Maggie and the Empty Noose

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "Except for Reese Stevens."

  "What?"

  "You had Reese Stevens in common."

  "Not in common," she said, giving Will a dirty look. "We were all acquaintances. But Reese and Olivia didn't see each other much. And I only saw her occasionally when she came to Carita with Shane."

  "Her son." He looked down at a paper in front of him. "John Shane Tibbets, stage name Shane Stevens."

  "He doesn't have a stage name," she corrected. "He's just a kid."

  He handed her the paper. It was a printout of a tabloid story about Olivia's possible casting in a reality show, along with her strikingly handsome teen son, Shane Stevens, son of actor Reese Stevens.

  She shrugged and handed the paper back.

  "When did you first see Ms. Sigworth last night?"

  She took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly. She could see now, he was going to make her tell every detail for the record. "I saw her around 7:00 PM, when I closed up my bead store and was walking across the street to O'Riley's Coffee Shop."

  He continued his catechism, putting on the record everything they'd already talked about. "And did you speak to her at that time?"

  "Just briefly, when I ran into her on the street," she answered patiently. "She was with her boyfriend, a guy I'd never met before. She introduced him as Tom Vee. And you should maybe take the description I gave you and go find him because maybe he's the real killer," she added sarcastically, enunciating clearly for the recording.

  "Thank you for your input into our investigation, Ms. McJasper. We'll take that under advisement. So what happened next?"

  "Next I went to O'Riley's. I had a caramel macchiato and a cruller. It was a cinnamon cruller."

  He smirked at her. "Thank you for providing those scintillating details, Ms. McJasper."

  She smirked back at him. This was absurd. They should be out searching for that sketchy-looking boyfriend. She'd never seen him around before, and he was probably the real murderer who was skipping town while they sat here wasting time.

  Ibarra continued his slow walk-through of last night's events. "At some point, Olivia Sigworth entered O'Riley's Coffee Shop, correct?"

  "Correct. I don't know the exact time, but it was after I saw her on the street, and before the coffee shop closed."

  "And how many people were in the coffee shop at that time?"

  "Maybe a dozen," she answered. "Why don't you question them?"

  "We already have questioned some of them, and will follow up with the rest. So their son was already there in the coffee shop?"

  "Yes. He was there with his father, but he got upset when his parents were talking about him, and so he left."

  "At what time did you witness this argument between Mr. Stevens and Ms. Sigworth?"

  She leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her. "As I already stated, Lieutenant, I witnessed a little disagreement between them between the time I closed my store and the time I left the coffee shop." She thought about it. "Between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM, but I don't know the exact time."

  "And where did the argument take place?"

  "The disagreement took place in O'Riley's Coffee Shop." Disagreement. No matter how she tried to minimize it, it was damning evidence and Ibarra knew it.

  "And what were the exact words you heard them say to each other?"

  She glared at him. "Will, isn't that hearsay or something? Can you use that in court?"

  "Maggie, knock it off. I'm taking a statement from a witness. This isn't Perry Mason, and you're not that junkie's defense attorney. I'm allowed to ask any questions I want as background to my investigation. And by the way, statements against interest and excited utterances are exceptions to the hearsay rule in court, so stop getting smart with me and answer my questions."

  He looked up at the interview camera again. "What were the exact words you overheard?"

  She sighed. "I can't remember the exact words."

  Ibarra scowled at her and nodded toward the camera. Everything she said would be played in court as evidence against Reese, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  "Fine," she said. "To the best of my recollection, they were talking about a viral video of their son Shane."

  "What kind of a video?"

  "Reese and his son had played music together in the café a couple weeks ago. Someone secretly recorded them, and uploaded the video online, where it went viral and brought a lot of attention to Shane. Reese thought Olivia was behind it."

  "So what? Why would they argue about that?"

  "Olivia was trying to get hired by the Hottest Hollywood Housewives show. You know, the reality show about rich women's lives. She was using her connection to Reese to try to get the job."

