Authors: Sharyn McCrumb
Rountree snorted. “Anybody that don’t know Vance Wainwright drinks is already dead.”
“What do we do now, Wes?” Taylor wondered if it would be necessary to go back to the office for the rifles.
“I reckon we’ll go out and talk to the lady,” sighed Rountree.
“So you agree that I’m right?”
“Well … I reckon you could be,” said Rountree doubtfully.
Taylor grinned.
Rountree scooped up the check. “Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.”
Elizabeth had managed to finish all the telephoning, ten letters, and the preparing of a lunch of sandwiches by the time Wesley Rountree interrupted their work session. Amanda, who had been composing the obituary for the
Scout
for the entire morning, was reading snatches of it aloud to Elizabeth while they ate in the den.
“… devoted daughter and an accomplished expressionist painter. Ought I to say ‘painteuse’? Elizabeth, what do you think?”
Rountree appeared rather uneasily in the doorway, twisting his white Stetson, while Deputy Taylor and Mildred hovered in the hall behind him. Elizabeth nodded slightly toward the door, and Amanda turned to look. She recognized the sheriff with a nod of satisfaction.
“Yes, officer? What is it?”
“Well, ma’am, we’d just like a word alone with you if we may,” said Rountree in his politest tone. At all costs he wanted to avoid an outburst of hysterics, but the questioning had to be done.
Amanda regarded him carefully for a moment. “Just run along now and see how your grandfather is doing, dear, while I have a word with these gentlemen.”
Elizabeth picked up the lunch tray and edged past the two officers. When the door had closed behind her, Wesley Rountree seated himself on the chintz couch, motioning Clay to a nearby chair. Unobtrusively, Clay took out his notepad and pen, and waited expectantly for the questioning to begin.
Murder suspect or not, Rountree was determined to remain courteous. It was force of habit as much as anything else; he had little liking for social lionesses. “Ma’am, you should know if we had anything to report about this unfortunate business.”
“Yes. I should certainly think you’ve had time enough.”
“Well, we’ve been working at it. First thing this morning we examined the lake, on account of the painting being missing and all. We wanted to see if we could find any hint as to what she might have been painting. And we have a theory.”
Amanda was unimpressed. “May I know what this ‘theory’ of yours is?”
Rountree hedged. “Fact is, we figure that your daughter’s death was an accident. Not a complete accident—I mean, a human-originated accident. Somebody did hit her over the head all right, but we don’t believe that person was aiming to kill her. I think, under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be right to push for first-degree murder. Why, it might even go to trial as manslaughter, provided the defendant cooperated.”
Amanda’s eyes narrowed. “And just why are you explaining all this to a grieving mother?”
The sheriff shifted uneasily. This part required careful handling, if hysterics were to be avoided. “Well, we figure that your daughter painted something that she wasn’t supposed to, and that it had to do with the lake, since she always painted there. So this morning I sent Clay down there to see if he could find anything that somebody might not want in a painting.” He looked at her encouragingly. It wasn’t going to be easy, Rountree thought. “And sure enough he found something. You want to tell her about it, Clay?”
The deputy focused his eyes on the floor and said in
an apologetic tone: “In the shallows of the lake, closest to the house, I found a bunch of empty whiskey bottles. You could see them from the place where the easel stood. All the same brand, too. Old Grand-Dad.”
“Good. That should enable you to find the tramp who did this. Look for a man who drinks that brand,” said Amanda evenly.
“No, ma’am,” Rountree replied. “First place, I don’t know of any vagrants who could afford to drink that stuff. Now if we were talking eighty-nine-cent wine bottles, I’d say you had a point.”
“Anyway, there were too many bottles to have been left at one time,” said Clay. “Some were older than others. Anyway, I checked at the store in Milton’s Forge, and I …” His voice trailed off.
Rountree nodded. Might as well tell her and get it over with. “We know that you bought them, ma’am. We could prove ownership with fingerprints, too, you know. Glass is good for prints.” He looked sternly at the deputy as he said this, warning him not to mention the effects of immersion on prints.
Clay was obediently silent, as was Amanda, for several minutes. “I see,” she said quietly. Nothing more.
