Dark Tort (33 page)

“Louise Upton and her lawyer say she found the bracelet in her car. As far as the sledgehammer goes, she has no idea whose it is. She’s never even handled a sledgehammer, she insists, and we weren’t going to find her fingerprints on the thing. And get this—she and her lawyer invited the cops to search her house, see if any of her shoes or clothing had any glass on ’em.”

“She invited them?”

Tom cocked his head. “She must be pretty sure of her innocence.” He chuckled. “She told the cops they weren’t to make a mess in her house.”

At that, I actually laughed. Then the same buzzing sound in my brain, the crazed energy that I’d been feeling ever since I’d come home from the Routts’ house with the paintings, took over. I zipped around the house, putting stuff away, tossing trash, and leaving each room spotless. What else could I do? Well, I could finish reading Dusty’s journal. And . . .

Maybe I could prevail on K. D. Chenault to come over to the house tonight. I simply couldn’t wait until the next morning to hear what she had to say, not with Louise Upton behind bars and so many questions unanswered.

I put in a call to K.D.’s separate line at the Chenault home. I know that it’s time-consuming and expensive to find lovely housing, and I’d heard of more than one Aspen Meadow divorce ending up with a physical splitting of the big mansion, but goodness! I never could have lived with my soon-to-be ex under the same roof, once I had decided the marriage was over. But people were different. Maybe divorce was friendlier these days. Somehow, I doubted that.

K.D. answered on the third ring, sounding as if I had awakenedher. Feeling like a heel, I identified myself and apologized for calling at eight on a Saturday night. She said it was no problem, she just tried to sleep when she could, since late Saturday night and the wee hours of Sunday morning were prime times for ER activity, and she could be called in at any minute. I explained that I would love to hear what she had to tell me, if she was up to it. And, I would dearly like to listen to her story tonight, because the police had arrested Louise Up-ton for Dusty’s murder.

Her predictable shock propelled her out of bed. “I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. You still live right off Main Street?” I told her that we did. She said she’d be right over.

···

Tom, Julian, Arch, and Gus decided to watch yet another movie, and I was left with a clean house and a bundle of energy the size of a nuclear reactor. The sheaf of unread pages from Dusty’s journal still beckoned.

I scanned through April, May, June, and July, all still with references to “New O.,” and how much she loved him, and how he said he felt as if he had just been born. Apparently their lovemaking was quite athletic, with her saying, “I just can’t keep up with him! Does that sound dirty?”

No, I thought, you poor girl. It just sounds as if you’re in love. But I was still left with the question: Who was this New O.? And if he loved Dusty so much, why wasn’t he over at the Routts’ house offering condolences? I reminded myself that with all I’d had to do at the Routts’ house—bathing and changing Colin, cleaning out the refrigerator, making a meal, taking down the paintings—I’d forgotten to ask about the funeral. St. Luke’s would be absorbing the expense, no doubt, but I had no idea when it was going to be. Maybe I’d see the mysterious Mr. O. then.

Even though it was after eight at night, I must have been daydreaming, because my attention suddenly snapped back. I reread an entry made this month. “October 6: Somebody is taking stuff. I don’t know who. But I am going to FIND OUT.”

Well, what do you know. I raced up the stairs and handed the page to Tom so as not to interrupt Clint Eastwood dispatching about half a dozen bad guys. Then the doorbell rang: K. D. Chenault.

She was dressed for work, in a camel-hair coat covering a sensible brown tweed skirt and white silk blouse. I knew that she, like the other docs, kept a locker down at Southwest Hospital, because the last thing anyone wanted was to bring home blood-spattered scrubs to do in the home laundry. With her chestnut hair pinned up in a twist and her expertly applied makeup, she might have been going off to work at an expensive women’s clothing store or to manage an upscale bank. You never would have guessed that she was about to go attend to folks with gunshot and stab wounds, to horribly mangled car-accident victims, or to kids who had just opened a four-inch gash in their foreheads, slipping in the bathtub.

“Sorry for the cloak-and-dagger,” she said, once she was settled in the kitchen and sipping a soft drink. “It’s just that Richard listens in on my calls, which drives me nuts. And since this involves hospital business, I didn’t want him to have anything to hang on my head at the next meeting with our attorneys. ‘My wife doesn’t guard the confidentiality of her patients,’ that kind of thing. I wouldn’t put anything past that man.”

