Her combative, on-top-of-everything pose slipped. She lifted a shaky hand, as if to push away my words, but fear glimmered in her eyes. She knew she’d missed death by an instant. “Don’t you understand? If the police questioned people, everybody would be scared. Some of them might not be willing to say anything about Jack. He blew into town and started upsetting applecarts. Nobody would admit they’d quarreled with him or were angry with him. As long as no one knows he was murdered, they’ll answer my questions. I can find out everything that’s been going on.”
I was exasperated. “The murderer won’t be fooled.”
She brushed back a tangle of dark hair. “That’s the gamble I have to take. But it may not be a gamble now. When no investigation is begun, it will be obvious I haven’t told the police anything about Jack’s death. The murderer will know I don’t have any idea who killed him.”
“There’s a small problem with that.”
She massaged one temple. “Okay, subconscious, give me a hint.”
I didn’t mind telling her and she could take my appraisal as an internal warning if she wished. “You plan to ask a lot of questions. If you start to find out what led the murderer to push Jack, you’ll be at risk again. This murderer seems to like accidents. If you discover too much, there may be another ‘accident’ and this time you may not survive.”
“I won’t tip my hand. But someone knows something that will lead to the murderer.”
I looked at her with growing admiration. She was exposing herself to danger. She was gambling with her life. But I understood. “You must have loved him very much.”
Tears filmed her dark eyes. “For so long. And yet I always knew that we were better apart.”
“However”—I was crisp—“Heaven doesn’t want you to be at risk. I have a proposition.”
Her smile was crooked. “A message from one corner of my mind to another? Damn laborious.” She clamped fingers to her temples. “Come on, mind. All together now.”
I persevered. “Go home. Leave the detecting to me. If you stay here, you will be in danger if you get too close to the murderer.”
“Hey.” She bristled with indignation. “I can’t believe I heard that.” She shook her head. “I’ve been called a lot of things, but I’ve never been called a coward. Especially not by myself.” The emphasis on the pronoun was marked.
I felt uneasy about Kay’s mental confusion. Perhaps she would cope better if I disappeared. I swirled away.
She didn’t even blink.
I returned.
Kay’s gaze was steely. “Stuff yourself back into some far crevice of my brain. I’m here and here I stay.” She spoke fast and hard. Perhaps she felt that was the only way to communicate with the part of her mind that she credited with my appearances. Her gaze never left my face. “Tonight accomplished two things. The note on my pillow and the crash of the vase prove Jack was murdered. My acceptance of the vase as an accident should reassure everyone, maybe including the murderer, that I’m here because Jack hired me to write his life story.”
I was skeptical. “He doesn’t sound like the kind of man who was that self-absorbed.”
Now Kay massaged both temples. “Will you keep quiet? You know—or you should unless my subconscious has completely lost its marbles—that story is pure fiction. He wanted me to write a book about his camp near Lake Nakuru: Five-Star Safaris, Jack Hume, Victoria Falls specialist. So, I’m perfectly safe. I’m a nonfiction writer, specialty biographies, most recent title a biography of Jerrie Cobb. I’m telling everybody here that I need information about Jack’s last days in order to write the end of the story, then I’m traveling to Kenya. I can find out everything about what happened before he died. Plus the attack on me may give some clue to the identity of the murderer.”
She drew the pad near, began to write.
9. The note was placed on my pillow after I went downstairs for dinner at a quarter to seven. Any member of the household (Evelyn, Diane, Jimmy, the Phillipses, and Margo and Shannon) could have put the note there. Dinner guests were the family, Alison Gregory, Paul Fisher, and Gwen and Clint Dunham. Everybody but Fisher was at The Castle the night Jack died.
Kay looked pleased. “I asked Diane to invite them since I understood Jack had seen all of them during his visit. Alison Gregory has a gallery and Evelyn buys artwork from her. They are also quite good friends, Alison being no dummy.” Kay’s tone was dry. “The Dunhams live next door and are longtime family friends. I asked Diane to include Paul Fisher because Jack may have talked to him about the photograph someone slipped beneath his door. Anyone who was at dinner could have pushed the vase. It would be easy for either of the Dunhams or Alison to return. I don’t include Paul as a suspect because I understand he wasn’t in Adelaide the night Jack died. I’ll check that out to be sure.”
I wasn’t convinced. “Someone in the house pushed the vase. I heard a door close when I reached the balcony.”
Kay shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. If a dinner guest left the note in my room, it would be easy to hurry up to the third floor and unlock a French door on the balcony. The Castle is old-fashioned. There’s no alarm system. Later, someone could have approached the house, climbed the balcony steps, pushed the vase, then escaped through the house to avoid being seen in the garden. There are many ways out of the house on the ground floor.”
I glanced again at the list. “What do you know about the dinner guests?”
She sighed in relief. “That’s why you’re haunting me. I need to find out whether Jack had a connection to one of them. Nobody was very forthcoming tonight. I don’t suppose it escaped anybody’s notice that they had all, except Paul, been at The Castle the night Jack died. The conversation was pretty stiff. Alison Gregory talked about a traveling exhibit of Impressionists at the Oklahoma City Art Museum. No matter what I asked her, pretty soon she got back to the exhibit. I learned more about Monet than I ever wanted to know. As for the Dunhams, they had very little to say. She’s a blonde with exquisite bone structure. She’s been beautiful all of her life. Tonight she was distant. Polite enough, but clearly wishing she were elsewhere. Her husband’s big and burly and looks like he’s outside a lot, a ruddy face. You would have thought the art exhibit up in the City was the most fascinating thing Gwen Dunham had ever heard about. I did manage to ask how well she knew Jack. She looked surprised and
