by Tara Lain
She gave Llewellyn a look, but she poured more coffee and added the artificial sweetener they kept for Dr. Van Pelt. “Here you go, sir.” She took Llewellyn’s cup and refilled it. He cast a longing glance at his office door, but inviting Van Pelt to wait in there seemed too intrusive on his personal space.
Maria brought him the tea, then dialed her phone again, shaking her head as she listened.
Van Pelt felt his coat pocket and pulled out his cell. He cocked an eyebrow. “Thought I heard my phone.”
“N-no, I thought—” Llewellyn’s heart gave a flip. “C-could it b-be Anne’s ph-phone? I hear it whenever M-Maria calls.”
Maria looked up from her computer. “Could she have lost it when she was here? That would explain why she’s not answering. She lost her phone.”
He shook his head, remembering the ringing from her purse the night before. “N-no. She had it yesterday. C-call again. K-keep it ringing.”
Maria grabbed the phone and dialed.
Van Pelt yelled, “I hear it. Where is it?” He stepped into the hall. “No, it gets fainter out here.”
Maria hissed, “I think it’s in your office, boss.”
Oh damn. He guessed he had to open up his inner sanctum. Pulling out his key so Maria didn’t look like a liar, he unlocked his office door, then slid the key back in his pocket.
Van Pelt crowded behind him. “I hear it. It’s definitely inside.”
Llewellyn pushed open the door and stepped aside to let Van Pelt hurry in.
Van Pelt’s scream came seconds after the sharp smell hit Llewellyn’s nose. “Holy shit! She’s dead!”
Chapter Thirteen
“AM I correct that you and Ms. Gonzalez have the only keys to this office, Dr. Lewis?” The detective—Holiday—was back, and he wasn’t a holiday of any kind. He poised his pen over the classic notebook, and Llewellyn sighed.
“I-I d-don’t know. I think—m-maybe?”
The detective shifted in his chair. Clearly Llewellyn’s stammering made him uncomfortable, but what the fuck could he do about that? The straight-backed chair pressed into Llewellyn’s spine. Since his office was declared a crime scene, the police had moved him and Maria into an empty classroom at the end of the hall—far from Maria’s comforting teapot.
Maria spoke from the other corner of the room. “That’s not true.”
Holiday looked toward her and discovered her comment was directed at him. “Excuse me?”
She sprang up from where she sat with a policewoman, crossed the big room, and planted her hands on her hips. “Dr. Lewis doesn’t know about the keys, since I’m the one who got them from administration. A ton of people have the key to his office, including housekeeping, and presumably every professor who’s ever occupied the space. When I got the key, I asked if I could have the locks changed and was told, quite emphatically, that I could not.” She gave him a weak smile. “Sorry, Dr. Lewis. I never told you because I—” She looked at Holiday. “—well, because Dr. L. is very protective of his research, and I didn’t want him uncomfortable about who might be snooping around in here. On top of that, anyone with a university access card can get into the building.”
“Do you think someone was snooping, as you call it?” Holiday was a rough-hewn tree stump of a man, younger than his craggy looks suggested on first glance. Also more attractive, whenever he let up his affected scowl enough to appear pleasant.
She shrugged. “I don’t have any reason to. Or I didn’t until today. Obviously someone used a key to break in.”
“Using a key is not generally considered breaking in.” Holiday raised a dark eyebrow.
She took a deep breath, her prominent chest bobbing, which made Holiday swallow hard. She gave him her snarkiest look. “Since the only people authorized to be in there, no matter who has a key, are Dr. Lewis and on rare occasions me, I’d call it breaking in.”
“Unless one of you killed her.”
“Oh, come on, you don’t believe that.” She waved a hand. “That woman was asphyxiated, right? That’s really hard to do.”
“How do you know that?”
She flattened her lips in a grimace. “I do research for a living, duh. In high school I used to work for a writer. You wouldn’t believe the stuff those people have to look up.”
“Like how to kill someone?”
