He reached for his hip and realized, to his dismay, that he’d left his pistol in his desk at the office. The only suspects Tal had ever met face-to-face were benign accountants or investment bankers and even then the confrontation was usually in court and he never carried the gun. Palms sweating, Tal looked around for something he could use to protect himself. He was in the bedroom, surrounded by books, clothes, furniture. Nothing he could use as a weapon.
He looked out the window.
A 20-foot drop to the flagstone patio.
Was he too proud to hide under the bed?
Footsteps sounded closer, walking up the stairs. The carpet muted them but the old floorboards creaked as the intruder got closer. Maybe there was no danger. But then why hadn’t the visitor announced his presence?
No, he decided, not too proud for the bed. But that didn’t seem to be the wisest choice. Escape was better.
Out the window. Tal opened it, swung the leaded-glass panes outward. No grass below; just a flagstone deck dotted with booby traps of patio furniture.
He heard the metallic click of a gun. The steps grew closer, making directly for the bedroom.
Okay, jump. He glanced down. Aim for the padded lawn divan. You’ll sprain your ankle but you won’t get shot.
He put his hand on the windowsill, was about to boost himself over when a voice filled the room, a woman’s voice. “Who the hell’re you?”
Tal turned fast, observing a slim blond woman in her mid or late thirties, eyes narrow. She was smoking a cigarette and putting a gold lighter back into her purse — the metallic sound he’d assumed was a gun. There was something familiar — and troubling — about her and he realized that, yes, he’d seen her face — in the snapshots on the walls. “You’re their daughter.”
“Who are you?” she repeated in a gravelly voice.
“You shouldn’t be in here. It’s a crime scene.”
“You’re a cop. Let me see some ID.” She glanced at his latex-gloved hand on the window, undoubtedly wondering what he’d been about to do.
He offered her the badge and identification card.
She glanced at them carefully. “You’re the one who did it?”
“What?”
“You had them taken to the morgue? Had them goddamn butchered?”
“I had some questions about their deaths. I followed procedures.”
More or less.
“So you were the one. Detective Talbot Simms.” She’d memorized his name. “I’ll want to be sure you’re personally named in the suit.”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Tal said. “The scene hasn’t been released yet.”
He remembered this from a cop show on TV.
“Fuck your scene.”
A different response than on the TV show.
“Let me see some ID,” Tal said, stepping forward, feeling more confident now.
The staring match began.
He added cheerfully, “I’m happy to call some officers to take you downtown.” This — from another show — was a bit inaccurate; the Westbrook Sheriff’s Department wasn’t downtown at all. It was in a strip mall next to a large Stop & Shop grocery.
She reluctantly showed him her driver’s license. Sandra Kaye Whitley, thirty-six. He recognized the address, a very exclusive part of the county.
“What was so fucking mysterious about their deaths? They killed themselves.”
Tal observed something interesting about her. Yes, she was angry. But she wasn’t sad.
“We can’t talk about an open case.”
“What case?” Sandra snapped. “You keep saying that.”
“Well, it was a murder, you know.”
Her hand paused then continued carrying her cigarette to her lips. She asked coolly, “Murder?”
Tal said, “Your father turned the car ignition on. Technically he murdered your mother.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Probably it was. But he continued anyway. “Had they ever had a history of depression?”
She debated for a moment then answered. “My father’s disease was serious. And my mother didn’t want to live without him.”
“But his illness wasn’t terminal, was it?”
“He wasn’t on a goddamn feeding tube, no. But he was going to die. And he wanted to die with dignity.”
Tal felt he was losing this contest; she kept going on the defensive. He tried to think more like Greg LaTour. “What exactly’re you doing here?”
“It’s my family’s house,” she snapped. “My house. I grew up here. I wanted to see it. They were my parents, you know.”
He nodded. “Of course…I’m sorry for your loss. I just want to make sure that everything’s what it seems to be. Just doing my job.”
She shrugged and stubbed the cigarette out in a heavy crystal ashtray on the dresser. She noticed, sitting next to it, a picture of her with her parents. For a long moment she stared at it then turned away, hiding tears from him. She wiped her face then turned back. “I am an attorney, you know. I’m going to have one of my litigation partners look at this situation through a microscope, Detective.”
“That’s fine, Ms. Whitley,” Tal said. “Can I ask what you put in your purse earlier?”
“Purse?”
“When you were downstairs.”
A hesitation. “It’s nothing important.”
“This is a crime scene. You can’t take anything. That’s a felony. Which I’m sure you knew. Being an attorney, as you say.”
Was it a felony? he wondered.
At least lawyer Sandra didn’t seem to know it wasn’t.
“You can give it to me now and I’ll forget about the incident. Or we can keep going with that trip downtown.”
She held his eye for a moment, slicing him into tiny pieces, as she debated. Then she opened her purse. She handed him a small stack of mail. “It was in the mailbox to be picked up. But with that yellow tape all over the place the mailman didn’t come by. I was just going to mail it.”
“I’ll take it.”
She held the envelopes out to him with a hand that seemed to be quivering slightly. He took them in his gloved hands.
In fact, he’d had no idea that she’d put anything in her purse; he’d had a flash of intuition. Talbot Simms suddenly felt a rush; statisticians never bluff.
Sandra looked around the room and her eyes seemed mournful again. But he decided it was more anger he was seeing. She said icily, “You will be hearing from my litigation partner, Detective Simms. Oh, you will. Shut the lights out when you leave, unless the county’s going to be paying the electric bill.”
“I’m getting coffee, boss. You want some?”
“Sure, thanks,” he told Shellee.
It was the next morning and Tal was continuing to pore over the material he’d collected. Some new information had just arrived: the Whitleys’ phone records for the past month, the autopsy results and the handwriting analysis of the suicide note.
He found nothing immediately helpful about the phone records and set them aside, grimacing as he looked for someplace to rest them. There wasn’t any free space on his desk and so he stacked them, as orderly as he could, on top of another stack. It made him feel edgy, the mess, but there wasn’t anything else he could do, short of moving another desk into his office — and he could imagine the ribbing he’d take for that.
Data plural…humping his calculator…
Tal looked over the handwriting expert’s report first. The woman said that she could state with 98 % certainty that Sam Whitley had written the note, though the handwriting had been unsteady, the grammar flawed, too, which was unusual for a man of his education.