Season of Secrets (5 page)

“Of course. She was your housekeeper. I run into her once in a while.”

“She's agreed to come in and work a few days a week while we're here. I thought that would be a help in getting the house ready to sell.”

“I see.” Her brows arched. “Are you sure that's your only reason?”

She was entirely too quick. “You know, there's something to be said for not jumping to conclusions.”

“I'm a grown-up now, remember? You're hoping that having Glory here will somehow help you. But if Glory knew anything, she'd have talked long ago. She's as honest and forthright as they come.”

“She'd have told anything she knew about Annabel's death. I'm hoping there may be something else, something that happened that summer that will give me a lead. The police would have found anything obvious. I'm looking for something that's not obvious.”

Dinah nodded. “I guess I understand, but I'm not sure anything will come of it. Still, it'll be worth having Glory here just to taste her corn bread again.”

“She'll give Court a taste of some real Charleston cooking, that's for sure. Maybe I ought to look up the yardman, too. I don't suppose you remember him. Jasper Carr.”

“I remember him. Annabel didn't like him.”

For an instant it didn't register. Then he looked down at her. She was busy with the lights, and she'd spoken almost absently.

Careful. Don't scare the memory away.

“What makes you say that she didn't like him?”

Apparently he hadn't been casual enough with the question, because Dinah looked up, her eyes wide. “I don't know. I don't know why I said that.”

Don't rush her. “You must have noticed something Annabel said or did that showed you she didn't like him.”

He tried to say it easily, not to let too much interest show in his voice. This was what he'd hoped, that Dinah would remember something no one else had noticed about that summer.

She sat back on her heels, the lights forgotten in her lap. Her dark eyes seemed to be looking far away. No, far inward would be more accurate.

“Annabel came in from the garden. She'd gone out to pick some flowers for the table. She said something like, ‘That Carr. Marc should get rid of him. I don't like the way he sneaks around.'” She blinked, then focused on him. “Didn't she ever tell you that?”

“Not that I can remember.”

“Well, maybe she didn't want to bother you. You had that big case going on and you were out most of the time.”

He'd been out most of the time. Dinah said it in a matter-of-fact way. She wasn't accusing him.

But he accused himself. He hadn't been there. He'd
been too wrapped up in his work to notice what was happening in his own house.

“Marc, what's wrong?” Dinah stood, her hand on the banister. “Do you think Carr had something to do with Annabel's death?”

“He wasn't the person I was thinking of. I don't think the police paid much attention to him. There didn't seem any reason to.”

“The fact that Annabel didn't like him isn't a reason for murder.”

“No, it's not. But that may not be all there was to it. She didn't say anything else about him to you?”

Dinah shook her head. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I'll have a talk with Glory about Carr. Annabel may have said something to her.” He put his hand over hers on the railing. “Thanks, Dinah. You've given me something to look into, at any rate.”

She was frowning. “What did you mean when you said Carr wasn't the person you were thinking of?”

He hadn't intended to tell her, but maybe she had the right to know. He'd already involved her more than he'd intended. “There was someone else. Someone I'd prosecuted who'd made threats. His name was Leonard Hassert.”

“But if you prosecuted him, wasn't he in prison?”

“He should have been. They let him out early—good behavior, so they said.” Bitterness rose like bile. Hassert shouldn't have been running around loose.

“Surely the police investigated him.”

“They checked him out. He had an alibi. Three
people were prepared to swear he couldn't have been anywhere near here that night.”

“But if so—”

“People do lie, Dinah.” His tone was gently mocking. “I'm not satisfied, even if the police were. I think it all bears looking at again.”

“I suppose so.” Her hand closed on his. “But—”

“Hey, aren't you done with those lights yet?” Court's voice sounded from above them. Marc looked up, to see his son hanging over the railing.

“We're working on it.”

Dinah snatched her hand free. “Do you think we've been loafing? We'll be finished in a jiffy. I'll take the lights up to the top and work my way down.”

