Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride (4 page)

Fighting tears, she turned and followed the bailiff through the side door.

Back to jail.

“That will keep her locked away,” said Evelyn.

“A hundred thousand?” Chase shook his head. “It doesn’t seem out of reach.”

“Not for us, maybe. But for someone like her?” Evelyn snorted. The look of satisfaction on her flawlessly made-up face was not becoming. “No. No, I think Ms. Miranda Wood will be staying right where she belongs. Behind bars.”

“She hasn’t budged an inch,” said Lorne Tibbetts. “We’ve been questioning her for a week straight now and she sticks to that story like glue.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Evelyn. “Facts are facts. She can’t refute them.”

They were sitting outside, on Evelyn’s veranda. At mid-morning they’d been driven from the house by the heat; the sun streaming in the windows had turned the rooms into ovens. Chase had forgotten about these hot August days. In his memory, Maine was forever cool, forever immune to the miseries of summer. So much for childhood memories. He poured another glass of iced tea and handed the pitcher over to Tibbetts.

“So what do you think, Lorne?” asked Chase. “You have enough to convict?”

“Maybe. There are holes in the evidence.”

“What holes?” demanded Evelyn.

Chase thought,
my sister-in-law is back to her old self again. No more hysterics since that day at the police station.
She looked cool and in control, which is how he’d always remembered her from their childhood. Evelyn the ice queen.

“There’s the matter of the fingerprints,” said Tibbetts.

“What do you mean?” asked Chase. “Weren’t they on the knife?”

“That’s the problem. The knife handle was wiped clean. Now, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Here’s this crime of passion, see? She uses her own knife. Pure impulse. So why does she bother to wipe off the fingerprints?”

“She must be brighter than you think,” Evelyn said, sniffing. “She’s already got you confused.”

“Anyway, it doesn’t go along with an impulse killing.”

“What other problems do you have with the case?” asked Chase.

“The suspect herself. She’s a tough nut to crack.”

“Of course she is. She’s fighting for her life,” said Evelyn.

“She passed the polygraph.”

“She submitted to one?” asked Chase.

“She insisted on it. Not that it would’ve hurt her case if she flunked. It’s not admissible evidence.”

“So why should it change
your
mind?” asked Evelyn.

“It doesn’t. It just bothers me.”

Chase stared off toward the sea. He, too, was bothered. Not by the facts, but by his own instincts.

Logic, evidence, told him that Miranda Wood was the killer. Why did he have such a hard time believing it?

The doubts had started a week ago, in that police station hallway. He’d watched the whole interrogation. He’d heard her denials, her lame explanations. He hadn’t been swayed. But when they’d come face-to-face in the hall, and she’d looked him straight in the eye, he’d felt the first stirrings of doubt. Would a murderess meet his gaze so unflinchingly? Would she face an accuser with such bald courage? Even when Evelyn had appeared, Miranda hadn’t ducked for cover. Instead, she’d said the unexpected.
He loved you. I want you to know that.
Of all the things a murderess might have said, that was the most startling. It was an act of kindness, an honest attempt to comfort the widow. It earned her no points, no stars in court. She could simply have walked past, ignoring Evelyn, leaving her to her grief. Instead, Miranda had reached out in pity to the other woman.

Chase did not understand it.

“There’s no question but that the weight of the evidence is against her,” said Tibbetts. “Obviously, that’s what the judge thought. Just look at the bail he set. He knew she’d never come up with that kind of cash. So she won’t be walking out anytime soon. Unless she’s been hiding a rich uncle somewhere.”

“Hardly,” said Evelyn. “A woman like that could only come from the wrong side of the tracks.”

Wrong side of the tracks, thought Chase. Meaning poor. But not trash. He’d been able to see that through the one-way mirror. Trash was cheap, easily bent, easily bought. Miranda Wood was none of those.

A car marked Shepherd’s Island Police pulled up in the driveway.

Tibbetts sighed. “Geez, they just won’t leave me alone. Even on my day off.”

Ellis Snipe, spindly in his cop’s uniform, climbed out. His boots crunched toward them across the gravel. “Hey, Lorne,” he called up to the veranda. “I figured you was here.”

“It’s Saturday, Ellis.”

“Yeah, I know. But we sort of got us a problem.”

“If it’s that washroom again, just call the plumber. I’ll okay the work order.”

“No, it’s that—” Ellis glanced uneasily at Evelyn. “It’s that Miranda Wood woman.”

Tibbetts rose to his feet and went over to the veranda railing. “What about her?”

“You know that hundred thousand bail they set?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, someone paid it.”

