Accessory to Murder (6 page)

“Nope, I've been having a serious karaoke session in my car.”

“The police had to let the guy go,” Alyce said. “They arrested the wrong man.”

Josie needed news about the false arrest—fast. She was meeting Alyce in ten minutes. While she raced through the traffic, she flipped through the local radio stations. She knew the search was hopeless. It was seventeen past the hour. No news for another forty-three minutes. Unless—yep, Jinny Peterson's show was on.

Josie was too young for talk radio, but she made an exception for
Livewire
with Jinny Peterson.

Jinny was a white woman host with a mostly African-American audience, and she wasn't afraid to discuss issues most St. Louisans would rather ignore. Josie had guessed right. Jinny's listeners were raging against the latest twist to Halley's carjacking.

“You're on WGNU, Charles,” Jinny said. “Today, we're talking about Denzel Wattsson, the young African-American falsely arrested for the murder of scarf designer Halley Hardwicke at the Dorchester Mall. What do you have to say, Charles?”

“You ask me, Jinny, what happened to that young man is another case of RWB—Running While Black,” Charles said. “It's closely related to those other well-known African-American crimes, DWB, Driving While Black, and DWW, Driving with a White Woman.”

“I'm laughing,” Jinny said, “but I know it isn't funny. Next caller, Jefferson from Moline Acres. Go ahead, sir.”

This man had the rich tones of a TV preacher. “Denzel Wattsson is one more black man in a long line of local persecution. We've had distinguished scholars and other prominent people of color arrested and embarrassed, just because they happened to be black.”

“That's true, Jefferson,” Jinny said. “Denzel is a seventeen-year-old honor student at Priory School.”

Uh-oh, Josie thought. The kid's parents have money.

“His seventy-three-year-old aunt had dropped him off at the Dorchester Mall moments before his arrest. The pastor of the Clayton African Methodist Church was in the car with the aunt.”

Oops, Josie thought. Now the Dorchester was up against a major black church.

“Denzel was running through the mall,” Jinny said, “because he was late for a lunch date with some friends. His only crime was to dress in the fashionably baggy clothes that kids his age wear. When he tried to tell the police what happened, they cuffed him and threw him down on the floor. He wasn't released until nine o'clock this morning. The police and the City of Dorchester have given him an apology.”

“An apology?” Jefferson said, his voice ringing with outrage. “Are they going to give him back his day? I hope his parents sue the socks off the City of Dorchester.”

“Should be easy,” Jinny said. “Both parents are lawyers.”

The denizens of Dorchester City Hall must be a whiter shade of pale today, Josie thought. Good. They were a snooty little city, fat and arrogant from the Dorchester Mall income and a speed trap they ran on Clayton Road. They'd have to hand out a lot of speeding tickets to pay for this debacle.

“We have Loretta from Belleville on the line,” Jinny said. “Loretta, what's your take on Denzel's false arrest?”

An old woman with a cracked, creaky voice said, “I think that young man was asking for trouble dressing like a gangsta. He played right into the white folks's stereotypes. If he'd been dressed like Tiger Woods, he would have never been arrested.”

“You are probably right about that, Loretta, but it's like saying a woman who wears tight clothes is asking for rape.”

“She is,” Loretta said, her voice gaining strength. “The Bible tells us—”

“Thank you, Loretta,” Jinny said, unceremoniously cutting her off.

The on-air debate was still raging when Josie pulled into the parking lot at Minion's Café in downtown Maplewood. Minion's was a homey little place with light wood, soft blue walls, and handmade posters for church rummage sales and local musicians. Josie hoped it would have a soothing effect on her troubled friend. It was almost eleven o'clock. The restaurant was starting to fill up with the lunchtime crowd. Josie took a seat in the back where they could talk.

