Chapter 27
I picked up Elise on the way to Third Eye Security at nine-thirty in the morning. Their headquarters were located between New Camel and Watkins Glen, a twenty-minute trip from her door. According to the large white sign with green lettering at the driveway entrance, Third Eye was the only occupant of the one-story brick-and-glass building. Petunias and marigolds, in eye-catching purples and yellows, crowded around the base of the sign, bobbing their flowery heads at us as we turned in. I followed the driveway into the parking lot, which faced the front entrance. The back of the lot was full, most likely with employee cars. In the front row, two spaces were designated for the handicapped. The next three bore signs that said they were reserved, although not for whom. Then came the visitors’ spaces, all of them empty. They clearly didn’t get much walk-in trade. When I’d checked out the company website, it was easy to see why. Their homepage said they’d be happy to make an appointment to come to your residence or place of business to give you a free estimate on the best security system to fit your needs.
I pulled into the first visitor spot, and Elise and I entered the building through a standard set of double glass doors, without so much as a buzzer system to stop us. I’d expected some sophisticated security setup to impress potential customers with the need for protection. If Third Eye had no qualms about their own safety, why should anyone else? If I’d been running the show, I would have tricked out the place with every technological gadget at my disposal to show people what they needed in order to rest easy.
The receptionist hadn’t been told to expect us, which didn’t surprise me, given how poorly the company had handled my phone call. We waited fifteen minutes while the young woman tried a dozen extensions in her effort to locate the supervisor. When he finally appeared, he produced a syrupy smile at odds with the chill in his blue eyes. He introduced himself as Scot Avery, the man I’d spoken to the previous day. I said I was Kailyn Wilde, but before I could finish introducing Elise, he turned on his heel and asked us to follow him. I opened my mouth to tell him he could use a course in public relations, but Elise caught my eye and shook her head. She was right, of course. It wasn’t the best strategy to antagonize the person who was about to show us what we wanted to see. It still took a lot of restraint on my part not to say anything and even more not to tiptoe over that old black-magick line to give him some richly deserved comeuppance. Something simple like making him slip on the polished tile and crack his tailbone, a very painful injury for which there is no cure but time. I knew a lot about it, because Tilly had cracked hers the first and last time she went ice skating.
Avery showed us into a cubicle that was too small to have been anyone’s work station. It was possible they used it for storage, because there were file boxes and folders stacked high along every wall. In the center of the space was a table you couldn’t rightly call a desk. It was more like the folding tables people keep in their basements for times when there are too many people to squeeze around the dining room table. Avery had provided us with two chairs, positioned side by side in front of a computer monitor. When we’d talked on the phone, I’d given him the date and the specific hours, three p.m. until seven p.m., in which we were interested. Since Jim wasn’t murdered until the late afternoon, it would have been a waste of time to look for his killer earlier in the day. Avery had the requested footage ready to go and, after showing us how to access the time period in question, he left us to it. At least he wasn’t going to be hovering. With the three of us in the room, along with his hefty attitude, it felt like there was barely enough air to breathe.
With Elise at the controls, we found images of Duggan’s black Jeep driving along different segments of Main Street around four thirty, the time Lolly said he went speeding by her. We couldn’t find any convincing evidence that he was doing more than the posted limit of thirty. The Jeep did appear to be moving slightly faster than the few other vehicles around it, but one had to keep in mind that Main Street, New Camel had never been a hotbed of speeders or drag racers. Most locals were content to obey the posted speed limit, and tourists tended to crawl along, scoping out the shops and looking for a place to park. It was possible Lolly had looked down at her phone for a second and when she looked up again, the Jeep seemed to come out of nowhere. But speeding aside, we wondered why the detective had been in town at all that day. He didn’t live in the vicinity and he didn’t ordinarily have reason to check things out at the precinct substation in town, at least not until after Jim was murdered. Of course it was pure conjecture on our part. We had no way of knowing if Duggan had come into New Camel for other, perfectly legitimate reasons.
