In Plain Sight (21 page)

“Well, you’ve been busy, haven’t you, Mrs. Malone?” Sgt. Yates raised the scarred eyebrow as he glanced at the page. I tried to tell myself that in spite of the deprecating tone,
busy
could be a compliment. “We’ll be doing a complete background check, of course, on all the persons involved.” He set the paper on the table and continued with the questions.

Did I know if ex-husband Shane Wagner had stayed at a motel here in town? (I had no idea.)

Did any other guests come to the house while I was employed there? (Nary a guest that I ever saw.)

Did Leslie have any pets? (Not unless she acquired one after she fired me.)

Did I know the name of the man who took care of the mowing and yard work? (Sorry, no.)

Did I ever overhear phone conversations suggesting conflict between Leslie and any of her former partners in the company or anyone else? (I never overheard phone conversations on any subject. Leslie was a fanatic about that. Although I did mention her peculiarity about often letting the phone ring.)

I couldn’t tell from his unrevealing demeanor if Sgt. Yates thought I was supplying valuable information or babbling irrelevant nonsense. I also didn’t know if interviewees were allowed questions of their own, but I tossed some into the mix anyway.

“Do they know yet how long Leslie had been dead when I found her?”

“The fact that the body was in the water makes precise determination difficult. The estimate is from five to seven days.”

“But that would make her dead since before I went over there the first time! Before I almost ran into that guy skulking around.”

He gave me a speculative look. “Actually, although we’re still in the preliminary stages of investigation, we’ve talked to a number of people. So far we haven’t been able to locate anyone who saw her after the morning you were fired.”

I was the last one to see her alive? My spine prickled. I looked at Sgt. Yates out of the corner of my eye. Did he attach any significance to that timing?

“Did the autopsy show a head injury?”

Sgt. Yates riffled his notebook papers, apparently using the time to consider whether or not I was entitled to that information. Finally he said, “No. No apparent head injury.”

“I don’t understand. What caused her death, then, if she didn’t drown and wasn’t hit on the head?”

“The medical examiner says cause of death was asphyxia.”

“Asphyxia?” I paused to run that through my mystery-novel expertise, remembering that there was a differentiation between cause of death and manner of death. They’d already established that manner of death was homicide, now we were into what actually caused her death. “You mean as in strangled, with a rope?”

Another of Sgt. Yates’s considered pauses. “No. Suffocated. Smothered.”

“Like with a pillow held over her face?” It was the only means of suffocation I could think of. Yet this didn’t really sound logical. “I can’t imagine Leslie just letting someone hold a pillow over her face until she suffocated.”

“Information about a possible murder weapon is not being released at this point in time.”

“Perhaps you should be looking for someone with scratches or bruises. Because she’d surely have fought back.”

“If you see anyone who meets that description, be sure to let us know right away.” It was too politely spoken to qualify as outright sarcasm, so I was also polite when I said, “I’ll do that.”

Then another appalling thought occurred to me. “Is there any indication that this crime was of a sexual nature?”

“No.”

I thought back to Brad Ridenour’s TV report about the changed status of Leslie’s death from accidental drowning to homicide. “The information about suffocation wasn’t on the news.”

“We don’t tell the media everything, Mrs. Malone,” he said smoothly, with what I thought was a controlled satisfaction. “Although they’ll have that particular bit of information shortly.” Which was why he’d so readily given it to me, of course. I saw annoyance or frustration here, as if he’d prefer the media got freeze-dried crumbs.

Which made me wonder. Was there something more the authorities weren’t telling the media? I went fishing again. “I suppose there are various laboratory tests on tissue and fluid samples that take time to process?”

Sgt. Yates’s smile held a glimmer of frosty satisfaction that made me suspect I was right. The authorities were holding something back. But all he said was, “Nothing gets by you, does it, Mrs. Malone?” Unspoken were the words,
Deliver me
from little old ladies who read mystery novels.

He stood up. Interview, and my questions, over. I also noted that today there were no hints about me and the older-but-still-active Pa Yates getting to know each other better.

Not one to give up easily, however, I said, “Has the uncle’s wife made arrangements concerning the body?”

“Cremation, I believe. No formal services. At least not here.”