Alyce stumbled through the door a few minutes later. She looked like she'd been on a two-day bender. Her fine blond hair was flat and straggly. Her raincoat belt dragged on the floor. Her collar hung off on one side, and Josie realized she'd buttoned her shirt wrong. Alcohol didn't do this to her friend. Alyce was worn-out with worry.

Josie decided chicken salad couldn't fix this. This crisis called for dessert first. She flagged the waitress and ordered. “Two pumpkin muffins and two ginger teas.”

“How are you, Alyce?” Josie asked. She could see a blue vein throbbing under her friend's right eye. Tiny tension lines framed her mouth. She was coming apart.

Alyce broke her muffin into two pieces, and then two more, before she answered. “The homicide detectives from the City of Dorchester talked to me yesterday. They wanted to ask some questions about Halley. I said, yes, of course. I thought they were trying to figure out where she went that day.”

Alyce took a muffin quarter, and broke it into two more pieces.

“Who were the detectives?” Josie asked, hoping Alyce would feel comfortable starting out with a fairly neutral subject.

“Greg Evanovich and Cesar DeMille.”

“Cesar DeMille? Is that his real name? He sounds like a dress designer.”

“I couldn't exactly ask him, could I?” Alyce said. “DeMille looked as weird as his name. Real skinny, with a high black pompadour, like some fifties crooner. I swear it's a hairpiece. His hair was too thick and glossy for a beat-up guy in his forties. The other detective, Evanovich, was good-looking if you like guys with a little sleaze and a lot of gym muscle. I bet he hits on half the women he interviews.”

“Did he hit on you?” Josie asked.

“I had on a blouse with baby spit-up. It isn't a perfume that drives men wild.”

Alyce had reduced her muffin to a pile of crumbs without taking a bite. Josie had demolished hers, too, but her plate was empty. Dessert wasn't working. Josie ordered two cups of beef barley soup.

“Eat the soup,” she said. “Then we'll talk.”

The hot soup seemed to revive Alyce. The color returned to her face and the blue vein stopped throbbing. But she still looked like she might bolt at any moment. I've got to ease her into this, Josie thought. Otherwise, she'll keep describing those two cops down to their shoestrings.

“Tell me exactly what the detectives said, Alyce. Go through it question by question, from the beginning.”

Alyce took a deep breath. “Cesar, the guy with the weird hair, did most of the talking. He kept the questions about Halley open-ended at first. He said, ‘Tell us about her. Who did she know? What did she do? Where did she go?'

“I didn't know much. After Halley's design business took off, she flew to New York and Milan two or three times a month. Who knows who she met there? I said Halley was talented. I admired her work and I was proud that she was going places.” Alyce sounded almost wistful.

“Then both detectives peppered me with more personal questions: ‘Was she a player?'”

“A player?” Josie said. “What did that mean?”

“I think they were asking if Halley fooled around. They asked, ‘Did she drink or gamble or spend too much money? Did she get along with her husband?' I told them I'd never seen her drink more than a glass of wine. To my knowledge, she didn't gamble. If she had a lover, I didn't know anything about it. I'd heard she was getting a divorce, but I'd never seen her fight with her husband. So far as I knew, she and Cliff got along as well as any married couple.”

Which was not well at all, Josie thought. “Did you give them Joanie Protzel's name?”

“Yes. I said that Joanie had heard Cliff and Halley fighting the night before.” Alyce stopped before she had to say that ugly word “killed.” “I don't think Joanie will appreciate that. I should have kept quiet. Am I a police snitch?”

Josie nearly snorted her tea through her nose. Alyce looked so hurt she stopped laughing.

“This isn't high school,” Josie said. “It's a murder investigation. The police need to know what's going on.”

“I didn't know anything about the fights with her husband, except what Joanie told us yesterday, and I thought she should tell the police herself. I'd just be passing on gossip.”

“I think it's OK to give them gossip at this stage,” Josie said. “Isn't that how the police investigate a murder? One person leads them to another and then another, until they find a new side to the victim's life and a clue to her death.”

