“So why should it change your mind?” asked Evelyn.
“It doesn’t. It just bothers me.”
Chase stared off toward the sea. He, too, was bothered. Not by the facts, but by his own instincts.
Logic, evidence, told him that Miranda Wood was the killer. Why did he have such a hard time believing it?
The doubts had started a week ago, in that police station hallway. He’d watched the whole interrogation. He’d heard her denials, her lame explanations. He hadn’t been swayed. But when they’d come face-to-face in the hall, and she’d looked him straight in the eye, he’d felt the first stirrings of doubt. Would a murderess meet his gaze so unflinchingly? Would she face an accuser with such bald courage? Even when Evelyn had appeared, Miranda hadn’t ducked for cover. Instead, she’d said the unexpected. He loved you. I want you to know that. Of all the things a murderess might have said, that was the most startling. It was an act of kindness, an honest attempt to comfort the widow. It earned her no points, no stars in court. She could simply have walked past, ignoring Evelyn, leaving her to her grief. Instead, Miranda had reached out in pity to the other woman.
Chase did not understand it.
“There’s no question but that the weight of the evidence is against her,” said Tibbetts. “Obviously, that’s what the judge thought. Just look at the bail he set. He knew she’d never come up with that kind of cash. So she won’t be walking out anytime soon. Unless she’s been hiding a rich uncle somewhere.”
“Hardly,” said Evelyn. “A woman like that could only come from the wrong side of the tracks.”
Wrong side of the tracks, thought Chase. Meaning poor. But not trash. He’d been able to see that through the one-way mirror. Trash was cheap, easily bent, easily bought. Miranda Wood was none of those.
A car marked Shepherd’s Island Police pulled up in the driveway.
Tibbetts sighed. “Geez, they just won’t leave me alone. Even on my day off.”
Ellis Snipe, spindly in his cop’s uniform, climbed out. His boots crunched toward them across the gravel. “Hey, Lorne,” he called up to the veranda. “I figured you was here.”
“It’s Saturday, Ellis.”
“Yeah, I know. But we sort of got us a problem.”
“If it’s that washroom again, just call the plumber. I’ll okay the work order.”
“No, it’s that—” Ellis glanced uneasily at Evelyn. “It’s that Miranda Wood woman.”
Tibbetts rose to his feet and went over to the veranda railing. “What about her?”
“You know that hundred thousand bail they set?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, someone paid it.”
“What?”
“Someone’s paid it. We just got the order to release her.”
There was a long silence on the veranda. Then, in a low voice laced with venom, Evelyn said, “Who paid it?”
“Dunno,” said Ellis. “Court says it was anonymous. Came through some Boston lawyer. So what do we do, huh, Lorne?”
Tibbetts let out a deep breath. He rubbed his neck, shifted his weight back and forth a few times. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Evelyn.”
“Lorne, you can’t do this!” she cried.
“I don’t have a choice.” He turned back to the other cop. “You got the court order, Ellis. Let her walk.”
* * *
“I don’t understand,” said Miranda, staring in bewilderment at her attorney. “Who would do this for me?”
“A friend, obviously,” was Randall Pelham’s dry response. “A very good friend.”
“But I don’t have any friends with that kind of money. No one with a hundred thousand to spare.”
“Well, someone’s putting up the bail. My advice is, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
“If I just knew who it was—”
“It’s been handled through some Boston attorney who says his client wishes to stay anonymous.”
“Why?”
“Maybe the donor’s embarrassed.”
To be helping a murderess, she thought.
“It’s his—or her—right to remain anonymous. I say, take it. The alternative is to stay in jail. Not exactly the most comfortable spot to be in.”
She let out a deep breath. “No, it isn’t.” In fact, it had been horribly bleak in that cell. She’d spent the past week staring at the window, longing for the simple pleasure of a walk by the sea. Or a decent meal. Or just the warmth of the sunshine on her face. Now it was all within reach.
“I wish I knew who to thank,” she said softly.
“Not possible, Miranda. I say, just accept the favor.” He snapped his briefcase shut.
Suddenly he irritated her, this kid barely out of braces, so smart and snazzy in his gray suit. Randall Pelham, Esquire.
“The arrangements are made. You can leave this afternoon. Will you be staying at your house?”
She paused, shuddering at the memory of Richard’s body in her bed. The house had since been cleaned, courtesy of a housekeeping service. Her neighbor Mr. Lanzo had arranged it all, had told her the place looked fine now. It would be as if nothing had happened in that bedroom. There would be no signs of violence at all.
Except in her memory.
But where else could she go?
She nodded. “I—I suppose I’ll go home.”
“You know the drill, right? Don’t leave the county. Bass Harbor’s as far as you can go. Stay in touch at all times. And don’t, I repeat don’t, go around discussing the case. My job’s tough enough as it is.”
“And we wouldn’t want to tax your abilities, would we?” she said under her breath.
He didn’t seem to hear the comment. Or maybe he was ignoring her. He strode out of the cell, then turned to gaze at her. “We can still try a plea bargain.”
