The Final Victim(91)

"You're very welcome!"

The nurse is leaving the room when, as an afterthought, Charlotte calls, "Melanie?"

"Yes?" She looks expectantly over her shoulder with a jaunty swing of her long blond ponytail.

"Have you seen an old radio upstairs?"

"Oh!" Having turned around too quickly, Melanie accidentally sloshed cocoa over the rim of the cup onto her fingers. "I'm sorry, that that was really hot! What did you want to know?"

Charlotte repeats the question, watching the nurse set down the cup, cross to the sink, and rinse her hand under cold water.

"No, I haven't seen anything on the third floor, but I'll ask your Aunt Jeanne about it when I go back up."

Charlotte dismisses that notion with a wave of her hand. "Oh, that's all right She probably won't even know which radio I'm talking about."

"You might be surprised." Melanie turns off the tap and dries her hands on a dish towel. "Your aunt remembers more than y'all think."

As the nurse retrieves the hot cocoa and leaves the room, her last words ring in Charlotte's ears.

Your aunt remembers more than y 'all think.

She can't help but find the comment ominous, whether it was intended to be, or not.

"You heard what I told the detectives. I wasn't even in Savannah the night it happened. I was in Mexico, on vacation."

"I heard you, Gib," Tyler acknowledges, tapping his black wing tip impatiently on the Persian carpet, "and I was a little taken aback that you were able to recall in a split second your exact whereabouts on a specific date weeks ago without even glancing at a calendar."

"I didn't need to. It was a memorable trip, and I was in the company of a very memorable woman when Charlotte called about Grandaddy."

"Where were you?"

"In the airport. Charlotte can vouch for that if you talk to her. I remember the background noise was so bad I could barely hear her."

"What about your lady friend? Can I talk to her?"

Gib hesitates before answering. Just for a split second, but it's long enough to spark further suspicion in Tyler's mind.

"Sure," Gib says, "talk to her any time you want. Her name is Cassandra."

Pulling out a pen, Tyler asks for her last name and phone number, which Gib promptly claims not to know.

"You don't have her telephone number?" Tyler asks in disbelief. "Come on, Gib."

"I have it," Gib scowls, "but not here. Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to grab my little black book before I left the house."

Having had just about enough of Glib Gib, Tyler puts away his pen. With luck, she'll be in the Boston phone listings; if not, he'll commandeer Gib's cell phone-the modern-day equivalent of a little black book-which, come to think of it, must already be in police possession.

Dammit. Tyler simply wasn't cut out for criminal law, even at this stage of the investigation. Maybe he should cut his losses and refuse to have anything further to do with this.

The trouble is, he's nod just here out of legal obligation, or even loyalty to Gilbert. He's here, too, because of what he did. He and Silas Neville, all those years ago. Not just out of friendship and loyalty. They weren't immune to the deadly sins they learned about in Bible School many years ago: greed was also a factor. Gilbert compensated them well for their risk.

So, yes, Tyler Hawthorne has something at stake, should the police start looking for skeletons in the Remington closets.

So he wants to know-no, needs to know-if Gib Remington's greed could have possibly pushed him as far as murder.

If he were a betting man, and inclined to listen to his own intuition, he'd say no.

But he's a pragmatic attorney, and the evidence seems to say yes.

"This Cassandra," he asks Gib, "does she live in Boston proper? Or in the suburbs?"

Again, the slight hesitation.

"You don't know," Tyler says flatly, "is that what you're going to tell me? You went to Mexico with this woman and you don't even know where she lives? And you expect me to believe that?"

Tyler would love to slap the insolent look off Gib's handsome face.

Then the younger man unexpectedly admits, "I didn't go to Mexico with her. I just met her in the airport."

"Who did you go to Mexico with, then?" "I went alone."

"You expect me to believe that?" "It's the truth."

No, it isn't, Tyler thinks, watching his client intently. It isn 't the whole truth, anyway.

A female voice answers the phone with "Harper residence" on the first ring, but it doesn't belong to Phyllida.

Charlotte asks for her, going over again in her mind exactly how she's going to phrase her question about the radio. She decided not to make it a confrontation, as tempting as that is. No, it should be more of a… query, like a casual, You wouldn't happen to know where Grandaddy 's radio is, would you?

She won't even jump right in with that; first, she'll ask about the flight last night and apologize for not having had a chance to say good-bye.

Yes, it's a good idea to remain civilized. As Charlotte's mother always used to say, "You catch more flies with honey…"

"Mrs. Harper isn't here," the voice says, effectively bursting her bubble-for now. "Mr. Harper isn't, either. Who's calling, please?"