We moved on to the footage from the camera outside Jim’s building. The ME was the first one we saw entering after three that day. Four fifteen by the time stamp. We didn’t see Jim or Dr. Silver enter, presumably because they’d come to work in the morning. But right before four o’clock, Elise popped into view, carrying her purse and a manila envelope. I hadn’t expected to see her in the video. Before I could ask her about it, she hit pause and slumped back in her chair. “It still doesn’t seem real,” she murmured. “I didn’t go to Jim’s office a lot, but that afternoon when he was getting ready for your appointment, he realized he’d left some of your paperwork at home. He called and I dropped it off. Everything was so normal, so ordinary. He asked me what I was making for dinner.”
I put my arm around her shoulders for a one-armed hug. “If this is too hard for you, I can drive you home and finish up here by myself.”
“No, no, I’m fine, really,” she said, sitting up and squaring her shoulders resolutely. “I need to be doing this.”
I didn’t try to change her mind. If she was determined to stiff-upper-lip it, I would support her choice. “Okay then, back to work,” I said, all business. But after a couple of minutes, the screen went black. We exchanged a brief look of bewilderment, before she hit fast forward. The recording didn’t resume until four fifty-five. We watched Tilly and me arrive shortly afterward. But by that time, Jim was already dead.
“What the hell happened there?” Elise said. “Some kind of power outage?”
I shook my head. “That would have to be the most convenient power outage I’ve ever seen. And the most localized. I didn’t lose power at my shop, and the traffic light on Main was working when Tilly and I drove over there.”
“Then someone’s responsible for shutting down the security camera and turning it back on.”
“If we can find that someone, we may have our killer.”
“Wait a minute,” she said. “What about Duggan? And Beverly. We didn’t see them in the footage.”
“You’re right. I didn’t consider the possibility that the killer might have entered and left while the camera was down.”
“You still think Duggan’s the one, don’t you?” Elise asked.
“As far as motives go, revenge is a powerful one.”
“So what’s next? Where do we go from here?”
“We have to narrow the field somehow,” I said.
“Westfield, Silver, Beverly, and Duggan—is that it?”
I opened my mouth to add Ronnie’s name to the list, but managed to swallow it in time. I’d been so preoccupied with the video footage, I’d actually put the whole sordid mess out of my mind while we’d been in Third Eye. I couldn’t keep procrastinating, waiting for a good time. There was never going to be a good time. I had to tell Elise today.
“It might help to find out if Westfield was in the building for a dental appointment,” Elise mused.
“That’s a good idea,” I said, trying to refocus on the work at hand “It won’t be easy with the HIPAA privacy law. Let me see what I can do.”
“If we’re done here, we ought to get going,” she said.
“You mean before Mr. Personality comes back to kick us out?”
* * *
“You’re an evil temptress,” Elise said with a smile. “Who has a chocolate shake for lunch?”
I pulled out of the drive-thru lane and into the parking lot. “Protein and calcium,” I replied. “What’s wrong with that?” I’d suggested stopping at the fast-food place on the trip back to town. I needed courage for what I had to tell her and my comfort foods were ice cream and chocolate. Put them together and you had a shake. My Aunt Tilly had introduced me to the concept of ice cream for lunch when I was seven and even my conservative grandmother saw no harm in the occasional indulgence. I found a shady spot under an old elm tree to park, opened the car windows and turned off the engine.
“I guess, when you put it that way,” Elise said, taking her first swallow and groaning with pleasure. “My boys would have a fit if they knew what I was doing.”
“You’ve never let them have anything a little crazy for lunch?” I asked. I knew she’d always been careful about what she gave them, but I didn’t realize how strict she’d been about it.
“Does pizza count?”
“Nope. It’s not fried or filled with sugar.”
