In Plain Sight (22 page)

“You must have been very close.” Fishing, I admit it.

“Well, not close in terms of keeping in touch frequently,” she admitted, eying me as if she wondered if I already knew that. “Leslie was raised out in California, you know, and only recently moved here to the Midwest. But she was very dear to us, of course. Although my husband’s condition—he has Alzheimer’s, as you may know—precludes true awareness of the loss. How long were you her housekeeper?”

“Only a short time.”

“But you’re familiar with the interior of the house?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Could you tell me how many rooms there are? I drove out there, but you can’t see much from the road.”

I was startled by the unexpected eagerness of her interest in the house. “You’ve never been in it?”

“My husband is no longer able to travel, so we were unable to respond to Leslie’s invitations.”

I was doubtful about the invitations, and I didn’t know the exact number of rooms, but I named some of those I remembered. Living room, family room, the den Leslie used as an office, dining room, library, game room, exercise room, four bedrooms … or was it five?

“Is there a private bath with each bedroom?”

“Yes. Plus … ummm… a couple of other bathrooms.”

She nodded, pleased, it appeared. Perhaps she’d had a bathroom-deprived childhood.

“A garage, of course?”

“Yes. A four-car garage, I think it is, attached to the house. Very roomy.”

“But there’s only the one car?”

I found all these questions about the house and car and nothing about Leslie or her murder a bit off-putting. And the way Astrid Gallagher said “one car” sounded as if she’d hoped for more. “One car was all I ever saw.”

“But it is a Mercedes. Fairly new,” she said, and I suddenly suspected that Auntie Astrid here knew down to the buck how much a year-old Mercedes was worth. “Which the police have latched on to, of course,” she added, again sounding vexed.

“I imagine they have to look for fingerprints or other evidence.” I suddenly thought of a roundabout way to approach the key question without bluntly asking it. I smiled warmly. “I’m sure you’ll be very comfortable in the house.”

“Yes, I’m looking forward—” She broke off, nicely made-up eyes narrowing as if she realized she’d stepped in something. But she was too late. I’d found out what I wanted to know. Auntie Astrid fully expected the house to be hers.

She glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry to rush off, but I have another appointment this afternoon. I didn’t think talking to Sgt. Yates would take so long. Perhaps we can talk again.”

Until then I was still thinking I should offer her a place to stay, but the don’t-call-us, we’ll-call-you attitude took care of that. “It’s been nice meeting you,” I said instead. “And, again, I’m so sorry about Leslie.”

I watched her walk down the street and unlock the door on a dark green sedan. Her own or a rental? I couldn’t tell, of course. Neither could I tell the make or year of the car. My vehicle identification skills don’t go much beyond color and size. But I was fairly certain this was no more than an economy-priced model. Which, whether it was hers or a rental, suggested that Astrid Gallagher had to watch her pennies. Caring for a husband with Alzheimer’s could be a strain both financially and emotionally. A strain that might be eased with a hefty inheritance?

She pulled into the street. A pickup came up behind her. Impulsively I slid the T-bird in behind it and, keeping a discreet distance, followed the green sedan. I may be semi-invisible, but sometimes the classic old ’bird is uncomfortably noticeable.

She seemed to know where she was going. She parked on a side street. I slid to the curb several cars behind her. She got out and headed toward a one-story brick building with Samuels & Lightower, Attorneys-at-Law, written in heavy wrought iron across the front.

Was Astrid Gallagher wasting no time getting Uncle Walter’s claim to the estate in order? Or getting her legal ducks lined up in case Sgt. Yates made an outright accusation about her involvement in Leslie’s death?

I drove away thinking hard. The fact that Astrid Gallagher appeared to be a bit on the avaricious side, more interested in the size and details of an inheritance than in the niece’s murder, might say something uncomplimentary about her character. But it certainly didn’t mean she’d had anything to do with Leslie’s death. The idea was surely preposterous, I reminded myself. Even if she desperately needed the money and was willing to dispose of a niece whom I suspected she barely knew, it was, basically, a physical impossibility. I couldn’t have overpowered Leslie, and neither could Astrid.

At worst, she was surely nothing more than a genteel opportunist eager to latch on to an unexpected windfall.

