Passion to Die for

by Marilyn Pappano

  She’d forgotten about that. Good publicity, she’d thought at the time. Besides, neither of her parents had ever read a newspaper or magazine in their lives.

  “I’m guessing it was coincidence,” she said with a shrug. “Bad luck.”

  “More for Martha than anyone else,” A.J. said drily.

  “Payback’s a bitch.” Tommy’s tone was just as dry.

  “This lawyer…were you a client or just a social-conscience project?”

  A.J. was nothing if not dogged. She sighed. “He never represented me in court, but yes, I was a client.”

  “Does he have a large practice?”

  “I don’t know. It appears to be a successful one.” Over the years, when she’d called Randolph, she’d spoken to a variety of employees: paralegals, junior lawyers, secretaries and assistants.

  Tommy picked up on the direction A.J. was heading. “So there are other people in his office. People who have access to his files, who maybe aren’t as ethical or as immune to the lure of easy money.”

  “I need his name,” A.J. demanded.

  Ellie gazed at the herb garden again, feeling about as beaten down as the plants looked. When Tommy squeezed her hand reassuringly, her mouth curved up almost enough to be considered a smile. If everything went well, she would be both a wife and a mother before a year was out—two things she hadn’t let herself want since Andrew walked out on her.

  If things didn’t go well, if District Attorney Tatum decided the state’s case was strong enough, she’d be in prison before a year was out. And considering that she had motive, means and opportunity, to say nothing of nine missing hours, A.J.’s doubts wouldn’t count for much with Tatum unless he could serve up another suspect with an even stronger case.

  “Randolph Aiken,” she said at last.

  Robbie clearly recognized the name, his gaze narrowing suspiciously. A.J. didn’t look as if it meant a thing to him, but no doubt, soon after he got back to his office, he would know more about Randolph than she did. He wasn’t the type to do his job carelessly.

  Lucky for her.

  A.J. swigged down the last of his tea, then rose. “Got a check?”

  She waved her free hand. “It’s on the house.”

  “No, thanks,” he said as pleasantly as if saying thank you.

  She often gave cops and sheriff’s deputies free food, but with A.J. investigating her, she supposed it really wasn’t proper. “Sherry will write it up for you at the front.”

  He left with a curt nod, and silence fell over the table. Robbie finally broke it, his voice cautious. “I’m guessing if you know Randolph Aiken that you might have met him through his nephew.”

  Ellie’s face flushed, making her long for just a moment to step out into the rain to cool down.

  “You know about him?” Tommy asked hostilely.

  Robbie shrugged. “From years ago. There were rumors, but none of the girls ever came forward, and Aiken damn sure never admitted anything. Story was that the family paid them to forget his name.”

  Ellie confirmed it with a nod. How many others had there been? Enough for people to gossip about. Fewer than five? More than ten? Had they all been pregnant, or had simple seduction been enough to warrant Randolph’s intervention?

  “If your mother’s information did come from someone in Aiken’s office, there may be other blackmail victims out there,” Robbie said.

  Other girls who’d fallen for Andrew’s pretty face and prettier words, girls who’d been hungry and scared and desperate to believe someone wanted them. Whose silence had been bought, whose babies had been traded for the money to survive, whose secrets were now being threatened. Ellie knew Randolph would never stoop so low. But someone who worked for him? They were total strangers to her. One of them could easily be the type to threaten to destroy another person’s life for money. Her own mother had been.

  Tommy’s fingers tightened around hers. “Jesus.” He sounded dismayed. He was part cynic—after six or eight months on the job, all cops developed a cynical streak, he said—but she knew there was a part of him, even after all he’d seen, that still thought a small measure of decency wasn’t too much to ask of anyone.

  After all she’d seen, she knew it was. But she loved him for still expecting to find good in people. For finding it in her.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  It was Tommy who grudgingly answered, “Decker will confirm that Aiken’s out of the country. He’ll track him down, get a list of employees, check them out, try to find out about any other clients worth blackmailing.”

