Dark Tort (30 page)

“Vic,” I said lightly. “Your playing was great. I love those old sixties songs. You did a marvelous job.”

He blushed to the roots of his tightly curled straw-colored hair. “Why, thanks.” Then his face turned glum. He shook his head.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Oh, I used to hope that, you know . . .” He looked into the street, as if thinking about what he used to hope.

Gus and Arch had moved into Woods’ End, where they were throwing a Frisbee that had popped free from Julian’s storage area behind their seat. So with just Vic and me in the driveway, I wondered if he’d talk to me a bit about Dusty. About why he threw a diamond ring through the window of Aspen Meadow Jewelers. About what he had hoped.

“No,” I said, my voice low. “I don’t know.”

To my great surprise, as well as Vic’s, I imagine, tears spilled out of his eyes. He muttered another profanity and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. I pulled a tissue out of my pants pocket and handed it to him. Julian still hadn’t returned, and the boys were yelling and racing back and forth as they tossed the Frisbee.

I said, “Vic, is there something you want to say to me?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. He searched in his pockets and brought out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I smoke? Think the Ellises will mind?”

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” I said, although I was sure of no such thing. Still, some folks’ tongues were loosened up by booze; maybe nicotine could do the same thing.

The match flared; Vic took a deep drag and looked at me. “You probably heard Dusty and I broke up.”

“Yes, I did.”

He looked toward the trees that edged the far border of Woods’ End. “Well, that’s what I told the cops, you know, when they took me down to the department. We broke up, end of story. ‘So what were you doing in that copy place at that hour of night?’ ‘Yo! I work there,’ I told them.” Vic shook his head. “I just thought you would have heard about when I was in interrogation, because you’re married to a cop. I figured, you know, they talk.”

“Well, that’s not the case with Tom. Sometimes I hear things, sometimes he discusses cases with me, but I know to keep my mouth shut.”

Vic took another drag on his cigarette. I guessed Julian and Lorraine were waiting for the ice maker to fill. At length, Vic said, “I hoped Dusty and I would be able to tour together. She wasn’t a great singer, but she was a pretty good one. And she loved the music, man. She just dug it.” Another drag on the cigarette. “But she didn’t dig me. In the end, she didn’t dig me.”

“Look, Vic, I’m sorry. Is there something you want to tell me that you haven’t told the police?”

Vic dropped the half-smoked cigarette and twisted it under the toe of his black boot. “I hit her. Oh God; now there, I’ve said it. It was only once.” He began to cry again. “I’m so sorry, and you with your history and all, that the whole town knows.”

Very softly, I asked, “Did you tell the cops you hit her?”

He put his head in his hands. “No. I couldn’t.”

“Where did you hit her, Vic? Where on her body, I mean. Where and when?”

He blew out air. “I slapped her face. It was that night, around seven. She came over to Art, Music, and Copies to return a ring I’d given her. I was so—” He couldn’t finish the thought.

I said, “Did you trash her car? Because if they find the hammer or whatever it was at your place—”

“No, no, I didn’t trash her car. I even wanted to apologize to her. But I was just so mad. I was just so damn mad.”

Angry and mad, perhaps. But I was still treading gingerly. “Was there someone else?” I asked. “Someone else in her life, and that’s why she broke up with you?”

“I asked her. She said no. I wasn’t sure I believed her. She yelled at me, and I yelled at her, and then I—” He closed his eyes at the memory.

“The pathologist will find the mark you made on her face,” I said solemnly. “Sometimes slaps even match certain people’s hands—”

“What am I supposed to do?” he asked. His eyes flared. “Call the sheriff’s department and say, ‘Uh-oh, I forgot to tell you that I hit my girlfriend, I mean, my ex-girlfriend’?”

“That is precisely what you need to do,” I said as Julian came sauntering back down the driveway, using both hands to hold a cloth towel bulging with ice. Just then, Tom’s trustworthy car came into sight, with trustworthy Tom behind the wheel. The boys snagged the Frisbee and raced toward us. “Let me say something to you, Vic,” I said, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice. “You need to tell the cops just what you told me. Because you’re right, they’re going to find out. Sooner or later. And if they discover you haven’t been forthright with them, things are going to get very bad for you.”

