Murder Came Second (26 page)

I finished by actually changing the sheets on our bed. I didn’t know why I did it. Certainly no one had lain in it except us. Then I had to smile at myself. My next move would probably be to call Peter and the Wolf and ask if they knew a good exorcist. I gave Fargo fresh water and a belated breakfast and myself a beer. As of now, I was off duty. My ankle was aching. I’d try an Ace bandage as soon as I felt like looking for it.

But that didn’t mean I was able to put another matter aside. There was something I had to tell Sonny, something I had quite seriously promised I would never tell another soul.

It seemed like yesterday to me that Cindy and I had been comforting Elaine in our backyard. She had broken down and recounted the story of her father’s ghastly death, her mother’s lifetime in a hospital for the insane and the adoption of her and her brother, and her brother also ending up as one of Carlucci’s group. And I had sworn that Cindy, Fargo and I would maintain her secret.

And now, of course, I could not. Sonny had to know.

And worse, yet, I supposed I had to tell Elaine I could no longer keep her confidence. I imagine she had guessed it. I could think of no other reason for her coldness to me. Maybe she figured I had already told him. I wouldn’t dream of doing that without informing her first. But she didn’t know me well enough to know I’m funny about things like promises.

I’d take a chance she was at her new B&B. I took a jacket from the hooks in the pantry. The rain had quit, but it was gray and chill. Fargo didn’t care, he was already at the back door. “Dog of dogs, let’s get out of here. I promise you a late lunch of your very own hamburger, okay? Just let me get this Elaine thing over with.”

We pulled into the Chambered Nautilus parking area, and Lexus strolled off the porch to greet us. Fargo pounced out of the car, damn near landing on top of the irate cat, and they were off. They circled the house twice at top speed, with Lexus finally leaping for the mimosa tree and gaining the first branch, where he sat hissing and spitting. Fargo sat beneath him, looking up, with the first happy expression I had seen on his face all day.

We found Martha in the kitchen, making out next week’s breakfast menus and consulting cookbooks. According to her, Ophelia had gone to a rehearsal. Elaine wasn’t needed till later and was in their room.

Reluctantly leaving the wonderful kitchen smells, I went up the back stairs, Fargo equally reluctant at my heels. I knocked lightly on the door of their room.

“Come in,” Elaine called pleasantly.

She sat in a comfortable chair, feet propped on the bed, reading a book. Immediately upon our entrance, the feet came down, the book snapped closed, the smile faded and she drew herself slightly away from Fargo.

“Could you please leave the animal outside? I have allergies.”

She also apparently had memory problems. She had always known “the animal’s” name before, and she had not hesitated to pet him, with no noticeable discomfort. Obviously this scene would be played to the hilt.

I walked back to the hall and called down the back stairs. “Martha, could you guard my ferocious animal for five minutes? Ms. Edgewood has developed acute allergies. She thinks it is the dog. I rather imagine it is I.”

Martha looked up the stairs, grinning. Clearly she had understood my tone if not the words. “Sure. C’mon down, Fargo, you can help me plan tomorrow’s breakfast. Good boy.”

Turning back into the room, I sat uninvited in the other chair. “This won’t take much of your time,” I began mildly.

“It needn’t take any of it,” she said. “You have either told, or are about to tell your detective brother all that I imparted to you in complete confidence, thereby casting unnecessary suspicion on my brother and me around this unfortunate incident involving Terese. Good-bye.”

“Let’s just say I am about to provide Detective Lieutenant Peres with information I can neither legally nor morally withhold from him in his efforts to solve a vicious, brutal murder. It bothers me more than you apparently can understand to break a promise of confidentiality, especially one of such a personal nature. You have my deepest apologies. You also have my assurance that Lt. Peres will never make any of this information public unless it proves to have direct bearing on the case. But he has to know it. You can believe none or all of that as you please. Good day.”

We found Sonny in his office, surrounded by blackboards holding lists and notes. This was the way he always studied a confusing case. He said it let him see everything at once without shuffling through piles of paper or dragging stuff around on a computer. It also let him prop his feet on the desk, lean precariously back in his chair and allow his thoughts to roam. It was a system that worked well for him. He usually came up with the answers.

His first list held the names of those he felt the most likely suspects and their alibis, if any. Carlucci was head of the pack, with no alibi. Hamlet was a close second, also with no alibi. Polonius was apparently clear. He had been at the all-night diner with the lighting crew. Nick’s garbage had yielded up a receipt showing he picked up his takeout order at nine fifty-two, which proved nothing except that at some point, he brought the bag back to his room.

Horatio had been with two of the stagehands, out drinking. Noel seemed to have the least motive, and had been extremely cooperative. Too much so? Elaine and Ophelia were possibilities, but Sonny had marked them “Unlikely.” Well, one of those was about to change.

At the bottom of the board was “Unknown burglar,” with the added notation of “Unlikely” crossed out. I wondered why that had changed.

Beneath it had been added the name “Harmon!” A joke, to tease him? Surely not serious.

One board showed that the hours in which Terese was presumed to have died had been narrowed to today—Wednesday— between one and three a.m.

A note followed saying “Seminal fluid and clear liquid sent to lab for DNA checks.” I wondered exactly what that meant.

There were other cryptic notes. “Check boots with Sears.” “Dumpsters?” “Raincoat & hat?” “Zilch computer.”

I grinned and asked, “Is Zilch a new brand of computer?”

