You Have the Right to Remain Silent

by Barbara Paul

  Batch watery? Then Marian remembered: watch battery. She laughed and tapped out her friend’s number—and got Kelly’s machine. Marian left a message that was as supportive and encouraging as she could make it, promising to be there Friday night with bells on, further promising to come backstage afterward, declaring she wouldn’t dream of intruding before the play started, etc. After she’d hung up, she said, “But Brian won’t be there.”

  The second message was from Brian Singleton himself. “Marian, I wanted to remind you of the Bergstrom showing tomorrow night. I know you’re none too eager to see me, but I thought this might make it easier for both of us. Lots of people around—we won’t fight in public, will we? If you don’t come, I’ll understand. But I do hope you’ll be there. I don’t like this bad feeling between us, and I miss you. Please come.”

  Marian sighed. “Then again, maybe he will.”

  11

  Tuesday morning was the time Marian had tentatively earmarked for getting chewed out by Captain DiFalco, but the hours passed and nothing happened. DiFalco had a set speech he liked to use when an investigation wasn’t proceeding as rapidly as he’d like; and once he got going, he could make the rafters ring. DiFalco liked the sound of his own voice and he liked making that speech, which consisted mostly of imaginative variations on Get your ass moving. Marian had expected at least a pep talk by now, coach-to-player stuff, but DiFalco was leaving her alone. She couldn’t figure out why.

  The only chewing-out that morning had been the one she’d given her partner. Foley’s checks on Edgar Quinn’s and Elizabeth Tanner’s alibis had been less than thorough. Both suspects, if they were suspects, were backed up by other people to a point, but there was leeway in the time schedules of both. Quinn could have squeezed in the murders before going out for the evening, and Tanner could have made a quick trip back from Glen Cove early Saturday night. But that presumed both people were operating on a split-second schedule, and who could time four homicides that closely? And was it likely that either or both Quinn and Tanner could calmly go off for a social evening after such a gruesome business without giving themselves away? Not very, Marian had to admit.

  She also admitted there was absolutely no reason to suspect Elizabeth Tanner of anything. Marian was investigating her only because she was there. Nobody else was.

  A mountain of computer printouts plopped down on her desk. “Oops!” A pleasant voice laughed. “Sorry, they got away from me.”

  Marian looked up to see Trevor Page smiling down at her. “Have a nice time in Washington?” she asked.

  If he caught the irony in her voice, he didn’t let on. “I had a frustrating time in Washington. None of our four victims was up to anything out of the ordinary. It was business as usual, except for Jason O’Neill’s quick visit to his Washington girlfriend’s place.”

  “What about her?”

  “Straight from Vassar to her job as a congressional aide. Squeaky clean. We’ll keep looking, but so far we’ve found nothing that wasn’t strictly on the up and up.”

  Marian pointed to a chair and Page sat. “This Top Secret stuff they were meeting about,” she said, “do you know what it is?”

  Page said he did. “New technology requires constant progress reports, and that’s all this last trip was about. Updating, explaining. Making sure everybody on both sides understood what was expected and what was being done. I can’t give you any details, but that’s the gist of it.”

  “No secret meetings with bad guys, no suspicious phone calls in the middle of the night? No scraps of paper with coded messages left behind?”

  He looked at her in mild exasperation. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not taking this too seriously?”

  “Because I’m not,” Marian said bluntly. “Spy stuff! There’s no international intrigue behind the East River Park murders. The cause is right over there in the Universal Laser offices.”

  Page propped his elbows on her desk, rested his chin in his hands, and grinned. “I’m all ears.”

  Marian told him what she’d been doing while he was off gallivanting around Washington, and her reluctant conclusion that the only one so far who showed any signs of qualifying as a suspect was Edgar Quinn. “He thinks he was betrayed. His interpretation is that something went wrong with the deal, and whoever the traitor was dealing with killed him—possibly to shut him up, perhaps for some other reason. But if enough was riding on it, Quinn himself could have killed whoever sold him out.”

