“What the hell are you doing?” Wendell stood in the doorway.
Behind him, peering around his arm, was Sydney Mathews. She elbowed past her brother and marched across the study. “You have no right to look inside David’s desk,” she said.
Ryan started to say this was a murder investigation, but Sydney Mathews put up one hand. “What are you looking for? Something to incriminate me? Is that it? You think I killed my husband because he was unfaithful? You’re crazy! You have no right to rummage in my husband’s private papers.”
“You’re mistaken,” Ryan said. “I haven’t touched anything in this desk. I’ve merely confirmed you have a computer here. We’ll want to take a look at it.”
“Get a search warrant,” Sydney said.
8
“Looks like they’ve closed.” Martin peered through the narrow rectangular window that abutted the door. Plastered to the door itself was a brown plastic plaque with stenciled white letters: Mathews Campaign Headquarters. Doors to the other offices along the corridor were also closed.
“I hear somebody moving about inside,” Ryan said, pounding on the door. The sign jumped and vibrated. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martin flip open a wallet and press his badge against the window.
The door swung open, and a big man with bushy hair and glasses, dressed in blue tee shirt and khakis, waved them into an outer office. Computers, printers and opened cartons were strewn about the floor. Sheets of papers towered beside a shredding machine in the corner. Side chairs and desks were almost lost under cardboard boxes and piles of folders. The noise of a ringing phone burst from the debris on a desk.
“I’m Don Cannon, David’s campaign manager,” the big man said, ignoring the phone and throwing a glance about the office. “You can see, we’re packing up. Packing it in. All our hopes and plans flown out the window. The state’s the big loser, you know. David Mathews would’ve been the best governor in our history. Wondered when you’d be showing up.” He hadn’t drawn a breath.
Ryan said she was Detective Beckman. “Detective Martinez,” she said, tilting her head toward Martin. “We’re investigating Mr. Mathews’s homicide. Anything you can tell us that might help find his killer? Did he have any known enemies, anyone angry enough to want him dead?”
“You must be joking.” Cannon gave a raspy laugh. “Everybody loved David. He didn’t know what an enemy was.”
“Somebody shot him to death,” Martin said. He held a ballpoint over the notepad cupped in his hand. “Recent altercations? Traffic disputes? Anything happen that might set somebody off?”
Cannon was shaking his head. “David would’ve told me. We discussed everything.”
Ryan felt her breath knot in her throat. David, who took such stringent precautions. No e-mails, no phone calls, except on the disposable cells that he changed every week, no meetings in public. She had slunk around, hiding in hotel rooms until his campaign staff had cleared out, leaving by the stairs so she wouldn’t run into anyone. And he had discussed everything with Don Cannon?
She made herself push on through the list of routine questions: “Did Mr. Mathews seem despondent recently? Upset or nervous?”
“No, nothing like that,” Cannon said. “Recent polls showed David ahead by thirty points. I mean, that’s phenomenal. David was ecstatic.”
Ryan had to look away. The polls seemed real, more real than she was. She half expected them to start dancing in front of her eyes. Was that all David had cared about, the polls? Had their breakup meant nothing, not even the slightest disturbance to his equilibrium? The truth of it coiled inside her like a poisonous snake that might strike and kill her. She’d had the right to protect herself. It was clear now. David had deserved to die, a man incapable of understanding the suffering he had inflicted, strolling through a charmed life, thirty points ahead.
“What about the rumors of Mr. Mathews’s infidelity?” Martin said. Ryan felt a wave of relief that he had asked the question; she needed a moment to trust her own voice again. She crossed her arms and dug her hands into her sides to quiet the tremors. They had discussed everything , David and Don Cannon? Even a breakup that had meant nothing to David?
Cannon hesitated. He pushed up the glasses that had slid down his nose and fixed them in place with an index finger. Then he drew in a long breath that expanded the blue tee shirt, as if to steel himself for whatever turn the conversation might take. “If there were any indiscretions,” he said after a moment, “and I’m not saying there were, they were in the past.”
