Uncivil Seasons (7 page)

“You watch your mouth,” said Captain Fulcher.

“How come all her silverware was in his goddamn bathtub?” Cuddy shouted back at Graham.

The Popes stared at us without a word and then stared at each other. Finally, Dickey said to Graham, “That little son of a bitch; if he did it, I’m going to kick his ass!”

Graham said to us, “Y’all put the fix in, is that what’s going on here? Well, God damn it!”

Captain Fulcher had them both locked up as accessories.

We’d already sent Preston to bed; he’d gone back to trying to tell us what Charlene was like.

“He did it,” Fulcher said, doing the clicking noise with his mouth that made him sound as well as look like an agitated hamster.

“Nope,” said Cuddy.

“Listen to me, Lieutenant.”

“All right.”

“Somebody killed the Senator’s wife. Somebody robbed her first. Preston Pope robbed her and Preston Pope killed her.”

“Your logic’s real persuasive, but I’m gonna have to disagree.”

We were in Fulcher’s office, crowded in with his civic awards and bowling trophies. Photos of his children—now teenagers who wouldn’t give him the time of day—grinned gap-toothed in plastic cubes on his metal desk.

“That house is way out of Preston’s league,” Cuddy said. “Besides, if he had been there, he’d have left behind his fingerprints, his car keys, and his dog.”

I took out a cigarette, but Fulcher tapped the NO SMOKING Lucite bar on the edge of his desk, and I put it back. He added an apologetic smile. I asked Cuddy, “What makes you so sure?”

“Charlene. Listen, Justin, there wasn’t a mark on that girl. Here he was ranting and raving how he was going to kill her for whoring around, and he hadn’t even
slapped
her.”

Fulcher punched his finger on our report. “Six shots fired!”

“Not at
her.
That’s first. Number two is, Preston’s got a snapshot of himself and his mama in his wallet. He didn’t smother any fifty-year-old woman.”

Fulcher looked smug. “His mother deserted him, don’t forget that.”

With a pencil, Cuddy drew a quick series of overlapping triangles on his pad. “V.D., I’m
real
sorry you took that psychology extension course last summer.”

“Don’t get smart, mister.”

“All right.”

“And don’t
ever
call me…that.” Fulcher couldn’t bring himself to repeat his initials and spluttered to a stop.

“So where’s the rest, where’s all her jewelry and the coins?” I said. “We looked at the Popes’. They’re not there.”

“They’re somewhere,” Fulcher announced. “You find them. I want Preston Pope pinned to the wall. I want this case closed fast.” He worked into his overcoat. “I’m going home. It’s sleeting out there.” He called his wife on the phone and told her so.

As soon as the door shut, Cuddy snapped his pencil in two.

“Christ.” I lit my cigarette. “Can you believe Fulcher’s parents had the gall to name him after General Earl Van Dorn?”

“Yeah.” Cuddy threw the pencil pieces at the wastebasket. “Just because they wore silk sashes doesn’t mean those damn Confederate generals of yours weren’t idiots too.”

“What’d you call him V.D. for? You’re going to get yourself fired.”

“
You
can support me. That suck-butt’ll never fire you.”

If Fulcher had known Rowell Dollard was going to arrive ten minutes later, no doubt he would have stayed to be congratulated. We saw my uncle as we were on our way down to the lab. Cuddy’d had a patrolman bring over every pair of shoes, boots, and gloves Preston had in the house, for forensics to check them out.

•   •   •

Senator Dollard was in the foyer, standing by himself in the middle of the black and white marble parquet floor. He looked like a part of the design, with his perfect white hair and perfect black wool overcoat, and his furled black umbrella with its silver head. His face, ruddier from the cold, was tilted up at the fulllength portrait of Briggs Monmouth Cadmean that was hanging lavishly framed above the double doors to the courtroom, with a plaque below it saying he’d given Hillston the entire building. Our hollow footsteps on the marble startled Dollard. He turned, swinging the umbrella like a racquet and reminding me of the last time we’d played squash, when he’d slammed into the wall hard enough to slit open his cheek.

As soon as he saw us, he said, “Has he confessed? Pope?”

I shook my head and introduced Cuddy, who immediately said that in his opinion Preston Pope wasn’t responsible for the crime.

