Ed brought up the com display. It was in privacy mode and she couldn't see what was on it. "Shit," he said. "I gotta take this, Emmie." Fingering the ACCEPT icon, he drew the audio to his ear and said, "Hello. Hey, you know this is Sunday?… What?… Yeah, I understand. Listen, ah… Wait a minute."
Touching the MUTE, he said to Emily, "I need something I don't have on here. There's a notebook in my desk that has some hardcopies in it. Can you get it for me? Side drawer. I'd get it myself but I need to concentrate on this."
She nodded and went back to the den. She heard Ed resume talking to his caller. It sounded like a potentially confrontational conversation. Not likely to put Ed in a good mood for the rest of what Emily wanted to say.
52
John mused into the empty cup and wondered again if it was poisoned. An insane notion considering the way things had developed, he was sure, but his whole existence had been a nightmare for the last several weeks. Besides, if it had poison then it might be a better way to go than to have his head blown apart; at least it seemed more civilized.
"John," Eric said.
He couldn't help noticing how easily Dr. Sheafer used his first name. "Yes, sir?"
"Dr. Angelucci came to several conclusions after talking with you. I imagine that the most important one to you is that she doesn't believe you have what it takes to be a murderer."
John's shoulders sagged forward. The same rush of relief he had felt with Emily earlier went through him again. Someone else now believed him. He straightened up, breathing deeply. Opening his eyes, he saw Eric watching him, expressionless.
Then the archeologist smiled so slightly it almost didn't show. "I'm tempted to agree with her, John. I know a few things about killing. I know some people who have killed. I don't think you can do it."
He scarcely believed it. His executioner-of-record was virtually giving him an acquittal. He put his elbows on the table to hold his head. The vision of his nightmare ending made his mind spin.
Eric Sheafer said, "Pull yourself together, John. I need you."
He looked up, wondering what Eric meant.
"If you didn't kill my son, then you are a witness. There is a chance you may have seen the murderer. Maybe when they were leaving."
He was getting too close, John thought. What would Emily want him to do if her father reasoned it all out for himself? He was likely to if he remembered enough of what John had already said about the car on Edgar Street.
And Eric then said it as if he read John's mind. "In fact I believe you did see the killer. At least his car."
"Well, ah, I… It kinda took off in a hurry," he said carefully.
"You said it was dark, the car. Is there anything else you can say about it? Anything else you can remember?"
The house DM chimed for an incoming call. John mentally thanked the caller.
Eric accessed it with his PDM, noted the ID of the caller and hastily connected. An image of his brother sprang up. Eric said, "Hello."
John could see Bob Sheafer's mouth working, but Eric had it on private mode.
He said, "Yeah, Bob. Thanks again for supporting me… I, ah, know it's hard for Dad, but… Yeah. I appreciate it. He never will understand, you know, that we could've got along if he'd just been a little less hard-headed… Look. You didn't call for us to argue about Dad and me… God, yeah. That's what I'm thinking, now. So. What are we going to do now?"
Eric sighed and rested his head on one hand, listening.
"That's right," he said. "I don't anymore. I wonder if this has ever come up before with this law?"
53
As she crossed the hall into the den, Emily heard Ed make a rather loud sigh, then, in an exasperated tone, he said to the caller, "Look. I'll be able to make the payment."
Whatever it was, it was his problem. He had given her a small job to do for him, and she would do it.
There were three drawers on both sides of the large desk. First she pulled out the top left. No notebooks, but a littering of pens and pencils. There was also a cup that tipped over from the motion of her opening the drawer. A pile of paperclips spilled out. Prioritizing her mission, she decided to first find the requested item, then put the old-fashioned clips back in the cup.
She reached over to the other top drawer and opened it. There were several notebooks in there and the top one had been left open on a page with actual handwriting. He had said it was a notebook of hardcopies, so she'd better be sure she had the right one.
