The Killing Edge (15 page)

“He lives on his boat half the time. He might have two sets of everything.”

“You've got to do something, Will. Put out a missing persons for him.”

“I can't do that until it's formally requested by a member of the family. If Dore asks me, even Noah Washington, but there's no crime in a man taking his boat and going somewhere.”

“Even to the bottom of the ocean?”

“You're being melodramatic. Now get in your pretty red car and get back to Lantern City. I'll see you tonight.”

Will looked at the End of the Pier menu and tried to calculate how much money he had in his wallet. “When you asked me to dinner I thought it was your place.”

“By the time I got back from New York there wasn't time. It's my treat.”

“I accept. On $16,000 a year and two kids soon to go to college, I need your assets.”

“That's the reason you want to marry me.”

“That's the second reason.”

“I can imagine the first.”

“You never gave me an answer.”

“About what?”

“Marriage.”

“You know how I feel about you, Will. But I need time.”

“Betty Sanders, the waitress down at the U-Kumm Inn, says your new service manager is … what's her word … smashing.”

“I hadn't noticed. He's insolent, ill-mannered and presumptuous.”

“Why don't you get rid of him?”

“He's a good mechanic and has the men in line. I'll give him a couple of more weeks.”

“I don't think you're being completely honest with me.”

Her eyes widened as she looked at him with feigned innocence. “Will Barnes, how dare you suggest that I told you a falsehood, just because it's true.”

“You think he's attractive.”

“The whole thing is silly. Don't you sometimes see young women that you think are attractive or sexy, like Sandy Devonshire?”

“Answering a question with a question.”

“You're jealous.”

“I'm afraid that one day I'll have cause to be. By the way, if you kept out of my investigation you'd know that Vic Mange and your secretary have something going.”

“I know. Their coffee breaks have gotten a little out of hand. As soon as you make an arrest, I can pay more attention to my business.”

“You keep forgetting that I made one.”

“What about Stanley Peckham?”

“Pasquale finally found him and brought him in. We spent three hours questioning him. He claims that on the night of the murder he was with a girl. Unfortunately he can't remember her name or where they went.”

“That could be it then.”

“I can't arrest a man just because he's unsure where he was at the time of the killing. There's no way to place him in Lantern City, much less at the house. We've got nothing.”

“Let's take a wild guess. Dore Warren met Stanley this past summer. They have a mutual animosity for Mauve Bridger, and they go in the thing together.”

“That's too wild.”

“It could happen that way. Or, Dore could have known that Hal was with Mauve that day, she caught them together and …”

“And where's Hal?”

She laughed. “You're nit-picking.”

“Motive does not necessarily a killer make. Dore may have had a motive to kill Mauve. Stanley may have, and we know damn well that Raleigh had a couple of reasons. You completely avoid the fact that we can place Raleigh at the house during or near the time of the murder. If you want to make conjectures, consider Raleigh coming home that night, he finds that she's having an affair with someone and they fight. It gets out of hand and he kills her.”

“And who was the someone she was having the affair with?”

“It could be anyone.”

“And Hal Warren was her lover last summer, and he's missing.”

“And so is his boat. I think we can assume that's where he is.”

“Or dead.”

“Come on. You're trying to build a case on conjecture. Things have changed since your father ran this town by the seat of his pants. There must have been dozens of new court rulings, the rules of evidence have changed. If I make an arrest and present the case to the prosecutor, I had better have a hell of a strong position. Even Raleigh would have been able to plea bargain the charge down to manslaughter. Do you understand? These days you almost have to find the smoking pistol in the suspect's hand.”

“What you're telling me is that even if we suspect Stanley or Dore Warren, we can't do anything about it.”

“Pat has Stanley under surveillance; that might turn up something. Otherwise, there's nothing we can do without new evidence.”

L.C. stood and neatly folded her napkin. “O.K.”

“Where are you going?”

“To find new evidence.”

“What about … you know …”

“Dinner?”

“I guess,” he mumbled as she left the restaurant.

Chapter Nine

Toby Strickland answered the door.

She was a squat woman with black cropped bangs. Her dark eyes set in a square face were partially distorted by thick glasses as she squinted toward L.C.

“Yes?”

“It's L.C. Converse, Mrs. Strickland. I wonder if I could talk to Herb a minute?”

Recognition finally passed over the other woman's face. “Oh, L.C., of course. Come in. We were just going out for dinner, but if it's something important, Herb is back with the pigs.”

At the mention of dinner L.C. had pangs of conscience. She could see Will sitting at the End of the Pier staring morosely into his cocktail as she flounced out. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

“No, come in. Please.”

They sat rather formally in the room with the piggy banks. Herb offered and then mixed highballs in glasses filled to the brim with ice and ginger ale.

“I didn't know you were back from Florida, Toby.”

“I only got back this afternoon. I detest flying, so I drove Dad's car back and it took me almost three days.”

“I told her to stay down as long as she wanted,” Herb said. “She went through a lot, nursing Dad, making the arrangements. I told her to take her hour in the sun.”

“Do you work on big cars, or just those little things?” Toby asked.

“All kinds. Do you have a problem?”

“The Lincoln wasn't acting right on the way back.”

“I'll send someone over in the morning to pick it up.”

“Do you have something specific in mind, L.C.?” Herb asked.

“About Mauve Bridger's murder. Did you hear or see anything that night?”

Toby stood petulantly and plunked her half-finished drink on a coaster. “I think the whole thing is perfectly horrible, and I can't see any reason for us to dwell on macabre details.”

“L.C.'s been very upset about it, dear. She never did think that Raleigh did it.”

“Is that what Will Barnes thinks? If he does, let him come and ask the questions.”

“He already asked me,” Herb Strickland said and seemed to slouch deeper in his chair.

