Sheila Connolly: Let's Play Dead

“I told you, she was at the museum Tuesday after lunch,” Caitlin said. “She wanted to make sure we hadn’t screwed up attaching the new head.”

“All right!” Hadley all but shouted. “I was at the museum. But so were Arabella and Caitlin and Jason and God knows how many other people. Any one of them could have tampered with the exhibit.”

That was true enough, although I wasn’t sure who else would have a motive. But there was one more piece: Joe had died on Wednesday. “Arabella, you had the wiring for the new head checked on Wednesday, the day after Jason was hurt. I assume you tested it again?”

“Of course we did. One accident was more than enough, and I wasn’t going to take any chances. Caitlin and I were both there. It was working fine. I even called in an outside electrician to check things out-I paid for that out of my own pocket.”

“Hadley, where were you on Wednesday?”

Hadley looked victorious. “I had a signing out in Chester County. I worked from home in the morning, then Chloe drove me to the bookstore there. We were there for a couple of hours-with plenty of witnesses.”

“And after that?” I pressed.

“Chloe brought me home. I fixed supper and went to bed.”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone! Then some reporter called around eleven that evening to say that someone had been killed at my exhibit, and what did I have to say? That must be on record somewhere-I was quoted in the paper, you know.”

Score one point for Hadley. If she had sneaked into the museum after hours to mess with the exhibit, she’d have had a rather narrow window of opportunity between the closing time for the museum and nine o’clock when Joe died. Which made things look worse for Caitlin. When had Jason come home from the hospital? Had they been together Wednesday night?

It wasn’t easy to try to sort out any kind of time line while keeping up with the conversation going on in front of me. Joe had died on Wednesday, but Hadley hadn’t fired Chloe immediately. Of course, it had taken the police some time to put together the pieces and arrive at Hadley’s door, and from there to Chloe. After Chloe had talked to them and spilled some of Hadley’s dirty little secrets, Hadley had dumped her fast, and Chloe had come running to Eric for sympathy. Last week. Why had Hadley bothered to fire her? Surely she should have known that Chloe had no choice but to talk to the police. Was it just Hadley acting out of pique, which was apparently her normal operating procedure, or did she think that Chloe had pointed the police toward Hadley, deliberately or unintentionally? Did Hadley’s sliding book sales give her a real motive?

Apparently Hadley sensed my hesitation, because she launched into attack mode. “Excuse me, Nell, but who the hell appointed you investigator here? I’ve talked to the police about the events at Let’s Play, told them everything I’ve told you, and they seem satisfied. My reputation is on the line as much as anyone’s. And nobody has shown that I had a clue about what happened, or if I had even wanted to do something like that, how I could have. I have trouble programming my cell phone. Do you seriously think I could rig the wiring in the exhibit? And how was I supposed to set a death trap when I was miles away? Why aren’t you looking at Caitlin-she’s been part of this from the beginning. Maybe she thought she’d failed at her job and was trying to destroy the exhibit before it even opened. Maybe she has a lifelong beef with her mother. I don’t know-but I do know that I’ve had enough of this discussion. I’d like you to leave now.”

Nolan appeared in the doorway from the hall, holding a flashlight. He looked a bit absurd with a Willy head tucked under each arm, but his expression was far from amusing-or amused. “You’ve had some electrical work done recently, haven’t you?”

Startled, Hadley turned to confront him. “Yes, I have. So what?”

“Because, lady, you have a serious problem.”

“What do you mean?” Hadley demanded.

“Whoever did your wiring-the most recent stuff-was an incompetent hack. You’re lucky the place hasn’t gone up in flames.”

“Why?”

“Jaysus, aluminum wiring alongside knob-and-tube, junction boxes hacked to bits and shredding the wires. How long ago was this done?”

“Just a few weeks ago. What’s wrong with it?“

“This place was built, what, in the twenties? That old knob-and-tube stuff-it’s not bad, so long as you don’t mess with it. In fact, looks like no one did until recently. Of course, you’re seriously underpowered by current standards, but if it’s just you and you don’t run too many appliances at once, you’d get by. I take it you didn’t fix it yourself?”

“The old wiring? Of course not!”

Nolan grinned. “Didn’t think so. So you hired someone. Where’d you find this yahoo?”

“I… don’t remember. Someone recommended him, I think.”

I noticed that Hadley wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes, and then I recalled Chloe’s comments about Hadley’s blue-collar boy toys. “Was this an electrician friend? A rather close friend?”

“What do you mean?”

I was getting increasingly tired of her evasions. “A boyfriend. Were you dating any electricians?”

Her expression changed then. “Yes,” she whispered.

And then the penny dropped. “Was it Joe Murphy?”

Hadley nodded.

We all sat in stunned silence for a moment. My brain was in overdrive. Joe had dated Hadley. Joe had worked on Hadley’s house while the Willy heads were in the basement. Joe was apparently a lousy electrician, if Nolan was right. And Joe had been electrocuted while working on the exhibit at Let’s Play. But how to connect the dots?

“Okay, Hadley, can you walk us through this? When were you and Joe… together?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” Hadley said in a tight voice.

Too bad. “Hadley, I’m afraid you have to. Did you mention to the police that you and the victim had had a relationship?”

Hadley shook her head like a sulky child. “I didn’t see what difference it would make. It was over by then anyway.”

Apparently Hadley was missing a few screws. She didn’t realize that the police might like to know that she had been intimately involved with the dead man? But in Hadley World, Hadley’s interests came first. “When did your relationship end?”

“Last month.”

“How long were you together?”

“A few weeks, maybe?”

“And how many relationships have you had with, uh, other people, say over the last year?”

“A few. Five, maybe?” Hadley contemplated her mantelpiece, avoiding my gaze.

Chloe had been right. A rapid turnover of well-muscled and not-too-bright boyfriends was not what people wanted to hear about a children’s book writer, so maybe it wasn’t surprising that Hadley had kept it quiet. I tried another tack. “When did you bring the Willy heads home?”

Now she turned back to look at me. “You mean, were Joe and I seeing each other then? Yes. They were here while I was seeing Joe.”

“But you two broke it off before you took the final head back to the museum.”

“Yes, it was over by then.”

“How did he take the breakup?”

“He was angry. I don’t know why-I never promised him anything. He couldn’t have thought we had any future together. I mean, look at me-look at who I am. He was just an electrician. It wasn’t serious.”

“So you used him for some quick sex and then dumped him,” I said bluntly.

“You don’t need to be crude, Nell,” she replied. I noticed she didn’t deny the allegation.

“Did he show you how the Willy heads worked?”