Pulling it out and setting it aside, she took out the next one. Opening it, she noticed a printout page of numbers in columns. Nodding to herself, she straightened up to go back into the kitchen. Then she noticed more handwriting. The bottom figure in the right corner was circled with a flourish, followed by an exclamation point. Next to it was a notation reading: -940k. It was underlined several times.
Turning slowly toward the door, she thought the circled figure looked familiar. On a hunch she booted back up the ledger sheet she had seen before. In a short second she had scrolled to the lower right corner. She didn't need to double-check it, but she did anyway. The same figure was there in parentheses. But there was another that was circled. It read '4541' without a 'k.' Puzzling, and it made no sense to her. As she started to return the DM to standby she noticed a ‘k' in the upper left corner. Not her forte, she concluded and hit the standby icon.
Snapping the notebook closed, she started back to the kitchen but remembered the drawer. Turning back without looking, Emily banged her leg into the left drawer, still open, and scattered more paperclips out of the cup.
Rubbing her thigh and muttering a soft-spoken, "Damn," she set the book down. Righting the cup, she started gathering the wayward bits of metal. First Emily dropped one pinch back in, then a second. She had a third readied when she noticed something odd about some of the paperclips. Some were the wrong color. Most were coated in soft plastic, but not all. These were ropey in texture and of a yellow-bronze color. She jiggled the cup.
The ropey metal twisted. She reached in and pulled it out. But it wasn't a clip, and it wasn't just part of the ropey metal. It was all of it. She held before her the edelweiss necklace and locket of her Great-granna.
And in an instant it was all clear to her, for, under one white petal, there was a brown stain. Wide-eyed, she stared at it.
Dear God, she thought. John was more right than any of us knew. She pushed her hand back through her hair. What's Dad going to do?
"Hey, Emmie! Where's that notebook?" Ed shouted from the kitchen.
"Commin'," she hollered back to forestall any tendency he might have to come in on her.
Her attention thus shifted to Ed himself, the old, almost forgotten burning surged back. Stronger and harder. She balled the necklace into her left fist. Then, snatching up the notebook, she started for the kitchen. Pausing in the hall, she took a breath to compose herself, hoping to keep the anger and hate in her face to a minimum.
She tossed the book down in front of him. He glanced up and said, "What took so long?" But it was a rhetorical question and he didn't wait for a reply, returning instead to his caller. "Okay, Stuart. Let me see…" He flipped through the printouts. As he continued to talk with 'Stuart,' he switched back and forth from one page of the printouts to files in his DM.
Emily noticed the book's page was the same one in which he had scrawled a circle and a hasty note. But the DM files he kept turned away from her.
After a few more minutes he finished the call and disconnected. For a moment he just stood there, looking distracted. Then he cut a glance her way.
Only a fleeting one, but she saw it all the same. And it seemed to her to hold a vague suspicion.
Then he smiled, glanced at her again, turning his eyes back to the book. "Sorry about that, Emmie," he said. "You know how it…" He faltered, then picked his statement back up. "…How it is with sales. We never really have time off. Worse than for doctors." He swung himself back into his chair.
Emily looked at
him steadily, cautioning herself to keep the burn out of her expression, but not knowing how well she did so. She could feel the little eight-millimeter pressing inside her pocket, the edelweiss hard inside her tight fist.
Cocking his head, Ed finally sensed her mood and gave question to it. "What's going on, Emmie?"
"I think you'd better tell me, cousin."
Emily held her left fist up and at the same time eased her right down to her pocket. As soon as her fingers touched the pistol's handle, she said, "I think you need to explain what this was doing in your desk with the paperclips." Opening her fist, the edelweiss dangled from thumb and forefinger.
Ed stared at the necklace, then at Emily. He pushed back from the table.
Emily brought the gun out, curled her finger around the trigger. She couldn't miss this close to him. If only the damned thing was loaded, she thought, suddenly remembering. But, in Dad's words, Ed didn't need to know that.
Ed looked down at the pistol. He laughed a single, shy laugh. "What is this?" Somehow he kept his voice from shaking, though it went up an octave.
