CHAPTER 8
I awoke late the next morning—perfect timing for calling Sumner’s widow. I checked on Richard’s availability first. Funny, my brother didn’t seem to have a lot to occupy his days.
According to the newspapers, Claudia Sumner had been visiting friends in Florida at the time of the murder. Since she’d found the body, I wanted to talk with her while her memories were still fresh. When we spoke, I’d mentioned my former employer’s name, carefully avoiding the fact that I no longer worked for them. Without that ploy, she’d never grant me an interview. Our appointment was set for one. In the meantime I hauled out the phone book. I wasted an hour trying to call the parents of the kids born January tenth. No luck.
Next I called the funeral home. No, they would not discuss the church guest list or any arrangements on the Sumner funeral. Instead, they referred me to their attorney.
Richard and I hit the road about twelve forty, giving us a twenty-minute window to get across town. We hadn’t gone far when I pulled down the visor, inspecting my hair in the attached mirror. Maybe I should’ve asked Brenda to concoct some kind of bandage to cover my unusual haircut. I’d explained to Mrs. Sumner about my . . . accident . . . so that when she saw me she wouldn’t wonder what kind of nut case had come to visit her.
“What’s the matter?” Richard asked, glancing over at me. “Nervous?”
I flipped the visor back into place. “Yes.”
“Why? You interviewed six or eight people on Monday.”
“Yes, but none of them was the victim’s wife, and none of them found the guy hanging in the garage.”
“Just what do you hope to learn?”
“I don’t know. What I really want to do is get in that garage—”
“To see where it all happened?”
“Not the murder. Just the aftermath.”
Richard made no further comment. He still didn’t believe me. The logical part of me didn’t blame him. The brain-damaged part of me was irritated.
“Look, after we finish here, I’ll take you where I go and we’ll get you a haircut,” he said. “Maybe they can trim it up so that you don’t look like a—”
“Psycho?”
Richard smiled. “Nonconformist.”
“Thanks,” I said, meaning it. The visor came down for another look. Definitely nonconformist.
Sumner’s house appeared no different than it had before, except for the uniformed security guard posted at the bottom of the driveway. Mrs. Sumner had found it necessary to hire someone to keep the hounding press at bay.
Richard waited in the car while I checked in with the guard, who waved me through.
I walked past a late-model Lexus. Mrs. Sumner’s or a friend’s? After climbing the concrete steps, I thumped the door’s brass knocker. Seconds later it opened a few inches on a chain, as though she’d been waiting behind it. All I could see were a pair of sharp, gray, schoolteacher eyes.
“Mrs. Sumner, I’m Jeffrey Resnick. I called earlier.”
“Can I see some identification?”
“Of course.” My old insurance ID worked again.
She scrutinized the card. “I must confess I don’t recall Matt having a policy with your company.”
Then again, maybe it hadn’t.
Just when I thought she’d slam the door in my face, she released the chain.
“May I take your coat?”
I waved off her offer and followed her into the house.
Claudia Sumner was an attractive woman of about fifty. Her short, permed hair was colored an appropriately light shade of brown, and her face was virtually unlined. Either she never had a care in the world, or knew a skilled plastic surgeon. Petite and trim, she wore a beige cashmere sweater, matching slacks, and comfortable-looking leather pumps. I bet she never sat down in front of the TV with a bag of nachos and a pot of salsa.
She seemed to be alone in the house, with no friends or relatives in attendance for emotional support. In fact, her attitude was very businesslike, not at all the bereaved widow I’d expected.
She settled on one end of the overstuffed couch in the living room, motioning me into a chintz-covered wing chair. The furnishings stressed comfort. Antiques and expensive-looking porcelain figurines graced the shelves and tabletops. Several framed photographs were scattered throughout the room, but they seemed to be exclusively of her children. No books or magazines, and no lingering aura of Matt Sumner, either.
“Are you working with the police?”
“I expect to share some information soon,” I said, hoping I’d effectively evaded her question. “I’m grateful you agreed to talk with me. It must’ve been unpleasant to find your husband.”
“I really don’t care to discuss it.”
“Can you give me some background on Mr. Sumner? His interests . . . ?”
“The newspaper was quite thorough. He was active in The United Way. He served as last year’s campaign chairman. Matt truly cared about people.”
Oh yeah?
“Did he have any enemies?”
She hesitated. “Not that I’m aware of. Matt was . . . could be,” she amended, “very charming.”
“Is it possible he might’ve had financial problems?”
“If you mean blackmail, no.”
Her perfectly calm statement took me by surprise, but then she’d probably already been over this with the police. And if she was willing to be blunt, there was no reason for me to dance around certain issues.
