Читать книгу To Die For - Sharon Green - Страница 13

Mike Gerard knocked on the door again, seriously beginning to worry. Tanda Grail had said she would be home, and her van was parked next to the house under the carport. There wasn’t anyplace around there for her to have gone on foot, and it looked as if it was going to rain again. With all that in mind, where could she possibly—

“Oh, Lieutenant Gerard,” a surprised voice said, and Mike turned to see Tanda Grail. She had a bloodhound on a leash, and the two of them had apparently come around the side of the house. “That’s right, you said you’d be coming by. I’m afraid I managed to forget.”

Mike wondered why she sounded relieved as well as apologetic, but he was too relieved himself to waste time on the thought. He hadn’t known Tanda long, but the last thing he wanted was to find her as the next victim.

“I hope I’m not interrupting something important,” he said, gesturing to the dog on the lead. “As a police officer, it would be wrong of me to get in the way of someone tracking fugitives.”

“Oh, we’ve already caught our fugitives,” Tanda told him with a laugh that brightened her pretty face. “Just give me a minute to put him back in his run, and then I’ll be with you.”

Mike nodded without speaking, then stood and watched her with the dog. She patted the bloodhound and told him what a good boy he was, then led him to an empty metal-mesh run. Once the dog was inside the run with the gate closed she came back, folding the leash she’d removed from his collar.

“I have to admit I’m surprised you use runs,” Mike said as she rejoined him. “I was picturing at least one dog in your house, if not all of them.”

“Only someone who likes slobber keeps bloodhounds in their house,” she answered with a smile. “I consider my dogs wonderful people and I love them, but I don’t feel the same about slobber. Come on in.”

She showed the front door was unlocked by simply opening it and walking through. As he followed her, Mike was tempted to point out how dangerous a practice that was, especially with a murderer running around loose. Then he realized she might just have been out back with her dog, and decided to save the comment for another time.

“Can I offer you a cup of coffee?” she asked over her shoulder as he closed the door and followed her. The living room they passed through was plain but neat, a gold-and-brown flower pattern on the couch and chairs and drapes. The light gold carpeting and dark-wood furniture, along with the rest, gave Mike the impression that it was all a holdover from an earlier era, probably her parents’. Tanda Grail lived in that house, but hadn’t yet put her own stamp on it.

“I’ll have coffee if you’re having some,” he answered her offer as he followed her into the kitchen. “Which means yes, thank you, I’d love a cup, so I hope you are having some.”

“I admire a man who won’t drink alone,” she said with a small laugh, glancing at him as she headed for her kitchen counter. “Personally, I drink alone all the time, but then I’m not a man, so it’s all right. Have a seat.”

“You seem to be in a really good mood,” Mike said, going to one of the chairs around the heavy wooden table she’d gestured toward. “Has something happened to make you feel better than you were feeling this morning? If so, I could use some of the same myself.”

“I—just enjoy working with my dogs,” she answered without turning, all her attention on the mugs she filled. “It’s always such a pleasure, at least once they’re past the awkward-puppy stage. I’m afraid that’s all it is, so there really isn’t anything to share.”

She turned then with a coffee mug in each hand, and the direct way she looked at him told Mike immediately that she was lying. People who had no experience with lying always seemed to do that, look straight at you to show how sincere they were being. So something had happened, even though he couldn’t imagine what it might have been.

“Thank you,” he said as she set one of the mugs down in front of him, then headed toward the refrigerator for milk or cream. “Coffee usually helps me to think, but right now my thoughts aren’t cooperating. They insist on centering around how foolish Saxon was, especially for a supposedly experienced detective. If he’d had enough sense to think the thing through, he might not be dead now.”

“What do you mean?” Tanda asked, coming back with a creamer and sitting in front of her own coffee. “What didn’t he think through?”

“I mean, Ms. Grail, that he didn’t stop to remember that four people had been killed.” Mike spoke gently but stared straight at her, refusing to release that bright gray gaze. “When four people are stabbed to death by someone, that someone isn’t a person you want to fool around with. You can tell yourself they don’t know what you know, or that you can handle them if they find out—and that’s probably what Saxon did. He told himself those things, and ended up just as dead as the first four. If he’d gone to the police first thing, he might still be alive.”

