“If I knew that, we could probably all go home.”
“And the motive for killing Sally?”
“She knew more than she told anyone, including you. She said she was Junior’s alibi. Well, we only have her word for that, because she only came forward after Junior was dead. He can’t corroborate it. Now, suppose she wasn’t with him the night of the burglary? Suppose she was helping someone break in the mansion or doing it herself?”
“If so, why would she come forward with the story about being with Junior?” asked Williams.
King answered, “Because that gives her an alibi for the burglary.”
“Exactly,” said Bailey, glaring triumphantly at Williams.
“That’s actually not a bad theory, Chip,” said King.
“Thanks. I have my moments.” He climbed in his car and drove off.
Chapter 73
Eddie finally started to come to around three o’clock that afternoon.
Williams, Bailey, King and Michelle had gathered in his hospital room. He looked up at them from his bed, all pale, twitchy and disheveled. Remmy sat next to her son, holding his hand in a firm grip and rubbing his forehead with a wet cloth. “God, Eddie, don’t you scare me like that again.”
“It wasn’t exactly my idea,” he said in a very tired voice.
“What do you remember about last night?” asked King.
“Dorothea and I had dinner, where we talked about, you know, recent events. I’d been at the lawyer’s for a while before that.”
“Why didn’t she go with you to see the attorney?” asked Michelle sharply.
“I wanted her to but she didn’t want to go. As crazy as it sounds, I think she believes if she ignores all of this, it’ll go away. Anyway, after dinner I went to my studio, to clear my head of all this stuff.” He glanced sideways at Michelle before continuing. “Around midnight or so I came in and went upstairs to bed. Dorothea was still awake. She was actually very awake, if you know what I mean,” he added, obviously embarrassed.
Remmy snorted. “Unbelievable to me under the circumstances, but I gave up trying to understand your wife years ago.”
“It was as much me as her, okay?” he said harshly to his mother. His gaze, however, remained on Michelle. “I guess it was sort of a circle-the-wagon mentality. But I admit the timing was strange.”
“What happened after that?” prompted King.
“I went to sleep. I mean, I guess I really went to sleep. The next thing I know I wake up and I’m in the hospital. What the hell was it?”
“The docs said morphine sulfate, also known as MS Contin,” answered Williams. “Guaranteed to knock you out for eight, nine hours or longer.”
“But why?” asked Eddie. “What was accomplished by that?”
King looked at Williams. “You haven’t told him?”
“Told me what?” demanded Eddie.
Williams looked down at him. “Sally Wainwright was murdered around five-thirty this morning.”
Eddie sat up so fast he almost pulled out his IV line. “What!” he yelled. “Sally?”
“Eddie!” cried out his mother as she pushed him back down. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
Eddie suddenly got a wild look and shot up again. “My God! Dorothea! Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” said Williams quickly. “Absolutely fine.”
“For now,” muttered Bailey.
Eddie sank back down but clutched his mother’s arm. “Somebody killed Sally in her sleep?”
King said, “No, she was killed in the stable.”
“But why Sally?” Eddie demanded.
Williams looked at King, who said, “She’d come forward with important information that ruled out Junior’s having committed the burglary at your mother’s home.”
Now Remmy looked surprised. “I’d already figured he hadn’t done it, but how could Sally possibly have proof of that?”
“She did, and we’re going to leave it at that for now,” said Williams.
“Did what she tell you implicate someone else?” asked Eddie.
“No,” admitted King.
“Then why kill her?”
“I don’t have the answer to that. I don’t have the answer to a lot of things.”
Bailey spoke up. “But what we do know, Eddie, is that you were drugged last night, and while you were out, someone killed Sally. Someone who knew her routine and that she’d be in the stables at that hour of the morning.”
Everyone remained silent for an uncomfortably long moment until Eddie exclaimed, “Are you suggesting that my wife—”
Bailey broke in. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just stating a plain fact. But Dorothea has come under suspicion.”
Eddie shook his head. “She’s a respected businesswoman.”
“With a drug problem, and possibly a murder suspect,” pointed out Remmy in a sharp tone.
“Shut up, Mother!” yelled Eddie.
This caught all of them off guard. Remmy slowly let go of her son’s hand.
Eddie pointed his finger accusingly at Bailey. “If you think for one minute that Dorothea drugged me and then killed Sally, you’re wasting everyone’s time while the real killer is getting away.”
“It’s our duty to investigate all possible leads,” said Bailey calmly.
“Including ludicrous ones?”
“You better get some rest, Eddie,” said King gently. “You’ve had a hard night.”
“Fine, I’d really like to be alone right now anyway.”
Eddie looked away from them all, his forearm over his face.
Remmy rose and headed to the door. “I’ll come and check on you later, son.”
“Whatever,” he answered curtly.
Remmy went to the door, then turned to Williams. “You know, it seems to me that we’re no further along than we were on day one. A lot of people killed and no progress.” She shot Bailey a vicious look. “And that includes the illustrious FBI. Makes me wonder what the hell I pay taxes for.” She left the room.
The men followed her out.
Michelle paused at the door and glanced back at Eddie. He still lay there, his face covered. She quietly left.
Chapter 74
Two days passed with no sign of Roger Canney despite Chip Bailey and Chief Williams having put in place an area lockdown.
“It’s like he popped into a damn hole somewhere,” complained the frustrated FBI agent at one meeting of the investigative team.
With eight murders in total now and the attempted killings of King and Michelle, Wrightsburg was overflowing with law enforcement folks fighting over turf, evidence and the proper way to satiate the horde of media that had invaded the town. Hardly a citizen had not been interviewed by a reporter from some organization. One could not watch the national news or read the Washington Post, New York Times, or USA Today without seeing a story about the Wrightsburg slayings. Pundit after pundit proposed one solution after another, most having nothing to do with the actual facts of the case. People were putting their homes on the market at an alarming clip, business was down across the board; it didn’t seem too far-fetched to think the town might cease to exist if the killer or killers weren’t soon found. Business and political leaders were, not surprisingly, calling for Chief Williams’s head, along with his top—if recently appointed—deputies, King and Maxwell. Bailey too was feeling the heat from his superiors, but he went about his business, methodically running down any lead that looked promising, though most petered out.
Eddie was released from the hospital about the time Sylvia completed the autopsy on Sally; not that the cause of her death had ever been in doubt. No new leads had materialized, but at least no one else had died either.