A Murder Among Friends

by Ramona Richards

  EIGHT

  Judson and his new partner, Lee, stood near a makeshift tent and cardboard box structure in a wooded section of Central Park. “The weapon is in there,” Lee said. “I can just smell it.” He started forward.

  Judson grabbed his arm. “Not without a warrant.”

  Lee was startled. “It’s a box in the park.”

  “Not according to a recent ruling. Another search was thrown out, saying that this same kind of camp was a residence, thus protected. If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it by the book.”

  Fletcher toyed with calling Korie for permission or asking Tyler to get a warrant to search the house, then decided that he wouldn’t waste the time. After all, this was for Aaron’s benefit, not the killer’s. He also made a mental note to get the lock fixed on Aaron’s office door before Korie returned. When none of the keys from Aaron’s effects fit it, Fletcher simply kicked it in.

  The room smelled like stale cigars and cologne, a combination that had always been a winner with Aaron’s mostly female fans. Fletcher’s nose wrinkled at the odor, wondering why. He stood in the door for a moment, feeling awkward about invading Aaron’s private space, alone, for the first time. He should be here, Fletcher thought, a twinge of sorrow lingering.

  He pushed the thought away and stepped into the room, flicking on the light. The office was lined with bookshelves containing volumes on crime and writing, novels by some of the best writers of the past, and piles of manuscripts. The desk sat at an angle in one corner, giving Aaron a perfect view of the landscape outside the window and the door to the hall at the same time.

  Fletcher’s cell phone rang, and he pulled it out, fumbling a bit to open it. The second ring echoed hollowly through the empty house. “MacAllister.”

  “Hey, I’m sorry we couldn’t get you those keys until today,” Tyler said.

  “It’s fine,” Fletcher replied. “What’s up?”

  “The M.E. is finished,” Tyler continued. “And he found something I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He compared an impression of the bottle with the impression on Aaron’s skull. The tapering indicates he was hit from behind.”

  “So maybe there was no confrontation, just a sneak attack. And the assailant was right-handed.”

  “Maybe,” Tyler said. “Remember that left-handed people usually drink with their left hand. Lily always carries the bottle in her right, the glass in her left.”

  Fletcher nodded. “True, but she’d have to reverse it to swing it like a club, and would probably do it with her left.”

  Tyler sighed. “So we still don’t know.”

  “Not from this alone, but it’s a good start.”

  “There’s more. He was also hit from above.”

  Fletcher scowled. Aaron was almost six-four. “So he was on the steps after all or just at the bottom. With his attacker standing above him.”

  “Looks like.”

  “So is the body ready for release?”

  Tyler hesitated, then said, “Yes.”

  Fletcher grinned. “Do you want to call Korie?” Fletcher could almost hear the young man struggling between emotion and duty. Papers shuffled in the background.

  Finally, Tyler said, “Would you do it, since you know her and all?”

  He almost laughed, but Fletcher kept his voice straight as he replied, “Don’t worry about it, Tyler. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Thanks. See you in a bit.”

  Fletcher tucked the phone away and resumed his survey of the room. Nothing leaped out at him, so he sat and turned on the computer, shifting in the chair to face the screen.

  The system was password protected, and Fletcher prowled a bit among Aaron’s notepads and phone messages to see if the password was written down somewhere. Probably not. Aaron was a touch paranoid and he had a good memory. Taking a deep breath, Fletcher typed in Aaron’s birth date, with no success. Looking around the room, Fletcher saw nothing to give him a hint, so he tried again, drawing on his own memory. “jackdaniels.”

  Nothing. Fletcher licked his lips, knowing a third try might lock him out of the system.

  “Try greenlabel.”

  Payback is rough. Fletcher whirled and stood, slamming the chair into the wall and tipping it over. His breath was still caught in his throat, his left hand on his gun, when he realized it was Maggie.

  She threw up her hands. “Yow! It’s just me!” Then she started to grin. “Not much fun, is it?”

