by Iona Whishaw
“How interesting. I’m sure he never expected to have to handle that sort of problem. What did he do?”
“The right thing, as it turns out. He told O’Brien to remind the men that they are part of a unit and need to stand by their own. He also suggested someone take him for a beer. I suggested he get the ball rolling on that one.”
“I knew Ames was made of the right stuff.”
“Yes. Your regard for each other is legendary. I suspect he’s worried some of the men might genuinely be prejudiced and it could interfere with the police work.”
Lane nodded. “There’s really nothing he can do about that, though, is there? One hopes that Terrell is good at his job and the men will come to rely on him and lose those sorts of prejudices. As it happens, Ames had a little problem to share with me as well.”
Darling waited, and when nothing was forthcoming, said, “Yes?”
“I’m just not sure I can say anything.”
“Oh, blimey. Not his love life, is it? I’d stay as far away from that as possible. I know I do.”
“Yes, I suppose it is that, though not entirely. His strange case is involved as well.” Lane went on to tell Darling about Tina lying and Ames feeling betrayed by it. “He came up with the idea that perhaps he was too cross at her to interview her properly. I suspect he might ask Terrell to do it.”
“Perhaps I could hire you as the department psychologist,” he said. “Now, the murder underfoot here looks like it’s well in hand, so no one will need you, and we have a week left on this supposedly relaxing honeymoon. We must make plans. There is a pool to lie by, an as yet unscheduled horse expedition, and your tennis lesson. One or two other things we could do.” He leaned over and kissed her softly. “I don’t want us to get back and feel regret.”
“I’m already inoculated against regret by just being in this lovely place with a lovely person and being able to lie around in a bathing suit in November.” Lane looked at her watch. “Right. I’m off to my lesson. Why don’t you arrange for something with horses for tomorrow? See if we can get a picnic lunch to take along.”
Chela was sitting outside on a chair in the tiny alcove attached to the cleaning cupboard, having a cigarette, looking over the fence onto the street and farther north at the Catalina Mountains in the distance. The fragrant shade of an oleander provided soothing respite from the noon sun. She loved this moment of quiet. Of course, Raúl would be annoyed to know she was smoking, a thought that filled her with a good-natured rebellion.
She turned at the sound of the door opening and stood up automatically as Mrs. Holden came through. She was wearing a light-blue summer coat and a matching blue hat. Meg stopped when she saw Chela and then smiled broadly.
“Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here. This must be your lunchtime. I am so sorry. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be using the back door, but my husband, Mr. Holden, is in the lounge, and I’m sneaking off to pick up his birthday present. There’ll be a cab here soon.”
With that she flipped the latch on the gate and stepped out to wait on the street. Chela watched Mrs. Holden’s back. The woman snapped open her handbag and took out a handkerchief, then put it back, and looked nervously both up and down the street. Why, Chela wondered, would the woman offer such an unnecessary and lengthy explanation of her movements to a hotel maid? Curious now, she sat back down on her chair and waited. Either the young man would come or the older one. She bet anything that Mr. Holden was not sitting in the lounge. Her patience was rewarded. The same car that had been driven by the older man pulled up and the passenger door was impatiently pushed open. The man was leaning across the seat saying something to the woman, who still lingered on the sidewalk. This time Chela saw his face and frowned. She’d seen it before, and not just the last time he’d driven up. Somewhere else.
The parents of Ada Finch’s friend Rafaela, who lived two streets above the Finches, would not allow her to be questioned without their being present, and so Ames and Terrell now sat on kitchen chairs with them, feeling the awkwardness of the questions they would have to ask.
“Did Ada say anything to you at any time about a man she might be seeing or any plans she might have?”
Rafaela, a tall girl with dark hair held back with a ribbon, glanced at her parents and looked down.
“Please answer the sergeant,” her father said. He stubbed a cigarette he’d lit only moments before into a glass ashtray and looked expressionlessly at his daughter.
