by Sandra Brown
“It’s still conjecture,” Hammond said. “All of it. Everything.”
“But to dismiss it would be preposterous,” Steffi argued.
“No more preposterous than tying up a bunch of unrelated, unsubstantiated guesses and considering them facts.”
“Some of them are facts.”
“Why do you want so badly for her to be guilty?”
“Why do you want so badly for her not to be?”
The ensuing silence was so sudden and tension-laden that the knock at the door sounded like a cannon blast.
Monroe Mason opened the door and poked his head around. “I heard that Dr. Ladd was being questioned again, and thought I’d come over and see how it was going. Not too well, I gather. I could hear the shouting as soon as I came through the security doors.”
Everyone mumbled greetings, then for half a minute no one said anything.
Eventually Mason addressed Steffi. “You’re usually so outspoken. What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue? What did I interrupt?”
She glanced at Hammond and Smilow before going back to Mason. “The search of Dr. Ladd’s house yielded some items of interest. Hammond and I were evaluating their relevance to the case. It’s Smilow’s opinion, and I tend to agree, that they constitute valid evidence against her.”
He turned to Hammond. “You obviously don’t share their opinion.”
“In my opinion we’ve got zilch. They’re getting off on it, but then they don’t have to present the case to the grand jury.”
Steffi realized that the next few moments could be key to her future. Hammond was Monroe Mason’s protégé. As recently as this morning, when she had aired her concerns over Hammond’s seeming indifference toward the case, Mason had jumped to his defense. Contradicting his anointed successor might not be the wisest thing to do.
On the other hand, she couldn’t let a perfect suspect get away just because Hammond had turned squeamish. If she played this right, Mason might see a weakness in his heir apparent that he hadn’t before seen. He might spot a character flaw that would hinder a hard-hitting prosecutor’s effectiveness.
“I think what we’ve got on Dr. Ladd is compelling enough to make an arrest,” she declared. “I don’t understand what we’re waiting for.”
“Evidence,” Hammond said crisply. “How’s that for a concept?”
“We’ve got evidence.”
“Flimsy, circumstantial evidence, to say the least. The worst defense lawyer in the state of South Carolina could easily maneuver around everything we’ve compiled. Far from being the worst, Frank Perkins is one of the best. I doubt the grand jury would even indict her if all I went in with was a strand of hair and a condiment.”
“Condiment?” Mason asked.
“Clove is a spice,” Steffi countered irritably.
“Whatever,” Hammond shouted.
“He’s right.” Smilow’s soft-spoken interjection silenced them instantly. Steffi couldn’t believe that Smilow had agreed with Hammond, and Hammond appeared as astonished as she.
Mason was interested in what Smilow had to say. “You agree with Hammond?”
“Not entirely. I think Dr. Ladd is involved. In what way and to what extent, I don’t know yet. She was there with Pettijohn on Saturday. My hunch is that she was there for no good purpose. Otherwise, why has she been heaping lie upon lie to cover this up? However, from a legal standpoint, Hammond is right. We’ve got no weapon. And no—”
“Motive,” Hammond supplied.
“Exactly.” Smilow smiled sourly. “If she wasn’t intimate with Pettijohn, it really doesn’t matter if she sleeps with every other man in Charleston. What do we care if someone did break into her house for no apparent reason? It’s odd, but not illegal to hoard thousands of dollars in a home safe when there are several banks within walking distance of her home.
“From what I’ve discerned of her character, I believe she would let herself be sentenced to death row before betraying a patient’s confidence, even if that patient were her only defense. Not that I believe that story about delivering a message for a patient. Which I don’t. No more than I believe that nonsense about going to the fair and all the rest.
“But,” he said emphatically, “the bottom line is that I’ve established no motive for her to kill Lute Pettijohn. I haven’t even made a connection between them in either their personal lives or professional ones. If he was a patient, he never wrote a check to her. If she invested in one of his development deals, there are no records of it. I can’t even place them at a dinner party together.
“I’ve got a guy digging around in Tennessee where she comes from, but so far he hasn’t turned up much except her school records. If Pettijohn was ever in the state of Tennessee, he left no trace of himself there.”
“So,” Mason said, “either she’s telling the truth or she’s covered her tracks well.”
“I tend to think the latter,” the detective said. “She’s hiding something. I just don’t know what it is.”
Steffi said, “But if you did—”
“He doesn’t.”
“If you did have a motive—”
“But he doesn’t.”
“Shut up, Hammond, and let me talk,” she snapped. “Please.” He waved his hand, giving her the floor. She addressed Smilow. “If you could make a connection, find a motive, could you move forward with the evidence we’ve got?”
Smilow looked across at Hammond. “That’s up to him.”
Hammond looked hard at Smilow, then glanced at her. He then looked at Mason, who seemed anxious to hear his answer. Finally he said, “Yeah. I could go with what we’ve got. But it would have to be damn strong motivation.”
Chapter 24
“You know, Davee, that this is in very poor taste.”
“Very.” Davee Pettijohn was practically purring with self-satisfaction as she traded her empty highball glass for the full one the roving waiter brought her. “As I told you before, Hammond, I refuse to be a hypocrite.”
