“Sort of.” Realizing that my mother was still in the room, I said, “I’ll explain later.”
Connie sprang into action. “Dennis has been out of town at a conference. Look, I’m going to hang up now and call his beeper. He should get right back to you.”
She was true to her word. The next time the phone rang it was Dennis. I nearly fainted with relief when I heard his voice-deep, sympathetic, and extraordinarily reassuring. While he didn’t offer to kiss everything and make it all better, he did promise to do what he could. Although I’m not very good at staying put, I agreed to hang out at Mother’s until I heard from him.
After that, I persuaded Mother to make us some tea while I rallied the troops. I telephoned Ruth and Paul. Paul joined us in mid-afternoon and Ruth when she closed the shop, a tad early, at four o’clock. Dad had returned from his walk shortly before then, looking more dead than alive. When we tried to cheer him up, he made it clear to everyone we should keep our distance. There wasn’t much for us to do except concentrate on unpacking the boxes-putting dishes in the cupboards, books on the shelves, and towels in the bathrooms. Ruth and Paul hung pictures while I took out my aggressions on the packing boxes, ripping off the masking tape and squashing them flat before lugging them down to the basement. As we worked, we limited our discussions to where best to put what lamp, what to do about the glassware that wouldn’t fit in the dining room cabinet, and whether to tie back the drapes or leave them hanging straight. No one mentioned Georgina or the police. It was as if an eight-hundred-pound gorilla had plopped himself down on the living room rug and everyone simply stepped around him, too polite to notice.
Around six, I opened a few cans and heated up some tomato soup, then assembled a platter of ham sandwiches. As I worked I kept praying for the phone to ring, but when the ring finally came, it wasn’t the phone but the doorbell. At the first bur-ring Mother jumped like a startled deer, then closed herself in the downstairs bathroom.
“Mother!” I stood outside, my ear pressed to the door she had just slammed in my face.
“I don’t care who it is, Hannah. I don’t want to see anybody.”
While I tried to persuade Mother to pull herself together and come out and join her family, Paul answered the door. “It’s Connie! And Dennis,” he shouted. Ruth and I nearly collided in the hallway, we were so anxious to see them.
In the several months since I had last visited Connie, she had allowed her reddish hair to grow out. I had always liked it short and curly, but had to admit that the way this new do waved smoothly under and just skimmed her shoulders was damned attractive. Dennis probably thought so, too. He stood directly behind her, his sandy hair hidden under a knit cap.
My father had never met Connie’s boyfriend, so we made introductions all around, although the pleasure-to-meet-yous rang rather hollow under the circumstances. After hanging up their hats and coats, Connie and Dennis gravitated toward the kitchen, where we arranged ourselves around the table. Paul dragged a seventh chair in from the dining room for Mother, who had finally decided to end her self-imposed exile.
Dennis rested his elbows on the table and laced his narrow fingers together. “First off, I need to explain that cops share information on a ‘need to know’ basis, even with other cops.” Disappointment must have been written large across my face, because Dennis reached over and patted my arm. “But I’ve got this buddy up in Homicide who owes me one after I nabbed a guy he was looking for last year. So I gave him a call.”
My father snorted. “I’m afraid to ask.”
“Well, sir, it seems your daughter’s story kept changing every five minutes, so the officers got a warrant and searched the Cardinale home.”
“Georgina’s house? When?” My father was shouting.
“Early this morning.”
“But that doesn’t explain why they came here,” my mother complained.
“It’s what they found at Georgina’s that led them here.”
Ruth set the coffeepot down on the table with a thunk. “So, what did they find?”
“Georgina has been keeping a diary.” I heard Ruth’s sudden intake of breath.
Dennis glanced in Ruth’s direction, then continued. “The handwriting is sometimes hard to read and she rambles a good bit, but tucked between the pages they found a letter.” His green eyes settled squarely on my father. “A letter from you, Captain.”
Daddy scooted his chair back, stood, and began pacing between the table and the refrigerator. “I know what you mean.”
“George?” Mother’s eyes were wide.
“After that session with the therapist, Georgina wouldn’t talk to me, Lois! I called her on the telephone, but when she recognized my voice, she hung up. When I called back, Scott picked up and said Georgina didn’t care to speak to me.”
“So you wrote her a letter.” Ruth set a plate of Oreos down in the middle of the table along with a handful of spoons.
“I wrote her a letter.” Daddy sat down and Ruth nudged a mug of coffee in his direction, which he ignored. “In the letter I refuted her accusations one by one and ordered her to get away from that therapist. I insisted that she find a doctor who could help her. A real doctor. An M.D.”
Connie looked from Daddy to Dennis, her nose wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand. What’s so incriminating about that?”
“Tell her, Captain.”
My father lowered his eyes and studied his thumbnails. “I may have made a few threats.”
For some reason, Dennis turned to me. “Your father wrote Georgina that if she didn’t consult a real doctor soon, he would disown her.”
“That’s it?” I was incredulous.
“And something about making the therapist see reason.”
“Oh, Lord!” My mother began to massage her temples, a sure sign that a migraine was on the way.
“So, what were they looking for here?” I asked.
“Turner didn’t say. But I know they came away empty-handed.”
I realized Ruth had been holding her breath when she puffed air out through her lips. “Whew!”
But Dennis wasn’t finished. “Now, this is what concerns me. They found your fingerprints, Captain, on the glass door leading to the balcony from the therapist’s office.”
Daddy’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m not denying the possibility of that. I must have left them there during that god-awful session with Georgina.”
“That could well be, except the Sturgeses’ housekeeper claims that she carefully cleaned the glass, inside and out, on the day before the murder.”
Daddy frowned. “Maybe that housekeeper’s not as thorough as she thinks.”
“Turner says that Georgina told him you never went near the balcony that day.”
“She’s very much mistaken, then.” Daddy shook his head. “That office was stifling. I needed some air.”
Dennis waved a hand. “The word of the housekeeper in itself is not going to cut much ice with the detectives, so if that’s all they’ve got…” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “But I wouldn’t risk it. To tell you the truth, sir, I think you need a lawyer.”
“Wait a minute!” I croaked. “We know when Dr. Sturges died. The police were asking everyone what they were doing between the hours of noon and three on Friday.” I swiveled to face my father. “You told them what you were doing then, didn’t you, Daddy? If you were here in Annapolis, you can’t have been murdering people up in Baltimore!”
Daddy shrugged. “I was at Home Depot buying stuff for the house.”
“So you have credit card receipts!”
“I paid cash.”
“But you still would have receipts,” I reasoned.
“Hannah, I can’t find them. I’m sure they went out with the trash on Saturday.”
Mother, who had begun sobbing quietly, got up and left the room. I heard the door to the bathroom firmly close and the unmistakable sound of running water.