"You mean you don't recognize Great-granna's edelweiss? The one she brought from Austria? The one she treasured and passed down to Grandmother, who then gave it to Kelly?"
"Of course I do. Where did you get it?"
"I told you."
"You're lying. The cops found it, you got it from them, and you're playing a trick on me." Ed smiled broadly. "It's not a very funny trick, Emmie. And in very poor taste, considering the circumstances. Now you've had your joke on me, so you can stop it."
54
"Does your brother believe you, Dr. Sheafer?"
Eric leaned back in his chair. "I don't know, John. He's willing to hear me out, which means he is more reasonable than the rest of the men in the family, including his sons. And, with Andrea as their mother, the only place they could have inherited that kind of closed-mindedness would be from their grandfather. Bob's always been one to listen to both sides. If it hadn't been for him, I'd probably been the family outcast long before now. And you'd be dead, assuming they would still care about what happened to my family."
He leaned further back, the chair resting against the wall. John cringed inwardly, half expecting a shrill woman's voice ordering Eric to sit straight. "What happened down here while Dr. Angelucci was with me? Ah, if you don't mind me asking."
"No, I don't. It concerns you." Eric sighed. "My father and my nephews want you executed. That is without doubt."
"And the two women?"
"Tricia - that's Frank's wife - goes the way of her husband. Not possessed of an independent mind, that woman. Embraces the new-old conventions. But Andrea is another matter. I'm not sure but what she never believed you to be guilty. I think she has a sixth sense about people. She's something else."
"Yeah," John agreed, remembering her penetrating eyes. "She is."
The house DM chimed, cutting through their conversation.
"Now who?" he complained. First checking the time, he said, "Em's been gone longer than I expected. Maybe it's her. That old car of hers…" Casually, he said, "Yes?" accepting the call without bothering to check the ID.
A uniformed policeman appeared in the hologram. The front legs of Eric's chair slammed to the floor as he sat upright. The officer's mouth moved without sound. The DM was still on private.
"Yes, Lieutenant Yates," Eric said excitedly. "Do you have anything on Mr. Parker? Of course. You wouldn't be calling unless you did." He listened intently as the image silently spoke, gestured and showed a document. After almost a minute Eric said, "Yeah. I got it… No, I'm not sure what it means, either. Thank you… No, I won't tell him. But I would like to know what you find out… Thank you very much."
Eric closed the connection and sat motionless, staring blankly.
Finally John asked him, "What was that all about?"
Eric turned his head slowly. "I'm not certain what it means. Do you remember me telling you about a detective named Parker?"
"He was murdered, wasn't he?"
Eric nodded. "By a former client, it turns out. But that isn't what concerns us. What does is when he contacted Emily and I in Washington, he wouldn't tell us who hired him. And the police in Richmond couldn't find out, either. They got the sheriff here to access Parker's office and files - he was from here, you see - and they found out he was hired by Ed, my nephew. Now, what I don't understand is why would Ed do that and not tell anyone. Not even his father or mother."
John felt a coldness in his chest. There was a promise that needed breaking. "Ah, Dr. Sheafer?"
"Yes?"
"I… Emily told me not to tell, and I said I wouldn't. but I think I need to. Maybe I've got to."
Eric leaned forward. "Tell me what?"
"I did see more than I told you."
"I thought so," he said without surprise. "What was it?"
"Well, I didn't put it together until this afternoon." John found it difficult. No matter the truth, or its implications for himself, Ed was still the man's nephew.
"This afternoon?"
"When I saw your nephew's car."
"The van or the Jag?"
"The Jaguar. It's the car I saw that night. Emily's gone to talk to Ed about it."
"What?" Eric snapped. "Why Ed?"
John's reluctance finally lifted. He was coming to the conclusion that Emily could be in danger. Quickly he said, "Because Frank had borrowed the car that night. She wanted to ask Ed when he got it back, I guess. That would pinpoint who was in it."