She looked him in the eye. “No.”
“That way we could limit the damage. You could walk out of here in ten years instead of twenty-five.”
“I didn’t kill him.”
For a moment Pelham returned her gaze. With a shrug of impatience, he turned. “Plea bargain,” he said. “That’s my advice. Think about it.”
She did think about it, all afternoon as she sat in that stark cell waiting for the release papers.
But as soon as she stepped out of the building and walked, as a free woman, into the sunshine, all thoughts of trading away even ten years of her life seemed unimaginable. She stood there on the sidewalk, gazing up at the sky, inhaling the sweetest air she’d ever breathed in her life.
She decided to walk the mile to her house.
By the time she came within sight of her front yard, her cheeks were flushed, her muscles pleasantly tired. The house looked the same as it always had, shingled cottage, trim lawn—which someone had obviously watered in her absence—brick walkway, a hedge of hydrangea bushes sprouting fluffy white clouds of flowers. Not a large house, but it was hers.
She started up the walkway.
Only when she’d mounted the porch steps did she see the vicious words someone had soaped on her front window. She halted, stung by the cruelty of the message.
Killer.
In sudden fury she swiped at the glass with her sleeve. The accusing words dissolved into soapy streaks. Who could have written such a horrible thing? Surely none of her neighbors. Kids. Yes, that’s who it must have been. A bunch of punks. Or summer people.
As if that made it easier to dismiss. No one much cared what the summer people thought. The ones who lived on the island year round—those were the ones whose opinions counted. The ones you had to face every day.
She paused at the front door, almost afraid to go in. At last she reached for the knob and entered.
Inside, to her relief, everything seeme
d orderly, just the way things should be. A bill, made out by the Conscientious Cleaners Company, lay on the end table. “Complete cleaning,” read the work order. “Special attention to the master bedroom. Remove stains.” The work order was signed by her neighbor, Mr. Lanzo, bless him. Slowly she made a tour of inspection. She glanced in the kitchen, the bathroom, the spare bedroom. Her bedroom she left for last, because it was the most painful to confront. She stood in the doorway, taking in the neatly made bed, the waxed floor, the spotless area rug. No signs of murder, no signs of death. Just a sunny bedroom with plain farmhouse furniture. She stood there, taking it all in, not budging even when the phone rang in the living room. After a while the ringing stopped.
She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It seemed like a bad dream now, what she’d seen here. She thought, If I just concentrate hard enough, I’ll wake up. I’ll find it was a nightmare. Then she stared down at the floor and saw, by the foot of the bed, a brown stain in the oak planks.
At once she rose and left the room.
She walked into the living room just as the phone rang again. Automatically she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one!”
Miranda dropped the receiver. In horror she backed away, staring at the dangling earpiece. The caller was laughing now. She could hear the giggles, cruel and childlike, emanating from the receiver. She scrambled forward, grabbed the earpiece and slammed it down on the cradle.
The phone rang again.
She picked it up.
“Lizzie Borden took an ax—”
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”
She hung up and again the phone rang.
This time she didn’t answer it. In tears, she ran out the kitchen door and into the garden. There she sank into a heap on the lawn. Birds chirped overhead. The smell of warm soil and flowers drifted sweetly in the afternoon. She buried her face in the grass and cried.
Inside, the phone kept on ringing.
Four
Miranda stood alone and unnoticed outside the cemetery gates. Through the wrought-iron grillwork she could see the mourners grouped about the freshly dug grave. It was a large gathering, as befitted a respected member of the community. Respected, perhaps, she added to herself. But was he beloved? Did any among them, including his wife, truly love him? I thought I did. Once....
The voice of Reverend Marriner was barely a murmur. Much was lost in the rustle of the lilac branches overhead. She strained to hear the words. “Loving husband...always be missed...cruel tragedy...Lord, forgive...”
Forgive.
She whispered the word, as though it were a prayer that could somehow pull her from the jaws of guilt. But who would forgive her?
Certainly not anyone in that gathering of mourners.
She recognized almost every face there. Among them were her neighbors, her colleagues from the newspaper, her friends. Make that former friends, she thought with bitterness. Then there were those too lofty to have made her acquaintance, the ones who moved in social circles to which Miranda had never gained entrance.
She saw the grim but dry-eyed Noah DeBolt, Evelyn’s father. There was Forrest Mayhew, president of the local bank, attired in his regulation gray suit and tie. In a category all to herself was Miss Lila St. John, the local flower and garden nut, looking freeze-dried at the eternal age of seventy-four. And then, of course, there were the Tremains. They formed a tragic tableau, poised beside the open grave. Evelyn stood between her son and Chase Tremain, as though she needed both men to steady her. Her daughter, Cassie, stood apart, almost defiantly so. Her flowered peach dress was in shocking contrast to the background of grays and blacks.
Yes, Miranda knew them all. And they knew her.
By all rights she should be standing there with them. She had once been Richard’s friend; she owed it to him to say goodbye. She should follow her heart, consequences be damned.
But she lacked the courage.
