Intimate Betrayal

by Linda Barlow

  “Anyhow,” Sam said, “knowing her as well as I do, I sincerely doubt that there’s any truth to what Canin had to say. Darcy’s an excellent architect. And she’s certainly not a killer.” He shook his head. “At least, I don’t think she is.”

  For the rest of the day, Annie turned the conversation with Sam over and over in her mind. She wished she could talk to Matt about it, but he was still in Washington. And in a sense she was glad that he was out of town, and safe, briefly, from being hassled by the police.

  Little details kept haunting her: Darcy’s recent and unusual skittishness; her attempt to convince Annie that Matt Carlyle must have been involved; the way she had seemed so totally distraught at Giuseppe’s funeral; the fact that she hadn’t been home on the night of the murder.

  And there was something else that Sam didn’t know, something that had happened on the day that Darcy and others from the firm had visited the site with Annie to observe the progress: Darcy had climbed up the scaffolding with Giuseppe. What had he said to her that day? “You are the architect, are you not, madonna? Yes, please, come up, there are several things I would like to show you. “

  Had he told her then that there was something wrong in the cathedral frame? Had she examined it, confirmed it, and decided then and there to kill him?

  No, dammit! Not Darcy.

  What would be the motive? Money? Darcy came from a poor family, and Annie knew that she aspired to far greater wealth than she had achieved so far. The men she dated tended to be affluent. Including, of course, Sam, whose high society credentials were impeccable.

  Why didn’t she ever tell me about that affair?

  Annie thought, with some embarrassment, of the intimate details she had shared with Darcy about her relationship with Matt. She had always believed Darcy to be a very open person, someone who simply would not be able to keep a juicy detail secret. Now that she knew that Darcy had had an affair with Sam, Annie wondered what else she had been hiding.

  And if, as Sam had hinted, he had ended the affair against Darcy’s wishes, might her disappointment have been the proverbial last straw? Sam was exactly the sort of man whom Darcy would have hoped to marry. Rich, handsome, successful, charming, able to introduce her to a social circle far above the one to which she had been born. Losing Sam must have been difficult indeed.

  What did it all add up to?

  If Darcy was involved in some kind of architectural fraud, she couldn’t do it without a partner. Someone from the general contractor’s side. Someone with responsibility, someone in charge…

  Jack Fletcher.

  It had to be. Annie had sensed something wrong about him for months. He had control of the building schedule, kept track of the hours worked by the various subcontractors, and ordered the construction materials. If anybody could skim money, Fletcher would be the guy.

  He was skimming, and Darcy was getting a substantial cut. In fact, maybe it was Fletcher who had tampered with the scaffolding. Annie still refused io believe that her best friend was capable of murder.

  “She’s certainly not a killer,” Sam had said. “At least, I don’t think she is.”

  Chapter Thirty

  After work that evening, Annie drove to Sidney Canin’s house in Cow Hollow. Hearing his story secondhand from the police wasn’t good enough. In order to understand what he suspected, she had to hear it from him.

  Although Sam had told her to stop worrying about it, she couldn’t leave it alone. Sam was too easygoing. Sometimes she wondered if he had any concept of the evil that existed in the world.

  Annie had been away from that evil for a long time. Charlie had pulled her from that morass of human greed, lies, and deception. She had been eager to leave it behind, to forget it. And she’d been especially eager to forget that she had once played a minor part in perpetuating it.

  It was a grave mistake, though, to think that evil was confined to the streets. Greed, aggression, and the lust for power reached into bedrooms and boardrooms all over the world. These flaws knew no social, economic, or professional boundaries; they could turn up in anyone, at any time.

  Even in the people you most liked and trusted.

  Sidney’s house was dark when she got there. Not a single light on in the place. This seemed odd, because Sidney was the finicky type who would always leave several lights burning to confuse prowlers. Sidney worried about everything and took precautions against every possible pitfall that life could offer up.