She pulled out a chair from the table where Holiday and Llewellyn sat. The policewoman who’d been questioning her rose from the table she was sitting at in frustration. Maria leaned on her hand. “Yes, frequent topic of research. Do you know how to get out of a car underwater? Or what kinds of poisons can kill you with no trace?” She grinned at him. “You don’t really think I did it.” It wasn’t a question.
“If you did do it, what would be your motive?” He seemed to be trying not to smile.
“None whatsoever. See, told you.”
“A jealous rivalry for the professor’s affections?”
She snorted. “Hey, it’ll take you about thirty seconds to find out Dr. Lewis is gay, so you can let go of that theory.”
He turned back to Llewellyn. He might have already known Llewellyn’s orientation—or not. Poker face. “And you were out Saturday night and Sunday morning, Dr. Lewis?”
“Y-yes. I-I went to an early d-dinner on Saturday. Home by n-nine. Sunday I went for tea b-before I got hit and y-you arrived. But you saw Anne a-after that.” That had been the first thing Holiday asked him.
“So let’s explore last night, shall we?” Holiday turned his head purposefully to Maria. “You should go back to your questioning now.”
She glanced at Llewellyn with compassion in her eyes. “Okay.” With occasional looks back, she returned to the other side of the room and the stern-looking policewoman.
Holiday shifted all attention to Llewellyn. “So after I left yesterday, you say that Ms. de Vere stayed for a few moments and then was driven home by Mr. Arthur.”
“Correct. He can v-verify that.”
“I’m sure he can.” He gave a tight-lipped smile. “And then Mr. Arthur returned.”
“Y-yes.”
Holiday’s eyes flicked up at the stutter, which unfortunately, in this context, made Llewellyn sound guilty as hell. “Can you tell me why he came back?”
“H-he called it s-suicide pre-vention. Making s-sure I wasn’t too upset about what h-happened. Or hurt too badly.”
“Were you in danger of suicide?”
“N-no.”
“So Mr. Arthur’s a friend?”
The way he said “friend” sounded like “niece” in Pretty Woman. “W-we only met recently. But we’re f-friendly.”
“What time did he leave?”
Damn, what to say? They had to be questioning Blaise at that moment. What story would he tell about their night together? Stay as close to the truth as possible. “I-I was v-very tired, and I fell asleep. I’m not s-sure what t-time Blaise left. Mr. Arthur.”
“You fell asleep?”
“Y-yes.”
“How can you prove that you didn’t leave the house after Mr. Arthur left?”
“I-I d-don’t know. I d-don’t even know w-when that was.”
“May I search your home?”
“What?” His head snapped up, and he frowned.
Holiday made notes on his ridiculously clichéd notepad. “Purely standard practice. May we search your home?”
Llewellyn shook his head. “Wh-why? No prob-ab-ble c-cause.”
Holiday shrugged. “Just asking.”
“C-cats.”
“Excuse me?”
Maria called from her side of the room. “He has cats who don’t like strangers.”
In the case of Julius and Emily, that was overstating the case, but far be it from him to argue.
Holiday smirked. “Attack cats?”
“Oh yeah.” She laughed. “You’ll choke to death on fur.”
Holiday gave Maria a glare, although there seemed to be a flare of interest deep in his dark eyes. “Have you finished intruding on
our questioning, Ms. Gonzalez? Perhaps you’d like to continue to answer your own questions now?”
“I already answered all mine.” She walked back to their table, grinning, and plopped into the chair she’d occupied before. “I wasn’t here after about 4:00 p.m. on Friday and came in at eight this morning. I knew, uh, people might want to wait for Dr. Lewis in his office, and he doesn’t like that, so I walked to the door and locked it. I never even looked in.”
“And the proof of that is—” He raised his brows.
She sighed loudly. “I don’t know. I locked the door and then I think I rattled the handle, so my fingerprints will be on it. I go in that office all the time, so—” She glanced up at him. “You tell me how I can prove I wasn’t in there this morning.”
“You can’t.” Holiday wrote something in his omnipresent booklet.
A plainclothes guy waved at Holiday from the door. Holiday stood. “You’re both free to go.”
