Текст книги "Death in a Summer Colony"

Автор книги: Aaron Stander

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 17 страниц)

8

“If he would move over a little, we could get out of here,” said Sue as they followed Richard Grubbs in his golf cart two-track.

“You’re showing remarkable patience,” observed Ray. “A few years ago you would have been laying on the horn.”

“Yup. Yoga. Deep breathing. I keep telling you to show up. The women would like you. And you’d like the view, fit women in Spandex. And there’s never a man there. You would be a cherished minority.”

As they got close to the colony office, Grubbs waved them over. “Would you come in for a couple of minutes, I have a few more things to tell you? Bring the dog.”

Sue looked over at Ray and smiled. “Deep breathing, Ray. Pretend that you’re listening as you focus on your mantra slowly running through your brain. Nod occasionally, like you’re attending to his every word.”

“I don’t have a mantra.”

“Then think about lunch, have food fantasies.”

They followed Grubbs into his office, settling into chairs, Simone in Ray’s lap.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Sheriff. But I thought that Verity would be more helpful, especially after Malcolm told her to let it go. She usually does the opposite of what he tells her. You see they were once married.”

“Yes, you’ve told me about that.”

Grubbs cocked his head and looked at Ray. “I guess I did, didn’t I. Sorry, I’m afraid I’m starting to do that. Where was I?”

“You were saying that Verity usually does the opposite of Malcolm Wudbine….”

“Yes, of course. So the fact that she mentioned him is a surprise. They don’t talk much, not since their son grew up. I mean, occasionally they’re in the same place at a colony gathering, but she seems to keep her distance from him as much as possible.”

“So there are no grandchildren?” asked Sue.

“None from that marriage. And I know Verity remains close to her son and tries to protect him from Malcolm. Wudbine is extremely hard on Elliott. He’s got him running the business, but he micromanages the hell out of him. Elliott is the COO of Wudbine Financial, Malcom continues on as the CEO. Around here people make a comparison to old Henry Ford and his alleged mistreatment of his son, Edsel.

“You said you had a few more things to tell us,” said Ray, trying to get the conversation back on track.

“Yes, this burglary. It’s not the first. There were a few last winter. And it’s not every cottage that’s getting hit.”

“So what are you telling us?” probed Sue.

“Well, as I think about this. Let’s say teenagers from around here, some of the locals, were looking for booze in the winter when the colony is unoccupied. They’d probably just go down the line, wouldn’t they? That’s not what’s happening here. It’s only selected cottages, places with lots of alcohol, that are getting hit. Whoever is behind this is one of ours. They know where to find the booze.”

“And in Verity’s case, it didn’t happen in the dead of winter,” added Sue.

“Exactly. When it happened before in the past, I was thinking, you know, January or February, something like that.”

“But no one has ever contacted us before? What’s going on?” asked Ray.

“People are very protective of this place. They don’t want outsiders in here doing an investigation, and they certainly don’t want to read in the local paper about break-ins and the theft of alcohol. I can imagine we would be the butt of lots of jokes in the greater community. And we all live with the memory of the last time we had something like this happen. It just pulled this place apart.”

“What was that?”

“Arson. As I remember it, two cottages the first year, three the next, and then it stopped.”

“When was…?”

“Oh, let me think, late 70s, no, it was the 80s. It was the time of, what did they call that? You know, the big ugly piercings, nails through noses and ears, people dressing in black.”

“Punk?” offered Sue.

“Yes, that might have been it. Well, our young people, they follow the fashions or movements, whatever those things are. We had a few kids, maybe a dozen, who, for a number of summers, just dressed like bums. First, there were stories about the kids, like they were into devil worship. Then the fires started. Vacant buildings, no one ever hurt. The township fire chief said the fires were of suspicious origin, all of them. But if there was an arson, well.”

“Well, what?”

“There was never an investigation or anything, but kids, the punk ones, they were the prime suspects. And it was like a Hawthorne story. There were secret meetings, vigilante patrols, rumors, anger, and weird prejudices. An unusual number of cottages went on the market. But by the third summer nothing happened. Some of the kids were still around, most had moved on or grown out of that mode of dress. And I don’t think anyone quite noticed them anymore. People just wanted to get things back to what they had been before. And that sort of happened.

