Killing Cassidy (13 page)

That's all it took. They appeared, slowly, warily. They jumped every time another call came over the police radio. But hunger is a powerful lure.

I put bowls of dried and canned food on the ground, poured bowls of water, and then trudged into the clearing.

“This is a crime scene, ma'am. I'll have to ask you to stay back.” The deputy, or whatever he was, looked at me oddly.

I was wearing the only set of comfort clothes I'd brought with me: old shoes, blue jeans, a red-checked shirt, a sturdy sweater that wasn't exactly new, and one of my favorite hats in bright orange wool for the chilly morning. The hat had pheasant feathers for decoration. I was carrying a large purse with hand-painted cats all over it, a large grocery bag, and a gallon jug of water. I tried not to let my mouth twitch.

“I'm Dorothy Martin. My husband and I found the body. And what makes you think it's a crime scene?”

He ignored the question. “Oh. Right. What's in the bag?”

“Cat food. Empty cans. Somebody had to feed Jerry's cats. Why do you think Jerry's death is a crime?”

The policeman cleared his throat. “Right,” he said again. “I'll get the chief.”

Alan walked over. He looked unhappy. “Your old pupil has classified me as a suspect.”

“A suspect for what? What's happening?”

“Apparently they're not quite satisfied about the death. There is no wound of any kind.”

“Darryl told you that?”

“Darryl prefers not to tell me anything, but I have excellent ears, and his men have not been quite as careful as they might be in my presence.”

“But he can't possibly think that
you
—what did he say?”

“Very little in words. A great deal in attitude.”

“Well, his deputy, or whatever he is, thinks I'm a bag lady. We may end up in the clink together.”

“And then what will happen to the cats?” He, too, was trying to play it as a comedy, and I was willing enough to follow the sidetrack.

“Oh, Alan, I can't even think about it! We can't do anything about them ourselves, in a hotel. Nobody will take them in, there are too many of them, and a shelter would—”

“Mrs. Martin.” Darryl sounded very official and very unlike the little boy I'd taught in fourth grade. “I'd like to talk to you for a minute. Could you come with me?”

I turned to hand Alan my burdens, but Darryl put his hand on my arm. “Bring them with you, please.”

He took me to one of the police cars and climbed into the backseat with me. “It's the only place to sit. Put the bag on the seat, please.”

He emptied everything out of the grocery sack. Cans, dirty spoon, everything. Without comment he put out his hand for my purse and emptied it as well. He even opened the jug of water and sniffed it.

“Well, that checks out,” he said with a hint of relaxation in his voice. “Now, can you tell me where you were and what you did for the last few days? From Saturday night on, say?”

“Is that when he died? On Saturday?”

Darryl just looked at me.

“Oh, very well. Well, we saw you Saturday afternoon, and when you had to leave, we went back to the hotel for a while. After that I did some shopping—bought some books—and then we spent the evening in, just reading and watching TV. Then, let's see, Sunday.” I racked my memory and came up with most of what we did on Sunday and Monday, though I left out the reasons for the many conversations we'd had with possible murder suspects. “Just getting back in touch with my roots,” I said firmly. “And yesterday we didn't go out at all. The weather was too bad. We—we spent most of the day just reading, talking. …” I hoped he didn't notice the hesitation. I wasn't going to tell a boy I'd met when he was nine years old how we'd spent the early afternoon.

Either he didn't notice, or Alan had already mentioned our amorous activities. “Okay, that checks out, too. Any witnesses for Saturday night or yesterday?”

“Good grief, Darryl, we were alone in our hotel room! We did have dinner at the hotel that night, but after that … and yesterday we had all our meals at the hotel. We were pretty sick of the food by the end of the day, let me tell you. In between meals, though—how could there be witnesses?”

“Right.” He made a note. “Thank you, Mrs. Martin. That'll be it, for now, anyway. You'll have to come down to the station later to have your fingerprints taken, since you were in the trailer earlier.”