She took another long pull on her straw. “I’ve got to do this with them one day,” she said when she came up for air. “I want to see their reactions when I tell them what’s for lunch.”
We drank in silence for a minute, then I set my shake down in one of the cup holders between us. “Listen,” I said, “we have to talk.”
Elise let the straw pop out of her mouth. “Uh-oh, now I know how my kids must feel when I start a conversation like that.” She put her shake into the other cup holder. “What is it?”
I was having trouble getting the words past my lips. Elise was finally beginning to show a spark of life after Jim’s death, and I was about to snuff it out. It didn’t help to remind myself that I was merely the messenger. The result was going to be the same.
“Kailyn, you’re beginning to scare me,” she said.
“Jim was having an affair,” I blurted out. I hadn’t meant to say it quite that bluntly, but I couldn’t ask for a do-over.
Elise sat there strangely still, with no expression on her face. I’d expected anger and tears, a full-blown storm of emotions. She’s in shock, I told myself. This is what shock looks like. “Are you okay?” I asked, which had to be one of the most inane questions ever. How could she possibly be okay after what I’d told her?
“How did you find out?” she asked, bypassing my question. Her voice was tight, but steady.
“Ronnie told me.”
Elise’s face remained blank, unreadable. “Did she tell you who the woman was?”
“She admitted being the one.”
Elise didn’t speak for a moment. I waited, giving her time to absorb it all. “Have you told anyone else?” she asked finally.
“No, of course not.”
She nodded, as if confirming something to herself.
“You’re handling this awfully well,” I said cautiously, still expecting the inevitable meltdown.
She uttered a sharp, grim laugh, more like a bark. “You should have been there when I found out.”
“What?” It was my turn to be shocked. “You already knew?”
“Yes. Jim thought he was covering his tracks. But wives know. I think we always know, if we’re willing to admit it to ourselves. To be certain, I hired a PI. He took photos of Jim going into her condo, others through the half-open blinds of her bedroom. You get the idea.”
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” I asked, trying to wrap my head around this unexpected turn of events.
“I was afraid if I told you, if I said the words, the dam would burst and I wouldn’t be able to stop it. I had to stay strong and get all my ducks in a row, before Jim found out I knew. I had to put money away, retain a good divorce attorney. I was going to tell you before I told anyone else, before I served him with the divorce papers. But then the bum went and got himself killed, and I didn’t dare tell anybody.” Tears flooded her eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. The dam had finally burst.
“You know my lips are sealed,” I said solemnly. I would resort to black magick without hesitation if that was the only way to keep my promise.
Elise was fumbling in her purse for tissues. She pulled one out of a travel pack and blew her nose. “That was never my concern. At that point, I wanted to keep you as far out of the loop as I could, so that if the police suspected me, they wouldn’t think you were complicit in Jim’s death.”
She certainly had a right to her qualms. Duggan would arrest her in a second if he learned that she knew about the affair. He already had the gun with her prints on it. Opportunity was a slam dunk. She wouldn’t have had any trouble finding a time when Jim was alone in his office. All Duggan was missing was a motive. And this would give it to him on a silver platter.
I dropped Elise at her house, after making her promise to call if she needed anything. She assured me she’d be fine; she had to be for her boys.
On the drive back to my shop, I tried to sort out my thoughts. There was one huge question I had to ask myself, although it was repellent. Was it possible Elise was the killer? The answer was immediate. No way. I’d known her most of my life, and she’d never shown the slightest inclination to violence. Not that she was a saint. She got angry like everyone else, said and did some things she wasn’t proud of. But to the best of my knowledge, she’d never intentionally hurt anyone, with the exception of that ex-boyfriend when she was in her teens. As a child, she’d been known for rescuing every stray animal that crossed her path. Her mother used to complain that they were supporting the veterinarian. The Elise I knew was simply not killer material. However, it was easy see how anyone else looking at the evidence might come to a different conclusion. The clock was ticking down. I had to find the killer and soon.