Murder in the Dog Days (Maggie Ryan) (9 page)

“You mean, if I’m so sure somebody bashed him, how did the somebody get out.” His forehead wrinkled. “I don’t know. I’d look pretty carefully at the windows. Or maybe the door was already splintered and something else was holding it closed somehow when they were trying to get in. But why ask me? You’ve got other experts to tell you about that.”

“Yeah. We’ll check it out.” Holly debated taking Jerry in to talk to Doc Craine. But Doc would have found all the same things, and he got prickly at second-guessing. More than once she’d been snapped at herself for offering a medical observation. So wind this up, Schreiner. There’s still a lot to do tonight. She asked, “Can you think of anything else, Dr. Ryan? Anything odd or even obvious that might have affected this death?”

“Only that locked door. Aside from that—well, my wife’s a reporter.” He gave a little shrug, suddenly seeming very vulnerable. “So I can’t help wondering what the hell he did to get someone that angry.”

“Yeah.” Holly nodded and closed her book. “We’ll find out. Thanks, Dr. Ryan. We’ll want you to sign a statement tomorrow, but that’s it for now. As soon as I talk to Mr. O’Connor we’ll be done.”

“Good.”

Nick O’Connor was a broad, burly man, with expressive eyes that could move from dark sorrow to twinkles to lively curiosity in an instant. His head was nearly bald but his khaki shorts and unbuttoned polo shirt revealed plenty of curly hair on legs and chest and arms. He was a comfortable man, easy to talk to. Holly took him quickly through the departure and return from the beach. He confirmed the other accounts and apologized for not being able to add anything. “As things worked out, I never even saw Dale Colby, before or after the trip to the beach. Maggie and Olivia can help you more.”

Holly nodded and decided to risk another topic. “Mr. O’Connor, your wife seemed very familiar with police procedures.”

“Oh, yes. She’s been called as a witness in homicides before.”

Homicides! Whoopee, Schreiner, you’re on track now. Holly tried to hide her excitement. She said flatly, “I see.”

But Nick O’Connor must have sensed a problem. He explained, “Yeah, she’ll do everything she can. She’s helped convict two or three already.”

“Really?” She felt an unprofessional pang of disappointment.

“The only one still open is a kidnapping from a couple of years ago. Maggie still gets calls every few months from the New York detective on that case. Lugano.”

“I see.” Holly wrote “Lugano” in her notebook. Check to see if Dale Colby could be connected to that case somehow.

“You seemed surprised when I said homicides,” Nick observed mildly.

“It’s unusual.” Holly was guarded.

“Yeah, but you must have been interested in something when you mentioned that she seemed familiar with police procedures.” His guileless brown eyes were concerned, eager to help. What the hell, she might fish out another fact. She shrugged and admitted, “I just noticed her shirt. Lots of people got arrested in the sixties for demonstrating.”

He grinned. “Sure did. Almost got arrested myself, and I’m a vet.”

Too old for Vietnam. “Korea?” asked Holly dubiously.

“No, a few years later. I knew a little German, so they sent me to Berlin. The Wall.”

“Then you weren’t in combat.”

“No.”

“And you were a protester?” She couldn’t keep the skepticism from her voice. Plenty of Viet vets protested their war. But someone older, someone stationed in Germany?

“Yes, I was.” Elbows on knees, he was leaning forward thoughtfully, looking past her toward something far away and sad. “There was this kid one night at the Wall. Just a teenager. Came scrambling toward us from the other side. They machine-gunned him. He lay there in the searchlights and bled to death. And we weren’t allowed to help. We just—watched. It was so pointless. And he wasn’t the only one. So damn pointless!” He leaned back, passed a chunky hand over his face, and murmured, “‘Did heaven look on, and would not take their part?’ It changes your thinking, you know. That kid’s never left me. I try not to think about him, but he’s there. So when people started marching to stop some other pointless shooting, I marched too.” He glanced at her, found her studying him intently, and shrugged. “Sorry. You don’t need all that. The short answer is no, I’ve never been arrested for demonstrating and neither has Maggie.”

