McGuire studied the six glossy photographs of the victim lying diagonally across the rumpled bed, her head between the edge of the mattress and the night table. She was on her side, she was naked and she had been exceptionally attractive. A telephone receiver, its cord wound around her throat, had tumbled to the floor.
Only two pages remained in the investigation report, both of them statements from witnesses.
The first was attributed to Charles Tate, age eighteen years, occupation student, address 2122 Cove Road, North Compton:
Tate admits he knew the victim as a result of performing garden work at her residence for about ten weeks beginning mid-April to the date of her death. Claims he last saw her alive at approximately noon on the day prior to the discovery of her body. Says he was in the company of a friend that evening from 9 p.m. to well past midnight. Tate was cautioned not to leave the Compton area for 48 hours without permission; Tate represents primary suspect at this point.
But according to the statement in the next witness report, dated the following day, Tate was immediately cleared of any suspicion:
Witness confirmed accompanying Charles Tate between approximately 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. on night of victim’s death. Tate subsequently given permission to depart immediate area.
That was the full extent of the statement. Even more astonishing to McGuire’s practiced eye was the lack of any identification of the witness except for a code number, 100346, and an address: 3144 Sea View Avenue.
McGuire flipped through the file again, believing he had overlooked a vital piece of data, but found nothing. Then, using a lined notepad from Morton’s desk drawer, he scribbled names, addresses and cryptic notes to himself before returning the file to Morton’s desk and staring distractedly into the distance while he tried to place himself in Compton thirty years ago, tried to walk in the footsteps of the victim and suspects, tried to “get inside their bones” as Ollie Schantz always advised.
He was still there, his eyes wide and unfocused, when Morton returned almost ten minutes later.
“What’d you find?” Morton asked, peeling off his jacket.
“Not much,” McGuire said. He shoved his notes in his jacket pocket and walked from the office, his mind still a million miles and thirty years away. “Not much at all.”
Even while McGuire shopped for groceries—orange juice, fresh coffee, rolls, fruit, eggs, bacon—and drove the short distance back to Cora’s house, the thin documentation of the case obsessed him. He parked the car in the side driveway, entered the house, put the groceries away, made a cup of instant coffee and carried it into the living room where he stood at the window sipping from a chipped china mug.
Across the street, the side door of the Leedales’ house opened and June Leedale emerged wearing a loose-fitting cotton sweatshirt, faded jeans and worn sneakers. She walked quickly across Miner’s Lane, her head down, her arms folded tightly across her chest in defense against the late afternoon chill.
McGuire opened the door as she approached and stopped, her eyes avoiding his. “May I come in?” she almost demanded. A furrow ran like a vertical scar between her eyebrows.
Saying nothing, McGuire stepped aside. She rushed past him to the living room where she stood staring down at the wide-planked floor.
“Why did you follow me today?” she asked quietly when McGuire entered the room.
“I didn’t—” McGuire began, but her eyes snapped and she locked them on his.
“You followed me,” she almost spat at him. Her expression burned with pain and fury, and she looked to McGuire like a wild animal that had just been whipped. “I saw you creeping between the tombstones. I couldn’t believe it!” She dropped her arms, walked to the sofa as though to sit on it, then turned back to McGuire again, her palms held up in a gesture of puzzlement and defeat. “What right do you have to follow someone like that? Miles from my home? You don’t even know me!”
“Mrs. Leedale—”
“You don’t even know me!” she shouted at him, and collapsed heavily on the sofa, throwing her head back and staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were wet.
“I didn’t set out to follow you,” McGuire said gently. He leaned against the frame of the doorway, his hands in his trouser pockets. “I became lost over near Old Queen Anne Road, and I saw you come out of the florist’s and get into your car. I thought you might be heading into town. . . .”