What? Llewellyn’s mouth must have fallen open.
“If you have to leave town, notify me first, please.” Holiday walked over to the guy at the door, and they disappeared into the hall.
Llewellyn glanced at Maria, and they both laughed.
She pressed a hand against her mouth. “Sorry, I’m just giddy.”
“M-me too.”
She put a hand on his arm. “You should go home and rest. It sounds like you didn’t get a lot of sleep.”
Oh my, she had no idea.
They both got up—him slowly since he’d been sitting too long in a very uncomfortable chair. When they walked out the door of the classroom, a wall of humans greeted them, spearheaded by Van Pelt. He was white as the proverbial sheet. “Dear God, how could this happen? This is insane.”
Since he had no answer, Llewellyn stayed quiet, but his eyes searched the group for Blaise.
Van Pelt grabbed his elbow and started pulling back toward the room he’d come out of.
Llewellyn drew back. “W-what?”
“I need to speak to you.”
He stared at Van Pelt’s hand until the professor dropped it from his arm. Then Llewellyn walked into the room with Van Pelt right on his heels. He heard the door close, and he turned. He knew what was coming.
“This is terrible.”
He nodded.
Van Pelt cleared his throat. “Now that Ms. de Vere is dead, what do you think will happen?”
“Th-they’ll try to f-find her k-killer.”
“I know that.” He let out a noisy breath. “And sully the university’s reputation in the process. Dear God, who wants to send their precious darling to an institution where they murder people?”
“Sh-she wasn’t a st-student.”
He stalked to the windows and back, raking his hand through his thinning hair. “But what’s going to happen to the money, Llewellyn? What will they do with our money?”
“The s-siblings don’t w-want to sp-spend it. They’re against the idea.”
“Damn, damn, damn. The department could do so much with that money.” He glanced up. “Who do you think killed her?”
“I d-don’t know.”
“Do you think the police will take this seriously?”
“Y-yes. It’s m-murder.”
He started pacing again. “If it will only turn out to be someone from outside the university. Someone from her family, maybe?” He leaned on the table and stared at Llewellyn. “Do you think you could help find out who did it? Get this over with as soon as possible?”
“H-how?”
“You’re a researcher, for God’s sake!”
“I d-doubt the p-police will w-want help.”
He dropped into the chair. “But they have dozens of cases. Getting this solved, out of the headlines, and dissociated from our school and department is our priority, not theirs.”
“I-I’m sure it is.”
“Today it is.” He stood and walked toward the door. “Just search and scrape and do whatever it is you do. I’m making it part of your job.” He looked back. “Do you think you could have proved that Edward de Vere was Shakespeare?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I still c-can.”
BLAISE LOOKED up and didn’t even try to hide his sigh when Detective Holiday walked into the small living room of his apartment. The guy who’d been questioning him for the last hour stood, and Holiday walked over.
“Thanks, Ed. I’ll take over.”
“Yes, sir.” The young cop glanced back at Blaise, then hurried from the room. He’d actually been pretty friendly during their endless questioning.
Blaise looked up at Holiday and tried to smile. Wish I could talk to Mother. But the cops had banged on his door before he’d decided what the fuck to do. No chance to call.
Holiday sat down opposite Blaise and nodded, still staring at his notes. Another guy stood near the front door of the small, cramped space. In Blaise’s defense, the apartment wasn’t supposed to be permanent, but he’d never tell Holiday that.
“Mr. Arthur, am I correct that you took Ms. de Vere somewhere after you left Dr. Lewis’s house?”
“Yes. I took her back to her hotel.”
“Is there anyone to corroborate that?”
Blaise shrugged. “I dropped her off. Maybe a bellman might recall her arrival, or perhaps she stopped at the front desk.”
“We’re already checking.” He looked up with intense focus. “And then you went back to Dr. Lewis’s.” It wasn’t a question. Good. So Llewellyn told them something like the truth. But how much like it?
“Yes. I was concerned for him. Anne was really upset about the theft, and I knew he felt badly—although I don’t know what he could have done differently, since she never said it was her only copy. Plus I wanted to be sure he was okay. You know, the bump on the head.”
