Murder Follows Money (18 page)

“Inspector.”

“We’ve looked over your statement, Ms. Sullivan,” Inspector Daly broke in. “In light of your previous record, we’d like to ask you more questions.”

Hannah frowned. “Did my attorney show up?”

“Not yet.” Scarlatti shook her head.

“Well,” Hannah said, “I don’t know when he’ll get here, but I’m prepared to make a statement about my movements after the—after Naomi died.”

“In good time,” Daly said, concentrating on me.

“Young man, what I have to say will make it unnecessary for you to spend a lot of time on Liz.” Hannah drew herself up. “I’m prepared to take full responsibility—”

“Oh, no,” Kim broke in. “No, no, no.” Her voice rose hysterically. “You didn’t kill her. Did you?”

The inspectors exchanged glances with Officer Diaz, who went to Kim. “I think you’d be happier in your room, Ms. Matthews.”

“I don’t want to be in there alone!” Kim was capable of putting out some decibels when she tried.

“I’ll stay with you.” Officer Diaz led Kim through the kitchen. We could hear their feet crunching.

Inspector Scarlatti turned back to us. “Ms. Couch, why don’t you go with Inspector Daly? He’ll take your statement. I’ll speak with Ms. Sullivan.” She looked at Drake and Bruno. “Did you two want to stay around?” Her smile turned teasing. She was a good-looking woman, not much older than I, with straight blond hair and no wedding ring. “See how it’s done in the big city?”

“Sure thing, Bianca.” Drake smiled back at her. I could see that, though she was a couple of inches taller than he was, she thought he was cute. It made me feel rather smug. “We always benefit from watching the pros, right, Bruno?”

Bruno nodded. “We don’t have many capital cases in our area. You are sure to solve this very complicated matter quickly, is that not so?”

Bianca Scarlatti’s expression turned speculative. “From what I can tell, Ms. Sullivan has been involved in several of your recent murder cases. How do you explain that?”

“Can we sit down?” Drake broke in quickly. “It’s been a long day.”

“Of course.” Scarlatti led us over to the sofas grouped in front of the fireplace. Inspector Daly had already taken Hannah off to the library alcove. We could hear the low murmur of his voice, her stringent tone when she answered, but we couldn’t discern the words.

“I thought you wanted to know about what happened today.” I settled myself, and wished that I had taken Bruno up on his offer of an attorney. “What does that have to do with the past?”

“You have a history of being involved in murder cases.” Scarlatti made her voice patient. “Why is that?”

“Well, because Detective Drake is my neighbor, I guess."

She shot Drake a skeptical look. He sat at his ease, one arm stretched out along the back of the sofa, one foot hiked up on the opposite knee, but I could see the lines of tension around his mouth.

“Well, Detective?”

He shrugged. “She’s my neighbor. I don’t invite her into my cases, but she does sometimes become involved inadvertently. All those murders have been satisfactorily resolved, and no suspicion attaches to her.”

“In a couple of cases,” Bruno put in, “she has been instrumental in finding the solution. Is that not right, Paolo?”

Drake scowled at me. “I don’t approve of civilians helping to investigate. Liz knows that. But it’s true that she is a good observer, and capable of deduction.”

“Very impressive.” Scarlatti sounded sarcastic. “But Ms. Sullivan is an ex-con.”

“You know, I can speak for myself,” I said when Drake opened his mouth. He shut up.

I turned to Scarlatti. “This is an old story, one I’m tired of telling. My husband beat me, and I was fool enough to think each time was the last time. The actual last time, I thought he was going to kill me. I managed to get the gun before he did, and I shot him. He didn’t die. I went to jail, and I divorced him, and even though he kept stalking me, I’m glad now that I wasn’t the person who finally ended up killing him, because I don’t want to be a killer. I don’t like violence. I don’t approve of murder. I’m no vigilante; I don’t see myself as ridding the world of murderers or anything of that nature. I’ve been through a lot of awful stuff, and I just want a peaceful life. Does that answer your questions?”

Scarlatti tapped a pencil against her lips. “If you don’t like violence, how do you explain slapping the deceased yesterday?”

“If Kim told you that story, she undoubtedly told you all of it. Naomi slapped me. It seemed to me that she was used to getting away with bullying people. I slapped her back. It wasn’t really a considered decision, but I don’t regret it. She deserved it.”

