They did do a lot of that kind of thing in Philadelphia, but Gregor’s understanding of it was hazy at best. He supposed that if he needed to understand it better than he did, he could always ask Bennis. Bennis had been a debutante.
“So,” he said, “on the night of the murder—”
“Oh. Well. She went to Waterbury. She went to Walden-books. She stopped at the salad place at the food court and got herself some kind of veggie sandwich in a pita to go. The girl there remembered her, and we found the wrapping paper in the car when we found her. She bought a bunch of stuff at Sears. They didn’t remember her there, but the bags were in the car. A pair of running shoes, good ones, Nikes. Three packages of white athletic socks. Three pairs of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Plain solid gray. Nothing fancy.”
“Was that like her? To buy clothes at Sears?”
“Well, it wasn’t clothes exactly. If you see what I mean.”
“Yes.” Gregor did see what Stacey meant. “What happened next?”
“Well, that was it, really. She headed back to Washington Depot, except that she didn’t take Route Eight, which she could have. She came back the regular roads through Watertown. Route Sixty-three, that would be, to One-oh-nine. A lot of people do that. They don’t like the highway. Or they don’t like it in the dark.”
“All right. She was seen on the trip home?”
“She was seen on Route Sixty-three by a woman named Zara Anne Moss. You’ll get to meet Zara Anne Moss. She’s not exactly a reliable witness. She’s not—you ever know anybody who claimed to be a witch?”
“You mean this woman says she saw Kayla Anson in tea leaves?”
“No, no. With ordinary eyesight, going by on Route Sixty-three sometime during the six o’clock news. Which fits, time wise. The thing is, Zara Anne Moss lives with Faye Dallmer—”
“I know Faye Dallmer,” Gregor said. “She’s the one—the organic everything woman. Who writes the books. And does the advice thing on the Today show.”
“Right. She lives out here. Has a place on Sixty-three with a vegetable stand and sells quilts. That’s how she started, actually. The other stuff came later. Anyway, she’s, um, she’s uh—”
“Gay.”
“Right. And Zara Anne is her latest live-in. There have been a lot of them. They’ve all been a little flaky, but this one is way flaky. Anyway, Faye Dallmer has this refitted Jeep she uses to do truck farming stuff, and it looks like a monster but it goes fast, so kids like to steal it and drive it around. It happens all the time. And Friday, it looked like it had happened again. And Faye was out back somewhere doing some work, and Zara Anne noticed that the Jeep was gone, so she went out on the porch and looked around, and saw it coming, bad-assing down Sixty-three, going really fast. And following Kayla Anson’s BMW.”
“Following it?”
“Well, here’s what we’re not sure of. Zara Anne says following, but it might just have been behind there accidentally. There’s no way to tell. She might actually have seen them half an hour apart. Anything.”
“What happened to the Jeep?”
“Well, that’s an odd thing. What usually happens is that the kids just bring it back. Faye doesn’t even bother to call anybody anymore. But Friday it was a long time, hours, really, so about eleven Faye called the police in Watertown and they sent somebody out.”
“And?”
“And they finally found it up in the Fairchild Family Cemetery in Morris. Turned over on its side way up on the hill. It’s one of those really old cemeteries. Goes back before the Revolutionary War. They’ve always got trouble up there. Besides the Jeep that night there was a skeleton up there, sitting right on Martin and Henry’s front porch, turned out it came from the anatomy exhibit at the Litchfield County Museum. But in case you’re wondering, there was nothing in the Jeep that had anything to do with Kayla Anson, as far as we could tell. Although it was smashed up a lot, like it had been run into something.”
“Kayla Anson’s car?”
“More like a tree. But we’re going to check that, too.”
“What did happen to Kayla Anson’s car?”
“That’s a good question,” Stacey Spratz said. “I saw it, like I told you, going through Morris like a bat out of hell around eight-ten and I let it go. And that’s it. That’s all anybody saw of it until your friend Bennis found it in the Anson garage and Kayla Anson in it.”
“Was Kayla Anson in it when you saw it in Morris?”
“I’ve got no idea. I didn’t get any kind of look at all at whoever was driving, and I didn’t see if there was a passenger, either.”