Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,45

in your parents' house? Has your sister made you mad? Or ... have you found out something else about her fiancé?"

I pushed away from him and began to pace the room.

"I have some ideas," I said.

His dark brows flew up. I should've kept my mouth shut. I didn't want to have the whole conversation: I'd tell him I would get in the houses, he'd tell me it was his job, blah blah blah. Why not skip the whole thing?

"Lily, I'm going to get mad at you," Jack said with a sort of fatalistic certainty.

"You can't do the things I can do. What's your next step now?" I challenged him. "Is there one more thing you can find out here?"

Sure enough, he was looking angry already. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and glanced around for something handy to kick. Finding nothing, he too began pacing. We shifted around the room as if we were sword fighters waiting for our opponent to give us an opening.

"Ask the chief if I can go in and look at those files at Dr. LeMay's," he suggested defiantly.

"It'll never happen." I knew Chandler: He would go only so far.

"Find whatever the murderer was wearing when he killed the doctor and the nurse and Meredith Osborn."

So Jack had decided, as I had, that the killer had worn some covering garment over his clothes.

"It's not gonna be in the house," I told him.

"You think not?"

"I know not. When people hide something like that, they want it to be close but not as personally close as their own house."

"You're thinking carport, garage?"

I nodded. "Or car. But you know as well as I do that'll put you in a terrible position legally. Before you do that, isn't there anything else you can try?"

"I'd hoped to get something from Dill. He's a nice guy, but he just won't talk about his first marriage. At least his attic has a good floored section now." Jack gave a short laugh. "I thought about going back to reinterview the couple that lived next door to Meredith and Emory when they had their first child," Jack said reluctantly. "I've been reviewing what they said, and I think I see a hole in their account."

"Where do they live?"

"The podunk town north of Little Rock where the Osborns lived before they came here. You know... the one not far from Conway."

"What was the hole?"

"Not so much a hole, as ... something the woman said just didn't make sense. She said that Meredith told her the baby coming was the saddest day of her life. And Meredith told her that the home birth had been terrible."

That could be significant or just plain nothing more than what it was, the outpourings of a woman who'd just experienced childbirth for the first time.

"She had the second baby in the hospital," I observed. "At least, I assume so; I think someone would have mentioned it before now if she'd had Jane J Lilith at home." But I made a mental note to check.

"Why would Meredith have to die?" Jack said. "Why Meredith?" He wasn't talking to me, not really. He was staring out the front window, his hands still in his pockets. Seen in profile, he looked stern and frightening. If I mentally lopped off his ponytail, I could see how he'd looked as a cop. I would not have been afraid of being beaten if I'd been arrested by him, I thought, but I would have known I'd be a fool to try to escape.

"She baby-sat the other two girls," I offered.

Jack nodded. "So she knew them all physically. She'd have an opportunity, sooner or later, to see each girl naked. But the Macklesby baby didn't have any distinguishing physical marks."

"So who do you think sent you the picture?"

"I think it was Meredith Osborn." He turned from the window to look at me directly. "I think she sent it because she wanted to right some great wrong. And I think that's why she was killed."

"What were you really doing the night she died?"

"I was on my way to ask her some questions," he said. "I'd driven past the Bartley Grill, and I saw her husband and the kids inside. The baby was on the table in one of those carriers, and he and Eve were chattering away. So I knew Meredith was home by herself, and I thought she might know more about the picture."

"Why?"

"Roy had brushed the picture and the envelope for fingerprints.