Cutwork (24 page)

“Right.”

Malloy sorted the papers into three piles, stacked them with the photographs on top, and put them in a file folder, which he slid into a desk drawer. He’d barely finished when there came a single rap on the open door and he looked up to see the teen in a long, slinky-but-raggedy black dress held together with safety pins. And black army boots. She’d been sent down the hall alone—the station was small, finding his office wasn’t hard.

He studied her briefly. Her spiked hair was an angry red on the left side and a totally wrong shade of fuchsia on the right. There was a tiny silver ring in one nostril. Her expression behind the black eye shadow and brown lipstick was resolute. He remembered the preppy clothes on her brother and the pretty dress and elaborate jewelry her mother wore and decided here was rebellion in full bloom.

“Miss McFey?” he asked, rising.

“Yes,” she said quietly, but not shyly.

“Come in,” he said. “Take a seat.” There was a green metal chair with a padded green seat beside his desk, which he indicated with a wave of his hand.

She marched bravely into the room, her lace-up boots thumping on the linoleum floor. It was nearly ninety degrees outside, with the humidity way up there; her feet must be soggy with sweat. Kids today were out of their minds, in Malloy’s seldom-humble opinion.

She took the chair. “You’re the one who talked to my mother and brother last week,” she said.

“Yes. Your mother said I could talk to you if I wanted to, but only in her presence. Does she know you’re here?”

“Like I told Sergeant Cross, she drove me to Excelsior, but she thinks I came to have lunch with my friend Madison and then go to a movie with her. I didn’t tell Mommy that I want to talk to you. She’s picking me up in three hours, that’s enough time to do all that and talk to you, too. You aren’t going to call her, are you? I don’t want you to.”

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t want me talking to the police. But this isn’t about her, or Coy, so it’s all right, isn’t it?”

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

“A man named Banner Wilcox. He was very angry with my father.”

 
Right after Skye left, Sergeant Cross stuck her head into his office. She noted the resuming sprawl of paper, the drawing, sketches, and photos on his desk, and started to say something but wisely said instead, “Did Skye McFey have anything to say?”

“She says we should look at Banner Wilcox instead of her brother as a suspect.”

“And Banner Wilcox is—?”

“According to Skye, her father’s old business partner. He took a bath when the business was sold and he was mad as hell at McFey. Skye says Wilcox called McFey almost daily to rant and make threats.”

“And where was Mr. Wilcox when the murder went down?”

“At church, he says. But who cares?”

Jill blinked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I think someone sicced Skye on me about Banner.”

“Her mother.”

“Huh-uh, Pam McFey’s far too cool a head.”

“Her brother?”

Mike nodded, satisfied that Jill had seconded his own opinion. “Who lied to me about his trip to seek work at a car dealership? Coyne McFey. The boy’s afraid I’ll find out he lied and arrest him.”

“You gonna go talk to him?”

“No need to. Take a look at this.” He turned the drawing toward her.

She came to the desk to look. It was on soft twenty by twenty-four paper, done in black crayon. “It’s from that lady at the art fair, the caricaturist,” said Mike. “When it started to rain on Sunday, customers dried up.” He paused to admire that oxymoron, then continued, “She was on the side of the field near the bandshell, so to keep her drawing hand warm, she did this.”

The sketch was of people standing out of the rain in the bandshell. There were ten or twelve of them, and near the front was a sullen-faced young man. His expression made him stand out from the others even though they were a diverse bunch, from the soccer mom in front to the old hippie in back. And he also looked very much like Mickey Sinclair.

“Is this admissible as evidence?” asked Jill.

“I am going to ask the county attorney that. But also, get a load of this.” He handed her two sheets of paper stapled together. “It’s from BCA: The blood on the shoes we retrieved from the Dumpster is Robert McFey’s, and the DNA inside the shoes makes them Mickey’s.” He smiled a very cool smile. “This is as close to open and shut as we can get without an eyewitness to the actual murder. A new ten-dollar bill in Mickey’s bedroom had McFey’s thumbprint on it, the cash box had Mickey’s fingerprints on it, there is a footprint at the scene that came from a shoe we can absolutely tie to Mickey. I’d say the only person who could remain convinced he didn’t do it is his mother.”