  “But why kill the others?”

  Marian was silent a moment. “Maybe he didn’t know which one it was. Maybe he killed them all to make sure he got the right one.”

  To her surprise, Page burst out laughing. “And maybe pigs have wings. Edgar Quinn? Murder four people?”

  “You know him personally?”

  “Not personally, but I’m the one in charge of running security checks on the Universal Laser personnel. I know them all on paper, and I’ve had a few face-to-face dealings with the people at the top. I knew Conrad Webb and Sherman Bigelow too.”

  “Were they friends?”

  “I didn’t know them that well.” He winked one eye. “Besides, we’re not allowed to make friends with people we’re investigating.”

  “Of course not,” Marian said soberly.

  “Does Quinn have an alibi for Saturday night?” Page asked.

  “He has a partial. He and his wife and another couple went to a play and then out on the town, according to Quinn. His wife backs him up, but that’s to be expected. The other couple is out of the city and can’t be reached.” Foley had made no attempt to try to trace them, or even to confirm that the Quinns had indeed gone to a play. But Foley was trying to confirm it now—oh yes, Marian had seen to that.

  “What about Quinn’s wife?” Page asked. “Did you believe her?”

  “My partner talked to her. He claims she’d probably say anything Quinn told her to say. But my partner thinks everyone in the world is a liar.”

  “Your partner is probably right,” Page remarked blandly. “So we’re left with a questionable motive and a sort-of alibi. Not too sterling a case.”

  Marian placed a hand palm-down on the printout paper piled on her desk. “What’s this stuff?”

  “Results of our most recent security check. I can save you some time—there’s nothing new, nothing helpful. But I promised you we’d share what we found, and there it is.” Marian started pawing through the paper. “What are you looking for?”

  “Elizabeth Tanner. These in alphabetical order? Ah, here she is.” Marian read silently for a moment. “Married three times?”

  “Widowed twice,” Page said. “First husband killed in a traffic accident, the second died of a heart attack. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, both times she waited exactly six months and then remarried. The lady doesn’t like being single. One son, from her first marriage—just now starting college.”

  The three marriages were the only remotely unusual thing in the report on Elizabeth Tanner. Everything else could be a textbook lesson on how to succeed in business by trying hard all the time. The right schools, the right degrees, the right contacts. Carefully timed career moves followed by rapid promotions. No drugs, no “subversive” activities, no connections with any criminal elements. Generous donations to both political parties. Mrs. Clean. And it had paid off; Elizabeth Tanner was as high at Universal Laser as she could get without actually taking over Edgar Quinn’s job. “I’d like to have another go at Mrs. Tanner,” Marian said.

  “Any particular reason?” Page asked.

  “She’s a late starter and I don’t have a fix on her yet.”

  “Sounds like a good reason to me,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I thought you might.” Marian looked at the stack of printouts with distaste. Page undoubtedly knew what he was talking about when he said there was nothing helpful there, but police procedure wouldn’t allow her to take his word for it. Someone was going to have to plow through all th
ose sheets of information, most of it undoubtedly useless. She looked around the room. One of the other detectives assigned to the East River Park murders was talking on the phone; his name was Roberts and he was the youngest detective in the Ninth Precinct. Longstanding police tradition decreed that the new kid was the one who got stuck with boring detail work as often as possible; it was a tradition of which Marian heartily approved.

  She dumped the printouts on Roberts’s desk and ignored his squawk of protest. “Let’s go,” she said to Page.

  Elizabeth Tanner was in the process of moving into Conrad Webb’s office—or rather she was directing traffic while other people did the actual moving. Marian and Page trailed after a maintenance man pushing a file cabinet on a dolly into an office the same size as Edgar Quinn’s. Marian remembered one window in Tanner’s old office; here there were two. Clearly a step up.