So she remained on the periphery, a lone and voiceless exile, watching as they laid to rest the man who had once been her lover.
She was still there when it was over, when the mourners began to depart in a slow and steady procession through the gates. She saw their startled glances, heard the gasps, the murmurs of “Look, it’s her.” She met their gazes calmly. To flee would have seemed an act of cowardice. I may not be brave, she thought, but I am not a coward. Most of them quickly passed by, averting their eyes. Only Miss Lila St. John returned Miranda’s gaze, and the look she gave her was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was merely thoughtful. For an instant Miranda thought she saw a flicker of a smile in those searching eyes, and then Miss St. John, too, moved on.
A sharp intake of breath made Miranda turn.
The Tremains had halted by the gate. Slowly Evelyn raised her hand and pointed it at Miranda. “You have no right,” she whispered. “No right to be here.”
“Mom, forget it,” said Phillip, tugging her arm. “Let’s just go home.”
“She doesn’t belong here.”
“Mom—”
“Get her away from here!” Evelyn lunged toward Miranda, her hands poised to claw.
At once Chase stepped between the two women. He pulled Evelyn against him, trapping her hands in his. “Evelyn, don’t! I’ll take care of it, okay? I’ll talk to her. Just go home. Please.” He glanced at the twins. “Phillip, Cassie! Come on, take your mother home. I’ll be along later.”
The twins each took an arm and Evelyn allowed herself to be led away. But when they reached their car she turned and yelled, “Don’t let the bitch fool you, Chase! She’ll twist you around, the way she did Richard!”
Miranda stumbled back a step, physically reeling from the impact of those accusing words. She felt the gate against her back swing away, found herself grabbing at it for support. The cold wrought iron felt like the only solid thing she could cling to and she held on for dear life. The squeal of the gate hinges suddenly pierced her cloud of confusion. She found she was standing in a clump of daisies, that the others had gone, and that she and Chase Tremain were the only people remaining in the cemetery.
He was watching her. He stood a few feet away, as though wary of approaching her. As though she was some sort of dangerous animal. She could see the suspicion in his dark eyes, the tension of his pose. How aristocratic he looked today, so remote, so untouchable in that charcoal suit. The jacket showed off to perfection his wide shoulders and narrow waist. Tailored, of course. A real Tremain wouldn’t consider any off-the-rack rag.
Still, she had trouble believing this man, with his Gypsy eyes and his jet-black hair, was a Tremain.
For a year she had gazed up at those portraits in the newspaper building. They’d hung on the wall opposite her desk, five generations of Tremain men, all of them ruddy faced and blue-eyed. Richard’s portrait, just as blue-eyed, had fit right in. Hang a portrait of Chase Tremain on that same wall and it would look like a mistake.
“Why did you come here, Ms. Wood?” he asked.
She raised her chin. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“It’s inappropriate, to say the least.”
“It’s very appropriate. I cared about him. We were—we were friends.”
“Friends?” His voice rose in mocking disbelief. “Is that what you call it?”
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know that you were more than friends. What shall we call your relationship, Ms. Wood? An affair? A romance?”
“Stop it.”
“A hot little tumble on the boss’s couch?”
“Stop it, damn you! It wasn’t like that!”
“No, of course not. You were just friends.”
“All righ
t! All right....” She looked away, so he wouldn’t see her tears. Softly she said, “We were lovers.”
“At last. A word for it.”
“And friends. Most of all, friends. I wish to God it had stayed that way.”
“So do I. At least he’d still be alive.”
She stiffened. Turning back to him she said, “I didn’t kill him.”
He sighed. “Of course you didn’t.”
“He was already dead. I found him—”
“In your house. In your bed.”
“Yes. In my bed.”
“Look, Ms. Wood. I’m not the judge and jury. Don’t waste your breath with me. I’m just here to tell you to stay away from the family. Evelyn’s gone though enough hell. She doesn’t need constant reminders. If we need to, we’ll get a restraining order to keep you away. One false move and you’ll be back in jail. Right where you belong.”
“You’re all alike,” she said. “You Tremains and DeBolts. All cut from the same fancy silk. Not like the rest of us, who can be shoved out of sight. Right where we belong.”
“It’s not a matter of which cloth we’re cut from. It’s a matter of cold-blooded murder.” He took a step toward her. She didn’t move. She couldn’t; her back was against the gate. “What happened, exactly?” he said, moving closer. “Did Richard break some sacred promise? Refuse to leave his wife? Or did he just come to his senses and decide he was walking out on you?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“So what did happen?”
“I walked out on him!”
Chase gazed down at her, skepticism shadowing every line of his face. “Why?”
“Because it was over. Because it was all wrong, everything between us. I wanted to get away. I’d already left the paper.”
“He fired you?”
“I quit. Look in the files, Mr. Tremain. You’ll find my letter of resignation. Dated two weeks ago. I was going to leave the island. Head somewhere I wouldn’t have to see him every day. Somewhere I wouldn’t be constantly reminded of what a disaster I’d made of things.”
“Where were you planning to go?”