In Self Defense (16 page)

“What with everything that’s been going on, I don’t think it’s so strange,” Erin responded.

“But the thing is,” Clare told her, “I haven’t heard from him.  I mean -- not at all.  Not since . . . well, you know, before Richard.  You don’t think that’s strange?”

“I think he’s a complex man, our stalker,” Erin said.  “And I think he’s playing a very complex game, with rules that only he understands.”

“You don’t think it could mean that he’s just -- gone?” Clare asked with a note of hope in her voice.

“From everything we know about him,” the detective replied, “I’m afraid he may just be . . . waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For things to calm down around here.  For family to leave, for other people to stop hovering around you.  For an opportunity to find you alone again, and even more vulnerable.”

“The funeral is tomorrow, and Richard’s family is leaving on Sunday,” Clare told her.  His parents had insisted on staying, and do their best to console her.  They were good people, but she could see, behind their kindness, in their eyes, that they blamed her, and would likely always blame her, for Richard’s death.

“Unfortunately, we aren’t going to be able to keep the stake-out going indefinitely,” Erin explained.  Indeed, her captain wanted to forget the whole thing completely, at least until the precinct got over the black eye it had earned.  They had already removed the surveillance equipment.

“We won’t be monitoring around the clock, but we’ll be keeping the tap on the telephone.  And if he makes any attempt to contact you again, call us immediately.”  The detective pulled out one of her cards and scribbled her cell phone number on the back of it.  “You can reach me at this number.  Anytime, day or night.”

“Thank you,” Clare murmured.  She didn’t bother to say, but assumed the detective knew, that the last thing she had been worried about during the past week was the stalker.

***

The funeral went off without incident.  The church, which comfortably held close to a thousand people, overflowed with mourners, and there wasn’t enough room for all the flowers.  It was necessary to reroute almost half of the arrangements to local hospitals and nursing homes prior to the service.

Clare didn’t know how it had all come together . . . the coffin . . . the funeral home . . . the viewing . . . the scheduling of the church and everything, but she suspected that Richard’s brother Jeffrey probably had a lot to do with it.  She didn’t ask.  She tried to remember the last time she had actually been to church, and couldn’t.

Likely, though, it was when her mother died.  She remembered the little clapboard church of her youth, a friendly, welcoming place in Ballard, where they held her mother’s service, and her father’s before that.  Not to mention her wedding.

This church was big and impersonal, built of rough stone and smooth marble.  Richard had insisted on it for the children’s christenings.  Everyone was kind enough, but it seemed more like a place of business than a house of worship.  Perhaps she felt disconnected because she didn’t regularly attend services.  Richard had never paid much more than lip service to religion, far preferring to play golf or go sailing on Sundays.

The ushers and pallbearers were all friends and employees, but Clare didn’t know how they got assembled.  She was escorted to the first pew, with Julie and Peter on either side of her.  Richard’s parents sat next to Julie, and his brother and sister and their families sat on the other side of her, next to Peter.  The pew was tall and straight and hard and unforgiving.  Perhaps intentionally, Clare thought.  She put her arms around her children and held them tight.

When every seat was filled, and everyone had settled down, and the minister was stepping up to the altar to begin the service, a woman slipped through the heavy outer doors and stood quietly at the back of the church.  She was tall and dressed in black, with a heavy black veil concealing her face.  No one paid much attention.  When the service ended, and everyone turned to leave, she was already gone.

The burial was private, intended to be just for family and a few close friends.  Blessedly, it didn’t rain, for which Clare was thankful, but the sun was cold on their backs, cold on the grave.  A figure dressed in black stood off to one side, behind a clump of bushes, not part of the official group.  Nobody noticed.

When the last shovel of dirt had been heaped upon the coffin, they were driven back to Laurelhurst where the caterer, who had already been working around the clock for a week, had laid out a feast.  Over five hundred mourners made their way to the house, moving through the downstairs rooms and around the lawns, eating, drinking, and speaking in hushed tones.

“I think we sent him off well,” Richard’s father said.  It was the third child that William and Emma Durant had buried, having lost one to leukemia and another to the Gulf War.  “I hope so, anyway.”

“Of course we did,” the minister, never one to pass up a good party, assured the old man.  “He’s with God now.”

“Grandma, do bad people go to Heaven?” Julie asked.

“Of course not, dear,” Emma Durant replied.  “Only good people go to Heaven.  Bad people go to Hell.”

“Well then, can good people do bad things?”

“Good people are good because they don’t do bad things,” her grandmother told her.  “Why do you ask?”

Julie shrugged.  “I was just wondering,” she said.

***

The house was quiet now.  Richard’s parents had finally gone back to Centralia, his brother to Bellingham, his sister to Ravenna, and it was just Clare and the children and Doreen, rattling around the big rooms.

“Are we going to stay here?” Julie wanted to know.             

“Do you want to stay here?” her mother asked.

“No,” Julie replied promptly.  “This place has too many rooms.  I’d rather live in a cozier house, a house like Aunt Elaine’s”

“I don’t want to live at Aunt Elaine’s,” Peter said in alarm.

