Twilight Whispers

by Barbara Delinsky

  Thanksgiving was a strange affair. Coming within a month after Gil’s death, it was the families’ first general reunion since the funeral. As had always been the case a lavish turkey dinner was served at the Whytes. But while Thanksgivings of the past had been jovial, this year the smiles were solely for the benefit of the young children.

  Natalie, who had been a huge help to Jack in dealing with the death of his dearest friend, was reaping the benefits of that effort. Jack and she were closer than ever. She would have actually been happy had it not been for Jordan’s impending trial.

  Lenore, who had mourned Gil by becoming at last and fully the type of woman he would have loved, was similarly burdened. She had come to understand that taking command of her life was critical to her emotional wellbeing, but in the matter of Jordan’s predicament, which she took nearly as personally as Natalie, she felt totally powerless.

  Ironically, many of her worries focused on Katia. She told herself that she was a fool, that another woman wouldn’t care about Katia, given her parentage. But she did care. Maybe she felt guilty for having shunned Katia for years. Maybe she was rebelling in her own way by doing exactly what another woman wouldn’t. Maybe she was respecting the fact that Gil had loved Katia.

  Then again, maybe she was simply a human being feeling sorry for another human being at a difficult time. She could empathize with the frustration Katia had to be feeling watching Jordan’s torment, knowing it could get much worse, trying to think of ways to help but coming up short. She could empathize with the fear Katia had to be feeling knowing that she could well lose that which she held closest to her heart.

  It was for many of these reasons that Lenore graciously invited Robert Cavanaugh into the house when he showed up on the doorstep one day in early December.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Warren,” Cavanaugh said somewhat uneasily. “I know this has to be a hard time for you. You may well see me as the enemy.”

  “No, Detective. Jordan has spoken highly of you. I trust his judgment.” With quiet dignity she led Cavanaugh into the living room and gestured for him to sit. “Would you like something hot to drink, coffee or tea?”

  “No, thank you.” He placed his overcoat on the arm of the sofa. “Uh, on second thought, a cup of coffee would be nice. If it’s no trouble.”

  Lenore cast him a you-should-know-I’d-never-be-doing-the-work-myself look as she swept by. When she returned, she settled into the wingback chair opposite him. “Cassie will bring coffee. I’d like her to sit with us if you don’t mind. Also, I’ve told her to call Mrs. Whyte. I believe that they’d both be as interested in what you have to say as I am. As a matter of fact, I’m not quite sure why you’ve sought me out.”

  Cavanaugh hadn’t expected such forthrightness from Lenore Warren. He’d been led to believe that she was the weak link in the family, but that belief was now open to reconsideration. “For the record, I’m here to pay a belated condolence call. Off the record, I’m here to ask you about Deborah.”

  Lenore frowned. “But I thought your investigation was done.”

  “Technically it is. I’m here in an unofficial capacity.”

  For a moment she misunderstood. Her composure wavered. “Don’t tell me you’re looking further, that you think more of us were involved!”

  Smiling, he shook his head. “No, no. I don’t think even Jordan was involved. He must have told you that.”

  “He did. But that doesn’t preclude you suspecting someone else in the family.”

  “I don’t. Please believe me. I don’t think anyone in the family was involved, and I feel a certain responsibility for Jordan’s problems.”

  “You feel guilty?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t speak with you earlier this fall because I thought you’d be too upset, and then things came out that forced the indictment, so it seemed a moot point. I know you may be every bit as upset now as you were then, but,” he hesitated for a minute before continuing with conviction, “I’m sorry. I can’t just let things rest as they are. There has to be something I’m not seeing. I was hoping you’d be able to give me a clue.”

  Lenore sighed. On the one hand she was relieved, on the other stymied. “I don’t know, Detective Cavanaugh. I’ve searched—we’ve all searched—for clues, but we haven’t been able to find any. I have no idea who could have possibly wanted to murder either Deborah or Mark, or why.”