If I were Rafaela, Ames thought, I’d be scared to death right now.
“She . . . she was seeing a man. She used to go away with him sometimes at night, and she’d tell her parents she was staying here at my house.”
Rafaela’s father looked thunderous and leaned across at her. “She bloody what?”
Her mother looked down and then put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Language, darling.”
“Don’t ‘language’ me! Our daughter has been letting that good-for-nothing Finch girl use us as an excuse for her filthy behaviour.” He reached over and grabbed his daughter’s wrist, causing her to cry out. “I told you to stop seeing her. She’s trash. Who is this ‘man’ anyway? What grade is he in?”
“Sir,” Ames said, using his calmest voice. He watched Rafaela’s father let go of her wrist and turn away in disgust, fishing for another cigarette in his shirt pocket. “Rafaela, was this a schoolmate that she was seeing?”
The girl shook her head, looking miserable and massaging her wrist. “It wasn’t anyone at school. It was a grown man. She said it was someone from her father’s work. She was proud of that. She said she’d slipped one over on her dad.” She looked nervously toward her father and leaned almost imperceptibly toward her mother.
“Do you know if she was planning to go anywhere with him this last weekend?” Ames asked.
Glancing again at her father, she said, “She told me they were going to run away, that he was getting a divorce and they would get married. He told her not to worry about anything. He’d pick her up in the car and they’d go away.”
“Do you know where he picked her up?” Terrell asked.
She looked up at him and then looked down again. “That’s the problem. He never did pick her up. She waited and waited, only he didn’t come.”
“I wouldn’t like to be that girl right now,” Terrell said as they drove back toward the station. They had stopped to see the second friend. She had expressed concern that Ada hadn’t been at school but did not seem to be in her confidence. Still, Rafaela had given them plenty of food for thought.
“So, Ada is under the impression that Watts is going to whisk her off to a happily ever after somewhere. Only he never picks her up. She calls Rafaela, in tears, and then goes home, telling her parents she’s had a falling out with Rafaela and is staying home after all. The next day she reads the paper and learns, let’s assume, that Watts has been found dead, and she disappears.” Terrell eased into the parking spot in front of the station.
“And that raises two additional problems. She wasn’t the one with Watts when he died, so why does she run away, and to where?”
Chapter Thirteen
Martinez rubbed his hand across his chin, took a deep breath, and looked at Mrs. Renwick. The lawyer sitting next to her, glowering professionally, had already made him angry by balking at the door of the interview room and saying, “Can’t we get an American to interview my client?”
He used the pause to glance at the clock and note the time of the interview. “Mrs. Renwick, you are the wife of the deceased, John Philip Renwick?”
“Yes. He was called Jack.”
“And you were down here on a honeymoon?”
“Yes.”
“When did you arrive in Tucson?”
Mrs. Renwick glanced at Davis, the lawyer. “Six days ago, on the seventh. But you know that. It’s on the hotel registry.”
“A
nd Mr. Edward Renwick? When did he arrive?”
“How should I know? Haven’t your little detectives squirrelled that out? You’re wasting my time. My husband was shot in cold blood. Shouldn’t you be trying to find his killer?”
The lawyer put his hand on her arm briefly to calm her but said nothing.
“You’re right, Mrs. Renwick. Time is being wasted. Let me get to the point. According to the landlady of the rooming house where Mr. Edward Renwick has been staying since November eighth, a woman answering your description has visited him there no fewer than three times. According to her, and she appears to be very observant, the woman stayed longer than two hours on at least two of the occasions and, further, was with him on November eleventh, the day your husband was shot.”
Davis looked at his client with pursed his lips and turned to Martinez. “Detective, I wonder if I might have a moment with my client?”
Martinez glanced at the clock on the wall and made a note of the time, closed his notebook, and stood up. “You can stay right here. I’ll give you twenty minutes.” He resisted saying, “Because you’re going to need it.”