“What about Betsy Devonshire? Last I heard, she’s still trying to prove he didn’t do it.”

“Why should I care about Betsy Devonshire’s opinion, when I have fingerprints, footprints, and blood evidence? I’ve got an iron-clad, rock-solid case, so there’s no reason to try to build a second one.”

 
It had been a busy morning, but things had slowed down, and Betsy was thinking about lunch. Godwin had the day off so Shelly was working. Shelly hummed as she bustled about, her eyes bright and her movements brisk. She had hinted a time or two that she wanted to gush about Ian, but Betsy had headed that off. Between one thing and another, she hadn’t seen Morrie for four days and was in no mood to hear how fulfilled and happy Shelly was.

But with no customers present, all the stock in order, empty spaces on spinner racks refilled, orders for new stock placed, every flat surface dusted, and a different, more-pleasant radio station found, Betsy couldn’t think of anything else for Shelly to do.

She was about to allow her to gush away when the door went
Bing!
and Betsy looked up to see a teenager in a black evening dress and Kool-Aid hair come in. Betsy had never seen her before, even walking around town. There was a city bus that ran from Minneapolis out here; perhaps she had come out on that.

“May I help you?” asked Betsy.

“Is one of you named Betsy?” asked the girl.

“I am.”

“I’m Skye McFey and a police officer named Jill Cross told me to come and talk to you.”

A few minutes later Shelly was headed next door to Sol’s Deli for lunch with instructions to bring back a chef salad, hold the cheese, and poppy seed dressing on the side.

“Now,” said Betsy, after seating Skye at the little round table in the back area of the shop, “why did Jill ask you to come and talk with me?”

“Because of Banner Wilcox, who used to be my father’s partner in the ad agency, and who was mad when Pop sold out.”

“Do you know if the police have talked to him?”

“I was just over there, and I talked with Sergeant Malloy about him. He seemed interested and wrote things down.”

“Hmmm. Can you wait right here a minute?”

“Sure.”

Betsy went to the library table in the front of the store, where she used the cordless phone to call Jill at the police station. “Is it all right to ask if Mike Malloy has gone to talk to Banner Wilcox?”

“Skye did come to see you, then,” said Jill.

“She’s here now.”

“I can tell you that Mike spoke briefly with Mr. Wilcox on the phone, but isn’t interested in going any further. He’s satisfied that he’s got enough to convict Mickey Sinclair.”

“Oh? What does he—no, that’s not a good question, is it?”

Jill smiled; Betsy could hear it in her voice. “No, not a good question. Go talk to the child.”

So Betsy went back to talk to Skye. “Do you have to ask her if you can talk to me?” asked Skye.

“Not always, but in this case, yes. You see, interfering with a police investigation is illegal.”

“You mean Sergeant Malloy? He thinks Coy did it.”

“No, he thinks Mickey Sinclair did it.”

“Then why did he come out and scare Coy and Mommy half to death?”

“Because sometimes cases fall apart, and he doesn’t want to have to start over from scratch on a case that is several weeks old. Or older, if it goes to trial and Mickey is found not guilty.”

“I think Mickey did it.”

“So why are you here to tell me about Banner Wilcox?”

Skye crossed her arms and tried to look huffy, then sighed and uncrossed them again. “For the same reason, I guess. Because if it turns out Mickey didn’t do it, they may come after Coy, and I don’t want my brother to go to jail. Because he didn’t do it, either.”

“You’re sure?”

Skye went white. “My brother may be a jerk, but he wouldn’t kill his own father! So it
has
to be Mickey. Unless it’s Banner Wilcox.”

“Do you know Mickey?”

“Kind of. We’re in the same school. When he comes to school. And he hangs with a different crowd than me; all of them are criminals. He steals stuff and he smokes marijuana like
all
the time. So I don’t know why you’re trying to help him. And anyhow, if you don’t think Mickey did it, who do you think?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking questions. For example, why did Banner Wilcox have a motive to kill your father?”

Skye swallowed hard and said, “Could you not say it like that? Killed my father? I feel all icky when I think about someone killing my father, especially Banner.” Her voice rose high. “Banner’s always been nice, and it’s bad enough he’s, my daddy’s dead.”