“What?”

“Someone’s paid it. We just got the order to release her.”

There was a long silence on the veranda. Then, in a low voice laced with venom, Evelyn said, “
Who
paid it?”

“Dunno,” said Ellis. “Court says it was anonymous. Came through some Boston lawyer. So what do we do, huh, Lorne?”

Tibbetts let out a deep breath. He rubbed his neck, shifted his weight back and forth a few times. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Evelyn.”

“Lorne, you can’t do this!” she cried.

“I don’t have a choice.” He turned back to the other cop. “You got the court order, Ellis. Let her walk.”

“I don’t understand,” said Miranda, staring in bewilderment at her attorney. “Who would do this for me?”

“A friend, obviously,” was Randall Pelham’s dry response. “A very
good
friend.”

“But I don’t have any friends with that kind of money. No one with a hundred thousand to spare.”

“Well, someone’s putting up the bail. My advice is, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“If I just knew who it was—”

“It’s been handled through some Boston attorney who says his client wishes to stay anonymous.”

“Why?”

“Maybe the donor’s embarrassed.”

To be helping a murderess,
she thought.

“It’s his—or her—right to remain anonymous. I say, take it. The alternative is to stay in jail. Not exactly the most comfortable spot to be in.”

She let out a deep breath. “No, it isn’t.” In fact, it had been horribly bleak in that cell. She’d spent the past week staring at the window, longing for the simple pleasure of a walk by the sea. Or a decent meal. Or just the warmth of the sunshine on her face. Now it was all within reach.

“I wish I knew who to thank,” she said softly.

“Not possible, Miranda. I say, just accept the favor.” He snapped his briefcase shut.

Suddenly he irritated her, this kid barely out of braces, so smart and snazzy in his gray suit. Randall Pelham, Esquire.

“The arrangements are made. You can leave this afternoon. Will you be staying at your house?”

She paused, shuddering at the memory of Richard’s body in her bed. The house had since been cleaned, courtesy of a housekeeping service. Her neighbor Mr. Lanzo had arranged it all, had told her the place looked fine now. It would be as if nothing had happened in that bedroom. There would be no signs of violence at all.

Except in her memory.

But where else could she go?

She nodded. “I—I suppose I’ll go home.”

“You know the drill, right? Don’t leave the county. Bass Harbor’s as far as you can go. Stay in touch at all times. And don’t, I repeat don’t, go around discussing the case. My job’s tough enough as it is.”

“And we wouldn’t want to tax your abilities, would we?” she said under her breath.

He didn’t seem to hear the comment. Or maybe he was ignoring her. He strode out of the cell, then turned to gaze at her. “We can still try a plea bargain.”

She looked him in the eye. “No.”

“That way we could limit the damage. You could walk out of here in ten years instead of twenty-five.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

For a moment Pelham returned her gaze. With a shrug of impatience, he turned. “Plea bargain,” he said. “That’s my advice. Think about it.”

She
did
think about it, all afternoon as she sat in that stark cell waiting for the release papers.

But as soon as she stepped out of the building and walked, as a free woman, into the sunshine, all thoughts of trading away even ten years of her life seemed unimaginable. She stood there on the sidewalk, gazing up at the sky, inhaling the sweetest air she’d ever breathed in her life.

She decided to walk the mile to her house.

By the time she came within sight of her front yard, her cheeks were flushed, her muscles pleasantly tired. The house looked the same as it always had, shingled cottage, trim lawn—which someone had obviously watered in her absence—brick walkway, a hedge of hydrangea bushes sprouting fluffy white clouds of flowers. Not a large house, but it was hers.

She started up the walkway.

Only when she’d mounted the porch steps did she see the vicious words someone had soaped on her front window. She halted, stung by the cruelty of the message.

Killer.

In sudden fury she swiped at the glass with her sleeve. The accusing words dissolved into soapy streaks. Who could have written such a horrible thing? Surely none of her neighbors. Kids. Yes, that’s who it must have been. A bunch of punks. Or summer people.

As if that made it easier to dismiss. No one much cared what the summer people thought. The ones who lived on the island year round—those were the ones whose opinions counted. The ones you had to face every day.

She paused at the front door, almost afraid to go in. At last she reached for the knob and entered.

