The Perfect Suspect

by Margaret Coel

  “We’re on it, B.J.,” Marjorie said, and Catherine brought her attention back to the large woman with white, fleshy arms below the short sleeves of her red blouse, a mass of brown curls that radiated from her head and thick brown eyebrows that merged when she frowned. She had a desperate look about her, as if she might spring across the desk and pummel the phone. Bernard James Marshall had been the Journal publisher for a quarter of a century. With a scratch of a pen, he had let a dozen beat reporters, assistants and trainees go. He had closed departments, consolidated others. He could close down the newspaper. The atmosphere was always awkward and tense whenever B.J. inserted himself into the daily routine, as if he might be on the brink of stopping everything. “As soon as we have confirmation,” Marjorie said, “we’ll post the story on the website and in the blogs. I don’t want to run prematurely with this, then find out the TV reporters got it wrong and some other guy was shot in Mathews’s house. We have a reputation for checking facts and running accurate stories. We’re not a bunch of self-appointed bloggers.”

  “Just get the damn story!”

  “As I said, we’re—” Marjorie stopped. The disconnect signal droned from the speaker. She pushed the off button and swiveled herself square to the desk. “You have the confirmation, I hope,” she said.

  Catherine told her that Jason had gone to police headquarters for a press briefing taking place in thirty minutes, and watched Marjorie study her wrist watch as if she could hurry the hands around. “From the way Sydney Mathews reacted at the house, I’m pretty sure she was convinced the dead man was her husband. The bloggers are going with that.”

  Marjorie continued to study the watch. “How the hell did the TV reporters know about the wife identifying the body? They’ve got to have somebody inside the coroner’s office. It’s going to be at least thirty or forty minutes before Jason can post the confirmation.” She looked up. “I want a piece on your side, shock at campaign headquarters, reaction from party officials, that kind of thing. Scene at the house, anything else to flesh out the story.” She gave a little wave of dismissal.

  Catherine went back into the newsroom, ignoring the heads that swung toward her, the eyes that lasered into her, and the cacophony of questions that followed her down the corridor. “So what’s the story?” “Mathews murdered?” “What happened?” She stopped outside her cubicle and looked back at what was a comical scene, really: reporters perched on the edge of chairs they had wheeled into the corridor, watching her with the look of a hungry pack of dogs. “It looks like Mathews was killed,” she said, “but we’re still waiting for the official ID.” That seemed to satisfy them, because they began rolling back into the cubicles.

  She took her own chair, turned on the computer and pulled her cell from her bag before stashing the bag in the bottom drawer. There was a new text from Nick that gave her a little jolt of pleasure and, for an instant, pushed away the somber reality that the man destined to be the next governor had been shot to death. “Afternoon flight. Dinner 2 nite? Gaetano’s. 7:00 p.m.”

  She texted back one word: “Great.” She would have something to look forward to all day, something relaxing and exciting at the same time, which was how her relationship with Nick had been from the beginning: solid, yet shifting and surprising, as if they were still taking each other’s measure, not quite sure, but wanting to be, she thought. At least it was true on her part. She set the phone on the far side of the desk, out of sight. Gaetano’s, 7 p.m. She didn’t want any other texts that might mean a cancellation, a change in plans, the end of something that was just beginning.

  She brought up the file with the articles on David Mathews that she had written over the last six months and began glancing through them, starting with the announcement of his candidacy last January. A bitter cold day on the steps of the state capitol—the people’s house, where candidates traditionally made their announcements—snow piled on the ground and crusting the branches of the trees in Civic Center, and the freezing wind whipping her coat about her legs and working its way into her bones. She had waited with the TV and radio reporters, the bloggers, campaign volunteers, supporters and a few homeless men who had wandered over. Finally David Mathews had emerged through the double bronze doors and lifted both arms in a victory pose, as if he had already won the governorship. The crowd had gone wild.

