His Only Defense

“I thought your business was having money problems.”

“Half the time we’re having short-term money problems. Trip and I knew we could weather them. We did, as you could see yesterday. We’re going great guns. We were a little overextended, that’s all.”

“Nothing a million dollars wouldn’t have cured,” Liz said.

Without warning, he was furious. His skin grew mottled, his jaw set and his shoulders hunched. So he did have a temper. Not altogether Good Neighbor Sam, Mr. Easygoing.

“Miz Gibson, if I killed my wife for a million dollars, don’t you think I would have arranged to have her body found so I could collect?”

“You’re going to collect now.”

He slid out of the booth and stood. He loomed over Liz, and for a moment she thought he might actually hit her with one of those huge fists.

He took a deep breath, however, and loosened both his shoulders and his hands. He sat back down and waggled a finger at Bella, who was watching them from behind the counter, for another cup of coffee. He pointed at Liz’s tea. She shook her head.

Drat! Waiting for his coffee to be poured and for Bella to move out of earshot again gave him the breathing space he needed to get himself under control.

“Sorry. Sometimes all the suspicion gets to me.” Good Neighbor Sam was back. He grinned at her sheepishly, and her heart turned over and went into overdrive. Uh-oh.

“Look, Liz, I’m going to say this one more time. I did not kill my wife. I did not hide her body. I do not know what happened that night. I would never have risked my own neck, my freedom and my daughter’s happiness by depriving her of one parent, much less two. I won’t help you railroad me into jail for a crime I didn’t commit.”

Liz nodded. “Okay. Now, let me give you my response.” She wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know, but he hadn’t heard it recently. Might shake him up a bit. “Sherman and Lee, the two original detectives on the case, firmly believed that you killed your wife and hid her body somewhere.”

He started to speak, but she held up a finger to stop him. “I am not Sherman and Lee. I am starting from scratch. For every mystery murder case, there are ninety-nine straightforward killings where we know immediately who did what to whom.

“Our homicide squad had a solve rate of over ninety percent before all the stranger-on-stranger and gangbanger killings started. It’s now down around eighty-four percent, which is better than most counties our size. Some cops just want to close the file, put somebody on trial whether they are convicted or not. I’m not like that, and I doubt Sherman and Lee were, either. If you are innocent, I’ll prove that, if possible, and find the real bad guy.

“If you are guilty, however, I am your worst junkyard-dog nightmare. It doesn’t matter that I like you and want to believe you. I won’t feel a bit guilty if I decide to arrest you and deprive your daughter of her one remaining parent. You did that, not me.”

He stared at her silently for a long moment, then he nodded. “Fair enough.” He leaned forward and smiled that beatific smile that would melt a statue’s heart. “So, you like me?”

Liz laughed so hard Bella came over to see if she needed a thwack on the back.

CHAPTER SIX

SYLVIA’S PARENTS, the Richardsons, lived in the less affluent section of Germantown. Their medium-size Georgian-style house was well-kept, but unremarkable.

The garden, however, was anything but unremarkable. Either the couple could afford a full-time gardener, or one of them worked continuously to manicure the lawn and the flower beds. Even in November, great clumps of gold and ochre chrysanthemums hadn’t quite finished blooming, and the pansies glowed.

Interesting. They were planted in strict groups sorted by color. Somebody had a thing for order.

The trees hadn’t been neglected, either. Liz wasn’t very good on horticulture, but even she could identify the glowing red of dogwoods and Japanese maples that still hadn’t lost their leaves. Each tree was carefully surrounded by a mulched circle planted with hostas and dwarf azaleas. There was no crab or orchard grass. Not one dandelion. This was property that would receive the yard of the month award more often than not. The gardener obviously had control issues. Whatever the rest of this person’s life was like, he—or she—could impose his will on this little patch. Shrubs didn’t talk back.

Liz wanted to see whether the backyard was as cultivated and staged, or whether the front yard—the one the neighbors saw—received all the attention.

She was reaching for the doorbell when a voice came over the intercom, startling her. “Miz Gibson?”

A female voice. Not young. “Mrs. Richardson?”

“I’m in my workshop out back. Come on around by the driveway and down the path past the fountain.”

Liz walked around the house. At first glance the backyard looked no different, but then she realized the deep lot was bisected—quadrisected, really. The same precision governed the plantings around the house and deck.