Tom pulled his car into the Ellises’ driveway within a foot of the hapless Rover door. “Hey, everybody!” he sang as he jumped out. He looked over his shoulder at Vic’s Sebring, which was parked on the dead end. Tom hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Now that’s a convertible.” He shook his head at the doorless Rover and pointed at it. “That is not how you want to get air inside a car.” When he saw my expression, his joviality disappeared. “C’mere, Miss G. You look like the Jerk just walked back into your life.”

“Not quite,” I whispered, and glanced at Vic. He gave a barely perceptible nod. “Vic has something to tell you, Tom. He’s going to do it now.”

So all our plans changed. Tom, as might be expected, was immediately somber. He wanted to take Vic down to the department right away to make a statement. Vic agreed.

When we were discussing how we were going to do the vehicles, Julian, who could sense something was up without being told what it was, said, “I could wait here for the tow truck, ask the guy to take you all home, then come back for me after he drops off the Rover.”

“No, thanks, but no,” I protested, unwilling to calculate how long it would take to have the tow-truck driver chauffeur us hither and yon, even if he was willing to do it. The next day was the christening reception, and like it or not, Julian and I needed to do the prep.

Vic pulled his keys out of his pocket. “Take the Sebring.” When I gave him a dubious look, he said, “It’s okay. I trust you.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Just park it on the street by the Routts’ place and I’ll get it later.”

How did I feel about taking a suspect’s car back home? Guilty? Worried? Actually, I was too tired to have any feelings. We lived less than half an hour away, and Tom would be back soon. Even he seemed to think it would be okay, so I acquiesced. He also murmured that he would call Brewster Motley if it looked as if Vic was going to be charged and needed a criminal defense attorney.

Within five minutes, the boys were again shrieking with laughter, this time at the prospect of yours truly driving them in a convertible with the top down, all the way home! Imagining the windy drive back to our house, I thought I’d be lucky not to get the flu.

As Tom was departing with Vic, the tow truck pulled up, thank God. It was only a matter of minutes before the driver and Julian managed to hook the truck up to the Rover. I gave the driver my credit-card number while Julian tossed the errant door into the back of his car.

He slapped his hands together and gave me a wide smile. “I never liked that door anyway.”

You gotta love the kid, I thought as I hustled Arch and Gus into the rear seat of the convertible. And so I drove us all home, with the boys hollering, “This is so cool! This is so cool!” the entire way.

Once Julian and I were back in our kitchen, I had two things to do: start on the prep for the christening reception, and call the Routts. Make that three things: I needed to start on the dinner dish I’d promised Tom. The sausage-and-potato casserole was a hearty entrée that Tom had adapted from Julia Child, and he loved to dig into it when the weather turned cold. With the thermometer hovering right at thirty-two degrees, that was precisely what it was, despite my son and his half brother’s glee at being driven home in an open-air vehicle.

“When the temperatures drop, I don’t even drive with my windows down,” Julian said, once he’d donned an apron. “I feel as if my ears are frozen to the sides of my face.”

“I may never talk again,” I said, feeling my chilled lips. “Some people might not see that as a bad thing.”

Julian merely shook his head. I told him what I’d planned for the christening reception: Prosciutto Bites, Charlie’s Asparagus Quiche recipe from the booklet we’d bought at CBHS, Homemade Breads, and Fresh Fruit Salad. Aspen Meadow Bakery was doing an enormous sheet cake, so I didn’t need to bake another Old Reliable. Julian started tapping my computer keys. The printer began spitting out recipes and prep sheets, and the two of us gathered ingredients from the walk-in.

“You might want to make an extra quiche, a small one,” I warned Julian as he was grating cheese. “The dinner Tom wants is a meat lover’s extravaganza.” Julian mumbled something unintelligible about heart disease, but said it was no problem. “Can you manage in here,” I asked, “if I go see the Routts?”

“Of course,” he said. “But if I’m going to be spending more than just one night here, at some point I need to go get my clothes.”

