Born Innocent (23 page)

Claire said simply, “But I didn’t do it.’ ’

Mariah Henson loosed a delicate but quite audible
humph.
“
You seem to think I actually might believe you. Well, you can give that up. I am not a fool.”

“
No, Mrs. Henson, you’re not a fool.” Joe spoke up from his post by the black fireplace. “And that’s why we think that you are aware of all the people who hate your husband—all the people who have very good reasons to wish your husband was dead.”

The woman glared at Joe. “The police have been thorough, in case you weren’t aware. There is no one else who had both a reason to shoot Alan—and the opportunity.”

Claire said, “You’re wrong. I may have had the opportunity, but I had no reason to shoot him. We had a...disagreement, and it was settled without having to resort to—”

Mariah Henson groaned aloud. “Oh, please. Let’s be specific here—because I
am
curious. Just exactly what kind of disagreement did you have with my husband?”

Claire swallowed. “What do you mean?”

“
Just what, exactly, was going on between you and Alan? That’s what
I
want to know.”

“
Nothing was going on between your husband and me.” Mariah Henson gave another of her delicate little
humphs.

Claire stared at the woman. Things were becoming uncomfortably clear. Claire could see now why the woman had agreed to talk to them—because she had a few questions of her own. Questions that, when answered, would give Mariah Henson all the reason she needed to call the guard down in the lobby and order them thrown out. They’d end up learning nothing, and in the meantime, Mariah Henson could enjoy making Claire squirm.

“
Well?” Alan Henson’s wife inquired. Her sculpted brows lifted a fraction.

Joe said, “He tried to rape her.”

Mariah Henson gasped.

Joe went on as if he hadn’t heard the sound. “But Claire is smart and quick. She grabbed a glass and broke it on the side of his head. It was a thin glass, so it shattered on impact, causing no harm to your husband, but scaring him enough that he let her go. She ordered him to get out of her motel. And that is the last she saw of him, until she found him unconscious the next day.” He casually readjusted a cloisonne egg on the black marble mantel. “Does that answer your question? Or would you like to hear more? We’ve gathered a lot of information about the other people in your husband’s life. You know, all those poor folks your husband has ripped off in his brilliant career as a
financial planner,
not to mention all the women he—”

“
Enough! That is it, that is enough....” Mariah Henson sputtered. Joe shrugged and said no more. In the deadly silence that followed, Mariah Henson rose to her feet. When next she spoke, her voice vibrated with righteous wrath. “That... what you just told me... is a rotten lie. And that woman—” she pointed a finger at Claire “—knows it. Alan would never force a woman. Alan is a lot of things, but a rapist is not one of them. Deep down, he’s a good and gentle man, a man no one—except for me, of course—understands. He has a... weakness for other women, and a few professional problems of late, but when he regains consciousness and is well once again, we’ll work everything out.”

“
If you feel that way,” Joe asked pleasantly, “then why did you steal Claire’s gun and shoot the sonofabitch?”

That did it. Mariah Henson’s face turned the same color as her jumpsuit. “Out!” she shouted. “Out of my home!”

“
Sorry,” Joe said a little sheepishly, once the security guard had shown them the street.

“
For what? You were great. We were getting nowhere being nice, so you made the right move to go for broke.”

He chuckled and put his arm around her. “You do catch on quick.”

She shivered a little. It was still early in the morning, and the wind off the bay had a real chill in it. “Come on. Let’s go somewhere warm for a few minutes. I’m freezing.”

They walked a few blocks until they found a coffee shop. They went in, took a booth, and ordered hot cocoa. Then they discussed the encounter with Henson’s wife, and Joe jotted down notes.

“
Okay, Snow, so what did we find out?”

Claire sipped her cocoa and savored the heat of it. “This is just an opinion...”

“
Opinions are allowed.”

“
I think Mariah Henson’s got her eyes open about her husband. It looks to me as if she’s known exactly what he is all along, and, in her own way at least, she loves him, anyway. She keeps him away from her money—and she blames the other woman whenever he gets into trouble with one.” Claire fell silent. She stared out the window by their booth at the gray buildings and the windswept street.

“
What else?” Joe asked.

“
Nothing. That’s all, really.”

“
There’s something. You’re holding back.”

She sighed. “Oh, I suppose it’s just that, after talking to her, I feel let down.”

“
Why?” Joe raised his eyebrows at her over the rim of his own cocoa mug.

“
Because now, I just don’t think she shot him.”

“
You’re saying that until now, you
did
think she did it.”

“
Yes, I guess I did. Even though she supposedly can prove she couldn’t have been in Pine Bluff, I thought she’d set up an alibi—or hired someone to do it. After all, she certainly has the money to pay for something like that.”

Joe grunted. “If she paid someone to kill him, she got taken. After all, that job was left undone.”

Claire lifted her mug again. “Yeah. I guess so.” She drank the rest of the sweet, warm chocolate.

Joe reached across the table and chucked her under the chin. “Hey. Chin up.”

She set down her cup. “I can’t help it, Joe. I really don’t think she had anything to do with shooting Henson. After all, she
knows
what he is. It looks to me like she’s
always
known just what he is, and she doesn’t care. If she stole my gun, she’d have come after me, not him. We’re getting nowhere, Joe. Worse than nowhere. Before we talked to Mariah Henson, I still suspected that she was the one. Now, I don’t even have that.”

Her hand was lying on the table. Joe covered it with his own. He gave it a squeeze, and smiled into her eyes, and said nothing—not even “I told you so,” which he certainly had a right to say. She turned her hand and squeezed back, forcing a smile to match his.

