A Killing Karma (15 page)

Interesting,
thought Casey, as he met Catt's eyes under their slightly raised eyebrows. ‘Do
you often work late, Mr Garrett?’

‘At least
three evenings a week,’ Mrs Garrett told him in the disgruntled voice of the
neglected wife. Was that her excuse for her affair with Oliver?

‘When it's
your own business you have to put the hours in,’ Garrett defended himself.
‘I've worked hard to build the business up since I inherited from my father.’

It was clearly
an on-going bone of contention between them.

Casey also
found himself wondering whether Carl Garrett used one or more of those evenings
playing away rather than working. He questioned them about the early hours of Monday
morning and, like the Merediths, they claimed to have been innocently tucked up
in bed.

Having learned
what he had come for, Casey eased himself from his seat. ‘Thank you for your
cooperation.’ He glanced in turn from Sarah to her husband. ‘We'll see
ourselves out.’

‘But look
here, Chief Inspector,’ Carl Garrett protested, ‘you can't just leave it like
that. What happens now?’

‘What happens
now?’ Casey repeated. Good question. He wished he knew. But he said, ‘Now I
hope to find sufficient evidence to catch a murderer. Good day to you both.’

His blunt
words seemed to deflate Garrett, for he sank back in his chair with an air of
defeat, his argumentative streak punctured.

After they
left the Garretts' apartment, they walked down the stairs and sought out the
porter. Red-faced, portly, as befitted his portering role, and clearly over
retirement age, the porter had been stealing forty winks in his little cubbyhole
of an office behind the desk. They wakened him with difficulty. It seemed
likely he told them the truth when he said he had seen neither of the Garretts
on either the Friday night or the Monday morning when his duty shift had
changed to earlies.

‘Snoring his
head off, probably,’ said Catt caustically. ‘He's a fat lot of use as a
witness, anyway.’

Casey nodded.
It meant that neither of the Garretts could be exonerated. It also meant that
one or both of them would have known there was a good chance they could slip
out unnoticed if they needed to. And slip back again.

‘Reckon
Garrett knew his wife was carrying on with Oliver?’ Catt asked when they were
back in the car.

‘As to that, I
don't know. He certainly seemed adamant that
he
didn't know the dead
man.’ Casey turned the key in the ignition, depressed the clutch and selected
first gear before heading for the end of the short drive. ‘But one thing's for
sure, we've placed a nasty suspicion in his mind about his wife's possible
conduct with Oliver. I wonder if he prefers to leave it alone and remain in
ignorance or if he'll keep questioning her till he gets the truth.’

‘The latter, I
suspect, judging from his expression. Unless,’ said Catt, ‘he already knows the
truth and was doing his best to pretend that it was only our visit that had put
the idea that she was cheating on him into his head.’

'Mmm, there's
always that. Let's hope if he suspects his wife's been having an affair that
there's not another murder committed.’

‘Amen to
that.’

It was after
nine; too late to call on Max Fallon and Carole Brown as he had hoped. Catt had
been unable to speak to either of the couple to make an appointment. Given that
Fallon's violent history made him meaty stuff as a suspect, Casey had thought
of turning up unexpectedly, hoping to surprise some revelations from one or
both of them, but a visit so late in the evening would be more likely to put
them on their guard. They would have to wait till tomorrow night. Casey headed
back to the station so they could write up the evening's two interviews. Fallon
and Ms Brown would wait another day; maybe the wait would rattle them.

The money from
their lottery win must have gone to their heads, Casey surmised, for he could
see any number of lights blazing from the commune's farmhouse as he approached
down the rutted lane. Even with the lights, an air of wretchedness still hung
over the place. It was certainly squalid enough for any number of black deeds
to have occurred there. Casey wondered if — with the endemic drug-taking —
paranoia didn't haunt the place. Had one of the inmates of Paradise Regained,
which was what they had named their small plot, gone quietly mad, without the
rest noticing?

