Ricochet (25 page)

He realized chances were excellent that he was walking into a trap that would spell his doom. He had figured that Savich would launch a surprise attack. Had he been wrong? Had Savich decided on a face-to-face showdown instead?

Or maybe, inside this house, Savich had another gory surprise waiting for him. The corpse of Lucille Jones, perhaps. The prostitute who’d been pleasuring Savich following the murder of Freddy Morris was still at large and, consequently, unable to be questioned by police. Possibly Savich had silenced her forever and left her body here for Duncan to find.

Gordie Ballew also crossed his mind. Had Savich heard that they’d tried to strike a deal with Gordie to turn snitch? Lucky for Gordie, he was safely behind bars in the county jail.

Whatever this old house held in store for him, the moment of truth had arrived. Duncan moved aside the rusty screen door that was hanging by one hinge, then took hold of the doorknob. It turned in his hand. He had to apply his shoulder to get the moisture-swollen door to open, then he stepped across the threshold into the house. The air inside was stifling hot, and had the musty smell of old, vacant houses. But not of decaying flesh, he noted with relief.

Listening intently for any sound, he took a moment to orient himself. It was a traditional Southern house, built before air-conditioning, when cross-ventilation was necessary for cooling during the brutal summers. At one time, maybe a century ago, it would have been a lovely house.

Ahead of him stretched a hallway with a staircase at one end and rooms opening off it on both sides. He crept forward and guardedly looked into the first one on his right. It was empty. Wainscoting and several generations of faded, tearing wallpaper. A hole in the ceiling where a chandelier had once hung. Probably designed to be a dining room.

He crossed the hallway to the opposite room, which was a parlor. Different wallpaper, but also torn. Ragged sheer curtains looking as fragile as spiderwebs hanging in the windows. The room was furnished, but sparsely.

Elise Laird was standing in the center of it.

His heart did something funny. But he raised his gun and pointed it at her.

“You’re here.” Her voice was barely a whisper. The same whispering voice that had left the message on his cell phone. He wondered why he hadn’t recognized it as her voice.

Or had he?

Had he known, despite the mention of Savich, precisely who would be waiting for him here in this dark and deserted house? Had he refused to acknowledge that it was her voice, because if he had, he couldn’t have come here with a clear conscience? Savich provided him justification for coming. She didn’t.

“What the hell?” he asked angrily.

“I used that criminal’s name to get you here.”

“How did you know it would?”

“Cato told me about your history with him.”

He studied her for long, ponderous moments, then lowered the nine-millimeter. But he left a bullet in the chamber and he didn’t return it to the holster. He moved so that his back would be to the wall and not to the open doorway.

Sensing his wariness, she said, “There’s no one else here, if that’s what you’re thinking. I had to see you alone.”

“Whose place is this?”

It was the first time he’d seen her with her hair hanging loose rather than pulled back. It brushed her shoulders when she moved her head. “It belongs to a friend.”

“Your friend should consider refurbishing.”

“He’s been away for a long time. He gave me permission to use the house if I needed to, in exchange for airing it out occasionally.”

Duncan nodded as though that explained everything, when actually it explained nothing. It generated more questions, but those would have to wait. Already, there was enough to talk about.

“Okay, I took the bait and you got me here. What do you want?”

“It’s not a matter of what I want, Duncan. It’s what I need. Your help. I’m desperate.”

Hearing her say his name was like getting a punch in the gut. He tried to ignore the sensation, but couldn’t, and that made him angry. “I assume you sneaked out on your husband.”

“I didn’t have to. Your phone call upset him. He went to the country club.” Reading his surprise, she explained. “A lot of his colleagues, even the DA, are in a poker tournament. They were playing tonight. Cato knew word would circulate that I was being questioned by police again tomorrow. He wanted it to seem that he wasn’t worried. He didn’t tell me that. I just know how he thinks. Anyhow, he went. I waited for Mrs. Berry to go home, then called you.”

“And lured me here to Boo Radley’s house. Why?”

“Would you put the gun away?”

“No.”

“You’ve got nothing to fear from me.”

Only losing my job, he thought. My career. My integrity.

