Rogues Gallery (23 page)

“McCabe? Cody? Come on in.”

Yes, ma'am!
Even with the high-heeled boots, Meredith Blake stood a few inches shorter than my six-one. But she wasn't short on authority when she directed us. We followed her into the huge entrance foyer.

Having only seen her once, years ago and from a distance, I expected the party girl lifestyle to have taken its toll on Meredith's face and figure now that she was in her early forties. Well, maybe she had a picture of herself tucked away in a closet somewhere that looked like a hag, but the woman who opened the door for us that night sure didn't. Poured into designer jeans and a tight-fitting red turtleneck sweater, she was still what my father would call “a fine figure of a woman.” Meredith wasn't as shapely as Lynda, but nobody would ever confuse her for a boy. And she couldn't have been more than five pounds overweight. Her face didn't have the puffiness that sometimes afflicts heavy drinkers, nor had crows left footprints in the corners of her eyes. I suspected Botox. Her hair, hanging soft and feminine down to her shoulders, was jet black except for a fascinating silver streak about an inch wide running from her roots to her split ends.

She lit a cigarette. “So you want to ask me about Tim Crutcher? That bastard!” She expelled smoke like a steam engine.

“You've come at either a very bad time or a very good time,” said a man coming into the foyer from the living room off to the left.

Mac probably recognized him before I did. The synapses of my brother-in-law's brain seem to fire faster than mine, as well as working in different ways. Still, it didn't take more than ten seconds even for me to realize that the dirty blond goatee and the hair tied into a ponytail at the back belonged to Charlie Hayworth. So the gossip was true: Meredith and Charlie were an item. Heaven (or maybe more southern regions) knew that they were birds of a feather, although Charlie was younger by a few years.

He was an Erin boy made good, then bad. After a stellar career with the St. Louis Cardinals, he'd been booted out of baseball about a decade ago for using steroids. Lots of dopers played the diamonds in those days, but Charlie - everybody called him that - was the poster boy for the ones who got caught. He made the cover of
Tick
magazine as well as
Sports Illustrated
. Now he spent a lot of time in casinos around the country, and rumor had it that he had moved on from steroids to other kinds of drugs.

He didn't bother to introduce himself, just kept on talking: “Meredith just realized today that a lot of her jewelry is missing - pearl necklaces, diamond brooches, rings - all quality stuff.”

“And Crutcher took it.” The lady of the house exhaled more smoke, looking pouty while I tried not to cough. “It had to be him.”

“May I ask how you reached that conclusion, Ms. Blake?” Mac asked.

“Hey, it's not like this house is crawling with hired help anymore. I only had Crutcher and a couple of other part-timers. He was my general handyman, doing whatever it took to make the house livable. Since he was here every day doing something or other, I finally gave him a key. And what did he do? He took a haul right out of the jewelry closet in my bedroom!”

“And this happened - when?”

“I don't know. It's been weeks since I've looked at my bling. I don't usually wear the tiara to dinner at the Roundhouse.”
Was that sarcasm or irony?
“I went into the closet this morning to pick out a necklace for a party next week in New York. Right away I saw that some of my best pieces were gone.”

“Weren't you being a little too trusting in giving him a key, Ms. Blake?” I wanted to know.

“It didn't occur to me that he would rip me off. This is Erin, not Beverly Hills, for crap's sake!”

Point taken. But have you noticed the homicide rate in this burg?

Mac had a different question. “Have you filed a police report?”

“Not yet,” Charlie said.

Meredith shot him daggers. Studs should speak only when spoken to. “We're still toting up his take. Once we have a list of everything that's missing, we'll take it to the authorities and our insurance company.”
Oh, Oscar will love it. Call him first so he can put on his uniform hat.

“As I explained on the telephone, we are looking into Tim Crutcher's shooting,” Mac said.

Meredith shrugged. “What's to look into? The man was a thief and his wife took him out. Good for her. I wish she'd done it a little earlier.”

“She didn't do it at all,” I said.

“So she says. I saw that on the news.”

Couldn't you go outside and smoke? Oh, wait. This is your house.

“We happen to believe Mrs. Crutcher,” Mac said.

