Now You See Her

  She wobbled her way to bed. The electric blanket was still on. Naked, she crawled between the blissfully warm sheets and was asleep as soon as her muscles relaxed.

  * * *

  Detective Joseph Aquino was a burly guy with shrewd eyes and a homely, lived-in face that invited confidences. Detective H.E. Ritenour was lean and more pugnacious, his sandy hair cut military short, and he had a habit of fixing his pale gaze on suspects and not blinking until they began to squirm.

  Richard didn’t play games. He didn’t fidget, and he would bet the discipline trained into him would outlast the detective’s technique. He wondered if Ritenour would stare until his eyes dried out.

  When they had come to his house early that morning to tell him of Candra’s death, he had known immediately he was at the top of their list of most-likely suspects. He kept his behavior low-key and cooperated with everything they asked of him, functioning despite the shock that tried to numb his brain.

  He hadn’t loved Candra in a long time, and for the past year had actively hated her, but he had never wanted her dead. He just wanted her out of his life. Now she was, in the most final way. The death of someone you knew well was always a shock, like a wound in your concept of reality. The world had changed, and for a while you had to struggle with the abrupt alteration.

  Because their divorce wasn’t final, he was still legally responsible for the arrangements. He identified her body, and though he had seen bodies before, that had been in military action, undeclared war, where they had gone in knowing there could be casualties and accepted the risk, doing it anyway. This was different. This was the woman with whom he had shared his life, even if only superficially, for ten years. He had slept with her, made love to her, and, in the beginning at least, loved her. All he could feel now was regret, but it was genuine.

  He called her parents, who had moved from Manhattan when her father lost almost every penny he had in some bad stock decisions. Now Charles and Helene Maxson lived just outside Ithaca, their circumstances so reduced Candra had always invited them to the city rather than spend a night in what she called “little more than a shack,” though Richard thought the brick ranch house was upper-middle-class and a lot better than what most people had. But Candra had grown up in wealth, while Richard had a different perspective.

  Because of the circumstances, Richard quietly told Charles he would defer to him and Helene in the necessary decisions. Candra was their daughter; their grief was sharp. The location and means of interment would be their choice, as would the service.

  Every step he took, Richard was aware of the pair of detectives. One or both of them was always within earshot when he was on the phone. Any resentment he felt was immediately controlled, because they had a job to do and murder statistics showed that any time a woman was murdered, either her husband or boyfriend was the one most likely to have done the deed. Because he and Candra had been embroiled in a divorce, that tipped the percentages heavily against him. So he remained calm, even when the detectives finally took the step of taking him into precinct headquarters and sat down with him in an interrogation room, a small, dingy square space occupied by three chairs and a beat-up table that wobbled.

  He was read his rights and asked if he wanted to call his attorney. “No,” he said, surprising both of them.

  “You want a cup of coffee, some water?” Ritenour asked.

  “No, thank you,” Richard said, and managed to hide a small spurt of amusement. That was a basic trick; offer the suspect anything he wanted to drink, keep the coffee coming, and pretty soon he would be squirming with the need to piss. Only they wouldn’t let him go; they would keep him there, asking the same questions over and over, maybe phrased a little differently, while the sap’s bladder got more and more uncomfortable.

  He made himself as comfortable as possible in the chair to which they had steered him, which made him wonder if the front legs had been shortened a little so he would slide forward every time he tried to relax. He put both feet solidly on the floor and kept them there.

  Detective Ritenour started. “The housekeeper says you and Mrs. Worth were divorcing.”

  “That’s right.” Richard kept his tone neutral. “We’ve been separated a year.”

  “Divorces are messy things. I’ve been through two of them myself.”

  “They aren’t pleasant, no.”

  “People get all upset. It’s understandable. You’d have a lot to lose, wouldn’t you, Mr. Worth?”

  “In what way?”

  “C’mon, you’re worth a lot of money, no pun intended. A woman can take a man to the cleaners, get everything he’s worked for, unless he’s smart enough to protect himself from the beginning. You didn’t have much money when you and Mrs. Worth married, though, did you?”

  “No.”

  “So there wouldn’t have been any need for a prenup then.”

  “Gentlemen.” Richard said it quietly, because he sympathized with them. He wanted them to succeed. “If you’re asking if I stood to lose half of everything I own, the answer is no. When we married, my wife’s family was wealthy. Her father insisted on a prenuptial agreement. His intent was to protect his money from me in case of divorce, but the agreement went both ways. She kept what was hers; I kept what was mine. Candra couldn’t touch anything.”

  He saw the quick glance that went between the two detectives. One of their motives had just gone down the drain.

  “You’ll have a copy of that agreement, of course.”

  “My lawyer has it. Gavin Welles. Candra’s attorney, Olivia Yu, also has a copy.”

  They made a note of the names.

  “The housekeeper said you and Mrs. Worth had been having some trouble coming to an agreement about the settlement.”

