Part 25 (1/2)

She shook her head.

”What are you talking about?”

”Richard has a copy in an old photo alb.u.m. His mother had it taken when he was a baby. He loves this picture.”

Looking at the gorgeous baby, I could understand how it would support Richard's ego. ”Why would Walter have a baby picture of Richard? Where would he get...?”

We stared at each other, minds racing. ”No ... that's crazy,” I said.

But Meghan was already rummaging through the box, extracting the picture of Cherry.

”That's why she looks familiar,” she said, holding the photograph close to her face.

”You think that's...?”

She nodded. ”Richard's mother. Grace Thorson and Cherry Hanover are the same woman.”

I leaned over, peering at the woman's face in the picture. ”I don't know. It could be her. But it's so hard to tell. We need a more recent picture.”

”Of Cherry? Or of Grace?”

”Either one. Both. You don't happen to have any pictures of Grace, do you?”

She shook her head. ”I wonder if Tootie would have any of Cherry. Even if they were old, they might be clearer.”

Walter's smiling face gazed back at me from the picture. It still looked familiar, and now I could see why. ”Richard has Walter's cheekbones,” I said.

Meghan said, ”And the chin. The same as Walter, and the same as w.i.l.l.y, a.s.suming this is w.i.l.l.y.” She pointed to the man with his arm around Cherry's shoulders.

I sat down on the stairs. Meghan sat beside me, still holding the picture. I heard her swallow once. And then again.

”You okay?” I asked.

”No” She swallowed again. Inhaled deeply and blew out her breath through pursed lips.

”Well, this puts a different light on things,” I said.

”Yeah.” She did the breathing thing again.

”But we have to be absolutely sure.”

”Yeah. Are you?”

Reluctantly, I shook my head. ”Not absolutely.”

”I guess we tell Detective Ambrose,” she said. ”Does he know about Cherry and w.i.l.l.y, that whole story?”

”Not from me. It was ancient history.” A thought struck me, and I turned to face Meghan. ”Mrs. Gray! She could tell us if Grace is Cherry. She knew her way back when.”

”But she's never seen Grace”

”Detective Ambrose can pick up Grace and then have Mrs. Gray come in and make an identification. But we'd better not be wrong. Remember how Richard and his mother reacted last time they saw Ambrose?”

”Oh, G.o.d. You're right. And Grace is a particularly nasty hornets' nest to stir up,” Meghan said. Then she narrowed her eyes. ”On the other hand... having Ambrose pick Grace up and take her to the station might get her to back off. I'd have to put up with some c.r.a.p from Richard for a while, but it'd be worth it if Grace left Erin alone as a result. I know the woman's her grandmother, but no way will I let her be alone with my daughter”

”Do you think she killed Walter?”

Meghan closed her eyes, grimacing at the thought even though it had been hovering in the back of both our minds. ”I don't know. But don't you think it'd be a heck of a coincidence if she wasn't involved somehow?”

I agreed. ”So, we need to tell Ambrose the story about Cherry and Walter and w.i.l.l.y, and about our suspicions about the picture. If he wants to haul Grace into the police station, fine. If not, we can figure out something so Mrs. Gray can get a look at Grace in the flesh. And we should show her this picture, make sure it's really Cherry.”

”Tootie could tell us that, I bet,” Meghan said.

”You're right. Let's see what Barr has to say about this, first.”

”Okay.” She looked at her watch.

”Is Richard involved?” I asked.

”Richard? Involved in murder? Can you see that?” She laughed, a slightly hysterical sound edging toward tears.

”I suppose not. Petty stuff, but not murder. On the other hand, it's easy to believe Grace capable of five murders before breakfast, just to whet her appet.i.te”

I called Barr Ambrose's cell phone again.

”Sophie Mae?”

I'll never get used to caller ID. ”Meghan and I discovered something that may help solve Walter's murder.”

”I'm in the middle of something right now. If it's not an emergency, meet me at the PD at two and fill me in.”

I looked at my watch. It was just past noon. ”Okay,” I said. ”See you then.”

Meghan was unhappy with the delay, but I hurried down to my workroom, determined to plow through a big chunk of my todo list before I had to leave. I sped through four hours of work in under two, plowing through bookwork and answering email, and then running out to move my truck around to the alley. Loading orders onto the two-wheel hand truck and then into the campersh.e.l.l-covered bed of the Toyota made my abused muscles ache at first, but after a while my body shed some of its stiffness. Still, my elbow throbbed when I'd finished shuttling the boxes, and my jeans, though my comfiest pair, creased painfully against the ma.s.sive bruise on my hip when I slid behind the wheel.

And the puzzle of how the long-gone Cherry fit into Walter's death fermented in the back of my mind. The first question was, of course, did Grace's sudden presence in Cadyville have anything at all to do with Walter's death? At this point there was no way to know, but as Meghan pointed out, it was an unbelievable coincidence if the two events weren't connected. I was willing to a.s.sume they were. Given that, why would Grace have wanted to kill Walter? Not that I didn't think she had it in her; the woman was a viper. If Walter had stood between her and something she wanted, she'd eliminate him with no compunction.

So how would Grace Thorson/Cherry Hanover have managed to get Walter to drink the lye? Had she been trying to make it look like a suicide? And why would she have done it in my workroom?