Inside, to her relief, everything seemed orderly, just the way things should be. A bill, made out by the Conscientious Cleaners Company, lay on the end table. “Complete cleaning,” read the work order. “Special attention to the master bedroom. Remove stains.” The work order was signed by her neighbor, Mr. Lanzo, bless him. Slowly she made a tour of inspection. She glanced in the kitchen, the bathroom, the spare bedroom. Her bedroom she left for last, because it was the most painful to confront. She stood in the doorway, taking in the neatly made bed, the waxed floor, the spotless area rug. No signs of murder, no signs of death. Just a sunny bedroom with plain farmhouse furniture. She stood there, taking it all in, not budging even when the phone rang in the living room. After a while the ringing stopped.

She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It seemed like a bad dream now, what she’d seen here. She thought,
If I just concentrate hard enough, I’ll wake up. I’ll find it was a nightmare.
Then she stared down at the floor and saw, by the foot of the bed, a brown stain in the oak planks.

At once she rose and left the room.

She walked into the living room just as the phone rang again. Automatically she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one!”

Miranda dropped the receiver. In horror she backed away, staring at the dangling earpiece. The caller was laughing now. She could hear the giggles, cruel and childlike, emanating from the receiver. She scrambled forward, grabbed the earpiece and slammed it down on the cradle.

The phone rang again.

She picked it up.

“Lizzie Borden took an ax—”

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”

She hung up and again the phone rang.

This time she didn’t answer it. In tears, she ran out the kitchen door and into the garden. There she sank into a heap on the lawn. Birds chirped overhead. The smell of warm soil and flowers drifted sweetly in the afternoon. She buried her face in the grass and cried.

Inside, the phone kept on ringing.

Four

M
iranda stood alone and unnoticed outside the cemetery gates. Through the wrought-iron grillwork she could see the mourners grouped about the freshly dug grave. It was a large gathering, as befitted a respected member of the community.
Respected, perhaps,
she added to herself.
But was he beloved?
Did any among them, including his wife, truly love him?
I thought I did. Once….

The voice of Reverend Marriner was barely a murmur. Much was lost in the rustle of the lilac branches overhead. She strained to hear the words. “Loving husband…always be missed…cruel tragedy…Lord, forgive…”

Forgive.

She whispered the word, as though it were a prayer that could somehow pull her from the jaws of guilt. But who would forgive her?

Certainly not anyone in that gathering of mourners.

She recognized almost every face there. Among them were her neighbors, her colleagues from the newspaper, her friends.
Make that former friends,
she thought with bitterness. Then there were those too lofty to have made her acquaintance, the ones who moved in social circles to which Miranda had never gained entrance.

She saw the grim but dry-eyed Noah DeBolt, Evelyn’s father. There was Forrest Mayhew, president of the local bank, attired in his regulation gray suit and tie. In a category all to herself was Miss Lila St. John, the local flower and garden nut, looking freeze-dried at the eternal age of seventy-four. And then, of course, there were the Tremains. They formed a tragic tableau, poised beside the open grave. Evelyn stood between her son and Chase Tremain, as though she needed both men to steady her. Her daughter, Cassie, stood apart, almost defiantly so. Her flowered peach dress was in shocking contrast to the background of grays and blacks.

Yes, Miranda knew them all. And they knew her.

By all rights she should be standing there with them. She had once been Richard’s friend; she owed it to him to say goodbye. She should follow her heart, consequences be damned.

But she lacked the courage.

So she remained on the periphery, a lone and voiceless exile, watching as they laid to rest the man who had once been her lover.

She was still there when it was over, when the mourners began to depart in a slow and steady procession through the gates. She saw their startled glances, heard the gasps, the murmurs of “Look, it’s her.” She met their gazes calmly. To flee would have seemed an act of cowardice.
I may not be brave,
she thought,
but I am not a coward.
Most of them quickly passed by, averting their eyes. Only Miss Lila St. John returned Miranda’s gaze, and the look she gave her was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was merely thoughtful. For an instant Miranda thought she saw a flicker of a smile in those searching eyes, and then Miss St. John, too, moved on.

A sharp intake of breath made Miranda turn.

The Tremains had halted by the gate. Slowly Evelyn raised her hand and pointed it at Miranda. “You have no right,” she whispered. “No right to be here.”

“Mom, forget it,” said Phillip, tugging her arm. “Let’s just go home.”

“She doesn’t belong here.”

“Mom—”

“Get her away from here!”
Evelyn lunged toward Miranda, her hands poised to claw.

At once Chase stepped between the two women. He pulled Evelyn against him, trapping her hands in his. “Evelyn, don’t! I’ll take care of it, okay? I’ll talk to her. Just go home. Please.” He glanced at the twins. “Phillip, Cassie! Come on, take your mother home. I’ll be along later.”

