by Sandra Brown
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Excuse me,” Alex said, stepping between them so she could get out.
“Mr. Perkins is already here, Dr. Ladd,” Steffi told her as she moved past.
She acknowledged that information with a dignified thank-you, then continued down the hallway toward the secured double doors.
“Where did you two hook up?”
Steffi’s question set his teeth on edge, but he tried not to show it. “She was downstairs waiting on the elevator,” he lied.
“Oh. Well, I guess everybody’s here now, so we can start.”
“Stall them a few minutes longer. I gotta use the men’s room.”
Hammond went into the rest room, glad to see that it wasn’t in use. At the sink, he bent from the waist and splashed cold water onto his face, then braced his hands on the cool porcelain and hung his head between his shoulders, letting the water drip from his face into the basin. He took several deep breaths, releasing them on a stream of low curses.
He had requested a few minutes, but it was going to take longer than that to restore himself. Actually he would probably never be free of the tight band of guilt squeezing his chest and restricting his breathing.
What was he going to do? This time last week, he had never even heard of this woman. Now Alex Ladd was the eye of a maelstrom that threatened to suck him under and drown him.
He saw no way out. He hadn’t committed just one malfeasance; he had compounded it, and he continued to. If he had come clean when he first saw the sketch of her, he might have redeemed himself.
“Smilow, Steffi, you are not going to believe this! I spent the night with this woman Saturday night. Now you’re telling me that she bumped off Lute Pettijohn before luring me into bed?”
He might have weathered the storm if he had admitted his culpability early on. After all, when he took her to his cabin he hadn’t known she would later be implicated in a crime. He had been the innocent victim of a carefully planned seduction.
He might have been ridiculed for taking a total stranger to bed. He might have been censured for being indiscreet. His father would have accused him of being just plain stupid. Hadn’t he taught him better than to have sexual intercourse with a woman he didn’t know? Hadn’t he warned him about the calamities that could befall a young man at the hands of a devious female?
It would have been embarrassing for him, his family, and the solicitor’s office. He would have been the hot topic of gossip and the butt of a thousand lewd jokes, but he would have survived it.
But the point was moot. He hadn’t revealed her identity, and he hadn’t exposed her when she lied about a nonexistent trip to Hilton Head. He had stood there, juggling duty and desire, and desire had won. He had consciously and deliberately withheld information that could be a key element to a homicide case, just as he had omitted telling Monroe Mason about his Saturday afternoon meeting with Pettijohn. According to any prosecutor’s rule book, his conduct over the last few days was unforgivable.
What was even worse, given the opportunity to rethink those decisions, he feared he would make the same wrong choices.
* * *
Alex distrusted the polite manner in which Smilow pulled out a chair for her. He wanted to know if she was comfortable, if she would like something to drink.
“Mr. Smilow, please stop treating this like a social visit. The only reason I’m here is because you requested it, and I felt it was my civic responsibility to grant that request.”
“Very commendable.”
Frank Perkins said, “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries and get on with it, shall we?”
“Fine.” Smilow resumed his position of the day before on the corner of his desk, a distinct and calculated advantage because it forced Alex to look up at him.
When the door opened behind her, she knew that Hammond had come in. His vitality stirred the air in a particular way. She hadn’t fully recovered from being alone with him again. Those moments in the elevator had been brief, but their impact was profound.
Her reaction had been physical and apparently noticeable, because when she joined Frank Perkins, he had commented on her flushed cheeks and asked if she was feeling all right. She had blamed the heat outside. But the weather hadn’t caused her blush any more than it had brought on the tingling in the erogenous parts of her body.
Those sexual and emotional stirrings were coupled with the guilt she harbored for unfairly placing Hammond in such a dilemma. She had deliberately compromised him.
Initially, she emphasized to her conscience. Only initially. Then biology had taken over.
And she could feel the tug of it now that he had entered the room.
She curbed the impulse to turn around and look at him, afraid that Steffi Mundell might detect that something was afoot. The prosecutor had seemed avidly inquisitive when she saw them together in the elevator. Alex had tried to seem unperturbed as she alighted, but she’d felt Steffi’s stare like a branding iron between her shoulder blades as she walked down the hallway. If anyone picked up the signals she and Hammond inadvertently gave off, it would be Steffi Mundell. Not only because she came across as being sharp as a razor, but because, generally speaking, women were more attuned to romantic frequencies than men.
Alex was brought back to attention when Smilow turned on the tape recorder and recited the day and time along with the names of those present. He then handed her a laminated newspaper clipping. “I’d like for you to read this, Dr. Ladd.”
Curious, her eyes scanned the short headline. She had to read no further than that to realize that she had made a dreadful blunder and that it was going to cost her dearly.
“Why don’t you read it out loud?” Smilow suggested. “I’d like for Mr. Perkins to hear it also.”
Knowing the detective was trying to humiliate her, she kept her voice even and emotionless as she read the story about the evacuation and shutdown of Harbour Town on Hilton Head, at the precise time she had told them she was there taking in the attractions. When she finished, a long, weighty silence ensued.