Rowell looked at me the whole time Cuddy was talking, but he turned to Cuddy when he stopped and said, “Then I hope you’ll find out who is.”

“I’m going to try, sir,” Cuddy answered. “I’ll be down in the lab, Justin.”

Dollard gave a small nod as Cuddy walked away. “Is he in on the case?”

I said, “Now.”

From his days as solicitor, Dollard knew this building and our procedures well; he’d followed our investigation the way he played squash, and Fulcher was terrified of his daily phone calls. Mother said Rowell’s involvement was his way of coping with what had happened to Cloris, that he would never forgive himself for losing her because he hadn’t been there to protect her, because he had never been able to convince her not to leave the house unlocked, not to trust strangers, not to realize that the world was dangerous. He insisted that only a stranger could have killed his wife, because no one who knew her could possibly want to hurt her. “Who in
God’s name
would kill Cloris? She had more friends than anyone I ever knew!”

About Cloris, Dollard was right: I had interviewed many of those friends, and by their testimony, Cloris Dollard had been the most amicable woman in Hillston. The friends were all certain, like her husband, that she had suffered by hideous chance at the hands of a transient madness. Not only had
they
not killed her, they couldn’t think of a single soul who might have, “unless he’d gone crazy.” And none of them knew anyone who might have gone even temporarily insane.

Everyone had liked Cloris. She’d liked everyone. I’d talked to a dozen members of First Presbyterian Church who’d spoken with her after services that Sunday morning, when she’d been “maybe a little quiet, but her same sunny self underneath.” I’d talked to her daughters, whom she’d called that afternoon in Phoenix and Baltimore; they said their conversations had been largely about grandchildren, and unremarkable. I’d talked to Mr. and Mrs. Dyer Fanshaw of the Fanshaw Paper Company, on whom she’d paid an ordinary afternoon call at their estate in North Hillston, two wooded meadows away from the Dollards’ own brick colonial. I’d seen her myself in the audience at the Hillston Playhouse during the second intermission of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
, for she’d been chatting in the aisle with Susan Whetstone. Susan had said she couldn’t remember what they’d talked about, but it certainly wasn’t that Cloris expected to be murdered, although she had mentioned that her stomach was upset. I had in fact interviewed most of Hillston’s inner circle, and it had very politely informed me that no one in it was a burglar and a killer.

Although I hadn’t let Captain Fulcher know it, I had even checked out that Rowell Dollard had actually gone, as he’d said, to the suite he kept over in Raleigh for nights when he worked late during sessions of the state legislature. If Cloris had died no earlier than twelve, Rowell could conceivably have rushed back in the hour and a half it took to travel the unbanked, unlighted, two-lane road between Hillston and the state capital. He could have smothered Cloris, and then sped back to Raleigh.

But, so far, I could think of no motive. If Rowell Dollard secretly kept a mistress, no one had ever heard of her; if he secretly owed millions, so far I hadn’t found out to whom, and at this point he had as much money as Cloris did anyhow. Even if they’d used the estate she’d inherited from Bainton Ames to help build Rowell’s career, the perks and payoffs of that career were now worth considerably more than his wife’s private possessions. If he secretly hated her, Hillston hadn’t noticed. Rumor was, among Cloris’s many friends, that as a bachelor Dollard had “worshiped” her even when she’d been married to Bainton Ames. They told me now, “He loved her just the same ’til the day she died.” They thought it was the most tragic thing they’d ever heard, for death to part the Dollards after all Cloris had suffered, and when Rowell was destined for even greater office.

Standing there in the foyer under the donated gilt chandeliers, I noticed how Rowell’s eyes, which were somewhat protuberant—pressing forward, like his voice and his manner—tonight looked sunk back in his skull, their color dead in his florid face. I said, “Rowell, do you want to see the report on the arrest?”

He hesitated, also unlike him, then answered, “No, just tell me.” I gave a summary of Preston Pope’s statement while he stared past me down the empty corridor of closed doors and at the courtroom doors behind us, the doors—he had told me so often—to Washington.