  Annie parked illegally in front of a hydrant and climbed the five steps to Sidney’s front porch. She rang the doorbell and heard it echo through the house.

  No one came. He could be out, but again, why no lights? She felt an uneasy fluttering in her stomach. Sidney had told a story to the police that could, potentially, have changed the entire thrust of their investigation. He had suggested a conspiracy and had named Darcy as one of the possible guilty parties. If he was right, the last person who had attempted to blow the whistle on the scheme had been killed.

  What if somebody had decided to take Sidney out of the game too?

  There was a bay window to the right of the front door. Annie pressed her face against the glass and peered in.

  There was nothing there.

  No furniture, no carpeting, no pictures on the walls or knickknacks on the shelves. All she could see in there were a couple of folded cardboard boxes that had not been opened and an empty roll of packing tape.

  Sidney loved his house, but apparently he’d decided that it wasn’t in his best interests to stick around. He’d been talking for a long time about moving back to New York. It looked as if he’d finally done it.

  Annie got back into her car and drove aimlessly through the city. Sidney Canin was a big question mark. She had an image of him at the party on Matt’s yacht on the night of Francesca’s death. Sid had rarely taken his eyes off the woman. He’d hurried solicitously to her side as soon as she’d made the startling announcement that she intended to file for divorce. He’d danced with Francesca. He’d held her close.

  What if Sidney had been Francesca’s mysterious lover? What if he’d loved her, expected to marry her, and then had killed her in a rage of passion and jealousy when he found out that Francesca wasn’t ready to leave her husband after all?

  What if Giuseppe, somehow, had known about Sid’s affair with Francesca, making it necessary for Sid to kill him, too, to keep him quiet? What if, panicked that the police would figure it out, he’d invented the whole story about design flaws in the cathedral and told the police that it was Giuseppe who had been carrying on the adulterous affair?

  The good thing about this theory, Annie thought with a sigh, was that it would take Darcy off the hook. Unless there was some sort of construction scam going on that was entirely separate from the murder….

  She ended up driving across Market, heading toward the construction site. She passed the cathedral, turned, rounded the block, and passed it again on the other side.

  She noted that a light was on in one of the trailers in the construction lot. Fletcher’s. He spent a lot of time in that trailer. Didn’t he ever go home?

  Where did he keep his records? she wondered. If there was written proof of construction fraud, and he was in on the conspiracy, he might be the one to have it.

  The police, she knew, couldn’t get a search warrant without probable cause. She didn’t know if the police even suspected Fletcher. And she had to admit that her own suspicions were irrational and intuitive: She didn’t like him, so he must be the guilty party.

  It was totally unfair and supremely illogical.

  She wanted to search his trailer anyway.

  Not being a law enforcement type, she couldn’t get a search warrant. But then, she didn’t need one. Breaking and entering had been one of the talents she’d acquired many years ago, on the streets.

  She drove home and changed into a black warm-up suit and dark blue running shoes. Finally, she donned a dark knit ski cap to hide her blond hair.

>   Into the pocket of the warm-up jacket she placed a pencil-thin flashlight that had a strong, concentrated beam. From the bottom of a box that she had kept for over a decade—always securely locked—she withdrew a case of stainless steel tools that an old acquaintance of hers by the name of Top Floor Jocko had sold her for cheap. Lockpicks. She fiddled with them a bit to convince herself that she remembered how to use them. It was kind of like riding a bicycle, she thought, laughing nervously to herself.

  She drove back to the cathedral area and circled the block. The light was still on in Fletcher’s trailer. Damn. She didn’t think he was the type to leave lights on to foil thieves. No, his car was still there in the lot.

  She cruised past and headed down into the Castro district. She drove aimlessly, letting her mind wander. Darcy couldn’t be involved, she told herself over and over. It must be Fletcher. There was nothing at all wrong with the architecture for the cathedral. What was wrong was that Fletcher was skimming. Fletcher was the one who had loosened the pins on the scaffolding.

  Annie really didn’t want it to be Darcy.