  “Thank you, everyone!” The man’s voice had burst through the brisk air. “It’s great to see all of you.” He paused, as if to give the sincerity time to find its mark in the hopeful, upturned faces. “What do we want?” he shouted. A forest of red signs with white lettering grew from knots of supporters clustered in the front. The chanting began, encouraged by the sign holders who waved the signs overhead and pumped fists in the air. “Take back our state! Take back our state!”

  Mathews had let the chant subside to a low, intermittent roar before he said, “The great state of Colorado has been in the hands of special interests long enough. Unions, federal regulators, oil and gas companies. I say enough! We must take it back. That’s what I intend to do as the next governor of Colorado.”

  The crowd had shouted and screamed, Catherine remembered, a single, enormous animal crouching around her, energy focused on the handsome, silver-haired man standing on the top step, framed by the granite and bronze of the people’s house. “Together!” he shouted. “Together! We will reclaim our heritage. We are Westerners. We are independent. We are self-sufficient. We will take care of our own business.” The animal roared and rocked to the words. “I’m a businessman,” he went on. “I know how successful businesses work. I promise you that this state will be run like an efficient business. We will welcome new businesses in Colorado. Come to Colorado, we’ll say. We understand what businesses need to profit and benefit the community. Count on me to provide the services and education our people need and expect. Can I count on you?”

  The animal burst into cheers, then coalesced into another chant. “Count on us! Count on us!”

  Catherine remembered writing furiously in her notepad, recording everything, even her own impressions. The event had been as organized and choreographed as a Broadway show at the Buell Theater a mile away. Plants in the crowd—all those signs and cheerleaders hadn’t just shown up. David Mathews intended to go all the way to the governor’s office upstairs from where he stood, waving his arms, smiling, glowing with the anticipation of success.

  The story was half written in her head by the time Catherine had walked back to the Journal and settled in front of her computer. She filled in the background material she had gathered before the announcement. It was those background notes that she reviewed now: “Mathews is the president and CEO of Mathews Properties, formerly Mathews and Kane Properties, one of Denver’s largest development firms. Founded in 2000, the firm has developed large properties throughout the Denver Metro area, including Landmark Homes, the Silverstone Condominiums, and the Orangewood shopping malls in Lakewood, Glendale and Leaning Tree. Last year, Broderick Kane had accused Mathews of fraud and demanded an investigation. The police turned the matter over to the district attorney’s office, but Kane withdrew his complaint. The matter was settled amicably with Mathews purchasing his partner’s interests and becoming the sole owner of the company. Sources close to the transaction said that Mathews paid close to five million dollars.”

  The notes had touched on other aspects of the man’s life. How Mathews had moved to Denver in the late nineties from Chicago, leaving behind a decade-long career in real estate. “When you’re a skier, you want to be close to the mountains,” he said. “I can do business anywhere.” How Mathews and his wife, Sydney, were active in social events and known for their philanthropic support of the arts in Denver.

  Catherine read down the columns of text in the next articles. There had been no challenges to Mathews’s candidacy from the party. At the convention in the spring, he had walked away with the nomination amid the party’s glee at having found the perfect, silver-haired candidate, handsome, successful, ad
mirable, with excellent name recognition. A few weeks later, he had chosen his running mate for lieutenant governor, a political hack the Republican party owed a favor to named Easton Sherer. David Mathews could have run with a salamander, and nobody would have cared. Even though Mathews was the only candidate, state law required a primary election. Mathews had set a record for the largest number of votes in a primary.

  A message appeared on the screen: a new posting on the Journal’s website. Catherine clicked on the site. At the top was the byline of Jason Metcalf. “David Mathews, Republican candidate for governor, was found shot to death early this morning in his home in the Cherry Creek area. According to a Denver police spokesperson, Mathews sustained two gunshot wounds in the chest and one in the thigh. The chest wounds were fatal. His body was found at 5:00 a.m. on his living room floor by his housekeeper. Police are asking anyone who may have seen anything unusual in the vicinity last night to come forward.”

