The Fortieth Birthday Body Page 8

  Kathleen stood back to get a better view. “No, that’s the way it always looks before it’s dry. Haven’t you ever done this before?”

  “Evelyn always had professionals in to do the work,” he replied, thankful that he could talk comfortably about his dead wife.

  “Well, when you’re a cop, you can’t afford to hire people to do things that you can do yourself. And I like painting. I think the color’s good, don’t you?”

  “A little light,” he suggested.

  “It’ll dry darker,” she assured him. “Listen, why don’t we take a break and have some tea and it will dry and you’ll see for yourself?”

  “Good. How about a beer instead of tea? I’ll get it.”

  “Okay. Bring the roll of aluminum foil up from the kitchen and I’ll wrap these brushes before they dry out.” She started pouring paint from the tray back into its can.

  When he returned, she had picked up some of the drop cloths and was busily resealing the cans.

  “Thanks.” She took the bottle from him and sat down in the large window seat on the opposite side of the room from the wet walls. Her husband sat next to her and, leaning back against the window, took a drink from his bottle. “It’s looking worse, not better.”

  “You forgot the aluminum foil.”

  “Oh, damn …”

  “I already wrapped them in plastic,” she said, smiling at his mistake.

  “You were asking about Dawn Elliot,” he reminded her.

  “You were saying that she hadn’t slept with everyone.”

  He smiled. “Well, not with me, if that’s what you’re wondering. Although she did offer. It was an offer she made to every man in Hancock,” he added, when his wife didn’t answer. “Not just me.”

  “Yeah,” Kathleen agreed absently, holding her beer up to the light as though studying it. “You didn’t know about Jed and her?”

  “No, but, you know, it makes some sense now that you’ve told me about it. You said it was four years ago, right? Well, about that time Jed was having a rotten time down at the agency. He was passed over for a promotion that he really wanted—it went to some hotshot from the coast. He even thought about leaving Raleigh and Rhyme for a time. Dawn Elliot would pick up on that and she might have used it to get close to him.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Dawn Elliot? Well, not your garden variety tramp, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “So what made her so different from any other woman who’s working on sleeping with every married man in town?”

  Jerry looked closely at his wife. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s just that that’s all you’ve heard about her.”

  “So tell me more. Tell me everything. It’s going to take a while for the paint to dry.”

  “Well, she was supposedly an expert in her field …”

  “This is your idea of telling me everything? What’s her field? What … ?”

  “She was an anthropologist. I understand that she was on the faculty at UCLA. When she was here, she taught at NYU occasionally. She also had some sort of affiliation with the Museum of Natural History, but I don’t know what. Dawn was one of these people who never explained anything, but jumped right in talking about what she’s doing as though everyone had full background sketches. Anyway, her field was Anasazi Indians—you know, the ones in the Southwest—and she was always in and out of town, going on digs and conferring with researchers at other universities.”

  “Some life,” Kathleen commented, having lived in this community long enough to know exactly how exciting and glamorous it must have appeared to the women staying at home raising their children or running small local boutiques.

  “I think it really was. I remember her telling me at a party about the month she was snowed in at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, about how the coyotes would come down from the hills and walk through the ruins in the moonlight.”

  Kathleen was remembering the arm that had fallen from the Volvo when Susan opened the door: tanned, slender, almost completely covered from wrist to elbow with bracelets of silver and turquoise. Then the short nails and weathered hand had surprised her. But it made sense in the context of how her husband was describing Dawn.

  “She didn’t have any children?”

  “Not that I know of, at least none living with her or that she would talk about. And I know that she and Richard didn’t have any children of their own.”

  “So she was married before?”

  “I don’t think so, but I don’t know everything about her life so I wouldn’t rule it out as a complete impossibility.”

  “What’s Richard like?”

  “Not the deceived husband, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s an actor, a minor actor to be sure, but he seems to make a living at it. I see him from time to time in commercials: His looks make him the type to play the distinguished middle-aged doctor advising the TV audience to buy a certain laxative. He’s not the sort of wimpy person who would ignore his wife’s infidelities. But maybe he has such an overblown ego that it just doesn’t matter to him. And, maybe, he has affairs of his own. I suppose they could have what used to be known as an open marriage.”

  “Or maybe he’s gay,” Kathleen offered.

  “Could be. Well, whatever.” He shrugged. “But if he had an extramarital sex life he didn’t have it in Hancock—or he was more discreet than his wife. He traveled a lot for his work and she was always going off for hers—who knows what they might have worked out? I think that he’s wealthy. He was always talking about his days in prep school and, heaven knows, they couldn’t have afforded to live in Hancock on just the combined salaries of a professor and an unsuccessful actor. Anyway, I’ve always had the impression that there was money in his family and some of it was keeping the two of them. He grew up in Hancock. In fact, they lived in the house that he grew up in.”

  “But you don’t know for sure that the money was his?” Kathleen asked, her police training making her interested in money from an unknown source.

  “No, not for sure.”

