The Whole World (19 page)

I pressed again. “By giving up your name, you gave up your professional status. You had to start over. Why would you do that?”

She began to shiver. I was halfway to calling for an ambulance when I realised this was a fit of laughter. “She wouldn’t leave me alone! She followed me, she imitated me. Oh, oh …” She leaned forward, head over her knees.

So I’d been right about the nanny being a stalker.

“How did Gretchen feel about this?”

She grinned. “Oh, you seem to know everything.”

“Were you aware that Gretchen’s mother used your name?”

“I don’t care what other people do.”

“Were you aware that she—excuse me, what was her original name?” That was a puzzle piece I didn’t have.

She laughed again, a small, mean giggle. “That’s what she wanted to know.”

“Excuse me?”

“She wanted me to tell her that woman’s real name. I’ve forgotten. What was she to me? I’ve forgotten.”

“Gretchen? That’s what Gretchen was asking—her mother’s real name?”

“She got so angry when I didn’t tell her. Then when I explained I couldn’t remember—well, that got rid of her. She left.”

“When was this?”

She flapped a hand at me. “I don’t know. Three? Four?”

“Do you know where she was going?”

She rolled her eyes. All right, I got it—she wasn’t anyone’s keeper. I closed my notebook.

“We both left,” she told me. “She wasn’t stranded. She had a mobile. I saw her talking on it as I drove away. I assume she was calling a taxi.”

She’d called home. We found her phone near the scene. It had been thirty feet from the body. She’d been hit hard, and thrown far.

“There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “What about the box? The box of photographs. Gretchen had it. It had once belonged to this address, and had been reused to ship to Gretchen’s mother, when she and Gretchen lived in Brighton. They were your photographs. How did they get there?”

“I didn’t want them anymore.”

“You mailed them? You addressed them to ‘Linda Paul’?”

She didn’t say anything else. She closed her eyes.

Frohmann met me at Millington Road. I wanted to look around the house again with a fresh mind. Black clouds of fingerprint dust covered strategic stretches of wall, rails, doorknobs.

Frohmann reported the latest: “It was his car, for sure. Paint match. Tire match. No fingerprints in it except expected ones, and in all the expected places …” We had the appropriate elimination prints from the investigation of Nick’s disappearance.

“Steering wheel wasn’t wiped, then,” I clarified.

“That’s right. Must have worn gloves. Premeditated?”

“Or cold. It’s December.”

She continued: “The vehicle wasn’t cited for anything last night—no speeding tickets, no parking violations.”

I prowled the house, touching all the furniture. I’d had to hold back last night, for fingerprints’ sake. Now I could indulge in getting a feel for the place. Expensive. This was a well-kept house.

“What did he do for a living?” I asked.

She riffled through her notebook. “He bred Norwich canaries.”

“For a living, Frohmann. Birds are a labour of love.”

“They were his only labour, sir. Ex-solicitor.”

I turned in a circle and marvelled. “Look at this place, Frohmann. She was a professor. Where did the money come from?”

“Family, sir. Isn’t that usually the way, with homes like this?”

“Exactly. Find out if it was his family, or hers.” She made a note.

“Also, sir, the driver’s seat was adjusted for Harry’s height.”

“So, driven by Harry, or by someone Harry’s height, or by someone who had the sense to set it back when they were done.”

She sighed at me. I was being negative again.

“Look,” I said. “The question here, the big question, is why bring the car back?”

“To frame Harry,” she answered too quickly.

“Maybe. But he’s dead. How framed could he be?”

“Try this, sir. She messed with his birds, he found out, he killed her, came back here….”

“And had an accident while cleaning up? I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t have left those windows open. He wouldn’t have left those cages toppled over. Last night I saw some of those birds—crushed in their cages, some of them not quite dead yet. He wouldn’t have left them. He’d save them before he’d avenge them.”

“What if he killed her for a different reason? Killed her for something else, and then came home and found the birds? What if the reason she was angry enough to go after his birds might be the same reason he was angry enough to go after her?”

“The neighbour saw the car here at lunchtime, when he also saw the windows open. So, whoever took the car later knew about the birds. Not Harry. It wasn’t Harry.”

I jogged up the stairs, and up again, to the bird room. Frohmann trailed me.

