I started to shake my head silently, but before I could explain why, we heard a car horn. Deputy Jamison, who’d sat silently through the interrogation, went out to see who it was and returned a few moments later with one of the last people I expected to see that night. Dwight immediately stood up, and even though I’d heard Denn poke fun at Southern manners, he too was on his feet as Jack Jamison ushered in Michael Vickery’s sister Faith, the Hollywood something or other.
She was the middle of the three Vickery children and had the same good looks. Like her mother her back was straight and her voice was cool as she addressed us after introductions had been made.
“I’ve come on behalf of my mother. Mr. Daughtridge told her you were here, Major Bryant. Is Mr. McCloy under arrest?”
“No, ma’am.”
She turned to Denn, who stood there small and gaunt in the unforgiving overhead light.
“Mother wanted you to know that Michael’s wake is tonight. At Aldcroft’s. The visitation hours are from seven till nine if you wish to come?”
Denn nodded, for once inarticulate.
If there were rules of etiquette to cover a situation like this, I’d never read them; but trust Evelyn Dancy Vickery to do the correct thing. I could admire that and yet at the same time it seemed so unfair that Denn, who had loved Michael and had shared Michael’s life, now had to wait on the sidelines until he was invited to participate in the rituals of Michael’s death.
“The funeral will be tomorrow afternoon. At Sweetwater,” Faith Vickery concluded. “Mother hopes you will sit with the family at tomorrow’s services?”
Denn had been frozen into immobility, but as Michael’s sister finished speaking, he went to her, took her hand and lifted it to his lips. A theatrical gesture, yet this time it seemed totally appropriate.
Faith squeezed his hand and for just an instant, her eyes seemed to tear. “I am sorry,” she said quietly and then turned and left.
22 lying eyes
Denn McCloy had played the aging punk for so long that it really surprised me when he emerged from his bedroom. He couldn’t do anything about the buzz cut on such short notice, but otherwise he might have been one of the middle-aged VPs over at First Federal: neat gray suit, white shirt, conservative tie, the works. He picked up on my surprise and shrugged. “Church and Christmas dinner with his parents. Michael was pretty conventional about some things.”
I had come back to the barn with Denn because he wanted to go to the funeral home, but he didn’t want to walk in alone. Even though it was stretching the attorney-client relationship, the whole situation was so bizarrely awkward that I couldn’t help sympathizing. Dwight just shook his head when he heard me agree to go, but what else could I do?
There was a powder room at the top of the stairs. “Make yourself at home,” Denn had said, so while he changed clothes in his bedroom, I’d taken a quick tour around the converted loft and decided to freshen my makeup in the master bathroom- Michael’s evidently-where the light was better. Despite the long day, my slacks and silk cardigan still looked fresh. A skirt would have been more appropriate, but at least I wasn’t wearing jeans.
Lily followed me in, flopped down on a towel that had been thrown on the floor, laid her muzzle on the cool tiles, and let out such a long sigh that I knelt and talked baby talk to her a minute. You always wonder how much they sense.
This was the first time I’d been upstairs at the Pot Shot, and I admit I was impressed with the quiet good taste and tidiness that permeated the whole apartment, especially Michael Vickery’s bedroom, which was on the opposite side of the loft from Denn’s quarters. In spite of the luxurious sand-colored carpet, the heavy handwoven beige coverlet on the king-sized bed, the expensive chests of blond oak, there was an austere feel to the room.
“Almost like a monk’s cloistered cell,” said the preacher approvingly.
“Yeah, if the monk had a Dancy trust fund,” jeered the pragmatist. “You don’t find these fabrics or those custom-built chests in a thrift shop. And look at those wall hangings. Like medieval tapestries!”
“Exactly. I knew Michael was religious, but not that he was so devout.”
“May I point out that you don’t have to be devout to hang works of art on your wall?”
“But look how they’re arranged-almost like an altar in a Gothic chapel. And I don’t care what you think, that’s certainly a cross.”
Pragmatist and preacher dissolved into pure curiosity as I righted the heavy ceramic cross that had fallen over on the chest top and looked closer at the wall hangings. There were two, approximately two feet wide by three and a half feet long; and each hung from its own heavy oak dowel that rested on inconspicuous oak pegs. Not strictly medieval now that I took another look. More a Pre-Raphaelite flavor to the figures woven into the scenes. The one on the left was a familiar-looking Madonna with long flowing brown hair, her luminous brown eyes fixed on the curly-haired infant in her lap. On the right was the woman taken in adultery, with the Christ figure pointing to a white stone in the foreground.
“He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.”
Surely an odd choice of subjects?
Between the two was an empty space about four feet wide, and I realized it held a third pair of pegs positioned slightly higher on the wall. One peg was snapped off flush. And there was the third dowel itself, wedged between the back edge of the chest and the wall. Was that what had knocked over the cross?
Dwight’s people had searched here, but they wouldn’t have disturbed things more than necessary and they would have left all as they found it. Certainly they wouldn’t have thrown a towel on the bathroom floor, nor dirtied the sink. Amid such disciplined tidiness, these anomalies leaped out at me.
I could almost see it happening: Michael had returned from the creek, seen that his truck was gone, questioned Cathy King, who was on her way home, and learned about Denn’s phone call to me. Cathy told Dwight that she’d left Michael loading one of the racks with greenware; and from the condition of the workshop, one of the other potters thought he must have put in at least an hour’s work.
After that, for some reason, he’d suddenly rushed upstairs, into the bathroom to wash the clay dust from his face and hands, then back here where he’d yanked down the middle panel in such a hurry that he’d broken one of the pegs and knocked over the cross.
And then what? Driven over to the theater with it? Why? And where was it now?
No sooner had Lily and I returned to the living room than Denn entered, properly dressed for a funeral. There was a lost look in his eyes when he mentioned Michael’s strong streak of conventionality, but I was too wired to be his comforter at that moment.
“Tell me, Denn, what was the middle tapestry in Michael’s bedroom?”
His head jerked up and his eyes blazed. “What the fuck were you doing in there?”
I stepped back involuntarily and he rushed past me toward Michael’s room.
“And how’d you get in?” he cried. “Pick the goddamned lock?”
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to like that?” I shouted and strode after him with matching anger. He was on his knees in the hall, examining the lock on the door, and I saw immediately that it was a heavy-duty Yale lock, not the usual flimsy thing found on interior doors but one that required a key both to lock and unlock it. For some reason, the open door caused Denn to break down again and once more I was disarmed.
“It’s always locked,” he wept. “Always. No one’s allowed in when Michael’s not here. No one!”
“Not even you?” Surprised dissipated the rest of my anger.
“We each needed private space,” he said defensively as he pulled out a white handkerchief and blew his nose. “Michael didn’t go into my room uninvited either.”