An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (9 page)

She pulled the drawer and it slipped open easily. “Nope. Not locked.”

“Of course not,” I said. “This guy is exactly what Liz Trainor said he is – honest and trustworthy.”

I picked up one of the photos from the edge of the desk. Jonathan and Susan Luther smiled back at me from behind the glass, embracing one another on a tropical beach somewhere.

“Maybe it was her,” I said and pointed to Susan. “We’re barking up the Dad’s tree but maybe Mom was the one we should be looking into.”

Louise finished rifling the drawers and came up empty. No surprises. No smoking gun.

A pretty, young blonde, who couldn’t have been more than a perky twenty-two, stuck her head over the wall.

“Hi,” she said like a sparrow chirping out a song. “I heard Gavin’s wife was here and I just had to see you.”

Her eyes trailed to Louise.

“You’re as beautiful as he said you are,” she said. “He didn’t mention that you were African-American though.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry, was that rude? It was, wasn’t it? I’m not racist or anything like that, it’s just that he only said you were pretty, he didn’t describe you. You know, in detail.”

She babbled like the airhead she was, and her air needed a change, quick.

Louise gave a patient smile, as if she dealt with adolescent idiots everyday of her life.

I stood and turned to face the girl.

“I am Catherine O’Brien,” I said. “I’m Gavin’s wife. This is my partner, Louise Montgomery.”

She blinked a beady-eyed little blink like a startled rabbit caught outside its hole. Her nose even twitched to one side as if she were scenting the air to determine if I were a threat.

“Oh, sorry.” She blinked again. “It’s just you’re not what I expected. You know – I mean – Gavin described you a little different is all.”

“You mean he described me like her?” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder toward Louise.

“Well, yeah.” She thought for a moment. “Well, no.”

I understood the confusion well enough. My husband has the same delusional piece of his brain that I do. Only his convinces him that I am a great beauty when I’m out of his sight and sometimes when I’m in his sight. Gavin doesn’t see my pale skin, my flat butt, my small boobs, or my frizzy hair. The hair was the thing that bothered me the most. My frizz chooses to stand up and be counted at the most inopportune times, usually during photos. That’s why I still couldn’t figure out what photo Gavin had managed to get out of the house without me knowing.

I looked at Louise over my shoulder. “Gavin’s getting the two of us confused again, Louise. I’m going to have to have a talk with him.”

The girl let out an uncomfortable laugh, then stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Madeline.”

I shook her hand and Madeline looked relieved that it was only a shake and I didn’t take her hand off.

“Your husband is such a darling. He’s quite a flirt.” She giggled.

“Is he?” Gavin and I would be having a long conversation later. “Madeline? Do you mind if we ask you a few questions about Jonathan Luther?”

The smile dropped from her face. “Sure. It’s so sad what happened to him and his wife.”

“Come have a seat next to me.” I twisted one of the guest chairs.

Madeline stepped around the partition and she was even more petite and curvy than I had imagined. Gavin,
the flirt
, and I would have a serious conversation about Madeline.

“Ms. Liz said you’d want to talk to some of us about Jonathan.”

“You call your boss Ms. Liz?” Louise shook Madeline’s hand across the desk.

“Everyone calls her Ms. Liz. She likes it.”

We stared at one another for several moments before Madeline squeezed her hands together and stretched her arms out in front of her.

“It feels really kinda creepy to be sitting in Jon’s area like this.” She shivered. “I sort of expect him to walk in at any second. He always brought donuts and coffee for the office.”

She picked at the cuticles on her fingers. “He was a real decent guy to work with. I’m gonna miss him.”

A single tear slipped down her cheek. Madeline flicked it away quickly and sniffed.

“Sorry. I thought I was done crying this morning.”

“It’s okay to cry,” Louise said. “It’s natural when someone you cared about is violently taken away from you.”

Louise spotted a box of tissues on the edge of the credenza. She picked up the box and handed it to Madeline.

Madeline took a tissue and dabbed at the tip of her nose.

My cell phone chirped the theme from
Gilligan’s Island
. I checked the caller I.D. and saw Gavin’s name pop up.

“Sorry,” I said. “It’s my husband.”

“Oh, tell Gavin, Maddie says, ‘hi’.”

I shut the ringer off and slipped the phone back into my pocket. Gavin would have to wait until I had a private moment to quiz him on his activities when I’m not around.

“I’ll talk to him later.”

Madeline frowned.

I lifted the family photo so it covered the lower half of my face.

“Did you know the family well?”

She gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I guess. How is Chad doing? Is he okay?”

She shook her head.

“That’s stupid. Sorry. Of course, he’s not okay. Where is he staying? Not in the house?”

She looked horrified at the thought of Chad sleeping in the house that his parents had been murdered in the day before. Then she seemed to dismiss the idea.

“Chad is with his Aunt.” Louise had a way of speaking that made everything sound as if it would be alright, no matter how fucked up the situation.

“Madeline?” Louise leaned forward. The sudden shift in position drew Madeline’s complete attention away from her own addled thoughts. “Did you ever hear anyone threaten Mr. Luther? Or ever hear him arguing with anyone on the phone or in person?”

Madeline let out a deep huffing breath, pouted her bottom lip, and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration so deep, I thought her skull might cave in at any moment. The
Final
Jeopardy
theme music played in my head, only by the time I reached the
tip me over and pour me out
portion of the song, Madeline didn’t have her answer ready.

Sorry, Madeline you don’t win
Final
Jeopardy
but we do have some lovely parting gifts for you.

