by Sara Rosett
Zoe picked up her empty plate and Helen’s as she said, “No, I don’t think so. It’s probably just some mix up at the bank, but the cash upstairs...that bothers me. I didn’t think Jack was the type of person to hide cash around the house, and now I find out his cousin Eddie is a girl, not a guy...it’s just strange.”
“Did he talk about Eddie a lot?”
“No, only a time or two and, now that I think about it, I don’t think he ever said Eddie was a guy. I assumed that was the case because of the name. But why wouldn’t he correct me when I got it wrong? I’m sure I said something like, tell him I said hello, before he left on one of his trips. And once, I said I wished I’d been able to meet him.”
“What did Jack say to that?” Helen asked as she helped me transfer the dishes to the dishwasher.
Zoe looked at the gap in the drywall of the kitchen ceiling. “Something about it being better if I didn’t because Eddie was the eccentric of the family, the modern-day equivalent of the crazy aunt in the attic. I thought he was joking.”
“Well, I’m sure she’ll call you back and explain. Maybe there are two people named Eddie who work there.”
“Helen, I don’t think—” Zoe broke off as the doorbell sounded. She grabbed a towel and dried her hands on the way to the door with Helen following close on her heels.
Zoe checked the peephole. “It’s the two officers who came to tell me about Jack,” Zoe said, her heart suddenly pounding double time. Did they have news?
She opened the door and Officer Isles nodded to both of them. “Evenin’, ma’am. We don’t have any news, but we’d like to ask you a few questions, Ms. Hunter.”
“Of course,” Zoe said releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Once they were seated in the uncomfortable front room, Officer Isles asked, “Were you aware your ex-husband’s company was about to be investigated by the SEC and the FBI?”
The question was so different from what she’d expected. “What?”
He repeated the question and Zoe realized that both officers’ looks of compassion had been replaced by something else, something harder and more guarded.
“No. GRS is doing great. Sharon, their secretary, told me today that their stock is up, and they have gotten some really good press. Things are going really well, apparently.”
“So how much involvement did you have in the day-to-day running of the company?” Officer Isles asked as his partner’s gaze bored into Zoe.
“None. I had nothing to do with GRS. That was all Jack and Connor.”
“That would be Connor Freeman? Your ex-husband’s business partner, correct?” Officer Isles asked.
Zoe nodded and wondered if her face looked as strained as Helen’s. She had that look she used to get in school when she’d step on Zoe’s foot to keep her from making a smart remark to the teacher.
“What can you tell us about him?”
“Not much,” Zoe said, then shrugged. “I didn’t really like him. He was rude and thought insulting humor was funny for some reason...” she trailed off when she realized that Helen looked as if she’d been punched in the gut. She was doing something weird with her eyebrows, a look that Zoe hadn’t seen since sixth grade when their history teacher caught them passing notes during class.
“So you didn’t like Mr. Freeman?”
Zoe’s heart rate kicked up another notch. Stupid. Stupid. Here she was thinking they were still investigating Jack’s disappearance, but this conversation was about more than that. She licked her lips and forced herself to slow down before she answered. It wouldn’t do her any good to backpedal or try to change her answer now. “No, I didn’t really like him. I don’t know of anyone who did, actually.”
“Then why was your husband in business with him?”
“Ex-husband,” Zoe said firmly. “Connor had the start-up money. Jack had the concept. Necessary evil and all that.” Helen widened her eyes, and Zoe had the distinct feeling that she was stifling a groan. “That’s what Jack said, anyway. All that happened before we were married, so I only know what Jack told me.”
“And have you ever known your ex-husband to lie to you, Ms. Hunter?”
Zoe glanced from Officer Isle’s impassive face to his partner, who was still engaged in staring her down. Had Jack lied to her? She didn’t know. He’d never mentioned a couple million dollars squirreled away in his bank account, but it looked as if the money only appeared there yesterday, and the bank was trying to contact him about a transaction, which indicated that wasn’t the normal situation in his bank account. But Eddie...what Helen said could be right. There could be two Eddies at Murano Glassworks. “No, Officer Isles,” Zoe said, raising her chin just a bit. It was true. She didn’t know—for sure—that Jack had never lied to her.
