Читать книгу The Detective's Dilemma - Arlene James, Arlene James - Страница 11

THE DOLL-LIKE COUPLE smiled with practiced civility and murmured patent responses. Sitting side by side on their immaculate sofa in their immaculate home, they looked like magazine cutouts, perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, and they did everything in tandem, including smile and politely evade substantiative answers to direct questions. With some inborn sense of protocol and timing, the husband politely checked his watch twice before bringing a firm end to the interview, if the efforts of Detectives Redstone and Jester could be called such.

More like a waste of time, Ty thought glumly as Jester aimed their nondescript, department-issue sedan toward the next address on their list. So it had gone for days now. The interviewees were interchangeable. The results as well. Nada. They hadn’t learned a darned thing. Brianne Dumont remained a cipher, a dead cipher, unfortunately. The answers to their questions were rote.

“I really couldn’t say.”

“I pay no attention to gossip and rumors.”

“One doesn’t like to pry into the private lives of others, you know.”

“We were friends, but casual acquaintances more than intimates.”

Brianne Dumont might have been a cardboard cutout for all the attention her “friends” seemed to have paid her. Undoubtedly she’d moved on the very fringes of the upper echelon of Austin society, but if she’d had another circle of intimate associates, they hadn’t been discovered yet. Her co-workers might have been more forthcoming than her so-called friends, but the late Mrs. Dumont had held herself aloof, letting them all know that they were beneath her consideration socially. Those listed in her personal address book and calendar were saying the same thing, albeit very politely, about her. The gist of it seemed to be, “She was around a lot, but we didn’t really know her and didn’t care to.”

As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, Ty sensed that they were getting the royal runaround, just as Beth Maitland had predicted. What he wouldn’t give for one lousy scum sucker in the mix. That sort always had something to fear from law enforcement and so could be pressured, shaken, fouled up. These society types had money, prestige and respectability to fall back upon; they wouldn’t allow themselves to be intimidated by mere civil servants.

“Who’s next?” Paul asked, after flashing his badge and guiding the sedan expertly through the guard gate of one of the city’s more exclusive neighborhoods.

Ty checked his itinerary. “Name’s Giselle Womack. According to Dumont, she and Brianne were roommates for a short while after college until Giselle married.”

“Womack,” Paul said thoughtfully. “Hmm. Wouldn’t be any connection to Womack Industries, would there?”

Ty sighed. “Oh, yeah.”

“All this money in the world,” Paul said, shaking his head. “You’d think a little of it would fall on us, wouldn’t you?”

“Speak for yourself,” Ty said. “I don’t much like what money does to people.”

“Most of us don’t have that prejudice,” Paul quipped. “Personally, I’d like to see what a little of it could do to me.” He slowed the sedan and turned it off the broad, tree-lined street onto the pebbled circular drive of a large Italianate house in cream stucco and white marble.

Paul whistled. Ty groaned. “Does the term ‘exercise in futility’ mean anything to you?”

His partner ignored that and nodded at a flashy yellow convertible parked in front of the door. “Suppose Mrs. Womack has company?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” Ty answered, opening his car door. “She knows we’re coming.”

Paul got out and walked around the front of the car. “Seems to me there’d be room in that four-car garage back there for family cars.”

“Guess we’ll see,” Ty replied, his footsteps carrying him toward the front door. He pushed the bell and rolled his shoulders, adjusting the weight of his gun and the placement of the shoulder holster. The door opened, and a sullen, gray-haired maid in a beige uniform greeted them.

“Are you the police?”

“Detectives Jester and Redstone, ma’am.”

“They’re waiting on you. This way.”

They? Ty glanced at Paul, then over his shoulder at the flashy yellow convertible with its clean white top. If Mrs. Womack had called her attorney in to hold her hand, that was one flamboyant advocate. He stepped into the opulent, tiled entry and followed the maid, Jester behind him. They were shown into a sunny solar room at the back of the house crammed with so many plants that the bamboo furnishings were all but hidden. Ty heard rushed whispers and giggling, but wasn’t sure from where until the maid pushed back the frond of a particularly impressive potted palm and addressed someone Ty couldn’t quite see, announcing baldly, “They’re here.”

