Classified As Murder

Now I wanted Kanesha to ask him another question. Did she take anything from his room?

Perhaps Kanesha picked up on my thought waves. “Was she carrying anything with her when you saw her leaving his room?”

“I think so,” Hubert said. “But with those skirts of hers it’s hard to tell sometimes. She’s really good at hiding things with them when she doesn’t want you to know she has something.” He paused. “Whatever it was, it had to come from Truesdale’s room. I’m sure of that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Morris,” Kanesha said. “I strongly suggest that in the future you refrain from slapping your wife.”

If Kanesha had spoken to me in that tone, I would have been quivering in my boots. I would have loved to see her expression when she warned Hubert.

Hubert spoke in a strangled whisper. I had to strain to hear him. “No, ma’am. I mean, yes, ma’am; I won’t hit her again.”

“That’s all, then,” Kanesha said. “You can go now.”

Hubert couldn’t get out of the room fast enough. He bolted out the door, leaving it open.

I wanted to fade into the woodwork with Diesel, but there was no chance of that.

With her back still to me, Kanesha said, “It’s okay, I know you’re there. And the cat, too.” She turned toward the door. “Now I want to see that inventory book. Come with me.”

Diesel and I followed her to the library, where a grim-faced Bates admitted us.

Kanesha strode over to the desk and stared down at the book. “I presume we’re meant to think that this is what Mrs. Morris took out of the butler’s room.”

“It seems pretty obvious,” I said.

Kanesha turned to me, an ironic glint in her eye. “From where you were, you couldn’t see Morris’s face while I questioned him. He lied to me. The question is, why?”

TWENTY-FIVE

I was willing to take Kanesha’s word for it. She was an experienced officer. If she thought Hubert was lying, then he probably was.

Diesel found refuge under the work table. He stretched out, face toward me, and regarded me steadily.

I did have a question, however. “Exactly what was he lying about?”

“The room he saw his wife coming out of.” Kanesha responded with a hint of impatience. “If he was even telling the truth about seeing her come out of a room. The whole thing was a bit too pat—with one exception.”

I thought about that for a moment. “The lag between the time he saw her coming out of the room and when he confronted her.”

“Exactly.” Kanesha snorted. “I don’t buy that bit about how slippery she is and that it took him ten minutes to catch up with her. That dog ain’t gonna hunt, at least not with me.”

I was curious about her interrogation methods. “Why didn’t you press him on it, then?”

“I like to let them think they’ve put one over on me, gives them a bit of confidence, and then they start thinking they’re smarter than me.” She shook her head. “That’s when I teach them the error of their ways.”

I filed that away for future reference. “So what do you think really happened?”

“Let me ask you some questions first, about the timing.” Kanesha signaled to Bates. “You too, Bates. How long was Mrs. Morris in the library when she came in here with that book? And how long after she left did you hear her scream?”

I answered the first question. “She was in here five minutes at the most.” I glanced to Bates for confirmation, and he nodded.

“Wasn’t much more than a minute or so after she left that I heard her scream,” Bates said.

“Okay, then,” Kanesha said. “If we take Mr. Morris’s ten-minute time frame, that gives Mrs. Morris about three minutes to elude him and get to the library. I know this is a big house, but I don’t buy his statement that she got away from him.”

“Do you think he lied when he said he didn’t know what she took from the room?” I had my own thoughts about that, spurred on by Kanesha’s doubts and questions.

“I think he knew, all right,” Kanesha said. She pointed to the formerly missing inventory volume. “He knew she had that, but I don’t think he saw her take it. He found it missing, figured she had it, and came looking for it.”

“And that would mean Hubert took it in the first place and hid it somewhere.” That fell in line with my own reasoning.

“Yes,” Kanesha said. “Now the question is, why is he trying to implicate Truesdale?”

“The will,” I said, even as Kanesha spoke the same words. “He wants to discredit Truesdale in some inept attempt to break the will.”

“And in that case,” Kanesha continued in a triumphant tone, “he is probably the person stealing from the collection, because otherwise why would he think the presence of that book in the butler’s room would incriminate Truesdale?”

She had reached the same conclusion I had. Things weren’t looking so good for Hubert. But there was one problem. We still hadn’t found anything actually missing from the collection.

I voiced that thought to Kanesha.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “This means the inventory is more important than ever now. I really need to know whether anything is missing.”