“You know we’ll do everything we can to find who did this.” He stood near my desk, gazing across the room at my drawing table and materials. “At first guess I’d have to agree with Stephen—it’s probably some nut who read the morning paper. With all the publicity from the Willit case, just about anybody could figure out where you live.”
I searched his face. Did he really believe that?
“I can’t tell you how sorry we are that the information about the TV show got out, Annie. We have no idea who leaked it. Delft is fit to be tied.”
“I know.” My arms crossed, hugging my chest. “Ralph, what if Bill Bland sent this box?”
He pushed his lower lip up, puckering his chin. “Then we’ll trace the payment to his whereabouts and catch him. Believe me, I’d love that. But it doesn’t seem likely. First, this would be quite a careless move for him, don’t you think, after all these years? Second, I can’t imagine he’d bring the box himself or that he’s even anywhere near this area. Which would beg the question: What florist fills phone requests for dead flowers?”
Mentally, I cataloged what I’d learned of Bill Bland. Exacting. Arrogant. Controlling. Compulsive reader of murder mysteries.
Complete lack of conscience.
Two personalities.
Would a desperate Bland, intent on regaining control, have become this reckless?
If it meant catching him soon, I almost wished he had.
Chapter 10
Chetterling encouraged me to keep my appointment with Edwin, assuring that the Sheriff’s Department would get to work immediately on tracing my package. In spite of my fears, I knew he was right. Besides, if I didn’t go, what would I do—sit around the house alone and allow my fears to mount? Better to stay busy, keep focused on the case for now. Kelly was safe at Erin’s; Stephen was off to his ball game. No using my children as an excuse.
“Annie, I promise you,” Chetterling said as he left, “we’ll call as soon as we know anything. If you go out, keep your cell phone on.”
I’d phoned Edwin and told him I was on my way.
Edwin Tarell’s meandering ranchstyle home was backed up to an upscale golf course in Redding. A tasteful mixture of stucco and beige stone, it sported elegance befitting a successful businessman. One of the doors to the three-car garage was up, revealing the white Mercedes Edwin had driven to my house a few days ago. Lush, multicolored flowers lined the front walk. Either Edwin employed a gardener, or he spent a lot of his free time on the lawn.
I knew a little of Edwin’s personal life from updated information in the case files. He was forty-five—four years older than I. He’d been married and divorced twice. Neither marriage had produced children. From what I gathered, Tarell Plastics had faced a few rocky years when he first took over the company. Delft had noted a conversation with Emily in which she’d admitted her disappointment in Edwin’s decision to run the company himself. Perhaps she felt he was too young, too inexperienced. Whatever her reasons, in the end Edwin proved his abilities. Today Tarell Plastics ran strong and employed over one hundred people. Edwin was a respected man in Redding. He was a member of the rotary club, the chamber of commerce, and other local organizations.
Still, I found the grief over his father and the two broken marriages to be most telling. I knew what it felt like to look successful on the outside—and feel like a failure within.
Edwin invited me in with a wan smile, taking my hand in both of his. “You all right?” He wore a pair of pressed light-colored jeans and a designer knit shirt. I caught the slightest whiff of aftershave.
“Fine, thank you.” I told him about Chetterling’s reaction to the package. “My cell phone’s on in case he finds something right away.”
“Good, good.” His brown eyes lingered on mine. “So, do come in.”
He led me into a big family room with overstuffed sofa and chairs, and a flat-screen TV even larger than ours.
“Wow. You watch baseball games on that?”
He smiled. “And football and basketball. Even soccer, from time to time.”
Edwin offered me something to drink. I declined. We settled in two matching chairs, his facing the television. His usual seat, I guessed. His fingers lightly rubbed the fabric on the arm. “If that package is a hoax, do you have any idea who’d do something like that to you?”
“None at all.”
He nodded.“I just wondered if it could be somebody connected to your past cases. Perhaps someone not happy that one of your composites led to an arrest.”
I hadn’t considered that.
