A Killer Crop (13 page)

Seth smiled. “I’ll let you off the hook for this year, since it’s your first. Your mother might enjoy it, too.”

“That sounds charming,” Elizabeth called out.

“So I’ll see you both there. It opens at nine.” He turned to leave, and Meg followed him out the door. “Problems?” he asked quietly.

Meg kept walking, drawing him away from the door—and her mother’s earshot. “No, I think we’re good. I was hoping to have a heart-to-heart talk with her tonight, if I can stay awake.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it. Sorry this has all landed on your head at once. You’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do?”

“Of course.” Well, maybe. “And thanks.” Meg leaned in for a quick kiss, then withdrew before it could grow into anything more. “See you tomorrow.”

She watched as he headed over the hill, then turned back to the kitchen. Time to get some answers.

By the time Meg came back into the kitchen, her ever-efficient mother had taken care of the dishes.

“Mother, we have to talk,” Meg began.

“Oh, dear, that sounds ominous,” Elizabeth said, striving for a light tone.

“I’m sorry to keep hounding you about this, but I still feel that you haven’t told me, or Detective Marcus, everything about what went on with Daniel Weston. I happen to know that Marcus can be very persistent. And he can also be wrong, but he does need all the facts. And so do I, if I’m going to help you at all.”

“And I apologize, dear.” There was a minuscule pause before Elizabeth said, “As you may have guessed, I did not intend this to be a visit with you.” She stared at the empty table. “How odd that sounds. You’ve been involved in murder investigations, and now I am.”

“That’s not an answer, Mother.” Meg decided to emulate Detective Marcus’s approach, and waited silently.

Finally, Elizabeth said, “You’re right. I haven’t told him everything. Oh, not because I had anything to do with Daniel’s death—surely you can’t think that. But I’m embarrassed—the story doesn’t put me in a very good light.”

“Tell me.”

“May I have another glass of wine?” Elizabeth parried, holding out her glass. Meg filled it wordlessly. Elizabeth settled herself back in her chair and sipped.

“I’ve given you the basic story,” she began. “It’s true that Daniel called quite unexpectedly. I hadn’t had any contact with him in years, and I was intrigued. Your father was away, I had no projects lined up, and I thought, why not? I hadn’t done something spontaneous, on my own, for quite a while, and I liked the idea. Had your father been around, I would certainly have told him—although he might have wanted to come with me, and that wouldn’t have been the same at all, would it?” She appealed to Meg.

“I don’t know.” Meg realized she wasn’t just stalling: she really had no idea.

“Trust me, it wouldn’t.” Elizabeth stopped again.

This wasn’t coming easily. After a few seconds, Meg said, “Tell me about Daniel, back then.”

Her mother smiled, more to herself than to Meg. “We were so young then, and there was so much ahead of us. You don’t know it at the time. You don’t realize that the possibilities will keep closing down, one by one, over the years. You make your choices, and you don’t see that you’ll have to live with them forever.” She took another sip of her wine. “I’m sorry—you wanted the facts. I’ve told you, and I told that policeman, that we all knew each other in Cambridge, back in the early seventies. I was involved with your father, but he was very focused on getting his law degree and getting on with his life—our life. I admired that. But Daniel was a lot more fun to spend time with, and I guess his degree program wasn’t as demanding. Or maybe he didn’t take it as seriously, I don’t know. Though it worked out for him in the end, since he held a tenured position at an outstanding college, right? He was always the smart one, fast with words. Your father was more of a plodder.”

“Were you ever . . . involved with Daniel, back in those days?” Meg asked.

“You mean, was I sleeping with him? Yes.”

Meg squirmed inwardly. This was far beyond any conversations they’d had in Meg’s younger years, and she certainly had never wanted to ask, nor had her mother volunteered. But now it was important. “Before Daddy? Or at the same time?”

Elizabeth looked at her with something like pity. “Meg, before you judge me, you have to understand the time and the place. It was a different environment, and people viewed things differently. I was pretty straitlaced by standards then, and I knew I wanted a conventional life, no matter what our friends were doing. I felt that I had to make a choice. I loved your father, but in a way I loved Daniel, too. They were very different people. I have to say, your father loved me more than Daniel ever did. I slept with Daniel a few times, to see . . . I don’t know what. If it would change what I felt, or what he felt. If it would make any difference. I don’t think your father ever knew—I certainly didn’t tell him, and I doubt Daniel did. Phillip might have sensed something, but he didn’t press. And then he proposed.”

“Who proposed? Daddy, or Daniel?”

“Your father.”

“And that was the end of it between you and Daniel?”

“Not immediately. I didn’t accept your father’s proposal right away. I guess I wanted to give Daniel one last chance. Maybe I hoped he would see what he would be losing and fight for me. But he didn’t. Maybe he valued Phillip’s friendship more that he cared about me.”

An awful thought hit Meg, and she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “You’re not going to tell me that Daniel is my father?”

Elizabeth turned abruptly toward her, her eyes glittering in the half-light. “Margaret Elizabeth Corey, how can you ask me that? Of course not. I wasn’t stupid or careless, and I wouldn’t have done that to your father. And you, young woman—you work with numbers. Do the math. You were born two years after I married Phillip.”

Meg was embarrassed, but also relieved. “I’m sorry. And I guess I’m sorry we’ve never talked about those days. Maybe it would have helped me with my own relationships. I don’t have a lot to be proud of there.”

“You mean Chandler?”

“In part. I know you liked him.”

Her mother sighed deeply. “Darling, I thought he was a self-centered ass. But I wasn’t about to meddle—that’s never a good idea.”

Meg sat up straighter, incredulous. “You didn’t like Chandler?”

