Except for the Bones (18 page)

“It only takes a few seconds to kill someone.”

“True. But how could the murderer have known Weston’s delivery schedule? That’s the kind of question the police are going to ask.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?”

“Not at all. I believe you absolutely. You and Weston saw Daniels load a body—or something suspiciously like a body—in his Cherokee. Then he drove to the landfill. However, you—”

“Wait a minute. What’d you mean, ‘like a body’?”

“I mean,” he answered, carefully measuring the words, “that you don’t really know—not a hundred percent—that it was a body. You—”

“It
was
a body. Just the way he was acting, it couldn’t’ve been anything else. And there was the arm, the hand—I saw it fall out.”

“Diane—” Reluctantly, he drew a deep breath. “Imagine yourself on the witness stand. The defense attorney, who probably makes half a million a year, asks you whether,
in fact,
you’re certain it was a body. You tell him exactly what you’ve told me. ‘A hand?’ he asks, jumping right on it, not backing away. And then he starts: ‘How far away were you? Was there a moon? Had you been drinking?’ You know how it goes, you’ve seen the movies. Then he’ll ask you whether,
in fact,
you actually saw Daniels burying the body, actually eyeballed him. And then he’ll—”

“But what about Jeff? You’re saying it was coincidence that he was killed? But I’m telling you that—” Angrily, she broke off, began shaking her head. Suddenly she reached for the coffee mug. If it couldn’t be booze, at least she’d be swallowing something, anything. But the mug was empty, the story of her life.

“More coffee?” Bernhardt asked.

Sharply, she shook her head.

“The odds are,” Bernhardt said, “that it’ll take a trip to Cape Cod to find out how Jeff died. And that’s expensive, Diane. That’s thousands of dollars.”

“So I’m wasting my time talking to you. Unless I can come up with money, I’m wasting my time. Is that it?”

“No,” he answered, his voice measured, his eyes steady. “No, that’s not it. But airline tickets cost money. Rental cars, too. Then there’s me. I’ve got rent to pay. And—” He smiled, an overture. “And I’ve got an Airedale to support.”

Unsmiling, she shifted sharply in her chair, looked at her watch. It was time to go. Time for a drink, for a pill—for relief from the pain that was beginning. Anger could only carry her so far.

As if he hadn’t noticed her restlessness, Bernhardt asked, “What about Bruce Kane? How’s he figure in all this?”

She shrugged, shook her head, gestured impatiently. “I’m not sure. I think originally he was hired to find me, which wasn’t too hard. I mean, it was pretty plain that I was coming to San Francisco. And then it was easy to figure I’d stay with Carley. But now—” She frowned. “Now, from the things Kane said this morning, I have the feeling that he might be out to blackmail Daniels.”

Bernhardt sat up straighten “Why do you say that?”

“He hinted that he and I are the only two people besides Daniels who know what happened. He didn’t say it in so many words, right out. He’s too shrewd for that. But I think he flew Daniels and his girlfriend into the Cape, maybe on Saturday. Everyone in Carter’s Landing knew Daniels was shacking up on weekends. So when Daniels left for New York, alone, on Monday, I think Kane started to suspect something was wrong. So between the two of us, with what he knows and what I know, we could ruin Daniels. And I think Kane knows that.”

“But if that’s true,” Bernhardt mused, “then why would Daniels hire Kane to find you? I’d think he’d want to keep you and Kane apart.”

She shrugged, shook her head. She couldn’t answer the question.

“Do you believe Kane’s capable of blackmail?”

“I believe he’s capable of anything.”

“Murder?”

“Probably.”

“Could he have murdered Jeff Weston?”

“Why would he do that? What would he gain?”

“If Weston was thinking about blackmail, too, then he might’ve been competition.”

Impatiently, she shook her head. “That’s crazy. It was only the day after the girlfriend disappeared that Jeff died. It’d be too early for Kane and Jeff to be at each other’s throats. Besides, there’s enough for everyone, if you’re talking about blackmailing Daniels. Plenty to go around.”

Genially, Bernhardt nodded. “You’re pretty good at this, Diane. You’ve got a gift for imagining why people do what they do. Otherwise known as a devious mind.”

“Mmmm.” Her smile was tentative; her eyes were speculative.

“That was meant as a compliment. I could’ve just plain said you’re a very smart lady.”