“How can we - ” Charlie looked at the heiress. “How can Meredith help you, Mr. McCabe?”

“By your own account, Miss Blake, Tim Crutcher spent a lot of time here over the past few months. You may have seen him more than anyone in that period. Did you ever get the impression that he had a paramour?”

“You mean a girlfriend? How would I know?” Her voice was scornful. “We didn't exactly see each other socially.” She studied her burning cigarette. Lynda used to do that sometimes when she smoked. I buried the thought. “The only women I ever heard him mention were his wife and his attorney, Erica Slade.”

“Erica!” I blurted out.

“She represented him?” Mac asked more calmly.

“Yeah, he got pulled over for drunk driving three or four months ago. His driver's license was suspended for a few weeks and his wife had to drop him off here every day.”

VIII

“We knew he drank,” I reminded Mac on the way to our respective homes.

He grunted. “The significance, if any, of Crutcher's entanglement with the law may not be immediately apparent, but it would have been nice to know. I wish Ashley had thought to mention it.”

“You don't think he was carrying on with Erica, do you?” I said with a chuckle.

“No, I do not. Still, stranger things have happened, and in similar circumstances. File that in the back of your mind as ‘unlikely, though not impossible.' Perhaps the mystery woman, if there is one, will show up at the funeral tomorrow.”

“Not if she's the killer,” I said. “Then she'll stay as far away as she can get so that nobody connects her with Crutcher.”

“Possibly.” I was glad he didn't say what I thought he was thinking: That the theoretical killer-girlfriend might show up if she was somebody who was known to know him, because it might be suspicious if she didn't. That kind of double-bluff brainwork always gives me a headache, and we don't seem to be able to avoid it every time we get involved in these homicidal high jinks. But Mac went on:

“At any rate, the funeral might also afford us an opportunity to talk with Ashley without Erica in attendance. There are several questions that I would like to ask her.”

That evening, before fixing myself another lonely dinner, I texted Lynda.

JEFF:
You'll never guess who I met!

LYNDA:
Some femme fatale, no doubt.

JEFF:
Who, me?

And so forth. Meredith Blake intrigued Lynda. I could tell by the questions she texted.

The next day, Thursday, we caught up with Ashley at Holder & Hawes Funeral Home during the sparsely attended visitation before the funeral. It's true what they say about black clothing - it has a slimming effect. At least it did on Ashley. By no means a merry widow, her mood seemed somber though she shed no crocodile tears.

“May we have a few minutes in private?” Mac asked.

She looked around at the thirty or so friends and relatives talking to each other in clumps, a few of them standing in front of the closed casket. The nature of Crutcher's wound had made an open viewing inadvisable.

“Sure. Let's go in here.”

We ducked into an empty side room dominated by an aquarium full of fish.

“So, did you find out anything?” Ashley asked before Mac could get started.

“Several interesting lines of inquiry have opened up,” Mac said, not exactly answering the question. “Your husband's former employer, Meredith Blake, has accused him of stealing several valuable items of jewelry.”

Ashley stared. “You've got to be kidding. No, of course you're not.”

“He didn't give you something shiny as a peace offering or something?” I said.

And I thought she'd been staring before. “I had no idea that Tim had sticky fingers on top of all his other flaws. Not that I don't believe it. At this point I'd believe anything you told me about that man - not to speak ill of the dead.”

“Well,” Mac said, “it may not be true, although Miss Blake seems convinced. Are you aware that the prosecutor finds the life insurance policy on your husband to be a credible motive for you to kill him, or at least a contributing factor?”

She shook her head impatiently. “I explained that. Tim insisted that we both insure each other.”

“Why? The purchase seems rather unusual, given that he was underemployed at the time.”

“Life with Tim was always unusual. He said it would help his brother, Tom. I don't know Tom well - he'd already moved out of town when I first met Tim - but he seems to move from sales job to sales job with about as much ambition as Tim. Lately he's been selling term life insurance. Tim said it was a good deal. We were both relatively young and healthy, so it didn't cost very much. At least I'll have enough to bury him.”

Bury him? Heck, you could build a mausoleum for him with that death benefit.

