words, he told me that he hoped I didn’t think he would rather see an innocent man in prison than be politically embarrassed himself.” She shrugged. “The problem is, I wish I could believe him.”
“Maybe you can. How about Smith?”
“I got to him, Geoff. I know I did. The guy is cracking up. If he doesn’t start telling the truth, my next move is to get Barbara Tompkins to file a stalking complaint against him. The prospect of that shocked him right down to his toes, I could tell. But I think rather than risk having it happen, he’ll come through and we’ll get some answers.”
She stared into the fire, watching the flames lick at the artificial logs. Then she added slowly, “Geoff, I told Smith that we had two witnesses who saw his car that night. I threw at him that maybe the reason he was so anxious to see Skip convicted was because he was the one who killed Suzanne. Geoff, I think he was in love with her, not as a daughter, maybe not even just as a woman, but as his creation.”
She turned to him. “Think about this scenario. Suzanne is sick of having her father around her so much, of having him show up wherever she goes. Jason Arnott told me that much, and I believe him. So on the evening of the murder, Dr. Smith drives out to see her. Skip has come and gone, just as he claimed. Suzanne is in the foyer, arranging flowers from another man. Don’t forget, the card was never found. Smith is angry, hurt and jealous. It isn’t just Skip he has to contend with; now it’s Jimmy Weeks as well. In a fit of rage he strangles Suzanne, and because he’s always hated Skip, he takes the card, makes up the story of Suzanne being afraid of Skip and becomes the prosecution’s principal witness.
“This way Skip, his rival for Suzanne’s attention, is not only punished by spending at least thirty years in prison, but the police don’t look elsewhere for a suspect.”
“It makes sense,” Geoff said slowly. “But then why would Jimmy Weeks be so worried about your reopening the case?”
“I’ve thought about that too. And, in fact, you could make an equally good argument that he was involved with Suzanne. That they quarreled that night, and he murdered her. Another scenario is that Suzanne told him about the land in Pennsylvania that Skip had optioned. Could Jimmy have inadvertently told her about the highway going through and then have killed her to keep her from telling Skip? He picked up those options for next to nothing, I gather.”
“You’ve done a lot of thinking today, lady,” Geoff said. “And you’ve made a damn good case for either scenario. Did you happen to listen to the news on the way home?”
“My brain needed a rest. I listened to the station with the golden oldies. Otherwise I’d have gone mad in that traffic.”
“You made a better choice. But if you had listened to a news station, you’d know that the stuff Barney Haskell was planning to swap for a plea bargain is now in the U.S. attorney’s hands. Apparently Barney kept records like nobody else ever kept records. Tomorrow, if Frank Green is smart, instead of resisting your investigation he’ll request access to any records they can find of jewelry Weeks bought in the months before Suzanne’s murder. If we can tie him to stuff like the zodiac bracelet, we’ve got proof Smith was a liar.” He stood up. “I would say, Kerry McGrath, that you have sung for your supper. Wait here. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
Kerry curled up on the couch and sipped the sherry, but even with the fire the room felt somehow less than comfortable. A moment later she got up and walked into the kitchen. “Okay if I watch you play chef? It’s warmer in here.”
Geoff left at nine o’clock. When the door closed behind him, Robin said, “Mom, I’ve got to ask you. This guy Dad is defending? From what you tell me, Dad’s not going to win the case. Is that right?”
“Not if all the evidence we believe has been found is what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Will that be bad for him?”
“No one likes to lose a case, but no, Robin, I think the best thing that could ever happen to your father is to see Jimmy Weeks convicted.”
“You’re sure Weeks is the one who’s trying to scare me?”
“Yes, I’m about as sure as I can get. That’s why the sooner we can find out his connection to Suzanne Reardon, the sooner he won’t have any reasons to try to scare us off.”
“Geoff’s a defense attorney, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is.”
“Would Geoff ever defend a guy like Jimmy Weeks?”
“No, Robin. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t.”
“I don’t think he would either.”
At nine-thirty, Kerry remembered that she’d promised to report to Jonathan and Grace about her meeting with Dr. Smith.
“You think he may break down and admit he lied?” Jonathan asked when she reached him.
“I think so.”
Grace was on the other extension. “Let’s tell Kerry my news, Jonathan. Kerry, today I’ve either been a good detective or made an awful fool of myself.”
Kerry had not thought it important to bring up Arnott’s name on Sunday when she told Jonathan and Grace about Dr. Smith and Jimmy Weeks. When she heard what Grace had to say about him, she was glad that neither one of them could see the expression on her face.
Jason Arnott. The friend who was constantly with Suzanne Reardon. Who, despite his seeming frankness, had struck Kerry as being too posed to be true. If he was a thief, if, according to the FBI flyer Grace described, he was also a murder suspect, where did he fit in the conundrum surrounding the Sweetheart Murder Case?
84
Dr. Charles Smith sat for long hours after he forced Kerry to leave. “Stalker!” “ Murderer!” “Liar!” The accusations she had thrown at him made him shudder with revulsion. It was the same revulsion he felt when he looked at a maimed or scarred or ugly face. He could feel his very being tremble with the need to change it, to redeem it, to make things right. To find for it the beauty that his skilled hands could wrest from bone and muscle and flesh.
In those instances the wrath he felt had been directed against the fire or the accident or the unfair blending of genes that had caused the aberration. Now his wrath was directed at the young woman who had sat here in judgment of him.
“Stalker!” To call him a stalker because a brief glimpse of the near perfection he had created gave him pleasure! He wished he could have looked into the future and known that this was the way Barbara Tompkins would express her thanks. He would have given her a face all right-a face with skin that collapsed into wrinkles, eyes that drooped, nostrils that flared.
Suppose McGrath took Tompkins to the police to file that complaint. She had said she would, and Smith knew she meant it.
She had called him a murderer. Murderer! Did she really think that he could have done that to Suzanne? Burning misery raced through him as he lived again the moment when he had rung the bell, over and over, then turned the handle and found the door unlocked.
And Suzanne there, in the foyer, almost at his feet. Suzanne- but not Suzanne. That distorted creature with bulging, hemorrhaged eyes, and gaping mouth and protruding tongue-that was not the exquisite creature he had created.
Even her body appeared awkward and unlovely, crumpled as it was, the left leg twisted under the right one, the heel of her left shoe jabbing her right calf, those fresh red roses scattered over her, a mocking tribute to death.
Smith remembered how he had stood over her, his only thought an incongruous one-that this is how Michelangelo would have felt had he seen his Piet… lunatic who attacked it years ago in St. Peter’s.
He remembered how he had cursed Suzanne, cursed her because she had not heeded his warnings. She had married Reardon against his wishes. “Wait,” he had urged her. “He’s not good enough for you,” “In your eyes, no