  When Tanner caught sight of them, a big smile appeared on her face, much to Marian’s surprise, until she realized the smile was for her companion. “Trevor!” Tanner said with genuine pleasure. “I didn’t know the FBI was investigating—unless you’re here for another reason? Whichever it is, it’s nice seeing you again.”

  “Hello, Elizabeth,” Page replied neutrally. “Yes, we’re cooperating with the New York police on this one. You’ve met Sergeant Larch?” He spoke with the same mixture of courtesy and caution Marian had noticed the first time they’d met.

  Tanner acknowledged Marian with a polite hello and turned back to Page. “I haven’t seen you since the time we all went out to dinner at the Tavern on the Green. You were here investigating … one of our design engineers, that was it.”

  “I remember. And I remember the dinner. Conrad and Edgar had some disagreement about the gazpacho, as I recall.”

  “Why, so they did. Imagine your remembering that. But I suppose you don’t forget much, do you?”

  “I try to remember everything.”

  Marian rested one arm on top of the file cabinet the maintenance man had brought in and settled herself to enjoy the show. Elizabeth Tanner wasn’t exactly coming on to the FBI agent, but that would have been the next level up in her approach. It was more as if she were sussing him out, probing to discover how receptive he might be to a more direct approach. Page, on his part, maintained his usual level of courteous attentiveness without ever encouraging a more personal note … or without being so gauche as to imply Tanner was crossing some line of acceptable behavior. Marian liked the way he was handling the situation, and she had to admire Tanner’s poise and skill in the game she was playing. All in all, two very professional performances.

  Page was finally able to work in a sentence about her new office.

  “It is nice, isn’t it?” Tanner said with a smile. “Much roomier than my old one. That place seemed to shrink a little more every week.”

  Marian decided it was time she joined the conversation. “It’s as big as Edgar Quinn’s office, isn’t it?”

  “Same size exactly. When Edgar’s father first leased this space, he made sure Conrad had as good an office as he did. Then when Conrad stepped down from the CEO position, no one suggested he move to a smaller office. He’d been in this room as long as Universal Laser has been here, you see.”

  “Who replaced him as Chief Executive Officer?”

  “Edgar’s acting in that capacity,” Tanner said shortly. “His father’s idea.”

  A note of disapproval? Marian threw a glance to Page; he picked up on it. “Big shoes to step into,” he said. “I’d hate to follow Conrad Webb in a job.”

  Tanner sighed. “Poor Edgar. He’s expected to replace both Conrad and his father. That’s a lot to ask of anyone.”

  “Too much for him to handle?” Marian asked innocently.

  Tanner hesitated just the right amount of time before speaking. “No, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that Edgar isn’t … the dynamo his father was. I don’t mean he’s resting on his father’s laurels—he isn’t. But Edgar Senior was a true man of vision, one of the few I’ve ever met. Edgar Junior,” she laughed apologetically, “is junior.”

  That was twice she’d undercut her boss, both the times Marian had spoken to her. “Do you still believe he’s wrong in suspecting one of the liaison group of having sold him out?”

  This time Elizabeth Tanner waited several moments before she answered. “I believe no one sold him out,” she said slowly. “But I also believe Edgar is quite capable of thinking someone did. Not that he’s paranoid—I’m not saying that. But the son can’t expect to command the same sort of loyalty the father could. And Edgar knows that. I’ve heard him remark on it on occasion.”

  “Elizabeth,” Page said quietly, “what do you think happened?”

  “I’m not accusing anyone,” she said quickly.

  “I know that. But do you think he’s capable of killing?”

  She spread her hands. “I honestly don’t know. Edgar sometimes allows himself to be led. I don’t know whether that makes him more likely to kill or less.”

  “But you must have given it some thought.”

  “I’m afraid it hasn’t gotten me very far,” she said brightly, unwilling to commit herself further. “I just meant Edgar’s suspicions about the liaison group’s loyalty are in character. He sees himself as constantly being compared to his father and found lacking, you see. Naturally he’s going to be a little suspicious.”