The twins each took an arm and Evelyn allowed herself to be led away. But when they reached their car she turned and yelled, “Don’t let the bitch fool you, Chase! She’ll twist you around, the way she did Richard!”

Miranda stumbled back a step, physically reeling from the impact of those accusing words. She felt the gate against her back swing away, found herself grabbing at it for support. The cold wrought iron felt like the only solid thing she could cling to and she held on for dear life. The squeal of the gate hinges suddenly pierced her cloud of confusion. She found she was standing in a clump of daisies, that the others had gone, and that she and Chase Tremain were the only people remaining in the cemetery.

He was watching her. He stood a few feet away, as though wary of approaching her. As though she was some sort of dangerous animal. She could see the suspicion in his dark eyes, the tension of his pose. How aristocratic he looked today, so remote, so untouchable in that charcoal suit. The jacket showed off to perfection his wide shoulders and narrow waist. Tailored, of course. A real Tremain wouldn’t consider any off-the-rack rag.

Still, she had trouble believing this man, with his Gypsy eyes and his jet black hair, was a Tremain.

For a year she had gazed up at those portraits in the newspaper building. They’d hung on the wall opposite her desk, five generations of Tremain men, all of them ruddy faced and blue eyed. Richard’s portrait, just as blue eyed, had fit right in. Hang a portrait of Chase Tremain on that same wall and it would look like a mistake.

“Why did you come here, Ms. Wood?” he asked.

She raised her chin. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s inappropriate, to say the least.”

“It’s very appropriate. I cared about him. We were—we were friends.”

“Friends?”
His voice rose in mocking disbelief. “Is that what you call it?”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know that you were more than friends. What shall we call your relationship, Ms. Wood? An affair? A romance?”

“Stop it.”

“A hot little tumble on the boss’s couch?”

“Stop it, damn you! It wasn’t like that!”

“No, of course not. You were just
friends.
”

“All right! All right….” She looked away, so he wouldn’t see her tears. Softly she said, “We were lovers.”

“At last. A word for it.”

“And friends. Most of all, friends. I wish to God it had stayed that way.”

“So do I. At least he’d still be alive.”

She stiffened. Turning back to him she said, “I didn’t kill him.”

He sighed. “Of course you didn’t.”

“He was already dead. I found him—”

“In your house. In your bed.”

“Yes. In my bed.”

“Look Ms. Wood. I’m not the judge and jury. Don’t waste your breath with me. I’m just here to tell you to stay away from the family. Evelyn’s gone though enough hell. She doesn’t need constant reminders. If we need to, we’ll get a restraining order to keep you away. One false move and you’ll be back in jail. Right where you belong.”

“You’re all alike,” she said. “You Tremains and DeBolts. All cut from the same fancy silk. Not like the rest of us, who can be shoved out of sight. Right where we belong.”

“It’s not a matter of which cloth we’re cut from. It’s a matter of cold-blooded murder.” He took a step toward her. She didn’t move. She couldn’t; her back was against the gate. “What happened, exactly?” he said, moving closer.

“Did Richard break some sacred promise? Refuse to leave his wife? Or did he just come to his senses and decide he was walking out on you?”

“That’s not what happened.”

“So what did happen?”

“I walked out on
him!
”

Chase gazed down at her, skepticism shadowing every line of his face. “Why?”

“Because it was over. Because it was all wrong, everything between us. I wanted to get away. I’d already left the paper.”

“He fired you?”

“I quit. Look in the files, Mr. Tremain. You’ll find my letter of resignation. Dated two weeks ago. I was going to leave the island. Head somewhere I wouldn’t have to see him every day. Somewhere I wouldn’t be constantly reminded of what a disaster I’d made of things.”

“Where were you planning to go?”

“It didn’t matter. Just away.” She looked off, past the gravestones. Far beyond the cemetery lay the sea. She could catch glimpses of it through the trees. “I grew up just fifty miles from here. Right across the water. This bay is my home. I’ve always loved it. Yet all I could think about was getting away.”

She turned to look at him. “I was already free of him. Halfway back to happiness. Why should I kill Richard?”

“Why was he in your house?”

“He insisted on meeting me. I didn’t want to see him. So I left and went for a walk. When I came back, I found him.”

“Yes, I’ve heard your version. At least your story’s consistent.”

“It’s also the truth.”

“Truth, fiction.” He shrugged. “In your case it all blends together, doesn’t it?” Abruptly he turned and headed up the cemetery drive.

“What if it’s
all
truth?” she called after him.

“Stay away from the family, Ms. Wood!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Or I’ll have to call in Lorne Tibbetts.”

