The Summer Bones (27 page)

She rose woodenly. “I'd better call her back.”

Rachel nodded. Her eyes dropped to her plate. She rubbed a finger through a smear of butter. “Oh, Tori?”

Halfway to the door, Victoria turned, “Yes?”

A smile, slight and crooked with malice. “Where were you anyway? Where did you sleep?”

Without bothering to answer, Victoria walked out of the kitchen and down the coolness of the downstairs hallway. At least, in her present state of numbed apathy, Rachel couldn't touch her. She passed into the parlor and sat in the old velvet chair. The familiar musty smell pressed down on her as she lifted the receiver and began to dial. Dredging up the number from an uncooperative memory, she was surprised to hear Gail herself answer the line.

As soon as she identified herself, Gail said urgently, “We need to meet. I know this a hard time, but it's important.”

Hard time.
Victoria objectively considered that phrase. “Why?” she asked coldly.

“I saw the news last night. Missing woman found in farm pond. It was awful. I called your father and got someone at his apartment. They told me”—a breath—”that it was true. Emily is dead. That her body has been found.”

“It's true.” Victoria forced herself to say it, to believe the unbelievable. “Em is dead.” It was like cutting off a limb. It hurt. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“You were here the other day. Donna told me you went through the office. I want to meet with you now and explain certain things. Will you come?”

“What do we need to discuss?”

“This whole ugly … thing.” The reply was choked—such emotion from someone who had so callously derided Emily and her lack of responsibility. Maybe Gail regretted speaking ill of the dead.

Victoria asked harshly, “Do you know who her lover was, Gail? Did you know she was pregnant?”

“Oh, God. Meet me. Please.”

With a start, Victoria realized that the woman on the other end of the line was struggling not to cry. Her breathing was choppy and harsh.

It was the only thing that would have persuaded her to agree to a meeting. “Where?” she asked simply.

* * * *

The restaurant was airy and gleaming with glass, just the type of ultramodern establishment that Victoria expected of Gail Benedict. Black tables with chrome legs and slim waiters in stark white shirts and black vests. Gail was waiting, elegant and cool in dark slacks and a pale pink blouse, sitting in a booth and staring at a martini glass with a stranded olive in the bottom. As Victoria sat down, the older woman lifted her head and signaled to the waiter for a refill.

“Drink?” The crisp hair swung at her jawline.

Victoria felt her empty stomach lurch in response to the suggestion. “No thanks. Iced tea, maybe.”

“Back in a sec.” The waiter was young and nice-looking, and he smiled broadly before weaving away between the tables.
How incredible it is to see people acting normally,
Victoria marveled,
smiling and laughing.

There had been no laughter at the farm when she had told Aunt Kate she was leaving. Her mother had stirred at the idea of it, demanding to know where and why, tissues still clutched in her fist, her face white with pain and denial. “How could you? At a time like this, you can't just up and leave. Where? Tell me where?”

“Just out,” Victoria had said, and gotten into her car. Maybe it wasn't fair to leave. But it wasn't helping anyone, not Emily, not herself, not her family, to simply sit there.

Unanswered questions yammered to be explained. Who had done this? How had they gotten Emily's body to the pond unnoticed by anyone? They didn't even know how she had died and Danny Haase hadn't offered any information. There hadn't even been an official confirmation that the body was indeed Emily's.

Gail regarded her with cool eyes. There were dark circles like half-moons in the tender flesh underneath, like smudged paint. Her mouth, too, looked pinched. “Will you eat something?” she asked. “You look like you could use it.”

“I don't know.” Victoria had eaten nothing in the last twenty-four hours. Nothing except Uncle Jim's devastating little blue pill.

“I'll tell you what,” Gail offered, picking up the menu. “I'll order for the both of us and you just do your best, will that do?”

“Fine.”

Her iced tea came. She toyed with it as Gail ordered Tuscan shrimp salads with fennel and hearts of palm and Italian bread. Music was playing over the sound system. Victoria recognized Handel's
Water Music
. It seemed inordinately cheerful.

