“When we know that, we’ll know everything,” the cat said in a low voice.
25
The coroner’s conclusions, neatly typed, rested on Rick Shaw’s desk. The deceased was a white male in his early thirties. Identity remained unknown but what was known was that this fellow, who should have been in the prime of life, was suffering from malnutrition and liver damage. Larry Johnson, meticulous in the performance of his duties, added in his bold vertical handwriting that while alcohol abuse might have contributed to the liver damage, the organ could have been diseased for reasons other than alcohol abuse. Then, too, certain medications taken over many years could also have caused liver damage.
Cooper charged into the office. She tossed more paperwork onto the sheriff’s desk. “More reports from Saturday night.”
Rick grunted and shoved them aside. “You haven’t said anything about the coroner’s report.”
“Died of a blow to the head. A child can kill someone with a blow to the head if it’s done right. We’re still in the dark.”
“What about a revenge motive?”
She was tired of kicking around ideas. Dead ends frustrated her. The fax machine hummed. She walked over to it almost absentmindedly. “Boss, come over here.”
Rick joined her and watched as the pages slowly rolled out of the machine. It was Blair Bainbridge’s record.
He had been a suspect in the murder of his lover, an actress. However, he wasn’t a suspect for long. The killer, an obsessed fan, was picked up by the police and confessed. The eerie thing was that the beautiful woman’s corpse had been dismembered.
“Shit,” was Cynthia’s response.
“Let’s go,” was Rick’s.
26
Heavy work gloves protected his hands as Blair righted tombstones, replaced the sod, and rolled it flat. The trees, now barren, surrounded the little cemetery like mournful sentinels. He stopped his labors when he saw the squad car roll down the driveway. He swung open the iron gate and headed down the hill to meet them.
A cool breeze eased off Yellow Mountain. Blair asked Rick Shaw and Cynthia Cooper inside. A couple of orange crates doubled as chairs.
“You know, there are wonderful auctions this time of year,” Coop volunteered. “Check in the classifieds. I furnished my house, thanks to those auctions.”
“I’ll check it out.”
Rick noticed that Blair was growing a thin military moustache. “Another modeling job coming up?”
“How’d you guess?” Blair smiled.
Rick rubbed under his nose. “Well, I’ll get to the point. This isn’t a social call, as I’m sure you’ve surmised. Your records indicate an actress with whom you were involved was brutally murdered and dismembered. What do you have to say?”
Blair blanched. “It was horrible. I thought when the police caught the murderer I’d feel some comfort. Well, I guess I did, in that I knew he wouldn’t kill anyone else, but it didn’t fill the . . . void.”
“Is there anyone in Crozet or Charlottesville who might know of this incident?”
“Not that I know of. I mean, a few people recognized my face from magazines but no one knows me here. Guess that doesn’t look so good for me, huh?”
“Let’s just say you’re an unknown factor.” Rick shifted his weight. The orange crate wasn’t comfortable.
“I didn’t kill anybody. I think I could kill in self-defense or to protect someone I love, but other than that, I don’t think I could do it.”
“What one person defines as self-defense another might define as murder.” Cynthia watched Blair’s handsome features.
“I am willing to cooperate with you in any way. And I’ve refused to talk to the press. They’ll only muck it up.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened in New York?” Rick’s voice was steady, unemotional.
Blair ran his hands through his hair. “You know, Sheriff, I’d like to forget that. I came here to forget that. Can you imagine what it was like to see that head pulled out of a pumpkin?”
The sheriff softened. “Not pretty for any of us.”
Blair took a deep breath. “I knew Robin Mangione from a shoot we did for Baker and Reeves, the big New York department store. I guess that was three years ago. One thing led to another and, well, we stopped dating other people and got involved. Our work schedules often took us out of town but whenever we were in New York we were together.”
“You didn’t live together?” Rick asked.
“No. It’s a little different in New York than here. In a place like this people get married. In New York, people can be as good as married and yet live in separate apartments for their entire lives. Maybe because of the millions of people, one needs a sense of privacy, of separate space, more than you do here. Anyway, living together wasn’t a goal.”
“What about her goals?” Cooper was suspicious about this living-apart stuff.
“She was more independent than I was, truthfully. Anyway, Robin inspired devotion from men. She could stop traffic. Fame, any kind of fame really, brings good and bad. The flotsam and jetsam of fame is how I think of it, and Robin was sometimes hassled by male admirers. Usually a sharp word from her, or if need be from me, took care of the problem. Except for the guy who killed her.”
“Know anything about him?” Rick asked.
“What you know, except that I watched him at the trial. He’s short, balding, one of those men you could pass on the street and never notice. He sent letters. He called. She changed her number. He’d wait for her outside the theater. I got in the habit of picking her up because he was such a nuisance. He began to threaten. We told the police. With predictable results.” Rick dropped his gaze for a moment while Blair continued: “And one day when I was out of town on a shoot he broke the locks and got into her apartment. She was alone. The rest you know.”
Indeed they did. Stanley Richards, the crazed fan, panicked after he killed Robin. Disposing of a body in New York City would try the imagination of a far more intelligent man than Stanley. So he put her in the bathtub, cut her throat and wrists and ankles, and tried to drain most of the blood out of the body. Then he dismembered her with the help of a meat cleaver. He fed pieces of the body to the disposal but it jammed up on the bone. Finally, desperate, he spent the rest of the night hauling out little bits of body and dumping her east, west, north, and south. The head he saved for the Sheep Meadow, in the middle of Central Park, where in exhaustion he put it down on the grass. A dawn jogger saw him and reported him as soon as he found a cop.
Neither Rick nor Cynthia felt the need to rehash those details.
“Don’t you find it curious that—”
“Curious?!” Blair erupted, cutting off Rick. “It’s sick!”
“Do you have any enemies?” Cynthia inquired.
Blair lapsed into silence. “My agent, occasionally.”
“What’s his name?” Rick had a pencil and pad out.
“Her name. Gwendolyn Blackwell. She’s not my enemy but she broods if I don’t take every job that comes down the pike. That woman would work me into an early grave if I let her.”
“That’s it? No irate husbands? No jilted ladies? No jealous competitor?”
“Sheriff, modeling isn’t as glamorous as you might suppose.”
“I thought all you guys were gay,” Rick blurted out.
“Fifty-fifty, I’d say.” Blair had heard this so many times it didn’t rock his boat.
“Is there anyone you can think of—the wildest connection doesn’t matter—anyone who would know enough to duplicate what happened to Robin?”
Blair cast his deep eyes on Cynthia. It made her heart flutter. “Not one person. I really do think this is a grim coincidence.”
Rick and Cynthia left as baffled as they were when they arrived. They’d keep an eye on Blair, but then they’d keep an eye on everyone.