  Catherine opened a new window and began typing out her part of the story, recapitulating some of the background details, pasting other details from previous articles. Then she picked up the phone and called Mathews’s campaign headquarters. The buzzing sound of a phone ringing on the ground floor of one of Mathews’s buildings on Colorado Boulevard went on and on. No answer, not even voice mail. She called party headquarters. “Colorado Republican Party.” A man had picked up after the first ring.

  “Catherine McLeod of the Journal,” she said.

  “We have no comment, except that the death of an outstanding and talented man like Dave Mathews is a terrible calamity for the people of this state.”

  “And you are . . .”

  “A spokesperson at party headquarters.”

  “What comes next?”

  “How could we have any plans at this point?” There would be a statement later, he said, and hung up.

  Catherine added the comments and sent the article to Marjorie. Nothing new, nothing substantial, but it was something to run alongside Jason’s post.

  She pulled her bag out of the drawer and got to her feet just as the phone rang. It would start now, she thought. All the people shocked and upset by the news, the sign wavers on the capitol steps last January, the volunteers who filled the campaign headquarters every time she had gone there, would start calling, wanting to talk about David Mathews’s murder, hoping to tease out something behind the news that a reporter might know. She lifted the receiver. “Catherine McLeod,” she said.

  The line was quiet. For an instant, she thought no one was on the other end. Finally a woman’s voice, little more than a whisper, floated toward her. Catherine had to press the phone tight against her ear and plug a finger into her other ear to block out the background noise.

  “I know the killer.”

  “Who is this,” Catherine said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I was there.”

  “Are we talking about David Mathews?”

  There was no answer.

  “You were at his house when he was killed?”

  “I’m telling you I saw the killer.”

  “Have you gone to the police?” My God, a witness. Someone else had been at the house besides Mathews and the killer.

  The voice on the other end dissolved into a shaky laughter that shifted toward hysteria, then went quiet. “They’ll never believe me. Why do you think I’m calling a reporter? You’ve been writing about David. I figured I could trust you. Maybe I figured wrong.”

  “Wait a minute,” Catherine said, hearing the urgency in her own voice, the fear that the woman would end the call. “Tell me what you saw.”

  “The killer coming out of David’s house, right after I heard the gunshots.” A tenseness, rippled with fear, in the woman’s voice. “Standing there on the porch, under the light. I got a clear view of her face.”

  “Her? You believe the killer is a woman?” Sydney Mathews, Catherine was thinking. Whoever was on the line had seen Sydney Mathews come out of the house. “Why can’t you go to the police?”

  The laughter bubbled again, followed by the sound of breathing and the nearly imperceptible sound of fear, as if the woman had clamped a fist to her mouth and was trying to catch her breath around the edges. “They’ll never believe me. They’ll say I’m lying. They’ll want to know what I was doing there. They’ll suspect that I killed David. They’ll arrest me . . .”

  “They won’t believe you? I don’t understand,” Catherine said again, but she was beginning to understand. Sydney Mathews was well-known in the community; she would have powerful friends.

  “They’ll never take my word against hers. She’s one of them, don’t you get it? She’s a cop.”

  Catherine took a moment, struggling to make a space for this new idea to emerge around the scenario she had already mapped out. “You’re telling me that you saw a policewoman coming out of Mathews’s house?”

  “She’s the blonde I saw on TV when they were bringing out his body. She was in the doorway. She wasn’t in any uniform. I figure she’s one of the detectives.”

  Catherine realized she must have sat down, because the edge of the chair cut into her thighs. The rustle of activity, the clicking keys and the ringing phones, the bobbing heads in the cubicles faded into a background that blurred around the image of Detective Ryan Beckman, the blond woman she had seen in the doorway. The police would never believe it. An anonymous caller claiming to have seen a homicide detective at the scene of a murder! And yet, something in the caller’s voice, something that ranged between terror and insistence, had the sound of truth. “Who are you?” she said. “I can’t do anything unless I know your name.”

  “No names. I told you what I saw. You take it from here.”

