Stork Raving Mad (24 page)

“Anything else?” he asked.

Kathy shook her head, and stood up to go.

“I have just a couple of questions,” he said. “Sit down, please,” he added when Kathy continued to stand as if poised for flight.

Kathy sat and composed her face into a friendly, helpful expression. Was she really that unworried or was she just a good actress? I felt a pang of anxiety and I wasn’t guilty of anything except barging in on the chief’s interrogation.

“What time did you learn about the proposed meeting about Mr. Soto’s dissertation?” the chief asked.

“When Meg and Michael called me,” she said. “I don’t remember the time.”

“Michael can tell you from his cell phone,” I said. “But I can tell you approximately. Right after Michael called Kathy, I called my brother for some help.” I pulled out my cell phone, scrolled down the list of calls I’d made that day, and showed the chief the one to Rob at 11:55 a.m. He nodded and jotted the time down in his notebook.

“Thank you,” he said, nodding to me. “And what time did you arrive here at the house, Ms. Borgstrom?”

“I don’t know exactly,” Kathy said.

“Approximately, then.”

Kathy frowned in concentration.

“About 1:30?” she said. “I guess. Do you remember, Meg?”

My turn to concentrate.

“I don’t really know what time it was when she came to the door,” I said to the chief. “But it was shortly after you finished questioning me. Just before I took my nap. About the time you had your officers take the witnesses out to the barn so Horace could examine the kitchen. Although—”

“Yes, that’s right!” Kathy beamed as if I’d passed a difficult test. “I remember I went out to the barn to see Abe and everyone was just settling down there.”

I glanced at the chief, wondering if I should bring up the curious gap between when Michael and I had talked to Kathy and when she actually arrived at the house. Probably not. Maybe he’d already noticed, and if he hadn’t, he’d probably rather I not bring it up in front of Kathy.

“I see,” the chief said. “Then would you mind explaining how you managed to park your car so it’s blocked in by Mrs. Langslow’s?”

“Mrs. Langslow?” Kathy shot a puzzled look at me.

“My mother,” I said. “She came out to decorate the nursery.”

“And entered the house at 12:15, some time before Meg discovered the body,” the chief said. “We know the precise time because Mrs. Langslow noted it in her Day-Timer to keep track of the hours her contractor worked on the decorating project. According to Mrs. Langslow, she has been either in the nursery supervising the decorations or in the barn helping with the
refreshments all day and did not move the car at any time. Given the position of your car, right up against the barn with a tree on one side and shrubbery on the other, you couldn’t have driven it in or out any other way. So, Ms. Borgstrom, if you arrived at 1:30 would you care to tell me how you happened to be blocked in by a car that had been here since 12:15?”

Kathy stared openmouthed at the chief for a few seconds, then burst into tears. Without taking his eyes off her, Chief Burke reached behind him, took a tissue from the box at the back of the desk, and handed it to her. Kathy swiped at her eyes and blew her nose.

“I knew you’d suspect me,” she said. She was still sobbing intermittently. “She was so awful to me and she was trying to get me fired, and when I heard what she was trying to do to Ramon, I decided to confront her. Just as I told you.”

“With the contents of this folder?” the chief said.

“Yes,” Kathy said. “Before the meeting with Abe, and Art, and Michael. I told you that.”

“And what happened when you attempted to blackmail her?” the chief asked.

“It wasn’t blackmail,” she said. “And nothing happened. I didn’t get to talk to her.”

“And if I said that you were seen entering the sunporch?” the chief said. “The students who smoke spent quite a lot of time in the backyard, with a good view of the sunporch.” I noticed that he didn’t actually say any of them had seen her.

“Yes, I went into the sunporch and I looked into the library
through the French doors,” Kathy said. “But I could see it was no use going in.”

“Why not?” the chief said.

Kathy closed her eyes and scrunched up her mouth as if making an effort to get words out. Or keep them in; I wasn’t sure which.

“Because there’s no use talking to a dead woman!” she said finally.

“How did you know she was dead?” the chief asked, glancing at me. “Meg assumed she was merely sleeping.”

“Meg didn’t see that man hit her over the head with the rhinoceros statue,” Kathy exclaimed.

“Hippopotamus,” I muttered.

