All my love,
I folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. I put the envelope and Michael’s letter back into the larger envelope. I picked up the snifter again, and sipped at the cognac. “Did Michael call her?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“When I got his letter—”
“When was that?”
“Saturday morning. I called my mother immediately. She told me she’d already spoken to Michael, and he’d said he wouldn’t do what she’d asked.”
“What did she plan to do next?”
“Take my father to court, what else could she do? I think you’re missing the point, Mr. Hope. The point is that Michael had already turned down my mother’s plea. Michael had already sided with Maureen and my father. Do you understand what I’m saying? He could not have committed those murders.”
“Perhaps not,” I said. “Have you spoken to your mother since that call Saturday morning?”
“No. I tried to reach her last night, from New York, but she was out. I was planning to call tonight, but the plane got in late, and I didn’t want to wake her. She’s normally in bed by nine, nine-thirty.”
“Then she doesn’t know you’re here in Calusa.”
“No, she doesn’t. I’ll call her first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Have you spoken to your father yet?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to,” Karin said, and shrugged almost childishly.
“Why not?”
“Because I think... well, never mind.”
“What is it you think, Miss Purchase?”
“Nothing.”
“I’d like to know.”
“Let me just give you the facts. You’re an attorney, you put the facts together, okay? Fact number one,” she said, ticking it off on the pinky of her left hand, “Dad has another woman. He’s only been married to Maureen for eight years, but he’s already playing around with another woman.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me all about her. When I saw him at Christmas.”
“He told you?”
“Don’t be so shocked. He had to tell someone, and I was available. I’m a very good listener. Especially with older men,” she said, and smiled. “Fact number two, he’s very serious about this woman, and was planning to leave Maureen for her. Fact number three,” she said, ticking it off on her middle finger, “my dear father doesn’t like paying alimony, as witness the recent cutting off of funds to my mother. If and when he left Maureen — excuse me, this is fact number four — he’d have been in court with two ex-wives at the same time, and might have ended up paying alimony to both of them, not to mention support money for the little girls. Those are the facts, Mr. Hope,” she said, holding up the four spread fingers. “Think about them.”
I thought about them. My mind soared with possibilities. Jamie wanted to be rid of Maureen, but he’d been burned before, his former wife had refused to negotiate with him for eighteen months, and had finally saddled him with an unbearable settlement agreement. He’d quit paying alimony to her in January, and he wasn’t ready to start negotiating with yet another woman he no longer loved. So he and Catherine in their cottage by the sea had mentioned murder, had dared to whisper murder against the whisper of the surf, murder, murder, and the idea had grown, had become justified, had finally become reasonable and inevitable. Last night, he left the poker game early. He went home to the house on Jacaranda to kill Maureen—
And his daughters?
No.
Impossible.
Simply and utterly impossible.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think so, Miss Purchase.”
“No? Then who’s Michael protecting?”
I did not venture the suggestion that Michael might very well be protecting his mother, Betty Purchase. I said only, “Perhaps no one. Perhaps he did kill them.”
“You read his letter,” Karin said.
“Yes.”
“And you can still think that?”
“I don’t know what to think,” I said, and looked at my watch.
“Another drink?” Karin said at once. “Shall I phone down?”
“No, thank you, I’ve got to be going,” I said, and put the letters in my pocket.
“Will you show those to the police?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t seem to have convinced you,” she said, and smiled tightly.
“Of what? Your brother’s innocence, or your father’s guilt?”
“You don’t know my father as well as I do. You don’t know how cruel he can be.”
“I don’t think he’s a murderer,” I said, and rose, and walked to the door.
“Once you’ve divorced a wife of fifteen years, anything else is easy,” Karin said.
“Not murder, Miss Purchase. Good night, I appreciate your—”
“Even murder.”
“Not killing your own daughters,” I said, and opened the door.
“Divorce is a kind of killing,” she said.
13
It was a quarter to one when I got back to the house. The lights in the study were on. Susan was sitting naked behind the desk. Her left hand was on the telephone. She said nothing as I stopped in the doorway and looked into the room.
“What is it?” I said.
A faint smile touched her mouth.
“Susan?”
“I just had a phone call,” she said.
“Who from?”
“A man named Gerald Hemmings.”
My throat went suddenly dry. In the beginning, Aggie and I had rehearsed this scene a thousand times. We knew exactly what to say in the event of a trap. Since we were both sworn to secrecy, confrontation could only be a trap. Whatever Susan or Gerald might say in accusation, we were to respond with a lie. But that was in the beginning. This was here and now. Last month, we’d agreed to tell them both; there was no need for denial now.
“Gerald Hemmings?” I said. “I don’t think I know him. What’d he want at this hour?”
“He wanted to talk to you. He talked to me instead.”
I said nothing. I waited. I knew this was not a trap. But it had to be a trap. But I knew it wasn’t. Had someone seen us? That woman on the beach this afternoon, the one collecting shells? Had she seen me going into the house? Had she recognized me? Had she called Gerald Hemmings to tell him? I waited. The silence lengthened. Susan kept staring at me.
“Well, I... who is this man?” I said. “I’ve never—”
“We met his wife at the theater.”
“His wife?”
“Agatha Hemmings.”
It was the first time her name had ever been mentioned in this house. It did not come as a surprise, but it exploded into the room nonetheless, shrapnel flying into every corner, Agatha Hemmings, ricocheting from the walls, Agatha Hemmings, maiming, blinding.
“I don’t remember her,” I said.
“Mr. Hemmings seems to think you’re having an affair with her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Agatha Hemmings. Her husband seems to think—”
“Yes, I heard you. But—”
“But of course it isn’t true.”
“Now come on, Susan. I don’t know who called you tonight, but—”
“Mr. Hemmings called me.”
“Or at least someone who said he was Mr. Hemmings.”
“Yes, someone who gave a very good imitation of Mr. Hemmings telling me you’ve been fucking his wife, yes.”