“Your late husband’s funeral was only yesterday.”
“God, don’t remind me. What a freaking dismal event that was. Weren’t you just bored out of your gourd?”
In spite of himself Hammond smiled and thanked the waiter for his own made-to-order drink. “They’ll be talking about this for years.”
“That’s the general idea, sweetheart,” Davee said. “This little soiree was meant to offend all the bitches who’ll be gossiping about me no matter what I do. Why not go all out?”
The gathering could hardly be called a little soiree. The lower level rooms of the Pettijohn mansion were teeming with friends, acquaintances, and hangers-on who were too flamboyantly rebellious in their own right to give a fig if the widow threw a party the day following her husband’s funeral or not. There was no way it could be misconstrued as a wake. It was a highly improper, ill-timed bacchanal, which, of course, was the general idea.
“Wouldn’t this make Lute furious? He’d have a stroke.”
“He did,” Hammond remarked.
“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot that.”
“Did he have warning of a pending stroke?”
“Blood pressure readings off the charts.”
“Didn’t he take medication for it?”
“He was supposed to. But it made his dick limp, so he stopped taking it.”
“And you knew that?”
She laughed “What do you think, Hammond? That I caused him to have a stroke? Look, it was his own damn, stubborn fault. He said if it came to a choice between screwing or blowing a gasket, he’d choose blowing a gasket.”
“The stroke didn’t kill him, Davee.”
“No. The bastard was shot. In the back. Here’s to the one who did it.” She raised her glass.
Hammond couldn’t drink to that, and it made him uneasy that she could. He turned his attention back to the party. They were standing on the second-floor gallery, an excellent vantage point from which to watch the merrymaking. “I don’t see any
of the Old Guard here.”
“They weren’t invited.” She sipped from her drink, smiling wickedly. “Why spoil their pleasure of speculating on all the sin and iniquity taking place?”
The party would supply the gossips with plenty of material. The rock band’s amps were maxed out. The catered food was ample. Liquor was in even more abundant supply. Drugs were available, too. Earlier Hammond had recognized a well-known dealer who had eluded conviction numerous times.
He spotted a bestselling novelist who’d recently come out of the closet. In celebration of this liberating decision, he was overtly making out with his date for the evening. Their unabashed public display might have drawn attention, except for a stunning young woman nearby who was showing off her newly augmented breasts to a group of avid admirers who were invited to touch and test.
“She paid too much for those,” Davee remarked cattily.
“Do you know a discount boob doctor?”
“No, but I know one who would have done a better job.” Hammond looked at her askance, and she laughed in her throaty, sexy way. “No, darling. Mine are all me. But I’ve slept with him. He’s a lousy lover, but when it comes to his work he’s an absolute perfectionist.”
Hammond gave her a once-over. “Ever since I got here, I’ve been meaning to ask.”
“What?”
“Have you taken up belly dancing?”
“Isn’t it divine?”
Davee spread her arms and executed a pirouette to show off her outfit. Made of red raw silk, it consisted of tight hip-hugger pants and a top cropped just below her breasts. The pants rode dangerously low on her abdomen. Her waist was encircled by a thin gold chain. On each arm she wore at least a dozen gold bangles.
She ended the turn with a nasty bump and grind. Hammond laughed. “Divine.”
Lowering her arms, she frowned at him. “Fat lot of good it does me for you to think so. Hammond, why aren’t we lovers?”
“I’d have to take a number.”
“Fuck you.” He laughed, but her frown only deepened. “How can you say something so mean when I don’t even have a date for my own party?”
“Where’s the masseur?”
“Sandro. I had to let him go.”
“Since Sunday? That was quick.”
“You know how I am once I make up my mind about something.”
“He was rubbing you the wrong way?”
In response to his bad joke, she gave him a sarcastic, “Ha-ha.”
“Sore subject?”
“God, no. He wasn’t a heartthrob, just a crotch throb. His penis is a whole lot bigger than his brain.”
“Every woman’s fantasy man.”
“For a while, maybe. I got bored.”
“And boredom is anathema to you.”
“Positively.” Looking down at the crowd, she sighed. “And I’m there now.” She reached for his hand. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”
She drew him down the hallway and into her bedroom. By closing the door, they were granted a blessed reprieve from the music. She leaned against the door and closed her eyes. “Enough of that. I was developing a bitching headache.”
“You can’t abandon your own party, Davee.”
“Only a handful of those people know me. They were just looking for a party and they found one. It doesn’t matter whether or not I mingle. Besides, they’re all on their way to becoming blind drunk.” As she moved across the room, she stepped out of her high-heeled sandals and set her drink on the small table near the chaise. “Want another?”
“No, thanks.”
She took his sweating glass from him and set it down beside hers. What happened next caught him completely by surprise. She reached for his hands and positioned them on her bare waist, then came up on her tiptoes and kissed him, doing another bump and grind against his middle that wasn’t as exaggerated as the first, but even more suggestive.
He reacted with a start, jerking his head up and back. “What are you doing?”