Or was I again letting appearances deceive me?

Because even a sweet LOL in a polyester pantsuit might find a way to hire a hit man.

22

I was still pondering that thought when Hanson Watkins waved to me and motioned me into the driveway. He had the awning attached to his mother’s motor home open, apparently checking for holes in the canvas. I rolled down the window, and he walked over and leaned against the car door.

“That must have been quite a shock, discovering that dead woman over there across the lake,” he said. “I went back home for a few days and just heard about it.”

“It definitely turned off any desire to go swimming in the lake in the near future.”

We talked for a few minutes about Leslie and the murder, and then he gave the window frame of my car a little tap with his fist.

“This is one great old T-bird.” He glanced inside at the odometer and whistled. “Is that original miles?”

“Original miles” has always struck me as a peculiar phrase. There are, perhaps, old used miles? But I just nodded.

“Hey, why don’t you trade me for the motor home here? Straight-across deal. T-Bird for the motor home.”

“The motor home is surely worth more than this old car!”

“The motor home’s in great shape, all right. I’ve had everything checked out. Appliances, engine, generator. Good tires. And the awning’s solid too, as you can see. But I’ve discovered that there’s not a whole lot of demand for fifteen-year-old motor homes. At least not by anyone with cash.” He grimaced and stood back to admire the T-bird. “And this really is a fantastic old ’bird. It’s sure worth as much as the motor home. To me, anyway.”

An odd sales talk, I thought. I’m telling him his motor home is worth more than my T-bird; he’s telling me how great the ’bird is. Finally I just laughed.

“What would I do with a motor home?”

“What would I do with a T-bird?” he countered. “Drive around. Enjoy!”

“A motor home isn’t exactly a practical vehicle for trips to the supermarket.”

“True,” he agreed ruefully.

I waved as I backed out and pulled on down to the next driveway, which was ours. I stopped at the mailbox to pick up the usual junk. Bills, ads … postcard with a picture of a place called “The Mothball Museum of America.”
Mothball
Museum? Who would visit a place like that?

Only one person …

With a small tingle of anticipation I turned the card over and read the message in Mac MacPherson’s blocky printing only to be disappointed to find he wouldn’t be coming back this way after all. His daughter’s husband out in Montana had just broken his leg, and Mac was headed there to help out. He said he was sorry to miss Sandy’s gymnastics meet and was rooting for her.

I thought Sandy might be even more disappointed than I was. She’d enjoyed Mac and had made a special point of inviting him to the gymnastics meet. But it was like him, of course, to jump in and help with a family problem.

Sandy didn’t show much reaction when I handed her the postcard at the house, however. Not disappointment with the message, not even a smile at the museum with its oversized replica of a mothball on a pedestal outside a building that appeared to be constructed of mothball-shaped lumps.

“I’m sure he really wanted to come,” I said.

She shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”

Sandy, I realized, had been acting rather odd the past few days. Her mind didn’t seem to be on the food she was eating—or, more often, not eating—or the program she was looking at on TV. I had the feeling even her studies might be suffering. Skye also hadn’t been around much.

“Is something wrong, Sandy?”

“What could be wrong?” A question answered with a question. Not good.

“Did you and Skye have an argument or something?”

She looked unexpectedly alarmed. “No! Why do you ask that?”

“You’ve just seemed … oh, kind of preoccupied. And Skye hasn’t been around lately.”

“Umm. Yeah, well, you know. Finals coming up before long. And Skye is getting involved in more school activities and some stuff with her dad’s politics too.”

“Nervous about the gymnastics meet?”

“I told you. It’s no big deal.”

“C’mon, Sandy, this is Aunt Ivy,” I said reproachfully. The gymnastics meet had certainly been a “big deal” for some time now. “We’re roomies, remember?”

She gave me an unexpectedly wobbly smile. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just … Leslie Marcone was almost a neighbor, you know? And to think someone deliberately killed her and threw her body in the lake as if she were a … a piece of garbage or something. It makes something like a gymnastics meet seem … trivial.”

I put my arms around her. “Oh, sweetie, I know. It’s a terrible thing. But the police will catch him.” Or her, as the case may be.