Water Music,
for heaven's sake.

“I need to explain,” Gail said, her gaze following the departing waiter. “I was short with you on Tuesday and I am very sorry. The strain of having Emily gone has been terrific. I guess I'm not surprised you came back. Donna told me you'd called and asked if I would be there. I'm afraid,” the smile was detached, “she's too young for the job.”

“I barged in,” Victoria said without apology. “I had to.”

“Yes, I heard. Even bringing along reinforcements.” A small smile—an acknowledgment of how much she had stood in the way. “I've met your cousin before, at one of Emily's parties. I'm not surprised that Donna melted like warm butter.”

The last thing Victoria could deal with was talking about Damon. Or even thinking about him and about what had almost happened the night before. She said quickly, “You knew she was pregnant, didn't you?”

Gail frowned, dark brows forming small arches. “I knew. I'd known for a month, maybe. Emily came to me and told me all about it—very frank, very open. She was pregnant, she said, and had decided to keep the baby. I was stunned. I guess I first thought when she dropped out of sight that she'd changed her mind. I felt she should have at least let me know what was going on.”

“She wanted to keep it?” There was a moment, a heartbeat, while Victoria let herself contemplate the possibility of a niece or nephew. A tiny being that was part of Emily. Her throat tightened.

Gail said, “She told me she hadn't ever considered how it would feel to be pregnant. She didn't want to abort the baby.”

Victoria moved in her seat. “What about Ronald?”

“She was going to work that out—tell him, give him a chance. To keep her, he'd have to accept this pregnancy. She'd made up her mind.”

Victoria didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified. So Emily
had
talked to Gail after all, just as she'd suspected. The suggestion that Emily would force her husband, especially someone like Ronald, to accept another man's child was a bit extreme—to expect him to live day to day with the growing proof of her infidelity. “That's outrageous,” she murmured starkly, “even for Emily.”

“Emily was an unpredictable creature.” Gail's voice was thick. “In spite of it all, I'm going to be lost without her.”

Lost. Yes.
Victoria stared at her glass.

Gail lifted her martini and sipped it, setting it down carefully on the paper napkin in front of her. The strained set of her features spoke volumes. “I tried to talk to her. To warn her about the complications in the situation she was creating. She wouldn't listen.”

“No.” It was weary affirmation. Emily was Emily—full guns ahead. If she had decided she wanted the baby and was going to keep it, she wouldn't worry about the fireworks.

Their salads arrived, smoothly slid into place on the polished table. Victoria looked at the pink curls of shrimp and pale greens with no enthusiasm. Gail didn't seem too inclined to eat either, intent instead on drinking her lunch.

“So who was it?” Victoria took her fork and picked up a shrimp. “Who was she sleeping with? A client?”

Gail dropped her eyes and said indifferently, “I don't know his name. Someone she met. The affair was over.”

Victoria put a shrimp into her mouth and chewed experimentally. It was good for her to have gotten away from the farm, she knew that now. Driving away had afforded the same kind of protection that thinking about the puzzling details did—isolation from being brought face to face with the awful reality. The day before might have been some terrible, awful dream in this busy place of glass and light and music. She asked, “She never told you anything about him? Where they met? What he did? Whether he was married? The police are going to want to know everything.”

Gail began to eat quickly, chewing jerkily. “I don't know much. Just that it was over. The affair had been … impulsive, foolish, a spur-of-the moment thing. That was enough for me. What was happening between her and Ronald was more disturbing. He suspected. He would call the office and ask for her, demanding to know where she was. He would show up now and then, unannounced. Ronald has a terrible temper. They would argue. I was scared to death every time he came to the office.”

At that, Victoria put down her fork. Her stomach tightened in distress. “Did she ever say anything about him abusing her, Gail?”

A moment of hesitation hung in the air, but then she shook her head. “No.”

“She wasn't frightened of him? You never got that feeling from her?”

