Distortion (Moonlighters Series) (8 page)
Henderson shifted in his chair again, no doubt the one that Michael had used when he was a cop—the interview chair that had the front two legs a slight bit shorter than the back ones, so that the man had to lean forward and couldn’t get comfortable. It always left the interviewees slightly off balance.
“If you gave us the name of the person who wanted Bob Cole dead, it would help your case a lot, man. Otherwise, it’s going to be bad for you.”
Henderson stared at Max as if thinking it through. Michael lowered himself slowly into the chair in front of the screen and locked in.
“Bob Cole was a prominent doctor, a good man. Had a wife and two young sons. It’s going to be all over the news, and trust me, it won’t look good.”
“That’s a crock. Dude wasn’t as lily white as you think.”
Michael went rigid and leaned forward, staring at the screen.
“So you admit you knew him?”
“No. I admit I heard of him. You think he was just an innocent victim. But he had dirty hands,” Jerome said.
Michael sat stiffer, taking it in. Dirty hands? What did that mean?
“Define
dirty
hands
,” Max said.
“He was into some stuff. Made some people mad.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“I don’t know details, man. I just heard things.”
“What people did he make mad?”
“I don’t know. It’s just rumors.”
Max stayed calm, and Forbes sat back down. “So were you hired to execute him?” Forbes asked.
“No,” Henderson said.
“Then what? Come on, I need specifics. You gotta help me out here if you don’t want a capital murder charge.”
Henderson jittered again.
“You started down this path,” Max said. “Giving us information could help your situation. You’re not stupid. You know how this works. What do you know about Bob Cole?”
Henderson sighed. “I know he wasn’t the way he seemed. That’s all I know. I never met the guy.”
“So the first time you were ever close to him was when you shot him?”
“I’ve
never
been close to him.”
“Then explain to me how your gun winds up being the murder weapon. How your prints were all over it. Why you just lied to us about whose gun it was and who had your car.”
Now Michael could see the man’s sweat. “Man, I’ll take rehab. I got a problem. I need help.”
Michael wanted to laugh. Drug charges often went away in favor of rehab. But not murder charges.
“Work with me and we’ll see what we can do.”
The man glanced to the door, as if assessing the possibility of escape. “I want a lawyer,” he said suddenly.
Michael groaned.
Max sat still, staring at him. He looked up at Forbes. “All right. We’ll get you one.”
“You do that.”
“You want to call your own or should I get you a public defender?”
“I’ll call my own.”
Max slid his chair back and stood up. “You can wait in the cell until he gets here.”
Often, that was enough threat, but this guy wasn’t afraid of jail. “I don’t care if it takes a week,” he said.
So it was over. Michael rubbed his aching temples. All they’d gotten from that was that Bob’s hands might be dirty. They didn’t even know for sure whether that was a lead in the case or just a red herring to distract them.
In a few minutes Max was back in the doorway. Michael looked up at him. “Guess that’s that.”
“Like you could do any better.”
“I didn’t say I could,” Michael said. “So what do you think he meant about Bob Cole?”
“No idea, but it didn’t sound good. What do you know about him?” Max asked.
“I haven’t been around him that much,” Michael said. “He’s out of town a lot and usually if I go over there with Cathy, he’s at work. Seems like a good dad, good husband, nice enough guy. I was with him helping Holly move yesterday. He seemed quiet, maybe a little distracted, but he got the job done.”
“I need to look into this,” Max said, “find out if he did have any shady dealings.”
Michael shook his head. “I think Henderson was just blowing smoke.”
“Could be,” Max said. “So now that he’s lawyered up, we’ll have to dig for this ourselves. We won’t get anything else out of him for a while.”
Michael nodded. He stood up and let out a hard sigh. “Thanks for letting me listen, man.”
“Sure.”
Michael started to the door.
“I know it’s tough for you, watching from the sidelines.”
Michael hesitated and turned back. “Yeah, well. What can you do?”
It was the first compassionate thing his brother had said to him in a couple of years, but it helped.
