Sigmund looked up when we entered. “Hello, Dad. We’re in a mess, aren’t we?”
He was so wan and looked so vulnerable, I half-expected him to climb into Leo’s lap. His father, however, was hardly warm and welcoming. He took the chair at the far end of the table and sat down.
“You said you couldn’t talk until I was here. Well here I am. What do you have to say for yourself?”
Ray reached for the record button on the tape. “Ready?”
Sig nodded miserably. He couldn’t really go back on what he’d said about talking when his father was here. Even though the questioning was still being considered unofficial, we could record the interviews with permission.
“I haven’t been quite up front with you all. I did go back home after seeing Deidre. That’s absolutely true, but I came back.” He ducked his head. “Well you know all that, don’t you?”
“Did you see her this second time?” Ray asked.
“Yes, I did. She was actually standing by her car. She had a flat tire. She said she needed to get into town in a hurry. She was meeting some guy at Memorial Park … so I gave her a ride. I dropped her off just at the top of the park. And that’s the truth, I swear.”
I took over. “Sig, do you know who she was to meet with?”
He turned to me gratefully. “No. It was hard to communicate with her so we were both pretty silent on the way down. I asked her. I was wondering who was so important but she just wouldn’t answer. She got me to let her off and that was that.”
“What time was this?”
“By the time we got there it was almost a quarter past eleven.”
“Did she meet anybody?”
“Not that I saw. She headed down to the monument and I drove off.”
“Did you notice if there was a car parked by the pier?”
“I couldn’t see that far.”
“It was late, didn’t you worry about her?” Leo spoke before I could stop him and his voice would have taken off wallpaper.
“Not really. I mean I know she was deaf and all that but she seemed pretty independent. I just thought she’d meet her fellow and that was it. Besides, if she’d missed him, she wasn’t that far from home. She could get a taxi if she had to.”
“And that was the last you saw of her?”
He lowered his head. “Yes. I’m sorry, Dad.”
I sat back in my chair. If we could believe him, we’d got a tiny piece in the puzzle. We could concentrate the search for witnesses more closely.
Ray’s turn now. “After you left Deidre, what did you do?”
Sig fiddled with the crumpled sugar paper. “Nothing really. That is, I went home. It was a work day the next day. I wanted to get to sleep.”
“What time did you get to your apartment?” Ray again.
“Gosh, I’m not sure. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Ballpark. Midnight? One? Two?”
“Well, let me see, it’s a forty- to forty-five-minute drive, so if I left Deidre at eleven-fifteen, I’d be home by midnight.”
“Can your mother confirm this?”
“No, I don’t think so, she was already in bed. She likes to get to bed early. She always says she needs her beauty sleep.”
He gave a quick sideways glance to his father, trying to rope him into an alliance against Trudy. Leo didn’t bite. He was staring at a spot on the wall beyond his son.
I continued. “We have a statement from the security guard at your condo, a Mr. Meadows. He is willing to swear that the Chevy wasn’t in its parking spot before three o’clock.”
“Ah. Well you know what? That’s quite right. I was tired and decided to park in the outside lot until morning.”
The lie was as transparent as tissue paper.
“We’ll follow up on that.”
I sat back in my chair. “Why didn’t you say at the beginning that you had picked up Deidre?”
Sig twisted the sugar packet into a tight spool. “I didn’t think it mattered. I had nothing to do with what happened and I figured you’d find out soon enough who did it then…” he stopped.
“Then what?”
“Nothing. It’s just that I was sure you’d find the guilty party. It’s what you do, isn’t it? Solve crimes?”
Whoa. That poisonous dart flew across the room.
“Good Lord, I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Leo exploded. He was so angry he jumped to his feet and his chair went crashing backward in an unintended dramatic gesture. Sig flinched. “Do you realize what you’ve done? You could be charged with obstruction of justice. Are you a complete idiot? You must have known this was crucial information for the investigation.” Leo was red in the face. “Why? What’s the real reason? You were about to say, ‘You’d find out soon enough and then…’ Then WHAT?”
Sig looked as if he were about to sink under the table. “Then Mom wouldn’t need to know.”
I flashed a warning glance at Leo which I don’t know if he even saw.
“Are you afraid of your mother, Sig?” I asked.
“Not afraid exactly, afraid of upsetting her. Her nerves are terrible and well…”
His voice tailed off but I got the picture. She made his life miserable. Leo was staring at his son in disbelief but he was the one who’d described Trudy as a marshmallow with sharp teeth.
Leo righted his chair and sat down again. I turned to Sig and smiled reassuringly at him.
