Price of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  Landis glanced at her, then back to Denise. “These profiles, they’re applications to the foundation for help?”

  “We don’t call them applications—”

  “Makes it sound too much like asking for a handout,” Kimby said.

  “—because profile is more accurate. They are a profile of a family’s situation.”

  “So you didn’t have any specific cause to talk to Jamison Chancellor either Friday or Thursday? An issue to go over with her pertaining to what you were reviewing?”

  “No.”

  “But you did go into her office and talk to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Which day?”

  “Thursday.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “My daughter’s applications to colleges, the weather, the best way to prepare outdoor flower beds for winter, the Major League baseball standings, and professional football.”

  “Quite a wide-ranging array of topics.”

  “We were eating lunch together at her desk. We did that sometimes. Mostly another member of staff joined us. That day it was only the two of us.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. I told her she was working too hard and looked tired.” The corners of her eyes lifted with faint amusement. “I have reason to believe Celeste Renfro overheard that portion of the conversation. She might have overheard all of it, but I can only say it was likely she heard that part.”

  “What do you base that on?”

  “She called in through the open door that Jamie looked like—” Death. She broke off and paled, not completing the idiom. “That she agreed Jamie was tired and needed a break.”

  “Did others express concern about her?”

  “Not in my hearing.”

  “Was writing the book supposed to be a break?”

  Denise didn’t answer.

  Kimby did. “Being away from everyone here had to be a break for her. It can get to be like a nursery with every baby crying out, Mama, Mama, Mama. Except it’s Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. And each trying to be louder than the other.”

  Denise’s lips pressed together, but Belichek thought it was to prevent a smile, not in disapproval. She said, “Having one focus, even if it’s a demanding one, can be a break after being divided among many tasks for a long time.”

  A measured, careful agreement.

  “Is Bethany Usher among those who called out for Jamie’s attention?” Belichek asked.

  Kimby’s mouth opened, then closed.

  Denise looked thoughtful an extra moment. “Not as much. I mean, she certainly talked with Jamie, spent time with her, asked her questions, but it wasn’t the same. It was—”

  “She’s not a fan of Jamie, the way others are. The way most of us are,” Kimby said. “Jamie never got annoyed or irritated with people. She has a way of drawing you in, making you feel special that bowls over most people. Not Bethany. Bit of a cold fish if you ask me.”

  Something like a wince from Denise. An assessment of Bethany’s nature or her reaction to Kimby?

  Landis pursued with a direct question, “What do you think, Denise?”

  “I haven’t worked with her enough to have a true gauge of her personality.”

  “Are you kidding?” Kimby asked. “The way she went on and on about herself while we were working together. Nobody else could get a word in edgewise.”

  “What did she tell you about herself?” Landis asked.

  “Oh, she knew this senator and she’d dated that staff member — which I knew was absolute hooey, because his husband is my neighbor’s cousin, and he does not bat both ways. Much less cheat. So don’t believe it for a second.”

  “She did drop a lot of names, with little to no supporting details,” Denise said.

  “What she did before she came to the Sunshine Foundation? Any background? Previous jobs? Schools? Where she grew up?”

  “Also sparse on details.”

  “She did say Delaware beaches couldn’t hold a candle to the Jersey Shore.” Which apparently rankled, judging from Kimby’s tone.

  “She did.” Denise looked from Landis to Belichek. “It’s not a fact, but she gave the impression she grew up going to the Jersey Shore. She always said shore, never beach. And there was a trace of an accent at times.”

  “More than a trace,” Kimby said.

  Landis focused on Denise.

  “Was there anything of particular significance in the profiles you worked on that week?”

  Surprise lifted her eyebrows. “Not that I remember. Other than typos and missing information, things like that from Bethany, nothing has stood out with any of the profiles, not that week or any other time.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Landis was uncharacteristically quiet on the return to his car. Belichek waited.

  Only when he was pulling out of the parking area did Landis say what he’d been chewing on.

  “Client family angle doesn’t seem real promising. We’ll try more promising angles first.” He left a gap, then added, “That stuff from York about Jamison Chancellor being like her aunt, what did you think?”

  “Judging from pictures, he’s right that Ally looks the most like her.”

  Landis grimaced as he checked cross traffic. “Yeah. Like you think that’s what I’m talking about. The stuff about strengths and weaknesses.”

  “He said drawbacks.”

  “Fine. Drawbacks.”

  “From the journals—” He underscored the word. “—Hendrickson York has some points. Wouldn’t describe them the same way. But, yeah, I can see a tendency to see sunshine when most would carry an umbrella. When she probably needed an umbrella.”

  Landis nodded. He wasn’t done, though.

  Belichek waited.

  “What he said about not seeing below a glossy surface… Thought sour grapes at first, but…”

  “Mentor no longer being listened to? Resenting the outside management?”

  “Maybe.” Even as he said the word, Landis jerked his head. “No. More like a jealous guy. The one who got turned down.”

  Belichek felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. That happened when he and Landis landed on the same and not very obvious page. Underneath all those words, there’d been strong emotion from York.

