by Karen Leabo
Was it remotely possible James was in on the crime? She’d like to believe she was a better judge of character. But she hadn’t in a million years believed James was a philanderer, either, till he’d confessed.
“I feel like a real witch saying this,” she said, “but I suppose James could be involved.”
“Great,” Michael said, warming to the idea. “Do you have a picture of him?”
She had to think a minute. “Wait.” She went to the back of the office, to the cubbyhole where her desk was. There, in the drawer, she found some snapshots taken at James’s family’s Christmas party. There were a couple of pretty good ones of James. She pulled them out of the envelope and hurried back to Michael.
“Will these do?”
Michael studied them, and a strange expression came over his face. She thought for one breathtaking moment that he was going to kick something or tear the pictures up. Then he pressed his mouth into a grim line and stuck the snapshots into the inside pocket of his sport coat. “They’ll do. Oh, Wendy. Your mother’s still living, right?”
“Yes, but she’s in Florida, thank God, where news of my arrest will never reach her, unless one of her nosy but well-meaning friends sends her the newspaper clipping. Why?”
“I’d like to talk to her.”
A wave of panic washed over Wendy. “You can’t!”
He flashed an almost predatory smile. “Afraid she’ll contradict something you’ve told me?”
“No, no, it isn’t that.” Wendy and her mother had long ago gotten their stories straight regarding Wendy’s father. Marcella Thayer wouldn’t contradict her daughter. “It’s just that if she finds out I’ve been arrested, she’ll be very upset.” Marcella would think Wendy was her father’s Bad Seed. During all of Wendy’s growing-up years her mother had watched her closely, worried that some of her ex-husband’s aspects would manifest in their offspring when she wasn’t looking.
“Any other family? You told me your father died when you were five. Does he have any relatives you’re close to?”
Why this sudden interest in her family? she wondered. She supposed investigations into family background were normal and routine, but it made her nervous. Not that there was any way Michael could guess her father’s true whereabouts. If he did, if he knew about it, he would have to include it in his report. And once the D.A. got hold of the fact that her father was a habitual criminal, she would be toast.
That’s why she hadn’t been truthful with Michael. She knew he would never lie for her.
“No, there’s no one,” she said.
Abruptly he got up and headed toward the door without even saying good-bye, though after he’d turned the dead bolt to let himself out, he ordered her to lock the door behind him.
Michael’s heart ached as he sat at his desk later that afternoon, filling out a report on the Wendy Thayer case. He’d lost Wendy before he’d ever really had her in more than a purely physical sense, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.
She’d lied to him. Looked him right in the eye and lied about her father. Michael had checked out James’s story, of course. And there was, indeed, a Dickson Thayer in Leavenworth serving ten-to-twenty for wire fraud. If Wendy didn’t trust him enough to confide a painful part of her past to him, then how could he trust her with the really important stuff?
It had taken him until now to realize how important she’d become to him. If he thought it would serve any useful purpose, he would go to his supervisor and request that the case be turned over to another detective, that he’d lost his objectivity. But he couldn’t make himself do that. Another detective might not put the care into the investigation that Michael had. Another detective might look at the surface facts, assume Wendy was guilty, and ignore any leads that contradicted that conclusion.
He’d certainly followed every lead he could think of. He had an appointment the next morning with the bank employee. He intended to show her a photo lineup, mixing James’s snapshot in with a few other handsome, fair-haired men in their thirties to see if she would pick him out.
But even if he succeeded in casting blame on James Batliner, that wouldn’t get Wendy off the hook. She and James had been more than casual acquaintances. The easy intimacy between them had been obvious in one of the pictures Wendy had given him. James’s arm had been casually slung around Wendy’s shoulders. And Wendy, looking delectable in a dark green velvet dress, her hair loose and curly around her face, had been looking at him with a smile of fondness and familiarity.
The picture had produced a visceral reaction in Michael, and it had been all he could do not to reveal how insanely jealous her past relationship with James made him feel.
A shadow fell across his desk. He looked up, and though he hadn’t believed his heart could sink any lower, it did. Standing before him was Mayor Munn, and hizzonor wasn’t smiling.
“Wendy hasn’t been cleared yet,” the mayor said succinctly. “That article in the paper could ruin her. And it will be on your conscience.”
Michael steeled himself for the verbal battle he knew was coming. Munn had won the last election after a series of televised debates, during which he trounced his opponent with both logic and quick thinking.
“Ms. Thayer’s arrest is a matter of public record,” Michael said, telling himself to remain calm. “I have no control over what the press prints. But I did stress to the reporter who interviewed me that Ms. Thayer’s guilt was not a foregone conclusion.” His investigative work couldn’t be faulted. He was confident he would have the right answers to the mayor’s questions.
The mayor glared. “Maybe I didn’t make myself understood. I want the woman cleared, and I want it done today. If you haven’t found the evidence to do that, then you need to put in some overtime.”
