Murder in the Wings (18 page)

"God, Reeves was really into power," Donna said.

"Reeves knew Sylvia pretty well—knew that she was weak," Kerns said. "He may even have seduced her. There are times when Sylvia feels very lonely—sometimes even when she's surrounded by people she loves—and then she's very vulnerable to seduction. Much more so than most women."

"You're making a very strong case against her," I said.

He nodded glumly. "I know."

"If I was a police detective, I would call her in for questioning—at the very least. Especially if I knew about the incident with the knife when she was in her early twenties."

"You really
have
been looking into this."

I watched his face. "Do you think she killed him?"

"I'll repeat what I said before."

"Which is what?"

"That I think it's a possibility."

"There's at least one other possibility."

"What's that?"

"The way David Ashton has been so careful to cover for his wife."

"You think David Ashton did it?"

"That's another possibility. But I think there's an even better one," I told him.

"You've lost me."

"What if he knew that it was his daughter and not his wife who killed Reeves? By being so protective of his wife, he makes her appear all the guiltier. He might be thinking that Sylvia could get off with an insanity plea. But Evelyn—well, she's mentally sound, and she is his daughter."

Something tightened his eyes, and he looked for a moment as if he were going to tell me something terrible. But all he said was, "As you say, there are a lot of possibilities."

I studied him. Something I'd said had troubled him. But what? He stood up. "I'm afraid I've got to get back to Evelyn. She needs calming down."

Donna frowned at me. She must have noticed Dr. Kern's sudden strange attitude, too.

He held out a hand and we shook. He contrived a smile. "Now I know why people pay to see psychiatrists. Just by talking this through, I feel better." But he sure didn't look better or sound better.

Marsha appeared as if by magic and showed us to the door. She hadn't wiped the chocolate smidgen off her mouth. I'd expected more from a girl like her.

"W
hat a way to spend your birthday," Donna said an hour later.

"What?" I'd alternated my time between reading the sports page (the Cubs had lost again) and looking at the playbills we'd taken from the cabin, the one featuring Stephen Wade, Sylvia Bridges Ashton, and David Ashton, the other featuring Ashton alone.

We were sitting in Denny's. We'd just finished the breakfast of eggs and hash browns that Donna liked so much. There was a drunk guy sitting at the counter. I was going to feel a little safer when he got back on the road.

"I was just thinking of Evelyn," Donna said. "Today is her birthday. I mean, given everything that's going on, what a lousy birthday."

"Yeah."

"You look like you're trying to levitate those playbills," she said.

I smiled. "Yeah."

"Why do you keep staring at them?"

"I suppose because I'm trying to learn something."

"What?"

"I don't know."

She raised one eyebrow—she knows how to do such
things. "You wouldn't be holding out on me, would
you, Dwyer?"

"I wish I was."

"You look sort of cute, with your hair all frizzy from
the rain, I mean."

"Thanks."

"Hold that thought. I'll be right back." She leaned
across to whisper to me. "I'm down to my last Tampax.
We'll have to stop at a Seven-Eleven."

"Hell, we'll just go to your place."

"If we do, we'll be tempted to sleep, and I can tell from the way you're acting that you don't want to
sleep."

"No, I guess I don't."

"What're we going to do, then?"

"See what Evelyn is up to now."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

E
velyn's car wasn't in back of the theater, so we drove over by the halfway house. Traffic was thinning. The rain had become a fine mist. Evelyn's car was parked in front of the halfway house, and Evelyn and Keech were sitting in it. We went down the street and parked at the far end where we could see Evelyn but she wouldn't notice us.

"He was a spooky guy, when you think of it," Donna said as we sat there.

"Who?"

"Michael Reeves."

"Yeah, he was."

"He even got to Sylvia Ashton. You would think he would have been scared of pushing her over the edge."

"He thought he was on to something."

"Like what?"

"I'm not sure. But I don't think he would have toyed with Sylvia unless he thought he could get something very specific and useful from her."

For a time we said nothing. We sat and watched the black trees shine with rain.

There was a moment of light as Keech opened the car door and got out. He waved good-bye to Evelyn and went inside the halfway house. Evelyn pulled away. I waited half a minute and went after her.

"You have any idea where she's going?"

"No," I said.

"Good," Donna said, "it's more fun that way."

Five minutes later Evelyn pulled up next to a car phone stand. She dropped in her coins, waited for a response, and then began to talk in very animated
style. At one point she made a fist and banged the side of her car. Then she calmed down and kept on talking; something seemed to have been resolved. We sat half a block away, in the parking lot of a closed Hardee's, watching. Then she hung up and pulled away, and we went after her.

She led us through the downtown section, along the river where the most interesting part of the city, the old brick buildings of the original settlement, had given way to tall office buildings that stood half-empty thanks to poor planning.

At first I had no idea where she was going, but then she started hanging sharp lefts and sharp rights, and gradually I realized that she was taking a circuitous route back to the theater.

The place was dark and looked almost as if it had been shuttered permanently. Rain made the surface of the parking lot gleam. Evelyn pulled around the corner of the rear entrance and sat there. That surprised me—I had expected her to park and go upstairs. She lived here.

"Maybe she's going someplace else," Donna said.

I shrugged. "Hell, I don't know what's going on."