  "And he didn't want her to do that?"

  "I don't think he cared about her using him. But Olivia wanted their son to appear on the show. She wanted to make him famous like his father and use that to further her own career."

  "And Reese didn't like that?"

  Maggie swallowed hard, knowing they were getting to the bad part. "Of course he didn't. Fame almost killed him when he first became famous. He didn't want that to happen to his own son. So he had enrolled Shane in a private boarding school far away from LA, and was trying to give him a chance at a normal life."

  "So he felt very strongly about this?" Ibarra asked innocently, as if he didn't already know where this was leading.

  She glared at him, but he just looked placidly at her. "Did he feel strongly about this, Ms. McJasper?"

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "Yes, what?"

  "Yes, he felt strongly about how his son was being used."

  "He felt his son's happiness was in danger," Ibarra said, pressing his point home.

  "He felt his son's life was in danger, not just his happiness," she said.

  "Why his life?"

  She tapped her foot on the floor. "Because when Reese was only a teenager he became a rock star and he almost died because of it. He didn't want the same thing to happen to his son."

  "I see," Ibarra said, as if this was news to him. "And why did Reese Stevens almost die back then?"

  She turned her head away and stared at the earthquake preparedness poster on the wall. Gee, she hadn't known that it was unsafe to stand in a doorway during a quake.

  "Ms. McJasper?"

  She fought back the tears, glowered at Will, and tried not to hate him.

  "Why did he almost die back then?" Will asked gently.

  He knew, everyone knew, but he was going to force her to say it for the recording.

  She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. "Because he was a heroin addict." Then she added, desperately, "but he hasn't taken drugs for over eleven years."

  "Did he tell you that?"

  "I know he hasn't," Maggie said desperately. "I know."

  "You believe that, but you don't actually know, do you? You don't spend twenty-four hours a day with him."

  "I'm not with him all the time," she admitted.

  "Now," Ibarra said. "Back to this argument. You say they were arguing about their son."

  "Yes."

  "An argument that was loud enough and upsetting enough that their son left the coffee shop to get away from it."

  "Yes," she whispered.

  "And did they reach an agreement on how to handle the situation?"

  "Not exactly," she admitted.

  "I see. So how did the argument end?"

  She bit her lip. "I don't understand the question."

  She understood the question. Ibarra knew she understood the question. The whole world would understand the question.

  She shook her head at him, but he just looked pityingly at her. And waited for the answer.

  "Olivia left the coffee house," she said. "I don't know where she went after that."

  "I see. And what was the last thing she said before she left?"

  He wasn't going to let this go. He was going to make her say it on the record. If she didn't
say it on the record, he was going to drag her into court and charge her with contempt. He was a cop, straight down the line, and there was nothing she could do about it.

  "She said, 'you wouldn't dare'," Maggie whispered.

  "I didn't catch that. What were the last words Olivia Sigworth said before she left the coffee house, Ms. McJasper?"

  "You wouldn't dare," Maggie repeated, louder.

  "She was speaking to Reese Stevens?"

  "Yes."

  "And she was telling him he wouldn't dare."

  "Yes."

  "What wouldn't he dare do, Ms. McJasper?"

  Maggie felt the tears rolling down her face. "He wouldn't dare kill her." She wiped her eyes. "He said he would kill her if she wouldn't leave their son alone, and she said, 'you wouldn't dare'."

  Chapter Seven

  They took a break then when Ibarra got a call from Chief Randall and went out into the squad room to brief his team.

  While she was waiting, a young woman with short-cropped curls poked her head in the door of Ibarra's office.

  Lauren Douglas was the police department's records clerk and part-time dispatcher. She was also one of Maggie's best customers at the bead shop, was the owner of an impeccably trained German Shepherd, and was helping Maggie turn Jasper into a well-behaved pet.

