PW01 - Died On The Vine (11 page)

I expanded on the idea. “They’ll be stopping by every winery in the state asking one another, ‘Isn’t this the place where – ?’”

“And most of them won’t have the guts to ask the proprietors.”

“So by next year, those fellows will have their customers standing a yard further away than usual,” I finished. “I love it.”

“That’s assuming I’m not arrested in the meantime,” Jack said glumly.

“That reminds me! Luther Dawson told me they were looking into some man who threatened to kill Winslow. He wouldn’t tell me the name.”

“The name is Wayne Harkey,” said a voice from the door. We turned to see Julia entering. She took in the sight of all of us overflowing the recliner and beamed. “Isn’t that cute.”

Polly broke up our cuddle bundle, surging off the recliner with several kicks to human stomachs. She approached Julia with her tail plume whisking hopefully.

“Does she sit?” Julia asked in a high silly voice. Polly sat. Her tail continued to whisk. Julia rewarded her with a piece of freeze-dried liver. Julia is never without a few bits of freeze-dried liver.

“Wayne Harkey,” she continued briskly, “is the son of Flora Harkey, whose husband was listed as missing in action in 1969. It seems that Mrs. Harkey has been contributing to the despicable Colonel Winslow for quite some time. To the point where she now has nothing left to contribute. She had to sell her house and now splits her time between her two grown sons.”

“Where did you get that?” I demanded.

“It was in Mary’s notes. Wayne wrote to Winslow, demanding his mother’s money back. Later letters warned Winslow to keep looking over his shoulder because Wayne would get him sooner or later.”

“Winslow had probably already spent the Harkey money,” I guessed. “But isn’t it odd? That story wasn’t in the manuscript of Mary’s book.”

“She had quite extensive notes on it,” Julia said. “I can’t imagine why it wasn’t in the book.”

TEN

“Because my goddamn publisher made me take it out,” Mary said, striding restlessly around the kitchen. I had pulled out the ashtrays that I kept for Deb’s visits, and Mary was puffing furiously. “That was the best story in the book, but Wayne Harkey threatened to sue me and my publisher if we put anything about his mother in the book. So the publisher caved.”

It was the next morning, and I was stoking the furnace with coffee. “Would he have won?” I asked.

“Of course not. I didn’t have anything in there that couldn’t have been proved six ways from Sunday. But it was the cost the publishers are worried about.”

“And you just rolled over and took it?” I asked skeptically. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

Mary flopped angrily into a chair. “I’m an article writer. I have a Rolodex of magazine editors that some writers would kill for. But this is my first book. I just don’t have pull with the book publishers. I’m no John Grisham.” She thought a moment and added forcefully, “Yet.”

“Okay, so you agreed to take the Harkey story out of the book. But you researched it, so you met Wayne Harkey?”

“Yes. The interview did not go well. It was Wayne Harkey who wrote the threatening letter to Winslow, but the older brother seems to have taken charge of the whole issue. He’s suing Winslow. He’s a lawyer.”

“Whoa! Never scam a lawyer’s mother!”

“Right. Big brother Bob has managed to get through to Wayne the value of keeping his mouth shut. So he didn’t have much to tell me. But when he realized I was working on a book, he told me that there had better not be anything about the Harkey family in it, on pain of lawsuit. Big brother followed up with a letter to my publisher, and there we are.”

“So you’re saying that Wayne and Bob Harkey aren’t likely to want to talk to you.”

“Not likely. I wonder what Winslow’s death does to the status of the lawsuit?”

“They’ll probably just continue the suit against the estate.”

“Probably. I can’t see a lawyer giving up when there was still money left,” Mary said cynically. “But you might get in to see them. You’re a possible victim of Winslow’s shenanigans yourself; they might feel like you were part of the same victim group.”

“Oh, boy, just what I always wanted; membership in a victim group.”

