12

Tuesday, July 5

“I don’t know what to do,” Lia admitted to Bailey, Jim, and Steve from her perch on her usual table. Honey and Chewy were off exploring while Chester and Penny shoved in front of each other to kiss Lia while she dodged their tongues. “I was trying to do the right thing, and I told Peter everything as soon as I knew Fiber and Snark hadn’t come clean. He’s still furious with me.”

“Do you blame him?” Jim asked.

“No.” Lia’s voice was small. “What do we do now?”

“How much do they know?” Bailey asked.

“Everything.”

“Tossed us right under the bus, did you?” Steve asked.

“Maybe not everything. He knows about Citrine and that Bailey and Trees were looking into Leroy’s phone. I didn’t volunteer anything he didn’t already suspect. He doesn’t know about the bar hopping.”

“I suggest a low profile,” Steve said. “What more can we do right now, anyway?”

“I told Sarah last Saturday we were out of it. I think it should stay that way,” Lia said.

“What’s this I hear? The sound of a thousand clucking chickens?” Terry strolled up with Jackson, having caught the last of the discussion. “If this were Victorian England—“

“Yeah, yeah, we’d be drawn and quartered. Okay, smarty, what do you think we should do?” Steve demanded.

“The pot has been stirred. We need to see what floats to the top,” Terry said.

“How do you suggest we do that?” Lia asked.

“Surveillance, of course. If anyone is going to make a mistake, it will be now.”

“I can’t surveil anything if I want to keep Bonnie happy,” Jim said. “She’s already decided that you’re all a bad influence after yesterday. I’m lucky she allowed me to bring Chester this morning.”

“Strike a blow for autonomy, man. Don’t let her strangle you with her apron strings,” Terry declared.

“My marriage lasted more than 30 years, and it’s only over because Mary got cancer. How long did your first wife stay with you?” Jim asked.

“Low blow, my friend, low blow,” Terry said.

“But accurate,” Steve said. “You have to admit that.”

“The cops want us to butt out,” Bailey said. “I vote we do that.”

“And leave Sarah’s downfall to their incompetence?” Terry asked. “What kind of friend would do that?”

Lia’s eye’s narrowed with annoyance. “We’re talking about Peter and Brent, not Heckle and Jeckle. Are you saying that Peter and Brent are incompetent?”

“Well … I … ah ….”

“He just wants to do more with that magnifying glass he bought than set ants on fire,” Steve said.

Terry’s face froze, as if he didn’t know whether to be mollified or insulted.

Lia bit her lip. “Peter and Brent are good at their jobs, but they’re overworked. I was sure the ladies would tell everything after what happened to Sarah. I don’t know why they didn’t, but I don’t like it. Another thing, listening to Brent run through everything that happened, who’s to say it’s stopped?”

“You’re talking in circles, Lia,” Bailey said. “What do you want to do?”

“It was a mistake for me to lie to Peter,” Lia said. “Maybe if I hadn’t agreed to help, they would have gone to the police. Sarah might never have been attacked. Now that everything is out in the open, I need to let Peter and Brent do their job and stay out of it. You do what you want, follow everyone from here to Timbuktu if you like.” She shoved off the picnic table and walked away, towards the back of the park. Honey and Chewy ran to join her.

Carol sat in the interrogation room, knees together, hands clasped in her lap, cane leaning against the table. She tilted her head and looked up at Brent and Peter with a bland, inquiring look. Every strand of red hair was perfectly fluffed and the powder on her face was dry. She should be sweating in this tiny brick box that was the District Five interview room, but she wasn’t.

Catholic School, all 12 years, I bet. Peter scratched his head, affecting confusion. “Help us understand this. Leroy Eberschlag shoves you down a flight of steps tall enough to kill you, and you don’t tell me when I arrive on the scene, you don’t tell officer Hinkle when he takes your statement, and you don’t volunteer this information when your business partner winds up in a coma. Why is that?”

She pursed her lips, looking to the side. Turned back to face Peter, chin up. “I had no proof it was him. What difference does it make?”

“Mrs. Cohn, we know about your business. We know your cabal of knitting cat ladies is the voice behind Lucas Cross, and we know you were at odds with Lucas when he disappeared. With two assaults and an attempted murder tallied against you and your partners, we think the information is critical and find it puzzling that you would leave it out.”

“Damn that girl. I knew she couldn’t keep a secret.”

“Now, don’t go blaming Lia, Mrs. Cohn,” Brent drawled, laying on his magnolia scented accent. “Peter figured out a long time ago that Leroy didn’t write those books.”

Carol blinked. “How?”

“We detectives like to detect,” Peter said. “It wasn’t hard. I understand your desire to keep the public from finding out Leroy is a fake, but we can’t understand what’s going on if you hide things from us.”

“We will be as circumspect as possible, Mrs. Cohn,” Brent said. “If it has no bearing on Ms. Schellenger’s current condition, we will not disclose it. But we have to consider all possibilities.”

“We do have to share this with Austin,” Peter said. “There’s no way around that.”

Carol’s face crumpled. She shook her head sadly as she retrieved a Kleenex from her purse and dabbed daintily at the corners of her eyes. “All my dreams … just smoke.”