Leaving an officer outside the door of the interview room, Martinez went back to his desk and sat down to wait, wondering what they would cook up that could possibly alter the inevitable conclusion the facts in hand appeared to lead to. He guessed it would tend in the direction of her being a victim, either of her cruel husband or her Svengali-like brother-in-law. More the other way around, he surmised. She looked as tough as nails.
“Martinez!” It was Galloway, standing at the door of his office.
“Sir?” Martinez got up and went to Galloway.
His boss jerked his chin in the direction of the interview room. “Good job. Quick work. You should have this one in the bag by end of day.” He turned to go back into his office and looked back at Martinez. “And don’t lose your notes.”
Turning back to his desk, Martinez struggled to grasp how he felt. He was on the right track, he was sure of it, and Galloway, like any boss, wanted cases solved and put away. There was a moment of gratification in receiving Galloway’s praise, a rare commodity, followed by irritation at his casual jibe.
Back in the interview room, Davis said, “My client wishes to make a statement.”
Martinez nodded and made a note of the time. “Go on.”
“Officer, I did visit my brother-in-law three times. So accurate. I will be cautious with landladies from now on. Ned, Edward Renwick, came here to appeal to me to intercede with my husband about the company. Their father’s will cut Ned out completely. Ned understood that he would never be the head of the company, but he wanted a role. I saw him because I felt sorry for him. He had a bad war. It was my view that he needed to have a role because it would steady him, help him move past his troubles. I tried to intercede, I talked to my husband, begged him to reconsider, but he was adamant. I tried to organize a meeting, but my husband would have nothing to do with it. He was very angry that Ned had presumed to follow us and do an end run through me when we were on our honeymoon. That’s it. That’s all I have to say.” Ivy Renwick folded her hands over her gloves, which lay on her purse, and looked away.
Martinez made his notes. “Can you tell me exactly where you were at twelve thirty on Tuesday?”
“I had gone shopping at Steinfeld’s, that big department store downtown, and I stopped in to see Ned to tell him it was out of the question and Jack wouldn’t see him. At twelve thirty, I was probably telling him he should go home, find something else to do. I did offer to give him a little financial help on the QT. Neither one of us was out shooting my husband, before you ask.”
“Do you have anyone who can corroborate? For example, what time did you arrive at the rooming house?”
“Can’t you ask that irrepressibly nosy landlady you have on tap?” Ivy pushed her hair behind her ear.
“We did. She said you left the rooming house a little before noon, and that you arrived about an hour before that, at eleven. Where did you go?”
“Well, isn’t she just the most precious thing!” Ivy said furiously. “Look, I was upset. Jack was being unreasonable to start with, and Ned flew off the handle and said he thought the whole thing was my fault, that I had driven a wedge between the two of them and his life was ruined because of me. I needed air. I went back to walk around and calm down. I walked around for an hour, and then when I felt calmer, I took a cab back to the hotel. That’s when I saw . . .” Here Ivy put her hand to her mouth and turned away with a little sob.
“This is absolutely wonderful!” Lane turned to look at Darling, who was riding behind her. They had joined a small group that had been organized out of a working ranch at the base of the Catalina foothills. The desert trail took them along the north side of the dry bed of the Rillito River, and then steadily upward into the foothills on a narrow bridle path. A slight breeze swept up the smell of sage and something Lane could not identify, a medicinal, almost acrid smell. Darling, she thought, had been right. It was good to get away and do something besides lounge at the inn.
“We’ll stop here for lunch,” the guide said. There was a semicircle of stones set out facing south with a sweeping view of the city far below and a hitching post for the horses.
“I’m going to have a sore bottom,” Lane remarked. “I haven’t been on a horse since I was about seventeen, and not on one of these western saddles.” She looped the reins around the post and kicked her legs a bit to get out the stiffness. They sat side by side munching ham sandwiches and looking down the sweep of the valley that contained Tucson.
