Tom held up a fleshy palm. “Listen. A female judge down in Denver let a first-degree murder suspect out on thirty thousand dollars’ bond last summer. The woman had shot her husband, alleging abuse. Taryton blew a gasket when that judge granted bond. We’ve been waiting for some kind of retaliation from him. Setting bond for a man implicated in a murder ? especially one stemming from a domestic dispute ? would be just his cup of tea. John Richard could be it.”
“But isn’t there a law about not letting murder suspects out?”
Tom scowled. “Oh, sure. Murder suspects, according to state law, need to be held without bond until a hearing on the evidence. But after bail was granted last summer for that other suspect, the upholding of that particular state law has become fuzzy. Fuzzy enough for Taryton to do exactly what he wants.”
“God help us.”
“Taryton’s no friend to women,” Tom concluded grimly.
It was no wonder that I once again had trouble sleeping. The insomnia came despite an expert shoulder massage from Tom and a late-night phone check from Marla ? did I want help from her for any of the doll-club events? I thanked her and said I would be fine; I needed the work to keep my mind occupied.
I fell asleep dreaming of dolls bearing trays of grilled burgers. At two I awoke with my heart hammering. Ram, ham, ham, John Richard used to hit me. He’d shake me and then strike my face with his fist I’d try to get away or fight back. No use. Ram. One leg, the other leg, my back. He was a great believer in symmetry.
I shuddered and crept out of bed. Then I took a shower to relieve my cramping muscles. I toweled off and listened for noise in the house. Had I awakened anyone this time? Apparently not. I dressed silently ? sleep was now impossible ? and suddenly remembered Arch’s advice: You should go out for a drive. That’s what you used to do when I was little. When I couldn’t sleep… .
Should I? Well, why not. I found my keys and purse and tiptoed out onto the back deck. Overhead, shreds of cloud drifted across a river of stars. The air was warm. A sudden bleat! bleat! accompanied a rustling of leaves. A wave of panic swept over me. Then I saw a dozen elk moving slowly under the pine trees. It was a one-in-ten year for the big animals.
I sat in the van and wondered how long a drive I needed to make to get tired enough to go back to sleep. I didn’t have anyplace to go. But even as I turned the key in the ignition I knew where I was headed.
My van engine sounded loud on Main Street. All the stores, of course, were dark, from Darlene’s Antiques & Collectibles to the Doughnut Shop. A breeze washed through the aspen trees lining the street. Cottonwood Creek splashed and rumbled, while a cloth sign advertising Aspen Meadow Barbecue flapped like a forgotten flag. Gone were the rows of motorcycles ordinarily parked at acute angles in front of the Grizzly Bear Saloon on summer evenings. They had roared off into the night hours earlier, and the saloon was engulfed in darkness.
The van chugged past the spotlight trained on the waterfall emptying out of Aspen Meadow Lake. The cormorants had abandoned their perch, and I wondered fleetingly where the birds spent their nights. The LakeCenter roof twinkled with a string of Christmas lights that our recreation district board had insisted would give the place a festive look year-round. They’d been right.
The small shopping center housing one of our two grocery stores was also dark, except for the Aspen Meadow Pastry Shop, where, I was sure, the ever-industrious Mickey Yuille was making cinnamon rolls for his Monday-morning customers. Perhaps Brandon was there keeping him company.
At the entrance to the country club, a dark car sat under the streetlight. Its door read MOUNTAIN SECURITY, but no one was inside. Perhaps the fellow had succumbed to sleep and was lying across the front seat. I was tempted to find out how ticked off he would be if I blasted him with my horn.
I turned onto Jacobean and glanced at the clock on my dashboard. Eleven minutes from our house to Suz’s, no traffic. The streetlights cast a neon glow on the asphalt and all the mown lawns. The yards were perfect except for Suz’s. There, mounds of topsoil lay untouched, and yellow police ribbons were pulled taut around the crime scene and the house. Even though it was only one day after the murder, the sheriff’s department could not afford to put deputies in front of the house. I pulled up slowly by the ditch and glanced again at my dashboard clock. Thirty- two minutes after two. John Richard’s place onto Kells Way was three blocks in one direction, then another two around a curvy road that cut a circle through the club’s residential area, then two more blocks in the direction of the golf course. His house was on the downhill side of the road leading to the course. I wondered if there were police ribbons around it, too.
