Authors: Donna Andrews
“Actually, I didn’t mean what their motive was for doing it, but why you were so very sure it was them,” I said.
“I’ve got no evidence it wasn’t, say, some gun-toting local who resents my being here,” he said. “But every instinct I have says it’s FPF.”
“And you trust your instinct even with no evidence?”
He leaned back in the recliner and looked thoughtful.
“In my experience,” he said, “instinct is your subconscious adding up the evidence before you even know you have it. I trust my instinct, absolutely. I’d be long dead by now if I didn’t.”
I was tempted, briefly, to repeat the words I overheard Fisher say. Maybe he could make more sense of them than we could.
And maybe I should wait until we were a little more sure what side he was on. After all, we only had his word for it that anyone had taken a shot at him at all.
“Any objection if I stay here in your tent tonight?” he asked. “I don’t much fancy going home—or anyplace else where FPF knows where to find me.”
“Bad idea,” I said. “The whole town square is swarming with tourists, townspeople, police, and Flying Monkeys. You couldn’t take two steps out of the tent without being spotted.”
“Then I’ll stay here in the tent.”
“Apart from the lack of a bathroom, what are you going to do when all the performers and craftspeople start showing up in the morning? I can’t swear that they’ll all keep your secret.”
“Hide under the bandstand?”
“Where half the women stow their purses, and the tech crew from the college spends half its time crawling around trying to fix the antiquated sound system? No, actually, you won’t have to worry about the people showing up in the morning. This place will get pretty busy when that wretched band finally knocks off, and you can’t hide under the bandstand because they had so much crap I made them shove half of it in there. You might as well hide up there onstage.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” he said.
I thought for a few moments.
“Michael and I have plenty of room,” I said finally. “You can come home with me and hide in one of our spare rooms.”
“And just how am I going to get out of the tent now without being spotted?”
Good question. The rolling box I’d used for the evidence bags was a little small. Maybe in one of Rancid Dread’s humongous speaker boxes?
Then inspiration struck.
“I have just the thing.” I ducked into the crawl space and plucked Horace’s gorilla suit down from where Rose Noire had hung it up to air.
Denton studied it dubiously.
“I just put this on and walk out?”
I nodded.
“No offense, but that doesn’t exactly sound like the most unobtrusive way to get around.”
“Trust me,” I said. “If you walk out of here beside me wearing that, no one will give it a second thought. A few people might say “Hi, Horace!”
“Your cousin wears this?” Denton took the suit and held it out at arm’s length.
“Not all the time, just when he needs to relax.”
“Been wearing it quite a bit today, apparently.” He wrinkled his nose.
“Not since yesterday.” I reached out to touch the fur. No longer still sopping wet, but still a little damp. Not surprising. The suit took forever to dry under optimal conditions, and a humid Virginia heat wave was about as far from optimal as you could find. “Look, it’s scruffy and smelly and more than a little weird, but it’s the best way I can think of to get you out of this tent without anyone being the wiser. You want to stay here until someone with no reason to keep your secret shows up?”
Denton opened the suit’s zipper and began to step in.
“Just one thing,” he said. “What if we run into your cousin while I’m wearing this?”
“Last I heard, he was down in Richmond delivering some evidence to the crime lab,” I said. “And he’s only on loan to Caerphilly—his real job is in Yorktown, and he’ll be on duty there tomorrow, doing crowd control at their Fourth of July celebration. And if anyone who knows his schedule spots you, both places are only about an hour away—he could easily have popped back for some reason.”
“Okay,” he said. “Just stick close so I don’t have to pretend to be Horace if anyone comes up to us.”
“Slouch a bit, and I’ll explain that you’ve had a very long day,” I said. “Horace often goes nonverbal when he’s wearing the suit. But I vote we don’t stay for the end of the concert. Let’s take off as soon as you’re ready.”
I called Rob and asked him to take over for me at the tent. Then Denton and I slipped out and hiked to my van. The rest of the town was curiously deserted, as if everyone not actually attending the concert had either fled to the surrounding countryside or retreated to the most soundproof portion of their houses and hunkered down to ride it out.
