Mixed Up With Murder

by Susan C. Shea

  “And then?”

  “I walked toward the stairs. The conversation had stopped. The copier was still pushing out paper and it drowned out everything at first. When I squatted down at the open door, when I saw her hand—”

  I shuddered. This was getting too real.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s possible someone was still in the building. I’ve been trying to remember what I was thinking when I called out for help, but it’s hard. It was a jumble, you know?”

  “What was it that made you think you weren’t alone?”

  “I heard a sound from down the hall. At least I thought I did. But I never saw anyone. There were several women staffers leaving the building when I got there, but that was an hour before.”

  “We’ve interviewed everyone who worked there that afternoon. No one noticed anything unusual except you looking for Mr. Saylor’s office. A few workers were still gathered in a room on the first floor far away from the staircase, celebrating a colleague’s birthday. Apparently, they were making enough noise to cover up anything they might have heard.” He flipped back through the pages of his notebook “Try to bring back that few minutes. You told me before about an elevator?”

  “Oh, yes, I’d forgotten. I thought there was someone in the other wing of Saylor’s office suite when I arrived. It’s a long space with a handful of cubicles that I couldn’t see around. But the sound was indistinct, you know? Then, nothing until I was trying to get her to respond. It might have been an elevator door pinging as it opened or closed. I couldn’t see the elevator from where I was, inside the faculty member’s open door.”

  Quentin spoke up from his side of the table. “That might be useful, don’t you think? It could suggest someone was in Mr. Saylor’s office before my client arrived, and that the killer exited the second floor by way of the elevator.”

  Kirby grunted. “We’ll revisit the office and the elevator, although I expect it’s too late to find any fingerprints or other evidence.”

  “My memory of the entire nightmare is getting fuzzier as time goes by.” I remembered the feel of her fingers when I touched them, though. That I’d never forget. “I was confused, and I was in a strange place, and then in shock. And now, I think I’m a target.” I knew my voice was rising. I looked over at Quentin, signaling my desire to get out of the airless room and away from the grilling.

  “We don’t know that yet,” Kirby said, “although we take the chance of it seriously. Certainly the anonymous call suggests someone wants you to go away.” He sounded sincere, but not as motivated as I was to find out what had happened.

  “One more thing. Please describe Dermott Kennedy’s behavior and appearance from the moment he arrived on the scene.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean. Upset, shocked?”

  “I mean before he understood what had happened.” The detective flicked the pages in his little notebook until he came to something that he stopped to read. “You told me that when he first approached you, Mr. Kennedy didn’t seem to know what had happened.”

  “That’s right. He was coming up the stairs and when he got near the top step, he saw me, I guess, and started to say something like, ‘Oh, hi.’ He was cheerful and when I looked at him, he was smiling.”

  “And then?”

  “I guess my expression stopped him. He started to ask me what was wrong, but when he got close and saw…and saw his wife’s hand…” I gulped. “He dropped down next to me and began saying her name.”

  “When did you first know he was there?”

  “When he got near the top of the stairs.”

  “And his clothes? Did you notice anything?”

  I looked at Quentin. He nodded. I hoped I wouldn’t get Dermott in trouble. “Like what? He had on a sports jacket but no tie. Chinos.”

  “His shoes? Leather, sneakers? Flip-flops?”

  “Not flip-flops, regular shoes I think. I was focused on a bleeding woman, not on footwear.”

  “One more question. Was there anything that might have been blood on his clothing? Chinos are light colored. You might have noticed, and I assume he was wearing a shirt.”

  “Of course he was and, no, nothing like that. His jacket was dark, so I wouldn’t have seen blood on it, but he looked perfectly normal.”

  “He had blood on his pants and his shirt when the police examined his clothes.”

  “Well, sure. I mean, he got right down on the floor when he saw her. I had some blood on my sweater and on my knees, which I’m sure your officers reported. We were crouched over her, trying to help her.”

  “Okay, let’s confirm what happened next. After Mr. Kennedy arrived, who was the next person on the scene?”

