Stone spoke up. “Were you present when Brixton Kendrick was interviewed?”
“Yes, I conducted the interview.”
“What were your impressions of him at that time?”
“Very broken up, understandably. I also inferred a heavy undercurrent of guilt, and in retrospect, I think that was because he caused her death.”
“When was his body discovered?” Stone asked.
“The morning after the murder,” Bach replied. “His daughter-in-law stopped by the house to deliver a birthday present to him-she had a key-and she discovered the body hanging in the living room. He had kicked over the ladder he used to tie the rope to the rafter.”
“Did you consider that it might not have been suicide?” Stone asked.
“We viewed his death as a homicide from the beginning of the investigation and determined it to be a suicide only after a thorough examination of the premises revealed no evidence of another person present at the time. Then there was the note, of course.”
“Note?” Stone said, surprised.
“It’s in the report you were given.”
Stone picked up the report from the coffee table and leafed through it. “Ah, here it is. I missed it the first time.”
“Read it to us,” Dino said.
“It’s handwritten, hurriedly, I would say: ‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death and for everything that’s happened. There is no life for me now, and my affairs are in order.’”
“That seemed to cover everything,” Bach said. “We closed the investigation two days after his body and the note were found.”
Stone read from the note again: “‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death and for everything that’s happened.’ He doesn’t say he killed her, and what does ‘everything that’s happened’ mean? What else happened?”
“My assumption is that he was referring to the events in his marriage that led up to the murder of his wife, and I disagree with your interpretation of ‘I take full responsibility for my wife’s death.’”
“I think your interpretation is a reasonable one,” Dino said.
Bach nodded. “I think that, coming from as well-educated and as articulate a man as Brixton Kendrick, ‘full responsibility’ means ‘full responsibility.’”
“I can’t mount a cogent argument against your view,” Stone admitted. “However, nobody we’ve talked to was aware of any events in the marriage that might have led to a murder/suicide. They’ve been pictured as the happiest and most well-adjusted of couples.”
“People of their social class do not easily share the details of their marriage with others, even their peers,” Bach said. “Perhaps especially not with their peers.”
Stone shrugged. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that nobody can ever understand what goes on in somebody else’s marriage.”
“Well said,” Bach replied. She glanced at her watch. “I’m due at a cocktail party at the British Embassy,” she said. “Would you gentlemen like to come along?”
“Love to,” said Dino, without hesitation.
“Thanks,” Stone said, “but I think I have a date with room service. You two have fun.”
Dino and Bach left, and Stone thought that neither of them seemed at all broken up about his staying home.
He c [siz andalled Holly.
10
Stone slowly brought Holly to a climax, and continued his ministrations until she stopped twitching, then he moved up a few inches and rested his cheek on her belly.
Holly’s breathing became normal. “I had forgotten how good you are at that,” she said, running her fingers through his hair.
“And I had forgotten how good a pillow you are,” Stone replied.
She pulled him up by his ears until his head rested between her breasts. “Have two,” she said.
“Gladly.”
“So what do you make of Dino’s running off with Shelley Bach?” Holly asked. “The word is that she and her boss, Kerry Smith, have been an item since before the last presidential election. Do you know their story?”
“Nope,” Stone sighed.
“They were assigned to find out if Martin Stanton, whom Will Lee had picked as his vice presidential candidate, was actually born in the United States.”
“I remember something about that, but I’m not sure what.”
“They determined that his mother, who was Mexican, gave birth to him in an ambulance shortly after they crossed the border, on the way to a maternity hospital in San Diego.”
“But he had an American father, didn’t he? Would it have mattered on which side of the border he was born?”
“I have no idea,” Holly said, “but you can be sure the Republican right wing would have had a field day with it.”
“I suppose so.”
“Where did you say Dino went with Bach?”
“To a cocktail party at the British Embassy. Why, do you miss them?”
She slapped him lightly on the cheek that was not pressed to her breast. “Don’t be a smart-ass.”
“Listen,” Stone said.
“Listen to what?”
“I think I heard the front door open.”
“And I think I heard Dino’s door close,” Holly said, giggling. “Who knew Dino was such a swordsman?”
“Dino does all right with the ladies,” Stone said.
“Is this going to make for an embarrassing breakfast meeting?” she asked.
“It won’t embarrass me.”
“It might embarrass Shelley, to see me here.”
“So, let’s embarrass her.”
“Where do you stand on your investigation?” Holly asked, changing the subject.
“Oh, you want to talk dirty now, do you?”
She slapped his cheek again. “Just give me your opinion.”
“Well,” Stone said, “we haven’t been able to prove that Brixton Kendrick didn’t murder his wife, and, I must say, it was very unhelpful of him to leave a note taking responsibility for her death. Somehow, you didn’t mention that.”
“It was in the report I gave you.”
“Yes, I finally found it, afte ^siz a="1em"r I had been told it was there.”
“Don’t blame me.”
“Why not? I’m certainly not going to blame myself.”
“I didn’t expect you to,” she laughed.
“Somehow, I don’t necessarily equate his taking full responsibility with a confession of murder.”
“The FBI does,” Holly said.
“Shelley mentioned that,” Stone said. “Of course, the FBI wants desperately for it to be true, because that way they don’t have to find a murderer.”
“Have you got a candidate for that title?”
“Well, I don’t believe it was the president, the vice president, or the secretary of state-or either of the secretary’s associates,” Stone said.
“That’s very patriotic of you.”
“Each of them has the others for an alibi, and that’s tough to shake.”
“You have a point,” Holly said.
Stone crawled up the bed and rested his head on the pillow next to Holly’s. “Dino found the murder weapon, though.” He told her about the brick. “We’ll get the lab report in the morning, so I guess we can hope the murderer spat or bled or sweated on it.”
“That would certainly simplify things, wouldn’t it?” Holly said.
“Yes, but life is rarely that simple, and murder, even more rarely.”
“Can I quote you on that? Or are you stealing from Sherlock Holmes?”
“That was entirely original,” Stone said, “or at least, I can’t remember anybody else ever saying that, and I haven’t read Sherlock Holmes since about the eighth grade.”
Holly didn’t reply, and her breathing had become slow.
Stone’s breathing followed hers, and shortly, he was asleep, too.
Stone and Holly appeared for breakfast in robes and found Dino and Shelley, in robes, already attacking their meal.
“We ordered for you, too,” Dino said.
“Good morning, Holly,” Shelley said, without apparent embarrassment.
“Good morning, Shelley, Dino,” Holly replied, shaking out her napkin and pouring herself and Stone some orange juice. “I hear your conclusions in the investigation are holding up.”
Shelley nodded. “I expected them to, thank you.”