  “He’s had to share her with more people at the foundation lately and the management company coming in would be another layer, after years of, essentially, being her only advisor, of having her to himself.”

  “Yeah. Then there’s the way Celeste Renfro reacted. She sure boomeranged away from York.”

  Belichek grunted agreement.

  “I know that grunt. What?”

  “When she jumped from York to Delattre, it was pretty damn obvious. So, we took her back to York. Wonder in retrospect if that was the intention.”

  “Get us away from Delattre? Interesting thought. We’ll keep that in mind. Good grunt.”

  Belichek got halfway to a grin. “Something else. When she said she was worried about Jamie, you asked about other people at the foundation. Could have been taken as were they worried about Jamie? Or was she worried about other people at the foundation? She jumped on that first interpretation.”

  “Eager,” Landis agreed. “Didn’t want to talk about someone else she was worried about? Does that bring us back to Delattre?”

  “Could. Or could be overthinking it and shouldn’t miss the obvious.”

  “The former boyfriend. Yeah. He also could explain the car being left in the garage.”

  “Because she asked him to drive her to the cabin? Why, when she was trying to make it clear it was over?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t over and that’s why she asked him for a ride. To get back together.”

  “Or she thought it was clear it was over between them, so she felt comfortable asking him for a ride when somebody needed her car,” Belichek proposed. “But he thought it was to get back together, gets to her house, and discovers how wrong he was. He shoots her in rage.”<
br />
  “Having brought a shotgun along?”

  “It’s a weak point,” Belichek agreed. “Lending it to her for her time in the mountains?”

  Landis’ turn to grunt. “But then why’s the car still there?”

  “The car might not tie into the killing. The person Jamie lent it to picked it up after she was supposed to leave, then returned it sometime before yesterday, not going in the house either time.”

  “We’ll see what forensics says. Then make another pass at the Sunshine Foundation asking specifically about the car. But first, the neighbors.”

  “Did you notice York’s only one-word answer?”

  “About if he knew where Jamison Chancellor was going. And that might be helpful if she’d been killed at a secret destination instead of inside her front door. Or if there was some reason York or anybody else desperately needed to stop her from going wherever she was supposed to go. Anything from Mags?”

  “No.”

  * * * *

  The house that backed up to Jamison Chancellor’s across the alley was only as wide as a front door and a tall, narrow window, with enough brick work to keep them from blending together. The two floors above each sported a solitary window.

  The woman who answered their bell-ringing was middle-height, gray-haired, and dressed in oversized shorts and t-shirt, topped by a beige vest like photographers used to wear, back when they needed lots of pockets to carry film canisters.

  Each of the pockets in her vest bulged, whether it was with film or other items, giving her an overall lumpy appearance, not helped by her hair bun sliding to one side.

  Her eyes were a sharp and warm caramel brown.

  “Ah, the detectives are at my door. Did you come to see me as a palate cleanser after Phil’s marble monument to bad taste? No, from your looks of confusion you haven’t been to Phil Xavier’s house yet, or you would have understood the allusion immediately. Thought you’d start with Jamie’s next-door neighbor. My mistake.”

  They had tried the home of Phil Xavier — the neighbor Schmidt talked to last night, according to his report — but when there’d been no answer, they came around the block to start on the alley neighbors.

  “Come in, come in,” she invited. “I’m Imogen Wooton. I’ll do whatever I can to help you catch the bastard who killed Jamie Chancellor. No, no, don’t bother to say it. I know you’re not officially ID’ing her.”

  Her house seemed like a half-sized model. Although it had enough smell for full-sized. Not a bad smell, but unexpected. Was the woman manufacturing corn chips?

  “You’ll have to follow me out back,” she said as she led them through a front room with a couch on one side and a fireplace on the other, leaving barely enough room to walk single-file, with Belichek at the rear.

  Past that, a narrow stairway led up on the left. They went to the right, down the center of a kitchen area with shallow counters on the right and appliances tucked in under the stairs. The next compartment in what felt like a railroad car of a house held a mini table against the left wall and three chairs.

  Imogen kept on going, heading for a door leading out the back to a miniaturized enclosed patio.

  “We’d prefer to talk to you inside,” Landis said from right behind her.

  “I’m sure you would, since voices can carry outside, not to mention offering fewer natural methods of overhearing. But I need to retrieve my dogs.”

  Without pause, she went out the door.

  Landis gave a brief eye-roll over his shoulder, then followed her, not letting her out of his sight once contact was made.

  Some might consider that overkill with Imogen Wooton, but you never knew. That’s why you followed procedure.

  In other circumstances, Belichek might have stayed inside, scoping out the interior. But, without going upstairs, they’d seen it all. And he wanted to hear what Imogen Wooton had to say.

  He got one answer.

  The source of the corn chip smell was a trio of medium-sized, mixed breed dogs, currently lying in a patch of sun atop a pile of damp towels next to an oval tub filled with water sporting dingy suds. At the moment, the dogs smelled like wet corn chips. Splatter marks on the brick patio inside a border of flower beds, indicated the dogs had expended their energy by shaking off excess water.

