Cold Case (7 page)

“I
t looks as if the killer must have been in the house with him,” Barbara said Sunday afternoon, drawing back from the table where she had spread the printouts from David's computer.

Frank nodded. The body was facedown, one cheek on the deck, and the top side so covered with blood and ants that nothing else was discernible. “I think you're right. From the back more than likely, making him pitch forward.”

“I can't make it work,” she said. “Half in the doorway like that doesn't make sense, unless the door and the screen door were already open and he was walking out. Two people? One outside, one behind him?”

“Or someone had come inside and left the doors open, and he went to investigate? Or something else.” Frank resumed his study of the sheet of paper with
x
's, then shrugged. “That needs footnotes.”

“I talked to David's doctor this morning. The swelling of his brain is going down, and they'll downgrade his condition from critical to serious and move him out of intensive care tomorrow if he continues to show progress. I want to pack his carry-on bag with things he'll need in the hospital. I arranged for a private room, and I hope I talked his parents into taking turns keeping watch in order to get a little rest away from the hospital.”

“I expect one or both parents will stay right there in his room with him,” Frank said, knowing that's what he would do.

“Well, I told Amy I'd call to let her know how David's doing.” Barbara placed the call.

When Amy hung up, she leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief. She had been so afraid for him, she thought, for no real reason. People, strangers, died all the time, and it was an abstract. You could feel pity or regret or any number of things, but it wasn't personal, not as if…She shook her head. He meant little or nothing to her, she told herself. Really not much different than any other stranger. Nothing personal. Still, she was relieved.

She had been on her way to have a talk with Chloe when the call came, she reminded herself, and continued through the house to the deck. Chloe was under a shade umbrella, with sunglasses on, the newspaper on the table nearby, one section on her lap, but she was not reading.

Amy sat across the table from her. “Chloe,” she said softly, “I'd like to talk to you a minute. Okay?”

“Sure.” Chloe didn't shift in her chair or remove the sunglasses.

“I'd like to start sorting Robert's clothes. You know, pack up things and donate them to the church for them to distribute. Something like that. Is it all right with you?”

For a long time Chloe did not respond or move. Finally she said, “Do what you want. I can't deal with it right now.”

“No. I don't want you to help. Why don't you go to the coast for a few days, walk on the beach, relax. The change of scene would be good for you.”

There was another long pause before Chloe said, “I'll think about it. Maybe tomorrow.”

It was disconcerting, Amy thought, leaving her, the way Chloe seemed absent, not processing anything in normal time. She had been like that for days, probably still in shock. The trauma of murder, the sight of Robert's body, the ants…It might haunt her for years to come.

Amy went upstairs to the room she had used as a girl. It had long since been redecorated, no silly posters on the walls, no shelf of dolls and stuffed animals, but in spite of the changes, it was still her room, with the same twin beds, the desk and chair, even the same desk lamp. Now the desk was crowded with her computer, the house plans she was working on, reference books, a coffee mug bristling with pencils and pens like a porcupine with its back up. She had not been able to concentrate on work all that week and she still couldn't concentrate when she sat at the desk and called up the program with a basic floor plan outlined and nothing else.

Perhaps she was in shock also, she thought, gazing at the screen. She had not yet sorted out how Robert's death had affected her. Although he had been her only sibling, her brother, they had never been close. The age spread had made that impossible. At best he had been tolerant of her, most of the time indifferent, and at times he had been cruel. He had left home for law school when she was fourteen and, she had to admit, she had never missed him after that.

She had not been able to do a thing at her computer, and still couldn't. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to get back to work until she cleared out Robert's belongings. She hated how callous the thought was.
Clear him out.
But that's what it amounted to. His presence would linger as long as his clothes hung in the closets, his raincoat hung in the downstairs closet, all his things remained in place as if awaiting his return. She suspected that Chloe would not be able to consider her own plans, her future, any more than Amy could work as long as it seemed the house was waiting for Robert to return.

She was still sitting there without doing a thing when her phone rang, and in relief, she answered it. Her mother was on the line.

“How is everything?” Lucy asked.

“Not very different,” Amy said. “The police aren't telling us a thing, and Chloe is still like a zombie. About the same.”

“Amy, I just read an article in the newspaper here saying that David Etheridge had been attacked. When? How badly is he hurt? Do they know who did it? Why?”