“Well.” He thumped his chair. “Let’s not worry about that until we have to. On with the case at hand. I’m happy to give you whatever information you want to know.” Edwin shook his head. “I can’t tell you how many times in the past I’ve been assured they were getting close to finding Bland. Especially in the first couple years. Some woman saw him here, some man claimed he lived there. Tips came in from all over. Every time the Sheriff’s Department told me they might be getting close, I’d break out in a sweat. I couldn’t sleep through the night. Then time would pass . . . and nothing. I’d fall back into normalcy.” He gave a little snort. “If you could call my life normal.”
The comment struck me. How to respond to such vulnerability? For a moment I busied myself with opening my leather-bound notebook and pulling out a pen, writing Edwin’s name on the top of the paper. “Okay. Edwin, what I need from you are further insights into Bill Bland. I’ve had a number of questions answered by Sergeant Delft. But I’m going to ask you some specific questions to help me fill in the blanks. Tell me for starters—was there anything unusual in the way Bland walked?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Walked? Is that important?”
“Well, maybe it doesn’t directly help me in drawing the face. But indirectly it might help me understand him more as a person.”
“I see.” Edwin rubbed his jaw. “Bland was quiet when he moved. He was almost uncanny sometimes. You’d swear he’d purposely snuck up on you in a room.”
Could Bland have been playing some kind of game? Would this lover of mysteries try to slink around just to see if he could do it?
I jotted a note. “What kind of clothes would he wear when he wasn’t working?”
“Khaki pants, belted, and a tucked-in button-down shirt. Never jeans or a T-shirt.”
“Sergeant Delft said he loved his wife and baby. Would you agree with that?”
“Yes. They were all the family he had. I never heard him talk about parents or cousins.”
“Okay. Remember when you first talked to the detective on the scene about . . . that night. You mentioned Bill had a habit of jutting his chin up, then letting it fall. You also mentioned he was precise and finicky.”
“Oh, he was finicky, all right. And that thing with his chin—yeah.”
“Can you show me what that gesture looked like?”
“He did something with his mouth first, like this.” Edwin drew his chin up, causing an indentation beneath his lower lip and increasing the downward furrows at the sides of his mouth. Two vertical puckers appeared in his chin.
“Could you hold that for me a moment?” Quickly I sketched the expression, wondering how this habitual movement might have affected Bland’s facial structure after so many years. “Okay. Go ahead.”
Edwin jerked his head up, allowed it to sink slowly, then repeated the pattern.
I wrote in my notebook. “How often did he do this? Like in one day.”
“I don’t know, maybe three times in a day, that I noticed. More if he was stressed.”
“Was he stressed a lot?”
“I’d say so. He was nervous when my father first hired him. Then he’d look nervous whenever we had a meeting about accounts. Especially those last few months. Of course, now we know why. Plus he got really stressed out over Susan leaving him.”
“Did he ever show anger?”
“Yes, but only when he was extremely pushed. Most of the time he�
�d just turn silent, like stone. For, I don’t know, maybe the first year I knew him, this was the only way I saw him handle anger. I used to admire him for that. Being able to keep it all inside. But then I began seeing a different side of him. One time we argued in the office over some mistake he’d made. I’m telling you, in seconds he went from that cold statue of control to red-faced and yelling. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like he’d flipped some switch. And when he got that way he’d lose all sense of logic. Say stupid things, make some impulsive decision. He almost hit me once.” Edwin glanced away, as if looking down the corridor of the past. “I should have realized, you know. I should have seen what he was capable of doing. There was so much going on beneath the surface of that man. Especially when I discovered he was stealing money, I should have known.”
“No one else did either,” I said gently.
He looked back to me, his chest filling with air. “But I’m the one who’s still alive.”
I gave him a pained smile. If only I could do something to take away his guilt. “I’m so sorry, Edwin. So sorry things turned out the way they did.”
He nodded.
I looked back to my notebook, taking a minute to refocus. “Okay. You said most of the time Bland was the controlled person, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like to concentrate on that for a minute. Can you tell me about a time when he was mad but stayed in that cold kind of anger?”