“We’ve spoken with Mrs. Mathews,” Martin said. “She doesn’t deny her husband was unfaithful. We understand they were separated.”
Cannon shrugged. “Only temporary. Sure, Sydney flew off the handle once in a while, but they always reconciled.”
“Flew off the handle?” Ryan said. Oh, this was helpful; she had to remember this: a jealous wife who flew into rages.
Cannon hesitated, as if it had struck him that he shouldn’t have started down this road. “Only once that I saw. Came in here one day and gave David hell. They got into a big shouting match, but I figured it would all blow over.”
“We need names of the women he had affairs with,” Martin said.
“Can’t help you there.” Cannon pulled a face as if he were disappointed. “Maybe David took risks, and I’m not saying he did, but he was very discreet. He was a focused man, focused on his business and his political ambitions. He wouldn’t have let anything get in the way.”
“And yet he and his wife were living apart.” Martin kept going, and Ryan had to stop herself from saying, I think Mr. Cannon has answered our questions. “If he was planning a reconciliation,” Martin said, “maybe a jealous mistress . . .”
Cannon waved one hand between them. “Let me clear something up. David loved his wife. Any dalliances he might have had were passing flirtations. Hardly serious enough to drive somebody to commit murder.”
“What about the campaign staff?” Ryan said, desperate to steer the conversation in another direction. Dalliances? Flirtations? She was thinking she had been no more than an object that David could attach to his belt, a wallet or eyeglasses case that he could toss aside when he chose. Cutting her loose had been an automatic response, nothing that required thought.
“The campaign staff?” Cannon blinked behind the lenses of his glasses. “Everybody here worked their butts off because they believed in David one hundred percent, no holds barred, no reservations. We were devastated when we got the news this morning. We started packing up, but I had to let people go home. Everybody was upset. Crying. Sobbing.”
“What about you?” Ryan said. “You feel the same way?”
“Yeah,” Cannon said. “I’m not the sobbing type. That’s why David put me in charge. But did I feel the loss, the pain? Like I was the one that took the bullets. He was my friend, my boss. I would have walked through fire for him.”
“His running mate feel the same?” Martin asked.
“You mean blustery Easton Sherer? He’s been on vacation in Spain for two weeks. Figured nothing he could do would make any difference. David was the whole show. Frankly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Easton pulled up stakes and stayed over there. He’s got plenty of money. Only reason he agreed to run was so he could bask in David’s sunshine for a while.”
“Oh, sorry to interrupt.” The door had opened, and a man still in his twenties, with the wiry, knotted physique of a cyclist and short-cropped sandy hair stepped into the office. There was a dejected look about him—the slumped shoulders, the lost, random way his hands moved about. He finally grabbed the side of the door, slammed it shut and turned toward Cannon. “Should I come back?”
Ryan could hear her heart pounding. She recognized the man—the staffer who had seen her and David last June in Aspen. What had she been thinking, coming here? She should have asked Martin to handle the interview. He could have taken a uniform along. God, she had to get herself together. Everything depended on it.
&n
bsp; “Detectives Beckman and Martinez.” She realized Cannon was making the introductions. “The campaign’s scheduler, Jeremy Whitman. The man who kept David on time; made sure he accepted invitations that would pay off in new voters, you know, give the fence-sitters a firsthand impression of how great David was.” He looked at the young man. “They’re here about David,” he said. “I told them we were pretty beside ourselves this morning, so I sent everybody home. I wasn’t expecting you back.”
“Christ, have you arrested the killer?” The young man’s voice rose on clanging notes of hope.
“We’re still investigating,” Martin said.
“Oh.” Whitman looked from Martin to Ryan, and Ryan felt his gaze focusing in on her. He rubbed a hand over his eyes—blue eyes peering at her past long fingers and short, chewed nails. Then he dropped his hand and went on staring. She tried to suck in a breath, but the air clogged in her nostrils.