  “Okay.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s look at it from a different slant then.” He’d opened his mouth to go on when Cassie appeared at the open archway, where she hesitated, not knowing what she was interrupting.

  Lenore gestured to her. “Come on in, Cassie. Have you met Detective Cavanaugh?”

  Cassie came forward and set the silver service on the coffee table. “Yes. We spoke a while back. How are you, Detective?”

  “Just fine, Mrs. Morell.”

  She nodded, then poured coffee into two of the three cups that stood on the tray. Lenore counted the cups before gently reprimanding Cassie.

  “We’ll need a fourth.”

  “That’s all right,” Cassie answered quickly. “I had my own not long ago.”

  “Did you call Mrs. Whyte?”

  “She said she’d be—”

  “Right here,” Natalie herself finished, slipping off her own coat as she entered the room. “Has something come up?” she asked with that odd blend of fear and hope that had become so common in recent days.

  “No. But the detective is still working on it.”

  Cavanaugh stood and extended his hand. “Mrs. Whyte. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  Natalie put her hand in his. “By rights I should be cursing you, but I’m afraid that what happened to Jordan would have happened regardless of who’d been doing the investigating. I’m grateful that you treated Jordan as well as you have.”

  “Jordan’s a likeable man. But the fact that I like him has nothing to do with my being here.” He waited until Natalie had taken a seat before returning to his own, “I’m still trying to find the piece of the puzzle that’s missing. Mrs. Warren has said that you’re all in the dark as to who could have wanted Mark or Deborah dead. I wanted to talk about that a little.”

  All three women were seated and waiting with varying degrees of anticipation.

  “For the most part,” Cavanaugh began, “we’ve gone on the theory that someone had something against Mark. When the evidence began to point to Jordan, he and I discussed the possibility that he’d been framed, which could mean that Jordan was the ultimate target, and Mark and Deborah innocent victims.”

  “We’ve discussed that possibility,” Lenore admitted, “but we’re still in the dark.”

  “That’s okay, because I’m not sure I can accept the theory anyway.” He had talked it all out with Jodi when she had returned from Atlanta, and they had reached the same conclusion.

  Natalie was watching him intently. “Explain, please.”

  “Hypothetically it would work. Someone wanted to get back at Jordan, so he—or she—murdered Mark and Deborah, then framed Jordan. Slow torture. That’s certainly what Jordan’s suffering.”

  “But—”

  “It’s too pat. In the first place,” he held up a single finger, “Jordan’s clean. We did an in-depth workup on him. He hasn’t done anything criminal, and I can’t buy the fact that someone would go to such violent extremes simply to avenge a business disagreement or a thwarted love affair or the fact that Jordan drives a bright red Audi. In the second place,” another finger joined the first, “Jordan’s indictment was so spectacular that it was bound to shift attention. The perfect red herring. If someone legitimately had a quarrel with Mark and could throw the blame for the murders on Jordan, or any one of you, it would be the perfect diversion. And in the third place,” one more finger went up, “much as I hate to say it, Mark was the one in a barrel of trouble.”

  “There’s always the possibility,” Lenore proposed, “that Mark and Deborah were killed and Jordan fr
amed for it to get revenge on another one of us. It sounds far-fetched, but if that was the killer’s goal it was effective. We’re all suffering. Look at what happened to Gil. I’m not saying that his heart attack was directly brought on by Jordan’s indictment, but I’m sure the anger he felt—not only about Jordan’s being framed but also the murders themselves—had to have affected him.”

  Cavanaugh had dropped his hand to his lap. “I’ve spoken with Nick and Peter. As a matter of fact, in the past few weeks I’ve spoken with all of the Whyte and Warren siblings. People may be jealous of them. People may have gripes here and there. But nothing I learned from them or from the snooping I’ve done myself has revealed anything heinous enough on their part to warrant this type of revenge.” His voice lowered. “Which is one of the reasons I’m here now. Can either of you,” he looked from Lenore to Natalie and back, “think of a reason why someone would hate either of your husbands that much?”

