With Malice

by Rachel Lee

  Such unidentified prints as they had found couldn't be linked to anyone in the databases. Whoever had done these things had no criminal record, no fingerprints on file as a result of job-related requirements. Not even a military background. They might or might not belong to the perp. As often was the case with physical evidence, it was useless in identifying the perpetrator but would eventually be useful in proving a suspect had been present. Once they had a suspect.

  But she was wandering again.

  Stacy Wiggins' body had been moved. Nylon fibers clinging to her wounds might have been from automobile carpeting or from cheap household carpeting. There was no way to be certain. Rug burns on her buttocks, arms and heels showed that she had flailed mightily as she had been tortured and killed…on a rug.

  Alissa Jurgen. The name popped to the top of her mind. The woman was strong enough to have killed Stacy, particularly if she had managed to tie Stacy up first. Not impossible.

  Alissa. Alissa admitted she had a crush on Stacy. It probably went a lot further than that. Maybe she had followed Stacy to find out who the secret lover was and had taken the photo.

  Yes, that was possible. Maybe she'd only intended to create a bit of scandal for Grant. Maybe she'd planned a little blackmail. Maybe the jealousy had worsened once she saw the couple. And maybe she'd lied to Karen in saying that the relationship had broken off a while ago.

  Yes, a jealously enraged Alissa Jurgen could put the puzzle pieces together. It could explain the fury of the attack on Stacy. It could even explain the break-in and Abby Reese's murder. Maybe Alissa had gone to Grant Lawrence's home to kill him, too. Instead, she had encountered Abby Reese.

  It would even explain the auto accident. Karen had known jealous lovers to kill the object of their love and then try to destroy the person they blamed for taking their love away.

  Alissa might blame Grant for stealing Stacy's love and, by extension, for making it necessary for her to kill Stacy. If that were the case, she wouldn't stop trying to get at Grant.

  But no matter how she put the pieces together, one thing still stuck in her craw:

  Grant must have known Stacy was dead. And he hadn't told Karen that both women were connected to him, a piece of information that would have been significantly helpful to the investigation.

  Instead, he had kept silent. She remembered the "twinge" he had claimed to feel in his knee, remembered that it had occurred just as she mentioned the murder of the dance studio owner.

  The lying son of a bitch!

  * * *

  "Well, hell, Sweeney," Terry Tyson said as he picked her up in the morning. "You look even worse than when they let you out of the hospital."

  "I didn't get much sleep," she admitted.

  "Why not?"

  "I had a call from my partner in Tampa. It kinda disturbed my sleep."

  "Anything to do with this case?"

  "A different murder," she said by way of evasion. Now even she was doing it. She loathed this case. If she had half a brain, she would ask to be taken off it.

  But she couldn't do that. Mad as she might be at Grant Lawrence, angry as she might get at herself for not backing out of this, she feared what might happen if this case fell into another detective's hands.

  At the very least, she was going to beard Grant before she did anything else.

  "Well, let's go take a look-see at the Times photo shop," Terry said pleasantly, apparently deciding she wasn't going to be any more forthcoming and taking it in good part.

  "Sorry, Terry," she said after a moment.

  "No problem. Sometimes it's best we keep our own counsel."

  If rush hour ever ended around here, Karen couldn't tell. Of course, it was getting harder and harder to tell in parts of Tampa, too. She supposed if traffic was moving at all, it wasn't rush hour. Certainly Terry didn't seem troubled by the snail's pace at which they were often moving.

  One look at Terry's badge was enough to get them into the photo shop at the paper. The photographer who'd been present the night of the accident wasn't in, but another photographer was willing to dig out the CD that contained the digitized photos and set them up at a computer with a seventeen-inch screen so they could scan them.

  Much to Karen's dismay, most of the photos showed her sprawled on the floor of the limo, with Grant in various positions between her legs as he tried to rise.

  "Saw that in the paper," Terry remarked. "I felt sorry for you."

  "Thanks. Amazing how ugly they can make something perfectly innocent."

