Death Before Facebook (Skip Langdon #4) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  “Did she tell you what was in it? Taunt you or anything?”

  “Taunt me?” He was doing his best to feign puzzlement.

  “Oh, well, there was that post of course.”

  “What post?”

  “You know. The one in which she stopped just short of revealing the contents.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You didn’t see it?”

  “All right, I saw it. You think Lenore found something in that journal that incriminates me, don’t you? And tried to blackmail me. But Lenore would never do that. I don’t even have any money, Skip. That ought to be obvious to you. No one in their right mind would try to blackmail me.”

  “It could have been for drugs. But my guess is, it wasn’t that. More likely it was love. What do you think of that?”

  “I don’t begin to understand this.”

  “See, I think it went kind of like this: ‘You’re my man now and it’s our secret.’ Boom. Fait accompli.”

  He shrugged. “She never mentioned the damn diary to me. I was the one always bringing it up, which just made her mad.”

  “Did you see it tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Do you happen to know Lenore’s password?”

  “Now, how would I know that?”

  “It’s taped to her computer. But maybe she told you what it was—”

  “Hey, she did. I do know her password. Or I could if I worked out where the caps are. She told me it’s Aphrodite spelled backwards.”

  “Right. So you know her password. You could have just made that post yourself—about the journal. And then you went back to drinking with her, even made love with her. Then when she was thoroughly incapacitated, you drowned her and posted her ‘suicide’ note. Not a bad plan at all, except—”

  “Bullshit! Why would I come to you in that case? If I was that cagey, why didn’t I just go home?”

  “The tipster’s usually the guilty one. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Of course. You’re dealing with a journalist here—do you really think I wouldn’t know that? So I would only have done it if I was innocent—and a good citizen, I might add.”

  “You’d have only done it if you had to—which you did. Because you screwed up, Pearce. Quite literally, I’d say.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You realized later you’d made the mistake of having sex with her. It suddenly occurred to you you could be nailed by a semen test. So you’d better damn well have a good excuse for being over that evening, even if it meant making up a cock-and-bull story no child would believe.”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you’re a bully, Ms. Langdon?”

  “Mind calling me ‘Officer,’ Pearce?” She was in such a good mood, she smiled at him.

  “Look, if you don’t believe me, go search my house. You’re not going to find any journal.”

  Her coffee high vanished.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  SHE CONDUCTED THE search as a formality only—he’d signed the consent forms for both his home and car far too willingly for a man who had something to hide. She knew she wouldn’t find anything and she didn’t.

  Further making her day was an invitation to meet with her lieutenant, Joe Tarantino, and Cappello. Joe was a hands-on kind of lieutenant who liked working closely with his detectives. But he hadn’t involved himself with this case; the fact that he wanted to meet with her meant he was getting impatient. So what was normally a pleasure—trading ideas with Joe and Cappello—would have a whiff of shame attached.

  Joe was holding the lab report on the grandmother. “I don’t believe it, Skip. This started out as a simple little—”

  “Accident,” said Cappello. “Skip figured out it was a murder.”

  Joe arranged his hands in the “please-back-off” position. “I’m not blaming Skip.” He turned to her. “You know that, don’t you? It’s just that—” He threw the report down in a gesture of pure disgust. “How did someone else get dead, dammit? There’s a one-man crime wave out there.”

  “Or one-woman.”

  “I’m going to tell you something right now. Woman is right. The key to this is a woman, and that woman is Marguerite Terry. Either she did it or she knows who did. Cherchez la femme, Officers. I mean it—get her in here and lean on her like she was a fence post.”

  Skip knew he was right; Marguerite had to know more. Skip was dying to bring her in and lean on her—why hadn’t she done it before?

  Pity, she realized.

  I felt sorry for poor, frail Marguerite. And I discounted her.

  Why was that, I wonder?

  She just doesn’t seem all there.

  Skip was surprised at the realization.

  What is it exactly? Doesn’t she have her faculties?

