Deadlock

by Catherine Coulter

  For a moment, Mrs. Trumbo froze, then she shook her head. “Why would you think I’d have the faintest idea why Maude Filly framed the major in a window? I will say she can be a vicious old bat about the major when the mood strikes her, not that I blame her.” She paused, eased the cream closer to Pippa. “I know you like your coffee black, Chief. Do you know, when Major Trumbo asked me to marry him, he was so nervous, the poor man. It took me a while to realize Maude had been smart to divorce him. He became a real pain in the butt, nasty old bugger, until he had the good taste to croak.” She nodded toward the mantel. “Ms. Cinelli knows his ashes are in that lovely urn. Six pounds is all that’s left of him, and believe me, it’s more than enough. Ms. Cinelli, would you like some cream? Sugar? I have real, raw, and fake.”

  Pippa said, “Black is perfect, thank you. Mrs. Filly told me you’d been seeing Major Trumbo while they were still married. She said you claimed you didn’t know, and you were clever enough to use all your assets.”

  “Well, now, that’s the truth, isn’t it? Poor Maude never had much in the way of assets. I’ve always wondered what’s with all the snake and monster puzzles.” She gave one final look at their plates, nodded to herself, and left them alone.

  Wilde forked up a bite of scrambled eggs. “You made that up, didn’t you? Mrs. Filly didn’t say that about Mrs. Trumbo’s assets.” He gave a little shudder. “Her assets don’t bear thinking about.”

  Pippa chewed on a piece of bacon and smiled. “So sue me. I wanted to see what she had to say about Mrs. Filly.”

  He raised his coffee and saluted her. “We can talk to her more seriously after we’ve spoken to Mrs. Filly.”

  She crunched on another piece of bacon. “Thank you, Wilde. Wilde—that doesn’t feel right. Does anyone call you by your first name? It’s Matthew, right?”

  “Actually, no one calls me Matthew. Even my mom started calling me Wilde when I turned thirteen. There was nothing I wouldn’t try, including joyriding my uncle Tommy’s prized BMW nearly off a cliff, and brawling with my friends after a football game, coming home with a banged-up face. It’s been Wilde since that first bloody nose.”

  She laughed, then sobered quickly. He saw it.

  Wilde added some pepper to his eggs, offered it to her. “Back to business, then. I’m thinking it’s you and me who need to find out who set the fire at Savich’s house, if it’s someone from town.”

  Pippa turned down the pepper. “Makes sense it is.”

  “I want to visit that old grocery store, too, see what we can find.”

  Pippa saw he was looking at her bandaged wrists. “Don’t even think about it, Wilde. No doctor.”

  “Let me see them.”

  She rolled her eyes, stuck out her hands. The gauze bandages were in place. “All right, no doctor.” He picked up a slice of crispy bacon, pointed it at her. “I like to see tough on the hoof, but take three aspirin, okay?”

  Mrs. Trumbo wasn’t at the reception desk when they left the dining room to go upstairs to Pippa’s honeymoon suite. “Black Hoodie took my key along with everything else.” She stepped behind the desk and took the master key from its hook on the key rack. “Do you think he could have come here?”

  “Let’s go see.”

  She unlocked the door and Wilde simply pushed her away and went in first, his gun drawn.

  “All clear,” he called out a moment later only to see she was right on his heels.

  Pippa looked around the room. “I don’t think anything’s been touched. Well, Wilde, what do you think of my room? Does it meet your expectations?”

  He stopped and stared at the circular bed and the bordello-red draperies. “This is amazing.”

  “Ah, there’s my tablet, right where I left it. Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll take a shower and change.” She picked up her tablet and punched in her password. “Take a look at my notes, under ‘Red Box.’ I’ll be fast.”

  He sat down on a plush red-as-sin circular chair by the window and opened the file while Pippa carried some clothes into the bathroom. “If you have questions, jot them down in the notes section.”

  When she came out of the bathroom eleven minutes later, he looked up and saw an FBI agent—black pants, white blouse, a kick-ass black leather jacket, and low-heeled black boots, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. “You have my Walther?”

  She pulled back her jacket to show him.

