Enemies Closer (25 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

M
addy slept through the entire journey back to Seattle. When they arrived, Ben dropped the sisters in front of Maddy’s building. “I’ll put my car in the garage.”

“You’re coming over afterward, right?” asked Clara.

He looked from one sister to the other. “Are you sure you don’t want to be alone?”

“No,” said Maddy, “I honestly think I’ll feel a little better if you hang out for a while. If you don’t mind.”

Clara and Maddy took the elevator upstairs and Clara used the spare key to open the apartment. Bea was waiting by the door and she immediately began rubbing against Maddy, purring and mewing urgently.

Bending down to scratch her cat behind the ears, Maddy said, “I missed you too, kitty-cat. We both deserve lots of treats.” She looked around her condo. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever be back here.”

Clara squeezed her sister’s hand. “Let’s order some food.”

“Yes. Over the last five days I’ve sampled everything that Hostess and Little Debbie have to offer and I need savory food. I want Thai. Veggies, meat and heat. Order the whole menu,” she said. “I’m going to take another shower and get out of these scrubs.”

Clara looked online for a delivery menu from the local Thai restaurant and placed an enormous order. A few minutes later the doorbell rang and she let Ben inside.

Clara fell into his arms. “Oh, Ben, she’s safe. I can’t believe she’s safe.” She leaned back so that she could look into his eyes. “How can I ever thank you for all your help?”

“I’ve already started the list,” he replied.

She grinned at him. “I ordered dinner. Maddy’s in the shower.”

“Have you heard from Carlisle or Kincaid?”

“Not yet. They might still be up north, but they said they’d call or even stop by if they get back before it gets too late.”

Ben checked his watch; it was only ten o’clock. He couldn’t believe how much had happened in the last ten hours. It seemed like they’d just been eating take-out in his office. Watching Clara as she went to the fridge and opened it, he smiled when she pulled out two bottles of beer.

“Want one?” she asked.

He nodded,
seeing
her move around the kitchen but
envisioning
her naked body moving against him in Michelle and Eddie’s country home, her damp skin against his when she collapsed onto his chest. In a second he was across the room, kissing her. Clara wrapped her arms around him, still holding a bottle in each hand.

“I knew you two would like each other.”

They parted abruptly and turned to Maddy. She stood on the other side of the kitchen island in clean cotton pajamas, her wet hair falling over her shoulders, the cat in her arms. She had a big, smug grin on her face. “I knew it.” She saw the beer in her sister’s hands. “I’ll take one of those.”

The food arrived and they brought bowls and serving spoons to the coffee table and ate there. Maddy and Clara both sat cross-legged on the rug. Watching them expertly using their chopsticks, both with the same ballerina posture, long legs crossed underneath their bodies, Ben said, “You two are so much alike.”

Clara and Maddy regarded one another. “Everybody says so,” said Clara, “but I always see the differences.”

“Me too,” Maddy agreed.

“You do look alike,” said Ben, “but that’s not what I mean. It’s the way you gesture, your posture, even the way you hold your chopsticks.”

The sisters looked at each other again. They were indeed sitting in exactly the same way, holding their utensils the same way, each regarding the other with the same raised eyebrow. “Well, maybe,” said Clara, “but our personalities are completely different.”

“It’s true, I’m much more charming than Clara.”

“I’m going to let that slide because you were just locked in a basement for five days.”

“And I’m going to take full advantage of your pity, Clara.”

A telephone rang and Clara stood to find her mobile. It was Kincaid, and after a few seconds she turned the microphone away from her mouth and said, “Maddy, they’re about half an hour away. Are you up to seeing them?”

“Yep.” To Ben she said, “As long as I don’t have any more of that,” and pointed at her bottle of beer.

Clara got off the phone and sat back down on the floor. “They’re on their way.”

At police headquarters, Tanaka and Iverson were standing outside of the interview room when someone came in with a message from dispatch. “It’s another tip that came in after the six o’clock news. I guess they forgot about it because you found the missing woman.”

