This trip to the Gardner estate was considerably different than the last one. For one, they were now looking for a suspect in the family circle. Secondly, they had the memory of that kiss between them.
And this time, there would be no insulating her grandson from reality for Cecelia Gardner.
“Get any sleep last night?” Colin asked.
“Not much,” she admitted.
“Me either. What are we going to do about it?”
“Get over it?” she suggested, but without much conviction.
“I wish,” he said dryly. He wasn’t particularly stung by her words, mainly because they were uttered with such acknowledgment of the impossibility of what she’d said.
But doing anything else seemed impossible, too.
“It would never work,” he said.
“Probably not,” she agreed, surprising him; he’d expected her to disagree. “But,” she went on, “I’m curious why you think that.”
“Because you want everything I’m no good at. You’re cut out for marriage, kids, the white picket fence, the whole bit.”
When she answered, her words came slowly, as if she’d chosen them very carefully. “You don’t know what I want, proven by the fact that I don’t like white picket fences. But that aside, why do you say you’re not cut out for the rest?”
“My marriage proved that.”
“Hmm. My marriage failed, too, but all it proved was that we were too young. But you assume yours proved that you were unfit for all time? A little premature, wouldn’t you say?”
He’d never thought of it quite that way before. “Maybe,” he muttered.
“At least you didn’t decide that because you couldn’t trust one woman, you can’t trust any,” she said.
“It was my—” He stopped in the middle of the old refrain, that his fractured marriage was his fault.
I believe an affair is the fault of the person involved. If you want out, get out, but you don’t cheat.
Her words came back to him, and now that he knew her a little better, he knew she meant them. That’s the code she would live by, an honesty he’d thought didn’t exist. If there was a problem in the relationship, the guy wouldn’t get blindsided, because Darien Wilson would come out and say so. He knew that with a bone-deep certainty that surprised him, given the short time he’d known her.
She was quiet the rest of the drive, giving him time to think. He appreciated that she didn’t feel the need to fill each silent moment with chatter. Then again, he was nervous about what he was thinking, so maybe he shouldn’t be so glad she was allowing him time to do it.
When they arrived at the Gardner estate, the only thing they revealed was that they had an update for the family. It was enough to get the butler—or whoever answered the intercom—to open the massive driveway gate for them. And then they got lucky; Darien spotted Stephen Gardner outside the large garage beside the house, apparently directing a chauffeur or servant in how to correctly wax what appeared to be a brand-new European luxury coupe.
“New toy?” Colin wondered aloud.
“Not wasting any time spending daddy’s money, is he?” Darien said.
“So it would seem,” Colin agreed as he halted the city vehicle, which looked derelict in comparison, a few feet from the garage activity.
He looked little like his father, with thick, medium-brown hair and brown eyes. And had none of Franklin Gardner’s reported charisma; Stephen Gardner seemed a bit sulky, almost sullen. And, Colin guessed, more than a little anger was hidden away under that surface.
If I had a son, he wouldn’t end up like this, Colin muttered to himself. And nearly stopped breathing when he realized what he’d thought. And that the child who popped into his head had blond hair.
“Colin?” Darien said, sounding a bit odd, although she never looked away from the younger Gardner.
“What?”
“He’s left-handed.”
Colin leaned forward, in time to see Stephen Gardner writing something on a small piece of yellow paper with his left hand.
“Well, well,” he murmured. “Shall we?”
They got out and headed toward the two men and the fancy coupe.
“Nice car.” Darien caught the young man’s attention with the comment. And kept it with her looks, Colin thought wryly as he watched the young man smile at her. When they’d spoken to him briefly a few days ago, his responses had been short and unhelpful, no doubt as instructed by his grandmother. This was an entirely different young man.
“Yeah, isn’t it?” he said enthusiastically. “I’ve been wanting it for ages, it’s the latest—” He broke off, belatedly recognizing them. “Hey, you’re the cops. The detectives.”
“Yeah, we are,” Colin acknowledged, noticing the unobtrusive man with the car wax quietly departing the scene.
“You have news? Did you catch who killed the old man?”
So much for the respectful “my father” he’d used before, Colin noted. Over the shock? Or just more certain he’s going to get away with it?
“We’re getting very close,” Darien said. “That’s why we’re here.”
“Oh? So was it a burglar like Uncle Lyle says, or did somebody finally get ticked off enough to just do him?”
“Think that’s likely, do you, Stephen?” Colin asked.
The young man scowled. “Look, I told you before, the old man and I didn’t get along. I told you if it hadn’t been for him, my mother would still be alive.”
“I looked into that, Stephen, after we spoke,” Darien said. “The official report says accidental overdose.”
The young man’s mouth twisted scornfully. “Of course it does. What would you expect it to say? My father was Franklin Gardner. But he drove her to it. He could drive anyone to it. She wouldn’t even have had those pills around if she hadn’t needed them to get through every day of living with him.”
Colin thought about asking why she hadn’t just divorced him, but he could guess at the reasons and it wasn’t really relevant anyway.