Tanda’s gray eyes had widened, and she looked as though she ought to be biting her lip. Mike hadn’t enjoyed frightening her, but everything he’d said was the truth. He couldn’t force her to tell him what she knew, but if she didn’t speak up she had to understand and believe that she could end up like her brother. Indecision flashed in those eyes, and then she was staring at him in a totally different way.

“But if Roger had gone to the police, isn’t it possible he would have just put more people in danger?” she asked, leaning forward with the intensity of her feelings. “The police are just human beings, after all, and they can be killed as easily as anyone. Instead of one new body you could have had four or five, and most of them your own people.”

“But don’t you see that couldn’t have happened?” Mike countered just as intensely. “It’s possible to kill one person to keep a secret, but when a dozen people know, it’s no longer a secret. It would have been written down, put in the computer, mentioned to people on the phone…Once a secret is shared in that many ways, it’s no longer a secret that can get you hurt or killed. Sharing a secret keeps everyone alive.”

Mike knew he was repeating himself, but if it made Tanda Grail rethink her position, he was willing to say the same thing a hundred times. And she was thinking things through again. He could see that in her expression as she gazed down at the table and then she looked directly at him again.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, the words earnest. “I’d never be able to stand it if I caused the death of someone else. And I wasn’t being entirely truthful with you a minute ago. I discovered something I hadn’t expected, and although I’m sure it means something, I don’t know what.”

“Why don’t you tell me about it anyway,” Mike urged with a smile. “I can put my department to work on it, and that way we ought to come up with an answer.”

“I certainly hope you can,” she agreed, finally letting go of the creamer. “It occurred to me that my brother’s body was found only half a mile away from here. It might have been true that he was there to meet someone, but he also might have been there to go somewhere. To test the theory, I took Robby to the spot and gave him the scent from the shirt Don was wearing when he died.”

“Do you mean to say the dog actually found a trail to follow?” Mike demanded. “But it’s been a good week, not to mention that it’s rained at least once. How could there be anything left?”

“Are you asking if Robby only pretended to find a track?” she countered with a smile, clearly amused by Mike’s disbelief. “If he did, he’s better at pretending than anyone you care to name. He brought me here to the house, to the cellar stairs in back, and I found that the lock on the doors had been cut open. Apparently Don did come to the house that night, but not to see me. He came to leave something.”

She took a key from her jeans pocket and held it up, showing him the something she meant. Mike reached for it and she gave it to him, but looking at it more closely didn’t help.

“I can’t tell what this is a key to, and you don’t know either, do you?” he asked, getting her head shake to confirm his guess. “Well, as I said, I’ll get my people working on it. There are expert locksmiths who can tell you exactly what a particular key is for, and we’ll consult one of them. After that we’ll at least know what to look for.”

“It doesn’t seem to be a car key, a house key or a safe-deposit-box key,” she said, watching as Mike put it carefully in a small evidence bag and then into his inside coat pocket. “That leaves personal safes, strongboxes, secret caches or diaries.”

“Or one of ten thousand other things,” Mike returned with a faint sound of amusement. “I know you’re hoping it’s one of the things you mentioned. For that matter I hope the same, but let’s not set ourselves up for disappointment. This key could just be a duplicate to a lock box that has important business papers. Your brother might have simply wanted it in a safe place no one knew about.”

“So he came in the dead of night, on foot, to leave it?” she countered with a sound of disbelief. “He probably used the metal cutters from the shed out back, but he still also broke in. And you want me to believe he did all that for business papers, and it was only coincidence he was murdered right after that? Really, Lieutenant Gerard, if that’s what you believe, you ought to be back on foot patrol.”

“You’d make a tough boss, Ms. Grail,” Mike said with a smile for her indignation. “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that the key is unimportant, but that doesn’t stop the matter from still being a possibility. People have been known to do stranger things at stranger times. And please call me Mike.”