We stood alone in the middle of the big marble floor. When I finished talking, he asked, “But you don’t share this Mangum’s opinion, do you? About Pope?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“I see. Walk me to my car, Justin, all right? By the way, your mother mentioned something odd tonight. She said you were out to see Joanna Cadmean earlier. Something about her wanting to talk to you about Cloris.” He paused for my response, but I made none, because I wasn’t certain what I wanted to say, and he added, “I can’t think why. As far as I know, Cloris and Joanna Cadmean hadn’t met in years.” He waited again. “I did notice she visited,” he stumbled, “the grave. It surprised me at the time.”

“Isn’t that why Mrs. Cadmean came to Hillston, for the services?”

“No! I’m sure she’s just here to see her in-laws. She’s staying out at the compound with the youngest Cadmean girl, isn’t she? The one that teaches at the university?” Dollard walked toward old Cadmean’s portrait, then hurried back, as if he couldn’t think standing still.

“Briggs,” I said.

“Typical of old Briggs to name a daughter after himself. I don’t think he liked any of his sons.”

“I don’t think his daughter likes him. Mother told me tonight on the phone that Briggs moved out to the lake because she couldn’t stand to live in that brick mausoleum with her father.”

We crossed to the tall, brass-trimmed front doors. Outside, rain had already started washing the slush over the steps and into the sidewalk gutters; by morning there’d be no trace of the aber rant snowstorm.

Rowell was tapping the umbrella’s silver knob against his lips. “Did Joanna Cadmean say what she wanted to know?”

“She wanted to know if Cloris kept a diary. Did she?”

“A diary?” He was surprised. “Why? No, Cloris didn’t keep a diary.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure! Cloris was a totally…open person. She always left everything out where anybody could see it. I would have known. She would have
read
it to me.” He kept shaking his head. “What did she mean, a diary?”

I decided to tell him. “Mrs. Cadmean says your wife told her in a dream to look at a diary.”

Thoughts were shifting through his eyes as he stared at me. The eyes looked angry; but then, they often did.

“She said she dreamt Cloris came to her and said she’d been murdered, and told her to read the diary.”

Rowell began pacing again, tapping the umbrella tip loudly on the marble.

I added, “She described details I just don’t see how she could have known.”

The ruddiness of his complexion deepened in his neck and ears, and his voice dropped. “Did she say who?”

“Who what?”

He snapped, “Who killed Cloris.”

His tone startled me. “She gave the impression that she had somebody in mind, but she won’t say who. It’s just a dream. I don’t know why she chose to tell me about it. Even odder, she talked more about Bainton Ames than anything else. Another dream she’d had years ago, at the time of
his
accident; she dreamt that it was no accident. That it was murder. And she really almost had me convinced.”

Rowell kept rubbing his lips back and forth over the umbrella’s silver handle. He said, “Do you know who she was?”

I nodded. “A psychic. A mystic. She worked with you back when you were a solicitor.”

“She did not ‘work’ with me. She was somebody who came to the police and volunteered certain premonitions.”

“She knew where the bodies were buried.”

The umbrella twitched in his hand, and the knob scraped against his teeth. “You understand,” he said softly, “this woman is preternatural. You have no idea.” He turned around to me. “She’s also insane, Justin.”

“Insane? She acted perfectly normal. You know, I would have thought you’d be the last person to place any credence in…”

His face flushed. “She is
not
normal. How can you say she’s normal?”

“I mean, coherent, pleasant; you know what I mean. Obviously she’s not
normal
. Listen, Rowell, if somebody tells you they’re Jesus Christ, they’re crazy. But if somebody tells you on Monday that X is going to be killed on Tuesday and X is killed on Tuesday, it doesn’t make them crazy. It makes them pretty damn clairvoyant.”

Rowell nodded. “Or a murderer.”

“Good Christ. You’re not suggesting
she
killed Cloris? She wasn’t even in Hillston. For what possible reason?”

“For God’s sake, of course I don’t think that! Don’t be absurd! I’m suggesting you stay away from that woman.”

His command irritated me. “How much do you know about Mrs. Cadmean personally?”

His voice was curt. “I doubt I’ve seen her more than five times in the last fifteen years.”

“She never remarried. Was her marriage to, what’s his name, to Charles Cadmean, happy?”

“I have no idea. I assume so.”

“Is there any possibility she might have been involved with Bainton Ames? I’m sorry if this is awkward for you.”

He was glaring at me. “Why awkward?”

“I suppose because Bainton was Cloris’s first husband. And, quite honestly, people have said you were already involved with Cloris back when they were married.”