“I didn’t kill him,” Meredith said.
“I know,” Claire said. “Your son did.”
“Peyton was in the passenger seat,” Meredith hissed. “He was an unwilling witness who was too afraid to come forward for fear of reprisals. He has post-traumatic stress disorder. I have a report from a psychiatrist that says he’s too fragile to appear in court.”
“I met Peyton,” Claire said. “He’s a spoiled, drug-addicted snot-head who didn’t give the tiniest wee damn about the man he and his friend hit with their car and left to die in the street.”
“Innocent until proven guilty!” Meredith screeched.
“Guilty, guilty, guilty!” Claire shouted back. “He confessed it; I recorded it.”
“It was you!” Meredith bellowed.
Meredith grabbed the nearest thing she could use as a weapon, which happened to be a pink and green floral umbrella. The end was pointy enough that Claire knew it would hurt if she got stabbed with it. When Meredith jabbed it at her, Claire stumbled backwards. She bumped into a display of monogrammed stationary and it all fell onto the floor. Meredith cursed her and jabbed again. Claire pushed a display of Beatrix Potter ceramic figurines over between them, and they crashed into pieces on the floor.
“My bunnies!” Meredith roared, and then let loose a torrent of expletives that would have impressed Claire had she not been in fear for her life.
Claire pulled over another display between them, this time a large spinner rack of handmade lace greeting cards. Meredith stepped over the broken figurines, but her umbrella got caught up in the spindles of the card rack. While trying to disengage it, the umbrella opened up and further tangled her in the display. As she struggled to pull herself free, her necklace caught, broke, and pearls seemed to explode and soar in every direction.
Meredith screeched with rage, slipped on her pearls, and collapsed in a heap.
Claire heaved a stack of candle-wick-embroidered bedspreads over Meredith and scrambled to the front of the room. She made her way to the front door and flung it open just as Trick arrived. He had his phone up to his ear and pointed to it.
“Calling her now,” he said.
Underneath the writhing pile of bedspreads came the muffled but distinct sound of a phone ringing.
Claire was in her father’s old office at the Rose Hill Police Station, sitting on the green vinyl couch where as a child she used to do her homework. Sarah and Laurie had Meredith in the break room, where she had screeched abuse at them for twenty minutes but was now speaking in a more normal tone, so low that Claire could not make out what she was saying. At the top of the wall behind the couch there was a heating vent between the two rooms, and Claire was considering climbing up on the back of the couch so she could press her ear to it, the better to know what was going on.
She texted Patrick to say she would be late picking up her dad, and Patrick texted back not to worry about it, that Melissa would take him home and stay with him until she got there.
“Where r u?” Patrick texted.
“Jail,” she replied.
“Need bail?” he responded.
“No but thanks,” she replied.
Claire texted Ed next.
“Meredith in custody,” she wrote. “I’m in jail.”
“Be right there,” he replied.
Laurie came in and pointed to her phone.
“I should’ve had Shaggy or Scooby confiscate that,” he said.
“Did she confess to killing Knox?”
Laurie rolled his eyes.
“Like I’d tell you,” he said. “Why’d you call Sarah and not me?”
“You know why,” she said.
“I don’t drink when I’m working,” he said.
“It wasn’t only because of that,” she said. “It’s more that you don’t seem to give a damn about doing your job. Anytime something happens, you either look the other way or you get someone else to do the dirty work. You didn’t even care what happened to Diedre’s car after she died.”
He was silent for a few moments.
“Well, you’re right about all of that,” he said. “But Diedre’s car, really? You’re still hung up on that?”
“You need to take a month, go somewhere they give professional help, and get yourself sorted out,” she said. “If you ask the Pendleton Town Council for it, they may give it to you.”
“They did,” Laurie said. “Kay and Scott got it all arranged. Shep’s not going to retire for another month, and I’m taking what everyone’s calling a much-needed vacation.”
“To rehab.”
“Heaven help them,” Laurie said. “They’ve got their work cut out for them.”
“But you’ll do your best, right?”
“We both know how low that bar is.”
“Please, Laurie,” Claire said. “Not for anyone else, but for you.”
“Oh, him,” Laurie said. “Why would I wanna help that jerk?”
“Because you’re worth saving,” Claire said.
“I’m touched you still think so,” he said.
The look he gave her was filled with longing and sadness.
“Where will you be in a month?” he asked.
Claire considered the question, which was both more complicated and more meaningful than it might appear on the surface.
“I’ll be here,” she said, finally. “Trying to figure out what to do with my life.”
“Good to know,” he said. “Turns out there is a step where I have to apologize to everyone I’ve wronged, and try to make it up to them, so I’ll be in touch. There’s a long list, so it may take me awhile to get to ‘F’.”
Ed arrived, and Laurie gestured for him to come in.
“She’s all yours,” Laurie said, and winked at Claire.
“What’s going on?” Ed asked. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, and closed the door to the office behind him.
“What are you doing?”
