Killer Deal

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “All can be arranged.”

  “And just so we’re clear,” I interjected, “it’s him you don’t trust, not me, right?”

  “Do we dignify that with a response?” Cassady asked.

  “A direct ego stroke would suffice.”

  “We just think it’s so wonderful that you have this assignment that you’ve wanted for so long, we don’t want anything or anyone to mess it up,” Tricia offered. “And, pardon me for saying so, but if Kyle doesn’t like him, you need to be on your guard.”

  “Or accompanied by one or two,” I admitted. Not only did I appreciate the notion of Tricia and Cassady coming along, I could see the benefits of demonstrating to Detective Donovan from the beginning that this was a brief interview and nothing else.

  Cassady left us to shower and change. Tricia and I lingered over our coffee, knowing it would be at least half an hour before we could get access to a non-steamed-up mirror. We both called in to make sure our offices were surviving without us, then returned to the mysteries at hand.

  “Why all the secrecy, do you suppose?” I asked.

  “He’s either married, ugly, or so delicious she thinks we’re going to devour him on the spot. Which could be fascinating, because she isn’t usually all that possessive.”

  I nodded slowly, thinking back over Cassady’s former flames. Tricia was right; Cassady wasn’t generally possessive because most men were so smitten by her that their attention was incapable of straying enough for them to be distracted by anyone else.

  But a possessive woman might go to great lengths to keep a man to herself. Or keep him from being available for someone else. Gwen had seemed anxious to discard Garth; had one of the Harem seen that as her opportunity and then, when rebuffed, lashed out with a gun? I reviewed the group in my mind: Most of them were fairly intense, with the exception of Lindsay and Francesca, but all of them spoke of Garth with reverence, even if Wendy’s statements were laced with anger. Was that the grief talking or was it something else?

  Cassady emerged a surprisingly short time later, dressed beautifully in a silk wrap blouse and pencil skirt. Detective Donovan was in for quite a surprise.

  He reacted with grace and a big grin when he approached our table at Bemelman’s a few minutes after six. The place was already filling with the anxious hum of the worker bees, as glamorous, professional, and transient as they might be, released from their hives and swooping down in search of the evening’s nectar. The ritual is fascinating to watch when you have no vested interest in anyone’s success or failure and we were having a delightful time handicapping the action at the bar when Detective Donovan walked up.

  “This is a surprise,” he said, standing over us and giving Tricia and Cassady such blatant lookings-over that I wanted to put my arms around them or at least drape my jacket over them.

  “Detectives probably don’t like surprises,” Tricia replied in a silky tone that led me to believe she would have stiff-armed the jacket had I offered it.

  “Actually, we love them. Especially the nice ones,” he said, sliding down into the chair next to her.

  “But isn’t the real thrill in uncovering?” Cassady asked.

  “Uncovering a surprise is better yet,” he answered, smiling so fully that his ears moved with the effort.

  “I don’t mean to intrude, but Cassady Lynch and Tricia Vincent, this is Wally Donovan,” I said, perhaps the most surprised of the four of us. Not that both of them can’t be masterful flirts, but it was unusual for Tricia to dive in so quickly. It’s generally something she works up to slowly, but this was flirting a la Porsche—zero to sixty in the bat of an eyelash.

  They all shook hands and I swore Detective Donovan started to kiss Tricia’s hand, then thought better of it. And I don’t think my little cough of disbelief was what derailed him, just his inner sense of rhythm, which was telling him to slow the hell down. I was hoping Tricia’s might speak up, too, but her mouth was set in that small pucker of determination she gets when she sets her sights on something or someone. One of my bodyguards was apparently all too willing to throw herself on the grenade, should the grenade be similarly inclined.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Detective Donovan said to me, remembering the original purpose of our gathering.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friends along,” I said, making it clear I knew he didn’t mind at all.

  “Not at all, as long as you don’t mind if we talk business for a moment. It’s pressing, but this morning wasn’t the best.”

  “How is Mr. Douglass?” I asked.

  “Still in the hospital.”