  “You said that Richard didn’t seem like the wronged husband. What were they like as a couple? They sound very disparate, from what you’ve been saying.”

  “Then I’ve been giving you the wrong impression. They were very much a couple. In fact, if you had been at a party of say twelve couples and everyone was talking to everyone else and mixed up, you’d have been able to spot the two of them as belonging to each other.”

  “Really?” Kathleen was interested. This wasn’t what she had been expecting. Of course, looking like you belonged together wasn’t everything, she reminded herself, knowing that her blond all-American good looks didn’t necessarily blend with Jerry’s advancing case of middle-aged spread. And they were happy.

  “Well, you were pretty close to the car, so you know what Dawn looked like …”

  “Not really. I didn’t see much more than long reddish-brown hair and an armful of Indian jewelry.”

  “She was sensational—very dramatic and sophisticated in a Western sort of way. She was one of those women who can wear clothes that are almost costumes—caftans, long, long skirts, scarves, and things like that—without looking absurd.”

  Kathleen was beginning to get jealous.

  “And,” her husband continued, “Richard is dramatic in his own way. Oh, he doesn’t always wear capes or deerstalker hats, but he does manage to give the impression of always being on stage. When the two of them entered a room, it was really an entrance. People tended to turn around and notice. And they were both very intense—always very involved in their conversations, very committed and verbal about something. They stood out in suburbia, I can tell you that.”

  “I’ll bet they did.”

  “You know, the paint’s beginning to even up. The color’s not bad either.” Jerry got up and walked across the room to examine the walls more closely. Checking for wetness, he ran his finger across the paint and then turned back to his wife. “I wonder where
Richard Elliot is right now.”

  “And where he was when his wife was murdered,” she added.

  IV

  “So you’ve been rehearsing this play for the last … what would you say? … the last three weeks?” The anchorwoman leaned toward her guest, a curious look on her face as if to emphasize the importance of her question.

  “The last three and a half weeks, Janet. And not just in the daytime. We have worked on this night and day. Night and day,” the guest repeated, leaning toward her.

  Immediately, the perfectly made-up young woman swung around in her chair and beamed at the television camera. “Well, that’s all we have time for today. Of course, we want to thank the talented Mr. Richard Elliot for his time and we’ll be looking forward to seeing The Calendar when it is performed at the Little Playhouse on One hundred and first Street on April first, second, and third. We’ll be back right after a commercial break with more information on that hostage situation over at the United Nations.” Without even a nod at her “talented” guest, she leapt from her chair and moved quickly back to the anchor podium. A jeans-clad, long-haired young woman touched Richard Elliot on the arm.

  “This way, Mr. … uh, sir,” she urged him from his seat. “If you’ll just follow me. We have a room where you can wash off that makeup.” She brushed her hair back over her shoulder and walked off the set, expecting to be followed.

  “Puerile trollop!” Richard Elliot flung the fabric of the cape he was wearing over his left shoulder and stalked off.

  “What did he call her?” the young man standing behind camera one asked the floor director.

  “Beats me, but she probably is one, whatever it is. Do you know …” And their conversation ended up where it always did—trashing their female colleagues.

  Oblivious to what he had begun, Richard Elliot left the studio and walked into the fourth-floor hallway.

  “I was watching in the green room and it looked good to me,” his agent said, approaching him.

  “That’s because you love TV coverage. You’d be happy to see me on the news in the middle of that shoddy hostage thing at the U.N.,” protested Richard.

  “Only if they mentioned your name, my boy. Only if they mentioned your name.”

  “That’s about all that cretinous harlot did well. She ignored my part, she abused the very point of the play, and she had the nerve to tell all of America what she thinks of Broadway’s current season. As though those money-grubbing producers of that whorehouse known as Broadway had any idea of what the theater is or can be. When I think …”

  “Not all of America, just New York City and vicinity,” corrected the other man.

  “What?”

  “Not all of America,” the other man elaborated further. “This was a local show only seen by New Yorkers and …”

  Richard Elliot stopped dramatically in the middle of their journey down the hall. “You mean I went through that for a mere few million viewers?”

  “Well, if everyone watching in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut bought tickets to Calendar, you’d have a pretty long run.”

  “Quality, not quantity,” Richard Elliot said, displaying his willingness to use a cliché when appropriate. “And who ever decided to carpet the walls in this hallway? This place looks more like an institution for the mentally deficient than a television network!”

  And, with that judgment still in the air, he marched off down the hall, his agent trotting behind.

  They caught the first convenient elevator to the ground floor and moved quickly through the small lobby of the network and past the security guards, out into the building’s concourse.

  Two men, so obviously official that they had no need to wear uniforms, appeared from behind a pillar and accosted them.

  “Mr. Elliot?” the elder of the two asked, reaching in the inside pocket of his navy sports jacket as he spoke.

  “I don’t sign autographs.” Elliot waved him away.

