“We went through the apartment. We took Oliver’s computer and anything that looked relevant. So far we’ve found nothing except that list I told you about.”
I took a troubled breath. “The list, yes.” Ken’s name flashed before me, somehow in larger font than the other names, and in bold print.
“Remember, it’s just that. A list,” Skip said, catching my expression. “There’s no information about anyone on the list. We don’t know why anyone’s name is on it except Oliver thought it should be.”
“Right. The list could mean anything.”
“We were hoping his hard drive would have real data. We’re still scouring it, but so far, there’s nothing on it that helps us.” Skip looked at his watch. “How long till your real company arrives at the house?”
“It’s covered,” I said, thinking of what a good host Henry would make for Beverly, Kay, and Bill. “I have something else.” Skip watched intently as I took three photographs from my purse and handed them to him. “Have you ever seen these?”
He frowned and peered at the set.
“Polaroids? Who takes Polaroids anymore? These must be from the Elizabethan age.” I gave him a curious look. He shrugged. “I’m taking a class in Shakespeare. You know, trying something different.”
My nephew was full of surprises, but this one rattled me. “And you didn’t tell me? Your aunt who spent twenty-seven years teaching Shakespeare, and you didn’t tell me?”
“Now you know how I feel when you go off and do my job.”
“You have a point. For now.”
“Sometimes I don’t know what’s worse, having you depressed, like about this thing with Uncle Ken, or having you in a great mood and interfering with a murder investigation.”
“Luckily, you don’t have to decide, do you?” I clicked the dome light on and pointed to the photos. “Do you recognize where these were taken? Or anything else in the picture?”
Skip held the photos to the light and squinted. “It looks like a young Uncle Ken. Can’t make out the background. Some big institution.”
I swallowed and wet my lips, which had gone dry in only the last few minutes. “And the child?”
“I don’t know. Could it be Richard or me?”
“No. The background is completely unfamiliar to me. I know it’s not either of you. I lived through your infancy and your cousin’s, remember? And it’s a girl.”
“Oh, I guess you can tell from the pink.”
“Correct.” I didn’t know why I wasn’t disposed to tell him about the rest of the pink—the bib, the hat, the jacket, and the flowered onesie that had also been in the “personal” envelope.
Skip’s face took on a serious thinking expression. He tapped the photos on his knee. “Do you mind if I take these? We have software that might help identify the site.”
“You can tell where it is from software?”
“Don’t get me wrong. We don’t have those miracle computers you see on TV shows with those fictitious, high-tech multimedia crime labs that are cleaner than heaven. Ours are—”
I held up my hand. I’d heard this speech and sympathized with real-life law enforcement. “I know. Crime labs in the United States are understaffed, underequipped, and it’s a wonder anything can be done for the cause of justice in this country.” In spite of my light tone, I believed Skip’s reports on the underfunded public forensic science agencies.
“Just so you understand. We do have a limited database that we can tap into with all the major institutions in the country. Schools, hospitals, government buildings, that kind of thing.”
“I just want to make something clear, but I don’t want any questions,” I said.
“Shoot.”
“These photographs are not related to Oliver Halbert’s case.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I mean, you may not want to use department resources—”
Skip interrupted my labored speech. “Don’t worry about it, okay?”
I gave him the envelope I’d kept the photos in. “Thanks,” I said.
I felt more excited than was warranted by Skip’s caveats about the ability of the software to identify the building in the photos, but a long shot was better than no shot. If Skip was curious about who I thought the child in the photos was, he didn’t let on. I was glad for that, and for the fact that he didn’t seem to remember how I’d nearly jumped him when he’d tried to pick up papers from the floor of my garage earlier.
“By the way, did Mom tell you she and Nick are going on another trip? It’s one of those ‘if it’s Tuesday, it’s Belgium’ tours through Europe,” Skip said.
“She did tell me. It sounds wonderful.”
“When are you and Henry going to take a little vacation together?”