“Did he have a girlfriend?”
The widow was not surprised by the question.
“Perhaps. He worked late a lot these past few years. I suspected he might be having an affair . . . but I guess I didn’t want to know for sure. We lived a quiet, comfortable life.”
Her cold gaze made me shudder.
“Did he ever mention Jackie?”
She blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“I ran across the name in conversation with someone at the bank.”
“I know of no one called Jackie.”
I got the feeling she wasn’t exactly being candid with me. But then, I hadn’t really expected her to.
“When did you last speak with your husband?”
She sighed. “Last Sunday evening. He said he had meetings all day Friday and I should take a cab home from the airport.”
“Did you find him immediately?”
“No. I was home for about an hour. I’d unpacked my suitcase and thought I’d go to the grocery store. That’s when I found him.” She looked away, her eyes filling with tears. I wasn’t sure if it was from grief or revulsion. I pretended to jot down a note, giving her a moment to collect herself.
“Who was the last family member to actually see your husband alive?”
She cleared her throat. “Me, I suppose.”
“None of the children visited while you were gone?”
“I don’t think so. Michael’s school is in Erie, Pennsylvania. Diane and Rob haven’t lived at home for several years.”
Which confirmed what the neighbors had said. “Do they live in the Buffalo area?”
“Yes, Rob does. Diane. . . .” Her gaze narrowed. “Why do you want to know?”
“I’d like to speak with them, too.”
She sat straighter in her chair. “I would prefer that you didn’t, although I suppose there’s no way I can stop you.”
I changed my line of questioning. “Did your husband hunt?”
“Never. He could never kill anything.”
Maybe not, but as a bank V.P. he’d had the power to ruin someone’s financial life with the stroke of a pen.
“Any other hobbies?”
“He golfed. He was quite good at it, too. He was to head a tournament in June. A benefit for one of his causes. At the moment, I can’t think which one.”
“That’s quite understandable. How tall was your husband?”
She looked at me as though the question was ridiculous, but answered it anyway. “Five-eleven.”
“And his weig
ht?”
“I don’t know. Maybe two hundred and ten pounds.”
I jotted it down. “I’m curious; there were no calling hours at the funeral home. Was there a reason?”
She pursed her lips. “You are curious.”
I was afraid she was going to refuse to answer the question. Then she sighed.
“To be perfectly honest, Mr. Resnick, I want to put this whole unpleasant ordeal behind me. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“What about his friends? Wouldn’t they—?”
“I telephoned those people I deemed necessary. The church was full of our friends and his colleagues. There was no need to subject my family to a media circus.”
A plausible explanation. Yet how could she know of all the people whose lives her husband had touched? How many would’ve showed up to pay their respects, people who were genuinely sorry to hear of his passing?
I tried a different tack. “I understand you’ll be selling the house.”
She called my bluff without blinking. “As a matter of fact, a real estate agent will be here later today.”
She really was eager to move on.
And then my mind went completely blank. I couldn’t think of a single question that didn’t involve finding the body and the entire grotesque situation. She picked up on my hesitation.
“I’m curious about the insurance policy, Mr. Resnick. Can you tell me how much it’s worth, and who the beneficiary is?”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “I’m just the investigator, ma’am. I’m not at liberty to discuss such matters.”
“But surely you have an idea? Can you give me the policy number, or the date it was issued—anything to help me trace it?”
“I’d be glad to get back to you on that.”
Her gaze was steely. “I’d appreciate it.”
It was time for me to get to the real reason for my visit. I pretended to consult my notes, posing the question as though it had no real relevance. “May I have a look in the garage?”
Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “I suppose. Although there’s really not much to see. I had a cleaning service come through this morning.”
I followed her through the house to a utility area. She pointed to the door. “I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t follow you.”
“I quite understand.”
Besides, I didn’t need a companion for this phase of my investigation.
The double garage was cold, the only light coming through the frosted glass on the door to the back yard. I flipped the light switch to my left, and a lone bulb illuminated a room I was already familiar with. I’d heard crime scenes, especially where a homicide had been committed, are filled with an aura of anger, desperation, and pain. This place was no different, but Sumner’s murder had not been committed here.
With no cars parked inside, the garage seemed cavernous and unnaturally tidy. The police had probably gone over every inch of it in search of evidence. Still, Claudia Sumner had been correct; there was little out of the ordinary to see.
Matching bicycles hung from laminated hooks near built-in storage cupboards. No gardening equipment cluttered walls or shelves, yet I suspected that under the remaining snow the yard was perfectly landscaped and attended to by experts. A garage door opener stood silent vigil over the room. The newspaper stressed there’d been no forced entry. The killer could’ve used the remote to get in. No mention was made of it being found.