  But she does. She doesn’t seem slow or anything.

  What is it then?

  By the time she arrived at Octavia Street, she still hadn’t put her finger on it. Marguerite was her usual woozy kind of half-there self, and Cole hovered in the background.

  Drugs! she realized. She seems out of it because she is.

  “Mrs. Terry, I’m going to have to ask you to come to the police station with me.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, ma’am. Not at this time.” God. I sound like an automaton. What’s wrong with me?

  But she knew. She’d unconsciously adopted a robot voice to get some distance. She felt sorry for Marguerite, and she could keep her at bay by modeling a ’droid. Nobody would bother having a breakdown in front of a ’droid—it has no feelings and therefore wouldn’t be affected.

  Ah. There’s information in that. I guess I think she’s manipulative.

  Marguerite wanted to change clothes, but Skip was insistent—this was urgent; they were going now.

  Marguerite looked at Cole with big brimming eyes. He put an arm around her. “Of course I’ll go with you.”

  Skip said, “That won’t be necessary.”

  And Marguerite—fragile, pathetic Marguerite—replied, “I beg your pardon. It’s not up to you to tell us what will or won’t be necessary.”

  “I beg yours, Mrs. Terry. You are not the queen and I am not your footman. I am a police officer and you are my invited guest. If I were you, I’d certainly want to keep it that way.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Of course not. Mr. Terry, you could follow in your car if you like—Mrs. Terry might like a ride home afterwards.” She held her breath. Marguerite could refuse if she chose.

  Cole held both his wife’s shoulders. “Listen to me, darling. It’s going to be all right. You’re going to be fine. Do you believe that?”

  Skip thought he sounded like something in a 1940s movie, but Marguerite seemed to be eating it up. She nodded and curled her body into his. In a peculiar way that had nothing to do with the gesture, it was moving. It had to do with the obvious bond between these two people—one of them was about half-gone on drugs and the other was the classic ne’er-do-well, yet they were obviously unaffected by each other’s faults. Skip wouldn’t want either of them in her life, but she respected their mutual admiration society.

  She kept quiet on the ride back, trying to let tension build, make it clear this wasn’t a tea party.

  When she had Marguerite in an interview room, she looked so small and frail Skip felt her nerve going.

  Get tough, Skip. She’s a manipulator.

  But she couldn’t help it, she felt sorry for her. She needed reinforcements.

  She went to get Cappello. “Would you mind sitting in on the interview?”

  “Uh-oh. Is she belligerent?”

  “Au contraire. She’s a pussycat. A bedraggled little scrawny one.”

  Hearing her across the squad room, O’Rourke hollered, “What’s the matter, Langdon? You developing a heart?”

  Cappello squinted, annoyed at them both. “Let’s go.”

  On the way back, Skip said, “You don’t
have to do anything. I just want you there, okay?”

  “I get it. Like a teacher grading a test. If I’m there, you have to make an A. If I’m not, you’re afraid you won’t.”

  “God, I must be crazy. Listen, you don’t have to do this. I just went nuts for a minute.”

  “Shut up, Langdon. You don’t always have to be the lone wolf. Cops work in pairs all the time, you know? It’s an okay concept; maybe you ought to do it more often.”

  Actually, she’d quite enjoyed working with Cappello on this case. The sergeant had seemed less stiff and formal than usual, not so much Little Miss Do-It-by-the-Book. Something was happening between the two of them—or perhaps it was simply that they were both settling in, Cappello to her sergeant’s role, Skip to Homicide. It was altogether a good feeling. Six months, a year ago, she’d never have asked Cappello or anyone else to help her with an interview—she was too afraid of being thought incompetent, young, inexperienced. Her theory was that if she screwed up, she’d rather do it with no one watching. Curiously, she didn’t feel that way now.

  And she was amazed by that.

