Innocent in Death

by J. D. Robb

  “I had sex, nobody got hurt. End of story.”

  “But Craig Foster disapproved,” Eve prompted.

  “For a guy with that hot a wife, he was pretty puritanical.”

  “You move on her, too?”

  “Just felt her out when he first came on staff. At that point, she was too into him, into them. Now, a few months more, the marriage gets routine, and I might have given her another sniff. But there are plenty of others. I’m good at what I do.”

  “Yeah. I bet. Craig might’ve been a little jealous of that. You think?”

  Williams lifted his brows. “I never thought of it that way, but yes, maybe. Probably, in fact. He was a nice enough guy, and a damn good teacher, I’ll give him that. For the most part, we got along fine. He did get nosy, and a little pushy, about some of my activities. Personal ones.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a threat.”

  “What then?”

  “A lecture.” Williams rolled his eyes.

  “Did this lecture cause you to cease those activities?”

  “I was a little more discreet, you could say. A little more choosy.” He lifted a shoulder. “No point in stirring things up.”

  “But you weren’t worried about him going to Mosebly with his disapproval, or even over her head to the board?”

  He smiled now, serenely. “I never figured he’d have the chops for that. He didn’t like making waves. Basically, it was a nonissue for me.”

  “Well.” Eve tugged on her ear. “It may not have been one for him, especially if he was aware that you used illegal substances in some of those private activities.”

  “What?”

  “Street name Whore, street name Rabbit, which we found in your bedroom toy chest. Oh, didn’t I mention that with the information gathered and statements taken we were able to secure a warrant to enter and search your residence? Bad boy, Reed. Bad, bad boy.”

  “This is outrageous! This is entrapment.”

  “This is the warrant.” Eve slid the hard copy from the file. “We take a very dim view on the use and possession of these particular substances, no live and let live about it. So does the PA. I bet the board of Sarah Child and the teachers’ union also take dim views.

  “And here’s something else,” she continued, and for the first time, he began to sweat. “It makes me, with my suspicious mind, wonder if a guy who can score those particular items might just be able to score enough poison to eliminate a threat. He put the pressure on you, didn’t he?”

  She rose now to walk around behind him, lean in over his shoulder. “Interfering little bastard, shoving his puritanical views into your personal life. You have a good thing going. Coworkers, support staff, mothers, guardians, caregivers. Like plucking plums off a low branch for a guy like you. He was going to cut you off from that branch, he jeopardized your job. No, your whole career.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. No, he didn’t.”

  “Sure he did. Others might have known, or suspected, but they looked the other way. No skin off theirs. But this one, he takes it on himself to do something about it. Lecture you? Asshole had no right, did he? And there he is, day after day, in your face, keeping his eye on you in case he doesn’t like what you’re up to. Sitting at his desk every day with his neatly packed lunch from home. Routine. Boring. And a sticky thorn in your side. Where’d you get the ricin, Reed?”

  “I never had any ricin. I didn’t even know what the hell it was before this. I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “It must’ve pissed you off that Mirri Hallywell would rather study with him than roll around on that big red bed with you. It’s a fucking insult. You had to take him down. Had to do it. So you slipped out of class while he was away from his, and you took care of it. Quick, easy. Done.”

  “That’s a lie! That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”

  “There are ways to soften this, Reed. Say he was blackmailing you. Stalking you. A constant threat. It was him or you. You had to protect yourself.”

  “I never went near his classroom that day. I didn’t kill him, for God’s sake. I was with someone when I left my class that morning. I have a witness.”

  “Who?”

  He opened his mouth, shut it tight. Then he stared hard at the table. “I want a lawyer. I demand my right to speak to a lawyer. I’m not saying anything else until I have one.”

  “Okay, but just FYI? You’re under arrest for possession of illegal substances and for dispensing them, we’ve got that from your naughty camera. You can contact your lawyer before you’re booked.”

  Eve went through the interview in her mind, and added to her murder board. She had stills of the bottles from his sex drawer, and linked him on that board with Laina Sanchez, Allika Straffo, Eileen Ferguson, Mirri Hallywell. Who else had he approached? she wondered. Who had he succeeded with, failed with?

  She needed to review all the discs from his bedroom camera. And wouldn’t that be fun? At least she had McNab picking through the building’s security discs for the last three days. Though she doubted they’d score in that area.

  She got coffee, but it wasn’t working for her. She was tired to the bone, and caffeine wasn’t going to change that. She put in a request to subpoena Williams’s financials. With the illegals charge, that would be a dunk.

  She checked her messages to find Nadine Furst had called twice to remind her of airtime, to wear something appropriate, to ask if she had any solid leads on the Foster case.

  Nag, nag, nag.

  And why hadn’t Roarke buzzed in to nag her?

  Too pissed at her for flipping him off that morning, she thought. Well, she hadn’t been the one with a former playmate on her fucking pocket ’link.

  She started to sit, started to sulk, and Peabody poked her head in. “Williams’s attorney is here, and guess who it is.”

  It took Eve one beat. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “I don’t know whether or not I shit you as I didn’t say it was—”

  “Oliver Straffo? What kind of sick irony is this?”