Amy told her what little she knew. “It doesn't seem to be connected to Robert's death. They're calling it a hate crime.”

“Dear, I'm coming home. I've boxed up some things to ship, and I'll bring the rest with me. It's time. More than time.”

Amy protested, but not vigorously. “If you can relax down there, that's the best thing for you. You know you couldn't sleep here.”

“Nor here,” Lucy said. “No. I realized I belong there, in my own home. This has been like a time-out, an interlude, but it's past time for me to settle a few things, make a few decisions. Besides, I realized when I got back here that I want to come home.”

That evening when Amy told Chloe that Lucy was coming home the following day, after a long pause, Chloe said stiffly, “That's good for you, isn't it? I'll call Lori Buchman and see if I can use her cottage over at Yachats. You and Lucy can figure out what to do with everything and I won't be in the way. Lucy will want to decide about the house now.”

She didn't look at Amy as she spoke, and didn't wait for a response, but walked from the room toward her own bedroom. It had been the master bedroom, Amy's parents' room. Amy watched Chloe's back as she walked away and thought again, zombie. As stiff and unnatural as a zombie.

Chloe left the following morning, saying only that she would be at Lori Buchman's cottage for a few days. Minutes later, Amy entered Robert's room and looked inside the closet. She didn't know how long Robert had been using his boyhood room, but she realized she had known. No one had ever mentioned it. Chloe in the master bedroom, Robert in his old room or in Salem.

She started with the suits, sport coats and slacks, jeans. She emptied the pockets of a few coins, ticket stubs, parking receipts. At first she had thought she would have someone from his church go through everything in the bedroom, but she reconsidered. No point in raising rumors and suspicions now, she decided. She found two boxes in the garage and took them back up with her and started emptying drawers. Laundered shirts, pajamas, a summer robe, miscellaneous items. One drawer seemed full of matched socks, and she simply pulled the whole drawer out and dumped the contents into one of the boxes. Then she stopped.

Taped to the bottom of the drawer was a manila envelope. She pulled it free and replaced the drawer. Sitting on the side of the bed, she opened the envelope and brought out a smaller one. Inside it were five pictures of Chloe and a man. Amy gasped. Nick Aaronson. Chloe and Nick Aaronson. They were in bed, Chloe naked with a sheet around her lower legs, and Nick just as naked partly under the sheet in one, out from it in others.

Amy walked across the hall to her own room and closed the door behind her. She sank onto her bed clutching the pictures, shaking as if with a deep chill.

She sat for a long time while questions chased one another through her head. Why? Who took them? When? Why was Robert keeping them? Did Chloe know he had them? Did Nick Aaronson? She was jerked out of her immobility by the ring of her cell phone.

Barbara Holloway was calling. She snatched up her phone as if it were a life jacket to rescue her from the sea of confusion she had fallen into.

“Ms. McCrutchen, another progress report,” Barbara said. “I just got back from the hospital and they're moving David to a private room later today. His condition is still serious, but no longer critical. I knew you'd want to be told.”

Amy had to moisten her lips before she could respond. “I'm grateful. Thank you. Will he be allowed visitors?” Her voice sounded forced, hollow.

“Not now. Perhaps in a day or two, and only those approved in advance. I'll make certain that your name is on the approved list.” She laughed lightly and added, “Unless, of course, David says no. I don't think that will be the case.” Then, before Amy expressed her gratitude again, Barbara said, “I wonder if it would be possible for me to come out to the house one day soon and have a look around.”

“Why?” Amy asked.

“I told you that David's parents asked me to collect his belongings, but before that, before he was attacked, David had also asked me to represent him in the event that he became a suspect in the murder of your brother. I know this puts you in an awkward position, but since David can't do anything about his own defense, I'd like a chance to see where it happened before anything undergoes any drastic change.”

“I understand,” Amy said. She realized that her attention was still on the picture of Chloe and Nick Aaronson, and she closed her eyes. “Tomorrow,” she said. “Around one or two? Would that be convenient for you?”

Barbara said yes and thanked her.