She darted past him up the stairs. Uneasiness moved through him at the sight.

“You don't need to…” he began.

Dinah turned, the string of lights in her hand. The smile ebbed from her face, like sand washed by the outgoing tide. She looked down, toward the hall, her fair skin paling. She grabbed the railing.

He reached her in a millisecond. He hadn't thought. He'd been stupid. “Dinah, are you all right?”

She took a breath and straightened, her hand falling away from the railing. “I'm fine.” Her gaze evaded his. “Let's get this finished.”

“Right. We will.” He took the string of lights from her. “You go down and tell me if I'm getting them even, okay?” It was the only thing he could think of to get her off the stairs without Court noticing anything.

She nodded and went on down the steps. It must have taken an effort not to hurry.

He wanted her to remember. But in his need to know, he hadn't thought about what remembering might do to Dinah.

D
inah sat bolt upright in bed, a cry strangled in her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth. Had she actually cried out, or had it been only in the dream?

No, not dream. Nightmare. Shivering, she clutched the quilt around her. She was cold and perspiring at the same time, her heart still pounding with remembered fear.

Breathe in, breathe out.
Concentrate on your breath, let your pulse slow, your heartbeat steady. How could a mere dream, a product of the mind, produce such violent physical symptoms? She couldn't have been more terrified if she'd been in actual danger.

She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. The soft, much-washed cotton of the quilt was as soothing as her mother's caress. She was all right. She was safe in the room that had been hers since she'd come to live with Aunt Kate when she was nine. The double-wedding-ring quilt had been her mother's; the sleigh bed had been her father's.

She looked automatically toward the bedside table. It was too dark to make out their features in the silver-
framed photograph, but she didn't need the light. She knew how they looked—always young, always laughing, always holding each other—the way they'd looked before Hurricane Hugo tore apart all their lives.

She plucked the robe she'd left across the bottom of the bed, pulling it around her as she slid from the cocoon of covers. Her toes curled into the hooked rug that lay over the polished heart of pine floor, the touch grounding her.

She was all right. She wasn't trapped in the dream, standing on the staircase in Marc and Annabel's house, looking down at the dimly lit hallway. Seeing the sliver of light from the front parlor, hearing angry voices, being afraid without knowing why.

A shudder went through her, and she gritted her teeth until it faded. She always woke from the dream at that moment. She never saw the rest of it, but maybe that was God's providence, protecting her from something too terrible to be borne.

She knew how the story ended, in any event. It ended with Annabel, her beautiful cousin Annabel, dead on the floor in front of the Adam fireplace in her elegant parlor.

She took another long, shaky breath and crossed the room. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness, touching one familiar object after another. Aunt Kate had created this space for her when she took Dinah in, seeming happy to trade the peace and comfort of an elderly spinster's quiet existence for the trials of raising a distraught, grief-stricken child.

Reaching the window, Dinah slid down to her knees,
pushing up the sash so that she could prop her elbows on the low, wide sill. The chill night air touched her face. The quiet, dark street slept. She was twenty-six, not sixteen, and she wasn't afraid.

Marc's house slept, too. For ten years it had been rented to a busy professional couple whose brisk lives and genteel parties had routed any shadows left from the tragedy that happened there. Still, despite repeated invitations, she'd avoided going inside. She'd thought she'd been doing the right thing, dealing with her grief in her own way. Instead she'd just been delaying the inevitable.

It didn't take too much effort to figure out what had brought on the nightmare tonight. That moment when she'd run heedlessly up the stairs and then turned—

Her heart was thudding again, and she took another deep breath, forcing herself to be calm. She would not relive that moment, staring down at the hallway, feeling her vision darken as her ten-years-younger self filled her mind.

Marc had known, of course. She couldn't miss the pity in his face when he'd reached her, made an excuse to get her off the stairs.

A little flare of anger went through her. Why should he pity her? It was his idea, after all. He wanted her to remember.

I can't remember, Father. I don't know anything. Why can't he understand that?

