Last to Know: A Novel(45)

Clinging on to his mother’s hand, Diz said, “My dad did nothing. He only went to visit that Havnel woman that one time when I saw him.”

Harry saw Rose give him a quick sideways “keep your mouth shut” glare. He would not interrogate a child but Diz had just confirmed what he had blurted out earlier; that Wally knew Lacey Havnel, or Bea Havnel, or both, and that Diz had seen him rowing back from their house right before it exploded into flames.

The fact that Wally certainly knew Lacey Havnel and was seen on the lake when her house exploded, and that he was found standing over Jemima Forester’s body, seemed not to have penetrated this family’s armor. They believed in Wally. It was that simple.

“Don’t worry,” he said to Rose. “I’m not going to ask Diz anything, though he will be interviewed by a member of child protective services later, as well as a child therapist. We don’t want any harm to come to him, emotionally. He might think he is responsible,” he added, quietly, so that Diz could not hear him.

The two daughters stood in back of their mother. The elder son, Roman, was next to her. Always the observer, Rossetti would have said.

“I think we need to call my dad’s attorney,” Roman said. Harry nodded, of course.

Meanwhile Wally had been taken off to an interrogation room and there was no doubt in Harry’s mind he was going to end up in jail. For how long, he didn’t know. That would depend on Wally’s story, and any evidence they could produce, and on a clever attorney. He thought it ironic that the man who wrote novels about evil should end up being involved in evil. Perhaps it was true that the apple did not fall far from the tree—a writer of killers turning into a killer. The question was why.

It did not take long to find out. Wally was no match for Bea in the quiet confidence department. He seemed, to Harry, to be a broken man.

He sat in the same place Bea had, behind the same table, ignoring Rossetti’s coffee, his handsome face haggard. Even his tan seemed bleached-out, toned down, unreal. Had Wally Osborne been living out one of his own stories? Had he wanted to kill Jemima for the pure thrill he got when he wrote those books? It was unheard of, but Harry knew from experience there was always a first for everything.

“What explanation can you give for Jemima Forester being at Evening Lake?” Harry started out.

Wally looked at him, bewildered. “I don’t even know who she is.”

“I might remind you, sir,” Rossetti said, “she no longer is. She was.”

Wally shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“Her throat was cut,” Harry added, glancing at the video screen to make sure it was taping. Wally looked dumbly back at him.

“Lacey Havnel, who you knew, was also stabbed.”

Wally shook his head. “It was the fire.”

Harry said, “The fire burned her. The knife killed her first.”

Wally stared down at his hands.

“How did you know Lacey Havnel?” Rossetti asked this one and Wally turned his head to look at him.

“She was a neighbor,” he said. “She’d come to live on the lake, like us … my family I mean. I didn’t really know her.”

Harry’s eyes met Rossetti’s. This time his gut instinct told him Wally was lying. It did not tell him why, though.

“Were you having an affair with Lacey?” Rossetti asked, casually, looking Wally in the eye. “Y’know, man-to-man, these things happen, you both living on the lake and like that … proximity is always a big factor in sexual affairs.”

“I didn’t know the woman.”

“Then why were you at her house? Why were you seen rowing back from there that night, right before the explosion?”

“I wasn’t rowing from there. I was tired, worried about my writing, I just went out for a row around the lake. I often do when things get tough, stressful. Things were wrong between me and my wife, there wasn’t anyone else. It was all my fault,” he said, looking directly at Harry.

There was a knock on the door and a uniformed cop told them Mr. Osborne’s attorney was there. Behind him, Harry saw Roman, still watching, still waiting. Was it only concern for his dad? Or was he watching out for himself, and maybe for Bea?

When he came into the room Harry told him they were holding Wally on suspicion of two murders. Wally was going to jail and there was nothing his attorney, or his family, could do about it. Right now.





34


Unhappiness made Mal cry. Boredom made her want her job back. She had given it all up—and for what? To look at paintings in the Museé d’Orsay? Lovely paintings but she was in no mind to take them in, absorb them into her soul, so to speak. She was alone again. She had drunk a glass of champagne last night in the café with the charming Frenchman who had helped her dry her tears, but she’d refused his offer of dinner and … And what? She wasn’t in the mood for romance, a flirt, sex. She wanted that from Harry and he wasn’t giving it to her because he was up to his neck in the lake with Lacey Havnel and the twenty-one-year-old beautiful blond daughter.

Mal was strolling down the crowded rue de Buci. It was market day but she was indifferent to the fragrant displays of cheeses, the polished piles of fruits, the colorful baskets of flowers, and the bright-eyed silvery fishes. Mal’s thoughts were firmly on the Havnels. She got the feeling Harry was getting nowhere fast in his investigation, stalled, she’d bet, by the innocence of the girl he felt needed his protection. And maybe she did, but, woman-to-woman, Mal needed to find out a bit more about the Havnel family.