Murder at Monticello (20 page)

“Allowed to run away,” Harry whispered. “Miranda, we're on second base.”

“Yeah, but who's going to come to bat?” Cooper scratched her head.

46

The Coleses' library yielded little that they didn't already know. Mrs. Hogendobber came across a puzzling reference to Edward Coles, secretary to James Madison and then the first governor of the Illinois Territory. Edward, called Ned, never married or sired children. Other Coleses carried on that task. But a letter dated 1823 made reference to a great kindness he performed for Patsy. Jefferson's daughter? The kindness was not clarified.

When the little band of researchers left, Samson merrily waved them off after offering them generous liquid excitements. Lucinda, too, waved.

After the squad car disappeared, Lucinda walked back into the library. She noticed the account book was not on the bottom shelf. She had not helped Harry, Miranda, and Cynthia go over the records because she had an appointment in Charlottesville, and Samson had seemed almost overeager to perform the niceties.

She scanned the library for the ledger.

Samson, carrying a glass with four ice cubes and his favorite Dalwhinnie, wandered in, opened a cabinet door, and sat down in a leather chair. He clicked on the television, which was concealed in the cabinet. Neither he nor Lulu could stand to see a television sitting out. Too middle class.

“Samson, where's your ledger?”

“Has nothing to do with Jefferson or his descendants, my dear.”

“No, but it has a lot to do with Kimball Haynes.”

He turned up the sound, and she grabbed the remote out of his hand and shut off the television.

“What the hell's the matter with you?” His face reddened.

“I might ask the same of you. I hardly ever reach you on your mobile phone anymore. When I call places where you tell me you're going to be, you aren't there. I may not be the brightest woman in the world, Samson, but I'm not the dumbest either.”

“Oh, don't start the perfume accusation again. We settled that.”

“What is in that ledger?”

“Nothing that concerns you. You've never been interested in my business before, why now?”

“I entertain your customers often enough.”

“That's not the same as being interested in my business. You don't care how I make the money so long as you can spend it.”

“You're clever, Samson, much more clever than I am, but I'm not fooled. You aren't going to sidetrack me about money. What is in that ledger?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why didn't you let those women go through it? Kimball read it. That makes it part of the evidence.”

He shot out of his chair and in an instant towered over her, his bulk an assault against her frailty without his even lifting a hand. He shouted. “You keep your mouth shut about that ledger, or so help me God, I'll—”

For the first time in their marriage Lucinda did not back down. “Kill me?” she screamed in his face. “You're in some kind of trouble, Samson, or you're doing something illegal.”

“Keep out of my life!”

“You mean get out of your life,” she snarled. “Wouldn't that make it easier for you to carry on with your mistress, whoever she is?”

Menace oozed from his every pore. “Lucinda, if you ever mention that ledger to anyone, you will regret it far more than you can possibly understand. Now leave me alone.”

Lucinda replied with an icy calm, frightening in itself. “You killed Kimball Haynes.”

47

The squad car, Deputy Cooper at the wheel, picked up an urgent dispatch. She swerved hard right, slammed the car into reverse, and shot toward Whitehall Road. “Hang on, Mrs. H.”

Mrs. Hogendobber, eyes open wide, could only suck in her breath as the car picked up speed, siren wailing and lights flashing.

“Yehaw!” Harry braced herself against the dash.

Vehicles in front of them pulled quickly to the side of the road. One ancient Plymouth puttered along. Its driver also had a lot of miles on him. Coop sucked up right behind him and blasted the horn as well. She so astonished the man that he jumped up in his seat and cut hard right. His Plymouth rocked from side to side but remained upright.

“That was Loomis McReady.” Mrs. Hogendobber pressed her nose against the car window, only to be sent toward the other side of the car when Cynthia tore around a curve. “Thank God for seat belts.”

“Old Loomis ought not to be on the road.” Harry thought elderly people ought to take a yearly driver's test.

“Up ahead,” Deputy Cooper said.

Mrs. Hogendobber grasped the back of the front seat to steady herself while she looked between Harry's and Cynthia's heads. “It's Samson Coles.”

“Going like a bat out of hell, and in his Wagoneer too. Those things can't corner and hold the road.” Harry felt her shoulders tense.

“Look!” Mrs. Hogendobber could now see, once they were out of another snaky turn, that a car in front of Samson's sped even faster than his own.

“Holy shit, it's Lucinda! Excuse me, Miranda, I didn't mean to swear.”