  “Goodness, Molly, what did you do to the poor man?” Cassady asked. She settled back into her chair, deferring to Tricia in the battle for Detective Donovan’s attention.

  “I didn’t think he was hurt that badly,” I said with a twinge of remorse. I had only wanted to disarm the man, not wound him for life.

  “They suspect a concussion. He’s also on psych review while Hernandez and her crowd sort out charges.” Detective Donovan leaned in, dropping his voice. “If you own stock in his company, better hope your broker’s still at the office, ’cause you want to sell fast.”

  “Have you talked to him?”

  “Preliminary. Little too doped up.”

  “Do you think he killed Garth Henderson?” Tricia asked. Coming from her, it sounded like the slightly awed question of a woman flirting with a detective. Coming from me, it would have sounded like a challenge. Perhaps she was just playing with him to help me out.

  Whichever, it worked. He shifted slightly in her direction. “I haven’t discounted him yet.”

  I thought about scribbling a note on my napkin and sliding it over to Tricia, but she didn’t need it. “Have you discounted anyone?” was the perfect follow-up question she anticipated and asked for me.

  “The four of us,” he answered. “And Ronnie Willis.”

  “Really?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Why Ronnie? And why not Gwen?”

  “I interviewed Willis and he’s just not a killer. He’s too freaked out about his future. That’s not a guy who could pull a trigger. And I know it’s a woman, so I gotta keep Gwen Lincoln on my list.”

  “How do you know it’s a woman?” Cassady asked, leaning back in out of genuine interest in the discussion.

  “I was at the crime scene. There was evidence.”

  “Such as?”

  Detective Donovan smoothed his tie several times, letting us know what was coming next was difficult for him to say. “That’s pretty valuable information.”

  “What are you suggesting?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended, but he seemed to be leading up to something unsavory.

  “There’s a business arrangement to be made here.”

  “You should know,” Cassady said, on the same train of thought I was, “I’m a lawyer and as an officer of the court—”

  “Ladies, ladies,” Detective Donovan protested, his smile getting decidedly crooked, “you can’t think that I’d come here and propose something illicit.”

  “So much for my plans for the night,” Tricia said, trying to lighten things a bit—but it didn’t help. Kyle had warned me that Detective Donovan wasn’t a good cop, but I hadn’t understood he might be a dirty cop.

  “I’m talking about a book deal.”

  All three of us gaped at him. His crooked smile nearly did a cartwheel as it twisted yet again while he waited for one of us to say something.

  I was the most articulate first. “What?”

  “I think there’s a great book in this case and I’m looking for a journalist who’d like to write it with me.”

  “Shouldn’t you solve the case before you start franchising it?” Cassady asked.

  “We’re getting closer all the time,” Detective Donovan said earnestly. “But I thought it would be invaluable for my co-writer to be as close to the process for as long as possible.”

  Pieces of information swirled around in
side my head, like that arcade game where the air blows the bumblebees in little gusts and you have to grab them up and put them back in the hive. “That’s why you’ve been talking to Peter Mulcahey?” I asked, grabbing as fast as I could.

  “I’ve been talking to him because we’re old friends. Back in the day and all that.”

  “Have you talked to him about the book?”

  “I ran it past him, but he wasn’t interested.”

  “That tells you a lot, when Peter takes a pass,” Cassady muttered.

  “I think you and Molly working together could be a very interesting idea,” Tricia said, placing her hand lightly on the detective’s arm. I started to protest, but the very pointed toe of her Stuart Weitzman pumps found the sweet spot in my right shin and I stopped to silently contemplate if I’d ever walk again.

  “What do you think, Molly?” Detective Donovan asked.

  I swung my legs toward Cassady and away from Tricia. “It has possibilities. But only if you really think you’re on to something. I can’t devote a lot of time to a case that’s going to stay open until it’s cold.”

  Detective Donovan’s gaze moved from one of us to the next to the next, sizing up the table before placing his bet. “The crime scene stank with perfume. Expensive stuff, not call girl stuff. That’s why I’m not eliminating any of the women in his life.”

