‘Just tell me one thing. Were you in her room the day she died?’
He could see the Basque battling with his curiosity.
‘Why?’
‘Because someone was. A man.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The toilet seat in her bathroom…it was raised.’
‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Then that’s where they were waiting for her.’
Hollis had run through the last moments of Lillian Wallace’s life many times in his head, armed with information only he possessed. Now he was proposing to share those insights—an opportunity he figured the Basque was unlikely to pass up.
And he didn’t.
‘That offer of a ride still stand?’
They drove in silence until they reached the village limits, then Hollis began to speak. He explained that there’d been no visible signs of a struggle on Lillian’s body, which suggested she’d been incapacitated in some way. Chloroform was a possibility. Some small residue of the drug would show up in an autopsy, but only if you were searching for it, which the Medical Examiner hadn’t been. One possible scenario, the most credible one, was that Lillian had been drugged in her room, dressed in her swimsuit, carried to the swimming pool and drowned. He explained that the autopsy was inconclusive regarding the sand in her lungs. The proper test hadn’t been conducted. Only an exhumation and another autopsy would prove the theory, and that was out of the question right now.
The Basque stared out of the window while Hollis spoke, the muscles in his jaw clenching as he listened.
‘They drowned her in the pool and dumped her body in the ocean later that night, didn’t they?’ said Hollis.
‘They?’
Something in the Basque’s voice hinted at a greater knowledge.
‘They…he—you tell me.’
‘There was just the one.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Manfred Wallace?’
‘What do
‘A professional,’ said Hollis. His mind turned to the bull-necked thug on duty in front of the church the day of the funeral, but he dismissed the idea. It was unlikely they’d thrust the killer into the limelight like that.
They had reached Amagansett by now and were heading east on Main Street.
‘You can drop me here.’
Hollis slowed, but didn’t pull over. To stop would mean ending the conversation.
‘I’ve got things to do,’ said the Basque firmly.
Hollis pulled to a halt beside the Presbyterian church and turned the engine off.
‘Why?’ asked Hollis.
‘Why what?’
‘Why kill her?’ The question hanging over the investigation from the very first—the motive.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Sure you do,’ said Hollis. He offered the Basque a cigarette—a delaying tactic—but he declined. ‘Tell me what you’re thinking. I can help.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘I’m helping already. If I shared what I knew with Milligan, you’d be a suspect. Maybe that’s what they were hoping.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it? You keep quiet about your relationship with Lillian, that’s already pretty suspicious. She’s rich, you’re not, different worlds, she wanted to end the affair, you fought…“Isn’t that how it happened, Mr Labarde? In fact, where were you on the night in question, Mr Labarde?”’ He paused. ‘Any lawyer worth his salt would have a field day with it. It was a neat move of his, going to Milligan. Unless you have evidence. He figures you haven’t, or he wouldn’t have done it. Do you?’
The Basque sat for a moment, his hand on the door lever. ‘Like I said, there’s nothing you can do.’ He unfolded himself from the patrol car.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Hollis, ‘about Lillian.’
The Basque eyed him, judging the sincerity of the words, then he said, ‘She was a good person. She deserved a longer life.’ He shut the car door, but hesitated, stooping and peering through the open window. ‘Lizzie Jencks,’ he said.