“Not at all. But you seemed happy.”

“I tried to be, but I can see now that the whole thing was a mistake. He never really cared about me—I was just a placeholder until someone better came along.” How much of Meg’s image of a “good” relationship was based on what she’d seen of her parents’ relationship when she was growing up? Which, when she thought about it, was pretty distant. “Mother, have you and Daddy been happy together?”

“Yes, I’d say so. It hasn’t been a mad, passionate relationship, if that’s what you’re asking. But we’ve always supported each other, always respected each other, trusted each other. I would call it a successful marriage.”

“Was there passion with Daniel?”

For a moment her mother didn’t answer, and then she said softly, “Yes.”

Meg waited before framing her next question. “And did you miss that, with Daddy?”

“Oh, Meg . . .” Her mother shook her head sadly. “To be honest, yes, occasionally. But please don’t cling to any romantic notions about soul mates or the idea that love conquers all. I mentioned choices earlier. I made a considered, rational choice to marry your father, because I believed we would have a better life together, over time. And I think I was right.”

“Then why were you here with Daniel now?”

“Curiosity. It had been a long time.”

“Mother, I know you said you didn’t sleep with him, and I believe you. But did you plan to?”

After another long pause, Elizabeth whispered, “I would have. If he’d asked.”

The single lamp in the room cast shadows in the corners. Meg was conscious of Lolly’s purring warmth in her lap, and she felt the weight of the silence in the room. She needed to think carefully. Her respectable mother had come up here for what she probably had hoped would be a romantic tryst with a former lover—but he hadn’t been interested. And he had ended up dead.

“Mother, I hate to keep poking at this, but I think it’s important. Did you believe that Daniel invited you up here for a . . .”

“An affair? A quickie? A last gasp at youth, now that we’re all old and gray?” Elizabeth’s tone was strained. “No, I don’t think so.”

What had so upset her mother? “I know you didn’t have a lot of time together, but he didn’t, uh, make overtures? He didn’t meet you at your hotel room and fling you on the bed?” Meg couldn’t believe she was saying this to her mother.

Her mother gave an uncharacteristic snort of laughter. “No. Nothing like that. He talked about his wife and his children. All very proper. We never even got near a bed.”

Which, Meg realized, potentially gave her mother a motive for murder. She had come up here with expectations, which Daniel had squashed. Elizabeth had risked her marriage and her dignity and he had rejected her. She could see a prosecutor outlining for a jury the classic story of a woman scorned, a woman with a fading marriage, past her youth, grasping at straws—and pushed over the edge when Daniel had said no, or worse, had said nothing, trashing all of Elizabeth’s fantasies.

“Was this what you weren’t telling the police?”

Elizabeth smiled ruefully. “I know, it seems silly. I was embarrassed, and I didn’t think they needed to know. After all, nothing happened. My expectations had nothing to do with Daniel’s death. Are you seriously thinking that I would have killed him because he didn’t want to sleep with me?”

“I guess not,” Meg said, suppressing an inappropriate grin. Now that her fears had been voiced, they appeared ridiculous. “But it’s possible that the police would see this as a motive for killing him, and if they find out you’ve lied to them, they’re going to be even more suspicious.”

“Meg, there’s nothing to find. We were two old friends meeting in public places. That’s all there was.”

“But he’s dead. Somebody killed him. Are you sure he didn’t say something, anything, that would suggest he was in danger, or was afraid of something?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Not that I can recall.”

“Maybe if we go over exactly what he did say, we might find something,” Meg said stubbornly. Surely a man who had been murdered could not have been the paragon of virtue that Detective Marcus had outlined. He must have left some small hint, embedded somewhere.

“Meg, are you sure this is going to help? I’m tired, and I’d like to remember the positive things Daniel and I shared.”

“Mother, he was murdered, and you’re the best suspect the police have. This is not just going to go away. Trust me on that.” When Elizabeth didn’t answer, Meg pressed on, “Look, the man must have been busy, with classes and this conference. Why did he pick this particular time to ask you up here? Surely there would have been more convenient times. Was his wife away?”

“No. Or if she was, he didn’t mention it. He didn’t invite me to his home.”

“Did he take you to the campus?”

“Not exactly. We drove around it, but we didn’t visit his office. We never even got out of the car.”

“Did he take you out anywhere in Amherst?”

“No. He said the choices in Northampton were more interesting, and that’s where I was staying anyway, so it was convenient.”

No doubt someone at the restaurants would remember seeing them, or there would be a credit card trail, to corroborate her story. Tracking that down was a job for the police. “So no one in Amherst—not his family or his colleagues—knew you were in town?”

“No, but I didn’t give it any thought. It’s not like he made me duck down or put a blanket over my head when we drove through town, as though he were ashamed to be seen with me. Does it really matter?”

“To be honest, I don’t know. I’m just looking for something out of place. He didn’t introduce you to anyone in Amherst. Maybe he didn’t want to be seen in public with you there. Why?”

“Meg, I think you’re making too much of this. We didn’t spend that much time together—less than forty-eight hours.”

“All right. What did you talk about?”

“I’ve already told you. We caught up on the past. We talked about our spouses and our children. He asked about you, and told me what his sons were doing, where they’d gone to college, their jobs.”

Meg thought furiously. Weston had asked her mother to meet him here without Phillip, but not for romantic purposes. Yet he’d more or less concealed her presence from anyone who knew him. They’d shared information about their respective spouses and children, which was perfectly normal. On the surface, everything seemed quite innocent. Why didn’t it feel right?

Meg was startled when her mother stood up abruptly. So was Lolly, who launched herself off Meg’s lap; Meg winced at the dig of sharp claws.