He focused on the blank television screen.“There was one time about two months before the Christmas party—the last one he attended. I think on this day he must have found out something about his wife. Maybe even caught her with the other man. He went home for lunch, see—unusual for him. And when he came back to the office, he was . . . well, nearly robotic.”
Robotic. I envisioned Bill Bland’s features, stiffened like papier-mâché. “What happened?”
Edwin clasped his hands. “I saw him walking past my office. He stared straight ahead, his chin up—and staying that way. His cheeks seemed kind of red. I can’t explain it, but something about the way he strode by made me follow him to see if he was all right.”
As Edwin told me his story, the film reel in my head began to turn. I pictured him easing down to Bill’s office, sticking his head inside . . .
“Are you okay?”
Bill stares out the window, hands in his pockets, feet apart, elbows shoved forward at an odd angle. Like he’s standing firm in a high wind. He turns and looks at Edwin, and his face looks like death. No red in his cheeks now, just ghostly white.
“Of course I’m all right.” Each word falls like a popcorn seed on a bare floor. “Thank you for asking.”
The hands stay in his pockets. Edwin can see the pull of the fabric, like he’s digging fingers into his thighs.
Edwin places a palm against the door frame, frowning. His mind cataloges potential problems with the company. Something wrong with the accounts? Negative profit for the quarter? It does not occur to him to consider Bland’s private life.
Bland shoots him a look of cool venom. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“No, I just . . . you don’t look right, that’s all.”
“I told you. I am fine.” Bland walks to his desk. One hand emerges from his pocket. He reaches out with his forefinger to tap a thin stack of paper into precise alignment. Tap, tap. His hand is trembling. The top pages don’t move far enough. Tap, tap, tap. Bland doesn’t stop until he’s satisfied.
“Okay, then—” Edwin tries to return to business—“remember those numbers on Corville Industries you were putting together for—”
“Edwin.” Bland nearly spits his name. “I have not forgotten. Do I ever forget what people want from me? Do. I. Ever. Forget?”
“No, I just—”
“Good. You will have them in the morning. Which, if you have not forgotten, is when you wanted them.”
Anger knocks through Edwin’s veins. How dare this guy treat him like this? He is the boss’s son. Edwin straightens, takes a step into the office. “I don’t know what your problem is, Bland, but you better watch yourself.”
“I do watch myself, Edwin. All the time. And I am watching myself now like you would never imagine. So lay off, all right?”
With exaggerated calm, Bland pulls out his desk chair and sits down. He slides a folder toward himself, opens it. His right hand, like some remote appendage, picks up a pen and holds it midair. He grips it until his knuckles blanch.
“Good day, Edwin.” His eyes do not raise from the file.
Edwin stalks away, feeling like an obnoxious kid who’s been put in his place . . .
His voice faded, and we sat in silence for a moment.
I set down my pen. “You didn’t like Bill Bland.”
“Not after that. And now . . .” He snorted. “If I saw him on the street, I’d shoot him in a heartbeat. But the terrible mistake I made back then was I never told my father. At the time, I didn’t know what I could say. ‘Wow, Dad, Bill was really mad. It was kind of creepy.’ I figured my father would just brush it off. He always thought the best of everybody.”
I watched Edwin’s fingers return to the arms of his chair and begin to rub. What had Bill Bland learned that day at lunch that upset him so? That his wife wanted a divorce? Had he caught her with the other man? In that scenario, I couldn’t blame him for working so hard to hold himself together. It would be amazing that he’d returned to work that day at all.
“Edwin, Sergeant Delft talked to me about Bland’s motivation. But I’d like to hear from you. Why do you think he resorted to murder? Why would a quiet man, a white-collar criminal, fall into violence?”
“Hard to figure, isn’t it. Yet it happens all the time. How many people out there who kill ever thought they’d do it?” Edwin considered the empty television screen. “Ever hear of Mark Hoffman?”
