At seven-thirty the following morning, Hammond entered the hospital carrying a copy of the Post and Courier and his briefcase. He stopped at the information desk to ask the room number, which he had failed to get from Steffi. He also stopped at a vending machine for a cup of coffee.
He was wearing a necktie, but in deference to the hot day that was promised, he had left his suit jacket in his car, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and unbuttoned his collar button. His bearing was militant, his face as dark as a thundercloud.
To Steffi’s credit, the others were already assembled when he arrived. She was there, along with Rory Smilow, a frumpy woman in an ill-fitting police uniform, and the man in the hospital bed. Steffi’s eyes were puffy, as though she hadn’t slept well. After a muttered round of greetings, she said, “Hammond, you remember Corporal Mary Endicott. We’ve worked with her before.”
He dropped his briefcase and newspaper in a chair in order to shake hands with the policewoman sketch artist. “Corporal Endicott.”
“Mr. Cross.”
Steffi then introduced him to Mr. Daniels, a guest of their city from Macon, Georgia, who was presently nibbling at the bland food on his breakfast tray. “I’m sorry your visit to Charleston hasn’t been the best, Mr. Daniels. Are you feeling better?”
“Good enough to get out of here. If possible, I’d like to get this over with before my wife comes to pick me up.”
“How quickly we finish depends on how precise your descriptions are. Corporal Endicott is excellent, but she can only do as well as you can.”
Daniels looked worried. “Would I have to testify in court? I mean, if you catch this lady and she turns out to be the one who killed that man, would I have to point her out at the trial?”
“That’s a possibility,” Hammond told him.
The man sighed unhappily. “Well, if it comes to that, I’ll do my civic duty.” He shrugged philosophically. “Let’s get on with it.”
Hammond said, “First, I’d like to hear your story, Mr. Daniels.”
“He’s related it to us several times,” Smilow said. “It really doesn’t amount to much.”
Beyond his perfunctory good morning, up to this point Smilow had remained as silent and still as a lizard sunning itself. Often Smilow’s posture seemed indolent, but to Hammond he gave off the impression of a reptile lying in wait, constantly watching for an opportunity to strike.
Hammond acknowledged that comparing Smilow to a serpent was based solely on his unmitigated dislike of the man. To say nothing of being unfair to serpents.
Smilow’s gray suit was perfectly tailored and well pressed. His white shirt was crisp enough to bounce a quarter, his necktie tightly knotted. Not a hair was out of place. His eyes were clear and alert. After the rough night Hammond had spent tossing and turning, he resented Smilow’s bandbox appearance and unflappable composure.
“It’s your call, of course,” he said politely. “This is your investigation.”
“That’s right, it is.”
“But as a courtesy—”
“You didn’t show much courtesy to me when you arranged this meeting without consulting me first. You say it’s my investigation, but on surface it appears that it’s yours. As usual, your actions belie your words, Hammond.”
Leave it to Smilow to pick a fight on a morning when he was feeling truculent himself. “Look, I went out of town the day Pettijohn was killed, so I’m playing catch-up. I’ve read the newspaper accounts, but I know you don’t share all your leads with the media. All I’m asking is that the details be filled in for me.”
“When the time is right.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Okay, guys, King’s X!” Steffi stepped between them, forming a cross with her index fingers. “It really doesn’t matter who arranged this meeting, does it? In fact, Hammond, Smilow had already called Corporal Endicott by the time I reached her last night.” The plump, matronly officer confirmed this with a nod. “So technically Smilow had the idea first, as he should since the case is his baby until he turns it over to us. Right?
“And, Smilow, if Hammond also thought of the artist, that only means that great minds think alike, and this case can use all the great minds it can muster. So let’s get started and not detain these people any longer than necessary. Mr. Daniels is in somewhat of a hurry, and we’ve all got other work to do. Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t mind hearing his account once more.”
Smilow conceded with a curt semi-nod. Daniels recounted his experience of Saturday afternoon. When he concluded, Hammond asked him if he was certain he had seen no one else.
“You mean once I reached the fifth floor? No, sir.”
“You’re sure?”
