Part 20 (2/2)

”Very sensible,” Vida said after we'd checked out of the motel and given our orders at the restaurant. ”What's number one?”

”The drapery cord,” I said, studying my notebook. ”We still don't know where it came from.”

”Most mystifying,” Vida allowed as a rather shabby-looking middle-aged man in the next booth asked if we had extra sugar. I handed him a half-dozen packets before Vida continued: ”The cord was introduced, perhaps solely for the purpose of strangling Carol.”

”Possibly,” I said, moving on to the second item. ”Ken-dra's missing graduation picture. Who took it off the fridge?”

”That indicates a definite relations.h.i.+p between Kendra and whoever did it,” Vida noted. ”Which could mean the Addisons or Darryl.”

I frowned. Were they the only ones who might have strong feelings toward Kendra? Or more precisely, toward the relations.h.i.+p between Kendra and Carol? I omitted Maybeth. She didn't strike me as a frustrated Mama Wannabe who'd resent Carol's reunion with her daughter. Roy was out, too. I couldn't picture him as wanting much of anything except to keep the beer cans rolling and get laid on a regular basis.

The shabby man asked if we had extra cream, so I pa.s.sed on a couple of tiny containers before moving on to the broken acrylic nail. ”Maybeth, maybe,” I said. ”But when? Carol was a lousy housekeeper. It might have been there forever.”

”I don't know much about false nails,” Vida admitted. ”If one comes off, could you reapply it?”

Unable to answer the question, I asked Vida if she meant that Maybeth could have lost it without noticing while she was strangling Carol.

”Something like that,” Vida replied. ”Carol and May-beth might not fight over Kendra, but they'd certainly quarrel over men. Have you listed the piece of fabric? Women's suiting material, that's what Kendra said.”

I checked off the cloth sc.r.a.p. ”Again, we have to take Carol's poor housekeeping into account. Who knows when it got on the floor?”

”That's so,” Vida said, ”but this is intriguing. A professional woman calls on Carol, a woman who would wear a suit. Why?”

”I can't begin to guess,” I said. ”What does she do when she gets there, start shredding her clothes?”

Vida sighed. ”That's the problem. We have so little to go on with any of this.”

The shabby man had gotten up from his booth and was shuffling off toward the exit. I glanced at the table to see if he'd used up the extra sugar and cream. There were no signs of empty containers or packets; only several empty plates, a mug, and a gla.s.s remained. The man must have been h.o.a.rding the extras.

”We're missing somebody, maybe even the woman in the wool suit,” I said, flipping the pen onto the table. ”That's where we're at a disadvantage. If the police hadn't been so quick to arrest Ronnie, other suspects might have surfaced.”

Vida, however, shook her head. ”We'd have heard something by now. Not everyone believed that Ronnie killed Carol. Look at Henrietta Altdorf. And Mr. Rapp.”

”True,” I admitted, ”but still...” I sighed. ”Okay, we'll drop it for now. It's too bad that Mr. Stokes moved to California or wherever.”

”The circle is rather small,” Vida acknowledged. ”Let's go back to our clues.”

I shot her an ironic glance. ”Both of them? Okay, there's the phone call last night to Kathy Addison from- we presume-Darryl Lindholm. What was that about? Is Darryl trying to get some sort of legal right to Kendra? She's eighteen, it doesn't matter.”

Vida opened her mouth to say something, shut it, and pressed her fingertips together. ”That may be the point,” she said. ”At eighteen, parents are no longer legally obligated to support their children. What if-now, this is a big if, mind you-Kathy and perhaps Sam were so angry about Kendra's moving out that they decided to stop helping her financially?”

”And Darryl wants to leap into the breach because his other children are dead?” I considered the idea. ”That's possible. What else would he do with his money? He's all alone now.”

”That's a plausible idea,” Vida a.s.serted. ”Make a note.”

A commotion at the door distracted us. A young man in a s.h.i.+rt and tie had collared the shabby man and was pulling him back inside the restaurant.