Michael was tired of his investigation being called into question. “Let me make myself clear,” he said through gritted teeth. It was all he could do not to stand up and mirror the mayor’s intimidating posture. “I am doing everything I know how to do. Would you like to review the file? Maybe you can find a lead I’ve missed, a piece of evidence I’ve overlooked. But I doubt it. Because I’ve spent more hours on this case than any other five cases I’ve ever worked, combined. I’ve interviewed dozens of witnesses, logged almost a hundred phone calls. And I don’t appreciate some rich fat cat from city hall telling me I’m not doing my job, even if he is ex-FBI.”
The entire squad room, he noticed, had gone unnaturally silent. Even the phones had stopped ringing.
Munn fairly vibrated with rage. “No one talks to me like that. I’ll have your badge, Taggert.” He swung on his heel and walked away as if he had a steel rod up his back.
As soon as the mayor was gone, a spotty round of applause broke out among the other detectives in Theft.
“Way to go, Tagg,” Smythe called from his desk in a back corner. “Way to work those political connections.”
Michael made a rude gesture toward his colleagues. “Y’all are just jealous ’cause I’ll be out of this hellhole pretty soon,” he said, pretending he wasn’t disturbed by the mayor’s threat. “I’ll be working for a real law enforcement agency.”
“Yeah, or you’ll be in the unemployment line,” Smythe said.
Michael ignored the good-natured ribbing and went back to his report. He wasn’t altogether sure that Smythe was wrong. He suspected the mayor was mostly bluster, but what if he could exert enough influence to get Michael fired? If he nixed his appointment to the FBI, that was survivable. He still had a job, one that he was damn good at despite the lack of promotions, one he usually enjoyed despite the frustrations. Anyway, he wasn’t feeling as confident about the Bureau anymore. His potential employers had been distressingly quiet this past week.
Joe wandered over to Michael’s desk. “Hey, Tagg, you still planning on skipping the mayor’s party? ’Cause it might be a chance for you to earn some major brownie points. I hear Munn’s invited some of his former Fibbie colleagues.”
&nbs
p; “Hmm.” Michael accompanied his noncommittal reply with a shrug. More than likely, the mayor would use his party as an opportunity to squeeze the vice a little tighter. Or embarrass him in front of his potential future employers.
“You know who’s put the whole party together, right?” Joe asked with an unmistakable leer.
“Yeah.” Wendy had been obsessing about this bash for days.
“Chatty, aren’t you. Don’t you want to see our little suspect in action?”
“I’ve seen her in action.” Her presence at the party was his number one reason for wanting to skip the whole thing. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he was torn up about Wendy Thayer—about her lying, about her leaving him that morning, about the possibility of her going to jail. She’d twisted him up into so many knots, he didn’t think he’d ever be the same.
The old man had never felt so frustrated. He couldn’t leave the country until he had this little matter of Wendy Thayer tied up—otherwise he might not be able to come back. Did Tahiti have an extradition agreement with the United States?
But back to Wendy. She’d eluded his best man. She managed to slip around as easily as a shadow, shielding her whereabouts with an expertise that amazed him. And when he did know her location, she constantly surrounded herself with people, particularly cops, making it impossible for anyone to execute a clean hit.
He could see now that he’d made a mistake by not taking care of her himself. But he’d have another chance Saturday night. It wouldn’t be hard to lure her away from the crowd. And though her death would be ruled a homicide, the police force would have a whole house full of suspects—hundreds of them—to contend with. He would be the last person they’d question.
TEN
The day of the mayor’s party dawned clear and bright. Wendy got out of bed with renewed optimism. No one had tried to kill her in a couple of days. She’d even managed to wedge a video aerobics routine into her morning before the phone started ringing.
Wendy knew who it would be even before she picked up the receiver. Alice Munn was a dear lady, the aunt of one of Wendy’s high school friends. She was a pleasure to work for and one of Born to Shop’s best clients. But she was a worrywart, and she’d never thrown a party of this magnitude.
Neither had Wendy. But everything was in place.
“Wendy,” Alice said, breathless. “I’m sorry to bother you at home, but where are the party favors? We have to have party favors.”
“They’re in the trunk of my rental car.” As the guests departed, a footman would hand each one a small vial of rare perfume or a set of designer golf tees, depending on their sex.
“Are they wrapped?” Alice asked.
“The perfume is in silver netting, and the golf tees are in shiny black paper with a silver ribbon.”
“Oh, that sounds divine. When will the caterers arrive?”
“Five o’clock. Same time as the florist.”
“The sitter for the kids?”
“Six.”
“The valets?”
“Seven. Your hair appointment is at one o’clock, and I’m picking up your dress from the alterations place at noon.”
“The candles for the front walkway—”
“—should be arriving any minute. I’ll light them myself. Mrs. Munn, try to relax. We don’t want you to trigger an asthma attack. Oh, that reminds me, I picked up a new inhaler for you. I’ll bring it when I bring the dress.”
“Wendy, you’re a gem. I couldn’t do this without you. If there’s anything I can do … you know, about the recent troubles you’ve been having …”
“Recent troubles” sounded more like a sinus infection than criminal charges. “Your husband has certainly done his part keeping the pressure on the police,” Wendy said. “If you’ll just let me leave some business cards stacked discreetly on a table in the entrance hall—”
“Not on your life. I’ll personally hand a card to everyone I talk to, and I’ll make personal introductions to anyone you’d like to meet.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Munn. Your support means everything to me.” Well, not everything, she conceded silently as she hung up. There was a gaping hole in her heart where Michael’s support had been. She deeply regretted turning away from him, and the lies she’d told him about her father practically burned a hole in her conscience. She’d left him the previous morning to save herself heartache later on.