She turned to Ty and Jester, letting the palm frond fall into place. “Ya’ll want some coffee or something?”

“No, thank you.”

She nodded sharply and plodded off. Ty traded glances with Paul before he stepped around the potted palm—and looked straight into the smiling face of Beth Maitland. She set aside a cup and saucer and bounced off the short sofa where she was sitting next to a plastic-looking blonde. Her wide smile beamed with perfect white teeth. “Ty!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand as if greeting an old friend.

Exasperation warred with anger and no small amount of sheer delight. The woman took his breath away, and he was going to give her a tongue-lashing as soon as he got her out of here.

“Giselle,” she gushed, “I want you to meet Ty Redstone and Paul Jester.” She flipped a little wave at the woman sitting with crossed bare legs beside her. “Giselle Womack. That’s Mrs. Harold Womack,” Beth confided, amusement twinkling in her eyes as if they shared a private joke.

Ty tried to keep a straight face as he nodded at the young woman preening in her seat on the narrow sofa, but the picture of Harold Womack that sprang to mind made that difficult. Ty had done a little research on his interview subjects and had found more info on Harold Womack than most. One thing he’d come across was a newspaper photo taken at a charity golf tournament. He could see it now— Harold Womack, a full head shorter than the other men in the photo, bald as glass, sixty if he was a day, his belly hanging over his belt, a cigar clamped between his teeth as he prepared to swing a club at the ball on the ground. Ty had wondered at the time if the man could even see the ball for his belly. Now he wondered if old Harold hadn’t bought himself a cute little trophy wife to help him hold age at bay.

Giselle Womack hadn’t yet seen thirty, but her smooth face bore the signs of bad cosmetic surgery, a blunt, slightly scooped nose, the prominent jut of a too rounded chin, lips that looked as though they’d been stung by a peculiarly accurate bee. Her hair was a little too blond and big to be real, and unlike Beth’s full, firm bust, Giselle’s proudly displayed breasts looked hard and unnatural on her bony frame. Only the ostentatious diamonds glittering on the hand she held aloft for Ty’s greeting seemed genuine. He wondered if he was supposed to shake that hand or kiss it. He settled for a quick press and a slight nod.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Ty,” Giselle said breathily, fanning her shoulders to call attention to the cleavage displayed by the little knit dress she was wearing. At least, it would have been a dress on a ten-year-old; on her it was a long shirt two sizes too small. He forced a slight smile and glanced daggers at Beth from the corners of his eyes. Heard about him, had she? He could only guess what Beth Maitland had told her. Paul slid his hands into his pants pockets and rocked on his heels, indicating with a slight clearing of his throat that he was perfectly aware he was being left out of the welcome. Battling exasperation, Ty managed a polite reply.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Womack.”

Mrs. Womack waved her diamonds and said, “Oh, honey, call me Giselle. We’re not formal here. Are we, Beth?”

Beth folded her long legs and took her seat. “Not at all,” she confirmed, and lifted a hand toward the chairs placed at either end of the rectangular glass table standing before the couch. Ty picked the chair closest to Beth, leaving Paul to cross in front of the table and gingerly take the chair next to Giselle Womack. Paul nodded affably and was pointedly ignored. He shot an amused look at Ty and settled back, prepared to be invisible.

Giselle leaned forward, allowing Ty yet another view of her cleavage, and said, “I think it’s wonderful how you’re helping Beth.”

Helping Beth. As if he was a paid assistant. Ty ground his back teeth. “We’re investigating the murder of Brianne Dumont.”

“I’m dying to know,” Giselle said, gushing. “Was she or wasn’t she?”

Ty lifted both eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hasn’t anyone else told you?” Giselle fairly crowed. “I just knew someone would spill the beans.”

By now Ty realized he wasn’t going to get a straight answer from the blonde; she was too busy congratulating herself on being the one to manage the revelation. He turned to Beth Maitland. “Was she or wasn’t she what?”

“Pregnant,” Beth answered bluntly, a light dancing in those sky-blue eyes. “Brianne claimed that she was pregnant.”

Claimed was the right word. Ty had seen the coroner’s report. Brianne Dumont had not been pregnant at the time of her death—had never been pregnant—but he kept that bit of information to himself.