Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson
Killer Deal (15 page)
Tricia drew herself up in mock defensiveness. “That doesn’t pertain to this experiment because we’ve never had the variable of skipping work and wearing grubbies for a man before.”
Cassady laughed. “Just a little longer, please. Just a little.”
“How about all the way until Friday? Say, Emile Trebask’s gala?”
Cassady sniffed the air. “Do I detect an ulterior motive?”
“Not at all. I’ve been given the task of filling a table for the gala and of course I’d love the two of you to come with the gentlemen of your choosing and it strikes me as a grand time for us to meet Aaron. Besides, as a physicist, he can explain the black hole of fashion that will be created by Eileen’s debut as a model.”
I laid out the twisted road to the runway and Cassady laughed heartily. Tricia sat back, jingling the ice cubes in her glass. “So you and Kyle, Cassady and Aaron, and me and … Hmmm.”
Cassady arched an eloquent eyebrow. “The list of possibilities must be long and varied, as usual.”
Tricia shook her head. “The list is boring. You’re both going to be there with someone you’ve deemed special and I’m going to wind up there with someone I’ve deemed tolerable.”
Cassady jumped to her feet. “If ever there were a call to the hunt, that’s it. What do you say, gals? Cocktails at a few of our favorite haunts, see what’s in season to spice up Tricia’s list?”
Tricia shook her head. “You still have work to do and Molly has an appointment. I’ll think of someone, not to worry.”
“You could always go back and throw money at boys in fine hotels,” I suggested.
We brought Cassady up to speed and I explained the delicate nature of that evening’s meeting with Detective Donovan, which I was now looking forward to even more, since I had a new theory in mind.
“Are you going to share this new theory with Detective Donovan?” Cassady asked.
“It wouldn’t be very responsible of me until I have more to back it up with.”
“But you are going to get together with Detective Donovan.”
“Let’s choose our verbs carefully. I’m going to meet Detective Donovan and we are going to exchange information. It’s all business.”
Tricia brightened. “Maybe she needs backup to make sure it stays that way.”
Cassady smiled eagerly. “Are we volunteering?”
“I could make myself available. But I will not be seen anywhere outside this building with you until you’re properly dressed,” Tricia said.
“All can be arranged.”
“And just so we’re clear,” I interjected, “it’s him you don’t trust, not me, right?”
“Do we dignify that with a response?” Cassady asked.
“A direct ego stroke would suffice.”
“We just think it’s so wonderful that you have this assignment that you’ve wanted for so long, we don’t want anything or anyone to mess it up,” Tricia offered. “And, pardon me for saying so, but if Kyle doesn’t like him, you need to be on your guard.”
“Or accompanied by one or two,” I admitted. Not only did I appreciate the notion of Tricia and Cassady coming along, I could see the benefits of demonstrating to Detective Donovan from the beginning that this was a brief interview and nothing else.
Cassady left us to shower and change. Tricia and I lingered over our coffee, knowing it would be at least half an
hour before we could get access to a non-steamed-up mirror. We both called in to make sure our offices were surviving without us, then returned to the mysteries at hand.
hour before we could get access to a non-steamed-up mirror. We both called in to make sure our offices were surviving without us, then returned to the mysteries at hand.
“Why all the secrecy, do you suppose?” I asked.
“He’s either married, ugly, or so delicious she thinks we’re going to devour him on the spot. Which could be fascinating, because she isn’t usually all that possessive.”
I nodded slowly, thinking back over Cassady’s former flames. Tricia was right; Cassady wasn’t generally possessive because most men were so smitten by her that their attention was incapable of straying enough for them to be distracted by anyone else.
But a possessive woman might go to great lengths to keep a man to herself. Or keep him from being available for someone else. Gwen had seemed anxious to discard Garth; had one of the Harem seen that as her opportunity and then, when rebuffed, lashed out with a gun? I reviewed the group in my mind: Most of them were fairly intense, with the exception of Lindsay and Francesca, but all of them spoke of Garth with reverence, even if Wendy’s statements were laced with anger. Was that the grief talking or was it something else?
Cassady emerged a surprisingly short time later, dressed beautifully in a silk wrap blouse and pencil skirt. Detective Donovan was in for quite a surprise.
He reacted with grace and a big grin when he approached our table at Bemelman’s a few minutes after six. The place was already filling with the anxious hum of the worker bees, as glamorous, professional, and transient as they might be, released from their hives and swooping down in search of the evening’s nectar. The ritual is fascinating to watch when you have no vested interest in anyone’s success or failure and we were having a delightful time handicapping the action at the bar when Detective Donovan walked up.
“This is a surprise,” he said, standing over us and giving Tricia and Cassady such blatant lookings-over that I wanted to put my arms around them or at least drape my jacket over them.
“Detectives probably don’t like surprises,” Tricia replied in a silky tone that led me to believe she would have stiff-armed the jacket had I offered it.
“Actually, we love them. Especially the nice ones,” he said, sliding down into the chair next to her.
“But isn’t the real thrill in uncovering?” Cassady asked.
“Uncovering a surprise is better yet,” he answered, smiling so fully that his ears moved with the effort.
“I don’t mean to intrude, but Cassady Lynch and Tricia Vincent, this is Wally Donovan,” I said, perhaps the most surprised of the four of us. Not that both of them can’t be masterful flirts, but it was unusual for Tricia to dive in so quickly. It’s generally something she works up to slowly, but this was flirting a la Porsche—zero to sixty in the bat of an eyelash.
They all shook hands and I swore Detective Donovan started to kiss Tricia’s hand, then thought better of it. And I don’t think my little cough of disbelief was what derailed him, just his inner sense of rhythm, which was telling him to slow the hell down. I was hoping Tricia’s might speak up, too, but her mouth was set in that small pucker of determination she gets when she sets her sights on something or someone. One of my bodyguards was apparently all too willing to throw herself on the grenade, should the grenade be similarly inclined.
