Читать книгу Under His Protection - Amy Fetzer J. - Страница 11

The damp heat of Indigo in September still clung like a bad tempered child. By eight in the morning its punishing grip was firm and hot and wouldn’t be tamed till well past sunset. Locals were used to it, visitors complained about it, but that Detective Nash Couviyon had to investigate a suspicious death this early was an indecent slap to the beauty of the nearly three-hundred-year-old town.

Worse when death occurred in the richly appointed Baylor Inn, the jewel of Southern hospitality in Indigo and smack-dab in the center of the historic old town. He could almost hear the mayor’s outrage at such an event occurring here and scaring the tourists.

By the time Nash had arrived at the suite, the officers had already sealed off the floor and taken photographs. Unfortunately there were no witnesses to the crime. The victim had been locked in his suite and found by a member of the housekeeping staff in the morning.

Nash took a sip of coffee from a paper cup so thin his fingers, encased in latex gloves, felt seared by the heat. He circumvented the room again. Antique dressers bore two hundred years of wear like an ancient king. The thick down comforter on the bed reminded him of how little sleep he’d had the night before. The body of the victim was sprawled across the wide mattress.

Nash ignored it for a moment, his gaze picking through details that were not so obvious: the crystal tumbler with the dregs of a cocktail, the unopened briefcase neatly tucked under the desk. The air was filled with a revolting combination of death and the sweetness of flowers. Very little was out of place, no signs of a struggle. The sofa and stuffed chairs sat facing the hearth, and the only furniture that wasn’t an antique was an armoire holding the television and VCR. Resting on the lowboy was a sweet-grass basket filled with teas, packaged snacks, flavored coffees and a china mug only a woman would use. On the basket was a small brass oval engraved with “Enchanted Garden.” He frowned. Enchanted Garden was a nursery his brother Temple used in his landscaping business. Nash took account of the contents and gestured to an officer, who then bagged it.

A look through the victim’s clothing hanging in the closet, shoes precisely two inches apart, socks arranged by color, told Nash that the victim was fanatical about his appearance. The remains on the room-service tray from the night before indicated he cared about what he ate, too. It was so healthy it made Nash cringe.

Nash moved to the bathroom before examining the body again. His gaze sharpened at the evidence, sifting normal from unusual. The victim had bathed leisurely. His neatly arranged shaving gear and toiletries added to Nash’s initial feeling that the victim was picky about order. Several candles littered the edge of the tub, burned down to the nubs and dripping into the cold, cloudy bathwater. The mess contradicted what he’d seen so far. Then he leaned over the tub to lift what looked like a large teabag out of the water. Untying the ribbon that secured the thing to the faucet, he sniffed. So that was where the flower smell came from, he thought, lowering it into the evidence bag, then marking it. He handed the bag to an officer, then left the bathroom and returned to the suite. He stopped at the foot of the bed, staring at the victim.

White male, perhaps thirty-five, naked except for a towel around his waist and the scarf wrapped around his throat. Muscular body even in death, stylish haircut, manicured nails.

“Everything tagged and bagged?” Nash asked the patrol supervisor.

“Except him,” the man said, then handed him the victim’s wallet as he walked past.

Absently Nash slipped the wallet from the evidence bag, yet his attention, for the moment, was on the coroner.

At the side of the bed, Quinn Kilpatrick examined the body. His thickly muscled arms strained against his jacket sleeves, and though Quinn was built like a linebacker, he handled the body as if it were fine porcelain.

“What do you have for me?”

“You cops, always impatient.” Quinn bagged the victim’s hands.

“Hey, pillage and plunder, murder and mayhem, are going on as we speak. We have to go out and be heroes.”

Quinn smirked, but didn’t glance up as he lifted the victim’s arm to look beneath. “Dead nine hours at least.”

“The scarf?”

Quinn eased the nearly transparent pale-green scarf from around the victim’s neck. “There are ligature marks, but they’re not really dark enough to indicate this was the cause of death. Maybe postmortem. No other signs of strangulation. I’ll know more when I get him into the lab.” Quinn straightened, frowning still. “See this?”

“The rash?”

“It’s not a rash, it’s a reaction.”

“He didn’t have any medication, except vitamins, but he took a bath. Maybe it’s from whatever he added to the water?” Nash could still smell the flowery fragrance.

Quinn started to put the scarf into an evidence bag, then frowned, smelling the fabric. He held it out to Nash, who moved near and inhaled.