  The housekeeper had said a lot, Richard thought. “Candra wasn’t happy with the settlement. She wanted more. We had several arguments about it, but she had agreed to sign the papers. We had an appointment with the attorneys today, at one o’clock, to sign the papers.” Automatically Richard glanced at his watch and saw that it was after two already. He hadn’t called Gavin to cancel the appointment, but Gavin would know. Someone would have called him. Olivia, probably. One of Candra’s friends would have called Olivia immediately, in the guise of passing along the news but really trying to find out some of the details.

  The news that Candra had agreed to a settlement took away another of their motives. The two detectives looked thoughtful.

  “Did you have a key to her new apartment?” Detective Aquino asked, the first words he had spoken since they entered the interrogation room.

  Richard shook his head. “No, not likely. I’ve never been in her apartment.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.” Never was an absolute term, difficult to support. Knowing they were now thinking along the lines of fiber samples, he said, “She came to my town house a couple of times to talk, and to collect her belongings, but I never went to her place.”

  They hid their disappointment well. Any cross-contamination of fiber samples between the two dwellings now had an explanation. Everything Richard had said was something that could be easily verified, and they knew it.

  “Mrs. Worth was a popular woman. Were you jealous of her male friends?”

  Richard couldn’t help it. He laughed. The sound wasn’t particularly humorous. “No.”

  “When she filed for divorce—”

  “She didn’t file. I did.”

  “You did?” Another quick look between them. “Why was that?”

  Richard had never told another soul why his break with Candra had been so abrupt and final. Sweeney knew, but only because she had been present during that last argument. He didn’t want to say anything against Candra now, especially not anything that would get back to her parents.

  “I don’t want her family to know,” he finally said. “It would hurt them.”

  “Know what, Mr. Worth?”

  “I found out she had an abortion two years ago. She hadn?
??t told me she was pregnant.”

  Both men sat back, frowning.

  “I guess you were upset,” Detective Aquino said.

  Richard flashed him a disbelieving look. ‘ A little.”

  He couldn’t hold back the sarcastic edge. “Our marriage was over right then. I never wanted to see her again. I threw her out, changed the locks on the town house, and filed for divorce the next day.”

  “Were you still angry with her?”

  “Bitter. Regretful.”

  “Where were you last night, Mr. Worth?”

  “I had a business dinner at the Four Seasons.” That too would be easily verified.

  “What time did you leave?”

  “Ten-thirty.”

  “Where did you go then?”

  “Home.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you make any calls, talk to anyone?”

  “No. I did some stock analysis on my computer, cleared up E-mail messages, that kind of thing. The time will be on the computer log.”

  “What time did you stop work?”

  “After midnight. Closer to one, I guess.” He had no idea what time they thought Candra had been killed, though he had heard someone remark she had still been wearing the dress she wore to a party. Logically, that would put the time of death close to when she arrived home. Candra had been known to stay until a party died, whether that was midnight or dawn.

  “What did you do then?”

  “Went to bed.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  Detective Aquino sighed. Detective Ritenour looked tired. Richard knew he was their best bet, and he had taken away all the usual motives. What had probably looked like a fairly simple case had become more complicated.

  “We’d like you to stay while we verify a few things,” Detective Ritenour said.

  “I understand.” Richard flashed a level look at them, one that said he was well aware of everything that had been going on. ‘And I’ll take you up on that coffee now, if I’ll be allowed near a bathroom.”

  Rueful smiles flashed across their faces, quickly erased. “Sure thing. How do you want it?”

  “Black.”

  “Not a good choice,” Aquino said on his way out. “This stuff needs diluting with something, even if it’s paint thinner.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” He thought of Sweeney, wondering, fearing, how she had weathered the night. The painting she had been doing was, he was certain now, of Candra. Had she completed it last night? Was she in shock? Did she need him?

  He wanted to call her. The urge was so powerful he could barely contain it, but he fought it down. Bringing her to the detectives’ notice would only involve her in this. He hadn’t been to the death scene, but if Sweeney’s painting was in any way accurate in the details, he could see that any detective would find that suspicious. And he wondered if the other face, the killer’s, was still blank.

  “May I call my office?” he asked. Sweeney would have called there if she needed him.

  “Sure. Use the telephone on my desk,” Ritenour offered. He would be able to listen to every word Richard said. Their suspicion had eased, but not completely disappeared. It wouldn’t until everything Richard told them had been verified.

  Richard stood beside the desk and dialed the office number. Tabitha Hamrick, budding financial genius, answered the phone. “Tab, it’s Richard. Any messages?”

  “Thousands of them.” She sighed. “Richard, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, I’ve notified her family, and I’m giving them their choice in everything. They should be here soon. Ah, hell, I forgot to make their hotel reservations. Would you do that for me? The Plaza. I’ll pick up the tab.”

  “Sure thing. Oh, Ms. Sweeney called this morning. I told her I’d tell you.”

  “Thanks.” He wanted to ask how Sweeney had sounded, but couldn’t. “What time was that?”

