The phone rang. Since I was still beside it I picked up and said hello. Miraculously, it was Chief Johnson.
“Mrs. McGuire,” he said, “I understand you have further information about your car?”
“Not my car, the other one. The Mercedes. The gray one.”
“Yes?”
“I forgot to tell you, we saw it. It was parked off the road near the turnoff to Bob’s house.”
His voice quickened with interest. “When was this?”
“Before we found Bob,” I said. “Kay and I saw it there, and that’s why we decided to sneak up on his house, so we went through the woods and that’s how we found him in the barn.”
“So this was, what, two hours ago?”
“I guess it's been that long. At least that. It took us a while to find Bob—”
“May I ask why you didn’t call me immediately?”
I was stumped for an answer. “I, that is we—um, we were focused on retrieving my car…” I stopped, wondering how ‘my cousin didn’t want to talk to you’ would go over. Maybe saying ‘because it would have brought Kerry Sue one conversation closer to her demise’ would be better.
“I see. Well, the car isn’t there now. I've been driving in that locale myself looking for your car—”
“Thank you. How kind.”
“—and there’s no gray Mercedes beside that road.”
“Oh,” I managed. “We were hoping you could find out who the woman is from the license plates.”
“What was the number on the plates?” he asked.
I looked across the room at Kay and Bob, who were avidly following my half of this conversation. “Um, hold on,” I said, and put my hand over the mouthpiece. “The car’s not there anymore,” I hissed, “and he wants to know the license number.”
Neither of them spoke. Bob finally shook his head.
I took a deep breath and said into the phone, “I'm sorry, none of us got the number.”
“Mrs. McGuire, if you should happen to see this gray Mercedes again, it would be extremely helpful if you would get the god damned license plate number,” Chief Johnson said evenly.
“Yes,” I told him. “I will. Goodbye.” I could hear his voice still squawking from the receiver as I hung up.
“He’s pissed at us, isn’t he?” my cousin asked, and I nodded. She shrugged and got up from the table, going to the freezer for more ice. “Well, at least one thing is still normal. Who needs more tea?”
“I need something, though I'm not sure tea is strong enough,” I said. “Arsenic maybe.”
“My tea is strong enough,” Kay assured me. “Save the arsenic for Kerry Sue.”
Bob took my glass and his own to the kitchen and held them out for cubes. He set the glasses on the counter and Kay poured more tea from the pitcher. Bob leaned a hip against the counter.
“I have to confess that after listening to Kerry Sue, I no longer know what we were talking about,” he said.
“The woman in red,” Kay said instantly. “But I want to go back to something else. Bob, you said the stepfather didn’t know that Ian was seeing you?”
“I don't think he did,” Bob agreed.
Kay went on, “So how did he know about the tape or that you were any kind of threat? You really think the police detective told him?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but he’s the only person I told about the tape. Of course, my other patients know I tape all my sessions but—”
“So is that why you didn’t want to talk to Ed in the car?” I asked. “Because you don’t trust the cops?”
Bob nodded. “I don’t know who to trust, other than you. Probably the Willow Falls police are safe, but the High Cross detective could have told Ian’s stepfather I had an incriminating video.”
“What does Ian’s stepfather look like? And what the heck is his name? We keep calling him the stepfather,” I said.
“His name is Carl Walsh, and he’s a big guy, over six feet and broad. Not fat, just wide. Football player type. You can imagine him in a high school game creaming smaller guys and walking off smiling.”
“He sounds like the man who was searching my car,” I said. “So that’s why Jack reacted the way he did. He was really terrified when he saw who it was. And we were all scared when Walsh almost caught us in the barn.”
“What?” Bob stared at me. “What do you mean, he almost caught you in the barn?”
“I ran away through the woods when I saw him searching my car. I was in the upper part of the barn, the same place we discovered you, catching my breath. I heard him go into the lower part. Then he went around and came in the upper door but I was hiding behind those same hay bales where you were sleeping.”
He shook his head at me. “My god, Louisa. If he had found you…” He swallowed. “How did you get away?”
“A mouse ran by him and I guess he thought it wouldn’t be there if we were around. Then a dog barked outside. He took off.” It sounded frighteningly flimsy to my ears. I told myself to go back to the barn soon and leave a wheel of brie for that mouse.
Silence fell around the table. Kay finally spoke.
“You know what I’d like to do next,” she said, turning to Bob. “I want to see the tape of Ian’s session with you. Where is it?”
Bob made a face. “Well, the original is gone, it was stolen from my safety deposit box, which is what made me leave town.”
Kay and I both stared at him. “Stolen from your safety deposit box!” Kay finally sputtered. “How the hell did they manage that?”
“Walsh, Ian’s stepfather, runs the bank. He owns it. It was started by his wife’s family several generations ago and he inherited it when she died.”
We digested the implications of that, then I said, “That was the original. How about this copy? Did you give that one to the police?”
He shook his head. “I made one copy, figured I'd give it to the cops. But the detective was so awful I just kept it in my pocket. After I found Jack, I stashed it in his dog food bin. A day or so later I went to the bank to get the original so I could make a second back up copy, and that’s when I discovered it was missing.”
“Did you tell them at the bank it was gone from your box?” Kay asked.
“No. It was just too weird. And that was about the time I remembered Ian saying his stepfather ran a bank. I had no idea it was my bank. I mean, how many people know who runs their bank?”
“Well, I do, but that’s because I've known Harold since he was a pup,” Kay said.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I called my lawyer, who told me to get out of town and hide.”
“Why Willow Falls?” Kay asked.
“My lawyer’s brother owns the stone house and she asked him to let me use it. Which now seems to have left too direct a trail. I grabbed a few necessities and Jack and the copy of the tape and came to Willow Falls.”
Kay stood up. “Let’s go get it. Is it still in the dog food?”
Bob shook his head. “I was afraid they’d find me sooner or later, so I hid it somewhere else.”
“Where?” she demanded.
“Do you remember the day Louisa and I met, when we stopped in your store and said hello?”
“Sure, I called your dog a jack rabbit and we talked about bad furniture. It was just a couple of weeks ago.”
“I had the tape with me in my backpack that day. In fact, that’s why I was walking around. I was looking for someplace to hide the tape, someplace that would be so unconnected to me that Walsh wouldn’t find it, even if he located me.”
“So where is it?” Kay asked.
“When Louisa and I met and we walked down Maple Street it occurred to me that perhaps I could hide it in one of the shops. The two of you left the room to get something, and I hid the tape in your store.”
Kay jumped up and headed for the stairs. “Let’s go.”