Finally, in a very quiet voice, Perkins asked to see the clipping. She passed it to him, but she kept her eyes on Smilow, refusing to submit to his accusatory gaze. “Well?”
“Well, what, Detective?”
“You lied to us, didn’t you, Dr. Ladd?”
“You don’t have to answer,” Frank Perkins told her.
“Where were you late Saturday afternoon and evening?”
“Don’t answer, Alex,” her attorney instructed again.
“But I would like to, Frank.”
“I strongly urge you not to say anything.”
“There’s no harm in my answering.” Heedless of his advice, she said, “I had planned to go to Hilton Head, but at the last minute I changed my mind.”
“Why?”
“Caprice. I went instead to a fair outside of Beaufort.”
“A fair?”
“A carnival, which can be easily checked out, Mr. Smilow. I’m certain it was advertised. It was a large event. That’s where I went after leaving Charleston.”
“Can anyone vouch for that?”
“I doubt it. There were hundreds of people there. It’s unlikely anyone would remember me.”
“Sort of like that ice-cream scooper on Hilton Head.”
Smilow didn’t seem to appreciate Steffi Mundell’s remark any more than Alex did. They both shot her an angry look before Smilow continued. “If you saw advertisements for the fair, you could be making this up, couldn’t you?”
“I suppose I could, but I’m not.”
“Why should we believe this when we’ve already caught you in one lie?”
“It doesn’t make any difference where I was. I’ve told you that I didn’t even know Lute Pettijohn. I certainly know nothing about his murder.”
“She didn’t even know the method by which he died,” Frank Perkins interjected.
“Yes, we all remember your client’s stunned reaction t
o the fact that Pettijohn was shot.”
Alex burned under Smilow’s sardonic gaze, but she maintained her composure. “I left Charleston with every intention of going to Hilton Head. When I came upon the fair, I made a spur-of-the-moment decision to stop there instead.”
“If it was so innocent, why did you lie about it?”
First for my own protection. Then to protect Hammond Cross.
If they wanted the truth, that was it. But Hammond Cross’s obligation for truth-telling was more binding than hers, and he had maintained his silence. Upset following her encounter with Bobby last night, she had lain awake thinking about her predicament.
After torturous deliberation, she had concluded that if she could keep Bobby at arm’s length, she would be all right. No connection could be made between her and Pettijohn. As long as Hammond believed in her innocence, her whereabouts on Saturday night would remain their secret, because he would think it irrelevant.
But if ever he was convinced of her guilt, it would be his obligation as a prosecutor…
She didn’t allow herself to think about that. For now, she would continue cooperating with Smilow until, she hoped, he gave up on her having any involvement and redirected his investigation.
“It was silly of me to lie, Mr. Smilow,” she said. “I guess I thought that a trip to Hilton Head sounded more convincing than a stop-over at a county fair.”
“Why did you feel the need to convince us?”
Frank Perkins held up a hand, but Alex said, “Because I’m unaccustomed to being interrogated by the police. I was nervous.”
“Forgive me, Dr. Ladd,” Smilow said wryly. “But you’re the least nervous person I have ever questioned. We’ve all commented on it. Ms. Mundell, Mr. Cross, and I all have agreed that you’re remarkably composed for someone under suspicion of murder.”
Unsure if he meant that as an insult or a compliment, she didn’t respond. It made her uneasy to know that they had discussed her. What had Hammond’s “comments” on her been? she wondered. She had certainly provided him a lot to talk about, hadn’t she?
“You’re a fraud, you know.”
“I beg your pardon.” Pretending to be affronted, she grabbed two handfuls of his hair and tried to lift his head. But he was unyielding.
“You come across as a woman who’s all calm, cool, and collected.” The stubble on his chin lightly scratched her tummy. “That’s what I thought after I rescued you from the marines. This is one cool chick.”
She laughed. “Between a fraud and a chick, I’m not sure which is the most offensive.”
“But in bed,” he continued, undeterred both in his vein of conversation and his intent, “your participation is anything but contained.”
“It’s hard—”
“It certainly is,” he groaned. “But it can wait.”
“—to keep one’s composure when…”
“When?”
“When…” Then his tongue touched her and her composure was shattered.
“You went to this fair alone?”
“What?” For one horrifying moment, she feared she had gasped out loud, echoing her orgasm. Even more horrifying, she had unintentionally turned and was looking at Hammond. His eyes were hot, as though he had been following her thoughts. A blood vessel in his temple was distended and ticking.
She whipped her head back around to Smilow, who repeated his question. “You went to this fair alone?”
“Yes. Yes, alone. That’s right.”
“And you remained alone throughout the evening?”
Looking into Rory Smilow’s implacable eyes, it was difficult to lie. “Yes.”
“You didn’t join a friend there? You didn’t meet anyone?”
“As I said, Mr. Smilow, alone.”
He paused for a beat. “What time did you leave? Alone.”
“When the attractions began closing. I don’t remember the exact time.”
“Where did you go from there?”
Frank Perkins said, “Irrelevant. This whole interrogation is irrelevant and improper. There’s no basis for it, so it doesn’t matter where Alex was, or whether or not she was alone. She doesn’t have to account for her whereabouts on Saturday evening any more than you do, because you still can’t place her inside Pettijohn’s hotel suite. She’s told you she didn’t even know him.
