She swallowed the bacon, took a deep breath, and spoke through gritted teeth. “If I have two personalities, I guess I have to communicate with the asinine part of my brain that’s imagined you. Get this straight. I’m not going anywhere until I know what happened to Jack.”
I was tempted to give her a high five. I’d hoped she would refuse to leave. I needed her presence in order to approach the possible suspects.
I needed…
Wait a minute. I felt overwhelmed by remorse. What I needed or, to be more accurate, what I wanted was unimportant. Kay’s life was all that mattered. I hadn’t been dispatched by the department to find a murderer. I’d been sent to protect Kay, yet my excursions this morning were all about discovering what had happened to Jack Hume.
“Kay, this is foolish.” Just because I heard the siren call of the chase was no excuse to put her in further jeopardy. “Heaven is concerned about your safety or I wouldn’t be here. I truly will do my best to find out what happened to Jack, but you must leave.”
“Get a life.” She took another bite of sweet roll.
Kay Clark was a fighter. I suppose she felt that I (or a negative aspect of herself) was challenging her courage. “Kay…” I heard the difference in my tone. For the first time, I moved away from my irritation with her. Instead, I wanted to help the weary, grieving woman who faced me with an indomitable light in her eyes.
She looked as immovable as the tank battery for the Millie No. 1.
Her decision meant that if she were to be kept safe, I must discover the identity of the murderer.
Have I ever shared the truth that I am moved by impulse, not logic? I felt dimly that perhaps this was the course of events Wiggins desired. Was his mind serpentine enough to have known that my actions would strengthen Kay’s resolve and she and I together would be bound to investigate? It was as if I heard a distant bugle call to charge.
Impulse was all very well, but I must harness my proclivity for quick action and think logically. Kay had come to Adelaide because of Jack’s e-mails. That’s where she started and that’s where I must start. “In Jack’s last e-mail, he said a photograph had been slipped under his door. Where do you suppose he put it?”
She looked perplexed. “I don’t know.” She nodded toward the desk. “All of his papers seemed to be in the ebony box. There was only one photograph and it can’t be the one he mentioned.”
I was surprised. “There’s no photograph in the box.”
Her gaze was sharp. “How would you know?”
“I studied the contents last night.”
She pushed back her chair and hurried to the desk, returning with the box. She opened it and quickly thumbed through the contents. “That’s weird.” She shot me a suspicious glance. “You’re messing with my mind. Where did you put the picture?”
“Do not succumb to paranoia. Why would I take a photograph?”
“Why not? You write notes…I mean I write notes…I wouldn’t take the picture…why would I do that?” She jumped up, rushed to a dresser, opened drawers, fumbled through lingerie and clothing. “I want that picture. Maybe I put it in my things to take home.” She rushed to the closet.
I followed, leaned against the doorjamb. “Tell me about the picture.” I used my most soothing tone.
She glared. “Don’t talk to me as if I’m demented.”
I shrugged and returned to the table. I poured another cup of coffee.
Finally, she dropped into the chair opposite me. “I found a photograph in the ebony box of Jack in his cap and gown when he graduated from high school. He was incredibly handsome and young.” Her smile was tremulous. “That’s the attraction of youth, the innocence, the lack of foreknowledge. He didn’t know how many times his heart would be broken, how much life could hurt. Not then.”
“Was that the only photograph in the box?”
“The only one. It can’t be the photograph he mentioned in his e-mail. That picture upset him. I don’t understand why anyone would take the graduation picture.” Slowly her face changed. “Maybe someone else wanted to remember him when he was young.”
“That could be why.”
“I understand.” Her voice was soft. “Anyway, I don’t know what picture he was talking about in that e-mail. Either he put that picture somewhere and I haven’t found it or someone removed it before I looked in the box.” She glanced toward the door.
Either was a possibility. I reassured her. “Let’s not waste time worrying about a photograph. We know he was shocked and upset, both by a photograph and the circumstances he’d found at The Castle. It’s up to us to find out what he did and when. I can help.”
“It would make me feel better if you disappeared.” Kay reached for another piece of toast. “Come on, sometimes you’re here and sometimes you aren’t. Wouldn’t you like to disappear?” Her tone was coaxing.
“Then you’d be upset when I picked up my coffee mug. Thanks, but I’ll remain visible for now. In any event, I’m not important.” Actually, everyone’s important in Heaven, but I hoped my modesty would charm her. “What matters is finding out who killed Jack. When you interview the people Jack saw, keep these points in mind: Evelyn Hume has no difficulty moving quickly and quietly around The Castle. Ronald Phillips picks up Hume family background at the historical society, like Jack being in James’s wedding, and feeds the facts to Laverne for the séances. Laverne is either afraid for him or of him. She lied last night when she told you they were together when she heard the vase crash. Diane Hume’s hoping for guidance from her dead husband, but she’s afraid to tell Laverne what she wants to know. Jimmy Hume hit golf balls like he was killing snakes, then glared through the kitchen window at Shannon Taylor. Shannon got upset talking about you and Jack. She said—” I hesitated.
Kay licked a smear of marmalade from one finger. “Nothing Shannon says about me would come as a surprise. Go ahead.”
“She said, ‘Jack didn’t care about her. I know who he was sneaking around to see.’”
“Poor kid.” Kay’s voice was kind. “Jack turned her down, so she’s convinced he had to be involved with someone else. That’s not true. He was focused on problems, not another woman. He was magic”—her lips trembled a little—“and he was honest. In his next-to-last e-mail, he wanted me to come home with him. He wouldn’t have urged me to come to Africa with him if he’d plunged into a passionate affair.”
I saw confidence in her face as well as sorrow.
I wondered if she was missing something important, something powerful in Jack’s last days, because she didn’t believe he would betray her. I hoped she was right, but I wasn’t certain.
Kay was confident of her analysis. “The question about Shannon is whether she was angry enough by his rejection to wish him dead.”
To me, Shannon’s anger was a separate question from whether she was right or wrong in connecting Jack to another woman.
We could argue this possibility another time. “We’ll keep an open mind.”
“Open?” She made a sound similar to a strangled snort. “My mind’s as full of holes as Swiss cheese. Maybe”—she brightened—“I can push you out.”
“Maybe.” My tone was encouraging. She might feel better if she clung to the pathetic hope that I would depart. “For now, we’re working together. I suggest you start your research with Evelyn.”
She finished the sweet roll, poured another cup of coffee. She’d almost emptied the cup when her gaze slid toward me. “Why Evelyn?”