Another volunteer was bustling out of the kitchen with baskets of chips. She called over her shoulder, “Good idea, Irene. Be back in a minute.”
Irene moved to a big oven, turned it, set the temperature. She looked absorbed, almost cheerful. She liked being helpful. She might be a compulsive gambler, a thief, and a liar, but she enjoyed helping people and working with children and keeping the Lord’s house immaculate and holy.
I appeared. I spoke gently. “Irene, we need your help.” She whirled, backed against the stove. “You.” It was a gasp. “I’ll call the police chief.”
“We’ll talk to him in a minute.” Please God, yes, with a name and the hope and prayer that Bayroo was still safe.
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Irene glared. “He said you were a fake. I don’t have to talk to you.
I don’t have to say a word.”
“Bayroo Abbott’s been kidnapped. You are the only person who can save her.”
Her sallow face flushed. “That’s crazy. If you’re accusing me of hurting Bayroo, I never, never would.”
“Irene, listen closely.” She was one of those women—Bobby Mac believed this to be true of all women—who never hear any statement without taking it personally. “Daryl Murdoch’s murderer kidnapped Bayroo. Bayroo was in the preserve Thursday evening and saw a car.
We have to find out what car she saw.”
“I didn’t see any car except—” She clapped a hand to her mouth.
Panic flickered in her eyes.
“You were here at the church.” I felt a surge of triumph.
Her shoulders tightened in a defensive posture. She stared at me, fear mixing with stubbornness.
“What did you see? Was it Kirby Murdoch? Judith?” Even as I asked, I was unconvinced. Neither had been in the parish hall during the Spook Bash.
Irene’s eyes jerked toward the door into the parish hall. She tried to slide away.
I blocked her escape. “Bayroo’s been gone a long time now.” I heard the tremor in my voice.
Her face crumpled. “If I admit I was here, they can say I killed him and I swear I didn’t. I got here and I saw him, and when I saw the policewoman I thought he was going to have me arrested and so I left.”
My hand closed on her arm. “Policewoman?” Her face drooped in remembered fear. “She was walking toward him.”
“Are you sure it was a police officer?” I struggled to understand.
“Of course I’m sure.” She sounded angry. “I may be in trouble,
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but I’ve got eyes that see. She had on that uniform, just like you do, but I know she’s a real police officer. She gave me a ticket once. Officer Leland.”
“Anita Leland.” Anita Leland, who had often followed Daryl Murdoch, knew his daily routine.
Irene’s eyes were empty. “There wasn’t any reason for him to have a policewoman come to the church.” Her lips quivered. “Except for me.”
Her voice was so low I could scarcely hear. She flung up her head and the words came fast as rocks thrown by an angry crowd. “If I’d had a gun, I would have been glad to shoot him. Father Bill was going to let me pay everything back. I would have. Somehow. But Daryl wanted everyone to know. He wanted me to go to jail. I hated him. I turned and ran to my car. I was afraid to go home. I drove around for hours and finally I was so tired, I drove up my street and the houses were dark and no one was waiting for me. And now . . .” I heard Irene’s bitter tirade while the puzzle pieces slotted into a perfect pattern. I’d tried to jam the wrong shapes together, poking a weak- willed woman into the role of a quick-thinking, opportunistic, coolheaded adversary.
Anita Leland hated Daryl Murdoch. Anita blamed Daryl for her sister’s husband’s suicide and her sister’s disappearance. Anita had planned to shoot Daryl Wednesday evening at his cabin, but she looked through the window and saw Kathleen and the red silk nightgown. Anita changed her plan, decided his death on the rectory back porch would provide a ready-made suspect.
Anita had been warned to stop her ticketing campaign against Daryl. Thursday evening she stopped him as he left his office. She didn’t give him a ticket, so why . . . Maybe she told him there had been trouble at the church, a break-in, and he told her he was on his way there, would meet her in the parking lot.
Anita didn’t park in the church lot. She hid the police car in the
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nature preserve, walked the few hundred yards to the parking lot, met Daryl. Perhaps he had been told the problem was at the rectory and he walked willingly with her to the back door and onto the porch.
Anita shot him. Did she tell him who she was when she held the gun to his head? She shot him and slipped through the gathering gloom, seen by no one. She must have felt very safe when she reached the preserve. Bayroo heard the crunch of leaves. Was it at the time of Anita’s departure for the church or at the time of her return? Which-ever, Bayroo had been frightened until she saw the car. A police car.
This afternoon, Bayroo turned away the story of her derring-do, saying she’d been scared until she saw the car.
Anita Leland could not let Bayroo describe that car.
I looked at the clock above the stainless-steel sinks. A quarter to seven. Now the shadows were falling, dusk turning to dark. And Bayroo . . . My throat ached.
