22.

When I arrived at Steiner Street, the red and blue lights of the patrol cars pulsed, bouncing off the high retaining wall and throwing the tangled vegetation into eerie relief against the facades of the Victorians. The excitement centered on the Stick-style house where I’d first met Wintringham and Charmaine on Saturday. Strange: I’d automatically assumed the big Queen Anne would again be the death house.

I glanced up the street and noted Greg’s BMW, double-parked by a patrol car. His position in the department was that of administrator, working the day shift, pulling all the elements of investigations together, but it was not in his character to confine himself to a desk job. He personally visited as many of the crime scenes as possible, and was on call twenty-four hours a day.

A crowd of spectators, most of them black, milled about at the foot of the stairway in the wall. Wintringham was nowhere in sight. I pushed through the crowd toward the uniformed officer who guarded the steps. He wasn’t likely to let me pass. I glanced around for a solution to the problem and spotted Inspector Gallagher.

Gallagher was an owlish young man whose frank admiration on the few occasions we’d run across each other had made my day. I waved to him, and he came over.

“Hi,” I said, “is the lieutenant inside?”

“Yeah. They’re about to bring the body out. You on the case?”

“Yes. Could you take me up there? I need to talk to him.”

“Sure.” Gallagher slipped a hand under my elbow and led me past the uniformed men. Branches and blackberry vines brushed against me as we approached the house.

Inside, the scene was reminiscent of Friday night, the front parlor garishly illuminated by portable floodlights. The body, however, was covered and strapped to a stretcher, and white-coated ambulance attendants stood by, awaiting the go-ahead. I breathed more easily; dead bodies held no attraction for me.

Glancing around the room, I spotted Greg talking with one of his inspectors. His tall, confident presence, coupled with the memory of the last time I’d seen him, gave me a rush of pleasure. I sucked my breath in, reminding myself of where I was and why I was here.

Apparently my presence provoked no similar response in Greg. He saw me, and his dark eyebrows came together in a scowl. Turning abruptly from the inspector, he strode across the room and grabbed my arm.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled.

I tried to peel his fingers off my arm, but it didn’t work. “I’m on the case.”

“The hell you are! I can’t stop you from snooping around for Wintringham, but I’ll be damned if I’m admitting you to a crime scene. How’d you get in, anyway?”

I glanced at Gallagher. He looked confused and apprehensive. Not wanting to get him in trouble, I merely said, “Subterfuge.”

“You’ve read too goddamned many of those detective novels.” Greg looked at Gallagher too, but his expression, rather than one of anger, was of sympathy.

I wrenched free of Greg and surveyed the room. Charmaine’s paint and wallpaper samples lay on the floor where she had left them on Saturday, but now they were splattered with blood and some other material – brain tissue? – that I wasn’t sure I cared to identify. “The same MO, huh?” I said. “Did you find the weapon this time?”

Greg merely glared at me.

My eyes rested on the fireplace. The sheetrock had been pulled completely off, exposing its cracked tiles, dirty cement hearth, and a single pressed-glass bottle. I started, and took a step forward.

Greg didn’t notice my surprise, but he did notice the motion. He clapped his hand firmly on my shoulder and spun me around.

“Thank you for coming,” he said in a tone of exaggerated politeness. “Gallagher, will you please show Ms. McCone to her car? She needs to go home and get her beauty rest.” He shoved me toward the inspector and turned on his heel.

“Sorry,” I muttered to Gallagher.

He shrugged and led me outside. “I didn’t realize he’d react like that.”

“Neither did I. Live and learn.” My feelings were hurt, but not very much. It had been worth the rebuff to see that bottle in the fireplace. I ran down the stairway in the retaining wall, leaving Gallagher to contemplate his boss’s complexities.

I sped down the sidewalk to Wintringham’s house. A police guard took my name, then admitted me. I went into the parlor.

