“That is insulting and ridiculous! You ask anyone, Helen had to come into my office to swat flies! I couldn’t kill anyone.”

Ruth said, “We know Helen called you Wednesday night—again, Gordon, her phone records. She probably told you all about it when you went over to her house to see her. Was she remorseful, tearful, Gordon? Truly upset about the death and pain she’d caused? Did she intend to tell everyone and ruin your life? Did you kill her in a rage, for revenge, or was it more cold-blooded than that? I go for cold-blooded, myself, because you strangled her in her sleep, when she couldn’t see you, when she was at her most vulnerable. Were you trying to protect your reputation and your cushy little wood-paneled job?”

Gordon slammed his fist down on the keyboard. “I don’t want to talk to either of you any more about this! You accused me of murdering Erin; you’ve had me watched continuously; you’ve searched my house, my office, my e-mail, for God’s sake. And you have found nothing! And through all this I have cooperated with you. And here, after all that, you have the gall to come to my house and accuse me of murdering Helen. You have no proof of anything!”

So much for a distraught confession, Dix thought.

But Gordon wasn’t through. “You are right about one thing, Dix. If what you say about Helen is true, then there is nothing left for me. Everything will come out now, no hope for it. I will have nothing—not Erin, not my reputation, my career, my good name. It’s only a matter of time before the board of directors of Stanislaus very civilly demands my resignation. Can you imagine how Chappy will delight in that? Of course you can. You have ruined my life, Dix, ruined it!”

Gordon stuck out his hands. “So arrest me, find yourself a grand jury to indict me. You know it’s impossible because I didn’t kill Helen and so you can’t have any proof that I did. You think I’m stupid and weak or you wouldn’t even have come here.

“Damn you both. Get out of my house. Don’t come back unless you come to arrest me.”

It was as if he’d yelled out all his passion. He slumped forward, looking ineffably weary. He whispered, not looking at them, “Please leave. I want to be alone to mourn Erin, and Walt and Helen. I’m tired to my soul. I want to go to bed.”

CHAPTER 38

TARA

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

MONDAY MORNING

RUTH AND DIX sat facing Tony and Cynthia. Chappy sat in his big winged patriarch’s chair, his fingertips tapping.

Dix looked around at Christie’s family, who were utterly silent. He didn’t think he’d ever been in their company when one of them wasn’t insulting or complaining about one of the others. He sat as silently as Ruth, tapping his foot, waiting for one of them to speak about Gordon. Of course they knew everything. It was all over Maestro.

But no one said a word.

Dix finally said, “So which one of you is going to tell me where Gordon went off to?”

Chappy shrugged. “Can’t imagine why you’d think any of us would have a clue, Dix.” Chappy sat back and folded his hands over his belly. He chuckled, shook his head. “So old Twister’s gone into the wind, has he? Milt at the post office called me this morning, said your deputies were banging on doors trying to find him, but it seems he’s a ghost. How did you let that happen, Dix? Didn’t you have a deputy watching his house?”

“We know a driver with Flying Cabs picked Gordon up on the street behind his house and drove him to Elderville. He was dropped off in a residential neighborhood. No one we’ve spoken to in the area knows him, no one saw him. Someone else must have picked him up from there.”

“Good for him, I say,” Cynthia said, and toasted all of them with her last bite of muffin.

“Uncle Gordon was free to go, Dix. And you don’t really have any proof against him, do you?” Tony asked. He sat forward, clasped his elegant hands between his knees. “Who cares if he took off? If you find out where he is, you still can’t bring him back.”

“He left because there wasn’t anything here for him anymore, Dix,” Cynthia said. “He was ruined. He couldn’t face the humiliation, so he left.”

Dix said, “That’s certainly putting the best face on it, Cynthia. The fact is, though, Gordon is no more accomplished a criminal than Helen Rafferty was. He knows he’s left tracks. That’s why he snuck off while he could.”

The silence returned, none of them meeting Dix’s eyes.

Dix looked at Tony. “I find it interesting that you didn’t bother to tell me all of Gordon’s accounts were closed out. I don’t suppose you helped him with that, Tony? I certainly can’t imagine Chappy doing it.”