A Rendezvous to Die For (5 page)

So
far, my name had not surfaced as the one who had discovered the body,
and my hope was that I could remain unidentified. What I wanted most
was for the sheriff to return the “tools” he had confiscated,
because they held all my cameras and the envelopes of exposed film
and CF cards.

When I arrived at the police station for my interview with the
Clayton County deputy sheriff, the police directed me to, of all
things, a bomb shelter under City Hall. “I’m Cassandra Cassidy,”
I said to the receptionist. “I’d like to see Deputy Shaw.”

“
Deputy Shaw?” A hint of
amusement flashed across her fleshy face. “Oh, yes. You mean Deputy
Sheriff
Shaw.” She punched the air above her head with her forefinger.
“We’re short of space in the police station and had to give him a
room downstairs.” She pointed to a staircase. “Take that to the
basement, turn left when you get to the bottom of the stairs, and
walk to the end of the hall. He’ll be waiting for you.”

The cold, clammy walls made me
shiver despite the hot day outside. I wrapped my arms around myself
and tried to relax on the flimsy folding chair where I sat next to a
gritty little table. It was impossible, of course. My mind churned
over the details of my experience, causing increased anxiety. When my
name was called, I actually stumbled into the smaller cell-like room,
which was furnished with nothing but two chairs and a decrepit wood
table, about the size of a teacher’s desk.

My expectations for a quick and
routine interview were dashed in the first five minutes. The kindly
deputy from the Rendezvous had been replaced by one with a Perry
Mason complex. Far from being the personable small-town Barney Fife I
expected, Deputy
Sheriff
Bertram
Shaw went by the book. He had folded his scrawny six-foot frame onto
a dusty wooden chair, his pen poised over a clipboard. Before he
uttered a word to me, he rubbed his nose and made a face in reaction
to the room’s musty smell. Then, without any niceties, he began his
questioning. “How did you came to move into the house next to Mr.
Madigan?” His eyes were cold and his voice told me this was to be a
no-nonsense interview. I peered over his shoulder to avoid making eye
contact.

“
I moved there because I liked
the accommodations.” My eyes caught sight of a spider web in the
corner of the concrete room, directly behind his right shoulder. I
wondered how long would it take the spider to drop onto the cardboard
boxes stacked helter-skelter against the wall.

“
Did you know Mr. Madigan prior
to living in his rented house?”

“
No, sir, I simply answered his
ad in the paper.”

“
Did you ever see anyone coming
or going to his house?”

“
No, sir. I can’t see what
goes on at Marty’s house from the carriage house.”

“
Were you ever concerned for
your safety?”

Was I? The day I rented the
place, it occurred to me I had signed a lease to live next to an
ax-wielding landlord who lived in a remote house, five winding miles
from the nearest town. “No sir, I can’t say that I was. Nothing
untoward has ever happened in the time I have lived there.” I felt
fidgety, for some reason, and drummed my fingernails on the table.

Shaw stared at them and seemed to
lose his train of thought. “You’re a photographer, I understand.”

“
Yes. I make my living selling
the photographs I take.” I shifted in my chair.

“
Doesn’t that involve
carrying heavy equipment?”

“
Sometimes.”

Shaw rose from the chair and
paced back and forth in the tight space. The dust from the chair
clung to his black sheriff-uniform slacks, outlining his skeletal
buttocks. I forced myself not to giggle hysterically. “You must be
. . . shall we say . . . a strong lady, to haul all that equipment on
a regular basis.”

I glanced up at him to gauge his
intention with such a question. His gaze raked across my body.
“I’m
strong enough, I guess.”

“
Do you do anything special and
deliberate . . . to keep fit?”

“
I lift weights.”

He scribbled a notation on his
clipboard and then, without warning, leaned over the table to stare
into my eyes. “How well did you know the deceased?”

Taken aback by his closeness and
abrupt switch in subjects, I shrunk back in my chair. “Eric? I . .
. I knew him only on a professional basis.”

“
Is that so. Hmm.” He was
silent for several seconds and then slowly lowered himself onto the
chair opposite me again, crossing one leg over the other with equally
slow deliberation. “Apparently, you knew him well enough to engage
in a rather strident argument at the Rendezvous.”

