“You really think the two are linked?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well, Danny Freeman didn’t kill Osborne, that’s for sure. And I’d hate like hell to think we’ve got two killers running around loose. So! Wives? You and Joyce alibi Sunny Osborne, and the bartender out at the country club alibis Tina Ledwig, who wasn’t even at the party. Children? Ledwig’s daughters are in the clear there, and the Osborne daughter’s in DC.”
“Beneficiaries?” I asked.
“Well, Ledwig’s medical associates gain his share of the clinic and hospital. The insurance they carried on him pays for that. If the Ashes had the same sort of policy on Osborne, it’ll buy out the share of the business Sunny would’ve inherited. She gets a bundle of cash, they get exclusives to the properties he controlled, and that’s sure a motive for both of them, but there’s no crossover to Ledwig that I can see. Sunny gains nothing by Ledwig’s death and neither do the Ashes. Besides, they were down in Asheville that day for their son’s hearing and—”
“Hearing?” I asked.
“Oh shit! Sorry. Forget I said that, okay?”
“I won’t repeat it,” I told him, “but I won’t forget it, and I am a judge. I can get the details with a single phone call, so you might as well go ahead and tell me yourself.”
He took a deep breath, clearly annoyed with himself for that slip of the tongue. “Their oldest son, Bob Junior. He and his wife are both hooked on meth. They were cooking a batch last spring and the house went up in flames. Killed one of the grandchildren. The other two are still in a burn unit at the hospital there. They’re going to make it, but I guess Bobby and Joyce are paying all the bills on that, too.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” I whispered.
“Yeah.” He paused at a stop sign to make another right turn. “Anyhow, the hearing was the same Monday Ledwig died, and Bobby and Joyce were there all day.”
A heartbreaking way to collect an alibi. I thought of the photographs of children and grandchildren on the wall of the Ashe den and the love on Joyce’s face when she spoke of them last night. Yet I’d heard nothing in her voice to betray the grief she must still be feeling.
Denial?
I know how much it hurts when one of my nephews or nieces messes up. The pain must be cubed when it’s your child.
And to lose a grandchild like that?
Because your son thought he could cook up something as volatile as methamphetamine in the kitchen?
Joke: How do lawmen find a meth lab?
Answer: They follow the fire engines.
For a moment, the only break in the silence between us was when Underwood switched his headlights from bright to dim and back again.
“So you’re left looking for enemies,” I said. “Tina Ledwig might not’ve loved her husband, but she seems to think everyone else did.”
“Not everyone,” said Underwood, dimming his lights as another car approached. Now that we were on the main road to Cedar Gap, traffic was picking up. “Simon Proffitt and Billy Ed Johnson both fought with Ledwig before he died.”
“And you said Proffitt had words with Osborne last night?”
“According to our DA anyhow. Burke says it was low-volume but intense.”
As the car passed by, a deer bounded across the highway in front of us. Underwood instinctively touched his brakes, but the deer was gone before we got close.
“Rutting season,” he murmured before turning back to mull over the possibilities aloud. Ledwig may have quarreled with Proffitt and Johnson, but if Osborne and Johnson had clashed, Underwood didn’t know of it. Indeed, he thought the two men had worked together on a couple of mutually profitable projects without any problems.
“I talked to Norman Osborne for a few minutes last night,” I said. “He struck me as a good ol’ boy who loved his wife and was loyal to his friends. I got the feeling that he might cut you off at the knees but that there wouldn’t be any malice in it.”
“That was Osborne all right.” We were on Main Street now. Underwood paused at the red light and a knot of tourists passed in the crosswalk, heading for Roxie’s ice-cream stand. “You never met Ledwig, did you?”
“No, and I can’t quite get a feel for him. For some reason, though, despite all his good works, that prejudice he felt against Danny Freeman makes me wonder if there wasn’t a coldness at his core.”
Underwood shook his head. “I didn’t know him either, but I do hear he made sure people heard about all those good works and about his fine upstanding moral character as well.”
“He didn’t hide his light under a bushel?”
“Not unless that bushel had his name carved in marble with a spotlight playing on it.”
“You didn’t like him,” I said.
“I told you. I didn’t know him.”
“But?”
My persistence brought a rueful smile. “Okay. My wife’s uncle was on the town council a few years back. I don’t need to go into the details. Let’s just say he did somebody a minor favor. Something that didn’t hurt anybody or profit anyone monetarily and wasn’t even technically against the rules. Ledwig found out and got all righteous about it. Made a big hoopla. Blew it all out of proportion. Uncle Artie lost his seat on the council and Ledwig got to parade around as a defender of public virtue.
“And before you ask if Uncle Artie has an alibi for the day Ledwig bought it,” Underwood said as he made a left turn into the courthouse parking lot, “he died last spring.”
He pulled up next to my car. “Oh well. At least we’ve got a fairly narrow window for when Osborne was killed. Just wish we had the same for Ledwig.”
“What about the UPS guy?” I asked as I opened the door.
“What UPS guy?”
“UPS, FedEx, whichever. Whoever brought those brown envelopes that were on the deck that day.”
“Huh?”
“In the crime scene photos Lucius Burke showed me at the hearing Monday,” I said impatiently. “There were several brown mailers on a table by the door. Looked like books or stuff you’d order off the Internet. There would be a time stamp for when they were delivered. Didn’t anyone check?”
“Jesus!” he swore softly. “That goddamned Fletcher! Nobody mentioned any packages to me.”
“You weren’t there at all that day?”
“Nope. Fletcher caught it. It was his big case.”
“Well, you ought to take another look at those pictures, because now that I think of it, the delivery guy usually leaves them at the front door if no one answers the bell, so why were they on the deck? If they arrived before Tina Ledwig left home, wouldn’t she have brought them inside?”
“Maybe Ledwig was outside and just stuck them there himself.”
“Whichever, it might could help you narrow the time,” I said.
“I’ll get Fletcher on it first thing in the morning,” said Underwood. “Good thing you noticed.”
Then he ruined the compliment by laughing.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m thinking Bryant’s probably braver than I realized.”
“How do you mean?”
“A man doesn’t get away with much if he’s got a real noticing wife.”
“I imagine he’ll survive,” I said dryly and closed the car door behind me.
The condo was deserted when I got back, although a strong odor of fresh paint permeated the place. The three bedrooms, both baths, the living room, and the kitchen ceiling, too, gleamed in the lamplight. Not only that, but all the furniture had been put back in place. True, there were still piles of books and clothes on the couch, but at least it didn’t sit in the middle of the floor any longer.
Happily, the pickup paint crew was gone, although, by the look of the buckets and brushes grouped on newspapers on the kitchen floor, they intended to come back tomorrow and do the cabinets.