  “You clean up well, Cinelli. Your notes are thorough, but they show how little we know. It’s time to go check out Mrs. Filly’s assets.”

  37

  HOME OF ZOLTAN

  TUESDAY MORNING

  Savich started his Porsche, listened to his baby roar to life, and smiled. He always did. He loved the sound of those cylinders. His cell sang out Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.” He frowned. “It’s Sonja Grayson, the lead prosecutor in Marsia Gay’s trial.” Ever since Grayson had told him Veronica Lake had agreed to make a deal with the prosecution and testify against Marsia Gay, he had been waiting for this call. He knew exactly what had happened. “Ms. Grayson?” He said nothing, only listened. Finally, he punched off.

  Sherlock laid her hand on his. “Veronica’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “Amazingly, she survived surgery, but the surgeon says her odds aren’t good. She’s in the ICU at Washington Memorial. Grayson is frothing at the mouth at the prison personnel. What’s worse for her is she specifically asked to be assigned the case, and now it’s blown up in her face. She told me news of their deal with Veronica got out faster than they thought it would.” He sighed. “They were moving Veronica to Regional today, a day too late.”

  “It sounds like a monumental screwup on all sides.”

  Savich said, “Now there are consequences. I’d like to drop you off at Washington Memorial to deal with all the folk there, media, Metro, politicians looking for a sound bite. It’ll be a madhouse. Grayson said she tried to call me last night, but she’d heard someone set fire to our house.” He grinned at Sherlock. “Grayson made it sound like I was a slacker.”

  “Not a problem. I’ll get a whip and a chair if I need to, keep control of the zoo. You, a slacker? Find out how this happened, see how Marsia Gay managed it.”

  Savich dropped Sherlock off at Washington Memorial Hospital with a quick kiss for good luck and drove directly to the D.C. Jail on D Street, fighting the ever-insane morning traffic. Grayson had asked to meet him there so they could question Marsia together, but Savich had asked her to wait. He wanted to speak to Marsia himself first.

  The D.C. Jail, as the facility was called, was a huge campus housing both men and women, its large, plain buildings standing stolid behind well-maintained grounds. There were always lots of parking spaces. Savich looked around as he climbed out of his Porsche. He walked to the main entrance and was met there by Warden Putney, a tall, thin man with a bit of a stoop. He looked like he’d already been beaten about the head and shoulders since Veronica Lake’s attempted murder happened on his watch.

  Savich wondered if Warden Putney would try to find excuses for what had happened, and sure enough, he started talking fast as he shook Savich’s hand. “I hate it when you think you’ve done everything right, when the guards do what they’re supposed to be doing, and still something like this happens. Veronica Lake was under watch by rotating guards. She had no contact whatsoever with Marsia Gay in the months they’ve been incarcerated here. After Lake made her deal to testify, we amped up her protection until she could be transferred to Regional. She was to be transferred today.” He drew a pained breath. “A frigging day too late. I’ll take you to the security room. It’s down the hallway.”

  They were met by Wallace Freed, head of security for the women’s wing. He was comfortably in his fifties, bald with a bit of a beer belly, thick brows, and sharp eyes behind black-framed glasses that kept sliding down his nose. Freed showed them into a small security office where six large screens displayed live feeds from both inside and outside the prison. Freed s
at down and typed on a keyboard, and soon they were watching a recorded video from the cafeteria. The warden said, “There are currently three hundred–plus inmates to feed, so meals are served in shifts. This is the early shift, for about eighty prisoners.”

  Freed pointed. “Here’s Veronica Lake, head down, walking toward the serving line. See, there is no roughhousing, not a whiff of impending violence. Everything appears calm. Now watch.” Again, Freed pointed. “Look, eight prisoners are walking toward Lake, each from a different part of the cafeteria. It all looks accidental, their movements are fluid, easy. They’re even talking to each other, nothing loud, nothing threatening.”

  Freed said, “Watch now, see Lake’s face? She knows something is wrong.” The prisoners are weaving around her, smooth and easy, until finally they begin to melt away and there’s only Veronica Lake left, lying on her back on the floor with a knife wound in her chest.

  Savich leaned in close. “Did you find the shiv?”

  “No. They got rid of it somehow, out of sight of the cameras,” Freed said.