“What man?” the chief asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Not one of our drama students. He was Asian, tall, wearing glasses and jeans and a black T-shirt.”

I winced. We had several other Asian students in the house, but the only one who wasn’t a drama student was Danny Oh.

“And you didn’t report this because . . .” the chief asked.

“Because it would be my word against his, and everyone knew how much I hated her. And then I realized that the longer I didn’t report it the more suspicious I would be, and I figured you’d catch him somehow.”

“Was he wearing gloves?” the chief asked.

“No,” she said. “Mittens. Fluffy pink mittens.”

“Oh my God,” I said, causing them both to turn in my direction. “They’re probably my mittens. I keep them in the front hall.”

“Did you notice them missing?” the chief asked.

“No, but I wouldn’t,” I said. “I never wear them. They were a present from an aunt who must think I’m still in grade school. When the students arrived, I left them in one of the baskets in the front hall in the hopes that someone who didn’t have gloves would borrow them and forget to bring them back. I wasn’t expecting the borrower to be a murderer.”

“Attempted murderer, I think,” the chief said, almost absently. “After all, we know that the blow to her head was not what killed Dr. Wright.”

“We do?” Kathy said.

“Yes,” the chief said. “The wound made by the statue didn’t bleed, indicating that Dr. Wright was already dead when it was made.”

“But who would hit a dead woman over the head like that?” Kathy asked.

“Someone who didn’t realize she was dead,” I said. “Someone who thought she was just asleep, the way I did when I first found the body.”

“Then if the man who hit her didn’t kill her, who did?” Kathy said. “And how?”

“We have reason to believe that she was injected with a fatal overdose of her own insulin,” the chief said.

“Oh.” I could see Kathy digesting this. She glanced up at me, but to my relief, it wasn’t a reproachful glance. “I can see why you’re arresting me, then,” she said finally.

The chief sighed.

“I’m not arresting anyone yet,” he said, “since we don’t technically
know the cause of death. Dr. Langslow’s pretty sure it’s insulin overdose, and I have every confidence that he’s right. But a judge is going to want to see a toxicology report, and we don’t have that tonight. So for now, you’re free to go. Don’t leave town, though.”

“And you might want to find a defense attorney, just in case,” I said, reaching for my notebook. “I can give you some names.”

“Thanks,” Kathy said. She accepted the slip of paper I offered, tucked it into her purse, and stood up.

“You’re absolutely sure you didn’t tell anyone else about Dr. Wright’s diabetes?” the chief asked.

“I wish,” Kathy said. “I wish I could tell you that I announced it at the last cast party and posted it on the department Face-book page, but I didn’t.”

“If you find anything that indicates someone else does know, let me know immediately,” the chief said.

Kathy nodded and left.

The chief and I sat in silence as her footsteps disappeared down the hall.

“Seems like a nice lady,” he said at last.

“She is,” I said.

“I notice you’re not hurrying to assure me that she couldn’t possibly have done it.”

I sighed.

“She cares so much about the department,” I said. “About her boss and the rest of the faculty and all the students.”

“I don’t go into a murder investigation looking for a villain,” the chief said. “All too often, the killer is someone who cares a
little too much about something and gets carried away when that something is threatened. So you think she’s the killer.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I certainly hope not. And I can’t tell you how glad I am that it’s your job, not mine, to figure that out.”

“Though you have been rather busy sending me suspects and witnesses.” Was that a hint of a chuckle in his voice?

“Can I help it if people keep confessing things to me, or to each other when I’m within earshot?”

“No,” he said. Yes, there was definitely amusement in his voice. “I appreciate your promptness in bringing all these bits of information to me instead of running wild trying to solve the case yourself. Which reminds me.” He stood up, walked over to the door, and stuck his head out into the hall. “Sammy!”

A few seconds later, Sammy entered, accompanied by Horace.

“Sammy, could you go and get—what’s wrong?”

I glanced up. Sammy looked so morose that I immediately wondered if Hawkeye had taken a turn for the worse. Rocky and Bullwinkle, apparently already animal lovers in the womb, squirmed with anxiety.

“Sammy?” The chief’s voice was suddenly gentler. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re never going to catch the jerk who hit Hawkeye, are we?” Sammy said. “He’s going to get away with it.”

