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“Spencer Martin?” Daily’s confusion was plain. “You said you’d killed him.”
“No, she said I’d killed him.” He glanced at Barrie.
She was cradling a cup of scalding tea between her hands, mindlessly rocking back and forth as she sat on the edge of Daily’s sofa. His house was dark. They’d managed to sneak back in undetected. At least that’s what Gray hoped. With Spence a factor, the risks had suddenly become much greater.
“I only incapacitated him,” he explained. “But I should have killed him.”
He then described how he’d wounded Spence with a gunshot and placed him in the root cellar beneath his barn. “I wanted him to survive, but not to escape. I thought I’d come here and, with Clete’s help, get Vanessa safely away from David within a matter of days. A week at most.”
He glanced at Barrie, who was still staring vacantly into space. “It hasn’t worked out that way. I should have known Spence would get free, although damned if I know how he managed. He probably clawed his way out.”
“You’re that sure it was him who killed Fripp?” Daily asked.
“I’m that sure. I know his style.”
“If Howie had ever met Spencer Martin, he would have boasted about it,” Barrie said, speaking for the first time in five minutes.
“They could have met for the first time seconds before Spence sliced his throat.”
She shook her head. “The police said there was no sign of forced entry. Howie recognized his killer and invited him into the apartment.”
Daily leaned forward. “What are you saying, Barrie?”
Gray spoke for her. “She’s saying that Howie was expecting me and that I killed him.”
A split second after making eye contact with him, she averted her head. He didn’t let her off lightly. “Well, isn’t that what you’re thinking?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she cried, setting her cup of tea aside. “I can’t think.” She came to her feet and began rubbing her arms vigorously. “I can’t think of anything except how gruesomely Howie died. He wasn’t my favorite person,” she said in an uneven voice, “and I won’t pretend that he was. He was a loathsome individual, but he was a human being, harmless and innocent where this matter is concerned. I dragged him into it. I got him killed. His murder will be on my conscience for the rest of my life.”
She sat down and began to cry.
Neither of the men said anything until Daily asked, “What’d the police say?”
Gray had wanted only to get the hell away from the scene, fearing that Spence might return to finish them off. But Barrie had insisted on doing what was right and called 911. Short of knocking her unconscious and carrying her from the apartment, there was nothing Gray could have done but stay with her during the questioning by homicide detectives.
They admitted to the investigators that they’d had an appointment to visit Howie that evening. When they arrived, his apartment was dark, but the door was unlocked. They’d found him dead. They had touched nothing except the doorknob, a couple of light switches, and the hem of the window shade. Gray had remembered to wipe down the fuse box before the first squad car arrived. It would have been difficult to explain why he’d wanted to flee the apartment in darkness.
“The detectives theorized that Howie had been jumped outside his apartment door and forced inside. His pockets had been rifled, so robbery was the suspected motive. It could have been a mugger, they said, or a gang initiation.”
“Any suspicion cast in your direction?” Daily asked.
“There might have been, except for a footprint in the blood. It was a man’s sport shoe, the kind sold by the thousands every day all over the country. Apparently the killer realized his mistake, because there was only that one imprint. The detectives figure he took off the shoe to keep from leaving a bloody trail out of the apartment.
“My guess is that Spence left the imprint on purpose so the police would surmise exactly what they did—that somebody randomly spotted Howie as he entered the building, followed him up the stairs, and did him for a few lousy bucks. It happens several times a week in that neighborhood. The police will go through a few routine procedures, then write up all the paperwork, it’ll be filed, and the murder will remain unsolved.”
“How can you be so damn casual about this?”
Once again Barrie was on her feet, glaring at him, causing his temper to snap. “What do you want me to do, confess?” he asked angrily, bearing down on her.
“I want you to explain why you went into Howie’s apartment ahead of me.”
“I wanted to make an impact.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“That doesn’t mean I killed him.”
“Why’d you cut the lights when I came in?”