“Thanks for meeting me,” Detective Donovan said to me, remembering the original purpose of our gathering.
“I hope you don’t mind that I brought my friends along,” I said, making it clear I knew he didn’t mind at all.
“Not at all, as long as you don’t mind if we talk business for a moment. It’s pressing, but this morning wasn’t the best.”
“How is Mr. Douglass?” I asked.
“Still in the hospital.”
“Goodness, Molly, what did you do to the poor man?” Cassady asked. She settled back into her chair, deferring to Tricia in the battle for Detective Donovan’s attention.
“I didn’t think he was hurt that badly,” I said with a
twinge of remorse. I had only wanted to disarm the man, not wound him for life.
twinge of remorse. I had only wanted to disarm the man, not wound him for life.
“They suspect a concussion. He’s also on psych review while Hernandez and her crowd sort out charges.” Detective Donovan leaned in, dropping his voice. “If you own stock in his company, better hope your broker’s still at the office, ’cause you want to sell fast.”
“Have you talked to him?”
“Preliminary. Little too doped up.”
“Do you think he killed Garth Henderson?” Tricia asked. Coming from her, it sounded like the slightly awed question of a woman flirting with a detective. Coming from me, it would have sounded like a challenge. Perhaps she was just playing with him to help me out.
Whichever, it worked. He shifted slightly in her direction. “I haven’t discounted him yet.”
I thought about scribbling a note on my napkin and sliding it over to Tricia, but she didn’t need it. “Have you discounted anyone?” was the perfect follow-up question she anticipated and asked for me.
“The four of us,” he answered. “And Ronnie Willis.”
“Really?” I asked before I could stop myself. “Why Ronnie? And why not Gwen?”
“I interviewed Willis and he’s just not a killer. He’s too freaked out about his future. That’s not a guy who could pull a trigger. And I know it’s a woman, so I gotta keep Gwen Lincoln on my list.”
“How do you know it’s a woman?” Cassady asked, leaning back in out of genuine interest in the discussion.
“I was at the crime scene. There was evidence.”
“Such as?”
Detective Donovan smoothed his tie several times, letting us know what was coming next was difficult for him to say. “That’s pretty valuable information.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked, more sharply than I’d intended, but he seemed to be leading up to something unsavory.
“There’s a business arrangement to be made here.”
“You should know,” Cassady said, on the same train of thought I was, “I’m a lawyer and as an officer of the court—”
“Ladies, ladies,” Detective Donovan protested, his smile getting decidedly crooked, “you can’t think that I’d come here and propose something illicit.”
“So much for my plans for the night,” Tricia said, trying to lighten things a bit—but it didn’t help. Kyle had warned me that Detective Donovan wasn’t a good cop, but I hadn’t understood he might be a dirty cop.
“I’m talking about a book deal.”
All three of us gaped at him. His crooked smile nearly did a cartwheel as it twisted yet again while he waited for one of us to say something.
I was the most articulate first. “What?”
“I think there’s a great book in this case and I’m looking for a journalist who’d like to write it with me.”
“Shouldn’t you solve the case before you start franchising it?” Cassady asked.
“We’re getting closer all the time,” Detective Donovan said earnestly. “But I thought it would be invaluable for my co-writer to be as close to the process for as long as possible.”
Pieces of information swirled around inside my head, like that arcade game where the air blows the bumblebees in little gusts and you have to grab them up and put them back in the hive. “That’s why you’ve been talking to Peter Mulcahey?” I asked, grabbing as fast as I could.
“I’ve been talking to him because we’re old friends. Back in the day and all that.”
“Have you talked to him about the book?”
“I ran it past him, but he wasn’t interested.”
“That tells you a lot, when Peter takes a pass,” Cassady muttered.
“I think you and Molly working together could be a very interesting idea,” Tricia said, placing her hand lightly on the detective’s arm. I started to protest, but the very pointed toe of her Stuart Weitzman pumps found the sweet spot in my right shin and I stopped to silently contemplate if I’d ever walk again.
“What do you think, Molly?” Detective Donovan asked.
I swung my legs toward Cassady and away from Tricia. “It has possibilities. But only if you really think you’re on to something. I can’t devote a lot of time to a case that’s going to stay open until it’s cold.”
Detective Donovan’s gaze moved from one of us to the next to the next, sizing up the table before placing his bet. “The crime scene stank with perfume. Expensive stuff, not call girl stuff. That’s why I’m not eliminating any of the women in his life.”
I deliberately waited a beat before asking, “Was it Success? The perfume?”
For a detective, he didn’t have much of a poker face. “What makes you ask that?”
“It was a prominent product in Garth’s life.”
“Yes, it was Success. Gwen Lincoln ID’ed it for us that night. She was wearing it, too.”
“Of course she was wearing it, she helped create it,” Cassady said. “But she’s not the only one who wears it.”
“It’s not in stores yet.”
“No, but Garth’s agency has samples,” I said. “The people who work for Emile Trebask have access. Emile’s been handing out samples all over town. I have some. You can’t suspect Gwen just because of her perfume.”
“It’s not just the perfume, it’s the divorce and the merger plus the perfume, right?” Tricia asked him. He nodded.
“What about the tooth?” I asked.
A frown rippled across his brow. “I don’t think I want to divulge that until our relationship is clarified.”
“Gwen told me his mouth was cut. Someone else told me there was a problem with his teeth. They were chipped, right, or broken? Because someone hit him in the mouth hard enough to cut his mouth and chip his tooth?”
“Have you seen the size of the rings Gwen Lincoln wears?” he asked, balling his hand into a fist—for demonstration purposes only, I hoped.
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