Could he be right? I remembered thinking her word choice was odd at the Century showroom when she said “I may actually get a real article after all.” And what else had she told me? “I think she’s on assignment from your Massachusetts office? Writing profiles of important Market figures?”
Massachusetts was the magic word. His face cleared as he finally recognized Heather’s name.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “The freelancer. Right.”
I decided that it might be fun to get Lester Craft into a poker game.
Except that it would be taking candy from a baby. His face was much too expressive to run a bluff.
Two things were now quite obvious: 1) he did remember Ms. Heather McKenzie; 2) she was not a reporter.
Not by Mr. Craft’s definition anyhow.
21
« ^ » “The rage for old furniture not only occasions a demand, at most extravagant prices, for genuine articles of undoubted antiquity, but has led to a revival of some old styles, and to very successful imitations.”The Great Industries of the United States, 1872
The dinner party broke up a little after ten.
Outside the restaurant, we thanked Judge Simmard for a delightful and delicious dinner and waited while he hydraulically hoisted himself and his chair into his van.
The April evening had turned too chilly to linger on the sidewalk after he’d driven away. Lester Craft said goodnight and headed for his own car in the Radisson parking garage and, to my surprise, boisterous Bob and quiet Nancy went off together.
The Pattersons were going on to a private party at the Emerywood Country Club and insisted that the hosts “would be delighted if you and Mr. Han came with us.”
But Albert Han had a car and driver idling at the curb and he wanted to go dancing at a lounge over in Greensboro.
The Pattersons accepted my regrets with polite regrets of their own and departed. Han was a little harder to dissuade. For all his western dress and speech, he seemed to have rather eastern ideas about women and I finally had to speak quite sharply before I finally convinced him that I was not a party favor thoughtfully provided by Judge Simmard.
I didn’t want to party or dance. I wanted to go sit quietly and consider all the things I’d seen and heard these last two days.
Driving back to Dixie’s house, I gave serious thought to Drew Patterson. Certainly she could have given Chan those penicillin-dusted brownies even though she claimed she hadn’t known how serious his allergies were. She said Chan was merely an old friend who had treated her like a kid sister, but had been fun to play with. Dixie said she’d wanted to marry him, but Dixie seemed to see would-be stepmothers to Lynnette at every turn.
Yet, say it was true. Nevertheless, even if Drew had been head over heels for Chan, was his leaving High Point without her motive enough for murder? In this day and age, are there really women who tell themselves, “If I can’t have him, no one will?”
Then there was all that love and pride the Pattersons had invested in their only child.
Dixie thought Jay Patterson was angry at Chan because Chan was leaving Fitch and Patterson, going to Malaysia, and perhaps taking with him valuable proprietary information about Fitch and Patterson business deals. But what if he’d also come to believe that Chan had trifled with his daughter’s affections? An aggressive, pugnacious man like Patterson—
“An aggressive, pugnacious man would have punched him in the nose and been done with it,” said the pragmatist in my mental ear.
On the other hand, as Chan’s employer, he might have known how serious Chan’s allergies were.
And Savannah seemed to trust Patterson. He had helped her take food at the ALWA party Thursday night and he might have seen me pick up that baggie from the floor, the one with my fingerprints all over it. I tried to remember if that baggie was still on the table when first Savannah, then Patterson and finally Drew walked away from the table, but it was just an insignificant little plastic bag and I had absolutely no memory one way or the other.
Dixie said Lavelle Trocchi had been there. She was accused of being Chan’s dupe, of letting him steal a preview catalog of her company’s new designs. She could be fired, her reputation within the industry destroyed. I suppose she could have heard the byplay on the brownies and seen me pick up the baggie.
No one mentioned seeing the Colliers, though. And while those two retailers—Kay Adams and Poppy Jackson—might cheerfully poison Chan, would they have known penicillin would do the trick and would Chan have taken brownies from them?
