story."
"Robyn?" Willetts said, his head jerking up. In the split second
between hearing her name and seeing her, his shoulders stiffened. In
the heart, he managed somehow to arrange his handsome, narrow face in
an expression that might have passed for pleasant surprise. "My God!
It's been... a year. How are you?"
His perfectly delivered solicitude galled her, all the more because she
had expected to see guilt in his eyes, and there was none. She chided
herself for being so artlessly naive. Michael Massie had warned her.
Kiel had warned her.
She knew better.
She had interviewed more than a hundred murderers, several of them for
days on end. Not one of them had guilt flashing over them like a
bright neon sign. So why expect Stuart Willetts to roll over and give
himself up?
Because she thought it should have been different with someone she had
known before? It wasn't at all. If Stuart Willetts had been
successful in concealing his early attraction to Trudi Candelaria,
Keller had been deceived as well. But Robyn Delaney wasn't rolling
over and giving up, either.
"I'm fine, Stuart. Physically." She left it to his guilty conscience
to make whatever he wanted of that.
"Who is this woman, Smart? Do you know her?" Trudi's beautiful
plastic face creased as she dragged her gaze off Kiel.
"Don't you remember, darling," he said. "Robyn's husband was--"
"Nver mind." Trudi's voice was whispery, childlike, but her tone
matched the icy dw. or. "Send them away. I'm not interested."
Kiel stepped forward to shake hands with Willctts. "Kiel Alighicri.
I'm an associate of Robyn." He turned to Trudi. "You may be
interested. Robyn's husband was Keller Trueblood."
Trudi's enormous brown eyes narrowed as she turned her head slowly
toward Robyn. She said nothing. One song after another played on the
CD. Willetts seemed to hold his breath, waiting on Trudi's response.
At last she spoke, her whispered voice tinged with melancholy. "Did
you love him very much?"
"Yes." Robyn's answer simply spilled out. She had been prepared for
anything from this woman. Biterness. Outrage. Contempt. Anything
but that question framed in such sympathy. Robyn crumbled. She felt
faintly nauseous. She wanted to turn and walk away. Or
She stood there and held her ground. Kiel sat in a deep-cushioned
plum-velvet-covered chair. Stuart remained standing, his battleship
gray eyes fixed on her. His uneasiness seemed to grow in tandem with
hers, but that couldn't be.
It didn't even matter whether Tundi's sympathy was genuine or a
calculated effort to knock Robyn off her pins. The only thing that
mattered was her choice. Her response.
She couldn't stand up and fight for what needed to be done if she
couldn't deal, a year after the fact, with having lost Keller. It was
a question of deciding once and for all whether she would be defeated,
crushed by her loss, or if she would rise up again and conquer her
terrible, cold-sweat fear of darkness... and then find the grace and
courage to be herself, alone.
"You're not in this alone, Robyn."
She turned to Kiel, grateful he could read her thoughts, for this
sliver of time, at least. But she suddenly had the eerie sense that
Trudi and Stuart were caught up in some kind of suspended animation, un
hearing and unseeing. Neither moved. The expressions on their faces
were static. Frozen.
Kiel explained. "I've slowed time for them, Robyn." "You can do
that?" He nodded.
"They can't hear us?"
"No."
She shivered and rubbed her hands up and down the sleeves of her mohair
sweater, accepting this minor miracle. "What just happened here,
Kiel?"
"I'd say Trudi just took a stab at the gaping hole in your armor."
"Yes." Robyn exhaled sharply. "Maybe. But why wasn't her first
instinct to come flying at me?" Kiel shrugged. "Any number of
reasons." "Like what?"
"Maybe she's innocent."
"Or maybe she's been clued-in to the fact that it would be double
jeopardy to retry her. That it would take an act of Congress to bring
her up again on the charges of murdering Spyder Nielsen."
"She's cool, Robyn," Kiel agreed. "She was out on bail. She may even
have seduced Stuart Willetts with the express intention of causing a
mistrial."
"But if that was the purpose, why would it be necessary to murder
Keller?"
"Maybe he saw what she was up to. Maybe he threatened to take Willetts
off the prosecution team. The timing was critical. If Trudi already
had Willetts wrapped around her little finger, Keller's dumping him
would have been disastrous to his career and his reputation."
Robyn played unwittingly with the tiny pair of wings at her. breast "I
don't even know for sure that she or Willetts had anything to do with
that cave-in."
"You won't know, either, until you just plunge in and do what you do
best. Ask the questions. Find the inconsistencies. Cross reference
every answer with every other answer and every other witness." He
smiled encouragingly. "You know your own drill, Robyn. You just have
to trust yourself."