  Robbie snorted. “Probably everyone he’s ever represented.”

  “And what do we do?” Ellie knew the answer before the men exchanged glances.

  “We wait,” Tommy said simply.

  Another silence settled, this one hanging heavy until footsteps sounded in the corridor. Anamaria came around the corner, smiling brightly when she saw them. She looked radiant and gave off warmth and the subtle scent of cinnamon when she hugged Ellie.

  She bent to embrace Tommy from behind, then gave the biggest hug to her husband before settling in the empty chair. Her gaze shifted between Ellie and Tommy and their clasped hands. “You two are good.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Ellie nodded anyway. She didn’t even consider telling her best friend that Tommy wanted to marry her, or that she wanted to marry him back. Some news needed to be savored a little before going public.

  “Yeah,” she said, turning to find Tommy watching her. “We’re very good.”

  When the staff tried to send Ellie home before dinner, she refused to go, and she didn’t hide in her office, either. Tommy sat at a corner table, watching her move seemingly without effort through her usual routine: chatting with diners, refilling glasses and coffee cups, cashing out checks and seating newcomers. He could see the tension in her, though, probably because studying her had been his favorite pastime for five years. Every time she felt a curious gaze lingering on her, her spine stiffened, and each time a table of diners stopped talking abruptly as she approached, something flashed in her eyes.

  He hoped she noticed, though, that the majority of diners were there for dinner, nothing more.

  One who wasn’t was Louise Wetherby. Her restaurant down the street might have class, Anamaria said, but Louise did not. She sat at the table next to Tommy’s with her husband, a meek man who rarely spoke or made eye contact with anyone, including his wife.

  Ellie had left the dining room when Louise turned her attention to him. “Are you on duty, Detective?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Her gaze flicked from him to the table, empty except for a glass of tea, then back. “You’re spending your evening off in the restaurant owned by the woman suspected of killing Martha Dempsey, not dining and watching Ellie Chase like a hawk, but you’re not working. Uh-huh.”

  The wise thing was to ignore her, and he did, letting his gaze drift around the room as he took a drink.

  But Louise Wetherby didn’t like being ignored. “It’s such a shame. Martha was a lovely woman. Such a loss.”

  He choked on his tea, coughing and sputtering. So much for ignoring her. “A lovely woman? Martha Dempsey? Gray hair, heavy smoker, mean eyes?”

  Louise got huffy. “It’s rude to speak poorly of the dead. I found Martha to be a charming, intelligent woman.”

  She wouldn’t know charm if it bit her on the ass, Tommy thought. Intelligence, either.

  Louise’s own mean little eyes narrowed. “You used to be involved with Ellie Chase, didn’t you?” The way she said involved sounded as if they’d made a habit of having wild sex on the courthouse steps. “Are you together again? Are you foolish enough to believe that she didn’t run down that poor woman in the street? Why, I heard from Benton Tatum just today that it’s only a matter of time before he charges her. And how will that look for you, Detective, having your girlfriend in prison?”

  His jaw tightened. “She hasn’t been arrested yet, and she w
on’t be convicted.”

  “You sound so sure of that. Why? Because she has an in with the police department? Because you’re going to see to it that something happens to the evi—”

  Across the room, the door opened and Decker walked in. Tommy shoved to his feet and walked away from Louise in midrant.

  “Rude young man,” she said loudly enough to carry. “I’ll certainly be complaining to the chief about this.”

  “The old hag complains so much that the chief panics if you just say her name around him,” Decker said quietly. “Can we talk in Ellie’s office?”

  “Sure.” Tommy led the way down the hall, swinging the door open and switching on the light.

  “Doesn’t she ever lock the door?”

  “Only if she’s, uh, occupied.” Like the rare occasions when the two of them had put the couch to good use. It had been a long time since they’d done that, though. “According to Louise, the D.A. says he’s planning to charge Ellie. Have you heard?”

  “It’s an election year. Tatum wants to appear tough on crime.”