I bit back
a defensive retort. It finally dawned on me that
Sheriff
Shaw was
treating me like a suspect. Should I refuse to answer his questions?
Or would that look like I had something to do with the crime?
I
felt like a character in a gangster movie. Make that a gangster
cartoon . . . Simpsons-style. I was in a windowless basement bomb
shelter being grilled by a brusque-speaking sheriff’s deputy.
Ironically, the scene even included the ubiquitous light bulb
dangling from the ceiling.

“
Did you or did you not
threaten Mr. Hartfield with bodily harm, Miss Cassidy?” The
deputy’s jaw muscles worked overtime in his hairless baby face.

“
I’m sorry. I . . . I’m not
sure what you’re talking about.” I squirmed on my chair.

“
Of course you do. Several
witnesses heard you say you would harm Mr. Hartfield, if you ever saw
him again.”

I
was momentarily speechless, as my shouting match with Eric returned
in vivid memory. It was merely the kind of stuff angry people say in
a moment of passion. It wasn’t real, but evidently when a murder
has been committed only minutes later, chitchat takes on a life of
its own.

Shaw was becoming impatient.

“
Well . . . what would
you
say, if someone told you to ‘watch your back’?”

“
I
ask the questions, Miss Cassidy, and I’m waiting for your reply.”

I lowered my head and stroked the
scar on my neck. Before I could utter another word,

the
door opened.
“Excuse me, sir, there’s someone here
to see Miss Cassidy.” A uniformed policeman gestured toward my
interrogator. “
Sheriff
,
if you please, you may wait out here.”

Sheriff Shaw stalked out of the
room, and a slender man dressed in a dark blue-striped business suit
entered to take his place. He shut the door, took in the room at one
quick glance, smoothed down his thin mustache that matched a full
head of striking white hair, and finally smiled at me. Probably in
his late sixties, he didn’t appear frustrated by the surroundings.
He extended his hand and presented me with a business card.
“Cassandra Cassidy, I presume?” His speech was precise and firm.

I nodded.

“
I am Lawton Sanders, your
attorney,” he said. “Anna sent me.”

Chapter
5

Tuesday

Monday’s interview had left me
rattled. I wondered what direction Shaw’s questioning would have
taken, if Attorney Lawton Sanders hadn’t shown up. I would be
eternally grateful to Anna for sending her brother to me. Sanders had
called at the crack of dawn and was in my kitchen with his briefcase
open, ready for business. “At this point in the investigation,
anyone
connected with the crime scene is actually a suspect,”
he said, spelling out my predicament and attempting to relieve my
fears.

“
But, how could Sheriff Shaw
possibly think I am the one who murdered Eric?” I shoved a mug of
coffee toward him and sipped at my own. “I’ve never even
held
a tomahawk, let alone
thrown one. I’d never been to a reenactment before either, and I
had no idea hatchet-throwers would be competing. He didn’t ask me
any of those questions. What about Marty? It was
his
tomahawk in Eric’s skull.
He’s
the one Shaw should be questioning, not me.”

Sanders’ gaze was steady, his
voice calming. “I’m sure he’s questioning Marty, too, and he’ll
reach the conclusion that you couldn’t possibly be the murderer,
when all the facts are in.” He pulled out a legal pad. “Now, if
you want me to act as your attorney, start at the beginning and tell
me exactly what happened from the time you entered the Rendezvous
grounds.”

Minutes later, he stuffed the
legal pad into his briefcase. “I’ll field any media questions,
Cassandra. Also, when the deputy contacts you again, refer him to me.
Don’t do any talking to anyone, unless I am present.”

That
seemed like an impossible order, but I nodded anyway. As soon as
Sanders left, I paced the floor. I don’t handle uncommon stress
well. I handle stress with chemicals. The darkroom kind. The digital
revolution consigned some photographers’ darkrooms to antique
status, but I used mine often . . . whenever I wanted an effect I
couldn’t get through my computer software. I decided that
concentrating on the development of the black and white photos from
Heather’s wedding might help me think more clearly. I headed
directly to my darkroom, thankful, once again, that the carriage
house had come equipped with such a luxury.

