Body of Evidence
Page 10
“Nope.”
“Nobody heard anything?”
“The live-in maid, who found him, was the only one here. But the study is soundproofed, according to her, so he could work undisturbed.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
“Not yet. She’s first on the list, but she’s pretty distraught.”
“He have any enemies?” Her mouth curved wryly. “As if anybody could reach such an exalted position in life without making at least a few along the way.”
“Safe bet,” Waters agreed. “But we don’t have names yet.”
“So…we start asking questions?”
“Indeed we do.”
Chapter 2
“I understand it was a shocking experience for you, Mrs. Hobart,” Waters said.
“It was terrible!” The woman shuddered. She looked tired as she sat on her employer’s elegant sofa, and Darien supposed she’d been up most of the night. The notes she had said the woman was fifty-three, but right now she looked at least a decade older.
“So I’m sure you want to help us find who did this to Mr. Gardner,” Waters said, his voice gentle.
“I already told the other detectives, I don’t know anything. I heard a noise, then I found him on the floor in the study.”
“You didn’t see anything at all?”
A suddenly wary look crossed her face. “No. I told you, a noise woke me.”
“What kind of noise?”
“Just a noise,” she insisted. “I walked to the hall, I saw a light on. I found Mr. Gardner. I called 9-1-1. That’s all.”
She sounded almost defensive, Darien thought. And on her thought she saw Waters incline his head a fraction, as if the woman’s tone had also caught his interest.
“I see. Then I guess we won’t need much more of your time,” Waters said. The woman relaxed visibly. “We’ll just need the names of everyone who was here yesterday and last night. And anyone else who came regularly.”
Immediately the woman stiffened up again. And Darien saw Waters notice it.
“I’m afraid I couldn’t do that. It would betray my employment contract.”
“Your contract?” Waters said, looking puzzled.
“A confidentiality clause?” Darien asked, the first time she’d spoken since the interview had begun.
The woman looked at her. “Exactly. I’ve not broken that trust for ten years, and I’m not about to start now.”
Darien hesitated, then asked softly, “But the person you promised confidentiality to is dead. Doesn’t that void your responsibility, especially if it will help find who killed him?”
Mrs. Hobart looked thoughtful, gave a half nod, opened her mouth to speak. And then abruptly stopped.
“Mrs. Hobart?” Waters said.
“I work for the Gardner family,” she said. And crossed her arms in front of her as if that answered all.
“And I work for the city of Chicago,” Waters said, his voice suddenly flinty. “It’s my job to find out what really happened here last night. And I will, Mrs. Hobart. By whatever means necessary.”
The woman drew back slightly, as if she felt intimidated. I would, Darien thought.
She’d never seen Colin Waters in investigative mode before, but she knew his reputation, and she quickly decided to stay quiet so she could watch and learn.
“I’m sure the Gardner family wouldn’t appreciate it becoming public knowledge that one of their employees had to be forced to cooperate with the investigation of the homicide of one of their own.”
His tone had gone icy, and it worked. The woman visibly quailed, and Darien saw her swallow nervously. But she still maintained her silence. So did Waters, until Darien wondered if he was waiting for her to step in.
“Perhaps we should call Mrs. Gardner,” Darien said. “I’m sure she would tell you she wants you to cooperate.”
Waters shot her a look that told her without doubt that he thought she’d just made a big mistake. But she’d begun now, and he didn’t stop her, so she had no choice but to go on.
“I mean, she’s already told our commander she wants all the stops pulled out in this investigation.”
“She has?” the woman asked, looking doubtful. “Well…”
Waters’s expression changed, although Darien wasn’t sure what the sideways look he gave her then meant.
When the woman still hesitated, Waters put in, “We’ll check the security tapes, of course, but you’d save us a lot of time.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Oh. The cameras.”
She’d forgotten about them, Darien thought. And now that she’s remembered, she’s not happy. Interesting.
Waters gave her a moment longer to consider before he said, “And after all, we only need to know the names of any frequent visitors Mr. Gardner had, and of course any he had last night.”
With a tiny sigh, she surrendered. “Many people came to see him often. Business people, and friends.”
“Family?”
“Of course,” she said, giving Waters a withering look. “Mrs. Gardner comes frequently, and Mr. Lyle.”
If Waters noticed the absence of Stephen, the dead man’s son—and heir—on the visitor list, he didn’t show it. But Darien was certain it had registered.
“Who came the most often outside of family?”
She frowned. “I suppose Mr. Bartley. And Mr. Reicher.”
The victim’s administrative assistant and the chief operating officer of the Gardner Corporation respectively, Darien thought, recalling the organizational chart she’d seen in the file Waters had given her to scan when they’d arrived.
“Who was here yesterday?”
“Mr. Lyle, early in the day, for just a few minutes. No one else that I know of.”
