See Also Deception (28 page)

“The investigators?”

“Yes, Pete and Duke, once he gets here. It's been eventful, as you can figure it would be. I don't mean any disrespect, Mr. Tutweiler. Just asking questions, that's all.”

“Professor. It's Professor Tutweiler.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. The division between academia and the rest of the world always felt like a splinter that was stuck too deep to pull out with your fingers.

“Sorry about that, Professor,” Guy said. “I didn't mean nothin' by it.”

“I know you didn't.” Claude stared at Guy for a long second, then nodded. “I suppose Mrs. Henrikson across the street might've seen me drop off Nina. She's the one that called my office and said there was someone at the house and that the police were here. We've had some trouble recently. Everybody on the street is looking out for each other.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“First, someone slashed the tires on Nina's car. Once we got that fixed, they broke the windshield and dented the fender, either with a baseball bat or a sledgehammer. We have two cats, and one of them has run off, but Nina was convinced that someone did something to it. It's been one thing after another.”

“Did you report this to the local police?” Guy was completely focused on Claude now.

I had seen the damage done to Nina's Cadillac, used it to give me confidence about the patterns I was seeing, so I knew he was telling the truth, at least about the damage—although maybe not how it had happened. I was surprised when Claude buried his face in his palms and shook his head.

“You had all of these things happen and you didn't report them?” Guy demanded. He was confused and perplexed.

“No, we didn't call the police.”

“Why? Did you know who was doing them?”

“I don't know,” Claude Tutweiler looked up. “Maybe. I think so. Yes, I think so.”

CHAPTER 46

More sirens. More footsteps into the house. But Guy had not changed his position guarding the entrance—or exit, depending on how you looked at it—to the parlor. I felt trapped, like a grasshopper stuck inside a Mason jar. I wanted to leave, to jump away from the Tutweilers' as quick as I could. I'd had enough death in my life, and I wanted no more. And Hank was waiting for me. But I couldn't excuse myself, or find it in myself to flee. Not yet.

“You have to understand, officer, our lives are different. Were different,” Claude said.

“You can call me Guy.” He shifted his weight as he spoke. As he did, his unsnapped holster rubbed up against the door jamb. Guy was calm, unflappable. His height and uniform gave him all the authority he needed.

Claude looked at him, sizing him up like they were playing a game. It was obvious to us all that this was more than just a little afternoon chat.

“Nina was raised out East,” Claude continued. “Her childhood was lonely. Lonelier than I suppose any of us can image. Her parents were well-off, had an apartment in New York City and a summer house in Maine. She rarely saw either one of them. Nina spent most of her time at one all-girls boarding school or another, here and abroad. Literature, and more specifically, Shakespeare, became her great escape, her great passion. It was our bond.”

Claude Tutweiler had a mesmerizing voice, skilled after so many years of lecturing college students, I assumed. Before I knew it, I was hanging on every word, and I easily understood how a young Nina could have become smitten with him. He oozed charm, polish, and a worldly knowledge that I could only begin to comprehend.

Claude reached inside his blazer and took out a narrow pack of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his blue-striped Oxford shirt, which was unbuttoned at the top and without a tie. “Do you mind, Officer?” he asked Guy.

Guy flinched and shook his head. “Go ahead.”

Claude proceeded to light the cigarette, a Dunhill, a sophisticated Canadian brand that I rarely saw anyone in my own circles smoke. He took a deep draw and exhaled before he began to talk again, all the while ignoring what was happening in the dining room. There were murmurs of voices, scuffling of feet, the occasional flash from a camera, all mixed with the unrelenting rainstorm that was pounding down outside.