“What do you mean by that, Mrs. Cohn. I thought all the proceeds went to charity,” Brent said.

Carol sighed. “That was the original plan. Then we passed the million-dollar mark, and we were reconsidering. It was one thing when we were talking about a few thousand dollars. Now we’re looking at millions if we can keep it going. That would make all of us comfortable for the rest of our lives.”

“When were you going to decide?” Peter asked.

“We were going to sit down after the parade and hammer it out. We need to get it done before the next book launches.”

“Who is affected by this?” Brent asked.

“The five of us, Leroy, and our families to a lesser extent. Then there are the charities.”

“Who is most affected by any changes?” Peter asked.

“It’s questionable - but Leroy was pushing for a partner share. I told him we weren’t taking on a new partner unless someone died. It’s in our charter, you see. Oh, God, did I give him the idea to kill one of us?” She twisted her tattered Kleenex into shreds.

“We don’t know that,” Brent said. “There’s a lot to look at. You’ve identified a number of people with a stake in the success of the books. Who knew you were going to Clifton the night you were attacked?”

Carol chewed her lipstick off while she thought. “I saw Debby and Alice earlier. I might have mentioned it. Yes, I think I did. But neither of them would be behind this.”

Alice scanned the tiny, insufficiently lit interview room, half of which was taken up by a four-foot table. The architect should be shot for expecting people to spend time in such a claustrophobic space. Unless that’s meant to demoralize suspects. Maybe the architect forgot to put it in and repurposed a utility closet at the last minute.

“Even if I had a reason to kill Sarah, which I didn’t,” Alice said, looking over the top of her studious glasses, “I never would have put her body in the float.”

“Why is that, Mrs. Emmons?” Peter asked.

“I’m an architect. I didn’t know Jim McDonald or Jose Mitsch, and I wanted to be sure the float wouldn’t fall down and kill someone. It was built well enough, but it was never meant to carry extra weight.”

“Wouldn’t it have been safer if it had been stronger?” Peter asked.

“Certainly, but a cantilevered structure such as the gun barrel would have required extensive improvements to bear the weight of a full grown adult, and it wasn’t worth it for a single use.”

“Who knew this, Mrs. Emmons?” Brent asked.

“Well, Jerry, it was his trailer and his garage, so he could be held liable. Sarah, she showed me the plans. I don’t remember if I said anything to anyone else.” Alice frowned and felt a line appearing between her eyebrows. She reminded herself to relax. “But anyone familiar with basic physics would know that the gun barrel would act like a lever if there was weight on the end.”

“Is there a chance someone wanted her to fall out in the parade?” Peter asked.

“What a ghastly idea,” Alice said. “I hope not. Those poor children will never be the same. The outcome would be impossible to predict. If it fell wrong, it could have landed on somebody.”

“So you think we’re looking for someone who, say, doesn’t know anything about building or engineering?” Peter asked.

“I would agree with that,” Alice said.

“What about Leroy Eberschlag?” Brent asked. “Is he familiar with proper construction?”

Alice glanced at her hands. “You’d have to ask Debby or Dorothy, but I suspect not. The only labor he’s interested in appears to be lifting beer bottles and picking up women.”

“Not about pushing them down steps or trying to drown them?” Peter asked.

Alice sighed and shook her head. “I knew this would never work.”

“What is that?” Peter asked.

“Hiding Carol’s suspicions about Leroy, that he’s in town and stalking us.”

“Carol’s suspicions? Not yours?” Brent asked. “Didn’t he call you from inside Cincinnati?”

“Well, yes, but I only got to listen to his message once before I accidentally deleted it. I’m sure he called in the middle of the night so he could say what he wanted to say and hang up. He certainly didn’t threaten us. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“Yet you neglected to mention that Leroy was in town when you spoke with us yesterday,” Brent said.

“That was for Debby’s sake. She couldn’t believe he attacked Carol and Cecilie, much less Sarah. Sarah was like family to him.”

“What do you think?” Peter asked.

“I don’t have enough information to think anything, Detective Dourson. And neither does anyone else.”

Cecilie entered the brick closet with the resignation of the red-handed.

“Water, Mrs. Watkins?” Brent asked as she took her seat.

The small woman gave Brent and Peter an embarrassed half smile. She took a sip of water, staring at the glass as she set it back down. “I know what you’re going to say.”

“What is that?” Peter asked.

“That I should have reported that stupid incident at Twin Towers, and I should have told someone that Leroy might be hanging around.”

“We can’t argue with that,” Brent said. “What stopped you?”

“Leroy is feckless. He doesn’t have the drive to be mean. Even when he used to get into bar fights, it was being drunk and stupid. It wasn’t rage.”

Peter thought back to his prior encounters with Leroy. He couldn’t disagree. Leroy’s belligerence lacked the vicious edge that kicked your adrenaline into survival mode.

“So what do you think is going on here, if it isn’t Leroy?” Peter asked.

“I wasn’t sure there was anything until Sarah fell out of the sky and face planted on the pavement in front of me. I knew Leroy was missing, but after the call to Alice, I thought he was whooping it up in Belize.”