When my van accelerated noisily down Jacobean, I saw a curtain being drawn back in the Tollifers’ front room. A yellow trapezoid of light framed a figure peering out. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with insomnia tonight.
A scant six minutes later I turned onto Kells Way. Here the streetlights were tucked into the tops of lodgepole pines. The light that fell on the asphalt shifted and swayed with the movement of the trees. Six minutes to the street sign-but how long to his driveway? I let the van drift down to the curb in front of the mammoth mock- Tudor residence that John Richard occupied all by himself. It took only a few seconds. I cut the engine and rolled down the window. Was I feeling tired? Not even remotely. So much for Arch’s prescription for insomnia.
The wind picked up. Wind chimes on a nearby deck swirled and tinkled. The sound filtered through the rush of clicking aspen leaves. I breathed in the sweet summer air and wondered if John Richard had a window in his cell.
Okay, now, think. If John Richard had left Suz’s house around one A.M., as he claimed, then he could have been back at his place before one-ten. Say he I went inside. Had a few more drinks. Decided to go back and finish their argument. This was a possible reconstruction of events, but not a likely one, given his violent way of finishing things once he’d started them.
My neck stiffened and I tried to get comfortable. The pain in my shoulders had subsided to a mild ache. I reached for a tablecloth I kept stored in a plastic bag behind the passenger seat. I shoved aside the earphones and wires of Macguire’s Walkman and pulled out the damask cloth. Tucking it around me, I tried to envision another way of timing-Friday night’s events.
No matter how much other people may not have liked Suz, John Richard was the one who’d been with her, arguing with her at the club, possibly about his terrible financial situation. Say he’d fought with Suz at her home, left her dead or near dead, then had gone back to his house around three or three-thirty A.M. This, I thought, was a more likely scenario. It fit the way he acted. Once he was enraged, it could have taken him several hours to work his way through it. What had Tom said? Near as they can figure, Suz Craig died between three and five … Rigor hadn’t set in when the medics arrived. If John Richard left Suz sometime after three A.M., then everything fell into place.
The breeze died; the rustle of leaves and pine needles stopped. In the distance a car rumbled around the club’s circle. A wide swath of light swept the end of Kells Way. Then there was sudden quiet.
Say John Richard’s fight with Suz had gone on and on. She screamed and contradicted him. The argument became violent, with pots and pans being used for weapons. Then Suz finally got the usual bam bam bam. Then more arguing and maybe another horrible whack. Then he left in a huff, with her hurt and screaming. She would have cried for him not to leave her in such a state. Then she stumbled outside for help, fell into the ditch, and died. All this would explain why rigor hadn’t set in until just after seven A.M.
There was a noise on the street that was not from a tree, a car, a herd of elk, a sprinkler system, or a set of wind chimes. My heart stopped. Someone whispered with loud insistence.
“Hey, man! Aren’t you done yet?” My spinal column turned to ice. The voice was about fifty feet away, on the same side of the street where I sat in my van. Whoever this was, he or she or they must have come along after I’d parked my vehicle, during that ten minutes when I’d been sitting deep in thought.
I cut my eyes both ways, without moving, but could make out nothing. Kids sneaking home after hours? Car thieves? Burglars? If a couple of guys were going to rob a private residence, I didn’t care. I just didn’t want them to add assault of caterer to their list of crimes.
“No, man, I’m not done!” came the urgent whispered reply. “This fluorescent stuff is dripping all over the damn place! Plus, I’m almost out! So hand me another can and shut up!”
There was grunting and clinking. “I’m tired of doing a good deed, man!” was the bitter response. “That security guy comes this way right on the hour!”
“I told you to shut your mouth, or the neighbors will get him here even earlier!”
“But it’s almost three!” his partner insisted. “He’s going to be here any second! We need to split! Just leave
