Halfway to Half Way (24 page)

 

 

They didn't, so Hannah launched into the day's third recounting of her discussion with Lieutenant Williams, then the second and highly edited version of her argument with Marlin Andrik.

 

 

"The good news is, Eagle-Eye Bisbee found a clue in what I thought was a worthless police report." She delivered the afternoon's revelations about Vehicle Identification Numbers as effusively as a starlet with a pesky substance-abuse problem.

 

 

"Delbert didn't tell me the significance of what he found out from that Web site about Royal's car," she said, "but I wouldn't be surprised if it broke the case wide open."

 

 

Having at once flattered the old fart and primed the gumshoes, Hannah's arm swept up, like a game-show host's. "I concede the floor to P.I. Bisbee, Esquire."

 

 

Which he literally took, grunting and wincing, but also grinning, as he leveraged himself from the chair. Stapled copies of the Sanity Police Department report and the computerized search results were passed around the table. "First, feast your peepers on the date Chlorine filed that missing persons' report. Then, at the date she said Royal left home."

 

 

Marge said, "She waited fifteen days to report him missing?"

 

 

"Her excuse is in the report, too," Delbert said. "Now look at the date the title to Royal's Chevy was registered to a new owner in Ottawa, Kansas."

 

 

Hannah complied. "A month
before
Chlorine said Royal left town?"

 

 

"Thirty-two days, to be exact," Delbert corrected. "My guess is, she didn't call the cops until people started asking why Royal hadn't come home yet."

 

 

"A risk it was," Leo said. "The neighbors, they could have remembered the car was gone before that and told the policeman."

 

 

"Not as risky as feeding him arsenic and hiding the corpse in the backyard," Delbert reminded him. "Chlorine counted on the neighbors being accustomed to Royal's comings and goings. His car being home longer than usual? That would've attracted attention. Being gone longer? Probably not."

 

 

Rosemary shivered. "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, Chlorine Moody isn't just a murderer, she's a monster."

 

 

Frowning, Marge leaned sideward and whispered, "What's he thinking?"

 

 

"That Chlorine poisoned Royal, buried him, then drove his car to Kansas and sold it to cover her tracks."

 

 

"Like I told Hannah this afternoon. People disappear. Cars don't. Chlorine had to get rid of that Chevy for her story to work."

 

 

Marge asked, "Okay, but then how did she get home?"

 

 

"Twenty-three years ago, you could still take a bus to just about anywhere," IdaClare said. "And surely Chlorine had her own car, with Royal being away that much. She could have parked it near the bus depot before she left town."

 

 

"Or walked home," Rosemary offered. "The old depot's boarded up now, but it wasn't far from the square."

 

 

A sickening thought occurred to Hannah. Chlorine hadn't made that trip to Kansas alone, either. Leaving her three-year-old son that long with a friend or neighbor would prompt questions beforehand, and be potentially memorable after the police were called in.

 

 

If Rudy had later remarked on what might have been an adventure to him, his mother would have insisted he'd imagined it. Or, from Hannah's impression of Chlorine, spanked the boy for lying and sent him to bed without his supper.

 

 

IdaClare pointed at a paragraph in the police report. "I realize that Chlorine told the police that Royal went to Kentucky, not Kansas." She looked at Delbert. "But isn't it possible that she told the truth? That Royal lied to
her
about where he was going? And that he sold the car, so he could disappear without a trace?"

 

 

"Sure," Delbert said. "But if Royal sold the car, that means he was gone a month before Chlorine notified the police, then told them it'd only been two weeks."

 

 

"That doesn't make much sense," Rosemary agreed.

 

 

"Neither does Chlorine selling a car with Royal's name on the title," Marge added. "Both owners have to sign it over, don't they?"

 

 

"Not the married people, no," Leo said. "A title in both the spouses' names, either can sign for the sale."

 

 

Rosemary laughed. "Do you mean I could sell the Thing without you even knowing about it, until it was a done deal?"

 

 

"Get rid of my Thing?" Leo recoiled in horror. "From the first date we had, you said you loved my Thing. Out now from the blue you say to get rid of it?"