The
possibility wasn't as unlikely as it sounded. When you spent your life in a
drug-soaked daze, alertness and being observant were not strong traits. They
might not notice madness in their midst until the paranoid person grabbed a
carelessly discarded mallet and let fly with it. And maybe not even then.

The dogs set
up their usual cacophony as he stopped at the gate and beeped the horn. As
before, Moon came out to unlock the gate and as he slipped through, Casey
asked, ‘How are things?’

‘Much as you'd
expect,’ she replied with a strange grimness in her tone which more than hinted
that
Paradise Regained
had metamorphosed into purgatory. ‘We're all at
one another's throats, as I told you last time we spoke,’ Moon continued as
they walked towards the house. ‘Dylan Harper is still keeping to his room. Oh
and Billy
has
got mumps. The doctor confirmed it. He's keeping to his
room as well. The men insist on it.’

Casey nodded.
Understandable if Harper was keeping his distance from the rest, especially if
he really was grief-stricken: the bedlam created by numerous children,
teenagers and dogs that crowded into the commune would hardly be conducive to a
person trying to come to terms with the sudden and violent death of a loved
one.

Moon glanced
at him. ‘Reckon he thinks one of us murdered DaisyMay and he's avoiding us as
much as he can?’

Did she really
expect him to answer that? he wondered. Because, clearly, the answer would have
to be 'yes'. Dylan Harper had struck him as a suspicious-minded man, not a
natural commune resident at all. On his previous visits he hadn't seemed to mix
much with the other members, nor had he appeared to share much in their rough
and ready friendships.

But it seemed
Moon didn't expect a reply, because she didn't push for one. Instead, she took
his arm and led him towards the open farmhouse door.

He stopped her
before she entered the house. ‘Would you say his grief is genuine, Moon, or put
on to allay any thought  that he might have killed his wife?’

‘What a
suspicious mind you have, Willow Tree. His grief seems genuine to me. Not that
I've seen much of him since the last time you came here. Besides, why would he kill
her? He doted on her. I told you.’

‘What about
recently? Had his behaviour towards her changed at all?’

‘No. In fact,
if anything, he became even more attentive since her pregnancy and was so right
up to her death. Couldn't do enough for her once she became pregnant. Hardly
let her stir out of her chair. They'd been trying for a baby for over a year
with no luck. DaisyMay wanted both of them to go for tests, but Dylan wouldn't
go.’ Moon laughed. ‘Just like a man. But, as I said, it ended happily when DaisyMay
fell pregnant shortly after. At first he was a bit quiet, but then, once he'd
come to terms with the idea that they really were going to have a baby, Dylan
was like a cockerel with the loudest crow in the coop. I never saw a man more
pleased about being a father.

‘It's weird
‘cos I'd never had thought Dylan would take so well to the idea in reality. But
you never can tell. Funnily enough, it was DaisyMay who seemed to go off the
idea almost as soon as she knew she was pregnant. Scared of the birth, I
expect, like most women.

‘Anyway, as
DaisyMay's pregnancy advanced he treated her more and more with kid gloves. It
was sweet to see.’

Moon sounded
wistful, as well she might; Casey couldn't imagine that his father had treated
a Moon pregnant with him with such tender care.

Moon's answer
didn't please Casey. But, for now, he had no choice but to accept it.

‘We're all up
before the beak again this week,’ she broke the news without preamble. ‘Further
charges.’ She gave a careless shrug. 'I forget what.’

Casey just
stopped himself from nodding: this had been one of the things Catt had found
out. ‘What are you going to plead?’

‘Me and Star?
Not guilty, of course.’

‘Is that
sensible? You were all caught red-handed. What does your solicitor say?’

‘Oh, him.’
With a wave of her be-ringed and henna-decorated hand, Moon dismissed the very
expensive solicitor whose services Casey had obtained for his parents. ‘He
wants us to plead guilty but with diminished responsibility.’

