Polished Off (14 page)

He turned. “The police told me.” He hesitated. “I just want to know . . . did she . . . ? Was she suffering?” He blinked rapidly.

A wave of compassion brought me to his side. With a hand on his arm, I guided him to a chair. He sat on the edge of it, leaning toward me with his elbows on his knees. “She was already dead,” I told him gently. “There was nothing I could do.”

He raised his brows and the mole jumped. “Oh, I don’t blame you. I’m sure there was nothing—” He kneaded his lips together. “Was she at peace?”

“I’m sure she was,” I lied. “I overheard the coroner say it looked like she died instantly, that she never felt a thing.” I figured a white lie in the name of kindness was okay.

“Thank you,” he said. He sat up straighter and took a deep breath. “It’s been so horrible. You can’t imagine—”

I didn’t even want to try.

“If only I’d been there like I was supposed to be. She really wanted me to come to the pageant and I’d told her I’d meet her at the theater. But then a client called and insisted on seeing a house—”

“You’re a Realtor?”

He nodded and withdrew a card case from his pocket. He extracted a card and handed it to me with a gesture so automatic I knew he’d done it thousands of times before. “Broker and developer. With the economy like it’s been, I didn’t feel I could tell this client to pound sand, so I agreed to the showing. If only—”

He choked to a stop and dropped his face into his hands.

I felt both sorry for him and intensely uncomfortable. Part of me wanted to hug him and part of me was ill at ease with a stranger’s grief. I shifted from foot to foot and felt perspiration drip down my lower back.

“Did she say anything?” He raised his gaze hopefully to my face where I stood in front of him. “Did she leave a message for me?”

I wished I could make up something to comfort him, but I couldn’t go that far. I couldn’t say Audrey had whispered, “Tell Kevin I love him,” with her dying breath. “No,” I said flatly.

He went very still and then a breath leaked out of him, like air from a deflating balloon. He pushed against his thighs to heave himself to his feet.

“Thank you for your time,” he said.

“I’m very, very sorry for your loss. When is the funeral?”

He grimaced. “I’m not sure. The police . . . Whenever they finish with her. With the body.”

From the agonized look on his face, I knew he was imagining the autopsy and the other indignities the police were inflicting on his wife’s body. I winced inwardly, regretting bringing it up. “I’m sorry,” I said again.

He mustered a sad smile. “Me, too. Do you believe in God?”

“Yes.” It didn’t seem like a strange question, not under the circumstances.

“I try to. I used to.”

Before I could answer—he seemed to want a response—the salon door swung open with a tinkle and Mom’s client, hair shining, crossed the veranda toward us with
click-clicks
from her kitten heels. Without another word, Kevin Faye trotted down the stairs.

“Well!” the client said, fists planted on her hips. “You’d think the man didn’t want any condolences.”

“Imagine that,” I murmured, slipping back into the salon.

 

 

“THAT POOR, POOR MAN,” MOM SAID WHEN I TOLD HER what Kevin Faye had wanted. “At least I didn’t have to worry about what your daddy’s last moments were like. He died right here in this house—reminded me to fertilize the azaleas and just slipped away. It was March fifth, a beautiful spring day with the sun shining like it would banish night forever and so many of our friends praying for us right here in this room.” She looked around the salon that used to be the home’s front parlor. Glancing out the window, she added, “That magnolia was only half as tall as it is now.”

I’d heard the story so many times it was almost as though I remembered it, although I’d been only five when he died.

Audrey’s death definitely wasn’t that peaceful. “The killer and Audrey must have been fighting before she died, wouldn’t you think?” I asked, trying to envision the scene in the small dressing room. “I mean, how likely is it that someone would walk in, snatch up Stella’s file, and stab Audrey in the neck without some sort of argument?”

“Probably so,” Mom agreed. She scooped up a handful of towels and soiled smocks to pop in the washer. “I just hope the folks that run the Ghost Tour don’t fix on the idea of adding the theater to their shtick. It’s one thing to tell tourists stories about a Civil War belle who pines away when her beau dies at Fort Delaware and slaves who died of yellow fever, but it’s quite another to capitalize on a hideous crime.”

“Agreed.” Pushing away from the counter, I looked around for my purse. “I’m going to find Stella.”

“Bring her back here when you do,” Mom said. “She shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. Oh, I know she’s got Jess, but a woman needs her woman friends in time of trouble.”

STELLA AND DARRYL’S RANCH HOUSE WAS A SINGLE story, three-bedroom home with a red brick front. Its blocky design, small windows, and cement stoop suggested it was built in the seventies. Large sago palms sprawled on either side of the driveway and a live oak shaded the detached garage. A mockingbird squabbled with house finches and sparrows at a tray-style bird feeder positioned in the middle of the crabgrass- and dandelion-strewn yard. The house looked gloomy and empty, with darkened windows and no flutter of curtains or music from the oldies station Stella liked. Leaving my car at the curb, I walked up the pebbled sidewalk to the concrete stoop and rang the doorbell.

Just when I was wondering if Stella might be at her mom’s house, the door swung open. Stella stood there, her eyes puffy and red.

“Still no word from Darryl?” I asked, giving her a hug.

She shook her head and invited me in with a gesture. “Nothing. I’m so worried about him, Grace. I’ve called and called but he doesn’t call back. I suppose he could be camping out somewhere without cell service, but when he’s on a hunting trip, he usually makes a point of stopping into a town every other day or so to give me a call.”

“You think he’s camping?” I followed Stella into the front room, a cheerful space with moss green walls and plaid upholstery on an overstuffed love seat and sofa combo. Stella was crafty and had cross-stitched the red accent pillows and made the dried flower and shell arrangements decorating the walls. She sat so she could look out the window and I got the feeling she’d been there since leaving the marina, watching for Darryl to pull into the driveway. I stood by the window and fiddled with the wand that opened and closed the blinds. The scent of ammonia stung my nostrils; Stella must have cleaned the windows while she kept her vigil.

