Well, coffee would have to do. And she would try to be polite to Brady, no matter how irritating it was to have to deal with a sexy almost-stranger in jogging clothes at 7 a.m. Maybe he could just jog right on out. He’d been in her face since yesterday. Okay. That wasn’t fair. He did leave. But even when he was gone, she couldn’t get him out of her head. And it was wearing really thin, dammit. She braced herself as an aftershock from last night’s dream rippled through her. She could admit he was distracting. Or rather, it was distracting, having him there. How was she supposed to think? Her brains felt scrambled whenever she got within a few feet of him—and it would be a little obvious to drag a chair across to the far side of the room when he and Mike were sitting at the kitchen table, cozy as kittens in a basket.
He was turned away, but he must have heard her coming down the hall, because he stiffened a little and stopped talking.
Mike cleared his throat and looked apologetic. “I asked Brady to stay until you woke up. I hope you don’t mind having him here, Gemma. He’s had more experience with the other side of the law than I have.”
Gemma lifted an inquisitive eyebrow and helped herself to coffee. “Other side? You’re a criminal?”
Brady laughed. “Cop,” he said, still grinning.
She felt the blood rise in her cheeks as she met his eyes, and hoped it would pass for embarrassment at her blunder.
Mike looked from one to the other and pursed his lips.
“I’ve got to get rolling, Mike.” Brady pushed his coffee cup away. “Tran’s taking me back to my car.”
“Tran’s here in Seattle?”
Brady gave him a straight look. “Yeah. I’ll see about those threads you want me to pull.”
“Tell him I said hi. You’ll be around later?”
Brady’s dark eyes flicked toward Gemma. “Yeah,” he said again. He nodded to Gemma and strode to the door.
The room felt different when he was gone. Emptier. Gemma hated to admit it, even to herself. Damn. “I like him.”
“I noticed.”
“You can stop grinning,” she said. “Just what does he do, exactly?”
“Internet security for law firms, some large corporations.”
“That doesn’t fit him.”
“I didn’t phrase that right. He’s a penetration tester-cum-security consultant. He hacks their systems—under contract. They know it’s coming—and then he shows them how to make their data safer. Back in the day, he was with the SEAL teams, and later he worked a couple of years for one of the alphabet agencies as a consultant.” Mike put just enough emphasis on the last word to let her know there was more to it than sitting behind a desk.
“I thought he said he was a cop.”
“Yeah. Sort of.”
“Oh.” That meant classified. Terrific. A spook? Just peachy.
“This is his latest gig,” Mike said. “I’m glad it seems to be working for him. He was in pretty bad shape when he left the Team.”
She wanted badly to know more about Mike’s taciturn friend, but she needed to change the subject. It was too easy to go on talking about him and she wasn’t sure she could deal with anything more, right now. “What time is our interview with the guys from Pierce County?” she said as she walked over to the fridge for another sploosh of milk.
“Ten thirty. And it’s going to be in Seattle. I’m not sure why the Seattle P.D. is involved. Yet. Brady’s checking on that. Look, I know Dad told us about interviews a zillion times, but I need you to remember the crucial things. Take a breath after they finish asking each question. For one thing, that gives me time to talk, if I need to. If I don’t jump in, then answer exactly what they ask. Don’t volunteer anything.”
“At least a zillion times.” She closed the refrigerator door and crossed back over to the table. The concern and love in Mike’s voice as he repeated the too-familiar admonitions reminded her of happier days, when all she needed was the comfort of her big brother’s presence to make the world safe and warm. She smiled at him, but couldn’t hold back tears. “I’ll remember.”
Mike stared at her, his face grim. “Sit down, Gemma.”
She was glad to sit. Mike’s expression had loosened her knees and dried the spit in her mouth.
“Brady did some checking around downtown.” He took a deep breath. “Listen, Gemma, there’s no easy way to say this. Ned’s death was ugly—”
She started to speak, but he cut her off.
“Worse than you can imagine, okay?” He rubbed his chin and mouth, and wrapped his hands around his coffee mug. “I know you too well to soften this up. The cops are thinking now it was an Asian gang. A revenge killing. Add in the connection to Doug Wheeler, and you need to be ready for a big media mess. They’re already camped outside your house.” He cleared his throat. “One more thing. When the cops came, you said, ‘This time. He’s really dead this time.’ They caught it, and so did I.”
She turned her head away. “Two years ago, when Ned was on a trip to Portland, I got a call from someone pretending to be a Portland police officer, saying Ned was dead, that he’d been killed in a car wreck and could I come down to identify the remains.”
“They don’t do that.”
“I wasn’t thinking. I was on a lot of medication because it was a touchy pregnancy, and I was supposed to stay really calm. He showed up a couple of hours later. Ha, ha. Surprise. Fooled you. He acted like it was all just a big practical joke.”
“Motherfucker.”
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard. “It was too late. I’d already started having contractions.”
* * *
As they came to a stop outside the interview rooms, Mike took Gemma’s hand. “Ready for this?”
