Finding Laura (22 page)

His steel seemed to impress Amelia, or at least win her grudging respect, because her voice was milder when she said, “Very well, then. If this is official, let’s have it. What is it you want of us?”

“I have a few questions, Miss Amelia, that’s all. I thought it would be better if I came out here and asked them. Quieter.”

“About Peter’s death, I assume?”

Madeline made a little sound, an intake of breath that was audible only because the room was so quiet in that moment, and her large blue eyes fixed on Landry with painful intensity. “Do you know who—?”

Landry hesitated almost imperceptibly, then said gently, “No, not yet. I just have a few questions.”

“Then ask them,” Amelia ordered impatiently. “Though God knows you people have asked us enough questions already. But I’d like an answer to a question or two of my own, if you don’t mind.”

Without committing himself, he merely raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

“Why, suddenly, are you involved in this, Brent? We’ve had policemen here since Peter was killed, but this is the first we’ve seen of you.”

“I was given the investigation a few days ago,” Landry explained readily. “You’d have to ask my superiors why.”

Laura glanced at Amelia in that moment, and when she saw those thin lips move ever so slightly in a Mona Lisa smile, she wondered suddenly if Amelia’s friendship with the commissioner had anything to do with Landry’s involvement. Had Amelia decided that a friend of the family would be better in the investigation? Did she expect to be able to control, or at least influence, Landry, in the event he focused his suspicions on any of the family?

And if she had arranged Landry’s involvement, was it because she fully expected that someone in the family would fall under suspicion?

Nodding a response to his explanation, Amelia said, “All right, then. If you’re in charge, why aren’t you out searching for Peter’s killer?”

“I am, Miss Amelia, I promise you. And in that search, certain … evidence has come to light. You do want me to be thorough, of course?”

“Yes.” But her eyes were narrowed now, and her lips tight.

“Very well.” His gaze tracked around the room, touching each person fleetingly, and he spoke with measured calm. “In the motel room where Peter was killed, we found several strands of red hair, one of them caught in his fingers. This seemed to be further evidence that the redheaded woman the motel manager saw Peter arrive with might have been his killer.”

“So far,” Daniel said, “this is not news.”

Landry shook his head slightly, his sharp eyes still scanning the people in the room. He was good at holding his audience. Very good. And even the storm seemed to wait for him, to quieten, so that his voice was the only sound in the room. “No, it isn’t. But the lab analysis was. It seems the hairs came from a wig.”

Laura’s first reaction was sheer relief, and the fleeting glance from Landry seemed to confirm her own thought: Why would a redhead wear a red wig? No good reason, unless her own hair was in some way damaged—and Laura’s, very obviously, was not. She couldn’t even remotely be a suspect now—could she?

But hard on the heels of that relief other questions tumbled. If the woman the motel manager had seen with Peter had been wearing a red wig, then the field had widened rather than narrowed. And why had the woman worn a wig? As a disguise, to hide her natural hair? Because Peter had wanted to have sex with a redhead?

Alex, who had moved to lounge negligently against the back of the sofa between Madeline and Anne, said quietly, “All right, you’ve got our attention. But we haven’t heard any questions yet.”

“You will.” But Landry wasn’t about to allow himself to be rushed. He continued to speak in a calm, methodical way. “The hairs came from a very expensive wig. Not many of them made in that particular shade of red, and even fewer sold here in Atlanta. It took some time, but we managed to trace those wigs to the buyers. There were three. Two have been eliminated as possible suspects in Peter’s murder.”

“And the third?” Daniel asked.

Landry allowed the tension to build for a beat or two, then said, “The third wig was sold, just a month ago, to Anne Ralston.”

But she’s his cousin
, was Laura’s first thought. But as she stared at Anne’s white face and the dark, darting eyes, she realized that the older woman definitely knew something—and that she was terrified.

“What—what would I want with a wig?” she demanded tensely, staring down at her glass now rather than at the policeman.

“You bought it, Anne. The store owner identified you from a photo.”

Anne tried a laugh that didn’t come off. “Okay, so I bought a wig. So what?”