More to the point, would Savannah have given any of those people my tote bag?
Heather McKenzie said Savannah had immediately disappeared into the bowels of the building.
If Ms. McKenzie could be believed.
But she had followed right on Savannah’s heels. And for a reporter, she showed a singular disinterest in Chan’s death. Was that her way of averting suspicion? Or was it merely further proof that she wasn’t really a reporter?
“Are you finished?” asked the preacher. “Or are you finally going to admit that Dixie Babcock has the strongest reasons to want Chan Nolan dead? She was there at the table with both the baggie and brownies, she knew that penicillin would kill him, AND she had the opportunity when he came to her floor.”
But I was with her that night at the hospital. Her grief. Her bewilderment. Surely her reactions were real.
“A woman you haven’t seen in ten years? How do you know she’s not capable of faking grief and bewilderment?”
He was right. I didn’t.
All the same—
Dixie was in nightgown and robe when I got back to the house. I found her in the living room amid a stack of those family albums.
“My dad’s aunt was devoted to genealogy,” she said as she reshelved the bulging scrapbooks. “Spent the last twenty years of her life trying to account for every leaf and twig on the family tree. When she died, she left all her research to me. For some reason, Lynnette’s fascinated by the family stories. She’d rather hear about a great-grandfather milking cows or how his mother shot a copperhead than any regular bedtime storybook.”
“So she wasn’t stolen by the Ragsdales and forced across state lines to Maryland?”
Dixie gave a sheepish smile. “Okay, so maybe I overreacted.”
Her chestnut hair gleamed in the lamplight. “How was Noble’s? What did you have to eat?”
“Grilled chicken with lemon and watercress. It was wonderful. Interesting conversation, too,” I said and described the table. “It was too crowded to say much to the robotics man, but it’s such a bizarre concept when you think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“Well, take stressing, for instance. They used to have a guy at the factory who would bang up new furniture to make it look old, right?”
She nodded. “Only it’s called distressing.”
“So he’d spend day after day distressing this new wood: gouging it, banging it with pipes and hammers, nicking the edges, the whole nine yards. Now he’s been replaced by a robot that’ll do the exact same thing. You could say that a man’s been put out of work by an artificial intelligence, except that the work he was doing was artificial to begin with. His fake marks were random though, and customers, according to Bob, want the exact same thing they see in the store. If there’s a wormhole three inches in on the floor model, they want theirs to have the wormhole three inches in. I mean, robots are faking something fake to begin with and then standardizing it?”
Dixie grinned. “What’s your point here, Knott?”
“The point is, you could probably buy original antiques for about the same as you’d pay for high-end reproductions.”
“Real antiques? Someone else’s castoffs? My dear, you don’t know where they’ve been. Reproductions are new. Sanitary!”
Albert Han and his after-dinner persistence made her laugh. “I don’t know if special pains are being taken for the Chinese, but when the Japanese first started coming to Mar
ket, some of the exhibitors wondered if they ought to supply geishas. Actually, I think a couple of them did. An American version anyhow.”
“I wonder if some of those hostesses working the hospitality rooms will show up in my courtroom this week.”
“Not this week. The police usually do a sweep the week before Market and they’ll do another the week after Market, but during Market? Huh-uh.”
I stepped out of my high heels and perched on the arm of the couch. “Changing the subject, what’s your take on Heather McKenzie?”
“That reporter? Seems like a nice kid, why? Was she there tonight?”
“No, but the editor of Furniture/Today was and guess what? He kept saying he didn’t have a reporter by that name.”
“So?” She shoved the last of the albums back into its slot “I bet the guy from Home-Lite in New Jersey doesn’t know he’s got a sales rep named Jacki Sotelli. People shuffle badges like cards.”
“Maybe. But when I mentioned that she was down from Massachusetts, he suddenly remembered who she really is. He tried to cover, but it was clear she’s not on his payroll.“ Dixie sat on the couch with her knees drawn up to her chin and her feline eyes were thoughtful. ”So who’s payroll is she on and why are they so interested in Savannah?”