“Now we don’t think that—this person we’re looking for meant for Eileen to die,” said Rountree soothingly. “We think it was just a tragic … tragic accident. There she is, this young girl, probably not even knowing the significance of what she was painting. Meaning no harm. But somebody saw the painting and knew that a picture of all those bottles was going to let out a family secret. ’Course, alcoholism is just a disease, same as cancer, but some people don’t see it like that.” He hoped he was making it respectable enough for her to confess to. “So the plan was to stun the girl just long enough to steal the painting—maybe put her in the boat ’til she came to, not seeing the snake …”
Amanda watched him, her face a mask of calm. After a moment, Rountree continued, still watching the face of his audience of one.
“—And if it hadn’t been for the snake, everything would have been all right, don’t you reckon? The girl
would have woke up with a headache, and the painting would be gone, but maybe even she would have wanted it that way, if she’d known the truth about what she’d painted, and how it would hurt … somebody …” He started to say more, then shook his head and was silent.
The woman in the chair said nothing.
Wesley Rountree tried again. “Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Chandler … come on now. We know you bought that whiskey. We know about your drinking—nothing to be ashamed of. Don’t you want to tell us how it happened?”
Amanda’s eyes widened. “Do I understand that you are suggesting I murdered my daughter?”
“Of course not!” Rountree assured her. “We know it was an accident. That you acted in a fright—”
Fixing him with a malevolent glare, Amanda Chandler leaned forward. “You stupid man!” she hissed. “So you think you’ve uncovered a great secret, do you?”
The two officers blinked at her.
“Do you really think my family doesn’t know?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Well, ask them!” She waved toward the closed door. “Go on! Ask any of them! Oh, we don’t discuss it. We pretend it doesn’t exist, but I assure you, Mr. Rountree, that my family is perfectly aware of the situation. As was Eileen. And whatever it was in that painting, it was not liquor bottles! We are a family of standards, Sheriff, and I assure you that my daughter would never have painted that!”
“Yes, we all knew about it,” Robert Chandler told the officers a few minutes later. He had received them in his book-lined study, where they had sought him out, with the explanation that certain points of his wife’s statements required confirmation.
He sat hunched before his dented typewriter, his hand covering his eyes. “It is … not a recent development. I tried to reason with her about it; she denies it, of course. Says that Mildred steals the whiskey, that kind of thing. And she has steadfastly refused counseling, so we have made up our minds to live with it as … as quietly as possible.” He smiled apologetically. “It isn’t really bad, except occasionally, when she feels
anxious about something. I was afraid that the wedding would set her off—and now, this!”
Wesley Rountree nodded sympathetically. “Doctor, it was our theory that your daughter might have painted those liquor bottles into the picture. Then, of course, when your wife saw the picture, she’d have got het up and tried to knock her out, so she could steal the picture. We think the whole thing was an accident.”
“No,” said Robert Chandler. “My wife’s form of panic is—drinking.”
“But you realize that your daughter was probably killed on account of that painting—probably by somebody in the household—don’t you, sir?”
Dr. Chandler sighed. “Since you tell me it is so, I suppose I must believe it.”
“Well, it would sure help us out if you told us who you thought it might be,” Rountree prompted.
“That would be of no use to you, Wesley. I could only tell you who I wanted it to be,” said the doctor with a tight smile.
“I’d sure settle for that.”
For a moment, Rountree thought that the doctor was going to confide in him, but after a long silence he merely said, “I’m afraid that would not be ethical.”
Deciding that it would be useless to argue with him, Wesley Rountree thanked him for his cooperation and went off in search of another family member to question. They met Elizabeth in the hall. She was not immediate family, Wesley decided, and not a likely suspect. He’d talk to her later. “Excuse me,” he said genially. “Can’t seem to find anybody around here.”
“Who are you looking for?” asked Elizabeth doubtfully.
Rountree picked one. “Charles Chandler,” he said decisively.
“Oh. He’s outside, I expect. He spends a lot of time sunning. Come on, I’ll show you the way.”
“Does he have a favorite rock?”
Elizabeth giggled. “Like a lizard, you mean? No. He uses a chair.” Deciding that the conversational ice had
been broken, she ventured a question. “How are you coming along with the investigation?”