“He likes to get up into the mountains when he’s got stuff to think about,” Stella answered. “And he did take the camper. His Chevy’s in the garage so he must’ve come back last night after dropping me at Mom’s and gotten the camper.”

I remembered they had one of those pop-up campers that sits on a pickup bed. It was usually parked beside the garage.

“So you’ve known all along where he went?” I asked, disturbed by her lying to me and the police.

“But I don’t know! Why do you think I’m so worried? Look.” She held up her hands to show me fingernails, usually manicured to hand-model standards, now bitten to the quick. “He could be anywhere—the mountains, North Carolina, Florida, wherever.”

Maybe she was more worried about Darryl’s involvement with Audrey than about his whereabouts. “Does he have a place he likes to camp?”

“There’s a spot in the Osceola National Forest,” she admitted. “I thought about driving down there to find him. He took me there once and I think I could find it. Probably. But it’s—what?—four hours from here, eight hours round-trip? I was thinking that if I left tonight, I could be home before Jess wakes up.”

“Why don’t you tell the police,” I suggested, “and let them check it out? I’m sure they could call the Florida police and have them send an officer or ranger around to the campsite.”

“I can’t do that,” she said, anger and fear tightening the skin around her eyes. “What if—”

I didn’t get to hear what she would have said because at that moment a dark blue sedan and two marked police cars pulled to the curb and Stella broke off. “Something’s happened to Darryl,” she whispered.

Agent Dillon stepped from the car, his expression grim, and conferred with the uniformed officers clustered in the street. One of them was Hank. Great. Stella’s hand groped for mine and I gave it a squeeze. Her fingers were icy. We both watched through the window as Hank and another officer headed toward the garage and the others started up the sidewalk.

“I’m sure it’s just routine,” I said. I mentally slapped myself for stupidity. What could be routine about having your husband disappear the night his mistress is murdered and then having a herd of police show up on your doorstep? “Why don’t you get some hot tea?” I suggested to Stella. “I’ll let them in.” And let Agent Dillon have a piece of my mind for harassing my friend.

“No, I’ve got to deal with it,” she said. Squaring her shoulders, she walked briskly down the hall and yanked open the front door just as the doorbell
bing-bonged
. The officer who rang stepped back with a startled expression, bumping into Officer Qualls who had been at the theater with Hank. Agent Dillon stood a half step behind them and I got a good look at his strong profile, the slightly off-kilter nose—old sports injury? perp resisting arrest? fall from a horse?—and the square chin as he stared toward the garage.

“Tell me,” Stella said without preamble. “It’s Darryl, isn’t it? Is he—”

Dillon followed her line of thought without difficulty. “We don’t have any news about your husband, Mrs. Michaelson. As far as we know he’s fine.” He gentled her with his voice and I smiled at him, pleased he could allay her worst fear.

Her shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank God.”

“What we do have is a search warrant.” He produced a business-sized envelope and tried to hand it to Stella.

She stood with her arms at her sides, an uncomprehending look on her face. She glanced down at the envelope Dillon was holding out. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s a search warrant, Mrs. Michaelson,” Dillon said again. “A judge has given us permission to search your home for items related to the death of Audrey Faye.”

“What items?” I asked. “You already have the murder weapon.”

“Clothing,” he said. Handing me the envelope, he motioned to the officers, who pushed past us and into the hallway.

“But you can’t—” Stella said, reaching out a hand as if to grab Officer Qualls’s sleeve.

Flipping through the warrant, I noted the judge’s signature on the last page. I wasn’t a lawyer or even a cop, but being married to one had taught me a few things about due process and suchlike, even more than I’d learned watching
Law & Order
. The original was still my favorite. “They can,” I told Stella, putting a hand on her arm. “But you don’t have to watch. C’mon in the kitchen.”

“But I want to wa—Hey! That’s my daughter’s room. You can’t go in there.” She pulled away from me to confront Officer Qualls.

The dark-eyed cop was several inches shorter than Stella, but she didn’t quail when Stella stepped in front of her. “I have to, ma’am,” she said politely. “It’s my job.”

Stella whirled to jab an accusing glare at Dillon. “Surely you don’t suspect a twelve-year-old of having anything to do with that woman’s death, do you?”

Agent Dillon took her by the elbow and gently guided her back to the foyer, nodding at Officer Qualls to resume her search. “Of course not,” he said. “Why don’t you wait outside with Miss Terhune? We won’t be long.”

I wanted to challenge him, to ask what evidence he had that had persuaded a judge to grant a warrant, but I didn’t want to upset Stella further. “Look, let’s run down to Doralynn’s and get a scone and some tea,” I suggested.

“Good idea,” Dillon said.

“Bad idea,” Stella almost snarled. Fear and anger were taking a toll on her usually calm disposition. “I’m not going anywhere while these people are . . . are violating my home!” Crossing her arms over her chest, she plunked herself down on the top step of the stoop. I joined her, draping an arm over her slender shoulders.

“Where’s Darryl?” she asked, eyes scanning the street, skimming over two teens on skateboards and the neighbors across the street who were staring, mesmerized by the prospect of scandal or tragedy the police cars promised. “He should be here.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

“Look at this!” The cry of triumph came from the garage.

I recognized both the voice and the tone and winced. Hank had crowed just like that when he found the Civil War sword that killed Constance DuBois in my mom’s hall closet. So either he’d just discovered a winning lottery ticket in his pocket, or his find might rock Stella’s world.