“Even after you knew the call was placed in Cincinnati?” Peter asked.

“Lia and her friends never found him, did they?”

“Aren’t you concerned that someone tried to drown you?” Brent asked.

“But they didn’t, not really. There were too many people around. It was a nasty trick, but nothing more than that. I was more upset about spending half the day at the hospital for nothing. I honestly thought Edward was behind it.”

“Who’s Edward?” Peter asked.

“I don’t know why you insisted I come here,” Debby said, giving Peter a murderous glare. She yanked a chair out from the table that took up most of the room and sat, arms crossed. Her hair bushed more than usual, giving her a wild look. “The Northside Branch is in a shambles, and my best friend is hanging on by a thread. You should be out looking for the person who did that to her.”

“And if that person is your nephew?” Brent asked.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s not him,” she said.

“Then who is it, Mrs. Carrico?” Peter asked.

“Talk to that Citrine girl. She followed us down the hill. I bet she knew what was going to happen and wanted to watch.”

Peter and Brent watched Debby stomp out of District Five.

“That’s one angry woman,” Brent said.

“Not angry. Scared. Her nephew is the obvious suspect in an assault on her best friend, and she has no clue where he is,” Peter said. “She can’t do a thing to help either one of them, and she feels powerless.”

“All that from someone who practically spat in your face?”

“Anger is a secondary emotion. If you look for what’s under it, you can learn a lot.”

“And what did you learn from Mrs. Carrico?” Brent asked. “Do you think she’s right about Citrine?”

“Nah. Citrine is harmless. As for Debby Carrico, I vote to move her down the list. But she isn’t the one who gave us the most helpful information today.”

“Indeed?”

“I think Alice’s tidbit about the float is our win for today. We’re looking for someone who would benefit from changes in the business, who knew everyone’s routines, is strong enough to carry Sarah, and who knew the float was headed for Mount Rumpke, but was not in on conversations about the float’s construction.”

“Not the inner circle, but one step away?” Brent asked.

Peter nodded. “Husbands.”

Lia sighed at the huge mural overlooking Good Sam’s main lobby. Intersecting geometric swoops and stained glass colors combined to remind visitors they were in a religious institution. She wondered how Sarah, with her pagan leanings, would take waking up surrounded by the corporate version of inspirational art. She’d probably point out that the artist represented Him as a sun god, His face a radiant disk in the sky, far above his worshippers.

Lia took the elevator to the seventh floor, where she was assured she would find the ICU Family Lounge. The lounge was packed with huddles of worried, resolute, desperate, exhausted, and resigned loved ones. The air smelled of microwave popcorn and burnt coffee.

Fiber and Snark took over a corner in the back. Jerry sat next to Debby, their knees touching, holding hands. Alice had her glasses off and eyes closed, the fingertips of one hand pressed against her forehead. Carol and Cecilie conversed in low tones. There was an empty seat between Alice and Debby, probably reserved for Duane.

Lia crossed the room, winding her way through preoccupied visitors.

“Hello, Lia,” Jerry said. “What’s that you have, there?”

Lia looked down at the small package in her hand. It was wrapped in plain white tissue and tied with blue ribbon and suddenly seemed insufficient. She quirked an apprehensive half smile. “I thought they might have restrictions about having flowers in the ICU, so I brought Sarah a painting of one that she could keep beside her bed. How is she?”

Alice removed her hand from her forehead and replaced her studious glasses. “Hard to say. She had emergency surgery to relieve pressure on her cranium from internal bleeding. The surgery was successful, but there’s no way to tell if she has brain damage until she wakes up. Duane is a mess. He’s with her now.”

“I’m so sorry.” It was the only thing she knew to say, but it was never enough.

Debby looked up, narrowing her eyes. “Did you have to tell your boyfriend about Leroy? We thought you understood what was at stake. We could be ruined.”

Lia took a step back. “Don’t you want to know who attacked Sarah? You can’t expect the police to work in the dark.”

“Leroy didn’t attack Sarah. They had no reason to know anything about him.” She looked as if she would say more, but Jerry put a hand on her arm. Debby looked at him and started to cry.

Cecilie stood up and took Lia by the arm. “Let’s take a walk.” She led Lia out into the hall, past the chapel with its stained glass portrayal of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

“Things are a mess right now,” Cecilie said. “It might be better if you weren’t here.”

“What was I supposed to do?”

Cecilie raised a hand. “I know, I know. We put you in an impossible position. Some people haven’t come around to see that you couldn’t do anything else. It will take time. Come on, I’ll take you back down.” She punched the button on the elevator.

“Cecilie.” The hoarse call was full of grief. Lia looked up to see Duane exiting the ICU on the beefy arm of a male nurse. “She’s gone. She just went. What am I going to do?”

Cecilie went to Duane and wrapped her arms around the big man. He broke into wailing sobs that brought Sarah’s friends running.

Lia’s eye’s blurred as she watched the nurse help Duane onto a bench, as Sarah’s friends closed around him. She felt like a voyeur, intruding as an unwelcome guest on their grief. Lia looked down, her eyes landing on a gift that no longer had a recipient.

The elevator dinged.