“Can you say more about that, Sig? You didn’t want your mother to know that you’d had any contact at all with your sister, is that what you mean?”
He nodded gratefully. “That’s right. She would have freaked if she’d known. She saw it as betrayal of the worst kind.”
“But in fact you met with Deidre before you saw her at the casino, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Sorry. You’re right. She sent me an email about a month ago. Out of the blue. I mean I was stunned. She said she had a daughter now and she’d like her to know her own blood. She invited me to come to the house and I could meet her. So I did. I was curious myself as to what the fuss was all about.”
“That was on Monday?”
“That’s right. I mean she is a cute kid but given the state of the nation with my mother I didn’t know what I could do. The kid’s deaf too so I don’t know what we’d accomplish. Deidre was disappointed, naturally. That’s why I said I’d think about it and she said she was always at the casino on Tuesday nights if I changed my mind.”
He took up another sugar packet and started to twist it tight.
I thought of Joy and how easy it was to communicate with her. He would be missing out on a lot.
“Why didn’t you say you’d seen Dee only the night before when I called to tell you she was dead?”
Leo’s voice had gone ice cold. Again I intervened. “Was it the same reason as you just gave? You were afraid your mother would know?”
“Yes.” He gave a smile that was tinged with shame. “I’m totally embarrassed to admit how much of my life is governed by my fear of my mother’s reaction but I’m afraid it is.”
I liked him a lot better for the honesty but he’d gone back to staring at the clock on the wall.
“Do you want to revise your description of your day yesterday?”
He sighed and his eyes flickered over to Leo. It wasn’t only his mother he was afraid of, poor guy.
“Will my mother have to know what I say?”
“Not necessarily.”
“She’s a mite possessive of me, as I’ve said. Understandable in the circumstances. Single mother and all that.” He wasn’t so afraid he couldn’t send another dart in Leo’s direction. And I saw it landed and hurt. Sig drew in his breath, and like a diver on the edge of a very cold pool, he held his nose and jumped in. Or should I say a very hot pool?
“Because of our circumstances, my mother has tended to be overprotective and I, er, haven’t really had, shall we say, much to do with the opposite sex. The ladies,” he added for my benefit in case I was offended by the term opposite sex. “However, I am in every respect a man with, begging your pardon, Miss Morris, with normal appetites and needs…”
“For Christ’s sake, get to the point, Sigmund,” interrupted Leo.
Sig’s mouth tightened into a hurt pout. “I am getting to the point. This is the point. I do have a lady friend but mother doesn’t know about it. I was with my friend yesterday.”
“Does she have a name or do you make her wear a bag over her head?”
That was cruel and Sig flushed painfully. “Her name is Natasha.”
“Surname?”
Sig looked as if he hoped the floor would open up and swallow him. “I don’t know what it is, I’m afraid. She’s Russian and, well, her last name is difficult to pronounce.”
“How long have you known her?”
“About six months. I told mother I was taking a course at the college so I have a legitimate reason to be away one evening a week. I also visited her on Tuesday night after I let off Deidre.”
“We’ll need to speak to her,” I said. “Given the circumstances, we’ll need to verify your whereabouts.”
“Of course.”
“What is her address?”
Again Sig squirmed in a fit of embarrassment. “To tell the truth, we don’t meet at her home and I don’t know where she lives.”
Suddenly Leo slapped his hand on the table. “My god, manly needs and appetites indeed. What is she, a stripper?”
Sig nodded miserably. “She works at the Atherley Arms strip bar. I meet her there. She’s a very nice person.”
“I’m sure she is,” said Leo, conveying just the opposite. He leaned forward and glared at poor Sigmund. “Is that it then? Do we now have the whole sorry story or is there something else you haven’t yet said?”
“No, that’s it. I was with Natasha all day and went with her to the strip club in the evening. I got home about 3:00 a.m. I also went to see her on Tuesday night after I left Deidre.”
“So you didn’t tell us the truth about coming straight home? Mr. Meadows was right about the Chevy not being in the parking space.”
“Er … yes.” Suddenly he buried his head in his hands. “I’m sorry I’ve let you down, Dad. I just get so scared sometimes. What with you and Mom, I can’t do anything right…”
I felt really bad for the guy and Ray was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Leo was transfixed and as far as I could see was completely unmoved by his son’s distress. In fact his expression was one of contempt. He stood up. I thought for a minute he was going to go over and comfort Sigmund but he didn’t. He headed straight for the door.
“I don’t think you need me anymore. I’ll be in my office.”
Sig howled in an anguish that was genuine even if it was totally self-centred. I reached over to the box of tissues in the middle of the table, pulled one out, and stuffed it into his hand.