Ghost Times Two

by Carolyn Hart

  On the table to one side of the chair sat a studio portrait of a girl, perhaps ten or eleven. The girl—Julie—looked lively and eager, healthy, short blonde ringlets, bright blue eyes, a dazzling smile. Her dress was lovely, turquoise blue tulle with cap sleeves and a sequined top. A hair ribbon featured a matching blue bow.

  How many evenings did Brewster spend alone with only memories?

  I had a sudden picture of a man on the anniversary of his wife’s death, drinking alone at a bar, leaving after dark, coming around a curve, not seeing a bicycle in time despite its taillight reflector. The terrible impact. Stopping. Struggling out of the car, hurrying to find a young woman with a broken neck, past help, past caring. A man who knew he’d had too much to drink. A man with a motherless daughter at home. Was Julie already ill at that point? Did he know that her heart could not last, would not last?

  I understood why he drove away. Had he called Doug Graham for help? Or had Graham possibly been at the club that night as well. Perhaps he’d driven around the curve, seen Brewster’s car in the headlights, stopped. Brewster, unsteady, shaken, perhaps begged Graham to drive on, drive away.

  Had Graham agreed? Or perhaps even then Graham hatched a plan. Hide the car in your garage. Don’t take it out. Monday morning leave the house early. We’ll meet out here. A crash. Both cars heavily damaged. Nothing to show a body shop that there had been previous damage to one car. Both cars hauled in to be repaired. No questions would arise because the accident accounted for a crushed fender, broken grille.

  The living room was cool in every respect, from the chill of air-conditioning to the subdued grays and pale blues of the furniture and drapes to a crystal vase on a glass-topped coffee table. The vase held two white roses. I stood and walked near the coffee table, bent forward, was rewarded with a delicate scent. I never doubted Brewster every week chose two white roses from his garden and put them by his side, roses for remembrance.

  I heard the front door open, close, slow, heavy steps. Brewster Layton stood in the oval archway to the living room, turned on the lights. The crystal chandelier that hung from the ceiling was not only elegant, its luminous light was pitiless. His sensitive face was drawn, his dark eyes bleak. He walked to the chair, obviously his chair, sank down. He looked up at the portrait. “You always admired me for telling the truth.” He lifted a hand to rub against the front of his goatee. “I never wanted to disappoint you.”

  He was talking to his dead wife. Was that his solace now? To come home from the office, settle into his chair, and tell her what he had done that day? That’s what spouses do. Good days or bad, especially bad, there is a willing heart to listen, to encourage, sometimes to absolve.

  Now Brewster Layton was alone, except for two white roses. But the yearning to share remained.

  He continued to gaze at the unseeing lovely face. “There are lies of omission and commission. Do you suppose hellfire singes as hard for sins of omission? I did what I thought I had to do. Somehow I hated him even more after Julie died.” He pushed up from the chair, walked across the room to a bottle of Dewar’s sitting on a table. He half filled a glass, added no soda, carried the glass back to his chair. He sat, lifted the glass, drank several swallows. The whisky seemed to go down easily, a man who was accustomed to drinking straight Scotch. Again he spoke aloud. “I hope he burns in hell.” His face crumpled. “I’m sorry, Marie. I’m not the man you always admired. God forgive me.”

  I returned to the porch, hesitated. Detective M. Loy could gain entry. But to what avail? Brewster Layton was a lawyer. More than that, he was a man with secrets held hard and fast. I’d come away with nothing. But there was one thing I could do and should do while the police were still occupied at the law firm.

  Chapter 11

  Sam’s office was empty, as I expected. I glanced at the wall clock. A quarter to twelve. Likely Sam and Hal were nearing the end of the interviews at the law firm. I was afraid Sam’s focus was on Megan’s interrogation at one o’clock. I hoped she sensed that I was doing my best to find out facts leading away from her. I found a current Adelaide phone directory in the center drawer of Sam’s desk, flipped to the L’s, dialed, knew caller ID would read: Adelaide Police Department.

  “Layton, Graham, Morse and Morse.” Lou Raymond’s voice was a little higher than normal.