  “Listen,” Catherine began, but the line had gone dead. A hollow space had opened between her and whoever had been on the other end.

  5

  “She refuses to give her name? What does that tell us?” Marjorie sat sideways at the desk, eyes on the computer screen to her right. She continued typing as Catherine perched on a side chair. An anonymous caller in the newspaper business was about as valuable as a paper clip on the street. Nobody would stoop to pick it up. No-name calls came with every big story, breathless voices claiming they were part of the heist, witnessed the robbery, helped plan the murder, slept with the killer. It was the investigative reporter’s job to sort through the fantastic claims, the inherent contradictions and decide whether the story deserved followup. Most did not, but by the time a reporter worked that out, fifteen or twenty minutes had been stolen from the real story and the actual leads.

  “I called Jason. He’s still at police headquarters,” Catherine said. “He confirmed that Ryan Beckman is the lead detective on the case. She’s been with the department three years. Before that, she spent eleven years with the Minneapolis PD. She’s a good detective. Everybody on the force seems to like her okay. It probably helps that she’s beautiful.” She shrugged. “The caller could hardly go to the police and ID somebody like that.” And yet, the voice on the line had been different from the usual anonymous calls. There had been the fear, tenacity and certainty ringing with truth. As implausible as the story might seem, Catherine could feel the truth of it in the pit of her stomach, like a physical object, sharp and real. Listen to your life. She could almost hear Dulcie Oldman’s voice in her head. Listen to your own sense of what is true and real. So much of her Arapaho heritage to learn, Catherine thought. A whole different way of looking at the world.

  She said, “The police would dismiss the caller as a crank.”

  “What makes you think she isn’t?” Marjorie stabbed a key hard, swung around and locked eyes with Catherine.

  “I heard the truth in her voice.” It was all Catherine could do to keep from jumping up, circling the office and pounding the desk. “She called me because she has nowhere else to go. Look, Marjorie. If she saw Detective Beckman at Mathews’s house, it’s possible the detective also saw her. She’s scared. She knows her life could be in d
anger. We’re her only hope.”

  Marjorie had a face like granite. Hardly the flicker of a shadow in her expression. Beneath the thick eyebrows her eyes were deep and motionless, perfect camouflage to whatever thoughts moved inside her head. It was a long moment before she stretched out an arm, picked up the phone and said, “Tell Jason I want to see him the minute he gets in.”

  She turned back to Catherine and drummed her fingers on the edge of the desk. “The story sounds preposterous. There could be a dozen reasons someone wants to implicate a police detective. How about this scenario? Detective Beckman arrested the caller for prostitution, the caller saw the detective on TV and decided it was payback time. Here’s another: The caller is a police officer, pounding the sidewalks, and along comes a beautiful woman from another city who gets promoted without paying her dues in Denver and rockets into the homicide squad. Maybe the caller wants to take her down. Or let’s say, two women, both in love with David Mathews—quite an attractive guy from his pictures—and one decides to take revenge on her rival.”

  Catherine was on her feet, patrolling the carpet, new possibilities jumping in her mind. “You’re saying that Detective Beckman and Mathews might have been having an affair?” She stopped moving, as if her feet had stumbled into wet concrete. “My God,” she said. “Sydney Mathews could be the caller!” That possibility led back, like a rope uncurling itself, to Catherine’s initial suspicion that Sydney Mathews might be involved in her husband’s murder. But the voice on the phone was unfamiliar, and Catherine had interviewed Sydney, spoken personally with her. Still, Sydney could have disguised her voice.

  “Suppose Mathews’s wife killed him and is trying to throw suspicion onto Detective Beckman,” she said.

  “Suspicion on Detective Beckman?” Jason must have walked through the door behind her, but she hadn’t heard him. She spun as he nudged the door shut with his boot. Then he plopped down on the side chair beneath the wall of plaques with his name in black, bold type and framed newspaper photos of his grinning face. “What’re you talking about? What’s up?”