To Die For. Sharon Green

Instead of one new body you could have had four or five, and most of them your own people.”

      “But don’t you see that couldn’t have happened?” Mike countered just as intensely. “It’s possible to kill one person to keep a secret, but when a dozen people know, it’s no longer a secret. It would have been written down, put in the computer, mentioned to people on the phone…Once a secret is shared in that many ways, it’s no longer a secret that can get you hurt or killed. Sharing a secret keeps everyone alive.”

      Mike knew he was repeating himself, but if it made Tanda Grail rethink her position, he was willing to say the same thing a hundred times. And she was thinking things through again. He could see that in her expression as she gazed down at the table and then she looked directly at him again.

      “I hope you’re right,” she said, the words earnest. “I’d never be able to stand it if I caused the death of someone else. And I wasn’t being entirely truthful with you a minute ago. I discovered something I hadn’t expected, and although I’m sure it means something, I don’t know what.”

      “Why don’t you tell me about it anyway,” Mike urged with a smile. “I can put my department to work on it, and that way we ought to come up with an answer.”

      “I certainly hope you can,” she agreed, finally letting go of the creamer. “It occurred to me that my brother’s body was found only half a mile away from here. It might have been true that he was there to meet someone, but he also might have been there to go somewhere. To test the theory, I took Robby to the spot and gave him the scent from the shirt Don was wearing when he died.”

      “Do you mean to say the dog actually found a trail to follow?” Mike demanded. “But it’s been a good week, not to mention that it’s rained at least once. How could there be anything left?”

      “Are you asking if Robby only pretended to find a track?” she countered with a smile, clearly amused by Mike’s disbelief. “If he did, he’s better at pretending than anyone you care to name. He brought me here to the house, to the cellar stairs in back, and I found that the lock on the doors had been cut open. Apparently Don did come to the house that night, but not to see me. He came to leave something.”

      She took a key from her jeans pocket and held it up, showing him the something she meant. Mike reached for it and she gave it to him, but looking at it more closely didn’t help.

      “I can’t tell what this is a key to, and you don’t know either, do you?” he asked, getting her head shake to confirm his guess. “Well, as I said, I’ll get my people working on it. There are expert locksmiths who can tell you exactly what a particular key is for, and we’ll consult one of them. After that we’ll at least know what to look for.”

      “It doesn’t seem to be a car key, a house key or a safe-deposit-box key,” she said, watching as Mike put it carefully in a small evidence bag and then into his inside coat pocket. “That leaves personal safes, strongboxes, secret caches or diaries.”

      “Or one of ten thousand other things,” Mike returned with a faint sound of amusement. “I know you’re hoping it’s one of the things you mentioned. For that matter I hope the same, but let’s not set ourselves up for disappointment. This key could just be a duplicate to a lock box that has important business papers. Your brother might have simply wanted it in a safe place no one knew about.”

      “So he came in the dead of night, on foot, to leave it?” she countered with a sound of disbelief. “He probably used the metal cutters from the shed out back, but he still also broke in. And you want me to believe he did all that for business papers, and it was only coincidence he was murdered right after that? Really, Lieutenant Gerard, if that’s what you believe, you ought to be back on foot patrol.”

      “You’d make a tough boss, Ms. Grail,” Mike said with a smile for her indignation. “As a matter of fact, I don’t believe that the key is unimportant, but that doesn’t stop the matter from still being a possibility. People have been known to do stranger things at stranger times. And please call me Mike.”

      “Only if you call me Tanda,” she conceded, not quite ready to appreciate his practical outlook, and then she smiled. “All right, Mike, you believe the key is nothing and I’ll believe it’s an important clue. That way at least one of us will be right, and you’re here for another reason anyway. Do you have more questions, or have you learned something you think I should know?”

      “I haven’t learned anything myself, yet,” he answered. “On the way out here I noticed a convenience store a couple of miles up the road and stopped, but the clerk doesn’t remember seeing Saxon in there two days ago. That means either he didn’t stop, or he didn’t do anything to bring himself to the woman’s attention if he did stop. If that was where he saw whatever he saw, he didn’t ask any questions about it.”

      “But if he saw it then, he couldn’t have understood what he was seeing,” Tanda pointed out. “I mean, he didn’t tell me about it when he got here, he only mentioned it last night. That should mean it’s more likely he saw whatever-it-was yesterday, while he was looking around.”

      “And that, in turn, means we’ll have to trace his movements, but it can’t be done until tomorrow,” Mike agreed. “On Sunday everything closes up. The only thing I can check on right now has to do with you and your brother. Can you handle a few more personal questions?”

      “I can handle all the questions in the world, if that will find the person who killed Don,” she answered. “What did you want to ask?”

      “Well, to begin with, are you your brother’s heir?” Mike asked, very aware of how the question sounded. People who were in line to inherit big sometimes did things to hurry along that inheritance, but Tanda Grail didn’t seem to realize the implication.

      “As a matter of fact, I have no idea,” she answered, looking surprised. “It hadn’t occurred to me to think about it, not when there were so many other things…Did I mention that Don had been married, but had become a widower? For all I know, he had a child, and the child is his heir.”

      “His permanent residence was outside a small town in California,” Mike said, pulling out his notebook and a pen. “The police there told us he lived alone with a couple of servants. If there’s a child, there should be some record of it, so we’ll have to get in touch with the locals again. Do you know if he used a lawyer from around here at all? Who handled the purchase when he bought his house?”

      “You’re making me feel very useless,” she said with a sigh. “Not only do I know too little about my brother’s death, I know even less about his life. How can I possibly be of any help, when even simple questions are beyond me?”

      “You do all right for someone without any answers,” Mike told her quickly, meaning every word. “You didn’t have to know the details of your brother’s life to find that key. It’s a clue that will probably turn out to be a lot more important than knowing who his lawyer is. Don’t forget we have a bet going on the point.”

      “I didn’t realize there was a bet involved,” she said with a smile that warmed her soft gray eyes. “You can’t have a bet without stakes, and we never discussed stakes.”

      “Don’t you know there are certain standard stakes?” Mike asked, finding that her smile warmed more than her eyes. “In matters of this sort, the loser buys dinner for the winner. You aren’t going to try to back out of the bet, are you?”

      “No, I won’t back out,” she assured him with a gentle laugh. “Even if I lose. Do you make a habit of going to dinner with murder suspects? I know no one has said it out loud, but my being involved with two of the victims has to mean I’m a suspect.”

      “Eighty-five percent of all serial killings are committed by men,” Mike told her. “In some ways these murders don’t fit the standard pattern, but the department shrink has assured us there’s a definite ritual involved that isn’t being faked. She’s certain all the victims were killed for essentially the same reason, and very possibly by someone they