“Then sometimes I think about those awful Braxtons who want to kill you, and that’s terrible too. Killing on TV isn’t like people you know getting killed. Or might get killed.”

I rubbed her back. “Are you scared? Don’t be scared. Whoever killed Leslie has nothing to do with us. And the Braxtons don’t even know where I am. They’ve probably given up the idea of doing anything to me by now.” I hesitated. “Would you rather go live with your folks in Hawaii right away instead of waiting till school is out?”

“Oh no, I want to finish the year here. And I don’t want you to be here all alone.”

“I will be later on anyway. I don’t mind.”

“You can come to Hawaii with me!”

“We’ll see.”

“It isn’t that I’m really scared,” she said, frowning now, as if she were trying to sort through her feelings. “It’s just that things … and people … don’t seem the same anymore. You don’t know who to trust.”

“God is still in control, just as he’s always been.”

“I know. But …” She stepped back and looked at me.

Looked
down
at me, I realized with a small shock at how she was growing. Her face was troubled. “Do they have any idea who killed Leslie?”

“I think there are a number of ‘persons of interest,’ as they’re sometimes called. People she used to work with, maybe some local people she had run-ins with. Maybe even an ex-husband and some out-of-state relatives.” Although 192 I had to admit those were my suspects, not necessarily Sgt. Yates’s. “I know they’re working hard on the case.”

The phone started ringing then, but I looked at Sandy anxiously before I went to answer it. I had the feeling she was still keeping something to herself. “Is there anything more than Leslie’s murder and the Braxtons coming after me that worries you? Talk to me if there is.”

She looked a little better now. She tilted her head to study me and then laughed. “Oh, Aunt Ivy, you’re one of a kind. You find a murdered body in a lake, and you have this gang of psychos after you, and it doesn’t even faze you. You worry about
me
.”

I was relieved to see her old spirit bubbling up again. “I don’t know that I’m exactly blasé about the murder or the Braxtons. But I don’t want you worrying.”

“I’ll try to be more like you.”

She kissed me on the cheek and ran up to her room then, taking the stairs two at a time, and I thought everything was okay. Which just shows how wrong I can be, I suppose.

I picked up the ringing phone. “Hello?”

“I’m trying to locate Ivy Malone. Is she available at this number?” An authoritative male voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar but I couldn’t quite identify. But
good
familiar or
bad
familiar? I wasn’t certain.

Warily, since Sandy had just brought the ongoing Braxton threat to my attention again, I said, “This is the Harrington residence. Who’s calling, please?”

“This is Jordan Kaine. Ivy and I worked together on a cemetery vandalism situation up in Missouri.” His tone was brisk and formal, in keeping with his before-retirement occupation. “I’m anxious to get in touch with her again.”

“Jordan!” I said, relieved.

“Ivy, is that you? Do you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you!” He’d taken me to a lovely dinner and had been very helpful with the cemetery vandalism problem. But then the same uneasy question that always came to mind here in Woodston instantly surfaced. “How did you know where to locate me?”

“I read a news story about a murder near Woodston, and an Ivy Malone was mentioned as the former employee who found the body.”

“You read this where?” I asked, alarmed at the thought that my name was being served up to the Braxtons with their morning coffee.

“The Little Rock newspaper. One of my daughters lives there, and I’ve been visiting for the past couple weeks. I’d earlier tried several times to get in touch with you on Madison Street, but you were never around. Which I eventually concluded had to do with that trial you were involved in.”

“There were threats before the trial. Making myself scarce seemed advisable.”

“Anyway, when I saw this, I decided I was going to check and see if that’s the Ivy I knew.”

I was flattered but still uneasy. The Braxtons probably didn’t read the Little Rock newspaper, but if my name was gracing its pages, where else had my name appeared? Another disturbing question: “How did you get my niece’s phone number?”

“I was on my way home to Missouri, and I decided it wouldn’t be much out of the way to come around by Woodston—”

“You’re right here in Woodston?”

“I drove in a couple of hours ago. I just started asking around town if anyone knew the lady who found the murdered woman’s body. They all knew of you in a general way, and in the third place where I asked there was a woman clerk who knew you through church and right away came up with the information that you were related to the Harringtons and living in their house. I hope you don’t mind.”