Scarlatti made a note. “So how did you come to hook up with Hannah Couch?”

“I do temp work, and a media relations firm hired me to type and file. This job came in as an emergency, and there was no one to drive but the owner, Judi Kershay. She asked me to do it. She offered me a lot of money. I accepted.”

“Why didn’t Judi Kershay drive?” Scarlatti pounced on this tidbit.

I shrugged. “She has some kind of history with Hannah. As it turns out, no one wants to drive Hannah, because she’s capricious and demanding, and Naomi was worse. She had summarily fired the people who’d set up the tour, and her publishers begged Judi to take it on as a favor. At least, that’s what Judi told me. Maybe you should talk to her.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Scarlatti said. “Maybe we will.” She got to her feet, a tall, graceful blonde, and walked over to the windows, pulling a cell phone out of her bag.

“She hasn’t mellowed,” Bruno said to Paul in a low voice.

“She’s full of herself,” he agreed, “but she does good work. We just might be here awhile.”

“You don’t have to stay on my account.” I tried to sound independent, instead of forlorn. “I can get the train back.”

“We’re concerned in the investigation,” Bruno told me gently. “She will start to rake us over the coals soon. We can’t leave until then."

“So they obviously don’t think Naomi died of a heart attack, if they’re going to all this trouble.”

“I’d say they have a pretty good idea of how she died, even without the toxicology tests.” Drake’s fingers tapped impatiently on the back of the couch.

Scarlatti returned, holstering her cell phone. “Now. Why don’t you give me the story about this morning, Ms. Sullivan?”

I went through it for her, how I’d driven up from Palo Alto, the tension when I arrived, the confrontation that had ended with Naomi’s death.

Scarlatti wrote it down, though she was taping me too. I didn’t know if she believed me. Since Hannah was evidently willing to say that she’d done the abducting, I thought we might get out of there quickly after all.

“As you’re such a good observer,” Scarlatti said when I finished telling her about the morning, “is there anything else you noticed while you were working with Ms. Couch and Ms. Matthews the previous day?” She darted a mischievous look at Drake and Bruno. “Remember, these guys were bragging about you."

“Thanks for putting me on the spot,” I said to Drake. “Actually, some weird things happened yesterday.” I told Scarlatti about the notes that had frightened Hannah, and the arrangement of forget-me-nots and ivy she had commanded me to throw away. About the quarrel over the crepe maker, and Naomi’s drinking at the FanciFoods event. I told her everything I could think of that might give her an idea. I didn’t tell her anything Hannah had told us around Bridget’s table. I was going to let Hannah tell about finding and destroying Naomi’s tell-all manuscript. And it seemed to me that someone should tell Don that he was Naomi’s son before the police found out about it, though I wasn’t sure how that could be accomplished. And perhaps he already knew. Perhaps he’d known before the whole thing had started.

“You are a good observer, if you’re not making this up.” Scarlatti put down her pen and stared at me speculatively.

“Kim was there when I threw away the flowers. She even said someone gave Hannah a similar arrangement when they left Boston. And Kim was at the TV station when Hannah implied that Naomi did away with her brother, who was Kim’s uncle. Didn’t she tell you about this stuff?”

“She’s been less than coherent, and the other one, Don, hardly says two words.” Scarlatti got to her feet. “I’m going to bring them all over here, in the interests of brevity, and see if we can get some agreement.”

Before she could do so, the front door of the suite opened. Another uniformed cop escorted a tall, well-dressed man into the room. “Attorney for Hannah Couch,” the uniform announced, and then let himself back out.

Hannah walked around the library desk. “I’m so glad you came,” she said, doing her gracious act, holding out her hand.

The man took it. “Richard Kendall. Nice to meet you, Ms. Couch.” He looked at the police with haughty determination. “We need a private room so I can confer with my client.”

“You can use one of these bedrooms,” Scarlatti said, heading toward the kitchen. “We’re going to ask Don and Kim to come in for a while.”

I caught Hannah’s arm as she went by. “Don’t you think someone should tell Don . . ."

Hannah paused, taken aback. “Well, I don’t want to. It’s not really my place.”

“Tell him what?” Scarlatti thrust herself between us.

“My client has nothing more to say until I’ve had a chance to speak with her,” Richard Kendall said with authority.

