Читать книгу Knock 'Em Dead - Rhonda Pollero - Страница 10

On the plus side, even in boxer shorts, a matching cami with demi robe, and my pink rubber beach flip-flops, I was better dressed than the half dozen prostitutes chained to the railing along the front edge of the bench. Most of the pros looked pretty haggard, except for the statuesque brunette seated next to me.

I thought about offering some free advice concerning a career change, but figured it wasn’t my place. Looking down at her gigantic, scuffed leather Kate Spade shoes, I wondered if I was the one in the wrong line of work.

She noticed that I wasn’t handcuffed to the bench at the same time I noticed she had an Adam’s apple. I almost blurted out “You’re a man” but then I figured he/she already knew that.

What the hell was talking them so long? It was well after nine o’clock. I’d been sitting on the hard bench for what felt like hours. My butt was numb. My temper was not.

The desk sergeant, after some serious threatening of a civil suit on Becky’s part, agreed to remove the handcuffs. It was progress. Jane’s plight trumped mine, so I hadn’t seen Becky or Jane since they’d been sucked into the “Authorized Personnel” area.

Across from the booking bench—a term I’d learned about twenty minutes ago—was a long wall. It was scuffed and desperately in need of a fresh coat of paint. There were large plate-glass windows that allowed me to see out into the public waiting area. Though I couldn’t hear it, I could see a grainy picture flickering from the television mounted high up on corner brackets.

I winced when footage of Jane and me doing the perp walk out of my apartment played for the umpteenth time. Hopefully no one I knew was up this early on a Sunday morning to see the humiliating images. The way my luck was running, that didn’t seem like a realistic expectation.

I was sure Margaret Ford, the office receptionist and self-appointed thorn in my side, was probably gleeful seeing me on the early morning news. She’d be doing a happy dance between the traffic update from Captain Jodi, hottie helicopter pilot, and pet picks (viewer-supplied photos of everything from snakes to schnauzers), as the local station had aired the footage of Jane and me in handcuffs.

It caused an instant knot to form in the pit of my stomach. I was still on moderately shaky ground with the ultraconservative law firm of Dane, Lieberman and Zarnowski, my employers and the providers of that great thing called my paycheck. As an estates and trusts paralegal, I was expendable. Especially to Maudlin Margaret and her band of jealous secretaries—um, administrative assistants.

A few months back, I’d almost been killed trying to solve a series of murders related to an estate I’d been assigned. My direct supervisor is Vain Victor Dane, managing senior partner and king of the buffed and manicured nails.

Because she’d been there for twenty-five years, Margaret considers it part of her job description to rat me out at every opportunity. My guess is that she had Vain Dane’s home number on speed dial by now. Or maybe she’d gotten so excited that she’d driven to his posh Palm Beach waterfront digs to deliver the news in person.

Vain Dane had been furious over my actions during the Hall investigation, so I knew for a fact he wasn’t going to be thrilled with the news that I was again on the wrong side of the law. Particularly if he was being spoon-fed selective and unflattering facts by Margaret.

Bitch.

The passive-aggressive relationship I shared with Margaret started about ten minutes after I was hired. She didn’t like that my salary exceeded hers. Forget that I actually have a degree and she doesn’t. In Margaretland, all that matters is seniority.

Margaret and the Mediocre Maidens—her posse from the file room—call me FAT behind my back. Sometimes she doesn’t even bother waiting until my back’s turned. It has nothing to do with my size, either. I’m a respectable size 4. The nickname comes from my initials—F-inley A-nderson T-anner. May sound like a classic DAR name, but in truth, it’s a family name. Names, actually.

Forever ago, my mother had an incredible voice and was at the beginning of a promising career with the Metropolitan Opera. Her career was derailed when nodules were found on her throat and the resulting surgery weakened her voice. Apparently, during her brief career at the Met, she’d been sleeping her way through the tech guys when she discovered she was pregnant. I should fault her for not practicing birth control, but that would mean I wouldn’t exist, so I can’t really go there. Based on simple math, she narrowed the potential fathers down to two, Steven Finley or Jeff Anderson.