“Perfume.” Something caught in his gut. “That’s familiar.” And he knew exactly where he’d smelled the fragrance before. It was the one Lisa wore.

Lisa Bracket… Oh, hell. Lisa Bracket Winfield. His gaze snapped to the ID, then the body.

Peter David Winfield. Lisa’s husband. The man she married, instead of him. Well, that wasn’t quite true, he argued. Nash’d never asked her to marry him. After a year of dating steadily, he’d never told her he loved her, and when he said he didn’t want to get serious, she’d ended their relationship. A few months later she was dating Winfield, and Nash, like a jerk, cut her completely out of his life like a bad-tempered high-school jock the day before the prom. Six months later she was gone. And married. But she was in town, that much he knew from Temple. Alone. So why wasn’t she here with Winfield?

He flipped through the wallet, and her familiar face stared back at him from a photo. It landed a punch right between the eyes.

Lisa in her wedding dress.

He closed his eyes briefly, remembering her face with four-year-old clarity, the feel of her body against his and what she did to him with just a look. Which was plenty. His mind was latched on to the memory of her last kiss when someone called his name.

Nash, still trapped in the past, rubbed his face and looked up.

“There’s a woman wanting to speak with you.”

“Tell her she’ll have to wait.”

“I think you should talk to her, sir.” The officer’s gaze shifted briefly to the body on the bed. “She’s the victim’s wife.”

Nash’s features tightened, and he stepped into the hall, his gaze moving immediately to the barricade. Lisa stood beyond, an officer keeping her back.

“Nash.”

If he thought the picture of her punched him in the gut, seeing her in person tore him in two. It was fast heartbeats and the need to touch her all over again. Four years had only made her more beautiful. Red-haired, green-eyed and willowy slim. And she was married.

Well, a widow.

Nash glanced inside the hotel room. Emergency medical technicians were lifting the sheet-wrapped victim into a body bag, then onto a stretcher. Pulling the door closed behind him, he motioned the officer to let her pass.

Immediately Nash ushered her away from the suite and into a room they’d commandeered for questioning potential witnesses. Once inside, he positioned a patrolman outside, then closed the door.

Lisa frowned at the way Nash was acting. She hadn’t seen him in ages except for passing glimpses from a car now and then. Indigo was small compared to New York, but being on the fringes of Charleston, it was plenty large enough to get lost in. Lost enough not to have come face-to-face like this.

For a few moments they just stared at each other. “Hello, Lisa,” Nash finally said.

Lisa felt her stomach lurch as his deep voice rolled over her. God, he looked good. “Hey, Nash. How’s life treating you?”

Lousy, he thought, but said, “Decent. It’s been a while.”

This came with a hint of apology. Lisa shrugged, although her heart was hopping like a frog in a pond. “About four years, huh?”

The stiffness between them was almost palpable as Nash’s gaze moved over her from head to foot. She looked bright and fresh, scrubbed healthy, her red tank top exposing tanned arms, the short denim skirt showing off her long legs. Great gams, his father would’ve called them. “You said you’d never come back to Indigo.”

Why was he bringing this up now? she wondered. “Things change. I was born here. This is my home. Besides, you pushed me to say that,” she said, remembering their last fight. “I was angry.”

“I didn’t push you anywhere. Hell, you’re the one who wanted to end—”

He stopped abruptly, and she could see him shut down, close off. Typical, she thought.

He ran his hand over his mouth and sighed. “Well, that was real mature,” he said sheepishly.

Yes, it was, she agreed silently, for both of them.

Coolly, he gestured to two chairs set opposite each other at a delicate Queen Anne table, and as she sat, he poured her a cup of coffee in china cups the hotel manager had set out. He added cream to hers, just the right amount, and that he remembered sent her to a strange place in her heart. She tried to leave it.

“What exactly is going on here, Nash?”

He met her gaze, his expression offering nothing. That wasn’t unusual for Nash Couviyon. Except for his younger brother Temple, keeping feelings all locked inside was a family trait. She studied him, his dark hair shorter than she remembered, though the rest of him had changed little. He sat, the fabric of his suit jacket pulling against his broad shoulders as he braced his arms on the tabletop. It was hard not to notice the size of him, that the delicate cup was like a glass ornament in his fist, easily crushed. Planed like a sculptor’s creation in stone, he looked deadly, unbreakable. Unshakable. The sharp line of his jaw slid unrelenting to his cheekbones, slightly hollow beneath blue eyes. Wicked blue eyes, she’d always thought. Eyes that melted her insides, yet there was no sign of softness in them now. They were glass hard. Pinning her.