  Fletcher’s shoulders slumped even as his temper rose. “Don’t ever sneak up on a cop. It’s a good way to get shot.”

  Maggie pointed over her shoulder. “You left the door open. I didn’t exactly tiptoe up the stairs. I thought you heard me.”

  Fletcher righted the chair. “Obviously not.”

  She giggled. “I’m sorry. I am glad you didn’t shoot me. Twice in two days is a bit much, even for me.”

  His mouth twisted. “Me, too. Would have played havoc with the case.” He sat down and typed in “Green Label.” The hard drive whirled, paused and stopped: access denied. Fletcher let out a long sigh. There would be no more attempts right now; he was locked out.

  Maggie shrugged. “Sorry. Aaron once mentioned that to guess his password, someone would have to know all his preferences. I took a chance that it wasn’t his cigar brand.” She walked over to stand behind him. “What were you looking for?”

  Fletcher drummed his fingers lightly on the keyboard without actually pressing the keys, as if he could still get into Aaron’s records. “Not sure. I was hoping some of the file names would give me a clue.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it. If Aaron was hiding something, the files would be hidden deep in other folders and wouldn’t have clue-in names.”

  “What makes you think he was hiding something?”

  Maggie gasped a little, and Fletcher waited. He knew she’d found something in her office and was hoping she’d tell him. He didn’t like having her in his head as a prime suspect and wished she’d open up to him. He also wished that the smell of sandalwood had not suddenly become more prominent than Aaron’s tobacco.

  She let out her breath. “Don’t you? Isn’t that why you’re accessing his computer?”

  He turned to face her. “No. I was hoping to find some sort of journal or notes on a book or on the residents here, to see if he had problems with them, maybe that he hadn’t mentioned to you. To see what I could learn before I went to talk to them.” He stood up and moved closer. Maggie backed up against the desk, bracing herself with her hands behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  Maggie met his gaze defiantly for a brief second, then her eyes softened. “Please don’t do this,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill him.”

  Fletcher closed his eyes briefly, pushing away the desire to take her in his arms and apologize. He couldn’t. Not yet. He opened them again and started to speak, to find Maggie staring at the wall over his shoulder.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  He turned. Thumbtacked to a corkboard behind Aaron’s desk was a window envelope, with a red stamp declaring “OVERDUE NOTICE.” Fletcher pulled it down and opened it.

  Maggie read over his arm. “A mortgage?” She stepped back and stared at him. “He paid cash for this house, up-front and in total.”

  Fletcher frowned. “Must be a second mortgage. Looks like the balance is close to five hundred thousand.”

  “That’s almost seventy-five percent of the value,” Maggie replied. “I don’t understand this. Aaron’s income was over seven figures last year. I saw the statements!”

  “Something’s not right.” He dropped the bill on the desk and started to prowl through stacks of mail on the desk. “There’re bills here that arrived two, three months ago.” He ripped open the electric bill. It held a cut-off notice and a six-month-past-due amount. “It looks like he’s not paid anything in almost six months.”

  “It’s even worse than it looks,” she said, her voice l
ow.

  He turned, watching and waiting.

  She glanced toward the hallway, as if expecting Aaron to walk through the door. “His money manager paid all the bills. Edward took care of all the finances, bills, investments, the lot of it. So either Aaron demanded them back, or…”

  “Or he fired Edward and didn’t tell anyone.”

  She nodded and looked at him. “Why would he do that?”

  Fletcher looked around at the piles of work, the bills, a half-smoked cigar in the ashtray. A humidor filled with cigars, the use of which had left a fragrance that would linger in the office for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said. He glanced down at the computer. “But I think I need to go to New York and have a talk with Edward before I do anything else here.”

  He turned to her. Reaching up, he let one finger stroke gently under the two stitches near her left eye. “Tyler says the M.E. has released the body. It’ll make a good excuse to leave for a couple of days, and Korie says there’s this memorial service planned at his publisher’s office. Do you want to go?”

