My heart started to pound.
Could Linda have realized on Friday, as she stood at the top of the stairs, that it wasn’t her father she saw that long-ago night? That it was someone who had resembled him in the dark, violent night?
Could it have been Ray? Ray, who always stopped to knock, even though he was part of the family? Ray, who treated the children as his own, who bent over backward for them? Could he have been guilty of the embezzlement, rather than Sidney? Ray had no money problems, and he kept the company books. If Sidney was out of the way, Ray could blame everything on him, even while vociferously defending his old friend.
But why would he have killed Bridget and Jean? I kept turning it over in my mind. Jean was supposed to have taken the kids to the seaside that afternoon, and Sidney was to join them the next day, but Hugh got sick. Would Ray have expected Sidney to be alone, perhaps expecting to blame the breaking and entering on the local drug trade? Was he surprised by finding them at home, and so struck out in a moment of panic?
The vision came over me again.
Bridget turning . . . Why do you have a gun?
The sight of the log coming down.
The bang of the gun, the mother running, screaming.
Calling out, Sidney!
But Sidney had been in the yard, in the shed. Whistling happily while he gathered items for their delayed outing.
My heart raced, my breath sped up. It seemed impossible, didn’t it?
Ray Buckley was such a good guy. Not judgy, as Monty said. Committed to all sorts of good deeds.
Almost as though he was plagued by a guilty conscience.
• • •
I parked in front of Murder House, and brought out my phone. I tried Monty. No answer, but I left a message on his machine. “Monty, don’t go anywhere with Ray alone,” I said. “He . . . he may have been the one who attacked you yesterday.”
I had guessed wrong before. If I was wrong this time . . . I would have a lot of ’splainin’ to do.
Next, I tried Ray. I had no idea what I would say if he picked up, but all I could think was that if he was with Monty and planning something . . . I had to come up with something that might change his mind. No answer, again.
Finally, I called Annette.
“Listen, I think it’s Ray. I think he thinks Monty saw him with Linda’s body. I think he’s the one who attacked him yesterday. Ray might be out to shut Monty up permanently.”
“You saw him in your vision?”
“No, nothing like that. But I think Ray is responsible for everything, and I’ll explain it all right after you send a car over to pick him up. He’s over at the Tubman youth center meeting with Monty. Neither of them is answering their phones. I’m worried for Monty.”
Annette agreed, then called me back a few minutes later.
“Okay, I’m listening. Run this whole thing past me. Why would a respectable businessman like Ray Buckley go after Linda?”
“I think when they did that walk-through of the Murder House together, he realized that Linda was putting it all together in her mind, that maybe she had seen Ray—who looked a lot like Sidney—rather than her father. What if she tried to blackmail him and he killed her? He had knee surgery recently, so he probably had access to prescription painkillers. Maybe he offered them to her and lied about what they were, or . . . crushed them and put them in a drink of some kind?
“And then Monty moved the body and screwed up the crime scene forensic evidence.”
“But Ray was investigated at the time of the family murders. He had no financial motive. The cops found him credible at the time.”
“You’ve met him. He comes off as very credible. Very empathetic.”
“We still don’t have motive. Why would he have done something so horrific?”
“The accusations of embezzlement.” I said it before I had fully fabricated it in my own mind. “What if Ray was the one embezzling? That’s why he was so well-off financially. After Sidney’s death, Ray blamed everything on him, and the external investigation was dropped.”
“And the rest of the family?”
“Things got out of hand. Ray expected Sidney to be alone that night, remember? Maybe he was planning on taking him out, assuming it would be blamed on the neighborhood violence. But he abandoned the idea when he realized the family was home. Then Bridget was snooping in his jacket for cigarettes and pulled out the loaded gun. He lashed out to keep her quiet but wound up hurting her. He didn’t know his own strength.”
Again, I remembered Ray’s words: He didn’t know his own strength. None of us do, until we’re tested.
“Then the mom ran in, and he shot her to keep her quiet. She was crying out for Sidney, who was out in the shed.”