“Under the circumstances—” Miranda never finished that sentence because a second set of sirens screeched from the opposite end of the road.

“You've got them now,” Harry gloated.

As soon as Lucinda saw Sheriff Rick Shaw's car coming toward her, she flashed her lights and stopped. Cooper, hot on Samson's tail, slowed since she thought he'd brake, but he didn't. He swerved around Lulu's big brown Wagoneer on the right-hand side, one set of wheels grinding into a runoff ditch. Beaver Dam Road lay just ahead, and he meant to hang a hard right.

Sheriff Shaw stopped for Lucinda, who was crying, sobbing, screaming, “He'll kill me! He'll kill me!”

“Ladies, this is dicey,” Cooper warned as she, too, plowed into the runoff ditch to the right of Lucinda. The squad car tore out huge hunks of earth and bluestone before reaching the road again.

Samson gunned the red Wagoneer toward Beaver Dam, which wasn't a ninety-degree right but a sharp, sharp reverse thirty-degree angle heading northeast off Whitehall Road. It was a punishing turn under the best of circumstances. Just as Samson reached the turn, Carolyn Maki, in her black Ford dually, braked for the stop sign. Samson hit his brakes and sent his rear end skidding out from underneath him. He overcorrected by turning hard right. The Wagoneer flipped over twice, finally coming to rest on its side. Miraculously, the dually remained untouched.

Carolyn Maki opened her door to assist Samson.

Cooper screeched to a stop next to the truck and leapt out of the squad car, gun in hand. “Get back in the truck,” she yelled at Carolyn.

Harry started to open her door, but the strong hand of Mrs. Hogendobber grasped her neck from behind. “Stay put.”

This did not prevent either one of them from hitting the automatic buttons to open the windows so they could hear. They stuck their heads out.

Cooper sprinted to the car where Samson clawed at the driver's door, his head pointing skyward as the car rested on its right side. Oblivious of the minor cuts on his face and hands, he thrust open the door and crawled out head first, only to stare into the barrel of Cynthia Cooper's pistol.

“Samson, put your hands behind your head.”

“I can explain everything.”

“Behind your head!”

He did as he was told. A third squad car pulled in from Beaver Dam Road, and Deputy Cooper was glad for the assistance. “Carolyn, are you okay?”

“Yes,” a wide-eyed Carolyn Maki called from her truck.

“We'll need a statement from you, and one of us will try to get it in a few minutes so you can go home.”

“Fine. Can I get out of the truck now?”

Cooper nodded yes as the third officer frisked Samson Coles. The wheels of his Jeep were still spinning.

Carolyn walked over to Mrs. Hogendobber and Harry, now waiting outside the squad car.

Harry heard Sheriff Shaw's voice on the special radio. She picked up the receiver, the coiled cord swinging underneath. “Sheriff, it's Harry.”

“Where's Cooper?” came his gruff response.

“She's holding Samson Coles with his hands behind his head.”

“Any injuries?”

“No—unless you count the Wagoneer.”

“I'll be right there.”

The sheriff left Lucinda Coles with one of his deputies. He was less than half a mile away, so he arrived in an instant. He strode purposefully over to Samson. “Read him his rights.”

“Yes, sir,” Cooper said.

“All right, handcuff him.”

“Is that necessary?” Samson complained.

The sheriff didn't bother to respond. He sauntered over to the Wagoneer and stood on his tiptoes to look inside. Lying on the passenger side window next to the earth was a snub-nosed .38.

48

“Copious in his indignation, he was.” Miranda held the attention of her rapt audience. She had reached the point in her story where Samson Coles, being led away to the sheriff's car, hands cuffed behind his back, started shouting. He didn't want to go to jail. He hadn't done anything wrong other than chase his wife down the road with his car, and hasn't every man wanted to bash his wife's head in once in a while? “Wasn't it Noel Coward who wrote, ‘Women are like gongs, they should be struck regularly'?”

“He said that?” Susan Tucker asked.

“Private Lives,”
Mim filled in. Mim was sitting on the school chair that Miranda had brought around for her from the back of the post office. Larry Johnson, who hadn't told anyone about the diaries, Fair Haristeen, and Ned Tucker stood while Market Shiflett, Pewter next to him, sat on the counter. Mrs. Hogendobber paced the room, enacting the details to give emphasis to her story. Tucker paced with her as Mrs. Murphy sat on the postage scale. When Miranda wanted verification she would turn to Harry, also sitting on the counter, and Harry would nod or say a sentence or two to add color.