“Just that one lady and me were the only ones around. But I couldn’t have been in the hall more than… hmm… say, twenty, thirty seconds from the time I got off the elevator.”
“Did anyone share the car with you?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you, Mr. Daniels. I appreciate your repeating your story for my benefit.”
Ignoring Smilow’s I-told-you-so expression, Hammond turned Daniels over to Mary Endicott. Smilow excused himself to make some telephone calls. Steffi hovered over the artist’s shoulder and followed the questions she was asking Daniels. Hammond carried his lukewarm coffee to the window and stared out over a day that was much too sunny to match his mood.
Eventually Steffi sidled up to him. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“It was a short night. I couldn’t fall asleep.”
“Any particular reason for your insomnia?”
Catching the underlying meaning to her question, he turned his head and looked down at her. “Just restless.”
“You’re cruel, Hammond.”
“How so?”
“The least you could have done was get stinking drunk last night and second-guess your decision to break up with me.”
He smiled, but his tone was serious. “It was the only decision for us, Steffi. You know that as well as I do.”
“Particularly in light of Mason’s decision.”
“It was his decision, not mine.”
“But I never stood a fighting chance of getting this case. Mason favors you and makes no bones about it. He always will. And you know that as well as I do.”
“I was here first, Steffi. It’s a matter of seniority.”
“Yeah, right.” Her droll tone contradicted her words.
Before Hammond could respond to it, Smilow returned. “This is interesting. One of my guys has been nosing around the Pettijohns’ neighborhood to see if anyone had overheard Lute quarreling with a tradesman or neighbor. Dead end there.”
“I hope there’s a but,” Steffi said.
He nodded. “But Sarah Birch was at the supermarket on Saturday afternoon. She asked the butcher to butterfly some pork chops she wished to stuff for Sunday dinner. He was busy, so it took him a while to get to it. Rather than waiting, she did her other shopping. The store was crowded. She didn’t return to the butcher for nearly an hour, he said. Which means she lied about being at home with Mrs. Pettijohn all afternoon.”
“If she would lie about something as insignificant as going to the market, it stands to reason that she might also tell a whopper.”
“Only the lie isn’t so insignificant,” Smilow said. “The time frame works. The butcher remembers delivering the chops to Sarah Birch just before his shift ended at six-thirty.”
“Meaning that she was in the store anywhere from, say, five until six-thirty,” Steffi mused aloud. “About the time Pettijohn was getting whacked. And the supermarket is two blocks from the hotel! Damn! Can it be this easy?”
“No,” Smilow said with reluctance. “Mr. Daniels said that the woman he saw in the hotel corridor wasn’t ethnic. Sarah Birch definitely is.”
“She could be covering for Davee, though.”
“Nor was the woman he saw blond,” Smilow reminded her. “Davee Pettijohn, by any description, is a blonde.”
“Are you kidding? She’s the Queen of Clairol.”
It didn’t surprise Hammond that Davee’s faithful housekeeper would lie for her. But he was put off by Steffi’s catty comment and uneasy that his childhood friend was seriously being considered a suspect with an alibi that wasn’t as ironclad as she had claimed.
“Davee wouldn’t have killed Lute.” The other two turned to him. “What motive would she have?”
“Jealousy and money.”
He shook his head in disagreement. “She has her own lovers, Steffi. Why would she be jealous of Lute’s? And she has her own money. Probably more than Lute.”
“Well, I’m not ready to mark her off the list just yet.”
Leaving the other two to their speculations, Hammond wandered toward the bed. A book of sketches lay open on Daniels’s lap, picturing what seemed an endless variety of eye shapes. Hammond glanced down at Endicott’s rendering, but so far she was still working to get the shape of the face correct.
“Maybe a little thinner through here,” Mr. Daniels said, stroking his own cheek. The artist made the suggested adjustment. “Yeah, more like that.”
When they progressed to eyebrows and eyes, Hammond rejoined Steffi and Smilow. “What about former business associates?” he asked the detective.
“Naturally they’re being questioned,” Smilow answered with cool civility. “That is, those who don’t have prison as their alibi.”
