J. Jance - Long Time Gone

I’d already figured that out on my own. “I know,” I said. “May 13,1950. Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia.”

She gave me a searching look, then continued. “I was sixteen. He was nineteen. Tom’s father was furious.”

“That would be Phil Landreth, Albert Marchbank’s partner?”

“Yes. Tom’s dad wanted him to go to college and then on to law school, but that wasn’t possible, not with a wife and baby to support. Against his parents’ wishes, Tom dropped out of college and went to work for his grandfather-his mother’s father-as a manager in his car dealership.”

My ears pricked up. “Car dealership? Which one?”

“Crosby Motors,” she said. “It was a Ford agency up on Aurora Boulevard.”

I thought about those two brand-new Fords-the one that had gone to Sean Dunleavy and the other that had gone to Wink Winkler. Was that where they had come from-Crosby Motors?

“The dealership’s been gone for years now,” Faye went on. “Grandpa Crosby made a nice piece of change for himself, first when he sold the agency, and then later, when he sold the land itself. By then, Tom had enough management experience that Phil and Albert hired him to work in their company.”

“With the radio stations?”

Faye Landreth nodded. “Tom worked for Albert, who managed the overall holding company. Other people managed the stations themselves, but it wasn’t just radio. Albert Marchbank saw the coming boom in television very early on. He moved from radio broadcasting to television without ever missing a beat. Everybody connected to the company made money, Tom and me included.”

“Sounds like Tom was in the right place at the right time,” I suggested.

“It wasn’t all luck,” Faye Landreth said. For the first time I heard the bitterness in her voice.

“What was it?” I asked.

“They weren’t there,” she said.

Faye’s sudden segue caught me off guard. “Who wasn’t there?” I asked.

“Albert and Elvira,” Faye answered. “In Harrison Hot Springs. I know the newspaper notice said they came to our wedding, but that wasn’t true.”

“And what about your folks, Faye?” I said. “Did they suddenly become the proud owners of a brand-new 1950 Ford? It seems like someone was passing them out for free right about then.”

She ducked her head. Finally she raised it defiantly and looked me full in the eye. “Yes,” she admitted. “Yes, they did.”

“From Crosby Motors?”

She nodded.

“Who bought it?”

“I don’t even know. Does it matter? My folks needed a car. All I had to do for them to have one was keep my mouth shut.”

“Which happened to give Albert and Elvira Marchbank an unbreakable alibi for murder,” I added.

“I’m not proud of what I did, but yes.” Her voice was very small.

“And you never told. Why not?”

“For one thing, I was scared to death of Albert. I think Tom was, too. If the man was willing to stab his own sister to death right there in broad daylight, what kind of person was he? And I don’t think Elvira was much better than Albert. They were both ruthless people. The problem was, Tom told me that keeping quiet about what happened made us all accessories after the fact to what they had done-my parents, too. He said we’d all be held responsible for Mimi’s murder, every bit as much as the people who actually stabbed her.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Because Timmy’s dead,” Faye Landreth said. “Tom’s parents are both gone now, and so are mine. If somebody wants to arrest me for my part in the cover-up, so be it, but it would have been wonderful if they had put Elvira on trial for murder, convicted her, and hauled her off to prison.”

“But she’s dead now, too,” I said.

Faye nodded. “I know,” she said. “I saw it in the paper this morning.”

“And so is a man named William Winkler. Wink Winkler was the detective who investigated Madeline Marchbank’s murder back in 1950,” I added. “Investigators think he committed suicide within hours of Elvira Marchbank’s fatal fall. According to my count, that doesn’t leave behind very many people from back then. If the people are gone, so are all the witnesses.”

“Except for me,” Faye volunteered. “I would be one; Tom’s the other.”

“You’re suggesting that your former husband might be involved in all this?”

“He was involved in 1950,” Faye said. “Why wouldn’t he be involved now?”

“And if he were to go to jail because of his involvement? What then?”

Faye Landreth smiled. “That would be his problem, now wouldn’t it. His problem and Raelene’s.”

I don’t remember who it was who said “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” and all that jazz, but he must have had someone like Faye Landreth in mind. She had waited almost a quarter of a century to lower the boom on her philandering ex-husband and his new wife. Now she was doing it-in spades.

“Any idea where I could find Tom Landreth about now?”

“He’s retired. He still lives in our old house over in Medina, but I hear he likes to hang out at the clubhouse at Overlake Golf and Country Club, even when it’s too cold to play golf.”

“And Raelene?”

“She’s the breadwinner now. Still works full-time.”

“For the Marchbank Foundation,” I said.

Faye nodded. “Interesting that she’d manage to fall into a job like that, wouldn’t you say?”

I didn’t know Tom Landreth, but I felt a twinge of sympathy for the man. He had walked away from his marriage vows all those years ago thinking that he was getting off easy. He must have thought all the divorce would cost him would be whatever the presiding judge decided he owed his ex-wife in terms of property settlement and alimony. He was about to find out those were small sums in comparison to the price Faye Landreth prepared to extract from him now. She was going for his jugular. If what she said was true, he deserved it, but right at that moment, the poor unsuspecting bastard had no idea it was coming.

Woman scorned, indeed!

When I left Faye Landreth’s condo, I was floating on air. Suddenly I had a legitimate suspect-someone who had been involved in the aftermath of Mimi Marchbank’s murder back in 1950. Considering the part Tom Landreth had played in the cover-up, it seemed reasonable to assume that he might have some compelling motive for keeping the names of the real perpetrators in that case from surfacing.

For one thing, Faye had told me that with Tom retired, Raelene’s job as executive director of the Marchbank Foundation now provided a major portion of the family’s income. Elvira Marchbank and, to a lesser extent, Tom Landreth, had participated in Mimi’s murder. Once that news leaked out, the Marchbank Foundation and Raelene’s plush little job would both be doomed. Bad publicity and nonprofits do not go together. People don’t like giving money to organizations whose founders or current managers are caught doing bad things-and murder is a pretty bad thing.

Before I interviewed Tom Landreth, I needed to interview his wife. Detectives Jackson and Ramsdahl had asked Raelene about what she had seen and heard on the day Elvira Marchbank died. I wanted to ask about Tom Landreth. I also needed to collect a Kevlar vest. My current one had been hauled off in the trunk of the 928 when the tow truck took it away, but there was an old one still gathering dust in my hall closet. When I tried to put the damned thing on, I was sure it had shrunk. I was struggling to fasten it when the phone rang.

“Jonas?” Beverly Jenssen asked.

I was instantly awash in guilt. I had promised to call this morning and had neglected to do so. “Beverly,” I said. “It’s good to hear your voice. How are you?”