  Putney picked it up. “No way to know who stabbed her, either.”

  Savich said, “Did you get anything from the prisoners who were in on this murder dance?”

  “We’ve identified them from the video, isolated all eight. Prosecutor Grayson and two Metro detectives have interviewed each woman. None of them knows a thing. They claim they didn’t even see Veronica. They must have rehearsed what to say afterward when questioned. I’ve got to say, for a murder in plain sight, it was well planned and perfectly executed.”

  Savich said, “I wouldn’t expect an amateur job from Marsia Gay. Of course, she’s behind it. You’re seeing her fine brain at work. Somehow, she got herself a small army she could trust to take Veronica out. I’d say to start, she picked one specific prisoner who has enough juice to keep the others in line, even now. I imagine each of them was offered a good deal to talk?”

  Putney nodded. “Even early release for three of the nonviolent prisoners. No go. No one will say a word. Wallace, wind it back. There, stop. See that big woman with the tattoo of the rattlesnake on her biceps? Long dark hair in a braid? Looks like she eats nails for breakfast?”

  At Savich’s nod, he said, “That’s Zanetti, Angela Zanetti, awaiting trial for murdering her boyfriend and his lover, for want of a better word, when she caught them in her bed. She’s one of the gang leaders, rules with an iron fist. Believe me when I say no one refuses a demand from Zanetti. She enjoys violence, incites it. Funny thing is, three of the eight weren’t under her thumb, at least that’s what I thought. The one prisoner with enough juice to pull in the others? Zanetti’s got the juice. She gets my vote.”

  Savich nodded. “All right. Let’s say Gay enlisted Angela Zanetti, made Zanetti her front man—woman. Then if any of the eight confess, it would be Angela they’d have to answer to, not Gay. She’d have stayed well out of it. Ask the guards in their unit if Angela and Marsia spend much time together.”

  Putney said, “Sure.” His eyebrow went up. “You make Gay sound like a Mata Hari.”

  “Gay would leave Mata Hari in the dust, but it’s a lot more complicated than that. I don’t see Gay in the video. She kept away, another smart move. She must have hated missing the show.”

  Putney said, “Gay was in the common area speaking to a guard, all chummy, nowhere near the cafeteria. Let me put the video on the monitor.”

  Savich pointed at the young man. “Who’s the guard?”

  “That’s Crowder, Junior Crowder, a nice kid, conscientious, been here two years. I spoke to him myself. He said Gay is always friendly to all the guards, said she told him she was a famous sculptor until she was framed and sent here. He said he couldn’t tell if she was pleased or upset when someone shouted Veronica Lake had been stabbed. Then he had to run off to control the prisoners in the cafeteria. There’s always a risk of a rampage after violence like that. Violence begets violence here.”

  Savich asked Freed to back the tape up to look again at Marsia. She was striking, not beautiful in the accepted sense, but there was something compelling about her face that made you look twice. Her dark hair was longer, pulled back in a ponytail. All her attention appeared focused on the guard she was speaking to, though Savich knew she was aware of exactly what was happening in the cafeteria. He said, “She not only directed the show, she gave a performance of her own.”

  Putney said, “However Gay managed it, we’ve got a wall of silence. I’m betting not one of those prisoners will ever give Zanetti up. Like I said, they’re too afraid of her. Grayson was throwing out threats like water, but the prisoners looked right through her.

  “It’s amazing Lake is still alive. I didn’t think she’d make it to the hospital. There was so much blood. It was the purest luck our physician happened to be here, and he got to the cafeteria fast, applied pressure until the ambulance arrived. She had to be brought back twice, I was told.”

  Putney met Savich’s eyes. “I wish I could say Lake will make it, but I don’t think so, not after seeing her. The prosecutor is very upset, with me, with the guards, probably at the staff serving the spaghetti.”

  Savich followed Putney to a small meeting room away from the new visitor’s area with its comfortable chairs and unscratched glass partitions. He wanted a private face-to-face with Marsia Gay. He had no doubt Angela Zanetti had helped Marsia set up Veronica’s grand finale. And he also had no doubt Marsia had seduced her as she had Veronica. Had she offered her another sort of payment, other than sex and her undying love?