“I'm beginning to think Halley had more sides than a Rubik's Cube,” Alyce said. “And I didn't know any of them. Cesar asked me if she was loyal.”

“Loyal? That's a weird question.”

“I couldn't answer that one, either,” Alyce said. “I told them Halley designed the decorations for the dance committee. I thought she did a superb job, even if some people groused that having Halley-blue decorations turned the ballroom into an ad for her scarves. I thought it looked magical. The more I talked, the more our lives sounded so trivial. Nobody gets killed for reasons like that.”

“It's not trivial,” Josie said. “It's normal. It's ordinary in the best sense of the word.”

“That's not how it seemed to me,” Alyce said. “Then Greg asked if anyone was mad at Halley. I said no. She was a beautiful woman who made beautiful things. Some people might be jealous, but not enough to kill her. He said, ‘Are you one of those people? Do you want to live in New York?'”

“What did you say?” Josie asked.

“I burst out laughing. I don't want a New York success. I want my soufflés to come out right. I'm a homebody.”

“I'd hardly call you a homebody,” Josie said.

“Well, what would you call me? I'm happiest in my kitchen. I want to be with my son.”

“I'd call you content,” Josie said. “I bet your laugh blew away the detectives's doubts.”

“I don't think so,” Alyce said. “They kept asking questions. They pounded at me until my head hurt. There were so many questions, I can hardly remember them. They wanted to know if anyone would harm Halley to get even with someone else. I said, ‘You mean, kill Halley to get revenge on Cliff for a business deal?'

“They said, ‘Something like that.'

“That was ridiculous, and I said so. Cliff was a division head at a pharmaceutical company, not Tony Soprano. He was kind of dull. He was a workhorse.”

Even a workhorse kicked over the traces sometimes, Josie thought.

“The detectives wanted to know if Halley was a creature of habit. I said not lately. She was always running off to the airport at odd hours—early in the morning, late in the afternoon. She'd dropped all her committees. The only thing she did regularly was make the rounds of the stores that carried her scarves once a week. She always did that if she was in town. The day she was killed, that was her store day.”

“Did everyone know that?” Josie asked.

“I knew it, and I wasn't part of her inner circle.” Alyce absently picked up a paper napkin and started tearing it into strips.

“The police asked a bunch more questions. They wanted to know about Halley's daughter, her friends, her business associates, her ex-lovers. I wasn't much help on that, either. I knew her best friend was Linda Dattilo, but everyone knows that.”

“Why are you worried, Alyce?” Josie said. “This sounds like standard stuff.”

Alyce looked stricken. “Because they asked me if Jake knew Halley.”

“So?” Josie said. “They live in the same subdivision.”

There was that odd hesitation again. “They asked if I knew where Jake was at the time she was killed. They didn't say that, exactly, but they wanted to know where he was yesterday.”

“Do you know?” Josie said.

“Yes.” Alyce was concentrating on rip-stripping the napkin. “He had a business meeting out by the airport in the morning. He was in his office the rest of the day. I called two or three times from ten thirty on and he picked up his private line to talk to me.”

Alyce stacked the napkin strips into a pile, then selected one strip and tore it to bits.

“I'm sure it's routine to ask those things,” Josie said. “The Dorchester cops arrested the wrong person, like you said. But the shooter was a young black male. That definitely isn't Jake.”

Alyce managed half a smile. “Jake is the whitest guy I know.” Two more napkin strips were in shreds.

“See?” Josie said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“But why would they ask me about Jake?” Rip. Shred. Tear. The pile of napkin confetti grew bigger.

“I don't know,” Josie said. “Maybe they needed to clear up some minor question. Do you think they'll come back again?”

“I don't know. If they do, I'm calling a lawyer. I've got the number programmed in right here.” She held up her cell phone.

“Good,” Josie said. “You're prepared. They can't catch you by surprise again. Alyce, I hate to see you so upset. Can I watch the baby while you get a massage or a facial?”