 

 

Rosemary kissed his jowl. "I'm teasing, okay? I
do
love your Thing. You wouldn't be you without it."

 

 

That was true, Hannah thought. Leo without that vintage convertible Volkswagen would be like Delbert without the Edsel.

 

 

IdaClare sighed and shook her head. "It does make more sense that Chlorine sold the car. Otherwise, there's no logical reason to tell the police she hadn't heard from Royal in two weeks, when it was really over a month."

 

 

Marge blurted, "Unless he came home for a day or so,
after
he sold the…Mmm. Never mind. If he'd traded cars and Chlorine thought he'd abandoned her, she'd have given the police the description and VIN of the new one."

 

 

"As I was about to say," IdaClare went on, "what isn't in any of this paperwork is one single solitary iota of proof for Delbert to keep insisting that Chlorine poisoned her husband with arsenic."

 

 

"Oh, yes, there is." Delbert rocked on his heels and looked enormously pleased with himself. "Allow me to direct you to the police report, paragraph five, line three, sentence two, starting with, 'Mrs. Moody's face, neck, lower arms and hands were…'"

 

 

Hannah read the passage, then pursed her lips. No lightbulbs switched on. None glowed above Marge's, Rosemary's or IdaClare's heads, either, but Leo's right ear flushed as rosy pink as IdaClare's pantsuit.

 

 

Strangely, Delbert seemed to address Leo exclusively when he said, "Nasty stuff, arsenic. It's safe enough to be around, though, if you wear protective clothes, gloves, goggles and a face mask, then wash up real good afterward."

 

 

His gaze traveled from IdaClare around to Marge. "If you don't, and that powder gets on your skin, you'll break out with what appears to be—"

 

 

"The worst case of poison ivy I've ever seen," Hannah quoted from the report. She thought a moment. "Maybe that's why the officer went easy on Chlorine. Lieutenant Williams told me, if he'd conducted that interview, he'd have pinned her down more."

 

 

Delbert's fist smacked his palm. "And anybody that says it's just another coincidence, like the rose hedge, the curbside trash service, Moody's car, and the card game Chlorine took the credit for, I'll make you a helluva deal on some land I got down Florida-way."

 

 

Quiet descended for several long, ponderous moments. Then, IdaClare said, "A month." She reviewed the dated police report and the printout on Royal's car. "If you're right, her skin was still broken out from that poison a
month
after she murdered him?"

 

 

Rosemary chimed in, "Badly enough for the police officer to comment on it?"

 

 

A somewhat deflated Delbert admitted that he had no answer for why the aftereffect would've lasted that long. "Maybe it was on the clothes she wore and it didn't come out with the first couple of washes. Same could go for the towels she cleaned up with. There's no mention of the boy suffering likewise, but he could've, from the powder circulating through the ductwork."

 

 

"Or," Hannah suggested, knowing someone else would, if she didn't, "Chlorine just had a bad case of poison ivy the day she reported Royal missing."

 

 

* * *

Two hours later, Hannah squeezed the telephone receiver, wishing it was that lousy rat fink Marlin Andrik's neck. She almost said so, then remembered Bev Beauford's cause of death. Flipping off the great room ceiling was more compassionate, but less than satisfying.

 

 

"So," she said, "how long were you at the Outhouse, before Marlin told on me? Thirty seconds? Thirty-one?"

 

 

David chuckled. Or growled. Hard to determine on the phone, even when he wasn't thoroughly exhausted. "I'm not sure he'd have mentioned it, if an intern hadn't shown up with a file she'd found in the basement."

 

 

A file? Hannah stifled a
bingo
reverberating in her mind. After all, she'd already told Delbert she was resigning from Code Name: Epsilon. Life was happening, and she had other plans to make. The inevitable was now.

 

 

Delbert hadn't seemed surprised, disappointed or argumentative—a hugely suspicious reaction, if the meeting hadn't ended with a vote to surveil Chlorine Moody. Task Force: Hide and Wait would nab her red-handed, the instant she loaded Royal's corpse in her trunk to move to a safer burial site.

 

 

David went on. "The file was on a man named Modine, not Moody, but I do believe you got Marlin's antennas on alert."