“Only if you call me Tanda,” she conceded, not quite ready to appreciate his practical outlook, and then she smiled. “All right, Mike, you believe the key is nothing and I’ll believe it’s an important clue. That way at least one of us will be right, and you’re here for another reason anyway. Do you have more questions, or have you learned something you think I should know?”

“I haven’t learned anything myself, yet,” he answered. “On the way out here I noticed a convenience store a couple of miles up the road and stopped, but the clerk doesn’t remember seeing Saxon in there two days ago. That means either he didn’t stop, or he didn’t do anything to bring himself to the woman’s attention if he did stop. If that was where he saw whatever he saw, he didn’t ask any questions about it.”

“But if he saw it then, he couldn’t have understood what he was seeing,” Tanda pointed out. “I mean, he didn’t tell me about it when he got here, he only mentioned it last night. That should mean it’s more likely he saw whatever-it-was yesterday, while he was looking around.”

“And that, in turn, means we’ll have to trace his movements, but it can’t be done until tomorrow,” Mike agreed. “On Sunday everything closes up. The only thing I can check on right now has to do with you and your brother. Can you handle a few more personal questions?”

“I can handle all the questions in the world, if that will find the person who killed Don,” she answered. “What did you want to ask?”

“Well, to begin with, are you your brother’s heir?” Mike asked, very aware of how the question sounded. People who were in line to inherit big sometimes did things to hurry along that inheritance, but Tanda Grail didn’t seem to realize the implication.

“As a matter of fact, I have no idea,” she answered, looking surprised. “It hadn’t occurred to me to think about it, not when there were so many other things…Did I mention that Don had been married, but had become a widower? For all I know, he had a child, and the child is his heir.”

“His permanent residence was outside a small town in California,” Mike said, pulling out his notebook and a pen. “The police there told us he lived alone with a couple of servants. If there’s a child, there should be some record of it, so we’ll have to get in touch with the locals again. Do you know if he used a lawyer from around here at all? Who handled the purchase when he bought his house?”

“You’re making me feel very useless,” she said with a sigh. “Not only do I know too little about my brother’s death, I know even less about his life. How can I possibly be of any help, when even simple questions are beyond me?”

“You do all right for someone without any answers,” Mike told her quickly, meaning every word. “You didn’t have to know the details of your brother’s life to find that key. It’s a clue that will probably turn out to be a lot more important than knowing who his lawyer is. Don’t forget we have a bet going on the point.”

“I didn’t realize there was a bet involved,” she said with a smile that warmed her soft gray eyes. “You can’t have a bet without stakes, and we never discussed stakes.”

“Don’t you know there are certain standard stakes?” Mike asked, finding that her smile warmed more than her eyes. “In matters of this sort, the loser buys dinner for the winner. You aren’t going to try to back out of the bet, are you?”

“No, I won’t back out,” she assured him with a gentle laugh. “Even if I lose. Do you make a habit of going to dinner with murder suspects? I know no one has said it out loud, but my being involved with two of the victims has to mean I’m a suspect.”

“Eighty-five percent of all serial killings are committed by men,” Mike told her. “In some ways these murders don’t fit the standard pattern, but the department shrink has assured us there’s a definite ritual involved that isn’t being faked. She’s certain all the victims were killed for essentially the same reason, and very possibly by someone they knew. Did you know any of the other three victims?”

“No, thank God,” she answered with a shudder, the smile long gone. “Two in five is too many. Is it my imagination, or do you and your people expect even more murders?”

“We’re hoping there won’t be any more, but once people like this start, they don’t stop again until the imagined job is finished.” He grimaced and shook his head. “They never kill just because they get a kick out of it, or because they have a grudge against someone. There’s always a very special reason, one that’s completely logical to them. And compelling, which is why they don’t often stop by themselves. Others have to stop them, which is where I come in.”

“And let me say how glad I am that you do,” she remarked, but this time her smile didn’t make it all the way out. Mike realized immediately he’d said too much, and Tanda Grail was really shaken.