I wouldn’t put anything past anyone, I thought, but said nothing. I didn’t care about patients’ records and wondered if this had anything to do with Dusty Routt.

K.D. licked her lips. “Actually, the patient in question is dead.”When she shook her head, a few strands came loose from her French twist. “Let me begin at the beginning.” She inhaled. “Last March, Flight for Life brought an elderly woman into the Southwest ER after she’d been struck by a car. She was a pedestrian up here in Aspen Meadow.”

“I remember, I think. Wasn’t she the lady who was run down on the street outside of Charlie Baker’s last exhibit? I did the catering and she attended the event. I even saw her talking to Charlie for a while. Then we heard the sirens and found out there had been an accident.”

“Yes, that sounds right. The highway patrol came to question the woman at the hospital. But she had already died, so they wanted to talk to me, to see who she was, and if she’d said anything. They said there were no witnesses to this woman being hit. And no skid marks on the pavement.”

An icicle plunged down my back. I asked, “So who was she?” “Her name was Althea Mannheim, and she was from Utah. I talked to her cousin at length later. Her only relative, living in Boulder now.”

K.D.’s voice turned impatient. “The thing is, when they brought Ms. Mannheim in, she was conscious, but hysterical. She was basically talking a bunch of nonsense. Or at least, I thought it was nonsense. She was absolutely covered with blood, plus we were sure she had internal injuries, and she kept saying, ‘Steals. Steals. That’s why I’m here.’ I thought she was just suffering from shock, delirium, that kind of thing. We needed to get her stabilized, and I kept asking her to calm down while the painkiller took effect. She kept saying, ‘Nobody else will tell them so I’m telling them. That bitch your eye steals.’ ”

“ ‘Bitch your eye’?”

“I thought maybe she was referring to a woman named Yoreye, as in that bitch, Yoreye. Or something like that. She kept saying, ‘That’s why I’m here. To tell people. That bitch your eye stole our pattern.’ ”

“ ‘Bitch your eye stole our pattern,’ ” I repeated. I wanted to make sure I was hearing this right.

“Then today, you introduced me to Bishop Uriah, from southern Utah.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yes. But a pattern? What pattern? I mean, how many men do you know who sew?”

I nodded, but not because I knew any men who did sewing. My mind was going along different lines: liturgical ones. I was also remembering what Meg had told me, that when she’d driven Charlie home from the party, he’d been agitated, and wanted to hire a private detective. And then there was what I’d just read in Dusty’s journal: that someone was stealing paintings from Charlie’s house. And now I was convinced that in fact someone had tampered with my van so I’d be late the night Dusty was killed. And all of this— all of it—could be related to why and how Dusty had been killed, and by whom.

On the other hand, it could have nothing at all to do with Dusty, or even Uriah Sutherland. It might simply be a coincidence that Althea Mannheim was visiting from Utah, went to Charlie’s exhibit, and was killed in an accident nearby. She indeed might have been mumbling nonsense that K.D. had misinterpreted when she heard the unusual title and name, Bishop Uriah. Uriah certainly seemed an unlikely possibility for a painting thief, especially from a man who was an old and cherished friend. Richard Chenault, it had to be said, was a better possibility as someone who had access to the paintings and the inventories of Charlie’s estate.

“Wait, K.D.” I was thinking how to ask her if she’d seen any of Charlie Baker’s paintings somewhere in that big house that she and Richard still shared. “Do you know anything about Richard’s dealings with Charlie Baker?”

“Couple of things. Why?”

“Well, did you ever see any of Charlie’s paintings in Richard’s part of the house? Paintings that you didn’t think he’d bought?”

She considered. “No. The most we ever do is have some wine together. Okay, it’s not the most we’ve ever done. Once we had a lot of wine,” she said with an embarrassed laugh. “And then one thing led to another . . .”

Aha! I thought. Maybe there was more than one reason they were still sharing a house. And I had to admit, albeit shamefully, that the Jerk had successfully seduced me a couple of times, after we were separated.