“Hold this couch steady and I’ll tell you,” Claire said, as she stepped up on it.
She climbed up to stand on the back of it and put her ear against the grill of the heating vent.
“Claire,” Ed said.
“I know, I know,” she said. “It’s wrong.”
“No,” he said. “Use this.”
He handed her his hand-held digital voice recorder.
“So when you came down through the woods behind Knox’s house,” Sarah asked, “what was your plan?”
“I knew Knox had just left for the funeral home to meet with Trick and Stuart,” Meredith said. “I thought while he was out I would collect the things he stole from me.”
“How did you know where he was?”
“I was in his brother’s office when he called,” Meredith said. “Trick is handling the sale of my tea room. We were discussing his commission. I feel I am owed a family discount, but Trick does not agree.”
“How did you know what they discussed on the phone?”
“Trick put him on speaker,” Meredith said. “It’s so rude, but both of those boys have terrible manners, so I wasn’t surprised.”
“What did Knox say?”
“He said he was leaving the house as soon as he hung up, and that Trick should meet him in the parking lot before the meeting, so they could go over their strategy.”
“Anything else?”
“He said Trick should leave immediately so he wouldn’t be late.”
“Did Trick say anything about the call?”
“He said he needed to cut our meeting short, so I walked out with him,” Meredith said. “He went down Rose Hill Avenue, and I went up Pine Mountain Road, so I wouldn’t run into Knox.”
“Where did you go?”
“I walked up Pine Mountain Road until I reached the top of the hill, behind Delvecchio’s house. There’s a deer trail up there that winds around the top of the hill and ends up in the graveyard. I followed the trail until I was behind our house, and then I walked d
own the hill. The housekeeper was just arriving, so I told her I had accidently locked myself out, and she let me in. She’s from a service, so she didn’t know anything about anybody.”
“What was your plan otherwise?”
“To use a brick from the flower bed border to break one of the basement windows.”
“She didn’t question you were who you said you were?”
“I think I intimidated her,” Meredith said. “She could tell I wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
“So she let you in; then what?”
“We found Knox together. She was a young woman, and very emotional, and I told her just to go on home, and I’d call the police.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I did what I came to do,” Meredith said. “Knox had stolen some very precious and valuable things from me, and I wanted them back.”
“Did it occur to you to call for an ambulance, maybe check his pulse to make sure he was dead?”
“I know dead, honey, and that man was D.E.A.D. dead.”
“But did you check to be sure?”
“I may have poked him,” she said.
“What did you do after that?”
“Well, if you want to know the truth, I got a little emotional,” Meredith said.
“You were upset that your husband had died.”
“I was only upset that Knox wouldn’t live to see the inside of a jail cell,” Meredith said. “I got emotional because it reminded me of my father and my first husband, the senator.”
“What did you do next?”
“I got a shopping bag out of the pantry and went looking for my pilfered belongings.”
“What did you take?”
“I didn’t take anything,” Meredith said. “I restored my possessions to their rightful owner.”
“What did you restore?”
“A few silver items, my mother’s tea service, and my father’s coin collection.”
“What about the money?”
“Knox stole money from me, too; maybe not those exact bills, but money in the larger sense, certainly. I was owed that money.”
“Even if it was covered in blood.”
Claire could not hear Meredith’s answer.
“Did you move the body?”
“Certainly not.”
“The money was soaked with Knox’s blood. It wouldn’t have been if it was in his wallet in his pocket. I’m going to ask you again,” Sarah said. “Did you move Knox’s body in order to get to the money?”
“I may have rolled him over a little.”
“When you found him, was he laying on his back or his front.”
“On his back,” Meredith said. “I rolled him over toward the wall so I could get to the money.”
“It was underneath his body, on the stairs?”
“Yes,” Meredith said.
“Did you remove anything else from his clothing or the area around his body?”
“There wasn’t anything else to remove.”
“You didn’t remove any jewelry he might have been wearing?”
“I’m not a grave robber,” Meredith said. “I told you I only took what was mine or what I was owed.”
“What did you take from the safe?”
“The coin collection,” Meredith said. “My father’s coin collection. His name is engraved on the lid.”
“Was there anything else in the safe?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Meredith.”
“I only took items that belonged to me, to my family.”
“Where are these beloved family heirlooms now?”
“At the pawn shop in Pendleton.”
“Not quite so dear to you as you indicated.”
“I need the money,” she said. “I’ll send for them once I get settled.”
“Do you know anything about a black Acura with Maryland plates that’s been seen cruising around town?”
“That’s my driver,” Meredith said. “I’ve engaged him for the week.”
“Did you direct him to follow Knox?”
“Just for fun,” Meredith said. “Just to mess with his head a little bit.”
“Did you know your driver almost hit Claire Fitzpatrick while pursuing Knox?”
“Too bad he missed.”
By the time they let Claire go, Ed had hurried back to his office to file the story with the Pendleton paper. Another county car had arrived to transport Meredith, and Sarah followed it in her car. True to form, she had ignored Claire and been rude to Laurie. Minutes after she departed, however, she texted Claire.
