Part 18 (1/2)

Hannah picked up the photos and returned them to the envelope. There was another file in the envelope that she hadn't noticed before. ”What's this?” she asked Andrea. ”A duplicate set?”

”No. Those are photos they took of the cottage where Gus was staying right before they searched it. It's standard operating procedure. I heard Bill talk about it once.”

”It's a good procedure!” Hannah gave a little grin. ”I've seen other places they've searched, and they always looked like the aftermath of a tornado.”

”Not this time,” Mich.e.l.le spoke up.

”Why not?”

”Because they confiscated almost everything after they searched, and took it to the sheriff's station. Lonnie said they were going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to see if there were any clues.”

”There wasn't much more than a suitcase full of clothes and some personal items in the bathroom,” Hannah said, thinking back in time to early Monday afternoon when she'd walked through the cottage searching for Gus.

”How about the closet? Did you look in there?” Mich.e.l.le asked.

”The doors were open,” Hannah did her best to bring back the mental picture. ”I looked at the bed first. The suitcase was on it, and it was open. And then I turned to look at the closet. There was one of those little green frogs. You've both seen the type that lives at the lake. He hopped out of the closet and...it was empty inside. I remember now. There were no clothes on the hangers.”

”That's because they were all in the suitcase,” Mich.e.l.le said. ”Gus probably hadn't gotten around to unpacking yet.”

”But why hadn't he? He'd already changed clothes twice.” Hannah turned to Andrea. ”That's right, isn't it?”

”Twice at the minimum,” Andrea said, giving a definitive nod. ”I saw him when he drove up at the church. He was wearing an eggsh.e.l.l white linen suit with an Egyptian cotton s.h.i.+rt...”

”You could tell his s.h.i.+rt's country of origin by just looking?” Hannah interrupted her sister's recital.

”Not exactly, but Egyptian cotton is distinctive, and it's always been the hot material. It was a wonderful shade of slate blue. You know the color. It's blue, but it's got a lot of gray in it, too. Very subdued, and it looks great with blond or gray hair. The s.h.i.+rt was open at the neck, and he had on a gold neck chain and...”

”Then he must have changed clothes, because that's not what he was wearing at the dance,” Mich.e.l.le interrupted her.

”You're right. The suit he wore at the dance was completely different. And he was wearing a different s.h.i.+rt. Not only that, he wasn't wearing a tie when I saw him at the church, and he wore a designer tie at the dance. It's right there in the crime scene photos.”

Hannah was grateful that her sisters had noticed what Gus had been wearing when they saw him in the car at the church. She'd only caught a glimpse of him, and she would have been hard-pressed to describe any item of clothing he'd worn.

”There's one thing that really puzzles me.” Andrea turned to Hannah. ”It's the suit Gus was wearing the first time we saw him.”

”What about it?”

”It was linen. I said that before. And linen wrinkles. He wore it to the brunch. I know that, because Mother mentioned it to me. But he had to have taken it off before he showered and changed for the dance. That was an expensive suit. I'd guess it was over five hundred dollars, maybe a lot more. He was staying at a cottage with a nice big closet. Why didn't he hang it up?”

”Are we sure he didn't?” Mich.e.l.le asked.

”I'm almost positive he didn't.” Hannah paged through the photos of the cottage, found the one of the bedroom, and handed it to Mich.e.l.le. ”Here's a picture that shows the closet. Check it out for yourself. It's as bare as Mother Hubbard's cupboard.”

”Maybe he spilled something on it at the brunch and it needed to be dry cleaned?” Mich.e.l.le suggested a possible explanation.

”Maybe, but there aren't any dry cleaners open on Sunday,” Andrea pointed out. ”And by the time they opened on Monday morning, he was already dead.”

”So what would you do with an expensive suit you wanted dry cleaned?” Hannah asked them.

”Toss it on the floor of the closet so your wife will take it to the cleaners,” Andrea said. ”That's what Bill always does. I try to get him to stuff it in a laundry bag, but he forgets.”

”Since there was nothing on the floor of the closet, maybe he just tossed it back in his suitcase,” Mich.e.l.le suggested.

”If he did, it would be right on top.” Andrea paged through the photos until she came to the one of the suitcase. ”It's not here, so he didn't. And since he was such a nice dresser, he probably wouldn't have thrown it in on top of his clean clothes anyway.”

Something niggled at the back of Hannah's mind, and she shut her eyes to concentrate. A second or two later, she had it. ”I just remembered something. When I went to the cottage to look for him, his car was parked in the driveway. And I'm almost sure there was a jacket hanging up on the hook in the backseat.”

”Was it the jacket to his linen suit?” Andrea asked her.

”I don't know. I really didn't pay much attention. Is the Jaguar still parked in front of the cottage?”

Mich.e.l.le shook her head. ”Mike sealed it up and had it towed to the impound lot. It's going to stay there until they find out if Gus had a will, or any other family members back in Atlantic City.”

”I wonder if the jacket's still in it,” Hannah said. ”I'd like to find out if it's the one to the missing linen suit.”

”But why would Gus take it off inside the cottage and then carry it out and hang it in his car?” Andrea asked.

”Maybe he planned to take it to the cleaners, but he was killed first?” Mich.e.l.le suggested.

Andrea shook her head. ”Then he would have just tossed it in the backseat, or the trunk. He wouldn't have bothered to hang it up.”

”Wait!” Hannah began to smile. ”I know why he hung it in the car!”

”Why?” both sisters asked her, almost in unison.

”Because that's how you keep linen from getting wrinkled. Mother mentioned that this morning. She always hangs up her linen jacket when she drives the car.”

”I get it,” Mich.e.l.le said, looking excited. ”Gus didn't carry the jacket back out to his car to hang it up. He slipped it off when he left the brunch, and hung it up for the drive back to the lake.”

”And forgot to take it with him when he went inside the cottage.” Andrea finished the scenario.

”But where are the pants?” Mich.e.l.le reminded her. ”We still haven't found them.” Then she turned to Hannah. ”Do you think the missing pants are a clue?”

Hannah shrugged. ”Search me. But it is interesting, and it might mean something. I'm just not sure what.”

”n.o.body's using the cottage, so you can go back and go through it again,” Andrea told her. ”You might find something that the crime team missed.”

Hannah gave her a grin. It wasn't the first time she'd found something the crime team hadn't thought was important, but that later turned out to be an important clue. ”You say it's vacant?”

”Yes. Lisa thought maybe somebody else would move in, but none of the relatives want to use it.”

Hannah was puzzled. ”Why not? It's a nice cottage. And it's not a crime scene or anything like that. Why doesn't anybody want to use it?”

”Because Gus stayed there,” Andrea explained.