“The killer had no assurance that Harry’s death wouldn’t have been discovered,” I mused. “The birds coming and going might have alerted someone. Returning the car was a risk. Why bring it back? Why?”

The empty cages had been restacked haphazardly. Fallen rosettes had been tossed into a corner: first prize, champion, best in show. The birds had been taken, but nothing had been cleaned. The mess on the floor had been swept into a now stinking pile.

“Maybe, sir … to get his own vehicle? What if the murderer had parked here, and just needed to get his own car away? That would be worth coming back for.”

That was good. That was very good.

“Any witnesses to unusual vehicles, in the driveway or on the street?”

She flipped back through her notebook pages. “Mr. Neighbourhood Watch gave us a list. We ran the plates; no one popped as connected or suspicious.”

The doorbell clamoured before she finished. That grating sound.

Frohmann descended to answer it. I followed more slowly. From the top of the main staircase I watched her open the door to Miranda Bailey, of all people.

“May I help you, Mrs. Bailey?” Frohmann asked politely. I ought to send a thank-you note to her mother for raising her right.

“I—Where’s Harry? I heard about Gretchen. Where’s Harry?”

Frohmann looked up at me for guidance. Polly’s mother followed her gaze. “Oh!” she said. “Inspector Keene.” She looked upset. I’d been the one to interrogate her over Nick.

“Mrs. Bailey.” I descended the stair like a host. I wanted to be kind.

“If you think Harry had anything to do with it, you’re wrong. Where have you taken him? Have you dragged him away to jail?” She was strangling her wrists with the strap of her bag.

“No, no, no, Mrs. Bailey,” I said. “Please, sit down. Please,” I said.

Frohmann got to the point as soon as she was off her feet. “He’s dead, Mrs. Bailey.”

She jumped up. “What? No! No, it’s Gretchen. I was told by someone from the University. Gretchen’s dead.”

“They’re both dead,” Frohmann assured her.

Miranda looked at each of us, back and forth, a little tennis game. “Really?” she finally squeaked.

There was a box of tissues on the mantel. I handed it to her. Frohmann pushed her gently back to sitting, and sat next to her, on the arm of the couch.

“Was he in the car too?” Miranda asked, obviously having heard “car accident” through the grapevine. Her misunderstanding of the facts spoke well for innocence.

I took over. Not everything would be released to the public. “He died here.”

Miranda cried. Frohmann pushed ahead. “Did you know him well, Mrs. Bailey? Why did you come here today?”

“I …” She looked around, as if surprised to find herself here. “I’d heard about Gretchen. I wanted to see if he was all right.”

“How well did you know Mr. Reed?”

She only blinked.

“Harry Reed,” I expanded.

She put her hand to her mouth, and looked back and forth from me to Frohmann. “I thought his last name was Paul,” she finally said.

“A reasonable mistake,” I assured her.

She rocked back and forth. “No, it’s not. It’s really not.”

Frohmann intervened. “How well did you know him, Mrs. Bailey?”

“Apparently, not well at all!” Her laugh was high-pitched.

“Can you tell us why they took such an interest in your arrest?” I pressed. “Did you know either of them before your arrival in Cambridge?”

“They were friends of my daughter. They took an interest in justice. Do I really need to rationalise that?”

“No, Mrs. Bailey,” I agreed. “No, it’s only that your concerns about one another seem to have been deeper than one would expect of friends of family.”

“Then I feel sorry for you,” she said. “You must lead a very insular life.”

“When exactly were you here last?” I asked, ignoring her editorial.

“Yesterday morning. Around ten-thirty? I think?” Her hands were full of crumpled tissue. As she swivelled her head looking for a rubbish bin, she suddenly perceived her vulnerability. “When I left he was alive!” she asserted. “I left him and he was about to take a shower. And I went into town. I took Polly shopping. We bought things. I used a credit card at Robert Sayles! You can trace that! I bought a sweater. I bought her a coat. She wanted a new coat….”

“Sergeant Frohmann will take you home,” I suggested. We would check on that alibi later.