“We had a whirlwind romance. Met and married within a month. My parents were upset at first, until Nina won them over, of course. But her parents were glad to be rid of her, it seemed. Cold fish if I ever met any. I wondered how they ever produced a child, and I wasn't the least bit surprised when Nina told me she didn't want any children of her own. I was fine with that, since I was focused on my career, had high aspirations of my own that wouldn't allow for the normal sense of domesticity, but I suppose it would have changed things if we had had a child. Or it may have made our life worse. Who knows?” Claude shrugged and drew on the Dunhill again, looking wistfully at the ceiling, like it held all of the answers he had ever sought. “We were vagabonds, bouncing from one college to another, with me searching for the ever-elusive tenured position and the opportunity to publish. Which is how we ended up here, in this loneliest of the lonely places. Sorry,” he said, looking directly at me.

I didn't know what to say. I understood what he meant, but I was accustomed to the emptiness of the prairie. Craved it, actually. But I was raised in it, and I supposed that made things different for me. I couldn't imagine what North Dakota must be like for two world travelers.

Guy broke the brief moment of silence. “How does this have anything to do with the troubles you've had recently, Mr. Tutweiler?” He wasn't pushing, just interjecting, reminding the man that he was a policeman and this was an unusual circumstance. There had been no inference from Guy that he thought the suicide might have been staged, just like Calla's had been, or that he, Claude, was a possible suspect. We both knew more than Claude did—or we assumed so. Hoped so, really.

“Our lives are complicated, Officer,” Claude answered with a heavy sigh. “I'm not sure you would understand.”

“Try me,” Guy said.

A thunderclap erupted overhead, and it startled both Claude and I. Guy didn't move. He was staring straight at Claude, certain, I am sure, that he would miss something. A tell of some kind, a clue that he was lying, or that he was telling the truth; I wasn't sure which.

“I suppose it was all bound to come out sooner or later,” Claude said. He looked at me with a concerned look on his face. “This may be uncomfortable for you.”

I looked past him, at the door, feeling even more trapped, even more of a pull to return to Hank. “I don't want
you
to be uncomfortable,” I said.

Claude forced a smile and tapped the ash off his cigarette. I was afraid he had forgotten about it. “Too late for that. This nightmare refuses to end,” he said. “Nina and I have been married a long, long time and been through our ups and downs like any married couple, but her sense of isolation grew, especially after we moved here. But before that, really, almost from the start, she had an untouchable place in her heart that I couldn't access. We drank, we socialized, did all of the expected things that came with the academic life. She grew restless and disappeared into her books. I thought, mostly, that's where she went. I had my own path to navigate. And I grew restless, too, got bored, needed some excitement. The weight of her loneliness was oppressive. I had a couple of affairs. Flings, really. I don't expect you to understand, and certainly I am fair game for judgment, but after a while Nina found out, or I told her, and it just became an accepted, if unmentioned, way of our life. She was loath to get a divorce. She had nowhere to go, you see.” Claude looked up at Guy, who was hanging on every word just like I was. “It won't take much digging, even by the worst detective, to find out that I was cheating on my wife, Officer, and that I had just recently ended another sordid relationship. I can assure you that's not why she killed herself. I was open with her about my life, and she was open with me about hers. Well, as open as Nina could be.”

Guy didn't react in any way at all. His face was flat of emotion. He had always been a good listener. I liked that about him.

It was like a light went off in Guy's head at about the same time it did mine.

“Oh, so you think it was this person who smashed the windshield and took the cat?” Guy said. “They were angry because you ended things with 'em?”

“I have thought so all along,” Claude said. “But I couldn't prove anything, and neither could Nina. She had the same suspicions. It wasn't the first time a gal had taken the breakup poorly. The younger girls don't have the experience to handle such things. Heartbreak is hard for them, even though I try my best to let them down easy. If Nina ever had any complaint that she voiced openly, it was that my taste ran toward the doe-eyed first years who always thought I was more than I was. Desire is a powerful drug, Officer.” Claude took a final draw on the Dunhill and ground it out in the ashtray.

I shifted uncomfortably on the settee. Something Claude said sounded familiar. My hand reached over to my purse, grazed the top of it, and came to a stop. I was after the letter. I wanted to check it for a reference, a pattern:
First year
.

I pulled my hand back, as my mind raced through its collection of self-made indexes and lists, searching for more connections to what Claude was saying.