"I hardly recognize myself anymore, Kiel." She swallowed hard. "I let
Trudi derail me with one simple question inside sixty seconds. How can
that be? A year ago it wouldn't have happened."
"A year ago, you hadn't already lost Keller." He remained seated in
the deep plum-colored chair. "Step back and make her play your
game."
The advice sounded so much like something Keller would have said that
it stole her breath away. No matter what Keller played at, he had made
it into a mental game, a test of sticking power and wits.
"It's your move." He didn't offer to hold her or put an arm around her
shoulders or bolster her in any physical way.
"I know." Did he know that's what she craved more than air, to be
held? She thought he did know. She even thought he wanted to hold her
too. Something stopped him, some greater strength than she
possessed.
She would have to make do with her own resources now, and she was tired
of waffling, tired of feeling needy. Needing to be rescued. "Okay.
Let me at her."
Giving her a thumbs-up, Kiel sat back. Trudi's eyes darted to Stuart,
then back up at Robyn.
She touched the wings at her throat once more and went on as if no time
had intervened, this time without missing a beat. "I'll be Straight
with you Ms. Candelaria. I don't believe my husband's death was
accidental."
Trudi blinked. "This has something to do with me?" "I believe it
does, yes."
"How utterly extraordinary!" Trudi raved. "Please, by all means,
continue,"
"Don't bother, Robyn," Stuart snapped. "Trudi didn't kill Spyder
Nielsen, and she sure as hell didn't have anything to do with Keller's
death."
"Did you, Stuart?" Robyn asked, sitting in the club chair opposite
Kiel, turning her attention to
Keller's former second chair and
assistant.
"Look," he said, sinking back down onto the foot of Trudi's chaise
longue. A low, three-foot-square beveled glass table sat between them.
He and Trudi had already knocked back half a bottle of a wildly
expensive rose. He rapped on the gleaming surface of the table. "Let's
cut
'to the chase. I know how this must look. "Associate counsel blows
away special prosecutor, drops charges, shacks up with wealthy
murderess." Am I doing the theory justice here?"
"It plays, Stuart."
"In Peoria, maybe." His attractive mouth shaped itself into a sneer.
"An interesting Hollywood script idea, Robyn, but it didn't happen that
way."
She sat back, ready to listen. "Then suppose you tell me how it did
happen."
"Why should we talk to you at all?" Trudi asked, leaning into her
cushions, still somehow amused.
"Because I want to know what happened, and I don't intend to stop
looking for answers until I'm satisfied--and until my husband's death
is avenged."
"Get a life instead, Robyn," Willetts advised, his voice edged with
something not quite disdainful, not quite fearful. "My God, how
self-destructive can you get? Keller died. It was tragic. But your
reputation will drop like a stone if you try to make anything more of
his death than a terrible accident. Do you seriously think that's what
Keller would have wanted to become of you?"
Robyn exchanged glances with Kiel. She felt so in control of herself
and her intentions that she wondered if Kiel had somehow kicked every
endorphin-producing cell in her brain into hyperactivity.
"Keller isn't here, Stuart," she said. "And my reputation is my
business. I don't intend to ruin my own credibility or libel anyone or
make up wild-eyed stories or try to prove that someone succeeded in
murdering Keller."
"Unless that is what happened," Kiel added.
Stuart scowled. "Who the hell are you, anyway?
What's your interest in all of this?"
"JUstice."
Kiel's body language looked about as angelic as Ram-bo's. She imagined
if Willetts provoked him much further Kiel might fly off his heavenly
handle and clap his mortal counterpart between a mighty pair of
wings--if only to put the fear of God into him. She directed a
quelling look at Kiel, then turned back to Smart and Trudi. "Please.
Talk to me."
"You already believe the worst, Robyn." Stuart shot Kiel another ugly
look, as if what Robyn believed must be his fault.
"No one has ever dictated what I think, Stuart--not even Keller."
Especially Keller. He'd been in love with her from the first because
she was a woman with a mind of her own and the backbone to speak it.
"All I want is the truth. Frankly," she said, "I won't settle for
less. But I will listen."
"That's what your husband said, too." Trudi tossed her mane of blond
hair and reached for the wine bottle. "He didn't believe a word I
said." She sloshed the rose into her wineglass, then swallowed
two-thirds of it in one toss. "Tell them, darling."