After disconnecting, Amy picked up the smaller envelope and slid the pictures back inside without looking at them again. Where to put it? She looked about the familiar room and shook her head. She had kept her diary under her pillow, she recalled, and thought that those pictures anywhere near her as she slept would induce nightmares. Finally she put the envelope of pictures in one of her reference books, and put it under three others. For now, she told herself. Just for now. Later she would decide what to do with them. Now she simply wanted to finish clearing out all of Robert's belongings, every scrap, everything. Get everything that had been his out of this house before her mother arrived that evening. First, she had to wash her hands.

That morning Barbara had brought Shelley and Bailey up to date before she went to the hospital. “So,” she had concluded, “what we're going to want is as much info as we can dig out about that old case from twenty-two years ago. A student named Jill Storey, strangled after attending a party at the McCrutchen house.”

“I'll do that,” Shelley said. “Newspapers first, see how many people are still around, things like that. What else?”

“I'll keep tabs on David's condition and the investigation into his attack. I want to talk to Amy McCrutchen, and have a look at the room where it happened. Dad will go with me. We'll want the usual background material on all of them,” she said to Bailey, and gave him a short list of names. “Also, whatever your pal at city hall can come up with about McCrutchen's murder. Time of death? Suspects. Deadly enemies in Salem? Was he into games? What does that sketch mean, if anything? You know the drill.” She had handed him a copy of the printout with
x
's on it.

When the briefing was finished, she took the overnight bag to the hospital, where Lucien Etheridge was alone in the waiting room. His wife, he told her, was ready to fall over and he had left her in the motel to try to sleep. Barbara thought he looked ready to keel over, as well.

“David opened his eyes and saw us this morning,” he said. “He said hi to us. They've been keeping him doped, but he opened his eyes and spoke. He's going to make it, Ms. Holloway.” This last was in a whisper, as if saying it in a normal voice might somehow undo the healing process.

“I know,” she said. “I talked to his doctor. They're optimistic. After they move him to a private room, we'll get a cot to go in his room and you can get some rest there. Anything's going to be better than this waiting room. Are you okay?”

He nodded. “We're fine, fine. Thank God, he's going to make it.” He looked ready to weep.

A
my entered the study reluctantly on Tuesday, uncertain how much of Robert's personal correspondence she might find, and what she would or should do with it if there was any. She glanced over the bookshelves. The books belonged here. Her mother's gardening books, medical books, science books, fiction. She spotted Robert's university yearbook, and pulled it from the shelf, then sat down to look through the graduating class pictures. She realized she was looking for David's picture and grimaced, but kept turning pages. A sheet of paper slipped from the book. She caught it, but before returning it, she saw that it was titled
Party,
with a list of names. She put it back, and looked for David's photograph. When she found it, she thought again how little he had changed over the years. Aquiline nose, sharp cheekbones, a lot of hair. She remembered the night he had winked at her and then, with a decisive motion, closed the book hard and put it back on the shelf.

Turning, she regarded the desk with Robert's computer. She knew that Lawrence Tellman and Nick Aaronson had made copies of material on the computer and no doubt then deleted the files, but personal things, not connected with his political affairs? She was almost afraid to approach the computer. If Nick had already sifted through the files, she told herself, there wouldn't be anything left that was incriminating or embarrassing. The question of whether he knew about the pictures kept recurring. If Chloe knew, it didn't seem reasonable for her to have gone away without first finding them, or at least trying to find them. There had been no sign of a search on her part.

Amy was looking through the computer files when the doorbell rang, and she realized that it was five minutes after one. Barbara Holloway and her father were due. Grateful for the interruption, she hurried to open the door. When she did, she felt frozen for a second, then almost reflexively took a step back. Nick Aaronson was there.

“Ms. McCrutchen, please tell Chloe I'm here.”

She shook her head. “She isn't here.”

His voice sharpened. “Is that her message, or is she really not here?”

“She's gone away for a few days,” Amy said stiffly.

“Where did she go?”

“Mr. Aaronson, all I can do for you is give you her cell phone number. Or do you already have it?”

He studied her for a moment, then said, “I have it. If she gets in touch, please tell her that certain business matters should be attended to. You know, don't you, that Robert and I were associates? There is a great deal of unfinished business that has to be seen to. Will you give her that message?”

“I'll tell her,” Amy said. She started to close the door, and he turned and walked away.

Another car was turning in at the driveway as Nick Aaronson drove out, and Amy waited. This time it was Barbara Holloway and her father.

