Sound of chair being pushed back, papers and recorder being set down, high-heeled footsteps.
“Beautiful,” Martina’s voice murmured. “So soft.”
There was a scream and the sound of something hitting metal hard. Next a crazy staccato like high heels vibrating on the ground, and the heavy thudding of the guard’s footsteps. Over it all Martina laughing and Leslie’s voice, “Help me! She’s strangling me with my hair! Help—”
Imogen sighed, said, “Poor woman,” and reached out to turn the recorder off.
Benton stopped her. “Wait. There’s still a little more of the tape.”
The sounds of confusion continued, with a clatter like someone stepped on the recorder. Then came Leslie’s voice, shrill, shouting hysterically, “You are evil, Professor Kidd. You deserve to rot here forever.”
And finally Martina’s voice, clear atop the din. “You knew exactly what was going to happen, didn’t you, Imogen, dear? Just like I knew that you would be listening to this right now. We are so much alike. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Sweet dreams.”
Benton reached out fast and clicked the tape recorder off. “I’m sorry. I had no idea that would be on there.”
Imogen shook her head. “She had to get the last word. She would not have been happy otherwise.”
The room got quiet except for the sound of traffic outside. Benton sat and stared at the greenish-brown carpet, feeling terrible. He said, “Is that why you told me not to get too close to her when we went there?”
“Yes. She’s much stronger than she looks. And once she’s fooled you into believing that she is harmless and sweet, anything is possible.”
“What did you think of the tape?” he asked. “Apart from that stuff at the end. Do you think there is anything useful? Do you think it means she really is controlling Loverboy?”
“I’m not sure. She could be bluffing. It is only logical that Loverboy would have used a car or truck, something inconspicuous like a delivery van, to transport Rosalind from the Bellagio, so it could have been a guess on Martina’s part. As always with her, it could be either. What do you think?”
“Do you really want my opinion?”
“Yes.”
“When we first met you said Martina Kidd was a bridge player, right?”
Imogen nodded.
“I’d say she’s trying a finesse. Trying to make us think she’s in a stronger position than she is. I could be wrong, but I don’t think she’s got all the cards she pretends to be holding.”
“You play bridge.”
“Not anymore, if I can help it. I played too much in college. I know what you are thinking, rich boys sitting around in tweeds drinking Pimm’s and playing cards. But that is not how it was. It was my job.”
“You were a bridge pro?”
“More like a bridge gigolo.”
He saw her nod slightly. She said, “J.D. told me he saw you cheat at cards once and deny it. Was it playing bridge?”
That guy really needs a life, Benton thought. Said, “What happened was, the woman I was playing with, my client, wanted to lose and told me to throw the game. She thought it would give the guy we were playing against enough confidence to ask her to marry him. You play how your clients tell you to. That’s why you get paid.”
“You cheated to lose?”
“It wasn’t cheating, it was just playing badly. J.D. was playing with the other man and they won. He got a lot of money, probably. I can’t believe he’s still talking about it, it was years ago. He is never satisfied. I’ve never met anyone more competitive than him. I get the feeling he even sees this investigation as a competition, or he would, if you weren’t involved.”
“Yeah, I’m some big help.”
“That’s the least of what you’ve done.”
She gave one of her half smiles and he was suddenly incredibly aware of the smell of her, citrus shampoo and wet wool and Chap Stick. Aware of wanting to pull her toward him and whisper in her ear that he was falling in love with her and listen to her laugh and try to talk him out of it. Aware of wanting very much to kiss her, thinking maybe it would be okay, maybe she felt it too—
She said, “I think it is time for me to go to sleep.” She got up from the table and walked toward the door that connected their two rooms. “Good night, Benton.”
Maybe not.
He said, “Good night. Breakfast at seven-thirty?”
“Sure.”
She had her hand on the knobs when he blurted, “I just have to know. I did not want to ask you this but I can’t get it out of my mind. The time you went to Dirk’s house, did you wear the Wonder Wom—”
“No. It was not like that.”
“Oh.” Pause. “It would have suited you.”
She rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her.
CHAPTER 45
J.D. drove home with one hand on the wheel and the window down, letting the cold night air clear his head a little. He’d been at one of his community service performances, all dressed up in his baseball jacket and glove, standing in front of a group of eleven-year-olds, telling them to be good, respect their parents, work hard, dreams could come true, like his to be a ballplayer, then a cop. Hating himself.
He heard Imogen’s voice now, asking, “Why don’t you wear a baseball cap?” and in his mind saw the bonfire he’d made with them when he quit. In the backyard of the big beige stucco house he and Marcie had, in the fire pit that the realtor had told them was “great fun, especially for families.” He could picture Marcie coming out on the balcony above it, holding her white silk robe together, hearing her before seeing her because of the way her mules clicked on the “artisan-made” Spanish tile.
“What are you doing?” she’d shrieked.
“I quit!” He’d yelled it up to her, smiling, feeling great, his arms outstretched, beer in one hand. “Come down and have a cold one with me.”
“You’re insane. You’ve gone insane.”
“No, baby, I’ve never felt better.”