We sat there five more minutes. The jazz station was doing a mini-Brubeck concert. I hadn't heard Brubeck in years. It was like rediscovering Marc Chagall.

A figure in a dark coat ran from the shadows of the theater to Evelyn's car and got in very quickly. Then we were off again.

"Who was it?"

"I'm not sure," I said.

Ten minutes later I knew where we were going. The city street gave way to a two-lane highway. All I could see were brown cornfields flashing in the glare of my headlights.

Evelyn and her passenger were headed for the country, and probably to the cabin where we'd been the day before.

T
he wind was whipping the trees to the breaking point. Large branches had been ripped out and hurled onto the pavement leading to the cabin road. Half a mile before the entrance to the road I'd cut the headlights so that Evelyn would think the car behind her had turned off.

"Boy," Donna said, "this is really eerie." And it was. The wind was rocking the car and the branches
snapped like bones beneath our wheels. The radio was off so I could concentrate better. For light there was just the green glow of the dash instruments. Donna sat on the edge of her seat, harnessed in her safety belt and gripping the dashboard. In my police days I used to have a partner who rode just like that when we ran the siren.

"We're going to have to walk from here," I said.

"Are you serious?"

"Of course."

We were down the cabin road, but not close to the house. We couldn't afford to get close—they'd see us for sure.

"Boy," Donna said. But she got out anyway.

The walk took ten minutes. We got so wet so fast we didn't care anymore. Donna sneezed once and said, "God, I hope I don't get a cold and have my period at the same time."

Believe me, I devoutly wished the same thing. Colds made her crabby all by themselves. With her period in the bargain . . .

Once she stumbled off the road. "Ick," she said, pulling her foot from oozing mud. But beyond that she didn't say anything else. She just got back on the road and trooped right along next to me. She did favor her muddy foot a bit. Like an injury.

We came up on the west side of the cabin. Downstairs, the windows were yellow rectangles in the murk. We climbed up next to one of the windows and looked inside.

The woman in the dark coat stood in the middle of the living room as if she were lost. Her coat dripped rain. Her eyes stared fixedly at something I couldn't make out. She made no effort to remove her coat.

"Sylvia," Donna whispered. "Why would Evelyn bring her out here?"

I shook my head. I had an idea but I didn't want to say.

A minute later Evelyn appeared in the middle of the living room. She took her mother's coat, hung it up in a closet, and led her mother over to a divan next to the fireplace. Sylvia sat down, moving mechanically, like a zombie. I thought of the drugs David Ashton had given her earlier.

"Boy," Donna said, "this just gets weirder and weirder."

Evelyn disappeared again.

We stood silently in the whipping wind and soaking rain. The air smelled of damp wood and fetid vegetation from last winter.

This time when Evelyn reappeared she bore a tea kettle and two delicate little cups. She poured hot tea and handed one cup gently to her mother.

"I wonder if she'd sell us some," Donna whispered.

After Evelyn got a fire going, her blonde hair glowing beautifully in the flames from the crumpled newspaper, she went back to the divan and sat down right next to her mother. They said nothing. They just stared straight ahead into the fire. They might have been strangers seated next to each other on a bus.

Finally, Evelyn spoke.

"Damn," I said. I pushed myself as close as I could to the window. I even pushed my ear against the cold pane of glass. But I couldn't hear her. All I could do was watch.

At first Evelyn carried on a one-sided conversation. She spoke emotionally, setting her teacup down and using her hands to gesticulate dramatically, but Sylvia just sat there without responding. She wore a prim
white blouse and designer jeans. Her tousled black hair gave her the aspect of a mad and aging princess. If she heard her blonde daughter, she gave no sign.

Then Evelyn slapped her. A single sharp slap. Her mother's head jerked back. She spilled her tea on her lap. She put her hands to her face and began sobbing. Evelyn stood over her. She was shrieking. For the first time, I could hear her. "Mother, you have to remember what happened that night. They're going to blame you for Michael's murder!"

But I could see that her mother scarcely understood Evelyn's words and probably didn't even know where she was.

Then the violent moment subsided. Evelyn went over and knelt at her beautiful mother's knees. She put her head against Sylvia's legs. Absently, Sylvia began to stroke her daughter's hair.

"Actually, that would make a really sweet photograph," Donna whispered. "It'd make a nice birthday present. They seem to be a family that really needs to be together. Remember what Stephen told us about how David used to be on the road and how it upset Sylvia so much?"

"Yeah," I said.

"Chad used to do that to me."

We were standing out in a bitter night and she was going to make it even more bitter by talking about her ex-husband. "I sorta did the same thing, too. He had this friend named Jay. We used to go out to dinner a lot when Chad was out of town. Until Jay made a pass at me. I never told Chad, though. He would have killed both of us."

"Why would he kill you if Jay was the one who made the pass?"

"That's just the way Chad is."

One more reason to like Chad.

And then I thought of something—or at least I started to think of something. There was a date on the playbill about David Ashton's road tour. I thought of the date, and then about Evelyn's birthday being today, and about how long Stephen said David's road trips used to be—

And then I didn't think of anything at all. Because all I had time to do, in response to the sound of snapping in the undergrowth behind me, was turn and see the stock of a Browning hunting rifle come smashing into my face.

Donna screamed, or at least I think she did, and that was all I remembered.