Slocum looked at her curiously. “Yeah?”
“And, I have to tell you, Darren, it’s not coming together for me.”
He took a sip of coffee. He’d put too much cream in it. He grimaced. “What do you mean?”
“The way it looked, initially, is that Ann noticed she had a flat, she gets out to check, leaving the door open, the motor running, goes around the back, on the passenger side, and takes a look, somehow loses her balance, maybe hits her head on the edge of the pier, and goes into the water.” She looked into his face carefully. “Are you okay talking about this?”
“Of course.”
“So I’ve gone down there, and parked in the same spot, and I can’t figure how, exactly, she did it. She hadn’t been drinking before she left.”
“That’s right.”
“When I was down there, I kind of pretended to stumble, you know?” She did a brief demonstration, like she was tripping over her own feet. “There’s plenty of opportunity to catch yourself before you go in.”
“But it was dark,” he reminded her evenly.
“I know. I was down there last night. There’s plenty of streetlights.” She shook her head. “There’s another thing, a big thing.”
Slocum waited.
“You know we took Ann’s car in, just to give it a going-over. The tech guys didn’t notice it at first, but there are these two scratches on the trunk lid.”
“Scratches?”
“It’s an odd place for them. You get them on the bumper, you get them on the doors, but on the trunk lid? Tech guys said they were very recent.”
“I don’t know what they would be.”
“Ann had rings on both hands,” Wedmore said.
“Uh, yes, she did. A wedding ring on her left and another one on her right. Why?”
“If you can picture someone being pushed up against the back of a car, with their hands on the trunk, that’s where the scratches are.” Wedmore demonstrated, holding her arms out and slightly to the back. “They think the scratch marks could have been made by her rings.”
“If she had a flat tire, and went for the spare, she’d have had her hands on the lid.” Slocum turned and dumped his coffee in the sink.
“Except there’s nothing to suggest she ever attempted to change the tire. She hadn’t even turned off the car.”
“Why don’t you just tell me, Rona, what you think happened.”
“I wish I knew. All I know, Darren, is that it doesn’t play out the way it looks. It’s not playing out the way we’re supposed to think it looks.”
He shook his head. “What are you saying? That it was staged?”
“I’m saying it doesn’t feel right. But if that’s all there was to it, maybe I’d have to write it off as one of those things. Like you said, maybe she did somehow stumble, then lost her balance and went in. As unlikely as it seems.”
Slocum’s eyes narrowed. “But you say that’s not all there is to it?”
“No. There’s this business about why she decided to go out for a drive.”
Slocum adopted a puzzled look. “I just told you. Belinda called her. She decided to stop by the harbor first.”
“That was the only call she got?”
“Right. Just before she went out.”
“She wasn’t on the phone earlier that evening?”
“How many times we going to go in circles, Rona?”
“Darren, are you going to keep on playing dumb or you gonna be straight with me here?”
“And why don’t you just level with me? If there’s something you want to put out there, just fucking say it.”
“What about the call she took in the bedroom? The one the Garber girl heard?”
That stopped him. “Rona, I don’t know what people have been telling you, but-”
“Why’d Garber take a punch at you yesterday? What was that all about?”
“Nothing. Just a little misunderstanding.”
“The bullet that went through his daughter’s bedroom window last night, was that just a little misunderstanding, too?”
“Jesus! You think I had anything to do with that?”
“Whoever shot at that house, they may not have been aiming at the kid, but they were sure sending a message. Did you want to send Glen Garber one after he clocked you?”
“Damn it, Rona, you have got to believe, I did not have anything to do with that.”
“Convince me. Tell me why he slugged you at the funeral home.”
“I’m guessing you already think you know the answer.”
She smiled humorlessly. “You were talking to Kelly Garber, without her father’s permission. Even though he’d warned you not to. How does that sound?” When he was silent, she continued. “You’d already tried to talk to her before, and her father wouldn’t let you, or she wasn’t there at the time. How’m I doing?”
“Oh, you’re doing just great. I’m fascinated.”
“And the reason you’ve been so desperate to talk to her is, she was hiding in your bedroom closet when Ann was on the phone. She was having a conversation she chose not to tell you about. This is the phone call that prompted her to head out, not the one from Belinda. Kelly Garber was in that closet when your wife was having this conversation, and you really want to know what she overheard.” She put out her hands, as though she’d just finished a performance. “How’s that?”
