Somebody Else's Music(117)

“That’s going to be enough to go to trial on for the attack against Emma,” Kyle said, “but does that mean it’s going to be enough to go to trial on for the death of Chris Inglerod Barr?”

“You’re going to have the linoleum cutter,” Gregor said. “That will be a start. With any luck, what I’m doing now will get you the rest of what you need. It’s odd to think, though, that Chris Inglerod would be alive and Emma Kenyon Bligh wouldn’t be in the hospital with a slash wound in her abdomen if Elizabeth Toliver hadn’t decided to take her younger son to McDonald’s.”

“What?”

“She wasn’t home, you see,” Gregor said. “She was supposed to be home. She had a nice set schedule that day. She was driving her mother to one set of doctors in the morning. Then she was leaving her mother and the nurse at the ob/gyn clinic in the early afternoon so that the doctors could run some tests. While that was going on, she was supposed to be having lunch with Maris Coleman at the Sycamore, and when that was over she was supposed to pick up her older son at the town library and her mother at the gynecologist’s and go straight home. She should have been home by two o’clock. But she wasn’t.”

“We know she wasn’t. Emma and Belinda brought Mark home from the library and they got to the Toliver house at three and there was nobody home.”

“Exactly. Because Elizabeth Toliver and Maris Coleman had an argument at the Sycamore, and Liz took Geoff out to the Interstate to the McDonald’s there, and she didn’t get home until after four. And that’s why the dog died. Because nobody was home.”

“You just said Mark was home.”

“I know. Essentially, nobody was home, because he went to sleep in that room in the basement. You can’t hear somebody knocking on the front door from there, or on the back door, either. So, you see, she got to the house expecting to find Elizabeth Toliver, and as far as she could tell nobody was home. She probably walked around the yard a couple of times, with the linoleum cutter in her hand, and nobody to use it on—”

“Wait. Are you saying that whoever this is was intending to kill Betsy? I mean, Liz?”

“Of course. Didn’t you know that? The thing is, it’s very difficult to kill somebody in Liz Toliver’s position with a knife or a razor. It’s not impossible, but it’s difficult, because those people usually have other people around them. It’s much easier, if you want to murder a celebrity, to use a gun, because you don’t have to worry about getting physically close. Either our murderer didn’t have access to a gun or she didn’t know how to use one and was afraid to try.”

“Right,” Kyle said. “Who the hell doesn’t have access to a gun in a place like this? There are guns all the hell over the place. Half the town hunts.”

“All right,” Gregor said. “I’ll give you three people who didn’t have access to guns. One, Peggy Smith. There are no guns in that house. I’ll guarantee it.”

“Why? How could you know that?”

“Because you haven’t said a single word about his shooting her, and if he’d had a gun he’d have shot her at least once by now. I don’t care about background checks or laws that say you can’t own a gun if you’ve ever been charged with domestic violence, people like Stu Kennedy have guns if they want them, and if they have them they use them.”

“Hell,” Kyle said. “He did shoot her. Or tried, anyway. He missed by a mile. About eight months ago. I went through the house and picked up a pistol and two rifles and read him the riot act.”

“And he listened to you?”

“I’d like to think so,” Kyle said, “but I have a feeling it was more a matter of finances. Stu spends a lot of money on chemicals. There doesn’t tend to be a lot left over to buy guns and ammunition with. The guns I confiscated had all belonged to his father.”

“Fine,” Gregor said. “Now I’ll give you another one. Belinda Hart Grantling. Or are you going to tell me that she keeps a pistol in her bedside drawer?”

“No. No, as far as I know, she’s never had a gun in her life. Her family never had them either. There are families around here that hunt, and there are families around here that shoot at gun ranges, and there are families around here that are just plain whacko, but the Harts never were any of those things.”

“Two down and one to go. Maris Coleman.”

“Oh,” Kyle said. “Funny, isn’t it? I don’t usually think of her as a suspect. I mean, it’s not like she’s here anymore. She’s just sort of all over the place. Visiting. Like the tooth fairy.”