Читать книгу Getting Off On Frank Sinatra - Megan Edwards - Страница 14

Silently, Sean tapped the numbers into my phone. Our eyes met as he waited for an operator to answer, but I couldn’t read his expression.

“I want to report a death,” he said, still looking at me. “A murder.”

That’s it, I thought, the news is out. And the call was being made on my cell phone, connecting me indelibly with the whole gruesome situation. For a fleeting moment, I wished I had acted on Sean’s suggestion. I could have been on my way to the Nash house instead of stuck in the middle of a crime scene.

While Sean talked to the 911 operator, I glanced at the pile I had left sitting on the bathroom counter. I should get that stuff out of here, I thought. Who knew what might happen to it if I didn’t. It wasn’t evidence, but it could easily get mixed up with some. By the time Sean handed me my phone, I had crammed all my belongings back into my bags.

“I’m going to put this stuff in my car,” I said. I left Sean standing in the bathroom and headed to the front door.

The evening heat hit me like a blowtorch as I stepped outside, and with the jolt came a new realization of what had happened. Marilyn Weaver had been killed, and the only thing I knew for certain was that I hadn’t done it.

Sean was standing motionless in the living room when I returned.

“They’ll be here any minute,” he said. As if on cue, sirens sounded in the distance. The wail grew into an ululating chorus, and just as I was wondering how cops get inside gated communities, the sirens got even louder. A moment later, a sharp rap on the front door made it clear that electronic gates are no barrier to law enforcement. I stood next to Sean as he admitted two police officers, one male and one female.

As though they had planned it before they arrived, the man attached himself to Sean and the woman began talking to me. As Sean disappeared down the hall to the bedroom wing, I found myself being escorted to the living room and seated at one end of a long brown leather sofa. The policewoman pulled up a footstool and sat down facing me.

“I’m Officer Mendoza,” she said. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

I took a breath and began describing the path that had led me to Marilyn Weaver’s closet door.

“I met her yesterday,” I said. “At a fund-raiser for the Neon Museum.” God, it sounded strange! Two days ago I hadn’t even known the woman, and today I was snooping in her closet. But if my story seemed odd, the policewoman didn’t let on. She just kept prompting me to keep talking while she took notes.

As I related how I had met Sean at the Anna Roberts Parks Academy, had a drink with him at the V, and ended up following him to his mother’s house, a swarm of public servants gathered. Half a dozen more policemen showed up, along with a squad of paramedics. I guessed the three guys carrying cameras and toolboxes were crime scene investigators, and several others looked like detectives or coroners. The scene looked oddly familiar, like a police movie in slow motion with the dialogue muted. Surreal, I thought. Even the body in the bedroom began to seem like a dream as activity swirled around me.

“May I go now?” I said at last. More than an hour had passed since Officer Mendoza had parked me on the long couch, and I’d answered all her questions, many of them more than once.

“I need you to stay,” she said. “Detective Booth needs to talk with you.”

Detective Booth. I had no idea which member of the swarm he was. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to hang around and find out. Could I leave even if Officer Mendoza “needed” me to stay? She wasn’t treating me like a suspect, but—

Suddenly I thought about Sean. Was he a suspect? It didn’t seem likely that he’d killed his mother, or even possible. On the other hand, all I knew about Sean was two martinis’ worth of self-description. Not a great knowledge base from which to draw conclusions.

Thanks to my clear view of the front door, I knew Sean was still in the house somewhere. For that matter, so was Marilyn. Paramedics had rolled a gurney down the hall, but they hadn’t returned with a body on board.

What was going on outside? I wondered. I couldn’t see much even when the door opened, but the sounds of hubbub suggested that a good-sized block party had erupted. Oh, God—and television cameras. The media would probably have no more trouble getting through those gates than the cops had.

“Would you like some water?” Officer Mendoza asked. I nodded, and she called to another cop to hand her a bottle. As she unscrewed the top, it dawned on me that she was my babysitter. She hadn’t strayed more than five feet from me since she’d arrived. Damn. I probably was a suspect.

“Detective Booth will be here in a minute,” Officer Mendoza said. “Is there anything else you need?”

I need to rewind back to three o’clock, I wanted to say. Or better yet, back to last week, when I was blissfully unaware of an unborn baby. “Boring” had never seemed so appealing.

“No,” I said. “Thanks for the water.”

It was more like an hour before Detective Booth relieved Officer Mendoza of her spot in front of me. He lowered himself onto the footstool, his long legs forming an A-frame in front of me. He was about forty, I guessed, and he was wearing cowboy boots, khaki slacks, and a short-sleeved seersucker shirt. When he arrived on the scene, I’d lumped him together with the crime scene investigators, though he hadn’t been carrying a camera.

“How you doing?” he said after introducing himself. It’s the sort of question that usually doesn’t require a serious answer, but Detective Booth stopped talking and waited.

“Just terrific,” I said, regretting my sarcasm as our eyes met. Damn! The guy looked like my uncle. My father’s younger brother has the same square face and tall, flat forehead. Detective Booth’s eyes were like Uncle Jeff’s, too—a steely blue-gray. He even had the same bristly five o’clock shadow.