When he came out of the bedroom the next day he’d found her sitting on the couch, clutching a charred cap in her hands and crying, saying over and over again, “But you looked so cute in this.”
And he’d realized—like an idiot, getting it only then—that what she loved wasn’t him, it was being married to a ballplayer. Which was only fair, since, in all honesty, what he had fallen in love with about her were her breasts. He had been young and horny and stupid, but they were gorgeous, not huge but a mouthful, and seemed to know where they were going always. Made her look perky and purposeful even when she was pouting, which was almost all the time after he quit, lying on the couch and flipping channels on the television and giving him her cheek when he tried to kiss her.
Finally one day he said, Honey, we need to talk, and she put the TV on mute as he tried to explain it to her, how it had always been his father’s dream that he be a ballplayer. That he’d done it thinking it would make his father proud, even after he died. But it got so he hated the game, hated everything about it. Couldn’t stand the commentators thinking they were so smart, dubbing him the “base robber” like his namesake, John Dillinger, America’s most famous bank robber. His father’s hero. What a thing to call your son.
He went into baseball to make his father proud, he explained. Quit and made himself feel better.
That was the idea, anyway. It turned out that quitting was just the opposite of playing, not something he was doing for himself, something he was not doing for his father. So he joined the police force. That, finally, was for him.
“Are you sure?” Marcie had asked when he told her.
“Are you sure?” Damn how that had rankled him. It bugged him more than it should have. Are you sure? That one question making the whole thing start to unravel. Piece by piece until the day Marcie said, “I’m leaving. And just so you know, my boobs are fake.”
And he thought, that summed it all up perfectly, their relationship, even him becoming a cop. Youn
g, stupid, and horny. Or at least idealistic.
The justice he was working for, the laws he wanted to uphold, all fake. Two years on the force, watching cases get thrown out on technicalities or guys who beat their kids go free because the kids were too scared to testify or murderers getting parole only to murder again, taught him that. Every night the police scanner full of stories that just proved it, that the cheaters, the ones with the least respect for the rules, understood them the best, and always won. Cheaters like Benton Arbor.
He was listening to the scanner now as he drove and almost hit a pole when the litany of loitering and pickpocket complaints was interrupted by a priority bulletin that a surveillance unit was needed at a gas station to watch an abandoned taxi. “Do not approach,” the scanner said. “Covert surveillance only, by order of the FBI. Possible connection to the Loverboy case.”
He hit the brakes, made a U-turn across four lanes of traffic, and stepped on the gas. If Imogen thought he was going to sit on something like the taxi and wait, she was a sick fuck herself, just like she’d written on her profile board. The car was there, filled with clues, information. Evidence.
And with her and Benton dicking around in Ohio, wasting time, he was the one in charge.
He pulled into the gas station and immediately spotted an unmarked patrol car across the street. Some covert surveillance. He crossed over and leaned in when one of the officers rolled down the window.
“You two can move on,” he told them. “I’ve got it covered.”
“You sure, sir?”
“Positive. You called for a criminalistics team yet?”
“No. The feds said—”
“Fuck the feds. You radio in for criminalistics, I’m going to go check out the car.”
“Yes, sir.” No one liked taking orders from the FBI.
It would take the crime-scene unit a minimum of ten, maximum of fifteen minutes to get there, J.D. calculated. He went over to the taxi, walked around it, then opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel. Pulling the sleeve of his jacket over his hand so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints, he flipped down the visor—nothing—then leaned across and opened the glove compartment.
He let out a long breath when he saw what was in there and reached in. No one needed to know about that little item, he decided, grabbing it and slipping it into his pocket. Thinking, it was a very good thing he’d come here.
He was leaning against the outside of the car when the criminalistics van pulled up.
“You touch anything inside?” Ned Blight, the criminalist heading the team, asked him.
“It was unlocked so I thought I’d look around. Why, that a problem?” Making a joke. “No, Ned, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Okay, funny guy. Mind if I get my team in there?”
“All yours.” Which meant he couldn’t tell them about the body in the trunk either. That was okay. They’d find it themselves, kind of a special surprise. “I want your report on my desk first thing in the morning.”
“Course you do. I wasn’t born yesterday either,” Ned said.
CHAPTER 46
7 days left! Uh-oh!
Dirk Best was not in that morning, his secretary told them apologetically, but he had called in instructions that Imogen and Benton were to be taken to Martina Kidd right away.
And then taken the hell out of there as fast as possible. “Call me when they leave, Nancy,” he’d said, before slamming the phone down.
Imogen didn’t really care as long as he’d done what he promised, moved Martina out of her cell and into one of the interrogation rooms. They would have this interview sitting opposite each other across a table. When Benton overheard her requesting that Martina’s hands and legs be manacled he’d asked, Is that really necessary? And she’d had to remind him about the tape they’d listened to the night before.
Imogen felt like her thoughts were coming to her from a long distance. The clanging of the gates behind her was not oppressive this time, but somehow sad, almost mournful. They had only a week left to catch Loverboy, and they were no closer than they had been. The papers that morning had made that only too clear.