If I did know anything—

Her mind backed away from that thought. She didn't. She didn't.

She covered her face with her palms. Even in prayer, she couldn't go that deeply.

You know.
She pressed down the welling tide of panic.
You understand, Father. This is how I cope. Isn't it going to be enough?

Maybe not.

She rose slowly, stretching cramped muscles. From the bedroom alcove, a light blinked on her computer. Copies of the forensic drawings she'd done were stacked neatly on her desk, next to the case with her sketching materials, ready to go at a moment's notice.

Ironic, wasn't it? Her sketches had helped crime victims deal with their traumatic memories, but she could do nothing about her own.

A wave of revulsion went through her. She didn't want to do anything with her own. She wanted to bury them so deeply she'd never think of them again.

Please, Lord.
She passed the oval-framed mirror, a pale ghost in her white nightshirt, and climbed back into bed.
Please let me forget.

 

Trying not to think about what was crunching under her feet, Dinah climbed the stairs of the run-down tenement. Tracey forged ahead of her, seeming to be unaffected by the dirt and the smells.

“Do you think the girl will actually go through with it this time?” Dinah didn't really need an answer, but the distraction of hearing Tracey's voice might keep her from tensing up too much as she approached the interview.

“We live in hope.” But nothing about Tracey's ex
pression, as she glanced back, suggested hope. Tracey had her game face on. Maybe that was how she coped with what they were about to do.

“You're sure she must have seen something?” She made it a question, although she knew the answer.

“Positive. There's no way she stood where she says she did and didn't see the attacker.” Tracey's expression softened slightly. “Poor kid. She's immature for a fifteen-year-old. This is going to make her grow up fast.”

“Too fast.” She knew only too well that experience. It had been hers.

Tracey stopped in front of a door and rapped. “Here we go. Are you ready?”

She nodded, wishing her stomach didn't tie into knots each time she did this. But if it didn't, that might mean she had hardened herself to the victim's pain, and she never wanted to reach that point.

In comparison to the filthy hallway, the inside of the small apartment was almost painfully clean. A threadbare rug covered the floor in the living room area, with flimsy modern furniture placed carefully on it. A large television sat on a metal stand in the corner, and the end tables bore identical vases of plastic flowers atop white doilies.

The girl's mother ushered them inside, almost wringing her hands in anxiety. Tracey had prepped the woman, so she knew to leave them alone with her daughter.

Dinah scanned the living area. “The kitchen table will be best,” she murmured to Tracey, who nodded. Tracey understood that putting a physical barrier like a
table between Dinah and the victim would help to make the girl feel safe.

Talking reassuringly, Tracey walked the mother toward what must be a bedroom, while the girl came reluctantly toward Dinah.

So young—that was all Dinah could think. With her parochial school uniform, thick dark braids and slight, undeveloped figure, she looked like a child.

“It's nice to see you, Teresa.” Dinah slid onto one of the kitchen chairs, gesturing toward the seat across from her. “I'm Dinah.”

Thin lips set in a straight line, dark eyes avoiding contact, the girl nodded and sat down, folding her arms. Behind the girl, Tracey moved quietly to a chair in the far corner of the room, out of Teresa's line of sight.

It wasn't going to be easy. Everything about Teresa screamed that she wasn't going to cooperate. Tracey knew that as well as she did. Still, they had to try.

She looked around for something to serve as a conversation starter. Three framed school photos hung on the wall behind Teresa—a different Teresa, smiling and eager, a smaller sister with a gap-toothed smile, an older brother, doing his best to look serious in his school blazer and tie.

“I see your mother has your latest school pictures up. My mom always did that, too.”

Teresa's shoulders moved in a shrug that could mean anything.

“What are your brother's and sister's names?”

“Margaret. And Joseph.” Her mouth clamped shut again.

Clearly small talk was out. Dinah fingered the drawing pad and pencil on her lap, out of Teresa's sight. She might not have a chance to use it.

“Teresa, I'd like to go back to the morning of that day. Will you do that for me?”