It wasn’t hard to translate—after many years as a widow, Beverly, Skip’s mom, had a new boyfriend, a retired police detective whom she’d met working as a civilian volunteer for the LPPD.
Wasn’t it time I put myself out there, too? It wasn’t the first time Skip or Beverly had hinted at that. I figured I could still count on my son to frown upon the idea, but probably not my daughter-in-law, and certainly not my granddaughter, who was desperate to BFF me with Henry.
“Let’s go to dinner,” I said.
Kay and Bill didn’t seem to mind that their hostess had
been missing. To my relief, no one queried me about milk. I’d have to ask Henry later what his cover story for me had been. It occurred to me that I was building a long list of things to ask Henry later. I looked forward to the session.
Beverly, always happy to meet new people (not just a boyfriend) had struck up a conversation with attorneys Kay and Bill about evidence laws and the one known as “fruit of the poisoned tree.” As I walked by with a tray of cheese and crackers, I heard unanimity that the law should be revisited.
Henry, who anyone would nominate to play the role of Happy in a remake of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
, hummed while he drained the noodles and prepared to serve the main course.
I thought the least I could do was hold the plates as he filled them. Maddie and Taylor delivered the steaming dishes to the table where special wine (from Kay and Bill) and a multi-ingredient salad (from Beverly) awaited.
Soon my dining room table was abuzz with compliments to the chef. I wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to give Henry all the credit. The aroma of warm, friendly conversation filled the room and Maddie’s smile was wider than I’d seen it all weekend.
There wasn’t a whisper of murder.
Even dessert was accounted for. With a little more notice we would have enjoyed making it together, but instead Maddie and I had stopped at a bakery on the way home, after seeing the hanging lady from Henry’s SUV. We’d chosen a lemon chiffon pie as a “light dessert” to go with the beef. Maddie was always happy to be in charge of the last course and offered to serve it as soon as the last tip of beef disappeared from Skip’s plate.
Beverly had caught up with me in the kitchen between dinner and dessert and helped me rinse plates. “This is nice, Gerry. Just like old times,” she’d said.
I assumed she meant three days ago.
Susan called just as my guests were leaving. She
sounded so depressed, I wanted to give her a little hope.
“I’m working with Skip,” I told her.
“I’d like to have the little construction scene I made for Oliver. Can I come and get it?”
“Why don’t you let me fix it up first, Susan? I’ll try to drop it by tomorrow.”
“Okay, thanks, Gerry. Good night.”
Susan’s voice sounded melancholy and resigned. I guessed that her acquiescence on all counts was facilitated by medication.
Maybe I should look into that for myself.
I hoped Maddie would want to turn in early. I was in the
mood to go out to the garage and tackle the rest of Ken’s boxes.
“Who do you think killed Mrs. Giles’s brother?” Maddie asked. The question seemed to come out of the blue as we were straightening chairs and pillows and filling the washing machine with the table linens.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. You shouldn’t be thinking about that, anyway. Let’s talk about your Halloween costume. I’m still planning to go to your house that weekend so I can see you all dressed up and help Mom and Dad give out the candy.”
Even with a big frown, her face was sweet. “I can’t think of anything good to wear this year. Witches and ghosts are too boring. I’m too old to be an animal and, besides, I’ve done all the animals I like.”
I had a whole album of Halloween photographs to back up Maddie’s animal costume claim. Maddie as a tiger, a bear, an elephant, and three species of dinosaur, were the first six that came to mind.
“Did you get any ideas from our driving around today with Henry?”
Oops.
As soon as I asked the question, I regretted it. The last thing I wanted Maddie to remember before bedtime was the swinging mannequin.
For once, Maddie didn’t pick up on something that might lead to a “Case” discussion.
“A kid in my class is coming to the school party as a control freak. He’s collecting all the remote controls he can and he’s going to attach them to his body and frizz up his hair like a real geek.” She laughed in anticipation of seeing him.
“That’s very creative. Maybe we can think of something like that. Instead of trying to look like a person or a thing, you could go as a theme or even a word or a phrase.”
