Witches' Bane (22 page)

I straightened up. There was no point in trying to get Rita to come to terms with the full truth. It was kinder to let her live with her image of C.W., flawed as it was. “If you don’t call the sheriff,” I said quietly, “I’ll have to.”

She clutched Ruby’s hand as if she were going down for the last time. “I
can’t,”
she whispered. “Mama would never forgive me if I were the one to ...”

Ruby touched her cheek gently. “Then I will.”

“That about wraps it up, don’t you think?” Ruby asked, as we got into my Datsun. It was almost eleven-thirty.

“Looks like it.” We’d spent the last fifteen minutes with Sheriff Blackwell. He hadn’t been too happy to learn that we’d searched Jerri’s house, but he had to accept my explanation that we were there at Rita’s request and that we really hadn’t expected to find anything. When we left, a deputy was bagging and tagging the bloody shoes, the clothing from the stove, and the doll, while another was conducting an official search for additional evidence. Rita would be spending some time with the sheriff, giving her statement, but I didn’t think he’d make the questions too tough. I didn’t think he’d dig out her secret, either. Rita had buried it pretty deeply, maybe even so deeply that she couldn’t admit how she felt or what she’d done. Anyway, he was focusing on Jerri. When I left, he was calling the D.P.S. to request a report on the wreck and find out where the body’d been autopsied.

Blackie looked relieved, and I wondered if something besides finding that Andrew was a southpaw had taken the zing out of his case. If so, no wonder he was relieved. With a murder-suicide, the county would be spared the expense of a trial. It wasn’t a minor consideration. Getting a verdict, especially if there is a change of venue or the jury is sequestered, can cost the taxpayers upward of a hundred thousand dollars. The county commissioners would be happy to hear that they wouldn’t have to pony up. They might even be so happy that they’d give Blackie that budget increase he was asking for.

Ruby leaned toward me with a quizzical look. “It
is
wrapped up, right? Won’t the sheriff have to let Andrew go?”

“He’ll probably wait until he gets the lab work back, to be sure that the bloodstains are Sybil’s. If they aren’t—”

“Well, I think they are,” Ruby said positively.

“I think so too,” I said. “That bit about the knives, and Jerri working at the meat locker—it all fits. If her father taught her to cut up meat, he must have taught her to bleed an animal.”

‘To slit its throat, you mean.” Ruby’s voice was very small.

“Yes.” We were both silent as I negotiated the town square. Mayor Perkins was coming out of the old bank building that’s been turned into a city hall. There were several people with her—the site team, I guessed. She waved at us and I reminded myself that I was taking them to lunch tomorrow. It felt good to think of homely things like that, after what I had seen the past few days.

“So it was Jerri who broke into the Cave,” Ruby said thoughtfully. “I guess she did it to cover up—to make it look like a cult.”

I turned the corner onto our street. “That’s probably why she made the voodoo dolls too. But I don’t think she deliberately set Andrew up. It was just bad luck that he walked onto the crime scene and ended up in jail.”

“Maybe that’s why she committed suicide,” Ruby said. ‘To take him off the hook.” She frowned. “No, if she’d wanted to clear him, she’d have left a note. She wouldn’t depend on people to dope it out.”

That was the part that was bothering me, even after the rest of the package was neatly wrapped up. “Something still doesn’t feel right, Ruby.” I pulled up in front of the shops and turned off the ignition. “I talked to Jerri just a few hours before she drove over that cliff, and she didn’t seem suicidal to me. She acted like a woman with big ideas, big plans.”

“But if her death wasn’t an accident and it wasn’t suicide, that only leaves—”

I laughed shortly. “Well, at least Andrew’s in the clear. But I think I’ll talk to C.W.”

Ruby turned to stare at me. “You think
he
might have done it?”

I shook my head. “You’re way ahead of me again, Ruby. I’m going to ask him why Jerri might have wanted to kill herself, that’s all.”

“I want to go with you.” Ruby was decisive. “I’ll phone the radio station and say I can’t—”

I started the car again. “And leave Fannie Couch holding up the back fence alone for a whole hour? She’d never forgive you.”