“Then let's not go on about it.”

“It's important to me, Toby,” L.C. said.

“I think it's a terrible mess that we should all forget as soon as possible. I, for one, can't wait until the house is sold and a new family moves in. And why are you so interested? You and the Bridgers were never that close.”

“We weren't actually, but at one point in my life Raleigh did me a great service, and in other ways I feel a certain responsibility for what happened to him.”

“You can't expect to assuage your guilt by chasing butterflies. Leave it up to Will Barnes and the authorities.”

“It's simple enough for me to answer her questions.”

“Then you and L.C. talk over your sordid little details. I'm going to get ready to go out for dinner,” Toby said as she left the room.

“What did you tell him, Herb?”

“Nothing, because that's what I saw and heard that night. It was snowing, there was a heavy wind. Even if Mauve had screamed, I wouldn't have heard it.”

“I see. I suppose it doesn't make much sense, but I thought that if I started from the beginning it might turn up a clue, a lead, even the smallest shred of evidence.”

Herb finished his drink. “Like Toby said, it's not our affair. Why don't you come out to dinner with us?”

“No, thank you,” she, said absently. “I suppose the police still have the house sealed.”

“I believe they do.”

“Are you coming?” Toby called from the hall.

The walks and drive of the Bridger house had been plowed, and she walked to the back door and peered through the window. Nothing could be seen in the dark interior.

L.C. took a deep breath, hoped that Will truly did love her, and broke a pane of the door window with her elbow. She reached through the jagged glass and turned the handle.

The power was still on, and she walked through the house flipping switches in the hope that light might alleviate some of the tomb-like chill that pervaded the house.

She stood in the archway to the living room, looked at the brown stain in the center of the rug and then turned away. She walked through the house trying to recreate possible events on the day of the murder.

If a lover arrived in the afternoon or early evening, they might have trysted in the bedroom. She would have replaced the linen and obliterated any other evidence of his presence, then prepared dinner, gone ice skating, and … and what?

Or had there been no lover that day? She might have returned from ice skating, and been attacked, raped, and killed.

Will had said her clothes were in the dryer, and yet the skates were found near the body. She flipped on the cellar light and went down the stairs, through the recreation room and into the laundry room. She opened and shut the dryer door thoughtfully. It had also bothered Will that a fastidious woman like Mauve returned to the house, removed her clothing, stuffed them in the dryer, and then returned, nude, to the upstairs.

It couldn't have happened that way. If a robe, a dressing gown, or some clothing had been found near the body … but they weren't. It didn't fit. And in that lack of fit there might be a clue.

She walked slowly back upstairs to the kitchen and stopped by the back door. It would all make sense if the killer removed the skates and clothing. If that were the case, she might have been attacked outside and dragged inside.

L.C. looked down at the bright kitchen linoleum, and then knelt near the door leading to the hall and felt along the surface of the flooring. With her finger tips she felt the slight indentations cut into the wax. The skates had cut into the linoleum and left minute marks in the surface. Mauve had been dragged through the kitchen into the living room, and then her clothing, for some reason, had been removed and stuffed into the dryer.

She looked through the door window to see across the estuary to the river and the twinkling lights in the distance. She flipped a switch near the door that illuminated the patio and turned on a light mounted on the dock.

The dock light—used in the summer when the Bridgers and Wadsworth Strickland had their boats moored nearby, and in the winter for Mauve to ice skate.

L.C. opened the back door and stepped onto the patio. The summer furniture had been removed and snow had drifted several feet deep around a low retaining wall. The snow was nearly to the top of her boots as she walked from the patio down toward the water.

She shivered as if the ghosts of the dead couple walked with her. Near the water was a snow-covered bench. On the day of the murder it might have been where Mauve paused to lace her skates. Continuing past the bench she walked out on the ice for twenty yards and stopped to turn and face the house.

Footprints crossed and recrossed the yards. The teams of police officers that had searched the area had marked the snow so that it was impossible to tell which route Mauve might have taken that day.

The dock was closer to the Bridger house and very possibly with the oncoming storm and heavy wind, little if any sound would have reached Herb Strickland. She walked another twenty yards over the snow covered ice and then stopped for fear of going too far and reaching an area where the ice would be thin.

She walked toward shore trying to create an image of Mauve skating toward the dock. The snow would have just begun, she would be cold, and would skate quickly back toward the bench or dock ladder.

Wind off the water turned cold, and she began to hurry. Her hand had just reached for the dock ladder when the ice beneath her feet gave away.

Her body slid into the water. She felt her boots sink into the bottom silt as her body gave a spasm from the shock of the near freezing water.

Her arms flailed out as she fought for the surface. Her fingers brushed against a cross beam support as her left foot caught and canted her body sideways.

A shaft of light from the overhead flood gave a surrealistic quality to the water beneath the pier as her eyes opened.

Her foot was caught in the tattered remains of a man's jacket. Her hand had brushed along the flesh of the corpse tied with heavy wire to the underpinnings of the dock.

A large burst of air escaped from her mouth and she heard a dim yell that must have been hers, and then water rushed into her throat.

She clawed at the ladder rungs and heaved herself from the water. Her breath came in choking gasps as she pulled herself to the deck and fell to her knees to retch in the snow. With a low moan she rose to her feet and began to run away from the water and the thing she had just seen.

Her progress was erratic as she swerved across the snow, fell once to her hands and knees, and then was up and running again. She reached a door and pounded on the wood frame with her fists until she felt an ache in her fingers. Of course, the Stricklands had left … the phone … she began to run again toward the open door of the Bridger house.

She stumbled into the kitchen, fell again, and with a crying sob reached for the kitchen extension phone. There wasn't any dial tone.