“Repeat his words as best you recall.” He had his pen poised over the notebook, and his jaw was working the Big Red hard.
But the details seemed to have left my brain like powdered sugar through a sifter. “I can’t remember. The feeling I got was that he was troubled.”
Kline said, “Troubled? That’s it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And this was the first time he’d ever seemed troubled?”
“Well... maybe I just didn’t notice before today.”
Another huge sigh. “Yeah, okay. What about access to the property? Any recent history of strangers hanging around? Or break-ins? Anything unusual?”
“No.”
He wrote this down, as if somehow my complete lack of knowledge was worth saving for posterity. If Ben
Someone knocked on the door—a welcome interruption.
An officer stuck his head inside and said, “The other Rose woman is here. And this one’s lawyer.” He nodded my way, his expression looking as if he’d just picked something green out of his teeth.
Kline flushed, his hard stare turned back on me. “You called a lawyer?”
“I didn’t call a lawyer,” I snapped back. I could do surly, too.
Kate squeezed past the policeman into the cabana and rushed over to me. “Thank God you’re all right! You
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
She fixed a strand of humidity-damp chocolate-brown hair behind her ear. “When I saw those police cars, I—I didn’t know what to think. But the policewoman at the gate said it was Ben. She said he collapsed.”
“He’s dead, Kate,” I said quietly.
“Dead?” She looked at Kline and then at me. “Oh, my gosh! Did he fall? Get cut with the lawn mower? Bleed to death? And do this many police always respond to accidents?”
Kline addressed Kate. “Ms. Rose? Can I ask you to step outside for one second?”
“Why?” She looked down at me again. “Abby? What’s going on?”
“No problem, just routine,” Kline answered for me, sounding a whole lot gentler than I would have thought him capable of.
“What about the lawyer?” the cop at the door said. “You want him in here, Sergeant?”
“It’s just Willis,” Kate said.
“Oh. Willis,” I replied. “Please keep him outside.” How the heck had he found out about Ben? Had Kate called him? Or was this just one of his routine drivebys so he could offer to run my life?
The uniformed officer took Kate by the elbow and they left.
“If you didn’t phone the lawyer, what’s he doing here?” Kline asked.
“He shows up unannounced on a regular basis. More friend of the family than attorney,” I said.
“But you have a gate and a security system, right? I mean, that’s standard equipment in this neighborhood,” Kline said.
“With all the rent-a-cops hanging around, I rarely activate the alarm,” I said, trying to slip this past him like it made perfect sense.
“So no alarm, and the gate was unlocked today, is that right?”
“Right.” This guy probably thought I was born dumb and went downhill from there.
“One more question. Did you notice the burn on Mr. Garrison’s hand during your last conversation with him?”
“The burn?”
“A large burn on the side of his right hand, from his small finger down to the wrist.” He demonstrated the spot.
“I never saw any burn.”
His lips tightened and he started writing more notes in his book. “Thank you, Ms. Rose. I would appreciate it if you keep today’s conversation with the victim to yourself until I’ve had a chance to finish my interviews. That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
He didn’t look up. “You have something important to tell me, ma’am?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then that’s all.”
Maybe in his mind. But that wasn’t all. Not by a long shot. And you could write that on the wall in ink.
2
After I left the cabana, Kate and I exchanged a hug, and she went in for her little chat with the curdled detective. Meanwhile, Willis Hatch stood behind the crime-scene tape strung between the oaks lining the driveway. He waved for me to join him.
The uniformed cop at the cabana door apparently noted my hesitation to acknowledge Willis’s presence, because he said, “Want me to get rid of him? I’d like to tell a lawyer where to go.”
I sighed. “No, I’ll talk to him. Are we allowed in the house?”
“Far as I know.”
A short man with graying hair and glasses, Willis wasn’t looking too lawyerlike this afternoon. He wore a T- shirt, gym shorts, and tennis shoes. Must have come straight from the health club. Though in his sixties, he’s in better shape than I am.
“What are you doing here?” I said, ducking under the tape.
“I’m minding my business on the treadmill thirty minutes ago, and what do I see on the television above me? A news-chopper shot of your house, the lawn full of patrol cars. Your house, Abby. Does that answer your question?”
Oh, yes. Question answered. I’d have to send a thank-you card to Channel Five. “Let’s go inside, Willis. The mosquitoes are preparing for their evening feast and I don’t want to be on the menu.”
He followed me up the driveway and along the winding brick path to the front door, jabbering about the outrage of the police invading Daddy’s property and how Charlie wouldn’t have let them run rough-shod over the place if he were still alive.
The policewoman previously stationed at the entrance earlier was gone, and we went inside.
“Why didn’t you phone me right after you called the police?” Willis asked.
“Because I didn’t need to call you.”
I crossed the marble foyer—you could hold a political convention in the entry alone—and went into the study. Daddy had done all the household business in this room.
The heavy forest-green drapes were drawn, and the small study—small by the standards of the rest of the castle—still smelled like Old Spice and cigars. Since his death, I’d come in here just to sit where Daddy had spent so much time. With his scent still so strong and his stacks of books, computer CDs, and disks piled in the barrister shelves, I could feel his presence, catch in my mind’s eye a glimpse of his wide, free smile.
Today, however, I went straight to the giant mahogany computer desk, plopped down in the red leather chair, and booted up the machine. I’d done this only one other time since his death. It had felt then like an invasion of his privacy, and today was no different.
“What in God’s universe are you doing?” Willis said.
“Helping the police locate Ben’s family, or at least I hope so.”
“On Charlie’s computer?”
I typed Daddy’s log-in password, and the icons on his desktop started to pop up.