Iverson took the message slip and tucked it into his breast pocket. He thanked the guy and when he was gone, Iverson went on with the conversation they’d been having. “Like I said, I didn’t tell him we found Maddy. Now that he’s got a lawyer, I just think we would be throwing away our leverage, telling them now.”

“Okay,” said Tanaka, “if he doesn’t know we found Maddy, he might go after her. Try to finish the job. We can keep eyes on him until we haul him back in.”

The search of Eddie’s condo had turned up nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing at his home in Seattle, nothing at his house in La Conner, no witnesses. They were going to have to let him go.

“Cut him loose,” said Iverson, disgusted.

Carlisle pulled the unmarked car into a parking space on Pine half a block down from Maddy’s building. Tanaka had called a few minutes earlier and told them they’d had to let Eddie go. She wasn’t looking forward to telling Maddy. It was always easier to reassure a victim when the bad guy was already in a jail cell.

Stretching her arms and legs, she took a few deep breaths of briny air before joining her partner on the sidewalk. They were buzzed in immediately and took the elevator to the sixth floor, where Clara stood in the open door of Maddy’s condo.

“Hungry?” she asked once they were inside. The detectives looked tired and haggard with dirt smudges on their clothes.

“We have lots of extra food,” added Maddy, already pulling plates out of a kitchen cupboard.

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” said Kincaid.

“Something to drink?”

Kincaid was eyeing the bottle of beer in Clara’s hand.

“Go ahead,” said Carlisle, “I’ll drive you home. Just water for me please, Clara.”

The detectives declined a seat on the sofa and instead carried chairs from the kitchen over to the coffee table while Maddy scooped larb salad and rice, roast chicken with lemongrass and basil, and curried beef onto their plates.

Kincaid started eating and Maddy asked, “Clara told me you arrested Eddie. Do you really think he did this to me? And to Susan?” Clara and Ben had filled her in on the details of the investigation at the hospital and in more detail in the Jeep before she passed out on the back seat.

Carlisle shook her head morosely. “Eddie Perkins has not been arrested. Homicide Detectives Iverson and Tanaka brought him in for questioning, but they released him a few minutes before we arrived.”

“No way. Why?” asked Clara.

“They had some circumstantial evidence against him, but no physical evidence. They searched his condo and found nothing there
or
in his country house that suggests he committed either crime.” She put up a hand to stop Clara’s protest. “Other than your sister in an old root cellar. I know it sounds ridiculous, but Eddie isn’t the only one who could have put her there.” Before they could consider what she was suggesting, Carlisle went on. “They did find Eddie’s fingerprints on the murder weapon. A candlestick. But he isn’t disputing that he had an affair with Susan Burns, so there is a reasonable explanation for them being there. What looks bad for us in front of a judge is that there was a lot of blood and body fluid involved in Susan’s death and the crime scene guys found
absolutely nothing
in his car or his condo. That’s almost impossible if he’s the one who killed her.”

“So you don’t think Eddie did this,” said Maddy.

Carlisle took a drink of water before answering. “I think it’s likely that someone close to you did this, Maddy. I’m sorry. And Eddie Perkins seems to have the most motive, but with the evidence we have now, we can’t convict him.”

“Is Maddy safe?” asked Ben.

“He’s under surveillance. Plus Eddie doesn’t know she was found alive.” Carlisle turned to Maddy. “We’re going to watch him to see if he tries to finish…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t have to say it; they all knew what she meant.

“He doesn’t know you found me?”

“It seemed like the best way to bait him into doing something incriminating, and it’ll help keep you safe.”

Kincaid had finished his food and now picked up his beer. “We don’t want him to find out you’re alive and well and back in the city. That means you can’t contact Michelle. We want you all to play along. Clara, if she calls you don’t tell her Maddy is alive. Same for you, Ben. And don’t call anyone from Dovetail, or Gigi’s or any other Seattle restaurant.”