“I’m telling you this because I think that’s what may be going on here. No one wants to talk about this. If anyone would have been willing to file a police report, it was Verity. And Malcolm turned her. So, as the chief administrator of the area, I’ve got this problem. I’ve had a string of robberies, and people, especially our board president, want to keep it quiet. What is your counsel?”

Ray passed Simone to Sue and took a while to consider his response. “If no one is willing to document the fact that a crime has taken place, our hands are tied. If what you say is true, clearly there is criminal activity taking place here. So far it’s just about theft, no one has been harmed. That could change. Keep us in the loop. Our job is protecting and serving you and your community.”

Ray stood, setting his card on the desk facing Grubbs. “Please don’t hesitate to call.”

Back in the Jeep, just before starting the engine, Sue said, “A tradition of temperance, and a tradition of summer cocktail parties. What am I missing?”

Ray laughed, “Traditions are sort of funny that way. They are hard to understand unless you’re a member of the group. You’ve got to be part of the system, native to the culture. Outsiders always find them silly, even branding long-held traditions as little more than superstitions.”

“Well, Margaret Mead, where do you want to go for lunch, the Tiki Café? You can get the vegetarian Samoan Samosa.”

“I think you’re mixing cultures and cuisines.”

“It’s all about fusion, Ray. The wave of the future.”

9

Over two months passed before Ray returned to Mission Point Summer Colony. In the intervening time there had been no further calls from Richard Grubbs about break-ins, missing cases of liquor, or anything else. And with the coming of warm weather and the influx of tourists and summer residents—doubling the area’s population—the day-to-day demands on the Cedar County Sheriff Department had doubled as well. Ray had only thought about the Colony as he occasionally rolled past the front entrance—two tall, widely spaced telephone poles with a sign reading Mission Point suspended by ropes high above an open gate—when he was in the area on some other business.

In mid-July an invitation, the address hand-written by a skilled calligrapher and sealed with wax, beckoned Ray back to the colony for a gala cocktail party and buffet, performance of the annual summer play, and an afterglow the first week of August. Richard Grubbs, who signed the invitation, added that he hoped Detective Sergeant Lawrence would come also. The R.S.V.P. card had Ray and Sue’s names already penned in. There were two blanks for the names of their guests. When Ray first floated the invitation past Sue there was a lack of enthusiasm on her part, but a few days later she asked if he had sent back the response card. Ray shifted through the pile of mail in the wire bin on his desk and handed her the envelope.

“What’s this about a play?” she asked, toying with the invitation.

“Every summer they do a play. It’s one of their annual activities. They have sporting events, concerts, lectures, and all sorts of classes and special celebrations.”

“And the play, Murder at the Vicarage? What’s that about? Am I going to be bored to tears?”

“It’s based on Agatha Christie’s book by the same name. I read it years ago when I was working my way through Christie. It’s an engaging story. I suspect it’s great fun to act and to watch.”

“I’ve never read Christie,” said Sue. “Is she as good as Sara Paretsky or Dennis Lehane?”

“Not as edgy. It was a different time. She challenges you to figure out who did it before the end. And there’s usually this wonderful concluding scene where all the suspects are gathered in the drawing room, and Miss Marple or Hercule Piorot goes through them one at a time, finally naming the killer. The suspense goes to the last page, or in this case, the final curtain.”

“Real life isn’t quite like that, is it. But I guess the play could be fun.” She looked at the invitation again. “Are you going?”

“Is this a double dare?” asked Ray.

“Yes, I’ll go if you go.”

“You’re on.”

“I’ll get this in the mail,” she said. “Harry will be here that weekend. Actually he will be around for the rest of the week. I’ll be able to show him a little local color.”

A few weeks later, standing at the far end of Verity Wudbine-Merone’s deck, Ray looked at the crowd.

“We’re bringing down the average age by twenty or thirty years,” observed Hanna Jeffers, the woman he had been seeing for a number of months, someone who shared his passion for kayaking and big, empty spaces. She pointed toward the beach and Lake Michigan stretching out at the base of the bluff. “I think I’d rather be out there.”

Ray smiled and nodded in agreement.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so many women in dresses and men in sport coats and ties. I didn’t know seersucker and madras were still in. Hawaiian shirts, too. Looks to me like most of these folks have been wearing the same party clothes for quite a number of decades.”

“Maybe generations,” retorted Ray.

Richard Grubbs came to Ray’s side carrying two glasses of sparkling wine. “There wasn’t any chardonnay, but I thought this Mawby….”

