Gordon slammed his fist down on the keyboard. “I don’t want to talk to either of you any more about this! You accused me of murdering Erin; you’ve had me watched continuously; you’ve searched my house, my office, my e-mail, for God’s sake. And you have found nothing! And through all this I have cooperated with you. And here, after all that, you have the gall to come to my house and accuse me of murdering Helen. You have no proof of anything!”
So much for a distraught confession, Dix thought.
But Gordon wasn’t through. “You are right about one thing, Dix. If what you say about Helen is true, then there is nothing left for me. Everything will come out now, no hope for it. I will have nothing—not Erin, not my reputation, my career, my good name. It’s only a matter of time before the board of directors of Stanislaus very civilly demands my resignation. Can you imagine how Chappy will delight in that? Of course you can. You have ruined my life, Dix, ruined it!”
Gordon stuck out his hands. “So arrest me, find yourself a grand jury to indict me. You know it’s impossible because I didn’t kill Helen and so you can’t have any proof that I did. You think I’m stupid and weak or you wouldn’t even have come here.
“Damn you both. Get out of my house. Don’t come back unless you come to arrest me.”
It was as if he’d yelled out all his passion. He slumped forward, looking ineffably weary. He whispered, not looking at them, “Please leave. I want to be alone to mourn Erin, and Walt and Helen. I’m tired to my soul. I want to go to bed.”
CHAPTER 38
TARA MAESTRO, VIRGINIA MONDAY MORNING
RUTH AND DIX sat facing Tony and Cynthia. Chappy sat in his big winged patriarch’s chair, his fingertips tapping.
Dix looked around at Christie’s family, who were utterly silent. He didn’t think he’d ever been in their company when one of them wasn’t insulting or complaining about one of the others. He sat as silently as Ruth, tapping his foot, waiting for one of them to speak about Gordon. Of course they knew everything. It was all over Maestro.
But no one said a word.
Dix finally said, “So which one of you is going to tell me where Gordon went off to?”
Chappy shrugged. “Can’t imagine why you’d think any of us would have a clue, Dix.” Chappy sat back and folded his hands over his belly. He chuckled, shook his head. “So old Twister’s gone into the wind, has he? Milt at the post office called me this morning, said your deputies were banging on doors trying to find him, but it seems he’s a ghost. How did you let that happen, Dix? Didn’t you have a deputy watching his house?”
“We know a driver with Flying Cabs picked Gordon up on the street behind his house and drove him to Elderville. He was dropped off in a residential neighborhood. No one we’ve spoken to in the area knows him, no one saw him. Someone else must have picked him up from there.”
“Good for him, I say,” Cynthia said, and toasted all of them with her last bite of muffin.
“Uncle Gordon was free to go, Dix. And you don’t really have any proof against him, do you?” Tony asked. He sat forward, clasped his elegant hands between his knees. “Who cares if he took off? If you find out where he is, you still can’t bring him back.”
“He left because there wasn’t anything here for him anymore, Dix,” Cynthia said. “He was ruined. He couldn’t face the humiliation, so he left.”
Dix said, “That’s certainly putting the best face on it, Cynthia. The fact is, though, Gordon is no more accomplished a criminal than Helen Rafferty was. He knows he’s left tracks. That’s why he snuck off while he could.”
The silence returned, none of them meeting Dix’s eyes.
Dix looked at Tony. “I find it interesting that you didn’t bother to tell me all of Gordon’s accounts were closed out. I don’t suppose you helped him with that, Tony? I certainly can’t imagine Chappy doing it.”
“It isn’t against the law to give a man his own money,” Tony said.
Dix looked at each of them, wondering if there were words that would convince them. He didn’t think so. They were finally together on something, not set against one another. He gave it a try anyway. “I know Gordon wouldn’t have had the knowledge or the wherewithal to plan something like this.”
Chappy chuckled. “Evidently old Twister’s got unplumbed depths. Who would have thought it possible?”
Tony asked, “Who cares if someone helped arrange transportation, money, ID, whatever, for him, Dix?
It’s not against the law.”
Chappy grinned. “Hey, maybe I did it for old Twister.”
Dix shook his head. “Chappy, you’re the only one I wouldn’t suspect of that. You can’t be in the same room with Gordon without your tearing into each other. I wouldn’t have thought you’d do anything for Gordon except visit him in jail, joking about a file in a cake.”
Chappy rose slowly to his feet. He shook a finger at Dix. “Are you nuts, Dix? Gordon and I are brothers. All we’ve ever done is have some fun with each other.”
Ruth said, “You know where he is, don’t you, Chappy?”
Chappy smiled down at her. “He was going on about killing himself, the little pissant. I wasn’t going to let my own brother do that, not after we lost Christie, Dix. And he’s not going to spend the last years of his life rotting in prison, either. Not unless you can prove what he did and, of course, find him. Naturally, I have no clue where he is, Agent Ruth.”
Dix said, “So I gather Gordon won’t be coming for a visit anytime soon. If he does, I think we’ll have to notify the Justice Department about a fake passport, won’t we?”
Dix rose together with Ruth. “Chappy, you never cease to surprise me. I’d like to bring the boys over sometime soon. This has been a difficult time for them. Would that suit you?”
“That would be nice, Dix,” Chappy said. “Real nice.”
CHAPTER 39
GREYHAVEN INN GREAT BEAR ROAD MAESTRO, VIRGINIA MONDAY LUNCHTIME
“SORRY WE’RE LATE, guys, but we had a little business with Chappy, Tony, and Cynthia.”
Sherlock grinned up at them and Savich rose to hug Ruth and shake Dix’s hand.
“You two look like you could use a little more sleep,” Dix said. “You had a wild time last night.”
“True enough,” Savich said. “We slept in this morning.”
“At least until Sean jumped on the bed and began a war dance,” Sherlock said. Once they were all seated and had ordered, Dix looked around the large room with a huge quarried gray stone fireplace at one end and beams overhead.
“This is one of the best-kept secrets for lunch in Maestro. Wait till you taste the vegetarian minestrone, Dillon.” He raised his coffee cup. “To a conclusion, of sorts, to the trouble in Maestro.”
Ruth grinned. “We solved it, Dix, so don’t sound so down in the mouth.”
Savich sat back and looked from one to the other of them. “All right. So tell us about this business at Tara.”
Dix nodded. “Well, when we spoke earlier, I told you how surprised we were at how well Gordon stood up to us. We really hoped we could break him down but it didn’t happen.”
Ruth sighed. “We hoped to get a confession, and I swear we hit him with everything we had for maximum impact.”
Dix said, “You could see it in his eyes when we told him Helen was responsible for Erin’s and Walt’s deaths. He knew, Helen had told him all right.”
Ruth said, “Dix, I’m thinking now it was Chappy who told him how to handle us. Gordon never seemed that strong to me.” She shrugged. “It’s Chappy’s doing. And it’s possible Chappy did more than get Gordon out of town.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Chappy has somehow covered up any evidence there was, too,” Dix said.
“You’re certainly giving Chappy a lot of credit, Ruth,” Savich said. Ruth said, “I’m just saying Chappy’s helped him more than once. Chappy helped him escape.”
“It’s not just Chappy,” Dix said. “When Ruth and I went to see the family this morning, it turned out to be all