“Just for a moment, consider the possibility that I didn’t kill him! That someone else did!”

He was still walking away.

“Maybe it’s someone you know!” she shouted. “Think about it! Or do you already know and you want me to take the blame? Tell me, Mr. Tremain! Who
really
killed your brother?”

That brought Chase to a sudden halt. He knew he should keep walking. He knew it was a mistake to engage the woman in any more of this insane dialogue. It
was
insane. Or she was insane. Yet he couldn’t break away, not yet. What she’d just said had opened up too many frightening possibilities.

Slowly he turned to face her. She stood absolutely still, her gaze fixed on him. The afternoon sun washed her head with a coppery glow. All that beautiful hair seemed to overwhelm her face. She looked surprisingly fragile in that black dress, as though a strong gust might blow her away.

Was it possible? he wondered. Could this woman really have picked up a knife? Raised the blade over Richard’s body? Plunged it down with so much rage, so much strength, that the tip had pierced straight through to his spine?

Slowly he moved toward her. “If you didn’t kill him,” he said, “who did?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s a pretty disappointing answer.”

“He had enemies—”

“Angry enough to kill him?”

“He ran a newspaper. He knew things about certain people in this town. And he wasn’t afraid to print the truth.”

“Which people? What sort of scandal are we talking about?”

He saw her hesitate, wondered if she was dredging up some new lie.

“Richard was writing an article,” she said. “About a local developer named Tony Graffam. He runs a company called Stone Coast Trust. Richard said he had proof of fraud—”

“My brother had paid reporters on his staff. Why would he bother to do his own writing?”

“It was a personal crusade of his. He was set on ruining Stone Coast. He needed just one last piece of evidence. Then he was going to print.”

“And did he?”

“No. The article was supposed to appear two weeks ago. It never did.”

“Who stopped it?”

“I don’t know. You’d have to talk to Jill Vickery.”

“The managing editor?”

Miranda nodded. “She knew the article was in the works and she wasn’t crazy about the idea. Richard was the driving force behind the story. He was even willing to risk a libel suit. In fact, Tony Graffam has already threatened to sue.”

“So we have one convenient suspect. Tony Graffam. Anyone else?”

She hesitated. “Richard wasn’t a popular man.”

“Richard?”
He shook his head. “I doubt that. I was the brother with the popularity problem.”

“Two months ago he cut salaries at the
Herald.
Laid off a third of the staff.”

“Ah. So we have more suspects.”

“He hurt people. Families—”

“Including his own.”

“You don’t know how hard it is these days! How desperate people are for work. Oh, he talked a good story. About how sorry he was to be laying people off. How it hurt him just as much as it hurt everyone else. It was
garbage.
I heard him talking about it later, to his accountant. He said, ‘I cut the deadwood, just as you advised.’ Deadwood. Those employees had been with the
Herald
for years. Richard had the money. He could have carried the loss.”

“He was a businessman.”

“Right. That’s exactly what he was.” Her hair, tossed by the wind, was like flames dancing. She was a wild and blazing fire, full of anger at him, at Richard, at the Tremains.

“So we’ve added to the pool of suspects,” he said. “All those poor souls who lost their jobs. And their families. Why don’t we toss in Richard’s children? His father-in-law? His wife?”

“Yes! Why not Evelyn?”

Chase snorted in disgust. “You’re very good, you know that? All that smoke and mirrors. But you haven’t convinced me. I hope the jury is just as smart. I hope to hell they see through you and make you pay.”

She looked at him mutely, all the fire, all the spirit suddenly drained from her body.

“I’ve already paid,” she whispered. “I’ll pay for the rest of my life. Because I’m guilty. Not of killing him. I didn’t kill him.” She swallowed and looked away. He could no longer see her face, but he could hear the anguish in her voice. “I’m guilty of being stupid. And naive. Guilty of having faith in the wrong man. I really thought I loved your brother. But that was before I knew him. And then, when I did know him, I tried to walk away. I wanted to do it while we were still…friends.”

He saw her hand come up and stroke quickly across her face. It suddenly struck him how very brave she was. Not brazen, as he’d first thought upon seeing her today, but truly, heartbreakingly courageous.

She raised her head again, her gaze drawing level to his. The tears she’d tried to wipe away were still glistening on her lashes. He had a sudden, crazy yearning to touch her face, to wipe away the wetness of those tears. And with that yearning came another, just as insane, a man’s hunger to know the taste of her lips, the softness of her hair. At once he took a step back, as though retreating from some dangerous flame. He thought,
I can see why you fell for her, Richard. Under different circumstances I might have fallen for her myself.