Beyond the section of lawn on the right side was an equally neat vegetable garden. Turnip greens, cabbage, winter squash and cauliflower still remained in the beds.

The left-hand quarter, however, looked as though it belonged to a completely different yard. She’d be willing to bet it belonged to a different gardener.

Although there were neat brick paths, instead of marching straight and intersecting at ninety-degree angles, they curved gently among deep beds of ornamental grasses and now-dying wildflowers. The paths met at an ornamental pond made to look like a natural pool fed by a small, mossy waterfall. When Liz leaned over it, fat, parti-colored koi rose up to see if she had any nibbles for them.

The pool would be cool and shaded in the summer when the big oaks were in full leaf.

At the very back corner stood another building. Not a shed, but a good-size A-frame structure of dark green stained board and batten, with a window wall facing the backyard and up the driveway.

Liz made a mental note to see how long the Richardsons had lived here. This could not have been accomplished in a day or even a year.

“Down here, Miz Gibson.” A tall woman in jeans and a hunter-green sweatshirt stepped from the side portico of the A-frame and motioned to Liz, then stood aside and let her enter ahead of her.

“In case you can’t tell, I’m a weaver.” Irene Richardson waved her hand at the room and laughed.

Diamond-shaped shelves built across the wall beside the door were stuffed with jewel-toned skeins of thick wool. A big bench loom faced the window wall at the front, and several pieces of equipment Liz assumed had to do with making yarn were positioned around the space. There was even an antique spinning wheel.

On the mantelpiece sat about twenty wooden candlesticks with tall ivory tapers in them. “They’re made out of old-fashioned wool spindles,” Irene said. “I collect them.”

A scarred harvest table, several pine chairs and a tiny kitchen unit ran along the back wall. Above hung more shelves overflowing with what looked like craft books. A gas fireplace with fake logs burned cheerily in the far corner. A worn club chair and a Lincoln rocker sat on either side of the hearth.

A number of colorful wool rugs hung on the walls, and bright shawls were tossed casually over the furniture. There were no pictures; the weavings were art enough.

“Incredible room,” Liz said. “Incredible yard, too. I’d love to see it in the spring.”

“Come back in April. Herb is always delighted to show off his handiwork. We’re on several garden tours every spring and summer, although I think it’s even prettier in the fall, when the leaves turn, and before the summer flowers die.”

“So he’s the gardener, you’re the weaver.”

“Not quite. The little bit around the cottage is mine. Takes almost no maintenance, and I can usually con Herb into doing that for me. I loathe gardening, with its dirty fingernails, aching knees and sweat.”

Liz wandered around, peering at the cloud-soft shawls draped over the chairs, and wondering whether Mrs. Richardson sold them. If so, whether she could afford to buy one. It wouldn’t do to ask now, but after the case was closed, she might inquire about price. “When did you start weaving?”

“Six years ago.” Mrs. Richardson sat in the rocker and motioned Liz to the club chair. “I either had to discover something to occupy my mind, or lose it. Simple as that. I took a continuing-education course in weaving, and six years later, this is the result.”

“Herb’s the gardener?”

“He’d always gardened, but he went crazy after—you know. Same reason.”

“So a year after.”

“It took us both a year before we could do anything besides sit and stare at the walls and bug the police.”

“After something like this happens, many couples split up. You’re still together.”

“That’s debatable.” Irene laughed, this time without mirth. Jud had laughed the same way. There wasn’t much comedy in this family. “We have a granddaughter who needs us. Jud needs me, too.”

“Just you?”

Irene sighed. Her shoulders sank, and for the first time, she looked her age. Liz had checked. She was sixty-two, her husband sixty-nine.

“I wanted to speak to you before Herb got hold of you. He’s so angry. He thinks Jud…did something to Sylvia. He’ll tell you a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t true, although I’m sure he believes every word.”

“You’re certain none of it is true?”

“Oh, absolutely. Jud wouldn’t hurt a fly, and believe me, Sylvia gave him plenty of motivation.”

Aha.

“That boy was the best thing that ever happened to Sylvia, and he’s blessed my life and Colleen’s.” Irene waved at the room. “He designed and built this cottage for me completely at his expense. He didn’t even let me pay for the materials, although I’m sure he could have used the money.”

Her attitude surprised Liz. Mothers didn’t generally say negative things about their own children to the police.

“If Jud says he doesn’t know where she is, then he doesn’t know. Period.”