“I’m the one who should be afraid.” Saying that, she took several steps toward him.

He caught a whiff of perfume. It was light, floral. Intoxicating. She was dressed similarly to how she’d been when she showed up at his town house. Skirt, sandals, a tank top. Not nearly as skimpy or revealing as Esteban’s fiancée’s had been. But skimpy enough to make Duncan aware of the shape of her breasts. Uncomfortably aware.

“I know what these little games of yours are about, Mrs. Laird. They’re to keep me off track, to divert me from the investigation, to keep me from arresting you for the murder of Gary Ray Trotter.”

There. That sounded good. He was the investigator; she was the suspect. That’s the way it was, and that’s the way it had to be, even if he was aching to put his hands on her.

“Why don’t you believe I shot Trotter in self-defense? Why don’t you believe me about Cato? About Coleman?”

He paused for effect, then said, “I’m glad you brought him up. I went to Atlanta to see Tony Esteban today.”

Her reaction showed how surprised she was to hear that. “You talked to him?”

“Oh, yeah. We had a friendly chat.”

“What did he say?”

“You’re not his favorite person.”

“Nor he mine.”

“In fact he called you a psycho bitch and worse.”

“He doesn’t even know me. I only met him once at a party.”

“Where Coleman Greer passed out from too much drink, and you and his friend Tony got nekkid and held a private party.”

“What?”

“I’ll spare you the embarrassment of recounting the juicy details. Suffice to say, you were the initiator. You and Esteban had a real good time while your fool of a date, Coleman Greer, was incapacitated.

“But next morning, you turned into every man’s nightmare. Got possessive and clingy. Kept calling Tony on the phone. Wouldn’t go away, and when it became obvious that he wanted nothing more from you than those couple of hot-hot tumbles, you swore to get even with him someday, which turned out to be yesterday when you told Detective Bowen and me that he was Coleman Greer’s gay lover.”

She looked at him aghast. “You believe all that?”

“More than I believe your version.”

She groped behind her for the padded arm of the sofa, one of the few pieces of furniture in the room, and slowly sat down on it. For several minutes she stared into space.

Eventually she looked across at him. “He’s lying,” she stated simply. “He’s
lying
. Yes, Coleman invited me to a Braves party. I told you that. And there, he introduced me to Tony Esteban. Coleman did get drunk that night. But he did so because Tony was flirting with me. Coleman was already infatuated with him, and Tony had led him to believe that his interest was reciprocated.”

Duncan remained silent and skeptical.

“Tony Esteban is a fraud and a liar,” she said with emphasis. “Even if he weren’t homosexual, or bi, or whatever he is, I would never be attracted to him. He’s obnoxious. An egomaniac. I had nothing to do with him that night or any other time.”

“Are you accusing him of the same thing he accused you of? Are you saying he told me all this stuff just to get back at you for rejecting his advances?”

“I don’t give a damn what his motives are. I care even less what he thinks of me,” she said. “But he’s lying about his relationship with Coleman. Tony broke my friend’s heart. He was afraid they were going to be found out, so he refused to see Coleman alone anymore.

“Coleman anguished over the breakup for months. That’s when he and I were meeting often. He was in pain and needed someone he could talk to openly about the love affair, someone he trusted implicitly. He was devastated by Tony Esteban’s rejection and eventually killed himself over it. That is the truth. I swear it.”

Duncan took off his jacket and used his shirt sleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. He was hot and agitated, and dangerously close to believing her, so he argued vehemently against it. “Esteban has got a redheaded bombshell for a fiancée. She performs for him like a trained seal. He bought her a boob job and a diamond ring, and it’s a tie which is bigger. They’re getting married this fall.”

“Of course he has a girl like her. He always does. That was a point of contention between him and Coleman. Whenever Tony boasted of his sexual conquests to their teammates, or squired around his latest squeeze, it wounded Coleman.

“But all Tony’s machismo swagger is for show, Duncan. The marriage will be a sham. Don’t you see that he’s putting on this act as a cover? The redhead is a smoke screen. Within a year she’ll probably be having a child. He’ll make certain of it.”