I told him that Tom would like him to stay with us for a while, at least until Dusty’s murder was solved, but only if he could swing it with the bistro where he was working. Julian promised he’d be able to switch some shifts. But he still needed clothes, he reminded me, or a car to go get them in. We agreed to go to Boulder the next afternoon, Sunday, after the service.

I rummaged around in the freezer until I found an oblong dish full of spaghetti and meatballs that I had made for one of the fundraisers at Christian Brothers High School. I wrote out directions for heating it. Before starting for the Routts’ house, I asked Julian to come out onto the front porch and watch me. This he did, and I also looked both ways, because I sure didn’t want somebody to mow down my casserole and me.

Sally answered the door after I’d knocked several times. Her hair looked even more straggly and unkempt than when I’d seen her the day before, and the odor emanating from the house was foul. Maybe she was embarrassed to have me come in, and that was why she’d been reluctant to see who was on her front stoop.

“Do you have anything to tell me?” she asked. Her expressionless gaze skimmed the street. “Why is Vic’s car parked in front of your house? Is he over visiting you? Will he be back to see us? I feel so bad about not letting him in the other morning . . . and he’s been so helpful and kind. Is he coming over here?”

“Uh, no,” I stammered. I was not going to tell Sally the reason for Vic’s sudden trek down to the sheriff’s department, as that would upset her even more. “He’s with Tom. He’ll be back soon.” When she didn’t say anything, I went on: “Could you let me in? I need to put this casserole in your refrigerator . . . and ask you a few questions.”

“The police have asked us enough questions to last us a lifetime,” she said, but she pulled the door open and I followed her to the kitchen.

The cause of the odor was immediately apparent, as the smell was much stronger by the sink. No one had taken out the trash.

The trash! I’d forgotten all about the mess in the back of Julian’s Rover. I checked my watch: just after five. I knew Aspen Meadow Imports, where the Rover had been towed, closed soon. I would just have to get it the next day. No wait, that was Sunday. By the time I got it Monday, Julian’s vehicle would be permanently infused with the smell of garbage.

Well: to the task at hand. I didn’t ask for Sally’s permission to remove the trash; I just did it. It had probably been Dusty’s job. I toted the bulging plastic bag out to the garbage container, thankful that no bears had been reported in our neighborhood. When I came back inside, Colin’s disconsolate crying filled the house. I guessed that he’d just awakened from his nap. But this was only a guess, because Sally remained glued to the couch.

“Let me go get him,” I offered. And so I washed my hands and went to fetch the little guy, since Sally still wasn’t moving. Colin, his face mottled from weeping, needed a change. It had been well over a decade since I’d changed a diaper, and when I started I realized Colin needed a bath. Poor kid.

“All right, buster, let’s go,” I said to him in as commanding a tone as I could muster.

Fifteen minutes later, I brought Colin, bathed, changed, and clothed in clean garments, into the small living room. Sally had not stirred. After I put Colin down, I came and sat beside her.

“You know, Sally, maybe we should get a counselor to come here to the house. I can call one, if you’d like. You need help.”

“What I need,” she said in a monotone, “is to find out what happened to my daughter.”

“Okay, okay,” I said as I pulled my cell from my pocket. “But may I get somebody here to help you?”

“Do whatever you want.”

I walked into the kitchen and put in a call to Furman County Social Services, steeling myself for the usual bureaucratic runaround. To my astonishment, I was only transferred once, and the office said they would send a grief counselor up that evening. I also put in a call to St. Luke’s. Thank goodness some foresighted soul had thought to put in confidential voice mail for Father Pete. He’d just been over here the previous day, but hopefully he could manage another visit. I added that if he was aware of anyone in the Episcopal Church Women who knew the Routts, and would be willing to stop in once a day to do some cleaning and cooking, that would be great.

“Have you eaten today, Sally?” I asked when I came back out to the living room. No to that, too. Which probably meant that Colin was hungry, as well. Where was Sally’s father? Perhaps he napped in the afternoon. But a happy cry from Colin and a rush of hurried baby steps indicated that John Routt had made his appearance from the other side of the small house. For that I was thankful.