  I was pleasant but firm. “Please inform Chief Cobb that Detective Loy wishes to speak to him. Ask him to call”—I glanced at the number on Sam’s phone—“333-3333.” Nice alliteration. I wondered if Sam liked threes, as in third time’s the charm, three to make ready, three Musketeers, three’s a crowd. “Thank you.” I hung up.

  Lou might, if it were an ordinary day, be surprised a detective didn’t call the chief directly, but this was no ordinary day there. She would take the message to Sam.

  I settled comfortably in Sam’s chair, opened the lower left-hand drawer, found his M&M’S sack, filched a handful. The phone rang. I finished a munch and answered cheerfully, “Hi, Sam. I hope the interviews are going well.” It is always well to encourage people in their endeavors.

  “Making yourself at home?” The query was sardonic.

  “It is the responsibility of all good citizens to assist the authorities. Please instruct the crime techs to go to Brewster Layton’s office and take into evidence the scraps from his little machine that chews up paper. Label the evidence bag with the date and a notation the material was taken from whatever kind of machine—”

  “Paper shredder.”

  “—paper shredder in the office of Brewster Layton. It may turn out to be important evidence.”

  “Evidence of what?”

  “That’s to be determined. And—”

  “Are you trying to distract me?”

  “I am aiding the investigation. The material is relevant to the case in the event Brewster Layton is the murderer.”

  An irritated breath. “I’m in a hurry to get to my”—emphasis on the pronoun—“office and interrogate the primary suspect. At this point, there are no other suspects. Let me remind you that Megan Wynn responded to a text. You think Graham didn’t send the text. I think he did. There are no prints but his on the cell phone—”

  “The murderer wore gloves.” My tone suggested this was Perp Behavior 101. “Were Graham’s prints smudged on the cell?”

  “He kept the cell in his back pocket.”

  “Smudged?”

  “Of course.”

  “Rest my case.”

  “A diversion.”

  Some comments do not deserve a reply. “Speaking of pockets, was there a note in his handwriting, the one about Let’s talk again, we can work this out, found either in the pocket of the suit he wore that day or in his clothing when he was killed?”

  “We checked his suit and a white shirt tossed in a hamper. No note. Clothes worn at time of death: billfold with the usual contents including one hundred and forty-eight dollars, eighty-two cents in change, car keys, cell, two peppermints wrapped in cellophane. No note.”

  I was excited. “He gave the note to someone. Maybe set up a meeting at his house.”

  “He was shot in the back of the head. Never knew what hit him.”

  “He was grim about that note. He worked and worked on it, tried a lot of versions. The note has to mean something.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he talked to someone on the phone, smoothed out whatever it was. Or maybe he changed his mind, tossed the note in the trash. Some other trash,” he added hastily. “What matters in this case is the text sent from Graham’s cell to Wynn’s cell. Wynn responded to the text, hotfooted it right out to his house. She was there and he was shot. Sure, the termination wasn’t her own, but she was the one who had to kiss off a job she wanted. I got the whole picture when the Legal Knight came jousting to protect his Lady. There’s more than work in the air here. So Wynn gets this text. She’s already mad. She goes out there, shoots h
im—”

  “Where was the gun when the police arrived?”

  His reply was prompt. “Hidden in the woods.”

  “The gun was found in her desk.”

  “Yeah. She hid it in the woods, got nervous, decided to retrieve it.”

  “Then proceeded to her office to put the gun in a drawer in her desk? Do you think she’s an idiot as well as a murderer? Why not go toss it out in the lake?”

  “I think she’s out of balance, hardly knows what she’s doing, probably thought there would be no reason for anyone to search the law office. Maybe she thought she might need it again.”

  “How about the ring?”

  “Somebody stole the ring.” His tone indicated theft was a side issue. “Probably not her. It only takes one motive for murder. We may never find out who broke in and took the ring. You can bet Jack Sherman’s performance was the talk of Adelaide by midafternoon. Somebody heard about the ring—Jack shouting about the ring being in Graham’s desk—anyway somebody decided to steal the ring.”