  I deliberately waited a beat before asking, “Was it Success? The perfume?”

  For a detective, he didn’t have much of a poker face. “What makes you ask that?”

  “It was a prominent product in Garth’s life.”

  “Yes, it was Success. Gwen Lincoln ID’ed it for us that night. She was wearing it, too.”

  “Of course she was wearing it, she helped create it,” Cassady said. “But she’s not the only one who wears it.”

  “It’s not in stores yet.”

  “No, but Garth’s agency has samples,” I said. “The people who work for Emile Trebask have access. Emile’s been handing out samples all over town. I have some. You can’t suspect Gwen just because of her perfume.”

  “It’s not just the perfume, it’s the divorce and the merger plus the perfume, right?” Tricia asked him. He nodded.

  “What about the tooth?” I asked.

  A frown rippled across his brow. “I don’t think I want to divulge that until our relationship is clarified.”

  “Gwen told me his mouth was cut. Someone else told me there was a problem with his teeth. They were chipped, right, or broken? Because someone hit him in the mouth hard enough to cut his mouth and chip his tooth?”

  “Have you seen the size of the rings Gwen Lincoln wears?” he asked, balling his hand into a fist—for demonstration purposes only, I hoped.

  “There are a lot of women in this town with heavily encrusted hands,” I replied.

  His eyes narrowed. “You can’t be this sure it’s not Gwen unless you’ve got a suspect of your own.”

  I shook my head. “I can discount one suspect without naming another.”

  “Imagine that, Donovan,” growled the voice behind me, “my girlfriend’s a better detective than you are.”

  Eleven

  ONCE, I THOUGHT IT MIGHT be a very impressive thing to have two men fight over me—duelists maybe, or gunfighters, or even just two guys willing to punch each other out over the question of my honor, my beauty, or even my ability to bake a cherry pie (much of this has its roots in my fascination with American folk music growing up). Interestingly enough, two homicide detectives going toe to toe over my forensic instincts had never appeared on that list.

  It wasn’t so much that they were asking each other to step outside as that they got so animated in their discussion that Tricia, Cassady, and I decided in the interests of decorum, discretion, and potential property damage to usher them outside so they could cool off. A public scene wasn’t going to help anybody.

  “Subcontracting your cases out now, Donovan?” Kyle spat as Cassady took him by the arm and walked him several feet away.

  “Not hiding behind a bunch of skirts, that’s for sure,” Detective Donovan snapped as Tricia did her best to walk him several feet in the opposite direction. Which left me standing in the middle, trying to catch my breath and assimilate the facts I’d learned before chaos erupted again.

  My theory that it was one of the Harem girls was looking better all the time. All the Harem girls had the perfume. They knew the hotel routine. Garth wouldn’t hesitate to let them into his room. It all still worked. I just had to figure out which of those bracelet-wearing advertising Amazons had snapped.

  Or at least snapped off her bracelet.

  Could the bracelet be the key? Pushing my theory forward, I hoped I was taking a stride, not a leap, to focus on their sterling badge of honor. It was clearly significant to all of them, yet Tessa wasn’t wearing hers when I met with the group. What if she hadn’t broken it? What if she just couldn’t bring herself to wear it after she’d destroyed the man who’d given it to her, especially with what the bracelet meant to the rest of that tightly wrapped and tightly knit group? But what could have driven Tessa to the breaking point?

  I had to figure out a way to talk to Tessa alone, but first, I had a mess to clean up. But where to start? Did I thank Kyle for being so supportive but ask him to rein it in a bit? Or did I tell Detective Donovan that while I appreciated his desire to make himself a star, I wasn’t sure I was the one to help him?

  I decided to approach Kyle and Cassady first, mainly because I could hear her laughing from where I stood and I was anxious to discover what part of this she found amusing. Probably my part, but it was worth confirming. As I walked up to them, she bit her lip guiltily. Kyle was still pretty grim.

  “Is it one I’ve heard before?” I asked.

  “It’s not even a joke,” Kyle said.

