“Hardly any, why?”
“How about credit cards?”
“We use mine.”
“I don’t mean to pry but did you issue him cards of his own for your accounts? Because if he’s using them, we can trace his whereabouts.”
Poochie considered this carefully. “You’re demanding my account numbers, is that it?”
“I’m not demanding anything, Poochie. It might prove helpful, that’s all.”
“Very well,” she conceded. “But I won’t freeze my accounts. Tolly may need a hotel room or a hot meal. I won’t deny him that.”
“Then that’s how we’ll handle it. Have you got a recent snapshot of him?”
“In my room. I’ll get my purse as well.” Poochie strode out the door and down the hall.
Bement remained there with Des. “You think he killed Pete, don’t you?”
“They don’t pay me to think. I’m just taking it all in.” She shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose, studying him. “That idea you were pitching about how he’d be back in a day or two. Where did that come from?”
Bement shot a quick glance at the hallway door, lowering his voice. “Tolly has it good here, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t jumped the reservation. Just before Christmas, he told Nana he was spending the night in New York with one of his old Park Avenue lady friends. Next afternoon, he shows up back here totally trashed and stinking of cheap aftershave. He couldn’t get out of bed for two days. Told Nana he had the flu, but I knew better. Some young Puerto Rican guy kept calling him night after night.”
“What was his name?
“He never said. Just called himself a ‘friend.’ Tolly told me he did not want to talk to him. I made sure I answered the phone for the next couple of weeks, until he stopped phoning. Nana never found out.”
“Why were you so willing to cover for him?”
“I like the old guy. I think he’s cool.”
“Your mom thinks he’s nothing more than a con man.”
“Maybe she’s right. But he makes Nana happy. And that’s worth something, isn’t it?”
Poochie returned now clutching her wallet and a color photo of her and Tolly clowning by the swimming pool on a bright summer day. They’d swapped hats. Her straw number fit too high and tight on his head. His porkpie flopped way down over her eyes and ears.
“Nothing is missing from my own jewelry box. I assumed you’d wish to know.” Poochie opened her wallet and jotted down her credit card numbers on the lined yellow pad on the desk, then tore off the sheet and handed it to her. “You’ll file a missing persons report?”
“Mr. Tolliver hasn’t been gone long enough, Poochie. There’s also no concrete reason to believe he’s missing, as opposed to simply gone.”
“He’s not gone. Why won’t you believe me?”
“I’m hearing what you’re saying. But we had a murder here yesterday, and his disappearance does raise some serious questions.”
Poochie’s nostrils flared. “You intend to arrest him, is that it?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? I’m going to leave you folks now. I’ll be back in touch.”
“When?” Poochie’s hand gripped Des’s arm tightly. “When will I hear from you?”
“Soon. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”
As they started down the grand marble staircase, Des could see the sun rising through the east-facing windows, bathing the entry hall in an orange glow. With the arrival of daylight, a thorough, professional search of Four Chimneys was called for. She was particularly interested in the rose garden.
“Thank you for not treating me like a crazy old lady,” Poochie said as Des headed for the kitchen door.
“I don’t think you’re any such thing. I’m going to look around a bit before I leave, if you don’t mind.”
Bailey padded his way over to the kitchen door to be let out. Poochie obliged, venturing out into the courtyard with him while Des passed through the wrought-iron gate into the walled rose garden.
The day was dawning clear and frosty. The bare, dormant winter garden was blanketed by hoarfrost, the icy brick path slick underfoot.
Bailey tagged along with her, his nose to the frozen ground.
The rose garden scene was as Bement had described it. A heap of thorny branches laid out on a green canvas tarp. A battered old garden stool, a pair of loppers, pruners, work gloves, a small saw. All of it was finely dusted with frost. In a matter of minutes, that frost would thaw into dew. Right now, it looked like something Van Gogh might have painted.
There was another gate here, an open one that led down brick steps and out into several untamed acres of meadow. Across the meadow, alongside the bank of the Connecticut River, a broad swath of swamp maples shielded the lower reaches of the property from the prying eyes of boaters.
Bailey ambled his way slowly through this gate, snuffling at the ground. Then, suddenly, he started barking excitedly and tore his way across the frosty meadow like a young pup.
“Bailey, you come back here!” Poochie hollered after him from the courtyard. “Leave those squirrels alone, you bad boy! Bailey?…”
The old dog ignored her-galloped all the way across the meadow and into the swamp maples, barking and barking.
“Bailey, come back here, you senile old thing!”
But Bailey wouldn’t come back. Or stop barking.
Des, who’d taken basic K-9 training at the academy, thought she knew why. And it had nothing to do with senility. She wasted no time dashing her way across the meadow after him. The dog came out of the woods to greet her, his tail wagging furiously.
“Show me what you’ve got boy,” she encouraged him, breathing heavily.
He took off down a muddy path that snaked into the woods. She followed him, stepping carefully, until she reached a small clearing among the trees.
Here was where old Bailey had found Tolly.
CHAPTER 19
They were out on the Sound together, cutting smoothly through the water in his trim little sailboat, the one that had been built especially for him at the Dauntless Shipyard in Essex. He was manning the tiller. Maisie was expertly raising and lowering the sails, catching the breeze, running with it. It was a beautiful day. The sky was blue, the background music exhilarating and yet oddly menacing, too.
Mitch recognized it as Bernard Herrmann’s score from Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. An odd creative choice, he reflected as his amazing Technicolor dream unfolded before him. Because they were sailing in such perfect harmony out there, so in tune with the boat and the wind and each other.
Except, wait, that wasn’t Maisie working those sails at all. It was Des, nimble as a cat in her yellow tube top and crisp white shorts. Pretty amazing since she did not know how to sail. Nor did Mitch. Come to think of it, this was not his sailboat. He had never owned a boat. He could barely even swim. Yet there they were-sailing with such joyful expertise it was as if they’d been doing it their whole lives.
It’s about time, Mitch noted approvingly. Enough already with those dreams where Maisie was feeding ice cream cones to puppies. This was nice, him being out on the water with the new woman in his life.
Only now, it wasn’t so nice. They weren’t sailing with the wind-they were running smack into it. It was whipping up their sails, pitching the little boat violently from side to side. The sky had turned stormy. There was lightning and thunder. And now he was remembering that Jim Cantore had warned him to stay off of the water today. It was getting incredibly choppy, huge swells washing over the deck, threatening to capsize them.
“Come about, Des! We have to come about!”
“Mitch, help me!…”
But he was alone on deck. Des had been washed overboard. He jumped into the roiling sea after her, calling
