Lia Farrell - Mae December 02 - Two Dogs Lie Sleeping (7 page)

D
ory handed Detective Nichols the list of his appointments. The first name on the list was Miranda Booth Stackhouse.

“Miranda is the Junior League
chairwoman for the charity event, and she holds the keys to the house. While the designers are working at the house, a member of the Design Committee has to let them in. There’s a front table and every designer signs in and out. You need to check the ledger. The Committee has to be very careful in case of any allegations of theft.”

Detective Nichols jotted this down in his notebook, wondering who else besides Miranda and July Powell had keys to the house.

“Can you find out whether anyone else had a key?”

Nodding, she said, “I’ll try. You’re going to interview Miranda first this morning. Deputy Fuller will be going with you to her house. Bethany Cooper will be here when you get back.”

“She wasn’t the nursery designer though, right?”

Dory looked at the notes on her desk. “Right, Bethany designed one of the nearby rooms. Lacey Duncan did the
nursery, but he’s not available for questioning.”

Wayne’s eyebrows shot up. “Lacey is male? And can’t be questioned?”

“Right. Lacey is a famous designer who grew up here. Apparently, he developed the plan for the nursery, which he did as a personal favor to Miranda, and then he flew to D.C. to work on a design for the French Embassy. He left several weeks ago. Shauna Lewis, his assistant, finished it to his specs and did the mural.” Dory sounded unimpressed as she read from her notes.

“Okay, thanks.” Wayne collected Deputy Robert Fuller and they left the office.

After driving
to the eastern side of Rosedale, they entered a new subdivision called Heather Hills and the driveway of a large home at 4891 Heath Drive. Deputy Fuller rang the bell, and a short heavy-set brunette in her forties, wearing a tan skirt and a pale blue blouse, answered the door.

“Hello,” she said, “I’m Miranda. Come in.” She had dark circles under her eyes and looked tired.

They entered a formal foyer and Miranda led them to an office with an imposing desk and dark, solid looking bookshelves. The books looked like those you see in a law library. The impressive bookcases were made from walnut with curved glass fronts.

“Would you like coffee?” she asked.

“No thank you.” Detective Nichols shook his head. Deputy Fuller switched on the recorder.

“Mrs. Stackhouse, you’re the Junior League
chair for this year’s fundraiser, is that right?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

Detective Nichols always started with the routine questions—questions he already knew the answers to. “Is that a volunteer position?”

“All the Junior League jobs are volunteer positions, Detective. Chairing the committee for the Showhouse is a lot of work, but it’s an honor. I’ve been working up to it for years. When we got the Booth Mansion for this year’s Showhouse, everybody wanted me to be the
chair because of my connection to the home.”

“
Since the Showhouse opening had to be postponed indefinitely, you’re most likely aware that Thomas John Ferris was killed at the Booth Mansion at approximately five-fifty seven p.m. on August second.” Wayne watched her closely.

Miranda nodded. She closed her eyes briefly and her face paled.

“Did you know Mr. Ferris?”

“Yes, I did. Poor little Tommy. I am
 … that is I
was
, his big sister. Actually, I’m his stepsister. His mother married my father when he was barely five. I haven’t seen him since he was twenty years old. He must have been about thirty-five.” Miranda looked utterly miserable. She took a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose. “Sorry, it was just horrible news.”

“So, he left Rosedale when he was twenty? And returned recently?” Deputy Fuller asked. They knew this already, but they wanted Miranda’s confirmation.

“Yes. My husband and I looked for him for a long time. We even hired two private detectives, one when he first disappeared, and one about two years ago. Neither of them came up with much. Our family attorney, Evangeline Bontemps, has always been able to reach him, but she wouldn’t tell me anything about where he was. I guess he insisted on that.” She threw the tissue into a small brass trashcan near her feet.

“How was your relationship with him when you were younger?” Detective Nichols was getting to the significant questions now.

“Good. I have so many happy memories of Tommy as a kid. I used to take him for rides on the handlebars of my bike, and he would come into my bed at night if there was a thunderstorm,” she trailed off and tears came into her eyes. “I remember holding his hand when our parents were married. He was so happy to have a big sister.”

“I’m sorry for your loss
.” Wayne handed her another tissue. “Did you know he was back in Rosedale?”

“
On the morning of August second, I got a call from Bethany Cooper. She told me Tommy was in town. I was shocked and hurt that I hadn’t heard from him. She said she’d seen him at the mansion, but I never got a chance to speak to him. And now I never will.” Tears flooded her eyes.

“What did the private detectives find, do you remember? I need their names, if you still have them. Were they able to tell you what he’d been doing all those years?”

“The first detective, his name was Marc Whitney, did locate him. It was about two years after Tommy disappeared. He traced him to a ski resort in Utah. He met with him and asked Tommy to call me. Tommy said he would not. No, that’s not right; he said he
could not
speak with me.”

“He wouldn’t or couldn’t
speak with you? Why was that?”

“He told the detective he needed time to recover from the death of our parents and that he would call me or write when he could.”

“And the second detective? Did he find anything?”

“No
. Apparently Tommy left that town and he found no further trace of him.” Detective Nichols met Deputy Fuller’s eyes for a moment, knowing Ferris had been working in Colorado.

“I understand
that your parents died in an auto accident around the time your step-brother disappeared. When was that exactly?” Detective Nichols asked.

“It happened just t
wo days after Tommy returned to college for his sophomore year from Christmas break. We got the news that my father and his mother had been killed in an auto accident. I called the housemother at his fraternity to tell him, but she hadn’t seen him since January third.”

