Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Counselor

On one level, their marriage had proceeded at a predictable pace. They made love, worked, fought sometimes, and each made their own plans. On another level, they were engaged in a life-and-death struggle.

“I don’t know what happened in their early marriage, but Cliff’s deep problems with his wife seem to have started because of the miscarriage. Tamsin seemed to enjoy the sympathy it earned her, to a real suspicious extent,” Claude said, recrossing his ankles. His feet were propped up on the edge of his desk in his favorite pose.

“Tamsin said she thought he wanted to collect on her insurance money, too,” I said.

Claude shook his head. “I just don’t see money as an important part of this, and I guess it’s the first time I ever said that.”

I shrugged.

“But somehow, at some point, he decided to make a game out of retaliation. Tamsin was fun to scare. She had more education than Cliff, more pretensions; he enjoyed getting the edge back.”

“Cliff upped the ante when he killed Saralynn,” Alicia Stokes said. She’d been sweating. Her skin gleamed like highly polished mahogany. “Tamsin admitted to herself, then, that she suspected her husband. Maybe his footsteps in the hall were too familiar for her to block the knowledge from herself.”

“She told you that?” I asked.

Stokes nodded, slowly and deliberately. “Yes, she figured Cliff had access to her keys to the building, knew its layout and her routine, and also knew she was meeting a new group member early.”

“Janet’s appearance was a real shock.” The chief of police resumed his part of the narrative. After all these months of silent struggle, talking must have been a relief to both Tamsin and Cliff. I would have called a lawyer, myself, and clammed up, but that was not as much a stretch for me as for most people. “And the fact that Tamsin stayed in the conference room. I think he’d looked forward to her reaction to finding the body; he’d planned on at least listening to the sound effects from out in the lobby. But she stayed low, and he had to leave. He knew the members of the group would be arriving soon. He went out the front door and to his car, which he’d parked at Shakespeare Pharmacy about half a block away. He didn’t think anyone would particularly remember his car at the pharmacy, and he was right. Then he showed up at the health center. He expected his wife to completely collapse. But she bore up under it pretty well. Cliff’s reaction, in the parking lot, you remember how upset he seemed? He really was.”

“What about Gerry McClanahan?” Jack took another drink from his plastic foam cup of station-house coffee. He’d be up all night. I would be too, unless the pills Carrie had given me packed a true wallop. I had had many painful things happen to me, but the broken nose ranked right up there in the top three. I had tomorrow to look forward to, when Jack said my face would be even more arresting. But at least I was clean and dry, and the soiled clothes were in the washer back at the house.

I was putting my money on Gerry having pegged Cliff as the stalker, but as it turned out I was half wrong.

Claude had just finished reading Gerry McClanahan’s notes about the odd behavior of his neighbors. In fact, when Jack’s call had come into the station, Claude and Alicia had been discussing what they could prove, and who would be charged with what. Tamsin’s mental collapse had settled some of their questions.

As the surveillance log showed, Gerry had noticed Cliff going to the toolshed at what Gerry considered odd times. The writer had thought it was strange that Cliff always emerged empty-handed. Gerry had sneaked over to check out the shed once or twice when Cliff and Tamsin were both gone. He’d seen an animal cage, but didn’t question its presence until the dead squirrel was found hanging from the tree. After reading the police report on the incident, Gerry had retrieved the squirrel corpse from the garbage where Jack had put it. Then he’d stolen the cage (I’d later seen it in Gerry’s house after his death), which contained plenty of squirrel hairs. Gerry planned to get a lab to test the creature’s DNA.

Claude didn’t know if such a test was possible, or if it was, if the results would be admissible in court. But from Claude’s voice I could tell he admired Gerry’s tenacity and his willingness to put his money where his mouth was.

The page of Gerry’s log I’d found had noted that Cliff went to the toolshed the night before we’d found the poor squirrel murdered.

Gerry had planned to return the cage so Cliff wouldn’t get suspicious. But before he could act, he witnessed something even stranger. He’d seen Tamsin sabotaging her own back steps. The worm had turned.

Gerry had been completely gripped in the drama he saw unfolding before him. He’d acted like a writer instead of a cop, and when Cliff had noticed the missing cage and followed the faint traces of footsteps in the damp yard, he’d come across Gerry. Maybe Gerry had already been out in his backyard, filling out his log; maybe Cliff had knocked on Gerry’s back door and demanded an explanation or created some excuse to get Gerry outside. And he’d killed him. Later, reasoning that two stabbings would throw the police off even more than one, he’d staged the clumsy attempt on himself. A hastily arranged mistake, that self-stabbing; Tamsin could not have had any doubt after that, no matter how much she had blinded herself to the truth.

“But she backed Cliff up,” Jack said incredulously. “When he said he’d never seen the knife before, the one in Gerry’s throat. Surely she recognized it? And Cliff had called me, to have me back in Shakespeare so maybe I’d get blamed for Gerry’s death.”

“The world would’ve been a better place if those two had never met,” Claude said.

“Uh-huh, you got that right,” Alicia said, trying to cover her yawn with her hand.

“As for you, Detective Stokes, we need to have a private conference. Cliff Eggers has told me he recognized you from Cleveland. I have reason to believe you’ve been far more aware and involved in this case than you saw fit to tell me. According to you, Tamsin’s case was one you’d heard about while you were on the Cleveland force, not one you’d worked on.”

Alicia suddenly looked wide awake.

“Well, Lily and I will be going home now,” Jack said. He held out his hand, and I took it gratefully. He gave me a gentle pull to help me up. Having help was such a luxury. I hoped I never would grow to take it for granted. At least I could be sure that Jack and I would never become like Cliff and Tamsin. Our hard times and aggressive impulses had been flashed to the world. Everyone knew what we were capable of. We didn’t have to prove ourselves in any secret way.

Claude clapped Jack on the shoulder, just when Jack was almost out of the room. Claude said, “By the way, a little bird told me you married this woman.” He was not smiling and he did not look happy. Something pretty old-fashioned and definitely paternalistic had surfaced in Claude. “You better treat her right.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack said.

“He hasn’t done too bad the first three months,” I said.

Claude began smiling at us. Behind him, I saw Stokes was sitting in the old office chair with her mouth hanging open. “When are you planning on letting the rest of the world in on this?” Claude asked.

“It’s seeping out gradually,” I said. “We just wanted to get used to the fact ourselves, first.”

“Was my wife the first to know?” Claude still sounded proud saying “my wife.”

“Yes, my wife told your wife,” Jack said, grinning like an idiot.

As the door began to close behind us, we heard Claude open a conversation with his detective. “You want to tell me who you’re really working for, Stokes?” he began, and then the door thudded into place.