Motive, Means... And Marriage?

by Hilary Byrnes

  Patrick bounded up the stairs and knocked on the peeling front door. As Helen reached the top of the steps, Angel Fletcher pulled the door open.

  At least, Helen thought the woman was Angel. But she didn’t look like any grieving widow Helen had ever seen. She wore a filmy red peignoir over her lush curves, and her dark hair tumbled around her shoulders in mussed, sexy curls.

  Suddenly, Helen remembered what Patrick had said about Angel inviting him over for “comfort.” A tiny fist of anger squeezed in her chest. Gritting her teeth, she told herself to ignore it. Why should she care if Angel was pursuing Patrick? If they slept together?

  She shouldn’t. She didn’t.

  “Patrick.” The woman put her hand on his arm. Her fingernails were long, sculpted, bloodred.

  Patrick smiled. “Angel. Good to see you.”

  Angel’s gaze flickered to Helen, and her smile turned to ice. “You never said anything about bringing someone else along.”

  Helen shot Patrick a glare. He winked at her and gave Angel a look as innocent as a choirboy’s. “Didn’t I?”

  “No.” She pouted. “I thought you were coming to...comfort me.”

  Helen broke in. “Mrs. Fletcher, I’m Helen Stewart from the county prosecutor’s office. Patrick and I would like to ask you a few questions. Do you mind if we come in?”

  Angel sighed dramatically and tossed her head. “No, I guess not.”

  She flounced back into the house, clouds of sweet perfume wafting behind her. Patrick shrugged and walked into the hall, and Helen followed.

  “Why didn’t you tell her I was coming?” she whispered angrily.

  “Lots of witnesses hold things back if they have too much time to think about what they’re going to say. So I always try to surprise them. You got a problem with that?”

  “No,” she said grudgingly. “I suppose not.”

  They left their coats in the hall and walked into the small living room where Angel lounged on a faded brocade couch.

  Helen glanced around, trying to hide her distaste. Ashtrays were everywhere, and the room stank of stale cigarette smoke. Heavy, dark furniture crowded the room, and the curtains were still drawn, making it seem even more claustrophobic. A fat tabby cat was curled in Angel’s lap, and a black cat weaved in and out around her ankles, purring loudly.

  Patrick sat in an armchair, instead of on the couch next to Angel. Helen felt the tension in her neck muscles relax a little. Not that she cared where he sat, she told herself.

  Stiffly, she sat on the couch. “Mrs. Fletcher, I’m sorry to intrude on your grief.” To her own ears, her words sounded too formal and not quite sincere. What was wrong with her? Interviewing witnesses had always been one of her strengths.

  “Yeah?” Angel demanded. “Then what’re you doing here?”

  Helen glanced at Patrick for help. There was a hint of a smile around his mouth—almost as if he was enjoying her predicament. She glared at him, and he shrugged and gestured for her to go ahead.

  Taking a deep breath, she plunged right in. “I need to ask you a few questions about your husband’s death.”

  “What about it?”

  “Do you know anything about his last case?”

  “No.” Angel shot a look at Patrick. “You know how he was. He never told me nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Patrick said quietly. “I know how he was.”

  Angel’s face changed. Suddenly she looked very young, very vulnerable. Helen looked at her in surprise. She’d thought Angel was around Patrick’s age, but now she realized that Angel was a good ten years younger. Maybe in her mid-twenties at most.

  “Marty wasn’t always an easy man to live with?” she asked.

  “Easy?” Angel gave a bitter laugh. “What a joke.”

  “What made it difficult?”

  She hesitated, and then she spoke abruptly. “He drank.”

  Helen swallowed hard. “A lot?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Angel laughed again, but this time Helen heard the sadness beneath the anger. “He’d go out late at night. I’d lie there, wondering if he was on a case. Or a bender.”

  Helen nodded slowly, compassion seeping through her. She knew what that was like. The terrible wondering, the uncertainty, the fear. “It must have been very hard for you. How long were you married?”