But by the time I came along, both men were long gone—and as far as I know, neither of them knows about me to this day. Maybe I should suffer some sort of identity crisis or daddy abandonment issues, but I’m relatively normal—thanks to Jonathan Tanner. I was eighteen months old when he married my mother. Thirteen when I found out he wasn’t my biological father. Mom does enjoy keeping her dramatic little secrets. By then it didn’t matter. Jonathan was my father in every way even though we didn’t share DNA. He loved me, which is more than I can say for my mother.

He died when I was seventeen. Since then, my mother has devoted her life to serial marriage. It’s worked out pretty well for her too. Between divorce settlements and death benefits, she’s got enough money to support her search to find hubby number six in fine style. Though she never admitted it—especially to me—I’m not sure she can really love another man after Jonathan.

No doubt she’d already seen the morning news. It wouldn’t dawn on her to come to my aid. Hell, she’ll personalize it so that by the time we actually do talk, she’ll have found a way to make the horrifying ordeal of finding my friend soaked in blood and hours in police custody some intentional and diabolical choice on my part to humiliate her. She’s probably already on the phone to her travel agent and/or shrink.

I checked the clock on the wall behind the desk sergeant. Who, by the way, was sipping coffee from a foam cup. The last time I’d been awake for almost five hours without a hit of caffeine, I was in the womb.

While I was sympathetic to Jane’s predicament, I knew she hadn’t maimed and killed Paolo or anyone else. “What the hell is taking so long?” I grumbled. Again.

He/she patted my leg, saying, “What’sa matter, honey? Got someplace to be?”

“Logged in to eBay,” I replied benignly as I inched my leg away from his/hers.

He/she looked at me as if I’d just uttered the atomic number for barium. “Is that your outcall service?” He/she lowered her voice. “What percentage do they take?”

“Outcall? No. EBay is an auction site. There’s a Betsey Johnson dress in my size—worn once—and I was hoping to get in at the last second.” Was I really sharing my clandestine shopping habits with a transvestite-for-hire? Apparently I was. Talk about a Fellini moment.

“Ooh. You’re pretty enough. If you ever want a job, you just head on down to Riveria Beach and ask for Raylene.”

Mouth dry, I nodded and stared at the floor. The good part was I doubted the he/she would out my bidding on a used dress thing to my friends. It wasn’t as if I was frugal—far from it. That’s the problem. Well, part of the problem.

My mother, in what she liked to call a character-building exercise, stopped subsidizing the very free shopping habits I had learned at her feet. It was her control-freak countermove to my decision not to go to law school. So, for the last seven years, I’ve been forced underground, into the scary but affordable world of knockoffs and online auctions. I’m pretty good at it now. By finding a decent dry cleaner that can remove almost anything and learning the archaic skill of sewing, I’ve beaten the master at her own game.

And believe me, Cassidy Presley Tanner Halpern Rossi Browning Johnstone is a formidable foe. If you’re me. If you happen to be my perfect sister Lisa, the pediatric oncologist engaged to the blue-blood surgeon, planning the fall wedding of the century, you’re golden. Truth be told, I do like my sister, even if we have drifted apart over the years. We just don’t have anything in common.

Right now, I actually feel sorry for her. Between the iron-willed snobbery of David Huntington St. John IV’s family and the society-pleasing whims of my mother, Lisa is having the wedding she never dreamed of.

She’ll be wearing a custom Vera Wang and a St. John diamond-encrusted tiara that some descendant of the family brought over on the Nina, the Pinta, or the Who-Gives-a-Shit. Or maybe it was the Mayflower. Me? I’d be in diamond-encrusted heaven. Lisa? She’s more the hospital scrubs and Jesus sandals type. She doesn’t just wear Birkenstocks, she actually likes them. At any rate, seven hundred guests will be gathering in three short months at the St. John estate in Buckhead for the event of the season.

It’ll be the first time Lisa’s worn heels since she abandoned stilettos for a stethoscope.

Like I had any room to mock my sister’s footwear. I’d just been offered a job by a ho.

“Miss Tanner?”

I was well past the point of preserving dignity. Leaping off the bench, I hurried past the come-hither scent of coffee to where Detective Steadman waited on the opposite side of a swinging gate.

