by Sandra Brown
“No, but I’ve baited him. Gently. Teasingly. Until this morning when I received the lab report, it was only a hunch.”
“Blood type isn’t conclusive.”
“If it comes to proving malfeasance, we could get a DNA test.”
“If you’re right—and I’ll concede that it has weight—that explains his reaction to Bobby Trimble’s statement yesterday.”
“Hammond didn’t want to hear that Alex Ladd is a whore.”
“Was.”
“The tense is still up for debate. In any event, that’s why he balked at our using Trimble’s testimony.” When Smilow pulled another steep frown, Steffi said, “What?”
“I tend to agree with him on that. Hammond’s arguments make a certain amount of sense. Trimble is so offensive, he could create sympathy for Dr. Ladd. Here she is, a respected psychologist. There he is, a drug-using male prostitute who thinks he’s God’s special gift to women. He could hurt our case more than help it, especially if you wind up with a largely female jury. It would almost be better if he weren’t in the picture.”
“If Hammond has his way, there’ll be no case against Alex Ladd. At least it will never go to trial.”
“That decision isn’t entirely his. Does he plan—”
“What he plans is to pin Pettijohn’s murder on someone else.”
“What?”
“You haven’t been listening, Smilow. I’m telling you that he’ll go to any lengths to protect this woman. In one breath he declined to share the leads he’s following, and in the next breath he’s asking for my cooperation and help in building a case against someone else. Someone who had motive and opportunity. Someone he would love to see go down for it.” Steffi savored the moment before adding, “And guess who he has in mind.”
* * *
“Hammond, I’ve been trying to locate you all morning.”
“Hey, Mason.” He had got the message that Mason was looking for him, but had hoped to dodge him. He didn’t have time for a meeting, however brief. “I’ve been awfully busy this morning. In fact, I’m on my way out now.”
“Then I won’t detain you.”
“Thanks,” Hammond said, continuing on his way toward the exit. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Just be sure you’re free at five o’clock this afternoon.”
Hammond stopped, turned. “What happens then?”
“A press conference. All the local stations are broadcasting it live.”
“Today? Five o’clock?”
“City hall. I’ve decided to formally announce my retirement and endorse you as my successor. I see no reason to postpone it. Everybody knows already anyway. Come the November election, your name will be on the ballot.” He beamed a smile on his protégé and proudly rocked back on his heels.
Hammond felt like he had just been slam-dunked, head first. “I… I don’t know what to say,” he stammered.
“No need to say anything to me,” Mason boomed. “Save your remarks for this afternoon.”
“But—”
“I’ve notified your father. Both he and Amelia plan to be there.”
Christ. “You know, Mason, that I’m right in the middle of this Pettijohn thing.”
“What better time? When you’re already in the public eye. This is a great opportunity to make your name a Charleston household word.”
The statement harkened back to a recent conversation. Hammond closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. “Dad put you up to this, didn’t he?”
Mason chuckled. “He bought a few rounds last night at our club. I don’t have to tell you how persuasive he can be.”
“No, you don’t have to tell me,” Hammond said in an angry mutter.
Preston never sat back and let the cards fall as they may. He always stacked the deck in his favor. His philanthropy on Speckle Island had disarmed Hammond and practically assured that he would not be held accountable for any wrongdoing that had taken place on the sea island. But just in case Hammond had in mind to continue pursuing it, Preston had upped the ante, raised the stakes, and increased the pressure.
“Look, Mason, I’ve got to run. Lots going on today.”
“Fine. Just remember five o’clock.”
“No. I won’t forget.”
Chapter 37
Loretta swished her feet in the tub of cool water where she’d been soaking them for almost half an hour.
Bev came down the hallway, yawning and stretching. “Mom? You’re already up? You didn’t sleep long.”