  She drove past the construction site again. Twenty minutes had passed. He was still there. Dammit!

  She was nervous but primed to act. She could feel the adrenaline shooting through her veins, and she was conscious of the hard feel of the lockpicks in her jacket pocket, vibrating to the rhythm of her pounding heart.

  Come on, Fletcher. Go home!

  It was after midnight when she finally gave up. The light in the trailer went out, but Fletcher’s car didn’t budge. He was obviously spending the night on the construction site.

  Frustrated and demoralized, Annie shoved her housebreak-ing tools into the glove compartment and drove home to North Beach, where she fell wearily into bed.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Annie had a dream that night about male and female friendship. She and Darcy were together in a room, laughing over a copy of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. “Our friendships are different,” Darcy said. “We talk about real life problems, they talk about baseball statistics.”

  They both giggled wildly. Annie woke up in tears.

  What she had to do was talk to Darcy. Nothing was fair until she did.

  But her sense of frustration continued the next morning. Darcy had left the house next door to Annie’s before Annie was out of bed. When she got to the office, she learned that Darcy would be in Oakland all day, checking out a building that Brody Associates was due to renovate.

  Annie then went to the construction site, having decided on another course of action. She would try to get into that trailer during the day, while Fletcher was inside the cathedral. It was more risky, of course, but if caught she could always make the excuse that she’d wanted to talk to him, hadn’t seen him in the building, and had come out to the trailer in search of him.

  But after a couple of hours it began to seem as if nothing was going to go right for her. Fletcher spent most of the day either in or around his trailer. He was doing paperwork, apparently.

  Dammit! She was going crazy. She didn’t know whom to trust, whom to believe.

  Darcy’s car was parked out front when Annie got home around dinner time. Without even bothering to go into her own side of the building, she knocked on Darcy’s door.

  Darcy came to the door wrapped in a towel robe. Her long dark hair hung wetly down her back. “Thank goodness it’s you. I just stepped out of the shower. Come on in.”

  Annie followed her back to the bathroom, where she continued combing out her hair. “Darcy, I’ve got to ask you a personal question.”

  “Okay. Shoot.” She sounded totally unconcerned.

  Annie took a deep breath, then blurted, “Did you have a short-lived love affair with Sam?”

  Darcy’s comb got stuck in a tangle of black hair. Her skin flushed, turning from olive to plum. “W-with Sam?”

  “With Sam.”

  Her eyes met Annie’s in the mirror. “Who told you that?”

  “Sam.”

  “That son of a bitch!”

  “You mean it’s true?”

  “Yeah,” she said ruefully, “it’s true all right. Actually, I’m surprised the whole world doesn’t know, considering the way I’ve been mooning over him ever since.”

  “Mooning? Over Sam?”

  “Yes. He dumped me. First time I’ve been dumped in years. And maybe it’s that I can’t stand the rejection or something, but for some reason I’ve been obsessing over the guy.” The words came rushing out. “I mean, I’ve got it bad. I think about him night and day. It’s really sick.” She paused. “You say he told you about it? Shit. Did he say anything about the way I’ve been hanging around his house?”

  “No.” So it was true! She’d half expected Darcy to deny it.

  Darcy laughed shortly. “You mean he didn’t regale you with embarrassing stories about how I’ve been following him home at night and parking my car on his street, staring up at his windows, desperate for just a glimpse of him?”

  Annie shook her head. She tried to imagine the irrepressible Darcy following some guy—any guy—around. It just didn’t seem possible. Darcy had always struck her as extremely independent and self-possessed, especially where men were concerned.

  “And this is after I see him all day at work, too. I mean, we’re talking major-league obsessive behavior here. Fortunately it’s not coupled with testosterone, or he’d probably be dead by now.”

  “Jeez, Darcy!” Annie shook her head, uncertain whether to laugh or to feel angry. “Why didn’t you tell me this was going on? We’ve been such good friends.”