Robyn got a spiral and pen from her bag and began running a tape
player. Stuart stared at it a moment, then sighed and rubbed his eyes,
ending by pinching the bridge of his nose. His features were ordinary
by any standards, except for long, thick eyelashes most women couldn't
contrive with mascara.
He began reciting the facts in the dry, emotionless fashion of
attorneys. "Spyder Nielsen died on the night of October 12--almost two
years ago--of a blow to the back of his head while he was sitting in
the hot tub just outside those sliding doors. The ease against Trudi
was largely circumstantial. No eye witnesses. Lisa was gone that
night. '
"Trudi had been out to a party," he went on, stroking her hand. "Spyder
refused to go. Trudi got home shortly after midnight, saw a shadowy
figure slipping away, and then found Spyder dead--floating in the hot
tub. She called the police immediately. Despite an alibi and the
shadowy figure, the cops arrested Trudi the next morning. Her
fingerprints were on the bronze statue--do you remember seeing it?"
Robyn shook her head. "i never saw any of the physical evidence."
"Not in person, but Keller sketched it for you on a napkin at the pizza
parlor, Robyn. The same night he was named special prosecutor and he
hired me to be his second chair."
She remembered that sketch. The murder weapon was a casting in bronze
of a likeness of Spyder Nielsen hurtling through a racing course on
skis. She'd seen the sketch again, not too long ago--on a night when
she'd succumbed to loneliness and had been reduced to going through
Keller's books trying to catch the scent of him.
She shoved the tattletale memory from her mind. Fingerprints on the
murder weapon didn't prove anything conclusively. "I knew--everyone
knew that the case against you was circumstantial. But Keller would
never have agreed to prosecute if the case wasn't airtight."
"The air is very thin in Aspen," Trudi said. "My alibi didn't stand up
because in the hot tub, Spyder's body temperature didn't drop as it
might have otherwise. The time of death could not be established."
"And motive?"
"I had motive to spare," she snapped. "I had very vocal, quite nasty
scenes with the great and mighty Spyder Nielsen in public places. Yes.
I had motive and opportunity and his precious bronze at my fingertips.
My defense attorney tried to suggest to the jury that I am too small
and fragile to have wielded that bronze hard enough or accurately
enough to bash Spyder in the back of the head. I could have,
"But I didn't kill Spyder, Ms. Delaney--and your husband refused to
believe me."
Chapter Five
Kiel watched Robyn's response to the accusation Trudi made against
Keller Trueblood. She had managed to re-group, to distance herself so
that she wasn't kicked in the gut by Trud.i Candelaria's recrimination.
He was proud of her, touched by her. He let her handle the accusation
her way.
"Most defendants on trial for murder protest their innocence," she
said. "Tell me why Keller should have believed you."
"Because," she said, shrugging insolently, "I did not kill Spyder."
"Look, Robyn," Stuart interrupted. "This won't get us anywhere. Trudi
maintains her innocence to this day. Keller believed otherwise until
the day he died. He was capable of being wrong, you know."
Checking her tape player, Robyn straightened. She'd never known Keller
not to own up to making a mistake or to being mistaken. "Was he wrong
about this, Stuart? Was there any physical evidence inconsistent with
Trudi's having committed the murder of Spyder Nielsen?"
Stuart shook his head. "No. There was no evidence implicating anyone
else. There was a set of fire tracks in the snow that went
unidentified, but that was all."
"Keller made every effort to have the authorities match those
tracks?"
"Naturally. If you're serious a
bout delving into this case, interview
the police. Crandall. Ken Crandall. He's a real piece of work,
Robyn. He has it in for anyone with two cents to rub together."
"That would include most people who live in Aspen. So anyone else with
a motive could have killed Spyder, is that it?" Kiel asked. "Not only
Trudi."
Stuart grimaced, refusing to look at Kiel. "Just talk to Crandall,
Robyn."
"We will." She wrote the name on her notepad and circled it, but she
didn't let Stuart get away with dismissing Kiel or his point. "It's
true, isn't it, that if Crandall has a chip on his shoulder about
wealthy Aspenites, he'd have been happy to nail any one of them."
"Maybe," Stuart's jaw tightened. "I'm just saying he has an attitude
problem that you might want to keep in mind."
She nodded and looked at Trudi. "Ms. Candelaria, you said my husband
wouldn't listen to a word you said. If the only thing you could say
was that you didn't kill Spyder in the face of a great deal of
circumstantial evidence, what was it you wanted him to hear?"
"I expected to be believed, I am many things, Ms. Delaney, but a liar
isn't one of them."
Everything Robyn understood about body language lobbied on the side of
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