Читать книгу The Detective's Dilemma - Arlene James, Arlene James - Страница 8

BETH’S HANDS curled into fists. Immediately she relaxed them and tamped down her impatience. She looked at the serious mien of the tall, dark detective lounging on the corner of the table at which she sat and felt the sudden urge to laugh. It was all so utterly preposterous. Murder. How could anyone suspect her, Beth Maitland, of murder—even if the unfortunate victim was her ex-fiancé’s wife? She’d much rather have flirted outrageously with the handsome detective than committed murder to assuage a broken heart, had she ever had one. What she would do, however, was answer these silly, repetitive questions.

“I went to the children’s garden in the courtyard of the day-care center to be certain that the bulbs planted that day were properly covered. No, we weren’t expecting a freeze,” she said flippantly, “but it is February, and as you well know, in Texas the weather is never certain. I didn’t go back to my office. I never saw Brianne. I certainly didn’t kill her.”

“Yet we know she was going to see you,” the detective persisted, looming close enough for Beth to catch a whiff of the sandalwood in his cologne.

Despite his stern, almost menacing demeanor, he was a devastatingly attractive man. Standing at least a couple inches over six feet and whipcord lean beneath a well-tailored suit of black sharkskin, Ty Redstone was definitely of Native American descent. Ink black hair, swept straight back and chopped bluntly at the nape, had been tucked behind his perfectly formed ears, calling attention to his squarely sculpted jaws and chin. His cheekbones were high and prominent, with slight hollows beneath, his lips wide and mobile. A long, thin nose and straight, slightly jutting brows lent a hawkish appearance to his almond-shaped brown-black eyes. A high, wide forehead bespoke intelligence, and his coppery skin was as smooth as a child’s, with the exception of a pair of tiny crow’s feet, one at the outer corner of each eye. Had he not been convinced that she had murdered Brianne Dumont by strangling the night before, Beth could have formed quite an amazing crush on the man. As it was, she could merely sigh and repeat what she’d been saying for the past two hours.

“I didn’t see her. I had no idea she was even in the building.”

“But her husband says—”

“I don’t care what Brandon says,” Beth snapped, momentarily losing her composure, “I didn’t see her!” She constantly wavered between humor at the ridiculousness of being accused of murder and anger at the seriousness of it.

Her attorney, a handsome, middle-aged man named Hugh Blake, intervened. “My client has answered this question repeatedly. Either move on, Detective, or we will.”

“It’s all right,” Beth answered him, drawing another deep breath. “I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I did not ask Brianne to meet me at the Maitland Maternity day-care center or anywhere else. If Brandon says I did, then he’s lying or mistaken.”

“You weren’t jealous of her for breaking up your romance with Brandon Dumont?”

“No.”

“And there was no feud between the two of you?”

“Not as far as I was concerned,” Beth insisted. Leaning forward, she placed a hand flat on the ugly gray table near the corner where Detective Redstone sat. “I know I told my friend Katie Carrington that it was Brandon who ended our engagement and I pretended to be upset,” she said, “but that was a lie. Brandon asked me to say that he was the one who wanted out, and I didn’t see then what harm it could do.” She sat back, waving a hand dismissively. “I just wanted it over with. Even before I found out Brandon was fooling around with Brianne, I knew the engagement was a mistake. Brianne was just the excuse I needed to end it. I didn’t kill her. I had no reason to. Heck, I was glad she wound up with Brandon. Better her than me.”

“Your story just doesn’t check out, Miss Maitland,” Redstone’s partner, Paul Jester, said bluntly. Sprawled casually in a stiff chair at the end of the rectangular table, he seemed the more easygoing of the two, with his pale blond flattop, pink apple cheeks, blunt nose and plump lips. He looked comfortably rumpled in khakis, sport shirt with open collar and tweed jacket with baggy elbows, a true contrast to Redstone’s dark good looks and tailored clothing.

Jester shifted forward, both elbows propped on the tabletop, and went on, repeating facts already established. “Mrs. Dumont checked into the Maitland Maternity Clinic at five forty-five, noting in the guard’s reception book that she had an appointment with you. At precisely six-fifteen, you check out, just at the moment the security guard on the desk is changing, so no notice is taken of the fact that Mrs. Dumont is still inside. At six-twenty the cleaning lady finds the body in your office and sounds the alarm.” He sat back, spreading his hands. “Now what are we supposed to believe?”

