Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [65]
“I do, indeed,” the old man said. “I don’t know how you became such a little prig, David. I would have thought marriage and the love of a good woman would have loosened you up, but you’ve still got that revolting little minister deep inside you. Sometimes it’s much more fun to raise the devil.”
“You’d know,” David said with far less than his usual grace. He glanced toward the hallway. “How long do you think this imposition is going to last? Why couldn’t she wait until tomorrow to talk to us?”
“Now that’s the interesting question,” Caleb said. “Why does she come after us the moment she gets control of the case back? Kind of makes you wonder?” He leaned back, perfectly at ease.
A moment later Maggie appeared in the door. “Rachel, you want to come next?”
Stephen Henry rolled his wheelchair forward, bumping into the coffee table. “I’m an old man and I want to go home to my own bed,” he said peevishly. “If you want to talk to me you’re going to do it now. In front of my children.”
If Maggie was impressed by his bluster she didn’t show it. “All right. I’d like to know your schedule for the last four days. Where have you been?”
“At home, of course. You think I miraculously climbed out of my wheelchair, strangled and raped some poor girl, carried her up the mountain and dumped her into Silver Falls before climbing back down and getting back into my wheelchair? Don’t be absurd.”
Maggie didn’t even blink. “Why did you put it in that order?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said strangled and raped, not raped and strangled. I don’t think that bit of information was made public. That she was raped post-mortem.”
Stephen Henry looked at her blankly. “This is a small college town, Mrs. Bannister. If you think there are any secrets here you’re sadly mistaken.”
“It’s Sheriff Bannister, Professor. Or Maggie.” Her voice was even. “And you’d be surprised at the secrets some people can keep.” She looked over at Caleb, who was lounging off to one side, seemingly at ease. He gave her a faint smile.
“Answer her question, Father,” David said in a weary voice. “She’s not going to leave us alone until she gets what she wants.”
Stephen Henry looked sulky. “Most days I wake up, my aide dresses me and puts me in my chair and rolls me into the bathroom. I take care of my bodily functions. I come out and Dylan rolls me into my study, where I set to work on a new collection of poetry. Dylan leaves for the day, returning in time to assist me in getting ready for bed, and one day is pretty much the same as the next. Do you need any other details?”
“What about yesterday? Any phone calls? Did you check your computer, answer e-mails?”
“E-mails are an invention of the devil, the single greatest contribution to the wretched illiteracy of the masses. I won’t have a computer in the house.”
“Luddite,” Caleb said sweetly, and Rachel resisted the impulse to grin. David was almost as bad—he used a computer only when he had to, and if Rachel hadn’t insisted he would have continued to survive on dial-up in the house.
“So you have no witnesses to your whereabouts between the time your aide left and the time he returned.”
“You’re talking about yesterday? David,” he said promptly. “He came over in the middle of the day. We needed to have a family powwow, and he cancelled classes and came to talk to me.”
For a moment David started, and he glanced at his father so swiftly Maggie probably didn’t notice. But Rachel did.
“And I presume Caleb was there as well.”
“Not me, Sheriff,” Caleb said. “I think I was the family problem they were discussing.”
“Is this true, David?”
David hesitated. “Yes, it is. That we met, not that we talked about Caleb.”
“Then why didn’t he join you?”
“I assume he was busy elsewhere,” David said, glancing at him. “Maybe you should ask my wife where he was.”
Rachel froze. “I beg your pardon?” she said in her iciest voice.
David turned to look at her. “You’ve been up at his place. It only seemed logical.”
“Sheriff Bannister isn’t interested