“You were seventeen once?” Darling asked.
“I was. Not very prepossessing, I’m afraid. And shy to boot. You would have preferred my sister. Pretty, lively, full of conversation.”
“Not as intelligent as you, though, I bet.”
“Much more clever. She had friends and could keep them. I was always a bit of a loner.” Lane’s younger sister had been their father’s chosen child because she was outgoing and confident. He had never, Lane thought, been able to cope with Lane’s moodiness, so like his own. The irony of her having worked in intelligence during the war came home to her again. She had been a spy, just like him. She, in truth, had no idea what her sister had done in the war. She’d gone to South Africa just before hostilities broke out. Lane had come to believe she would never see her sister again.
She shook off these thoughts and finished her sandwich. She reached into the paper lunch bag. “A chocolate biscuit! How perfect! The valley and city look so lovely from up here, but poor Ivy is languishing in a jail cell somewhere down there by now, I expect.”
“If Martinez has been convinced that she indeed had the opportunity and means to shoot her husband, then I expect she is. Now, look over there. A lizard. You don’t see those in King’s Cove.”
Chela was not at all easy in her mind. Most days she enjoyed cleaning the rooms, especially the suites. Sometimes the guests left a tip for her, and she liked seeing the clothing and the toiletries of the wealthy guests. Often she unstoppered bottles of perfume to inhale the scent, though she never took the liberty of dabbing any on. Chanel No. 5 had always been her favourite. But today she could not shake the memory of the man she’d seen in the car with Mrs. Holden. She pushed her cleaning supplies to the next room. That poor lady whose husband had died. She really didn’t want to work in that room. So close to death. Still, Pepita had been cleaning it since the man was killed and she was all right. She just wished it hadn’t been on her list for the day. She told herself sternly that she could not catch death and knocked firmly on the door.
“Cleaning service!”
There was no answer. Chela took out her key and was surprised to find the door unlocked. “Hello? Cleaning service,” she called into the room, but there was no answer from the bedroom or the bathroom. The lady must have rushed out and forgotten to lock it, she thought.
It appeared Mrs. Renwick had left in a hurry. A silk robe was lying on the floor, where it had evidently slipped off the bed; clothes were strewn on the unmade bed. Chela looked into the closet and saw, as if drawn by some dark force, the suitcase that must contain the clothes of the dead man. No men’s clothes were hanging up. Reluctantly she realized she would have to hang up all of Mrs. Renwick’s dresses and sweaters in that closet before she could make up the bed.
Almost holding her breath, as if to avoid the stench of death, she hung the dresses. Her anxiety robbed her of her usual pleasure of admiring the beautifully structured clothes of the wealthy. She picked up two pairs of shoes and went to put them side by side on the floor of the closet, on the opposite side from the dreaded suitcase. She pushed a pair of black and white pumps into the dark space and tried to fit the red sandals in next to them. Something was on the floor behind the shoes blocking their spot. Irritated, she reached in and with a cry pulled her hand away as if it had touched red-hot metal. She was as sure as she had been of anything in her life that she had touched a gun.
There was a knock on the interview room door. Martinez, who had been watching Mrs. Renwick write out her statement, stood up and opened the door.
“Phone call. You’re gonna want to take it, trust me. I’ll stay here. You can get it at my desk.” The young officer practically winked at him, a circumstance so unusual that Martinez frowned and made his way to the desk.
He looked up sharply and glanced toward the interview room as he listened to the person on the other end of the line. “Please don’t touch it or allow anyone else to touch it. An officer will be along as soon as possible. Well, I can’t help that, ma’am, please just do as I say,” he said.
Martinez returned to the interview room. The young officer got up and grinned at him. “Pretty good, eh?”
Martinez nodded as slightly as he could and waited until his colleague had left. Mrs. Renwick had finished her statement and now sat with her gloves on, her hands folded in front of her.