"Right. And if it just happened to be Ed? Damn! It was Ed. And she's over there right now."
John nodded, feeling sick, a different kind of sick. Worse by far than the cold he was shaking off. A thought: "Wait. She has a gun."
Eric looked no less worried. "No bullets. I was afraid she'd shoot you so I took them when we were still in Richmond.
Another type of cold started spreading from John's stomach.
"Okay," Eric said swiftly. He stood and turned to the DM. Then he glanced at his PDM. "No time," he declared. "We can get out there in five minutes. Come on." He grabbed his jacket and ran out the back door.
John tipped his chair over, but ran, too.
55
"Tell me about it, Ed. I really want to know," Emily said. She swung the necklace back and forth. "There’s no other way this could be in your desk. Why did you kill Steve and Kelly?"
Ed sighed. "Okay." He held up both hands, then put them back on the rim of the table. "You're right. I did it. But it wasn't my fault."
"God! Spare me that. You expect me…" Emily failed to find satisfactory words. Her grip tightened on the pistol. She willed it to have bullets. "Just tell me how it happened," she said, clenching her jaw.
"All right. I got home about eight-thirty. Frank drove up around nine-fifteen. He told me your brother had argued with him about prices. Steve had said something about finding a printout in Joan Devereux's old desk, behind a drawer or something. I…" Ed raised one hand to his temple, then lowered it back. "Devereux and I had a pricing thing going. Frank didn't know anything about it. You see, as an equal partner I can give substantial discounts on my own, so I'd quote full price to Joan and the school system, but I'd report it to the business at a full discount. Nice and simple. Then Joan and I would get to share a nice little bonus."
"Bastard. Go on."
"I had the same thing working with a few other school systems and some large national corporations. It was working very well. But then Hardwick had to retire and get Joan get promoted. She must've kept a record of her own and left a printout behind. Steve saw it. He told me. He didn't fully understand it, because Joan didn't spell it out, but… Damn. Your brother was smart, Emmie."
"I know."
"He nearly had it figured out. All he lacked were the details." Ed's face contorted. "He was going to tell the school board on Monday, Emmie. My God! They would have taken it from there. It would've led to an investigation. Cops. Everything. I'd be ruined
. Don't you see?"
Emily's eyes narrowed. She would throw up if she had anything in her stomach more than the sip or two of coffee. "For the sake of a little money you killed my brother and his wife?"
"It…wasn't just a little," Ed said as if it would excuse what he'd done. His hand came up over his brow.
"And Joan Devereux? Did you walk in on her as she left the message for Dad to call her? The timing would be about right."
Still shading his face, Ed nodded. "I was just outside her office. I…heard every word." He brought his hand back to the table.
Too fast for her to follow, Ed shoved on the table, heaving on it. Emily heard his chair fall back just as hers began tipping backward. She and the chair hit the floor, knocking her breath out. Then the heavy oak table followed, landing squarely on her lower ribs. She tried to cry out, but didn't have the wind for it. The back of her head hurt and her ears filled with a loud ringing.
The useless gun skidded across the floor. Ed snatched it up and aimed it at her. She couldn't hear anything but she saw his finger contract once, twice. He was actually pulling the trigger on her. Thank God for no bullets.
Ed jerked back the action of the automatic, peering in on the chamber. He snarled and threw the gun aside.
The ringing morphed into a dull roar in her ears as she gasped for air. Finally she got in some rapid, shallow breaths, reaping a searing jolt through her chest for her efforts. She nearly passed out from the pain. Her ears cleared just as her shriek echoed in the kitchen.
56
"Damn," Eric exclaimed as the light changed to red.
He slowed as he neared the intersection. A few cars crossed.
John thought he was going to run the light until finally Eric stopped and shifted into first gear.
Eric's fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he fidgeted. Looking left, then looking right. "Damn," he repeated. Glancing up at the light, then left and right again, he let out the clutch and shoved down on the accelerator.
A Ghost of Justice Page 22