Like any other central Texas resort on a weekday in November, Lake Winds was deserted. As I drove into the complex, past landscaped mounds of pampas grass, shrubby cotoneaster, and bright red bayberry, I noticed painted signposts, pointing like accusing fingers in different directions. AI-AI0, one of them said. A recollection flashed into my mind, and I pulled over and fished in the pocket of my blue denim skirt. I pulled out the envelope on which Ruby had scribbled the number from the florist’s card. “LW C7
,
2:30.” I looked up, the hair prickling on my arms. Ahead was the signpost for the C units.

C7 was a posh condo built of limestone and cedar, perched on a bluff overlooking Canyon Lake. The water was bright and sparkling under a sunny, postcard-blue sky, and the north breeze whipped up whitecaps like meringue on a pie. A thirty-foot sailboat was motoring out of the yacht basin. As I watched, the helmsman cut the motor and brought the boat into the wind. A young woman in white pants and a white jacket, blond hair flying, ran forward along the deck and hauled up the jib, then, with the assist of a motorized winch, the main. As the helmsman cleated the mainsheet, the sail bellied out with a snap and the boat heeled over smartly, brass fittings glinting against the polished teak of the deck. Texas money out to play.

As I went around to the back of
C7,
I wondered if Jerri had hoped that marrying C.W. would admit her to the privileged world of Texas players. If so, it could have been a powerful motive for her to kill Sybil. And what about C.W.? What kind of hand had he played?

I stepped up on the concrete stoop at the back of the condo. Yes, what
about
C.W.? Had he been the totally innocent spouse, unaware of his girlfriend’s plot? Or had he played a different hand? Had he been a coconspirator? I remembered the note. Maybe he’d been more. Maybe the whole thing had been his idea, and Jerri his agent.

But that was a square-ten question, and I was still on square one. Jerri’s statement to Rita that she and C.W. were lovers was the only proof of their relationship, unless you counted Sybil’s statement to Judith. But both were heresay, and inadmissible. If a prosecutor wanted to make a case against C.W., there’d have to be something more substantial than that.

The fact that the back door of C7 swung open when I knocked didn’t mitigate the fact that I was breaking and entering. But I’d take the risk. I put my head in the door and yelled “Leasing company inspector, here to check the premises. Anybody home?” The empty condo, with its sound-deadening drapes and plush carpets, didn’t even give me back an echo.

The kitchen was like a kitchen in a TV commercial— counters bare, stainless steel sink and cook top spotless, refrigerator empty except for a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda. Ditto utility room, downstairs bath, and luxurious living/dining, furnished with color-coordinated furniture and wall art straight from the showroom. The pale silver carpet bore the long sweeping print of a vacuum cleaner. Sharp and clear on the freshly vacuumed rug were footprints—a man’s shoes and a woman’s high heels. One set led from the hallway to the stairs and up. The other set led from the stairs to the hallway and out. Whoever had made them was gone.

Upstairs, there was the same feeling of luxuriously furnished emptiness, like a vacant soap opera set. I followed the footprints down the vacuumed hallway to the bedroom. The drapes were drawn, darkening the room, and I flicked on the wall switch with my elbow. Somebody had straightened the bedspread, but I could see the shadows of indentations on the pillows. It looked like a pair of somebodies had made love on the bed, bedspread and all, and had left in a hurry. Maybe that was why the vase of faded flowers still stood on the bedside table, beside a lipstick-printed Styrofoam cup, a quarter full of amber liquid that smelled like scotch. The flowers were the same yellow roses I’d seen beside Jerri’s bed. This time, though, there was a card.

“To Jerri, with all my heart, C.W.”

I shook my head. Love, oh love, oh careless love.

Downstairs, I found a chair and wedged it under the front doorknob, to make sure it couldn’t be opened. Then I wrapped my fingers with a tissue and closed the back door. I stood for a moment looking at the lock, then reached into my purse and found my keyring. All the keys on it are keys I use, except for the key to Leatha’s house, which she had given me to use in an emergency. This was an emergency. I pushed her key into the lock as far as it would go, then bent it sharply with the heel of my palm. It snapped off.

Nobody was going to get into C7 without going to a great deal of trouble.

The woman at the front desk looked up when I came into the outer office. She was petite and dark-haired, with artfully made-up brown eyes, carved cheeks, and a soft, full mouth. Her cobalt-colored feminine suit had a sweetheart neckline that showed substantial cleavage, softly framed by a white chiffon scarf. The nametag on her left breast pocket announced that she was LouEllen Lamour, Sales Agent, and she was working on what looked like a sales report. Rita’s desk was vacant, the top cleared off, a cover over the typewriter. The door to C.W.’s office was closed.