“And last night?”
“I said I don’t know if anyone came to visit him last night. He went out for dinner, didn’t get home until ten, like I told those other detectives. He told me to go on to bed, he wouldn’t be needing me.”
“Was that unusual?” Darien asked.
“No. Mr. Gardner liked his privacy.”
Waters studied her for a moment. “Especially if he was going to have female company?”
Darien realized he’d voiced the thought she’d just had, and she wondered what had been in the woman’s voice to make them both think of this.
“I don’t intrude into such things.”
“It must have been hard to keep track anyway,” Darien said empathetically. “He was a very handsome and wealthy man.”
“Yes.” For a moment genuine pain showed in the woman’s face. “But it was more than that. He had something special. Charisma, they call it.”
“Did Mr. Gardner’s lady friends tend to be happy with him?” Waters asked.
“Not that it’s anyone’s business, but he always treated them well.”
“But never married any of them,” Darien observed.
“He had to be careful. A man in his position could never be sure if they were genuine or after his money. It’s always been that way.”
Poor little rich boy, Darien thought, but said nothing.
“Did he anger anyone in that process?”
“A woman he was seeing, you mean? Enough to…murder him?”
Oddly, her voice sounded merely thoughtful, not startled or shocked at the question. And it was only seconds before she was shaking her head.
“No. I can’t imagine any woman he’d been seeing doing such a thing.”
“You knew them, then?”
“I met most of them.”
“Liked them?”
“It wasn’t my place to like or dislike them.”
That was the end of the woman’s cooperation. Darien couldn’t decide if she was showing loyalty to her long-time employer, or if she had something to hide. Judging by the way Waters was looking at her, he was wondering the same thing.
“Now what?” Darien asked as Waters dismissed the woman.
“What do you think?”
But now she had to focus on what was happening here. Patrol officers had thankfully already done a canvas of the immediate neighbors, with minimal results, not surprising given the separation between the penthouse and the rest of the building.
“We need to interview the family, but while we’re still here and he’s primed…the super?” she asked.
“Benton already talked to him this morning when they got the call. Think we need to bother him again?”
She weighed that one for a moment, then went with her gut. “We’re going to be who he sees from now on, he might as well get used to our faces.”
Waters grinned suddenly. It lit up those amber eyes, and Darien felt as if the sun had come out on this blustery March day. “His place is on the ground floor. Let’s go,” he said.
On the way down in the elevator, Waters leaned against the wall and looked around at the expensive marble and carved wood. He gave a slight shake of his head as he mused aloud. “Looks, power, wealth, charisma. He had it all, didn’t he?”
“For all the good it did him,” Darien said.
“There is that,” Waters agreed, and Darien knew he was thinking, as she was, that all the wealth in the world couldn’t help the man who now lay on a slab in the morgue.
She was doing okay, Colin thought. Wilson had picked right up on the cue he’d given her when the building superintendent’s wife had launched into a tirade about the arrogance of Franklin Gardner, not letting the super himself get a word in edgewise.
“Is he in trouble with the police? Good,” the woman had snapped. “Some kind of financial fraud, I’ll bet. That’s what it always is with his kind.”
It was then Colin had tried to signal Darien Wilson with a flick of his eyes. She caught it and smoothly took the woman’s arm, using body language and tone of voice to invite the woman for a nice, long venting session.
“It seems that way, doesn’t it? Perhaps you can help with the investigation, I’m sure an observant citizen like yourself must have noticed some things.”
The woman smiled, clearly pleased as she was led away. “Oh, I have all right, I could tell you…”
Relieved to have her removed, Colin turned back to Carter. The man gave him a look that was both sheepish and wary. “I didn’t tell her he’d been killed. The detective last night, he said I shouldn’t talk about it to anyone. Since she can’t keep anything secret, I figured that included her.”
“You made the right choice.”
“I’ll remember that when she chews me out for keeping such big news from her.”
As jarring as it was to have a murder reduced to such cold terms, Colin knew it was true; the death of a Gardner was just that, big news.
“I’ll need a list of all the tenants from you.”
The man grimaced. “They’re not going to like that. They pay a lot of money to live here, and they expect their privacy.”
“So did Franklin Gardner,” Colin pointed out.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. But, do I need to see like a search warrant or something?”
Rescue me from sidewalk lawyers, Colin thought. “I can get you a subpoena for the records, if you want,” he said easily, pulling a notepad out of his jacket pocket. “I’ll just need to verify all your identifying information for the court records, in case they need you to testify about the delay.”
It worked, as he had guessed it would. The only thing the average citizen disliked more than getting involved was having to appear in court to explain why.
“We’ve already talked to many of them,” Colin said. “It won’t come as any surprise to them when we go to follow up.”
“I’ll get the list,” Carter grumbled. He turned and disappeared through a doorway that led to a bedroom he apparently used as an office.
