Authors: Carlene Thompson
“Okay, so you found the diary and then what?”
“We went back to my house and read it. There are things in it that . . .” She hesitated. “Well, we thought the police should see it. But not Ames. He would want to protect Dara’s reputation, and the diary wouldn’t do much for that cause. He’d never turn it over to the authorities. So, we decided I’d bring the diary to you today. Streak left. And then . . .”
Michael Winter lifted an eyebrow and Christine felt her face getting warm. She didn’t want to sound foolish to this man. “After Streak left, I had the sensation that someone was watching me through the sliding glass doors facing the dining room table where we’d been sitting. I hadn’t closed the blinds, you see. Anyway, it was an eerie feeling, but I put it down to exhaustion and imagination. Then the cat came in, jumped up on the table, looked out, and started hissing. She only hisses when she senses danger. Or when Pom-Pom chases her. Pom-Pom is Patricia Prince’s dog. He and Rhiannon hate each other.” She was rambling and stopped herself. “Anyway, I’m sure someone was out there watching. They probably saw Streak and me reading the diary.”
For the first time, Winter’s face lost its impassive expression. “Miss Ireland, you said you thought the diary should be given to the police. Is that because you felt it pointed to someone who might have murdered Dara?”
She drew a deep breath, gathering the courage to dismiss Ames from her mind and take what she knew was the wisest course of action. “Yes. There were definitely
damning passages about more than one person. Dara was involved with at least three men, none of whom knew about the others. She seemed to think it was fun at first. Then she got scared. She thought she was being followed. She said she’d gotten in over her head.” Christine paused. “Her Christmas entry says she feels like she’d be dead in a year.”
Winter’s dark eyes flickered. “Do you think she could have been exaggerating?”
“Well, yes. Dara could be melodramatic. But in light of what happened . . .”
A quick glint in his gaze told Christine he accepted the importance of Dara’s declaration. “Who were the three men with whom she was involved?”
“I don’t know. Dara was really into using nicknames and initials. She was openly dating Reynaldo Cimino. He’s a jewelry designer at Prince’s. Very talented. Very handsome. She called him Adonis. I’d heard her use that nickname. He was crazy about her and devastated when she disappeared. Now he’s married to Tess Brown, who owns Calliope, the bookstore next to Prince’s. The woman who was in here earlier.”
“How soon after Dara’s disappearance did he marry Miss Brown?”
“About six or seven months. People said he was on the rebound. I hate to think that was true. She’s one of my closest friends.”
“All right,” Winter said slowly. “Who were the other lovers?”
“As I said, she didn’t name them. She called one the Brain and the other she always referred to by the initials
S.C
.”
Winter looked up from his notebook. “Any idea who the Brain is?”
“None. I never heard her use that nickname.”
“Know anyone with the initials
S.C
.?
“Well, I’m sure a lot of people have those initials. They aren’t uncommon. You know, like
Z
or
U
or
Q
or—”
“Miss Ireland, you might as well tell me who you have in mind.”
So much for dodging the truth with this man, she thought. “Sloane Caldwell.”
“The attorney.”
“You know him?”
“I’ve met him.”
“Oh. Well, he used to be engaged to me.” Michael Winter merely stared at her, clearly waiting for her to continue, and she couldn’t have stopped herself if she’d tried. “I was twenty-one. He was twenty-six. We were engaged for seven months. I broke off the engagement. I broke it off a week before Dara disappeared.”
She could have bitten her tongue for that last revelation. Her guilty conscience about the drama she’d created over Dara and Sloane at the party had nagged her into a confession that hadn’t been lost on Winter.
“Did your ending the engagement have anything to do with Dara?”
“Not directly. I’d decided I was too young and making a mistake. And Dara was flinging herself at Sloane.”
Flinging?
She decided she must really be flustered. She sounded like a character in a Victorian novel. She plowed on self-consciously. “Sloane never rebuffed her and to some people it could have seemed as if we broke up over her.” Winter again raised an eyebrow in question. “Okay, as a matter of fact, we had our final blow-up about her.”
And now he’s going to ask about the details of our final argument, Christine thought with dread, but he surprised her. “Has Mr. Caldwell been seriously involved with a woman since Dara’s disappearance?”
“Seriously? Not that I know of. But he’s dated other women. Quite a few, actually.”
