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“Certainly not Liz the cursed?”
She laughed—the first time he’d heard her laugh. He loved it. A Shakespeare-quoting detective with a laugh like warm honey, and a smile that would melt icebergs in the Bering Strait. It definitely melted him, and warmed parts of his body that he’d rather keep dormant, thank you very much. He’d known she was dangerous, but not this dangerous.
“Certainly not the prettiest Liz in Christendom,” she said.
“Who says?”
The silence was deafening, the look lasted too long and the connection was too sudden. She broke eye contact first, stirred two packets of artificial sweetener into her tea, squeezed the lemon and drank greedily. He did the same with his coffee and burned the roof of his mouth.
“Uh, what’d you fix?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked.
“The file says you cooked dinner that night. What’d you fix?”
No one in all those hours of interrogation and interview had asked him that. “It was seven years ago.”
“Come on, Jud, you might not remember what you had for dinner last night, but I’ll bet you remember the menu that night.”
As a matter of fact he did. The other detectives had asked him why he was the one doing the cooking, but not the menu. He took a breath as though trying to remember, then said, “I picked up a roast chicken at the grocery on the way home from the job I was working. And some fresh asparagus.”
“Expensive in November.”
He shrugged. “Sylvia liked it. I poached it in chicken stock until it was just crunchy, and thawed some brown rice in the microwave. I make it in big batches and freeze it in portions. Takes forty-five minutes to an hour to steam from scratch and only ten minutes to heat up in the microwave. That’s it.”
“What about rolls?”
He shook his head. “Two starches at one meal.”
“Dessert?”
Again he shook his head. “Watching our weight. Sylvia never has a problem, but I have to be careful.”
“To drink?”
“We’d opened a bottle of pinot grigio the night before and stashed the rest in the refrigerator. There was enough left for a couple of glasses each. I poured myself one when Sylvia called to tell me she was on her way.”
“Then?”
“There was boxing on Showtime. I sat down to watch it. I’d been out on the site most of the day in the cold rain, so that one glass of wine put me right to sleep. The boxing must have been boring. I really don’t remember who was fighting, but it wasn’t a championship match or anything. When I finally woke up, I realized Sylvia wasn’t home yet. It was nearly midnight.”
“What did you do?”
“Tried her cell phone. No answer. There are a couple of places along that road where you can’t get decent reception, particularly during bad weather. I figured she’d had a flat or something and couldn’t reach me. I dashed some cold water on my face to wake up, grabbed my coat and headed out to find her.”
Bella slapped down two plates in front of them. Jud’s held at least three eggs, bacon and wheat toast. Liz’s held a toasted English muffin.
Jud might worry about his waistline, although Liz couldn’t see that he had any problems in that department. Obviously he wasn’t bothered about cholesterol. She wished she’d indulged in at least an omelet or an order of bacon.
His answers had been interesting. He’d said Sylvia has, not had. Did he really believe she was still alive, or had he coached himself to use the present tense?
Liz would be willing to bet nobody had ever asked him what he’d cooked for dinner. The original detectives, Sherman and Lee, whose names had no doubt given rise to a million jokes during their partnership, were both middle-aged, had probably been horrified to find that Jud did the cooking for his family and had abandoned the subject.
He could have fixed the entire meal in ten minutes, leaving more than enough time to commit the killing and hide the body. The one call that had been logged from Sylvia’s cell phone that night had originated from the tower closest to her office. In his original interview, Jud had said that she called every night as she was leaving to give him her ETA so he could get dinner ready. She had not attempted to phone him again, but that call alone would have told him approximately where her car would be and where he could intercept her.
One of the most damning items against him was that his partner, Trip Weichert, said he’d tried to reach Jud at about ten and had gotten the answering machine. Jud had said in his original statement he must have slept through the call.
Maybe. Liz—who couldn’t bear to let the answering machine pick up even if she knew the caller was from a magazine subscription service—had never slept through the ringing phone. He must really have been dead to the world.
Or simply not there to pick up.
“So, Jud, between us, what do you think happened that night?” She leaned forward and gave him her full attention.
He, on the other hand, leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. She’d been taught to read people’s body language. His signified avoidance, protecting himself, distancing himself. When he spoke, however, he lowered his eyes and took a deep breath, but did not look down and to the right. That was a liar’s look. Dead giveaway. Either he was trying to tell the truth, or he’d practiced so long it had become the truth to him.
“I think she had arranged for somebody to pick her up, and left her car that way so we’d think she’d been abducted, and would stop looking for her quicker.” He raised his eyes. “It worked.”
“We couldn’t find evidence of a pickup by any of the rental-car agencies or taxis, even the ones that will drive that far out,” Liz responded. “With all the publicity at the time, surely any taxi or rental-car company would have come forward.” She shrugged. “The alternative is a colleague, a friend or a lover. No evidence was ever found for any of those.”
He started to say something, then stopped.
“If you know of any lover, or even a possible lover, I’d suggest you give me a name.”
“I don’t. To the best of my knowledge, Sylvia was not having an affair at the time she disappeared.”
“Were you?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“But you’ve had affairs since she disappeared.” Liz made her comment a statement, not a question. She didn’t know whether he’d slept around or not, but he would assume she’d traced his lovers. Or she hoped he would.
The man actually blushed. With shame or guilt?
“Lady, it’s been seven years since my wife disappeared. What do you think?”
“I’d like to talk to the ladies.”
“You find them, you talk to them. I’m not giving you any names. Believe me, there are damn few of them to find. What difference does it make, anyway? I was a completely faithful husband until long after Sylvia disappeared.”
It made a great deal of difference to Liz. She’d find those women and interview them—no, interrogate them, until they admitted their liaisons with Jud. Who knew what he might have let slip to a lover? “I don’t need no stinkin’ divorce,” for example. She pushed her empty plate away. Jud pushed his plate back, as well, although most of his farmer’s breakfast lay congealing on it.
So she’d rattled him.
“You’re telling me you had a good marriage?”
“About average.”
This time he did look down and to his right. He was lying.
“Money troubles?”
He dropped his fists onto the table on either side of his plate. Not exactly a slam, but close.
Good, he was losing his cool.
“Lady—uh, Liz, we moved into the new house in July, before she disappeared in November. Five months is not a long time to get the kinks out of a new house, not even one I designed and built. Colleen had just started second grade at her private school, with much longer travel time, plus after-school care until either I or her grandmother could pick her up.
“Sylvia had made vice president a year earlier and was working sixty hours a week or more. So was I, trying to get my construction business on a solid footing. We were all under a lot of stress. Sure, there were strains on the marriage, but I swear to God I never picked up on any signals that Sylvia was going to run away.”
“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.”
