Robin returned to sit by me. We were waiting for Levon to answer, and we had the same accusing look on our faces.
“I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but it was a series of delays that added up to failure. The hospital didn’t realize Tracy was gone for at least five hours. Then they searched the grounds in case she had committed suicide, probably another forty-five-minute delay, and a clear violation of the protocol. Then they notified the local police. It’s a small force. They were dealing with a three-car wreck in the middle of downtown at rush hour. Another delay. The staff didn’t finish dealing with all the traffic consequences, site cleanup, and paperwork until late the next day. Then they found they were supposed to notify our police department, so we could contact you. They did call our department. A clerk took down the message and stuck it at the bottom of the paperwork pile on Cathy’s desk. She had a backlog because—well, I think she told you we’ve been busy lately. She didn’t work her way down to that message until after Tracy turned up dead. I’m sorry. I understand if you’re upset.”
Oh, yes, I was upset.
Robin was shaking his head in disbelief.
“This didn’t go to the top of her pile?” Robin said, his voice very quiet. “Levon, maybe you don’t understand—the woman who’d already tried to kill Roe, the woman who stabbed her maid, was in the house with Roe and our baby. While they slept. And I wasn’t home to watch out for them.”
Levon flinched. But maybe he felt a frank apology would be an admission of guilt. “Tracy wasn’t a crazy-eyed lunatic, who couldn’t think or reason,” he told us. “She’d told her doctor that she’d started reading the works of another mystery writer, Michael Connelly. She didn’t seem to be fixating on him in the same way. But the doctor actually told us to alert Connelly, too.”
Beside me, I felt Robin stiffen. “And we know how accurate that doctor’s opinion was. Tracy wasn’t dumb. She could sure understand it was to her advantage to con the doctor into believing she wasn’t interested in me any longer.”
“We should have had the opportunity to judge that ourselves,” I said.
Though we had come to a conversational standstill, Levon made no move to leave.
“You’ve gotten in touch with Tracy’s family?” I said, in as calm a voice as I could manage.
“Cathy talked to them. The father’s been out of the picture for years. There’s a mother and a sister.”
In spite of all my anger at Tracy Beal, I felt relieved her family knew what had happened. Everyone should be missed by someone, or at least claimed.
“Where was her home?” Robin was walking around the room aimlessly. I was familiar with this restless mode; he’d wander while he talked.
“Tracy was from an army family. She’d moved too many times to count. Her mother, Sandra, lives in South Carolina. Her sister, Sharon, lives in Anders, close to here. And the sister’s car is missing.”
“Tracy took it?”
“That’s what we’re assuming. The sister was gone on a camping trip with friends.”
“Wait,” I said sharply. “You said Anders?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Robin, remember those flowers, the ones without a card? They came from a florist in Anders.”
“So she was in the area even before I left for Bouchercon.” Robin looked as if he couldn’t take much more.
I told Levon about the incident, which had seemed trivial (but odd) at the time.
Robin would have been more likely to add two and two, since he’d gotten the peculiar e-mails.
But enough of that thinking, I told myself, my teeth clenched. If we’d thought about Tracy Beal at all—and I hadn’t—we’d assumed she was safely ensconced in a mental hospital with strict security. I had to concentrate on something else. I was getting angry again. That wasn’t going to help the situation. “Any sign of Virginia? Maybe she’s called her mother?” I was grasping at straws.
“Not yet.”
I wanted to say, “Then why are you here?” But that seemed rude and abrupt. On the other hand …
But Robin spoke for me. “So why do you need to talk to us? Tracy is still dead, Virginia is still missing, and you don’t know what happened to either one. The only new information is that Tracy got hit on the head, which Roe had seen for herself, and she probably took her sister’s car. Did the sister let Tracy stay at her home in Anders? I don’t believe for a minute that she didn’t know Tracy had taken her car.”
“Sharon swears Tracy wasn’t staying at her house … at least with her knowledge. Of course, we’ve been checking all the motels around here. We were already doing that. Maybe we can pick up some other piece of information. And patrols in this area have been on the lookout for the car.”
“What’s your best guess?” I said.
“I think Tracy was staying in Sharon’s house,” Levon said without hesitation. “And I’m sure Sharon knew. But we’ll never get her to admit it, and we can’t prove she knew.”
“You haven’t found any evidence of a connection between Virginia and Tracy?” Robin was asking every question that had occurred to me.
Levon nodded. “Sandra Beal, Sharon Beal, Marcy Mitchell, even Virginia’s half brother, Carlos … all told us they’d never heard either woman mention the other. Since Virginia’s personal belongings were gone, it seems like Virginia left this house voluntarily. At least, we hope it was voluntarily. We have no idea why she left her car. That’s a little scary.”
“Did Virginia have a significant other?” I said.
“She’d broken up with her boyfriend three months ago. He denies having heard from her. Marcy, that’s her mother, says Virginia had dated a couple of other guys, nothing serious. So much from that end of the investigation. No one heard anything in this neighborhood. No one noticed a strange car. No one saw anything except your neighbor, Mr. Cohen.”
“And he wasn’t right about who he saw.” I was still angry with Jonathan, along with almost everyone else. Robin patted my hand.
“It seems he wasn’t,” Levon agreed. “Robin, we’ve got people canvassing the Nashville airport, and everything checks out. And your friend Jeff is ready to knock some heads together, just because we’re asking him to confirm your story.”
Way to go, Jeff.
“It’s too bad you can’t find her phone,” I said. “I guess it left when she did. She was really mad when she was talking on it, that has to be significant.”
“Have you remembered anything? Something she said?”
“I wish I could help you. But I didn’t hear any of her conversations. Or if I did, I was too sick to remember it.”
Levon got up to leave. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I know how I’d feel if I saw a stranger in my child’s room.”
I reminded myself this whole situation was not his fault. “How old is Jeremy?” I asked, pulling the name of Levon’s son out of the grab bag in my head.