“Too much on my mind,” she said absently. Then, looking up at Bev, she asked, “Are you sure you checked for messages when you came in this morning? I hope nothing’s wrong with our voice mail.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Mom.” Bev turned toward her, a guilty look on her face. “You did have a message from Mr. Cross. I just didn’t want to give it to you.”
“How come? What did he say?”
“He said never mind about the guy from the fair.”
Loretta looked at her with patent disbelief. “Are you sure?”
“I thought he said ‘the fair.’ ”
“No, are you sure he said never mind about him?”
“I’m certain of that part. Pissed me off. After all the hard work—Careful, Mom, you’re sloshing water on the floor.”
Loretta was on her feet, hands planted solidly on her hips. “Has he gone crazy?”
* * *
Bobby Trimble hadn’t counted on jail. Jail stunk. Jail was for losers. Jail was for the old Bobby, maybe, but not for the one he had become.
He had spent the night sharing a cell with a drunk who had snored and farted with equal exuberance throughout the night. He’d been promised that he would be released first thing this morning, as soon as he could be processed out. That was part of the deal he’d struck with Detective Smilow and the bitch from the D.A.’s office—no more than one night of incarceration.
But come this morning, they were taking their sweet time. They served breakfast. At the smell of food, his cell mate rolled off the top bunk barely in time to make it to the open toilet, where he puked for five full minutes. When he was finally empty, he climbed back into the top bunk and passed out again, but not before stumbling into Bobby and soiling his clothes so that he, too, smelled like vomit.
Of course, Bobby didn’t take any of this mistreatment quietly. He voiced his complaints loudly and frequently. He ranted and raved, but to no avail. He paced the cell. As the hours crawled by, he sank into a deep funk. Pessimism set in with a vengeance.
It seemed he couldn’t buy a break.
Things had been going from sugar to shit ever since Pettijohn got killed. That hadn’t been in Bobby’s game plan. He was no saint, but he wanted no part of a murder rap. If painting Alex guilty—and who knew? maybe she was—would get him off the hook, that’s what he would do. But in the meantime, he would be on a short leash. Until after her trial, his ass belonged to Charleston County. No partying. No women. No drugs. No fun.
Nor was he a hundred thousand dollars richer, as he had expected to be. He had never collected the blackmail money. It remained unknown whether or not Alex had collected the cash from Pettijohn, but that was a moot point. He didn’t have it.
His future was looking bleak and uncertain, the only surety being that he was going nowhere fast as long as he remained cooped up in here.
Coming off his bunk, he pressed himself against the bars. “What’s taking so freaking long?”
His questions were ignored. The guards were impervious to his demands.
“You don’t understand. I’m not an ordinary prisoner,” he told a guard as he ambled past his cell. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
“Wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that one, Bobby.”
Bobby whipped his head around. A newcomer, escorted by another guard, wore a lightweight summer suit and necktie. He was clean-shaven, but he still looked a little ragged, probably because of the sling supporting his r
ight arm. He introduced himself as Hammond Cross.
“I’ve heard of you. D.A.’s office, right?”
“Special assistant solicitor for Charleston County.”
“I’m impressed,” Bobby said, resuming his modulated voice. “Frankly, I don’t care if you’re Tinkerbell, so long as you came to escort me out of here.”
“That was the deal, wasn’t it?”
Cross was a smooth customer. Bobby immediately resented the sophistication that came naturally to him.
He motioned for the guard to open Bobby’s cell, but then he was ushered into a room reserved for prisoner/solicitor conferences. “I don’t consider this release, Mr. Cross. I made a deal yesterday. Or have you conveniently forgotten?”
“I’m aware of the deal, Bobby.”
“Well, fine! Then do what you’ve got to do to set wheels into motion.”
“Not until we’ve talked.”
“If I’m talking to you, I want a lawyer present.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“But you’re—”
“Sit down and shut up, Bobby.”
He was fit, but not all that beefy, this Hammond Cross. Besides that, he was the walking wounded. Arrogantly, Bobby rolled his shoulders. “Harsh words coming from a man with his arm in a sling.”