”Dine and dash,” I said to Vida. ”He must have tried to leave without paying.”

The young man gave the errant customer a good shake. Sugar packets, cream and syrup containers, b.u.t.ter pats, and pieces of silverware tumbled onto the floor.

”Really,” Vida said in disgust, ”I haven't seen anything like this in Alpine since Arthur Trews tried to leave the Venison Inn without paying. Arthur had the money, of course, but he was so forgetful in his later years. That was the same day he'd shown up at Harvey's Hardware not wearing any pants.”

Another man, about the same age as the would-be dasher, approached the door. He had his bill and his wallet in his hand. The discussion was brief. Apparently the third man was offering to pay for the shabby man's meal. The younger man, who I a.s.sumed was the manager, agreed. The little drama concluded with the two customers exiting together.

”Very generous,” Vida said in approval. ”Still, such tawdry little scenes must be played out all over the city. Tsk, tsk.”

I didn't contradict Vida, because I knew she was right. Instead, I asked her to explain the envelope from May-beth to the Addisons.

”I can't,” she confessed. ”We already made those conjectures. I've nothing new to add.”

I glanced over at the serving area, where what looked like our orders were being placed under heat lamps. ”Let me call The Advocate before we get served,” I said, digging for the cell phone in my capacious-and cluttered- handbag. ”I want to make sure everything went off all right by deadline.”

Since it was barely eight o'clock, I wasn't surprised to find that only Ginny Erlandson was at work. In her accurate, if phlegmatic way, she informed me that there had been no big problems. Nor had there been further developments in the O'Neill-Harquist matter, except that everyone involved was threatening to sue everyone else.

”All systems are go,” I informed Vida as our breakfasts arrived, ”and the rest is status quo. Where were we?”

”I believe,” she said dryly, ”we'd finished studying our clues. I suggest we now discuss the suspects themselves and their possible whereabouts the night of the murder.”

”Okay,” I agreed, drizzling syrup on my pancakes. ”We don't know where Kathy and Sam Addison were, but even if they're estranged, I'd guess they'd alibi each other.”

”Probably,” Vida said, diving into her eggs, sausage, hash browns, and toast. ”Maybeth was home, Roy wasn't. Now, if he's living with her, where did he go that night? Do we know?”

I tried to remember. ”Playing poker? A night out with the boys? It might be true. Let's leave Roy hanging. Figuratively speaking, of course.”

”And Maybeth as well,” Vida put in.

”Which leaves Darryl,” I continued, ”who we know was in the vicinity because he met Ronnie at the Satellite Room.”

”Darryl's arrival at the apartment house would have been noted,” Vida said, daintily sipping her orange juice. ”He has a motorcycle.”

”He probably has a car, too,” I said.

Vida, however, shook her head. ”He managed to kill his entire family while driving a car. It's quite likely that he has only a motorcycle. They can be even more dangerous. Darryl may have a death wish.”

I thought that was stretching it, but not by much. ”Okay, so maybe we can rule out Darryl, but only because he wouldn't have been offering Ronnie money to leave Carol. By ten-thirty that night, if Darryl had been the killer, he would have known that Carol was already dead.”

”Unless he wanted to establish that sort of alibi,” Vida said. ”It would be very clever. Let's say he'd set up the meeting with Ronnie, but went first to see Carol. He told her what he planned to do. Or perhaps he asked her to marry him then. She refused his proposal. Darryl strangled Carol in a fit of rejection, but realized he must still keep his rendezvous with Ronnie.”

I grinned at Vida. ”If you ever kill someone, I swear you'll get away with it. You have a very cunning mind.”

Vida shrugged. ”Not at all. I consider myself extremely straightforward. But I'm trying to think like a murderer.”

”And doing it very well,” I insisted. ”But that doesn't explain the lack of motorcycle noise at the apartment complex.”

”He could have parked down the street and walked,” Vida argued.

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