  "How's it going?" Lauren asked with a frown. She usually had a sunny smile for Maggie, but not today.

  Maggie shrugged. "Are you allowed to speak to me? I think Ibarra's got me in purgatory here."

  "I'm not supposed to talk, but I can give you a cup of coffee." She handed Maggie a steaming paper cup.

  "Is Reese at the hospital?" Maggie asked, taking a sip of the coffee and feeling its warmth jolt her body out of the numb shock she'd been feeling.

  "It was a close call," Lauren whispered. "But the doctors say he'll make it."

  Maggie's fingers tightened on the paper cup, collapsing the sides.

  "Hey!" Lauren said. "You're going to spill that."

  Maggie loosened her grip on the cup. "What do you mean, close call?"

  Lauren came further into the room, partly closing the door behind her. She glanced back at the squad room outside. "He almost OD'd," she whispered. "But they gave him a couple doses of naloxone, and he came out of it. They said he had ingested an almost lethal dose."

  "A lethal dose of what? Did they say?"

  Lauren nodded. "Oxycodone."

  "Oxy," Maggie whispered. "Yikes. That's like heroin, isn't it?"

  "It's a synthetic opiate. Like heroin. But really concentrated. It's much more expensive than street heroin, though, so it's hard to get unless you have a lot of cash or a shady doctor dealing for you under the table."

  "Money's no object for Reese," Maggie muttered. Her mind raced. Could the oxy trigger the same reaction in a former addict that heroin would? Was it like falling off the wagon for an addict to take any kind of opiate? Would that affect what a lethal dose would be for him? She would have to investigate that.

  "I always thought Reese was pretty straight and narrow," Lauren was saying. "Living in this small town instead of in Hollywood, and hanging out with us regular people and all that. What was he thinking?"

  Maggie shrugged, still pondering.

  "Where do you think he got the oxy?" Lauren asked.

  "He could get anything he wanted," Maggie muttered. "A suitcase full of cash. A yacht. Drugs. All he'd have to do is snap his fingers. He isn't really just like us regular people at all." Then she shook herself out of that thought. "But he wouldn't do that."

  Lauren raised an eyebrow.

  "No, really," Maggie said. "He wouldn't."

  "I'm sorry, Maggie."

  "Why does everyone keep saying, 'sorry, Maggie' to me? I'm not the one being railroaded."

  "Railroaded?" Lauren looked pityingly at her. "There was a dead body in his bed, Maggie."

  "Do you think I don't know that?" Maggie's voice was getting loud, and she forced herself to settle down. Lauren wasn't the enemy. She was just saying what everyone was thinking.

  Maggie set her coffee cup on the desk. "Did they check the orange juice?" she asked.

  "What orange juice?"

  "He said the orange juice tasted bad. He always keeps a big carton of orange juice in the fridge. He guzzles it like water. Did they check it to see if there was oxy in it?"

  Ibarra pushed the door open and came in. "They checked the orange juice," he said. "They are doing their jobs."

  He glared at Lauren. "Don't you have some reports to file, Ms. Douglas?"

  "Of course, Sir," she said. "I was just bringing the prisoner some coffee."

  "Don't get smart," Ibarra said. "She's not a prisoner. She's a witness."

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Now get out of here."

  "Yes, Sir," she repeated. She winked at Maggie, but Maggie didn't have the awareness to even wink back. Oxy. Overdosing.

  Ibarra closed the door and glared at Maggie.

  "What did they find in the orange juice?" Maggie asked.

  Ibarra smirked. "Okay, so you were right."

  "Oxy?"

  "Oxy," he said. "A ton of it."

  "And in the pool?"

  "There was a broken glass with traces of drugs still in it. He must have only drunk about half the glass before dropping it, and that's why he's not dead."

  "Can they trace where the oxy came from?"

  "There was an empty bottle of the stuff in Olivia's purse. And no, no fingerprints on the bottle except Olivia's."