“Thanks,” it read. “I O U.”
Laurie walked Claire home.
“So now you have Marigold saying Knox was alive when she left, and Meredith saying he was dead when she got there,” she said. “Whom do you believe?”
“Both of them,” Laurie said.
“But how can they both be telling the truth?”
“Unbeknownst to you, I have actually been doing my job,” he said. “After Marigold left, Knox called Stuart to warn him that Marigold might be coming for him next. So we know he was alive after she left.”
“So who killed him?”
“The coroner says her preliminary examination seems to indicate he slipped, fell backwards, hit his head on the sharp edge of the marble landing, and died.”
“I didn’t think you could get post-mortem results back that fast.”
“It was an unofficial communication,” he said. “Celeste, the coroner, is an old friend.”
“Of course she is.”
“If you’re gonna get mad every time I mention an old girlfriend, the high blood pressure’s going to give you a stroke.”
“I hate this about myself,” Claire said. “And you’re not even my boyfriend.”
“Not even.”
“So what happened?”
“Marigold said that from her living room window she saw him walk up to the house and go in, but when she called him, he didn’t answer. She went across the street and rang the bell, but he didn’t answer. The door was unlocked so she let herself in the house and yelled for him. He came down the upper set of stairs and stood on the landing while they argued. At some point he threw money at her so she left in a huff.
“According to Sarah, he must have been working in his study on the second floor when she arrived; there were bills spread out on his desk, a checkbook, a calculator, and his cell phone. After Marigold left he must have gone back upstairs to his study to call Stuart. At 12:20 he called his brother. At some point after that he came back down the stairs …”
“And slipped on the money he threw at Marigold, hit his head on the edge of the marble landing, and died,” Claire said. “Meredith told me it was money that got him in the end.”
“That’s the theory.”
“You don’t know there was a housekeeper; she could have made that up,” Claire said. “After Meredith left Trick’s office she had plenty of time to kill him. She could have pushed him back so he fell on the edge of the marble landing.”
“We called the cleaning service. There was a housekeeper and she corroborated Meredith’s story.”
“She may have killed Knox and then paid off the housekeeper.”
“Listen, Knox didn’t make the 12:30 meeting because he slipped and died on his way down the steps. If he hadn’t died, he would have been at that meeting. The attorneys were going to be present to discuss the federal case against them. Knox told Trick they would know where they stood with Stuart by how he acted at this meeting. Either they would all three be united in their defense, or Stuart would split off and implicate them. Knox was dead when Meredith got there, which was after the starting time for the meeting.”
“No, he wouldn’t have missed that meeting.”
“Here’s the thing about Meredith: she’s got little or no conscience. She doesn’t mind telling us she broke in, stole money from a dead man, and took things she claims were hers. She doesn’t mind because she doesn’t
see anything wrong with what she did. She can justify it all. If she had killed him, she would say it was in self-defense. She would justify that, too, and possibly get away with it.”
“That woman has ice water in her veins.”
“She also has a prescription for anti-psychotic meds in her purse, if that tells you anything.”
“She took her father’s coin collection and her mother’s silver tea service directly to the pawn shop in Pendleton.”
“Along with Knox’s Rolex watch, diamond pinky ring, and some other valuable old jewelry, which Knox probably had in the safe.”
“You called the pawn shop.”
“I know Irv, the owner,” Laurie said. “He was a friend of my father’s.”
“Do me a favor.”
“Anything. Everything.”
“Don’t call me unless you find a reason to get better and then you get better.”
“Besides the thought of you, pining away for me here in Budville.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
He pulled her into a tight embrace, kissed the side of her head, and said, quietly, “wait for me.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“But you might,” he said as he let go.
“No,” she said. “I’m not promising anything.”
“I’ll think of you,” he said, as he backed away.
He pointed up at the sky.
“Whenever I see Claire de Lune.”
Claire’s eyes filled and she couldn’t speak.
He turned and jogged away.
Claire rummaged through the cabinets in her parents’ kitchen, looking for something to eat. She wasn’t hungry. She was full of conflicting, uncomfortable feelings and didn’t want to think about sorting them out. Salty and sweet, that’s what she wanted. In the pantry she found a bag of corn chips, and that reminded her of something she used to love to eat as a child. She found a jar of applesauce in the fridge and poured the whole thing in a bowl. Seated at the kitchen table with the bag of chips, a bowl of applesauce to dip them in, and a host of celebrity gossip sites bookmarked on her laptop, Claire felt her worries recede to a comfortable distance, where they hovered, waiting for her.
An hour later, with all the chips and applesauce gone, plus four of her father’s pudding cups and what was left of a carton of ice cream, Claire felt the familiar pressure in her upper abdomen signaling her body’s urge to throw up. It would be so easy, and then she wouldn’t have to absorb all those calories she’d recently consumed.
Hollyhock Ridge Page 25