“Like a pregnant mule,” Rountree declared. “I know what to do, but nothing seems to come of it.”
“Mules are sterile,” Clay explained to a bewildered Elizabeth.
“Oh.” A thought occurred to her, and she brightened. “Tell me, Sheriff Rountree, how do you like being in law enforcement?”
“Being sheriff is a pretty good job. I like it. I’m the only law officer mentioned in the constitution, you know. They don’t say beans about your chiefs of police or your highway patrol. But ‘sheriff’—it’s right there in black and white, from the founding fathers. And we have a nice quiet county, so things stay friendly, most of the time. You thinking about going into police work?”
Elizabeth considered it. “I don’t know,” she said, “I just got out of college …”
“Oh,” said Rountree knowingly. “Well, I wish you luck. I was a sociology major, myself.”
They found Charles sprawled in a lawnchair with his book. Elizabeth had pointed him out and slipped back toward the house, while Taylor and Rountree advanced on their next suspect. Charles, who heard them approach, hastily put down his book.
“My turn to be interviewed?” he asked, squinting up at them. “Can we stay right here while you do it? I came out here to get away from all of that in the house, and I’m in no hurry to get back.”
With a grunt of annoyance, Clay Taylor took out his pen and notepad and settled himself on the grass near Charles’s chair. Rountree continued to stand.
“You don’t live here all the time, do you?” he asked.
“No. I suppose that’s it. I’m not used to it.”
“Where do you live, Mr. Chandler?”
Charles supplied the address. “It’s a group of friends,” he explained. “My family calls it a commune; seem to think I spend my time playing Indian. Actually, we are all scientists of one sort or another. My own interest is theoretical physics, though in fact I might be able to give you a pointer or two in forensics.”
Rountree coughed. “Thank you. But we don’t handle that. Use the state labs.”
“Ah. Tell me, how are you coming along with the case?”
“Tolerable. I’m in the question-asking stage right now,” said Rountree, with a meaningful look at Charles.
“Excuse me. Ask away,” said Charles, settling back in the sunlight.
“Are you, by any chance, contemplating marriage?” asked Rountree.
Charles opened one eye. “You mean with a woman? You’re not speaking metaphysically or anything like that?”
Rountree kept a straight face. “I never speak metaphysically,” he drawled. “I mean regular old ’til Death Do Us Part’ type marriage.”
“Then the answer is a definite no,” said Charles. “There aren’t even any contenders. Why ever do you ask?”
“Oh, I was just thinking of that interesting legacy in your family. The one that goes to the first one of y’all to get married.”
“Oh, that,” said Charles in a bored voice. “No, thank you. I am quite above bribery.”
“Well … do you happen to know if anybody else has got wedding plans?”
“You’ll have to ask them, Sheriff. I’m not really interested in that sort of thing. You might ask my brother Geoffrey. Knowing things about people always amuses him. Offhand, I’d say my cousin Elizabeth was the hausfrau type. Oh, and not to forget my cousin Bill. He’s also eligible for the wedding sweepstakes, and I must say the MacPhersons need the money more than we do.”
“Bill?”
“Elizabeth’s older brother. But he’s not here.”
“Where is he?”
“Law school, they tell me. We’re not pen pals,” said Charles.
“And your other cousin—the one across the street. Alban?”
“Really, Sheriff. I have no idea. You might ask Elizabeth. She’s been spending a lot of time with him. In fact, she was over there last night.”
Rountree grunted. “I see that the society news is not your neck of the woods. Let’s move on to something else. Did you ever see that picture your sister was painting?”
“No. She was quite a fanatic about the secret. I don’t even know what she was painting—but we all assumed it was the lake, since she painted there.”
Rountree considered this. “The lake. Anything particular about that lake that you know of?”
“No, Sheriff,” said Charles with an indulgent smile. “It’s just an ordinary little lake with mediocre fishing. No sunken Spanish galleons.”
“No,” said Rountree carefully. “Just a lot of sunken whiskey bottles. You know anything about that?”
Charles’s smile faded. “I can’t say that I do,” he said after a moment’s pause.
“Oh, I think you could. I guess you know who put the bottles there, too.”
“Not I.”
“No, not you. Your mother’s drinking problem accounts for those bottles, don’t you reckon?”