Cross’s eyes took on a glint almost as hard and cold as Smilow’s. While it didn’t frighten Bobby, exactly, it intimidated him enough to sit down. He glared up at Cross. “Okay, I’m sitting. What?”
“You can’t possibly appreciate how much I would love to beat the shit out of you.”
Bobby gaped at him, speechless.
Cross’s lips had barely moved, and his voice was soft, but the hostility behind his statement made the hair on the back of Bobby’s neck stand on end. That and the fact that every muscle in Cross’s body was flexed as though about to split open his skin.
“Look, I don’t know what your beef is, but I made a deal.”
“And I made another one,” Cross said blandly. “With one of the investors—make that a former investor—in the Speckle Island project.”
He let that sink in a moment. Bobby tried hard not to squirm in his chair.
“This individual is willing to testify against you in exchange for clemency. We’ve got a laundry list of charges for your activities on Speckle Island that are irrelevant to the deal you made yesterday. It would probably bore you for me to list them all, but taking them in alphabetical order, arson would be first.”
Bobby’s palms were sweating. He wiped them on his pants legs. “Listen, I’ll tell you anything you want to know about my sister.”
“Useless,” Cross said with a wave of dismissal. “She didn’t kill Pettijohn.”
“But your own people—”
“She didn’t do it,” he repeated. Then he smiled, but it wasn’t friendly. “You’re out of chips, Bobby. You’ve got nothing to bargain with. You’re going to be in one of our jails for a while. And when South Carolina gets tired of housing and feeding you, the authorities down in Florida can’t wait to have a crack at you.”
“Fuck that! And fuck you,” Bobby shouted, lunging from his chair. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”
He took two steps forward before Cross placed his left palm against his sternum and shoved him back into the chair with so much impetus it almost tipped over with him. Then Cross leaned over him so closely that Bobby had to angle his head back until it strained his neck.
Cross whispered, “One final thing, Bobby. If you go near Alex again—ever—I’ll break your neck. And then I’ll mess up that pretty face of yours until you’re no longer recognizable. Your days as a ladies’ man will be over. The only looks you’ll get from women are ones of pity and revulsion.”
Bobby was stunned. But only for a few seconds. Then it all came together—the threat, the prosecutor’s insistence that Alex was innocent. He began to laugh. “Now I get it. Your cock’s twitching for my baby sister!”
Playfully he poked Hammond in the chest. “Am I right? Never mind, I know I am. I can read the signs. Tell you what, Mr. Special Assistant whatever the hell you call yourself. Whenever you want to fuck her, you come and see me. Any way you like it, backward, forward or sideways, I can set it up.”
The chair was uprooted, and Bobby was sent flying backward along with it. Rockets of pain were launched from the point of contact on his cheekbone. They detonated inside his skull. His ribs snapped as a fist with the force of a piston slammed into them.
“Mr. Cross?”
Bobby heard running footsteps and the voices of the guards. The sounds wafted toward him through a vast and hollow darkness.
“Everything all right in here, Mr. Cross?”
“I’m fine, thanks. But I’m afraid the prisoner needs some assistance.”
Chapter 38
“This is interesting.”
Steffi cradled the receiver of her desk phone between her ear and shoulder. “Hammond? Where are you?”
“I just left the jail. Bobby Trimble is ours for a while.”
“What about our deal with him?”
“His crimes on Speckle Island superseded that. I’ll fill you in later.”
“OK. So what’s interesting?”
“Basset,” he said. “Glenn Basset? The sergeant who oversees the evidence warehouse?”
“Okay. I know him, vaguely. Mustache?”
“That’s him. He has a sixteen-year-old daughter who was arrested for drug possession last year. First arrest. Basically a good kid, but had gotten in with the wrong crowd at school. Peer pressure. Isolated—”
“I got it. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Basset went to Smilow for counsel and help. Smilow intervened with our office on behalf of Basset’s daughter.”