A little of the tension went out of Helen’s posture, and Zoe thought she must have answered that one correctly. Before Officer Isles shot another question to her, Zoe asked, “What’s the situation with the search? Any news?”
Officer Isles shifted on the couch and sighed in a way that conveyed his disappointment with Zoe. “Ms. Hunter, over a hundred people have been involved in the search for Mr. Andrews. The only things that have been found are his suit jacket and a shoe. Divers were called in this afternoon to search the riverbed and the lake. They found nothing. Cadaver dogs were used as well. Again, nothing.”
Zoe swallowed and tried to think of something to say. Helen spoke for the first time. “Is that unusual? At this point? It’s only been one day.”
Officer Isles tilted his head from side to side slightly. “There is no typical timeline in a disappearance, but considering the topography and the fact that the water level in the creek has receded rapidly...I’d say we would normally have a resolution in a case like this within twenty-four hours. But when you add in the fact that the missing person’s business was facing investigation as well as the fact that the business partner was murdered on the same day...well, this isn’t the typical missing person case.”
“I see,” Zoe said quietly.
“In fact,” Officer Isles continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “because this is such an unusual case, we’d like your permission to look around...see if we can find anything that will help the investigation.”
Zoe thought of the two rolls of money and the broken lamp upstairs. That would look odd, if nothing else. She flicked through possible answers. She didn’t want them looking around her house. Things had shifted. They weren’t viewing her sympathetically anymore. Instead, they viewed her suspiciously and Zoe didn’t want to risk them finding anything that would look as though she was somehow involved in whatever was going on. After all, if Jack had hidden rolls of money upstairs, who knew what else he’d hidden around the house. Zoe wouldn’t have any proof that she didn’t know about the money...or anything else they found.
“No.” The two officers and Zoe swiveled toward Helen, who’d stood up as she spoke. She looked a little flustered. She was turning one of her bracelets around and around her wrist, but she swallowed and said, “I mean, unless you have a search warrant?” She raised her eyebrows.
“We can get one.” It was the first time the other officer had spoken. He had a mulish look on his face.
“Then I suggest you do that,” Helen said.
“Your friend doesn’t have the right to push you around,” Officer Isles said to Zoe.
She stood up, too. “Oh, I think she’s right. Her husband is an attorney.”
Chapter Seven
Dallas
Wednesday, 7:02 p.m.
MORT Vazarri used his elbow to open the door to a bedroom at Connor Freeman’s home in an exclusive neighborhood. Sato was downstairs at the foot of the curving staircase, working his smile for all it was worth as he talked with Chloe, a good-looking brunette crime scene technician. Sato liked to work the people angle in their cases. Mort knew the value of working contacts and dissecting interviews, but he’d always preferred objects to people. Physical things c
ould tell you a lot about a person. Their medicine cabinet, trash, books, magazines, and mail showed how people really lived no matter what they said.
Objects were more reliable than people, too. Get three eyewitnesses together and you’re likely to get three conflicting stories. Things like pill bottles and paper documents were hard evidence and couldn’t be discredited nearly as easily as witnesses. Interviewing suspects...well, every tiny detail had to be checked and rechecked. People lied. Their stuff didn’t.
Of course, there would be no interview with Jack Andrews...at least not right away. All they had at the moment was an unproductive interview with Andrew’s ex-wife and the remnants of Connor’s life. What would his place tell them?
Not a heck of a lot.
Mort’s gaze ran over the empty room, which was almost exactly like another bedroom down the hall. He moved to the last bedroom. At least this one looked lived in. A Mission-style double bed, two nightstands, and matching dresser, all in cherry wood, filled the room. A black and white comforter and a sliver lamp with a black shade were the only decorative touches. There was a clock on the nightstand, along with a glass with an inch of water. The connecting bathroom was white throughout. Several black towels lay crumpled in the corner near a clothes hamper. A razor with a dried blob of shaving cream rested on the counter. The closet and drawers contained a jumble of clothes—well-cut suits, expensive ties, and a few casual shirts and jeans. Was Freeman messy or was something else going on here, Mort wondered as he nudged some of the clothes aside to check the back and sides of the drawers.
