle, Jonelle Saltzman, picked me up when I got off work at about two and we drove out. To Yachats. Emma Olson and Francesca Tremaine came out a little later. We walked around, ate dinner, and talked until very late. On Saturday the deputy came to tell me. Jonelle brought me home.”

“This is something you do often, go spend the weekend with your pals?”

“Once a year, sometimes twice.”

“Who made the reservation?”

“I did. At the Blue Horizon Cottages.”

“Why that weekend?”

“Since Brice would be away, and the others could make it, it seemed a good time.”

“When’s the last time you folks were at the lake, Mrs. Connors?”

She moistened her lips again. “August.”

“I understand your father called you on Friday morning. Is that right?”

She nodded.

“What did he say? How did he sound?”

“He asked if I could come over for the weekend, and I said I couldn’t.” She realized that the other detective, the woman, was watching her hands, and she glanced down and saw them clutching each other almost spasmodically. She flexed her fingers and spread them, then let her hands rest in her lap. “If I’d gone it wouldn’t have happened,” she said in a low voice. “I could have gone there instead of to the coast. If I…”

“For God’s sake, Abby! You might have been killed, too,” Brice said. “You couldn’t have stopped the maniac who shot him. You would have been killed with him.”

“Do you remember exactly what he said that morning?” Caldwell said, ignoring Brice.

She nodded. “He was happy and excited. He said, ‘This is important. I have something to tell you.’ He was laughing and happy. And I said I couldn’t.”

“Did he say what was important?”

She shook her head. “I asked if he could come to town on Saturday, that we could all have dinner Saturday night, and he said he’d just stay put and work.”

Brice put his arm around her shoulders, squeezed her shoulder lightly. “Lieutenant Caldwell, tell her she couldn’t have prevented what happened out there. It wasn’t her fault.”

Abby avoided glancing at him; he sounded desperate, pleading. A glance now might be the cue that would make her erupt in tears. And she was determined not to cry now, not now. Get through this, that was all that mattered.

“Tell me about the dog,” Caldwell said, paying no attention whatever to Brice.

Brice squeezed her shoulder harder.

“Spook? What about her?” Abby asked.

“Mr. Halburtson said she barked during the night, all the next morning. Did she bark a lot?”

Coop Halburtson was the nearest neighbor to her father’s cabin; he always heard Spook when she barked. Abby shook her head. “No. Just if a raccoon came around, or a cougar, or a stranger, something like that.”

“Did the dog stay out every night?”

“No. Sometimes there are bears, or cougars… He kept her inside. She has a dog door and can come and go when she wants to, but he always locked it at night.” She added, “She, Spook, tangled with a skunk once and he said… He said he never wanted that to happen again.” She looked down at her hands; they were clutching each other hard.

“Mrs. Connors,” the lieutenant said then, “from all we’ve been able to find out up to now you’re probably the one who was closest to your father. You lived with him for years after your mother moved to Seattle; you kept in touch. Did he have enemies? Did he ever tell you about anyone who might have wanted to harm him, kill him even?”

She shook her head.

“Do you know where Matthew Petrie is?”

She looked up, startled. “No. I haven’t seen him or heard from him since… since we were divorced, eight years ago.”

“Why did your father give Petrie a check for fifteen thousand dollars the day after you divorced him?”

Caldwell didn’t look menacing, merely puzzled, but suddenly Abby began to feel as if he had been building a trap, luring her toward it gently, effortlessly even, but knowing exactly what he was after, where he intended to lead her. She shook her head again. “I don’t know anything about that. Dad didn’t have that kind of money back then. Who told you that?”

Caldwell shrugged. “You see, when it comes to a murder investigation, we have to go through a lot of history, records, bank records, things like that. It came up. Did your father and Petrie have a big fight before Petrie took off?”

“Not a fight. Just yelling back and forth. But Matthew wouldn’t have a reason to come back, to hurt him.” Then she whispered, “You’ve been going through all his papers, his private affairs, everything.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Connors, but it’s part of the routine. We have to try to tie up some loose ends.”

Abruptly Brice stood up. “I think this has gone on long enough, Lieutenant. The sheriff summed it up. Some psycho, probably high on meth or something, went to the cabin and shot Jud. The dog barked and the guy got away. It has nothing to do with Abby or with the past.”

Caldwell eyed him speculatively, then nodded. “You’re probably right. Occam’s razor, the simplest solution is most often the right one, but we’re stuck with routine, like most people. We just have to follow up if there are a lot of loose ends.” He looked at Abby once more and asked, “Do you know why your father got cashier’s checks a couple of times a year for the past seven years, who they were for?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“See? A loose end. Was he giving you an allowance, paying for your schooling?”

“Yes. He said it was his job, to see that I got an education even if it took a lifetime to do it.” She blinked rapidly, then ducked her head again. “But not cashier’s checks, just a regular check every month.”

Brice was still standing, his face flushed with anger. “People get cashier’s checks for a lot of reasons. He traveled a lot, maybe he didn’t like to use credit cards, or carry cash with him. What’s that go to do with his murder?”

“Over a hundred thousand dollars, walking around money? And he did use credit cards, you see. So, a loose end.”

“A hundred thousand?” Brice sat down hard.

Caldwell nodded, then said, “More, actually one hundred forty-five thousand. Just one or two more things, and we’re out of here. I talked to Harvey Durham, your father’s attorney and executor of his estate, and he said you weren’t aware of the codicil your father added to his will years ago. Is that right?”

Abby nodded.

“Do you have any idea why he added it?”

“No.”

“Strange thing to add. You inherit it all, act as his literary executor, continue to get your monthly allowance, but you can’t touch the principal or sell anything for six months. He never mentioned that to you?”

“No. Harvey told us on Monday.”

“But you knew you were his heir?”

“Yes. After my mother remarried, he told me he had changed his will. We… we laughed because he didn’t have anything to leave except the cabin and his papers.”

“Did he tell you about the designation with thirty-days contingency clause?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Did he confide in you at all about his finances, the sales of his work, how much he was making in the past few years?”

“No. Lieutenant, he never talked about money, not when he didn’t have any, not when he did. It just wasn’t important to him. He began to travel, and he bought me a new car, a Toyota Supra, two years ago, and bought a van, a sports utility van, but even that wasn’t really important to him. More like a necessity, living back in the mountains as he was. I don’t know how much he was making, or what he was doing with it.”

She had a flashing memory of the time Brice had suggested that his company would be happy to advise Jud about stocks, mutual funds, whatever.

Jud had laughed. “There are three people that, if you use their services at all, you should make sure are not related to you. Your doctor, your lawyer, and your money manager. But thanks.”