Arsenic And Old Books

THIRTY-NINE

“If Mrs. Long didn’t run down Marie, then who did?” I asked. “Was it Beck? Or maybe that man Kittredge?”

Kanesha shook her head. “No, Beck Long and his associate Kittredge both have alibis. They were down in Jackson that evening, meeting with a public relations specialist until around one in the morning. They couldn’t have driven back to Athena in time.”

“Why are you so sure Mrs. Long didn’t do it?” I still thought the mayor was the most likely candidate for murderer.

“We checked her car, her husband’s, her son’s personal vehicle, even their housekeeper’s car,” Kanesha said. “None of them had any kind of damage, and we know that the car that hit Dr. Steverton had at least minor scratches to the blinker on the front passenger side. Also, preliminary evidence on the paint residue on Dr. Steverton’s clothing didn’t match the makes or models of any of those cars.”

That sounded pretty conclusive. Then another possibility occurred to me. “What about rental cars? Couldn’t one of them have rented a car just for the purpose?”

“We’re checking rental car agencies in a hundred-mile radius,” Kanesha said. “The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is helping with that. If necessary we’ll extend the radius farther. I’m hoping for a report from them sometime today.”

“So it’s still possible that Mrs. Long or her husband could have rented a car and used it to run Marie down.”

“Yes, it’s possible,” Kanesha said, “but I don’t think either of them did that. Renting a car takes time and effort, and unless Mrs. Long had planned in advance to do it, I can’t see where she had the time to arrange for and pick up a rental, even with her husband’s help.” She leaned forward. “Look, we know from phone records that Dr. Steverton didn’t call the mayor until close to midnight that night. We’re checking into calls from Dr. Steverton’s office in the history department, now that we know she must have gone there at some point in the afternoon or evening in order to put the diary pages into the campus mail.”

I took a moment to digest all that, and I had to agree—albeit somewhat reluctantly—that Kanesha was right. The mayor seemed to be out of the picture as the murderer. Given the mayor’s reaction when I shared with her the contents of those pages, I believed she had not heard any of it before. Clearly Marie hadn’t disclosed it to her at any point. The mayor had been far too shocked to be acting, despite her years on the political stage.

“Did Marie call anyone else that evening?” I asked.

“Not from her home phone,” Kanesha said. “That’s why we’re checking on her office phone. I have the feeling that she must have called someone else. I am pretty sure I know who she did call.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Jasper Singletary.”

Kanesha nodded. “That’s the only answer that really makes any sense. With those pages, she had political dynamite. If she was as drunk that night as the mayor claims, she might have called and offered the pages to him.”

I frowned. “That would defeat her purpose, wouldn’t it? Singletary wouldn’t have the pull to get her tenure, not the way Mrs. Long would, through her connection with Professor Newkirk.”

“True,” Kanesha said. “That’s the sticking point in this scenario.”

“There’s another point that has to be considered,” I said. “The return of the diaries to this office. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to assume that the murderer returned them?”

“I believe so,” Kanesha said. “I can’t see another person getting into the middle of this, finding the diaries at Dr. Steverton’s home, and then returning them. We’re trying to determine exactly when they were returned, but it’s difficult. There are no security cameras in this building, and the two doors in and out of the building have locks that are very easy to bypass.” She shook her head. “Chief Ford is going to take this up with the president, but it’s too late to help us in this investigation.”

“Campus security didn’t see anything suspicious during their rounds?” I asked.

“No,” Kanesha replied. “As I said, we have nothing really to go on for the timing of the return. We know that they were taken while you and Ms. Gilley were both out of the building for lunch, but that’s all.”

“What about Kelly Grimes?” I asked. “Are you considering her as a possibility?”

Kanesha shot me a repressive look. “Of course. Her car doesn’t have any damage, either. Neither does Singletary’s nor those of any of his campaign staff.”

“Could the damage have been repaired before you got around to all of the vehicles?” I asked.

“No, because I made sure that was done the first day of the investigation.”

“Surely by now the car will have been repaired,” I said.

“It could have been,” Kanesha said, “but if it was a rental, there will at least be a record of it. With that and paint residue, we should be able to make an identification and go from there.”

“Frustrating,” I said.

“Yes, but not unusual,” Kanesha replied. “We’ll get there; it’s just a matter of time and persistence. We’ll identify the car, and then we’ll know the killer.”

Another point occurred to me. “Singletary’s car wasn’t used, nor those of any of his staff. Kelly Grimes’s car wasn’t used. What about alibis for them?”

