“Perhaps not the actual attacker.”
“The actual attacker? I don’t understand.”
Savard unfolded his hands, rubbed them together slowly. “How would you characterize her marriage, Mrs. Cullingwood?”
“In what way?”
“Were they happy together?”
“I rarely saw them together.”
“Meaning you saw them separately?”
He was so quick; didn’t look like he would be, but was. “Meaning I didn’t see them together enough to form an opinion about something like that,” Francie said as calmly as she could.
“Did Anne ever say anything that led you to believe they had problems?”
Yes, in the locker room. “No,” Francie said. A lie: total, direct, inescapable.
“How would you describe her self-confidence?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“There’s not much to go on, Mrs. Cullingwood, as I mentioned. Getting a picture of her in my head will help.”
“Self-confidence. It’s not easy to know something like that about a person.”
“I disagree,” Savard said. “In my experience, it’s one of the first things you notice.”
They looked at each other. He was right, of course. Quick, and there was more to him than that. “Not as high as it should have been,” Francie said.
“On a scale of ten,” Savard said.
“Isn’t that a rather brutal method for measuring something as abstract as self-confidence?” Francie said.
“No,” Savard replied. “Brutal was what happened to her in your friend’s cottage.”
It finally hit her. “What did she use to write with-the word painting?”
“I think you’ve figured that out.”
Francie didn’t speak; for a moment she couldn’t even breathe.
Savard rose, came closer. “I need your help,” he said. “And so does she, if you accept that rationale.”
“Three,” Francie told him. “The answer to your question is three.”
“Any reason a woman of such qualities would have a self-confidence level like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must have thought about it.”
“Why do you say that?”
He opened his mouth, said, “You’re,” then stopped. “I’ll withdraw the question.” A beeper went off. Savard took it from his pocket, read something on its screen, put it and his notebook away. He moved toward the door, then stopped and turned. “Sometimes women unhappy in their marriages have affairs,” he said.
Francie again felt the upsurge of blood in her neck and face.
“If she was,” Savard continued, “what’s to be gained by hiding that now?”
“What are you saying?”
“When a wife is murdered, we always check the husband first, Mrs. Cullingwood.”
“I thought you said there was no suspect.”
“I misspoke. We have no evidence pointing to a specific suspect. But Mr. Demarco has no alibi for last night.”
“No alibi?”
“No convincing explanation of his whereabouts during the period when his wife was killed.” He handed her a card. “Call if you can help.”
He went into the hall; Francie followed. “But there was a struggle, you said.”
“I did.”
“Then wouldn’t there be signs of that on the attacker?”
“There would. On the actual attacker.”
Savard opened the door. Roger was outside, sprinkling a handful of salt crystals on the walk. He looked up. “Safety first, Chief,” he said.
“You’re so right,” Savard said. “I meant to ask if you’ve ever been to Brenda’s cottage, Mr. Cullingwood.”
“Never. The fact is, I’d forgotten all about it, if I ever knew in the first place. Did you ever mention it, Francie?”
“I don’t think so.”
Roger spread his hands. “It was Francie’s baby, Chief.”
Savard glanced back at Francie, then got in his car, not an official police cruiser but an old Bronco, and drove away. Francie and Roger looked at each other. “Close the door, Francie,” he said. “You’re letting in all the cold.”
Roger went inside a few minutes later. He didn’t see Francie in the kitchen, the hall, the living room. He walked over to the plant in the corner, a dieffenbachia. Pausing to pick a few dead leaves from the base of it as he went out! Who could compete with brilliance of that magnitude? He plucked the digital recorder that Francie had given him from behind the stem and dropped it in his pocket.
31
Francie had no distance from what she was doing, no inner watchfulness, no control. This, life after Anne, or at least in the first few hours after Anne, had all the intensity of loving Ned, an inverse intensity that now served to heighten pain, not pleasure. From her bedroom, Francie dialed Ned’s number, heard his mother’s voice on the machine: “You have reached the Demarco residence. Please leave a message at the tone.”
She had to see him. Francie hung up, realizing as she did that he might not be home yet-might still be in New Hampshire, or on his way back. Had to see him. On his way back: she was thinking car keys, coat, Dedham, was turning from the phone-had to see him-when it rang. She snatched it up.
“Francie, is it true?” Nora, not Ned.
“About Anne, you mean?”
“What else would I mean?”
“It’s true.”
“Oh, God. What happened?”
“They don’t know.”
“But she was murdered?”
“Yes.”
“At Brenda’s place?”
“Yes.”
“What was she doing up there?”
“They don’t know.”
Pause. “I’m coming over.”
“Not now, Nora. I’m on my way out.”
“Where?”
“Please.” Had to see him. “There are things I have to do.”
“Like what, Francie? What’s going on?”
“I’ll call you later.”
“But-”
Francie hung up.
She drove back to Dedham under a sky that was one low sagging cloud from horizon to horizon. Ned’s garage door was open, no cars inside. Francie parked on the street and waited.