  “Four years. He didn’t drink so bad when we first met, but he was getting worse all the time. I tried to get him to stop, but...”

  “But he didn’t?”

  Angel grimaced. “No way. He just drank more. And he started gambling, too. I inherited this house and all the furniture from my grandma when she died. It was all paid off, but Marty took out a mortgage on it. Gambling debts, he said.”

  “You must have been very worried.”

  “I was. I didn’t know what was gonna happen to us, with him drinking and gambling away every penny. I’m a hairdresser, and I make good money, but Marty took it out of the bank as fast as it went in.”

  Helen shook her head sympathetically.

  “Some marriage, huh?” Angel said. “Lately, I never saw him. And when he was home, he didn’t talk to me. Said he had something on his mind. He wouldn’t even touch me. We hadn’t had sex in months.”

  “Oh, no,” Helen said softly. “That must have been terrible.” The last remnants of her earlier dislike slipped away, replaced by sympathy. No wonder the girl had flirted with Patrick. She had to be starved for affection.

  Angel leaned over to the coffee table and shook a cigarette out of a package. She lit it with trembling hands and inhaled deeply. “Yeah, well, I probably should’ve left him. Plenty of other guys out there.” She blew out a cloud of smoke. Even through the brown haze, Helen saw the tears in her eyes. “But I loved him. you know? He was a jerk, but I loved him anyway.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Helen said gently.

  Angel looked straight into her eyes. For an instant Helen felt an unspoken bond between them, a bond of suffering, of understanding.

  “You really mean that, don’t you?” Angel said. A rasp of pain threaded through her voice—the pain of a deep, aching loneliness, a loneliness Helen understood all too well.

  Helen nodded. “I really do.”

  Angel held her gaze. “So, you gonna catch the guy that killed him? The police aren’t doing nothing about it. Ed Carmel came around here with some other guy, and they tried to tell me Patrick killed him.” She snorted. “As if.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll catch the killer,” Patrick said. “We already have a few leads. We’re pretty sure Marty was killed because of the case he was working on.”

  “You were working on it, too, right?” Angel asked.

  “Yeah. But Marty didn’t tell me everything he was up to. We thought maybe he talked to you about it.”

  “Like I said, he never told me nothing.”

  “Did he keep a diary?” Helen asked. “Or a calendar? Somewhere he noted his appointments?”

  “Marty? No way. Only thing he ever wrote down was the numbers of the horses he bet on.”

  “What about a hiding place? Somewhere he might have kept important papers?”

  “Yeah, he had a place. A cubbyhole in the wall of the garage.” Angel’s lip curled. “He kept his girlie magazines out there. Thought I didn’t know about it, but I did.”

  “Mind if we take a look?” Helen asked.

  Angel stood. “Why not?”

  Helen got up to follow her, and Patrick stood, as well. She started into the hall after Angel, but Patrick caught her hand and pulled her back.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  He put his mouth beside her ear. “I had to tell you,” he said softly. His warm breath tickled the side of her neck, sending shivers down her back. “You’re doing great with her.”

  Warmth spread through her body. “You think so?”

  “I do.”

  “Patrick....” She pulled back to look into his eyes. “I’m sorry I implied you were sleeping with Angel.
Or intending to.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not.”

  “I know that now. And I’m sorry for assuming you were.”

  “It’s okay.” He touched her cheek. “But next time, keep it in mind. I know there’s been gossip about me. And women. But my reputation is pretty exaggerated. Believe me.”

  Her mouth went suddenly dry. “Patrick, I—”

  The impatient sound of Angel’s voice shattered the moment. “You guys coming or what?”

  “Be right there!” Helen called. She pulled away from Patrick with a twinge of regret. As he turned away, she thought she saw a flash of the same regret in his eyes.

  She put the thought out of her mind as she followed him down the hall.

