Bad Things Happen Read online

  Alice paused for breath and then continued. “So there’s every indication of a self-inflicted wound. But then there are one or two things that don’t fit. I heard, for instance, that Tully’s prints are on the gun, but not on the bullets. And not on the ammunition box either.”

  She leaned forward in her chair, her voice growing more animated. “So on the one hand, it seems like a suicide,” she said. “But on the other hand, it wouldn’t be that hard to fake. If you knew him, if you were in the car with him. If you were fast with the gun. One shot to the head, point-blank. Then you put on a pair of latex gloves and wipe your prints from the gun. You remove the spent shell, put it in your pocket, and replace it with a fresh round. b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n

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  You roll down the passenger window, put the gun in Tully’s hand, fire a second shot out into the field. Now he’s got residue on his hand and there’s still only one spent round in the gun. You stash the ammo in the glove compartment, leave the gun on the seat. You’ve planned all this in advance, so you’ve got another car waiting nearby to make your escape.”

  She looked at Elizabeth expectantly. Elizabeth obliged her with an encouraging smile.

  “It’s not a bad theory, Alice. I’ve had some thoughts along those lines myself—”

  But Alice was shaking her head. “You’re missing the point. It’s not my theory. I didn’t work it out. I read it in a mystery novel.”

  Elizabeth’s smile faded. “What novel?”

  “The question you want to ask is: Who wrote the novel?”

  “All right. Who?”

  “Bridget Shellcross.”

  “It’s a cliché,” said Bridget Shellcross. “A murder staged to look like a suicide. Every mystery writer uses it sooner or later. I used it in my second book.”

  The door to Bridget Shellcross’s townhouse had been answered by a woman with a pageboy haircut. She was tall and athletic and dressed for a workout; her bare arms were well toned. She led Elizabeth to a sitting room decorated with designer furniture: squarish shapes in leather with bands of dark wood and burnished metal.

  Bridget rose from a divan to greet Elizabeth. She wore a stylish black suit fitted to her sprightly frame. The tall woman—whose name turned out to be Rachel Kent—left and returned with bottled water and a tray of raw vegetables and hummus. Then she slipped off to sit in a corner. Bridget had resumed her place on the divan. “In my first book,” she was saying, “I used a different cliché altogether. One of the cops investigating the crime turned out to be the killer. No offense.”

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  “None taken,” said Elizabeth.

  “I wrote the fi rst one when I was twenty-three. It was based on a short story I’d done, something Tom Kristoll published in Gray Streets. He encouraged me to work it up into a novel.”

  She shook her head thoughtfully. “Poor Tom. His death was a cliché

  too—another murder made to look like a suicide.” Her eyes locked on Elizabeth’s. “You think they’re related.”

  “Do I?”

  “Adrian Tully was under suspicion for killing Tom,” Bridget said. “That’s the gossip anyway. So maybe whoever killed Tom also killed Tully, as a way of deflecting suspicion. If you think Tully committed suicide out of guilt over killing Tom, you’ll stop looking for Tom’s real murderer. You know what that means.”

  “It must mean something,” said Elizabeth.

  “It means someone wants to make Adrian Tully a fall guy. There’s another cliché. How many are we up to?”

  “I’ve lost count.”

  “Not to mention that Tully’s death resembles a murder in a book, thus casting suspicion on the author,” Bridget said. “That’s a cliché all on its own. I suppose you’ll need to hear my alibi.”

  Elizabeth lifted her shoulders almost imperceptibly. “If it’s no trouble.”

  “Let’s see. You saw me at Tom’s funeral. After that, a lot of us went over to the Kristoll house to keep Laura company. I left there around fi ve and met Rachel at Palio downtown for an early dinner.”

  “Rachel didn’t attend the funeral?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No. She didn’t really know Tom,” Bridget said. “After dinner, we did some shopping along Main Street, and then went to a café. Crazy Wisdom. There was a folksinger.” She turned to Rachel. “What was her name?”

  “Angela something.”

  “Right. She wasn’t very good. We were home by nine-thirty or so and stayed in the rest of the night.”

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  “The two of you were here alone then,” said Elizabeth.

  “That’s right. Rachel is my only alibi for after nine-thirty. Aren’t you, Rae?”

  In a tone that was light, amused, the woman answered, “Sure, Bridge.”

  “Of course, she’s desperately in love with me. She’d lie for me. Wouldn’t you, Rae?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But you’re not lying now, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “So there you have it,” Bridget said to Elizabeth. “What else can I tell you?”

  Elizabeth studied the woman in silence for a moment, then asked, “Did you know Adrian Tully?”

  “I met him once or twice,” said Bridget, “at those parties Tom and Laura were forever throwing.”

  “What was your impression of him?”

  “I thought he was gay. But then I realized he was just socially awkward.”

  “Did he ever make a pass at you?”

  Bridget hesitated. “Now why would you ask me that?”

  “I believe he may have had a thing for attractive older women.”

  “Notice how she tempers ‘older’ with ‘attractive,’ Rae. She’s tactful,”

  Bridget said. “The answer is yes, he made a pass at me once. I pretended not to notice, and he went away and pouted.”