Kanesha smiled briefly. “Neither Mr. Singletary nor Ms. Grimes has one after midnight. They left Athena together around six thirty p.m. and attended a fund-raiser in Charleston and another in Enid that evening. Mr. Singletary dropped Ms. Grimes at her place around midnight, then immediately went to his home. The timing is about right, because we know approximately when they left Enid. Both of them say they went to bed right away, but neither one has an alibi for the rest of the night.”

“There’s at least a possibility,” I said. “Surely it has to be one of them.”

“Yes, I’m pretty sure it is. One more piece of information, and then I have to go. Kelly Grimes lives in a duplex. Her neighbor has a car, but the neighbor is out of town. Ms. Grimes said he left on Tuesday but doesn’t know where he went. I want to verify that he left on Tuesday and not early on Wednesday. We’re trying to trace him and his vehicle.”

“You think she could have borrowed her neighbor’s car?” I asked.

“Yes, as long as he didn’t leave until Wednesday,” Kanesha said. “We’re checking with neighbors to see if anyone remembers seeing his car in the driveway on Tuesday and how late. Nothing so far, but we’ll keep digging.” She stood. “Thanks again for your help. Now it’s going to be down to routine investigative work.”

“Good luck,” I said. “I hope this gets resolved soon.”

She nodded and raised a hand in farewell.

I turned to the cat. “Come on, Diesel, let’s go home. And this time we’re going to get there.”

He perked up right away. I glanced at the wall clock and wasn’t surprised to see it was already a few minutes past five. Definitely quitting time. This had been a strange day, not to mention emotionally and mentally exhausting.

On the walk home through the oppressive early evening heat, I tried my best to think of other things. Kanesha was right. Routine police work would achieve a solution to this.

The harder I tried to think about another subject, the more my mind stubbornly refused to cooperate. I was thinking about Kelly Grimes as the murderer when I unlocked the front door. I kept thinking about her in the kitchen while I was pouring myself a glass of iced tea.

I sat at the table and slowly sipped at the tea. Diesel disappeared and then reappeared to settle near my feet. He dozed while I continued to think about the various things I knew about Kelly Grimes and the events of the past few days. I began to piece together what I thought, in the end, was a plausible scenario for what happened.

The diaries were the catalyst. Marie Steverton wanted them for scholarly research and had agreed to forge a fifth volume in return for help getting tenure at the college. Kelly Grimes wanted them because she wanted to help her boyfriend find evidence that Rachel Long was a cold-blooded murderess.

I witnessed the unpleasant incident between the two women and their obvious dislike for each other. Neither one would be happy if the other got her hands on the diaries first. Marie insisted that Mrs. Long make sure she had exclusive access to them, but that apparently wasn’t good enough. Marie sneaked into my office while Melba and I were both out of the building for lunch and took them.

I was pretty sure Kelly Grimes was keeping an eye on Marie, and I speculated that she saw Marie with the diaries. Or she found out somehow that Marie had them. She decided to steal them from Marie so she could have access to them first. She didn’t have time to do it in the afternoon before she had to go with Singletary to the two fund-raisers in Charleston and Enid. Besides, doing it in the early hours of the morning when Marie would presumably be asleep would probably make it easier.

Okay, that all seemed plausible so far.

Next step. Kelly helped herself to her neighbor’s car and drove to Marie’s house. I figured she probably parked down the block. Then she made her way to Marie’s and let herself in, either by picking the lock or finding an open window. Given Marie’s inebriated state that evening, she might even have left a door unlocked.

Kelly got into the house and located the diaries. Marie would not have had them hidden away at the point, I figured, because the cops had come and gone without finding them and weren’t likely to search again. Kelly grabbed the diaries, stuffed them in the bag, and started to slip out. Something woke Marie, maybe Kelly stumbling against a piece of furniture or knocking something off onto the floor, and Marie saw what she thought was a burglar. Maybe she even recognized Kelly.

Marie went after Kelly to try to get the bag with the diaries back. Kelly ran for the car, Marie hot on her heels. Marie caught up with her and tried to snatch the bag. Somehow the diaries got dumped out of the bag. Kelly scooped them up, got in the car, started it, and tried to drive off. Marie stepped in the way, and Kelly hit her, knocking her to the ground and killing her. Then, perhaps terrified over what she had done—on purpose or accidentally, I wasn’t sure—she took the diaries to the archive instead of taking them home with her. Unaware the whole time that pages were missing from one volume.

Then Kelly went home, put her neighbor’s car where it belonged, and went to bed. The neighbor got up early for his trip, not noticing the damage to the blinker on the front passenger side, and off he went, destination unknown.

I thought about my scenario a little while longer. I finally concluded it was possible, but until Kanesha found evidence, it was only a theory.