“So, it was at that point that your brother disappeared?”

“Yes, in fact when I called her again a few days later to ask Tommy to come home for the funeral, she said nobody had seen him since January third. I called the registrar and they said he hadn’t completed registration. The registrar was able to tell me that Tommy was in good standing academically, because I was his only relative at that point, but the school had no knowledge of his whereabouts. The funeral and the reading of the will took place without him.”

Detective Nichols was quiet, running through the scenario again. Why would a young man with apparently no academic or financial problems not register for the winter semester? Something happened during Christmas break that made it impossible for Tom Ferris to return to the
university, and it wasn’t the death of his parents. What could have been worse than that?

Miranda was looking at him with a little frown.

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking. You said there was a will?” Detective Nichols asked.

“Yes, and Tommy got the house
.” Miranda stared down at her empty hands. “It should have come to me. It was my grandparents’ house, in my family for generations. I was the legitimate heir. I was bitter for a very long time about that. I had a trust fund from my grandparents, so I did receive money from the estate, but not the house. I loved that house. I always had.” Miranda’s mouth was pinched and her fists were balled up on the desk top.

“It must have been a terrible blow,” Wayne said
, keeping his voice gentle and kind.

“I felt so alone then, no parents, no grandparents, no little brother. I realized later that I experienced a clinical depression. I finally got treatment
. Then I met my husband and we used my inheritance to start his business. But I would have traded it all, every dime of it, to own that house.” She was looking past him now with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

The ferocity of her feelings struck Wayne hard. He wondered if her desire for the house was strong enough to make her kill Tom Ferris. Wayne knew that women sometimes had much stronger attachments to homes than men did. Or perhaps the fact that her stepbrother had been in town and hadn’t contacted her pushed her over the edge.

“Where were you between five and six p.m. on August second?”

“My husband and I met some friends for dinner that night. We were driving to the restaurant at that time.”

“Okay,” the detective said, thinking that if her alibi was confirmed, she would be off his list. While he still intended to talk with her husband, if they were together and their friends confirmed it, neither one of them could have killed Tom Ferris.

Bethany Cooper was waiting when they got back to the office. Dory slipped a note into Wayne’s hand.

“Read that before you talk to her,” she whispered.

Deputy Fuller and Detective Nichols walked into the conference room and introduced themselves to Mrs. Bethany Cooper, who rose to her feet when they came in. She was an attractive woman, slender, with a small waist and flaring hips shown to good advantage in her sleeveless tunic and dark leggings. She wore her long dark hair loose. She reminded him of someone, but he couldn’t think who it was. He indicated that she should sit, and admired the graceful way she slid into the chair. Wayne remembered Dory saying the woman who left the Booth Showhouse at the time of Ferris’ death walked like a dancer.

They had recently installed audio capture equipment at the office. The deputy clicked the audio button, turning on the system.

“Mrs. Cooper, would it be okay if I called you Bethany?” Detective Nichols asked.

“Certainly.”

“I understand you designed the upstairs bedroom closest to the nursery, correct?”

“Yes, the
grandparents’ suite was my project.” She sat with her back ruler-straight. Her legs were crossed at the ankle.

“As you know, Tom Ferris was found dying in the nursery of the Booth Showhouse the evening of August second.”

“Yes, I know,” she swallowed, and he saw her throat constrict.

“Did you see Mr. Ferris before he died?”

“Yes, I did. I came over to take a look at the nursery and he was there. He told me that room had been his bedroom when he lived in the house.”

“When was that?” Wayne was getting the distinct impression that Bethany Cooper was holding back.

“It was after five o’clock on August first. I planned on going to the Booth Showhouse the next day for a final check, but when I got to the house, I realized I was running late. My husband was expecting me, so I left.”

“How did you expect to get in the house? I thought only Miranda Booth Stackhouse had the keys.”

She paused. “I expected some other designers would probably be there and if I rang the bell they would let me in.”

“We know you were in the house on August second also, Mrs. Cooper. Who let you in?” Deputy Fuller asked.

She was obviously trying to make up a story. “The front door was unlocked.”

“Weren’t you upset about that? I thought security was supposed to be very tight.”

“I saw cars in the parking area, so I figured somebody else had left it open.”

The detective looked at her doubtfully. “Are you holding something back, Bethany? Did you meet with Ferris anywhere else?”

Bethany Cooper shook her head but didn’t meet his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me, Mrs. Cooper; I can’t help you if you lie to me.” His voice was very quiet, almost tender.

She didn’t say anything, so after a pause Wayne continued, “Where did you go after you left the Booth Mansion on the second?”

“I went home.” Bethany stood up abruptly and reached down to the floor for her purse. “Detective, I heard that Tommy died there. Is that true?”

It was the second time she had referred to him as Tommy, and Wayne wondered whether everyone called him that, or only women who knew him intimately. Both July Powell and Miranda Booth Stackhouse had called him Tommy and now Bethany Cooper.

“Yes. He was shot and died there,” Detective Nichols told her. He considered telling her that Tom Ferris died from a bullet in the back, just to see her reaction, but they’d kept that quiet.

She said nothing, just exhaled and closed her eyes for a second.

Deputy Fuller
rose to his feet. “You’re free to go, Mrs. Cooper,” he said. “Thank you for your time.”

“No, wait a minute,” Wayne interrupted
. “You’re a married woman. Why were you meeting with a man alone at the Booth Showhouse?”