was her name?”
“Katrin.” Impulsively Luke fumbled in his gym bag, took out the envelope of prints and passed the three of Katrin across the table. Ramon took them carefully by the corners, his total attention focussed on the laughing woman on the beach. When he looked up, he was no longer smiling.
“What’s her last name?” he asked in a clipped voice.
“Sigurdson. What’s the matter?”
“Sigurdson…that’s right. Although I knew her as Katrin Staines. Widow of Donald Staines. That mean anything to you?”
Luke’s nerves tightened like overstretched wire. Katrin a widow? He said brusquely, “Not a damn thing—and I have a pretty good memory for names. What do you mean, you knew her? When? And where? And who was this Donald Staines?”
“There’s no easy way to tell you this,” Ramon said. “She used to live in San Francisco. About two and a half years ago, her husband was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Luke repeated dazedly. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same woman?”
Ramon flicked the photos with his finger. “I recognized her immediately…she’s not exactly forgettable. It came out at the trial that she was of Icelandic descent, from northern Canada. I don’t forget these details, it’s part of my job.”
“Trial?” Luke said sharply. “What trial?”
“She had a motive. Money. A great deal of money. The prosecution made the most of that, of course. But she also had an ironclad alibi. In the end, although they did their best to suggest she hired someone to kill Donald Staines, they couldn’t make it stick. There was absolutely no record of her paying out any large sums of money in the preceding few months.”
Luke stared at his companion, his brain whirling. “Am I dreaming?” he demanded. “Are we actually sitting here having this conversation?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Out of the blue, Luke was transported back to Askja on his last evening there. Under the birch trees, Guy had said something to Katrin that had made her sag with despair. What exactly had he said? It had had to do with a stain on her reputation.
Her married name had been Staines.
So that was why she’d looked so upset. And no wonder she’d reacted so strongly to any mention of San Francisco, the city where she’d lived; where her trial had taken place.
He said at random, “I was out of the country for several months two years ago. But I must have seen a photo in the newspaper, and that’s why I had that strange feeling that I recognized her.”
“Are you in love with her?” Ramon asked very quietly.
“No. Of course not! But it’s a shock, nevertheless.” Trying to gather his scattered wits, Luke ploughed on. “You know, I’m listening to every word that you’re saying. Words like murder and trial and alibi. But I can’t connect them with the woman I know. I just can’t. I keep thinking there must be a mistake. Or this is some kind of sick joke.”
“Not on my part,” Ramon said pithily.
Luke gave him a rueful smile. “Sorry, you know I didn’t mean you. You’ve knocked me sideways, that’s all.”
“I can see that…Why are you so sure that the Katrin you know couldn’t have murdered her husband? Who by all accounts was a very nasty piece of work.”
Scarcely aware of what he was doing, Luke buttered a piece of crusty white bread. “She couldn’t have. The woman I met at that resort wasn’t capable of murder.” He gave a baffled laugh. “I know that’s not a rational response. But that’s the way I see it. Dammit, I know I’m right.”
“Ah,” said Ramon. “How very interesting.”
“Don’t play games with me, Ramon.”
“I’m not. But I’m glad you said what you did. Rather than asking me if I thought she was guilty.”
“Guilty of murder? Katrin? I don’t care what the prosecution said, Katrin Sigurdson couldn’t possibly have killed her husband. And to say she hired someone else to do it is laughable. There’s not an underhanded bone in that woman’s body—her honesty was one of the things that first attracted me to her. Even if I didn’t always like being at the receiving end.”
Ramon took a healthy bite of spanakopita. His mouth full, he mumbled, “Her alibi was real. She was with friends overnight, and the murder happened in the small hours of the morning. But she most certainly had a motive, and that was what caused the most difficulty.”
“Okay,” Luke said, tension hardening his jaw. “So now I’ll ask you the question. Do you think she did it?”
“Nope. Never did. I have very good radar for liars, and she wasn’t anywhere near my screen. But her motive…she and Donald Staines had had a huge fight that evening. The servants heard it, and she freely admitted to it. He was a wealthy man, and—this is off the record, my friend—the scum of the earth. As well as being an unfaithful husband he was an embezzler, not to mention a highflyer in some very dubious circles.”
Ramon paused to take a long pull at his beer. “Eat up, Luke,” he added, a smile crinkling the lines around his eyes. “I want you in better shape for our next game.”
Luke’s heartbeat had finally settled down to normal; but his hands were cold, and he still hadn’t quite taken in that this was Katrin they were talking about. Manfully he took a mouthful of salad.
“During the course of their disagreement, Katrin told her husband she was leaving him. That very evening. He said he’d cut her out of his will first thing the next morning if she did so. She said go right ahead, she couldn’t care less…then she left the house by taxi with the clothes she was standing up in, and went to her friends’ house. They were a highly respected couple, he was a chief attorney, she was a hospital administrator. The three of them stayed up most of the night, talking.”
“A cast-iron alibi,” Luke said thoughtfully.
“Indeed. In my opinion, the case was mishandled from the start. It should never have gone to trial. But it had too many of the right ingredients: money, corruption, scandal, and a beautiful woman as the defendant. When you put all that together with murder and a possible hit man, you can imagine what happened. The press had a field day.”
Belatedly Luke’s brain was now working at top speed. “So that would explain why Katrin buried herself in Askja. There are no major newspapers there. And who would connect a waitress with Katrin Staines?”
“Not you. Obviously.”
Guy had. But Katrin hadn’t really cared. She’d been ready to leave Askja anyway. “What a terrible ordeal for anyone to go through,” Luke said.
“I felt very sorry for her. She had enormous dignity and courage…both before and during the trial. But you could see it wearing her down, day by day, month by month. By the time it was over, she was on the verge of collapse. She got her lawyers to sell the house, packed her bags and left town. I lost track of her after that. But every now and
