The Perfect Suspect

by Margaret Coel

  “I want to find David’s killer as much as you do,” she said, the good cop, cajoling him toward a place of safety from which he was unlikely to bolt down the street screaming. “I wouldn’t want to be removed from the investigation because you happened to see us together.”

  “You killed him.” He seemed almost sober.

  “We need to straighten things out.” She nudged him toward the car. She knew exactly where she would take him; she hadn’t known before, but now it was as clear as a map on her GPS. Out to Lakewood, along an old creek bed where a new light-rail was under construction, with piles of dirt and bulldozers and tractors, where a body might not be noticed for days. “We’ll go to headquarters, and you can tell the officers on duty everything you know about me. I’m anxious to get this behind me. I want to worry about finding David’s killer, so let’s clear the air. What do you say?”

  “You must think I’m stupid,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Get in the car.” She removed the gun slowly and pressed it against his side.

  “You gonna kill me, like you killed David?” He seemed to settle into the sidewalk, as if his boots had gotten stuck in cement. “You’ll never get away with it. I’m not the only one who knows.”

  Ryan pushed the nozzle harder into his side. “What are you talking about?”

  “Somebody saw you last night. A witness was outside. She heard the gunshots and saw you leave David’s house. You gonna kill her, too? You gonna keep killing until nobody’s left?”

  “Where did you hear this?” Another campaign staffer, she was thinking, on her way to see David last night. To sleep with David! Did he not have any pride? Any sense of decorum? Any sense of risk? “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The truth will come out. The newspaper knows about the witness.”

  “You’re lying!” Ryan was aware of her hand shaking. It was impossible, and yet it made sense. The shadowy figure out on the sidewalk had been too afraid to go to the police. She might be dismissed as a crank, and the detective she had accused would know who she was. So she had gone to the Journal. But the Journal couldn’t prove any connection between her and David, until Jeremy Whitman had lumbered into the picture. Jeremy, who could also connect her to David. She tightened her grip on the gun, her finger quivered on the trigger.

  Jeremy made a move as if he intended to walk away, and Ryan jammed the gun into his flesh, close to his heart. “You’re not gonna shoot me,” he said. “There would be witnesses.” There was no one around, she was thinking. The sidewalks had emptied, there was no traffic. “Somebody looking out the window,” he went on, the cockiness about him making her hate him. She could feel the hatred erupting inside, the way it had with David, grinning and wagging a finger at her, saying, “You’re not going to shoot me.”

  She pulled the trigger and watched Jeremy stagger backward, the shock of it registering on his face, just as it had registered on David’s. She leaned over his body, warmth emanating from his chest and face, his eyes wide and frozen, and managed to extract the wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. The area was deserted, the old brick buildings silent, lights glinting in the windows here and there. She walked back to the sedan, hovering close to the buildings, and made sure no one was around before she got behind the wheel and drove away.

  16

  The shivering had started before she reached her apartment. On the Dumpster dump, stomping on the cell phone and tossing the pieces in different Dumpsters in different alleys, watching over her shoulder for the moving shadow of some homeless guy huddled in a cardboard box who might get curious and go looking for what she left behind, or a patrol cop checking alleys in LoDo.

  Shivering as she drove across town to the Golden Triangle and the one-bedroom apartment in the 1920s building with the steel and glass art deco façade. Shivering so hard in the elevator, she had trouble pressing the button for the sixth floor, the number jumping in front of her eyes. It had taken three tries before she managed to jam the key into her lock. Thirty minutes in the hot shower, shivering, dropping onto the floor, gripping her legs to her chest, pulling in on herself with the water pounding her back. Now, trussed up in the worn blue terrycloth robe that had followed her through twenty years, Ryan lay on top of the bed, curled into a fetal position, images playing in her head and projecting themselves on the walls and ceiling, dancing about with the slats of light that worked past the blinds. She couldn’t escape. She would drown in the images.

