I went to church alone on Sunday morning. Before I left the house, Fitz called to say they’d spent the night near Bainbridge Island, but would be back at the Vigland marina that night. I invited him over for dinner, but he didn’t think they’d be back until close to midnight. I rather envied them, sailing up the inlet on a moonlit night.
I sat in a corner of a rear pew by myself, feeling, as I hadn’t for some time, like an outsider. As if my doubts were showing like white cat hairs on a black dress. Doubts that were not silenced when I overheard gossipy bits of conversation as I made my way through the crowd after the service. Especially when I heard Doug Ritchie, the guy I now knew Fitz had seen in Friday Harbor with the not-his-wife-woman, saying oh-so-righteously to someone that he didn’t want a bad influence like Lori Crampton back in the teen meetings with his daughters. Good Christian people brandishing Christian charity.
Reminder to self: Don’t judge God by the flaws of those in his church.
Not easy to do.
Danielle Lawrence called that evening. She wanted to engage the limo to take her and three other officers from her Culture Club to a regional conference over in Bellevue on Thursday. I warned her that I’d have to charge for all-day limo service since it wouldn’t be practical to return to Vigland and then go back that evening to pick them up. She said that was fine, and she’d have a club check for me at the beginning of the trip. We arranged that I’d pick her up at 7:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. We had to allow extra time for the trip because traffic during morning rush hours in the Seattle/Bellevue area is like running with the bulls at Pamplona.
Before Thursday, Fitz and I went to a movie one evening, and he accompanied me on a couple of Sea-Tac runs. India had already learned enough in her morning classes to improve the website. She wasn’t satisfied with it yet, but I received several calls and picked up two jobs from it, so I was quite pleased. Phreddie had a tooth problem, and I had to take him to the vet.
India located another motel where Sloan Delaney, under a different name, had spent a few days, but, other than that, our efforts to find Mary Beth’s killer seemed stalled. Tom occasionally appeared on his deck with shoulders slumped, looking like his pre-Mary Beth self in his McWeird plaid pants. But now he had no binoculars clamped to his eyes or even dangling around his neck. If he’d lost interest in spying on the neighbors, I figured he was feeling really down and out. I waved at him once. He didn’t wave back, although I didn’t know if that was because he didn’t see me or was deliberately ignoring me.
The newspaper reported that the body in Vigland Bay had been identified, and the sheriff’s department issued one of their usual brisk but nonspecific reports about following several substantial leads to the killer. They caught the guy who’d been burglarizing houses on Hornsby Inlet.
Crime marched on.
As did politics.
The hype mounted as election day in November moved nearer. Fitz’s son Matt was pleased that numerous people were writing negative letters to the editor about the candidate for commissioner he disliked, but, Rulfson, the Senator hopeful he predicted would ruin the state, was running ahead in the polls. One of Rulfson’s sons came to speak in Vigland, and Matt was fit to be tied after going to hear him. I kept telling myself I should educate myself about the candidates, but mostly I just wanted to take a bathroom break when anything political came on radio or TV.
On Wednesday evening I called and asked Danielle if she and her group would mind if Fitz rode along in the front passenger’s seat. “There’ll be waiting-around time before I pick you up in the evening, so we thought, if you didn’t need the limo in the middle of the day, we might spend the time visiting a couple of museums in the area.”
“That’ll be fine,” she said. “Bring him along.”
***
Fitz came over early Thursday morning and fixed breakfast. Bacon, good blueberry muffins from the Sweet Breeze, and his special scrambled eggs. We sat down to eat together, and I wondered if he was thinking, as I was, that being together like this might be a great way to start every morning.
Danielle had a check waiting, as promised, when I opened the limo door for her a little later. We picked up the other women at their homes and headed around the south end of Puget Sound and up toward Bellevue in a pouring rain. Danielle didn’t close the divider between the driver and passenger areas of the limo, so we heard gossipy bits of conversation about other women in the Culture Club. Except every so often Danielle’s face would appear in the open space, and she’d have a question or comment for Fitz. I squelched a rude urge to slam the partition shut.
We dropped the women off at a convention center. They made a production number out of exiting the limo, taking as long as possible to do it in an apparent hope other attendees would notice their superior mode of arrival. Fitz and I had a great day. We spent considerable time at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, where we saw a retired Concorde plus dozens of other historic planes. We ate a late lunch, then visited the Metropolitan Police Museum, where we saw antique firearms and other police equipment from the wild days of early Seattle. In the coffee shop, Fitz bought matching coffee mugs with a police badge emblazoned on them for us.
We topped off the day with dinner at the Space Needle restaurant. Then, back at the convention center, I maneuvered the limo into a noticeable spot where everyone could see Danielle and her friends climb into it. They were gossipy at first, but by the time we were halfway to Vigland, most of the women were sprawled out asleep. At least one had a snore that sounded like a logger with a rusty chainsaw. There were also cross-currents of Eternity, White Diamonds, and Charlie.