“Darryl.” I tried to keep my voice level. “Come off it.”

He muttered something.

“You can't seriously consider either of us as suspects! Even if you were sure Jerry was murdered, and I can't imagine what makes you think that at this stage, what conceivable reason would we have to kill him?”

“Motive isn't a very important factor in a police investigation, at least not at first,” he said stiffly.

“Darryl!”

I must have sounded like an outraged schoolteacher, because he shifted in his seat and looked embarrassed.

“Okay, maybe I don't think you're very likely. Either of you. In fact, I think—but I have to go by the book. And the fingerprints—since yours will be in there, we have to be able to rule those out.”

Especially when a stuck-up English policeman is around. He might just as well have said it aloud. I ignored it and pounced on his unfinished sentence.

“
What
do you think?”

He shook his head, stubbornly.

“Oh, for heaven's sake! Very well, am I allowed to go now?”

He helped me out of the car with more haste than care. I think he was as eager to see me gone as I was to get out of there. Alan and I walked back to our car in silence, but as soon as we were safely inside I exploded.

“Alan, that little twerp—”

He patted my hand. “Don't get upset. He's just doing his job.”

“What do you mean, doing his job? He knows perfectly well—”

“No, he doesn't. Not for certain, and a policeman has to be certain. But if it makes you feel any better, he doesn't really think we had anything to do with Jerry's death.”

“How do you know?”

“More eavesdropping. Apparently Jerry was involved in a tavern brawl on Saturday night. Blows were exchanged. The general feeling is that someone followed him home and decided to settle the argument permanently.”

“How? You said there were no wounds.”

“The betting is on more whiskey or whatever. A great deal more.”

“Alcoholic poisoning?”

“It's not unreasonable, actually, given Jerry's habits. They'll check for time of death, of course. Those insects you don't like to think about will help. I heard one of the men talking about calling in ‘the bug man,' as he worded it. No, the theory makes a certain amount of sense. Except that it doesn't take into account—”

“Exactly.”

There was no need to say any more. Silently, I started the car, put it in gear, and drove back to the hotel, my thoughts and emotions churning.

We went up to our room. We took off our sweaters and hung them up with some care. We sat down.

Finally, I said, “Okay. Do you really think Jerry was killed because of some Saturday-night brawl?”

There was a long pause. Alan ran a hand down the back of his neck, adjusted his collar. “No.”

I waited expectantly. He said no more.

“Well?”

“Just that. I don't think he was killed because of a brawl. I have no reason whatever for that opinion, except that I don't believe in coincidence.”

Another long pause.

“Alan, we're in a mess.”

“Yes.”

“We're involved in an unexpected death. If we go around asking questions about Jerry or Kevin, Darryl will find out, and we'll be in even worse trouble. Do we give up?”

Alan stood up and began to prowl. Suddenly he turned back to me. “No, I'm damned if we do!”

A
LAN
almost never swears. I waited while he paced.

“I don't believe in coincidence,” he repeated. “Kevin dies, under circumstances that seem perfectly normal—except that he thought he was going to be murdered. We come to town and begin nosing about, and Jerry—his nearest neighbor, the one who perhaps knew more about Kevin's last days than anyone else—Jerry dies, under circumstances that are odd, to say the least.

“Dorothy, it is that fact—Jerry's death—that's convinced me at last. I believe Kevin's letter. I believe that somehow, no matter how impossible it seems, he was murdered. I believe Jerry knew something important, and was murdered to ensure his silence. And I'll be hanged if I'll allow the murderer to get away with it!”

He sat down, took my hand, and let out his breath in an explosive sigh. “I must say I feel better.”

“So do I. But what are we going to do about it? We've talked to everybody we can think of and learned precious little. Oh, maybe we're building up that picture of Kevin's life you think is so important, but we don't seem to have gathered much actual evidence. Evidence is what the police are so good at. And we can't talk to Darryl because he's a possible suspect, and besides he's got it in for us.”

