Retribution

by Jasmine White

  ~ ~ ~

  Darkness had fallen by the time Johnny and Kate were taken back to the station. “Just routine,” the pudgy officer at the front desk had informed them as he passed them paperwork to fill out.

  Sure doesn’t feel like “just routine,” Katherine thought, half scared, half angry as she sat in a hard wooden chair facing Bailey, who was sizing her up from across a desk. A strong overhead light shone into her face, stinging her eyes. After the chilly air outside, the station was stuffy and overheated.

  She tried to focus on what the detective was saying instead of the fact that Johnny was in the room next door—she could only hear muffled voices. What were they asking him? It didn’t seem fair that the same officer that had arrested him years before was the one questioning him again. She wished she’d been able to talk with him before the police did. Most of all, she didn’t want him to say anything to incriminate himself.

  Despite the warmth of the office, she felt chilled inside and drew the collar of her raincoat closer about her neck, not wanting to meet the eyes of the man across from her. Bailey studied her, his dark eyes shielded; there was nothing for Katherine to read in them. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking behind that guarded composure. Bravely meeting his eyes across the desk, she sat on her hands, which were sweaty despite the cool temperature. Was she just a distraction while the real questioning went on next door?

  Finally he broke the gaze and looked down at the paperwork she’d filled out at the front desk. “Miss Hale, is that correct?”

  “Yes. Katherine Hale.” Her voice came out almost as a squeak. She cleared her throat nervously. Had he noticed? She studied him from underneath long lowered lashes. She couldn’t tell. Not a muscle twitched in his face as his eyes skimmed the next line. “Occupation: architect.” His eyebrows raised—that seemed to be a habit of his—as he read the word neatly written in her cursive handwriting. Finally, some semblance of expression.

  “Yes. I’m an architect.” She mentally congratulated herself on achieving a normal tone of voice.

  “Rare occupation for a woman.”

  She bristled at his patronizing tone. “Depends on the woman in question.”

  A slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Apparently not in your case.” He scanned over the rest of the paper and flung it down on the desk. “Now, to get to the point at hand . . . ” His shield was up again, officially back to routine. Kate wondered if she’d just imagined the momentary glimpse of a human being. “Let’s cut directly to the point. How were you acquainted with the deceased?”

  “He is—was, one of my professors at the university.” The tight answer elicited a questioning look from Bailey.

  Then it softened and he said in a gentler tone, “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”

  Katherine nodded as she gulped down the emotion that was threatening to drown her voice. “How far back do you want me to go?”

  Bailey shrugged, but his dark eyes told her “go ahead—I trust you,” a gesture that dispelled some of the aversion she had held for him ever since he and his partner had first entered the apartment.

  “I met Philip, known as Professor Drake to the students, during my senior year at the university. He was teaching one of my capstone classes.” Under his encouraging silence, she continued, and, in doing so, found herself transported back to last year as she delved into her memory to construct her relationship with Professor Drake.

  It was an unusually scorching hot summer day in San Francisco. It seemed to Katherine as though she could see steam rising from the sidewalk as she turned to enter the architecture building, making her way to the professor’s tiny office. The only light came from small windows, casting more heat into the room. Only a few ceiling fans moved the hot air around providing some relief.

  The professor’s office surprised her with its casualness—floor plans scattered on a small drafting table, The Building Age and the Builder’s Journal magazine on top, a wooden bookshelf lined with thick books bearing titles like Vignola, Built in USA, Gems of American Architecture. Even the books seemed to give off steam. The little electric fan sitting in the window did little to ease the stifling heat, only managing to give some movement to the magazine pages so that they ruffled like waves. Suddenly aware of a feeling of being watched, Katherine just had time to wonder how long she’d been observing the room before quickly turning her attention to the professor. He was looking at her from his red swivel chair, a polite smile gracing his lips that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  “You wanted to see me?” Katherine hesitated, shifting her oversized blue handbag tucked underneath her left arm.

  “Yes. You and that handbag of yours, that is.” He let the smile reach his slightly hooded gray eyes as he leaned back in his chair and studied her. His eyes still held hers as he cut straight to the point. “Your progress in class impressed me. Your work is good and that’s saying something, considering there were over thirty students in the class—and most of them male.”

  It was a side note, just an added comment, but Katherine caught it. In that instant that her eyes flamed defiance; she had worked so hard, slaved away, trying to prove to everyone that a woman could actually hold her own as an architect. “I’m surprised you even noticed me in that crowd of testosterone.”

