“Did he see anything?” Harry pushed on.
“He thought he heard the front door close. He walked to the door but didn’t see anything. Not in the house. He looked out the window and saw Carla walking toward the center of the lawn.”
“Melvin might not have seen anyone because, if the killer stood right up against the front door, well, you wouldn’t see him, would you?” To prove her point, Harry opened the front door, stepped outside, closed the door behind her, and flattened herself against it.
Susan looked out one window, Robert the other. They could just see the tip of her boots as she stood inside the recessed doorway. But they knew she was there. Otherwise, they’d have missed her.
She came back in. “Possible.”
“Yes.” Robert nodded.
“Did the sheriff think of this?” Susan wondered.
“Well, no, but he questioned Melvin. The killer could have been in the house. If we go outside and check where both lines of Porta-Johns were, you’ll get a better idea.”
Once outside, Robert walked to the east, where the mist was lifting. “We put a line here, out of the way but easy for the company renting them to pick them up.” He strode across the lawn and toward the parking lot. “Another line here, and then we had one single unit behind the platform, for the musicians and if anyone got nervous before their speech.”
“Nervous?” Harry didn’t put two and two together.
Susan laughed. “Some people have to wee. You know, they get scared, and, well…”
“Ah, well, I don’t give public addresses.”
“You took public speaking in high school. I was there. You were pretty good.” Susan counted the depressions on the grass where the toilets had been. “How many altogether?”
“Twenty-five. I thought that was overkill, but Tazio and Folly declared it wasn’t and nothing was worse than waiting in line. They were right: we could have done with thirty. Well, excuse me, twenty-six counting the one behind the platform.”
“Did anyone see Tazio come from the Porta-John?” Harry inquired.
“I don’t know. The sheriff hasn’t made me privy, excuse the pun, to his information.” Robert sighed.
“Little Mim did,” Susan stated. “Ned asked Tazio if anyone saw her. Remember, she left the table early because she knew the timetable and wanted to be clear of everyone and to be ready for the speeches. Ned checked with Little Mim, who said she did see Tazio as she was entering one green box, Harvey Tillach another. But Harvey came out before Tazio did, since men can, well, go a lot faster than women.”
The Porta-Johns were green.
“She could have waited behind a tree afterward. I suppose she could have gone into the house.” Robert believed Tazio had done the deed.
“We can’t dismiss a committee member.” Harry didn’t censor herself. “Or even a staff member from the possibility of committing the murder.”
“There’s no reason whatsoever for one of my people to do such a terrible thing.” Robert was tetchy.
“Forgive her. She gets like this when she’s seized by a notion or a mystery.”
“Huh? I do. I’m sorry, Robert. I can’t think of any reason why someone who is part of this incredible project would want to do anything like this, but then, that’s the key to solving a crime, isn’t it?”
“What?” the attractive, well-turned-out man asked.
“Motive, opportunity, will to kill. If you figure that out, you can almost always find who did it. Motive. Tazio did have a motive, in that she hated Carla—well, hate is a strong word. Carla got on her nerves.”
“It’s rather an extreme way to soothe the nerves,” Robert slyly said.
“She had the opportunity,” Susan added.
“Did she have the will to kill?” Harry put her hand on her hip. “No. Emphatically no. She’s at the top of her game, she’s well respected, she’s making very good money, and she’s in love with a great-looking, terrific guy who loves her back. She’d have to be certifiably insane to muck that up.”
“Is she impulsive?”
Susan shook her head no as the words came out of Robert’s mouth. “If anything she’s too controlled. Too cool. It’s completely out of character.”
“People do fool you,” Robert replied simply.
“They do, but if Tazio had cut Carla’s jugular, given the force of the first pulsations, wouldn’t her dress have blood on it?” Harry, ever logical, asked.
“Not if she jumped out of the way fast enough,” Robert came back, although chances were the killer couldn’t have gotten out of the way fast enough.
“But she’d have to have some knowledge of how the jugular shoots. I mean, it really shoots, and I know that because my husband is a vet, but he has had to work on people in extreme situations.”
“Harry, most people know if you cut an artery it spurts. They may not know how much and how far the jugular can spurt, but it’s not a secret. Whoever killed her faced her, then jumped away.” Susan bought the idea.
“Do they know she wasn’t surprised from behind?” Robert rubbed his chin.
“Sheriff Grundy believes she was killed face to face. And she didn’t defend herself.” Harry told him what they’d all discussed prior. “She wasn’t scared.”
“Not until the knife flashed.” Robert shuddered. “It’s too awful.”
“It is, but if you knew Carla you would understand how she could provoke it.” Susan was beginning to wonder where the pets were.
“Isn’t the spouse a suspect? I mean, it’s usually people we know well who kill us.” Robert was right.
“Jurgen? He was at the table.” Susan had gathered some of the table information from Ned, who, wisely, had called each table head; he knew he wouldn’t be getting the napkins with names on them.
“Ah.” Robert seemed disappointed.
“He’s rich. He could have paid someone.” Harry couldn’t explain why, but she was feeling better, feeling she could clear Tazio with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
“And this was a good place. Activity, enough alcohol to raise the spirits and maybe dull the senses. The moon was about full, but in the front of the house the trees provided some cover and there were no artificial lights. It was a good place for someone bold with a plan.” Harry looked around one more time. “Robert, I know we’ve disrupted you and your routine. Thank you for helping us.”
“Not at all. I want to get to the bottom of this, too. Anything that touches Poplar Forest is critical to me. I love this place. You know,” a wistful note crept into his voice, “I imagine I can hear Jefferson sometimes, the slaves, the horses. Oh, it’s silly, but when I’m here alone, I feel them.”
Susan remarked, “At least you said slaves and not servants.”
“Our ancestors put a good face on it.” Robert thought about slavery quite a lot, since he could see so much evidence of those long-ago lives. It hadn’t been plowed under or paved over.
“The hard-nosed could always use the Bible to justify it.” Susan knew her history, as did the other two.
“Yeah, but I think most people felt something… oh, I don’t have the word, but something. Virginia would have had to end it.” Harry was convinced of that, perhaps rightly. “The Mid-Atlantic states would have done it probably before the turn of the century, but the Delta, probably not.”
“Hopefully, folks would have put a stop to it before 1900.” Susan thought Harry’s time frame too long.
“I don’t know. It’s like a nuclear reaction, isn’t it? You reach a critical mass. Then boom! I hope you’re right and it would have ended earlier.” She stopped herself from musing further. “Robert, you’re a Virginian, as are we. You may have noticed that Tazio is part African-American.”
“I noticed she was beautiful and, yes, African-American—to what percent, I don’t know.”
“Do you think she’ll encounter trouble in jail or in court if we can’t spring her before a trial?” Harry was worried.