“Okay.” She looked down at her notepad but found that the letters were blurry
.
Did heaven look on, and would not take their part
?
She riffled back through the pages blindly and remembered something. Gratefully, she changed the subject. “Oh. I didn’t ask you what you do.”

“I’m an actor.”

Oh, wonderful. All this case needed was an actor. Quoting stuff. Had he been putting her on after all? And asshole Schreiner practically blubbering over it. Holly was suddenly deeply weary. She wrote down “actor” and underlined it twice, slashing at the paper.

“You might have seen me in one of those AT&T commercials recently,” he said, then added uncertainly, “If you ever have time for TV.”

“Not often,” said Holly. “But I’ll watch for it.”

He shook his head. “Hardly worth watching for. But it helps pay the bills.”

“Yeah. Now, can you think of anything else that might help us, Mr. O’Connor?”

“Nothing more at the moment. But I’ll keep trying.”

“Thanks.” Holly looked at his friendly, homely face. Oh, hell, it was possible he’d really felt all that. Didn’t make any difference anyway, did it? She closed her notebook. “Let’s go next door.”

The night was fresh, not cold but far from the hot dark blanket of humid air she’d grown used to over the past ten days. As she and Nick O’Connor walked across the damp grass toward the lit windows of the Morgan house, Holly tried to get her thoughts into formation, reviewing the story these people had given her. Dale Colby, hardworking reporter, temporarily housebound, disturbing some people as he inquired into that plane crash. The lawyer’s widow, Mrs. Resler, asking him to be discreet. Wealthy Moffatt’s son charging into the newspaper office swearing at Colby. Two congressional aides. The congressman himself, certainly the most visible target, deciding at the last moment not to go. The pilot, Corky Lewis: not much on him from these folks, but Colby had been interviewing his sister Priscilla, quoting her in his story. Holly would check the newspaper tomorrow, talk to the editor. Edgerton, his name was. Also the other reporter that Olivia Kerr had mentioned, the one who had worked on early stages of the story Colby was following up.

And then there was the domestic front. A stunned widow, two unbelieving little girls. She hurt for those little girls. She’d seen too many children who’d lost parents, too many kids mangled and grieving. She hoped she wouldn’t have to talk to the kids long. But she’d have to talk to neat blonde stunned Donna Colby again, get a few more details about Colby’s life and last days. And get her view of the ex, for what it was worth. Felicia Colby had appeared opportunely, claiming she and her son had just driven down from Harrisburg, furious at Dale’s neglect of his son and then shocked into silence when she heard of his death. Maybe true. Holly had arranged to talk to her and the boy first thing tomorrow.

And the others, this batch of Dale’s friends that he hadn’t gone to the beach with after all. His colleague the reporter, a red-haired Brenda Starr parody, bubbling over with solemn eagerness to help, yet always with an eye out for a story. Her husband the doctor, lanky, observant, but claiming not to know the Colbys well. His sister, the take-charge Maggie, able to bear children, break down doors, flip over dead bodies, interrogate police detectives, and stop wars in a single bound. Pah. Holly faced another unpleasant follow-up interview there. And Maggie’s husband, the husky gentle vet beside her now. An actor. Jesus, wouldn’t you know it. Fact and fiction, the true and the counterfeit, slithering like mud through her grasping fingers.

So cool it, Schreiner. Why should it be any different this time?

At the Morgan house her little crowd of witnesses looked up at her as she entered. Maggie, sprawled in a recliner with her daughter asleep in her lap, regarded Holly and Nick with lively interest. Jerry sat in a ruffled side chair that was too small for his gangly frame. His wife, perched on the arm of the sofa, was in the midst of pinning up her red hair but paused to look at Holly eagerly. Donna Colby sat on the sofa between her daughters, the younger drowsing with her head in Donna’s lap, the older watching Holly with exhausted anxious eyes. Across the room through the dining-room arch, a plump woman with a friendly nervous smile sat at the table with two teenage boys. Holly crossed to her first. “Mrs. Morgan?”

The plump woman stood, wiping her hands on her skirt. “Yes?”