Martin had launched into a rerun of the questions: Anything you can tell us? Altercations? Anybody who might want Mathews dead? Any past romances you might know about? Any names?
Jeremy hadn’t taken his eyes off her; his arms now rigid at his sides. Finally he stepped backward and looked over at Cannon, as if he were trying to guess what Cannon had already told them.
“How about it?” Martin prodded.
“No,” Jeremy said, settling his gaze on Martin. “I don’t know anybody who’d want to harm David. I never knew anything about his personal life. I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said, making a deliberate effort not to look at Ryan.
And now she was certain that he had recognized her. He could connect her to David, raise a lot of unsettling questions, get her pulled from the investigation, and turn the investigation down a path she could never allow it to take. At the moment, at least, he had chosen to remain silent. Witnesses were like that at times, shutting up inside just as the questions got uncomfortable, afraid to say anything that might draw them more into the case.
“I came back for my jacket,” Jeremy said, shouldering past them.
“We may want to talk to you again,” Martin said. “Where can we reach you?”
“He’s got a loft in the old Hudson warehouse,” Cannon said. “Any other staffers you want to talk to, you can reach through me. Everybody in this campaign is available whenever you say. We want David’s murder solved.”
Jeremy had pulled a tan Windbreaker from under a carton. He hung the Windbreaker over a shoulder and made his way back across the office. “Yeah,” he said, tossing a quick glance over one shoulder. “Anytime you want to talk.”
Then he was gone, slamming the door behind him, a slim, slumpshouldered figure moving across the rectangular window next to the door.
Martin pulled a white sheet of paper out of his inside jacket pocket. “We have a search warrant for the computers, phones, fax machines. Also campaign records, personnel, finance—that sort of thing.” He nodded toward the equipment and cartons. “Lab techs are on the way to photograph the location of any evidence we find. They’ll take the items to the lab.”
Cannon nodded, as if Martin had only confirmed what he’d already figured out.
“Whitman knows something, you ask me,” Martin said. He rapped the steering wheel with his thumb and squinted into the brightness drifting past the lowered visor. The air conditioner labored over the heat that had built up in the car. Ryan sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat. They had spent a couple hours collecting file folders, boxing up computers, fax machines and telephones. After the tech guys had loaded everything into the van outside, Ryan had tossed Martin the car keys. She was the better driver, they both knew, faster reflexes, the ability to multitask, but now she was too shaky, too distracted to negotiate the late afternoon traffic.
“What makes you think so?” she managed, wondering if Martin had noticed Jeremy staring at her.
“Come on, Beckman.” He tossed her a look and gave her a smile that flashed a row of perfect, white teeth in the dark complexion of his face. There were streaks of white in his Marine-cut black hair. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel when somebody’s holding out.”
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s say he’s holding out. What could he know? He’s stuck behind a computer all day, a real geek. I doubt he’d register a threat to bomb the place.”
“He would have seen any threats against Mathews on the Internet. We’ll know more after the techs look at the computers. You hungry?”
Ryan shook her head. The thought of food made her want to retch. Everything depended on finding the murder weapon in the desk drawer. She hadn’t expected to be the lead investigator. What a lucky break that was the way it had turned out. She willed the nerves in her stomach to stop jumping around and reminded herself she was in control. She had to make the most of it, steer the investigation toward the grieving widow, the first person any detective worth his salt would look hard at. All she had to do was get a search warrant on the Evergreen house, which wouldn’t be a problem. Sydney had admitted that David owned a gun. The warrant would specify the computer, gun, any documents—letters, financial records—that might shed light on the investigation. With all the national attention and pressure to solve David’s murder, the judge would affix his signature to any warrant she and Martin wanted. She would make certain someone else found the murder weapon, and the case would be closed.