  “I’d always thought that pissing contests were about distance, but Kyle was explaining that they’re about duration. It makes so much sense, I don’t know why I didn’t see that a long time ago,” Cassady said, still chuckling.

  “You all right?” Kyle asked tersely.

  “I’m fine. And I appreciate your coming, even though it wasn’t—”

  “Yes, it was necessary. Can we go now?”

  Cassady looked at me even more expectantly than Kyle did, reacting to the toughness in his tone. “I can grab Tricia and we’ll talk to you guys later,” she volunteered.

  “Sounds good.”

  Kyle almost did a double-take, he was so unprepared for my agreement. He knew I still wanted to talk to Detective Donovan, but I knew Detective Donovan wasn’t going to be at all forthcoming in front of Kyle. Besides, Detective Donovan didn’t seem to be following my path of reasoning at all, so I felt under no obligation to offer him my theory. Yet.

  “Thanks for joining us, sorry it was so brief,” I said to Cassady as we hugged each other good-bye. “Tell Tricia—”

  “Tell her yourself,” Tricia said, walking up behind me.

  I turned and looked past her for Detective Donovan, but he had disappeared. “We’re going,” I said.

  “Detective Donovan asked me to apologize to all of you and said if he could be of any further assistance, feel free to call him,” Tricia reported, handing me one of the two business cards in her hand. I looked quizzically at the second and she smiled. “This one’s for me,” she said, tucking it into her bag.

  “Do you have dinner plans, Tricia?” Cassady asked with a touch too much enthusiasm.

  “No, Cassady, I’m free,” Tricia responded in kind.

  “These two kids are headed home for the evening, I would hope, so wanna grab a bite with me?”

  “That’d be great.” Cassady and Tricia went off, arm-in-arm, to find a cab.

  “And then there were two,” I said quietly, mainly because I couldn’t think of anything of substance to say that wasn’t potentially inflammatory.

  “Did they leave because of me?” he asked, watching them walk away.

&nbs
p; “Of course not, why would they?” I answered sincerely.

  “I came in and busted up your party.”

  “Didn’t Cassady explain that they came with me precisely because you said you didn’t trust Donovan, so they wouldn’t let me see him alone?”

  “But you still had to see him.” I started to answer, but he held his hand up to stop me. “I want you to write a great article. I tried to stay away. But I thought about you getting mixed up with that cretin and I …” He sighed and looked up and down the street. “Wanna eat around here or closer to home?”

  I slipped my arm through his. “We could order in.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can be social.”

  Good thing, too, because a voice called out my name and we were suddenly shaking hands with Lindsay and her husband as I introduced them to Kyle. They’d just stopped by Ronnie’s office so Lindsay could drop off some artwork and were on their way to eat at Girasole, a little farther north. They invited us to join them. Much as I wanted the opportunity to talk to Lindsay, I was going to politely decline. But Kyle accepted their invitation, much to my surprise and their delight.

  The low-ceilinged, warmly glowing restaurant was a great place to talk and I was pleased Lindsay wanted to. “I’m so glad we ran into you,” Lindsay said, reaching across the table to pat my hand once we were settled in. The charm on her bracelet clinked against the tabletop and I seized the opportunity.

  “Such a beautiful bracelet.”

  She caught the charm in her right hand, as though apologizing for the sound. “I love it. It means so much, especially now that he’s gone.”

  “I’m surprised Tessa hasn’t made a point of getting hers back from the jeweler. Wouldn’t you miss yours?”

  Lindsay snuck a look at her husband, who was explaining his work at Rising Angels to Kyle. “I really would,” she said, dropping her voice.

  “Is that a secret?”

  “Daniel doesn’t like the bracelet. He calls it my sterling shackle, says it’s a symbol of servitude. Daniel’s a little anti-authority.”

  “But he’s a lawyer.”

  “Was a lawyer. Because he wanted to save the world. He’s much happier in a nonprofit environment where he’s calling the shots and seeing tangible evidence of his work. Which helps balance the fact that it’s the same hours for half the pay.” She made a face that she probably intended as wry, but it looked pretty weary.