The Reverend Jones pushed open the door, come to collect his mail. “How much did I miss?”

“Almost the whole thing, Herbie, but I'll give you a private audience.”

Herb was followed by Ansley and Warren Randolph. Mrs. Hogendobber was radiant because this meant she could repeat the adventure anew with theatrics. Three was better than one.

“Oscar performance,”
Mrs. Murphy laconically commented to her two pals.

“Wish we'd been there.”
Tucker hated to miss excitement.

“I'd have thrown up. Did I tell you about the time I threw up when Market was taking me to the vet?”
Pewter remarked.

“Not now,”
Mrs. Murphy implored the gray cat.

When Mrs. Hogendobber finished her tale for the second time, everyone began talking at once.

“Did they ever find the murder weapon? The gun that killed Kimball Haynes?” Warren asked.

“Coop says the ballistics proved it was a snub-nosed .38-caliber pistol. It was unregistered. Frightening how easy it is to purchase a gun illegally. The bullets matched the bore of the .38 they found in Samson's car. It had smashed the passenger window to bits. Must have had it on the seat next to him. Looks like he really was going to do in Lulu. Looks like he's the one that did in Kimball Haynes.” Miranda shook her head at such violence.

“I hope not.” Dr. Johnson's calm voice rang out. “Everyone has marital problems, and Samson's may be larger than most, but we still don't know what happened to set this off. And we don't know if he killed Kimball. Innocent until proven guilty. Remember, we're talking about one of Crozet's own here. We'd better wait and see before stringing him up.”

“I didn't say anything about stringing him up,” Miranda huffed. “But it's mighty peculiar.”

“This spring has been mighty peculiar.” Fair edged his toes together and then apart, a nervous habit.

“Much as I like Samson, I hope this settles the case. Why would he kill Kimball Haynes? I don't know.” Ned Tucker put his arm around his wife's shoulders. “But we would sleep better at night if we knew the case was closed.”

“Let the dead bury the dead.” The little group murmured their assent to Ned's hopes.

No one noticed that Ansley had turned ghostly white.

49

Samson Coles denied ever having seen the snub-nosed .38. His lawyer, John Lowe, having argued many cases for the defense in his career, could spot a liar a mile away. He knew Samson was lying. Samson refused to give the sheriff any information other than his name and address and, in a funny reversion to his youth, his army ID number. By the time John Lowe reached his client, Samson was the picture of sullen hostility.

“Now, Samson, one more time. Why did you threaten to kill your wife?”

“And for the last time, we'd been having problems, real problems.”

“That doesn't mean you kill your wife or threaten her. You're paying me lots of money, Samson. Right now it looks pretty bad for you. The report came back on the gun. It was the gun that killed Kimball Haynes.” John, not averse to theatrics himself, used this last stunner, which was totally untrue—the ballistics results hadn't come back yet—in hopes of blasting his client into some kind of cooperation. It worked.

“No!” Samson shook. “I never saw that gun before in my life. I swear it, John, I swear it on the Holy Bible! When I said I was going to kill her, I didn't mean I really would, I wouldn't shoot her. She just pushed all my buttons.”

“Buddy, you could get the chair. This is a capital-punishment state, and I wasn't born yesterday. You'd better tell me what happened.”

Tears welled up in Samson's eyes. His voice wavered. “John, I'm in love with Ansley Randolph. I spent money trying to impress her, and to make a long story short, I've been dipping into escrow funds which I hold as the principal broker. Lucinda saw the ledger—” He stopped because his whole body was shaking. “Actually, she showed it to Kimball Haynes when he was over to read the family histories and diaries, you know, to see if there was anything that could fit into the murder at Monticello. There wasn't, of course, but I have accounts beginning in the last decades of the seventeenth century, kept by my maternal grandmother of many greats, Charlotte Graff. Kimball read those accounts, meticulously detailed, and Lucinda laughed that she couldn't make sense out of my books but how crystal clear Granny Graff's were. So Lucinda gave Kimball my ledger to prove her point. He immediately saw what I'd been doing. I kept two columns, you know how it's done. That's the truth.”

“Samson, you have a high standing in Crozet. To many people's minds that would be more than sufficient motive to kill Kimball—to protect that standing as well as your livelihood. Answer me. Did you kill Kimball Haynes?”

Tears gushing down his ruddy cheeks, Samson implored John, “I'd rather lose my license than my life.”

John believed him.