Claude's hypnotic voice broke my train of thought. “Nina was upset after the breakup, then afraid after Calla died. More afraid than I'd ever seen her. She was convinced that the librarian had been murdered from the start.”

I nodded my head.

“Marjorie?” Guy said. “You knew this?”

“Yes,” I said. “You know I thought the same thing. I ran into Nina as she was exiting the courthouse after talking with a deputy. I'm guessing that was you. You didn't believe her any more than you believed me.”

Guy stiffened, stood even taller. It was easy to see how he had been naturally built for the sport of basketball. I imagined him touching the clouds when he jumped for the ball. “It was an ongoing investigation, Marjorie. We couldn't tell everyone what we knew. Duke was afraid Herbert'd run off and that would be that. He was our main suspect from the very beginning. The watch was a big giveaway. We just needed time to get the details right. I couldn't go blabbin' everything I knew to you.”

I stared at Guy, annoyed all over again, then turned my attention back to Claude. “She saw the same thing I had, that the bullet was in the wrong place, but I sensed she wanted to tell me more than that but couldn't find it in herself to do so.”

“Nina was incredibly private,” Claude said.

“I didn't even know of her or of her friendship with Calla until after Calla was dead. I talked to Calla, or saw her, a couple of times a week, and she never mentioned Nina. All she ever said was that I shouldn't avoid the college types, there were some nice ones there that would welcome me. She'd see to it.”

“They wanted it that way. What they had together belonged only to them. I think they had a secret way of communicating that even I didn't know about.” Claude lowered his face into the palms of his hands and began to weep.

Guy and I said nothing. Work continued in the dining room and the storm pushed past outside, but I was so focused on Claude that I barely noticed.

After a long moment, Claude looked up at Guy. “I'm sorry; I can't believe she's dead. She was always so afraid someone would find out. Not for her sake, but for Calla's. There's twice as many churches in this town as there are taverns, for Christ's sake. It would have been a scandal that none us of could have weathered, and I'm as close to tenure as I've ever been. She didn't want to damage that, we'd both worked hard for it, but she was so lonely she couldn't help herself. It wasn't the same for Nina as it was for me. Her love was forbidden, mine was just insatiable. I had no trouble coming to terms with my appetites, but Nina did.”

A blank look crossed Guy's face. He didn't understand what Claude had said, but I thought I did, if only because I had read a private letter between the two women. Deep inside, I was sure I was shocked. I had always believed that Herbert and Calla had a secret romance. Everybody had. But Herbert hadn't been the secret. Nina had been.

We both know
there is far more at stake than being disinherited, as our dearest Elizabeth was
, the opening line of the letter had said. Claude had validated it. And this, for me, tied it all together—
I must watch carefully now. Time is ticking. This first year seems different. It will pass, too.
Like Claude said, Nina feared being discovered, felt the pressure of it, that it was close.

I wanted nothing more than to read the letter again to make sure I remembered everything in it correctly, but I couldn't share it. Not now, if ever.

I looked at Claude closer. He had been a mess when he'd walked in the front door. His hair and clothes were all out of kilter. He'd looked hurried, thrown together, not his buttoned-up, proper self. It was like the phone call had interrupted him . . . I had assumed he'd been telling the truth about the papers he'd needed to take care of, but that was most likely not the case. He had been with someone.

“Will it be embarrassing for you to have someone vouch for your time after you left Nina here?” I couldn't keep myself from asking. I didn't think Guy knew what question to ask next.

Guy shot me a hard look that indicated I had crossed a line, but he didn't say anything. He let me have my way.

“Yes, actually. How did you know?” Claude said.

“The same first year?”

“No. Oh, God, no. I avoid her as much as I can, but she's there at every turn, it seems, with that daft smile on her face, like she's waiting for just the right opportunity to tell the world what she knows.”

I knew the answer to this question before I asked it, even though I didn't want to believe it. “She was at the funeral, wasn't she?”