Beth shook her head. “Make what you must of it, Detective. I’m telling you that I had nothing to do with the murder. I always check out precisely at six-fifteen. The registry will verify that.”

Redstone leaned down, getting right in her face. She noticed that one of his small white teeth was chipped, the one left of center on the bottom, and shivered with sensual awareness—of a man who suspected her of murder, yet!

“Mr. Dumont swears that you set up the appointment with his wife via the telephone that very afternoon,” he said.

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“He says, in fact, that you’ve been harassing his wife since the day of their marriage.”

She looked Redstone straight in the eye. “I don’t know why he’s saying these things, but they aren’t true.”

“And,” the detective went on relentlessly, “you yourself told Ms. Carrington that he, not you, ended the relationship.”

“My client has explained that repeatedly,” Blake said. “This protracted interview is beginning to border on harassment, gentlemen.”

“Look, Ms. Maitland,” Paul Jester said soothingly, ignoring the attorney. “It happens. We know how it is. Your fiancé dumped you for another woman. You called her into your office after hours to tell her exactly what you thought of her. She got smart, hit a nerve. Before you realized what you were doing, you picked up something and wrapped it around her throat….”

Beth was shaking her head, her eyes blazing angrily. “No, no, no. It wasn’t like that. I never touched her. I never even laid eyes on her. I certainly didn’t kill her.”

“That’s enough,” the attorney asserted. “You have my client’s statement. Nothing has changed in the last two hours or more.”

Jester sighed and shot a look at his partner, who got up off the corner of the desk and paced toward the door. Halting, his back to Beth, Redstone brought his hands to his waist and bowed his head. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder, studying her unapologetically, one hand covering the lower part of his face.

“I didn’t kill her,” Beth said to him, sensing that he was the one she had to convince. “As God is my witness, I never even saw her. I wasn’t jealous. I don’t know why Brandon is lying. All I know is, I didn’t kill her.”

The door opened, and Megan Maitland, Beth’s mother, stuck her head inside the room. “How long is this going on?” she demanded. Her white hair had been swept into a neat French twist high on the back of her head, adding to the air of authority that always surrounded her. “Haven’t you badgered my daughter enough?”

Attorney Blake, a good friend of her mother’s, stood. “I think we’re finished here,” he announced firmly.

“I should hope so,” Megan said. “We have a press conference scheduled in less than an hour, and I want my daughter there with me.”

Beth frowned at the notion of the press conference awaiting them at Maitland Maternity. The press had been rabid wherever the Maitlands were concerned. First, a baby had been abandoned on the clinic’s doorstep with a note that claimed he was a Maitland. Then Connor O’Hara, a Maitland cousin no one had ever seen before, showed up, followed by his girlfriend, Janelle, who claimed to be the baby’s mother. And all while Maitland Maternity Clinic was planning its twenty-fifth-anniversary gala. Now a murder had been committed in Beth’s office at the clinic day care—and Beth was the prime suspect. She’d rather thumb her nose at the press pack than give them anything, but even a press conference was preferable to being booked for murder. She stared at Ty Redstone, trying to decide if he was going to arrest her. Finally, he nodded.

“You can go for now, Ms. Maitland, but don’t leave town, and be prepared to make yourself available to us on short notice.”

Blake clamped a hand around Beth’s upper arm, helping her to her feet. He held out her jacket for her. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said, looking at Ty Redstone. “Wish I could say it had been a pleasure.” With that she walked out the interrogation room door and straight into her mother’s waiting arms. The appalling events of the past several hours had drained her, so she allowed her mother to rock her gently from side to side while Hugh Blake quietly praised her for her aplomb and assured Megan that he would pressure the police to find the murderer quickly. Megan thanked him for his help. Beth lifted her head, and together the three of them walked out of the downtown Austin police station.

