“Would I do it for fun?”
“Why didn’t you, then?”
His look of defeat took on a defensive edge. “How could I? Plane needs a new propeller. Landing gear doesn’t always work right, either. Needs to be replaced.”
“So you took the money and kept the cremated remains in your house?”
“Cremains,” he said with derision. “Got laid off. Couldn’t fix the fuckin’ plane.”
Oh boy, she could see humongous lawsuits looming for Paul Satterly Funeral Home from the relatives and loved ones of the dear departed. “Holiday saw these—uh, cremains?”
“Damned snoop. No reason for him to go in there.”
“Is that why you killed him?”
“I didn’t kill him!” He slammed a fist against the table.
She kept at him. Questioned him over and over. She had the sinking feeling he was telling the truth. If Parkhurst were here, she could bounce it off him.
“Cremains weren’t the only things we found,” she said. “We found two watches and a crystal clock with diamond numbers. Did I mention burglary in the list of charges?”
“I want a lawyer.”
She had Ellis take him back to a cell.
Hazel brought in a mug of coffee. “What are you doing here?” Susan said.
“Drink the coffee. I got a call from the hospital. Ida Ruth Dandermadden died about an hour ago.”
Susan sipped hot coffee, got her coat, and told Hazel she was going to Brookvale to check on Demarco and Zach James. She finished up the coffee on the way.
A Christmasy feeling hung in the cold, black sky, full moon, stars twinkling. Cold. Cold. Cold. She jogged up to the hospital doors.
They hissed open and she went into the warm lobby. The tree in the corner was all silver lights and red baubles. She said hello to the woman behind the desk and made her way down the hallway to the emergency area.
“I’m looking for Officer Demarco,” she said to Mary Mason, the triage nurse.
“Room three.”
Susan found Demarco lying in bed, shirt off, bandage around his shoulder. Crenshaw was lounging against the bed. “Chief,” he said, springing to attention.
“How’re you doing?” she asked Demarco.
“Feel like I been shot. We get the bastard?”
“We did. He claims he didn’t kill Holiday.”
For a long time Demarco was silent and she thought he’d fallen asleep, then, when two nurses came to move him to the OR, he gave one shake of his head. “Doesn’t seem his style. Creeping into somebody’s house, shooting the vic, shoving the poor slob in the furnace.”
She agreed. Reluctantly agreed. If Porter Kane hadn’t killed Holiday, who had? Caley James? Mat James? She was no nearer to finding the answers than when she started. She had two homicides—maybe three, now that Ida Ruth had died—to clear before she left for San Francisco. In two days.
36
Caley James squealed into the hospital parking lot and pulled into a space marked PHYSICIAN.
“Hey! That’s my spot.”
“Find another one!”
She sped inside and stopped, confused. Which way? Down a corridor, she spied a desk and ran up to it. “My son. Zach James. Where is he?”
“Third floor. You go down this hallway and take the elevators—”
She didn’t wait for the rest of it. Because she found the stairs first, she ran up to the third floor, not even short of breath when she got there. Waste of time, breathing.
“Zach James?” she asked a nurse.
“He’s in three twenty-four, but—”
Three twenty, three twenty-two, three twenty-four. She stopped outside the door and took a breath. Pretending a composure she didn’t feel, she stepped inside.
Fear dug claws in her throat.
Zach, eyes closed, lay on the bed. Face pale, head bandaged with a white turban, dark circles under his eyes.
Oh God oh God oh God.
“Zach?” She brushed his cheek with a kiss. “It’s Mom, love.” The catch in her voice made her swallow.
His eyes opened. “I’m okay, Mom.”
“Oh, Zach.” She wanted to grab him up, wrap her arms around him, and hug him tight against her. She picked up his hand instead and kissed it. “What happened?” Her voice was thick.
“He’s a very lucky young man. Hardheaded too.” A stocky man in green scrubs strode in and pushed buttons on the bed. With Zach lifted to a sitting position, he listened to Zach’s chest, then to his back. Replacing the stethoscope around his neck, he held out his hand. “Dr. Sheffield.”
“What happened?” Caley asked, struggling to breathe.
“A bullet rode right across his head.” Dr. Sheffield traced a path over Zach’s bandage.
“He was shot! Who? Zach—”
“Mom, calm down. I’m fine.”
“But—”
Dr. Sheffield folded his arms across his broad chest and leaned against the bed. “He’s fine,” he repeated. “We’ll keep him a couple of days. He’s got a little spot of pneumonia, but—”
“Pneumonia!”
“We’re taking care of it with antibiotics. It’ll take longer for his hair to grow back. We had to shave it to look at the wound—”
Caley nearly dropped at the word wound.
“He’ll have a great scar to show his friends.”
Dr. Sheffield put his hands on her upper arms and looked directly into her eyes. “You have to limit your visits.” She nodded. “Ten minutes. Right now I need to take a peek under that bandage.”
She was ushered to the door, where a nurse took over and led her to a small waiting room. Brown tweed chairs, end tables with jumbled magazines, and a large fish tank built into one wall.
