Marcia Talley - A Quiet Death

‘I don’t know. What?’

‘He told me he was doing genealogical research at the Library of Congress, in the Thomas Jefferson building, just four or five blocks away from the Lynx News building.’ I raised a single finger. ‘Opportunity.’

‘OK, but what’s his motive?’

‘Like me, he’d figured out that John Chandler was his father and he wanted to confront him. Meredith Logan simply got in the way and, I don’t know, maybe something snapped.’

‘You did say that he’d confessed to a murder when he thought he was dying.’

‘Exactly! Yet when I saw Skip in the hospital yesterday afternoon, he claimed he didn’t remember praying with me. But when he said it, his eyes shot right over to the rosary on his bedside table, so I’m convinced he did remember it happening. And if he remembers praying, he also has to have remembered that he confessed to a killing.’

‘He could have been speaking figuratively, Hannah. What were his actual words?’

‘“I think I killed somebody.”’

‘He thinks he killed somebody? How can one be ambivalent about that? Either you killed somebody or you didn’t. It’s not like Skip pushed Meredith off the edge of a cliff then left her lying on the rocks below, not knowing whether she was alive or dead. Meredith’s death was very hands-on. She was strangled.’

‘Motive and opportunity,’ I said. ‘Skip’s number one on my suspect list.’

‘Your theory should be easy enough to prove one way or the other. Don’t you have to sign in at the Library of Congress? Wouldn’t he have to apply for a Reader Identification Card? And there are security cameras all over the joint, as I recall.’

Underneath my washcloth, I nodded, agreeing. ‘Security is really tight. Airport-like. Last time I was there…’ I raised a corner of the washcloth and fixed an eye on my husband, ‘… I was doing research for good old Whitworth and Sullivan, damn them.’

I repositioned the washcloth over my eyes and lay back. ‘Security guards paw through your packages, handbags, backpacks, you name it, coming and going, and you have to pass through metal detectors and theft detection systems, too.’

Paul balanced his mug on his left thigh. ‘So, let’s say, for point of argument, that Skip lied about being at the Thomas Jefferson building. He wouldn’t show up on their surveillance tapes at all. And if he was doing research at the Jefferson building, as he claimed, the tapes would show when he came and when he left, wouldn’t they?’

‘They would,’ I agreed. ‘But I’ll bet the police are not looking at Library of Congress surveillance tapes because nobody knows what you and I do, that Skip confessed to a murder, that he was in the neighborhood at the time, and that he may have a family connection with the boss of the murder victim.’

‘And you’re going to point this out to them, right?’

I whipped the washcloth off my eyes and tucked it into the soap dish. ‘I don’t know what to do! I wish I knew somebody with access to those security tapes.’

‘The long-suffering police lieutenant Dennis Rutherford?’

I sighed. ‘There may be twenty-one police jurisdictions in the Washington, DC area, but, alas, Chesapeake County is not one of them.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something, Hannah?’

‘What?’

‘The press has been speculating that Meredith’s death was the work of a serial killer. How about that other victim, the girl they found near Reagan Airport? And the woman who was attacked in Rock Creek Park? They can’t all have been Skip’s doing. He could have murdered Meredith, I’ll give you that, but you and I both know that he was teetering between life and death in intensive care when the other two girls were attacked.’

I extended my arm. ‘Hand me a towel, Professor, and stop being so damned reasonable.’

Paul stood, grabbed a towel off the rack next to the sink, and when I climbed out of the tub, he wrapped me snugly in it. ‘I feel like a taco,’ I said.

‘You don’t look like a taco.’ He kissed the top of my head.

‘Who knows almost as much about what the police are up to as the police do themselves?’ I asked my husband a few minutes later as I was struggling to pull my jeans on over damp legs.

‘Police scanner hobbyists?’

I hadn’t thought about that one. ‘ Zzzzt ! No, the correct answer is the media.’

‘And so?’

‘I think it’s time I paid another visit to Lynx News, don’t you?’

I found Jud Wilson’s card where I had left it: in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing on the day I first met John Chandler at Lynx News. Hoping he was as first-to-come-and-last-to-leave as Meredith Logan, his predecessor, I telephoned Jud at eight o’clock on Monday morning. He wasn’t available to take my call, so I left a message reminding him who I was and asking to see him.

When my telephone rang about ten minutes later, I was up to my elbows in soap bubbles, washing out a cashmere sweater in the kitchen sink.

It was Jud, sounding out of breath. ‘Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, Mrs Ives, but it’s been pretty hectic here this morning. How can I help you?’

‘The first thing you can do,’ I said lightly, ‘is start calling me Hannah.’

‘Sure. How can I help you then, Hannah? John Chandler told me he’d settled everything with you on your last visit. Is this something new?’

‘It is. And it’s not Mr Chandler I want to see, it’s you.’

‘Why me?’

I thought about appealing to his ego. Such a bright young man! What a promising career! Do I have a scoop for you! But he was a bright young man with a built-in, finely tuned bullshit-o-meter, so I decided to tell him the truth. ‘This is about Meredith Logan,’ I said. ‘Did you know Meredith well, Jud?’

‘I did. She was going to be moving up to production – echoing rolls and cuts, locking up, a bit of talent wrangling. I was going to take over her duties on the office side of things, so I had been shadowing her off and on.’

After his speech, Jud was quiet so long that I thought I’d lost the connection. ‘Jud? You there?’

‘Sorry. I was just thinking that if I had been shadowing her on the day she disappeared, she might still be alive.’

‘That’s not your fault, Jud. You couldn’t watch over Meredith twenty-four seven.’

‘I called in sick that day,’ he confessed.

‘You can’t help being sick.’

‘But I wasn’t. Sick, that is. Monday was the last day of Abbey Road on the River, the Beatles Tribute Festival. I took a water taxi over to National Harbor with some friends because the band “All You Need is Love” was performing the entire “White Album” that night. Later, we ended up at a bar in Georgetown and, oh man, I don’t remember coming home, but I must have because I woke up around ten in my own bed with a headache so evil I thought my eyeballs were going to explode.’

‘I’ve been sick like that before.’

‘But I’ll bet nobody died because of it. God, I feel so guilty!’

‘I’m feeling guilty about Meredith, too,’ I confessed. ‘I’m afraid I’ve been sitting on some information that might point the police in the direction of her killer, and I’m hoping you’ll be able to help me.’

‘You? But you don’t even know Meredith.’ A note of suspicion had crept into his voice. ‘Or do you?’

‘When I knew Meredith, she was Meredith Thompson, a student at Bryn Mawr College, and she was my daughter Emily’s best friend.’

‘Jesus! You’re Emily’s mother? Emily Ives?’

It took a moment for this to sink in. ‘You know my daughter?’