  She sat up straight on the divan and planted her feet on the floor. Her tone became more serious. “Still, I don’t think he was very bright. So if I tried to lure him out to a cornfi eld with the promise of sex, he might have gone along with it.”

  Elizabeth’s fingers brushed the arm of her chair dismissively. “I haven’t suggested any such thing.”

  “No. But that’s the subtext,” Bridget said. “That’s the problem with the whole scenario: If Adrian Tully was murdered, whoever did it must have 1 1

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  either driven out there with him or arranged to meet him there. Either way, there must have been some pretext, some reason he went along. I couldn’t tell you what it was, because I’m not the one who killed him.”

  She picked up a square black pillow from the divan and held it in her lap. “I’m not the one who killed Tom either, if you want to know. Rachel is my alibi for that one too. We were here the night he died. We cooked dinner together—lasagna with eggplant and tomato-basil sauce.” In the same sedate tone she added, “I believe I was laying out the napkins and the silverware right about the time when Tom smashed into the sidewalk.”

  She put the pillow down and stood. “I’m afraid I’ve lost interest in continuing this conversation,” she said. “If there’s nothing more, perhaps I could show you out.”

  Chapter 16

  “You missed the sunset,” Casimir Hifflyn said.

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Elizabeth.

  “I can sum it up for you. A few wisps of cloud, and behind them the sky glowing pink over the branches of those trees, and the pink deepening to red.”

  Hifflyn lived in a sprawling ranch house shielded from the road by tall hedges. He had a flagstone deck in the back and a broad, terraced lawn. A fire burned in a shallow copper bowl set on the flagstones. Hifflyn and Elizabeth were sitting in deck chairs drawn up close to the fire.

  “Have you read any of Bridget’s books?” Hiffl yn asked.

  “I’m afraid not.
”

  “I suppose one shouldn’t judge,” he said. “They’re not intended to be serious literature. Realism is not their forte. The one you’ve mentioned—

  with the faked suicide in a parked car by a cornfield. It doesn’t hold up, not if you look at it closely. First, you’ve got to convince your victim to drive out into the wilderness in the middle of the night.”

  “Bridget mentioned that problem herself,” Elizabeth interjected.

  “But that’s only one difficulty,” Hiffl yn said. “Another is witnesses. Because you’re not really in the wilderness. You’re next to a cornfield. That means a farm. That means a farmhouse. In her book, I think the farmhouse was supposed to be abandoned. But still, what about neighbors? Is this supposed to be the only farmhouse for miles around? The sound of gunfire can travel far on a calm night. And to make it work, there have to be two shots, one to kill the victim, and one to get residue on his hand. If anyone hears the second shot, the whole thing breaks down.”

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  “We’re looking into that,” Elizabeth said. “Some of my colleagues are out there now, questioning people who live in the area.”

  “Then there’s the bullet itself,” Hifflyn said. “The second bullet. When you fire it, it has to end up somewhere. In the field, probably, or—are there trees at the edge of the field?”

  “I believe there are.”

  “In a tree trunk, then. Either way, the bullet can be recovered. And if it is, that’s evidence of a second shot. It no longer looks like a suicide. Our murderer is out of luck.” Hifflyn added a stick of wood to the fire. “Incidentally, that’s how the crime is solved in Bridget’s book. The second bullet is recovered. The heroine’s dog fetches it from the field. Dusty or Rusty or whatever his name is. That’s the way her books always end. The dog saves the day.”

  “It takes all kinds,” Elizabeth said.

  “I suppose it does. If it’s not too presumptuous, I’ll suggest you try a more conventional approach. A grid search of the field with metal detectors, for instance.”

  “We’ve thought of that too. I believe it’s being organized now.”

  “There you are.”

  The two of them fell silent. Elizabeth watched the fire crackle in the copper bowl. Then she said, “What can you tell me about Adrian Tully?”

  Hifflyn took a moment to consider. “He was a quiet young man. Meek, I would say.”

  “He copyedited a manuscript of yours—a short story for Gray Streets. This past spring.”

  “You have excellent sources of information.”

  “The secretary at the magazine keeps track of everything.”

  “Yes, Adrian edited my story,” Hifflyn said. “But bad editing is a weak motive for murder, Detective—though in the heat of the moment it can often seem otherwise. And Adrian’s editing was good. He found a few typographical errors, questioned a few word choices. He didn’t change things for the sake of changing them.”

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  “Was that the first time you met him,” she asked, “when he edited your story?”

  “Yes, we got together over coffee and went over what he’d done.”

  “Is that common—for an author and an editor to meet in person?”

  “Probably not,” Hifflyn said. “But I’m something of a curiosity, especially for students. A published novelist. Sometimes they want to see for themselves if such a thing really exists.”

  “And you oblige them?”

  “When I can. For Tom’s sake, more than anything else,” he said. “Tom and I went to the university together. We founded the magazine together—

  with Laura and a few others. My part in that was modest, though, and my motives entirely self-interested. I saw Gray Streets as a way of getting some of my own stories published. But I’m straying into personal history now, and you want to hear about Adrian Tully.”