“So you’ve kept track of his romantic life.”
Christine’s face flamed. “Certainly not!” she said hotly. “But we’ve remained friends and it’s a small town, where you hear gossip, not to mention that he works in my former guardian’s law firm.”
“Ames Prince never struck me as a gossip.”
“He’s not!” Christine’s voice was rising while Winter remained totally offhand. “But I know one of the legal secretaries. And another lawyer in the firm. They mention things sometimes. Not because I’m quizzing them, mind you. Just casually. I do not pry into Sloane Caldwell’s life. I have no interest in it except that he be well and happy—”
“You don’t need to get so wound up, Miss Ireland,” Winter said easily as his lips curled in a maddening, barely perceptible smile.
“I’m not wound up! You just made it sound like I’m a lot more interested in Sloane Caldwell than I am. That’s all.”
“All right. I didn’t mean to offend you.” He looked calmly back at his notebook as Christine glared at him. He’d managed to fluster her with a few innocuous words. And piercing looks, she fumed. The man seemed like he could look right through you. She hated it.
“You’re asking me a dozen questions about old issues,” she snapped, deciding to go on the offensive. “How about what happened to me this morning? Aren’t you interested?”
“I’m very interested,” Winter returned evenly. “That’s why I was asking so many questions about the diary. Did you have it with you at the gym?”
“No. It’s at home. Why?”
“Because your gym bag had been torn apart as if someone was looking for something. I didn’t know what. Now
I think it could have been the diary. There’s also your car.”
“What about my car?”
“I suppose you locked it, because someone used the same razor and suction cup method to cut a hole in the driver’s side window to get in. The contents of your glove compartment are scattered everywhere and some of the carpet has been torn loose. The trunk lid has been popped open and some of the carpet is torn loose there, too.”
“Oh no,” Christine groaned. “That means I have to contact the insurance company and then get a rental for a week while mine’s being repaired.”
“I think Mr. Prince has already notified your insurance company and had the car towed in with a promise that you’ll have it back in a couple of days.”
She smiled. “Thank heavens for Ames. He’s always so capable in an emergency. Except for yesterday.”
“You’d have to be superhuman to keep your head in a situation like yesterday’s,” Winter said kindly. “Now, back to the diary. Where is it?”
“At my home.”
“You say you’d decided to give it to the police. Since your doctor tells me you won’t be released until tomorrow, may I have permission to enter your house and get it?”
“Certainly.”
“May I borrow a key?”
“Sure. They put my purse in the bottom drawer of that little chest beside the bed.” Michael Winter withdrew the purse and handed it to her. She found her key ring and removed the house key, handing it over to the deputy.
“I’ll bring it back to you this afternoon.”
“That’s not necessary. Just leave it on the kitchen counter. My friend Tess will probably be picking me up in the morning, and she has a key.”
She smiled and refastened her purse, feeling she was being not only virtuous in turning over important
information to the police but also highly professional about the whole matter.
Deputy Winter looked at her expectantly. She smiled back. Finally he asked, “Where
is
the diary, Miss Ireland?”
Her image of professionalism shattered. “Oh. Well, it might be hard to find.” Winter looked at her questioningly. “When I got the feeling I was being watched last night, I hid the diary. There are no windows in my laundry room. There
is
a big box of powdered laundry detergent. The diary is buried about two inches under the powder.”
Now she felt like a complete fool. Hiding the diary in a box of laundry detergent sounded ridiculous. Paranoid. Adolescent. Winter looked at her steadily. “You should have been a spy, Miss Ireland.”
“I guess I watch too much TV,” she said sheepishly. “I just thought if someone wanted the diary and broke into the house, they’d never look for it in a box of laundry detergent.”
“That was pretty smart. If you’d taken it with you to the gym, it would be gone. If the perp entered your house, which we haven’t verified yet, he would have looked for it in a drawer or some obvious place and found it immediately.” He paused again. “Are you fairly certain someone was looking into your house when you and Mr. Archer were reading the diary?”
“Yes, but only because when we found it at the creek I had the same sensation of being watched. It could have been a coincidence that someone saw us find the diary. We weren’t keeping our voices down when we talked about it. Then he could have seen us leave with it. If he had an interest in Dara’s murder, it makes sense that he would have followed us.”