“But Michelle had nothing to do with this.”

“She’ll tell her husband, Maddy. She’ll tell him if she knows you’re alive and we don’t want that.”

Ben leaned forward in the armchair. “Have either of you spoken to Harry since Susan was killed?”

“Not us. Tanaka and Iverson would have interviewed him when they gave him the news,” said Carlisle, a little puzzled. “Why?”

“It’s probably nothing, but I wanted to talk to him about what Susan might have told him about Dovetail. You have to figure there was pillow talk. Office gossip, so to speak. Plus, he spends time there as a customer. He had to know something.”

“That’s true,” said Maddy. “He came in plenty of times when Susan was working. I didn’t talk to him much because I was usually in the kitchen, but she always told me when an order was for him.”

“Did
you
talk to him?” Kincaid asked Clara.

“Yesterday, but Susan was still alive at that point.” She looked suddenly uncertain. “At least I think she was.” When neither detective responded, she went on, “Then today I got distracted when we found out Eddie and Michelle had property up north.”

“We have a lot of interviews to do before this is over,” said Carlisle, thinking that they should talk to the bartender at Dovetail again too. “Maddy, we need to ask you a few questions as well.” Clara knew what was coming and tensed. “In the course of our investigation, we found three large cash deposits that were made into your personal bank account. They came from Eddie Perkins.”

Maddy’s eyes went wide. “That money came from Eddie?”

It wasn’t the response anyone had expected. “I was looking into that on Monday, I guess before I left for dinner with you,” she said, looking at Ben. “Anyway, I saw these big deposits in my account and figured it was a bank error. I called my bank and they said it wasn’t an error, but they would have to trace the deposits. I decided to wait to hear back from them. That’s all I know.” She looked at the detectives guilelessly. “Eddie? Why would he put money into my account?”

“We were hoping you could tell us,” said Kincaid.

“I honestly can’t. I only noticed it because I pay all my bills electronically and once a month I check my account to make sure all the payments went out.”

They asked a few more questions, but Maddy didn’t have a lot of answers. “We’d like your permission to access the financials for Dovetail.”

“Why?” asked Maddy.

Ben answered, “Maddy, I told them about the questions you asked me ‘hypothetically’ about why a restaurant’s profits might be disappearing.”

“Oh, right,” said Maddy frustrated that she had forgotten. She promised to get in touch with Dovetail’s accountant in the morning. “Something else,” she said, a quizzical look on her face. “I think I intended to send Michelle a text on Monday, asking for a business meeting this week. I wanted to talk to her about the missing money.”

Kincaid nodded. “You did send it. She told us about it.”

They finally took their leave, thanking the trio for dinner, assuring them a prowler would be outside all night, and promising to be in touch first thing in the morning.

After she closed and locked the door, Maddy turned to Clara and Ben. “Why would Eddie put money in my account? It was tens of thousands of dollars.”

“I know,” said Clara. “I’m the one who told the police about it.” Her voice was apologetic. “I thought it might be a clue…”

“Don’t worry about it, Clara. I would’ve done the same thing. Plus, it must have
something
to do with all of this” – she searched for a word –—“shit.” She stood there for a moment. “How did he make a deposit into my account without my knowing? We all have access to the accounts for Dovetail, but he doesn’t have my personal bank information.”

Ben and Clara exchanged a look. “I think you’re going to hear a lot of lecturing over the next few days, but you can’t keep a detailed printout of all your accounts and passwords in your desk drawer,” said Ben.

Her mouth formed an O. “Right. It still doesn’t make sense, though. Eddie has been in my apartment, what, maybe twice? And both times were shortly after I moved in. It would have taken a lot of foresight to have stolen my passwords back then. Plus, he was never here alone. Double-plus, I would have noticed if my trusty password list was missing and I had to replace it.”