Except for rope marks on the joist where the body had hung, and a brown stain on the concrete, now scrubbed almost clean, there was nothing of interest to see. But the lack of visible evidence didn’t mean there was nothing for me to experience.
Closing my eyes, I tried to relax, to open myself to whatever psychic pipeline was feeding me information. In seconds that sick wave of anger and triumph filled me. Fear and a strong sense of revulsion swirled in the mix, but the queasy feelings I received were not from Matt Sumner. From the start, I’d gotten next to nothing from the victim.
Clearing my mind of distracting thoughts, I concentrated, trying to conjure up the image of the deer running across a barren field.
Instead, the vision that appeared before my mind’s eye wasn’t the tawny buck, but a naked, middle-aged man in bare feet, stumbling across the snow, racing for his life. The pronounced thwack of the arrow leaving the bow jarred me. Sumner’s anguished grunt of shock as the arrow connected with its target left my stomach reeling.
The vision winked out. I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. It wasn’t so bad now. I was already learning to distance myself from the other’s fear—to experience it, but not make it my own.
But maybe that wasn’t the way to go. Maybe I needed to delve deeper, immerse myself in that sense of terror to truly understand what the witness had seen, felt. Yet my own sense of fear—survival instinct—kicked in. Someone had literally butchered Sumner, while another terrified someone had watched. I wasn’t willing to experience that first-hand.
I remembered that god-awful feeling of despair I’d gotten from the invitation in Sumner’s office, muted now that I had no catalyst to reignite it. What was it . . . ?
And then it hit me: Betrayal. Stark, maddening betrayal.
Why?
Because the same thing could happen to me.
A thrill of horror washed through me, leaving me clammy with cold sweat.
Needing to do something, I dragged a stepladder across the floor. Once positioned, I climbed. Hauling my left arm and cast onto the joist helped me maintain balance as I reached the top rung. Looking down at the beam, I examined the rope marks. Minute fibers, embedded in the wood, still remained.
I shut my eyes, rubbed the fibers between my thumb and forefinger, making it a Zen experience to become one with the rope. Stupid as it sounds, it worked. The killer’s rope was old, had sat coiled in a dark, dank place for a long time before being used—same impression I’d gotten at the hardware store.
Replacing the ladder against the wall, I pulled out my tape measure and checked the height of the joist from the floor. Sumner was five-eleven, so his feet would’ve hung anywhere from six to ten inches above the ground.
I had no need of the police photographs. With only a little effort I could see a mental picture of every detail. I forced myself to confront the image of Sumner, hanging.
He looked so . . . dead, his skin tone a flat, bluish white. Yet his opened, unseeing, cloudy eyes seemed to follow me. I looked away.
Heart pounding, I circled the phantom body. Sumner’s neck had been broken, probably after death. The rope around his throat had rubbed against his ears and dug a visible groove into his skin. A bruise darkened his left temple, and I found myself absently touching my own, where the baseball bat had collided with bone. We’d both been attacked by a right-handed assailant.
The entrance wound in Sumner’s back was puckered and blood-blackened. My gaze traveled the length of his body; his genitals were missing, all right. Had the killer kept them as a souvenir?
Sumner’s chest cavity was empty, his sternum gouged and every organ gone. The ribs were totally exposed, reminding me of a rack of barbecue ribs ready for the grill. Bruises marred his shins, and both feet were crisscrossed with cuts, probably received while attempting to escape his murderer across the crusted snow. The bottoms of his heels showed scrape marks, and dust particles clung to his back and buttocks. Had the cops found skin cells on the floor where he’d been dragged across the concrete?
I looked away and the vision was gone. The bloodstained floor drew my attention. The murderer would have to be pretty strong to haul Sumner around, transferring him from the crime scene to his home, hoisting his rigor-stiffened body to hang, and all without leaving a single fingerprint or other clue. There was cruelty in leaving the body for his wife to discover, as though the killer were rubbing her nose in the crime.
The light bulb was missing from the garage door opener. After the murderer strung up the body, he’d probably wan
ted the garage dark when he opened it to leave. Had the lamppost been on that night? Surely someone had to have seen something.
I turned. Claudia Sumner stood behind the storm door. She’d waited for me—watched me—her arms crossed over her chest in annoyance.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Sumner.”
She opened the door, reached to touch the garage door control. With a hum and a jerk, the door slowly rose.
“Good day, Mr. Resnick.”
As I crossed onto the driveway, the door started its slow, steady descent.
I was glad to reach the car and Richard’s friendly face.