“Oh. No, thank you. No, I have a rental car. A hire car. I’m visiting my old village today. I used to live fairly near, when I was a girl. I wanted Polly to come with me, but she didn’t want to. That’s all right. It’s been a good visit. She let me buy her a coat yesterday. We haven’t been shopping together in a long time, too long. But yesterday she let me. She let me buy her a coat.” She was awfully excited about that coat. She covered her face and eked out a sound like a deflating balloon.

“What do you make of her?” Frohmann asked me, after she’d left.

“She seemed honestly surprised.”

Shouting outside distracted us. Across the street, Miranda and another woman were arguing in the driveway of a house for sale. The other woman sounded belligerent and Miranda cowered.

Frohmann bounded across the street.

The woman arguing with Polly’s mother wore a suit and high-heeled shoes, all in red.

They stopped. Lady-in-red turned her glare to Frohmann. “This car needs to be ticketed. It has no right to park here.”

“Can we back it up a little?” I suggested, catching up. “You are …?”

“Rebecca Phillips-Koster. I represent this home for sale, and I’m tired of people using it as a catch-all parking slot.”

Miranda was crying again. “Yesterday a horrible man put notes on all the windshields of cars parked in the street instead of in driveways. He was on a crusade against Christmas shoppers parking in the road. I didn’t want to deal with him today. You had the police cars in the driveway, so I parked here. I didn’t think it would hurt anyone.”

“What horrible man?” Frohmann asked.

“That man.” She pointed to the house next door to Gretchen and Harry’s. The neighbourhood watch.

“This driveway is not a public car park. This is trespassing!” the red lady insisted.

“All right, all right,” I soothed her. “I understand your frustration. Has this been going on a lot?” I shot Frohmann a significant look.

The red lady looked embarrassed. “Once or twice. But even once is too much! This is private property.”

“Yesterday?” Frohmann prodded. “Was anyone parked here yesterday?”

Red lady shook her head, then switched abruptly to a nod. “Students.” She rolled her eyes, inviting us all to commiserate. “One had left a bicycle here. Propped against the side of the house, around here …” We all walked around the side of the house, and looked where the offending bicycle had once been.

“Did you see this student? Do you remember what the cycle looked like?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t see him. But—” She pulled a remote control out of her purse. The garage door slowly inched upward. “I taught him a lesson. I put the bike in the garage. Ha.” She looked satisfied.

I must have looked pretty satisfied myself. “Please don’t touch it,” I said, as she walked toward the garage. Frohmann called forensics on her mobile. I felt a vibration in my front pocket.

“Why haven’t you phoned?” Gwen demanded.

“I’ve been working,” I apologised.

“I assumed so.” Her voice was deliberate. “But I didn’t know it. I was wondering if something had happened.” This comes from every police spouse.

“I slept at the station. Things went late. We found that student….”

“I know. And the professor. It’s on the news.”

“It’s ugly. Look, we’re in the middle of—”

She cut me off. “It’s Dora.”

“What? What’s Dora?”

“We left the wedding after you did. She was exhausted. She was cold. A waitress lent her some dry clothes. She went right to sleep as soon as we got home—”

“Right, right, yes, I get that. What’s happened?”

“I wanted to brush her hair. It was getting matted with all that gel and pins in it. I opened her vanity drawer, to get her brush, and there was a condom in there.”

Shit
. I stepped farther away and lowered my voice. “It’s not hers. It must belong to a friend.”

“Exactly,” she said. Meaning a male friend.

“She’s fourteen, Gwen. She’s fourteen….” She didn’t say anything, so I kept talking. “I can’t deal with this right now. We’re in the middle …”

Gwen cried. I couldn’t not deal with this.

I called to Frohmann, “Take care of the bicycle. I’ll catch up with you at the station.” I walked down the driveway, holding the phone tight enough to squeeze the blood out of my fingers. “All right. What can I do?”

“I don’t know.” She was still crying.

“Have you talked to her? Is she there?”

“No. No, she was asleep the moment she fell into bed. I didn’t say anything last night, I just walked out of the room. I waited for you to come home. I kept waiting….”

Sorry, sorry, sorry …
“Then what?”

“I fell asleep rather late. She was already out when I got up. She’d left the cereal box open on the table. She’d made herself coffee.” Dora drinks coffee? Since when does a fourteen-year-old drink coffee? “I just kept waiting. I didn’t want to bother you but I was going crazy.”