"Well, they'll have time to get used to the idea."
"I think it helps a lot that they all love James anyway, relative or not."
"I know they do. It's only lately that I've let myself feel strongly about the boy. For a long time, I didn't want to think about it."
"From what they've told me, Jimmy's death somewhat simplified things."
"That's God's truth. I'm sure the little brat would have stirred up all sorts of trouble when he read the will. There would have been lawsuits for decades. Now old Goliath has done us all a service."
"All but Jimmy."
"God forgive me for speaking ill of the dead, but I have to say I never liked the boy, from the time he was a gnat. He was nothing but an irritant to the whole family his whole life long. His mother, my daughter, was a rebellious thing, married badly, had only the one child, thank Christ. She died, drunk at the wheel of a car, in Jacksonville. Her husband drank himself to death some years previous."
"Jimmy had a wife."
"I must have been prescient; I left her a bit in the will, providing he had no control over it. She isn't a bad little thing; I always felt sorry for her." A truck rumbled past.
"Well," he said, looking at his pocket watch, "I think I'll go and see Grandmother Dorothy put to rest. She died before I was born, so I missed her first burial. Will you come with me?"
"Of course. I'm glad I made a clean breast of things and that you're not angry with me."
"Nonsense. You did what any reasonable, concerned person would have done under the circumstances. And," he said sheepishly, "you did something for me that I didn't have enough courage to do for myself.
Now, come on, let's get our respective cars, so you won't have to bring me back." The two walked from the carpentry shop arm in arm, and Liz felt comfortable with herself for the first time in days.
CHAPTER 41
Williams sat down across the desk from Haynes. His captain gazed impassively at him. There was no hint of either anger or sympathy in his eyes. "All right, let's go over it again," he said. "From square one. Start with Schaefer."
"I can prove by two witnesses, one of them a Los Angeles policewoman, that Ramsey was in the Beverly Hills Hotel when Albert Schaefer was drowned in their swimming pool."
"That's opportunity," the captain said. "Motive?"
"He killed Schaefer because he hated his guts. Schaefer represented Ramsey's ex-wife in the divorce proceedings, and Schaefer always got big settlements for his clients. I asked around."
"Motive," the captain said. "Now the Fergusons."
"Ramsey was checked in to Piedmont Hospital for knee surgery at the time the Fergusons died. He screwed the night nurse, and I think she covered for him, or at least failed to check on him, so that he was able to leave the hospital in the middle of the night, walk or drive to the Fergusons', which was nearby, and do the deed."
"Opportunity, maybe. Motive?"
"I'm damned if I know. The ex-wife didn't shed any light on that when she phoned, and I haven't been able to find her. It's hard to believe, but all of her friends say they don't know where she is, and I believe them."
"So we're shaky on the Fergusons, even in theory."
"I'm afraid so."
"The motive for Mary Alice Taylor?"
"I talked to her about the night she met Ramsey, and she struck me as evasive. I warned her not to tell Ramsey we'd talked, but I think she did. He killed her because he knew she could blow his alibi for the Fergusons."
"Why did he torture her?"
"To find out what she'd told me. She would have denied telling me anything, of course, since she didn't, but he obviously didn't believe her."
"And Ramsey flew up here from Miami and back in the middle of the night to kill her?"
"Right. He must have known the guy whose body we found. We haven't been able to make a connection, yet, but they could have met at some bar or something. Ramsey must know thousands of people. This airport in Florida is perfect; it's not attended twenty-four hours a day, so the guy could pick up Ramsey there and deliver him back, all in the wee hours. We know the airplane came to Dekalb-Peachtree because it took on fuel there-the refueler saw only the pilot; we just can't place Ramsey on the plane; it was clean."
The captain leaned back in his chair and put his feet on his desk. "It's all perfectly plausible," he said. "But we can't prove any of it. We'll just have to wait until he kills somebody else and hope he makes a mistake."
"I don't think he's going to kill anybody else," Williams said.
"Why not? He seems to enjoy it."
"Because there isn't anybody else to kill. He's had reasons for killing five people, but now he's home free. Why should he kill anybody else?"
"Unless…" The captain took his feet down and leaned forward, elbows on his desk. "Oh, boy, I think I just had a flash."
"Tell me."
"The wife."
"You think he wants to kill the wife?"
"Why else is she taking so much trouble to cover her tracks? She hasn't told a single friend where she's gone-you said that. Why? She's afraid Ramsey will find her, that's why."
"That makes sense," Williams admitted.
"Not only does it make sense, it gives us a motive for the Fergusons and a better motive for Schaefer."
"I don't get it, Cap."
"They knew where Elizabeth Barwick is! Christ, she had to tell somebody. Who better than her lawyer and her publisher?"
"But why all three of them?"
"Maybe Schaefer wouldn't tell him. He was a gutsy little guy, Al was."
"So he tried to find out from the Fergusons?"
"From Raymond, at least. Maybe he killed the wife just because she was there."
"He threatened the wife to get the husband to tell him," Williams said, excited now.
"That had to be the way it was. So now Ramsey knows where his ex-wife is?"
"Maybe. Or, on the other hand, maybe the Fergusons didn't tell him, either."
"No, I don't believe that. Ferguson would have talked to protect his wife."
"I think you're right. I also think you'd better find Elizabeth Barwick in a hurry, or she's going to be real dead real soon."
"If she's not already," Williams said.
"We'd have heard about it, wherever she is."
"But she could be anywhere. She could be in Paris or Tokyo or fucking Moscow, if Schaefer got her a big settlement."
"Try her bank," the captain said.
"Everybody's got to have access to his money. Try credit cards."
Williams was raring to go now. "Okay, I'll try all of them."
"Start with the biggest banks and work your way down. Let's assume that she's got some real money, from her settlement from Ramsey. She'd want some help with it, either a stockbroker or a bank. Hang on, I've got it! Try the private banking departments of the big banks-Trust Company, C & S, First Atlanta, Bank South."
Williams was already moving. He started with the Trust Company Bank, and he immediately made a mistake. "Do you have a customer named Elizabeth Barwick?" he asked the director of private banking. "I'm sorry," the man said, "we do not divulge the names of our clients." And he held to that position. He wasn't telling anything, even whether or not she banked there, without a court order.
On his next stop, Williams got foxier. He got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor of the First National Bank Tower and presented his badge to the receptionist. "I want to inquire about one of your customers," he said.
"Just a moment, please." The woman dialed a number and spoke with someone.
A moment later, a man walked into the reception room. "May I help you?" he asked.
"I want to inquire about one of your customers, Elizabeth Barwick," Williams said, and held his breath.
"Oh, yes," the man said. "She's one of Bill Schwartz's customers. Follow me." Williams exhaled as slowly as he could and followed the man down a hallway to an office where he was introduced to a red-haired man with glasses who appeared to be in his early forties.
"Mr. Schwartz, I'm making inquiries about Elizabeth Barwick in connection with a police investigation." Schwartz looked alarmed.