“As ready as I’m going to get.” It was hard to keep from rubbing the goose bumps on her arms. Part of it was the chill inside the police station—the air conditioning had to be working overtime, and the cold shocked her after the heat outside. But even worse was the oppressive weight on her chest that made her want to reach for a medi-haler, or throw open a window, no matter if the outside air was already sweltering hot. Even at the reception desk, she had to work at not returning the challenging, unblinking stare of the officer who led them back through a door into a corridor that was wide enough for two or three large men to walk down side by side. But it still felt airless and cramped, as if helplessness and rage had fused to the gray-green walls, forcing the oxygen out of the air around her. The bland color was no doubt intended to be soothing, but for Gemma it just added to the sense of being trapped in an underwater cave.
Their escort stopped halfway down the hallway, in front of one of the nondescript doors spaced along the length of the wall. Gemma took a deep breath. Mike touched her shoulder as if to get her attention, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by the arrival of Olsen and Abernathy and a tall, competent-looking African-American man they introduced as Detective Lyons, from Seattle.
They shook hands all around.
All Gemma’s senses alerted as she took a seat at the table in the claustrophobic little room. The big mirror on the wall might have added a sense of space, if she hadn’t been so aware there were almost certain to be people on the other side watching, studying her every reaction, every response. Her nostrils flared at the throat-clogging reek of disinfectant and stress sweat. She concentrated on keeping her body still, her demeanor composed, even though she wanted to toss her head like a frightened horse and run for safety.
“Keep your hands on the table,” Mike had told her. “Just pretend it’s poker.” She was good at poker. Not lucky, but good at bluffing. Would they think she was bluffing now? Swell.
He gave her arm a reassuring squeeze as Abernathy and Olsen took seats across the table, and Lyons drew a chair over from the wall to sit beside them.
Olsen pulled out a smal
l recorder. “Ready?” he said.
Mike nodded, and the session began.
The first questions covered the same ground as yesterday’s interview, establishing her identity and Mike’s, her address, her whereabouts over the weekend.
Then Olsen shifted in his chair. “How was your relationship with the deceased?”
As Mike had instructed, Gemma waited a beat before answering, in case he had something to interpose. This time, he didn’t. “My husband and I were separated, but the divorce wasn’t final.”
“When did he move out of the house?”
“June seventeenth.”
“Was the separation amicable?”
“I suppose,” she said. “As much as something like that can be. I think we were both happier to be separated.” Her life had certainly been easier without him around. She didn’t think saying so would be at all helpful.
Olsen nodded, and to Gemma’s astonishment, asked, “How do you get along with your mother-in-law?”
“Julia? I barely know her. She and Ned had some long-standing feud going, and it spilled over onto me. I think that was the problem. I know she’s never forgiven him for marrying me.”
“When did you speak with her last?”
“Last night. I called yesterday afternoon to tell her Ned was dead.” Gemma grimaced. “She called back twice to yell and swear at me. I haven’t taken her calls this morning. When I see it’s her on caller ID, I don’t answer. It’s not very charitable of me, I guess, but I just can’t do it right now.”
“Did you know she’s asked for your husband’s body?”
“No, but it doesn’t really surprise me,” Gemma answered.
“So, when did you last see your husband?”
“Thursday. He came by to pick up some more of his clothes and things.”
“Did you argue?”
“No. Not at all. It was all very civilized.” Julia would have been proud of us, the old battle-axe.
“Did he seem worried or preoccupied at that time?”
Gemma quirked an eyebrow downward. “Preoccupied. A little stressed, maybe.” That sounded better than “childish and pissy.”
“Did he give you any explanation?” Olsen reached for a bottle of water and took a fast sip.
“No, he didn’t.”
“What was Mr. Carrow’s annual income?”
“I’m not exactly sure. It varied from year to year, as I understand it.”
She sensed Mike’s surprise.
“You’re not sure?”
Olsen’s skepticism stung, and Gemma forgot Mike’s rules and tried to explain. “He kept that information pretty much to himself. It was one of the things we disagreed about. We never were able to work out any kind of compromise.”
Mike broke in. “The income varied, and Ms. Cavanagh was preoccupied with her own business.”
“Yes. Educational consulting, you said.”
“That’s right.”
More questions followed, about her income, their friends, Ned’s lifestyle since the separation. She had no idea about that one.
As if he’d felt her inner tensing Mike said, “My client has already said she wasn’t aware of the details of her husband’s work.”
“Why were you and your husband separating?”
“People change,” she answered. “We grew apart. It happens. Do you know when his body will be released?”
“Not yet. A few days, most likely,” Abernathy said.
“Ms. Cavanagh,” Olsen began, “what’s your relationship to Braden McGrath?”
Gemma flashed on Brady at Mike’s kitchen table. Before she could answer, Mike responded. “Braden McGrath is a cyber-security consultant for my law firm. Ms. Cavanagh’s computer was tampered with Sunday night while she was away from home. I asked him to assess the situation and see what could be done to prevent its happening again.”