  Peabody’s face moved to sulk at having her scoop dumped. “Well, he walked in, big as life, and is advising his client to make no further statements, answer no more questions until they consult. Then he wants to talk to us.”

  “Hmmm.” Eve glanced at her board where she had Allika Straffo’s picture lined up in Williams’s shooting gallery. “This should be interesting.”

  Who knew what about who? Eve wondered, and thought of Allika, the kid. How was she going to find out who knew what about who without blowing the situation up in the faces of the innocent?

  Maybe Straffo had a right to know his wife had tossed up her skirts for a slime like Williams. But it wasn’t her job to rat out a foolish wife unless it closed her case.

  “Eggshells,” Peabody murmured as they stepped toward the interview room.

  “What? You want eggs?”

  “No, I meant we’re going to have to walk on eggshells here. Be really careful,” she explained.

  “I thought it was something like ‘You can’t make scrambled eggs without breaking some.’”

  “No, it’s ‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.’ But this is more like the opposite in the food-saying spectrum. Eggs have been broken, but we don’t want to crush the shells.”

  “It’s a stupid saying because if the eggs are already broken, who gives a damn about the stupid shells?” Eve wanted to know. “But I get it. Let’s go.”

  She saw immediately that Williams had his confidence back. A high-powered defense attorney could do that for a suspect, guilty or innocent. Straffo sat in his conservatively and perfectly cut suit, hands folded on the table.

  He said nothing until Eve started the record.

  “One of my associates is already drafting a motion to have the warrant you secured invalidated, and the search deemed illegal.”

  “You won’t get it.”

  He smiled a little, gray
eyes hard as steel. “We’ll see. In the meantime your attempts to involve my client in the murder of Craig Foster are ludicrous. Sexual indulgence isn’t a crime, nor is it a route to murder.”

  “Sex and murder walk hand in hand like lovebirds, Straffo. We both know it. The victim was aware of your client’s indulgence on school property, during school hours. Which is, as you also know, illegal.”

  “It’s a misdemeanor.”

  “And grounds for dismissal from the educational facility. Even, as I’ve done my research, grounds for the revocation of the license to teach in this state. Self-protection also walks along with murder.”

  “You don’t have even a blurry circumstantial case, Dallas. You have suspicion of what may be inappropriate and unwise behavior. You have no evidence that my client and the victim ever argued. In fact, I can and will provide statements from their coworkers that they did not and were, in fact, on friendly terms. You have no link to the murder weapon and my client, no witnesses that saw him enter the victim’s classroom on the day in question, because, in fact, he did not so enter.”

  “He was unaccounted for during a period of time when the victim was absent from the classroom, and as classes were in session, his entering same would not have been witnessed.”

  “He was not alone during that period, and should it become necessary, we will provide you with the name of the individual he was with. As I have not reached this individual and discussed this, I prefer, as does my client, not to divulge the name at this time. We are confident, however, that she’ll corroborate Mr. Williams’s statement.”

  “You had plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to get in and out of that classroom,” Eve said to Williams. “And you had plenty of motive.”

  “I—”

  “Reed.” All Straffo did was say the name, and Williams stopped speaking. “All you have, Lieutenant, is a questionable search and seizure, which has netted you nothing that connects my client to this murder.”

  “There’s nothing questionable about the search and seizure. And your client’s abhorrent habits caused the victim to nudge your client into a corner. He has stated, on record, that the victim learned of his habits and called him on it.”

  “The situation was discussed between them, after which they continued their friendly working relationship.” Straffo closed his own file, one he hadn’t so much as glanced at during the interview. “If that’s all you’ve got, I’ve requested that my motion to overturn the warrant be fast-tracked. I’d like my client moved to an appropriate holding area until his release.”

  “Your kid goes to that school. Your kid was one of the ones who found Foster. Did you see the crime-scene photos? You’re going to sit there and defend the man suspected of causing that?”

  Straffo’s face went harder still, his voice colder. “Not that I have to rationalize the fact that everyone is entitled to a defense, but I’ve known Mr. Williams for more than three years. I believe him to be innocent.”

  “He had Whore and Rabbit in his nightstand. He’s known to fuck around in the school, when your daughter is there.”

  “Allegedly.”

  “Allegedly, my ass. Is that the kind of person you want teaching your child?”

  “This is an inappropriate conversation, Lieutenant. This interview is at an end.” He rose, closed his briefcase. “I’d like my client taken to holding until the motion is ruled on.”

  She looked Straffo in the eye. “Peabody, take this sack of shit to holding. You know, Straffo, sometimes you get just what you deserve.”

  The motion was tossed out. Eve went to court and watched Straffo and Reo battle it out. The warrant held, the search and seizure held, and so did the arrest for possession and distribution.

  It was Straffo who won the battle of bail or remand.

  Outside the courtroom, Reo gave a shrug. “He wasn’t going to get me on that motion, I wasn’t going to get him on remand. I figure this was a draw. Get me enough for a murder indictment, Dallas, and I’ll have that disgusting humpback in a cell.”

  “Working on it.”