Amy wished they had delayed a little, at least long enough for her to wash her hands, but even as she thought that, she knew she had not touched him, that her hands didn't need washing. Still, she wished they had delayed a little.

“Hello,” Barbara said, coming to the door. “Thanks for giving us this time.”

“You're welcome,” Amy said. Her voice was still strange to her ears, and she tried to relax her stomach muscles, which had drawn tight. “Please, come in.”

Her mother walked into the hall then and said, “Who was here? I heard cars coming and going.”

“Nick Aaronson was here, looking for Chloe. He's gone. Mother, this is Barbara Holloway and Mr. Holloway. My mother.”

Lucy was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and old sneakers; she was carrying a wide-brimmed hat, and her face was moist with sweat. She nodded to Barbara and Frank and said, “I mustn't touch you. I've been working in the garden, and my hands are dirty. Amy told me you asked permission to look around. Please, feel free to do so. I'll just go wash up a bit. Excuse me.”

“Over there is the living room,” Amy said, pointing, “and Robert's study in there.” She led the way through a wide hall to hallways off to both sides, and then the kitchen. She indicated one direction. “Pantry,” she said, “a lavatory, and that door opens to the garage and utility room.” Then she motioned for them to enter an open door at the end. “Family room,” she said. “This is where…where it happened.”

It was a very large room, as wide as the double garage, about twenty feet, and six or eight feet longer. The long side wall had many high windows, and the end facing the garden was nearly all glass. A piano and several chairs were at the garage end, a long sofa along the side wall under the high windows, with more easy chairs, a television, a dining table and chairs nearly centered, a game table farther down, and at the far end another grouping of smaller chairs and end tables.

They had taken only a few steps into the room, and Amy had stopped at the doorway when she spoke again. “You know where he was?” she asked in a low voice.

“We do,” Frank said gently. “We'll just be a few minutes.”

“I'll make some iced tea,” Amy said. “Take as long as you need.” She turned and left them alone in the family room.

The floors in the other part of the house were very fine mahogany, but in here the flooring was pale golden-sand-colored vinyl, a bit scuffed in places and more worn near the windowed south wall, as if the room had been well used over the years. Slowly Barbara and Frank walked toward the other end and the sliding door that led to the deck. The door was wide-open, the screen door closed. Frank stopped about three feet away from it.

“Here,” he said in a low voice, “or a little closer. Do you know how tall he was?”

Barbara shook her head. Frank turned to survey the room from where he was standing. It didn't seem likely that anyone could have sneaked up on Robert without notice.

“We also don't know how close the shooter was to him,” Barbara said, trying to visualize how it could have happened. A head shot seemed to indicate close range, or else a lucky hit. There were no bullet holes in the wall, and the glass door had not been broken. “I assume this is pretty much how the room was that night,” she murmured, studying the grouping of chairs by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Lightweight, padded but not bulky, not anything a person could hide behind. There was nowhere in the room a person could have hidden. The sofa was against the wall; the few easy chairs near it would afford no real concealment.

Frank turned again toward the sliding door, a six-foot-wide door, the opening nearly three feet wide. Plenty of space for a body to fall through, but why? Why had the screen door been open? Why shoot him right there? Why not sooner, or later? He shook his head.

He saw Lucy McCrutchen walk out onto the deck and sit under an umbrella. Amy followed with a tray that held a pitcher and glasses. He took a step toward the door and pushed the screen door open. It slid easily and smoothly without a sound. Had anyone heard the shot? With the open door, if other doors to the deck had been open, it seemed incredible that no one had heard a shot.

“Are you done in here?” he asked Barbara. “Let's join them on the deck if you are.”

“More than ready,” she said. They walked out and Frank closed the screen door.

At the table where Lucy and Amy were seated, Frank said, “Mrs. McCrutchen, you have my deepest sympathy for your loss.”

“And mine, as well,” Barbara said.

Lucy bowed her head slightly and thanked them. “Please, sit down. We know you must have many questions, and while I doubt that we can help, Amy and I have talked about this affair, and we understand that David Etheridge has come under suspicion. If we can assist you, we will.”

“You don't believe he is guilty?” Barbara asked.

Lucy shook her head. “I don't believe a rational person commits a murder for no reason, and David had no reason to do so.”

As she spoke, Amy filled two glasses with iced tea, and passed one to Barbara, another to Frank.