“No.”
“About five years after my father was killed, I read a book about him. It . . . helped me think through some things. Hoffman was a master forger back in the eighties. Real brilliant guy. He wrote over eight hundred documents, supposedly from famous people like Daniel Boone and the founders of our country. Not to mention his forgeries that included scandalous ‘information’ about Joseph Smith. You know, the guy who started the Mormon church? Hoffman made a fortune selling these documents.”
“And he reminds you of Bland?”
Edwin nodded.“For more than one reason. He looked like Bland in a way. A nerdy-looking guy. He could make himself seem like a country bumpkin when he needed to fool someone into buying a document. And I do mean fool. Even the FBI and the Library of Congress declared his forgeries authentic. Shows how smart he was. He spent his spare time reading and studying—like Bland and his mystery novels. And Hoffman learned how to forge perfectly. He’d go to libraries and cut blank pages from the backs of books that were as old as the document he wanted to create. He learned how to make ink using the old formula. And it had weird stuff in it, too, like wasp larvae or something like that. But he went even further. Hoffman knew that the documents would be closely examined because of their potential worth. So he figured out how to beat the carbon–14 test. He took some of that old paper from books and burned it, then scraped the ashes, which would contain the right age carbon, into the ink.” Edwin shook his head. “Brilliant.”
“Then how did they catch him?”
“That’s my point.” Edwin’s voice snagged. “Hoffman was a smart, cagey, white-collar criminal. Just like Bill Bland. But guess what happened when he was backed into a corner? When he got really desperate? He turned stupid and took crazy risks. And he killed two people.”
The words sank into my chest. I held Edwin’s gaze.
“Just like Bland, Hoffman planned it. He sent a pipe bomb to one of the Mormon church officials who’d been involved in buying the forgery about Joseph Smith and blew him apart. The same day he sent a second one to another official, but it killed the guy’s wife instead. And, like Blan
d, he planned to kill more, but things went wrong. The third bomb blew up in his own car. He didn’t die, but he was injured pretty badly. Talk about stupid.”
I turned the information over in my mind. “So what do you think made Hoffman change like that?”
Edwin sighed. “I don’t think he changed, that’s just it. I think he carried out what he was capable of all along. Same as Bland, he was caught in a downward spiral. In Hoffman’s case, this wallflower guy made lots of money selling his forgeries, and he started living it up, drawing attention to himself. After a while he was spending more than he’d earned, and he fell into serious debt. The debt put pressure on him to promise more documents than he could forge in time. Then his debtors came after him and were going to expose him for all the money he owed. And of course there was speculation about all these important documents he continued to ‘find.’ Basically, what it came down to was, he was going to be caught. And that, he couldn’t allow. He was already a criminal. He already lacked morality. Mix that with desperation, and you get a very dangerous person. Just like Bland.”
Edwin’s words crawled through me, slime-trailing comparisons of the two criminals. What about the dead roses? If Bland feared getting caught because of the American Fugitive show, wouldn’t he resort to desperate measures like that? What would keep him from harming me and anyone else whom he viewed as a threat?
No. I would not tread that path right now.
With controlled movements, I closed my notebook and put the pen back in my purse. “Edwin, thank you very much. You’ve helped me a lot.”
“Sure.” He rose, giving me a little smile. “I’m glad you could come.”
He walked me to the door with an air of reluctance. He stopped in his entryway, hands in the pocket of his jeans. “Look, Annie, I have mixed feelings here. I want you to do that drawing. And I think Chetterling’s probably right—your package was a prank, and they’ll soon trace it. But if they can’t trace it . . . if there’s the slightest possibility that Bland could have sent it, I don’t want you putting yourself in danger.”
I hugged my notebook to my chest. “Thanks. You know I’d hate to let you and your mom down. I wouldn’t make that decision lightly. And I shiver to think how I’d need to do it. I mean, in order for Bland to know, we’d have to make public that I’d been scared off the case. The newspaper would have to print the story.”
Stain of Guilt Page 8