  Terry glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Seat belts. You've heard of seat belts, Detective?"

  She flushed. "Mea culpa."

  "You-a bet-a." He chuckled deeply. Then, "Here we go. God bless newshounds."

  The camera had focused on the other vehicle. A skinny, way too skinny, guy was trying to climb out the passenger side. He could only be seen from the back.

  "Damn," said Terry. "That's not enough."

  Another photo, then another. The driver clambering over the top of the car and running toward the far side of the street.

  More photos. A man standing near the corner, all but indistinguishable beneath a brimmed hat that shadowed his face from the streetlight. The fleeing driver came close to him. Passed him. Was gone.

  "Back up," Karen said.

  "Yeah." Terry backed up straight to the photo that showed the man on the corner. He turned to the photographer. "Can we enlarge this somehow?"

  The man left his task and came over. "Sure. What do you want bigger?"

  "The guy standing on the street corner. His face, if you can."

  Leaning across them, the photographer grabbed the mouse, moving and clicking it. A box appeared around the face, then, with another click, it doubled in size.

  "More?" Karen asked.

  The box tripled in size. But now it was beginning to look fuzzier. "Can we clear that up any?"

  "I can try. It's not something I'm good at. We're not supposed to alter news photos."

  "Try," she suggested.

  He was willing, but when he got done, there was nothing except a sense of familiarity that niggled at her. The face was still too shadowed to identify.

  Terry looked at her. "What's up? I can feel something is up."

  "I just get the feeling I know this guy."

  * * *

  "I'll have a boiled egg with horseradish sauce on the side, and a whole tomato, wedged," Terry said. As a diabetic, he'd explained, he needed to eat several small meals each day. "You have to try the tomatoes here. The cook grows them on his balcony."

  Karen ordered a garden salad. Breakfast wasn't high on her list of daily needs. But greens were always good. On the way to the diner, they'd discussed whether to circulate the photo of Mr. Fuzzy Shadow. They hadn't reached a decision.

  "I say we keep it to ourselves," Karen said, after the waitress had left. "Yeah, the guy looks familiar, but I could have seen him in the hotel lobby, or when I was out that afternoon buying a dress, or on the flight up here. He could just be Joe Innocent, standing on a street corner when an accident happened."

  "Do you always second-guess yourself?"

  "Isn't that the mark of a good detective? Second-guess everything, including yourself? Especially yourself?"

  "To a point," he said. "On the other hand, you're a cop. You have cop's eyes. And a cop's mind."

  She nodded. She didn't feel especially perceptive at the moment, after the news Previn had given her. In fact, she felt pretty damn stupid. She fiddled with her fork, dragging it over the paper napkin to create a grid.

  "Okay," Terry said, breaking the silence. "What's the waitress's name and what's her hobby?"

  She thought for a moment. "Sandi. And gambling. Unless she has a passionate love affair for air conditioning or alternating current. But I'd guess the 'A.C.' in the 'I Luv A.C.' button on her blouse stands for Atlantic City. Especially since it's money green."

  "Now," he said, "what color were the tablecloths at the rest
aurant where we ate lunch yesterday?"

  "Damned if I know," she answered.

  "Same here. But if I'd asked you in the parking lot after we ate, you'd have known."

  She shrugged. "And this proves?"

  "That you notice what's going on around you, but you don't put obviously useless trivia into long-term memory. So if Mr. Fuzzy Shadows tickles your memory, it's probably because when you saw him, you thought he might be worth remembering. It's called trusting your instincts, Karen."

  "I'm low on that right now."

  "I can tell." He paused while the waitress brought their food. "Thanks, Sandi. Did you win or lose?"

  "Excuse me?" she asked.

  "In Atlantic City," he said, pointing to the button.

  She laughed and shook her head. "I won two hundred dollars. Two years ago. I've never gone back. Figured I should quit while I was ahead."

  "So much for trusting my instincts," Karen said, after she'd gone. "Wow, these tomatoes are good."

  "Nothing like home-grown," he said.