I waited until we were on the road to interrogate him.
“So what were you and Colleen Brown arguing about the night before she was killed?” I asked.
He sighed.
“Nothing’s very private in a small town, is it?”
I waited. I was about to prod him again when he finally answered my question.
“It wasn’t really an argument,” he said.
“You were heard shouting ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?’” I said. “Told you what sooner?”
He frowned slightly.
“I don’t remember,” he said. “She’d probably just told me about Leonard Fisher bringing in the falconer to harass Mr. Throckmorton. Something about Fisher, anyway. That was what our whole conversation was about. We both thought he was up to something.”
“What?”
“We had no idea. She kind of thought maybe he was trying to set her up to take the blame for the fact that they still hadn’t gotten the hermit out of the basement.”
“Seems a little far-fetched,” I said. “Since she only came here a month or two ago, and he’s been here since the day they seized the building.”
“That’s what I thought,” Denton said. “But according to her, half a dozen FPF execs have seen their careers wreck on the shoals of Caerphilly. Apparently, assigning you to come down here and work on the problem is FPF’s way of saying, ‘Hey! Get your resume ready!’ So maybe it’s not so paranoid.”
“And what did you think he was up to?”
“No idea,” he said. “That’s not what we disagreed about. She wanted to confront him about what he was up to. Have it out. Clear the air.”
“You thought that was a bad idea?”
“The guy’s a seasoned corporate weasel,” he said. “You don’t have it out with someone like that. You get the goods on him if you can, and otherwise you steer clear. I told her it was a stupid thing to do. Stupid and dangerous.”
The last word hung in the air for what seemed like a long while. Then he spoke again.
“Of course, I only thought it was dangerous to her career,” he said. “I didn’t think her life was in jeopardy.”
“You think Fisher killed her, then?”
Another long pause.
“No idea,” he said. “I’d have pegged him as sneaky, not violent. A knife in the back, maybe. Or setting it up so it looked as if she committed suicide. Something well planned and executed. And unless the picture has changed a lot since last night, the murder doesn’t sound very well planned. More like a crime of impulse or opportunity, and one the killer didn’t think through very well—at least not if he was trying to frame Mr. Throckmorton.”
“True,” I said. “Of course, maybe it was planned to look like a crime of impulse. Is Fisher that devious?”
He shrugged.
“Yeah,” he said. “I just can’t figure out how he’d benefit from this. But one thing I can tell you—if the theory is that the murderer changed his clothes between the time of the murder and the time they evacuated the building, Fisher could do that, easy. He always wanted to look snappy if some corporate dignitary showed up or if one of the local TV stations wanted to interview him. He’d always have a change of clothing in his office, and in weather like this, probably several changes. The guards, on the other hand—can’t see any reason for them to keep a change of uniform lying around.”
I nodded.
When we got home, I ushered Denton into a room on the third floor—one of the few not already occupied by Festus’s paralegals.
“You’ve got your own bath,” I said. “The door beside the bureau. I hope you won’t be insulted, but I’m going to lock you in and keep the key myself.”
“How can I possibly be insulted?” he asked with a yawn. “I’m not actually conscious. Thanks, and good night.”
As I walked downstairs again, I pulled out my phone, intending to tell the chief that I’d found Denton. But when I hit the second floor, I ran into Kate Blake trudging up the stairs from the front hall.
“There you are!” she exclaimed.
Chapter 34
“Evening,” I said. “What can I do for you?” With luck, she wouldn’t have seen the moment of panic on my face as I realized how close Denton and I had come to running into her on our way in. And I couldn’t remember whether I’d let Denton take his gorilla head off before he got to his room.
“I was going to leave you a note,” she said. “I have to go back to Washington.”
“Now?”
“They’re pulling the plug,” she said. “I have to be at Mount Vernon at nine to cover another story.”
“Not the cat show, surely.”
She shook her head.
“Someone pretending to be General Washington is inspecting a bunch of reenactors dressed up as Revolutionary War soldiers.” Her voice was flat and joyless. “And then I’m supposed to interview a whole bunch of people becoming citizens. I’m sure they’ve selected a picturesquely diverse bunch with heartwarming stories. Back to the human interest beat.”