TY CLOSED THE DOOR on the sight of Beth Maitland standing huddled within her mother’s embrace. After years of this work, he was relatively unaffected by such displays, but something about these Maitland women got to a man. Every one he’d met so far was a real beauty, including the mother, who had to be sixty if she was a day. But then these rich types could afford whatever mysterious beauty treatments kept them looking so young and lovely. Not, he had to admit to himself, that beauty treatments of any sort could make a woman’s legs as long and slender as Beth Maitland’s, or nip her waist in so narrowly that he could span it with his two hands. He dismissed such thoughts, turning to his partner and the matter at hand.

“So what do you think?”

Paul leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, locking his hands together behind his head and propping his crossed ankles on the table. “I don’t know. Seems like a pretty airtight case on the surface.”

“No kidding.” Ty ticked off the incriminating evidence. “She has the motive and the means. The timing is perfect. The body was found in her office. And the dead woman just happens to be the new wife of her recent and former fiancé. Add to that the statement of said former fiancé—now the widower—that she set up the appointment via telephone, and what you have—”

Ty looked at Paul, and Paul looked at Ty. Together they said, “Too easy.”

Bowing his head, Ty clapped a hand to the back of his neck. “I’m always spooked when they’re too easy.”

“The old hound is smelling a fix,” Paul said blithely. It was a break-room joke that Ty Redstone could smell a frame a mile away despite a steady wind—and for good reason.

“Suppose you break it down for me,” he said, ignoring Paul’s attempt at humor.

Paul rocked forward and pulled his legs down from the table. He extracted a small notebook from his coat pocket, unclipped a pen from it and flipped it open, preparing to demolish their airtight case. “Okay. First of all, strangling is a man’s MO. Even with a garrote, it takes strength over time to get the job done, and an unbound victim of the same approximate size can put up a pretty fierce struggle.”

Ty nodded. “Women usually conk their victims over the head, shoot ’em full of holes or slowly poison them to death. They don’t strangle them with a thin, flexible weapon. What do you think it was, by the way?”

Paul shrugged. “Some sort of cord would be my guess. Too thin for a belt or rope.”

“Right,” Ty said, “so a woman doesn’t usually strangle her victims.” He lifted a cautioning finger. “But we both know that means nothing. Under the right circumstances, anything goes.”

“Granted,” Paul said, “but if she really does check out at six-fifteen every night and we can prove it, then it’s an established pattern that anyone who knows her could use to frame her.”

“We need the logbooks for at least a year,” Ty said, beginning to pace the room as Paul took notes. “We’d better pull the phone records for Maitland Maternity Clinic and the residence.” He snapped his fingers. “Check to see if Beth Maitland has a cell phone, too. If she’s been harassing the happy couple, we’ll find some sign of it.”

Paul scribbled it all down. “Got it.”

Ty paced the narrow confines of the interrogation room. “What do you think happened to the murder weapon?”

Paul shrugged. “Nearest trash bin, probably.”

“We searched with a fine-tooth comb,” Ty reminded him.

“She must have taken it with her. I kept expecting you to ask about it.”

Ty shook his head. “If she hasn’t gotten rid of it, I don’t want her to rethink and do it now.”

“You figure she still has it?”

“Maybe. Anyway, we won’t have a decent idea what Brianne Dumont was strangled with until forensics has done their bit. No sense trying to look for it until we do. Make a note to ask forensics for an early determination,” Ty instructed. Paul dutifully made the note. “Okay, back to the breakdown.”

“One big consideration,” Paul said, “is that we only have Dumont’s word for it that the Maitland dame set up the appointment with the victim.”

“Or that she harassed her,” Ty said, picking up the thread of the argument. “And since Dumont was seeing Ms. Maitland until fairly recently, we can assume that he’s spent a good deal of time around the maternity clinic and the day-care center.”

“Which means he could probably get himself in and out without being seen,” Paul concluded. “There’s a working theory. He baits the trap by telling his wife that Beth’s asked to see her.”

Ty stopped pacing and brought both hands to his hips. “I have to wonder why she would go for that, meeting the other woman on her own turf, especially if the other woman was displaying threatening behavior.”

Paul shrugged. “Maybe she wanted to apologize—Maitland, I mean.”

