Close Neighbors. Dawn Stewardson

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СКАЧАТЬ there’d be a grass stain where my shorts tore or something.” She shook her head. “They might as well have just said that maybe some blood spatters had soaked through.”

      “But at least you still had the underwear to show them, didn’t you?”

      “Yes, only I’d washed it. I put a load in the machine before I went to bed on Wednesday. They were suspicious about that, too.”

      Hardly surprising. Rachel seemed like an intelligent-enough woman that—if even a speck of Graham’s blood had gotten on her—she’d have disposed of every stitch she’d had on. And, for all the detectives knew, she could have shown them any underwear fresh from the wash.

      But if she was guilty, if her clothes had actually been evidence that she’d killed Graham, why admit to throwing them out?

      She’d have realized that would make the police suspicious. So why wouldn’t she have done the obvious? Produced clothes that looked similar to what she’d been wearing? Eyewitnesses were notoriously inaccurate, which meant that even if people had seen her in the park…

      Chase had been home when she left, though. If she’d tried lying, he’d have known.

      Anne glanced at him, remembering he’d also been there waiting when Rachel returned. If she’d arrived back with blood on her clothes, he could hardly have helped noticing. Which meant her story had to be true—unless there’d been only a few, inconspicuous, traces of blood. Or unless Chase was trying to help her cover up what she’d done.

      That thought had barely formed before it was joined by another, even more disquieting, one. What if Chase had played a role in Graham’s death?

      She licked her suddenly dry lips and surreptitiously looked at him again. She could almost feel his distress, but was he just worried about Rachel? Or was he afraid those detectives figured he might have been involved in the shooting?

      He’d admitted going to the park. And she only had his say-so that he hadn’t found Rachel and Graham there. What if he actually had? While they’d been in the midst of their argument? Or maybe after Graham had pushed her down?

      Of course, every one of those questions, and then some, would have occurred to the cops. They’d have suspected that Chase might have done a lot more than simply drive around—which was undoubtedly the real reason they’d questioned him at length.

      Lord, for all she knew, she was sitting here with not one but two people who were at risk of being charged with murder.

      Despite the warmth of the sun, she suddenly felt chilled. She’d barely met Chase and Rachel, knew virtually nothing about either of them. What if they were both lying to her?

      She had to figure out whether they were, and to do that she needed more information, so she said to Rachel, “Why don’t you go over what else the detectives asked about. Aside from your clothes. Start at the beginning and try to remember everything.”

      “Well…they wanted to know about my relationship with Graham. How long we’d been seeing each other and why we broke up. Then they had me go over what happened on Wednesday. Minute by minute, from the time I met him until I got back to my car.”

      “All right, let’s hear what you told them.”

      Rachel leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and began.

      Her account proved to be a fill-in-the-blanks elaboration of Chase’s. Graham had wanted them to get back together. She’d said it wouldn’t work. That led to their argument, his shoving her and her leaving.

      “The detectives already knew I’d fallen,” she continued. “At least they knew someone had. The crime-scene team established that the leaves had been disturbed not far from his body.”

      She took a deep breath, then added, “That means he was killed right in the clearing where I left him. And every time I think about that I wonder whether he’d still be alive if I hadn’t just walked away.”

      “Don’t do that to yourself,” Chase said quietly. “You had no way of knowing anything would happen.”

      When Anne glanced at him, his dark eyes were filled with concern. It seemed genuine enough to make her almost certain that he knew nothing about what had happened in the park except what his sister had told him.

      But her father’s voice was whispering in her ear, saying, Never trust a brown-eyed man, darling.

      It was one of the bits of advice he’d been giving her since he’d first realized she was noticing boys—always delivering the line straight-faced, waiting a beat, then adding, And never trust a blue-eyed one, either.

      Turning her mind back to the moment, she focused on Rachel again. “If Graham was killed right in that clearing,” she said, mentally sorting through her thoughts as she spoke, “it couldn’t have happened long after you left. He wouldn’t have just stayed standing where he was indefinitely.”

      “It was after I got back to my car and drove off, though. Because I didn’t hear the shot.”

      “A few people in the park did,” Chase interjected.

      “And none of them investigated?”

      “No. According to the news, they all assumed it was a car backfiring. Maybe, if there’d been more than one…”

      “Maybe,” she agreed, still wondering exactly what the truth was. “How long did it take to walk back to your car?” she asked Rachel.

      “Only three or four minutes.”

      That added up. Someone lurking in the trees wouldn’t have stepped out the moment she left the clearing. He’d have held off for a bit, in case she decided to come back, before confronting Graham.

      Then the encounter between the two men would have taken a little time. So Rachel could easily have been gone before…The question was, had she been?

      “After you finished telling the detectives what happened in the park,” she said, “where did the interview go from there?”

      Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. “They touched on a couple of other things, then they came right out and asked if I’d killed Graham.”

      The air turned deathly still. Even the aspens ceased their rustling, as if breathlessly waiting for the tale to continue.

      Anne waited, as well. Then, when the silence grew uncomfortable, she said, “You know, asking if you killed him and actually believing you did are two different things. People almost never answer yes to a question like that, even if they’re guilty. But the police always ask. To see what reaction they get. Sometimes, it tells them a lot.”

      “My reaction was that I started to cry,” Rachel murmured. “I knew there was no way Graham and I should get back together, but I was still a little in love with him. And even though I was awfully angry the other night…” She paused to wipe away a few tears that were making good their escape, then shook her head as more began to flow.

      Her distress reminded Anne what she’d liked least about being a private investigator—having to press people who were so emotionally fragile they shouldn’t be forced to answer questions.

      And СКАЧАТЬ