  “Annie, I swear to God, I wanted to tell you. But Sam was adamant that our relationship, while it lasted, be kept secret. And ever since it ended, well, I guess I’ve been ashamed to tell you. I mean, I’ve done things in the course of this obsession that I wouldn’t want anybody to find out about. It’s been that bad.”

  What sort of things?

  Darcy laughed. “Telling you now sure feels like a relief! Shit, I wish I’d done it a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Why was it so important to Sam that you keep the affair a secret?”

  “He’s a very private person. And of course we were working together, which might have raised a few eyebrows, and not only in the firm. There’s a lot of gossip in this business. You know that.”

  “Well, none of us even suspected. You and he must have been really circumspect.”

  Darcy shrugged. “If it had gone on much longer, I’d have probably told you, Annie. I’m pretty lousy at keeping secrets. Hell, that’s probably one of the reasons he dropped me—because he knew I wasn’t the discreet type.”

  “But you were discreet, at least about this.”

  “Yeah. That’s a first. Maybe some of his discretion rubbed off on me.” She paused. “Have you ever noticed that he never really talks much about himself? I mean, almost anyone can have a fine, long conversation with him, but I think that’s because he’s such a good listener. He encourages other people to talk, which most of us love to do. But he keeps still.

  “Even with me, when we were going out, I thought I’d find out something more intimate about his life—you know, the things he cares about, the people he’s close to, his interests and ideals. But it’s weird, Annie. I found out nothing, or at least very little. And, in a way, I think that’s been part of the attraction for me, part of the reason why I haven’t been able to let go of my feelings. It’s because he’s so elusive. It’s such a challenge.”

  “I wonder why he’s so elusive,” Annie said, musing. For it struck her that Darcy was correct about this. Sam was always warm and friendly, and yet she knew very little about his personal life.

  Darcy brushed a long lock of black hair off her face. Her fingernails were once again long, red, and perfect. Annie figured that was a healthy sign.

  “What are you getting at?” She asked.

  Annie thought for a moment about what she did for a living. As a designer, she essen
tially had to take the shell of an edifice and outfit it from the frame inward, specifying and supervising the addition of Sheetrock, paint, wall coverings, carpets, fixtures, furnishings, and even such details as houseplants and pictures on the walls. But in order to understand her coworkers and friends, she would have to work backward—mentally dismantling all the outward decorations and furnishings until she could glimpse the true foundations of each person’s soul.

  With Matt, she felt confident that she was reaching inside him, seeing the truth of him, learning that although there were barriers, they were not hiding anything truly evil. With Darcy, there were quicksilver changes, moodiness, and perhaps some self-esteem issues, but again, nothing fearful, nothing dark. With Charlie there had been a combination of goodwill and tenacity, ambition and geniality, determination and stubbornness. A man with faults, as all people have, but essentially good. Such was the case with most of the people of her acquaintance. Once she got to know them, she usually had a clear feeling about what was inside.

  But Sam was different. His exterior was so appealing that she’d never really bothered to look inside.

  “You were Sam’s lover,” she said to Darcy, “but you’re saying that you never really got to know him?”

  Darcy shrugged. “I’m saying I didn’t get to know him intimately. It was a short relationship.”

  Annie sighed. “Did you know that Sid Canin is alleging that there was a structural design flaw in the cathedral and that Giuseppe may have been killed because he found out about it?”

  “What?”

  “The implication appears to be, Darcy, that if this design flaw exists, you knew about it. That you may even have been responsible for it. And that, if so, you may also have been responsible for Giuseppe’s death.”

  “You can’t be serious.” She turned away from the mirror and faced Annie directly. “I killed Giuseppe? Me?”

  “Although Sam leaped to your defense when he heard this theory, the more we talked about it, the less certain he seemed.”

  “Well, shit, Annie.” Darcy’s face turned red, then, very slowly, white as the blood drained out of it. She shrugged and tried to laugh. “It figures. I always fall in love with the wrong guy.”