She sent the stare right back at him, bracing herself against feeling anything for him. Even as she thought that, she knew it was impossible. This was Nash.

“My employee, Kate, called my cell phone,” she said, “and told me the police asked me to come over, though I have no idea what for. Care to explain?”

Nash hated this part and prayed she hadn’t been anywhere near her husband in the past twelve hours. “Your husband is dead.”

Her expression went slack. “That’s impossible.”

“I’m sorry, but he’s in the next room, with the coroner.”

“But he was fine last night.”

Oh, God. “You were with him?”

She didn’t clue in to the narrow look he shot her. “I was married to him, Nash. If he was in town, don’t you think we’d at least see each other?”

“But you haven’t been living in the same city?”

“That’s because we were divorcing. As of this morning, our divorce is final.”

Nash frowned. This was not the conversation he’d thought he’d be having with her right now.

“Who do you think killed him?” she asked.

“Why would you say that?”

“I noticed the badge, Nash.” Her gaze darted where it hung on his jacket pocket. “You’re a detective now, not the chief coroner.” She arched a brow. “And Peter was a stockbroker—he made enemies daily.”

“I work on all suspicious deaths. You one of those enemies?”

“No, of course not. Peter adored me.” Too much, she thought. That adoration had twisted into something ugly. “However, we’ve been legally separated for two and a half years.”

A year after her marriage they separated? He didn’t want to feel smug about that. “Legal separation before filing isn’t that long. Why not divorce sooner? Why now?”

His shock didn’t do a thing for her except make her feel sick. It was tough to admit that her marriage had failed so early. “I couldn’t afford to divorce him till recently, and he wouldn’t do it. In fact, last night, he…oh, jeez.”

For the first time it hit her, really hit her. And Nash watched as her features fell, her lower lip quivered. She looked down at the china cup, but when she brought it to her mouth, her trembling proved that her grip on her emotions was tenuous. She set the cup down.

Tears welled up in her eyes and fell. She cried without sound.

Nash ached to hold her, but he was on duty, and not one of her favorite people, so he kept his distance. She was a suspect, a prime one. She wouldn’t want his help, anyway, but it was killing him to watch her fight her tears. Lisa had always been a tough cookie, and to see her come apart was heartbreaking. Teardrops hit her hands and the table in tiny plops.

He felt them like gunshots.

He left his chair and grabbed a tissue, shoving it into her line of sight. She muttered thanks and took it. It was several more minutes before she regained her composure. Nash felt useless.

“I need to ask you a few more questions.”

She nodded and met his gaze, sniffling once.

Nash set a tape recorder on the table and pushed record. He recited her name, marital status, age, the time… Lisa didn’t hear the rest. She was too stunned to listen. Was he questioning her as a suspect or character witness?

“For the record, when did you last see Peter Winfield?”

She blinked at the recorder, then met his gaze. “Last night at around eight-thirty, nine o’clock. He’d called me and asked me to come over.”

“What happened?”

“He wanted one more chance to make me stay with him.”

“Make you?”

Always a cop, she thought, reading something into every little thing. “Well, make isn’t really correct. Convince would be a better word.” Threaten would be even better.

“Why did you divorce?”

She looked down at her coffee, watching the cream separate into a star shape. “Irreconcilable differences.”

“I don’t buy that for a second.”

Her gaze jerked to his. “It’s personal.” Nash wasn’t getting details. No one was.

“But you left town with him so quickly.”

This was old news, she thought. “It was four months after you and I had broken up, Nash. You’d already shoved me out of your life, so what do you care now?”

His mouth tightened, a lid on what he really wanted to say. “We were together for a year, and you never did give me a good reason for why you left me.”

She didn’t want to rehash this now. “Oh, there was plenty of reasons, they just weren’t yours. I needed someone who wanted what I did.” Someone to love me back, she thought. To want me for a lifetime and not just a frequent date.

“And did you get all you wanted?”

Damn him. He knew she hadn’t, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t deliriously happy with what she had right now. It wasn’t any of his business why her marriage ended, only that it had. And who was he to ask questions now when he didn’t bother four years ago? If he had, she’d have told him about their baby. “Are old feelings and reasons part of this investigation, Detective?”