‘Sounds
sensible.’ Certainly in Star's case, though for Moon, Casey doubted even the
expensive brief he had hired for the pair would be able to pull it off. She
could be sharp when it suited her and she might just show it in the witness
box.

‘What? You
want us to act gaga?'

Casey
reflected that, again in Star's case, that wouldn't prove too far a stretch.
‘Not gaga, no,’ he temporised, ‘just easily led, perhaps.’

Moon gave a
‘Humph’ to that, which might have meant anything. Casey followed her into the
farmhouse living room.

The reaction
to his reappearance was distinctly hostile from various members of the commune
and Casey heard unwelcoming groans from several throats; maybe the Lincolnshire
police hadn't treated them with gentle consideration and their behaviour had,
in their minds, rubbed off on him, though only Foxy Redfern was belligerent
enough to voice their hostility. What had he and the rest expected after trying
to conceal two murders?

‘Well, look
who it aint,’ Redfern drawled as soon as Casey stepped through the door and
entered the large and untidy living room. ‘The great detective returns. Still
not managed to figure out which ne'er-do-well outsider killed DaisyMay and
Kris? Surely by now you've found out his dealer's identity?’

‘Not yet, Mr
Redfern,’ Casey replied calmly with an untruth which wasn't a complete lie; he
suspected that Callender might have had another supplier other than Tony
Magann. Besides, he was determined not to let the man anger him into letting
something slip; better to keep him and the rest in the dark and worrying. ‘But
we're making progress.’

‘Progress? Is
having our place turned over by the cops what you call “progress”? It's like a
nurse describing a patient as “comfortable” when they're anything but.’

‘Ruined the
entire ambiance of the place,’ Moon commented from behind him.

Casey ignored
her and addressed Redfern's complaint. ‘I'm sorry you feel like that, Mr
Redfern, but I hope you can appreciate that I'm doing my best under difficult
circumstances.’

‘Yes. Leave my
Willow Tree alone, Foxy,’ Moon broke in, in direct juxtaposition to her
previous comment. It was, as ever, all right for Moon to find fault with her
son, but she soon flared up when someone else dared to do the same. It was
mother-love of a sort, Casey supposed. ‘You should be grateful he's taken the case
on instead of sniping at him.’

‘Let's face
it, he's not taken it on for my sake,’ Foxy snapped back. ‘It's only because of
you and Star that he's here at all. Maybe he thinks one of you killed them both
and is looking to pin the blame on the rest of us. It wouldn't be the first
time the filth has fitted someone up. And why else would he bother trying to
find the answer as to who killed DaisyMay and Callender?'

‘Now you're
being stupid,’ Moon told him before Casey could say anything. ‘Why should he?
If he's anything, my Willow Tree is an honest copper.’ She even managed to make
it sound as if it was something she admired, which was a first to Casey's
recollection.

‘Perhaps we
should get down to some facts,’ Casey broke in before the argument could
develop further. He turned to Moon. ‘Have you been questioned again by the
Lincolnshire force since I spoke to you earlier?’

Moon replied,
‘No. I think they want to keep us on tenterhooks by letting us know as little
as possible before the court case, though one of the men at a neighbouring farm
took great pleasure in telling me the police had questioned him and his wife
about us. I told you they're going to take DNA samples from all the men in the
commune?’

Casey nodded.

‘Well, all the
men bar Dylan. He simply refused.’

‘Rather
foolish of him, seeing as it makes him more interesting to the police.’

That's what I
told him, but he wouldn't listen. Men seldom listen to good sense. God knows
why he's being so difficult.’

In contrast to
Foxy Redfern, Kali Callender, Kris Callender's widow, had no complaints. She
looked pleased with life. Someone, maybe even Kali herself, had removed her
unwanted husband, which was, apparently, all right with her. She even attacked
Foxy Redfern on Casey's behalf.

‘Leave the man
alone, Foxy,’ she said. ‘Surely even you can understand how difficult it is to
try to conduct an unofficial investigation? I'm sure he's doing his best for
all of us.’