I’m always accusing Maxwell Cole of editorializing. Since he writes a newspaper column, I suppose he’s entitled to put his opinions right there in print for all to see. But the truth is, cops editorialize, too. Couched in the supposedly nonemotional declaration of fact and allegation that passes for cop-talk and cop-write, I recognized what the long-ago investigator had obviously concluded. A few terse but nevertheless disparaging remarks about Bill Woodruff’s wife, Belinda, revealed the investigator’s opinion that the missing man might well have had good reason to walk away from a shrewish, carping wife – walk away and simply disappear.
Unlike that original investigator, I saw Anne Corley’s troubled face leap toward me out of the telling words in the report: “strikingly beautiful.” That was Anne, all right – strikingly beautiful. And ultimately dangerous. Bill Woodruff must have thought he was about to get lucky and have himself a harmless little fling. I’m sure he had no idea he was dealing with the now-grown and incredibly vengeful little girl his official reports had once betrayed.
That much Anne had told me herself. Her written manuscript had alleged that her sister Patty hadn’t really died as a result of an accidental fall. She had been tortured and abused and finally savagely beaten. And both of Anne’s parents, along with her father’s cronies – the police chief and the local coroner – had conspired together to cover it up, just as Anita Rowland and Woodruff had concealed Anne’s role in her father’s supposed suicide.
It’s hard to be angry with someone who’s been dead for years. But I was. A riot of fury boiled up in my heart because Anne had done it to me again, damn her! She had left me a manuscript that, according to her, told me the whole truth. Clearly she had left out a few things – a few important things – and had suckered me one more time. And that brought me back to the central question I have about Anne Corley: Did she ever really love me, or did I just make it all up? Because, if she had loved me, wouldn’t she have told me everything?
There was a discreet tap on the door. I looked up from staring at a paper I was no longer seeing as Joanna Brady came into the room, once again closing the door behind her.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I assumed you knew, but I can see from your face – you had no idea.”
I shook my head. “It happened within weeks of her being released from the hospital, just prior to her marriage to Milton Corley,” I said. “How do you suppose she did it? How did she pull it off?”
Joanna shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said kindly. “But remember, we could both be wrong. We don’t have any actual proof. It might have been someone else.”
I wasn’t prepared to give either Anne or me that kind of break. “No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“Then you’re right,” Joanna said finally. “The real miscarriage of justice happened when they released her. And you were right about something else, too,” she added. “Look.”
She’d been holding something in her hand, but I had been too preoccupied to notice. Now she passed me a new set of phone logs. Putting on my reading glasses, I scanned through the listings. They included literally dozens of phone calls from Francine Connors’s cell phone to Winnetka, Illinois. Some I recognized as going to Louis Maddern’s office number, while a few of the others went to his residence. Most of them, however, had been placed to a third number I didn’t recognize.
“Maddern’s cell phone?” I asked.
Joanna nodded. “You’ve got it,” she said. “Frank just checked.”
The last call had been placed on Sunday night. Looking at the time, I realized it had been placed within minutes of my call to the Connors’s home. That one, lasting over an hour, originated from Francine’s cell phone. After that there was nothing.
I closed my eyes and tried to remember exactly what had gone on during that critical call. I was sure Francine Connors had answered the phone and had asked who was calling. Had I told her who I was? I couldn’t remember, but I wondered now if she had somehow stayed on the line and listened in on my conversation with her husband. I tried to recall exactly what Ross had said. The only thing that stuck in my head was that he had planned on calling in the FBI to track down the leak.
Bearing all that in mind, there could be no question about what I had to do next. “May I use this phone?” I asked, although I had already used it once without having asked for Sheriff Brady’s permission.
“Sure,” Joanna said. “Go right ahead. Do you want me to leave?”
“No,” I told her. “That’s not necessary.”
I searched through my wallet until I once again located the list of Ross Connors’s telephone numbers. By then I should have known them by heart, but I didn’t. I dialed his office number first.
“Attorney General Connors’s Office,” a crisp voice replied. “May I help you?”
“Mr. Connors, please.”
“I’m sorry, he’s not in. May I take a message?”
“No,” I said. “That’s all right.”
I dialed his cell-phone number. After ringing several times, the call went to voice mail. Hanging up, I tried the home number last. A woman answered. I wasn’t sure, but the voice didn’t sound like Francine Connors’s voice.
“Ross, please,” I said easily, hoping to pass for an acquaintance if not a friend.
“He’s not here,” the woman said, her voice quavering slightly. “He’s at the hospital. I’m Christine Connors, Ross’s mother. Is there a message?”
“Hospital?” I asked. “Has something happened to him? Is he ill?”
“Oh,” she said. “You must not have heard then. It’s not Ross. He’s fine. At least he’s okay. No, it’s Francine.”
“What about her?”
“She’s dead. She and Ross went to lunch together. He had a wonderful time, and he thought Francine did, too. But then, when she came home, and, without even changing her clothes, she went out in the backyard and just… just…” Christine Connors stifled a tiny sob. “The gardener was working out front. He heard the shot and came running. He called an ambulance and they took her to the hospital, but they couldn’t save her. I can’t imagine why she’d do such a thing. I just can’t.”
I was stunned. I remembered the sound of tinkling glassware in the background – the sounds of fine dining at a luncheon meeting. I hadn’t thought that Francine might be there, but she must have been. And from that and the call on Sunday night, she must have known the jig was up.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured into the phone. “I’m so very sorry.”
“Well, if you’ll leave your name, I’ll be sure to let Ross know you called.”
“No,” I told her. “Don’t bother. I’ll be in touch.”
When I put down the phone, Joanna Brady was staring at my face. “She’s gone, isn’t she?” she said.
IN NO MORE THAN TEN MINUTES, J.P. Beaumont looked as though he had aged ten years.
“Is there anything I can do?” Joanna asked.
Beaumont shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “No, wait. There is something. I’m going to need a ride. First I have to go to the hotel and check out. Then I need a lift as far as Tucson. My plane’s first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Come on,” Joanna said. “We’ll take my Civvie.”
Beaumont followed her through the building and out the office door without exchanging a word with anyone. Only when he was fastening the seat belt in Joanna’s Crown Victoria did he have second thoughts.
“That was rude,” he said. “I should go back in and tell Frank how much I appreciated his help.”