  He knew how much he had hated them himself when he had first begun work on the case. True, his feelings had been modified by what he had learned, but even before that he would never have considered murder. Nor would his father have, though the man threatened it in anger any number of times—just, Cavanaugh realized, as Jordan had threatened Mark.

  Natalie and Lenore were looking at each other. Ironically, it was Cassie who spoke. “I’m sure you understand, Detective, that men don’t reach the places of power that Mr. Whyte and Congressman Warren reached without making a few enemies along the way.”

  “I do understand that. But what I’m looking for is someone who really had a gripe. Someone who may have threatened either man or his family. Someone they may have known who was prone to violence.”

  Lenore shook her head. “Only a crackpot. A nameless, faceless crackpot.”

  Natalie shrugged. “I’d have to agree with that. I can think of many people who dislike my husband, but not one of them would resort to the kind of violence we’re dealing with.”

  Cavanaugh remained silent for a minute, gnawing on his lower lip. He released it at last and spoke quietly. “Do either of you or your husbands know a man named John Ryan?”

  “Isn’t he with the police department?” Lenore asked.

  “Then you have heard of him?”

  “Only through this case.”

  “Had you ever heard the name before all this came up?”

  Lenore and Natalie exchanged equally puzzled glances. “Should we have?” Natalie asked.

  Cavanaugh let out a breath. “Nope. Forget I asked. Okay then. Let’s go back to Mark. I know that he didn’t bring his friends here much, but did he ever mention them to you?”

  “Only in passing. He dropped names, but I rarely recognized them. If you were to ask me to recall them now I couldn’t.”

  “Did he ever mention any trouble?”

  Natalie sighed sadly. “Real trouble? I’m afraid that I’m the last person—no, I’d take next-to-last place before my husband—who he would have mentioned trouble to. Mark was sensitive about success and failure. He knew that he’d disappointed us over the years. We knew things weren’t always smooth, but when he told us anything it was always in glowing terms, probably exaggerated, I’m afraid to say.”

  “There’s nothing you can think of? No one person he might have felt was the bane of his existence?”

  When Natalie shook her head, Cavanaugh turned to Lenore. “What about you, Mrs. Warren?”

  “Mark wouldn’t have come to me any more than he’d have gone to his parents.”

  “Then what about Deborah? Did she ever mention any particular problem to you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Lenore said more softly. She shot a nervous glance at Natalie but went on. “There were money problems. We gave her some from time to time, but it always seemed to vanish, so in the end we put our foot down. We told her that if we didn’t know where the money was going we wouldn’t keep handing it out.”

  “She wouldn’t tell you.”

  “No.”

  “Any other problems she mentioned?”

  Again Lenore glanced at Natalie, this time apologetically. “She was discouraged sometimes. The people they moved with frightened her.”

  “Did she ever mention anyone specific?”

  “No. Just a general kind of thing. She wasn’t wild about the parties. Or,” this time she didn’t look at Natalie, “the other women.”

  “Were there steady ones? I mean, was Mark spending his time with any specific woman?” When Lenore shrugged, he prodded gently. “I know that there were parties. Wild parties.”

  “Orgies,” she said, to which he smiled.

  “I was trying to be tactful, but that’s pretty much what they were. Did Deborah take part in them?” He hadn’t been able to see that from the tape, though in truth he’d been so disgusted that he hadn’t looked all that hard. It occurred to him now that he should have.

  “I don’t really know,” Lenore answered. She was clearly uncomfortable with the thought of her daughter being a sexual groupie. “I’d like to think that she didn’t, but she never talked against the parties per se. She did talk against the women who seduced Mark into tidy little affairs.”

  The fact was, Cavanaugh mused, that Mark may well have been the seducer, but he wasn’t about to argue with Lenore’s choice of words.