We mulled it over a while, then Dixie said goodnight—“Lynnette will be up at first light”—and I toddled off to the guest room where I lay awake another hour trying to make some sense of things.
It kept circling back to Savannah, her delusions about Drew, her instability that began—
Sudden illumination pierced the darkness. Not for nothing had I sat in all those sessions of traffic court since coming to the bench.
Pell and Dixie and Jay Patterson, too—all agreed that the first major manifestation of Savannah’s bipolar disorder was when she destroyed her Porsche with a sledgehammer and then disappeared for nearly two years.
What if that sudden, violent destruction had been to hide evidence of a hit-and-run? When seventeen-year-old Drew was at the wheel?
The trouble, of course, was that I didn’t have enough facts. I really needed to ask David Underwood some questions, even though I didn’t have much hope that he’d answer.
22
« ^ » “The Egyptians had metal mirrors, and a great profusion of kitchen utensils, and dishes of all sorts for the table.”The Great Industries of the United States, 1872
Next morning, I discovered that Detective Underwood had a few questions of his own.
He called first thing and invited me to come out for coffee, pancakes and some informal discussion at the local IHOP.
“Don’t you ever take a day off?” I asked, sliding into the other side of his booth.
“Not during Market Week,” he said. “Have you found Savannah yet?”
“Nope. You?”
I checked. The smile was there, hidden beneath that bushy brown mustache.
“You told me not to meddle, remember?”
“And I appreciate your restraint.”
Coffee and juice arrived and when the waitress had gone away with our order, Detective Underwood said, “I was hoping you might’ve remembered if that baggie was still on the table when you walked away Thursday night.”
“Sorry. I’ve been over it and over it and I just can’t see it again after I laid it on the table.”
As we talked, Underwood proceeded to lay waste to the table. When he tore open the sugar packets, the first one ripped badly and showered sugar grains everywhere except in his cup.
I couldn’t understand how the man and his clothes stayed so neat and pristine, how his shirt and tie remained spotless.
Not the table though. By the time he had sugared and creamed to his satisfaction, it was littered with sugar papers and little empty cups of non-dairy creamer and their lids. (Every time I eat in a fast-food place, I’m always glad I take my coffee black.)
The coffee wasn’t anything to rave about, but at least it was strong and scalding hot. I sipped cautiously before asking, “Haven’t you made any progress at all?”
“Now, I didn’t say that. As a courtesy, since you’re involved, and sort of officer of the law to an officer of the court, you might say—I’m going to trust you not to let this go any further.”
“Of course,” I murmured.
He drained his orange juice and blotted his mustache on the napkin, then tossed the crumpled napkin toward the heap that was building at the end of the table and cleared a space for a tattered legal pad. I had seen this very same legal pad, crisp and unsullied, less than forty-eight hours ago. Now, its dog-eared pages hung precariously from the top and curled up at the bottom. Loose sheets covered with scribbles slid out of either side like straws sliding from a pitchfork of hay.
“We’ve checked out all the major players that were there Thursday night,” he said, paging through his messy notes.
“And?”
“Starting with Chan Nolan. He left the ALWA party about 8:50 and went next door to the Fitch and Patterson reception where he exchanged strong words with Jacob Collier, who was drunk and belligerent. Then I gather that more words passed between Nolan and Patterson. Mrs. Patterson and Drew broke that up before it turned into anything serious. Mrs. Patterson, who’s a real lady, asked Nolan to dance and Drew took her daddy out to the lobby to cool off. When the dance ended, Nolan cut out. The best we can narrow it down is that he left between 9:30 and 9:40. The 911 call was logged at 10:07, but the ME says that with that much penicillin, he’d have started reacting almost immediately and would have lapsed into a coma within minutes of ingesting it.”
“Have you learned why he came down to Dixie Babcock’s hall?”