  This was not the way it was supposed to be, everything so twisted and messed up. They were supposed to be together, she and David. Not right away, she had accepted that, but soon after he had settled into the governor’s job. There would be the early months in office when the press would scrutinize everything he said and did, every policy he proposed. But that would also be the honeymoon period when everyone wanted the new governor to succeed. No matter what the reporters wrote, the people would give him the benefit of the doubt.

  That reporter—who wrote the articles she had seen in the newspaper? Catherine McLeod?—had been a pain in the neck. Digging into the fraud charges brought by the idiot old man who had been David’s partner. Even after the charges were dropped and the matter settled, McLeod had kept showing up, asking questions, delving into public records. David had finally made a call to the publisher with a pointed but gentle reminder—David was a master at throwing a steel punch inside a velvet glove—that the fraud issue was over, settled. After all, David and the publisher served on civic boards together. They were the same kind of people, as David had put it. Ryan remembered wincing at that, as if he had thrown a steel and velvet punch at her, a reminder she was not one of them.

  McLeod had kept on during the campaign, probing beneath the smooth surface that David and his staff created. And now this! She could feel the pressure of her knees tight against her chest. Somehow McLeod had learned about the woman on the sidewalk. She must have told Whitman. How else could he have known? She had probably insisted that Whitman go to Internal Affairs and spill everything about Aspen, and that would have been the beginning of the end. Pulled off the investigation, asked a lot of questions about her relationship to David Mathews. She would have become a suspect. Some bright investigator might have gone to the evidence room, found her name on the sign-in sheet the day before she left on vacation. Maybe even discovered that a gun was missing. Oh, that would have taken some work, but it could have happened. The missing gun could have been identified as the murder weapon.

  Then Catherine McLeod would have played her trump card—the witness. The image of the dark figure on the sidewalk burst past the other images: David stumbling backward, the blond-haired staffer crumbling against the brick wall, the same stunned look in their eyes. Like a projection on the wall across from the bed was the slim figure on the sidewalk, swaying a little as if she were caught in the wind or summoning the energy to run. Whoever she was, she had contacted McLeod. But here was the thing: McLeod couldn’t do anything.

  Ryan loosened her grip around her legs and watched them stretch down the bed, as if they belonged to someone else, the feet wrinkled and gray in the slatted light. She let her arms fall along her sides, willing herself to relax. McLeod could do nothing. She had counted on Whitman to tell Internal Affairs about Aspen. But Jeremy Whitman would not be talking to anyone, which meant that, more than likely, whoever had been on the sidewalk would refuse to stick her neck out.

  Except, the bitch had already contacted Catherine McLeod, and McLeod was the kind of reporter who couldn’t let things go.

  Ryan pushed herself off the bed, went over to the dresser and stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was still wet, plastered to her head. Her face had a scrubbed, skeleton look, eyes dark and opaque. She couldn’t see into them. Her work wasn’t done yet. She had known all along, she realized, and it was the knowledge that had brought on the terrible shivering. Jeremy Whitman was only part of the problem. She would have to find the witness and silence her bef
ore Catherine McLeod could convince her to go to the police. And then, of course, she would have to deal with Catherine McLeod.

  The morning was cool, the first hints of autumn in the air, but Catherine could feel the warmth of the sun on her shoulders and the backs of her legs as she jogged along the sidewalk with Rex pulling ahead on the leash. She’d had a few glasses of wine last night, and a dull ache buzzed in her head. Highland was a hilly neighborhood, built on bluffs, and she had felt the strain in her calf muscles as she and Rex ran up a steep hill a few blocks from home. They hit an easy stride across the top, running past deep front lawns and trimmed bushes that abutted the brick bungalows, the sun wavering ahead. She tried for a run with the dog every day, either in the mornings or the evenings, whatever worked out. Yesterday nothing had worked out. She’d left for the office after hearing about Mathews, and she’d gone to Nick’s last night.

