“Basically I’m after background. I take it you knew about Miz Adams’s relationship with Mister Worthington?”
“Knew about it? I introduced them.”
“Tell me about that.”
“Tom was a friend of my former husband’s. They’d known each other forever, fished together. About two years ago, I had an opening at the Lakes Gallery…I’m a paint er, landscapes, mainly. Tom was up skiing and came to the show. Darya was there, too. They hit it off, and the rest, as they say, is history.” Her dark eyes clouded. “A good history, until last week.”
“The relationship was harmonious, then?”
“Very. Darya never mentioned so much as a harsh word.”
“So she was open about it with you?”
“Of course. Why d’you ask?”
“I’ve heard she tried to keep it a secret.”
“From people who had no business knowing, yes. But not from me.”
“Was Tom planning to divorce his wife?”
“Eventually.”
“And Darya had no problem with the delay?”
Kathy Bledsoe smiled faintly. “If anything, she was in favor of waiting. Darya was very independent… she’d had to be, since her husband…a marine…was killed on a military training exercise when she was twenty-three. Darya loved Tom, but I sensed she was having trouble getting used to the idea of giving up some of that independence. The cabin was a sort of compromise for them, a place where they could give living together a trial run.”
“Have you ever been to the cabin?”
“Only once. The boutique was closed because some repairs were being done, and Darya wanted to go down to the cabin because she had an appointment with a plumber who was going to install a new hot-water heater. But she didn’t want to be there alone, so she asked me along. I had a good time.” Bledsoe’s eyes filled with tears. “God, it’s so damn’ unfair!”
I waited till she’d gotten herself under control, then asked: “Why didn’t she want to go alone? Because of the isolation?”
“No. Her house here is fairly isolated, and she’d never had a problem with that.” Bledsoe frowned. “Now that you mention it, I remember thinking it strange at the time. She seemed on edge the whole time we were there.”
Interesting. “Think about that weekend. Did anything unusual happen? Anyone drop by, or call, besides the plumber?”
She thought, shook her head.
“Did Miz Adams ever mention a man called Screamin’ Mike?”
“I’m sure I’d remember if she had.”
“Anyone else in the area?”
“No.”
“But you’re sure she was on edge that weekend.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Darya was afraid of something or someone down there.”
Tom Worthington was a handsome man. Even in the jail jumpsuit, his eyes shadowed and puffy from lack of sleep, his gray-frosted dark hair tousled, he would have turned female heads. We sat in a little visiting room, guard outside, and went over everything he’d told the sheriff’s people and Glenn Solomon. Then we went over it again. I found no inconsistencies.
“Mister Worthington,” I said, “were you and Miz Adams getting along at the time of her death?”
“Better than ever. That last weekend we spent together was…well, I’ll never forget it.”
“I understand you were planning to leave your wife, marry Miz Adams.”
“I had hoped to.”
“And the delay was because of your marital situation?”
He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin, nodded. “My wife…has her problems. I was trying to find a way to leave the marriage without exacerbating them.”
“She drinks.”
“…Yes. I’ve been trying to convince her to get help, so has our family doctor. Until she does…” He spread his hands.
“I understand. Is your wife the sort of person who becomes violent when she drinks?”
“Betsy? God no! She’s constantly sedated.”
“Perhaps she’s drinking to sublimate anger?”
“I don’t…oh, I see where you’re going. No, Miz McCone, Betsy didn’t find out about Darya and kill her. She hasn’t left the house, except when I’ve forced her to accompany me, in five years. And those occasions were not successful ones.”
“What about your children…did they know about your affair with Miz Adams?”
“Jeannie, my daughter, didn’t. She’s too caught up in her drugged-out little world. Kent did. He’s visited at the cabin, and he liked Darya. She had a calming effect on him.”
“I understand he has anger-management problems.”
“Yes. Anger toward his mother, primarily. But he’s working on them.”
“Mister Worthington, are you aware that Miz Adams was afraid of something or someone? And that it was connected with your cabin?”
“Darya? Afraid?”
I explained what Kathy Bledsoe had told me.
Worthington shook his head in a bewildered way. “Why didn’t she confide in me? Or in Jeb? If somebody’d been bothering her while she was down there, he would’ve taken care of them.”
“Jeb’s a good friend?”
“The best. He’d do anything for me. Or Darya.”
“He claims he was advising you on how to conserve your assets in the event of a divorce.”
Worthington had been grim-faced through most of our meeting, but now he smiled. “Jeb? He’s the one who needs advice when it comes to financial matters.”
“Why d’you say that?”
“Jeb nearly lost his shirt in a real-estate deal a couple of years ago. High risk, and I warned him not to get into it, but he wouldn’t listen. Now he’s got a big balloon payment coming due, and he can’t cover it. Jeb’s a sweet guy, but…” He spread his hands. “He introduced Darya and me, you know.”
“I thought Kathy Bledsoe did.”
“We deliberately gave her that impression. I went up to meet Darya at an opening at the Lakes Gallery…turned out Kathy was the artist. I was taken aback to see an old acquaintance, and find out she worked for Darya. Darya sensed my discomfort and played along when Kathy introduced us. But no, I met Darya about six months before that at Jeb’s house in Big Pine.”
“And how long had Jeb known her?”
“His whole life. Darya was his cousin.”
“No, Shar,” Mick said over the phone. “Jeb Barkley has no cousin. And neither does Darya Adams.”
“Are you sure?”
“My computer doesn’t lie.”
“Why not? Mine does, all the time.”
“That’s because you don’t use the right databases.”
That was probably true. I sighed.
“Shar? Anything else?”
“Yes. I need deep background on Jeb Barkley and Darya Adams. Specifically, if either has a criminal record.”
The scenario that came together in my mind as I drove back to Big Pine was a disturbing one. Jeb Barkley had no cousin; Darya Adams had none, either. But Tom Worthington was under the impression they were related.
Barkley had introduced Adams to him as his cousin. Why?
Wealthy man with an unhappy home life. Young, attractive single woman. Old friend who has lost money in a real-estate deal and has a large balloon payment coming up in a year and a half. He introduces the woman as his cousin. The wealthy man is induced to leave his wife for her. The woman then has a community-property stake in those assets…which she can share with her “cousin.”
Not cousins-partners in crime.
But something had gone wrong.
My phone buzzed. I pulled to the side of the road, picked up. Mick.
“Shar, I called Adah Joslyn at the SFPD.”
Adah, an inspector on the Homicide detail, and a good friend. “And?”
“She accessed Barkley’s and Adams’s criminal records for me. The two of them…Adams was Darya Dunn then, her maiden name before she married the marine…were arrested over in Nevada fifteen years ago on a bunko charge. Barkley did time. From what I’m reading between the lines, he took the rap for Adams.”