Lord, he was a wonderful man. She didn’t think, in all her years of hopelessly loving him, that she had ever loved him as much as this moment, when he held her hand across the table of this little booth, and smiled into her eyes and didn’t say “I told you so.”

He suggested, “We could take a break from this. Sometimes a break helps to put things in perspective. We could do a few touristy things—go to Fisherman’s Wharf, visit Ghirardelli Square...”

She shook her head and gave his hand one more squeeze. “Thanks, but I’m okay.” Gently, she pulled her hand from his. “Now who’s next?”

He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he shrugged. “We’ll give the Radners another try.” The Radners were the owners of the row house in town. “And then we’ve got the two addresses in Sausalito and a Dr. Simonsen in Berkeley—and that lady in Oakland we didn’t reach yesterday.”

And that’s all,
she thought but didn’t say. She kept her smile in place. “Let’s get moving, then.”

The row house was, as before, deserted. This time they tried knocking on the doors to either side of the house and across the street, but the neighbors either didn’t come to the door or claimed ignorance of the whereabouts of Mr. and Mrs. Radner.

Joe decided, “All right. When we get back to the hotel, we’ll try calling. And if that gets us nowhere—”

“
I know. It’s time to give up on the Radners.”

“
That’s about the size of it, at least for this trip.”

They went back to the hotel, but only to get the car; they didn’t even bother stopping in the room. They drove across the bridge to Sausalito and found that no one answered the doors at either of the addresses they had there, either.

They had lunch, and then backtracked over the Golden Gate, to the Bay Bridge and up to Berkeley. They found Dr. Simonsen at his office; he was a pediatrician. He agreed to talk to them, and led them to a small consulting office with a window on the parking lot and stuffed animals on top of the file cabinets.

He explained that he’d met Alan Henson at a small art gallery opening. He’d liked the man right off, and they’d become friendly acquaintances. When Henson called to offer him some very special business opportunities, naturally he’d listened. And he’d bought in.

He’d lost thirty-five thousand dollars before he realized he was being had. He’d hired a lawyer, and that was that. Henson had not ruined him, which was more, he understood, than some of the people the man had “advised” could say. He’d spent all last weekend, when Henson was shot, in Oregon visiting his mother and father on their small ranch.

“
Anything else?” The doctor smiled politely at them across his desk.

Joe asked if he knew of anyone else who might have reason to want to cause Alan Henson pain. Dr. Simonsen could think of no one.

Claire and Joe thanked him and left, driving south to the Bay Bridge and then returning to the hotel.

It was after six when they reached their rooms—and the red light was blinking on the telephone, letting them know someone had left a message while they were gone.

Claire immediately thought of Ella, and imagined some crisis had probably arisen at Snow’s Inn. Joe called the desk right away.

“
Ella did call,” he said after getting the messages. “But so did Sheriff Brawley. He called a little after noon, and said we were to call right back. He’s tried to reach us twice since then.”

Claire’s spirits sank another notch. She reached to take the phone from Joe. “I’ll do it. We both know it’s about me.”

“
I don’t mind,” he told her gently.

She looked at him and knew she should insist; their being here was her doing, after all. “Joe, I should do it.”

He saw her indecision and took over, punching up the number of the sheriff’s office without discussing it further.

The sheriff wasn’t near the phone. The dispatcher told them to wait at that number. He would reach the sheriff and have him call them back.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rang again. Joe answered. His side of the conversation was cryptic.

“
Yes, Dan. I understand....But I want to tell you that she did invite us up....All right. Don’t worry. I know. I understand, but this is a tough time for her. You have to realize....All right. Yes. Tomorrow noon, you have my

word.” He hung up.

Claire knew what he would tell her before he began. She said it for him. “Mariah Henson called in a complaint.”

Joe nodded. “The sheriff says we’re lucky. She called and insisted on talking to him personally. He was able to settle her down pretty much. He called your mother, and got the number here from her. And he’s giving us the rest of the night here, with the understanding that we’re to talk to no one else about Alan Henson. We have to report to him at the Excelsior County sheriff’s office at noon tomorrow—or else.”

Claire thought about the Radners, and the two people in Sausalito... and the woman in Oakland. They represented her last tiny hope of helping herself out of what was
happening to her. And now, with a phone call, Sheriff Brawley had snatched her hope away from her.

“
You want me to go ahead and call Ella?” Joe asked.

“
No.” She’d let Joe handle the toughest call. The least she could do was take care of her own mother. “I’ll do it.” She took the phone and dialed Snow’s Inn.

“
Dear, I’ve been worried sick,” Ella said as soon as Claire identified herself. “Dan Brawley called here and—”

“
I know, Mother. Don’t worry. Everything’s all right.”

“
I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave him—”

“
You did the right thing. Don’t worry.”

“
What will you do now?”

“
We’ll probably go back to the ranch.” Claire tried not to sound as low as she felt. “Look. Don’t worry. Nothing is wrong. I have to see Sheriff Dan tomorrow. I’ll stop in after that. Now, are there any other problems?”

Ella assured Claire that everything was going smoothly at Snow’s Inn, so Claire said goodbye.

Once she’d hung up, Claire wished she could just lie down on the bed and close her eyes. Suddenly, she felt so exhausted. And yet she couldn’t bear the thought of sitting still.

“
Let’s pack up, then,” she muttered, and marched into the big walk-in closet area to begin collecting her things. “We might as well go on home tonight.”