  Angel was waiting for them in the kitchen. They followed her through a door and into the garage. It was dark and cold, and it smelled like paint and engine oil. Angel pulled on a string that dangled down from the ceiling, and a dim bulb sprang on.

  “There.” She pointed at a panel in the back wall, above the freezer. “Right behind that board.”

  Patrick reached over the freezer. He shoved the board hard, and it scraped aside. Leaning forward, he peered into the small, dark space, and his shoulders stiffened. “Helen!” His voice was hoarse with excitement “Take a look at this.”

  Helen planted her hands on the cold metal of the freezer and stood on tiptoe to see into the cubbyhole.

  She gasped.

  Sitting on top of Marty Fletcher’s collection of porn magazines were piles of bills. Hundred-dollar bills. There were ten stacks of them, held together with elastic bands.

  “That...that must be at least a hundred thousand dollars,” she said.

  Patrick’s eyes met hers. “Looks like Marty had a little money after all.”

  “I don’t understand,” Angel said faintly. “Where did he get it?”

  “From the mortgage?” Helen suggested.

  “It was only for thirty thousand dollars—this house isn’t worth that much.” Angel raised her hand to her mouth. “I don’t know where Marty could’ve gotten so much money.”

  A payoff. The thought flew into Helen’s mind. It was the only place a cop on a cop’s salary could get so much cash. The cynical light in Patrick’s eyes told her he’d come to exactly the same conclusion.

  He turned to Angel. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to take the money.”

  She bit her lip. “Do you have to? With all Marty’s debts, and the funeral to pay for—”

  “I’m sorry, but the money is evidence,” Helen said gently. “It may be the reason Marty was killed. But I promise you, if the money did legally belong to Marty, you’ll get it back.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Angel let out a big sigh. “Okay.”

  “Do you have a bag we can use?” Patrick asked:

  She nodded and went back into the kitchen. She emerged with a flowered pink shopping bag. “You can use this.”

  He swept the contents of the cubbyhole into the bag, and put his arm around her shoulders. “You trust me, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Good. Then don’t tell anyone about the money. You’ll be a whole lot safer if you forget you ever saw it.”

  Angel shivered. “Okay.”

  “Good girl.” Patrick gave her shoulders a squeeze and released her.

  “Do you have any relatives outside Evergreen?” Helen asked. “Or friends? Someone you could visit for a week or so?”

  “Uh, yeah. My brother lives in Seattle. But he’s been staying up here with me the last couple days.”

  “Where is your brother now?” Helen asked.

  A faint color rose to Angel’s cheeks. Her gaze flickered to Patrick and then to the ground. “I, uh, asked him to go out for a couple hours.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “He has a cell phone. I told him I’d call him.”

  “You do that. Right away. And as soon as he gets back, the two of you should go down to his place, okay?”

  “Okay.” Angel bit her lip. “Marty was involved in something pretty bad, wasn’t he?”

  “We don’t know what he was involved in,” Helen said quietly. “But it may have been something dangerous. For now, you’ll be safer in Seattle.”

  Angel twisted her hands together until her knuckles turned white. “I just wish I knew what was going on.”

  “So do I,” Helen said. “Believe me, so do I.”

  Patrick followed Helen down her hall and into her living room. She walked ahead of him, her hips swaying slightly, and he grinned appreciatively. He liked the way she walked almost as much as the way she ran. Her walk was graceful, classy, strong. And to him, almost unbearably sexy.

  She sat on her yellow couch, dropped the flowered shopping bag onto the floor, and peered down at her suit. “Yuck. I’m covered in cat hair.”

  Patrick sat beside her. “You really were great back there at Angel’s, partner.”

  She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I never would have gotten so much out of her—especially the thing about the hiding place. But you knew just what to say to her.”

  “Being a prosecutor, you learn how to read people’s cues. How to get them to open up.”

  “It was more than that. You really seemed to understand where she was coming from.”

  Helen stiffened and turned away. “It was nothing,” she said, her voice tight.