“Did you sound your horn to let me know?” She was staring directly into his eyes again and, for an instant, McGuire saw the beauty she must have been in her youth, saw the flash in her eyes that were angled like a cat’s, saw the young girl who still resided somewhere in the tired body of a melancholy middle-aged woman.
McGuire shook his head.
“Wouldn’t that have been the decent thing to do? Let someone know you’re lost? Ask them directions to wherever you wanted to go? Instead of following me twenty-odd miles and hiding behind tombstones like a . . . like some sort of pervert?”
McGuire nodded. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I should have done that.”
She laid her head back against the top of the sofa again and spoke barely above a whisper in a weary, resigned voice that said the world no longer held any surprises for her. “Did my husband have you follow me?”
McGuire breathed deeply. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because he had someone do it before. A retired court clerk from Orleans. A silly old man who couldn’t fool a boy scout.”
“He asked me and I told him no.” McGuire pushed himself away from the door jamb and walked to the far end of the sofa. “I never intended to intrude on your privacy, Mrs. Leedale. I’m sorry I did.”
June Leedale angled her head to face McGuire. Her eyes looked him up and down for a moment, as though she were deciding if he could be trusted. “Will you tell him where I was?”
McGuire shook his head. “No.”
She nodded, approving his decision. “Thank you,” she said. She glanced at her watch and rose from the sofa. “We’re going to Ellie and Blake’s for drinks and dinner tonight. Parker will want to see me looking elegant.” She flashed something between a smile and a grimace. “I think he’d like me to dress like Bunny Gilroy.” She began walking to the door. “Good night, Mr. McGuire.”
“Mrs. Leedale?”
June Leedale paused with one hand against the screen door and looked back at him expectantly.
“Who was David Elwood?”
She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes as though stemming the flood of tears. “You bastard,” she said softly and without malice. Then she was gone into the gathering darkness and running across the lawn, not pausing to look either way as she crossed the road. McGuire watched her enter the house and waited for several minutes to see if lights came on in any of the rooms, turning away when he saw none.
Chapter Fourteen
McGuire began by listing the names of every luxury hotel he could recall in Nassau. There were fourteen in all. Then, seated at the kitchen telephone, he obtained the telephone number of each hotel from a quickly exasperated Bahamian telephone operator, writing each number next to the hotel name.
Almost an hour after he began he found her at the Royal Bahamian, near the bottom of his list. She answered on the third ring, and McGuire felt something in his chest grow lighter and begin to rise, lifting, expanding him.
“Hello, Barbara.”
Her voice hovered among electronic echoes. “Who . . . ?” she began. “Who is this?”
“It’s Joe. I’ve been trying to reach you.”
A short laugh, high and light. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Some friends are down here and we’ve been, I’ve been, catching up on news and shopping, you know, in and out, walking on the beach. The weather’s been so nice, until today. There’s a cold front moving in and we’ve had a little rain and lots of wind. What’s the weather like there?”
“That’s great,” she said. She’s speaking with a smile, McGuire noted. When she speaks, you can hear the smile in her voice but it’s forced, it’s put there for a reason, not just because she’s glad to hear from me. “That part of the country is so nice this time of year when the weather is good,” Barbara was saying.
“I miss you.” There was no other way to put it. McGuire’s voice dropped even lower. “I miss you a lot.”
“Me too.” Barbara’s voice cracked and McGuire thought of a chain of crumbling clay mountains, weakened and dry, bits of them falling away from the whole. “When . . .” She cleared her throat. “How long do you expect to be there?”
“I don’t know,” McGuire replied. “There might be something to Cora’s death. Then again, there might not. Anyway, why don’t you come up here with me? Catch a plane to Boston tomorrow, I’ll meet you at the airport. . . .”
She laughed nervously at the idea. “Oh no, no, no, I don’t think so.”
“You’d rather stay in Nassau? The place is as tacky as a Moroccan whorehouse.”
“What do you know about those?” she teased. But there was a strain to her voice, an attempt to sound too casual, too relaxed.