  “Your men, two uniformed policemen. I only know the name of one, McManus. The other one was with him.”

  “And they came upstairs?”

  “Yes, but only after I opened the front door. They were banging on it.”

  “So you went downstairs, leaving Mr. Kennedy alone with his wife?”

  “Yes, but only for a minute. The cops ran up the stairs.”

  I might have continued, but Quentin interrupted me smoothly, reminding the detective he had said he was finished with his questions and that my injury from the car crash was catching up to me.

  “I wanted to ask you if the security cameras for the building have been checked,” I said, curiosity trumping the desire to be gone. “Wouldn’t that tell you who came into and left the building?”

  “They don’t have many of them on the building and none were particularly helpful.” Kirby snorted. “Just grainy images. Probably didn’t seem like a high priority to install better units.”

  With that, he stood up, signaling that the interview was over. As he walked Quentin and me toward the reception area, I started to ask him a question, but was interrupted by an oddly familiar voice. “Detective Kirby? Inspector Sugerman. Thanks for making time to see me. Hi Dani, you okay?” A hand reached out to squeeze my arm gently as I spun around. I wasn’t hallucinating. It really was Charlie.

  He looked a little tired and his tie was twisted to one side, but the green eyes were twinkling a little as he registered my surprise. Before I could do more than stutter, Charlie had turned to the detective and was agreeing to meet him in his office in five minutes, as soon as he’d seen me off.

  “But, how…I mean, why…?”

  He laughed. “It was worth a long day and two plane changes to see your face. Seriously, though, what you’ve been telling me isn’t adding up. I had a three-day break coming to me in rotation. Weiler even blessed it. Said he wouldn’t know what to do for entertainment if you wound up in jail a continent away.”

  Quentin murmured something about jail not being a likely option and I introduced them. Charlie suggested we three have dinner to go over the case and said he’d meet me at the hotel in a couple of hours. Quentin surprised me by agreeing, saying he’d use the time to sort his notes for Monday’s court case. “You’re a much better pair of dinner companions than a rerun of ‘Law and Order’ and a frozen chicken pot pie.”

  I left the police station feeling more optimistic than I had in days.

  CHAPTER 24

  Charlie had found out the town had an Italian restaurant cops loved, so we met there. The mouth-watering smell of garlic and olive oil that blew out of the open door was enough to convince me. We were silent while we dug into bowls of ziti and penne drenched in fresh tomato sauce and laced with salty calamata olives, tender little meatballs, and a snowfall of Parmesan cheese. Comfort food, something the hotel restaurant hadn’t been able to supply.

  It also was comforting to hear Charlie’s crisp summary of what he’d learned, and to know he had been as forceful as professional courtesy allowed in urging the police to focus on connecting the dots between Saylor’s death and Gabby’s, and to see that the “accident” with my car had to be part of the same case.

  I started to tell them about my meeting with Coe Anderson and what sounded like a veiled thr
eat when Quentin wiped the last of the tomato sauce off his mouth, reached for his beer glass, and said, “Good thing Dani’s ex-husband got me involved, given that there aren’t a lot of viable suspects so far.”

  The rest of the people at Tomaselli’s Italian Restaurant, Family-Owned Since 1932, were laughing and talking, but it was silent at our table. I chased the remains of a mushroom around my plate, not wanting to meet those green eyes.

  “Really?” Charlie’s voice was neutral, slow. “That’s good to know. I wouldn’t have credited Richard Argetter with knowing a lawyer in Bridgetown, but, then, I wouldn’t have guessed he’d even be here at this time. Fortuitous.”

  Since Charlie didn’t talk like this in real life, I knew I was in trouble. To Quentin, Charlie sounded like a lawyer, and he smiled his approval. The mushroom gave up and when I had popped it into my mouth, I had no choice but to look up. “His prep school alumni reunion is this week,” I said. “He went to boarding school in the next town. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, indeed,” my handsome homicide inspector said, a big and completely phony smile on his face. “Major coincidence.”