  "Not Reese's?" she asked.

  "No. Not Reese's."

  "Will," she said, "don't you see now that this has to be some kind of setup?"

  "She tried to poison him but he caught her and killed her?" Ibarra asked. "Is that the theory now? That fancy lawyer might plead diminished capacity, I suppose, but good luck getting a jury to buy it."

  She hadn't even thought of it that way. "But it doesn't mean he killed her at all! It means he's the victim. How many people could have known about his habit of drinking tons of orange juice? That's the question you need to ask now."

  "His orange juice habit was mentioned in a People Magazine profile a couple of years ago. Anyone could have known."

  She must had looked surprised because he added, "we're investigating, Maggie. Did you think we wouldn't check stuff like that?"

  "Of course not," she said. "But now don't you see he's being framed?"

  He sat down behind his desk again. "No, Ms. McJasper, I don't."

  "We're back to Ms. McJasper again, is that it?" She leaned forward. "But can't you see how weird this is?"

  He frowned. "It's not my job to see things. I investigate. I look for clues. I don't jump to conclusions. We professionals don't have the luxury of being all-knowing and making assumptions about what happened. We actually have to wait until we find the evidence to build a case."

  "And you're determined to build a case against Reese." She sat back in the chair and picked up her coffee cup again, draining it in one gulp. "That's not fair."

  Ibarra shook his head. "What's not fair is a woman being dead. That's not fair."

  "But what about Tom Vee? If she had a boyfriend, wouldn't he be the most likely suspect?"

  "The most likely suspect in any murder is an angry ex-lover who hated the victim, Maggie. You know that."

  "But—" she started.

  "—And yes, we are looking for this Tom Vee. But there's no DMV record for anyone with that name fitting your description."

  "Maybe he's from out of state," she said desperately. "Or maybe it's an alias. Maybe—"

  "Maybe you need to let us do our jobs." Then his tone changed and he continued, more gently. "Maggie, please. I know you like the guy—I don't know why, but I get that you do—but can't you see where this is leading? He threatened to kill her just yesterday, and then woke up in bed with her dead body this morning."

  "That's just circumstantial," she insisted.

  "Yes. It's all circumstantial. It's a
strong circumstantial case and we will follow all the evidence to its logical, rational, non-hysterical conclusion."

  "Will Ibarra, if you call me a hysterical female, I will never, ever, give you any of my dad's chile verde again."

  He barely cracked a smile. "Fair enough. You are not hysterical. You are just biased. Understandably. It's hard to accept that a friend is a killer. So you need to stay out of it and let the unbiased professionals handle this."

  "You're going to handle an innocent man right into prison," she muttered.

  "Go home, Maggie." He looked down at the papers on his desk, dismissing her.

  She started to say more, but he didn't look up.

  She stood up from the chair. Crushed the paper cup that had held her coffee, and tossed it into the trash can by his desk.

  "Fine," she said.

  "And stay out of it," he said, shuffling papers.

  "Sure, Lieutenant," she said sarcastically. "I'll stay out of it."

  Maggie braved the gauntlet to get into the hospital. The tabloid hacks and curious onlookers were camped out by the entrance, but she'd rung up Nora, and Nora had a security guard bring her through a side entrance and up to the second floor.

  Nora met her outside the door of Reese's private hospital room. There were police parked there, so they moved down the hall to a little spot where a gurney was stored out of the way.

  Nora McJasper was about fifteen years older than her. Nora was the same willowy blond she'd been when she was crowned Miss Cattle Queen of Deep Creek, California long ago. But now, at the age of fifty, her hair was pure white, and cropped short, and she had long-ago achieved a cynical sophistication borne of years in the trenches of Hollywood dealmaking. Nora had come to Los Angeles at the age of eighteen with dreams of stardom. Finding out she had no acting talent hadn't even slowed her down, and she'd changed gears to become a high-powered talent manager married to a movie executive.