Winter nodded and made more notes. Then Christine asked, “When will Dara’s body be released?”
“No time soon, I’m afraid.”
“Why? Ames identified her.”
Winter looked at her. “He identified her on the basis of a ring found wrapped in the plastic with the body, not on the basis of any identifying marks about the body itself. It could be Dara’s ring that somehow ended up with another body. Therefore, Mr. Prince’s identification isn’t considered positive. Since the corpse’s teeth were missing, we can’t use dental records. We’ll still have to wait on the DNA results.”
Christine suddenly felt cold and pulled the blanket higher across the ugly hospital gown. “It’s hard to imagine that someone could do something so despicable as to kill someone, mutilate the body, then go on living as if nothing happened.”
“Yes, it is.” Winter closed his notebook and looked at her pleasantly. “Just a couple more questions. Did your brother or Streak Archer know where you hid the diary?”
“No. Streak had already left and Jeremy was asleep. Jeremy didn’t even know we’d read it.”
“I see. We’ll leave Jeremy out of things for now, but I will need to talk to Mr. Archer. Do you think he’ll resist questioning?”
Christine suddenly felt defensive. “Deputy Winter, no matter what you’ve heard about Streak Archer, he is
not
crazy. After his head injury in the war, his personality changed some. He doesn’t like to be around a lot of people. But he’s perfectly sane. As a matter of fact, he’s brilliant.”
“Brilliant enough for Dara Prince to have nicknamed him the Brain?” Winter asked in a coolly challenging voice.
Christine had launched into her second soap opera of the afternoon, feeling like she should turn to a news channel but unable to drag herself away from the male and female too beautiful to look human discussing how to overturn the corporation of the female’s father. “He’s had it coming for years,” the female said, flashing lip gloss and hair so shiny it looked shellacked. “I haven’t an ounce of sympathy for him. He’ll sow what he’s reaped.”
“Is Serena Santarios plotting against her daddy again?”
Christine looked at the doorway to see Bethany Burke standing behind a cart loaded with books and magazines. “Have you decided to become a doctor?” Christine asked.
Bethany smiled, dimples forming in her creamy cheeks. “Yes. I’m starting my training by pushing around this cart. I’ll work up to something harder when I feel more confident.” She wheeled her cart into the room, glanced up at the television, then at Christine. “Am I interrupting?”
“You’re saving me.” Christine flipped off the television
with the remote control. “In another hour I would have been so hooked I’d have to quit my job so I could stay home to watch this every afternoon.”
“You could program your VCR to record it,” Bethany said seriously. “That’s what I do. I never like to miss Serena Santarios. She’s so smart and strong.” Bethany’s thick chestnut hair hung below her shoulders and her brown eyes were soft and large, like an innocent little girl’s. She looked far younger than her thirty-three years. “The hospital is abuzz with the news of your attack.”
“I believe I was scared more than hurt, although I look terrible. I have a concussion and got a few stitches in my scalp. I have to stay here tonight.”
“It’s so hard to believe that someone at the gym could have done this.” Bethany shivered. “I was there just yesterday. You didn’t see the guy?”
Christine had started to describe the incident when suddenly something within her seemed to jump fearfully away from the memory. A couple of scenes flashed in her mind, then were gone. “I didn’t see a thing.” Bethany looked taken aback, and Christine realized how sharp she’d sounded. “Sorry. I’ve just been through it all with the police.”
“Oh, I understand. I didn’t mean to upset you again.”
“You didn’t. I haven’t seen or talked to you for almost a month. I suppose it’s because you’ve taken this new job.”
“Sure.” Bethany pulled a face. “It’s a very stressful position, works me to a frazzle.” She sat down on the vinyl-covered guest chair with a sigh. “Actually, I don’t like doing this at all, but Daddy’s on the hospital board.” Bethany’s “Daddy” was on the board of just about everything. Christine suddenly wondered if that’s why her friend was so devoted to watching the scheming Serena Santarios, the daughter capable of bringing down her powerful father on the soap opera. Bethany would be terrified of
defying her own father. “Daddy thought it would look good for me to do some volunteer work for the hospital. I told him that Jan needs me, but he pointed out that she’s in preschool. I can get home before I need to pick her up. He always out-thinks me. But I’m
not
volunteering this summer when she’s home all day. After all, next year she’ll be in kindergarten—”