“Or maybe there was no harassment,” Ty said, theorizing, “so the Dumont woman had no reason not to make the meeting.”

“Makes sense,” Paul concluded before returning to his theory. “On the other hand, he could’ve killed her, dumped the body in the office and fabricated the meeting to allay suspicion.”

Ty shook his head. “Too tricky, even without a blood trail.” He came to a halt and brought his hands to his waist. “We have to do some reconnoitering.”

“Until we discover a hole in the dike,” Paul agreed. “Then we pull the plug and let the truth flood away the lies.”

“You sound as if you’re convinced we’ll find that hole,” Ty said.

“Yeah, maybe. There’s something that’s been bothering me from the get go on this one.”

“Oh?”

Paul nodded. “It’s like this. The woman is rich and beautiful.”

And she has a freewheeling sexuality that fairly sings to a man, Ty thought but didn’t say. He knew that Paul, being happily married, wouldn’t say it, either, which was not to infer that he hadn’t noticed. Ty showed his agreement with Paul’s assessment by nodding.

“A woman like that’s got to be beating ’em off with a stick,” Paul went on prosaically. “What’s she want with a cold fish like Dumont? Any guy who would break up with Beth Maitland and marry another woman within forty-eight hours, well, he’s not the love of anybody’s life, if you ask me.”

“Definitely not the sort you’d kill over,” Ty agreed. “Now, all we’ve got to do is prove it.” And hope we don’t make the case against Beth Maitland in the process, he told himself, surprised at the sentiment.

Paul nodded thoughtfully and scratched his ear with the tip of his pen, leaving a bright blue mark. Ty smiled. Paul Jester was a good detective, a fine father and husband, an excellent friend, but he was always doing goofy stuff like marking himself up with those damned ballpoint pens he carried. Ty cleared his throat against a chuckle and added a query to the list.

“We’d better do some digging into Dumont’s background as well as Beth Maitland’s, just to cover our butts.”

“And don’t forget our victim,” Paul said, writing.

“Good point. Now I’ll tell you something about this case.”

“What’s that?” Paul asked, looking up. Ty knew that, given his ancestry, the guys around the office fancied him something of a shaman with his predictions and hunches, but he knew himself to be a purely logical man who made good deductions—not that he was averse to cloaking his expertise in a thin veneer of Crow mysticism. In this business, a man needed every edge he could get, and Ty was rightfully proud of his rich Native American heritage.

“I’ll tell you right now,” he pronounced sagely, “that this thing is going to come down to a face-off between Brandon Dumont and Beth Maitland. I, for one, think we’ll only hear the truth when we get the two of them in the same room together at the right time. Meanwhile…” He let the statement hang there, but Jester was quick to finish it.

“Meanwhile,” he said resignedly, getting to his feet, “we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Ty waited as his partner shoved his chair under the table and walked around it. Then he turned to the door.

“You’ve got ink on your ear,” he said as they went out together, just loud enough for the other guys in the ward-room to hear. Paul was still scrubbing at the offending mark long after the laughter had died down.

“YOU DID WELL, BETH,” Hugh Blake told her. “I don’t want you to be discouraged. The police are a long way from concluding their investigation, so there’s a chance the real murderer will come to light. If they do charge you, I promise you we’ll fight them on every front. Just stick to the truth and try to relax. All right?”

She nodded and thanked him for his help, then allowed her mother to usher her into the limo. Beth sighed, letting her head fall back on the warm leather upholstery. It wasn’t particularly cold, but Beth pulled her fitted brown corduroy jacket closed.

“My poor darling,” Megan said, sliding onto the seat next to her and laying a comforting hand on her knee. “How could anyone suspect one of my children of something so heinous? Especially you! Everyone knows you wouldn’t hurt a flea. You’re much too fun-loving and playful.”

“I don’t think fun-loving and playful preclude murder in the eyes of the law, Mother,” Beth suggested with a wan smile.

Megan shuddered. “I still can’t believe they suspect you. It’s just ludicrous, and they’ll see that. They will.”

Beth tried for another smile and was saved the effort when the chauffeur slid the divider window open. “Back to the clinic, Mrs. Maitland—Ms. Maitland?”