Alex, frowning, said slowly, “As one of this family’s attorneys, I’d have to advise Anne that she has no obligation to answer your questions. In fact, I’d have to urge her not to say anything else. I haven’t heard the Miranda warning.”

“Anne isn’t under arrest,” Landry said. “I’m merely asking her a few questions to help me in my investigation.”

“Be that as it may, you know better, Brent.”

Landry looked at the lawyer, then turned his gaze to Amelia. Calmly he said, “The sooner we clear this up, the sooner I can … move on to the next piece of evidence.”

Amelia was staring at Anne. “Do you know anything about this, Anne? Do you?”

“Amelia,” Alex warned.

“We’ll hear this now,” she snapped, her dark eyes fierce. “Right now. Anne, did you kill Peter?”

“No!” Anne gasped. “Oh God, Amelia, I
swear
I didn’t!”

“Where were you the night Peter was killed, Anne?” Landry asked her, his voice subtly harder now, more commanding.

She sat hunched and tense, both her hands wrapped around her glass and her eyes darting around the room, and she made Laura think of a wild animal in a cage, desperate to escape.

“I was out,” she whispered. “I already told the police—I was out. I went to a party. I
told
them—”

“The party started at nine,” Landry said. “Nobody remembers seeing you until around midnight.”

Peter was killed around midnight
, Laura remembered.

Anne gulped air, tears beginning to trickle down her ashen cheeks, and she wailed, “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t!”

“But you were with him that night, weren’t you?” Landry insisted. “It was you in his car, you the motel manager spotted. I showed him your photo, Anne. What do you suppose he said?”

She looked up at him finally, stricken, guilt written so clearly on her face that it might as well have been in indelible ink. Her voice shaking, hardly more than a whisper, she said, “I was with him. All right, I was—was with him. But I
didn’t kill him!”

Laura drew a breath, her gaze going immediately to Kerry. But Peter’s widow was utterly calm, showing no reaction as she looked across the coffee table at Anne. And it was in that moment that Laura suddenly felt like an intruder. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be listening to this—

There was some thought in her mind of just slipping out of the room, of leaving this family to their pain, but before she could move, she felt Daniel’s hand lock around her wrist. She started in surprise and looked at him quickly, only to find him gazing at Anne with as little expression as Kerry showed. No one else would have noticed him holding her wrist, since the back of the sofa hid it, and Laura didn’t want to draw attention by struggling with him.

At least, that’s what she told herself. What she knew was that his grip, though painless, was as unbreakable as if it had been made of iron.

Amelia’s voice fell like chunks of ice into the sudden silence. “Do you mean to tell me that you were having sex with your cousin? Your married cousin?”

A hectic flush of sheer humiliation brightly colored Anne’s pale cheeks, and she sent Amelia a look that was part resentment and part shame. “I didn’t rape him, for
God’s sake! I didn’t even seduce him. Why can’t you blame
him
for it, Amelia? He made the first move, saying forbidden fruit tasted sweeter. Why can’t you—”

“Peter is dead, Anne,” Amelia reminded her, still icy. “Whatever sins he may have committed appear to have caught up with him.”

Landry spoke then, his tone as dispassionate as hers was disgusted. “How long had the affair been going on, Anne?”

“It wasn’t an
affair.”
She was eager now as she looked up at him, anxious to deny the importance of her being with Peter that night. “It was only the second time, I swear it was. And he was alive when I left the motel at eleven-thirty. He’d just taken a shower and—and the cab driver must have seen him, because he went to the door when I left and he was only wearing a towel—”

Breaking into the breathless account, Landry asked, “Did you call for the cab?”

She nodded. “I don’t remember which company, but it was the first one listed in the Yellow Pages. But the driver must have seen Peter, must have seen him standing there alive when I left—”

“All right, Anne. I’ll check out your story.” From his voice, it was impossible to tell whether or not Landry believed her. He glanced at the silent tableau around him, then added politely, “In the meantime, I think I’ve delayed your dinner long enough. I’ll see myself out.”

As he walked past Alex, the lawyer said dryly, “Come again sometime when you have another little bomb to drop on us.”

Landry’s only response to that was to say “Good evening” to the room at large and then walk out of it. Nobody moved or spoke until they all heard the front door open and close a moment or so later. And the first to speak was, oddly enough, Madeline.