  “Straffo’s going to want to deal on the illegals and my boss is going to agree with him.” Reo shot up a hand, anticipating Eve’s argument. “It works how it works, Dallas, and we both know it. So unless you can prove that he slipped that crap to someone without their knowledge or consent, he’s going to get a fine, mandatory counseling, and probation.”

  “What about his teaching certificate? Revocation.”

  “You really want to shut him down?”

  Eve thought about Laina Sanchez crying in the kitchen. “Yeah, I really want to shut him down.”

  Reo nodded. “I’ll look into it. You know, you’d better get moving. You’re on air in a couple hours.”

  “Shit.”

  As Eve headed reluctantly for Channel 75’s studio, Roarke was clearing his desk so he could do the same. He hoped his being there would make it better for Eve, not worse.

  He didn’t know, couldn’t tell how it would be, and that stymied him. She wasn’t a predictable woman, he thought, but he knew her. Her moods, the rhythm of them, her gestures, her tones.

  Now she’d blurred on him.

  He wanted it all back in focus. Needed it to be. But he’d be damned if he’d blur his own image to pacify some absurd and imaginary offense she was clinging to.

  She’d warned him, questioned him—interrogated more like, he thought with a spurt of heat. Doubted him and made him feel guilty when he’d done nothing to feel guilty about.

  He thought of Magdelana’s hand on his leg, and the invitation she’d offered. Well, he’d shut that straight down, hadn’t he? Straight down and straight off.

  Under any other circumstances, he might have told Eve about that sort of move, so they could joke about it. But it was perfectly obvious that this was the sort of information he’d best keep to himself.

  And bloody hell if that didn’t make him feel guilty.

  Bugger it. He was going to demand trust, he thought as he rose to stand at his wide window. That was nonnegotiable. Almost everything else was, he admitted, and slid a hand into his pocket to finger the gray button he carried with him.

  Hers. As she’d been his, somehow, from the first time he’d seen her. Nothing and no one had ever struck him as she had, standing in that truly deplorable gray suit with her cop’s eyes on him. Nothing and no one had ever held him as she did, and always would.

  So anything else was negotiable. He could give and give more, and always find he had just another well to dip from. Because she continued to fill him, over and over again.

  He could bear the anger between them, he realized. Tempers were part of what they were. But he wasn’t entirely sure he could bear this rift. So they’d have to find a way to span it.

  As he turned, his desk ’link beeped. Interoffice, he noted.

  “Yes, Caro.”

  “I’m sorry, I know you’re due to leave in a few moments. But there’s a Ms. Percell here to see you. She says it’s personal. I’m sorry, but she talked her way up through security. I have her in the waiting area.”

  He considered having Caro dismiss her. If anyone could shake Magdelana off, it would be Caro. And that seemed unfair to all involved. Using one woman to shield him from another woman because of yet another woman’s ridiculously suspicious mind.

  Damned if he was going to be led around by the nose that way, even by the woman he loved.

  “It’s all right. You can send her in. I’ll need my transpo in ten minutes.”

  “All right then. Oh, tell your wife we’ll be watching her.”

  “I think I’ll wait until it’s done to mention it. She’s annoyed by the whole business. Thank you, Caro.”

  He scooped a hand through his hair, glanced around his office. A long way from what once had been, he thought. In every possible way.

  Time to find a way, he supposed, to make it crystal clear to the women currently squeezing him from both sides that there was no going back to wh
at had been and no desire at all to take the trip.

  She came in, a golden fur tossed over her arm, her hair sexy and tumbled, her face glowing with energy. And yes, she reminded him of what once had been. There was no way to avoid it.

  “Look at you! Look at this!” After tossing her coat over a chair, Magdelana turned a circle.

  Roarke met Caro’s eyes, nodded, and she backed quietly out of the room. Closed the doors.

  “The den of the global mogul, both sleek and plush, tasteful and absolutely male. Well, it’s all you, isn’t it?” She moved toward him, both hands extended.

  He took them, briefly. There was no way to avoid that either, without making them both look like idiots. “How are you, Maggie?”

  “Right now? How I am is incredibly impressed.” She glanced at the desk. “What exactly do you do here?”

  “Quite a bit of what needs to be done, with a healthy portion of what I choose. What can I do for you?”

  “Offer me a drink.” She sat on the arm of one of his chairs, crossed her long legs. Tossed her long hair. “I’ve been shopping, and I’m worn to the bone.”

  “Sorry. You caught me on my way out.”

  “Oh.” Her lips pouted. “Business, I suppose. You always were one for business. I could never understand that you actually liked to work. Still…” She uncrossed her legs to rise, then wandered toward his window where New York spread and speared. “Lovely benefits.” She looked back at him, over her shoulder. “I suppose I always pictured you in Europe, though, carving your way through the Old World.”

  “New York suits me.”

  “Apparently, it does. I wanted to thank you. I’ve had some meetings already with the money people you suggested. It’s early to say, but I think this is going to work out very nicely. I’d never have known where to start without your help.”

  “I think you’d have found your way well enough. You’ve been busy,” he added. “Shopping, taking meetings, visiting my wife at Central.”