“Did Emily like him?” Lily asked.
“No. She thought he dragged the family down.”
“Not any more,” said Ivan, running a finger of toast around his plate. “He doesn’t look like a businessman, but he sure doesn’t look like a greaser or a hood. In Florida, what he wears is probably what businessmen wear instead of suits.”
“When are you away again?” Val asked his son.
“The week after next. I have to be here for the inquests, I can understand that. But it’s time to distribute reader’s copies of the book.”
“Is Jim going to do signings?” Val asked.
“I hope so. The Tattered Cover wants him, so does Hunter’s — his namesake bookstore, huh?”
“Somehow I can’t see Jim sparing the time.”
A car engine sounded; Ivan looked out the window. “It’s Uncle Chez.” He looked puzzled. “Why is he here, Dad? Sure, Mom was his sister, and we know he loved her, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. He’s always eased his conscience with diamonds. No, Uncle Chez is here for a different reason.”
“That’s as may be, Ivan, but whatever you say, don’t say that,” Val implored. “He may not look crooked, but Chez is.”
The door opened, Chez strolled in bearing a package. He came around the table to Lily and pressed the package into her hands. “Thank you, Lily,” he said.
“What for?” she asked, bewildered.
“Cleaning up after Emily.”
The package contained a magnificent diamond bracelet.
“You just let me know if anyone ever makes you unhappy,” said Chez to Lily once the bracelet was on her wrist. “Anyone does, he’s a dead man.”
Lily laughed. Ivan smiled. Val looked horrified.
MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 1969
The inquest into the death of John Hall was a brief business that tendered a verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown.
Carmine’s concerns were not for the inquest. John Hall’s adoptive father, Wendover Hall, had not thus far arrived in Holloman. His booking on Saturday night’s red-eye special out of Seattle had not been canceled, and no further booking had been made. Though he lived in Gold Beach, Oregon, he had chosen to shuttle to Seattle rather than to San Francisco. Two brief conversations with Wendover Hall had convinced Carmine he did have information to impart, but disliked conversing with people whose faces he couldn’t see. He would save his news for a face-to-face confrontation in Holloman.
At noon on Monday, the inquest over, Carmine called Hall at Gold Beach. No one answered. Not for one moment did foul play cross Carmine’s mind; if Hall stood in danger, it would be after he got to Holloman. Even so, he called the local cops to see if they knew anything, like whether Hall was still home.
“The poor old guy died of a heart attack Saturday morning on his way to Seattle,” said a cop voice that obviously knew Wendover Hall in person.
“Natural causes?” Carmine asked.
“Without a doubt. Silly old geezer shouldn’t have been traveling anywhere, his heart was so bad.” Came the rustle of papers. “On autopsy, a massive myocardial infarct.”
Delia was looking enquiring; Carmine hung up. “Died of a heart attack, doesn’t seem any doubt about that. And we are fated not to know more about our first victim.”
“Sometimes it seems to me that this country is too big,” said Delia, sighing. “West Coast people are quite different from East Coast people, and the people in the middle are very different again. Not to mention northerners and southerners. Poor old man! We should have gone to see him.”
“Try telling Accounts that,” Carmine said ruefully.
“Where now, chief?”
“I wish I knew.”
“Do you have any ideas — as to the guilty party, I mean?”
“Jim Hunter is still my chief suspect, but unless I can prove he took the poison from his wife’s refrigerator, the evidence is pure supposition. Nor does it answer the riddle of why John Hall had to die. Tinkerman is obvious. Had his been the only death, we could have built a circumstantial case. Then there’s Emily — what on earth could she have known?”
“If Jim Hunter is guilty, then the first and the third deaths could be red herrings. You know as well as I do that killing one person is enough to institute a mindset. If more deaths ensue, the killer doesn’t seem to experience additional remorse, or emotional travail of some kind. If the first and the third victims take the heat off Jim Hunter, they have a purpose.”
“True.”
Delia coughed delicately. “Um — have you considered Millie Hunter at all?”