“I wonder if the uncle inherits everything?”

A tap of notebook on table and a speculative look. “Why do you ask?”

I murmured, “Just wondering,” but I’m sure he knew what I was thinking. I also suspected he may have given this question some thought himself.

Because murder has been done for considerably less than a plantation-style estate, a portfolio of stocks, and who-knew-how-much cash and other assets. And even if the uncle wasn’t capable of this, maybe his wife was.

Sgt. Yates glanced at his watch, which might mean he had an important conference with his superiors. Or maybe it was time for his coffee break. However, considering that the glance came at mention of the uncle’s wife, I wondered if it meant something else.

21

Three people were in the reception area when I came out of the hallway leading to the interrogation room. An older man with gold-rimmed glasses sitting with his ankles crossed. A blue-suited businessman pacing the floor and eying his watch. A young guy in baggy camouflage pants and combat boots, a staple in his ear, and a smoldering mess-with-me-and-you’ll-be-sorry attitude.

Camouflage Guy didn’t look at me, but I uneasily wondered if I’d encountered him before. Maybe skulking in that wooded jungle on Leslie’s place, before or after murdering her? The outfit looked appropriate, and he was muscular enough to toss her in the lake with one hand. Was he here for questioning by Sgt. Yates?

Yet I was almost certain Sgt. Yates was expecting the aunt-in-law, or meeting her somewhere. Maybe I’d just hang around for a few minutes and see what happened.

Because the more I thought about the uncle’s wife, the more she struck me as a potent possibility in Leslie’s death. The ex-husband and other partners in CyberPowerAds had anger and vengeance driving them. As did the gate-ramming neighbor and maybe even Al Diedrich. Camouflage Guy here may have thought she was into drugs, as Sgt. Yates had apparently speculated, and Leslie had the misfortune of getting in his way when he searched for them. But the motive of the uncle’s wife might trump them all. Good ol’ greed, the powerhouse behind many a vicious crime.

While I was pretending to search for something in my purse, just in case anyone was watching and wondering why I was loitering, the outer door opened, and a tall, fiftyish blonde in spike heels strode in. A handful of heavy gold chains were draped on her leathery neck, and two more hung around her ankle. Her muscles were long and lean and competent looking. Muscles capable of skulking through a jungle of brush and woods. Or wielding a murderous pillow. I waited expectantly for her to march up to the window and identify herself as the uncle’s wife.

Instead she marched straight to Camouflage Guy, grabbed him by the scruffy T-shirt, and shoved him toward the door. He didn’t look nearly so tough now when he whined “But, Mom!” as she harangued him about … what? Skateboarding on the sidewalk.

I sighed. I know better than to judge by appearances, but, with both mother and son, I’d done it. In the meantime, a refined-looking LOL had slipped in without my noticing. She was now at the reception window, stretching up on her toes to speak through the bars.

I dodged around Camouflage Guy to get closer. I was afraid my intention to eavesdrop might be all too obvious, but no one seemed to notice my hasty move. I was too late to catch her name, but I heard the last of what she was saying in a cultured voice to the woman at the window.

“… appointment with Sgt. Yates concerning the death of my husband’s niece?”

It came out more question than statement, as if she were uncertain about the validity of the appointment. I felt an instant flood of foolishness. This was my greedy murderess? Here she was, practically a clone of me. A bit younger and not as gray and considerably more stylishly coiffed, but the same height and weight and small-boned structure. I’d fit into her powder-blue, polyester pantsuit, probably the blue pumps as well, and she could jump right in to my purple pants and orchid blouse. Even the shade of discreetly applied blush on our cheeks matched. She didn’t look around, as if afraid she might meet some criminal’s eyes, and I felt safe in guessing that this was her first time in a police station. I wanted to rush up and squeeze her shoulders and assure her everything would be okay.

“He’ll be right out,” the woman behind the barred window said. “Just have a seat.”

I didn’t have time for a reassuring squeeze, however. I spotted the side door opening, and I scurried toward the outside door before Sgt. Yates could catch me. He would not, I knew, appreciate my show of interest in Leslie’s next of kin. Though at the moment that interest was overridden by guilt for letting my imagination again operate at warp speed. I didn’t know that the uncle and his wife were inheriting so much as a nickel, let alone getting all Leslie’s assets dumped in their laps, and the idea of this delicate little lady smothering Leslie and tossing her body in the lake was as preposterous as the prospect of her suddenly whipping out a 9mm Glock and taking everyone in the sheriff’s office hostage.

