Страница 45 из 48
"Was it you who searched the house after she died, Arthur? The one who searched her bedroom?"
"I think it was Bubba Sewell," Arthur said. "He seemed awfully concerned with how long the house would be off-limits to the family. I don't know what he was looking for."
I did. "She didn't take pictures of you?" I said, unwisely.
"Pictures? What the hell are you talking about?"
"When were you with her? It's been almost two years, right?" I'd just had the worst idea in the world. I was wondering if you added Chase's age, plus nine months...
"Less than that," he said, and my heart sank. Arthur was a candidate for Chase's father.
"Oh, well, doesn't make any difference," I said bracingly. "What were you actually doing here today, Arthur? Were you just mooning around, or were you working on the investigation?" Poppy must have had a higher regard for Arthur than for the others, but I wasn't up to explaining to Arthur why that was so.
"A little of both," Arthur said. His voice was mild, which was a relief. "I've been talking to Sandy Wy
"Did she do it?"
"She says that when she got here, Poppy was already dead."
"Where did she park her car? Did anyone see her car?"
"The woman across the street. Almost everyone on this street goes to work in the morning, but this woman, the one who also described the Sewells' van, incidentally, was home with the runs that morning. In between trips to the bathroom, she sat in her living room and watched television, with the front curtains open. She didn't get a good look at Liza
"Why would she do that if she didn't plan on doing something bad?"
"She pla
"Why would Poppy do such a thing, stay silent? Why wouldn't she tell? Why make any bargain? He was in the wrong, and she was so young."
"Her word against his. No evidence. Poppy was in her thirties, way beyond her teens. Nothing would have come of it."
"Nothing but the ruin of his reputation," I pointed out. "No matter if it came to court or not, Poppy would have ruined him forever. Plenty of people would have believed her."
"But it would have ruined her, too, in the process. At the very least, it would have made her life, and John David's and the baby's, very painful for a few months."
I mulled that over. "So this way, with her demanding he write the letter, he could believe she'd never tell, and she could believe he'd never make passes at young girls again?"
"I guess that was Poppy's thinking."
"Do you believe Sandy? Do you believe she didn't kill Poppy?"
"Yes. She was too stricken to think about stepping over Poppy's body to search for the letter that morning. I believed her when she said it just didn't occur to her. She did her best to get the letter back once Poppy was dead, but I don't believe she killed Poppy for it. I think she did walk to the gate in the front of the fence when Poppy wouldn't come to the door, which Sandy says was then locked."
But it hadn't been locked when I tried it. I was getting more and more confused.
"So she walked over to the fence at the side of the house, came in the gate, and walked around to the sliding glass doors," I said. "And there she saw Poppy's body?"
"Yes. She says she cried for a while, then left the way she'd come, and drove back home. By the time she got there, she was hearing from us here that Poppy was dead. She and Marvin packed up and returned to Lawrenceton. She never told Marvin where she'd been."
"Okay," I said slowly, trying not to get sidetracked by my rush of disgust at having put them up in my house. "So, Sandy leaves, the front door is locked, and she doesn't have the letter. Then Liza
"No, Liza
I had a sudden idea, and I walked down the little hall to the kitchen. It was in better shape than it had been when we arrived yesterday. Melinda and I hadn't searched it, but we had straightened it and cleaned the counters and stovetop. Poppy's little radio still sat on the counter, though now it was dustless.
I pressed a button to turn it on, and when the music came on, I looked at Arthur expectantly.
"What?" he said. His voice sounded quite businesslike, brisk. He's back to being himself, I thought.
"When Liza
I walked around the breakfast bar and looked out the sliding glass door. Arthur came to stand beside me. We exchanged glances.
"It was Mrs. Embler's radio," he said.
"I'm guessing it was. What did she tell you about that morning?"
"Just that she swam as usual. Didn't hear or see anything out of the ordinary. Not too surprising, considering the fact that she was wearing a swimming cap and the radio was on, and there's a privacy fence in between the houses."
"But the gate in the privacy fence had to be open at some point," I said. "She's got Moosie."
"The cat? You saw Moosie in the house after Poppy was dead?"
"Yes, I did." I stared at the boards of the high privacy fence, the fence the declawed Moosie couldn't climb. "You know, Arthur, I could swear that when I was standing here, looking out, the day Poppy died, Cara was swimming then. She had the radio on."
"So?"
"Still swimming? In this temperature? From the time Liza
"That could be," Arthur said, but he sounded doubtful.
"And Moosie—who can't climb the fence because he hasn't got claws—vanished, between the time I came in the house and the time the police arrived."
Arthur stared at the back gate.
"What the woman across the street didn't see was anyone leaving," he said very quietly. "Anyone except Sandy and Liza