 

 

"Not a chance. He just wanted to prove me wrong. And did, in his usual, snide way." She sighed. "But honestly, Delbert has pieced together a pretty compelling case against Chlorine Moody."

 

 

"Oh, he has, huh? Any facts to back it up, or just rumor, innuendo and too many
Murder, She Wrote
reruns?"

 

 

Behind that casual, slightly caustic tone lurked a lawman with no dearth of natural curiosity and a grudging respect for Delbert's instincts.

 

 

Hannah outlined the circumstantial evidence the gumshoes had collected. A few tiny prosecutable details, such as Delbert questioning Chlorine's neighbors while masquerading as a city employee, were glossed over, or left out entirely.

 

 

"I have a feeling that Delbert and Leo know more than what they've told us," she admitted. "And that Delbert hasn't let Leo in on everything, either."

 

 

"Women's intuition?" David asked.

 

 

"Sort of." Hannah slid a leg off the couch. Her bare foot rubbed Malcolm's belly, as if it were Aladdin's lamp and a genie would pop out to advise her on how much she should share with David. There was a fine line between being concerned for Delbert's safety and being a rat fink, like Marlin.

 

 

"It's like this," she said. "The gang was bickering and going off on tangents, as usual. All of a sudden, Delbert said to forget the whole case. Everybody—including me—thought he was bluffing, but I couldn't let them call him on it, so I stepped in and quashed the rebellion."

 

 

David drawled, "I do wish you videotaped those meetings. I'll bet they put Monty Python to shame."

 

 

True, Hannah thought, but the videotapes could be admissible as evidence in court proceedings—criminal
and
civil. "I assumed Delbert was mad because they weren't taking Epsilon, or him, seriously enough. Afterward, I wondered if it was a ploy to separate himself from the group and go lone wolf. Again."

 

 

There was background noise that didn't seem to be generating from the TV, unless it was tuned to
Animal Planet.
David said, "Why don't you call him tomorrow and tell him to bring everything he's got to my office Monday morning."

 

 

Hannah scowled at the vision of handcuffs forming in her head. Not that she didn't trust David. It was Sheriff Hendrickson, who had the bad habit of arresting the non-innocent. "Why?"

 

 

"For starters, to stall Delbert over the weekend. The Beauford case, you, and some campaign crap I can't get out of take precedence."

 

 

Hannah didn't mind being second on the priority list behind an active homicide investigation. Soon, these late-night catch-up phone calls would be conversations on the deck of the A-frame overlooking the valley.

 

 

"Second," David continued, "and I'm not BS-ing you, I think the old boy might have enough to justify a meeting with Les Williams about Royal's disappearance."

 

 

She bolted upright, scaring Malcolm right side up. Tensed and bug-eyed, his head whipped back and forth, searching for the bogeyman, so he'd know which direction to run away.

 

 

Hannah pulled down the receiver. "False alarm, big guy." Then into the mouthpiece, she asked, "Do you really think Delbert's on to something?"

 

 

"It's worth a look. Except tell him to make it Monday afternoon. Luke's signing—" Silence, then, "Just have Bisbee call me and we'll set a time."

 

 

"Okay, but next election, I've got dibs on being your campaign manager," she teased. "Luke sees way more of you than I do lately."

 

 

"Won't be for long, darlin'. Promise."

 

 

"10-4 on that, Adam 1-01." Hannah grinned and pumped her arm.
Yes.
It was all she could do to not tell him about the business plan simmering in the desk's bottom drawer.

 

 

Not yet, and not on the phone. She wanted to see his expression, the dawning realization that The Garvey Group could peaceably coexist with all that freakin' nature. After months of stalling, she had a plan.

 

 

A home-based agency was a start. There were several large
ifs
to resolve, but she dared herself to believe that finally,
finally
happily ever after had a date—Sunday, August 1—and a place—Sanity's city park—and a time…?

 

 

Two o'clock, Hannah decided, then amended it to one. Weddings. They're all about symbolism, right? Even those with a couple of weeks to go from an insane idea to "Oh Promise Me," and a sheriff's dispatcher and a lawyer/campaign manager in charge of pulling off the big day.