  Patrick frowned. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. Nothing.” She grabbed her briefcase and stood abruptly. “Excuse me. I’m going to change before I get cat hair all over the place.” She strode out of the room.

  He stared after her. Something was definitely wrong. She’d gotten upset when he said she seemed to understand Angel. Why?

  Suddenly it struck him. Maybe she really had understood Angel. Maybe she’d been married to an alcoholic herself. After all, he knew nothing about her past. He didn’t even know how old she was. Twenty-eight? Thirty? Old enough to be divorced, anyway.

  He glanced around the living room. Unlike his own apartment, there were no photos on the walls, no albums on her bookshelves that might give him a clue to her past. He walked over to her rolltop desk. Legal papers were stacked on top, and a couple of bills lay in a cubbyhole. The only letter was an appeal from a Christmas charity fund.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Patrick spun around.

  Helen stood directly behind him, her hands on her hips. She had changed into a gray suit that skimmed her slender body, and a pair of black heels that made her legs go on forever. Beneath her sheer hose, he could see the smooth muscles of her calves. He still remembered running his hands up her legs, remembered the way her skin had felt, soft and supple beneath his palms.

  He felt his body begin to stir—even though this was definitely not the time. He turned away to hide his reaction. “I was just looking around.”

  Helen banged down the top of her desk. “Stay away from my papers, Monaghan.”

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to pry. I was just curious.”

  “What about?”

  “About you.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “I just realized you know almost everything about me. You’ve even met most of my family. And I don’t know the first thing about you.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Patrick looked into her angry blue eyes and shrugged. “Everything.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I grew up in Seattle. Did a philosophy degree there. Then law. After that, I came here.”

  “Have you ever been married?”

  “No.”

  “What about family?”

  Her gaze slid away from his. “I already told you. I’m an only child.”

  “And your parents? Are they still living?”

  Her face hardened, and she looked at her watch. “Patrick, I have to go to the office.”

  “What for?”r />
  “I’ve got a meeting with Franklin.” She paused. “I’m going to recommend that you no longer be considered a suspect.”

  Patrick’s heart began to thump. This was what he’d been working for. Praying for. If Carmel didn’t drag out the paperwork, he could be back on the force by this afternoon.

  He knew he should be doing a victory dance around the living room, but for some crazy reason, all he could think of was that he wouldn’t see Helen anymore.

  He squeezed his hands tight. “You think you have enough to take to Franklin?”

  Helen frowned. “Of course. I’ve shaken Tammy’s testimony, and she was the only real witness.” She nodded at the flowered shopping bag by the couch. “And the money shows that Marty was involved in something illegal. Probably a payoff. That means there’s someone else out there with a strong motive for murder. Charging you doesn’t make sense.”

  “I just don’t see how it all fits together. If Marty was killed because of the money, then how does Carmel fit in? Why was your office broken into?”

  Helen shook her head. “Maybe Carmel was paid off, too. Maybe it had something to do with Jamie Lee’s murder.”

  “You think Marty knew who killed her?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

  Patrick’s jaw hardened. “Dammit, I wish I could remember what happened. I must have seen whoever was out on the highway that night. If I could—”

  “But you can’t,” Helen said swiftly. “And there’s no point in kicking yourself about it.”

  “Maybe if I kick myself, I’ll remember.”

  “You don’t have to remember. Once I’ve convinced Franklin you’re not a suspect, we’ll put a full team on the case. They’ll dig into every angle. Put Tammy Weston under surveillance. Find out who paid off Marty and why.”

  Patrick digested her words in silence. She was right, of course. With half a dozen detectives on the case, with the full resources of the police department involved, the case would probably be solved in a matter of days.

  Helen looked at her watch again. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  This was it. It was over.

  Helen picked up the shopping bag and walked out into the hall. Patrick followed her. He grabbed his leather jacket and shrugged into it. As she pulled on her raincoat, he turned to face her. She stilled. Her golden lashes swept down, hiding her eyes, but then she looked up, into his face.