Read Online A Bookmarked Death by Judi Culbertson - Free Book Online Page B

burn my enemies alive. If the phone comes up clean—and it will—they promised to return it tomorrow. I’m lost without it.”
    I stared into the room at the Asian decor. A full-sized kimono with a beautifully embroidered stork, wings unfurled, hung over a dark red couch. There were a lot of low ebony tables and brass pieces. A flat-screen TV hung between some framed calligraphy.
    I felt too shaky to stand any longer and sank onto the brocaded couch. “What did they ask you?”
    Colin pulled up a black lacquered chair across from me. “They wanted to know where I was Saturday night.”
    I held my breath. “Where were you?”
    “At a dinner at the Three Village Inn. Cliff Mallow, the head of the anthropology department, is retiring. He was here when I began. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but we go way back.”
    I didn’t want him to start reminiscing. “What about after that?”
    “I went home. I read for a while, then went to bed.”
    “So you didn’t drive out to Southampton.” A terrible thing to say, but I had to know.
    “Delhi.” It was a look he would give a student who had made a rude comment in class.
    “I know you didn’t, I’m just trying to think like the police. They were taking Ethan’s note so seriously.”
    “What note?”
    “The note he sent Elisa. They didn’t tell you?” I felt as if I were on the carnival ride where the floor drops away pinning you against the wall. Any moment gravity would fail and I would crumple to the floor.
    “What note?” he repeated.
    I realized my fists were clenched and made myself relax my fingers. “Ethan sent Elisa a letter that she got this morning. Express mail because there was a check inside. He said that if anything happened to him to blame you .”
    “What? That doesn’t make sense. Blame me for what? How could he know he was about to die?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “He mentioned me by name?”
    “I don’t know why they didn’t tell you.” That was terrifying, though I wasn’t sure why. Were they holding the note back to spring on him in a courtroom setting? But no, that only happened in Perry Mason novels. Now there was some kind of disclosure law where both sides had to know the evidence before the trial.
    “Because they’re just looking for a fall guy.”
    Yes, that’s what they do. “Did they ask you about the mud on the boots?”
    “They showed me the boots, they practically shook them in my face! They’re going to check out the mud to see if it’s from the Southampton house when I wore them out there Saturday night. The problem is, I was never there.” He eyed me resentfully. “For that matter, it could just as easily have been you . The boots were at the house where you are.”
    I jerked up on the sofa. “What—you’re ready to throw me under the bus? You think I’d try to frame you? Or be dumb enough to put them back outside if I’d worn them?”
    “You think I would?”
    We glared at each other for a moment, then I said, “Of course not. I told them that. How stupid do they think we are?”
    “You’re sure you didn’t put them on when it was muddy just to walk around the yard?”
    “Of course not. You know I hate those boots.”
    “Maybe when the kids were home for the weekend they used them.”
    “But that was back in March.”
    “True. If they damage my car . . .” Colin’s vintage BMW was his baby.
    “Your car’s the least of it. Thank God they didn’t arrest you!”
    “How could they do that? On what evidence? Besides, I’m—”
    “Yes, I know, you’re a very important person. You’re Colin Fitzhugh.” A joke, but I needed to step back from the abyss. “Elisa thinks—” I stopped then.
    “What? She’s rushing to judgment too?”
    “After that letter, she doesn’t know what to think.”
    “I’ll talk to her. You have her number?”
    I hesitated. I knew she wouldn’t want to talk to him. But he was her father. I pulled out my phone, found it, and gave it to him. “I told her