“It’s appalling that someone with her impeccable reputation and high standing in the community is being subjected to questioning. Some guy from Macon claims to have seen her at a time when his bowels were about to burst. Do you honestly consider him a reliable witness, Smilow? If you do, then you’ve lowered your own rigid standards of criminal investigation. In any event, you’ve inconvenienced my client all you’re going to.” The lawyer motioned for Alex to stand.
“That was a nice speech, Frank, but we’re not done here. My investigators have caught Dr. Ladd in another lie that concerns the murder weapon.”
Vexed but wary, Frank Perkins backed down. “It better be good.”
“It is.” Smilow turned back to her. “Dr. Ladd, you told us yesterday that you don’t own a gun.”
“I don’t.”
From a file, he produced a registration form, which Alex recognized. She scanned it, then passed it to Frank for his perusal. “I bought a pistol for protection. As you can see by the date, that was years ago. I no longer have it.”
“What happened to it?”
“Alex?” Frank Perkins leaned forward, a question in his eyes.
“It’s all right,” she assured him. “Beyond a few rudimentary lessons, I never even fired it. I kept it in a holster beneath the driver’s seat of my car and rarely thought about it. I even forgot about it when I traded the car in on a newer model.
“It wasn’t until weeks after the trade-in that I remembered the revolver was still beneath the seat. I called the dealership and explained to the manager what had happened. He offered to ask around. No one claimed to have any knowledge of it. I figured that someone cleaning the car, possibly even the person who later purchased it, had found the gun, thought ‘finders-keepers,’ and never returned it.”
“It’s a pistol that fires the caliber bullet that killed Lute Pettijohn.”
“A .38, yes. Hardly a collector’s item, Mr. Smilow.”
He smiled the cold smile she had come to associate with him. “Granted.” He rubbed his brow as though worried. “But here we’ve got proof of your owning a pistol, and an uncorroborated story of how you came to lose it. You were spotted at the scene about the time Mr. Pettijohn died. We’ve caught you in one lie about where you were that evening. And you haven’t provided an alibi.” He raised his shoulders. “Look at it from my perspective. All these circumstantial elements are beginning to add up.”
“To what?”
“To you being our killer.”
Alex opened her mouth to protest but was dismayed to find that she couldn’t speak. Frank Perkins spoke for her. “Are you prepared to book her, Smilow?”
He stared down at her for a long moment. “Not just yet.”
“Then we’re leaving.” This time the lawyer didn’t leave room for argument. Not that Alex felt like arguing. She was frightened, although she tried to keep her fear from showing.
An important part of her job was reading the expressions of her patients and interpreting their body language in order to gauge what they were thinking, which often differed from what they were saying. How they stood, or sat, or moved frequently contradicted their verbal assertions. Moreover, when they spoke, their phrasing and inflection sometimes conveyed more than the words themselves.
She applied her expertise to reading Smilow now. His face could have been carved from marble. Without even a nod toward diplomacy, he had looked her straight in the eye and accused her of murder. Only someone with absolute confidence in what he was doing could be that resolute and unemotional.
Steffi Mundell, on the other hand, seemed ready to hop up and down and clap her hands in glee. Based on her ex
perience of reading people, Alex could say accurately that the police felt the situation was definitely in their favor.
But their reactions weren’t as important to her as Hammond Cross’s. With a mix of anticipation and dread, she turned toward the door and looked at him.
One shoulder was propped against the wall. His ankles were crossed. His arms were folded over his midriff. The straighter of his two eyebrows was drawn down low, almost into a scowl. To an untrained eye, he might appear comfortable, even insouciant.
But readily apparent to Alex were the emotions roiling dangerously close to the surface. He wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he wanted to appear. The hooded eyes, the clenched jaw were dead giveaways. His folded arms and crossed ankles weren’t components of an indolent pose.
Indeed, they seemed essential to holding him together.
Chapter 20
He was a casting director’s dream for the role of “the nerd.” First because of his name—Harvey Knuckle. It was an open invitation to ridicule. Knuckle-head. What have you got for lunch today, Harvey, Knuckle-sandwiches? No-nuts-Knuckle. Let’s pop our Knuckle. Classmates and later co-workers had coined a variety of such taunts and they’d been merciless.
In addition to his name, Harvey Knuckle looked the part. Everything about him fit the stereotype. His eyeglasses were thick. He was pale and skinny and had chronic post-nasal drip. He wore a bow tie every day. When Charleston’s weather turned cold, he wore argyle V-neck sweaters beneath tweed jackets. In the summer they were substituted for short-sleeved shirts and seersucker suits.
His one saving grace, which ironically was also stereotypical, was that he was a computer genius. The very people around city hall who poked the most fun at him were at his mercy when their computers went on the fritz. A familiar refrain was, “Call Knuckle. Get him over here.”
On Tuesday evening, he entered the Shady Rest Lounge, shaking out his wet umbrella and apprehensively squinting into the smog of tobacco smoke.