“Oh…yes, thank you,” Beth replied for the two of them. “I’m a little distracted today. Sorry.”

“No problem,” the driver assured her, sliding the window closed. An instant later, the vehicle shifted into gear and swung easily across the parking lot. Beth lifted her head. Enough self-pity. Time to face this mess head-on.

“I’m worried how this is going to affect the clinic and day-care center,” she said bluntly, and Megan immediately rushed to defuse her concerns.

“Don’t be silly. Everyone knows this is nonsense. As Hugh says, it’ll all blow over soon and—”

“Mom,” Beth interrupted firmly, “the press has crucified us over the paternity of a babe left on our doorstep. You can’t believe they’ll ignore an accusation of murder.”

“No one has accused you of anything!” Megan cried. “You’ve been questioned. We all have. That’s all it is or will be.”

“Let’s face facts, Mother,” Beth said gently. “I’m suspected of murdering my ex-fiancé’s new wife in my office. The press is going to play this only one way.”

“Let them,” Megan insisted sternly. “Everyone who knows you will realize how absurd their implications are.”

“But those who don’t know me will wonder,” Beth pointed out, “and that could hurt the clinic. Just when we’re ready to lay one scandal to rest, another pops up. At the very least, the twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration will suffer.”

“Not at all,” Megan assured her. “Most of the invitations have already been accepted. After today’s announcement that the parents of our darling Chase have come forward, the rest will come around. You’ll see.”

All Beth could see at the moment was that she wasn’t going to be able to shake her mother’s staunch belief in the victory of truth and the ultimate invulnerability of her family. But then, she didn’t really want to. Unfortunately, all she could do was pray that nothing and no one else did it for her, and that was exactly what she did for the remainder of the trip to the clinic.

Traffic was worse than usual. The limo crawled or stood still more often than not, so they were almost late for their own press conference. They had time to run through the clinic to the back hall. The other members of the family were waiting for them, and they gathered around as soon as Beth drew near, offering hugs and asking questions.

“Are you all right?” Ellie, Beth’s twin, immediately demanded. Identical to Beth except for the shorter hair and lighter lipstick, Ellie seemed to have found a new confidence since her marriage to Sloan Cassidy. Not wanting to subject the family to any more publicity, the two of them had secretly eloped over the New Year, much to everyone’s delight. Beth smiled and nodded to reassure her sister. Ellie’s tailored, sleek business attire and short, neat hair contrasted sharply with her own, eclectic ensemble of broomstick skirt, boots, cropped sweater and corduroy jacket. Ellie, to Beth’s mind, was the intelligent one, the professional one, not that Beth would have traded places with her. She loved working with children. Ellie’s career choice as Maitland Maternity’s administrator seemed deadly dull and unnecessarily stressful, but Beth couldn’t help feeling that Ellie secretly garnered more respect than she did as the director of the day-care center. That belief, however, did not color her great love for—and pride in—her sister.

“What happened at the police station?” her brother R.J. wanted to know.

Mitchell was right beside him. “Those idiots didn’t charge you, did they?” he asked.

Beth shook her head. “No.”

“Of course they didn’t,” her older sister, Abby, insisted. “Who in his right mind would suspect our Beth of murder?”

“You might be surprised,” Jake said, holding himself, as usual, at a little distance from his siblings. He had whispered to her as she was leaving for her interview with the police detectives that, if push came to shove, he had a few connections who might help them get at the truth, but Beth knew that she wouldn’t ask him to pull any hidden strings for her unless she saw no other hope. Jake was much too protective of his shadowy life, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that privacy.

“This will have to wait,” Megan instructed calmly. “We have a press conference to conduct. We’re going out there and present a united front to that mob of jackals. We have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of or worried about. Remember that, all of you.”

Anna, who usually skipped these occasions since she, like their brother Jake, had no professional connection to Maitland Maternity, stepped up to link her arm with Beth’s. Ellie took the other arm. Abby stood next to their mother, with R.J. and Mitchell flanking them, and Jake brought up the rear. Megan lifted her chin, as regal as any queen, then she put out her hand, shoving open the door and leading them all onto the railed landing that lent itself so perfectly to this sort of thing.