* * *
Susan turned from gazing at a dull blue-colored fish with big white teeth and handed Caley a cup of coffee, then took her arm and guided her to a chair.
“I just ran out”—Caley took a sip of coffee—”leaving Mat and Bernadette—”
“Bernadette?”
“Ettie. Mat’s mother.” Caley rubbed her eyes. “When Zach was little he couldn’t say Bernadette. It came out Ettie and it just stuck.”
“She uses the name Trowbridge. Did she remarry?”
“Third marriage. From James to Dalrumple to Trowbridge.” Caley got up and went to the doorway. “Do you think they’ll let me know when they’re finished?”
“I’m sure they will.”
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” Bonnie barrelled into Caley, nearly knocking her down. “Did the evil prince hurt Zach?”
Mat and Ettie with Adam in tow came in. Mat swung Bonnie up in his arms. “How is he?”
Caley shrugged. “We can’t see him right now.”
“I saw him,” Bonnie whispered in Mat’s ear.
“Who, baby?” he said, distracted.
“I asked that. ‘Who’re you?’” She lowered her voice. “‘The evil prince. If you tell, I’ll kidnap you and take you far far away where you’ll have to live in a castle.’ Would I be a princess if I lived in a castle, Daddy?”
“You’re my princess right here.”
Adam got a kiss and a hug from Caley, and Ettie took his hand and led him to one of the tweed couches. Mat tried to get Caley to sit with them. She shook her head.
“Daddy?” Bonnie patted Mat’s face. “You didn’t ask what he wanted.”
“What, sweetheart?”
“The pictures with the numbers,” she said, proud to know something he didn’t.
“Of course,” Mat said with a great show of astonishment. “He wanted to paint.”
Bonnie giggled.
Mat took Caley’s elbow. “Sit down, Cal. Come on.”
She ignored him and asked Susan, “Do you think they’ll let me in now?”
“I’ll check for you.”
Susan fell into step beside Dr. Sheffield as he left Zach’s room, and had to hustle to keep up. “I need to talk with Zach.”
“I assumed t
hat’s why you were hanging around. Give it a minute until the bandage gets replaced, then okay.” He gave her a severe physician’s look. “Ten minutes.”
“Yes.”
When a slender young woman in white pants and flowered shirt came out and gave her a nod, Susan went in.
“You rescued me from that guy.” Zach’s voice was tight with embarrassment.
“With a lot of help from you. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t jumped the guy. That was a very brave thing to do.”
He watched her, waiting for the rest of it.
“And very stupid. He had a gun to your head. You could have been killed.”
“It’s just that your way was taking forever and I had to—”
She eyed him. “Had to what?”
“Go to the bathroom,” he admitted.
“Ah. I can see the problem. How did you get into that situation?”
He got a look on his face that she’d seen on one nephew or another over the years. It went along with, Do I have to?
“An officer got shot tonight,” she said.
“Is he hurt bad?”
“He’ll be all right. Talk to me, Zach.”
Zach told her about seeing his father handing an envelope to Baines, seeing the money and almost being hit by Porter Kane, and being chased by Baines. He looked at her pleadingly. “Is my dad in trouble?”
“He might be.”
“Sometimes he does things without thinking.”
“Uh-huh. Like somebody else I know.”
Zach grinned. “Mom said for a smart kid, I can be pretty dumb sometimes.”
Susan nodded. “Like going to Kane’s house.”
“I wanted him to give Baines back the money. And he was going to. I could tell he was. Then you guys showed up and he just went into orbit. Totally blew. I thought I was dead.”
“So did I, there for a minute. Were you ever in Ida Ruth Dandermadden’s backyard?”
He looked sheepish. “Once. I wanted to tell her to quit saying bad things about my mom.”
“Did you?”
“I didn’t even see her. By the time I got there I figured it wouldn’t do any good anyway, so I just left.”
She squeezed his hand. “I’ll probably be back, but right now your family is waiting.”
Caley, Mat, Ettie, Adam, and Bonnie were all in the waiting room. Bonnie was singing.
Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried the water up.
Mat put down the book he was reading to Adam. “After I see Zach, I’ll finish it.”
Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried the water up.
Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out
Out came the sun—
“Bonnie, darlin’,” Caley said. “You’ve been singing that for five minutes. Your grandma has heard it enough. Find another song.”
“Have you, Grandma?”
“Yes, sweetheart, I think I have. What else can you sing?”
“Itsy Bitsy Spider” was maddeningly running through Susan’s mind as she headed down to the second floor to stop in on Demarco.
He was back from surgery, settled in a bed, sleepy from all the drugs he’d been given. Blood dripped into his arm from the unit on a pole. “Hi,” she said. “It looks like you’re here for a while.”
“Nothing major damaged,” he mumbled.
“Good. You did a courageous thing, protecting that little girl.”
He started to shrug and winced. If he hadn’t been so dopey from the surgery he probably would have said, Just part of the job.
“I’ll stop in later to see if you need anything.”
“Itsy Bitsy Spider” ran through her mind as she headed back to the department. She snapped on the radio and wiped it out with “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.”