  They rounded the corner and started downhill. Rex knew the route by heart; it was as if he were leading her, ears flattened, nose pointed, intent on his job. He’d been dancing around the kitchen by the time she got home last night. Early morning, really, almost 3:00 a.m. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep at Nick’s. Somewhere in the blackness, she had become dimly aware of noises, a ringing phone, rushing water, padding footsteps. She had sensed the movements and displacement of air and bolted awake, disoriented for a moment, the familiar surroundings of her own bedroom nowhere in sight. Nick had leaned over and she had felt his lips brush her forehead. “Sorry to wake you,” he’d said. He was dressed in dark slacks and a light-colored shirt with the sleeves rolled partway up. “Have to go to work.”

  “What time is it?” Catherine had pushed herself up on one elbow and squinted at the clock on the bedside table. 2:17 a.m. Panic had rushed through her. She’d had every intention of going home before midnight and getting some sleep. She had wanted to be at her best this morning when she met Jeremy. There was always the chance he would decide against going to Internal Affairs. After all, he’d been half-drunk last night, and how well she knew that things had a way of looking different in the sober morning. She would need her wits about her if he had changed his mind. She had swung her legs off the bed and begun gathering her clothes strung over the floor. “Rex is waiting,” she said.

  “If I weren’t so secure in our relationship”—Nick had walked into the bathroom and was combing his hair in front of the mirror—“I’d be wondering, who’s Rex?”

  She had dressed hurriedly, pulling on her blouse and skirt, stepping into her high-heeled sandals and running her fingers through her hair. She must have asked Nick about the phone call because he told her some guy had been mugged in LoDo, robbed and shot to death.

  “Another random gang attack?” she’d said. The Journal had covered the attacks, that is, whenever Jason Metcalf had been able to pry new information out of the police. Random gang attacks wasn’t a story anybody in Denver wanted plastered on the front pages, certainly not the restaurants, galleries and theaters that depended on people coming downtown. Nick had worked the investigations from the beginning, but the attacks weren’t something they talked about. His work and her work were incompatible in some ways. Best left at the front door.

  “I really can’t speculate,” he said, the smallest edge in his voice that suggested he was aware he was talking to a reporter. Had just slept with a reporter who—he had to know—was halfway in love with him. Still there was always that line that dropped between them at the most unexpected moments.

  He had walked her outside, across the small concrete porch and down the sidewalk to her convertible. The neighborhood was still, except for the intermittent clicking noise of a cricket. The daisies and petunias that she and Nick had planted last May had a washed out, green cast in the moonlight. Before he closed her door, he’d leaned over and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  She had driven through the empty streets of Highland, turned into the alley behind her house and parked next to the garage. Shadows filled the rows of backyards on either side of hers. The houses were dark, except for a couple of lights glowing in the windows next door and the light she had left on in her kitchen, which threw an eerie illumination across her yard. In the kitchen window, she could see Rex jumping about. His barking was muffled, but she recognized the tone—a mixture of scolding and relief.

  The minute she unlocked the door and pushed it open, Rex had come bounding outside. She closed the door and watched him from the window. This affair with Nick Bustamante really wasn’t fair to Rex. Leaving him alone so many evenings, missing his walks. She wondered if it was fair to anyone.

  As soon as Rex had scratched at the door, she let him in. Then she had poured a glass of red wine. She had meant to put the bottle away—it was always better when the wine bottles were pushed far back in the cabinet, easier to tell herself she no longer needed a drink when she couldn’t see the bottles. But the bottle was still on the counter, shimmering in the light. She carried her glass down the shadowy hall into her bedroom. By the time she had finished the wine and gone back to the kitchen to refill her glass, Rex was snoring on his bed in the corner of her bedroom.