“Look, as long as you don’t deliberately involve yourself in this, you should be fine,” he said, leaning forward to touch her hand. “Always make sure your doors and windows are locked before you go to bed, don’t leave the house without doing the same, and especially don’t arrange to meet anyone in a deserted place alone for any reason. All the victims but Saxon had apparently gone to meet someone, and even he might have been expecting his visitor. If anything happens to frighten you, just pick up the phone and call me. That’s my home number at the bottom of my card.”

Handing her one of his cards seemed to help, and after she looked at it her smile was better.

“As an amateur detective, I’d say this tells me you aren’t married,” she ventured. “The invitation to dinner was a clue that can’t always be relied on, but handing out your home number to a strange woman usually clinches it. Am I right?”

“Absolutely,” he confirmed with a grin. “Men with wives do tend to keep their home numbers to themselves, even though that doesn’t always apply to cops. Which is why, all too often, cops aren’t men with wives or women with husbands. It takes a special kind of patience to put up with our crazy hours and spotty home life.”

“Not to mention the possibility that the person you’re chasing could catch you instead,” she added, sober again. “That must be terrible for some women, the ones who don’t stop to think about it. I mean, perfectly ordinary people are killed every day, in traffic accidents, or when someone goes suddenly berserk and starts shooting everyone in sight. At least your people are armed and can defend themselves. An accountant, say, in his car and about to be run off the road by a drunk driver, isn’t and can’t.”

“That’s a very good point,” Mike said, surprised and pleased. “You sound as though you’ve had occasion to think about it. Does that mean you used to date a cop?”

“For a while,” she answered with a nod, toying with her coffee cup. “We even started talking about marriage, but then he was accepted on a force in Vermont. He came from there and really wanted to go back, but it would have meant leaving my father here all alone if I went with him. He finally decided to go alone, and I stayed here.”

“I’m sorry,” Mike said, reaching out to touch her hand again. “My former wife thought being married to a cop would be no problem at all, but it didn’t take long before the life got to her. She grew to hate it when I was called out in the middle of the night, or wasn’t home on time for a meal even when I’d promised to be. I was only a sergeant at the time, but a detective sergeant is on call twenty-four hours a day. I moved heaven and earth to be sure I’d be home for our second anniversary, but when I walked through the door with her present she wasn’t there. A week earlier I’d had to miss a barbecue with some friends, and her note said that that time had been the last straw. The next time we saw each other was in divorce court.”

“That must have been horrible for you,” Tanda said, sympathy in those soft gray eyes. “These days not being married seems to mean being lucky enough to miss the divorce experience, but some people do it right. My parents wanted to be together, and when my mother died my father was glad the pain was his rather than hers. He missed her terribly, and wouldn’t have wanted her to miss him like that. Mike…is there any chance you’ll catch this murderer before he does it again?”

“All we need is a little luck,” he assured her, going back to the topic now that she was ready for it. “Saxon was obviously killed to silence him, but I have the strangest feeling that the ritual used means something very specific. Once this is all over, we’ll find he somehow fits in with the other victims.”

“I wish it was already over,” she said, running a hand through her dark blond hair. “You asked about Don’s house. Does that mean you intend to go there, to look for clues? Is that why you need to find his lawyer?”

“A team has already been out there, but yes, I do intend to go again,” Mike said. “We now have a key to match to a lock, and the logical place to look for it first is in your brother’s house.”

He didn’t add that he also wanted Don Grail’s lawyer in order to find out if the man had done more for his client than help buy a house. That could be considered official police business, at least until he knew whether something had been done that might upset Tanda. She was upset enough, and Mike wanted very much to keep from adding to it.

“When you go to Don’s house, I’d like to go with you,” she said then, not quite surprising him with the request. “I’ve never been there, and I’d like to see it at least once before whatever happens to it happens. If that would be against the rules, let me know once you’re finished there, and I’ll go alone.”

“No, I think it will be all right if we go together,” Mike decided at once. The house wasn’t a crime scene, after all, so there was no legal way to keep Tanda away from it. But if she was going to be there, he wanted to be with her. “I’ll call you tomorrow, and tell you what time I’ll be going over. Do you know where the house is?”