“Tell me what happened.”

I sighed, realizing that once again I would have to recite the events that had led me to this spot. I knew without asking that “I already told Officer Mendoza” was not going to satisfy Detective Booth.

“What was in the street when you got here?” Booth asked when I got to the part about following Sean from the V. “Did you notice any vehicles?”

“Only Sean’s BMW,” I said. “I can’t remember any others, but there might have been a car parked across the street.” I racked my brain for more details but came up empty. “Let me know if you remember anything,” Booth said. He jotted some notes, then nodded at me to continue my story.

“I was curious,” I said when I got to the part about why I had entered Marilyn’s bedroom. “Especially after I saw the cord.”

I met Detective Booth’s gaze, and his similarity to my uncle vanished. Uncle Jeff is always friendly and warm. This guy had icicles in his stare.

“I know I had no business being in Ms. Weaver’s bedroom,” I continued. “But the cord was too weird to ignore. I think anyone in my position would have looked inside that closet.”

Booth smiled at me in a way that was anything but friendly. “We’re not talking about anyone, Ms. Black. We’re talking about you.”

I gulped. I’d stayed pretty calm the whole time I was talking to Officer Mendoza, but this guy was making me feel like I had something to hide.

“Did you touch or move anything?”

“I touched Ms. Weaver’s arm,” I said, “to see if maybe she was still alive.”

“What else?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“Think,” Booth said.

“No,” I said, meeting his laser-beam gaze as defiantly as I could. “I touched her arm. Then I called Sean. Then we called 911.”

Booth kept staring at me. I looked away as unpleasant thoughts flooded my brain. What had Sean told him? Did it match what I had said? Should I tell him what Sean had done when I first tried calling 911? I looked at the detective again. He was still staring at me.

“Do I need a lawyer?” I said.

Booth snorted as a mean smile revealed his teeth. “I don’t know. Do you?”

Damn. I was only making things worse.

“Tell me the whole story again,” Booth said. “Beginning to end. No detail is unimportant.”

It was almost a relief to have to start over, and for the bazillionth time, I recounted events beginning with the fund-raiser for the Neon Museum. If Booth wanted the unabridged version, well, he was going to get it. By the time I was finished, he knew about everything from Marilyn’s Prada purse to Curtis’s revelations about Oscar the tortoise. He knew about Colby Nash and my brother’s building project. He even knew that Sean had wanted to introduce me to absinthe. If I had failed to tell him about Sean’s weird behavior with my cell phone—well, too bad. I wasn’t about to make Sean look suspicious without doing a little investigation of my own.

“So that’s it,” I said triumphantly when I reached the end of my narrative. “Now you know what I know.”

Booth scratched his head with the end of his ballpoint pen and shook his head. Then he flipped back through some notes. Then he scratched his head again and squinted at me.

“I must have missed something,” he said. His whole tone had changed, and he seemed genuinely confused. He shook his head again.

“That really is all I know,” I said. “I’ve told you everything, I swear.” But prickles of sweat were popping out on my forehead. What had Sean told this guy?

“Would you mind starting over?” Booth said.

I stared at my hands. Yes, I wanted to say, I do mind. I’ve already told you everything, and I’m sure you heard every word. I didn’t kill Marilyn, and I have no idea who did. My only sin is nosiness, and last I heard nosiness isn’t a crime.

I sneaked a peek at Booth. He was still looking at me, and when he caught my eye, he winked.

Flustered, I looked down again. The guy was downright creepy. I wished I had the nerve to get up and walk out, but Detective Booth had me far too tangled in his net of innuendos.

I sighed. “Where do you want me to start?”

Before I left the Weavers’ house, Detective Booth had made me repeat my story at least three more times. Somewhere in the midst of one of my soliloquies, Officer Mendoza brought me a slice of pepperoni pizza, and I wondered if Sean had actually managed to call in an order before Marilyn’s body took center stage. As I imagined an unsuspecting pizza delivery boy arriving on a murder scene, I realized how narrow my view of everything was. I was telling Booth more and more, but I felt as though I knew less and less.

I liked the detective less and less, too, though I kept telling myself he was only doing his job. Or was he? Shouldn’t he be out looking for the murderer instead of sitting around making me squirm? I had almost corralled enough nerve to confront him with this question when he abruptly rose to his feet.

“We’re done here,” he said.

“Done?” I said. “You mean I can leave?”

“Just don’t go too far,” he said, handing me his card. “And call me if you remember anything—anything at all.” He went on to explain that I could seriously damage his investigation if I talked about the crime, especially around The Light.

“Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Let the police department do the talking.”

I was wondering how I could possibly avoid instant celebrity as I walked out the front door, but I needn’t have worried. The police had set up barricades at both ends of the Weavers’ block, and the television cameras and reporters hadn’t been allowed past them. The only people near the house were cops and a few neighbors from homes nearby. Marilyn’s body had still not been removed from the house when I left, and Sean’s BMW was still parked next to the Max.

I climbed behind the wheel, drove to the traffic island, and waited while two policemen moved a barricade. A television reporter with a microphone in her hand was moving toward me as I stepped on the gas and pulled away.