“Thank you,” Barbara said. She asked Lucy, “Do you know why your son became interested in Jill Storey's murder after all these years? That interest, the fact that he copied the file and brought it home with him, is why the attention has turned to David. The assumption is that David's appearance accounted for the renewed interest in the case.”

Lucy shook her head. “It was a major concern when it happened, of course. The investigators finally decided that the one who did it must have been a transient or someone like that, probably someone on drugs. The fact that she attended a party here earlier that night, along with about thirty others, made them ask a lot of questions about any possible connection with anyone who attended. It led nowhere, as far as I know.”

“Do you know if anything happened that night that could have brought on bad feelings between your son and David?” Barbara asked.

Lucy looked out over her garden, as if to distance herself from memories of that night. “No. They were not close friends ever, just classmates, no doubt with quite different interests and after-school pursuits. The night of the party, all the young people were stressed-out with the end of the school year, finals, last-minute papers to write, then a string of parties, graduation. They were manic with relief finally, boisterous and ravenous. They started arriving at six-thirty, and by midnight many of them were gone, too exhausted to keep partying, and those who remained got much quieter, quietly talking, and no more loud music. I believe someone was playing a guitar, and I know someone was at the piano, but it was subdued. By one, it was all over.”

Frank stood then and said, “I'd better be going on over to chat with Dr. Elders, but first, Mrs. McCrutchen, I have to tell you how much I admire your garden. It's very beautiful, and you have a few plants I'm not familiar with but want in my own garden now.”

“Thank you,” she said. She stood also and reached for her hat on a nearby chair. She picked up gardening gloves, as well. “Time to get back to a few things,” she said. “Why don't you show me the ones you don't know, and if I remember what they are, you can make a note.”

“Gardeners,” Amy said, as they walked away.

“Obsessed,” Barbara said. She drank a little tea, watching Frank and Lucy until they were out of hearing range. “Ms. McCrutchen, can you talk about that morning, when David called you home? What was being done, being said. We know so little about the actual murder and the investigators aren't telling me a thing.”

“It was pretty chaotic,” Amy said slowly. “Police were here by then, David was still here and Dr. Elders. Chloe was in shock, and the woman gardener was in shock out here on the deck. I called my nephew, Chloe and Robert's son.” She stopped and picked up her glass, but more as if to do something than because she wanted to drink from it. She swirled ice around and put the glass down again.

“Chloe said she came home close to eleven, she wasn't sure of the exact time. She parked in the garage and came in through the garage door. She glanced inside the room, saw that Robert wasn't watching television, and assumed he was in the study working. She went straight to her room and got ready for bed and went to sleep. They had separate rooms, so she wouldn't have known that he never went to bed.” Her voice quivered and she looked away from Barbara, appeared to be watching her mother and Frank. He was jotting something in his notebook.

“Do you know if they found a gun?”

“Yes. It was Robert's handgun. He kept one in his desk drawer in the study. Chloe told them. She couldn't identify it, but they seemed to think it was his gun. I don't know where they found it.”

“What was Dr. Elders doing over here in the morning?” Barbara asked.

Amy shrugged. “He's over here a lot. Mother says he's just a lonely old man, but he's always been in and out of our house a lot, ever since I can remember. He heard the gardener screaming, he said, and came hurrying over and just hung around. If your father plans to chat with him, he'd better be prepared to stay awhile.”

Barbara smiled. “In time I'll go drag Dad away.”

“
Rescue
him,” Amy said.

Frank and Lucy had gone to the far side of the deck, and a moment later she returned alone and went back to the flower border.

“She showed him the way we always went next door,” Amy said.

Barbara glanced at her watch. “I'll give them half an hour or so,” she said. “If I can impose on you that long.”

“Not a problem,” Amy said. She glanced at Barbara and away swiftly, and asked, “Do they have any evidence or anything against David? Do you know?”

“I wish I knew what they have, but I don't. David told me there was nothing. We haven't had time for a real talk yet, and heaven knows how long it will be before he's up to a real conversation, an interrogation. I wish I knew more about that party, who attended, if something happened that night between them, or between anyone and Jill Storey.”

“I can show you Robert's yearbook, with a party list,” Amy said after a moment. “There's a copier. You could make a copy of the list if you want.”

“I want to very much,” Barbara said.