“You have to ask?”
She looped her arms around his neck and tried to kiss him again, but when he didn’t respond, she lowered her heels and gazed up at him with evident disappointment. “No?”
“No, Davee.”
“Just for the hell of it? If you can’t fuck an old friend, who can you fuck?”
“Whom can you fuck.”
She grinned and tried to lock lips again, but he angled his head back.
“We’re not kids any longer, Davee. We’re past the experimental age.”
“It would be good,” she promised seductively. “Much better than the first time.”
“No doubt about that.” He smiled and gave her waist an affectionate squeeze before lowering his hands to his sides. “But I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“I mean I won’t.”
“Oh, Jesus,” she groaned. As she lowered her arms, she dragged her hands down his chest all the way to his belt before letting them fall away from him. “Tell me it isn’t so.”
“What?”
“You’ve fallen for her.”
His heart all but stopped. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, please, Hammond. For months it’s been in the grapevine that you two take your work home with you.”
“Steffi!” he exclaimed on an expulsion of relief. “You’re talking about Steffi.”
Davee cocked her head with perplexity. “Who else could I be talking about?”
Admitting to his affair with Steffi was less harmful than answering her question. “I had a relationship with Steffi, but it’s over.”
“Swear?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“Scout’s honor.”
“Well, I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that. Sunday night when you were here, I gave you ample opportunity to talk trash on Ms. Mundell. When you didn’t, I figured the rumors were true. I was floored. I mean, Hammond, where was the appeal? She has no style, no sense of humor, no class, and I’d be willing to bet she doesn’t know any better than to wear white shoes after Labor Day.”
Hammond laughed. “You big phony. You’re not nearly as unconventional as you want everyone to believe.”
She assumed a haughty air. “Some things simply aren’t done.”
“And that white shoes bit is strictly taboo.”
“But you are interested in someone, aren’t you?” she asked suddenly. “And don’t try that ‘who, me?’ face on me, because I know I’m right.”
He neither admitted nor denied it.
Exasperated, she propped her fists on her hips. “I threw this at you,” she said of her shapely body. “I offered you no-strings-attached, mindless boffing, and you turned me down. So either you’ve gone gay, you’re hung up on another woman, or I’ve lost all my sex appeal and might just as well kill myself tonight. Now which is it?”
“Well, I haven’t gone gay, and you haven’t lost all your sex appeal.”
She didn’t make any of the triumphant exclamations she was entitled to. No “I knew it!” No “You can’t fool me, Hammond Cross!” None of that.
Instead she responded to his solemnity, saying quietly, “I thought so. When did you meet her?”
“Recently.”
“A new armpiece? Or is she special?”
Hammond stared at her a moment, debating whether or not to try lying. Before his affair with Steffi, he had dated many women but never stayed with one for long. Around Charleston, he was known as an eligible bachelor with family money and plenty of promise. Scores of single women boldly sought his company. Potential mothers-in-law considered him an excellent catch.
His own mother was constantly arranging introductions to her friends’ daughters and nieces. “She’s a lovely young woman from a wonderful family.” “Her people are from Georgia. They’re into timber. Or maybe it’s tires. Something like that.” “She’s simply a precious girl. I think you two would have a lot in common.” A flip answer would probably convince Davee t
hat this amounted to nothing more than that.
But Davee was his oldest friend, and he was sick of lies and lying. He lowered himself to the edge of the chaise and clasped his hands between his spread knees. His shoulders slumped forward slightly.
“Jesus,” she said as she picked up her drink. “Is it as bad as all that?”
“She’s not an armpiece. About the other, whether or not she could be special, I don’t know.”
“Too soon to tell?”
“Too complicated.”
“She’s married?”
“No.”
“Then why is it complicated?”
“More than complicated. Impossible.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I can’t talk about it, Davee.” He spoke more sharply than he had intended, but his tone must have alerted her to how sensitive the subject was.
In any case, she backed down. “Okay. But if you need a friend…”
“Thanks.” He reached for her hand, pushed back the bangles, and kissed the inside of her wrist. Then, as his finger absently traced the pattern etched into one of the bracelets, he asked, “What gave me away?”
“The way you’re acting.”
He dropped her hand. “How am I acting?”
“Like there’s a line for mandatory castration and you’re next.” She moved to the cart across the room and mixed a fresh drink. “The minute I saw you at the funeral yesterday I knew something was wrong. Career-wise—thanks in part to me—things are going great for you. So I figured you were suffering from a heart problem.”
“It bothers me that I’m so transparent.”
“Relax. Probably no one else has noticed. Besides knowing you so well, I recognize the symptoms. That particular brand of misery can only spell l-o-v-e.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I don’t believe it.”
“Hmm.”
“You never told me.”
“It ended badly. I was just coming off of it that summer we were in the wedding together. A wedding,” she snorted. “Just the environment I needed to make me thoroughly miserable. That’s why I acted like such a royal bitch at all the prenuptial parties. That’s also why I needed a friend that night. A very intimate friend,” she said with a soft smile, which he returned. “Our little escapade in the swimming pool restored my self-confidence.”