A little later, a uniformed officer leaned his head in the door and said, “They want you out there, Detective Harriman.”
Frank glanced at Pete, then they left together.
Frank was back a few minutes later. He beckoned me away from Ben. In a low voice, he said, “Call John and tell him you aren’t coming in.”
“What?”
“Tell him you aren’t coming into work.”
“Why should I? Do you know how hard it was for me to get the few hours I do have?”
“Tell her,” Pete said, walking up to us. “She’s too damned stubborn for her own good.”
Frank glanced over at Ben, then said, “Parrish left a note for you.”
I felt my stomach clench, and my heart began to hammer against my ribs, as if it wanted somebody to let it out. But I looked at Pete’s smug face, and suddenly my heart slowed. “Really?” I said. “What did it say?”
Frank’s brows drew together. “Irene—”
“What did it say?”
He held out a plastic bag. There was another plastic bag within it; on this one, my name had been neatly written in black felt pen. Within it, a sheet of lined yellow paper from a legal pad contained a short message, written in very precisely printed letters:
No more presents, no more escapes.
You can’t hide from me, Irene.
You can’t go beyond my reach.
Next time, you’re the one who gets iced,
much more slowly than dear Camille.
And Camilles are notorious for dying slowly—
ha! ha! ha!
Please tell Ben Sheridan that I enjoyed her immensely.
He had signed it with a flourish.
“Nothing anonymous about this one, is there?” I said, not as steadily as before.
“He left it under the body,” Pete said. “Don’t be an idiot, Irene. Stay home.”
I glanced up at him.
Frank saw, a little too late, what was inspiring me.
“Irene—” he began.
“It doesn’t change anything. I am going to work, Frank.”
He started to argue, but I motioned toward Ben and said in a low voice, “For God’s sake, we have until ten o’clock tonight to settle this. Let’s not make it any worse for Ben by having a fight in here.”
“Okay,” he said, “okay. But we will talk about this!”
We were interrupted when Frank and Pete were called back out of the room. I could see Frank giving Pete hell as they went to meet the other detectives.
If Parrish’s note left any doubts, before long, few people questioned the identity of the body. Signs of a forcible entry through a rear bedroom window were found at Camille’s home; through that window, police saw overturned furniture and other indications of a struggle. Once inside, the officers also found a photo of Camille in a bathing suit; the photo showed the birthmark on her thigh.
While all of this was taking place, several of us tried to console Ben, but he barely acknowledged our presence. At a little after eight, the alarm on his watch went off. “Bingle,” he said suddenly. “I can’t leave him in that cage! I’ve got to go.”
“Let me go with you,” I said. “You’re not in any shape to drive.” Intentionally keeping any tone of challenge out of my voice, I turned to my husband and said, “Is that okay, Frank? I’ll wait with him back at the house. If Jo Robinson calls, she can reach us there.”
Frank frowned, but perhaps thinking he’d prove to me that he was going to be reasonable, too, gave in. “Okay, but I’m going to ask a unit to follow you — promise me you’ll let them keep you in sight. Parrish is obviously focusing on the two of you right now, and I don’t think it’s wise for you to be alone anywhere.”
No argument from me. There were certain givens, after all.
Bingle’s exuberance over seeing Ben again went a long way toward breaking the awful spell his owner had been under. Ben thanked the vet, paid the bill, and we were on our way. Except for an occasional attempt on Bingle’s part to ride in Ben’s lap, the drive back home was uneventful.
Jo Robinson had left a message, and when Ben called her back, he spent a long time talking to her while I went outside with the dogs and Cody. Cody lounged on my lap while Deke and Dunk, apparently fascinated with whatever scents Bingle’s coat had picked up from the vet’s office, gave the big shepherd a thorough sniffing over.
By the time Frank came back that afternoon, Ben was able to answer his questions fairly calmly. Ben had a few of his own.
“Has anyone called her parents?” he asked.
“We’ve got someone working on that.”
“Why hadn’t she been reported missing?”
“She seems to have been at loose ends lately,” Frank said, “and the truth is, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who had regular contact with her.”
“But she worked for an accounting firm—” Ben said.
“She left her job in June; apparently she’s been looking for a new one, because on her desk she had mail from several places where she had applied for work. She had been filling in applications and had copies of her résumé on her desk.”
“Since June?” he asked.
“Yes, we talked to her then.”
Ben looked away, frowning. “I had forgotten — you had the ridiculous suspicion that she had tried to rob my house and office.”
Frank didn’t allow himself to be baited.
After a moment Ben said, “Sorry. Of course you had to question her. And maybe I didn’t know her so well after all. I never thought she was thrilled with her work, but I’m surprised to hear she left the accounting firm.”
I remembered her visit to the hospital, and Ben’s final angry suggestion that she should be the one to think about finding another line of work. I wondered if that encounter had affected her more than any of us could have guessed. Having no desire to cause Ben further pain, I kept these thoughts to myself.
“People at her former office say she quit unexpectedly,” Frank said, “but she may have been planning to leave for some time. She seemed prepared to be out of work for a while. She still had quite a bit of money in her savings account.”
“She was good with money,” Ben said. “Not just frugal, but also good at choosing investments.”
“But her mail and newspapers—” I asked.
“The house has a mail slot,” Ben said. “The mail would just pile up inside the house. We liked that feature when we used to go camping or traveling. No need to file a hold with the post office.”
“Actually, we think Parrish did file one,” Frank said. “He seems to have forged her name on it.”
“But that still leaves the newspaper,” I said. “Or didn’t she subscribe?”
“Yes, she did,” Frank said. “But she stopped the paper.”
“Wait a minute — are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes, we checked with the Express. She canceled about a week ago.”
“What I mean is, are you sure she’s the one who stopped it?”
“What are you saying?” Ben asked.
“Do you know anyone who is looking for a job who stops taking the newspaper?” I asked. “They want to read the classifieds.”
“She has a point,” Ben said to Frank.
“Two possibilities,” I said. “One is that she called to stop the paper at just about the time she was killed, which is the kind of unbelievable coincidence that makes you wonder if she was being forced to make the call.”
“And the other?” Frank asked.
“Parrish called to stop the paper, to make sure no one started looking for her before he wanted her to be found.”
“Yes, I suppose that’s possible,” he said. “But it doesn’t get us any closer to catching Parrish.”