“Never met him. Heard a lot about him, though.”
“Such as?”
“Such as he was a virtual prick. Everyone on Big Sister hated him.”
“Including Mrs. Seymour?”
“He ran off on her, didn’t he? Or at least she thought he had.”
“Were you acquainted with Mrs. Seymour before you moved in here?”
“Yes, I was.”
Des raised her chin at him. “For how long?”
“I met her several days before-when she showed me the place.”
She stared at him stonily. Now he was jamming her. “Are you two involved?”
“I’m not involved with anyone,” he stated quietly.
“Uh-hunh. In the short time that you’ve been here, has anything struck you as curious or out of the ordinary? Anything at all?”
“Well, yeah,” he replied, leaning forward in his chair. “A couple of things.”
“Such as…?”
Mitch Berger told her that someone had purposely locked him in the crawl space under the house. He opened the trap door for her and flashed a light down there. It was a dark, shallow earthen pit. A horrible place to be confined in.
“Maybe Seymour’s killer was trying to get me to leave,” he suggested. “Scare me off because he was scared I’d dig up the garden and find the body. I did ask Dolly if I could have a garden when I first looked at the place. There’s no telling who she…” He trailed off a moment, scratching his head. “Bud Havenhurst… Of course!”
“What about him?”
“He was dead set against me moving in here. He even told me that he’d tried to talk Dolly out of renting me the place.”
“Interesting,” she said, nodding her head. “And what about Tuck Weems? Would he have known that you intended to dig up the garden?”
“Most likely. This is the kind of place where if one person knows something everybody knows it.”
You said there were a couple of things, Mr. Berger.”
“Seymour’s prescriptions. He left them behind. I noticed them there in Dolly’s bathroom. I thought it was a little strange. If you had left town for good, wouldn’t you have taken your pills with you?”
“Which bathroom was this?”
“Top of the stairs.” After a moment’s hesitation he added, “Dolly is on some serious medication.”
“Such as?”
“Such as lithium…”
Des waited, watching him carefully now. He had more to tell her. She sensed it. She knew it. “Something else, Mr. Berger?”
He started to respond but instead shook his head at her, unwilling to spill it.
She wondered what it was. And why he’d clammed up. But she did not press him, convinced that she would get no more out of Mitch Berger, New York film critic, at the present time. She merely thanked him for his time and started for the door.
“Do you think one of the islanders killed him, Lieutenant?” he asked her.
“I don’t do that.”
“You don’t do what?”
“Spitball.”
“But you must have a gut feeling.”
“I must. I do. Only I don’t share my gut feelings with members of the working press.”
“But I told you-I’m not a reporter. I’m just curious.”
Des paused at the door, gazing at him intently. “Mr. Berger, what we have here is a situation where someone has lost control, okay? It has been my experience that when an individual loses control once he or she may very likely lose control again. Consequently, my advice to you is this…”
“Yes, Lieutenant…?”
“Don’t be curious.”
He didn’t react. Just stared gloomily into the fire. God, he was a mournful specimen. She couldn’t be positive, having only known him for twenty minutes, but there was a distinct possibility that Des had just met the loneliest man on earth.
“Mind if I ask you something personal?” she asked, treating him to her maximum-wattage smile.
“No, not at all,” he replied, glancing at her curiously.
“Have you ever thought about sharing your home and your heart with a nice warm cuddly individual of the feline persuasion?”
“What can you tell me about your husband’s departure last month, Mrs. Seymour?”
“I can… tell you next to nothing, Lieutenant,” Dolly Seymour replied in a soft, halting voice. “I-I found his letter on the kitchen table when I came downstairs that morning. And… And…”
“And…?” Des pressed her gently.
“And he was gone.”
Niles Seymour’s widow lay limply on her bed under an Afghan throw, a moist tissue clenched in her small fist, her blue eyes red and swollen from crying. She had been given a strong sedative to help her cope with the shock. It had made her a bit dreamy and slow on the uptake. But she was able to respond to questions. She was a slender, frail-looking woman with a child’s delicate face and translucent skin.
Her bedroom was not especially elegant. It was small and the ceiling was quite low. The furniture was of the ordinary department store variety. Bud Havenhurst, her patrician lawyer and ex-husband, hovered attentively in a chair next to the bed. Tal Bliss loomed just inside the doorway, hat in hands. Des sat at the foot of the bed.
Downstairs, Soave was parked at the breakfast nook taking statements from the son and the sister-in- law.
“What did this letter say, Mrs. Seymour?”
“That he was… not worthy of me. That he was leaving.”
“You still have the letter?”
“Possibly. I can’t remember.” After a long moment, she added, “No one knew.”
“No one knew what, Mrs. Seymour?”
“How kind and gentle he could be. How he could make me laugh.”
Des instinctively disliked this woman. Dolly Seymour was rich, white, privileged and weak-a mewling little porcelain figurine. Des resented such women. But she was also aware that there might be more to her than met the eye. Could be Dolly Seymour was not as helpless as she seemed. Maybe she was a cold, calculating schemer who got what she wanted by acting that way. Maybe she was a manipulator, a user. Maybe she was even a murderer. “Did your husband ever attack you, Mrs. Seymour?”
Bud Havenhurst stirred slightly in his chair at the mention of this.
“Attack me?” Dolly repeated.
“Strike you. Physically abuse you.”
“Why, no. Never.”
“You sure about that?”
“She’s quite sure,” Havenhurst answered for her, his voice icy.
“He arrived here from Atlantic City?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We met at the country club.”
“And before that? Where was he born and raised?”
“He was a Southie,” Dolly replied fondly. “He came from South Boston. His father was a construction worker, his mother a beautician. He developed his love of fine things from her. And his grooming. He always took such wonderful care of his hands. He came from nothing, you see. Never even went to college. But he understood people. He understood style. Style meant the world to him.” She glanced around at her bedroom. “He always wanted to redecorate this room. He loathed it.”
“I’ll need to see your credit card records, Mrs. Seymour,” Des said. “Bank statements. Any and all account