  He sat on the far side of a scarred laminate table. When Marsia Gay was brought into the interview room, a guard behind her, she wasn’t wearing a prisoner’s three-piece suit, only ties on her wrists. Her orange jumpsuit actually fit her fairly well, and orange was a good color for her. She looked as she had in the video—maybe a bit paler in person, but composed, her face serene as a Madonna’s. She saw him seated at the table and smiled, showing lovely white teeth. Her eyes sparkled. She knew he’d come, and she’d looked forward to it.

  She walked to the table, her smile well in place. “My, my, what a lovely break in my routine on this cold November morning. I suppose you’re here to ask me about poor Veronica’s murder.”

  38

  “Sit down, Marsia.”

  She sat gracefully in the seat opposite him, gave him a big smile. “May I call you Dillon, since we appear to be on a first-name basis?”

  “No.”

  A large female guard with pretty dark eyes and a tight mouth stood behind her, arms crossed. She looked like she could bust heads if she needed to, but when she glanced at Marsia, her face relaxed into a near smile, like she was looking at a friend. Her reaction to Marsia reminded Savich that Gay was a psychopath with the ability to draw people to her, a kind of charisma that camouflaged what she really was.

  Marsia sat back and crossed her arms, still smiling. “So it takes a death to bring you in for a visit. I must say you’re looking fit, Agent Savich, and quite handsome. I always thought you put the Rasmussen males to shame. Do you think I’ll be allowed to attend Veronica’s funeral?”

  “If you were allowed to go to her funeral, you would have to go dressed in orange. A pity it makes you look rather sallow, since it’s the color you’ll be wearing until you’re too old to care.”

  He saw a blaze of rage, then it was gone. Marsia laughed, wagged her finger at him. “Not a bad color on me, actually. We’ll see how long I’ll be wearing it, Agent Savich.”

  She sat forward suddenly, enough to make her guard twitch, but not enough to caution her. “I know you believe I was behind Veronica’s murder in the cafeteria, but I didn’t know anything about it until a guard told me. I was in the common area, speaking to that very sweet guard. Junior is what he’s called. I don’t know his last name.”

  “What were you talking about?”

  “There’s only one thing you talk about in Washington if it’s not politics. Football and the status of the
Redskins.”

  Savich let her words settle a moment, then leaned back, crossed his arms over his chest. “What I’d rather talk about is how you orchestrated Veronica’s murder like a ballet, planned the whole production. It was artistic, even, wasn’t it? Had your fingerprints all over it, crazy and unique. Come on, don’t be shy, Marsia. Wouldn’t you enjoy taking credit?”

  “And you’d enjoy sticking me with her murder, wouldn’t you, Agent Savich? Sorry, but as I said, I had nothing to do with what happened to poor Veronica. I was actually very fond of her until she turned on me, implicated me in her own attempts to murder Venus Rasmussen. I understood. Veronica was desperate, didn’t know what to say, and not being very bright, she picked anyone she could to throw to the wolves.”

  “Don’t be modest, Marsia. It really doesn’t fit you at all. You weren’t Veronica’s accomplice; you ran the whole Rasmussen plot just like you ran the murder show in the cafeteria—by having someone else do it.”

  She waved her hands at him. Savich saw her fingernails were manicured, buffed. Did she get a guard to give her a file?

  Marsia said, “Let me tell you something you probably don’t know, and yes, I said the same thing to Warden Putney. You can ask anyone you like, actually. Veronica didn’t make any friends here. She didn’t realize how much she needed friends. She acted like she was better than the others, and no one likes to be treated like that, with no respect. I heard she complained about some of the prisoners, got them into trouble. And what did that crappy attitude get her? A shiv in her chest. Yes, a little over the top, but she should have known you never want to make enemies in prison.”

  She cocked her head to one side, her eyes not leaving his face. Again, she smiled. “How remiss of me. I forgot to ask. How are your lovely wife and your little boy? Sean’s his name, right?”

  Savich wanted to leap over the table and strangle her, but instead, he said without pause, keeping his voice calm, “Which one of your private gang shoved the shiv in Veronica’s chest? Did you or Zanetti select the prisoner who did the job?”