J
uliet stood on her feet for hours the night of the visitation, as friends and colleagues and people she didn’t know lined up in her church sanctuary to offer their condolences. Abe and Zach had long ago disappeared with their friends to somewhere else in the church. She hoped Jay was keeping an eye on them.
Cathy stood at her side, eager to get her water, help move the line along, or encourage her to sit. But these friends and family had come to offer their support, so Juliet wanted to greet them.
But when would this be over? The line snaked down the sanctuary aisles, out into the atrium, and down the stairs. She had no idea how long it was beyond that.
Bob had so many friends, so many colleagues. It shouldn’t surprise her there was a crowd.
Earlier today, she’d had an anxiety attack and threatened
not to go. “Who came up with this stupid ritual? How come I have to get dressed, put on makeup, and stand there making conversation with strangers while my husband’s dead body lies next to me in a coffin? Zach is right. I can’t do it, either!”
“Don’t, then,” Holly had said. “We’ll just cancel the whole thing.”
“Juliet, you’ll regret it if you don’t,” Cathy said. “When Joe died, I didn’t want to stand there, either. I just wanted to fade into the Sheetrock. But people said such nice things about him, and somehow, when it was over, I felt good about it.”
Juliet stared at the outfit they’d laid out for her. She’d never intended to wear the navy-blue dress for funeral clothes. “But do I have to open the coffin? I don’t want the kids to see him like that. I told the funeral director to open it, but I’ve changed my mind.”
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We’ll tell him to keep it closed. And if you get too tired to carry on, we’ll end the visitation.”
She had known they would all be there for her. Somehow, she would muddle through. Now she stood at the front of the church, next to Bob’s closed coffin, and tried to be gracious to the people in the line, even those whose names she’d forgotten.
Gordon, one of Bob’s colleagues reached the front of the line and pulled her into a hug. “Juliet, our hearts are breaking for you.”
Juliet tried to smile. “Thank you for coming,” she said for the thousandth time tonight.
“It’s just so shocking,” he said. “That this could happen to someone like him. Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.” Had she said that already?
His wife, Wanda, pulled her into another tight hug and
didn’t let her go. Juliet told herself not to resent the intimacy; she didn’t want to be rude. After all, she’d hung out with Wanda often when they traveled to conventions with their husbands. But Juliet’s skin felt raw from all the hugs, and knots had twisted in her back.
Wanda finally let go, then took Juliet’s hands and looked into her eyes. “I’ll always remember going out to dinner with you guys on those crazy medical conference trips. Bob was so funny sometimes. He would crack me up . . . the things he’d say. And he was so caring. Why would anybody want to do this?”
“I know,” was all Juliet could say.
“We missed you both at the Denver conference in May. It wasn’t the same without you. And now . . . we’re really going to miss him. We love you, girl.”
Juliet returned the love, then turned to the next ones in line, two members from her church. As they muttered their condolences with tears in their eyes, her mind went back to Wanda’s comment.
“We missed you both at the Denver conference
in May.”
Wanda must have gotten confused. Bob
was
at that conference in May. It had been just a few months ago; Juliet’s memory of it was clear.
Before she had time to think about it, she was bruised into another hug.
When the ordeal was finally over and she was back at Jay’s house, she lay awake in bed, her feet and back aching, wondering how she would get through the funeral tomorrow. What would the kids wear? Did Abe have a clean dress shirt? Maybe she should do a load of laundry.
She got up and padded barefoot through Jay’s house to the
laundry room. She sorted through the dirty clothes, threw a load of whites in, then stood staring at the washing machine.
That Denver comment came back to her again.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples, fighting the dull ache starting to take hold.
Bob
had
gone to the conference in May. He was gone for a whole week. Maybe Wanda had misspoken. Maybe she meant some other conference. Maybe her nerves and sorrow had gotten her confused.
Still, the question wouldn’t leave her. She went back upstairs, found the suitcase where she’d put Bob’s laptop computer and a few other things she’d brought from home. She turned on the lamp, sat on the bed, and opened the computer. The screen lit up with the file from Bob’s last session on it. She closed the file, opened his calendar, and went back to May.
There it was. The Denver conference. He had it clearly entered on his calendar.