  “Look, guys,” I said, eager to change the subject. “I’ve been circling the facts I know, adding details, piling small bits together in piles, but getting nowhere. I’m frustrated and over my head. I’d like nothing better than to hand this over to the local authorities and go home. Can I do that? Help me understand the big picture, please.”

  Quentin frowned. “I wish I could say go, but I’m still getting signals they won’t be happy if you leave, and if you insist, they might pull some legal strings to keep you here.”

  “Agreed,” said Charlie, shifting into professional mode, although the look he gave me suggested we’d return to the subject of coincidence later. “The lead detective seems like a good guy, smart, and clear-headed. They don’t have much to go on yet, and you’re the best witness he has. As long as that’s the case, there’s no way he’ll be satisfied with you promising to come back later.”

  I looked at Quentin. There would never be a safer group or a better time, so I returned to the wild idea I’d been entertaining that Margoletti was involved in a money-laundering scheme. There had been rumors in the art market once paintings by famous artists began fetching stratospheric prices at auction from unnamed buyers working through unknown agents. That could explain paintings coming into his possession in lieu of payments for service, or a painting being bought quickly and sold with sketchy details. Both men sat silent, each looking off into space as if trying to picture the attorney as a crook. “Could be,” Quentin said, “but if it’s the answer, we’re in over our heads. That’s an investigation for the feds.”

  “Agreed,” Charlie said. “Let’s suggest it to Kirby, just to make sure the idea doesn’t get lost. It would make some sense, given the lengths to which someone’s going to get rid of every scrap of evidence about the artwork that’s ringing your bells.”

  Quentin promised to call Kirby Monday, and we left it at that.

  The cab ride to the hotel was quiet. Charlie paid the driver and walked me briskly into the lobby. No questions, no recriminations, only silence. It wasn’t until we got on the elevator and I pushed the button for the third floor that I realized I didn’t know what Charlie’s plans were for the night.

  I cleared my throat. “It really was a coincidence that Dickie was in town, and other than finding a lawyer for me, which you recommended, he hasn’t been involved.” Much. “Are you staying with me? You can,” I said, then heard my voice, which sounded doubtful to my ears. “I mean, I’d like you to if you want to.”

  “I booked a room.” He sighed. “Look, this is complicated. I figured I could read the cops better than you could, and could ease their minds if they didn’t understand your way of getting mixed up with murder.”

  The door opened and we stepped out. An elderly couple was waiting to get on, so I held my comment until the door had closed and they were gone. As we marched along the wine-colored carpet to my room, I whispered, “Not my way. I don’t want to have a sore neck, a wrecked fender to explain to the car rental company, and my very own criminal lawyer. You think I like this?”

  We entered my room. “I’m sorry if I’m in a lousy mood. Blame it on pain, but I really am glad you’re here and you’re right. I need help.” I started to put my arms around him. “Ow,” I said, stepping back and clutching my collarbone.

  He looked at me, startled. “How bad are you hurt?”

  The hotel phone rang before I could answer, and I picked it up, hoping it wasn’t Dickie. I had had enough awkwardness around men for one day.

  A voice I didn’t recognize slurred my name. “Ms. O’Rourke, help me please. I don’t know who to call. Please…”

  “Who is this?”

  “Dermott. I…I…someone broke into my apartment. Surprised me. When I tried to turn on the light, he shot me.”

  “You’ve been shot? Dermott, where are you?” I said, signaling Charlie frantically to come closer and listen.

  “In the apartment. I must have fainted…” He sounded weak.

  “Have you called 911? Can you call for help?”

  “No, can’t. The police think I killed her…”

  He was fading and I panicked. “What’s your address? I can come right over—”

  Charlie shook his head and pulled the phone away from me gently. He spoke calmly to Dermott while I scrambled over to the table next to my bed and searched for a speaker button on the phone console. “We’re going to call 911 for you. You need to get to the hospital. We’ll find out where you’re being taken and meet you at the hospital. It’s okay, I’m Dani’s friend.” He listened for a minute, then looked at me. “I’m going to call 911 now. Yes, we’ll find you.”

