Close Neighbors

He nodded that she should continue. He doubted Rachel was as up to talking as she wanted them to think, but Anne couldn’t help unless she had the rest of the facts.

“And do you know how to use a gun?” she asked quietly.

“Uh-huh. Graham taught me to shoot. He used to take me to the police target range with him.”

Chase couldn’t stop himself from checking Anne’s reaction to that.

He’d already realized she wasn’t very good at concealing her thoughts—especially considering she’d been a P.I.—and at the moment he could tell precisely what she was thinking. Learning that Rachel knew how to handle a gun would only have made those detectives more convinced she was their killer.

After a few seconds of silence, she said, “Rachel, let’s talk about the would-be extortionist for a minute. You didn’t even think Graham was carrying his gun, yet this guy claimed Graham drew it while you were still there, and—”

“I explained what we figure about that,” Chase reminded her. “He needed a story he could threaten to tell the police, and that’s what he decided on.”

“There’s no truth to the gun part at all,” Rachel said, her voice catching a little. “Graham didn’t draw his gun while I was with him, I didn’t wrestle him for it and I didn’t, didn’t kill him. Anne, everything happened exactly the way I told you.”

When she murmured “I know it did,” Chase wondered if she was actually convinced. No matter how many times he assured himself that the “evidence” against his sister was entirely circumstantial, he knew how things must look to an outsider.

“Okay, then let’s get back to the detectives,” Anne suggested. “You told them that you simply got up and left after Graham pushed you, and what did they say?”

“Nothing.”

“They just let it pass?”

Rachel nodded.

“You figure that’s significant,” Chase said.

“Well…yes. I’ve been assuming they found evidence of a struggle, been assuming that’s why they figure the killer might have turned Graham’s own gun on him. But if there was evidence, why wouldn’t they have pressed Rachel about saying she just got up and walked off?”

Chase considered the question, but couldn’t come up with any logical answer. “They noticed the leaves were disturbed where she fell,” he finally said. “So they’d hardly have missed something more obvious.”

He hesitated then, afraid of jumping to a conclusion just because he wanted it to be true. But since it struck him as the only possible one, he added, “Which means there can’t have been any struggle. And that means,” he continued, looking at Rachel with a sudden sense of euphoria, “we don’t have to worry about our extortionist. Because if he tells the cops you wrestled with Graham for his gun, they’ll know he’s lying.”

“Chase?” Anne said.

When he glanced at her, she said, “Maybe there was no evidence of a struggle. But maybe there was, and the detectives just had some reason for not asking Rachel about it.”

A reason like wanting to give her enough rope to hang herself? he thought, the euphoria gone as quickly as it had come.

“What sort of reason?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing really comes to mind,” Anne told her. “So Chase was probably right—there likely wasn’t any sign of a struggle. But if there wasn’t, why would the cops think Graham might have been shot with his own gun?”

“Because he was killed with a Glock?” Chase said.

“Well…I guess that could be it, although the police are hardly the only people who have Glocks. But let’s get back to why they didn’t ask about a struggle.

“If we assume it was because there wasn’t one, we get an entirely different scenario of what happened in the clearing. In it, the killer would have stepped out of the woods with a gun aimed at Graham, and—”

“No, that doesn’t make sense,” Rachel said. “Because Graham wasn’t stupid. If someone was pointing a gun at him, he’d have simply handed over his wallet. And if he had, why would the guy have killed him?”

When Anne was silent again, Chase’s throat went dry. They were close to something important. He felt certain they were. So why didn’t she know what it was?

As the seconds slowly passed, he told himself she was merely taking time to think. Finally, he couldn’t stop himself from asking what she was thinking about.

“Just something my father used to tell me,” she said. “Do you know he’s a private investigator?”

“Yes, Julie mentioned it. She said you used to work for him. But what did he tell you?”

“That I should always guard against tunnel vision, never lock into only one explanation when there might be others. So I was remembering that—and trying to figure out what others there could be when it comes to Graham’s murder.”

Chase retreated into wait mode once more, simply watching Anne until the silence grew too much for him again.

“And?” he said when it did. “What other explanations are coming to mind?”

“Well, only one, really. That the guy in the park wasn’t a mugger at all. That he followed Graham there with the specific intention of killing him.”

ANNE, RACHEL AND CHASE were still talking when Julie arrived back with Becky in tow.

The two of them proceeded to be as silly as only a couple of little girls can, but even that wasn’t enough to drive away the thought that had been skittering around the fringes of Anne’s mind.

If no one had wrestled with Graham for his gun, then it seemed almost inconceivable that either Rachel or Chase had any involvement in his death. Still, the fact remained that there could have been a struggle. And if there had been, all bets were off.

“Last one in’s a rotten egg!” Becky suddenly screamed, launching herself toward the pool.

Julie cannonballed in after her and they immediately began a game of water volleyball with the beach ball they’d brought over.

“Normally, I’d tell them to keep it down,” Chase said after one of them let out a piercing shriek. “But as long as they’re making noise they won’t be listening to us. So where were we?” he added.

“Anne was saying she wished we had more hard facts,” Rachel reminded him.

“Right,” she agreed, warning herself to be careful.

They’d long ago wandered away from the subject of whether the Nicholsons were going to tell the police about that extortion call, but for the past few minutes she’d been easing the conversation back toward it. And she didn’t want to say anything that might make Rachel even more determined to keep it a secret.

“I’d really like to know whether Graham’s wallet was taken,” she continued. “Because if it was still on his body, that would definitely rule out robbery as a motive. And I’d really, really like to know whether there were signs of a struggle.”

“Oh, I’d give the world to know that,” Rachel said. “If I could just be sure it doesn’t matter whether that guy tells the cops his story, if I was certain they wouldn’t believe him…But is there any way we can find out?”

“Well, it’s pretty tough for an outsider to get crime-scene details. I mean, you can hardly phone those detectives and start asking questions about their investigation.

“But you know, Chase,” she added, sounding as thoughtful as she could, “if you called them about the extortionist, then while you were talking to them you might be able to—”

“No,” Rachel said firmly.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANNE TURNED TO CHASE, thinking that surely, regardless of his sister’s fears, he must realize the only rational way to deal with extortion threats was by reporting them.