Again, Gail hesitated as if she wanted to confirm the suspicion. But she answered quietly, “I don't think so. But if you ask me, she should have been. Ronald Sims is volatile. I think she underestimated his jealousy.”

It was nearly an accusation. “Had she told him yet? About the baby, I mean? Had she told him?” The edge to Victoria's voice was not something she could help. The facts were painfully plain. Someone had probably killed her sister, and had undoubtedly hidden her body. If Ronald had known about the baby, it gave him a solid motive—crime of passion. The words swam up suddenly, running like a billboard display through her head.

Gail responded, “I don't know.” She'd taken only a few bites of her salad but seemed to be finished anyway, her interest switching back to her drink. The waiter brought a fresh one without being asked.

“Good boy,” she muttered as he swept the empty glass away. His smile was a brilliant flash in a tanned face. A healthy tip seemed a sure thing. “Umm,” she drank gratefully.

“I told the police that Ronald had been following her.” Victoria volunteered the information quietly. “I told them she was pregnant and he wasn't the father.”

“What did they say?” Gail didn't look up from her drink. The olive bobbed and moved as she pushed it idly with a forefinger.

“They asked me if I knew the name of the man she had been seeing. It has to be important. He might be the key to this whole thing.” Victoria thought it was momentous herself. She found it hard to believe that Emily would have kept him such a mystery.

Gail said firmly, “I wish I could help but I don't know anything.” She picked up her glass and drank the very last of her third martini. “If you ask me, they need look no further than Ronald to find who killed her.”

On Tuesday, they mourned Hallie Helms. On Wednesday, there was a memorial service at the Messiah Lutheran Church for Emily Sims.

Danny had attended both occasions, wearing one of his two good suits, sitting next to his mother in the pew, murmuring condolences and avoiding the eyes of the family—
actively
avoiding the eyes of the family.

Pino was tireless and he himself was dedicated, but it didn't seem to do them any good. It hadn't done Hallie Helms or Emily Sims any good either—not so far. The trail on Hallie Helms was so cold when they'd begun the investigation that it was almost impossible to confirm anything or gather evidence. None of Randy Knox's pals could confirm or deny his story of a movie that Saturday night. They'd gone door to door in the neighborhood where her father had dropped her off and learned nothing. They had talked to Hallie's friends, her teachers, her relatives. No one seemed to be able to contribute any valuable information. No one saw her getting into a stranger's car, no one saw her in downtown Mayville that evening, no one knew anything.

Emily Sims was different. Plenty of evidence everywhere; her abandoned car, her body sunk with fencing wire and bricks at the bottom of a pond, a whole family with opportunity, and a husband with a clear motive. Not to mention the possibility of an illicit affair with her cousin who would then have both motive and opportunity. The autopsy had shown blunt trauma to the back of the skull and a broken arm and collarbone. She had suffered fractured ribs as well. Her death had been violent.

Danny inherently disliked thinking about it.

“This is how I see it.” Pino crooked an index finger. “We have two obvious and possible scenarios here.” His restless gaze searched the window. The countryside blazed past in a glory of summer sun. The night before had produced some cool breezes, raising hopes but not following through with the longed-for rain. Right after the Sims service, Danny had changed clothes and picked up Pino. The past several hours had been spent questioning the neighbors of Ronald and Emily Sims. They had planned on visiting her office, but the place had been closed up tight.

“Yes?” Danny regarded the road with smarting eyes. He was exhausted. Besides two murder cases he didn't even want to deal with, he had his regular duties.

Pino mused, “Ronald Sims could have followed his wife—as he admits to doing before—as she was driving to the Paulsen place. Either she saw him and stopped, or he forced her to stop somehow, and they had a confrontation. He kills her and puts the body in his car. Then he drives to the farm and decides to sink the body in the pond. He's been there enough to know that the fencing wire is in the barn and the bricks are handy. Wha-la.”

A flourish of the hand and
Wha-la
, Danny thought darkly. That was it, plain and simple? A man condemned for killing his wife without one real shred of proof except his own damning admission that he had taken to following her.