Maddie’s face brightened. “Like something from Shakespeare.”
“That’s an excellent idea,” I said, wondering what was happening to my family. I thought of calling my son, to see what he was reading these days. One of the Richard plays? Maybe they’d all gone Elizabethan on me. Why hadn’t this happened when I was trying to push it on them years ago? I guessed there was something to be said for not trying too hard to win people over.
Shakespeare always seemed to me the perfect source for Halloween material. One of my students at ALHS had written as much in an essay. I remembered the gist of his closing remark: “Witches, ghosts, and that awesome skull. What’s not to like?”
“We can Google Shakespeare quotes. I’ll bet we’ll get, like, a gazillion of them,” Maddie said.
“I’ll bet you’re right.”
It had been tricky to make Shakespeare appealing to adolescents. I’d tried all sorts of gimmicks, one of the most successful being what I called Insult of the Week. My students picked up on the idea immediately. It gave me great pleasure to hear one teenager say to another, “If you spend word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt,” from
Two Gentlemen of Verona
or “Peace, good pint-pot, peace, good tickle-brain,” from
Henry IV
.
Was it more civilized for one student to call another a “diffused infection of a man” or a “scurvy jack-a-nape priest” than to use the rude epithets they learned from television and movies? I liked to think so.
Maddie had found several possibilities for a costume, all the while expressing amazement at how many common expressions dated back to Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.
When she saw the expression, “Can one desire too much of a good thing?” on the list, her comment was, “Dad’s always saying how you
can
have too much of a good thing.”
I wasn’t prepared to reveal the bawdy connotation of that and many other phrases in the Shakespearean lexicon.
She considered using the expression “wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, for daws to peck away at it” until she learned that a daw was a kind of crow.
In the end, we decided we could have the most fun with the words of the second witch in
Macbeth
: “Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog, adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting, lizard’s leg and owlet’s wing.”
We’d make a sign for her back with the quote spelled out for those who didn’t recognize the reference.
Shakespeare was back in my life. At one time it would have been all the joy I could have wished for.
When Maddie was finally tired enough to sleep, I was at loose ends. Should I return to searching Ken’s files as I’d planned? Or work on the damaged room box for Susan? Should I work up a list to try to link Patrick Lynch, Max Crowley, or the Ferguson family to Oliver’s murder? I could do any of those things. Or I could take out my worn copy of the
Complete Works of William Shakespeare
and treat myself to a comedy.
My work ethic triumphed and I headed for the garage. I’d get Maddie to help me tomorrow with the room box, and I could pay a visit to the Fergusons’ factory on Tuesday, once I’d dropped Maddie off at school in Palo Alto.
As for revisiting
Comedy of Errors
, that would have to wait.
Now, why would I think of the play with two sets of twins as main characters?
The task seemed daunting as I surveyed the cartons
piled on either side and in front of my car in the garage. I walked around my car, pulled a stool up to the workbench along the inside wall, plunked down the cup of tea I’d fixed, and prepared to dig into history.
Each time I cut the seal on a box, I held my breath. I couldn’t have been more nervous if I’d been told that one of the boxes contained anthrax or a poisonous snake. I didn’t know which I dreaded more—finding another set of baffling photographs or uncovering evidence that would forever color my memory of my husband as a law-abiding, scrupulously honest businessman.
For about an hour, I sifted through routine material from Ken’s office—drawings, proposals, impact statements, and telephone messages. I was never so happy to be bored.
I had on three layers of clothing—a turtleneck, a vest, and a jacket, plus heavy socks, but the cold had now caught up with me. One more box, I decided, then I’d call it a night.
This box, labeled
Memos
, was filled with neat packages of letters, clipped together by month. I couldn’t possibly read every one of them. I was beginning to see the advantage of keeping correspondence on a computer where you could easily search for key words. Which words would I try to find, I wondered, if I had the choice? Would I search for “bribe”? “Graft”? “Hush money”? The whole activity was depressing.