“It’s a figure of speech, damn it. Anyway . . .”
“When did you say you’d be coming down?” she interrupted.
“I didn’t. I’m looking into something, an old murder case. . . .”
“Sounds fascinating.”
McGuire breathed deeply, one long intake of air, one slow release. “Barbara,” he said, his voice low. “What in hell is going on?”
“Let’s talk when I see you. Okay?”
“When will that be?” McGuire asked, hearing the urgency in his voice echo across the space between them.
“I’m not sure.” A pause, several heartbeats too long. “Give me your number there and I’ll call and let you know. Tomorrow. I’ll call tomorrow.”
McGuire read Cora’s number to her from the phone dial. Then they said their goodbyes awkwardly, McGuire brusque and unaccountably angry, Barbara almost lingering over each word. After hanging up McGuire stared at the telephone, debating whether to strike it in fury or leave it be. He decided to leave it be, stood up and was four paces away toward the stairs when it rang. In two long strides he had the receiver at his ear again.
“Joe McGuire?” A man’s voice, gravelly and familiar.
“Yeah.”
“Blake Stevenson.”
McGuire stared up at the ceiling in irritation.
Before McGuire could reply, Stevenson said: “The Leedales, Parker and June, are here for dinner. Mike and Bunny Gilroy are on their way. We’ll have a few drinks, something to eat, then watch the ball game. Anyway, we’d like you to join us, add a little class and colour to the evening. Can you do that?”
McGuire rubbed his eyes. What the hell. “Yeah. Guess I can.”
“We’re out on Oyster Pond Road,” Stevenson said affably. “Know where that is?”
“Don’t have a clue.”
“Take Old Queen Anne Road and turn right at the second street past Hannaford’s Real Estate,” Stevenson explained. “That’s Gregor Road. You go beyond the golf club—it’ll be on your left, and watch for the next street on your right. That’s ours, Oyster Pond Road. We’re twenty-eight twenty-five, second house in on your left. Big white place on a hill. Can’t miss it. Long driveway.”
“I’ll try to find it,” McGuire said.
“See you in, what? An hour maybe?”
McGuire was about to agree when, like a light illuminating a distant room in a large dark house, the realization struck him.
Through all their conversation on the telephone, Barbara had never mentioned his name.
In fact, anyone listening to her end of the conversation would not even know she had been speaking to a man.
Fog blanketed Nickerson’s Neck by the time McGuire arrived, and he passed 2825 Oyster Pond Road twice, not seeing Stevenson stenciled on the mailbox by the side of the road until he drove past a third time at a crawl, his head out the driver’s window.
The house sat on a low rise, well back from the road, where the fog had not encroached so thickly. A wide porch overlooked Oyster Pond Road and the pond itself to the west. Behind the house, a deep grassy clearing ended at a stand of pine trees standing like black sentinels in the deepening dusk.
Two cars, the Gilroys’ Volvo station wagon and the Leedales’ Audi, were on a gravel clearing in front of a rock garden overgrown with shrubs and flowers. Blake’s vintage Mercedes and a red two-seater sports car sat in front of the garage. McGuire parked alongside the Audi and mounted the wide steps fronting the house, the entrance flanked by a pair of reclining stone lions. Just as he reached the top step, the heavy oak front door swung open and Blake Stevenson beckoned McGuire inside.
“You found us,” Stevenson said, a wide smile on his face and a stemware glass held in one fleshy hand. He wore a beige cardigan over an open-necked white shirt and gray slacks, and extended his free hand to shake McGuire’s. “Good man. Come on in, catch up with the rest of us in the Martini race.”
The interior of the house reminded McGuire of a picture catalog for expensive furniture, the perfectly coordinated colours and fabrics creating an impression of wealth without any semblance of personality or individuality.