“Perfect,” said Ray.

“We don’t get much call for wine,” explained Grubbs. “This is a martini and Manhattan crowd.” He moved closer to Hanna, tipping his head in her direction. “I’m sorry I didn’t quite get your name, Miss, when you came in. I have trouble hearing when there’s a lot of background noise.”

“Hanna Jeffers,” she responded.

“And what do you do?”

“I’m a cardiologist.”

“Well, welcome. It’s good to have a doctor in the house, or on the deck in this case. Especially given the age of this crowd. Maybe you can tell me what’s current medical theory,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Most of us here believe that having a few drinks before dinner is enormously heart healthy.”

Hanna considered his statement and caught herself just before she launched into a discussion of diet and exercise, her usual mantra with heart patients.

“I think we’re pretty health-conscious as a group,” said Grubbs. He turned his attention to Ray, “That young assistant of yours, what’s her name again?”

“Sue Lawrence. She’s going to be here before the curtain goes up.”

“I’ll entrust the tickets to you, then,” said Grubbs, fishing them out of an inside pocket. “They’re center seats ten rows back from the front.” Grubbs’ final words were almost drowned out by a helicopter coming straight in from the lake, slowing and banking in the direction of the cottage, and then disappearing over a neighboring dune.

Grubbs, his eyes turned toward the craft, mouthed what appeared to be a short string of obscenities, his words drowned out by the scream of the jet engine and low, percussive pounding of the whirling blades.

“Malcolm always makes a dramatic entrance, doesn’t he,” said a short, portly man coming to Grubbs’ side, “even if he’s not invited. What do you think, Grubby, was he really coming this direction or did he have his pilot do a flyover to remind us of his importance.”

“Well, at least you know your leading man has returned to the area in time for the performance.” He gestured toward Ray and Hanna. “I’d like to introduce our local Sheriff, Ray Elkins and his guest, Dr. Hanna Jeffers. And this is Sterling Shevlin, who has directed our annual summer colony play for what…?”

“This is my thirty-third year,” answered Shevlin. “My grandparents had a place in the colony, and my first stage experience was here in the children’s drama program. I made a trip back here in my thirties as a one-summer replacement for the long-time director, and the rest is…”

“And a very good history it has been,” interrupted Grubbs. “You see, Sheriff, and Dr. Hanna, the summer play pulls together so many talents from our group. Costumes get made, sets get built—and then we have actors, light people, properties—the whole community gets involved, more so than anything else. And then we have this cocktail party and dinner, followed by the grand performance.”

“How do you decide what play to produce?” Ray asked Shevlin.

“I look for something that’s fairly light. I want a play with lots of parts, both genders, and a big age span. In this one we’ve got a range from teenagers to people in their eighties. Fifteen years ago we did a Christie play, and it was hugely popular. People have been pestering me to do another. So I looked at her other plays and selected Murder at the Vicarage.”

“He’s just wicked,” said Grubbs. “He’s got Malcolm Wudbine cast as Colonel Protheroe, a man loathed by everyone in St. Mary Mead.”

“Wicked, no,” said Shevlin. “He told me he had to have a part, but he didn’t want to learn any lines this year. So I accommodated him, like we always accommodate Malcolm. He gets to wear a period costume, and all he has to do is slump over a desk and try not to move too much for a few minutes. It’s just a perfect part for him. And a great plot. Everyone in the village wanted old Protheroe dead, and the audience gets to try to solve that mystery before dear Miss Marple sorts it all out just before the final curtain.” Shevlin made a modest bow to Ray and Hanna. “Nice meeting you both. I must run. The director can’t get smashed before the show. Hopefully, I’ll see you at the afterglow. We’ll have a big bonfire on the beach.”

“Since you’re our special guests, I want to get you two in the front of the buffet line,” said Grubbs, as he led Ray and Hanna through the crowd.

10

After the buffet dinner, Ray and Hanna, accompanied by Richard Grubbs made their way to the Assembly Hall where the play was being staged. They waited for Sue Lawrence and her date, Harry Hawkins, and then found their seats, assisted by one of the teenage ushers. They had just settled in when a flash of lightening shot through the building from the windows that lined the walls, followed immediately by a roar of thunder. The ground shook, the lights flickered, dimmed, went out momentarily, and then came back on.