  “I think it was close to eleven. I made a note. . . . Here it is. Ten-fifty-seven.”

  Fairly late in the morning. She should have been okay by then. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Will you be in this afternoon?”

  Richard glanced over at Ritenour. “This will take another couple of hours, right?”

  “Right.” Ritenour gave a faintly apologetic shrug. He wasn’t nearly as pugnacious as he had been before the interview.

  “No, I won’t make it in. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He hung up and worked his shoulders, shrugging the kinks out of them. Aquino appeared with three cups of coffee sandwiched in his hands. Richard took the one that was black. Aquino and Ritenour both drank theirs with so much cream the liquid was barely brown. After the first sip, Richard knew why. But in the military he had gotten accustomed to drinking coffee this strong, for the caffeine kick.

  The coffee made him think of Sweeney again, and her need for it. He needed her as he had never needed anyone, and right now he didn’t dare go anywhere near her.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  Richard kept tight control of himself as the afternoon dragged on. He didn’t fidget; he didn’t protest; he didn’t threaten. The detectives were doing their job, and it wasn’t their fault the things he had told them took longer to verify than he had expected. He wasn’t officially under arrest; judging from the detectives’ attitude, they no longer suspected him, or at least not much. He could have left. But they kept coming back to him with questions that would help them put together a picture, questions about Candra’s habits and friends. Though he and Candra had been separated for a year, they had lived together for ten, and he knew her better than even her parents did.

  Tabitha had canceled all his appointments. Candra’s parents had arrived and were installed in the Plaza; he had spoken to them on the phone—with Detective Ritenour listening—and apologized for not being able to see them that evening. The Maxson’s weren’t alone; in the background he could hear the rise and fall of several voices, and knew they had called some of their old friends as soon as they checked into the hotel.

  The urge to call Sweeney was almost overwhelming, and that was the one urge he had to resist. In his shock at Candra’s murder, he had left his cell phone at home; he had no way of knowing if Sweeney had tried to contact him by that number. The sense of being out of touch with her gnawed at him, as if part of him were missing. He needed her, needed to feel the freshness of her personality, see the clear honesty of her gaze. It was unfair of him, now that Candra was dead, but he couldn’t help comparing the two women. Candra had come from a privileged background; she had been pampered and adored, her every whim satisfied, always certain she was loved—and she had grown up to be innately selfish, unable to handle situations in which she didn’t get what she wanted. She had been undeniably charming and friendly—God, it was jarring to think of her in the past tense!—so those situations hadn’t come about very often, but when they did, she erupted.

  On the other hand, from what little Sweeney had told him, she had been mostly ignored by her parents. Her mother’s lack of feeling for her own children was appalling. He knew Sweeney’s mother, though he had never met her. He had met her type. Because she was artistic, she thought that excused her from responsible behavior. She probably indulged in indiscriminate sex and drugs, and had exposed her children to God knows what.

  Sweeney had grown up without love and had closed herself off from the pain by simply not letting herself form attachments. Richard strongly suspected he wouldn’t have been able to get to her so fast if he hadn’t caught her at this particular time, when the shock of those psychic episodes was sending her into a form of shock. Otherwise, she would have kept him at a distance for months. But despite her parents’ example, or maybe because of it, she shunned their dangerous, juvenile lifestyle and had made herself into a woman of strong moral fiber.

  He didn’t want her touched by this, not any more than she already w
as. The painting involved her; if she eventually painted the face of the man standing over Candra’s body—and he had no reason to doubt she would—then that knowledge would have to be shared with the detectives. It wasn’t proof; the painting would in no way be admissible in court. But, if the detectives gave the information any credence, it would point them in the right direction. If they knew where to look, they would probably find the proof they needed. Perhaps he could steer them in that direction without mentioning the painting or involving Sweeney at all.

  “Did Mrs. Worth have a will?” Detective Aquino asked abruptly.

  “I don’t know,” Richard replied, dragging his thoughts away from Sweeney. “We had one when we were together, but as soon as we separated, I made a new one. She didn’t have a lot of assets, though. I own the gallery, and from what I gather, she ran up a lot of debt in the past year. I had agreed to give her the gallery as part of the settlement, but that wouldn’t have been included in any new will she made, if she made one at all.”

  “Why?” Aquino asked curiously. “Why give her the gallery? With your prenup, you didn’t have to give her anything.”

  Richard shrugged and said simply, “So she would have the means to live.”

  “Mr. Worth ...” Ritenour tapped his pen on the desk, his brow furrowed as he framed his question. “I know you’ve been separated a long time, but would you know any of the men she’s been with lately? The housekeeper didn’t know any names. She said when Mrs. Worth had company, she tried to stay out of the way and do her job as quietly as possible.”

  Richard didn’t make any comment on Candra’s sexual habits. “How far back do you want to go?”

  They looked at each other. Aquino shrugged. “Since you separated.”

  “My attorney has a list.” Seeing their surprise, he said, “I made it a point to know, in case I needed the information.”