“Is it true that Erica defended your husband on an OVI charge?” Mac asked. That's Section 4511.19 of the Ohio Revised Code, “Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence of Alcohol or Drugs.”

“Yeah. Losing his job didn't do anything to sober him up. Ms. Slade doesn't do a lot of OVI work, but she took the case pro bono as a favor to me. Why do you ask?”

“I was just verifying something we were told,” Mac said. “It is a habit of mine to check everything, even if it seems unimportant. One never knows what
is
unimportant, you see. Is your husband's friend Joe Robards here? I was unable to reach him yesterday.”

Ashley pointed across the broad hallway into the bigger room where the casket lay. “That's him over in the corner, talking to my brother-in-law.”

There was no mistaking who she meant by the reference to her brother-in-law. Tom Crutcher looked remarkably like the photos of his brother that appeared around the room, except that he had a thick mustache. They were both brawny men, almost my height, with low foreheads and full heads of dark hair. Crutcher was talking to a shaggy-haired little guy, maybe half a foot shorter, with a big nose and small chin.

“Tim was a twin?” I said.

“No, no, Tom is a couple of years older. They just looked a lot alike. Strong genes in that family. That should have told me something once I started hearing about Tom.”

“I would like to speak with both of those men,” Mac said. “Besides, I see Erica coming in and I am sure she would like to pay her respects to you. Thank you, Ashley. We progress, I think. I will keep you informed.”

We ducked quickly into the other room, hoping that Erica didn't notice us talking to her client without legal counsel present.

Interrupting two people engaged in conversation is not something I'm comfortable with, but Sebastian McCabe is a past master at it. He walked up to Tom Crutcher and Joe Robards without hesitation.

“Mr. Crutcher? I am sorry for your loss.” He introduced himself and me. Crutcher mumbled his thanks. Robards stuck out his hand. “Joe Robards. I worked with Tim for years. You called me yesterday, right? Sorry I didn't get back to you.”

Before Mac could respond, Tom Crutcher fired another question at him: “You were a friend of Tim?”

“No, actually, we never met. Jefferson and I know his wife.”

“Oh.” Crutcher stiffened. He looked around, apparently sighting Ashley talking to her attorney. “I'm surprised she's here. Takes nerve.”
Wow, is it cold in here or is it just you?

“It is certainly a difficult situation,” Mac said. “I am sure you realize that what happened is still in dispute.”

“Your friend, my dear sister-in-law, gets a quarter of a million dollar life insurance payout because my little brother is dead. I know that much. Unless, of course, a jury decides that she murdered him. Fortunately, a killer can't profit by her crime. Excuse me.”

Crutcher didn't wait to be excused, just turned his back on us and looked around, as if searching for a lifeline - maybe somebody he remembered from the old days in Erin.

“He seems upset,” I understated, trying to lighten the mood a little, when I gauged that he was out of earshot.

“Tom always was a little high strung,” Robards said. “He was in my year at Malcolm C. Cotton High. Haven't seen him since he left Erin, though. I knew Tim real well, all those years of working together at the Rec Department. Shame he got canned, but he brought it on himself. Still, I felt sorry for him. That's why I let him sleep in my basement when he broke up with his wife.”

Clearly, Robards liked to hear himself talk. That was a good thing, from our point of view.

Mac raised an eyebrow. “Indeed? I am surprised that he had to rely on your generosity. I rather had the impression that he was enamored of another.”

Robards scrunched up his face, as if thinking hard. “How's that?”

“He had a lady friend, didn't he?” I translated. “That's what we heard.”

“He never told me nothing about a woman, but I wouldn't expect him to. A gentleman never tells.” Robards chuckled. “He did have a little thing going with Lady Luck for a while, though. Last summer, August maybe, we were out having a few beers at Bobbie McGee's. When Tim got two sheets to the wind and talking more than he should, he told me he'd finally hit the jackpot. He didn't say any more than that, but it wasn't hard to figure what he meant. That was right after the Forty Thieves Casino opened in Cincinnati. He must've gambled it all back, though, 'cause no more than six weeks later, damned if he wasn't asking me for a place to stay.”