  He chuckled, then added seriously, “If you would get that chip off your shoulder about being one of the few females in your field, you’d be able to work it to your advantage. Getting noticed is the hard part; you obviously don’t have a problem with that. The challenge for you is going to be keeping the attention once you have it.”

  Humbled, she gingerly lowered herself into a hard chair, straightening her skirt, and faced Philip across the table. “I’m sorry about that outburst. I guess, well, I’ve worked hard to get where I’m at.” Her voice died. Further explanation felt too much like an excuse.

  Now his eyes twinkled as he pushed some paperwork across the desk. “That work paid off. If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to get into the field, here it is. A good internship offer and you’ve got it.”

  How did he know she’d been inquiring around about possible job opportunities? Katherine wondered while she relived in her mind the rejections she’d received—they’d only served to fuel her jealousy for men in her profession. And so it was with heart beating fast that she stared down at the papers Drake had pushed across to her. They didn’t offer much information about the company but rather just laid out a basic employer/employee contract. “Which firm is it?”

  “Mine.” Phillip Drake responded shortly, his eyes watching her surprised response in amusement. “Now don’t go all medieval on me. I said I was impressed by your work and perseverance and meant it. Not every guy willing to give you a break is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” This he said with a sarcastic tinge to his voice and a grin tugging at his lips.

  Katherine’s felt her face stain a bright pink as she forced herself to meet his eyes. “Once again —I apologize, Mr. Drake.” With a self-conscious smile she stood up and reached across the desk to firmly shake his hand. “I would love the opportunity to work for your company. When do I start?” The question had a current of excitement running through it.

  Absorbed in her memories, Katherine didn’t realize she’d stopped, until Bailey interrupted her. “And then?”

  She looked up with surprise to see that he was completely absorbed in her story, anxious for her to continue. “I started work Monday of the following week,” she began, and again fell into the past.

  That morning she nervously stood in the elevator watching the hand moving slowly towards the twelfth floor. As it passed the eleventh floor, she took in a deep breath and wiped her sweaty palms against the side of her new outfit. Part of her wanted the elevator to speed up, the other part of her wanted to tell bellboy to stop so she could escape. Professor Drake had such high expectations of her. Would she be able to meet them? She swallowed hard and tilted her chin determinedly. Of course she would
do a good job, she told herself. But a fear of failure still clung to her as the ding of the elevator sounded the arrival of the twelfth floor.

  “Your floor, miss.” The bellboy opened the door for her and gave her a boyish grin of encouragement.

  “Thank you.” She gave him a shy smile, feeling as though he could sense her uneasiness as she stepped out onto the cool tile floor of the hallway.

  He touched his hat and a flash of red from his uniform lingered in the corner of her mind. A long mirror on the end of the hallway showed her reflection; at least her appearance didn’t reveal her inner nerves. Her brown, shiny hair tumbled from under her gray beret; her new gray jacket and skirt had been tailored to fit her exactly—this had been the perfect occasion to bring them out. She opened the tall glass door with a bronze plaque next to it that read “Drake and Anderson, Architecture Firm.”

  Inside, a hushed, uncluttered atmosphere greeted her, not like the noisy offices Kate had worked at before, full of desks and typewriters. The steady rhythm of one girl busy on a typewriter was the only purring in the otherwise silent space. She wore a fitted cranberry frock, the color perfectly complementing the polished wood desk at which she worked. The purring stopped as she looked up at Katherine. The girl's brown eyes took in her own, looked up her and down, then smiled unexpectedly, seemingly satisfied with her appearance. She nodded curtly towards the door to the right. “They’re expecting you. Go right in.” Another smile of assurance. Relieved that she'd been approved, but slightly irritated that'd she'd been inspected, Kate crossed to the room on the right, rapped twice, and entered.

  “Miss Hale. Glad you could make it.” Philip Drake stood up formally as she entered. He looked different in here than in the classroom, more sophisticated. It could also have been the newer, better-fitting suit he was wearing instead of the older one he generally wore at the university. Katherine tried to put him in a category, tried to figure out which world he belonged in now, but couldn't do it. “I’d like you to meet the client I told you about.” he said with an arc of his arm, motioning to the other occupant of the room.

  A tall blonde man, his deep tan hinting of copious amounts of leisure time, stood up to meet her. His blue eyes fringed with dark lashes sparked as they met hers for a fraction of a second before they casually dipped over her body.

