I leaned back in my chair and tipped my head back until I could see the video monitors. I remained frozen in that awkward position for a good five minutes until the camera hidden above Violeta’s niche showed a blurry but very recognizable Barbara Wilburger. Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy’s totally unlikeable, tight-assed professor daughter. I gave myself a pat on the back. Not a real one. An imaginary one. I’d been right. She was one of the two possible murderers I’d expected to show up to dig the pistol out Violeta’s ashes. The other, of course, was Phil McPhee.
Barbara stopped in front of Violeta’s niche. She looked this way and that, like a school kid about to cross a busy street. She was wearing jeans and a man’s oxford shirt with the tails hanging out, the kind of outfit a woman wears when she’s going to repaint the bedroom. She was carrying a canvas beach bag.
Now, why did I suspect Violeta Bell’s murderer was either Barbara Wilburger or Phil McPhee? Like Detective Grant, I’d found no direct evidence. But I had found those little balls of pet fur. First, in Ariel Wilburger-Gowdy’s condo. In that beautiful brass wastebasket in the foyer. Second, in Phil McPhee’s office. In that kitschy wastebasket with the hand-painted ants. The common denominator, of course, was Barbara. That day Gabriella and I had visited Ariel’s condo, Barbara had made a huge, unnecessary fuss over the cat fur. She’d rolled the fur she’d raked off the sofa into a tight tiny ball. The peculiar habit of someone visibly uptight and angry. Someone with a high opinion of themselves and a correspondingly low opinion of others.
So when I later spotted those tiny balls of Shih Tzu fur in Phil McPhee’s wastebasket, I knew Barbara Wilburger had been there. And not just once. You don’t roll dog fur into tiny balls on your first visit. No, Barbara felt very much at home in the McPhees’ condo. Specifically in Phil’s office.
Phil McPhee was an experienced philanderer. He knew the dangers of romancing his lovers in the bed he shared with his wife. The daybed in his office was a much safer venue. And so were the mats in the fitness room. I was sure that’s why Violeta Bell showed up down there in the middle of the night in her frilly underwear. She was expecting to find Phil. Instead she found Barbara. And Barbara made her take off her robe. And she wrapped it around her little. 22 pistol. And she shot Violeta Bell dead.
Phil McPhee was a lot like my late husband. Way too much testosterone. Precious little conscience. Multiple mistresses were the norm. If my theory was right, Phil was carrying on with Barbara Wilburger and Violeta Bell at the same time. Violeta was hardly a spring chicken and Barbara anything but sexy. But a snake like Phil would get a thrill out of bedding one of his wife’s best friends at the same time he was bedding the daughter of another friend.
At some point, Barbara found out about Phil and Violeta. Instead of dumping Phil, or murdering Phil, although either in my book would have been the sensible thing to do, she opted to murder Violeta. Clearly the professor of business ethics was not one of those people who practiced what they preached.
And the fitness room was the perfect place to kill Violeta. If indeed it was where Violeta often met Phil for their monkey business, all it would take to get her there at that hour, on the Fourth of July when firecrackers were booming all over Hannawa, was a note under the door, or an email, or whatever signal Phil used to summon Violeta to the mats. Barbara certainly had a key for the Carmichael House, and from what Gabriella and I saw that day we visited, permission to use the parking garage. Barbara also would have known about all the skeleton keys hidden all over the place. Oh yes, the fitness room was the perfect place.
And not only because of the ease in luring Violeta there. It would let Phil know in no uncertain terms that hence forth, his only woman on the side would be one Barbara Wilburger. Forever and forever. And now a hidden camera was about to catch Barbara remove the gun she used to commit murder from the ashes of the woman she murdered.
Grant and I watched as Barbara struggled to get something out the front pocket of her jeans. It was a key. She put it between her teeth for safekeeping. She took a pair of rubber gloves from her bag. They weren’t the surgical gloves you’d expect a murderer to wear. They were the bright yellow kind you buy in the cleaning aisle at the supermarket. She wiggled her fingers into them. She took the key from her teeth. She unlocked the glass door covering the niche. She put the key back between her teeth. She knelt on the floor. She pulled a black trash bag from her beach bag. She shook it open and arranged it on the marble floor, so that the bottom of the bag was flat and the sides stuck up about a foot. She removed Violeta’s urn from the niche. She carefully lowered it into the trash bag. She got on her knees again. Looked this way and that again.
Grant reached under his jacket and took out his gun. The uniformed officer leaning against the wall by the door readied his gun.
Barbara took the lid off the urn. She carefully put it next to her knee. She untied the twist-tie. Inserted it between her teeth, next to the key. With her thumbs she spread open the plastic bag inside the urn. She drilled into the ashes with her index finer. She slowly lifted the gun out. She lowered it into the trash bag. She took the twist-tie from her teeth and refastened it on the plastic bag. She put the lid back on the urn. She took the key from her teeth. She bent over and blew off whatever ashes may have floated onto the urn. She put the key back between her teeth.
Weedy readied his weapon of choice, a big shiny digital camera that could click a zillion pictures a second. Gabriella clicked her pen and scribbled on the cover of her notebook, to make sure she had plenty of ink. Dale Marabout looked at her with disdain.
Barbara put her hands around the urn. She slowly stood up.
Prince Anton couldn’t see what was happening on the monitor. But he could watch us watching. His eyes were bouncing back and forth between Grant and me like one of those Kit Kat clocks with the big Ping Pong ball eyes.
Barbara put the urn back in the niche. She took the key from her teeth again. She locked the niche door. She slid the key back into her jeans. She knelt and pulled the sides of the trash bag together. She rolled the bag up around the gun. She put it in her beach bag.
Detective Grant whispered “Go!” The officer by the door reached for the knob. He gave it a hard twist and yanked the door open. Grant, already in motion, rushed out. The officer followed him. Weedy, too.
Weedy wasn’t supposed to follow them. He was supposed to do what the rest of us were doing. Crowd around the monitor and watch.
Barbara swung around wildly, nearly falling down. We couldn’t see Grant and company, but apparently she could. She took a few quick steps back. Grant and the officer came into view. They were holding theirs guns in front of them with both hands the way they do on real television. They looked like a pair of bowlegged dowsers trying to find water. Grant’s command to “Stop right there!” echoed through the columbarium.
Barbara did not stop right there. But instead of running in the other direction, she darted right past Grant and the other officer. They twirled and pointed their guns. But they did not fire. In a second they, too, were out of the camera’s view.
There was a lot of shouting now. And the banging of feet on the marble floor. The officer watching the monitor with us raced out. We all raced after him. And Barbara Wilburger raced right past us. She headed down another long hall of niches. We were all chasing her now. Weedy was clicking pictures like a maniac.