Duncan had thought along a similar track, but he wasn’t yet ready to concede it.

“Tony treated Coleman horribly,” she said. “He would lavish him with affection one day, ignore him the next. He ran hot and cold and made Coleman miserable.”

“Then why was Coleman so blindly in love with him?”

She didn’t speak for a moment, then said quietly, “I don’t believe we get to choose who we fall in love with. Do you?”

Suddenly it seemed the room became darker, smaller, airless. Duncan’s skin was clammy; his body was humming like a tuning fork. He looked away from her.

He said, “I don’t know who’s gay, who’s straight, or who was screwing who, and frankly it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Meyer Napoli had something on you. The judge paid him off, but Napoli is an enterprising man and saw a way to make another buck.

“He came to you and threatened to make public whatever your dirty little secret was unless you paid him off. You agreed, and told him to meet you in your husband’s study late one night. Napoli said okay, whatever, but he’s no fool. To protect his own ass, he subcontracted dumb, hapless Gary Ray Trotter to be his drop man just in case you weren’t playing straight with him.

“By the way, what did Trotter bring with him that night? Photos, tape recordings, X-rated videos? Maybe you truly weren’t screwing Coleman Greer. Maybe you were actually protecting your best friend’s privacy and public image.

“That doesn’t matter, either. Whatever Napoli had on you, it was damaging not only to you, but to your friend, and — most importantly — to your husband. And above all else, you wanted to safeguard your position as Mrs. Cato Laird.

“You go into the study, as prearranged, expecting Napoli. But there’s Trotter. He said something to you. I know goddamn well he did, although you’ve denied it. After you shot him, you secured the goods, then made it look like you caught a burglar. You may have even planted that tire iron, you may have broken the window yourself.

“Enter Cato. Weak at the thought of how close he came to losing his beloved. You’ve got him coddling you like he’s never coddled you before. He swallows the self-defense story whole, and Trotter ain’t talking.” His eyes narrowed on her. “What must really be haunting you now is, where’s Meyer Napoli? Except for him, you’re clear. He’s the only person who can ruin this for you.”

Her shoulders slumped forward and she bowed her head.

Duncan strode over to her, placed his hand beneath her chin, and yanked her head up. “Isn’t that the way it went down?”

“Yes.” Surprising him, she surged to her feet and thrust her hands toward him, the insides of her wrists pressed together. “Handcuff me. Arrest me. Put me in jail. At least there I’ll be safe.”

“From your husband?”

“Yes!”

“Because he’s going to kill you?”

“Yes! No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not him. He wouldn’t do it himself. He’s not that foolish. He had his chance the other night in the swimming pool. I thought he might drown me and be done with it. But he didn’t kill me then, and he won’t. He’ll just make certain that I die.”

“Why?” Duncan fired at her.

“He…”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you why.”

“Because there is no
why
.”

She shook her head violently. “Just please trust me.”

“Trust you?” He laughed. “Not on a bet.”

“What do I have to do for you to believe me? Turn up dead?”

“That would be a start.”

She drew in a shocked breath and fell back a step.

“In the meantime,” he continued in the same cold voice, “I’ll see you at the Barracks. Tomorrow. Ten o’clock.”

He turned away from her and headed for the center hall. She came after him, caught his arm, and brought him around. “I don’t have anyone else who can or will help me. I’m afraid. Cato knows…”

“What?”

“He knows, or at least suspects, that I know what he’s trying to do. That’s why he told you about Napoli. So he would look like the cuckolded husband, win your sympathy against the unfaithful wife. He let you draw the connection between Napoli and Trotter and ultimately to Coleman to make me look guilty. It’s all a part of his grand scheme.”

“All right,” Duncan said. “If that’s the way it is, make that your official statement. Go on the record with it tomorrow during the interrogation.”

“I can’t. How could I? I would be as good as dead for sure.” Her grip on his arm tightened. “Please, Duncan.”

“What is it exactly you’re asking me to do?”

“Stop investigating
me
. Start investigating Cato, and why Trotter came to our house that night.”

“Which was to kill you?”

“Yes.”

“How would a bungler like Trotter know that you wander around the house in the middle of the night?”