convenience’s sake I’d term the killer male) he was someone known to Shelby, someone Shelby had no reason to fear; or he was used to stealth.
And if the stabbing of Arthur in the middle of a crowd was any indication, this person was getting increasingly reckless. The stabbing had to have been impulsive; the weapon was probably a lowly pocketknife, if the gossip I’d heard had been correct. So someone in the crowd around Arthur had been overwhelmed with fury so sudden and devastating that he’d risked all to injure Arthur.
And somehow, somewhere, he’d concealed the weapon so that none of the police on the scene had been able to find a trace of it. Could a pocketknife be swallowed? I wondered wildly. We’d all been searched. Where the hell could it be? This was a crucial how. How had it been concealed?
It was the sort of puzzle that I eagerly moved on to find the answer to in every fictional mystery I read. I never tried to figure it out myself when I knew the writer would supply the solution in a page or two. But I couldn’t flip to the end of the book now . . .
I rolled down the car window, letting the cool breeze toss my hair. I looked at the proper green tent-roof over Jack Burns’s grave. On its surface I replayed the banquet’s ending.
Martin and I walked out the door, and he took my hand. Arthur and his date were behind us. I remembered how irritated I’d been with Arthur; how he’d eyed me.
And when I remembered that, a little cold trickle started down my spine.
But I ignored it with a great effort of will. I was going to track this memory.
The cool, sweet evening. The parking lot. The little knot of people on the sidewalk. The quiet voices exchanging pleasantries. Jesse Prentiss introducing Verna, a stout sixty-year-old with a narrow mouth and a tight perm, to the anxious Andersons, who wanted only to be gone. Perry asking Jenny Tankersley if she wanted to go to his place for a drink .. . Paul with his hand in his pocket to retrieve his car keys, his date standing with her arms crossed on her chest; probably having circulation problems because her blue jeans were acting as tourniquets. Who else? Marnie Sands, groping in her purse, looking annoyed. I remembered thinking she couldn’t find her keys.
We’d moved to the right, facing out into the parking lot, preparing to cross to Martin’s Mercedes. The dog and the cat had provided the diversion necessary for the attacker to make up his mind; he’d try for Arthur . . . the idea of what extreme anger must be necessary to prompt such risk-taking made me shiver.
Then, of course, my fall to the pavement. I touched my bruised face; I had a blue bump on my right forehead, and a little scrape on my right cheek. I’d been lucky.
The confusion, the screaming, the moan and curse from Arthur. Martin helping me up, trying to find out where I’d been hurt. Jesse Prentiss, unexpectedly authoritative, telling Perry to run inside to call the ambulance . . . the sound of Perry taking off. There’d been running feet to and from the scene on the sidewalk: Dryden had run up to us, and Perry had run away.
Paul Allison had said, too late, that he’d called it in from his car already; Perry had been in the building by the time Paul had told us. Perry had had a perfect opportunity to get rid of the knife.
Okay, what about Dryden? His presence at the end of the parking lot was explainable; he was guarding the Andersons. But could he have thrown a knife, somehow? No, I decided reluctantly. Arthur had been facing Dryden’s car, and the wound had been in the back of Arthur’s shoulder.
Arthur’s date, the little gal with the ponytail? Nope. Not only did it not ring true, but she’d been searched. So had Deena Cotton, who hadn’t been carrying a purse; and if she’d had a gnat in the pocket of those jeans, I would’ve been able to count its legs. Jesse and Verna Prentiss had been standing too far away to reach Arthur, by any stretch of their arms or my imagination. Martin and I had been holding hands and had been in front of Arthur. Marnie Sands had been in the right position and had had her hand in her huge shoulder bag . . .