  Which meant, yes, Decker had heard it. Tommy’s gut tightened. He knew Ellie was innocent. He also knew innocence was no protection against arrest, trial and conviction. If she had to go to trial…God help them, if she had to go to prison…how could either of them stand that?

  “I talked to Aiken,” Decker went on. “Nice guy, considering it was two in the morning over there. He’s been in Europe for a month and will be there six more weeks. Making up to the wife for all the trips they didn’t take while he was still working.”

  It took a minute for his last words to sink in. Tommy frowned. “You mean, he’s retired?”

  “Pretty much. His staff has all gone on to other jobs except for one. Marie Jensen. She’s his secretary. Been with him for twenty-some years. She’s transferring records to other lawyers, getting everything on computer for storage, closing up the office. She’s fifty-two. Divorced. No kids. She lives alone but spends a lot of time at the nursing home where her mother lives. Never been arrested, doesn’t have anything unusual on her credit history, no more money in the bank than you’d expect, goes to church on Sundays. She doesn’t have a new job lined up yet. She’s considering her options.”

  Tommy adjusted the window blinds so he could see out, though the only view was the brick wall of the building next door and, overhead, the night sky. “Have any of his other clients had any problems?”

  “Not that he knows of, but like I said, he’s been gone a month. The only way most of them have to contact him is his office.”

  “Where Marie is answering calls and taking messages.” Tommy rubbed between his eyes where a headache was trying to start. “What’s his gut instinct about her?”

  “That she couldn’t be involved in something like this.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “He never would have kept her on if he hadn’t trusted her fully. But you and I both know that a lot of bad guys are capable of hiding their true nature. People see what they want them to see. And she could have been fully trustworthy until something happened. Maybe her mother’s care is overwhelming her. Maybe the idea of starting over at a new job at her age is too much. Maybe she’s been tempted all along and finally gave in.”

  Desperation could make a person do things she never would have considered. Ellie was proof of that. But it was a big step from blackmail to murder. Most blackmailers weren’t violent. Desperation again: fear of getting caught, reluctance to go to prison, leaving her mother alone. And when she had the perfect suspect in her partner’s daughter…

  Tommy turned away from the window and leaned against the sill. “When did Martha make the two calls from the Jasmine?”

  “Wednesday evening around six-fifteen and Saturday morning. Ten forty-two.”

  A few hours before she’d confronted Ellie for the first time and again before she’d issued her demand for an answer the next day.

  “Did Aiken mention that Ellie had left a couple of messages for him?”

  “No. Said he hasn’t talked to her in eight or ten months.”

  “Did he say when he last spoke to Marie?”

  “Every Monday morning, our time, since he left, and again on Thursdays. She gives him messages, he tells her what to do.”

  “Ellie left messages for him last Friday. Said it was really important.”

  “Wonder why Jensen didn’t tell him,” Decker said sardonically as he pulled a paper folded in quarters from his pocket. “I got this from Drivers Services. Look familiar?”

  Tommy smoothed the folds, then studied the photograph of Aiken’s secretary. She looked her age, pleasant, fairly unremarkable. Her hair was too perfectly blond to be natural, her cheeks plump, her smile warm.

  Had she been at the Halloween festival? He had no clue. But then, he had spent most of the evening watching Ellie, and there’d been more than a few witches there. “If I saw her, I don’t remember.”

  “Forgettable is the best way for crooks to look.”

  “Okay, so Marie Jensen knows her boss is retiring. It’s her last chance to fatten up her own retirement plan. She knows about—” Tommy broke off abruptly. He’d been about to say the nephew’s girlfriends. If the secretary was the blackmailer, it would all come out in the end, but until then, he wouldn’t break Ellie’s confidence. “She knows Ellie doesn’t want her past coming out, so she recruits Martha for her blackmail. Why use a partner? Why not approach Ellie directly?”

