A Lie for a Lie (30 page)

“Not at first. But he kept coming on to her, and finally right before the finals, he laid it on the line. He would look on her act a lot more favorably if she also”—he glanced at me, and I think he rethought his ending—“showed him what she could do in bed. That’s when she told me what was going on.”

“What did you do?”

“I confronted him. I was furious. He claimed Kathy had come on to
him
, and that she’d said if she didn’t win the competition, then she would tell the press what she’d told me. He said she was trying to blackmail him, and he wasn’t going to put up with it.”

“Apparently you didn’t believe him.”

“I know my wife. I know how upset she was when she finally told me what was going on. But, of course, we had no proof. It was too late to prove what he’d done to Kathy, because she’d already dropped out, but I figured it wasn’t too late to retrace the guy’s steps and see if other women had experienced the same thing in other competitions. So that’s what I did.” Taylor nudged the folder in front of him across the table.

“And this is what you found?”

“Names, statements, phone numbers. I don’t have much use for it now, do I? You can have it all.”

Roussos picked up the folder and thumbed through it. “Apparently you tried to crash the welcome party at the Hayworth residence when Mr. Barber got to town. Is that true?”

“It was the perfect opportunity to announce what kind of judge they’d hired, and to warn your town what was in store for their contestants.”

“You wanted to make a splash.”

Rob Taylor didn’t smile. “I did.”

“But you were tossed out.”

“And later Mrs. Hayworth tossed me out when I tried to tell her privately what had been going on. I showed her the statements, told her she could call former contestants, and she just said I was trying to ruin a good man because my wife hadn’t won in Pittsburgh. She said the statements weren’t worth a thing, that unless I had irrefutable proof, like tapes of conversations with Grady or witnesses to the so-called blackmail, she wasn’t going to listen to me.”

I was tempted to hold out my hand, as if I expected Roussos to gift me with the folder so I could page through it. But I knew better. I was never going to see this folder, never going to get the list of women who had been angry enough at their treatment to tell their stories to a stranger, the perfect list of possible suspects in the murder of Grady Barber.

The tip, I was afraid, of an iceberg loaded with suspects.

“Apparently you wore out your welcome and somehow got backstage the night Mr. Barber was murdered?” Roussos asked.

“Yeah, I’m persistent. I wanted to tell him I was never going to quit until I took him down. Way, way down. And I wanted to find the two female finalists and warn them, although it was probably a little late for that. I didn’t find them, by the way.”

“You more or less made this your mission.”

“I was still furious. Furious at what he’d done, furious nobody was listening.”

“Furious enough to kill him?”

Rob Taylor didn’t deny it. “Somebody else took matters into her hands before I ever got that far. But yes, I was nearly that angry, particularly right after I learned what he’d been up to. But after I calmed down a little, I figured that bringing Barber’s behavior out in the open would be the best punishment. If I could ruin his reputation with the truth, that would be good enough.”

“Why didn’t you just go to the press? Let them break the story?”

“I tried. You know what they told me? It wasn’t important enough. Grady Barber was yesterday’s news, and nobody cared if some disgruntled contestants were upset with him. Too much time to ascertain the facts, too little payoff.”

“Mrs. Wilcox saw you leave the auditorium through the side door after you confronted Barber. What did you do then?”

“I didn’t go back in, if that’s what you’re getting at. There was a bar around the corner from the campus. Sweeney’s. I saw it and went in.”

“You’re saying that’s where you were?”

“After Barber was killed, I made sure to safeguard my credit card receipts, in case this came up. You’ve got copies there. I paid for a beer right after I left the auditorium. Afterwards I started to leave, but I realized that I’d better eat something before I drove home. So there’s another charge about thirty minutes later at the same bar, when I finished and left, and later there’s a charge on the Turnpike when I got gas. But the bartender will probably remember me. I spent my time there talking about Barber, and none of it was flattering. I didn’t know he’d been killed until I got home and saw it the next morning on the news.”