“Perfect,” said Grubbs, sitting next to Hanna and directing his comments to Ray. “Don’t you think that sets the tone for something sinister.”

“What would happen if the lights stayed out?” asked Ray.

“I think we would sit quietly for five or ten minutes, then Sterling Shevlin would slowly make his way to the center of the stage, carrying one candle that would illuminate just his face. He’d wait until he had absolute silence, and then in his rich baritone voice he’d announce that the play would resume tomorrow evening, and that the ushers—equipped for the event with, he’d probably say torches rather than flashlights, will help with a row by row exit, just like our Sunday services. We are a very disciplined group, Sheriff. The building would be emptied expeditiously and the afterglow would start, this time by candlelight in cottages all across the colony. And tomorrow we’d all be back. That’s why this place is so magical. A little bad weather or most calamities in the outside world don’t affect us. We have this wonderful respite here for a few months each year that’s quite disconnected from our usual lives.”

Another peal of thunder rocked the building and reverberated through the rolling terrain. Ray looked up at the elaborate framing overhead, huge timbers notched and fitted and pegged in place, carried by massive hand-hewn beams that rested on fieldstone pillars. Between the roar of each thunderclap, the room was alive with voices, voices that were suddenly subdued by the flood of rain cascading off of the long eaves and slamming into the ground.

Ray squirmed in his seat, trying to get comfortable on the hard plywood surface.

“How was dinner?” asked Sue. “Up to your standards?”

“Unusually good. A friend of the host is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. These people are serious about their eating and drinking.”

The lights flashed on and off three times, alerting the few stragglers that the show was about to begin. A hush fell over the audience as the curtain slowly opened on the interior of a large room. On the left facing the audience was a sofa. Behind it French doors opened to a brightly lit garden. The dinner table stood on the right near the front of the stage. The surrounding chairs, two at the back and one on each side, faced the audience. At the back right of the set was a desk and chair. The walls in this area were surrounded by bookshelves. An old typewriter sat at one corner of the desk and a dial phone at the other, giving the dimly lit area the appearance of an office. Four characters, three men and a woman, came on stage and took chairs at the table. The eldest man, graying at the temples and wearing a clerical collar, sat at the head of the table. A woman, much younger than the man, took the chair at the opposite end of the table. Between them were a teenage boy and a thirty-something man, who was also wearing a clerical collar. The man at the head of the table started a prayer, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.”

A young woman, plump and in an ill-fitting cotton dress, entered with a tray and began placing heavy china serving dishes on the table.

Ray looked down at his program studying the list of characters and then reading the synopsis of the first act from the glow coming off the brightly lit stage. He looked back at the scene unfolding in front of him, identifying characters and beginning to follow the narrative, at times struggling to hear the lines as the rain and thunder still reverberated through the building.

As various new characters were introduced, Ray noticed that Colonel Protheroe was part of every conversation. He could see that Agatha Christie wanted the audience to know that almost everyone in St. Mary Mead had a reason to dislike Protheroe.

Ray was on his feet as soon as the curtain closed on the first scene, stretching and trying to extend his back. Sue was at his side. “That was just the opening scene. Are you going to be able to make it?”

Before he could answer, Richard Grubbs, leaning past Hana, said, “I’ll be back in a minute, I need to check on things.”

Ray dropped back into his chair. Hanna said to Sue, “Notice he hasn’t checked his phone for email.”

“That’s not good. Does he have a pulse, Doctor?”

“Are you enjoying the show,” Ray asked Harry Hawkins, not commenting on the repartee.

“The costuming is good,” Hawkins responded with a wry smile. “And the woman playing Griselda is very attractive. I wonder what she is doing after the show.”

“You’ve already got plans,” retorted Sue.

A flash of blue-white shot through the building, followed instantly by the roar of thunder as the building went dark. The screen on Ray’s phone came to life. “You two are lucky I have this. I’ll be able to light your way out of here if necessary.”

The light from other phones began to illuminate the dull interior. Low conversations filled the room for several minutes before the lights came on.

Ray watched as Richard Grubbs, red-faced and agitated, entered the side door of the auditorium, pointed to him and made a beckoning gesture with his hand. Ray pointed to his chest with his fingers. Grubbs made an affirmative nod.

11

“What’s happened?” asked Ray.

“Please follow. Something dreadful.”