  Marian wondered if Page caught that one last little dig Elizabeth Tanner got in at Quinn even while seeming to exonerate him. She also wondered if this was the way the assistant to the CEO spoke of all her co-workers. A test question. “Did Conrad Webb have that trouble too? He’d stepped down as CEO before Edgar Senior died, didn’t he?”

  The other woman’s face changed, to what Marian thought was honest regret. “Yes, he’d stepped down before Edgar Senior died, and no, he never had to worry about employee loyalty. Conrad was special. He was the perfect man for getting this company off the ground and moving, and old Edgar was one smart cookie for knowing that. Those two made a perfect partnership—that’s one of the things that attracted me to Universal Laser in the first place. But now, what with both of them gone …” She trailed off, leaving the obvious unstated.

  So was she sincerely concerned for the company’s future, or was she just out after Edgar Quinn’s job? Marian couldn’t tell. Right at that moment another maintenance man showed up, pushing a platform truck loaded with computer equipment; and Elizabeth Tanner’s whole attention was given over to deciding where she wanted things set up. Page motioned to Marian with his head; they left without saying goodbye.

  In the elevator on the way down, Marian asked, “Just how well do you know Elizabeth Tanner? Enough to make any sense out of that?”

  “I know her well enough to see she’s trying to edge Edgar Quinn out of his father’s company.”

  “By throwing suspicion on him? But how would that help her, if he didn’t commit the murders?”

  Page shrugged. “By rattling him? By undermining employee confidence in him? She’s looking for anything that’ll make him look bad.”

  “You seem pretty sure,” Marian remarked. “How do you know she’s not just worried about the company?”

  “Because the only thing Elizabeth Tanner worries about is Elizabeth Tanner. No, Sergeant, that was just plain old office politics we got a taste of up there.”

  “Edgar Quinn assured me there were no office politics at Universal Laser,” she said with a smile.

  Page didn’t even bother answering that.

  On the street, they headed uptown, both of them wrapped in their own thoughts. After they’d gone several blocks, Marian said, “You know, don’t you, that Edgar Quinn is the only suspect we’ve got? His motive may be on the puny side—accusing one of the liaison group of having betrayed him. But that’s more motive than we’ve been able to come up with for anyone else.”

  “Tell me something,” Page said to her. “How did you first learn that Quinn was suspicious of
the liaison group?”

  That was easy. “Quinn told me himself.”

  “And would a murderer voluntarily hand the police a motive where none had previously existed?”

  “Sounds farfetched, I know.”

  “Damned right it does. You know, Sergeant, the more I think about it, the more I like Quinn’s notion that one of that group was involved in a deal that went sour. The sheer methodicalness of the way they were killed smacks of a pro doing his job, don’t you think?”

  Marian had to agree. “It’s hardly the method an amateur would attempt for his first killing. What are you going to do?”

  Page pointed to a hot dog vendor on the corner. “Have lunch. How do you take yours?”

  “Mustard only.”

  They took their hot dogs to one of the benches outside the wall around Central Park. “One thing bothers me,” Marian said between bites. “Edgar Senior doesn’t sound like the type to be blinded by paternal pride. If he was shrewd enough to see he needed a Conrad Webb to run his company, why didn’t he know Edgar Junior wasn’t up to the job when his time came?”

  Page laughed shortly. “Because Edgar Quinn isn’t anything like the incompetent boob Elizabeth Tanner painted him to be. Old Edgar knew what he was doing.”

  Marian finished her hot dog and licked a spot of mustard off one finger. “You seem awfully sure Edgar Quinn is innocent.”

  The FBI agent let the air out of his lungs with a whoosh. “I’m not, really. He could be guilty as hell. I’m just afraid we’re zeroing in on him because we can’t find anyone else.”

  Marian knew the feeling. “Have you ever seen his apartment?”

  “No—what’s it like?”

  “Beautiful place, and rather formal. Quinn himself is so informal, even in his office … he and that apartment don’t seem to go together.”