The apartment itself, although smaller, was as elegant as the others Colin had seen in this building. But there the resemblance stopped; Carter might be the super of one of the fanciest buildings on the Gold Coast, but obviously they didn’t pay him enough to match the other residents in decor.
Or maybe his tastes are just more like mine, Colin thought ruefully; his own furnishings ran to whatever was comfortable and things he could put his feet up on. After four years of marriage to a woman who kept the living room for company only, he’d sworn he’d never have a room he couldn’t live in.
He continued his cursory inspection, looking for anything that jumped out at him, anything out of tune. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were afghans tossed over every chair and the couch, and someone living here was obviously the source, judging by the large basket full of yarn festooned with scissors and what he guessed were knitting needles. There were some amateurish oil paintings on the walls, of floral arrangements and bowls of lopsided fruit, and he wondered if they were by the same hand. The upholstery was floral, much like the things his mother had preferred, which probably explained why he felt more at home here; he might not like all the fussy details but he’d grown up with the stuff, unlike the marble and leather of the late Franklin Gardner’s abode.
Carter came back with the list of tenants. “Must have been tough,” Colin said, pretending to scan the list while in fact he was watching Carter with his excellent peripheral vision, “to have your wife dislike your star tenant so much.”
“She’s that way about anybody with that kind of money, not that we’re doing all that bad. I mean, we live in this building, after all. Anyway, I just try…tried to keep her out of his way.”
“Hmm,” Colin said, wondering just how deep Mrs. Carter’s dislike of the penthouse tenant had gone. It seemed unlikely a woman could take him. Gardner had been a strong, healthy, athletically built man, but the element of surprise could turn any situation on its head.
“Who were the regular visitors to the penthouse that you knew about?”
Carter thought for a moment. “Ladies, of course. He had lots of those. And he held a lot of business meetings and dinners up there. He and Mr. Reicher.”
Hmm. Second time that name had popped up. “What was he like? Mr. Reicher.”
“Oh, he’s much worse than Mr. Gardner. Mr. Reicher wasn’t very pleasant at all. Very cold, my wife says.”
Colin asked a few more routine questions, gave the man his card and told him to call if he thought of anything that might be useful.
“What’s your take on the wife?” he asked his new partner as they left the apartment.
“Bored out of her mind, so she minds everyone else’s business,” she answered.
“Social climber? Aspires to the Gardner level?”
She thought about that one. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t really like them enough to want to be one. It’s not envy, she seems to view them more as an affliction.”
“To be eliminated?”
She stared at him. “You’re thinking of her as a suspect?”
He shrugged. “Just curious about her attitude. And thinking those knitting needles in there could leave a wound a lot like an ice pick.”
Quickly she glanced back over her shoulder as if she could still see into the apartment they’d just left. When she looked back at him there was acknowledgment in her eyes, he supposed for seeing something she’d missed.
“I don’t think so,” she said after a moment of thought. “She’s more of a complainer than a doer, I think.”
Colin listened, then nodded. “All right.”
He saw an odd expression flit quickly across her face
, as if she were surprised he had accepted her assessment so easily. But he’d arrived at the same conclusion after his short interaction with the woman, so in fact she was simply confirming what he already thought.
“What’s next? A door-to-door?” she asked, indicating the tenant list he now held with a nod of her head.
“Chances are you’ll get mainly staff this time of day,” he said. “Family should probably come first.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound particularly nervous about going up against a family the stature of the Gardners. Colin didn’t know if that meant she was sure of herself, or too naive to realize what she was about to get into.
“You drove from home?” he asked. She nodded. “Let’s take my city car, then. I’ll bring you back here when we’re ready to head to the barn. Or on my way home.” He didn’t mention that would likely be well after normal quitting time; he guessed they’d be putting in a lot of long hours on this one.
“All right. Shall we pick up his computer now?”
“Might as well. I’ve got an evidence lock box in the trunk. We’ll secure it there.”
The lock boxes were an innovation added after one too many cases had been lost due to a fast-tongued defense lawyer convincing a jury that somebody could have broken into a police unit trunk, tampered with evidence, and then locked it back up and leave no sign, nor be seen by any witnesses. They never explained why that “somebody” simply hadn’t stolen the evidence altogether, but logic didn’t seem to apply much to such things.
He doubted logic would apply much to this case, either.
“Now this is more like it,” Darien said.
“Think you could live like that, Wilson?” Waters asked, gesturing toward the huge house in the distance as they drove up the sweeping, half-circle driveway.
She glanced at her new partner. “I didn’t mean the house. I just meant the space.”
The grounds of the Gardner estate were, indeed, spacious. She was a little surprised at how comforting it felt to be able to see more than a tiny patch of sky between towering buildings.
“What’s the point, besides to impress people that you can afford it?” he asked