The hinges squeaked loudly as she held it open and jerked her head in the direction of Interrogation Room One. The slap of my flip-flops echoed, drowning out the various telephone conversations and clicks of fingers entering information into computers. Even with the smell of too-strong, hours-old coffee, the place stunk of sweat and desperation.

She pushed open the interrogation room door and motioned me inside. The quiet click of the door shutting us in was unnerving. I was a little surprised, and a lot nervous, because Becky wasn’t in the room. “Where’s my attorney?” I asked as I scraped the metal chair away from the table and took a seat.

“She’s with Miss Spencer.”

“Doing?”

“Miss Spencer is being processed. I need your statement,” she said in a no-nonsense tone as she pressed the Record button on a small tape recorder set on the table between us.

I reminded myself that I was an innocent bystander, but my heart was racing, and my clasped palms started getting clammy. “Shouldn’t I wait for Becky?”

“Your call, but she could be a while.”

“If you’re going to arrest me—”

“I don’t have grounds to arrest you at this point, Miss Tanner. I simply need you to tell me what happened, beginning with Miss Spencer arriving at your apartment. The statement will be typed, and you’ll have an opportunity to read it and make any corrections before signing it. However, for your protection, I need to read you your rights. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You have…”

My mind drifted as she enumerated each of my rights. I knew them by heart. I’ve watched enough episodes of Law & Order to know them at least as well as she did. I wanted her to move along so Jane and I could go home. Too bad I didn’t have a constitutional right to tell the officer she was totally wrong about Jane.

When she finished, I said, “I already told Detective Graves everything I know.”

She gave a dismissive little nod. “Miss Spencer arrived at your apartment at approximately five thirty this morning?”

“Five twenty,” I correctly smugly. The air conditioner kicked on, sending a low hum and rush of musty, cool air into the room. Tightening the belt on my demi-robe, I spent the better part of twenty-five minutes recounting the wee hours of the morning. That should have been it, but it wasn’t.

“How well did Miss Spencer know the victim?”

“If this is going to take a while, may I have some coffee?” I knew by the smell that the coffee here would be thick and disgusting. I wanted it anyway. Caffeine was caffeine and because of the air conditioner, I was nipple-poking freezing.

The detective rose, pressed a button on a grimy intercom before barking a request for coffee, then retook her seat at the table. I was absently tracing the gouges in the laminated Formica tabletop that spelled out A-S-S-H-O-L-E, silently agreeing with the sentiment as Steadman’s black eyes narrowed in my direction.

She was a daunting-looking woman. Tall, lean, and athletic. She had man hands and she bit her nails. I’d bet my Christmas bonus—the same one I’ve spent three times already and it’s only July—that she’s never had a manicure.

Then the door opened and some mousy underling brought in a Styrofoam cup. I’d been given the nectar of the gods. The fact that it was bitter, stale, and eating away at the cup was immaterial. It was coffee and it was mine.

“How well did Miss Spencer know Mr. Martinez?”

I met the woman’s level gaze, wondering where she was going with that question since I’d already told Graves and anyone else who’d listen that Jane and Paolo were virtual strangers. Didn’t they talk to one another? “I told you, she didn’t know him at all.”

“But she took him home with her?”

“Yes.” Was the detective judging Jane? “The last I heard, depending on your religion, that’s a sin but hardly illegal.”

“Is she in the habit of taking men home on the first date?”

I swallowed a healthy amount of coffee. I didn’t feel comfortable answering questions. I knew with every fiber of my being that Jane could not have killed anyone, so I didn’t want to risk saying anything that might get her in more trouble. Like there’s more trouble than being arrested for murder? “Jane isn’t in the habit of dating. Period.”

“Why is that?”

An image of my boyfriend, Patrick Lachey, popped into my head. He was kind, sweet, dependable, completely nonneedy, thoughtful, and, on paper at least, the perfect man for me. He’s a pilot. Blond, blue-eyed, and genetically perfect. His salary is good, with decent growth potential. In the two years we’ve been dating, he’s never been anything other than an ideal boyfriend. He’s everything I should want in a man.

His image slowly morphed into Liam McGarrity. He was a P.I. who sometimes did work for my firm and had helped me out on the Hall investigation. And he was trouble. I shouldn’t even be thinking about Liam. A—I have Patrick. B—I hardly know the guy. C—He’s still got something going on with his ex-wife, Ashley. D—Did I mention he’s over six muscular feet of trouble? He’s the kind of guy who makes you crazy. He has the most incredible blue-gray eyes that make you think you can fix him by falling in love with him. Well, I’m not that stupid.