“Welcome to Lake Winds,” LouEllen said with a smile and a practiced head tilt that gave me her best angle. “How may we help you?”

I perched on the comer of her desk and swung my loafered foot. “You haven’t heard from Rita today, have you, LouEllen?” I shook my head. “Poor kid. I don’t suppose she’ll be in for a while, under the circumstances.”

LouEllen’s smile faded. “It was a tragedy, wasn’t it? Jerri was such a gorgeous person, so much life and energy. Rita probably won’t be in all week.”

I stood up. “Well, in that case, I’ll just have a quick word with the boss. No need to buzz him.” I headed toward C.W.’s office door.

LouEllen stood up and came around the desk. Her skirt was
very
short. If my legs were that good, I’d probably wear short skirts too. “I’m sorry,” she said protectively, “you can’t see him this morning. He’s not taking—”

But I was already opening the door to C.W.’s office.

He was seated behind a large expanse of gleaming walnut desktop, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, tie loosened, heavy gold Rolex on his thick wrist, a shock of gray hair falling perfectly across his forehead. A handsome man, if fleshy. He looked up from the papers he was studying.

“Most people knock.” His voice was rich and deep and familiar. He smiled, showing those white-white teeth. “Sheriff’s still got your client in the lockup, I understand. I figured you’d have him out by now.”

Some witnesses you lead along, gently and gradually. Others you hit fast, aiming to short-circuit the story they’ve been rehearsing. With C.W., I aimed to shock.

“The sheriff’s at Jerri’s, bagging up bloodstained sneakers, clothes, and a voodoo doll. He thinks it’s your wife’s blood.” C.W. didn’t shock. He sighed heavily and threw down his gold pen. “I was afraid she did it,” he said. He pushed back the boyish shock of gray hair.

I sat down across from him. “What made you suspect her?”

He rubbed a well-cared-for hand across his eyes, shoulders slumping. “You’ve got to understand, Miss Bayles. China.” He glanced at me from under the long dark lashes that framed pale eyes. “This whole thing has been very hard. I’m in a difficult position.”

“The two of you were sleeping together. Is that the difficult position?”

The hand dropped and he sat up. “I know that’s what Jerri told her sister. But she was lying. She
wanted
us to have an affair—she’d been after me for three or four months, calling on the phone, stopping in here, leaving notes at the house. I wasn’t having any.”

I wasn’t convinced. “A reformed man, huh? The paternity suit in Dallas—put the fear of God in you, did it?”

C.W.’s voice roughened. “Did Sybil tell you about that?”

“If you’d reformed, why did Sybil want a divorce? Why did she tell a friend that Jerri Greene would end up costing her money, like the others you’d been involved with?”

He put his elbows on his desk, clasped his hands in front of him, and made a tent of his forefingers. The large diamond glittered in his heavy gold ring. “I’ll tell you the honest-to-God truth, Miss Bayles. I’ve had a few problems in the past, where women are concerned. My wife
was
troubled about the Greene woman. But I told Sybil, and I’ll tell you, she had no reason. There was never a personal relationship between Jerri Greene and me, I swear. Sybil had her own reasons for wanting a divorce.” He leaned back in his swivel chair and took a cigarette out of a gold case on the shelf behind him. “Sybil didn’t tell me at the time and I didn’t suspect, but now I know she wanted to get rid of me because she had the hots for Andrew Drake. That’s why she was willing to make that big settlement. After the crap she’d handed me about other women, she felt guilty. She was buying me off.” He flicked a gold lighter, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a wreath of smoke. “Not pretty, but there it is. God’s truth.”

Why didn’t I believe him? I went back to my earlier question. “What made you suspect that Jerri Greene killed your wife?”

“The last time we talked—Friday, before I went to Atlanta—Jerri told me she loved me. She said she’d do anything to make it work between us. I told her to blow it off. I didn’t want anything to do with her.” He gestured with his cigarette. “But Jerri Greene was one hard-ass lady. She wanted something, she took it. Anybody stood in her way, she’d climb right on over. When I got home and Sybil was dead, I knew she’d done it.”

I took a different tack. “When you and Jerri talked on Friday, did you tell her that your wife planned to get a divorce, or that she’d cut you out of her will?”