“Funny you should ask about Charlie Baker, though,” K.D. said. “The next night, I mean the night after the show, Richard came home just looking miserable. I asked him if he wanted a glass of wine, and he said no, he wanted a glass of bourbon. He hardly ever drinks the hard stuff, Goldy. But he looked like hell, so I fixed him a drink, and I fixed one for myself.” She shook her head, seeming apologetic. “Richard always talks too much when he drinks, and that night was no exception.” She paused and gave me the full benefit of her hazel eyes. “He said Charlie Baker had come into the office that day and changed his will.”

My mouth fell open. “Changed his will?” I echoed. So much for client confidentiality. “Changed his will how?”

“Well, I don’t know, Goldy. Richard wouldn’t tell me that. Why? Do you think Charlie wanting to change his will has something to do with Uriah Sutherland?”

“I’m not sure. I do know the bishop has been involved in setting up the Mountain Pastoral Center, which is being funded by Charlie’s bequest. Maybe Charlie was planning to leave some of his paintings to Uriah, but then what Althea Mannheim told him changed his mind. Or maybe there’s no connection between Mannheim and the bishop at all. You’re not certain exactly what the dying woman was saying, K.D.”

K.D. furrowed her brow and considered. “No, I’m not certain. Still, her words were so strange that they stuck with me. And then when you introduced us at the party . . . well, you saw how startled I was. I hadn’t had a chance to meet Nora’s father before now. I’ve been pretty busy this year, and then I just tried not to have much to do with anyone at the firm because, well, because of everything. And then this horrible disaster with Dusty happened... and oh my God, then Louise was arrested for it. And now you’re bringing up Charlie Baker.”

A bad thought entered my brain. Althea Mannheim, who may have known something about Uriah Sutherland, had died outside of the gallery mounting Charlie’s last exhibit. Not long after that, Charlie had asked Meg about finding a private investigator . . . maybe to check on Uriah’s past in southern Utah? And Charlie had also told Richard that he wanted to change his will. The next day . . . the very next day, Charlie had fallen to his death.

What if Charlie’s death had not been an accident or suicide, what if he’d been pushed? What if everything that had happened so far was connected to Charlie, to his will, or to the stolen artwork? If so, Dusty had been in the thick of it. I figured she must have had a role in Charlie making changes to his will. She’d said as much in her journal: Especially after what I was asked to do tonight. Dusty was the one whom Charlie trusted . . . maybe even more than he trusted Richard. It made sense that she would have helped him get rid of a bequest to Uriah or whatever he’d wanted altered in the will. And depending on what those changes were, they might have been what led to Dusty’s death.

I said, “This next part’s important, K.D. What happened to the new will?” “Well, that’s what I wanted to ask Richard, with Charlie falling down the stairs so soon after Richard had told me Charlie was changing his will.” She snorted. “But he’d sobered up by that time, and didn’t want to talk to me about it.”

“Did you tell the cops?”

“I wanted to,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek, “but Richard said he could be disbarred for telling me about the new will, and then I would have to pay for his defense, plus get nothing from the divorce settlement. Oh, we had an awful fight. But in the end, he told me, ‘There is no new will.’ ”

“I thought there was.”

“No, Richard told me, ‘There’s no new will if the person making it doesn’t come in to sign it, once we have it all typed up.’ ”

I felt as if all the air had gone out of my body at once. Could the alterations Charlie wanted to make to his will have been unimportant ones? Or had someone murdered Charlie so that the new will would never be valid? Maybe, if, could be. I kept running into dead ends. I wanted to ask K.D. more questions, but at that moment, her cell phone beeped.

“Gotta go,” she told me, once she’d hung up. “They’ve got a kid coming in to the ER whom they suspect has shaken baby syndrome.” She gave me a rueful glance. “And as if I didn’t have enough problems, somebody sideswiped me on the way over here, and I’m going to have to have my damn car—”

“Whoa, whoa,” I said, suddenly alert again. “Listen, K.D., the police are tracking a guy who may have tried to run down someone who’s helping the Routts. And this Althea Mannheim was killed by a hit-and-run driver, remember. A wannabe killer in a car is not something you even want to be thinking about. In fact, would you vamoose out of town for a while?” I was remembering K.D.’s intense, frightened reaction to Uriah’s name at the birthday party. If Nora’s father was somehow involved with Charlie’s or Dusty’s death, or if he’d had a hand in the theft of Charlie’s paintings, he might now view