  “The law offices must have been pretty busy last night. The ring taken. The gun placed in Megan’s desk.” Not to mention the fanged rat encountered by the cleaning crew.

  “The night’s long.”

  I tucked that thought away for future consideration. “I think someone heard about the ring—a hundred-thousand-dollar ring—and decided to steal it.”

  Sam wasn’t impressed. “The hundred thousand sounds like a ticket to easy street but a thief couldn’t hope to get that amount for stolen property.”

  “Maybe this was a thief with a brain. Steal the ring. Lay low with it. In a few months, take it to a jeweler in another city, say the design has never been quite right and how about putting in a few small emeralds and changing the band in some way. After the work is done, ask for an appraisal, use the appraisal to sell the ring to a store in another city, clear at least eighty K.”

  “Why kill Graham?” He slapped out the words like tossing an ace over a king. “There was no need. Sure, he might have been suspicious of people who saw the ring that morning, but he would never be able to prove anything. And”—his tone was grudging—“maybe the thief does have a brain. I like that plan, get the ring redesigned, sell it after a while.” A pause. “Right now you’re an irritant, like a horsefly at a picnic, but I’m glad you haven’t taken to crime.”

  I took his comment as a compliment. “Not yet.” It wouldn’t do for him to be complacent. “Will you see to the material in Layton’s shredder?”

  “Sure. But you’re whistling for a dog that isn’t there. We’re almost done here. I’ve asked all of them about Megan Wynn’s demeanor yesterday. Since you have your chips on her, you’ll be pleased to know they all like her. Nobody wants to say anything negative, but I kept after them. It’s clear Wynn went into Graham’s office cheerful, came out looking grim. I covered my a— I hit all the bases, asked if anybody else seemed upset yesterday. Again, there’s a consensus. Everybody was fine except for Anita Davis, and the fact that she was upset wasn’t unusual because she has a really sick kid.”

  “Are you asking about Doug Graham’s enemies and whether he was having an affair when his wife divorced him?”

  “Be my guest. It will keep you busy. And maybe out of my office. Meanwhile, I’m—”

  I would have to tell Sam on some other occasion that heavy irony obscures rational thought.

  “—building a case. The facts are what they are. You backed the wrong horse in this race. You’d think with your connections you’d have a heads-up. Sorry.”

  The connection ended.

  Always before, I’d worked in concert with Sam. Now I was on my own. He’d made up his mind. It was only a matter of time before Megan was arrested, charged, jailed. Blaine Smith would fight hard to keep her free, but by Monday at the latest—the press conference was set for eleven a.m.—Sam would make his move.

  Unless I came up with the murderer first.

  But now I knew what to ask about. Apparently there had been no questions in the sessions this morning about Doug’s romantic interests or any recent quarrels. I didn’t fault Sam. There was plenty of evidence against Megan. There was motive. Moreover, he knew that murder usually results from an immediate trigger.

  I agreed, but he and I saw different triggers. Yesterday morning the diamond intended for Lisbeth Carew glittered in the harsh light from the overhead fluorescent bars. I remembered the intensity of that moment. Sam was focused on Megan’s anger with Doug Graham. He believed murder resulted because Megan saw her future blocked. I believed the ring gleaming in the hallway somehow, someway triggered the deadly night.

  I picked up the phone book, found Sharon King’s number, dialed.

  “Hello.” Her voice was wary.

  Once again caller ID was my entrée. No one even peripherally involved in a murder investigation will ignore a call from the police.

  “Sharon King?” My voice was pleasant.

  “This is she.” Her low voice was precise, cool.

  “Ms. King, this is Detective M. Loy. We are expanding our inquiries into Mr. Graham’s personal life—”

  “I was his secretary.” The interruption was sharp. “If you want information about his personal life, I suggest you contact his former wife or talk to Mr. Layton.”

  I wished I were there in her immaculate, well-ordered house. I wished I could see the play of emotion—if there was emotion—on her fine-boned, intelligent face. Voices can be revealing, but expressions much more so. “How many years did you work for him?”

  “Nine.”