He shook his head. “His car was parked at her house and he caught a ride to Market with her on Thursday morning. She says he was supposed to let her know if he wanted a ride back. Otherwise, he’d make his own arrangements. She says he didn’t mention it at the ALWA party, so he could’ve been planning to go home with one of those women he’d ticked off.”
“So instead of coming to borrow Dixie’s antihistamine tablets, he might only have wanted a ride back to her house?”
“Probably. I’ll get to her in a minute. First though, Kay Adams and Poppy Jackson. They left the ALWA ballroom with two other small retailers around nine and caught a shuttle bus over to one of the satellite parking lots. They drove in three cars back to the Howard Johnson on I-40 where they’re all staying, went directly to the bar and talked and drank till nearly eleven.”
Two down, but I never seriously considered those two anyhow. Our food arrived, waffles and sausage for me, French toast and bacon for Underwood. (He immediately turned a page right into his bacon.)
“Lavelle Trocchi left the room about the same time Savannah did, with six people who know her by name. She partied at the Radisson till midnight with those same six people and she did not leave the bar alone.”
Okay, so if Lavelle Trocchi was carrying a grudge, she had immediately found someone to soothe her ruffled feelings. Nice for her, but the circle was shrinking.
“Jacob Collier had words with Nolan at the Fitch and Patterson party but we can’t find anyone who saw him or his granddaughter at the ALWA party. Tracy Collier walked her grandfather back to the Radisson, then she joined the Trocchi party for an hour.”
“What about the Pattersons?” I asked.
More turning of pages, some of which were now stuck together with smears of maple syrup. The pile of dirty paper napkins continued to grow. Every time anything got on his hands, Underwood fastidiously wiped it off at once and pulled a fresh napkin from the dispenser.
“Patterson left the ALWA party a few minutes after Savannah, and Drew joined him back at their reception between 8:40 and 8:45. The band was hired till ten, and that’s when Mr. and Mrs. Patterson left, even though there were still people in the ballroom. Drew left with them and before you ask, she was returning to the ballroom when Chan was leaving. They spoke just outside the doorway, he gave her the sa
me kiss on the cheek he’d given her mother a minute before and left. She came back in and remained there till her parents were ready to go over to her house in Emerywood where they’re staying rather than drive back and forth to Lexington.”
I didn’t like the way this was shaping.
“So that brings us down to your friend Dixie.”
“She’s your friend, too, isn’t she?” I asked.
“Well, sure. I mean, we don’t go fishing together, but my boy dated her girl a few times when they were in high school and we ran the PTA’s haunted house a couple of Halloweens.” He speared a piece of his French toast. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t haul her into court if I find she’s the one put your penicillin in his brownies.”
“She didn’t do it,” I said earnestly.
“Maybe not, but you have to admit she could’ve if she was so inclined.”
He knew he didn’t have to lay it out again for me and when I nodded, he said, “So what it comes down to is Savannah, Dixie, or you, Judge.”
“Me? I thought we agreed—”
“Well, ma’am, what I agree is that it doesn’t seem likely, but you did have means and opportunity, even if there’s no apparent motive.” He took a swallow of his orange juice. “Yet.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Detective Underwood, it seems to me you’re not taking Savannah very seriously. She’s the one with the baggies, brownies and my penicillin. She obviously changed her mind about bringing my tote to the soup kitchen. Instead, it winds up next to Nolan’s body. She’s the only one who could have put it there.”
He put the last morsel of bacon in his mouth and chewed a moment “Maybe. Good thing for that Heather McKenzie that you thought to dial your cell phone, else I could argue that she took the bag from Savannah and—”
“No, you couldn’t,” I said. “She was with me from the moment we ran into each other till she dropped me off in front of the GHFM building.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
“Just the same, there is something odd about her,” I said and told him how the editor of Furniture/Today couldn’t place her at first. “I wish you’d check her background.”
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