She finally nodded. “He did have a fight with one of our clients. The client sued him but Jonathan won the lawsuit. The guy really wasn’t happy about the whole thing.”

Now we were getting somewhere. Jonathan Luther apparently did have a skeleton in his closet.

“Do you remember the client’s name?” Louise removed her phone from her purse and prepared to thumb wield her notes.

“I ought to,” Madeline snorted. “He called every day for over a month.”

We waited but she stopped as if she’d said all that there was to say. After a few moments, I realized that Madeline wasn’t going to notice why we were staring at her expectantly.

“And that name would be?”

“Oh, duh.” She slapped her forehead. “Sorry. His name was Walter Wren – double-u, double-u.” She drew the letters in the air. “That’s why I remember so well.”

Louise clicked the name into her notes.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

“No, just him. Like I said, Jonathan was a real good guy to work with. That’s why double-u, double-u lost his lawsuit. Jonathan would never try to screw someone over.”

We thanked Madeline and she left, promising to send in the next coworker who would be willing to speak with us. It turned out that the entire staff of Balsam Real Estate wanted to talk to us. All the employees told pretty much the same story with only minor variations. Jonathan Luther was a great guy. Oh, there was that one incident, with that one guy, but Jon was vindicated. Other than that, there was nothing new they could add.

“What a relief.” Ms. Liz patted a hand over her chest. “I kept praying you wouldn’t find anything dirty on Jon, but you never can tell these days. God forgive me for saying so.”

“Thanks for your help.” I held out my hand and she pumped it with vigor. “We’ll be looking into this Walter Wren character and see if he has anything to do with the Luther’s deaths.”

Ms. Liz shook her finger at us. “He was extremely mad about losing the lawsuit, but I never thought he would be mad enough to do something like this.”

“You’d be surprised,” Louise said. “Thank you.”

The blustery cold day had turned drizzly by the time we left Balsam Real Estate. Soon we’d be dealing with snow. I cinched my jacket all the way up to the neck and tried to remember if I’d had my winter coat dry-cleaned. I would have to remember to check when I got home or ask Gavin; he’d know.

I’d almost forgotten about Gavin’s phone call. I checked the display on the cell phone. The message envelope glowed on the screen.

“I should call Gavin back,” I said to Louise.

“You go ahead,” she said. “Meet me down the street at the café.”

She pointed down the block toward a coffee cup sign swinging in the rain.

“I’ll call Digs and see if he found anything in the evidence we sent to him yesterday.”

“Oh, we got Digs again.” I grinned.

Louise ignored me, turned toward the café, and trotted away.

It seemed that Randy Ray (affectionately called The Digger – Digs for short – by those of us who knew how far he would go to find a minutia of evidence) always found a way to work our cases. Digs had a huge, and not so secret, crush on Louise and did anything he could to work her cases just to be near her. It worked in our favor, so I didn’t mind. Digs was the best forensic pathologist we had, consequently we were able to resolve most of our cases with lightning speed.

I pressed speed dial one without checking the message from Gavin. His messages usually consisted of two words anyway “call me”. He answered on the second ring.

“What have you done now?” He said without even a hello to lead me into the conversation.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re on the front page of the paper today, or didn’t you know?”

I closed my eyes and sighed. “It’s nothing.”

“Really?”

I heard a door slam and the construction noise that had peppered the background of his side of the conversation ended. He either went into the trailer, or more likely, jumped into the cab of his truck.

“My mother and your mother called, Catherine. They both wanted to know what was going on.”

Oh, great.

“You screwed up a double homicide?”

“No!” The defensiveness was immediate. “Why do you believe the shit the papers say? You know only one tenth of it is true. The rest is just sensation to sell papers.”

“Then tell me what happened,” he said. “I’ve got fifty people crawling up my back to find out.”

Gavin had a flair for exaggeration.

A stiff breeze blew a spray of drizzle into my face and I decided to head for the warmth of the café. I could seek shelter in the doorway if I hadn’t finished explaining myself to Gavin by the time I arrived.

“I lost my temper, called the reporters trying to get to the victims’ kid, a bunch of vultures, and one of the reporters decided to embarrass me as repayment.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yep.”

He didn’t have to express his doubt; I could feel it worming its way from his end of the line through to mine.

“Gavin, I swear it’s the truth. That’s all that happened. I’ve spoken to the chief about it and everything’s cool.”

A black Jeep pulled up next to me striking the curb. I skitted sideways and shot the driver a dirty look. The woman behind the wheel backed the Jeep up, and straightened the wheel so the tire wasn’t half on the sidewalk, and then got out and headed for the sidewalk.

Gavin gave a terse laugh, and I completely forgot about the idiot driver, whose staccato footfalls seemed to be heading my direction.

“So what’s your punishment?”

How does he always seem to know these things?

“An exclusive interview with the bimbo who wrote the lies in this morning’s paper.”

“Oh, you have to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not. She must be sleeping with someone in the mayor’s office because he’s insisting.”

“When is this supposed to take place?” he asked.

It was my turn to laugh. “When I have time.”

“Alright, I have to go back to work,” he said. “I’ll smooth things over with the moms.”

He would have a devil of a time smoothing things over with my mom. She’d been on a steady diet of anxiety medications since I graduated from the police academy and donned my first uniform. She’s been poised to receive the news that I’d never come home again, ever since. I’m guessing when she read that I’d botched an investigation her hopes of me quitting the police department (getting thrown off was equally good for her) and staying home to cook dinners and give birth to her first grandchild ran rabid.