Ray trailed Grubbs out of the auditorium through an exit door near the front of the stage. They stayed close to the exterior wall of the building, avoiding the torrent pouring off the long overhangs and ducked back in through a rear entrance, double doors, both propped open. Another set of doors took them into the back of the auditorium. They skirted the rear of the set and entered the room through the door at stage left, the right side of the set as viewed from the audience. The curtain separating the audience from the stage remained closed. Bare bulbs suspended above in the fly space cast an eerie, dull light over the interior.

Ray carefully palpated the neck of a man sprawled over a desk at the rear of the set.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Malcolm Wudbine. This is where he is supposed to be at the beginning of the second scene, but….”

“Get Dr. Jeffers and Sergeant Lawrence,” he said, looking at Grubbs.

“Oh, my God. What’s happened?” asked Sterling Shevlin, coming close. “Is he…?”

“I need you to get everyone backstage in one place,” ordered Ray. “Everyone! And make sure no one leaves until I tell you otherwise. No one, absolutely no one is allowed to leave. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, of course.”

Ray watched as Shevlin herded a few onlookers through the French doors at the rear of the set. A few moments later Hanna and Sue were at his side, with Grubbs peering over them and Harry Hawkins just behind.

“I couldn’t find a pulse,” said Ray looking at Hanna.

Hanna reached into the soft tissue of the man’s neck with her left hand. Then she went to the other side with her right hand. She pulled her hand back and looked at her fingertips, now red with blood.

“I need some light,” she ordered.

Grubbs switched on the flashlight he was carrying.

“Bring the beam over here,” she instructed.

Ray hovered at her left side. Impatiently, she grabbed the light from Grubbs and ran the icy LED beam along Wudbine’s skull. She looked at Ray.

“What?”

“It looks like there are two wounds, one real, the other…looks like a combination of rubber and makeup. I shouldn’t do anything more. Get the ME here. Let him figure it out.”

“What kind of wound?”

“The real one, something sharp was driven between the vertebrae at the base of his skull. It severed the spinal column. The victim died instantly. But it would take a lot of force.”

“Weapon?”

“I don’t know. I’m way out of my field. The pathologist will be the best….” Her voice trailed off as she continued to inspect the head with the light. Finally she looked up and said, “There’s a third wound here, an exit wound under his forehead. I think that’s fake, too.”

“How would you like to proceed?” asked Sue, standing at Ray’s side.

“We need to get Dr. Dyskin here.”

“I’ve already made the call.”

“Secure this area so you can start working the scene. Given the noise out there, the audience is getting restless. Richard, we need to empty the auditorium.”

“What do I say?”

“Tell them…tell them that something has happened to one of the cast members. Ask them to please leave the area so emergency vehicles can get in here. And say that you will have full details as soon as you have more information.”

Ray’s eyes followed Grubbs as he slid through the curtains to the center of the stage. The hum coming from the audience fell away as Grubbs started to talk. His comments were brief, the voices returned as people began to leave the auditorium.

Ray looked at Sue. “What do you want to do first?”

“I’d like to get everything photographed before anyone else is in here. And then I’d like to work the area as soon as Dr. Dyskin is done and the body is removed. At that point we have to secure the area so I can come back tomorrow and take another look when I have daylight. Unless it’s someplace obvious, we’re going to have to tear this place apart to find the murder weapon.”

“Staffing?” asked Ray.

“Let’s bring people in on overtime. And Ben Reilly said he’d like to work occasionally, get him.”

“Okay. I will talk to the cast members and everyone else who was backstage. I’ll let them know what’s happened. I’m sure there’s been a lot of speculation by now. I will get a list of their names, contact information, and where they were at the end of the first act. I’ll try to find out if anyone saw anything suspicious.” Ray, using his phone, checked the time. “Given the hour, unless someone has evidence that would take us to the killer, we should organize an interview process and have people lined up to talk to tomorrow morning. We’ll have Grubbs get us a place to do the interviews and have Shevlin identify everyone backstage at the time of the murder. Is your Jeep close?”

“Near the entrance. I’ll have Harry bring it up here. I’ll be able to start taking photos before Dyskin arrives. After the body is removed, I’ll take some more pictures and start working the scene.”

“What kind of help do you want?”

“Just secure the building. I need to get a sense of this place. It’s not like any scene I’ve ever worked.”

“There’s a wife out there,” said Ray. “I’ll have Grubbs help me locate her and other family members.”