  ****

  Charlie tried to convince me to let him go alone, but I wouldn’t hear of it. Dermott had called me for a reason, even if I didn’t know what it was. We got directions, and on the way over to the hospital, Charlie quizzed me about Gabby’s husband. I realized I didn’t know anything beyond what he or Gabby had told me. Clearly, he didn’t trust the police, which I could understand if they were determined to see him as a suspect.

  The local hospital was only a mile or two from the hotel and we got there just as the ambulance pulled up. I tried to speak to Dermott as the EMTs unloaded the gurney and wheeled him into the building. “We’re here, okay?” He looked awful, pale, disheveled, confused, what I could see of him as he was hustled past.

  He grabbed my hand and said something to me, but it was slurred and too soft to hear. I would have gone into the examining room with him if Charlie and one of the nurses hadn’t both put their hands on my shoulders. I went back to the dreary waiting room with its TV set, on but soundless, and a score of heavily rumpled magazines in piles on a low table.

  A minute later, one of the EMT team walked over to me. “You’re the sister, right? He said to return these to you.” He handed me a set of keys.

  Without an instant’s hesitation, I plunged into what was probably perjury. “Yes. Thank you so much. I left them there and I need to get in to feed my cats. You know how it is,” I babbled, smiling idiotically while I jammed the keys into my pocket. Two uniformed policemen had arrived and were in and out of the emergency room door, their equipment-loaded belts clanking and their black shoes squeaking as they took turns going outside to presumably report back to the station. Without identifying myself, I waylaid one, someone I’d never run into before, to see if Dermott could have visitors. He said no deal. “We have an investigation to conduct before we know what Mr. Kennedy will be doing when he leaves here. Who are you?”

  I opened my mouth, but Charlie had joined me and squeezed my elbow hard. “Officer, I’m Inspector Sugerman, S.F.P.D. I’ve been consulting with your department’s homicide team on the Flores case.” He held out his hand.

  After getting a look that meant he would do better without me close by, I drifted away while the two tal
ked. In a few minutes, Charlie came back to me and said, “Come on, Dani. There’s nothing we can do for Dermott right now and it’s getting late. Let’s get you back to the hotel.”

  I didn’t argue, but as we walked into the parking lot I said, “I feel like I abandoned the guy when he asked for help, Charlie. What did the cop say?”

  Charlie didn’t answer until we got into his rental car. “There were no signs of a break-in. He told me Kennedy may have tried to commit suicide, chickened out and invented the intruder story. He shot himself in the shoulder. He did say they found something at his apartment that raises a lot of questions.”

  “Shot himself? That makes no sense. It’s more likely the same person that went after me and killed Gabby, and maybe even Saylor, is now after Dermott. Oh…”

  Charlie’s loud sigh filled the car. “What? There’s something you’ve been keeping to yourself, am I right?”

  “Actually, I started to tell you over dinner but we got off the topic.” I filled him in on Coe Anderson’s hostile behavior and the so-called crank caller. “I’ll feel rotten if I made Coe so worried about being caught at something that he felt he needed to get into Gabby and Dermott’s apartment.”

  “And shot one of his faculty members?”

  “Agreed, it sounds ridiculous, if only because we don’t know what’s got everyone so riled up.”

  “Unless your Gabby was a pack rat or a blackmailer, I can’t see why she’d bring sensitive papers home, and the way you describe her, she wasn’t like that. It’s possible someone doesn’t want any of you to figure out what’s behind the big gift to Lynthorpe College. But it’s also possible the husband could try to take his own life if he had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy or rage. It happens.”

  My head was spinning. I had been ready to go to bed hours ago, and I was slightly dizzy. Charlie must have seen something on my face because he peered at me. “You okay, Dani?” I wasn’t. I was so tired I could have lain down on the sidewalk and slept.

  Charlie hustled me back to the hotel, escorted me to my room, and made sure I wasn’t going to faint. Then he told me his room number, kissed me on the forehead, and left. After squirming around for a few minutes to find a position that would be easy on my neck, and finding there was none, I collapsed into a restless sleep.