I knew where Sweeney’s was located in relationship to the auditorium. Maybe Taylor could have ducked out, run back to the campus, and somehow gotten inside and backstage without being seen, murdered Grady, moved the body and traced
nor
on the wall, sprinted back to the bar, and ordered nachos or chicken wings. But that scenario was unlikely. By that time of evening, getting back into the auditorium without a ticket, much less getting backstage, would have been nearly impossible. And that would have meant at least twenty minutes away from the bar. More likely thirty, and all that running back and forth would have been noted. If he’d driven instead, he would still have had to find parking when Idyll goers were already streaming in, run from and to the lots, drive back to Sweeney’s, park . . .

Taylor added the clincher. “There was a group of students watching a ball game on the flat screen, too. I made a bet with one of them on a couple of plays and had to buy him a beer. If you find him, he’ll remember me, too. The bartender probably knows his name.”

“We’ve got a suspect,” Roussos said. “We just wanted to clear up the stuff about Barber’s private life.”

“I don’t know if you got the right suspect, but I bet there were a lot of people who wanted the guy dead. If I’d wanted to kill him, I probably would have had to take a number.”

“Well, somebody drew number one.”

Taylor shrugged. “I’m not sorry. The world’s a better place.”

Roussos stood and so did Taylor. Reluctantly I got to my feet, too. I wished I had some scintillating question to ask, something that would break apart his alibi and scare him into a confession. But I didn’t think that was going to happen. Unfortunately for Sister Nora, it looked as if Rob Taylor was probably not Grady’s murderer.

We walked out together. Taylor left and Roussos stood in the parking lot with his arms crossed over his chest.

“I’ll check with the bartender at Sweeney’s,” he said. “If he’s lying, that’s enough of a reason to haul him back in here. But I don’t think he is.”

“There are a lot of women in that folder of his. Women Grady abused.”

“Did you or anybody else see any strange women backstage that night, besides Nora Nelson?”

“You’re not going to go any further with this, are you?”

“We have our suspect.” He glanced at me. “But
you
are, right? Even now, you’re not going to leave it alone.”

“Have you found out anything about Danny? Danny from the tent show?”

“We’ve been looking for him. He cleared out but good, which makes me think he knows how to clear out without leaving a trace. But that doesn’t mean he tried to murder you or that he didn’t. It just means he’s gone.”

“And I’m still here.”

“Here trying to solve a murder that’s already solved.” Roussos’s eyes met mine. “I don’t know why I worry about you. Maybe I’d just hate not having you flash those dimples at me the next time somebody in town winds up dead in your vicinity and you want a favor. Maybe I’d hate not having to keep you out of places you don’t belong. Or not having an excuse to rescue that cat of yours. Whatever it is, take some advice. Be careful. Investigating the death of a creep like Barber is bad enough. Don’t make me investigate yours. Okay?”

As far as it went, this was an emotional speech, a swipe at admitting that despite everything, we really did enjoy each other’s company. I was touched, but not enough to give him what he wanted.

“If Grady’s murder is really solved, then you have nothing to worry about, right? Nobody will care if I snoop.”

“You watch out for yourself. You have a bad habit of figuring this stuff out when the bad guy’s breathing down your neck. Did you put me on speed dial?”

I suspected Deena would be asked that question a lot in a year or two. I had to flash the dimples. “I’ll make sure that happens.”

“You do that.”

 

 

Monday is Ed’s day off, and normally he doesn’t go to meetings. But tonight there was a city council session scheduled to deal with parking around the Oval, just across from our church. After dinner he left to represent the church’s interests, along with some of our board of trustees. The girls and I ate salads and fresh rolls, and Teddy went to bed early, tired from a day of filmmaking. When I went to bed I could still hear the low buzz of Deena’s voice on the telephone, making up for lost time. It was a good thing we’d finally invested in voice mail and call-waiting so Ed could continue to stay in touch with our congregation.