Unless the cases had fallen under federal jurisdiction, Hammond had helped put some of those white-collar criminals behind bars. Lute Pettijohn had bent the rules often enough, frequently coming a hairbreadth away from criminal wrongdoing. He flirted with it, but never crossed the line.
“One of Pettijohn’s most recent ventures involves a sea island,” Smilow told them.
Steffi scoffed. “What else is new?”
“This one’s different. Speckle Island is about a mile and a half offshore and is one of the few that has escaped development.”
“That’s enough to give Pettijohn a hard-on,” Steffi remarked.
Smilow nodded. “He had set things in motion. His name isn’t on any of the partnership documents. At least not the documents we’ve been able to find. But be assured that we’re checking it out.” Looking at Hammond, he added, “Thoroughly.”
Hammond’s heart sank like a lead ball inside his chest. Smilow wasn’t telling him anything about Pettijohn’s Speckle Island venture that he didn’t already know. He knew much more, more than he wanted to know.
About six months ago, he had been asked by South Carolina’s attorney general to conduct a covert investigation into Pettijohn’s attempt to develop the island. His discoveries had been alarming, but none as much as seeing his own father’s name listed among the investors. Until he learned what connection, if any, Speckle Island had to Pettijohn’s murder, he was keeping his knowledge of this under wraps. Just as Smilow had rudely said to him, he would give the detective those details only when the time was right.
Steffi said, “One of those former associates might have held a grudge so strong that it drove him to commit murder.”
“It’s a viable possibility,” Smilow said. “The problem is, Lute operated in a circle of movers and shakers that included government officials on every level. His friends were men who wielded power of one kind or another. That complicates my maneuverability, but it doesn’t keep me from digging.”
If Smilow was digging, then Hammond knew the name of Preston Cross was lying out there like a buried treasure waiting to be disinterred. It was only a matter of time before his father’s alliance with Pettijohn was uncovered.
Silently Hammond cursed his father for placing him in this compromising position. Soon he might be forced to choose between duty and family loyalty. At the very least, Preston’s dirty dealing could cost Hammond the Pettijohn murder case. If it came to that, Hammond would never forgive him.
He glanced at the hospital bed, where the artist seemed to be making progress.
“Her hair. Was it long or short?”
“About here,” Daniels said, indicating the top of his shoulder.
“Bangs?”
“On her forehead, you mean? No.”
“Straight or curly?”
“More curly, I guess. Fluffy.” Again he used his hands to illustrate.
“She was wearing it down, then?”
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know too much about hairstyles.”
“Thumb through this magazine. See if there’s a picture in there that resembles her hair.”
Daniels frowned and worriedly glanced at the clock, but he did as instructed and began listlessly turning the pages of the hair fashion magazine.
“What color was it?” the artist asked.
“Sorta red.”
“She was a redhead?”
Hammond felt himself drawn forward by Daniels’s words, as though they were working hand-over-hand on a rope, inexorably pulling him in.
“She wasn’t a carrot-top.”
“Dark red, then?”
“No. I guess you’d just say brown, but with lots of red in it.”
“Auburn?”
“That’s it,” he said, snapping his fingers. “I knew there was a word for it, I just couldn’t think of it. Auburn.”
Hammond swallowed a sip of coffee that had suddenly turned bitter inside his mouth. He inched toward the hospital bed with the reluctance of an acrophobic approaching the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Corporal Endicott made rapid pencil strokes against the paper in her tablet. Scratch, scratch, scratch. “How’s that?” she said, showing Daniels her work.
“Hey, that’s pretty good. Except she had, you know, strands around her face.”
Hammond moved a few steps closer.
“Like this?”
Daniels told Endicott that she had nailed the hairstyle. “Good. That just leaves the mouth,” she said. Setting aside the magazine, the artist flipped the sketchbook open to another section. “Do you remember anything distinctive about her mouth, Mr. Daniels?”
“She was wearing lipstick,” he mumbled as he studied the myriad sketches of lips.
“So you noticed her lips?”
Raising his head, he darted an uneasy glance toward the door, as though fearful that Mrs. Daniels would be standing there eavesdropping. “Her mouth looked kinda like this one.” He pointed to one of the standard sketches. “Except her lower lip was fuller.” Endicott consulted the drawing in the book, then replicated it on her own sketch.
Watching, Daniels added, “When she glanced at me, she sorta smiled.”
“Did her teeth show?”
“No. A polite smile. You know, like people do when they get into an elevator or something.”
Like when eyes accidentally connect across a dance floor.
Hammond couldn’t work up enough courage to look down at Endicott’s handiwork, but in his mind’s eye he saw an alluring, closed-mouth smile that had been deeply impressed on his memory.
“Anything resembling this?” Endicott turned her pad toward Daniels to afford him a better look.
“Well, I’ll be doggone,” he said in awe. “That’s her.”
And no more than a quick glance confirmed to Hammond that indeed it was. It was her.
Smilow and Steffi had been engrossed in their own conversation. Hearing Daniels’s soft exclamation, they rushed to the bedside. Hammond allowed Steffi to elbow him aside because he didn’t need to see any more.
“It’s not exact,” Daniels told them, “but it’s pretty damn good.”
“Any distinguishing marks or scars?”
A freckle.
“I think she had a molelike thing,” Daniels said. “It wasn’t ugly. More like a freckle. Under her eye.”
“Do you remember—” Steffi began.
“Which eye?” Smilow asked, finishing her thought.
The right.
“Uh, let’s see, I was facing her… so that means it would be… her left. No, wait, her right. Definitely her right,” Daniels said, pleased that he could be so helpful and provide this detail.
“Were you close enough to see the color of her eyes?”
“No. ’Fraid not.”
Green, flecked with brown. Widely spaced. Dark lashes.
“How tall was she, Mr. Daniels?”
Five-six.
“Taller than you,” he said, answering Steffi. “But several inches shorter than Mr. Smilow here.”
“I’m five-ten,” he offered.
“So about five-six or -seven?” Steffi asked, doing the math in her head.
“About that, I’d say.”
“Weight?”
One hundred and fifteen.
“Not much.”
“One thirty?” Smilow ventured.
“Less than that, I think.”
“Do you happen to remember what she was wearing?” Steffi wanted to know. “Slacks? Or shorts? A dress?”
A skirt.
“Either shorts or a skirt. I’m sure because you could, you know, see her legs.” Daniels squirmed. “Some kinda top. I don’t remember the color or anything like that.”
White skirt. Brown knit tank top and matching cardigan. Brown leather sandals. No stockings. Beige lace brassiere that closed in front. Matching panties.
Endicott began gathering up her supplies and stuffing them into the overstuffed black bag. Smilow took the sketch from her and then shook hands with Mr. Daniels. “We have your number in Macon if we need to contact you. Hopefully this will be sufficient. Thank you so much.”
“Same for me,” Steffi said, smiling at the man before following Smilow toward the door.
Having no voice, Hammond merely nodded a goodbye to Mr. Daniels. Out in the hallway, Smilow and Steffi profusely thanked the artist before she got into the elevator.
They stayed behind to study the sketch and congratulate themselves. “So that’s our mystery woman,” Smilow remarked. “She doesn’t look like a murderess, does she?”
“What does a murderess look like?”
“Good point, Steffi.”
She chuckled. “I see now why Mr. Daniels didn’t want his wife around when he described our suspect. In spite of the pressure in his bowels, I think he was lusting in his heart. He remembered every minute detail, even down to the freckle beneath the chick’s right eye.”
“You’ve got to admit, it’s a memorable face.”
“Which doesn’t mean squat when you’re talking guilt or innocence. Pretty women can kill with just as much alacrity as ugly ones. Right, Hammond?” Steffi turned to him. “Jeez, what’s with you?”
He must have looked as nauseous as he felt. “Bad cup of coffee,” he said, crushing the empty Styrofoam cup he’d been holding clenched in his hand.
“Well, Smilow, go get her.” Steffi tapped the drawing with her fingernail. “We’ve got the face.”
“It would help if we knew her name.”
Dr. Alex Ladd.