“From the address, yes,” she said, then gave Mike her telephone number for his notebook. “You let me know when, and I’ll meet you there.”

Mike agreed to that, joined her in talking about the weather until he’d finished his coffee, and then he left. Once in his car and back on the road, he found himself thinking about the next day. And about the dinner he’d owe Tanda when the key turned out to be an important clue after all. She was the most attractive and interesting woman he’d met in a long time, but he couldn’t help wondering how smart he was being.

“You’d better remember that no matter what you said, she is still a suspect, old son,” he muttered to the single-lane road he traveled. “Until you know for certain she has nothing to do with this mess, you’d better watch your step.”

And until you know for certain that she isn’t trying to recapture an old love, he added silently. That was the part he feared the most, the possibility that any cop would do as someone to replace the man who hadn’t loved her enough to stay with her. Mike considered the man a fool for giving up someone like Tanda Grail just to live in a particular place. The right woman could make hell into a suburb of heaven for a man, but she did have to be the right woman. Maybe…

And maybe not, no matter what the question was, Mike decided with a sigh. Right now all he could do was concentrate on finding a murderer as quickly as possible.

TANDA STOOD and watched Mike Gerard’s car pull away, then went back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. It was really strange how attractive she found the man, especially after the way she’d sworn never to get involved with another cop. Len had been good-looking and a lot of fun, at least until it became time for him to decide to go back to Vermont or stay here in Connecticut with her. It took a short while before it became clear to Tanda that Len wanted to go home because he would have a local badge to flash around, something to show people what a big man he’d become. He hadn’t been homesick, he’d been desperate to prove something.

“But, obviously, not every man with a badge feels the same,” she murmured to her coffee. “Some consider the job really important, but still just a job. Not something to rub other people’s noses in.”

Like Mike Gerard. After thinking about it, Tanda was certain he’d known she was hiding something well before the point she’d told him about the key. But he hadn’t accused her of trying to withhold evidence, not before and not after. He seemed to understand that it would tear her apart if anyone else was hurt because of something she did.

Tanda looked around herself then, feeling more alone than she had after her father had died. Lock all your doors and windows, Mike had said, when you go out and before you go to bed. If the killer thought she knew something that could hurt him, he’d hardly hesitate to come after her. One more body would mean nothing…

After putting her coffee cup down, Tanda headed for the front door. Robby might be used to living in a run, but he was completely housebroken. And very protective of her when strangers were around. She would bring him into the house before checking windows and door locks, and he would also be her company.

But not quite as good company as someone else, she realized with a smile as she stepped outside. Mike Gerard was very good company, and didn’t even slobber the way Robby would. The only thing that worried Tanda about him was one very important question: was he seriously interested in her, or only concerned about someone tangled up in a murder investigation? And did he really think she was innocent? A man who’d had a bad marriage didn’t usually trust women or think well of them; was he just leading her on to get what information he could, with nothing in mind beyond solving the case?

Each question she asked herself bred ten others, and the rest of the day disappeared behind a blur of uncontrolled thinking. When suppertime came around, Tanda broiled herself a steak, then shared it with Robby. The dog had no idea why he was in the house with her, but didn’t mind enjoying the experience. The day had started very early, so it wasn’t late when she let Robby out for the final time, checked the locks one last time, then went to bed.

The soft hum of the bedroom’s air conditioner helped her to fall asleep quickly, but suddenly she found herself awake again. Had there been a noise, or was it just Robby moving around the room? Half-asleep, Tanda looked at the clock to see that it wasn’t even midnight. She couldn’t have been asleep long, then.

And that was when she heard it again, a low bang from somewhere outside. A wild animal, maybe, trying to get to her garbage? She twisted around and turned on the light, then sat very still as she saw Robby. The dog was on his feet by the bedroom door, standing and staring at it, a low growl sounding deep in his throat. He never did that for an animal, Tanda realized, putting a trembling hand to her mouth. Robby only growled when strange humans were around. Humans…