His Only Defense

“Herb’s the gardener?”

“He’d always gardened, but he went crazy after—you know. Same reason.”

“So a year after.”

“It took us both a year before we could do anything besides sit and stare at the walls and bug the police.”

“After something like this happens, many couples split up. You’re still together.”

“That’s debatable.” Irene laughed, this time without mirth. Jud had laughed the same way. There wasn’t much comedy in this family. “We have a granddaughter who needs us. Jud needs me, too.”

“Just you?”

Irene sighed. Her shoulders sank, and for the first time, she looked her age. Liz had checked. She was sixty-two, her husband sixty-nine.

“I wanted to speak to you before Herb got hold of you. He’s so angry. He thinks Jud…did something to Sylvia. He’ll tell you a whole bunch of stuff that isn’t true, although I’m sure he believes every word.”

“You’re certain none of it is true?”

“Oh, absolutely. Jud wouldn’t hurt a fly, and believe me, Sylvia gave him plenty of motivation.”

Aha.

“That boy was the best thing that ever happened to Sylvia, and he’s blessed my life and Colleen’s.” Irene waved at the room. “He designed and built this cottage for me completely at his expense. He didn’t even let me pay for the materials, although I’m sure he could have used the money.”

Her attitude surprised Liz. Mothers didn’t generally say negative things about their own children to the police.

“If Jud says he doesn’t know where she is, then he doesn’t know. Period.”

“You think she deliberately disappeared?”

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea? I keep the electric kettle hot all the time these chilly days.”

“If it’s no trouble.”

“None.” Irene went to the small kitchenette, got a tall mug from the cupboard and turned to Liz. “China or Indian?”

“Indian, please.”

“Lemon or milk?”

“Lemon, please, and one artificial sweetener, if you have it.”

“I have it, all right. I don’t use sugar. I already fight the battle of the old-lady bulge.”

Looking at Irene’s trim, upright figure, Liz figured she was winning that battle. When they were settled on either side of the fire, Liz asked again, “You really think she took off? Weird way to go about it.”

“Sylvia avoided situations she didn’t want to deal with. If she wasn’t doing well in a subject in college, she’d drop it before she could fail. The day she met Jud, she broke her engagement to a young medical student without a word of warning.”

“She must really have fallen for him.” For the first time, Liz felt a kinship with the woman. Jud was easy to fall for.

“You have to admit, he’s pretty spectacular.” Irene laughed. “I thought she’d found someone she could find happiness with, but her discontent came from inside. Even Jud couldn’t keep her satisfied for long. And she certainly made him miserable the last year or so.”

“So he killed her.”

“You think I’d love him the way I do if I thought for a single second that he’d hurt Sylvia?”

“Mrs. Richardson, nobody chooses to disappear that way. Car running on the side of the road, door open, lights on, handbag inside with cash and credit cards…She didn’t even take money out of her checking or savings account. And how did she get away in a driving rainstorm in the middle of the night? That’s not a disappearance. At the very least it’s abduction, and given that nobody’s found any evidence of abduction or any proof that she’s alive, it’s almost certainly murder. In my business we go by who had motive, means and opportunity. Slaughter had all three. So far as we know, he was the only person who did.”

“He took two polygraphs after she disappeared, and passed them both.”

“Polygraphs aren’t admissible in evidence, Mrs. Richardson, because they can be fooled.”

“Jud wouldn’t know how to do that. Why on earth you people continue to hound him I do not know. If she’s dead, somebody else killed her. If she’s alive, why haven’t you found her?”

Because we haven’t really looked. At least, not recently.

An hour later the two women were curled up with mugs of hot tea and had progressed to first names. Liz, however, didn’t know much more than she had before. She was convinced that Irene was not telling her everything she knew or suspected, but Liz couldn’t find any cracks in her story. She was getting ready to start over when the door opened so hard it slammed against the wall.

“Is this her?”

Both women jumped.

“Why didn’t she tell me she was here? I looked out front and saw her car.”

It had to be Herb. His well-worn jeans bore a knife-edge crease. His immaculate button-down oxford cloth shirt was so stiff with starch that Liz didn’t see how he could raise his arms. Control issues. He was a small man with a tonsure of white hair, and the remnants of a gardener’s tan—much darker on the lower half of his face. Liz immediately categorized him as a rooster ready to take on all comers.

She stood and extended her hand. “Liz Gibson, Mr. Richardson. Why don’t you sit down and join us.”

He blinked, narrowed his eyes and scanned her from top to bottom, then glared at his wife. “What crap has Irene been feeding you?” He teetered on the balls of his feet.

I was wrong. Not a rooster. Jimmy Cagney in White Heat.

“Herbert Richardson, do not start,” Irene said. “You are perfectly at liberty to join us, but you will not rant.”

For an instant, it seemed he was going to slap his wife. Liz would have to intervene and arrest him, and she didn’t want to do that. At least not before she’d pumped him dry of all that vitriol.

“Why the hell not? You’re filling the woman’s head with sweetness and light about that murdering monster who killed my child. I deserve equal time.”

“Sit down, Mr. Richardson,” Liz ordered. It came out tough, but it worked. Herb yanked a kitchen chair away from one of the worktables and sat bolt upright in it, with his small feet in their glaring white sneakers flat on the floor in front of him.

“So, what do you think happened to your daughter?” Liz asked.

“He tricked her into stopping on the road, yanked her out of her car, killed her, carried her somewhere and disposed of the body. Period, end of story. Why the hell you people haven’t arrested his murdering ass I do not know.”

“Mr. Richardson, let’s say we arrest him. For that matter, let’s say we’d arrested him seven years ago and put him on trial for murder. Which degree, by the way? Capital murder?”