“Did you hate him, Stephen?”
“I’m not going to lie about it. He was a control freak who had to have everything his way. Nothing was good enough for him. Nothing.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me,” the young man said bitterly. “Did I hate him? Yes. Enough to kill him? No. I didn’t want him to think he was that important to me, that he could get to me like he did my mother.”
There was bitterness in the younger Gardner’s words, but also the ring of stark truth.
Apparently Darien felt the same way because she said, “Do you have any idea who might have done it, then?”
Something flickered in the young man’s eyes, and Colin’s instincts came to alert.
“No,” Stephen said.
“If you have even a guess, we’d like to hear it,” Colin said.
“You’re the cops, it’s your job to figure it out.”
“That,” Darien said softly, “sounds like something your father would have said.”
Good shot, Colin thought as he watched the young man wince.
“My father was always throwing his weight around,” Stephen acknowledged. “But he was bigger on family loyalty.”
Colin’s already alerted instincts spiked higher. But before he could continue, an imperious voice rang out, interrupting the proceedings thoroughly.
“I told you you were not to speak to my grandson without myself or his uncle present!”
They turned to see Cecelia bearing down on them. The chauffeur, he guessed, must have sounded the alarm. Cecelia was followed by Lyle, who looked rather anxious. Colin wondered if that was his normal mien when in the presence of his overbearing mother, or if he was nervous about something else.
“And, ma’am, I told you he is an adult, and we’re not required to allow a relative present while questioning him.”
“Questioning him?” Lyle asked sharply. “You make it sound like he’s a suspect when we know you’ve arrest
ed Desmond!”
“I think we’ve come to an understanding,” Darien said, glancing at Stephen and giving him a smile that made the young man redden.
I know how you feel, kid, Colin thought ruefully. She does the same thing to me.
Oddly, although Cecelia backed off a bit, Lyle didn’t seem to relax. Or maybe it was just his normal demeanor; as Darien had said after their original contact with him, he was a bit full of being a Gardner. But they shooed Stephen away, and turned on Colin and Darien.
“If you don’t have anything worthwhile to report to us,” Lyle demanded, gesturing rather wildly, “why are you here and not out hunting the person who killed my brother?”
Because we’re here hunting the person who killed your brother, Colin thought, eyeing the man. Something was bothering him about Lyle, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
“Because we have some additional questions to ask.” He turned to Darien, letting his gaze flick from her to Mrs. Gardner and back. She picked up on his cue quickly, and more efficiently than he would have thought possible she had ushered the redoubtable woman away, leaving him with the surviving Gardner brother.
Now he just had to decide where to start, and how far to go.
Darien studied the woman sitting beside her, wondering if she was imagining that she looked older, less intimidating than before. She certainly hadn’t expected it to be so easy to separate her and get her alone.
“I’m sorry this is so difficult,” she said, going on instinct. “It must seem like this process takes forever to you.”
“At least you finally have the killer in custody now,” the woman said, but her critical tone seemed more automatic than truly snappish. As had the order for coffee; Darien doubted, had the woman been herself, that she would be serving one of the cops she held responsible for all the delay.
“We thought we did, but it turns out the evidence proved us wrong and we had to begin again.”
Mrs. Gardner actually looked startled. “Wrong?”
“Yes. He’s still being held on…other charges, but it appears he’s not guilty of murdering your son.”
“Then who is it?”
“We don’t know yet. I’m sorry.”
“It’s my son who’s dead,” she snapped. “First I have to fight to get them to release his body for burial, and now you’re telling me the man you arrested is innocent and you don’t have any idea who killed him?”
“I didn’t say we had no idea. Just nothing I can talk about yet.”
Mrs. Gardner subsided, but not happily. Darien looked at the elderly woman, who looked not stylishly slender just now, but thin and frail. And no matter how she tried she couldn’t picture her killing not just her own son, but anyone.
Except perhaps by slicing them to death with that tongue of hers, she added silently.
“We understand your need to protect your family,” Darien said. “Especially when you’ve already lost a son. But doesn’t that son deserve your total honesty, if it will help find his killer?”
For a long moment Cecelia Gardner looked at her, a steady, assessing gaze that made Darien want to draw back. But she held her place, met the woman’s gaze, and refused to avert her eyes. Finally, as if defeated, Mrs. Gardner broke first and looked away.
She’s hiding something, Darien realized with a little jolt. She knows something, and she’s hiding it.
Her mind began to race. Could she have found out about her son’s little sideline? Was she afraid we’ll also find out, or already know? Or did she know something about her son’s murder that she wasn’t telling? She still couldn’t believe the woman could have done it herself, but neither could she doubt that Cecelia Gardner knew something she wasn’t telling.
By the time she was back in the car with Colin, she wasn’t any closer to figuring it out. So when he asked her what she’d gotten, all she could say was, “She’s hiding something. She knows something, or is afraid we’ll find out something she doesn’t want us to.”
“Protecting someone?”