“Just because it’s human interest doesn’t mean it has to be cute, you know,” I said. “And General Washington and his citizen army still seem pretty fascinating to me. Don’t just assume it’s fluff. Find the meat. Run with it.”
She blinked for a moment, then smiled.
“I’ll try,” she said. “Sorry I can’t stay around to help. Not that I’ve been much help. I really only found out one new bit of information, and that’s probably pretty useless.”
“You never know,” I said. “What is it?”
“The paper’s been trying to get a comment on the murder from your ex-mayor,” she said. “And so far we haven’t been able to track him down.”
“He’s in Cancún,” I said.
“Actually, he’s not,” she replied. “We have a couple of stringers in Mexico. One of them was actually in Cancún on another story, so my editor sicced her on him. He was there earlier, but the Thursday before Memorial Day he packed up and left.”
“Does she know where he went?”
“Yes, she bribed a ticket agent to find out. He caught the seven-fifteen a.m. American Airlines flight to Dallas with a connecting flight from there to DCA.”
My mouth fell open.
“He could be here!” I exclaimed.
“Do you think he’s the killer?” she asked.
I reminded myself that however helpful she was being, she was still a reporter.
“No idea,” I said. “But I’m sure a lot of people will be very interested in finding out where he was yesterday. Thanks.”
“Anyway,” she said. “I’m going to grab my stuff and head out. You’ll let me know if that story breaks?”
I nodded and took the business card she offered. She continued down the hall to the room we’d given her.
I peeked into the nursery. Both boys were sleeping peacefully. In our room, Michael had fallen asleep with a red pencil in one hand and a draft copy of a student’s dissertation in the other. I eased both out of his hands and turned out the light.
Then I went downstairs and puttered about until Kate came down, purse and tote in hand, and said good-bye. After locking the front door behind her, I slipped into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of milk, and called the chief.
“Good news,” I said. “Stanley Denton is safe, and sound, and locked in one of our third floor bedrooms. And while it’s always possible he’s the killer you’re looking for, I have an interesting new suspect for you.”
I filled him in on Denton’s arrival at the tent, and what I’d learned from Denton and from the reporter.
When I’d finished, he remained silent for a few moments.
“Any marching orders?” I asked.
“How early will you be up?” he asked.
“We have toddlers,” I said. “If I’m not up at dawn, Michael or Eric will be. I’ll put the key to Denton’s room in my bedside drawer. Michael can give it to you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” he said. “And thanks.”
I glanced at the clock. Nearly one. The boys were always up by seven, and sometimes six, and try as I might I had a hard time going back to sleep once I knew they were up. Five, maybe six hours if I dozed off immediately, and while I was physically exhausted, my mind was restless and I was afraid I’d toss and turn until daybreak.
I crept upstairs as quietly as I could, slipped into bed, and lay there for a while, breathing as slowly and deeply as I could, and consciously letting go of the day’s events.
Which were already yesterday’s events. For some reason I found that fact curiously soothing.
Chapter 35
The fireworks woke me shortly after dawn.
“I’m sure they didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence until the afternoon of the fourth,” I muttered, when Michael tiptoed in to fetch the key to Denton’s room.
“Actually, the majority of them didn’t sign it on the fourth at all,” he said. “Most of the signers weren’t in Philadelphia at the time, so they sent the document around to them over the course of the next month.”
“It’s too early in the morning for cold, hard facts,” I said, as I pulled both pillows over my head. “Let me go back to sleep with my historical illusions intact.”
But even through the pillows I could hear the intermittent pops and bangs from the yard below. The backyard, which meant it wasn’t just neighbors or passersby doing it but someone from our household. I also heard barking and shrieks of laughter. I finally gave up, dragged myself out of bed, and stumbled to a window where I could see what was going on.
Down in the backyard, Rob, holding a lit sparkler in each hand, was running around in circles while the dogs chased him, barking furiously, and Eric and the boys looked on, laughing and clapping their hands.