Nash felt the slam of a door as if it hit his nose. She was right. He had to get back to business and not relive their past.

“Did you drive over last night?” he asked.

“No, it was only just getting dark and it was a clear night. I walked.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“Walking here? I imagine so. Anyone I know? I can’t say. When I got here, the restaurant was full, and the staff were waiting on guests. I came up here and knocked.”

“What was Winfield wearing when you saw him?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Answer the question, please.”

With the way he spoke to her, so cold and detached, as if they’d never shared a bed and some really great sex, she wondered if she should stop right now and call a lawyer. But she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“He was wearing Brooks khaki slacks, matching socks. A hunter-green, tailored, short-sleeve shirt, pressed and creased. Brown Florsheim shoes and a brown belt.” Good clothing had been an addiction of Peter’s.

Nash made notes in a black leather book. His gaze slid up to meet hers, and for a second his expression softened a fraction. Lisa glimpsed the man she once loved. Then just as quickly that man was gone again.

“Did anyone else know you were going to see him?”

“I might have mentioned it to my staff.” She wiped her eyes again, then threw the wad of tissue into a trash can.

“I’ll need to talk with them.”

Why? she wanted to know, but she didn’t argue. “Free country. They’re adults, not children. I’ll give you their home numbers.” She wrote the information on the back of a business card and handed it to him. He didn’t even glance at it, simply tucked it in his notebook. “Kate’s at the counter now, and Chris doesn’t come in till after his last class. He’s a college student at USC.”

Nash scribbled and she noticed the shorthand. She’d flunked that course.

“What were you wearing at the time you visited your husband?”

“A lime-green skirt and top, matching sandals and purse.”

He arched a brow.

“Matching jewelry, too. Wanna see it?”

“I’ll want to take all of it.”

“What?” Her eyes widened, and the feeling she’d had moments ago landed like a brick against her heart. “You think I had something to do with Peter’s death.”

Nash continued to write.

“Nash Couviyon!”

Still he didn’t comment, then slowly met her gaze again. “I don’t have an opinion yet. We need samples from your things to compare with what forensics finds in the room.”

“You definitely think he was murdered?”

Nash wasn’t ready to say so just yet. “The death of a healthy man is always suspicious.”

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” she said, and the air left her lungs in one shot. “You actually think I had something to do with it?”

Her words drained away any feeling she had, any trust she might have given him. Then the she-cat he remembered and had loved came racing back.

“This meeting is over,” she said.

He strove for patience. “Lisa, I have to look at all the possibilities.”

Her green eyes narrowed to slits. “Look elsewhere, Detective,” she said, and started to rise.

“Sit down!” he snapped.

Lisa lowered herself into the chair again, scowling at him.

“It’s either here or the station, Lisa. Your choice.”

She folded her arms and glared. “Fine. Ask away.”

“Did you carry anything into the room besides your handbag?”

Lisa searched his features. “No, but I had on a scarf.”

Something inside Nash froze. “Describe it please.”

“It was my grandmother’s. It’s pale green with hand-painted irises. It’s the reason I got here so quickly this morning. I was on my way here to get it back.”

“Why did you leave it?”

“I didn’t. It was in my hair, which I had in a ponytail. The scarf was tied around the rubber band to hide it. It must have come undone. It’s silk and slippery.”

Nash wrote, the notebook sliding on the highly polished table. The business card she’d given him showed and he flipped it over.

Lisa thought she saw sadness flicker in his eyes.

“The Enchanted Garden, that’s your business?”

“Yes.” She frowned. “Didn’t you already know that?”

Nash shook his head.

“I started it up about ten months ago. It’s on my land around the house and it’s doing really well.” Her brows knit. “I don’t get it. Your brother Temple buys some of his plants for his landscaping business from me. I thought you knew.”

“I knew he used this nursery, but he never mentioned it was yours.”

“Maybe he thought he was being disloyal to his older brother by doing business with me. I know how you Couviyon brothers stick together.”

“Obviously, Temple has his own set of rules.”

“I know, he’s an outrageous flirt.”

She was trying to ease the tension in the room. But Nash could feel it thicken the air. He tossed the card down and rose, moving to the door and speaking to the officer posted outside, who moved off to do his bidding. Nash waited, glancing back at her only once. She couldn’t have done this, he thought.

“Why didn’t you ever come by to say hello, Nash?”