“I’m Detective Schreiner. Thanks for letting us use your house.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble, really. I want to help.”

Mrs. Morgan had told Higgins she and the boys had been out this afternoon, so they didn’t have to be interviewed right away. Holly turned to the others. “I’d like to thank all of you for your help tonight. As soon as you can, tomorrow if possible, please stop by the station and we’ll get a statement typed up for you to sign. I’ll be talking to several of you again too, so I’ll need to know where you’ll be tomorrow.”

“That’s easy,” said Olivia. “Our house.”

“The Colbys too?”

“Well, until you’re finished with their place.”

Holly was not pleased. Nick explained, “Donna’s other friends are out of town, and Jerry and Liv have more space than Betty here.”

“Of course, I’d be glad—” Betty Morgan faltered. “I mean, if you’d rather—”

Holly looked at the Colbys: Donna exhausted, bruised by events; the girls so young to be facing this. She’d seen kids face worse. But it seemed cruel to make them stay here next door while their familiar home was made ghastly by police barriers, lights, chatter. She sighed. These witnesses would talk among themselves anyway. People always did. “It’s all right,” she said. “We’ll try to be finished with the house as soon as possible. If any of you will be at work tomorrow, please give Officer Higgins your phone numbers so we can reach you if necessary. You can go on now.”

She watched them get up. Maggie gathered up her sleeping daughter tenderly as she stood. Nick murmured something to Donna Colby, then picked up Tina carefully. Olivia handed a business card to Higgins, then hurried to Donna’s side and helped her solicitously to her feet. Jerry too went to speak to Higgins, probably giving an office phone number. Maggie, cradling her daughter in her arms, said something encouraging to Josie, who was clinging to her mother’s side. They all shuffled out toward the front door.

Maggie paused in the arch and looked back. “Detective Schreiner?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll probably want to talk to Bo Morgan.”

Who the hell—oh, must be one of Betty Morgan’s sons. Holly looked back at the boys at the dining room table. One of them was studying her guardedly. He was maybe fourteen, stringy blond hair, gangly arms and legs, bad skin, an Incredible Hulk T-shirt. “You’re Bo Morgan?”

“Yeah.” He glanced at his mother and added, “I mean yessum.”

“And you have something to tell us?”

“Oh, it’s no big deal.” Bo wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s just, like I was listening to tapes in my room this afternoon.”

His mother bleated, “His door was closed! I thought he’d gone out with Randy and his friends! That’s why I told the other policeman no one was here! I just found out that—”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Morgan,” Holly soothed her. “Let’s hear what Bo has to say.”

The center of attention again, Bo writhed unhappily. “It’s just, well, like I looked out the window and saw this guy over at the Colby’s.”

“What kind of guy?”

“Oh—sort of average. Old guy.”

“Old as Officer Higgins? Older? Younger?”

“About the same. Thinner.”

Most of humanity was thinner than Higgins. She asked, “What time was this?”

“I wasn’t like watching a clock.”

“Well, maybe you can work it out by what you were hearing on the tape,” Maggie suggested.

She was still in the archway. Holly glared at her. “Ms. Ryan, isn’t it time you took your daughter home?”

But pleasure was dawning on Bo’s face. “Hey, yeah! I was listening to ‘Born to Run’ so that would make it—well, like three-thirty, about.”

Maggie flashed a wide smile at Holly. She shifted her sleeping child to one arm as she reached for the doorknob. “Goodnight. See you tomorrow, Detective Schreiner.” The door slammed behind her.

Holly unclenched her teeth and turned back to Bo. She found a new page in her notebook and asked, “About three-thirty, you said?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did the man do?”

“Just stood at the front door a minute. Then I guess someone answered cause he went in.”

“Did you see him come out?”

“Yeah. Maybe after—let’s see.” He screwed up his face, calculating song times, no doubt. “Twenty minutes later, about.’’

“What did he do?”

“Just walked to his car. Blue Ford, ’73.”

“Good. He didn’t seem agitated?”

“Nah. Just regular.” Bo rocked back in the dining chair. He was beginning to enjoy this.