Instead of going past the guard station this time they made the left turn and walked down a corridor that led to a solid white door. Next to the door was a one-way mirror through which she could see Martina.
Pulling into the parking lot Benton had asked, “Are we winging it again?” and she’d smiled, despite everything. Now, standing outside the room, he said, “Do you want to go in alone?”
And she surprised herself by saying, “No.”
As they walked in, Martina said brightly, “Did you know, Mr. Arbor, that the average human tongue is only four inches long? Its reach is much farther, though. After all, mine brought you today. Please sit down, my dears. I’m sorry I can’t offer you any refreshments, but you know how this place is.”
They sat down side by side facing Martina, who scrutinized them both before saying, “It is such a pleasure to see you both. And you’ve gone to some trouble, arranging this lovely room. You must want something very important from me.”
Imogen tried to look even wearier than she felt. She said, “I’m not going to play games with you today, Professor Kidd. We are here to learn how you and Loverboy are communicating.”
“In exchange for?”
Imogen set three magazines on the table and indicated the farthest one with her index finger. “This came Federal Express from Rome. It’s next month’s.”
Martina reached toward it, but it was just out of the range of her manacled hands. She gave Imogen a fast, mean look, then leaned back in her seat and said, “If we’re playing show-and-tell, what about that lovely article in the paper this morning? Curtis showed it to me. What was the headline? ‘Loverboy’s Latest.’ About that nice taxi driver they found dead in Las Vegas.”
Imogen tasted lime. Chlorine. Everything bad.
Follow your plan, she told herself. Still, in her mind she could see some of the photos that had accompanied the article in that morning’s national papers. Two in particular: the first, a picture of an ordinary-looking man in his forties, smiling, standing by a BBQ and wearing an apron that said, Will Work for Beer (and Hugs); the second, the empty trunk of his taxicab where his body had been found.
She’d gotten the call from J.D. before she saw the article, the phone waking her at 6:15. She couldn’t believe what he was telling her. Even now it pissed her off all over again.
“Why the hell did you move the car?” she had asked. “Why not leave it where it was in case he came back for it and use it to trap him?”
“I had a choice,” J.D. said in his unreadable, flat voice. “I could sit on the car and wait for him. Or I could have it brought in and gone over inch by inch. The guy who works at the gas station said it had been parked in the same place for three days. He only called it in after he read the tabloid story. I decided our man wasn’t coming back for it and we needed the evidence.”
“You don’t know he wasn’t coming back. If you had left it, we could have had him and the car.”
“Or we could have had nothing until it was too late. I made a judgment call. I decided the sooner we could get a forensics team into the car the better, and there is nothing we can do about it now.”
“You run it for prints? Blood?”
“That never would have occurred to me. Thank you so much for the suggestion.” His voice still flat, but he was being sarcastic.
And she deserved it. She was being dumb, letting her anger get in the way of her brain. She had sat with the receiver pressed to her ear, her forehead against her hand in the dark room. What J.D. had done was not wrong, she knew. It was simply not how she would have handled things. But that did not matter anymore. She asked, “Have you found any useful evidence? Anything to link the cab conclusively to our case?”
“I’m not sure. There was a rectangular card clipped to the notepad next to the steering wheel that read, ‘Don’t like my driving? Call
1-800-Jerkoff.’ Does that sound familiar to you? It reminded me of something you said the first day you arrived.”
And she’d felt dumber and more angry. Furious. And had to push all of that—the fact that the cabdriver who had picked her up at the airport was the killer, the fact that he had likely been targeting her, the fact that her investigation was not really hers to run—from her mind. She was here to listen to Martina.
Who was saying, “Did you read about that poor soul? He drove that cab seven days a week to keep his wife in dialysis treatments and his children in tennis shoes. A good man. A great man. A great American. And now he is dead.” Martina shook her head. “Who killed him? You did, Imogen. If it weren’t for you, he would still be alive.”
“If it weren’t for those meddling kids and that damn dog,” Imogen heard Benton mutter next her, a quote from Scooby-Doo, and almost laughed. It stole some of the drama from Martina’s pronouncements, even if they were still partly true.
But she didn’t laugh and she didn’t say anything.
Martina waited for a response and, getting none, said, “What about Marielle Wycliffe? You killed her. You’re responsible for both deaths, you know, Imogen. And all the others. Because you could have stopped them. Every day that passes without you finding Loverboy is a testament to your stupidity, and every person who dies because of it is as much your victim as his.”
Imogen didn’t say anything.
“Are you giving me the silent treatment, dear? Have you really become that childish?”
Imogen kept her mouth closed.
“You are wasting your time, Imogen. And mine. I’m not going to tell you anything else. I’ve already given you plenty to find Loverboy. It’s an old story, my dear, and only your blindness keeps you from seeing it.”
They sat in silence for a few moments until Martina brought her hands down hard on the top of the table. “I want to go back to my cell.”
No one moved or spoke.
Martina said, “You think the pleasure of your company during this unauthorized visit means you can just demand answers from me and then stare? In exchange for a few paltry magazines?”
Bad Girl and Loverboy Page 61