Her smile widened almost imperceptibly. Plainly, Diane Cutler distrusted compliments.

Picking up on the cue, Bernhardt shifted ground: “So why’re you here, Diane? Why’d you come to San Francisco? Why’re you running? Yesterday you said it was family trouble. Then you talked about Jeff, about how he might’ve died. Then—now—you tell me that seeing Daniels and the body freaked you out. So what is it? All three?”

As if the effort cost her pain, she grimaced, then nodded. “It’s all three. It’s—Christ—it’s everything. I hate New York. I hate Preston Daniels. What I had with Jeff—” Sadly, she shook her head. “That was nothing. Worse than nothing, really. So then—” Struggling to frame the thought, put it into words, she broke off, sat silently for a moment, staring down at the floor. Finally saying: “So then, when I saw that—that scene, on Sunday—the great Preston Daniels, humping to load a dead body in the same car I’d ridden in, and then the next night, when I saw Jeff lying in the gravel beside the road with his eyes wide open and blood everywhere—well, I just had to split, that’s all. I—I just couldn’t handle it.”

“You’d already split from your mother, though, earlier on Monday. Isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, well—” She shifted in the chair, a sharp, restless protest, a teenager’s mute admission of the pain within. “Well, that’s happened before. I mean, that wasn’t the first time I slammed out of the apartment. But then, Christ, then I drove up to the Cape, and—”

“You saw Daniels, though, after you slammed out of the apartment. You said you saw him in the parking garage of your building. Isn’t that so?”

“Oh, yeah—” Her voice was bitter. “Oh, yeah, I saw him.”

“And from what he said to you in the garage, you were convinced that he’d been doing away with a body, the night before.”

She nodded.

“And you think he realized that you knew what’d happened.”

“Right.”

“And you think that if Jeff was murdered to shut him up, then you could be next.”

Once more, she nodded.

“Okay, so if that’s true—” Bernhardt leaned intently forward, locking his eyes with hers. “So if that’s true, and if you hate Daniels so much, then why didn’t you go to the police, blow the whistle? You’ve got Daniels right where you want him. One word to the police, and he’s ruined.”

She grimaced, looked away. “One word to the police from me, and I’d die. Just like Jeff died. Witnesses die all the time, you know, before trials begin.”

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that you could go to your mother, tell her everything you know about this—everything you suspect? Don’t you think that’d be your best insurance?”

Once more, her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Do you think my mother would believe me if it meant blowing the whistle on Daniels? Christ, a scandal like that, and she might not be president of the museum board.”

Thoughtfully, Bernhardt studied her face, now drawn so painfully tight, eyes cast down, defeated. Finally, speaking softly, he decided to say, “If you went to the police, blew this whole thing open, then you could ruin both Daniels and your mother. Two for one.”

Her response was a quick, involuntary shudder, as if he’d caused her pain.

Still speaking softly, he said, “You don’t want to blow the whistle because you don’t want to hurt your mother. Isn’t that right, Diane?”

“I—Christ—” Desperately, she shook her head. “I—I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore.”

Plainly, the admission had left her spent. It was, Bernhardt knew, time to close out the scene, begin the exit lines:

“Do you know where Kane is staying? What hotel?”

“No.”

“Any idea how I could reach him?”

Exhausted, she shook her head.

“Does he have Daniels’s airplane, do you know?”

Once more, she shook her head.

“What kind of an airplane is it?”

“I don’t know the name of it. But it’s got two motors, and it can go three hundred miles an hour, I know that.”

“Is it a jet? A Lear jet, like that?”

“No. It’s got propellers.”

“Okay.” With an air of finality, he moved forward in his chair as he said, “I’ll see what I can do. Stay close to Carley’s phone. Okay?”

“Yes. Okay.”

“W
HEN SHE HEARD THAT
Carolyn was missing,” Kane said, “and I said the police were looking for her, she freaked out. I mean, she
really
freaked out.”

Dressed in dinner clothes, seated in Kane’s hotel room, legs crossed, willing his hands to relax as they rested on the arms of the chair, Daniels allowed himself a single carefully calculated nod. It was, after all, what he’d expected, and therefore prepared himself to confront.

“What is it,” he asked, “that Diane thinks she knows? Did she tell you, in so many words?”

“She didn’t
have
to tell me. It was all there in her face. She was with Weston the night Carolyn disappeared. What Weston saw, she saw.”

“Ah.” Daniels nodded. “Yes. I thought that must’ve been it.” As if he were a medical clinician assessing the nature of his own responses, he took the critical inventory again: hands steady, face expressing gravity but not fear, body satisfactorily aligned, voice under control.

“You did, eh?” It was a toneless, expressionless question, a question without an answer, signifying nothing.

Nothing but suspicion that had turned to certainty.

Nothing but disaster, the end of everything.

Silence. A terrible, empty silence, each of them avoiding the gaze of the other. Finally, with great effort, he looked directly at Kane. The moment held, tightened; finally drew unbearably taut, forcing him to say:

“It was an accident. She came at me. I had to hit her. She fell, hit her head.”

“Like Weston. That was an accident, too.”

“Yes …” Gravely, he nodded.

“But then—” Kane hesitated. “Then you—you did something with her. With her—” He cleared his throat, blinked. Finally saying: “With her body.”

“I didn’t have a choice. It was either that, or see everything blow up.”

“You’d beat it, though. Tell the truth, and you’d beat it. You’d never go to jail.”

“I’d be ruined, long before I went to trial. Millicent would have to get a divorce. She wouldn’t have a choice. So she’d take hers. So then the credit would go. And that’d be it. The whole thing, gone.”

“That’s hard to believe.”

“In real estate, finance—credit—is what it’s all about. No credit, and it’s all over.”

“Didn’t you have a prenuptial contract?”

Wearily, he raised a hand, let it fall. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So you wouldn’t be a billionaire anymore. But you’d never go broke. I
know
you’d never go broke.”

Mirthlessly, Daniels allowed himself to smile. “There’re different definitions of disaster.”

“If Farnsworth starts putting all this together,” Kane said, “that’s one definition. Right?”

“Right.” It was a heavily laden monosyllable. This, he knew, was the preamble to the ceremony of surrender. The minions were taking over.

“By the way,” Kane said, “speaking of money …” Delicately, he let it go unfinished.

Daniels withdrew an envelope from an inside pocket of his dinner jacket; negligently, tossed the bulky envelope onto a nearby table.

Kane looked at the envelope. A week ago, he would have thanked Daniels. Now he only nodded. Saying: “I guess that’s a down payment. Another down payment.”

Daniels nodded in return. “Exactly.”

“Diane.”

“Yes. Diane. There’s nothing else to do.”

“H
OW LONG’LL YOU BE
staying in San Francisco, Mr. Carter?” As he asked, the night clerk offered a registration form and a ballpoint pen.

“Two days,” Kane answered, writing “William Carter” on the form, followed by a Los Angeles address.

“And what credit card’ll you be using?”

“That’ll be cash.” Kane took out his wallet and began counting the bills out on the counter. The plate-glass countertop was cracked. The night clerk’s knuckles were bruised, as if he’d been in a fight. The lobby smelled of disinfectant.

“W
HAT D’ YOU THINK
? Should we order another one?” Bernhardt held up the empty bottle of cabernet sauvignon.

Paula shook her head. “Not for me.”

He nodded, then caught the waiter’s eye, at the same time pointing to their basket containing only one piece of French bread. Carrying three steaming plates of Italian food, harassed, the waiter nodded as he edged between two nearby tables.

“You take the last piece,” Paula insisted. “Sop up your white clam sauce. That’s the best part.”

“You sure? I doubt that he’ll be right back.”

“Sure I’m sure. I’ve got lasagna. There’s nothing to sop up.” As she spoke she took the piece of bread, placed it decisively on his plate. Then, equally decisive, she said, “I’d like to meet her, Alan. I—” Expressing a puzzlement at her own determination, she frowned, then shook her head. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve got a
feeling
about her.”

Considering how best to respond, Bernhardt wound linguine on his fork, successfully conveyed it intact to his mouth.

“Maybe you should talk to her father,” she urged. “Cutler. Maybe if he knew the whole story he’d come up with enough money for you to go to Cape Cod.” She smiled. “Maybe we could both go. Business and pleasure.”

He grimaced. “Cape Cod in the summertime. Unless you’ve got a ton of money, it’s a zoo.”