  Marguerite without her protector seemed smaller and more frail than ever. For once, she wasn’t wearing sweats. She had on khakis and a J. Crew sweater. Her hair, probably cut to be blow-dried, hadn’t been. It hung in lank sections, but at least it was clean, and she had put on a little lipstick. She looked a little better than the first time Skip had seen her, more as if she could function if she really had to; yet there was still something tight and drawn about her. Something that was too thin; stringy in the neck.

  She introduced Cappello, who smiled sweetly; the nice cop.

  But Cappello gave Skip a look as well, one of dismay, Skip thought.

  Skip and Cappello sat down. Cappello read her her rights. Having previously called her “Mrs. Terry,” Skip changed the tone by using her first name: “Marguerite, up till now, I’ve been worried about you, I really have. You had a lot to deal with, losing your son. But now you’ve had a few days to recover, and it’s time we got some answers here.”

  Marguerite was already crying, tears streaming, sobbing, gulping, falling apart before their eyes. She said, “Oh, God, I wish I were dead.”

  Cappello handed her a tissue but kept her face stony.

  “I think you’re protecting a murderer, Marguerite.”

  Marguerite gasped and shrank back as if shocked by the notion. Skip was beginning to feel less sorry for her. “Look, it was common knowledge you and Leighton didn’t get along; you’ve told me that yourself. You went out every chance you could. You were a young, beautiful woman and you were having an affair.”

  Marguerite gasped again, turning fawnlike eyes on Cappello.

  No help there; the sergeant only nodded agreement.

  Marguerite put her arms on the table and sank her face into the hollow they formed, like a kid in a schoolroom. Her shoulders convulsed with eruptive sobs. Sucking, asthmatic noise tore her chest.

  Cappello caught Skip’s eye. Loud enough for Marguerite to hear, she said, “Let’s just wait it out.”

  Skip nodded: Her thought exactly.

  They sat there a while, Cappello smiling a little, to all appearances perfectly content. Skip wished she were so easily entertained.

  After about twenty minutes, she gave up, decided on a different strategy. “I think maybe some coffee.”

  “Great idea.”

  “You, Marguerite?”

  Slowly, Marguerite lifted her head. Her face looked like an open sore.

  Marguerite nodded once, and Skip left, watching her out of the corner of her eye. Very slowly, Marguerite was starting to straighten her body.

  Heartened, Skip got some doughnuts as well. When she returned, Cappello was offering more tissues and cooing. It was a side of the sergeant she hadn’t seen.

  In another minute she’s going to put her arms around her. I should work with her more often. She’s got a whole bag of tricks I don’t even know about.

  Marguerite grimaced at the sight of the doughnuts, but fell happily upon the coffee. Cappello helped herself to both. She broke her doughnut into halves, took a small bite, and chewed, setting a friendly, homey mood: just us gals around the breakfast table. She actually reached over and patted Marguerite’s arm. “Feel better now?”

  Marguerite nodded.

  Skip could only marvel. She said, “Sorry you’re feeling under the weather.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Skip and Cappello exchanged glances. Excellent. She was apologizing to them.

  “Look, I know it’s hard. But if you think you can protect yourself by not telling what you know, you’re wrong. This person is ruthless—he would as soon kill you as look at you. You know that Marguerite. In your heart you know that.”

  “You’re being ridiculous.” She spoke pettishly.

  She’s really a very childlike person. She’s like Geoff—she just never grew up.

  “Who was it?” said Cappello, in a voice like velvet. Brown velvet, Skip thought. Chocolate.

  Marguerite turned her face downward. She balanced her wrist on the table, but her Styrofoam cup shook violently. “Butsy,” she said. “It was Butsy.”

  She spoke so quietly Skip could barely hear her.

  “Butsy,” she boomed back, repeating it loud and clear.

  Now this was a development.

  Testing the waters, Skip said, “I don’t think so, Marguerite.”

  Marguerite frowned, the picture of a child who doesn’t understand what the hell’s going on.

  “I don’t think he’d kill his daughter.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “Somebody killed Lenore Marquer last night.”

  Marguerite gasped again, again made the shrinking motion, putting distance between herself and the officers. “Somebody else? Somebody else is dead?”