  She could always count on jogging to push the dull, fuzzy headache into some peripheral part of her brain where it wasn’t as noticeable. It was working this morning. Rex took the corner a half block from home and broke into a run. She unhooked the leash and jogged after him, not taking her eyes away as he raced up the little grassy hill in front of her house. It was a moment before she realized that a black sedan had pulled close to the curb and was slowing down. Nick was behind the wheel. He had the passenger window rolled down before she ran over. She leaned into the window, jogging in place. “What is it?” she said, still keeping an eye on Rex who must have seen the car before she did because he came bounding toward her.

  “We have the ID on the mugging victim,” he said. “I thought you might like to know.”

  “Who is he?” The sense of dread was like a weight pressing down on her. It was unlike Nick to want to inform her about any investigation he was on.

  “One of Mathews’s staffers,” he said. “Name of Jeremy Whitman.”

  Catherine pressed her hand over her mouth and looked away. She was aware of Rex crowding her legs, and she reached down and grabbed his collar. The leather felt rough against her palms. She grabbed the leash, giving herself a moment, a jumble of thoughts racing through her head. Jeremy would have alerted Internal Affairs this morning, and by afternoon, Detective Beckman would have been pulled off the investigation. Now Jeremy was dead.

  “Are you okay?” Nick got out of the car and came around to her. He set a hand on her shoulder.

  “I just needed a minute,” she said.

  “You knew him?”

  She tried to swallow, but it was as if she had a mouth full of sand. “I’ve seen him at campaign events. I met him for the first time yesterday,” she said. “What happened?”

  “Mugged,” Nick said. “Robbed. Wallet’s missing. Probably tried to put up a fight and was shot.”

  Catherine had to look away again. There was nothing to say. If she told Nick Bustamante about Mathews and Beckman in Aspen and the witness on the telephone, he would have to take the information to police headquarters. And what would that accomplish? Nothing. Stories from a dead man and an anonymous caller? But Detective Beckman would know someone besides Jeremy Whitman knew about her.

  “I’ve got to get to the newsroom,” Catherine said. She was aware that Nick intended to kiss her, but he had only brushed her cheek with his lips before she started running up the sidewalk behind Rex.

  17

  The Evergreen house, an oasis hidden in the pines, and the pines singing in the wind. Quietly sumptuous, not loud and clamoring for attention like some houses where Ryan had gone on domestic disturbances, but filled with quiet antiques and art she had seen in magazines, flipping the pages, wondering if anyone actually lived like that! All tastefully furnished with Sydney’s money, she had assumed when David bro
ught her here. She had even asked if that was the case as she sunk into the deep, soft mattress with the silky sheets, candlelight flickering over the damask walls, worry nipping at her that he might not want to risk losing such luxury. David had given her the kind of smile meant to evaporate her concerns. “I can buy and sell Sydney,” he said, crawling in beside her and taking her in his arms.

  Now Sydney Mathews stood at the front door, barefoot, looking as if she had slept in the black tee shirt and knit slacks static plastered to her legs. She ran her fingers through her hair and shifted her gaze from Ryan to Martin and out to the Jefferson County sheriff ’s officers below the porch steps. “I’ve told you all I know,” she said. The smallest quiver of uncertainty split her voice, as if she knew the fate about to overtake her, and also knew there was nothing she could do. For an instant, Ryan almost pitied the woman.

  “Contact my lawyer,” Sydney said.

  “We have a search warrant for the house and premises.” Ryan held out the warrant signed by a Jefferson County district judge this morning after she and Martin had produced the phone records showing numerous calls between the two houses in the hours before David was murdered. The warrant specified computers, phones, financial records and a possible gun. They had also informed the judge about the couple’s public argument at campaign headquarters and separation. A slim thread of evidence to connect Sydney to the murder, Ryan knew, and she had held her breath as the judge rubbed his chin and studied the warrant. Finally he had picked up a pen and scratched his name.

  “Search the house?” Sydney let out an angry scoff. “That’s ridiculous! I’m getting my brother.” She leaned into the house and yelled: “Wendell! Wendell! I need you!”