His wife would recognize the brands, but Mort knew quality when he saw it. Connor Freeman had spent more on one shirt than Mort had spent last weekend when he took Kathy out for a nice dinner at Outback. Other than a few sticky notes, a couple of receipts, and a discarded wrapper for a bar of soap in the trash, Mort didn’t find anything interesting. Even the medicine cabinet was a bust—Tylenol, toothpaste, deodorant, razors, and a couple of Band-Aids.
Mort met up with Sato in the great room, an expanse of open space that combined a family room, a gourmet kitchen with a huge granite-topped island, and a dining room area with a pool table under an ornate chandelier with little lampshades. Twin leather couches formed an “L” around a massive flat-screen television in the family room portion. “This whole set up has the personality of a hotel room,” Mort said to Sato. “No pictures on the walls, no snap shots on the fridge.”
“Too much house and not enough life here,” Sato said, and Mort raised his eyebrows.
“Single guy doesn’t need this much space,” Sato said, raising one shoulder. “Just saying.” Sato lived in a one-bedroom condo within walking distance of several Dallas hotspots and his twenty-four hour gym. Mort opened the stainless steel double fridge, which contained Chinese takeout, pizza, a bottle of wine, and a questionable lump that might be cheese. There were ten glasses and some silverware in the sink, crusted over with remnants of food.
On the far side of the wide room, sat a large desk with a rich leather inlay. Mort headed for the desk, “Now this is more like it.” He rubbed his hands together, surprised to feel a little kick of anticipation. The desk was messy. This was where Freeman had spent his time.
A few steps from the desk, he stopped abruptly. “This has been searched.” Up close, he could see that empty drawers hung open. Their contents had been stacked haphazardly on the desk top.
Sato joined him, pulling on gloves. “You get her phone number?” Mort asked, glancing at the brunette crime scene tech who’d waved at Sato before leaving through the front door.
“Of course.”
“In case you have any follow-up questions,” Mort said.
“Follow-up is crucial. You know that,” Sato said.
“Right. Anything else useful come out of your chat?” Mort asked.
The smile dropped off Sato’s face. “Yeah, neighbor says she saw the garage closing around three o’clock yesterday.”
“Did she recognize the car?”
“Didn’t see it, just heard the door going down as she was walking her dog and glanced over as it closed.”
“And the M.E. put the time of death between twelve-thirty and one-thirty,” Mort said thoughtfully.
Sato and Mort exchanged glances. “Desk first, then garage. My money is on the desk.”
As he examined papers, Sato said, “So, who do you think? The partner’s ex-wife? Maybe she had something going on with Freeman?”
“Love triangle gone bad?” Mort said, squinting at the tiny print on a document. “Possible. ‘Course, if we can find what the person was looking for or find an obvious gap in the files, then we’ll have something concrete to go on.”
Dallas
Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.
“SO what do you think I should do with this?” Zoe held up the rolls of money.
Helen shifted her lips to the side as she considered. “Well, Tucker says you’ve got two options.” Before Zoe closed the door behind the two officers, Helen had already been calling her husband. “One: you go with the ‘my life is an open book play’—give them access to everything and tell them you knew nothing about anything Jack had going on.”
“Tried that, at least the second part, and it didn’t go over too well.”
“I know. Option Two, which Tucker says is your safest move, is to stall them as long as you can. And get a good attorney. Tucker’s calling a friend who does criminal law.”
Zoe clinched her fist around the wad of bills. “I don’t have the money for that.”
Helen tilted her head toward the computer. “Looks like Jack has plenty of money.”
Zoe’s shoulders sagged. “That’s not Jack’s money. It’s some computer error or something. Besides, I can’t draw money out of his account. We haven’t had a joint account in ages.”