But could she feel any worse than she felt now? She’d assumed he would take her abandonment in stride. But if he felt even a tenth the emotions that had staked out her heart, then he was hurting, and she ought to be ashamed of herself for treating him so shoddily.
If she had a spare minute, she would go to him and apologize, throw herself on his mercy. She might also come clean about her father. She would feel so much better.
The catch was, she didn’t think she would have a spare minute. The tasks connected with the mayor’s party would eat up every second of her time.
Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow was Sunday, traditionally her day off. Maybe Michael would have the day off too. She never had figured out exactly how his schedule worked. She could invite him over, cook him breakfast. They could go to White Rock Lake and walk the bike path, taking advantage of the incredible spring weather they were having. And they could clear the air.
By the time she realized she was staring into space, consumed with her outlandish fantasy of holding hands and feeding the ducks, she’d wasted five minutes. She had to feed Bill and Ted, then get to the office.
It seemed as if Michael was getting more than his share of dressing down lately. First the mayor, now his own superior, Captain Larry Rogers. Though Rogers was in general a fair man, he and Michael often did not see eye to eye.
“Do you have any idea who James Batliner’s parents are?” Rogers demanded. They were in his office: Michael was sitting in a chair getting really hot under the collar, and Rogers was pacing.
“Yeah, so his parents are muckety-mucks.”
“Major supporters of the city manager. And I don’t need to remind you how important it is to have his support behind this department. You’ve already got the mayor pissed off at us.”
“So, Captain, what am I supposed to do? Wendy Thayer’s a friend of the mayor, so we forget prosecuting her. I come up with an alternate suspect, but it turns out he’s a friend of the city manager’s, so I sweep it under the rug. There’s a name for that. Corruption.”
“You don’t have any real evidence against Batliner.”
“The bank employee picked him out of a photo lineup.”
“The lineup wasn’t done under controlled conditions. It won’t hold up in court.”
“Only because you wouldn’t let me bring Batliner in for a real lineup. He doesn’t have a single alibi for any of the burglaries, including the museum.”
“Tagg, I wouldn’t have an alibi. The burglaries all occurred between two and three in the morning. Most people who live alone won’t be able to account for their whereabouts during those hours because they’re asleep. Alone.”
Michael conceded the point. He probably wouldn’t be able to come up with an alibi himself for those times. “So, I repeat, what do you want me to do? This guy, Batliner, is in up to his eyeballs. My gut tells me that, and you know my gut’s never wrong.”
The captain rubbed his forehead. “This has to be handled delicately. What about the physical evidence at the burglaries?”
“We’ve got a couple of partial fingerprints, a shoe print, one hair, and sonic teeth marks.”
“Teeth marks?”
“Yeah, the burglar took a bite out of an apple at one house and left it sitting on the counter. If I could just haul Batliner in and take samples—”
“God, no! We’d be sued so fast, our heads would spin.”
Michael thought for a minute. “What if I could get samples without him knowing?”
Rogers narrowed his eyes. “How do you propose to do that?”
“He’s sure to be at
the mayor’s party, right?”
“I thought you weren’t going.”
“I changed my mind. I’ll get something from him and we’ll quietly compare it with the evidence. And if I get a match—”
“If you get a match, we’ll go after him. I promise.”
That was all Michael needed to hear.
Wendy had dressed with care in the only summery cocktail dress she owned, a sea-foam green designer number she’d snagged at a resale shop. The sheath fit her as if it had been tailored for her, draping sensuously down to her ankles. She’d purchased a pair of silvery spike-heeled sandals during the two-for-one sale at Vantage Shoe Warehouse, and Jillian had loaned her the coolest silver evening bag, shaped like an apple. As a final touch, she’d woven a silver beaded necklace into her hair, which she wore piled up on her head in a mass of curls and braids.
She’d decided it would be to her advantage to appear on a par with the guests, instead of dressing in a uniform like hired help, even though that’s what she was. In evening wear she could wander about the mayor’s mansion at will, discreetly checking the buffet for items that needed replenishing, making sure there were plenty of champagne flutes and silverware, adjusting the thermostats and stereo systems in various rooms to be certain the guests were comfortable and that the music wasn’t too loud or too soft.
Alice Munn was actually the one who’d suggested that Wendy dress up. “You show those clients who turned their backs on you that you’re one of them,” she’d said. “You’ve got more class in your little finger than some of those old biddies have in their whole bodies.”
Wendy had laughed and given her best client a hug. Alice had never been one to judge someone based on income or family lineage.
Now that she was ready, Wendy was feeling a flutter of nerves. She’d checked every detail a dozen times. Nothing was going to go wrong. This party would be her calling card, her piece de resistance.
She arrived at the Munns’ posh estate at the same time as the caterers and florist.