“But there wasn’t... there shouldn’t have been anybody here,” I stammered. “Mac left fifteen minutes ago. I was sure he would have taken everybody with him.”
“He had to set up some things early,” Renata said. “My husband and your sister did go along, but I wasn’t ready yet. You could have knocked, you know.”
“It’s this murder business and the robbery, I guess. It has me on edge. I’m sorry. I feel ridiculous.”
“You look it, too,” she said. “A baseball bat, yet!”
She laughed and I managed a smile. “It was the nearest weapon I could grab to defend myself.”
“Well, thanks for not using it on me. Are you going over to the colloquium or do you have more sleuthing to do?”
Both, actually. The colloquium is where I would see and interview the people on Mac’s list. Without telling Renata that, I offered to give her a lift in my seldom-used 1998 Volkswagen New Beetle, but she demurred.
“On a morning like this I’d just as soon walk,” she said. “It isn’t that far.”
True enough, so I decided to leave my bike at home and walk with her. It was still cooler outside than you’d expect from the brightness of the sun, but it was perfect for a brisk walk. The long-legged Renata, swinging her huge handbag, set a pace I had to work to keep up with.
“It’s hard to believe Hugh’s dead,” she said. “He was so lively.”
“Maybe too lively. He had quite a reputation for playing to win, no matter what the game.”
She nodded. “The reputation was well deserved. And what you must have heard about his success with the ladies - that was true, too.”
I let that pass. “Your husband and Matheson didn’t get along, did they?”
“Well, you saw them yesterday.”
“Yeah, and I’ve also heard stories.”
“Probably true.”
I shook my head and said I found it amazing that grown men could be so venomous over a shared hobby.
“There’s a little more to it than that,” Renata said.
“Meaning?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
I supposed she was right. Chalmers was on Mac’s list of people to suspect or at least interview, but Mac himself had provided the old man’s alibi for the period when Matheson was murdered.
But there were other members of the Anglo-Indian Club on that list, people Renata would know.
“Tell me about Molly Crocker,” I said.
“She’s one smart cookie, Jeff - plus ambitious, aggressive, and tough. She was especially tough on deadbeat dads when she was a prosecutor. Her fans call her Maximum Molly.”
“Are you one of her fans?”
“You could say that. I’m going to be the treasurer of her re-election campaign.”
Bias noted.
“What were her relations with Matheson?” I asked.
“I have no reason to think that she had any outside of the club, other than the fact that she’s female - which, come to think of it, is a pretty compelling reason. And I guess Hugh might have tried some cases in front of her. You ask a lot of question, Mr. Cody. Shades of Sherlock!”
“Now that hurts, Mrs. Chalmers. I’m not the Sherlockian here - you are.”
She shook her head. “Not me, my husband. Don’t get us confused. I have my own interests.”
“Music and art and things cultural, right?”
“That’s another question.”
“I have more. For instance, is Noah Queensbury for real?”
“His wife must think-”
“I mean about Sherlock Holmes,” I interrupted, impatient.
“He’s a gifted surgeon. I suspect that he works hard and plays hard. That Holmesmania stuff is his way of playing. He may act crazy, but I think it’s just an act.”
I paused at an intersection, waiting for a WALK light. Renata, seeing no cars coming our way, jaywalked. I scampered to keep up.
“Were any of your friends, or just people you know from the colloquium, late for the banquet last night?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I got held up fixing my hair into those ringlets I wore last night.”
We were within sight of Muckerheide Center now, the flat slabs of some architect’s tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright rising above the horizon before us.
“But your husband was there as early as the cocktail hour,” I pointed out. “Mac said so.”
“Sure. When I saw how long it was going to take to fix my hair, I told him to go on without me. He and Kate and Mac were all dressed, and they’re more social creatures than I am anyway. And even a husband and wife need a little personal space between them now and then, don’t you think?”
Personal space... it sounded like an echo of Lynda’s constant complaint that I was too clingy, too jealous, too bossy - and after a while, just too too. Maybe things between us never would have gone off the rails if I had lightened my touch a bit. Maybe that was still possible.
“I guess I’m not qualified to answer that one,” I said. “I mean, I’ve never been married.” Not that I was against the idea.
I glanced in her direction, trying not to look like a man looking at a woman. I’m sure I failed miserably. It was hard to get away from the fact that Renata Chalmers was a stunningly attractive and sensuous female married to a man about forty years older than she was. I’d have bet he felt no such craving for personal space.
Sunday, March 13
9:00
Breakfast (President’s Dining Room)
Field Bazaar
Session Four
10:00
“Dr. John H. Watson: Conductor of Light” - Dr. Noah Queensbury, BSI, Cincinnati
10:30
“Holmes on the Radio” - Bob Nakamora, Philadelphia
11:00
“Humor in the Canon” - Dr. Sebastian McCabe, BSI, Erin, Ohio
11:30
Sherlockian Auction - Bob Nakamora
12:00
Farewells and Thanks
Certificate of Participation
Chapter Twenty-Four - Bacon, Eggs, and Suspicion
I took my leave of Renata at the registration table outside the Hearth Room. She continued on to the President’s Dining Room, although we were too early for breakfast, while I lingered to talk with Popcorn.
My administrative assistant, four feet eleven inches of romantic imagination wrapped up in a grandmother of three, was still swept up in Love’s Savage Desire.
“Is this your first time through that book or are you re-reading the steamy parts?” I asked, as if I didn’t know the answer. In her opinion, I don’t put enough sex and violence in my books. She’s a widow.
Popcorn sighed and set down the paperback. “I saw Lynda earlier.” She wasn’t at church, then, at least not any more. “Are you two an item again?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but keep an eye on her Facebook status.”
Turning away from Popcorn’s blue cat’s eyes, I found myself looking at the coat rack next to the registration desk. There were only a couple of coats on it, and no hats at all. I strained to remember what it had looked like yesterday.
“Did you notice anybody taking a deerstalker off of that rack yesterday afternoon?” I asked Popcorn.
Anybody who had a thing like that at a program like this would most likely want to wear it all the time, like Queensbury, not warehouse it on a coat rack - unless maybe he was saving it up to wear as a sort of disguise during the commission of a murder.
But Popcorn shook her head. “I don’t think so. I couldn’t swear to it because I was taking money and handing out name tags when I wasn’t reading my book, but I don’t think so. Why, is there one missing?”