Betsy reached out to touch the girl on her shoulder. “I’m really sorry. It must be terrible for you.”

Skye only nodded, no longer able to speak.

Betsy said, “May I get you something to drink? We have bottled water, coffee, and several kinds of tea.”

Skye made an effort. “Water,” she said in a shaky voice.

Betsy took her time getting a bottle of water out of the little refrigerator and pouring it into two foam cups. She berated herself for being so focused on her sleuthing she missed the obvious signs of Skye’s suffering. Skye had loved her father, with whom she shared an artistic soul and who had been taken from her in a very ugly way—and now suspicion was falling on her mother and her one sibling. Betsy resolved to treat her with more respect.

When she got back to the table, Skye had taken hold of her emotions. “Thanks,” she said in a near-normal voice, taking the cup of water. She took a quick swallow and said, “I’m okay now. You can ask me anything.”

“Skye, I am very impressed that you would make this effort to help your family. I know this is a difficult thing for you to do.”

“It’s okay, I want to help if I can. What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about Banner Wilcox.”

“Well, he was my father’s partner in Information Please. He didn’t want Pop to sell it, but Pop thought he was dying and he wanted to spend his last year carving animals and selling them. Pop told Banner that the company he was selling to—”

Betsy interrupted, “Excuse me, but if they were partners, how did your father sell it over Banner’s objections?”

“Pop was the senior partner. It was like two-thirds and one-third. Besides, Pop told Banner it was a great deal, that the alternative was to wait till he died, when the sharks would close in. What he meant was, Banner didn’t have Pop’s sales sense and he might mess up trying to run the company alone. Banner was nice; he wasn’t a hard-nose like Pop could be. And Pop told Banner that Makejoy, the company making the offer, was solid and growing. So Banner went along. And Makejoy gave him a job, only it wasn’t as good a job as he’d had with Pop, and he didn’t get along with the new bosses. And then he got downsized. He’d put most of his share of the money he got from selling into Makejoy, so he still thought he was all right—but then Makejoy went broke. So he was really screwed and he was really, really mad. He used to call our house and yell. One time he went off on Coy, because he thought it was Pop answering the phone, and Coy said he was like insane. He threatened to kill Pop.”

“How did your father take this? Was he frightened?”

Skye shook her head. “I don’t think so. He was upset, but it was about Banner, not himself. He really liked Banner. We all liked him.”

“If your father was a hard-nosed business man earning good money, it’s interesting that he should want to throw all that away to become an artist earning very little.”

Skye sat still for a few moments, but she was only gathering her strength, and choosing among memories to relate. “Pop started carving before I was born, before Coy was born, I think. He said it relaxed him, which I thought was funny, because he’d get really intense about it. But now I know what he meant, because I get intense about drawing, and it’s like everything else goes away, all my problems, all my sadness, even my good things. Nothing matters but getting the way light lays on a horse’s face just right.”

She paused to think some more. “My mother’s okay, mostly. It’s just that she likes having lots of money. I think she pushed Pop into advertising so he’d make a good salary. What’s interesting, now I think about it, is that he went along. I think he must have loved her very much.” She sniffed lightly and folded her lips in, biting them to regain control. “But then, when . . . when we thought he was dying, she let him do what he really wanted. And once he found out how good he was, nothing in the world would make him go back to advertising, even when he found out he wasn’t dying after all.”

Skye nearly broke down at this point, but Betsy, while filled with distress, took a page from Jill’s book, and only sat quietly. Skye doggedly pulled herself back together and went on, “Pop had a friend named Ian Masterson, he’s a famous artist, and Ian was going to help Pop get his work for sale in a big, important gallery. Then everyone would see that Pop was also a great artist.”

“Have you met Ian Masterson yourself?”

Skye suddenly bloomed into a smile. “Oh, yes, lots of times. He’s like if your grandpa was a king, so he’s famous but he’s like a normal person to talk to. Strong and bossy, but nice. He . . .” She hesitated, then made up her mind and went on, “It was his idea that I should tell the police about Banner, because I told him—Ian—about how Banner said he wanted to kill my father.” She reached for her water, but changed her mind. Her face was sad.