“Zilch is what is left on Terese’s laptop. Not a word. The whole hard drive is clean as a whistle. And something tells me it wasn’t Terese housecleaning. Although maybe it was. We didn’t find any faxes either.” Sonny sounded disgusted.

“No. I can’t believe she dumped everything. I doubt she knew she was going to be killed. But for one thing, I don’t get the idea that bunch of
artistes
is very big on today’s technology, for one thing. For another, who would have time to do it? We cleared the place out pretty quickly.”

“Alex, almost anybody today can turn on a computer and start hitting the delete key. It doesn’t take long. I’m just hoping Nacho can retrieve something of interest from the hard drive. The faxes are my fault. We did not personally search the suspects before they had a chance to dump them. Hell, they may have gone out in your garbage.” We looked at each other and shrugged.

Finishing up Sonny’s blackboard display was a smaller board with a rough, amateur sketch of a woman’s torso with red chalk marks where the six stab wounds had been. Somehow the very unprofessionalism of the drawing made it seem more personal and the red marks somehow more invasive and cruel.

Sonny pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and actually offered me one. I clutched at my heart and let him light it. He nodded at the boards. “Any additions? Disagreements? Questions?”

I nodded at him. “Unfortunately, all of the above.” I filled him in on the gory history of the Leonard family and ended by explaining that Terese had told Elaine’s brother she had dug up an old school chum of his. He and Elaine were both afraid that would lead to the entire ghastly story surfacing and appearing in the
A-List
next week.

“And you’re saying that David Willem—Hamlet—is actually the grown up Leonard boy, Bobby? How many names does he have, for God’s sake? You’re sure about all this?” Sonny made a note.

“Oh, no doubt about it when you recall them as children,” I assured him. “If you can get an old copy of
The Tell-All
that had the original story in it and photos of the kids, they look then just like they do now. His adoptive family changed his first name, which Elaine’s didn’t. She says she still has trouble not calling him Bobby. Also, I have some vague memory of that bio-drama saying that Papa Leonard was stabbed six times. Not sure. But it could be significant in some ritualistic way.”

“I’ll get Nacho on
The Tell-All
right away,” he said. “She could get the original of the Magna Carta in an hour if we needed it. Okay, what else?”

“Have you had lunch? I’m starving and I promised Fargo a hamburger.”

“No, I haven’t. You buying?”

“After what you did to my house this morning?” I snorted. “You owe Cindy and Fargo and me a six-course dinner starting with Beluga caviar and a magnum of Krug!”

“Please!” He sounded insulted. “The town of Provincetown will gladly reimburse you for any expenses up to fifty-nine cents. Just file seventeen copies of each receipt and have two men of the cloth attest to your honesty.”

“I’ll settle for my usual and a Bud, plus an extra rare hamburger, plain.”

Without discussion we started walking toward the Wharf Rat Bar. I brought up the questions Sonny’s blackboards had raised in my mind.

“Hey, Sonny, why was that Unknown Burglar crossed out and Harmon’s name put in? Are you just pulling his leg?” I turned to look at my brother and was surprised to see deep lines of worry appear around his nose and eyes.

“God, I wish I were, Sis! I wouldn’t blame him if he did kill Terese, after that article she wrote, and then threatening to tell the world that Rob, the brother he worshipped so much, was yellow, shot in the back while running away, saying the whole medal thing was a cover-up! He’s right. Nobody
should
be allowed to tell those kinds of lies! Did you hear about it?” Sonny slammed one fist into the other, and an elderly lady skipped briskly into the gutter to give him way.

I nodded and recalled Harmon’s words to me, “I shall take action.” I should have paid more attention at the time. I decided not to mention that statement right now. Right now I would concentrate on not limping.

“We’ve got a real problem with Harmon, Alex. There is a work boot print that’s quite clear in the mud on the dining room rug. It does not match any of the boots worn by any of the Hamlet crew. And none of them are sporting brand new boots today. Harmon readily admits to wearing that type of boot for protection when he does heavy yard work. He says he kept them in the garage next to the mower. We can’t find them.”

“Oh, God.” My stomach was now feeling emptier than ever.

Sonny went on, his voice harsh with anxiety. “He says he bought them last winter at Sears. Hatcher has gone down to the store with the dining room photos to see if they match up with the style Harmon bought. Alex, I’m scared to death they will.” He wasn’t alone.

“Then,” Sonny continued, and I wondered how much more disaster he had to relate. “When Mitch went over the cellar, he found the padlock on the storage closet forced, and what looks like two cartons of whatever the Brownlees had stored in there are missing. Harmon took one look and said it was two cartons of their silver. He said Bob Brownlee gave him a key and asked him to keep an eye on it. We haven’t found any trace of the cartons.”

I felt a little brighter. “Well, if Harmon meant to steal, which I will never believe, he didn’t have to break the lock. He had a key, and he might as well have taken it all.”

Sonny shook his head. “I think it was a ruse. I think someone— I fear Harmon—broke in through the dining room doors, went down to the cellar, and forced the lock. Harmon would be too smart to use his key, I think. Then he took two cartons, apparently the smallest and easiest to carry, which will turn up in one of the vans or a dumpster or somewhere. Then I think he waited outside for Terese to come out of Paul’s room. But she came out earlier than he had figured on, and Paul was still awake then and might have seen him. So he waited some more, and finally Terese came back down, and he killed her.”

We were almost at the Rat and I was glad. My ankle was beginning to throb. Why had I never managed to get a bandage on it? Fargo was glad, too, whuffling noisily, wondering what goodies were in store.