That produced a small grin. “You can't have it both ways, you know. Either Darryl is a murderer or he suspects us of being murderers.”

“Oh. You're right. But either way, we can't really tell him anything.”

“No.” Alan stood up again, rubbed his hand down the back of his neck, and began to pace the small room. “I must say I find it odd at my time of life to be withholding information from the police.”

I'd been doing that sort of thing for quite some time, ever since I took up crime (as in: the investigation of), but I judged it wasn't the moment to say so. “Not only that, but we can't get any information from them, either. That makes it even harder to get anywhere ourselves.”

“But not impossible!” Alan smacked the table he was passing. “Dorothy, we've got back round to the idea of a confidante—Dr. Foley. We talked about him before. He can't give us the same kind of information that the police could, but he can look up details of Kevin's last illness.”

“And maybe of some of those ‘accidents.' Look, I have an idea. I still haven't worked out where we're going on Friday when we have to get out of here. What if I call the Foleys and see if they have room for us, for the weekend anyway? That would give us plenty of time to talk, unless Doc has a bunch of emergencies.”

Alan raised his eyebrows. “Are they such good friends that you can beg a bed on two days' notice?”

“I can ask, anyway. And no, they won't be offended.”

Peggy was delighted. Of course they had room. “We've got that whole guest cottage, you know. And our football company for this weekend pooped out on us, so we were going to have to go alone. To the
Notre Dame
game! Do you have tickets?”

“We do. I had to move heaven and earth and pull every string I could think of, but we've got them. I think they're up in nosebleed territory somewhere. We'll have a wonderful view of the Goodyear blimp.”

“No, you won't. We always get four season tickets, and they're almost smack on the fifty-yard line. Oh, this is going to be fun!”

So we made arrangements to arrive late Friday morning. I hung up and turned to Alan.

“So that's that. But Friday's two days away, and Doc may not be home till late in the evening. He works awfully hard. So what do we do in the meantime? I don't want to discuss this with him on the phone at his office. Too many people to listen in, on both ends.”

“Hmmm.”

“Now don't get that gleam in your eye! How old do you think we are, anyway?”

“Eighteen.”

“Getting close to seventy, both of us.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Nothing at all, you're right. However, don't forget I have a puritan conscience. And right now it's insisting that I find some useful work to do instead of frittering away the rest of the day.”

Alan was disposed to argue with the term
frittering
, but in the end he agreed to go with me to see Hannah Schneider.

“I said I would. Who knows? She might just have some useful information for us. Anyway, I rather like the woman. She's got the courage of her convictions.”

We called, and learning she'd be home in the afternoon, spent the rest of the morning organizing a large shipment of our “bargain” goods back to England. After lunch we dressed in somewhat more respectable clothes and drove out to Hannah's.

She showed us into a large room probably designed, in the original farmhouse, to be the parlor. Yes, there was the fireplace at the end, but it was bare and cold. Hannah obviously used the space as a workroom. A sturdy table covered with stacks of papers occupied the center of the floor; a computer and its appurtenances occupied one wall. Boxes took up most of the rest of the space except for one newspaper-covered corner, where a rather dusty antique chest sat in piebald splendor, half dingy mahogany stain, half clean pine.

“That's a nice piece,” I commented. “Is your husband refinishing it? I always heard you weren't supposed to do that to antiques.”

“You're not, not if they're worth anything. This one isn't. It's just an old Sears, Roebuck chest. Mass produced, and filthy when I bought it, but I thought it would look nice cleaned up. No, my husband's been gone for years. I work on it myself when I get the time, which isn't often.

“I hope you don't mind coming in here. It's cleaner than it looks, and I have to get these fliers addressed. We're having a big community meeting about the mall in a couple of weeks, and we want this whole end of town to know about it.”

She sat down at the table and began peeling computer-printed labels off a sheet and sticking them on folded leaflets. “Now tell me, what's all this about Kevin's crazy neighbor? What was his name, Jimmy?”