“They swapped favors.”
“That’s my guess,” Hammond said.
“Only a guess?”
“So far it’s just rumor and innuendo. I’ve been nosing around. Cops are reluctant to talk about other cops, and I haven’t approached Basset with it yet.”
“I’d like to be there when you do, Hammond. What’s next?”
“I’ve got one more stop to make, then I’m going over to the Charles Towne.”
“What for?”
“Remember the robes?”
“That people wear to and from the spa? White fluffy things that make everybody look like a polar bear?”
“Where was Pettijohn’s?” he asked.
“What? I’m not—”
“He got a massage early that afternoon. He showered in the spa, but he didn’t dress. I asked the masseur. He came in wearing a robe, and he left wearing it. There should have been a used robe and slippers in his room. They weren’t among the evidence collected. So what happened to them?”
“Good question,” she said slowly.
“Here’s an even better one. Did you know that Smilow gets routine manicures in the spa? Get it? No one would think twice about seeing him wearing one of those robes. I’m going to check the suite again, see if we’ve missed anything. Just wanted to keep you posted. By the way, have you seen him today?”
“Smilow?” She hesitated, then said, “No.”
“If you do, keep him busy so I’m free to operate.”
“Sure. Let me know what turns up.”
“You’ll be the first.”
* * *
“Thanks for meeting me, Hammond.”
He slid into the booth opposite Davee. “What’s up? You said urgent.”
“Would you like some lunch?”
“No, thanks, I can’t. Busy day. I’ll have a club soda,” he told the waiter, who withdrew to fill his order. He fanned smoke away from his face. “When did you start smoking again?”
“An hour ago.”
“What’s going on, Davee? You seem upset.”
She took a sip of her drink, which Hammond guessed correctly wasn’t her first, and it wasn’t club soda. He had responded to her page, surprised when
she asked him to meet her at a restaurant downtown. He was headed that way anyway, which, given his tight schedule, was the only reason he had agreed to the spontaneous invitation.
“Rory called me last night. We had a rendezvous. Not of the romantic sort,” she clarified.
“Then what sort?”
“He asked me all kinds of questions about you and Lute’s murder investigation.” She waited until the waiter delivered his club soda before continuing. “He knows that you met with Lute last Saturday, Hammond. But I didn’t tell him. I swear I didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
“He said you were seen in the hotel. He’s guessing about your appointment with Lute, but as we know, he’s a damn good guesser.”
“It’s a harmless guess.”
“Maybe not, because there’s something else you should know.” Her hand was shaking as she lifted the cigarette to her lips. Hammond took it from her and ground it out in the ashtray.
“Go ahead.”
“I know about you and Alex Ladd.”
He considered playing dumb but realized that Davee of all people would see through the act. “How?”
He listened as she told him about Alex’s visit to her house that morning. “I don’t know the details of how you met, or when, or where. I didn’t ask for any insider information, and she didn’t volunteer any. And by the way, she’s lovely.”
“Yes,” he said thickly. “She is.”
“As I’m sure you’re aware,” she continued, “this love affair is ill-timed and most inappropriate.”
“Very aware.”
“Of all the women in Charleston who’re hot for you, why—”
“I have a pressing schedule today, Davee. I haven’t got time for a lecture. I didn’t plan on falling in love with Alex this week. It just happened that way. And by the way, you’re a fine one to be preaching sermons about indiscretions.”
“I’m only warning you to be careful. I haven’t even been in the same room with the two of you, but it was evident to me just by the way she spoke your name that she’s in love with you.
“Anyone who has been with you when you’re together is bound to sense those undercurrents. Even someone as romantically disinclined as Rory. That’s why I called you.” Tears filled her eyes, and that alarmed him, because Davee never cried. “I’m afraid for you, Hammond. And for her.”