“Well,” she said, “that was certainly … unpleasant.” She was not looking at Anne.

“I call it nauseating,” Amelia said roundly, her gaze practically skewering Anne to the sofa. “How you could do such a thing—”

Anne squirmed visibly, obviously without an answer that would have satisfied her grandmother.

“I’ve got to know,” Alex drawled. “Why the wig?”

“Why not?” Anne demanded belligerently. “It was a good disguise and—and it was exciting. And Peter likes—liked—redheads.”

“Dear God,” Josie murmured not quite under her breath.

Scrambling to her feet, Anne said, “You’re all staring at me as if I were a—a—”

“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” Alex murmured.

She glared at him, then the others. “You don’t understand. None of you understand how it was. Peter made me feel—”

“Spare us the details, if you please,” Amelia requested frigidly. “If you can’t find an ounce of proper shame, at least have the consideration not to offend the rest of us—particularly Peter’s mother and his widow.”

Laura watched Anne realize just how indefensible her position was, watched it sink in to her that there was not a person in the room sympathetic to her. That it came as a shock to her was some indication of just how self-centered she actually was.

With a choked little cry, Anne dropped her heavy glass to shatter on the marble hearth and ran from the room, the sounds of her clunky boots thudding on the stairs gradually fading to silence.

“I’ll get a broom,” Josie said, rising.

“No, leave it.” Amelia got up as well, leaning on her
cane a bit more than she had earlier. “We’ll go in to dinner now.”

Laura doubted that anyone had an appetite, but she wasn’t at all surprised to see the other members of the family move obediently to follow Amelia’s lead. Except Daniel. He didn’t move, and he didn’t release Laura’s wrist. They both stood there behind the sofa nearest the windows and watched the others leave the room behind Amelia, and only Alex sent them a curious glance before following the rest out.

“Why didn’t you let me leave?” Laura asked Daniel. “Before, when I wanted to, why didn’t you let me leave?”

He looked at her, and his face tightened slightly. “You want to know who killed Peter, don’t you, Laura? Then you can’t leave. You can’t run away from any of this.”

He still hadn’t released her wrist, and Laura didn’t try to pull away. She just stood there and looked up at him. “Did you think it was Anne? Is she the one you suspected?”

Daniel hesitated, then said, “I knew she was involved with him.”

“And knew she was capable of murder?”

“It was possible. As I said, suspicion isn’t proof.”

Laura felt his hand slide down over hers, his fingers twine with hers, and she tried to concentrate on what she thought she saw in his face. “But you aren’t very relieved to know she’s probably in the clear—or will be if that cab driver remembers her. Why not?”

“Because it isn’t over.” He squeezed her hand gently, then released it. “Go on with the others, Laura. When Amelia asks, tell her I stayed behind to clear up the broken glass.”

“Daniel—”

“Go on.”

After a moment she obeyed, hesitating at the doorway long enough to look back and find him watching her with
the same expression he’d worn in the maze when he had waited for her to give him her hand. Patience. Infinite patience.

Not at all sure why that unnerved her so much, Laura hurried out of the room and after the others, hoping to catch up before Amelia even realized that two had lagged behind.

Y
ET ANOTHER STORM
rolled through just after midnight, waking Laura from a restless sleep, and she got out of bed to go to the window and watch. The window was at the back of the house and overlooked the gardens, and Laura had noticed earlier that there were numerous lights out there illuminating the paths as well as some of the shrubs and trees. They lent the gardens an eerie appearance as rain sheeted down and the wind yanked the trees back and forth viciously. Shadows leaped and crawled like living things, seeming to jerk and tremble in terror when the thunder boomed and lightning flashed.

Laura had always enjoyed watching storms even if she hated driving in them, so she leaned against the window casing and watched, absently rubbing her left arm to soothe the ache. She didn’t expect the storm to last long, and within minutes the rain had slacked off to a hesitant drizzle and the wind died to a fitful breeze. Thunder still rumbled distantly, and there was an occasional streak of lightning across the dark sky, but it was apparent that the storm had spent most of its fury.