“You need to eat.” Martin swung the car onto the pavement of a fast food restaurant and headed into the drive-through lane. “Hamburger? Chicken sandwich?”
“Oh, God, no,” she said. The thought of food sent her stomach into new spasms.
Martin gave her a sideways glance, then shouted his own order into the outdoor intercom—double cheeseburger, double order of fries, coffee—then she leaned over and said she would have a Coke. “One large Coke,” he shouted.
As soon as they picked up the order, Martin stripped the wrapping off the hamburger and took a big bite. Guiding the car with one hand, he drove across the pavement and out into the traffic moving north. “I say we need to talk to Jeremy Whitman again.”
“He’s in shock.” Ryan sipped at the Coke. The combination of sweetness and ice knocked back the acid rising in her throat. She could feel her head clearing. Jeremy had been frightened when he saw her—a police detective involved with the victim! He hadn’t known what to say, how much to divulge. No one else had seen Ryan and David together. David had assured her of that. It would be Whitman’s word against hers. But he knew that she also recognized him; she had seen it in his expression. He would think things over, maybe talk to Cannon—God, had he already returned to the office? Chances were he hadn’t. Oh, she knew the type: methodical, careful, anything but impulsive. The type who lived in his head, and that’s where he would work out whether he should tell the police about Aspen, and that could take a few hours.
“You can’t make anything out of the way he acted,” she went on. But she had made everything out of it, she was thinking. Jeremy Whitman had become an unforeseen problem that she had to solve.
Martin chewed for a moment, then dug a hand into the white paper bag on the console, helped himself to a bunch of fries and chewed some more. “So we wait until tomorrow,” he said finally, “and we go have another heart-to-heart with Jeremy Whitman.”
9
The neighborhood was as still as a photograph. Giant, contemporary houses with the moneyed look of stucco, decks and oversized windows arranged under elms and oaks, like a movie set with the feel of vacancy about it. The occupants had decamped for the day to the downtown steel and glass skyscraper offices that rose against the sky in the distance. Catherine had taken the chance someone might be at home, a woman in between social committee meetings or a tennis match at the country club a few blocks away. Someone who might have seen something unusual last night and remembered a tiny fact that could help her find this morning’s caller.
Catherine slowed past Mathews’s house, which looked a little out of place, more extreme in its glass and ste
el architecture, more prominent, just like Mathews himself, she thought. Always wanting to stand out from the crowd. The yellow police tape stretched across the front yard and the bouquets of flowers, photographs of a smiling Mathews and condolence cards piled along the sidewalk where the reporters and gawkers had milled about were the only signs that something unusual had happened there. The official vehicles gone, the crowds vanished. She parked in front of the next-door neighbor’s house, found the small notebook inside her bag. It had taken about two minutes to find the names on the Internet: Carol and Lee Kramer. She glanced through the notes she had made. Lee Kramer had called 911 at 5:06 a.m. Reported body in house next door.
The bronze front door of the gray stucco house was about twelve feet high, inserted with strips of artfully arranged glass that gave Catherine a fragmented view of the black-and-white tiled entry. She rang the bell and waited for someone to emerge from the depths of the interior. There were no footsteps, no faint tremors of movement. Only the lingering muted echo of the gonglike bell inside.
She was about to start back down the sidewalk when the door opened and a short, gray-haired woman with pink cheeks and a prominent, purplish nose peered out. “Yes?” she said. Beyond the woman, at the edge of the entry, a dark-haired, middle-aged woman stood hugging herself, her face creased with curiosity and anxiety.
Catherine introduced herself, said she was with the Journal and would like to speak with Mr. or Mrs. Kramer.
“They’re not at home.” The woman in the doorway enunciated the words as if there were an invisible list of phrases that she was accustomed to using, and this was the most familiar.
“Where can I find them?” Catherine said, hoping the door wouldn’t slam in her face. The dark-haired woman had moved forward and was now only a few feet from the door.
The Perfect Suspect Page 7