Chapter 3
Officers Joe Munson and Pete Samuels showed up the next day at noon to inform us that Hugh had been beaten to death with a fireplace poker and to question Mother about the murder. My third feeling, after the shock of realizing Mother was considered a suspect and sadness at losing Hugh, was uncharitable frustration that my prime source of information had dried up. Never mind that, when I’d lured him upstairs the night before to ask if he knew about Mother’s trouble, he’d told me to ask her myself. And of course, Mother wouldn’t kill Hugh. They were friends. Why would Mother kill Hugh?
Mother wouldn’t kill Hugh, would she? No. Too messy. Too uncontrolled. Not possible.
The interview began cordially enough. Mother seated the officers in the living room and asked if they wanted tea. They did. She left me to entertain. The room smelled of cinnamon with an overlying hint of old champagne. Someone must have spilled on the carpet.
“You live with your mother?” Samuels asked.
“Temporarily.”
He looked like he thought I was a bit old for that. His mistake was thinking I cared what he thought. He leaned back on the couch, shoved a throw pillow to the side.
Mother arrived with the tea tray. She’d used the silver, complete with pot, sugar, creamer, and four of her daintiest china cups. Super-thin sugar cookies left over from the fête formed a flower shape on a delicate porcelain plate. Intimidation via Bernardaud. Even so, the tray must have been heavy, as it shook a little when she set it down. She poured; they set their cups on the coffee table on top of the linen napkins she passed them. They didn’t drink.
Munson began. “Since Dr. Woodward spent most of his evening here, you might have seen or heard something that would be useful.”
Mother’s eyes flicked at me, but she nodded.
“Did Dr. Woodward have any enemies?”
“Everyone has enemies.”
“Is that a yes?” This from Samuels. If he hadn’t been a cop, he would actually be kind of hot. Yet another reason why I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house on my own.
She shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t know.”
“How about someone who might hold a grudge against him?”
“No.”
“Was he involved romantically with anyone?” Munson again.
Samuels sipped at his teacup. He looked remarkably comfortable with it given that his body looked useful for bulldozing through doors.
“Me, I suppose.” Mother leaned back and tapped her index finger on the armrest.
All the rumors were true, then? I liked Hugh, but wasn’t it déclassé to date one’s therapist? Mother must have been really lonely. How surprising.
How sad.
“Involved how, ma’am?” Samuels set his tea cup down and leaned forward, flexing his fingers, as if he wanted to wrap them around Mother’s throat.
Munson leaned back. His gesture seemed to calm Samuels, who let his hands go slack.
“He was my analyst, and, well, there were all those rumors. Rumors tend to create a relationship of a kind.”
They nodded again, a pair of those bobble-head dolls that used to appear in everyone’s rear car windows. “Yes, ma’am. We need to know if the rumors are true.”
My mother glanced in my direction. “Where there’s smoke, officer…” Her voice drifted off while her fingers traced the paisley pattern in the chair’s fabric.
“Is that a yes, ma’am?” Munson waited, pencil poised over his notebook.
She inclined her head, but barely, like Princess Diana.
“Were you intimate with Dr. Woodward last night?” Samuels seemed to prefer the salacious questions.
“Why would you think that?” Again, that little glance slid my way. For a woman of iron control, it was a remarkably uncontrolled gesture. Surely, Munson and Samuels could see her doing it. What did she think we’d done upstairs anyway? Oh my god.
“You’ve just confirmed the rumors.”
“Yes, officer, but that has nothing to do with last night.”
She couldn’t have been with Hugh. I’d watched his car leave, and Mother hadn’t gone out, had she?
“We have a witness who claims you entered Hugh’s house around the time of the murder.” Samuels dug a bit of dirt out from under his fingernail and flicked it onto the carpet.
“And who would this be?”
“We will need a DNA sample, ma’am.”
My stomach dropped. Shouldn’t she have a lawyer?
Samuels asked, “Did you kill him, ma’am?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Is that a ‘no,’ Mrs. Montague?”
She sent him a withering look. Samuels, maybe the first human ever, seemed impervious. “You need to come down to the station, ma’am.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“We’d like to ask you a few more questions.”
“Clara, call Bailey,” mother said as she stood.
Had something happened between her and Hugh? If I’d been home earlier, could I have prevented it? I pulled out my cell phone and started toward the coat closet.
“I don’t need you, Clara. Just stay here.”
She collected her coat and handbag, then walked out without a word, Munson and Samuels behind her. The front door snapped closed.
I dialed Bailey, who assured me she would meet Mother at the station. “You won’t be able to see her. Seriously, Clara, let me assess the situation first, okay?”
I disconnected and slid the phone into my pocket.
Mother was now definitely in trouble and completely out of reach. With nothing for me to do, the house felt claustrophobic. I left the dirty tea service for the maid, pulled on a pair of wooly boots and a sheepskin coat, and grabbed the keys to the Land Rover. I needed advice, and Richard and Paul were just the ones to give it to me. At this point, they were my only friends, unless you counted the barista at Starbucks, and I didn’t feel like hanging out alone with a latte and the inevitable idiot at the next table speaking importantly into his cell phone about butter futures or his prostate exam.
They knew I was home, but I didn’t know how they would take my just showing up on their doorstep. Faithful Paul had always sent regular missives by email or text, whether I replied or not, and I’d seen them over the years,