“We’ll catch him,” the chief said. “Debbie Anne’s got that list of possible vehicles down at the station. There’s only about thirty of them. I know you’re disappointed that we haven’t already caught him, but you understand the murder investigation has to take priority.”

Sammy nodded. I knew exactly how he felt. What a rotten break that the hit-and-run—which normally would have been the biggest case the Caerphilly police saw for weeks—had to happen on the same day as a murder. I felt a brief, irrational pang of resentment—against Dr. Wright or her killer, I wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.

“But in a day or so, we’ll be able to get to that list,” the chief went on. I noticed that he was reaching down to scratch behind Scout’s ear as he talked. “And I promise you, we will do everything we can to find the culprit.”

“Longer we wait, the harder the forensics will be,” Sammy said. “There could be—you know, trace evidence on the car right now. But what if he takes it to a car wash?”

“There’s no car wash on this planet that can get it so clean I can’t find something,” Horace said. “If there’s anything to be found, I’ll find it, if I have to go over the whole front end of every single suspect SUV with tweezers and cotton swabs.”

“You might find some DNA,” Sammy said. “But then what? The department doesn’t have money for DNA testing. Not on a dog.”

“We’ll find it somewhere,” the chief said.

“I could hit up my grandfather for a donation,” I said.

“You think he’d be interested?” Sammy asked.

“It’s an animal-welfare issue,” I said. “I’ll make him interested. He’d probably want to get some PR out of it. Issue a press release and have his picture taken with Hawkeye for the newspapers.”

“He’d be welcome to all the PR he can get if he helps us catch the hit-and-run driver,” the chief said.

“Thanks,” Sammy said. His voice sounded a little funny and he had to clear his throat before he could go on. “I really appreciate it. Everything.”

“Cheer up,” the chief said. “Now I’d like you to go and fetch me some witnesses. If it’s any comfort, thanks to some information Meg just brought me, we’re a lot closer to wrapping this up. And when we get the forensic results back, I think that will clinch it. I just need to talk to a couple of people again.”

“Yes, sir,” Sammy said. “Who do you need?”

“Mr. Soto, Mr. Oh, and the lovely Ms. Jones.”

“I’m on my way,” Sammy said, and vanished.

“Can you really use dog DNA to solve the hit-and-run?” the chief asked Horace.

“Sure,” Horace said. “They’re starting to do a lot of DNA on animals, for a lot of the same reasons they do on humans—to find out if they’re at risk for hereditary diseases, to verify paternity, and of course for legal cases, like figuring out which dog bit someone. Cost’s coming down, too, so it might not break the bank.”

“Still not something that would be easy to explain to the town council,” the chief said, glancing down at Scout.

“Understandable,” Horace said. “But if Dr. Blake won’t spring for it, we can pass the hat down at the station and take care of it.”

“Good,” the chief said. “Count me in for a double share. Speaking of forensic testing—”

“I’m on it,” Horace said, and vanished.

“And you’d probably like me to leave you alone with your witnesses,” I said. I straightened up, rubbed my aching back, and prepared for the effort of standing—challenging even though I was sitting on the ottoman instead of the dangerous comfy chairs.

The chief cleared his throat.

“Normally I would ask you to leave,” he said. “But under the circumstances, it would be helpful if you could stay. I’d like you to hear what they say when I confront them—see if it differs materially from what you overhead.”

“Right,” I said.

“But don’t you say anything,” he cautioned. He handed me a legal pad and a pen. “We’ll pretend I need you to take notes. If there’s anything you need to tell me during my interview with these three, write it down, then cough, and I’ll find a way to look at what you’ve written.”

“Got it,” I said. “You’re going to talk to them all together?”

“I’ve already talked to them individually,” he said. “And got nothing but lies, apparently. Let’s see what I can pry out by using your information and playing them against each other.”

I took the pad and pen and pulled my seat as far into the corner as possible.

“Sammy!” the chief called. “You can send them in.”

I watched silently as Ramon, Bronwyn, and Danny filed in.

“You can have a seat if you like,” the chief said.

All three students glanced quickly at the evil guest chairs.
Clearly they’d been in Michael’s office before and knew the danger.