As I plunged developer paper into
the chemical baths, my mind raced through the possibilities. The
sheriff would investigate my past combative connection with Eric.
Worse, he would take my so-called threatening statement at the
Rendezvous seriously . . . especially since I was the one who found
Eric dead minutes later. Who else hated Eric as much as I did? Marty?
Did he even know Eric? One thing I knew for sure about my landlord .
. . as his war experiences attested, he was capable of killing. And,
he had attended the Rendezvous, as he had for many years, he was an
expert with tomahawks, and it was his so-called “lost” ‘hawk
that felled Eric in the sweat lodge.

As soon as that
thought entered my mind, I brushed it aside. It would be stupid for
any sane killer to use an easily identifiable weapon to commit a
crime. Not only that, it would be equally stupid for someone intent
upon murder to be seen by so many people at nearly the same time the
crime was occurring. Marty wasn’t stupid.

A million other thoughts crowded
my focus on developing quality prints for Heather. I couldn’t begin
to sort it all out all the details, but I intended to make an effort.
Passively waiting for someone else to solve my dilemma wasn’t my
style. At least it hadn’t been my style since Mrs. A had taken me
under her wing.

* * *

When I was about the age of four,
I was placed in foster care. I wasn’t sure how or why, because
people have always been light on the specifics. In fact, almost
secretive. I have some hazy moments of memory when pictures of
people—maybe my parents—swim into my consciousness,
unrecognizable and contorted, like figures swimming underwater. Why
was I separated from them? Were they still alive and somewhere
without me? Did they ever wonder about where I was and what I was
doing? Did they know that I had been shifted from one home to another
for ten years?

I was the Browns’ little girl,
until Mrs. Brown became too ill to care for me, and I was snatched
away to join the Youngmans. I remember the Youngmans. In order to fit
into their household, I had to coexist with Peggy, their precious
princess of a daughter. When anything went wrong, it was always my
fault. The final straw came when Peggy lifted money from her mother’s
purse and shifted the blame to me. Before the week was out, and
despite my protestations of innocence, I was on my way to live with
another family. It became a pattern— packing up and traipsing to
another house of strangers. I’d have to deal with new schools,
having no friends, and trying to establish a relationship with faux
siblings, recreating myself to fit into each new situation.

I moved often, until Mrs. Andrews
accepted me as her foster daughter. I was thirteen. By then, I had
adapted to so many different families and situations I felt like a
chameleon . . . with multiple personalities. Over the years, my once
sunny disposition had completely eroded. I no longer expected good
things to happen. I had withdrawn into a wimpy, scared little rabbit.

Most people called my new foster
mother crazy. She was certainly different from your typical PTA-type
mom. I can see her still, stalking J C Penney’s on the trail of the
perfect pair of stretch pants. Not just any stretch pants. Following
her own fashion drummer, she favored anything with purple and red in
it. Flowers, stripes, solids; it didn’t matter, as long as it was
purple and red. Even with my stunted fashion sense, I perceived she
was a bit over the top in her wardrobe choices. I groaned whenever
she put the stretch fabric to its ultimate test, pulling the pants up
over her lumpy thighs. As if that weren’t bad enough, she paired
the pants with pink or green patterned shirts.

My foster mom teased her gray
hair into a mini-mountain, shellacked it in place with hair spray,
and then applied her makeup mask . . . heavy on the mascara, a
generous swipe of deep-plum lipstick, and matching blobs of blusher
on both cheeks.
She thumbed her nose at social conventions of
all sorts. I never figured out how she was accepted as a foster
parent. But if she hadn’t been—and if I hadn’t been sent to
live with her—I’d have ended up on welfare or in prison, as did
so many foster home “graduates.” By the time I got to Mrs. A’s,
I was the ideal target for anyone who wanted to test his mettle on a
pushover. She sent me to school in clothes that attracted the class
bullies like a three-legged rabbit did a coyote. When they found out
I was a foster child, it gave them even more ammunition.