She opened his e-mail and found the folder he kept there for his electronic airline tickets. She scrolled through them until she found the one dated May of this year.
It wasn’t to Denver. It was to Nassau.
She frowned. Had she gotten it wrong? Why would he have Denver on the calendar?
The door opened, and Cathy, who’d decided to sleep over at Jay’s too, stepped into the room. “I saw your light under the door. What are you doing? It’s 3:00 a.m.”
“Close the door,” Juliet said. “I don’t want to wake the kids.”
Cathy quietly closed it and came toward her, wearing a pair of shorts and a big T-shirt. “Juliet, what are you doing?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Something Wanda said tonight was bugging me.”
“Wanda who?”
“Wanda Bennet. Another doctor’s wife.”
“What did she say?”
Juliet looked at her sister. Did she want her to know that her husband might have lied to her? Maybe she should leave well enough alone. But since when had she been able to keep a secret from Cathy? “Wanda said they missed us at the medical conference in Denver back in May.”
“Yeah?”
“Bob went. Or . . . he told me he did.”
Cathy frowned. “You don’t think he did? Maybe Wanda made a mistake, or maybe you heard her wrong.”
“No, I just looked. He has Denver on his calendar, but his airline ticket was for Nassau.”
Cathy came around the bed to look at the computer. “Are you sure?” Juliet showed her, and Cathy read it carefully.
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything. There was a lot going on in May. If he told you he’d changed his plans, you might have forgotten.”
“No. I always have his itinerary. I thought he was in Denver. He told me he was. He said he was staying in a hotel near Mile High Stadium.”
Cathy pulled up a chair next to her and scrolled through Bob’s other airline tickets. “All this traveling. Where did he go?”
“To drug studies. You know, the pharmaceutical companies pay all their expenses so doctors can come and learn about their new drugs. Free vacations, really. I used to go with him, but when the kids are in school, I can’t. That’s why I didn’t go in May.”
“Well, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Why don’t you ask his travel agent or his secretary? See what they remember.”
Juliet stared at the airline ticket. “Why would he lie? Cathy, do you think he was having an affair?”
Cathy stiffened. “No, I do not. Bob loved you. There’s no way.”
“But that guy . . . Jerome Henderson. Michael said he mentioned that Bob had dirty hands.”
“Jerome is being accused of murder! He was trying to get the heat off himself. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and we’ll find it. I think you should talk to Bob’s office workers when you see them at the funeral tomorrow. Ask them to clear it up.”
“But the phone call. Why were they threatening him?”
Cathy was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know. But it isn’t about another woman.”
Juliet stared at the computer, numbness starting in her stomach and spreading up through her chest. “I’m just confused. I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“This is a little thing,” Cathy said. “Don’t blow it up in your mind.”
“He was murdered. Not robbed, but murdered. Then the threatening call. Now I find out he lied to me. I need to know.”
“Then we’ll find out,” Cathy said. “I’ll get Michael on it. If Bob had a woman, we’ll find her. And we’ll figure out why he went to Nassau. But first let’s get through this funeral. Come on. Go to bed.”
Juliet just sat there, sorrow tightening her throat, rising to her eyes.
Cathy tried to hug her, but Juliet shook her off. “No, just stop.”
“We’ll get through this, Juliet.”
“No, we won’t! He’s dead! He’s not coming back.”
Cathy had the grace to be quiet as Juliet wept. She tried to rub her back, but Juliet didn’t want to be touched. She moved away and got under the covers. “Go to bed, Cathy.”
Cathy closed the door quietly. Juliet buried her face in the pillow and wept until there were no more tears.
Sleep never came that night, but she forced herself to function. Her children needed her.
J
uliet kept her hand on Zach’s knee during the funeral, wishing he would warm up to her, but he seemed angry. Truth be told, she was angry too. She had never envisioned herself sitting like this on the front row of the church, sandwiched between her two sons—one with tears rolling down his face, the other red-faced and sulking. The preacher droned on about Bob’s character, his acts of grace and goodness, and what a good father and husband he had been. She tried to listen, tried to worship as they sang, tried to focus on God’s goodness even when he allowed her to suffer.