Hazel grinned at her when she came in.
“What?”
“The mayor left a message. Al Wily has the flu. Our mayor wants you to take his place in the parade.”
“What was Al Wily supposed to do?”
“Al’s a clown.”
“What?”
Hazel laughed. “Won’t that be fun? You’ll get to paint your face and—”
Susan went to her office. As she worked on the folders stacked on her desk, something kept trying to touch her conscious mind, like the soft flitter of a butterfly wing.
She gulped a mouthful of coffee, then told Hazel to have someone pick up Mat James and bring him in. “He was at the hospital a few minutes ago.”
* * *
In the interrogation room, Mat sat with his back to the one-way glass and rose when she came in. He looked tired, deeper lines in his face, bloodshot eyes, unshaven, clothes wrinkled.
“Thank you for coming in, Mr. James,” she said.
“I wasn’t given a choice. What’s this about?”
She clicked on the tape recorder, stated the date, time, and names of all those present. When she recited the Miranda warning, he looked up, startled.
“Should I have an attorney?”
“Up to you. Would you like one?”
He hesitated, then sat down. “I’d like to know what I’m doing here.”
Susan sat across from him. White stood with his back to the door. “Can I get you something, Mr. James? Glass of water? Cup of coffee?”
“Coffee would be nice.”
He was soon to find out how wrong he was. “Cream or sugar?”
“One sugar.”
She nodded at White, who left and returned a minute or so later with a thick white mug of coffee. He set it down in front of Mat and Mat took a gulp.
“You gave Will Baines a large amount of money,” she said.
“Forgive me for saying so, but that’s none of your business.”
“You killed Holiday/Noel because it was you twelve years ago who murdered his wife. Not Noel. He came here for revenge. Or did he have some evidence that didn’t come out at the trial? Was that it? Something that showed you were in the house the day she was stabbed?”
“None of that’s true,” he said tiredly.
“No? Then you won’t mind telling what the money was for.”
“I was paying back a loan.”
“With cash?”
“That’s how Baines does business.”
“Why did you borrow it?”
He put a hand on his jaw, thumb on one side, fingers on the other. “I got behind on some bills and needed to take care of them before they got delinquent.”
“What bills?” Susan asked.
He moved his thumb and fingers together at his chin, as though wiping something off. “There’s no reason I need to answer that, but just to make sure you don’t get the wrong idea, it was for car payments and furniture I bought for my apartment.”
“How do you know Will Baines?”
“I’ve known him for a long time. I knew him in Kansas City.”
“Have you borrowed money from him before?”
He smiled. Even though he was tired and the smile was ragged around the edges, it was still charming.
“Once again, Chief, I don’t have to answer that.”
“Why did he move to Hampstead?”
“You’ll have to ask him. I believe he came to see me once and liked it here. Now, if that’s all you have in mind, I’m leaving.”
Susan thanked him for his time and watched him walk out with a confident, everything-under-control walk.
The damn itsy bitsy spider came back and spun away at her sanity.
37
“His name is Martin Thackeray,” Ellis said. “He runs the rare book and sewing machine place that Will Baines bought.”
“Oh. Right.” Susan leaned back in her desk chair.
“The place was
closed, but he was working on the inventory and heard somebody up in Noel’s apartment.”
“Break-in?”
Ellis nodded. “The guy wasn’t even subtle about it. Took a crowbar and went at it. Tore the hell out of the door. I called for backup, and when Adler got there we went in and found him.”
“He say anything?”
“Naw. Just that we were making a mistake.”
She shuffled the folders on her desk until she found the Branner Noel case file. Taking out the two snapshots she’d found in Noel’s apartment, she put them side by side on her desk. Snapshots of Mat James with two different young women. Flipping them over, she looked at the numbers on the back.
“Come with me,” she said to Ellis, pushed her chair back, and stood up.
Mat was standing with his back against the table. He straightened and sent her his engaging smile when they came in. “We meet again, Chief Wren?” The smile was less captivating now than it had been when she’d had him here twelve hours ago. After very little sleep last night, a day at work, and then breaking into Noel’s apartment, Mat was starting to look a little frayed; his age was showing with more pronounced lines around his tired, bloodshot eyes. Even his skin was beginning to look slack, and stubble covered his jaw. He was still wearing a suit and tie, but his white shirt was less than pristine and he’d loosened the tie.
“Sit down, please, Mr. James.”
He moved a chair around to the head of the table and sat down.
She clicked on the tape recorder, stated the date, time, the names of all those present, and repeated the Miranda warning.
“Mr. James, what were you doing in Branner Noel’s apartment?”
“He was an old friend. I felt I had to see where he’d been living before he died.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound even slightly likely.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He leaned back and hooked an elbow over the back of the chair. “I was looking for a key.”
“A key to what?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
“Where is this box?”
“Bran asked me, if anything ever happened to him, to take care of whatever needed taking care of. I wanted to see what needed to be done.”
“That didn’t answer my question.” She waited. “The only key we found was for a safe-deposit box in Woodsonville. Is that the one you were looking for?”
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