Back in the T-bird, I started to turn the key, then hesitated. Here the woman was, not young, alone in a strange town, struggling to cope with the niece’s murder, surely worried about her husband with Alzheimer’s back in Toledo. I should be helping her, not waltzing with unfair suspicions.

She came out about forty-five minutes later, during which time I’d observed an interesting parade of people coming in and out of the police station. I slid out of the car and hurried to intercept her on the sidewalk.

“Hi. You’re Leslie Marcone’s aunt, I believe? From Toledo?”

She gave me a puzzled but not unfriendly look. She had a delicately boned face and blue-gray eyes, and, at the moment, lines of stress bracketed her mouth and grooved her forehead. Had Sgt. Yates, I wondered with a surge of indignation, been giving her a bad time?

“Yes, Leslie was my husband’s niece.” She eyed me warily, as if I might be selling cemetery plots.

I held out my hand. “I’m Ivy Malone. I was Leslie’s housekeeper until shortly before her death.” I figured this was no time to go into the unpleasant aspects of our parting. “I’m so very sorry about what happened to Leslie.”

“Thank you. Everyone has been very kind.” Her tone and handshake were less wary but still short of enthusiastic.

“You mustn’t let Sgt. Yates intimidate you,” I said impulsively.

She blinked. Nicely made-up eyes, I realized, with a delicate palette of pastel eye shadow well beyond my makeup skills.

“Thank you. He can be rather intimidating, can’t he?”

“Makes you feel as if he might slap handcuffs on you at any moment.”

“I feel so bad about Leslie’s death, and then to have him act as if …” She shook her head and laughed shakily, as if she wanted to find some humor in the situation and couldn’t.

So I was right. Sgt. Yates was suspicious of her. Which was ridiculous, I thought with another rush of indignation. Okay, I’d been suspicious too, considering the inheritance angle. But that was before I got a good look at her. Surely even Sgt. Yates couldn’t think this small, genteel lady had managed to smother strong, athletic Leslie, haul her body down to the dock—

No way. Impossible.

She glanced at her watch, but something apparently clicked in her head, and she looked at me again. Her reserved expression changed. “Housekeeper … Oh, you must be the person who found Leslie’s body?”

“Yes. I hadn’t been able to reach her by phone, so I went over that day. Again, I’m so very sorry. It’s so difficult to believe someone deliberately killed her. It must be a terrible shock.”

“Yes, a terrible shock.” She looked me over with a dry-eyed interest that I found both surprising and mildly disconcerting. I also expected more in the way of outrage about the murder. Still, shock affects us in unlikely ways.

“I was wondering … Are you staying there at the house?”

I asked.

“No. The whole place is surrounded by that yellow crime-scene tape, and they won’t even let me into the house yet. Which does seem so inconsiderate, under the circumstances. That big house sitting there empty, and I’m stuck in a motel.”

Her fretful dissatisfaction was obvious. I’d been about to suggest she stay at the house with Sandy and me, but now I hesitated. I wasn’t certain why. Even if we were almost clones, something in this proprietary attitude toward the house put me off. People were passing by on the sidewalk, and I stepped over to the edge of the grass to get out of the way.

“I’m sorry, I don’t seem to know your name,” I said.

“Astrid Gallagher. Leslie’s mother was my husband’s sister, Willow. She’s been dead for some years now.”

“Is there other family?”

“No, just the three of us. Walter, Leslie, and me.”

She strung the names together as if they were a loving family with lives entwined. Sharing a Thanksgiving turkey. Trimming a Christmas tree. Filling a family photo album. I was doubtful about that coziness, given Leslie’s lone-wolf lifestyle, but it sounded as if the uncle might well be the only heir. Unless Leslie had left a will naming someone else. But from what I knew of Leslie, I also suspected she’d never written a will. She wouldn’t have wanted to think about having to give up her assets to anyone even if she was dead. She was also young enough that death probably still looked dim and distant, not something of current concern.