  “I don’t collect them,” came the reply. “I need to speak to you privately, Mr. Elliot. I’m Detective Sardini of the Connecticut State Police and …”

  “Connecticut. My God, my wife is in Connecticut.” He mopped his brow with a silk handkerchief. “Has something happened to Dawn? An automobile accident? A burglary? A … ?” He stopped, giving the impression that he could not bear considering any other possibilities.

  “Could we go someplace to talk, Mr. Elliot?” Detective Sardini repeated. “Someplace private?”

  Richard Elliot drew himself up to his full and not inconsiderable height and grabbed Detective Sardini by the shoulders. “I can no longer stand the suspense,” he declared to the man, and, incidentally, to the many people rushing by on their way out of the building and to their homes. “Tell me here. I can take it.”

  “Maybe the coffee shop over there,” his agent urged.

  “Now! I must know now!” Richard Elliot’s dramatic instinct, controlled throughout that boring interview boomed against the art deco brass work, slammed against the beige and brown murals that rimmed the room, and caused even the most blasé of New Yorkers to glance toward the four men.

  “Your wife is dead, Mr. Elliot. She was murdered.” Detective Sardini was robbed of the satisfaction of shocking this man that he had judged obnoxious when he had to watch him sink down to the marble floor, unconscious.

  “He fainted, sir,” the man with him said, kneeling down beside the body.

  “Very astute, Mitchell. Very astute.”

  V

  “You’ve reinterviewed everyone who was at the party last night?”

  “No, just the people who reported burglaries during the party. That’s why we needed to check out the guest list with you again. The local police knew who was here, but not who was invited,” this same Mitchell was explaining to the Henshaws an hour later in the living room of their home.

  “So you think the break-ins were planned to coincide with the party?” Jed asked, looking out the window, seemingly more interested in the wind that was beginning to blow through the trees than in an answer to his question.

  “Of course.”

  “So the robber must have been someone who knew about the party,” Susan cried out.

  “Yes.”

  “Then …” she began excitedly.

  “But everyone in town knew about your surprise party, Mrs. Henshaw,” came Detective Sardini’s quick response. “Even you.”

  “I don’t see what my wife has to do with this.” Jed Henshaw’s angry comment shot out across the room.

  “I was only pointing out that her party was hardly the secret it was supposed to be,” came the mild reply.

  “And you think that Dawn Elliot’s death was connected to the burglaries?” Susan asked, watching the flames dance around her fireplace grate as winds rushed back down the flue.

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t know how Mrs. Elliot’s death figures into this. I can’t make any assumptions at this point.”

  “But you’re in town to investigate her death, not the burglaries,” Jed insisted.

  “I was sent here to look into the murder, yes. And in doing that I certainly can’t ignore anything that happened at the party or …”

  “You mean you think that she was killed during my party?” Susan looked up.

  “Probably not, but we’ll get the results of the autopsy tomorrow morning,” was the obscure reply. “But, as I was going to say, we have to investigate every aspect of that night and, certainly, other crimes, whether related or not, fall into that category.

  “We’ll be going now,” the detective continued, looking meaningfully at his assistant. Mitchell, the man with either no first or no last name, took the cue and leapt to his feet.

  “I’ll see you to the door,” Jed offered. “You stay where you are, Susan.”

  She nodded. “Good-bye, Detective and, uh, Officer Mitchell.”

  “Good evening, Mrs. Henshaw. We’ll be seeing you again soon, I’m sure.” Detective Sardini followed her husband
and his officer out into the hall.

  Susan had resumed staring into the fire when Jed returned. “Well, they’re gone,” he commented, sitting down beside his wife on the chintz couch.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think this mess is going to take a long, long time to straighten out. We’d better prepare ourselves.”

  “You think they suspect us?” She didn’t look at him.

  “Possibly, but I also think the local police thought that Dawn was killed long before the party …”

  “And left inside my birthday present as a bad joke?” Susan interrupted.

  “I don’t know why she turned up here but, if she wasn’t killed here, why should we be connected with this? And I can’t imagine that they think we have anything to do with the burglaries. I …”

  “Have the cops left?”

  Chrissy had asked the question. She was standing in the doorway wearing a nightshirt bearing the likeness of four long-haired rock musicians whose faces were enough to give most adults insomnia. Her brother was standing beside her.

  “What are you two doing?” Susan got up.

  “We just wanted to know what the police were saying,” Chad answered.

  His parents exchanged glances. “Why don’t we all go upstairs and talk about this?” Jed suggested. “Just let me put out this fire.”

  “Good idea. You two go get into your beds, and your father and I’ll come up and we can talk a little,” Susan suggested. “But not for long. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. We all need our sleep.”

  “Do you think the police are going to arrest you or Daddy for Mrs. Elliot’s murder?” Chad asked.

  “Of course not,” his father answered quickly, smacking at the burning embers with a poker. “It’s just that they’re certainly going to be back to ask more questions and we want to be awake to help them with their investigation.”

  This time it was the children who surreptitiously exchanged worried looks.

  VI

  Driving to their motel, outside of Hancock on the highway, Mitchell finally gathered up the nerve to ask his superior a direct question. “You think one of the Henshaws is a murderer?”