“I knew you were here, Lisa.” He didn’t look at her. “I didn’t want to open that door again.” It hurt too much, he thought, then realized it still did.

“And saying hello, how’s your mama, would have been torture?”

“Yeah, it would have.”

Lisa’s lips tightened. Well, that said a lot, she thought.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked.

“I was still married.”

Nash simply stared, wondering if she’d been single would they have gotten back together. And in the same moment he remembered that she had dumped him. She’d wanted picket fences and babies, and he couldn’t give her that. Aside from the fact that he’d just taken a bullet in the line of duty and lost his partner, he’d watched the devastation hit the widow and cut a strong woman off at the knees. He couldn’t do that to Lisa.

The officer returned, interrupting his thoughts and handing him two paper bags. Nash moved back to the table and set them on the floor. He reached into one and pulled out a plastic evidence bag.

“Is this your scarf?”

“Yes.” She extended a hand.

He pulled it back. “Evidence.”

“What do you mean, evidence? It’s my scarf.”

“It was found wrapped around the victim’s neck, Lisa.” Her eyes widened, and she went perfectly still. When she sank back into the chair, he asked, “Now do you want to tell me what you argued about?”

“No, I don’t. It was personal.”

Nash backed off for now. “Were you angry when you left here?”

“No, I was just tired, Detective.”

Nash heard the wall go up between them, even if he couldn’t see it. He returned the plastic envelope to the bag. “Do you make teas?”

She blinked, taken aback. “Yes, I do. My herb plants grow quickly in this weather, and I have to cut them back. It’s a waste not to do something with the herbs.”

“And do you sell the teas at your place of business?”

“Not as a regular commodity, no. I use the cuttings for cooking or rooting new plants. Occasionally I make bath teas, scented bath salts, a couple of mint and catnip drinking teas, and I put them in baskets with a live plant. But it’s not a main part of my business, and it’s time-consuming to put them together. So I make them up as requested.”

“The baskets are for regular sale?”

“No, only with the custom orders. They’re handmade, too expensive to make a profit and to keep a reasonable stock of them takes up considerable space.” Lisa glanced at the notes he was furiously writing. “Especially because the humidity can rot them. I run a nursery, not a bath-and-tea shop.”

“Did you bring one of these custom baskets to the hotel or have it delivered?”

Her brows knitted. “No.” Peter would have seen any gift as a peace offering. Heck, she thought, her very presence made him believe she wasn’t going to divorce him, although she’d signed the papers weeks before and it had been only a matter of the time line hitting a specified mark. One that had her in deep trouble right now, she suspected.

“Describe the baskets please.”

Lisa told him what they looked like, but when she described the brass oval engraved with “Enchanted Garden,” he wilted in his chair. She’d bet her best Kamali pumps that a basket just like one of hers was in that larger bag at his feet.

“Did you speak to anyone on your way to the Baylor Inn, and did anyone see you enter and or exit the building?”

That Nash wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t even acknowledge her with so much as a nod as he wrote, made her bristle. “I don’t recall. At the time I didn’t know I’d need an alibi. Now my husband is dead. My ex-husband. And you’ve all but accused me of his murder.”

“I don’t have enough evidence for charges.”

Something inside her shattered. “We have nothing more to say to each other.” She stood. “Unless it’s with my lawyer present.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that, by law, he could hold her for questioning. “I’ll need everything you were wearing last night.”

“Fine. I’ll deliver the clothing to the station within the hour. Are we finished?”

“For now, yes.”

Lisa strode to the door. Before she could open it, Nash was there, his hand over her fist.

Her gaze snapped to his. He could taste her fury, it was so pungent.

“Back off, Detective.”

He didn’t. “Lisa, let’s not start like this.”

She laughed, sharp and bitter. “We aren’t starting a damn thing, Couviyon. We were finished four years ago.” Four years ago when I was pregnant with your child, she thought, knowing that if she’d ever considered telling him the truth, she sure didn’t now.

“You finished it. I didn’t.”

“You were never in the relationship, Nash. You had your own neat version and you kept me on the outside unless we were in bed.” She shook off his hand and jerked opened the door.

“Lisa. This is my job.”

“I’m thrilled for you. Go do it. And until you have something more than accusations, don’t come near me.”

She left, striding past the officers. Nash signaled to let her pass. She was pure anger in a snug skirt and high-heeled sandals.

“Seems like a hostile witness, Detective,” an officer said.

Nash let out a breath. “Oh, yeah.”