Olsen turned to Gemma. “So, you don’t know him?”
“Other than that? No,” she said.
“What were the circumstances that made you file a restraining order against your estranged husband?”
“I thought he’d—someone broke into the house when I wasn’t there. I thought it was him.”
“Any particular reason to think so?”
“I hadn’t changed the alarm codes after he moved out. And they accessed his computer files. He was the only one who knew the password. He changed it every couple of weeks.”
Abernathy frowned. “This is the first we’ve heard of a break-in.”
“It didn’t seem important, in comparison to murder.”
“Yeah, but who did it?”
“That’s what we’d like to know,” Mike said. “The IT security guy said there was no way to tell, since nothing was sent over the Net.”
“McGrath.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think the two incidents are connected?” Abernathy asked.
“I have no idea,” Gemma said, “but I have a hard time coming to grips with someone coincidentally breaking into my house in the middle of the night right after my husband was murdered, and accessing his computer files.”
“What files?”
“I don’t know. I’m not a computer expert.”
“And you only met what’s his name—McGrath—that day?”
“I’d never seen him until about an hour before you arrived.”
For a moment, everyone was silent.
“Thank you, Ms. Cavanagh,” Olsen added. “We’ll be in touch.”
* * *
Olsen waited until the Cavanaghs were out of sight before he spoke again. “I want to look at the computer guy,” he said. “Mc—what’s his name again?”
“McGrath. Yeah. Actually, I did a little research on him this morning. Had the Geeks help me. McGrath has a nice solid background, service record, work history—until you really start to dig. It’s good enough for a shallow browse, like a credit check. Then it starts to get murky.”
“Murky?”
“Geekspeak. Got it from the tech guy. A few layers down, he hit a wall. Solid enough to get his hacker’s blood up. Let’s see what he can find, and we’ll go pay McGrath a visit.”
* * *
Gemma turned toward Mike as they drove away. “Was that weird, or is it just me?”
“It’s not just you.” He shook his head.
“Why did they have to come all the way up here, just for those few silly questions? I could have come up with better ones myself.”
“So could anybody who ever watched Law and Order. Maybe they came because they already had permission for the trip. They’re tying up detectives from two jurisdictions. I don’t know what that’s about.”
“The guy from Seattle, what’s his name? Anyway, he didn’t ask me a single question. And what was all that about Brady?”
Mike winced. “You noticed, huh?”
“Duh.”
“I’d better clue him in. He probably won’t be too surprised, though, considering how he showed up. Dead husband, wife packing, strange guy upstairs. I mean, it’s natural to look at the estranged wife, even when she has a solid alibi. You could have hired somebody like Brady to knock him off.”
“‘Knock him off’?”
Mike grinned. “My guess is they’ll move on to Wheeler next. The business partner-as-killer is almost as standard as the spouse. And you’re not off the hook yet. You’ve got the motive—more than one. They don’t know that. At least, I don’t think they do. They were surprised about the money. So was I.”
“I didn’t know—”
“Yeah, but you can’t prove you didn’t.” He paused. “You should have told me about Ned’s mother. If not getting along with your in-laws was a common motive for murder, half th
e world would be burying the other half. But, dammit, why didn’t she want him to marry you?” He sounded insulted, and Gemma could have kissed him.
“It was kind of confusing.” Gemma retrieved her iced green tea latte from the console cup holder. The interview hadn’t lasted long enough for the ice to melt. “Julia—and Ned too, for that matter—have this idea they’re some kind of aristocracy. She flat-out accused me of wanting to marry him to improve my bloodline. Like dogs, or horses, or something.”
“The family rich?”
Gemma took another sip of tea. “Uh uh. I think they may have been, a couple of generations back. Ned had a small trust fund from her parents—so does she. She called it her ‘widow’s portion,’ like something out of a bad novel. There wasn’t much. Enough for Ned to finish law school and escape.”
“Property?”
“No. I don’t think so. She lives in this hideous, moldering rattletrap of a house. I can’t imagine it’s worth all that much. It’s on a corner lot in Sweetwater, Texas. It’s not a historical building, or anything, just a big, ugly pile of red brick with phony Doric columns, three or four stories, oil portraits of stuffy-looking people in ’20s’ and ’30s’ suits and ball gowns. And just her and a maid who’s even older than she is.
“I got the whole lecture when we went back to Sweetwater that first Christmas after we were married,” she said. “Ned spent a couple of weeks ‘preparing’ me so I’d fit in. He might as well have saved his breath. I was halfway surprised she didn’t put us in separate bedrooms.”
Mike snorted into his soft drink.
“My house is probably worth five times as much. I see where you’re going with this, Mike, but even Julia never accused me of wanting money. She just hates me. Maybe it’s a little more intense now. A couple of years ago she sent me a letter saying I had put Ned in the ‘Death Line,’ whatever that means, and demanding I leave him immediately.”
“Too bad you didn’t.”
Now You See It Page 6