Helen shrugged. “Just saying. I don’t think you should worry about paying an attorney right now.”
Zoe closed her eyes. She didn’t have a choice. “I’ve got to find out what’s going on. Who knows what they might find, and then they could assume I knew about it...”
Helen nodded, her big brown eyes expressing her sympathy. “Sounds about right.”
Zoe plunked the rolls of money down on the dresser. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. The broken lamp goes downstairs—not in the trash, in the extra room, I think. The trash would look suspicious. Anything we find goes here,” Zoe said, slapping her hand down on the dresser. She dug in her pockets, pulled out a rubber band. As she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, she said, “And now we take this room apart.”
They worked for three hours, going over every inch of the room. Helen took the desk and copied Jack’s laptop files onto a memory drive, saying “In case they take it before we can look at everything.”
Those words made Zoe hurry more as she went through every drawer, shaking out each piece of clothing. Helen clicked away on the mouse, reading files as Zoe moved through the room, checking the bed, the nightstand, the desk, the closet, even the small fridge. She looked everywhere she could think of—the underside of the drawers, between the mattress and box spring, under the bed, behind the pictures, in the back reaches of the bathroom cabinets. She found nothing but clothes, dust, and a few odds and ends—faded dry cleaning receipts in the back corner of the closet, used pens and stray paperclips in the desk, and ketchup and mayonnaise packets in the fridge.
It was after ten when Helen closed the last file and leaned back in the chair, rubbing her eyes. “Nothing on here but business stuff, and none of it looks as though anything strange was going on at GRS. It all sounds very straightforward and typical.”
Zoe shoved the fridge back into place against the wall and said, “Just like this room. It’s just a bedroom.” She threw her arms out then let them drop back to her sides in frustration.
“That is a good thing,” Helen reminded her.
“I know, but I wonder if I’ve made it worse. When Officer Isles comes back with his search
warrant, he may not find anything, but my fingerprints—and yours—will be all over this room.”
“Oh, we should have worn gloves, shouldn’t we? Didn’t think of that,” Helen said, her eyebrows knitted together in a frown. “Should we wipe everything down?”
“Wouldn’t that look worse? No fingerprints at all? Besides, we opened all the files on his computer...they’ll be able to tell we poked around. Yeah, we’re not exactly good at this stealthy search thing.”
Helen’s phone buzzed. “It’s Tucker,” she said before answering.
After a short conversation, she hung up and said, “He’s got a lawyer for you.”
Zoe didn’t want to think about a lawyer. Instead, she said, “You should go home.”
“And you should come with me. I don’t think you should stay here.”
Zoe smiled at her friend. “I knew you were going to say that. It’s sweet of you, but I’m staying here.”
Helen stood up and stretched. “I knew you were going to say that, too.”
“Right. So don’t even bother arguing with me. It will only get you home later. I’m staying. I want to look around the extra bedroom and hall closet before I call it a night.”
Zoe was able to get Helen to leave only after Helen made three more attempts to talk her into going to her house for the night. Zoe watched Helen back out of the driveway with Tucker’s dinner and extra cupcakes, then she checked all the locks downstairs before returning upstairs.
In the extra bedroom, she did the same sweep as she had done in Jack’s room, but it didn’t take nearly as long because there wasn’t much in the spare bedroom. Now the extra bedroom downstairs—the flea market room, she called it—that would take some time. She stifled a gigantic yawn and looked through the hall bathroom and the linen closet, again finding only what you’d expect in those places. She returned to Jack’s room, flopped down onto the bed, and stared at the ceiling fan, which was turning lazily overhead.
She’d done everything she could, short of ripping up the carpet or checking behind the vent and outlet covers, which seemed a little extreme. Another yawn set her jawbone cracking. She supposed it was a good thing that she hadn’t found anything. It meant that in a cursory search the police wouldn’t find anything either. She watched the slow spin of the fan blades, and her thoughts drifted to the flea market room...she really should go down there and look around, just to make sure. But there was so much stuff she felt overwhelmed.