  Decker sprawled on the sofa, legs stretched out, ankles crossed over a rung on the chair that fronted the desk. “An extra layer of protection between her and the crime. I bet Martha didn’t have an idea in hell who she was dealing with. As far as Ellie knew, as far as we know for sure, Martha was acting alone. She could have talked about her partner until she was blue in the face, but she wouldn’t have had a name or a face to put to her, nothing but a bunch of pay phones to point to as proof.”

  “Assuming Ellie’s not the only target, Jensen picks people who are greedy enough to be the face guy but who can’t ID her. She provides the material, they approach the target and she splits the money with them, all the time staying anonymous to everyone.”

  Decker nodded in agreement.

  “So why kill Martha?”

  “You said Ellie called Aiken Friday afternoon. Says it’s important—she needs to talk to him right away. Jensen thinks Ellie’s going to tell him about the blackmail. She can’t risk the boss finding out that Ellie’s not the only client being targeted, so she comes to Copper Lake, kills Martha, removing the only possible link between herself and the blackmail, and, as a bonus, she frames Ellie. She has to know that we’re going to find out pretty quick that Ellie isn’t who she says she is, and then we’re going to find out her criminal history. Desperate people do desperate things.”

  Less than thirty hours had passed between Ellie’s phone calls to Aiken and Martha’s death. Not a lot of time to plan a murder and a frame. But as murders went, hit-and-run was fairly simple. The most difficult part of the plan would have been getting her hands on the drug, and even that wouldn’t have been tough for a resourceful woman. She lived in a college town and had worked half her life for a criminal-defense attorney. She had access to people who had access to just about anything.

  “I wonder if she’s blackmailed other clients,” Tommy said.

  “I wonder if she’s killed other partners.”

  The thought made Tommy stiffen. They could be talking not about a woman desperate for money, but a cold-blooded murderer. Killing Martha might have been her plan all along; she’d just been forced to do it before the payoff this time because of Ellie’s attempt to contact Aiken.

  Decker was thinking along the same lines. “Since Ellie’s calls made Jensen act before, let’s have her call again. Tell her she has to talk to Aiken, that she’s found out things he’s got to know.”

  “And she’ll reach him some other way if Jensen can’t get hold of him.” The secretary would buy that.
After all, she knew about Ellie and her boss’s nephew.

  “If she is the guilty one, she’ll come here to get rid of Ellie, just like she got rid of Martha.”

  Set up Ellie as a target for murder. Tommy’s hands were clammy, and acid churned in his gut. Set up the woman he loved to let some psychopath try to kill her. He wanted to object, to say no way, but the choice wasn’t really his; it was Ellie’s. And if they were prepared, if everything went right, her name would be cleared and there would be no threat of arrest, trial or prison.

  But if something went wrong…

  No way. But those weren’t the words that came out when he finally got enough breath to power his voice.

  “Let’s talk to her.”

  It was nine-thirty Wednesday morning. The sun was shining, and the air had a bit of a fall nip, just enough to remind a person that winter, such as it was, was coming. If Ellie had her way, she would be outside at that very moment, strolling through the square, maybe stopping in at A Cuppa Joe for hot cocoa, tapping on the window of Jamie’s office to wave hello or admiring River’s Edge with its autumn-hued mums and pansies.

  She wouldn’t be sitting in her office, surrounded by grimfaced men. She wouldn’t be jittery and anxious, and she definitely wouldn’t be about to make a phone call that might result in an attempt on her life.

  Tommy was leaning against the wall behind her chair, his pose relaxed, but she could feel the tension vibrating around him. He’d been noncommittal about this phone call. He’d made certain she understood the risks, and he’d promised she would be safe, but he hadn’t tried to persuade or dissuade her. He’d trusted her judgment to make the right choice.

  She hoped she had.

  Robbie sat on the couch, and A.J. was in the visitor chair. A fourth man by the name of Galvez was finishing up his job of wiring the phone to record the call. When he was done, he nodded, and she picked up the phone, her hand trembling a bit as she dialed.

  A woman answered on the second ring. “Aiken Law Office. This is Marie.”

  “Hello, Marie, this is Ellie Chase. I called last week trying to get hold of Mr. Aiken?”