  Drake continued. “Wesley Grant. Wesley, this is my newest intern, Katherine Hale. I think you’ll be as impressed as I am by her work.”

  “It’s a pleasure.”

  Her cool demeanor faltered slightly under his bold stare; she looked him straight in the face, forcing his eyes to come back up to hers. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Grant.” She pulled up the chair nearest to her and sat down rather abruptly, trying to hide her sudden uneasiness. Wesley grinned and followed suit, pulling his chair a bit closer to hers. Philip sat down behind the large desk: "Now then . . ."

  She paused in her story for a moment, her mind reliving the memories. For Bailey's benefit, or so she told herself, she edited most of the romance out of the story. No need to tell him it hadn’t taken Wesley more than a week to ask her out. She’d adamantly refused for at first—for about two weeks, before finally accepting. It was natural for her to be hesitant at first: everyone knew the rumors of his beautiful women, the elegant parties on his yacht, the large cottage out in the East Bay. But curiosity had gotten the better of her and she’d accepted. They’d quickly become a couple. Life with Wesley had been glamorous and fast, and soon they were darlings of the press—the papers loved to photograph them together. The playboy millionaire had finally decided to settle down, the headlines claimed.

  It almost came true. She knew he was close to asking her to marry him, and she would’ve welcomed his proposal—if she hadn’t met the new engineer Jerry Weinman had brought on the job. Her mind wandered for a moment as she thought about how Wesley had been impressed with Jerry Weinman, a man whose resume was all tied up in nice ribbons. Weinman had approached him and bid for the position of head engineer on Wesley's new project. Wesley had accepted and sung Jerry's praises as an engineer, though he didn't like the man as a person. So when Jerry had decided to bring Jonathan Morgan on the job, Wesley had given him the go-ahead. Then suddenly life with Wesley had seemed too lighthearted and empty. Where he was fun and lighthearted, Jonathan Morgan was dark and mysterious. She’d been attracted to the lean, bronzed, handsome man instantly. Her heart still pounded when she remembered their first date—when he’d first kissed her.

  She hoped she wasn't smiling as she concluded, “And that’s about it. I got hired for the job, and you know the rest.”

  Bailey scribbled some notes with a pencil directly onto the paper she’d filled out. So much for trying to keep her handwriting neat. “So it was the professor who first introduced you to Wesley Grant. How long were you two dating?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Katherine let a tinge of irritation creep into her voice, even though she knew Bailey had to have read the newspapers that had picked up her relationship with the “playboy turned businessman.”

  “Being curious is my job,” he responded bluntly, as if that were enough to explain anything he might ask her.

  “Well, for the sake of time, could we ‘cut directly to the point’ as you so eloquently put it?”

  “All right, Miss Hale. What were you doing in Drake’s apartment? It doesn’t seem the most appropriate place even for an advanced student to meet with her esteemed professor.”

  At his smirk, and the innuendo dripping in his tone, her flicker of irritation was fanned into a full blaze. Furious, she bit back a nasty reply—something along the lines of “That’s none of your business, you dumb ass”—and forced herself instead to coolly answer the question. “Mr. Drake needed the last interior plan for Wesley’s project as soon as possible, so when I finished it I brought it over. I waited in his office until seven, then decided to take it to his flat.” Katherine wondered why she felt she had to defend her honor to this infuriating man.

  His dark, beady eyes shifted again to his notepad as he jotted down a word or two. Was he even taking notes relating to what she was saying? Or was he simple doodling? “That’s funny . . . ” He said under his breath.

  “What’s funny?” Katherine felt she had to ask.

  “I was under the impression Drake had quit the Wesley job--” Katherine stared at him blankly as he continued. “Perhaps you didn’t get the memo that the job was called off?”

  “I don’t think so.” Katherine replied icily, although her race began to race as she remembered the missed calls that Drake hadn’t return, his shifting of focus lately. Had her last efforts in getting the plans done in time all been a waste?

  “How did your affections suddenly switch from Wesley to Johnny?” Bailey’s gaze didn’t leave the paper.

  Katherine snapped out of her musing. What was done was done. “What connection does that have to the case at hand?”

  “Could have plenty. It’s my job to know everything with everyone connected to the case, no matter how minute it may seem.”

  Katherine remained stubbornly silent. There was no need for him to be burrowing into her personal relationships, she thought angrily. After a minute he finally looked up from his paper.