Mary laughed. “If you are inclined to go looking for them, you would probably find that you are a member of many victim groups. For starters, you’re a woman. Then you were a military wife and widow. Freelance writer, now there’s a victim group! I did an article on the culture of victimhood. That piece got me more hate mail than anything I’ve ever done.”

“So you think Wayne might talk to me?”

“The worst that can happen is that he says no,” she pointed out.

“I like that attitude,” I told her.

So after Mary left (“places to go, things to do, people to meet”, she said vaguely), I called the number she had given me for Wayne Harkey.

He was a suspicious man. “Are you with the police?” he asked when I introduced myself.

“No,” I explained carefully. “I’m the person who found Winslow’s body. Someone stabbed him on our property. I’m worried that the police might try to blame me or my family.”

“How did you hear about me, anyway?”

“Oh, I’m a writer – word gets around.”

That didn’t fool him for a minute. “You’re been talking to that gook reporter lady, haven’t you?”

I was glad he couldn’t see me wince at the slur. “Mary Nguyen has been very helpful to me, Mr. Harkey. Winslow came here several days before he died, claiming that my husband was still alive. Mary has done a lot of research on Winslow.”

“So your husband was in Nam?” Now I had his interest.

“Yes, but he was reported killed, not missing. I’d like to meet you, find out what you know about Winslow. It might help find out who would want to kill him.”

He laughed sharply. “Besides me, you mean? Well, come on by this afternoon. Around 4:30. That’s before I go to work, and Mom will be getting her hair done.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t want her bothered about this.”

I was writing busily. “Where are you? I’m down in Passatonnack County. Could I get there by 4:30?”

“Sure, we’re in Reston.” He gave me the address.

After I hung up, I called Julia for reinforcements. I was feeling shy about quizzing total strangers about their personal lives, but knew that Julia would have no qualms. Sure enough, she was up for the expedition.

“My car,” Julia said when she pulled up. I wasn’t going to argue. I got in and patted the plush seats as we pulled out of the yard.

No one who had seen Julia’s office would consider her house-proud, so she must be car-proud. This vehicle was always immaculate. Even the Doctors Foster and Smith car seat covers seemed devoid of dog hair. I can only guess that she launders them every other day. I admire her persistence, but I gave up the pet hair battle long ago.

Maybe that’s why Julia decided to drive. We swung through the Burger King drive-through on the way. I settled back in plush comfort as we headed north on cruise control and french fry fumes.

As we entered the D.C. commuting area, we passed an area where new construction was going up. It’s what I think of as ‘executive tract housing’, two million dollar homes on half-acre lots.

“I don’t understand that,” I said, waving at the houses. “If you’re going to buy a manor house, isn’t it supposed to be on an estate?”

“June says the younger two-income families like them,” Julia said. Her daughter June sells real estate. “Not as much yard to worry about. She says they think it’s cozy.”

“Cozy, I’ll say. If I was going to spend that much money for a house, I’d buy something where the next door neighbors couldn’t peer right into the breakfast nook.”

“The owners aren’t doing anything scandalous in the breakfast nook,” Julia answered wisely. “They’re too tired.”

“Poor things.”

There’s new Reston and old Reston. Old Reston is a figurative term; there are cars still on the road that are older. The houses were Sixties ranchers and bungalows, the trees and shrubs are well-established, and most yards were enclosed with chain-link fences to give the dogs some room to run. There was a nice solid middle-class feel to the area.

These houses were built back in the days when a single income blue-collar family could afford a nice home in the suburbs. Now they sat on lots that were worth more than the houses.

Wayne Harkey lived in one of these chain-link domains. He had lavished a great deal of attention to the yard. The walk was edged with iris and hosta, and I could see a rose trellis in the side yard.

We entered the gate cautiously, but met no dogs. The man who answered the doorbell seemed a nondescript sort. He was dressed for work in a one-piece jumpsuit with the name of a delivery company on the pocket. He had a receding hairline and donut belly. “You Mrs. Rayburn? Come on in.”