  Odd, thought Skip. She didn’t say, “Oh, golly, not Lenore,” didn’t seem to care at all. She said nothing.

  Finally, Marguerite said, “He hated her.”

  “Oh?”

  “When I knew him he was just a crazy guy. But he got born again and hated Lenore for having a baby.”

  “That isn’t a motive to kill.”

  Marguerite sipped her coffee. “I don’t think Butsy is a well man.” Skip let the silence grow. Marguerite sipped some more, gathering her composure. “My husband and Butsy are partners. Butsy is… unstable.”

  Unlike you. It amazed Skip how quick people were to throw around accusations of mental problems.

  She said, “Did you love him?”

  Marguerite considered. “The energy that he now puts into hatred and fanaticism, he used to put into…” Skip waited.

  She’ll say “loving.” She’ll try to convince me what a great guy he was.

  Marguerite looked her full in the face. “Sex,” she said, coolly.

  “And Leighton?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I guess if you were so interested in sex, you weren’t getting it from Leighton.”

  Marguerite stared at the wall, but her eyes seemed to look through it as if she were seeing something on the horizon. “He used to handcuff me. He tied me up. He turned me over and sodomized me. He held my wrists above my head and made me stand against a wall. Leighton’s problem wasn’t lack of energy.”

  “Real violent sort of guy.”

  Marguerite nodded. “A regular sweetheart.”

  “It sounds as if he considered women personal property.”

  “Yes.”

  “Probably the sort who’d follow you—maybe have you followed—if he thought you were having an affair.”

  “He might.”

  She thought it time to up the ante. “Look, things happen. Sometimes there’s a good reason for things. Maybe he found out and he started knocking you around. This time it got to be too much, so you got his gun and killed him.”

  Cappello shook her head in sympathy. “Batter
ed wife syndrome. Ummm-ummm.”

  “A lot of women just get pushed a little too far. We know a lot more about it now than we did then.”

  Cappello said, “Good for you, Marguerite. Goddammit, you had to protect yourself.”

  “I didn’t kill Leighton,” she said simply. “I told you. I’d have liked to. I didn’t.”

  “Are you saying Butsy did?”

  “Butsy was a very different person then. A very loving person.” Her eyes brimmed.

  “You were in love with him.”

  “Yes. He was everything Leighton wasn’t. Full of good cheer. Full of love. Nothing like he is today.”

  “Still, if he’s a nut case now, he must have had hostility in him all along. Or maybe he just loved you so much he lost it with Leighton.”

  “I really don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  She was starting to cry again. “He never would confront things. Or people. He was a conflict avoider. The last thing he’d have done is cause trouble.”

  “I’m not saying he did. Leighton caused trouble. Butsy had to defend himself.”

  “No.” She wasn’t sobbing this time, but tears were dripping onto her sweater, falling fast. She sniffed.

  “You must have loved him very much.”

  “I did, God help me.”

  “Then why’d you marry Mike?”

  She stood up. “Goddammit. Goddammit. Goddammit. How dare you?”

  Skip gave Cappello a glance. Cappello nodded briefly, moved one hand a tiny bit: It’s okay. I’m alert.

  She continued sitting, but Skip stood, not sure what Marguerite would do. “Why didn’t you marry the man you loved?”

  “Oh, goddammit, how can you be so cruel? I just don’t understand some people. Why do you think I didn’t marry him? Because he wouldn’t marry me, goddammit! Because he already had a wife!” She was screaming so loud Skip heard hurried footsteps, officers coming to help.

  Marguerite turned to the wall, put up her arms, fingers to elbows, as braces, and rammed her body hard into it. She pulled back, bowed her head, and began beating it against the hard surface.

  When Skip and Cappello had subdued her, had turned her gladly over to Cole, they went back to the squad room, Skip for one horribly discouraged. They were no closer than ever to knowing if Marguerite was the killer, and now had a new suspect—as if there hadn’t been enough to begin with.