The tableau there warred with the prim loveliness of the room: Paul Collins in bathrobe and slippers, looking pasty and sick; Wintringham in workshirt and ripped jeans, his paint-splattered boots propped on the fragile coffee table; Charmaine, her suede jumpsuit smeared with blood, her eyes puffy, hair tangled.

She looked up and made a sound that was close to a whimper.

Wintringham glanced at me indifferently. His eyes had the glaze that comes from shock. “Oh, there you are,” he said flatly. “It took you long enough.”

I sat on the couch. “What happened?”

“That should be obvious. Someone murdered Larry.”

“Who found him?”

Charmaine cleared her throat and ran her hands over her bloodstained thighs.

“Charmaine did,” Wintringham said. “She came over tonight to pick up her samples. He was…”

“He was lying there. The blood. All around him. On my samples.” Her words were sing-song and shrill. “I tried to wake him. I held his head. His ugly head.” She buried her face in her hands.

Surprisingly, Collins was the one who moved. He knelt beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t think about it now. You’ll feel better if you don’t think.”

Charmaine sobbed.

Wintringham stood and motioned me into the hall.

“When did she find him?” I asked in a low voice.

“About two hours ago. She came running in here, screaming. I went down there. It was like she said. Larry was lying there, with blood all over the place. His head was caved in.”

“And you called the police?”

“Yes. And tried to call you.” The words were accusing. Wintringham leaned against the newel post, his arms folded across his bony chest. “Sharon, I’m afraid for Charmaine.”

“You ought to get a doctor over here. A sedative would help.”

“That’s not it.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid the police think she killed Larry.”

“What?”

“One of the inspectors questioned us. He acted like he didn’t believe Charmaine’s story. And then Paul inadvertently let it slip that she and Larry had quarreled on Saturday.”

“Oh, terrific!”

“He didn’t mean to incriminate her. And, besides, they would have found out anyway; there was quite a blowup when he took off from the trade show with that blonde. Everyone there heard it.”

“Tell me, David,” I said, “do you believe her?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. She came in here with blood all over her. And there was no reason she had to pick up those samples tonight. And they did quarrel. Charmaine has a bad temper…” His voice trailed off dispiritedly.

I considered the little decorator. How far would French have had to push her before that temper snapped? But, if my gut-level feeling was correct, this murder and Jake Kaufmann’s and Richard Wintringham’s had all been committed by the same person. Wintringham’s death, for whatever reason, had been the start of it all, and the Cheshire Cat’s Eye was the key. That, and the pressed-glass bottle in the fireplace.

“How well did Charmaine know your father?” I asked.

Wintringham’s dull eyes flickered. “Quite well. She was one of his protégés.”

“How so?”

“My father, in spite of his limitations as an architect, admired excellence. Charmaine was the daughter of one of his draftsmen, and she’d shown a talent for design. My father sent her to school and then got her a job with a good firm here. When I went into business, she quit and came to work for me.”

“How would you describe her relations with your father? Were they affectionate? Cordial? Or...?”

He drew himself up. “What are you trying… Come on, Sharon!”

“It’s better we talk about it now, before the police start asking.”

Wintringham glanced at his watch. “We don’t have much time, either. That inspector said his lieutenant would be here as soon as they finish at the crime scene.”

His lieutenant. Greg was taking a very personal interest in this case. Judging from his earlier reception of me, I’d better not be here when he arrived. “Okay. What kind of terms was Charmaine on with your father?”

“As good as could be expected.”

“Which means what?”

“My father was a very domineering man. If he paid for a person’s education, he expected to have a hand in guiding her career.”

“He tried to tell Charmaine what to do?”

“He told her where to work. She hated the firm, but she worked there. He told her where to live, and she obeyed him. He even told her who to see socially. When I came back from New York, he tried to match us up. I’m afraid I was quite a disappointment to him.” He smiled wryly.

“So he really attempted to control her entire life.”

“And he succeeded.”

“To some extent.”

Wintringham shifted uneasily against the newel post. “Totally.”

“No.” I shook my head. “Not totally. His death set her free.”