“What about her relationship with Angus?”
“They seemed close enough, at least on the surface. In the community, Hilda was better liked than Angus. She didn’t antagonize people the way he did. Although . . .” Morgan slowed his pace, then stopped. “At least one person had a problem with her. Or with her church.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told you Billy Tate was killed in an accident the night before Angus’s murder—which is why his fingerprints being at the crime scene is so problematic. I didn’t go into the details of his death, because they didn’t seem relevant. He couldn’t have killed Russell. Dead is dead. End of story. But the fact is, the accident that killed Billy Tate occurred at Hilda’s church. On the roof.” He paused. “Tate, as you may have gathered by now, was a bit of a lunatic. A wild child who got wilder as an adult. He was on the roof of St. Giles, spray-painting graffiti on the steeple, with a thunderstorm blowing in. He was struck by lightning, knocked off the roof, fell a good twenty-five feet onto a hard gravel path. Stone-cold dead.”
“This was witnessed by someone?”
“Two patrol officers, a dog-walking couple, Brad Slovak, and yours truly. In fact, we have it all on a phone video, taken by one of the dog walkers. I’ll show it to you back at headquarters—after we talk to Helen Stone.”
9
As they were heading to the carriage house, Slovak approached them. He didn’t look happy.
“Sir,” he said, giving Gurney a crisp nod, then speaking mainly to Morgan. “Martinez and I just finished interviewing the three gardeners. Bottom line, they didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, don’t know anything. I showed each of them our file photo of Tate, asked if they’d ever seen him here, or anywhere near here. All said no.”
Morgan was chewing on the inside of his lower lip. “Talk to Tate’s parole officer, find out if he was making his weekly appointments, if there was anything about him that—”
“Excuse me, sir, I already did that. Tate’s parole period concluded a month ago. The PO told me he came close a couple of times to violating Tate for erratic behavior. But he kept his appointments and didn’t get too far over the line. The PO said he’d heard about the accident. The craziness of Tate being up on that roof in a thunderstorm didn’t surprise him.”
Morgan checked his watch. “This would be a good time to follow up with the guys doing the door-to-doors, see if they’ve discovered anything.”
“Make sure they’re checking for any exterior security cameras,” added Gurney.
“Yes, sir.” With a parting nod, Slovak strode off toward the row of police vehicles under the front portico.
“Well,” said Morgan. “It would be nice if Tate’s print ID is a simple algorithm screwup. If it’s not that, I don’t know what the hell it is. You have any ideas?”
“I’m thinking an algorithm screwup wouldn’t work that way. Let’s say those prints belong to Person X, and the system parameters are set in a way that the prints are mistakenly identified as belonging to someone other than Person X. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that the person the algorithm mistakenly settled on would just happen to be a local resident with a history of conflict with the victim?”
Morgan looked pained. “Okay, but if the prints are Tate’s, where does that leave us? There’s no way around the fact that Tate died at least twenty-four hours before Angus was murdered.”
As Morgan’s voice was rising, he was looking helplessly at Gurney—whose reaction to agitation in others was a countervailing calmness.
Gurney shrugged. “I believe Helen Stone is waiting for us.”
The side of the carriage house, like the cottage, was covered with bright green ivy. An entry door led to a staircase that rose to a small landing and a second door.
The door was opened by a gray-haired, square-jawed woman in a sweatshirt and jeans. Her combative gaze seemed to convey great confidence in her own convictions.
Morgan spoke first. “How are you doing, Helen?”
She stared at him. “Never better.”
“I guess that was a stupid question. Can we come in?”
“If you don’t mind standing. The chairs are being used.”
She stood back out of the doorway, and they stepped into an entry foyer. Straight ahead was a large living room with stacked boxes everywhere and piles of clothing on the chairs and sofa. A window as wide as the room looked out on the lawn and woods.
“This is Dave Gurney,” said Morgan, “a homicide detective I worked with in the city.”
She looked at him without interest, then back at Morgan. “What can I do for you?”
He eyed the boxes in the living room. “Are you going somewhere?”
“With Angus gone, I have no desire to stay here.”
“You don’t get along with Lorinda?”
“You could say that.”
“What’s the problem?”
“I’m not going to talk about her. I don’t want her name in my mouth. I worked here as long as I did because Angus wanted me to. He’s gone, so I’m going.”
“Where to?”
“My sister in Richmond.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. I’d leave now if I could get a flight.”
Morgan shot a glance at Gurney, who saw it as a request for assistance.
He smiled at Stone. “You’ve made me curious. What’s the single worst thing you can tell me about the relationship between Angus and Lorinda?”
He could tell that she was thinking about it. That “single worst thing” approach usually worked.
“The worst thing was his inability to see her for what she was. He was brilliant, the smartest man I ever met, except when it came to her. With her, he was a drug addict. In total denial. He treated her like a queen, for God’s sake.”
“It must have been difficult for you, working here under those conditions.”
“Life is difficult. Some can handle it, some can’t.”
A movement behind her in the living room caught Gurney’s attention. Perched atop a china cabinet was a black cat with gleaming yellow eyes, like the one he’d seen watching him from a window in the main house.
He pointed. “Is that yours?”
She looked back over her shoulder. Her voice softened. “That’s Prince. Short for Prince of Darkness. He follows me everywhere.”
“Interesting name for a cat.”
“Appropriate,” she said, then added, looking at Morgan, “Was there anything else?”
He blinked, as if his mind had been elsewhere. “I was wondering if anything occurred to you since yesterday.”
“I went over everything with your detective.”
Morgan seemed about to ask another question when he was stopped by a sharp rapping.
Stone stepped around him and pulled the door open. “Yes?”
It was Kyra Barstow. She looked past Stone at Morgan. “Sir, we need to talk.”
He excused himself and went out onto the landing, closing the door behind him.
Stone stared impatiently at Gurney.
“Tell me something,” he said. “You knew Angus pretty well, right?”
“Probably better than anyone.”
“So you probably have a better idea than anyone who his enemies were.”
“That Slivovak person asked me to make a list. I told him he should go make a copy of the county phone book.”
“Angus generated that much animosity?”
“He was a strong, determined man. He lived by a code that’s gone out of style. Old Testament morality. Eye for an eye. Our so-called ‘society’ has gotten away from that, and we’re paying the price. Angus didn’t suffer fools gladly. He spoke his mind. The plain truth. People don’t like the truth.”