  He peeled his egg, dipped it in the horseradish and bit off a chunk. His eyes watered briefly, until his sinuses adapted to the bite of the spice. "Great stuff," he said, after a deep swallow of water. "I never get colds, you know."

  "Your sinuses are pickled."

  "Probably. So okay, where have you been since you got in town?"

  She chewed her salad while she thought. "My hotel. The Capitol, briefly. A party."

  "The one you were coming home from in the limo."

  "Right. The hospital. Around town with you yesterday."

  "And last night?"

  It was probably an innocent question. So why did the answer make her feel guilty? "Dinner."

  He studied her carefully, finishing his egg. "I can probably guess for myself," he finally said.

  "Yes, you probably can."

  He took a wedge of tomato on his fork. "I'm in an interesting situation. Three weeks from today, I'm an oil stain in the parking lot. Which means I can play a little loose on the rules. Keep things to myself, if I need to, without worrying about someone crawling up my ass about it. Because by the time they found out, I'd be lying on a beach, annoying my wife by watching the bikinis pass." He paused to eat the tomato, then continued. "I mention this in case it might be relevant. If, for example, there were something you were holding back because you didn't want it to end up in a report. Something like that."

  She could see why he'd been a top-notch detective. He would be positively lethal in interrogation. Finally she decided another brain couldn't hurt. And, like he said, he could afford to be discreet.

  "Yes," she said. "I had dinner with Lawrence last night. We went out to Blues Alley after. It was…a nice break."

  He nodded, seemingly knowing there was more.

  "Then I got back to my hotel and checked messages. And all hell broke loose."

  * * *

  "Mr. Connally?"

  Jerry looked up from his desk. Fay, the phone receptionist, looked as if she'd been the subject of a wind tunnel test. "What's up?"

  "I was going to ask you that, sir. I've had four calls this morning, all in a half hour. The Post. The Times. CNN and NBC. Something about a photograph of the senator with a woman."

  Again? He'd put out that fire two days ago. "The senator has no comment beyond what he's already said, Fay."

  "I think this is a new one," she said, tapping a pencil against her fingertips. "Something about a woman who was killed."

  Oh shit. His stomach did a nervous flop. "The senator has no comment. Call Strickland at the Post and tell him if he wants a comment, we'd like a copy of this mysterious photo. Unless his paper wants to stoop to the gotcha tactics of the Herald."

  She nodded, uncertainty in her eyes.

  Jerry took a breath. It wasn't her job. Her job was to be nice. "Just say no comment. I'll call Strickland."

  "Thank you, sir."

  She left and he stabbed the phone. "Sam. Someone's chumming. I want to know who and what they're using for bait. And I want to know in thirty minutes."

  Weldon paused on the other end of the line. "I'll make some calls, Jerry. But thirty minutes, that's tight."

  "Thirty minutes," he repeated.

  That might give him time to figure out how to save Grant's hide. And, possibly, his own.

  17

  It was midday, and Grant Lawrence was staring at the faxed photo of himself walking hand-in-hand with Stacy Wiggins. Mixed feelings tore at him.

  Part of him remembered that day with a smile. It had been a wonderful afternoon, sailing on a rented boat and finally taking a twilight walk on a deserted jogging trail in his gated community. At least he'd thought it was deserted. The photograph made him feel seriously betrayed.

  But the betrayal didn't overwhelm the aching sense of loss as he thought again of Stacy's death. They had parted months ago. The love had never ended, but the spark had gone away. Her future was in Tampa. His was, he hoped, in Washington. The girls liked her, and she them, but there had never been the kind of bond that would have sustained a family. The girls had had that bond with Abby and had never seemed inclined to form it with Stacy. She had been a delightful companion, tender and warm and sincere. But as the months went by, they had both realized they valued each other more as friends and less as lovers.

  Still, he grieved for her loss, grieved to know that he would never again see her smile or hear her laugh. A dear friend had departed, had been taken away viciously and violently. Another woman in his life, gone.

