My cell phone rang at two-thirty in the morning. It was no matter. I was awake and cold and alone at the turret.
‘You ditched me at the Palmer House,’ Amanda said. ‘I looked around and you were gone.’
I’d taken off right after I blurted out Marilyn’s name, hoping Amanda might escape being photographed with me.
‘That’s why you’re calling at two-thirty in the morning?’ I asked.
‘You’re up anyway,’ she said.
‘How could you know that?’
‘You’ve been to the window more than a dozen times. Are you waiting for the press to storm the turret, demanding to know why you called out Marilyn Paul’s name or, like Leo, are you worried about the car parked down your street?’
It was true enough; I was troubled by the car but I didn’t understand her question. ‘What does Leo have to do with it?’
‘That car down the street belongs to one of my people.’
‘You put security on me?’
‘I’m confused about Tim Wade but clear about the look he gave you at the Palmer House. I’m having you watched because I’m guessing you need it, and because I can afford it.’
‘It’s no worry. All of Wade’s guards have taken off. The daytime thugs and, according to Jenny when she called right after her newscast, the night shift, too. I’m hoping he doesn’t own anyone else.’
‘Tell that to Leo. He must have seen your star turn on television calling out Marilyn Paul’s name and was worried it would spell trouble. He’s been watching my man watch your turret. That made my man edgy enough to run his plates. I thought Leo drove a Porsche, not a big van.’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Then tell me a shorter one. I saw your face when Jennifer Gale reported that one of the corpses might belong to a young woman. You were the only one in the ballroom who didn’t appear surprised.’
‘Almost the only one in the room,’ I corrected.
‘Tim wasn’t surprised?’
‘Remember I told you Wade’s guard shack was empty when I got to Winnetka this morning? I thought that was odd, given all the strangers that were milling about. But it wasn’t until I was leaving that I realized the guards had taken off. Wade had been paying them very well – in money and in Rolexes – to do more than simply guard his estate, but obviously they decided it wasn’t enough to hang around and get arrested for assault and maybe even murder.’
‘They killed Shea and Marilyn Paul?’
‘I’m hoping a DNA analysis of Shea’s body will tell us exactly who killed her.’
‘And the young woman in the woods?’
‘I didn’t know about her when Wade left his house early this morning, I thought I might catch an unguarded—’
She groaned at the wordplay.
‘An unguarded moment to speak with Theresa Wade,’ I went on. ‘I knocked on the front door and when the supposed invalid didn’t come down to answer it, I stepped inside.’
‘You expected her to answer the door herself?’
‘I hoped to provoke a moment of candor. Don’t forget, Jenny’s short video captured a woman walking in Theresa’s bedroom, something that was borne out by a chairlift that hadn’t been used in a very long time.’
‘It should have been in constant use ever since the girl was little.’
‘I wasn’t sure what to think when I stepped inside. I called out Theresa’s name from the base of the stairs several times.’
‘And when she didn’t answer you ignored any thought that she might have been asleep or in the bathroom, and took it upon yourself to go up?’
‘I kept calling out at almost every step.’
‘And when you got upstairs?’
‘There are four bedrooms. One had obviously belonged to Tim’s parents. One had been turned into a small study. The third was Tim’s. The fourth was Theresa’s.’
‘What did you say when you barged into her room?’
‘She wasn’t there. The bed was made and the room was recently dusted.’
‘You tossed her bedroom?’
‘I peeked in discreetly and saw a gray wig on one of those Styrofoam heads on the dresser, a wig that likely wouldn’t be needed by a woman who never let anyone see her.’
‘So, a wig to fool, like the wig Marilyn Paul had worn to fool you?’
‘Maybe not identical, but the intent was the same, except the wig in the Wade house was worn by a man.’
‘A man mortified that he’d accidentally killed his sister,’ she said.
‘A man who needed to convince the world that she was still alive.’
‘Tragedy had struck him again,’ she said.
‘No. Theresa was the first. She disappeared from the newspapers right after she graduated from college. That was well before Halvorson got killed.’
‘What a nightmare that must have been for him, looking out his front window every day for the past twenty years knowing two secret graves were across the street.’
Neither of us said anything for a moment; we just listened to each other think. And then she said, ‘Give me Leo’s cell number. I’ll tell him I’ve got the turret covered and that he should go home and sleep. You should sleep, too.’
I gave her Leo’s number and went to bed, sure I was in for the first of many restless nights, mulling over the tragedies of Timothy Wade.
But I was wrong. Those were for the future. I fell asleep in a minute.