An Oriental carpet led down the long centre hall. To the left McGuire noted a large living room crowded with brocaded French Provincial sofas and chairs and beyond it, through large open double doors, a dining room with cranberry-red walls, floral draperies, an oak table and ten chairs and a massive baroque crystal chandelier. Near the end of the hall an elaborate mahogany side table held a telephone, a crystal vase of flowers and two Royal Doulton figurines, porcelain women in bustles and flowered hats.
The hard-edged voice of Ellie Stevenson exploded in laughter from somewhere deeper in the house.
“We’re in the kitchen,” Blake Stevenson said, walking ahead of McGuire to lead the way. “You’re just in time to eat.”
The laughter subsided as McGuire entered the kitchen. Seated at a round oak table in front of a bay window overlooking the rear garden were Mike Gilroy and Parker Leedale. June Leedale stood at a counter near the refrigerator, her arms folded. Ellie Stevenson knelt in front of the stove wearing heavy oven mitts and pulling a large stoneware dish from the oven.
“Speak of the devil,” Mike Gilroy said.
Ellie Stevenson suppressed a laugh. “Hello, Sam Spade,” she said.
McGuire nodded to each in turn, his eyes locking on June Leedale’s for a moment longer than the others. She smiled back before turning to lift a half-empty Martini glass from the counter and raise it to her lips.
“You will sample the world’s best Martini,” Blake Stevenson asked. He lifted a large glass jug from the table for McGuire’s inspection.
“Second best,” muttered Mike Gilroy, but grinning.
“Rather have a beer,” McGuire replied. Someone was missing.
“A beer it is,” Blake Stevenson said, opening the refrigerator.
“I’m gonna try Bunny again,” Gilroy said, looking at his watch. He rose and walked to the hallway.
“Bunny’s out spending Mike’s money,” Blake Stevenson said, offering McGuire a Heineken and a glass. “Can’t seem to locate her.”
“Ouch! Damn!” Ellie Stevenson lifted the heavy earthenware bowl from the oven and carried it across the kitchen in front of her like an offering, taking short quick steps and barking at her husband to spread a tea towel on the dining-room table instead of standing there like a dummy, for Christ’s sake.
In the dining room she shook her hands in front of her to relieve their stiffness and laughe
d, looking back into the kitchen. “Come on, you guys,” she shouted. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m starving.”
Ellie’s casserole, a bland concoction of shredded meat of unknown origin with peas and onions in a starchy cream sauce, was served on gold-edged porcelain dinnerware.
“Well, how is it?” Ellie Stevenson looked around the table, anticipating compliments. There were murmurs of “Good” and “Very nice” from everyone except McGuire.
McGuire was seated at one end of the table, Parker Leedale at the other. June Leedale was on her husband’s right, nearest the kitchen. Ellie and Blake Stevenson sat across from her.
Mike Gilroy, on McGuire’s left, ate little and frowned into his food.
“Where do you suppose she is?” Ellie Stevenson asked, reaching for a hot roll. She was smiling, almost enjoying Mike Gilroy’s discomfort.
“Out shopping,” Gilroy shrugged. “We’re doing the kitchen over, new cupboards and such. She’s probably looking at finishes or hardware. Something like that.”
Ellie Stevenson laughed aloud. “Yeah, something like that.” She turned to McGuire. “See you’ve got Sam Hannaford listing your aunt’s house,” she said, buttering the roll. “When do you expect to sell it?”
“Soon,” McGuire replied. He stared down at his plate. What the hell were the little gray bits? Were they meat or what? He pushed the food away and chose a hot roll.
“Could take a while, this time of year,” Ellie Stevenson said. “You should wait for spring. Unless you plan to live in the place until it’s sold.”
“Is that what you’re going to do?” June Leedale asked. Compared with Ellie’s strident voice, June’s was warm and liquid.
“No,” McGuire said. He reached for his beer. “I’m going back to the Bahamas.”
“When?” Blake Stevenson seemed to be enjoying his meal.
Gypsy Sins Page 13