“How about the family?” asked Ray when he next encountered Grubbs standing with Sterling Shevlin in the hallway outside the green room.

“His daughter-in-law, she’s in the cast…well they all knew…she was very upset. Her husband, Elliot, Malcolm’s son, he came back here, and she told him. Elliot took her out of here. There was nothing I could do.” He gave Ray a helpless look.

“How about Wudbine’s wife?”

“I think I’ve told you already, she never comes to colony events.”

Ray stood for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “Where do you think they went?”

“Probably to Malcolm’s place, Gull Cottage, unless they went to their own cottage.”

“I want you to go with me. We’ll start at Gull Cottage.”

“Let’s take my golf cart,” suggested Grubbs. “There’s a paved path.”

“Have you seen Gull Cottage?” asked Grubbs, as they slowly rolled along a macadam ribbon through the woods, the dense fog that was blowing off the lake limiting the beam of the headlights.

“No,” responded Ray. He was working to control anger, trying to focus on the crime.

“After his divorce from Verity, he bought this big old cottage, gray-weathered-shake shingle siding, very New England. It was a beautiful place. He modernized and expanded it, ruined the proportions. Then ten or fifteen years ago, he had it leveled. Rumor has it that he was celebrating his first billion. Malcolm loved gulls, he wanted to capture their energy and freedom in a building. Hired a disciple of Saarinan—concrete, cables, titanium, and glass, sort of like the Dulles airport, only more delicate and flight-like. They did a prototype in canvas, making changes along the way. Malcolm wanted it large. The architect convinced him to build smaller, in scale with the landscape and then add guest cottages and other structures away from the shore so nothing would distract from Gull Cottage.”

Ray could see the glow as they approached through the mist, the features becoming clearer as they neared the edifice. One of the twin entrance doors swung open before they had alighted from the cart.

“Hello, Pepper,” said Richard.

“Everyone is gathered in the great room,” the young woman announced, then led the way.

Ray stood for a moment and observed the family and friends scattered across the room on large, carefully arranged groupings of couches and chairs. The room was brilliantly illuminated by the beams of dozens of small lights mounted in the high, sloping ceiling. Everything was in white, the carpeting, the fabric on the furniture, the vaulted plaster arching above. The only exception was an ebony grand piano at the rear of the room, its relative size providing a scale to the dimensions of space. It appeared to Ray to be a mise en scene, the curtain had just gone up and all the actors were in place, silent, holding drinks in delicately shaped martini glasses, looking very composed.

Grubbs provided the opening line to put the scene in motion. “This is the Sheriff of Cedar County, Ray Elkins. Sheriff, this is Mr. Wudbine’s wife, Brenda, his son, Elliott, and Jill, his daughter-in-law.”

Finally Brenda Wudbine looked up at Ray, her manner unsteady, “Elliott told me what happened. Is it true? Is Malcolm really dead?”

“Yes, I’m sorry to tell you that it is true.”

“And that he was murdered?”

“Yes, that appears to be the case.”

“How, how was he killed?”

“We will know more after the autopsy.”

“Sterling said he was stabbed,” said Jill.

Everyone in the room looked at Ray. “It appears that he died of a puncture wound. Like I said, we will have a precise cause of death after the postmortem examination.”

“And when will that happen? When will the body be returned to us?” Jill asked. “We need to begin planning his funeral. My father-in-law was a very important public personality. We need to plan an event that’s befitting his many life accomplishments.”

“I will know more by Monday. In the meantime I will need to talk with each of you and the members of your staff.”

“What on earth for? How would I know anything about this?” asked the new widow, pique in her tone.

“Sheriff,” said Jill Wudbine, “we need time to adjust to this. I think we need to be alone.”

“I plan on beginning these interviews tomorrow.”

“Sheriff, I was Malcolm’s personal attorney for the last two decades. From this point forward I will act as the family’s legal counsel in this matter,” her tone flat and businesslike. “I will facilitate scheduling these interviews at a time that’s convenient to family members and not disruptive to work schedules of our employees. You must understand that Mr. Wudbine’s death comes as a great shock to all of us. If you provide a phone number, I will be in contact. Now please leave us to our grief.”

Ray handed her a business card. “I will begin the interviews tomorrow afternoon. Memories fade quickly. I need your cooperation in finding the killer.” He spoke directly to Jill Wudbine, then slowly made eye contact with the other people in the room.