“You think she deliberately disappeared?”

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea? I keep the electric kettle hot all the time these chilly days.”

“If it’s no trouble.”

“None.” Irene went to the small kitchenette, got a tall mug from the cupboard and turned to Liz. “China or Indian?”

“Indian, please.”

“Lemon or milk?”

“Lemon, please, and one artificial sweetener, if you have it.”

“I have it, all right. I don’t use sugar. I already fight the battle of the old-lady bulge.”

Looking at Irene’s trim, upright figure, Liz figured she was winning that battle. When they were settled on either side of the fire, Liz asked again, “You really think she took off? Weird way to go about it.”

“Sylvia avoided situations she didn’t want to deal with. If she wasn’t doing well in a subject in college, she’d drop it before she could fail. The day she met Jud, she broke her engagement to a young medical student without a word of warning.”

“She must really have fallen for him.” For the first time, Liz felt a kinship with the woman. Jud was easy to fall for.

“You have to admit, he’s pretty spectacular.” Irene laughed. “I thought she’d found someone she could find happiness with, but her discontent came from inside. Even Jud couldn’t keep her satisfied for long. And she certainly made him miserable the last year or so.”

“So he killed her.”

“You think I’d love him the way I do if I thought for a single second that he’d hurt Sylvia?”

“Mrs. Richardson, nobody chooses to disappear that way. Car running on the side of the road, door open, lights on, handbag inside with cash and credit cards…She didn’t even take money out of her checking or savings account. And how did she get away in a driving rainstorm in the middle of the night? That’s not a disappearance. At the very least it’s abduction, and given that nobody’s found any evidence of abduction or any proof that she’s alive, it’s almost certainly murder. In my business we go by who had motive, means and opportunity. Slaughter had all three. So far as we know, he was the only person who did.”

“He took two polygraphs after she disappeared, and passed them both.”

“Polygraphs aren’t admissible in evidence, Mrs. Richardson, because they can be fooled.”

“Jud wouldn’t know how to do that. Why on earth you people continue to hound him I do not know. If she’s dead, somebody else killed her. If she’s alive, why haven’t you found her?”

Because we haven’t really looked. At least, not recently.

An hour later the two women were curled up with mugs of hot tea and had progressed to first names. Liz, however, didn’t know much more than she had before. She was convinced that Irene was not telling her everything she knew or suspected, but Liz couldn’t find any cracks in her story. She was getting ready to start over when the door opened so hard it slammed against the wall.

“Is this her?”

Both women jumped.

“Why didn’t she tell me she was here? I looked out front and saw her car.”

It had to be Herb. His well-worn jeans bore a knife-edge crease. His immaculate button-down oxford cloth shirt was so stiff with starch that Liz didn’t see how he could raise his arms. Control issues. He was a small man with a tonsure of white hair, and the remnants of a gardener’s tan—much darker on the lower half of his face. Liz immediately categorized him as a rooster ready to take on all comers.

She stood and extended her hand. “Liz Gibson, Mr. Richardson. Why don’t you sit down and join us.”

He blinked, narrowed his eyes and scanned her from top to bottom, then glared at his wife. “What crap has Irene been feeding you?” He teetered on the balls of his feet.

I was wrong. Not a rooster. Jimmy Cagney in White Heat.

“Herbert Richardson, do not start,” Irene said. “You are perfectly at liberty to join us, but you will not rant.”

For an instant, it seemed he was going to slap his wife. Liz would have to intervene and arrest him, and she didn’t want to do that. At least not before she’d pumped him dry of all that vitriol.

“Why the hell not? You’re filling the woman’s head with sweetness and light about that murdering monster who killed my child. I deserve equal time.”

“Sit down, Mr. Richardson,” Liz ordered. It came out tough, but it worked. Herb yanked a kitchen chair away from one of the worktables and sat bolt upright in it, with his small feet in their glaring white sneakers flat on the floor in front of him.

“So, what do you think happened to your daughter?” Liz asked.

“He tricked her into stopping on the road, yanked her out of her car, killed her, carried her somewhere and disposed of the body. Period, end of story. Why the hell you people haven’t arrested his murdering ass I do not know.”

“Mr. Richardson, let’s say we arrest him. For that matter, let’s say we’d arrested him seven years ago and put him on trial for murder. Which degree, by the way? Capital murder?”

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