At least not since I met Patrick. Yeah, yeah, my pre-Patrick dating history kinda sucks—I’m usually the first to fall for a loser and the last one to find out that the said loser is a real jerk. But Liam, I saw him coming. That crooked smile, dark hair, and those piercing eyes weren’t going to reel me in. My date-a-lost-cause days are over. Probably.

The detective cleared her throat. “Tough question? I asked why your friend isn’t ‘in the habit of dating.’”

I felt my shoulders tighten in response to her sarcastic tone and the annoying air quotes, so it took extra effort to answer calmly, “The pool of decent guys out there is pretty shallow.”

“What can you tell me about…” She paused, flipping through her memo pad. “Fantasy Dates?”

“It’s an introduction service.”

“Is that a euphemism for escort service?”

“Do Jane and I look like hookers to you?”

Slowly, Detective Steadman glanced down at my attire. I felt my cheeks burn, partly from embarrassment but mainly from annoyance. “You’re the one who dragged me out of my home in my pj’s.”

“You were being…uncooperative.”

“Handcuffs bring out my temper.” I finished my coffee and held out the empty cup in a silent request for more. It was summarily ignored. Since she had me by the thong, I figured the sooner I answered Steadman’s questions, the sooner I could leave. “Fantasy Dates is an exclusive introduction service. Apparently clients fill out applications, go through rigorous background checks, including financials, pay a membership fee, and then they’re paired up with other eligible singles of means.”

“What’s the membership fee?”

“Five thousand.”

“Dollars?” she asked, one badly-in-need-of-waxing eyebrow arched.

No, rupees. “Yes. I told you it was exclusive.”

“Miss Spencer is an accountant?”

“And an investment broker,” I added, sounding ridiculously defensive despite my best efforts to play nice.

“How did she swing the membership fee?”

“Olivia Garrett is a mutual friend of ours. She owns Concierge Plus. Liv plans parties and events. Fantasy Dates is one of her clients.”

“What does she do for them?”

“When you fill out the application to join Fantasy Dates, you list your interests, favorite vacation spot, favorite wines, favorite restaurants, plays, that sort of thing.”

“And Olivia Garrett does what, exactly?”

“She looks at the people’s lists and then makes all the arrangements. You should probably ask her, but last week she told me one of the couples had both listed French cooking classes as an interest. Money was no object, so Liv booked them into the Ritz Escoffier Cooking School in Paris for a week.”

“That sounds pricey.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure it was. But that’s the point. These people are accustomed to luxury and they can afford it.”

“And Miss Spencer can afford it?”

I shook my head. “Liv asked the owners to comp Jane and Rebecca Jameson memberships.”

“Miss Spencer’s attorney is also a member of this service?”

“No. Becky declined. And last night was Jane’s first date.”

“So she was looking for a rich man?”

“No, she’s holding out for a poor, smelly homeless guy with no ambition and a big heart.”

Steadman almost smiled. Almost. “Did Miss Spencer tell you anything about her evening with the victim?”

The woman was getting on my nerves. “Jane, my friend, was bloody and babbling and scared.”

“So what did she say?”

“That she and Paolo went to a charity thing, had some champagne, went back to her place, possibly had sex, then she fell asleep.” When I saw Steadman’s expression perk up, I realized I probably should have left the sex part out.

“Possibly had sex?” She gave an indelicate snort. “Did she tell you how someone can ‘possibly’ have sex?”

“Dom.”

“Excuse me?”

“Dom Perignon. Apparently they had a little too much to drink in the limo.”

“Does Miss Spencer often drink too much and have blackouts?”

Uneasiness settled in the pit of my stomach. “I didn’t say that she had a blackout. I just said that she and her date had a little more to drink than she’s accustomed to and they weren’t driving, so unless there’s a new law against dating while intoxicated—FYI, if there is, you’re going to need a much bigger police force—neither Jane nor her date did anything wrong.”

“If that were true, Mr. Martinez would still be breathing, now, wouldn’t he?”