She considered that. “Possibly.” And then, after a moment, she added, “And I can’t think of all that many people she’d take the risk for.”
“Neither can I.”
“So if we follow this to the logical end…”
“We’ve narrowed our suspect pool considerably,” Colin said, finishing the thought for her. “Especially after Stephen’s comment about his father being big on family loyalty.” The two prime suspects were obviously what was left of Cecelia Gardner’s family. And that made the morass they were treading through even messier.
“And if our suspect is someone important enough for Cecelia Gardner to protect…”
Colin again finished her unspoken thought. “It’s somebody we’re going to have to be very careful with.”
“So now what?”
“Back to the station, I guess. I need to find something, and I may need your help.”
“All right. What is it?”
“A photograph. Probably a society page type of thing.”
“And it’s at the station?”
“No. I’m not even sure it exists, but if it does I figured you could help me find it online.”
“If you need an online search, let’s go to my place. I’ve got a cable connection, and it’ll be a lot faster.”
“All right. Where to?”
She gave him the address of her apartment, and he nodded.
Darien barely noticed the quiet as they drove; she’d found silence with Colin soothing rather than unsettling. Besides, she was sure he was thinking as hard as she was about what they’d learned today. And about what they’d guessed at. What she didn’t know was if he was worrying as much as she was whether those guesses were right. What if she was wrong about Mrs. Gardner, or about Stephen? What kind of instincts did she have, after all?
She suppressed a shiver, and told herself she hadn’t done anything based on her guesses, so it didn’t matter. But it still made her edgy, and she wondered if Colin had ever felt like this.
And wondered if she now had the right to ask.
Darien’s apartment was small, but Colin immediately felt comfortable in it. It was decorated in bright, warm, cheerful colors that were pleasant after the cold outside. The living room was narrow, containing only a sofa, a chair, coffee table and an entertainment center, but they were arranged cozily and looked comfortable. It felt like a home, unlike his own spartan digs. Or maybe it was just that she made him feel as if he was coming home. The thought stopped his breath, and he was glad when she spoke.
“Coffee? Or something stronger?”
“Coffee,” he said, then added, “with the option for the other later.”
She walked to the small kitchen that was tucked into one corner and divided from the rest of the room by a small island. She filled a coffeemaker that sat on the counter and started it. Then she walked to an alcove that housed a desk and computer that looked much more impressive than the ones at the station, and pushed a button to boot up. It took a moment as things whirred and beeped, and data flashed across the screen. When it was done, she leaned over and made a couple of mouse clicks. She opened a browser, then glanced back at the coffeemaker, which was already dripping the dark brew into the pot.
“I’ll get it,” Colin said. “Cups?”
“Mugs in the cupboard just above. Milk in the fridge, sugar in the green canister.”
He nodded, and she pulled up her desk chair and sat down. “All right,” she asked, “what am I looking for?”
He told her, and while it didn’t make sense to her—they’d just left the real thing, after all—she started the search.
He came over and set a steaming cup beside her. She glanced at it, and saw it was exactly the shade she liked.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He watched for a moment as she clicked on various search results, then let out a low whistle. “Whew. You weren’t kidding about it being faster.”
�
��I’m spoiled,” she said. “At the station it seems to take forever.”
“I can see why, if this is what you’re used to. I’ve never seen—” He stopped suddenly. “There. That one, with the woman in red. Can you go back to it?” She clicked once and the image reappeared. He studied it for a moment, then shook his head. “No. Sorry.”
“Keep going?”
“Yes, please.”
The steady process began again, and he sipped at his coffee as he watched. Occasionally he stopped her on a shot, but always seemed to decide it wasn’t what he wanted.
“Dare I ask exactly what it is you’re looking for?”
“Something with a clear, closer shot of the left hand.”
She blinked. And in that moment guessed his intent.
With a series of clicks that went so fast he could barely keep up she went back to a photograph he’d rejected a few moments ago. She clicked on it, a menu popped up, and she seemed to pull it right out of the article—a report on the annual Gardner Corporation Christmas Gala—and it appeared in another window.
She began to work with what appeared to be some kind of photo software, and within a few minutes, she hit one last button and a new window began to fill with an enlarged, sharpened image.
When it was done, he was standing there staring at a piece of evidence that could make the case. It wasn’t razor sharp, and it lacked detail, but it was enough to make it clear his idea was possible.
“Can you print that?” His voice was a little tight.
“Sure.”
She hit two more buttons, and he heard the whir of a printer starting up. Then she turned to him.
“How did you know?”
“Something’s been bothering me every time we saw him.” He gestured at the subject in the photo. “And today, I finally figured it out. I think it was because we were out in the sun, so it was more obvious. A tan line, where a ring used to be.”
She turned to look at the picture still up on her monitor, and made the jump instantly. “The ring that explains those facial bruises. And he’s left-handed.”
“Yes.”
“And he’d easily be able to grab that security camera tape.”
“Yes.”
Body of Evidence Page 16
