Margaret Grace - Murder In Miniature

Drew emerged from a door behind the front desk. He met us halfway across the broad expanse of very old gray linoleum. “I rattled the cage back there and found out they’re just wrapping up the interview. Your daughter will be out in a couple of minutes, Mr. Esterman.”

“When you say she’ll ‘be out’ do you mean…?”

“She’ll be free to go,” Drew said, “but they’ll probably tell her she shouldn’t leave town.”

The sighs of relief from the two of us were audible.

I debated showing Larry the record I had in my tote. I wanted his opinion on whether the page left in my car would constitute the kind of proof he mentioned. He had enough on his mind with his daughter’s future as uncertain as it was, but if something on the mysterious sheet could help Rosie, by pointing to someone else with a strong motive to kill David, we’d all be better off in the long run.

Decision made. I pulled out the folder and showed him the page. “Larry, can you make any sense out of this?”

Larry changed his glasses and peered at the sheet. “Looks like a bank record all right.” He pointed to the row of numbers across the top. “This string tells me it’s an international account. I did a little overseas business in the old days and this is a familiar template.” He pointed to the numbers that had caught my eye the first time I looked at the sheet, the five-digit numbers that stood out in their column. “Are you thinking these large deposits are kickbacks of some kind?”

“I have no idea.”

“Whose statement is this?”

I smiled, embarrassed. “I have no idea.”

I was grateful he didn’t ask how I came by the information, sparing me a third, “I have no idea.” I hoped Skip would be equally indifferent to my source.

“I think I know-” Larry started, but we were happily interrupted.

Rosie rushed up and hugged her father. I waited for my hug, but it didn’t come.

“What’s the story, honey?” Larry asked.

“I’m not arrested, but I can’t leave town.”

“Was it Skip who interviewed you?” I asked.

Rosie frowned at me. She worked her jaw and took deep breaths, but remained silent. I got the hint that she was upset with me, but I didn’t know why. Because I kept my phone off during a memorial service?

“I think you should come and stay with me until all this blows over,” Larry told his daughter. He was already steering her toward the exit.

“No, Dad. I’ll be fine, and I really want to get back to my own bed. Can you just take me home?”

“Where’s your car?” I asked. “I can arrange to get it to your house.”

No answer.

I understood that Rosie wanted to cling to her father at that moment, but I had to clear the air. “Is something wrong?” I asked her, hoping she’d know I meant “between us?”

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. “Maybe later, Gerry.”

Larry shrugged his shoulders, but seemed equally eager to leave the police station. I couldn’t blame them.

I collected my tote from the chair and headed back to Drew, this time to gain admission to my nephew’s office. I hoped all would go well there. I already had enough people whom I’d offended today.

“Nothing new,” Skip said. “But you know that, if you saw Rosie downstairs on her way out.” Skip’s short-sleeved peach-colored shirt blended in with one of the faded partition walls, both clashing with his red hair. June must not have seen him leave this morning.

“Rosie didn’t have much to say. She was anxious to get home.” I took a seat on a formerly peach-colored chair, now an undefined hue. “I wish you hadn’t picked her up before the service. When I told you-”

“I know you feel guilty about alerting us to where she’d be, but believe me, we would have found out anyway. And wasn’t that better than interrupting the service?”

“Not to Rosie.”

“I’ll be honest with you, Aunt Gerry, I feel in my gut that she didn’t do it. She’s just the closest thing we have now for a suspect. The reunion classmates all checked out.”

“Even Cheryl Mellace?”

“Her husband says she was with him in their hotel room from midnight on.”

“So they’re each other’s alibi. Is that legal?”

Skip laughed. “Of course. Maybe not convincing, but legal, definitely.”

“They could have been together all night, technically, but wasn’t David killed early in the morning?”

“The ME is putting the time of death from about four in the morning to when the kids found him around seven thirty.” Not what I hoped-the fact that I could vouch for Rosie’s whereabouts at around seven was virtually meaningless.

“And Ben Dobson?” I rubbed my arm where Ben had touched it, leaning on my driver-side window.

“A couple of people at the party corroborate your story-”

“Excuse me?” I folded my arms in mock offense.

“Just an expression. The point is that, yes, it seems they did fight, but we talked to all the maintenance staff, too, and no one was particularly surprised, but neither could anyone think of a motive for murder. Dobson was at the highest level he could go and he got a decent salary.”

“What about Barry Cannon?”

“Class president, CPA, works as CFO for Mellace Construction.”

“I know all that. What’s his alibi?”

“The same as most people’s from four to seven in the morning. He was asleep in his hotel room.”

What would Skip say if he knew Barry had been sending Rosie presents, in all probability setting her up to be humiliated at the hands of David? I needed one more shot at Barry before I brought this up to Skip. Barry’s reaction when I asked him about the presents told me he was indeed guilty-of present buying. Hardly a crime unless I could make a connection to David’s murder.

That concluded my list of suspects, but I had one or two more loose ends. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Skip, how did you manage to get hold of the locker room scene that Rosie… altered?”

“We got an anonymous call that we’d find it in the woods, near the crime scene.”

“But it wasn’t at the crime scene when you found David’s body?”

“No, the call came afterward, later in the morning.”

“So isn’t it likely that someone planted it there?”

“Not necessarily. Much as we’d like to think we’re perfect, the people at the scene don’t always pick up everything. The little room was off a ways and in some bushes.”

“And the anonymous caller knew exactly where you could find it?”

“Right.”

“How would the person know you hadn’t already found it unless he or she put it there after you left?”

Impeccable reasoning. But that’s not what it was all about.

“This happens a lot, Aunt Gerry. Someone calls in a tip and the timing doesn’t always make sense-maybe the person just wanted to make sure we found it-and we just have to go with it. And the locker does exist, and it was Rosie Norman who wrote hate mail on it, that’s what’s important here.”

I wished I could argue with him. Instead, all I could do was toss other suspects his way. “What about David’s son, Kevin Malden? Have you checked out where he was over the weekend?”

Skip scratched his head. “I’m not even surprised that you know his new name. But, yeah, he checks out. He was showing some of his stuff to a few dozen other artists at some kind of fair. And his mother, Bridges’s ex, was in Europe. Bridges’s family is a dead end.”

Police work was frustrating. I might have to think about retiring.

Was this the time when I should tell Skip about Ben Dobson’s trek down the path to the crime scene in Joshua Speed Woods? And show him the bank record, which might have been left by Ben?