“This is my friend, Julia Barstow,” I told him as we entered.

“Your husband lost in Nam?” he asked her.

“Oh, no,” Julia answered. “I’m just driving for Cissy.”

We were escorted into the living room and sat down on the sofa. I felt foolish and uneasy, unsure where to start. Thank God for Julia. She leaned forward and confided with Sunday School earnestness, “You see, Mr. Harkey, we’re both worried about Jack – that’s Cissy’s husband. This Winslow showed up at the Rayburns’ place with some cock and bull story about Cissy’s first husband being alive, and then a few days later, he’s stabbed with Jack’s pruning shears. The police seem to think that Jack has a motive, but those of us who know him know that he’d not hurt a fly.”

“What kind of cock and bull story?” Harkey wanted to know.

“That’s just it!” I entered the conversation eagerly now. “He had a picture that he said might be Jimmy, but we’ve tracked it down and it’s someone totally different, and Winslow had to have known that.”

Harkey’s face darkened. “That bastard!” He stood up. “Wait a minute, I want to show you something.”

He left the room and we heard him go into the kitchen and rummage through a drawer. When he returned, he had a photograph in his hand. He handed it to me. “What do you think of that?”

I looked at it in bemusement. “What is it?”

“It’s an aerial photograph.”

“Oh. So these little sticks are trees?” He nodded. “And this must be a river. Well, so what?” I handed the photo over to Julia, who looked at it one way, then turned it around and looked at it again from that angle.

Harkey grinned. “Don’t you see the signal?”

We both looked at him and shook our heads.

“This is the photo that supposedly proved my dad is still alive. See there,” he traced some lines on the photo. “That’s where he made his marks in the dirt – it’s supposed to say ‘7/9/69’, which is his shoot-down date.”

Julia and I hunched over the picture again, trying to see the marks. Finally I sat back and shook my head. “I think this is something like those people who claim to see an image of the Virgin Mary in a waterstain on the ceiling.”

Harkey nodded as if I was on to something. “It would have to be something a person wanted to see. Anyway, that picture convinced Mom that Dad was still alive in some POW camp that no one in the Western world knew anything about. She was sending money to Winslow, a lot more than she could afford.”

“Didn’t you try to talk to her about it?” I asked.

“I didn’t know!” he said defensively. “She lived in Chicago then. Had her own little house. When we talked on the phone, she would talk about the Lest We Forget organization, but I thought she was sending them maybe ten dollars at a whack. I didn’t know how bad things were until she had already lost the house.”

“So that’s when you threatened Winslow?” Julia asked.

Harkey flushed. “Yeah, I threatened him, I’ll admit it. I was so damn mad. But Bob said we should sue to get the money back, so that’s what we’re doing.”

I nodded approvingly. “Killing him wouldn’t get the money back.”

Harkey grinned suddenly. “Would have felt good, though. But Bob said he could make him suffer more in court. Trust a lawyer.”

“So what will you do now?”

“Bob says we go ahead against the estate. We’re alleging fraud and misrepresentation.” He seemed to enjoy the terminology. “Say! You could help. If it was obvious that Winslow was selling you a bill of goods, it might show what Bob calls predisposition.”

“We’ll see,” I temporized. “Have Bob call me. Right now I’m more concerned with making sure my husband doesn’t get arrested for murder.”

“Which reminds me,” Julia interrupted. “Forgive me for asking, but where were you Wednesday night?”

“I’ll forgive you because the police already asked. And please, it’s Wayne.”

“Wayne, then.”

“I was working that night and made all my scheduled stops, logged in by folks that know me. Sorry to disappoint you ladies, but I do have an alibi.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Julia beamed at him. “I just felt I had to ask. To be thorough, you know.”

“What’s your mother’s situation now?” I asked. “Not that it has anything to do with the case, but I’m curious. Poor woman, I wish there was something I could do.”