“I hope there’s not, too, Cade.”
The Judge turned and started up the stairs, leaving Cade with a whole lot of questions he still didn’t have answers to. The basic one, of course, hadn’t changed. Had Joey sent a one-man welcoming committee to the room Talia was supposed to have checked into? If so, what would happen now?
The killer could still be on the island. Hell, the killer could still be right here hanging around the hotel. Cade glanced across the lobby, finding that thought damn disturbing.
If the guy was still around, he’d know by now that he’d killed Ruth Wertman, not Talia Sagourin. And the obvious question was, would he try to rectify his mistake?
THE MOLE MADE a point of stopping by Bud the babysitter’s table and mentioning he was going for an after-dinner walk. Then he headed for the village.
It was only about a mile from the hotel, with the first leg of the road paralleling an open stretch of Atlantic beach. But it wasn’t a pleasant walk at this time of night, not with the strong wind gusting in off the ocean.
“Nobody’s damn fault you’re out here but your own,” he muttered to himself. His cell phone wouldn’t have run down if he’d remembered to plug it in when they’d arrived at the hotel. And if it hadn’t needed charging, his call would’ve been over and done with by now. He’d be sitting in that nice comfortable bar, instead of trudging along out here where it was the furthest thing from nice and comfortable.
But he had to find out what the hell was going on, and Joey Carpaccio’s goon had been right to warn him about being careful when it came to phones. You never knew who could be listening in at a hotel—especially a hotel where there’d just been a murder.
Mentally reviewing the facts he knew, he decided he really wasn’t missing many. Bud was undoubtedly king of the gossip scene no matter where he happened to be. He’d collected every last detail he could about the killing and been only too happy to share them with any of the jurors who’d cared to listen. But what the mole didn’t know was whether it should have been Talia Sagourin lying dead, instead of that other woman.
“And room 203 was assigned to our own Talia,” Bud had said. “Just think if she’d been the one to walk in there, instead of Ruth Wertman.”
Just think. Hell, the mole had scarcely thought about anything else since the moment he’d heard the story. He couldn’t stop wondering if killing Talia was that other route the goon had referred to this morning.
He sure as hell hoped it wasn’t, because if they killed her it could mean disaster for him. If she ended up dead, the cops would be all over the remaining jurors like fleas on a dog. They’d want to know if anything irregular was going on, and he’d bet they’d find out that there was. And that he was involved in it.
Peering ahead through the darkness, he told himself not to worry so much. He just needed a little reassurance. Not that Joey’s goon was exactly the type of guy who instilled confidence, but he was the only potential source of information.
When the mole finally reached the village it was quiet. Most things were closed for the night. He began to wonder if he was out of luck, and then he spotted what he was looking for. Up ahead, outside Ye Olde Sandwich Shop, stood a pay phone. He dug the number from his wallet and took out a credit card, as well—then thought better of using it. Credit transactions could be traced, and he didn’t want anyone tracing this.
Fortunately he had a pocketful of change, way more than enough to call Charleston. Now, he thought as the number began to ring, he just needed the goon to be there.
He picked up on the third ring, saying, “Yeah?”
The mole breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s me, your friend on Jermain Island.”
“Yeah? This phone safe?”
“It’s a pay phone. In the middle of nowhere.”
“Okay. So what’s up?”
“What’s up is that some woman got killed here this afternoon. One of the hotel guests. She walked into her room and somebody shot her.”
“No bull? I thought it was a classy joint.”
“It is. That’s not the point.”
“So what’s the point?”
“The point is, there was a mixup with the rooms. And this woman was murdered in the room Talia Sagourin should’ve had.”
“Yeah?”
“So listen, I need to know, did Mr. Carpaccio have anything to do with it?”
“Why the hell would he wanna kill some woman?”
“Dammit, you know what I mean. Was it supposed to be Talia who got killed?”
“How the hell should I know? Know if it was supposed to be her, I mean. But whoever it was supposed to be, the boss didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure I’m sure. You think he’s stupid or somethin’?”
“No, of course not. I was just worried, because if someone on this jury gets murdered, the cops will be investigating like crazy. And I sure as hell don’t want to end up in jail for helping you out.”
“Hey, man, don’t get your shorts in a knot, huh? The boss don’t want the cops doin’ no investigatin’, either. So listen, that all you want? ‘Cause I’m watchin’ basketball here, and the score’s tied.”
“Yeah…yeah, that’s all I wanted.”
“Well, try not to call me again, huh? You just use that computer of yours. Unless maybe you wanna tell me somethin’ real important. Like you got everyone talked into votin’ not guilty.”
“All right, I’ll keep that in mind.” The mole hung up, not feeling nearly as happy as he’d like. He had a sense that, in Joey Carpaccio’s circle of friends, the right hand didn’t always know what the left hand was doing. So maybe the goon didn’t know what he was talking about. Or maybe he’d lied.
And if Joey had decided he wanted Talia Sagourin dead…well, guys like Joey generally got what they wanted.
Chapter Four
Talia waited while Detective Frank Boscoe sat drumming his fingers on Liz Jermain’s desk and staring into space. He was clearly trying to decide whether he and his partner were finished with their inquisition.
