J. Bertrand - Pattern of Wounds

“So the affair was brief, but you kept in touch?”

“Oh, sure. Angie needed a lot of help sorting her life out. The immigration stuff, getting on her feet. She wanted to be a clothing designer, and I helped her out with that, too. Financially. She reminded me a lot of Joy, to be honest. Very sophisticated as far as academic matters go, but without much skill for real life. Women like that-it’s almost like for their minds to keep growing, their hearts have to remain fourteen forever.”

“Why did she call you Sunday? As far as I can tell, you’re the last person to speak to her alive.”

I hold back the fact that his ex-wife overheard part of the conversation. If he attributes similar words to Oliszewski, then I’ll have independent confirmation. If he doesn’t, I’ll know how to press him.

“Someone told her about the new girl getting herself killed, so Angie was in a state. She was a little angry with me, because there’d been some trouble back when we were both living in the house. The way I’d settled things didn’t sit right with her. Bad as it sounds, Angie held me a bit responsible.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Angie felt. .” A sigh, like the air being let out of a balloon. “She believed she was being watched. When I put in that pool, all I was shooting for was to increase the property value. Joy doesn’t swim and frankly my only use for it was to dress up the backyard for when we were entertaining. Angie, though, she lived out there. Her family back in Poland wasn’t well off, and to her a swimming pool was decadent luxury. She was convinced one of the neighbors was peeping on her.”

The hair on the back of my neck goes electric.

“I figured she was exaggerating. Maybe she’d seen somebody through the fence and drawn the wrong conclusion, movement in a window or whatever. If you’ve seen the yard-of course you have-it’s pretty private. But she insisted somebody was watching her from an attic window next-door.”

“At which house?”

“The Bayards’ house.”

Bingo.

“You said she didn’t like your solution. What was it?”

He chuckles. “I called a landscaper and had some new trees put in. I mean, the yard was practically a jungle as it was, so I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

“Did you confront Dave Bayard?”

He pauses. “No, I don’t guess I did. Naturally I was aware of his issues. His boy had called the police on him before, and that wife of his had the brittle smile of an abused woman. She made an effort to keep it a secret, though. Out of fear, pride, whatever. To be honest with you, I didn’t relish the thought of getting involved in all that. What was I gonna do, show up on the man’s doorstep and accuse him?”

“You took the practical approach,” I say, trying to reassure him. “If the problem is somebody looking through the window, obstruct the view and the problem’s solved.”

“Exactly. The maximum result with the minimum headache. Angie didn’t see that, though. She wanted pistols at dawn. But once you get entangled in the lives of your neighbors, there’s no going back.” A grim laugh. “If I had known how soon I’d be moving out, maybe I would have played things differently. Probably not.”

“So when she called you Saturday, what was she angry about? You said she blamed you.”

“Maybe not blame, but. . the trees were gone. She hadn’t been back, so she didn’t know. The idiot who planted them sunk ’em in the ground without taking the bags off, so the roots were all netted up and couldn’t take hold. They just withered up. Joy complained about it to me-by that time I was out of there-and I told her to call the man and get them replaced. Instead I think she had them hauled off and got the money back. So Angie was mad because the trees weren’t there. Her peeping Tom would’ve had a clear view of the new girl, she said, and that’s probably why she was dead. .” His voice trails off. “She really was angry. She’d trusted me to take care of it, and in her view I’d failed her.”

“She was a fool to believe in you,” I say.

“What?”

“She told you that?”

“Yes,” he says. “ ‘I was foolish to trust you,’ words to that effect.”

Close enough.

“The thing is,” he says, “Angie’s view of Dave Senior might have been colored by David Junior.”

“By who?”

“The son. David Bayard Jr. The kid’s pretty sharp, a professional student, and he and his dad are like fire and water. She met David in the neighborhood and he told her all kinds of stories about his dad, which just fueled her suspicions.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Just stupid nonsense.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“He claimed his father used to beat him. With his stepmother looking on. He said that his father had threatened to kill him, and that Bayard actually had killed someone over in Africa. Stuff like that.”

“And you dismissed it?”

“Of course I dismissed it. Bayard might drink a little too much and slap his wife around-I’m saying might , because I have no idea-but the man had a high-powered job, two sets of golf clubs, and a pretty good recipe for throat-scorching chili. I never had kids, but I can imagine situations where you’d have to threaten a teenage boy within an inch of his life-not to mention, David Junior. . he was just trying to get into her pants, that’s all.”

“He had a thing for Agnieszka?”

“Who wouldn’t? If you’d met her, Detective, trust me: you’d want to impress her, too. She was the kind of girl who makes you want to come off better than you really are.”

His voice goes soft, and I can tell he’s picturing her in his mind, remembering what it was like to be in her presence.

“If you’re serious about Dave Bayard as a suspect,” he says, “you should talk to the son. The wife will keep the family secrets, but David will spill his guts just to even the score.”

The way he makes the pronouncement, I can tell Jack Hill never felt the back of a father’s hand, or stood by helpless as others did. No sympathy for a victim of abuse, or the impact such abuse can have on personality. If the son is dead set against the father, perhaps there are reasons other than spite. Perhaps he knows the true nature of the man who spawned him and has chosen in his own weak way to fight.

If Dave Bayard killed Simone before winging it to Africa, only to have his trip cut short by the termination, he could have returned in time to see Agnieszka out at the pool. Even though Hill never confronted him, it’s a good bet he realized she had spotted him watching her. Which meant she could pass his name along to police. Is that why he had to kill her? Finding my card on her nightstand, he might have assumed she’d already done the damage. So he’d paid a rushed visit to my place, only to lose his prized knife.

There’s just one problem. The emails. If Bayard was in Lagos, how did he manage to send an email from outside Dr. Hill’s house? Until I hear back from ICE, I really can’t say.

Candace Walker calls to tell me she’s obtained a release and scheduled her daughter’s funeral for tomorrow. The desolation in her voice touches me. The sound of a woman who never anticipated having to bury her own child.

“I thought you might want to be there,” she says.

“I’ll do my best,” I say. “There have been some developments in the case, though, that could prevent me.”

“Developments? I thought Jason was released.”

“He’s not our chief suspect, ma’am. As a matter of fact, we’ve pretty much ruled him out since his hospitalization.”

“His what?”

I realize she hasn’t heard of Jason Young’s head injuries-but then, how would she? The lead investigator on her daughter’s case hasn’t kept her very well informed. As I stumble through an explanation, I make a mental note to follow up on Young’s condition. For all I know, he could be dead. So much has happened since my Saturday night visit to the emergency room: my visits to Huntsville and New Orleans, the fresh homicide, the attack on Charlotte, the connection to David Bayard. The case has moved so quickly, so fast, despite my sense that time ebbs along slower than ever. I need to sleep.