“It’s nothing to do with this.” Hannah shook off Kendall, returning to her more usual brusque manner. “Don, you know, was adopted. He’s actually Naomi’s son. She gave him up at birth. A couple of months ago she had private detectives search for him, and she asked me to hire him for this tour. That’s all I know. Maybe she already told him. In any case, I can’t do it.”

She turned back to Kendall. “What are we waiting for?” Still regal, she led him through the kitchen, crunching debris as they went.

Scarlatti looked a little dazed. “You get used to it,” I said to her kindly.

“How did you know this?”

“After Hannah kidnapped me, she also abducted a friend who stopped by my house when she saw news reports that I was a dangerous criminal.”

“We faxed you the statement Bridget Montrose made,” Drake added. “I assume you’ve looked at it. It substantiates Ms. Sullivan’s statement.”

“I’ve looked at it.” Scarlatti didn’t say anything else.

I looked narrowly at her. “Perhaps I should have a word with Mr. Kendall when he’s finished being run through Hannah’s wringer. The loss of the good name I’ve been trying to build up for the past few years could be worth something.”

Scarlatti waved that away and towed me back to the sofa. “Go on. Hannah abducted you, then your friend.”

“She made us take her to the thrift store to shop for vintage linens.”

“Oh, the horror!” Scarlatti rolled her eyes.

“Well, being held at gunpoint and made to look for linens isn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me, but it’s on the list. Anyway, after that she wanted to go to Bridget’s house—my friend—because she thought they might be staking out my house. So while we were sitting around at Bridget’s, we offered to try and figure out the crime so she would let us go.” I came to a halt. “It sounds lame, but we didn’t have a lot of options until after we’d disarmed her.”

“At that point you didn’t call 911,” Scarlatti mentioned.

“I did call Drake. Bridget had promised not to call the police. I didn’t promise. Anyway, while we were hashing through it, Hannah mentioned this about Don.”

“Anything else you’re holding back?”

“I’m not holding it back,” I said, irritated. “I just feel someone should tell Don in a decent way that Naomi was his mother.”

“You’re right. Someone should.” Don spoke from behind me. We turned to see Don and Kim in the kitchen doorway, with Officer Diaz behind them. Kim had her hand to her mouth. Don was impassive, but he started blinking. He pulled one of the chairs out from the big table and sat abruptly, burying his head in his hands.

Kim patted him on the shoulder. “Don, I’m so sorry.” She looked at us. “He lost his mom—I guess his adoptive mom—last year. Maybe he and Naomi could have—” Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, it’s all so awful.”

The front door opened again. “Ms. Kershay.” The officer appeared to be getting into his role as hotel butler. He almost bowed as he ushered Judi Kershay into the room.

Judi looked around at all of us, her gaze fixing on me. “Liz, are you okay? I’ve been so worried about you after the reports came out. I tried to call you on the cell phone, but you didn’t answer.

“Hannah turned off all the cell phones.”

“You thought Liz was the one to worry about?” Inspector Daly posed the question smoothly. “Not Ms. Couch?”

“Never Hannah.” Judi looked from him to Scarlatti, evidently pegging them as the authorities. “I knew Hannah was behind it as soon as I heard the report on the radio.”

“But you didn’t call to correct us,” Scarlatti said. “I wonder why?”

“We all wonder why,” Drake put in. “It would have been nice for Liz if the media had stopped branding her as an abductor. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Judi looked bewildered. “I did call the hotel and asked to be put in touch with whoever was investigating. I was put on hold, and then a voice mail said to leave a message, so I did. No one got back to me until half an hour ago. I thought you were calling me back. Who are all you people, and why should I answer anything? Am I under suspicion? Do I need an attorney?”

“There’s one in the other room, but Hannah has him sewn up.” I had an insane urge to babble. The tension in the room was getting thick, and my impulse was to try and dissipate it. “Maybe he has friends we can talk to.”

“You are not currently at risk of being charged,” Scarlatti said, sending me a quelling look before turning to Judi. “If you’re afraid anything you say could incriminate you, you should have an attorney present.”

“Well, it couldn’t incriminate me. It goes back to a promise I made Hannah the last time I drove for her.”

“We’re waiting.” Scarlatti gestured Judi into one of the chairs around the fireplace. I didn’t know why she didn’t take her aside, but perhaps she didn’t think it would be any big thing.