  But he also looked at the photo with loathing. It was going to appear in the press. It was going to turn his daughters' lives into hell. The press, encouraged by anyone with an axe to grind, would hound him over it relentlessly, beating the horse long after its death.

  And just as S.R. 52 was about to come up for a vote.

  But life, as he had long since learned, rarely made allowances for what was already on someone's plate. And now he had this in addition to everything else.

  Then there was Jerry to consider. Jerry hadn't said a thing when he reported this fiasco, but Grant was sure he knew he was worried. Grant wished he could think of some way to save his friend from what, in all probability, was right around the corner.

  But it was too late now. Whatever Jerry had done couldn't be undone.

  Shit. To hell with himself. He was feeling sick at heart that he hadn't, and couldn't, protect the people he loved.

  The phone rang, startling him out of his reverie. His private line. He wondered what new catastrophe Jerry had to report.

  But it wasn't Jerry, it was Art. Grant's heart slammed into high gear. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing major," Art said easily enough. "I've got to take the girls to the doctor. Lucy's running a fever of around a hundred and two, and her throat is all red and swollen. And Belle's complaining that her throat is getting scratchy, too. So I'm taking them all, just to be safe. I just wanted you to know. But I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary."

  "Thanks, Art." Grant felt his heart rate ease and slow. "Have my girls call me when you get back?"

  "Sure. I'm not sure how long it will take, though. I'm going to one of those minor emergency clinics. The pediatrician couldn't get them in until five."

  "Okay. Let me know when you know."

  "I sure will. Take it easy, Grant. They'll be fine. We've both been through this routine before."

  Grant managed a chuckle. "Countless times. I just hate it when I'm so far away."

  "I know what you mean. I go through hell every time my ex tells me one of the girls is sick."

  "I know, Art."

  It was Art's turn to chuckle. "On the other hand, trying to manage four girls in a waiting room…. I think you got the easier job."

  "Maybe so."

  "I'll call when I know something, okay?"

  "Thanks again, Art."

  Another thing he had to do, Grant thought as he hung up. Find the girls a new nanny until he could move the
m up here with him. It was not a task he was looking forward to, but it was unfair to keep imposing on Art. Besides, the girls needed to be back in their own home just as soon as possible.

  He needed to call a press conference to deal with the photo issue. He wished it would put the matter to bed, but he knew better. What he could do, though, was tell his side of the story, then shut up, buckle up and prepare to ride out the storm.

  He paged Jerry. He would do the press conference soon. Immediately. That afternoon.

  * * *

  "You know what the worst thing about diabetes is?" Terry asked Karen as he ordered another cup of coffee and two more hard-boiled eggs.

  "What's that?"

  "You're supposed to lose weight. But the insulin injections make it just about impossible."

  "So what do you do?"

  "I walk a lot in the evenings." His eyes crinkled at the corners. "Life makes us pay for every pleasure eventually. I'm paying for doughnuts, cake, candy bars and mashed potatoes. And the million cups of java with three sugars."

  She had to laugh with him. "You're probably right."

  "Of course I'm right. All the good stuff I ate. Well, that and the patrol car. Sat around too much. Now I'm getting creaky and I have to take long walks. You pay, Sweeney. You pay."

  She looked down at her own plate, her English muffin barely touched. "I'm afraid you're right."

  "On the other hand," he continued, "some things are worth paying for."

  "Maybe."

  "No maybe about it." The waitress put his eggs in front of him with a fresh scoop of horseradish. "Okay, so you've got a bit of a mess on your plate."

  Karen nodded.

  "And you're thinking you're a bit…uh…too close to the senator emotionally. But that's okay."

  "Okay?"

  "Sure. He's not your perp. He's a victim."

  "But…"

  Terry waved a hand. "How long you been in homicide?"

  "Five years."

  "Then you ought to know you never get the whole truth out of anybody. Everybody's got something to hide. The man's feet aren't any more clay than yours or mine. He probably didn't know his girlfriend was dead, at first. How long was it before you even ID'd the dancer?"