  “You were his secretary when he and Rhoda Graham separated and later divorced?”

  “Yes.” She sounded faintly surprised. “Why?”

  “It’s important to find out as much about his private life as possible. Were you aware that he was having marital difficulties?”

  “There was a period”—she appeared to be picking her words carefully—“when he wasn’t as cheerful as usual.”

  “Did you overhear any angry exchanges between Graham and his wife?”

  “Not really. And that was a long time ago.”

  “When was he divorced?”

  Certainly his secretary would be aware of that kind of life event. “About a year and a half ago.”

  “Not so long ago.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “We heard there’s a possibility he was involved in an affair. Do you have any idea of the identity of his lover?”

  “Look, I work there. People’s private lives are their private lives.” She was clearly resistant. “I’ve always made it a point not to get involved in personal issues.”

  “If you worked for him for nine years, you must be aware that he was the kind of man who was very interested in women. In fact, we understand he was a little too familiar at times with women in the office.”

  “Some men are always a little too familiar with women.”

  “Did he ever stand too close to you?”

  “Of course not.” The retort was sharp, immediate. Quickly, she added, “He knew how Mr. Layton felt about office behavior.”

  “You’re single.” My tone was mollifying. “I supposed he might be more”—I paused—“attentive to single women.”

  “He always treated me with respect.” Her voice was stiff and cold. “I am an excellent secretary.”

  I felt stymied. “So in the last few years, you have no idea whether he was having an affair?”

  She was crisp. “I was his secretary, not his friend. I didn’t snoop in Doug Graham’s private papers or eavesdrop on personal conversations. If he was having an affair, I know nothing about it.”

  “You seemed upset this morning when you learned of his death.”

  “Of course I was upset. He was my boss. He treated me well. I’m driving to work and it’s an ordinary day
and I’m thinking about the manicure I’ll get after work and I hear on the radio that somebody’s shot him! It’s unthinkable, unimaginable. Mr. Graham, of all people.”

  “Why ‘of all people’?”

  “He was so alive.” There was a tremor in her voice.

  She remembered a man moving, living, breathing, and now his body lay on a slab in a mortuary.

  “This is a small town. Did you ever hear gossip linking him to someone?”

  “We didn’t run in the same circles. I wouldn’t be likely to hear gossip about him. Besides, people might not say anything because they knew I worked for him. I have no reason to think he was having an affair. When he was out of town, I called his cell if anything arose that needed his attention. I never had any trouble getting in touch with him.”

  “If he was having an affair, why do you suppose he was so careful to keep the fact hidden?”

  “Maybe he wasn’t.” She was matter-of-fact. “Maybe the gossip is wrong. Why don’t you ask his ex-wife?”

  “We will. What do you think about Rhoda?”

  “Think about her?”

  “The kind of person.”

  “I don’t really know her. I had the impression from him that she was kind of fussy and earnest, awfully serious, one of those helicopter mothers. He got awfully impatient because she’d call about the silliest things, what a teacher said or a scraped knee. Sometimes,” she added hastily, “he’d blow off steam about that.”

  Was she explaining how she knew this personal information, yet was unaware of angry exchanges with a spouse or involvement in an affair?

  “But”—and now she was once again cool, collected—“I suggest you ask people who knew him socially about another woman.”

  “Were you aware he was romantically involved with Lisbeth Carew?”

  “That was a surprise. But obviously I didn’t know much about his personal life. If that’s all you—”

  I interrupted. “There’s another area where we need help. Why was Keith Porter angry with Graham?”

  “Money.” She answered without hesitation. “Keith wanted money, big money. Mr. Graham told him no. Mr. Graham was the guardian of a trust set up by Keith’s parents, Betty and Mark Porter. They died in a plane crash a couple of years ago, and Mr. Graham administered the estate. It’s in trust until Keith turns thirty. He’s twenty-five. The terms of the trust are generous, ten thousand dollars a month. Keith spends every penny. This time he’s got an idea for some kind of app. He wants a couple hundred thousand to set up a company, thinks he’ll end up big rich. Mr. Graham turned him down.”