Red Cent by Robert Campbell

Author:Robert Campbell [Campbell, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780671643645
Google: Y6zs_Z8tSvYC
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1989-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

AFTER THAT FIRST ORGAN CHORD, Jessica stood up without a word and went upstairs with Marcus Sears, trying to catch up so it could be seen he was escorting her back.

At the door he paused long enough to tell me with a gesture of his hand that he wanted to know anything I might find out about the crying woman, having read about as much from her response to Jessica's look of hate as I'd done.

Karen's eyes had been elsewhere or something, because, though she knew something had happened, she didn't know what.

"You learn anything, Jake?" she asked.

"You see Jessica's hands?"

"What about them?"

"You tell me."

"They were smudged with soot or something."

"All around the curve of her thumb and forefinger?"

"That's right."

"Gunpowder. I didn't have to ask, but if I did ask was she a marksman you can bet she'd say she was. It takes a lot of shooting to stain somebody's hand that way."

"You're not saying she shot her father?"

"I'm just saying there's a hell of a lot of people fooling around with guns and rifles in this situation."

"Do you think this Terrence Pickering is going to turn out to be a rifleman too?"

"Without a doubt."

The second chord sounded.

"She was telling us what I think she was telling us, wasn't she?" Karen said.

"What's that?"

"That Florence Chaney and Terrence Pickering were doing a number up there in the lodge while the others climbed the mountain?"

"I'd say so. But we don't want to forget that Uncle Milton was there."

"That might've been why Harold Chaney sent him along on the expedition. To keep an eye out."

"I'd say that's a possibility. Though, if I wanted a watchdog to look after my straying wife, Milton Banner'd be the last one I'd choose."

The third chord slipped through the funeral home. "Are we waiting for something?" Karen asked.

"I'm waiting for that woman to come back out of the ladies' room. Go have a look, will you?"

Karen went to have a look and came right back out shaking her head. There was an exit door to the parking lot at the end of the corridor.

I went to it and tried the knob. It was unlocked. "Let's go get a cup of coffee and talk," I said.

We found a shop about a block and a half away. Karen ordered tea and I ordered coffee with a sweet roll.

"That's no kind of a lunch," Karen said.

"It's not lunch."

"Well, then you shouldn't be eating between meals. Who do you suppose that woman was?"

"Harold Chaney's mistress."

"My God, you take long steps," Karen said, leaning back in the booth with her mouth open in exaggerated surprise.

"A woman comes to a funeral advertised as being for family and close friends. Luckily there's a crowd, so maybe she figures she can get lost and sit in the room and pay her last respects to the man she loved. But it gets to be too much for her. She wants to cry and can't do it publicly. So she comes downstairs and is seen by the man's daughter, who pretty clearly recognizes her.

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