I was determined to get at least halfway through
Sailing toward a Rainbow
, even if I had to get up and pace between paragraphs to stay awake. My fears were unjustified. The thermometer had hit ninety-four at about three, and although the temperature had dropped low enough that I could almost breathe comfortably outside, not so inside. The house, even with fans stirring the air, was so uncomfortable that I got up and took another shower, just to cool off a degree or two. There was no chance I was going to fall asleep easily tonight.

The heat had a secondary effect. I certainly didn’t want to sleep, but I had trouble concentrating. I read every single sentence, some more than once, but at no time did I feel as if I was really getting to know Grady any better. The Emerald Springs he described wasn’t the one I knew. Since towns this size change slowly when they do change, it was hard to imagine that it could have been as different then as he made it seem. In Grady’s hometown, everyone was kind. Everyone smiled at him, patted him on the head, lent his beleaguered single mother support and comfort. In Grady’s town every door was open and every neighbor felt obliged to participate in the task of raising him. To his benefit, of course. There wasn’t a cocker spaniel or Siamese cat anywhere in town who didn’t love him and beg to be petted. Even the robins built nests where he could watch them feed smiling earthworms to their young.

“Oh,
puhleese
!” I got up for a glass of iced water, despite knowing I would pay for it about two AM. I’d discovered nothing of interest about Grady’s early childhood, and now it was time to push on to his school years. As before, I read sentence by sentence, and at the end of that section, I still didn’t feel as if I knew him any better.

“Our hero.” I put the book on the bed beside me and closed my eyes. In every story about his adolescence, Grady was the victor. He was kind to kids who didn’t easily make friends, befriending one boy with a limp and another whose family lived on handouts. His friendship, of course, had meant everything to them. In truth, I imagined that these were the only boys in town who had dared to cast their lot with his. Grady had been one of them, an outcast, too.

In high school his potential had been like a lone star beaming through a cloudy night sky. His teachers had realized his intelligence and talent and fought to work with him. He was more modest about his relationship with girls, hinting winsomely that shyness was his excuse for not having a serious relationship. Not until he kissed his costar in
Wayfarers
.

“Give me a break.” I thought about everything Winona and Veronica had told me. Grady and Winona had been an item, so to speak. When he’d abandoned her to become a movie star, she had fallen apart. Falling apart was more likely to have been connected to a serious relationship than to a casual friendship. But not only didn’t Grady’s autobiography mention Winona, it completely denied her existence. According to Grady, he hadn’t even kissed a girl in our fair city.

Ed chose that moment to appear. “You can be the minister, and I’ll stay home and raise the kids,” he said.

He’s made this offer before. I was not impressed. “You have to flip houses, while you’re at it. And bake brownies, and go on field trips, and attend the Women’s Society meetings, and take messages during social hour from people who think I’m too important to be bothered directly. You have to listen to people criticize my sermons, just to be helpful, of course, and smile brightly when they ask if you think the tire swing on the willow tree really sends the right message about the parsonage. But if you’re willing, I’ll go to sermon-ary.”

“They actually discussed the possibility of changing the parking meters on the Oval so people have to pay to park on Sundays during worship services.”

I patted the bed beside me. “Poor baby.”

“They decided against it.”

“See? A victory. What would the church do without you? Think of all the quarters you saved from a fate worse than death.”

He fell down beside me. “My very own cheering section.”

“Ed, do you remember the first girl you kissed?”

“Sarah Buckley.”

“That must have been a whopper to be so memorable. How old were you?”

“About ten.”

“What would you think about a heterosexual male who claims he didn’t kiss a girl until he was eighteen?”

“Either his lips were sewed together for some esoteric medical purpose, or he’s a liar.”

“And what would you think of a man who lies in print about his first girlfriend?” I told him about Winona, and Grady’s autobiography.

“I don’t know why Barber wouldn’t tell the truth, except that we know the truth was more or less a foreign concept to him. Maybe he thought a little innocence made him look more appealing.”