She hoped they were. Liz’s office, tucked in behind the registration desk, wasn’t large. So with the three of them in here and the door closed, it was getting awfully warm.
Finally Boscoe focused on her again. “Well, I think that’s all we need for the moment, Ms. Sagourin, although we may want to ask a few more questions later.”
“Thank you for your time,” Detective Arnie Rebuzo said as she rose and opened the door.
“And I really don’t think,” Boscoe added, “that you’ve got anything to worry about. As I said before, the notion you might have been the intended victim is pretty farfetched.”
“Yes…I guess it is.” She nodded goodbye, then skirted the registration desk, the sight of Cade striding in her direction lifting her spirits a little. For a moment she thought he was going to hug her, and when he didn’t she felt a twinge of disappointment. Maybe the lobby wasn’t an appropriate place, but she could still have used a hug.
“How’d it go?” he said by way of a greeting.
“The short version is that they asked questions, I answered them.”
“Well, let’s go get some dinner and you can tell me the long version.”
She didn’t feel like eating. She did feel like some friendly company, though, so she followed Cade into the dining room. It was as elegant as every other part of the hotel she’d seen—tablecloths of crisp white linen, crystal goblets that twinkled in the glow of candlelight and fresh flowers gracing each table. The walls were Wedgwood blue, and she couldn’t help thinking Mrs. Wertman would have disapproved. If she’d lived long enough to see them.
When Cade told the maître d’ they’d like a quiet table, the man led them to a secluded nook beside the fireplace. Then he flourished menus in front of them and assured them their waiter would be along in a moment.
“So?” Cade said as the maître d’ turned away. “Let’s hear the long version.”
“There’s not much to hear. Basically they just had me go over everything that happened from the time I first noticed Mrs. Wertman on the ferry to when Shad and I found her body.”
“And what did they say about your switching rooms with her?”
“They didn’t think it was significant.” She watched for his reaction to that. She was still worried that it was significant, regardless of the detectives’ cavalier attitude.
The frown that appeared on Cade’s face wasn’t at all reassuring. “You told them about wondering if maybe Joey Carpaccio…?”
“Yes. But to quote Frank Boscoe, the idea I might have been the intended victim is pretty farfetched.”
“Did he say that after you told them that you counsel battered women? That Joey might’ve found out and decided you’d like to see him fry?”
“Well…I didn’t exactly get into that with them.”
“What? Why the hell not?”
She shrugged unhappily. “Because the moment I mentioned there was something Joey’s lawyers had missed about me during jury selection, they reminded me I could only talk about the trial with other jurors.”
“But there must have been some way you could’ve—”
“Cade, I could tell they didn’t think there was the slightest chance that killer was after me. So I was already feeling like a bit of an idiot, which didn’t exactly make me eager to—”
“You should’ve figured out a way to tell them,” he interrupted. “Feeling like an idiot isn’t the worst thing in the world.” He almost pointed out that it wasn’t even in the same league as being dead, but managed to stop himself.
“Well, maybe it isn’t the worst thing in the world,” Talia said, “but they don’t think the killer was there intending to shoot anyone. They figure he was a hotel thief who panicked. Which is exactly what Liz and Shad and I concluded in the first place. So…I guess the obvious is right.”
Cade rubbed his jaw, telling himself that the detectives were the pros here, that they made their living by coming to the right conclusions about things like this. “They don’t think there’s even a chance the guy was a hired killer?” he finally asked.
“Well…not exactly. They admitted it could have been a planned hit. But listen to me. I don’t even watch cop shows on television, and I sound as if I’m married to the mob. I guess—” she gave a weary smile “—that’s what six weeks on a murder-trial jury does to you.”
He made himself smile back at her, although they both knew this was no joking matter. After a second he said, “Since they admit it could’vé been a planned hit, what are they doing on that angle?”
“They’ve got people looking into things on the mainland. They’re checking into what’s been happening in Mrs. Wertman’s life lately.”
“And what about what’s been happening in your life lately? What about your being on Carpaccio’s jury?”
She shook her head, looking totally frustrated. “Cade, the bottom line is that they said a professional hit man would never have shot Mrs. Wertman by mistake—would never have mistaken her for me, I mean. He’d have had a description of who he was supposed to kill. Probably even a picture. And Mrs. Wertman didn’t look anything like me, did she.”
“No…no, nothing like you.” Not young and not gorgeous. He tried to force his thoughts from the delectable way Talia looked—even after an hour of playing questions-and-answers with the cops.
“Also,” she added, “they pointed out that a planned hit is exactly that—planned in advance.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. But not all planned hits needed much planning.
“And Mrs. Wertman,” Talia went on, “made her reservation here weeks ago. Whereas nobody knew I’d be here until after we’d voted this morning.”
“And nobody knew Mrs. Wertman was going to hate her room and end up in 203, either. As far as anybody knew, it was your room.”
Talia shrugged, although she looked as if she’d rather he hadn’t pointed that out. “Cade, all I know is that Boscoe and Rebuzo are sure the murder was a spur-of-the-moment thing. They think Mrs. Wertman just walked in on a thief.”