“Who do you think robbed him?”
Blaise shrugged. “No idea. I wonder who Anne told he had her document. Her family, maybe? We’ll never know.”
“You knew.”
Sigh. “Yes, I was there when she came to see him with the document.”
“Which was Saturday.”
“Yes.”
Holiday cocked a significant brow. “For new friends, you do spend a lot of time together.”
Well, shit. “That’s how new friendships are, don’t you think? Lots of getting-acquainted time.”
Holiday didn’t even raise his eyes to that. “What’s your interest in the, uh, Shakespeare identity question?”
“None whatsoever, beyond the fact that I’m a teaching assistant in the English department. I didn’t even know who de Vere was until Anne and Llewellyn told me.”
“Is it a big enough issue for someone to kill over?” He made a note and frowned.
Blaise shrugged. “Honestly, two days ago I would have said no. Who really cares but a bunch of academics? Sure, people would be interested, but I suspect it was the money more than the historical mystery that prompted the murder.”
“You mean the money the university will not get?”
“Right. I guess the question is, who didn’t want Anne to give five mil to Middlemark?”
Holiday raised that brow again. “That is the question, isn’t it? Her siblings were pretty upset, I gather.”
“Yes.”
“I understand Dr. Lewis wasn’t very excited about taking on this case.”
Be careful. “No, I heard him say several times that many had tried to prove de Vere was really Shakespeare and had come up empty. I think he didn’t want to take her money under false pretenses.”
“But he was very adamant about it, I’m told.”
“She asked under very public conditions. He’s quite shy. I think he freaked and ran.”
“Does he freak often?”
Well, shit. Blaise let out a long sigh and didn’t care if Holiday heard. “Dr. Lewis had nothing to gain by killing Anne de Vere, and maybe a million bucks in his pocket if she lived. Plus if he had a reason to kill her, he sure as hell wouldn’t have done it in h
is own office.”
“Perhaps that’s the perfect cover? The least suspicious spot.”
“Oh, come on.”
“What time did you leave Dr. Lewis’s home last night?”
Pounce. Did I really think I’d escape that question? “I’ll be honest. It was very late. I fell asleep, uh, watching TV and woke up in the middle of the night. Everything was dark. I tried to find my, uh, shoes and sneak out without waking Llewellyn. I think it was around 2:00 a.m. I didn’t even look at the time until I was almost home, and that was close to 2:45 a.m.”
“And who could prove that, I wonder?”
“No one that I’m aware of, unless Llewellyn woke up and heard me leaving. But come on, Detective, what possible reason could I have for killing a woman I didn’t know until a few days ago?”
“I’m sure I don’t know.” He smiled, which somehow looked scarier than the frown. “Who’s Ramon Rondell?”
It took every ounce of training he’d ever gotten from his mother to keep his face neutral. “He’s a sensationalist writer and blogger who focuses on wildass possibilities for famous historical mysteries. You know, like who’s really Jack the Ripper and shit like that.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in history?”
Blaise crossed his arms and scowled darkly enough for Holiday not to miss it. “Rondell’s pretty famous, as I’m sure you know. He’s pop culture. Plus Anne de Vere said if Dr. Lewis didn’t take the research assignment, she’d go to Rondell. It was an empty threat, since she really wanted the credibility of Dr. Lewis’s credentials, and Rondell doesn’t have those.”
“Yes.” He flipped his notebook closed and stood like he’d just dropped by to say hi. “Thank you so much for your help. We’ll be in touch.”
“Uh, okay.” He really wanted to ask if he needed a lawyer, but that made him sound guilty as hell. Better ask Mother. Why, oh why did they ask me about Rondell?
All the cops walked out of Blaise’s apartment at once, leaving it quiet—and ominous. Blaise didn’t even bother to get up. Jesus, this seemingly simple project had gotten damned complicated.
Blowing the hair off his forehead, he pulled the phone from his pocket. Okay, Mother, put on your big-girl panties. He hit speed dial and listened to it ring twice.