  Maggie reached up and pressed his hand against her cheek. Fletcher’s gut tightened as she held it there briefly, then let go. “No. Not yet. I need to stay here. Look out for things. I’ll be fine. Tyler’s guy is at the house, and Lily—”

  “That’s not why I asked.”

  She stopped. “I know.”

  They looked at each other a moment, and Fletcher wanted to say something, anything, to explain how he felt. And what he couldn’t let himself feel. Not until he cleared her as a suspect. Instead, he reached over and shut down the computer again. “Let me give you a ride back to the lodge,” he said quietly.

  NINE

  Judson took Lee into the interrogation room and shut the door. He didn’t want anyone else in the squad to hear this. Lee turned to face him; Judson’s voice was like steel. “Never show your emotions to a suspect again. Never. Not if you want to stay my partner.”

  Lee protested, “But that guy molested his own—”

  “I don’t care,” Judson interrupted, closing in on the younger man. “Emotions are not part of the job. Ever. Hunches, instinct, yes. Emotions? Never. And you especially never reveal yourself to a suspect. Understand? Do you get it?”

  Lee got it.

  The mile-long ride back was silent. Maggie spent it staring out the window at the woods, and Fletcher dropped her off at the lodge before easing his rental car down the narrow grated ruts that passed for a driveway to the cabin. Inside, he emptied his pockets onto the desk, then sat on the bed and leaned back against the headboard. He didn’t like the way the investigation was going. Too sloppy, and he didn’t have the drive that he usually had about finding a clear suspect and eliminating the red herrings. He knew that, in part, his grief over Aaron and his increasing feelings for Maggie were clouding his judgment.

  He got up and took his coat off, sliding it down over the back of the desk chair. He picked up his pen and his notebook, flipping through it again, trying to clear up the muddy picture in his head. The pen clicked repeatedly as he tried to work out his frustration.

  Too much was pointing directly at Maggie as the killer; yet, he wanted to look at anyone but her. Click. Click. Yet no one, including Maggie, had a clear, unique motive. Korie stood to gain the most financially, but Maggie was the one with the most opportunity. Click. Click. Click.

  The murder itself looked like a crime of passion, but everything that had happened afterward pointed to a premeditated act. Maggie had removed the bottle, tampering with evidence. However, if she was telling the truth, she didn’t put the bottle under the deck in the first place, and she only removed it because she thought it was misleading. Click. Click.

  Then there was Lily. Had she really been sleeping with Aaron? Even if she had been, would she have had reason to murder him? Click.

  Fletcher suddenly found himself picturing his friend with each of the three women, how he was with each. Fletcher felt stuck, frustrated—and furious. His emotional control was slipping away again. He growled and threw the notebook and pen down on the desk and went out. Letting the door slam behind him, he stood on the porch, looking out. Dusk surrounded the trees. The day had been unseasonably warm, and an autumn fog was beginning to rise off the ground. He knew he should head to the lodge for supper, but he wasn’t hungry. Food just wasn’t first on his mind.

  Aaron was. He truly missed Aaron. Fletcher’s breathing deepened as he thought about Aaron, a dull ache echoing through him. He gripped the porch rail, trying to push down the grief and anger that was almost strangling him.

  They had been friends for more than fifteen years, since Fletcher was just a rookie and Aaron was still a photographer trying to get a scoop on a New York murder. Fletcher often downplayed the friendship, especially after the Judson stuff started, but the truth was that Aaron was the one he could call any time of day, any day of the week. To vent. To get an objective opinion on a case. To get a laugh.

  “Old Mr. Norman Cousins was right about that, me boyo.” Aaron was drinking the rare bottle of water, cooling off after a gym workout. Fletcher had convinced Aaron that weight training would be good for his writing as well as his health. “If you can’t laugh, you might as well be dead.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” Fletcher replied, wiping his face on a towel. They worked out together every time Aaron was in town.