The rain had let up by the time we got back to Vigland, although water still gleamed on the dark asphalt. I made the rounds to their various houses, getting out at each one to open the rear door of the limo. Fitz added an extra touch of gallantry by walking each woman to her door. Danielle clung to his arm like a blond leech.
The oldest of the women, whose name escaped me after this long day, lived out beyond Danielle, so we dropped Danielle off first and then took the other lady on home.
“I hope you enjoyed the trip,” I said when I helped her out of the limo. She used a cane, although she didn’t appear to depend on it heavily. Her house was an old but beautifully maintained Victorian, with gingerbread decoration all across the porch. A faint light shone through the leaded glass window on the front door. Fitz took her arm to walk her to the door.
“It was lovely trip,” she said. “I’ve only ridden in a limousine once before in my life. Thank you.”
I ducked inside the limo to make sure nothing had been left behind. Fitz moved her toward the door. A few steps away she planted her cane on the sidewalk and stopped.
“I wanted a chance to talk with you alone.” She spoke in what I think she thought was a whisper, but she was a little hard of hearing and spoke louder to compensate. “Danielle said you’re a private investigator working on that terrible murder of her neighbor.”
I realized then that the “whisper” was meant to keep me from hearing. Danielle had no doubt told her only that Fitz was working on the investigation.
Loyal Fitz set her straight. “Yes, Andi and I are both working on the case.”
I stepped out of the limo. She turned and eyed me doubtfully. “You’re an investigator?”
She was apparently willing to believe Fitz was, but I was questionable.
“Didn’t you ever read the Nancy Drew mysteries?” I asked.
“Yes, of course. Over and over.” Her face brightened with recognition. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I always wanted to be Nancy Drew. I used to write my own little mystery stories when I was a girl. If I didn’t like someone – pow! – they were dead in my next story.”
A good way for working off frustrations. Perhaps I should try it. The Blond Leech could meet any number of fatal complications in my story world.
“You’re both working undercover for the police?” Her nod of approval said my chauffeur’s uniform was a marvelous disguise.
“Actually, we operate in an unofficial capacity,” Fitz said.
“For who, then, if it’s not an official capacity?”
I didn’t know how to answer the question, but Fitz did.
“Justice,” he announced. Which was true, except the stentorian nobility of the word made me feel I should jump behind the limo and leap out in tights and cape, with an oversized J emblazoned across my chest. Although the momentary vision of my jiggly thighs in tights was enough to make me re-think that scenario.
The woman considered Fitz’s statement for a moment and apparently decided Justice was a suitable enough employer. “I don’t know if I should say anything. That’s why I haven’t mentioned it to anyone earlier. But I overheard something that’s bothered me ever since that woman was murdered.”
“Overheard it where?” I asked.
“At her house.” She looked around again. “I’m embarrassed about it, but I went to a couple of sessions with that so-called being from another dimension. I know Danielle did too, but she went only because of concern about the neighborhood, and I went because . . . well, I thought maybe there was something to it. I never told Danielle I did it.”
“I’m sure lots of people felt the same way,” Fitz said.
“Anyway, I got about halfway home from the session—”
“You were alone?” I asked.
“Oh yes. I don’t drive much these days, but I felt so foolish about going there that I drove myself that night. Anyway, as I said, I was about halfway home when I realized I’d left my jacket on a chair in Mary Beth’s house. So I turned around and went back. There was only one car still parked there when I arrived. I got out of my car and went to the front door. It was open. The room had gotten quite warm with all those people in it, which was why I’d taken off my jacket.”
This nice lady, whose name I now remembered was Amy, apparently didn’t intend to leave out any details. I resisted an urge to hurry her along.
Without hurrying her, Fitz said encouragingly, “You knocked or rang the bell?”
“I was going to, but then I realized the people inside weren’t just talking, they were arguing.” She paused. “Well, maybe that isn’t right either. I didn’t hear her say anything, just him. His back was to me, but I could hear him plain enough since he was practically yelling.”
“And he said—?” I prompted.
“He said, ‘You stay away from my daughter with your scheme, or you’re going to be sorry. Very sorry.’”
“This was someone who’d been at the session?” Fitz asked.
“No, he wasn’t there. He must have come after everyone left.”
“So you don’t know who he was?” I asked.
“Oh, I know who he was all right. I saw his face when he turned and headed for the door. It was Mr. McClay, that nice man who used to be at the bank and has been busy in so many things around town since he retired.” She paused. “Except he didn’t sound nice that night, not nice at all.”
“You took this to be an actual threat?” Fitz asked.
“Oh yes. He had his fist balled up like he was ready to punch her, and his face was red as a tomato. But I don’t know what he meant about staying away from his daughter, or what scheme he was talking about.”
We knew. The investment scam. “Did he see you when he came out the door?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. He practically ran over me, but I’m not sure he actually saw me. His eyes were kind of glazed, like Mary Beth’s were when Trafalgar was present. Except I was never convinced she wasn’t just putting on some big act,” she added hastily. “Anyway, he jumped in his car and took off like the devil was after him.”
Fitz and I exchanged glances. I knew we were thinking the same thing. If Anderson McClay had killed Mary Beth, and he knew Amy had heard him make the threat, her life might be in danger too.
“Did you go in and get your jacket?” Fitz asked.
“No, I decided I’d get it some other time. Although I never did, of course, because Mary Beth was murdered not long afterward. But ever since she was murdered I’ve been wondering, because Mr. McClay was so very angry that night, if maybe. . .” Her voice drifted off, as if she didn’t want to say the actual words.
I said them for her. “If he killed her?”
“But I can’t really think he did it! He’s such a nice man. There was a mixup with my account at the bank one time, and he took care of it personally. So I haven’t wanted to say anything about this and make trouble for him.”
“That’s understandable,” Fitz said.
“I’ve also kept telling myself maybe I misunderstood what he said. That maybe he was just sorry about something to do with his daughter.” She gave an unhappy sigh. “But that isn’t true. I know exactly what he said. He threatened Mary Beth.”
“I think a detective from the sheriff’s office talked to some of the people who attended sessions, but not you?” I asked.
“No. Do you suppose I should contact them?” Her voice wavered, her reluctance to make that contact obvious.
“In the best interests of justice, I think you probably should,” Fitz said.
“But, you know, something just occurred to me! Maybe he wasn’t physically threatening Mary Beth.” Her worried expression brightened under the street light. She waved the cane as if it were a magic wand. “Maybe he was just warning her that he’d get a lawyer and make trouble for her that way. Bankers and lawyers are thick as thieves, you know.”
I was sorry this thought had occurred to her. I suspected she’d use it to justify not contacting the authorities about what she’d heard.
“I think it’s important the sheriff’s department knows about this. You might be a vital cog in solving the case. Ask for Detective Molino when you call. He’s very competent and helpful.” When she still looked as if calling Detective Molino rated right up there with appearing in a bikini at a Culture Club meeting, I added, “Or we’ll be glad to take you in anytime to talk to him.”
“Well, umm, thank you. I’ll think about that.”
Like I think about cleaning out the storage shelves in my garage, or doing pilates to firm up my thighs, and probably with the same possibility of actually doing it.
“I hope you won’t think this too personal a question, but it does pertain to our investigation of the case,” Fitz said. “Did you recently inherit money or property?”
Amy’s chin lifted in surprise, and the crispness of her answer suggested she was not a woman who fell for some telemarketer’s nosy questions . “No, my husband’s been dead for almost ten years.”
“Did Mary Beth – or Trafalgar – invite you for personal sessions with him?”
“No.”
“One more question,” I said. “How did you happen to attend the group sessions? Did Mary Beth invite you?”
“No, a woman who comes in and cleans for me once a week mentioned them. She said Trafalgar gave her good advice about some problems with her daughter.”
Amy didn’t now offer to explain what advice or information she’d hoped to get from the entity, and I didn’t ask. But she’d said enough that we knew she was not one of Mary Beth’s chosen targets for the investment scam. Mary Beth had just grabbed whatever “love gift” Amy had to offer and let it go at that.
“Thanks. We appreciate the information.”
“Don’t mention what I’ve said to Danielle, please. I wouldn’t want her to think I was a ratfink or something.”
Ratfink. Coming from this little lady, the word sounded as unlikely as a discussion about mud wrestling at the Culture Club. One of the wonders of television, perhaps.
“You’re not a ratfink,” Fitz assured her. “Just a responsible citizen who wants to do what’s right. For Justice.”
I repeated my earlier offer to help her make the decision to do that. “So you let us know when you want to go talk with Detective Molino.” I pulled out a business card and handed it to her, adding, as an extra inducement. “We’ll go in the limo. No charge.”
“Really?” That interested her, I could tell.
“It’s doing our part for Justice.”
Fitz walked her to the door and saw her safely inside. Back in the limo, we headed for my place.
“Do you think she’ll do it?” I asked.
“I think she may need some encouragement.”
I did too, which I’d give her in a few days. But in the meantime— “Do you think she’s in danger from McClay?”
“Not if he’s innocent.”
Which was the big question, of course.
“I’d gotten to the point where I was almost certain Sloan Delaney was the killer. But now I’m kind of leaning toward Anderson McClay,” I said.
Although the situation was really what Fitz had said some time ago: everyone’s a suspect.