  “Interfering with a police investigation is a punishable crime, Miss Hale. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  Katherine gritted her teeth in frustration. Why did this man always have to win? Telling him would be better than paying some stupid fine or worse, spending a night in one of the cold, dank cells she’d passed on her way to this room. She wouldn’t put it past this man to throw her in the clink for a night.

  She sat down heavily. “Yes. It was a rather sudden shift. Johnny was one of the engineers working on Wesley’s project with us. Having to collaborate on the structural plans put us together quite a bit. One thing led to another, and. . . .”

  “And your relationship with Wesley was history.” Bailey finished the sente
nce for her, his gaze still on his small notebook on which she was now quite certain he was definitely doodling.

  What was the deal with his lack of focus? Katherine wondered. Was this man totally out of sync socially, or was it his way of getting more information out of her? If it was the latter, it was working. She felt like she had told him most of her life story over the last hour.

  “Yes. Well, not completely. We still remained friends, still are for that matter, and the project is almost completed.”

  “Almost?”

  “Phillip was to have finished the more difficult plans by tomorrow.”

  “I see.”

  “So you came to his apartment to drop off some plans for him to review.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he alive when you found him? Did you hear the shot?”

  “No. I didn’t hear any shot.” Katherine gulped and hoped he couldn’t hear the emotion in her voice. “He wasn’t alive when I found him. He had already killed himself.”

  “How did you get in the apartment? A key left under the mat?”

  “No. I knocked several times, but there was no answer. I waited and heard a faint shuffling noise so I thought he was there. When nobody answered after I knocked again, I tried the door. It was unlocked, so I let myself in.”

  He looked up. “What sort of noises did you hear?”

  “I’m not sure . . .” She thought for a moment, trying to describe the sound. “Scuffling noises or something of the sort, I suppose. I didn’t pay much attention to them. I just assumed he was home, or perhaps he owned a cat. Since the door was open, I figured I’d just leave the plans for him.”

  “Of course.” His dark gaze returned to the paper pad where his pencil again moved into action. “Is that a common practice for you—to enter a stranger’s house without being let in?” That demanding tone again.

  “He was expecting me. Nothing strange about it. Besides, this was an important deadline. It wasn’t going to be missed if there was anything I could do about it.”

  “That was noble of you.”

  Enough was enough. Katherine stood up again. “Mr. Marsh. If you don’t have anything else important to ask me, I have other things to do. Houses don’t just design themselves, contrary to some people’s naive opinions.”

  “Wait, wait, Miss. Hale.” He chuckled at her outrage, holding out his hand as though to detain her. “I do still have a few questions—” With a fed-up attitude, she sat back down again on her chair. Before he could continue, Bailey was interrupted by some commotion in the hallway and the frosted door to his office being thrown open to reveal an angry Wesley Grant, his tall frame filling the doorway as his bright eyes located Katherine.

  “Kate! Are you all right? What’s this load of crap I hear about you finding Drake’s body?” His bright blue eyes bristled with anger.

  Relief at seeing her old friend blocked Katherine’s voice so she didn’t have time to answer before Bailey stepped forward and spoke for her. “Miss Hale did find a body. Right now she is being asked some routine questions. If you don’t mind stepping out while we finish up . . . ”

  “Of course I mind,” Wesley snarled, straightening the jacket of his gray suit, the action saying what he didn’t need to—that he wasn’t a man accustomed to having his actions thwarted. “There is no need to question her. We’ll see what my cousin, the district attorney has to say about this!” He reached for the phone on the desk. Katherine watched in amusement: her tall blonde friend in a face-off with the swarthy Italian.

  Bailey responded with the cool detachment of a detective who’s seen it all. “There’s no need to do that—Mr.?”

  “Mr. Grant to you. That’s all you need to know. You don’t have any right to detain Kate here.”

  She inched closer to Wesley, glad he’d come to get her.

  Bailey looked like a cornered rat as he looked from her to Wesley. “We’re not detaining her, just asking some questions.”

  “So, she’s free to go then.”

  “Well, technically . . .”

  “That’s what I thought. Come on, Kate, I’ll take you home.”

  She happily headed for the door with the thought of how nice it was to have influential friends. “But Johnny is in the next room. Shouldn’t we wait for him?” Before the words were out of her mouth she knew how he’d respond.

  “Absolutely not,” he replied curtly. “He can take care of himself.”

  She hesitated, looking at the office where Johnny was, before Wesley pulled her along to the door.

  “We’ll be in touch, Miss Hale,” a persistent Bailey called after her.