  “If we want to talk possible scenarios, here’s one. What if Mark had an ongoing thing with a woman who just happened to be married? What if her husband caught on? What if that husband knew about the tapes, was even close enough to Mark to know about his argument with Jordan and about the existence of the tape confirming it? What if that husband then decided to do Mark in, knowing that Jordan could easily be framed, in which case the heat would be off him?”

  Cassie stirred in her seat, going along with Cavanaugh’s reasoning only to a point. “You’ve supposedly interviewed everyone on the west coast who had dealings with Mark and Deborah. Did you speak with anyone who could possibly fit?”

  “No. We could have missed someone, though. I even spoke with Deborah’s therapist, but he wasn’t much help.” He looked back at Lenore. “Was there anything Deborah might have told you—anything at all specific that could have relevance?”

  Lenore lowered her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to think, to remember. “I wish I’d listened closer,” she murmured, “but I used to get upset and try not to hear her.” There was something. She felt it nagging at the back of her mind, where it had been pushed a long while before. She tried to draw it forth, but it eluded her, and that in turn angered her. She didn’t like feeling powerless. At Gil’s death she had emerged from his shadow. She had a stable life now, a solid fortune. She knew she would never lose it, but now she needed more. She needed to do, to act, to take fate in her own hands.

  Then it came. Calmly she raised her head and eyed Cavanaugh. “Deborah did mention one girl. Mark had an affair with her, she’d gotten pregnant, then had an abortion. Deborah was nearly as upset about the abortion as she was about the affair. She’d wanted a baby so badly herself.”

  “When did the affair take place?” Cavanaugh asked quietly.

  “I’m not sure. Deborah told me about it a year ago. No, I think it was less than a year ago, though I don’t know how long it had been going on or how long it went on after that.”

  “What happened to the girl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did Deborah mention a name?”

  Again Lenore felt a wave of helplessness, but she fought it, digging, digging into her memory bank. “Jane … June. No.” She took a breath. “Julie. I think that was it. Julie.”

  “No last name?”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do?” Natalie asked.

  “Find out who Julie is. We haven’t interviewed anyone by that name. She may open up several new doors. In the meantime,” he looked from one face to the next, “If any of you think of anything else, I’d appreciate your giving me a call. This Julie person may lead
us nowhere, but it’s worth a try.”

  None of the three women could argue with that.

  Chapter 18

  Julie proved to be Julie Duncan and beyond Cavanaugh’s reach. On a visit to her Bakersfield home, Cavanaugh learned that her husband was a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair, while Julie herself had died several months before of a drug overdose.

  John Duncan was a figure who evoked Cavanaugh’s deepest sympathies. He was a broken man. He told Cavanaugh of the reluctance he had had in inflicting his condition on someone as vibrant as Julie, had even admitted that he hadn’t faulted her for seeking pleasure elsewhere. His biggest mistake, he said, had been in assuming Julie had been stronger than she was. Having an abortion had been her own decision. He would have had the baby since he wasn’t able to father one himself, but Julie hadn’t wanted the added responsibility. Unfortunately, the abortion had gone against her deeply ingrained religious principles, which after the fact had torn her apart, as had, apparently, the dual life she had led.

  If Duncan blamed anyone for his wife’s demise it was himself. Though Cavanaugh had every intention of checking it out, his cop’s instinct told him that the man was not mentally, much less physically capable of murder.

  Well apart from Duncan, there remained a niggling in the back of Cavanaugh’s mind. An elusive instinct told him that the clue to the murders was within his grasp, but he couldn’t seem to close in on it. What he did close in on was the rest of the tapes Mark had made. He brought them back east with him and stopped in New York for an exclusive viewing with Jordan, who was more than grateful to feel that he was doing something with potential relevance to his case.

  “Just watch,” Cavanaugh said quietly as the first of the pictures appeared on the VCR. “See if anything strikes you. Anything at all.”

  So they watched. Katia joined them after a time, and though Jordan was ashamed enough of what his brother had done to want to send her away, he couldn’t. He felt guilty about the spurts of moodiness that had made him difficult to be with of late, and selfishly, he took comfort having her by his side.