“We’re not going to live there,” his mother told him.  “I think what Julie means is that she wants us to find a house that’s like Aunt Elaine’s.”

“Aunt Elaine’s roof leaks,” he argued.

“Then we’ll just have to fined a house with a roof that doesn’t leak,” Clare said.

“When?” he asked.

“Not right away, maybe, but soon,” his mother promised.

Much as she wanted to sell this house and move away from all it represented as quickly as possible, Clare was practical enough to know that people weren’t going to be in any great hurry to buy a high-ticket home to a murder.  It would take time, time for the story to die down, time for people to forget, time for the value of the place to return, time for the right buyer to show up.

The first step had already been taken.  The master bedroom had been restored.  The stained gray carpeting had been removed.  The holes from the bullets that had missed their mark had been repaired, the pale burgundy walls had been repainted, and the bedroom door had been replaced.  But Clare would never sleep there again.

                           
Seven

She was tall, with dark hair done in a fashionable fluff, and the kind of skin that didn’t require much, if any, makeup.  In person, she might have seemed a trifle too thin, her nose a shade too long, her mouth a bit too wide, but the cameras loved her, and were never far behind her, wherever she went.

Dusty Grissom didn’t have to read the society pages to know who she was.  Her name was Stephanie Burdick.  The great-granddaughter of a governor, the granddaughter of a senator, the daughter of a noted philanthropist, her family’s blood was as blue as it got around Seattle.  It was generally acknowledged that her lineage dated back to the first landing on Alki Point.  By the time she turned twenty-seven, she had already been publicly married and privately divorced twice.  When she walked into Police Headquarters on the first Monday in November, Dusty’s eyes nearly popped right out of his head.

              “I’d like to see the detectives in charge of the Richard Durant case,” she said, her voice soft and melodious.

Dusty and Erin escorted her into one of the interview rooms, took her coat, brought her coffee.  Rain pelted the windows, the kind of hard, driving rain that normally ushered in the month, but the socialite didn’t have a hair out of place.

“What can we do for you, Ms. Burdick?” Erin inquired politely.

“For obvious reasons, I don’t want to be involved, you understand,” Stephanie said, and the reluctance was evident in her voice.  “I thought I could just forget it, and it wouldn’t matter.  But foolishly or not, I find that I can’t forget it, and that it does matter.”

“What is it that matters?” Dusty asked.

The woman reached into her handbag and pulled out a small digital recorder.  “This is a telephone message that was left for me on the afternoon of the day that Richard Durant . . . died.”

She pushed the start button.  After a digital pronouncement of the time and date, corroborating her statement, a voice that, to Erin’s ears anyway, sounded a lot like she recalled Richard Durant’s voice sounding said, “
Hi darling.  I was right last night -- things did get wrapped up here sooner than expected.  So I’m on my way home.
 
I have to call Clare to let her know, but I’ll tell her I’m taking the late plane and won’t be home until around midnight.  Which, assuming this plane gets in on time, means I should get to your place by seven.  Can’t wait.  Miss you.  Love you.  See you soon
.”

The message ended and Stephanie Burdick pressed the stop button.  “I know you’ve ruled Richard’s death an accident,” she said.  “But I didn’t know if you had all the facts at the time.”

Erin let out a long breath.  “You and Richard Durant had a relationship?”

Stephanie nodded.  “For a little more than two years,” she replied, a bit of a catch in her voice.  “Few people knew.  We were very discreet.  We were planning to marry.”

“Durant was going to divorce his wife?” Dusty inquired.

Stephanie nodded.  “Yes.”             

“You’re sure this wasn’t just . . . well, just wishful thinking on your part?”

The socialite managed a bit of a smile at that.  “It wasn’t my idea, Detective,” she replied.  “It was Richard’s.  There would have been no reason for him to lead me on.  I was quite content with our relationship as it was.  As you may or may not already know, I haven’t exactly been a stellar success story in the marriage department.”

“May we keep this recording, Ms. Burdick?” Dusty asked, not sure why yet.

“Yes,” Stephanie replied, handing the machine over.  “Keep it as long as you like.”  She hesitated for a second or two.  “But then I’d like to have it back, if you don't mind” she added.  “And I’d appreciate if your people were careful with it.”

“Of course,” Erin murmured.  The woman wanted a keepsake.  They would do their best to make sure it was returned in the condition that it was received.

“I assume we can contact you, should it become necessary?” Dusty inquired.

The woman sighed.  “If you mean, will I make a formal statement or testify at a trial, if it comes to that -- the answer is yes.  I wouldn’t have come to you in the first place if I hadn’t been prepared for that.”  She stood up and turned to leave.  “Thank you for your time.  I trust you’ll do the right thing with this.”

“We’ll look into it,” Dusty assured her.

They watched her go.  Then they looked at each other. 

“What’s going on here?” Erin wondered, a baseball-sized rock beginning to form in the pit of her stomach.

“Maybe more than we thought,” Dusty replied.

“But it doesn’t make any sense.  The stalker is real.  We know he is.  We’ve got him on tape.  And we know he ran Clare off that road and almost killed her.”