“She walked in on a thief whose gun had a silencer,” Cade said.
For a long moment Talia gazed across the table, looking so worried Cade almost wished he’d kept quiet about the silencer.
But he was damn worried himself—worried the good detectives were conveniently ignoring details that didn’t fit their spur-of-the-moment theory. They sure wouldn’t be the first cops to develop a severe case of tunnel vision.
“We wondered about a thief having a silencer earlier,” Talia finally murmured. “Liz and Shad and I. But when I asked Frank Boscoe if it was unusual, he didn’t give me a straight answer. You think it is, though, don’t you.”
Before he could reply their waiter arrived. They hadn’t even glanced at the menus, so when he recommended the chef’s special, Atlantic salmon in puff pastry, they both ordered it.
“The silencer,” Talia said, returning to their topic once the waiter was gone. “It bothered LIZ. And if you think there’s something strange about it, too…”
He shrugged. “One of my uncles was a cop. And when my brother and I were kids, he used to take us to a shooting range—taught us all about guns. I just can’t see a garden-variety hotel thief wandering around with a silencer. Do you know what they look like?”
“No.”
“Well, they’re metal cylinders that fit over the end of a gun barrel. Fairly long chunky cylinders that make a weapon a whole lot more awkward to carry around. So…” He paused, spotting his channelsurfing roommate.
Harlan was heading across the dining room in their direction, and the big grin on his face was saying Cade just might be one of his favorite people. If that was true, though, the feeling wasn’t mutual. Oh, he felt kind of sorry for the guy, but if he’d had his choice of whom to room with, Harlan sure wouldn’t have been it.
Cade’s glance flickered to Talia, and he fleetingly thought she would have been. Then he pushed the thought aside and looked at Harlan once more. The guy was a little taller than average but slightly built, pale and nondescript, with lenses in his glasses as thick as the bottom of a pop bottle. In both appearance and personality, he fit the stereotype of a computer nerd perfectly.
“Cade…Talia,” he said, reaching their table. “You guys finished or what?”
“Just ordered,” Cade told him.
“Oh…so you won’t be coming up to the room with me now, huh?”
“Uh-uh. I’ll be along in a while.”
Harlan shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, I sure hope when I get up there I don’t find a guy waiting for me with a gun.” He grinned, but he looked a little anxious. “So,” he said after a moment, “I hear you were right there when they found the body, huh, Talia?”
She nodded. “It didn’t exactly make my day.”
“No…no, I’ll bet it didn’t. I guess it was pretty gruesome, huh?”
“Yes. Very.”
“Was there a lot of blood?”
“Harlan?” Cade said. For a man in his thirties, Harlan was sorely lacking in the social-graces department. “Talia just spent an hour talking to a couple of detectives about the murder, so I think she’d really rather give it a rest now.”
“Oh…yeah, I guess she would. So, you guys think we’re going to be stuck here more than this one night?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Talia said. “But you sound as if you hope we’re not.”
“I do. I don’t sleep well in strange places. And I usually look after the motel in the evenings, so it’s going to be hard on my mom with me gone day and night. She gets nervous, too, if I’m not home at night. So, how long do you think we’ll be here?”
“Who knows?” Cade said. “Either until we all agree, or until we decide we’ll never reach a unanimous verdict.”
“You really think we could end up with a hung jury? When only three people voted guilty? You don�
��t think they’ll change their minds? Group pressure and all that stuff?”
“Who knows?” Cade said again.
Harlan looked at Talia. “I guess you were one of the three, huh?”
Before Cade could tell Harlan to mind his own business, Talia said gently, “Why don’t we wait till morning to talk about it, Harlan? We’re probably better off leaving it until everyone’s together.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess. It’s just that I’m going up to the room to phone my mom now. And I know she’ll ask how many nights I think I’ll be away. So I was wondering if you felt real strongly about Joey’s being guilty, or if you figure you might change your vote, depending on how everyone else sees things.”
“Oh, here’s our dinner,” Talia said, giving the approaching waiter a relieved smile.
ONCE HARLAN GATES had left, Talia and Cade agreed to concentrate on simply enjoying their food. But even though the salmon was wonderful, Talia couldn’t keep her mind off Harlan and his questions.
Why was he so curious about how she’d voted? And about whether or not she might change her mind? Was it really only because he wanted to get home to his mother? She was just about to ask Cade what he thought when the waiter reappeared.
“I was asked to give you this.” He handed her a cream-colored envelope with her name written on the front. “And you’re both jurors, aren’t you?”
When they nodded he said, “Then I won’t be bringing you a bill. Everything’s looked after. Just let me know if you’d like coffee or anything.”
As he turned away Talia pulled the flap open on the unsealed envelope and read the note inside:
My Dear Talia,
I am most distressed that you were involved in the day’s unpleasantness and would like to speak privately with you about something related to it.
My wife and I have a suite on the second floor at the far end of the west wing. If you would meet with me there at your earliest convenience, I would be most obliged. As I may have mentioned, my wife is away at present, but I assure you I am a perfect gentleman.
Love And Lies Page 4