Flashes went off. Cameras started rolling. There was a general jostling of bodies as reporters surged closer, jockeying for position, microphones swaying over their heads. Megan stepped to the microphone mounted on the railing and lifted both arms in a gesture of welcome.

“Thank you for coming.” Immediately she was bombarded with questions.

“Mrs. Maitland, have the baby’s parents been identified?”

“Who has been charged with the murder at the clinic?”

Chelsea Markum, cool and professionally commanding with her vibrant auburn hair and beauty-queen looks, elbowed her way to the front and demanded, “Is Jake Maitland involved with some terrorist organization? And who is this mystery woman he’s brought into your midst? Does it have anything to do with the murder?”

Jake muttered something best unheard and edged away from the lights. Megan laughed. “My goodness, Chelsea, what an active imagination you have.” She ignored Chelsea’s pout and waved down the remainder of the questions. “I’m here to announce that the parents of the infant child left on this very doorstep at our last meeting have, indeed, come forward.”

“Who’s the father?” someone called.

“The father is a distant relative who desires to remain nameless,” Megan went on calmly. “He and the child’s mother are working to put their lives back together and provide a loving home for their son. Surely you realize that this was an act of desperation on the mother’s part. Now that the father is aware of the child’s existence, the couple are working through their differences. Please, I beg you, allow them the privacy necessary to accomplish this.”

“Are you saying that none of your sons fathered this mystery child?” someone asked.

Megan seemed to pause, then said in a strong, clear voice, “None of the fine young men you see standing here with me today had anything to do with that child’s conception. Now, that’s all I’m going to say.”

“But what about the murder?” Chelsea Markum demanded, having recovered from her set down. “Can Maitland Maternity survive this new crisis?”

Beth stiffened, but Megan shook her head. “The tragedy that occurred here last night has nothing whatsoever to do with Maitland Maternity.”

“Isn’t it true that the dead woman caused the breakup of your daughter Beth’s engagement?”

Pointing to another reporter instead of acknowledging Chelsea Markum, Megan tried to ignore the question, but Beth knew it was hopeless. She stepped next to her mother and leaned toward the microphone.

“No, that isn’t true,” she said evenly.

“But the police suspect you, don’t they?”

“You’ll have to ask them that,” Beth said dismissively.

“In fact,” Megan said, once more taking control, “these questions really ought to be directed at the police. I believe the detectives working this case are one Ty Redstone and Paul Jester. Why don’t you ask them these things?”

Beth chuckled inwardly. Poor Redstone and Jester! Her mother had effectively sicced the press on them. She wondered if Ty Redstone would blame her for it, then purposefully pushed thoughts of the attractive detective from her mind. She had more important matters to address—and the perfect forum in which to do it. Once she’d made a public statement, her mother could not gainsay her, and Beth was utterly convinced that this was for the best.

“I have something else to say,” she announced over the buzz of questions flying at them. She shot her mother an apologetic glance. She hated to do this, but she knew that she must. The reporters grew surprisingly quiet. She could see pens poised over handheld notebooks, microphones straining forward to catch her every word. She didn’t make them wait. “For the record, I have no idea who killed Brianne Dumont or why. It certainly was not me. However, my family and I are grieved by this tragedy and want to see the person responsible brought to justice. Given the circumstances, I can understand that some might link me with the crime even though I had no part in it, and that being the case, I am taking a leave of absence from my position as head of Maitland Maternity day-care center until this mystery is solved and the guilty party is found.”

The murmurings this time came from behind her, from her family, but she’d made the decision, and she knew it was right. She knew what she had to do. Cooperating with the authorities was fine, as far as it went; trusting them to exonerate her was something else again. She was not going to sit idly by waiting for someone to rescue her. Her chin went up in a gesture so reminiscent of her mother that her siblings smiled.

Megan took firm control of the situation once more and brought the press conference to a swift conclusion. The final questions came, as usual, from Chelsea Markum, who shouted at Beth and Jake as the family returned to the relative privacy of the clinic. It was only as she prepared to break the news of her leave of absence to her staff that Beth realized life as she knew it had drastically changed, perhaps forever.