A nod.

“Okay, let's start with breakfast. Do you remember what you had to eat?”

They'd have to do this slowly. Taking the witness through the day, letting her recall nonfrightening events, sometimes helped to put her at ease.

Keeping her voice soft and her questions unobtrusive, she led Teresa through the events of the day—breakfast with her family, walking to school with her little sister, classes, lunch.

She didn't look at Tracey, knowing she could count on Tracey not to interrupt. Tracey understood the process, unlike many officers. Teresa had to be led gently to remember, not to guess at eye color or nose shape. This couldn't be rushed, and the wrong question could send them back to square one, perhaps contaminating the memory beyond any hope of accuracy.

Teresa closed her eyes occasionally to visualize what the teacher wrote on the board, what she'd taken from the lunch counter. She glanced to the left, signaling that she was using the remembering part of her brain.

Good. Dinah was there with her, taking a scoop of macaroni and cheese, looking around the lunchroom for a friend. Sitting down with Jessica, who only had hours left to live.

Through supper, the movie, what they talked about as they came out of the theater. Teresa was tensing now, and it was hard not to tense with her. Trauma engraved the scene on the victim's mind, but it also made accessing it wrenching and painful.

“You turned into the alley,” she said gently. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Dark.” Teresa's neck muscles worked, her breathing growing heavy. She crossed her arms, protecting herself. “It was dark. I couldn't see.”

She felt, rather than saw, the sharpening of Tracey's attention. The alley hadn't been dark. If it had, the girls probably wouldn't have turned into it. But a streetlight overhung it, making it look safe.

“Teresa—”

“No!” She shot out of the chair so abruptly that it toppled over. “I didn't see anything! I didn't!” Bursting into tears, she ran from the room. The bedroom door slammed, shuddering from the impact.

“Well.” Tracey's eyebrows lifted. “I guess there's nothing on your pad.”

Dinah mutely showed her the blank sheet.

“So we got nothing. It happens.” Tracey rose.

“We got something.” Dinah got up, reaching for her bag, feeling as if she needed something to hang on to. “She may never tell us, and you can't take it to court, but she knows who killed her friend.”

Tracey's brows lifted a little higher. “You're sure of that?”

Dinah didn't question how she knew. Some combi
nation of instinct, experience and guidance, probably. But she knew.

“I'm sure. But we may never get it out of her. She doesn't want to remember.”

She knew what that felt like, only too well.

 

“Sorry I couldn't get any closer.” Marc strolled beside Dinah from the parking space he'd found a block from Marion Square. They were about to tackle the first item on Court's lengthy list of Charleston Christmas events, the lighting of the city Christmas tree.

The cool evening breeze lifted Dinah's dark curls, and she tucked her hands into the pockets of her wool jacket. “This is fine. Do I look as if I can't walk a block?”

Court was several yards ahead. Either he found their pace too slow, or he wanted to give the impression he was alone. It was tough to tell with a teenager. At least he could speak freely to Dinah.

“You look as if you're exhausted. Haven't you been sleeping?”

“I'm fine.” She dodged a stroller, shooting him an annoyed look. “Please don't hover. I get enough of that from Aunt Kate.”

He shrugged, unconvinced. “If you say so.”

The crowds grew thicker as they approached. Families, teenagers and elderly people poured into the area, roped off for the occasion. He remembered Marion Square Park as a bit shabby and run-down, but the city had clearly made an effort to improve things.

He couldn't begin a serious conversation with Dinah
in the middle of a holiday crowd, but sooner or later they had to talk. The way she'd looked those moments on the stairs with her white, strained expression still haunted him.

He had to find a way to reassure her that he wasn't going to press her about what happened. Sure, he hoped she might remember something useful, but not at the cost of her well-being. And she'd already given him a possibility, with her revelation of Annabel's attitude toward Carr, the gardener. He hadn't found Carr yet, but he would. He might need to use the firm of private investigators he'd taken the trouble of looking up.