  “How often did you see him, after that first meeting?”

  “Not often. Our paths crossed a handful of times, usually at the Kristoll house. The last time I saw him was after Tom died. Those first few days, there were always students hovering around Laura. Adrian was one of them. I remember speaking to him, but only in passing.”

  “You can’t shed any light on his mood then.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “Were you aware that he was under suspicion in Tom’s murder?”

  Hifflyn pushed at a stick of fi rewood with the heel of his shoe. “That’s something I heard, though I never heard why.”

  “We believe that he followed Laura on the day Tom died and that he discovered she was having an affair with David Loogan. We were working on the theory that he went to Tom’s office to tell him about the affair and the two of them had an argument that got out of hand.” Elizabeth observed Hiffl yn’s face in the glow of the firelight. “Did you ever get the impression that Tully was attracted to Laura Kristoll?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I can’t offer you any insight on that.”

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  “Let’s put Tully aside then,” she said. “Let me ask you about Tom. You went to school together.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you started getting books published, and he had the magazine. Did that ever put a strain on your friendship?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “I understand he wanted to be a writer when he was younger.”

  “We were all writers back then.”

  “But you’ve made a success of it. He never did.”

  “He took another path. He made a success of Gray Streets. ”

  “It’s not the same though, is it?”

  “If Tom ever envied me, he kept it to himself.”

  “How close were you?” she said. “Did you see him often? Did you talk to him on the phone?”

  “Sometimes he’d call to ask me how a manuscript was coming along, or if he discovered a new writer. And we would go out to dinner—Tom and Laura, my wife and I.”

  “There’s a Mrs. Hiffl yn then?”

  “She’s traveling in Europe. I could give you a number if you want to talk to her. She’s in Venice now. She has family there.”

  Elizabeth tipped her head to the side. “And here you are in Michigan.”

  “I’d rather be with her,” Hifflyn said, “but I’m trying to finish a book.”

  “Who do you suppose killed Tom?”

  He had been watching the fire, but now he turned to her sharply with a puzzled look. “I don’t know.”

  “That was an abrupt question,” she said. “I apologize. I should have eased into the subject. When you found out he’d been killed, what did you make of it?”

  “I didn’t know what to make of it. It seemed entirely senseless.”

  “But there must have been a reason. If I went digging around in Tom’s past, what would I discover?”

  Hifflyn’s fingers touched his earlobe. His face made a pained expres-b a d t h i n g s h a p p e n 1 2 1

  sion. “I don’t know if I feel comfortable talking about Tom in this way. It doesn’t seem proper.”

  “I don’t mean any disrespect. But I could use your help. Tell me what he was like in school.”

  “That was twenty years ago.”

  “Indulge me.”

  Hifflyn sighed. “He was driven. Dedicated.”

  “To the magazine?”

  “And to fiction writing.”

  “You were in the creative writing program?”

  “The three of us were,” he said. “Me and Tom and Laura.”

  “And Bridget Shellcross, where does she fit in?”

  “Bridget was a year ahead of us. But she was studying art history.”

  “All right,” Elizabeth said. “Now, remember, I’m digging. What do I find?”

  “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”


  “Sure you do. Imagine I was talking to someone less scrupulous, someone willing to pass on tales. What would he tell me?”

  Hifflyn folded his hands in his lap. “If I were willing to pass on tales,” he said, “I might tell you that Bridget and Tom were once involved.”

  “You mean romantically.”

  “Yes. Bridget was . . . open-minded then.”

  “Was this before or after Tom and Laura got together?”

  “It was after they were together, but before they were married. Eventually, Laura found out about Bridget, but she and Tom worked it out.”

  “And that was the end of it—between Tom and Bridget?”

  “I believe it was.”

  “But in the years since, you don’t know what may have happened,” Elizabeth said. “They could have started up again.”

  “I’ve no reason to think so.”

  “If they had started up again, would Tom have told you?”

  “I don’t see why. I wasn’t his confessor.”

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  “All right. I’m still digging. What else do I find?”

  After a quiet moment Hifflyn got out of his chair and stood staring at the night sky. “Do you like looking at the stars, Detective?”

  “Not while I’m digging.”

  “In the city, it’s hard to see anything at all. Artificial light drowns out the real thing. But it’s better here, for stargazing.” He pointed toward the northern sky. “Those three stars—I believe that’s Orion’s belt.”

  Elizabeth joined him. “I think you’re right. Look a little to the east and you can see Sirius.”

  “The bright one there?”

  “The brightest. Also known as the Dog Star, part of the constellation Canis Major. Why don’t you tell me what I’m digging for?”

  Watching his profile, she saw a crow’s-foot form at the corner of his eye.

  “Laura and me,” he said.

  “You were involved with Laura?”

  “Freshman year. Before she and Tom met. I introduced them. In fact, I believe you would say he stole her away from me.”

  “I see. And how did that play out?”

  “Tom was charming. And I told you he was driven. ‘Obsessed’ might be a better description. Especially after he got the magazine started. Laura was attracted to that.”