  All three animals looked at the two newcomers, thumped their tails, then put their heads back down.

  “Guard dogs,” she said bitterly, though she didn’t mean it. A fact proven when she dug treats out of the most convenient right-hand pocket of her vest and distributed them evenly. “Every last one of them. If someone broke in, they couldn’t be bothered to even pretend they’re a deterrent.”

  In that tiny house, Belichek thought, the three dogs would clog the passageways so much, they would be a deterrent.

  The woman grabbed the side of the tub, clearly intending to tip it sideways into a flower bed limping toward the end of the season.

  Belichek stepped in and edged her aside. “Where do you want it, ma’am.”

  “On the marigolds. The orange flowers. Thank you. I could do it myself — if I couldn’t I shouldn’t be on my own in this house, much less have these three mongrels.” Three tail thumps indicated they were accustomed to being addressed that way and viewed it as affection. “But it is nice to have it done for me now and then. Thank you.”

  “It’s an interesting house,” Landis said.

  “A spite house.”

  “A what?”

  Belichek righted the tub with only minimal dampness transferred to him and turned in time to see Imogen Wooton’s disapproving expression.

  “How long have you lived in Fairlington, Virginia, young man, and you don’t know what a spite house is? No, don’t tell me—” She held out a commanding arm. “—because it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here. Shouldn’t be allowed to walk through Fairlington, especially Old Town, much less police it without knowing its history. Shame on them. What are they teaching you young folks these days?”

  She took the tub from Belichek and stood it on end in the floor of a shed that might have started life as an old-fashioned phonebooth.

  “A spite house is a time-honored tool of getting even or — more accurately — going one up on somebody you’re having a feud with. Blocking a view or building so the other party can’t make full use of their property, that kind of thing. Some of the finest examples are right here in our region. Why, Old Town Alexandria has the narrowest house in the country. Though it’s not truly a spite house. The owner of the two houses on either side of it built that house to keep traffic from cutting through the alley between them. He enclosed the alley and declared it a house.

  “But a real spite house needs a story of revenge or a feud and this one does. Did you come along the side of my house that’s on Porchester Street?” Getting their nods, she continued. “Figured. Other way you’d come the long way around the block. Now, the next house to my right, which you’d have seen if you had come the long way around, was built by a couple who had one daughter. When she married, they built a house next door to them, to the left, situated where it would now have Porchester Street running through it. Gave it to the young couple as a wedding gift. A nearly exact replica of the family home, which still stands next door.

  “Everything went fine — least from what we can tell from this distance in time — until the daughter died in childbirth, along with the baby. Her parents were devastated. And from letters that still exist, they never felt the son-in-law grieved deeply enough. When he not only remarried in less than a year, but brought the new bride to the house they’d built for their daughter, they were furious. But they’d deeded the house and land, and it belonged to the son-in-law.

  “The mother, not in the best of health and still mourning, took a turn for the worse with her daughter’s replacement swanning around the place.

  “So, the father had his workers build this place in the gap between the two houses. You notice how it’s closer to the sidewalk than
any of the other buildings on the block?”

  Belichek had guessed it was to make up for its narrowness. He should have known better. More things have an emotional cause than practical.

  He’d always liked the story that Andrew Jackson set the site for the Treasury building to block the White House view of the Capitol because he and the legislature didn’t get along. A spite federal building.

  “Sticks out more in the back, too. That’s so the people in the original house—” She gestured in that direction. “—couldn’t see the people in the other house. Wouldn’t ever happen these days with zoning and setback ordinances and such, but it worked for them.”

  “What happened to the son-in-law and his new bride?”

  She sent Landis a look of approval. “Turns out she was a free-spending shrew who made his life miserable and he had to sell the house not long before he died, which might have been satisfying to the first wife’s parents, if they hadn’t died long before. That’s what happens with spite houses. Nobody in the feud truly comes out on top. Only the people who get to live in the spite house later, assuming it’s a good one and mine is.”

  One side of her mouth lifted in a dry grin.

  “The spite got better with the next generation. Fairlington bought the son-in-law’s house and tore it down. Wiped his house right out of the town plan and put a street there. That’s why my little spite house has windows on one side now. Jamie’s house, too. And Phil’s doesn’t. Won’t ever. Even if he got what he wanted — which he won’t — he’d get windows in his garage and his wife’s closet, but not in the living space where he’d be.”

  At the moment, she resided in a Gloat House.

  “You should talk to Garrison Enderbe next door about Phil. That’s the house that belonged to that poor couple whose daughter died. Wants to gut that house and make the first floor all kitchen. If he has his way, he’d blow out the alley, too, and have the entire part of the block. The man belongs out in some McMansion with fake grass.”

  “And Jamie’s?”

  “Garage. Not as wide as he wants, but he’s got plans for a car elevator, if you can believe it.”

  “Phil Xavier has made an offer on your house?” Landis asked.