O' Artful Death - By Sarah Stewart Taylor Page 0,37
he saw it had Massachusetts plates, he figured it was the young woman staying at the Wentworths. A professor of some kind, he’d heard. She was the one who had been asking Ruth Kimball about the gravestone. He had questioned Sherry Kimball about her mother’s actions in the days before her death and she had told him all about Sweeney St. George. Now she was staying at the Wentworths’. Coincidence? Cooper didn’t know what to think about that. He didn’t think Sweeney St. George had anything to do with the death, but it raised some interesting questions.
He’d have to talk to her, he decided. And to the rest of the neighbors again. There had been something about Britta Wentworth’s eyes when he’d asked her what Patch and the kids had been doing the afternoon of Mrs. Kimball’s death that gave him the idea she knew more than she was letting on. And when it came down to it, the Fontanas hadn’t been all that willing to tell him where they’d been. He’d definitely have to talk to them again. But first he’d go back to the station and see if the medical examiner’s report was in. He had a bad feeling about this death. It didn’t feel like any suicide he’d ever investigated.
TWELVE
WHEN SHE GOT BACK to the house Sweeney stood for a moment in the foyer, feeling shaken and sad. Her conversation with Bennett Dammers had conjured up feelings she thought she had gotten past months ago and, desperate for an emotional distraction, she searched the hallway for a picture to look at. She found one, a strange, moody beachscape in shades of red and coral. There was something about it that drew her in and she stood, mesmerized, looking into its depths.
“Sweeney? Are you okay?” Rubbing at her eyes, she turned to find Gwinny standing in the doorway of the living room watching her. She was wearing a long purple dress with an empire waistline and a black velvet headband in her hair and she was holding a book. Her eyes appeared to have been inexpertly made-up with purple eye shadow and the costume made her look like a medieval lady-in-waiting.
“Oh yeah. I was looking at this.” She gestured to the painting.
“Were you just crying?”
“I just . . . Something that happened today made me think about a friend who died, that’s all. Where is everybody?”
“My parents are taking naps. Ian went skiing.” Here, Gwinny blushed a little. “I don’t know where Toby and the twins are. Did you find out anything about the stone today?”
“A little bit. I went and saw Bennett Dammers this afternoon.”
“He’s nice. Is it true that someone killed her? Mary?”
Sweeney hesitated for a moment. “Where’d you hear that? She’s supposed to have drowned.”
“Oh, I used to babysit for Charley Kimball sometimes. Mrs. Kimball, the one who died, was always talking about how Mary got murdered and she was going to find out who did it.” Gwinny’s eyes were wide and dark in the late afternoon light coming in through the windows. The foyer was silent, the air cold. Sweeney shivered.
“What was she like? Mrs. Kimball?”
Gwinny frowned. “She was old. You know? She was tired all the time and she got mad a lot. But I think that had a lot to do with Carl. I mean, she didn’t like Carl very much and Sherry was always going out with him and leaving Charley with her.”
“Why didn’t she like Carl?”
“I don’t know. He’s just kind of gross.”
“Was he nice to Sherry?”
“Yeah. I guess. He was always buying her presents, jewelry and stuffed animals and stuff. Charley, too. Hey, you should go down and talk to Sherry. She could tell you about Mary’s stone.”
“That’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do that.”
She was about to go upstairs when Gwinny looked down at her feet and asked, in a low voice, “Was it your boyfriend? The one who died?” Embarrassed, she slid one black Chinese slipper along the gleaming floor.
“Yeah.” She watched Gwinny take that in. If she’d been older, she might have said she was sorry, or said that it must have been awful for Sweeney.
But as Sweeney had a sudden, vivid flash of remembrance of what it was like to be fourteen, to wonder if any member of the opposite sex would ever find her too-tall body and too-bright hair pretty, Gwinny asked, “Was he the first person you were ever in love with?”
“I guess he was. I met him in graduate school, in England,