  The writer shrugged, pausing to catch his breath. Fletcher looked closer at him. Aaron was pale and clammy as well as sweaty. “You okay?”

  Aaron nodded and swigged from the bottle again. “I need to drink more water, less Jack,” he said, then grinned and clapped the younger man on the back. “Now that we’ve sweated out the poisons, how about replenishing some of them?”

  Fletcher shook his head. “Can’t tonight. Have to work. This case is driving me nuts. I need to put in a few hours with the files, see what I missed.”

  Aaron perked up. “Take me with you.”

  “Oh, no—”

  “I’ll be objective. I promise. And I won’t put anything in a book until after the trial.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You just need a new point of view. You know how it is when you look at the same facts over and over….”

  Fletcher did know. Aaron’s enthusiasm for it won him over and the two of them had spent six hours going over every scrap of paper, every clue. And Aaron had helped. He had a passion for the work; it was the only thing that kept him away from the bars, away from the women.

  “Wish you could help now,” Fletcher said to the trees, which were stirring in a sudden stiff breeze.

  A crack to his right startled Fletcher, and he turned, watching as a large branch broke free from an ancient oak and dropped to the ground. It hit on one end and bounced, the small twigs on it snapping off and scattering over the ground. Fletcher stepped off the porch and waded through the graying ferns that covered the ground. He picked up the branch and hefted it, relishing the feel of the rough bark on his palms. It was shaped like an oversize baseball bat, with the larger end about six or seven inches in diameter, tapering to about three or four.

  Fletcher wrapped his hands around the smaller end, checking his grip. He swung a couple of times, then two more, faster, Joe DiMaggio warming up behind the plate. A fifth almost spun him around, and he grinned, emotions surging through him. “Yeah,” he called out. His breath came faster and he felt exhilarated. The sixth connected with the tree, the impact thudding through his muscles and joints.

  The bark scraped on his palms, but he relished it all. The rush of blood, the pulls on the muscles. He swung again, the anger, the frustration, the confusion—and the grief—of the past two days suddenly focused on the tree.

  Bark shattered off the tree and the branch alike, and loose twigs showered down from the branches above him. Dust flew, clinging to his shirt and the bits of sweat that were starting to pop out on his neck. The sound of each impact filled his ears, and he roared as his anger flushed out of him. He
was shaking, his palms starting to bleed, but he didn’t stop, landing blow after blow on the old tree, which shook but still stood, impervious.

  The branch finally splintered, the larger half flying away on the far side of the tree. A chunk of bark flew back, catching Fletcher on the cheek. He staggered backward, released the rest of the branch and sank to the ground. He draped his arms over his knees and dropped his head forward, tears slipping down his cheeks, a last bit of cleansing.

  After a moment, he caught his breath and looked at the sky. “Thank You,” he said quietly.

  Maggie walked into the lodge, her mind a mess, scrambled by the simple touch of one finger on her face. She had planned to tell him about the passport, but his very nearness had locked her down. Now a scream lurked at the back of her throat.

  There was no sound, however, as she stopped, watching as Lily darted about, coolly efficient as she unwrapped the food trays that had been delivered and set out the dishes and flatware.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Lily said. Too cool.

  Maggie looked around. They were the only ones in the lodge. “What’s going on, Lily?”

  Lily’s expression was frozen, her eyes hard. “Nothing. I was just wondering if you were going to return home anytime soon, or if you were going to ignore the fact that someone tried to kill you.” She went back to the kitchen and started making coffee, each motion precise and quick.

  Maggie leaned up against the couch. “I’m only going to say this once, sweet sister. You can lie to your agent, your husband, and the police. But not to me.”

  Lily stopped and stared at Maggie. Finally, she reached out and grabbed a stack of letters from the end of the bar and flung them at Maggie. They scattered, with two of them dropping to the floor.

  Maggie picked them up and read the first one. The block lettering on it looked like a child’s: