Inherit the Dead (29 page)

A few steps farther on, Angel stopped suddenly. Loki kept walking, then stopped to wait for her when he reached the stairs.

“Me, too,” Perry said. “That’s the stupid thing.” He walked slowly toward her. “You had me believing . . . all sorts of things.” Damn it, what was it she’d said that he was trying to remember? “For a while, anyway.”

Angel moved toward him until they were only inches apart. She removed her sunglasses, and he could see that her eyes were wet. Then that smile flickered again, just for a second, before she raised her arm and slapped him hard across the face.

Perry closed his eyes for a few seconds against the pain, and when he opened them again, he could see the potato-faced sergeant bearing down on him, shouting.

“Everything okay, here?”

“Everything’s fine,” Angel said, her face set hard, the sunglasses already back in place.

As the sergeant took a firm hold of Perry’s arm, he could only watch as Norman and Angel Loki turned and walked casually away down the stairs without looking back. He tried to yank his arm from the cop’s grip, and just as the struggle threatened to become something Perry might easily have been arrested for, a familiar figure appeared at the sergeant’s shoulder.

“I got this, Jimmy,” Watson said.

Spud-Face nodded and reluctantly let go of Perry’s arm. He walked away, seemingly frustrated at not being given an excuse to throw a punch. Perry watched him go, equally disappointed.

“In there.” Watson hissed in his ear, and pointed back along the corridor toward the interview room with the brown door. “Now!”

“What the hell
do you think you’re playing at?”

Perry dropped into a chair and undid a button on his shirt. Cold as it was outside, the interview room was hot and stuffy. There were no windows. “What am
I
playing at?”

Watson folded his arms, eyes narrowed. “Okay then, let’s hear it. It’s not like you can make yourself any
less
popular.”

“Why did you let them go?”

“No reason to keep them.”

“Come on, Henry, you really think Julia Drusilla killed herself?”

“For Christ’s sake, Perry, we already went through this. The woman was sick.”

“You got any proof of that? A doctor’s letter? Hospital records?”

“You got any proof of
anything
? You got
any
reason at all to be harassing these people. They make a complaint, I’m not going to think twice about busting you.”

“Sounds like they did quite a job on you,” Perry said. “Father and daughter. Angel sitting where I am now, drying her big doll’s eyes and wrapping you round her little finger. Jesus . . . ”

“You need to drop this,” Watson said. Steel inside the whisper.

“I can’t.”

“That wasn’t advice, Perry.”

Perry blinked. “You ask them where they were when she died?”

“You think I’m a moron? You heard her, she was with her nanny—and the nanny confirmed it.”

“And Loki?”

“He was on Long Island, remember?”

“Who says? His pool boy? Come on, Henry . . . ”

“He’s vouching for her, and she’s vouching for him.”

“That’s convenient.”

“Doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.”

“
None
of these people are telling the truth—you need to know that.” Perry leaned across the small table. “I have a feeling Julia was lying about being sick, her old man’s lying about who he likes sleeping with, and you can tell Angel’s lying because she’s breathing. I swear to you, Henry, it’s like that entire family has DNA that’s ninety percent bullshit.”

“And you know this because—”

“Because . . . ” Because of the way both Angel and her father
kept changing their stories: she didn’t know about her inheritance, then she did; Loki didn’t write the trust papers, then he did. The way Angel shifted so easily between wrath and seduction. The way Loki shifted between drunken fool and savvy lawyer. They were up to something. Maybe together. Maybe each of them alone. Perry couldn’t say. He just knew it, felt it in his gut.

“I can’t arrest people for lying,” Watson said.

“You don’t seem that keen to arrest anyone for murder, either.”

“Don’t push it—”

“It’s about the money—”

“What’s that thing they tell us about at the police academy? It’s on the tip of my tongue . . . oh yeah,
evidence
.”

“So . . . find some.”

“Find some, that what you’re saying? Or
invent
some? You’re really the last person who should be talking to cops about cutting corners, all things considered.”

Perry pushed his chair back hard. “You got something to say, Henry?”

“Just that you don’t have too many people on your side anymore.” Henry stabbed a finger against his own chest. “Maybe just
this
idiot. So if you want to lose the only friend you’ve got around here, go right ahead and continue doing what you’re doing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Neither of them spoke for a long few seconds, and the only sound in the room was the gentle shushing of hot water in the radiator pipes.

Perry stood up and walked to the door. “Your client dies, and you’ve got an obligation,” he said. “That’s how it works. I need to know how Julia Drusilla died and who was responsible. I care about that, okay? Even if you don’t.”

“Get out, Perry . . . ” Watson let out a long sigh, the breath rattling
in his chest. He lowered his head and began scratching at the edge of the table.

Perry did as he was told.

The city lights
turned the night sky slate gray above, the sullen gray smear of the river away to his right, and the dirty gray trunk of the Buick that stayed just a few feet ahead as Perry crawled slowly through the traffic on the FDR.

His frustration quickly blossomed into anger. He muttered curses then shouted them. He slammed his palms against the wheel and leaned on his horn, but it did nothing to speed his progress and only tightened the knot of guilt and confusion in his gut.

There was only one way to unravel it. One place to go, if he ever got there.

He leaned on his horn one more time, for the hell of it.

It was like he’d told Watson; they were all lying, but somebody was telling lies a damn sight less white than the rest of them. It was time to find out who that was. And to find out how Julia Drusilla had died and why.

Was Norman Loki hiding more than just his sex life?

Was Angel really capable of setting up her own mother’s murder?

Were they in it together? Was this whole thing a ruse?

He’d been a cop and a PI long enough to know when the pieces didn’t fit, and these didn’t even come close.

As the gray Buick accelerated away from him and the traffic began to move a little faster, he thought, too, about his argument with Henry Watson. His friend had been angry, obviously. Perry had pushed all his buttons and had known damn well he was pushing them.

It was more than anger, though, or impatience.

Maybe just this idiot . . .

Sitting there in that sad and stuffy interview room, shoulders slumped on the other side of the table, Henry had looked . . . disappointed. Convinced that Perry was out of line. That he was being stubborn only because the case had got away from him, that he had everything the wrong way up.

Perry put his foot down.

He decided that he would prove Henry Watson wrong. That he would prove them all wrong. He had to.

He was still in the outside lane when saw the sign for the Queens–Midtown Tunnel. He sped forward, only inches from the car ahead then swerved hard and fast across two lanes. An old man at the wheel of a Subaru sounded his horn.

Perry gave him the finger as he hit the off-ramp.

A
ngel and her father had close to an hour’s lead, but it didn’t matter. Perry knew where they were going. He just had to get there before they had time to bury any evidence. Before they had time to plan. Before they had time to disappear.

But they wouldn’t disappear. Not yet. Not until Angel’s birthday, which was still a few days away. No one runs away
before
she inherits a fortune.

Traffic had ended, night had descended, and the LIE was moving. Perry’s foot was heavy on the gas pedal, and he was weaving in and out of traffic. He checked the rearview mirror. No tail this time, at least none he was aware of.

But why stop tailing him now?

Because whoever had followed him was after Angel and she had been found. But was she still in danger? Or was she the biggest danger of all?

He pictured the black car racing down Washington Avenue directly at Angel. Then he pictured Angel in a car, sitting beside her father.

Her father.
If there was anyone Perry did not trust, it was Norman Loki.

Loki, the one who had written the terms of the inheritance and had lied about it.

He checked his mirrors again. Still no tail he could see. But maybe he’d been wrong, maybe the tail was just a diversion, and Julia Drusilla had been the target all along. But Julia’s whereabouts were no secret, never had been.

And leaping to her death?

Not a chance. Not the steely woman who told him she never went out on her terrace.

I’m not a fan of heights.

People with a fear of water did not drown themselves. People with a fear of heights did not jump from penthouse terraces.

Then someone had pushed her. But who?

They were all in his mind now, everyone he’d met in connection to Angel.

Lilith Bates, who had lied about knowing Randy Hyde then followed him to make sure her dirty little secret stayed buried. But was it more than that? Could she possibly have been in cahoots with the mechanic to get rid of Angel? But what would she get out of Angel’s demise? Randy. Maybe. But did she really want him that bad, a sex machine who she was ashamed to be seen with?

And what about Randy? With sex and money to offer, Angel could probably get that oversexed grease monkey to do anything, even kill her mother for her. But the guy didn’t seem smart enough to pull it off, to sneak in and out of Julia’s penthouse unseen. Though Angel was smart enough to do anything. What had her nanny said about her?

She’s never been just a kid. But she’s smart—smartest child I ever took care of—because she had to be.

Yeah, Angel was smart all right. But even the smart ones messed up; Perry knew that. And there it was again, lurking at the fringe of
his subconscious, something Angel had said, something simple and innocuous, which had made him know she was a liar.
But what was it?

Perry rolled down his window for a blast of cold air, something to clear his head.

And what about that shady politician, Tweed? Now there was a man with plenty to lose. Had Angel been pressuring him to leave his wife? Or was he worried she’d expose their affair and he wanted her out of the picture?
He could have been the one to send a killer after Angel,
thought Perry. But why would he send someone to kill her mother? Nothing to be gained in that.

And it was about gain, wasn’t it?

Didn’t it always come down to that, to money?

And Angel had the most to gain. And maybe her father.

The two of them conspiring to get the money. All of the money. It was the only thing that made sense.

Unless Perry was wrong. Unless his instinct had failed him.

The lights of Forest Hills high-rise apartments slid by like a million tiny comets. Then the Unisphere, that odd 1960s remnant of the World’s Fair. It looked to him like a prop from some low-budget sci-fi movie. He drove past Kissena Boulevard and Utopia Parkway until Queens was an afterthought and he was driving through Nassau County, where the lights grew dimmer and traffic thinned.

Perry pictured Angel the last time he’d seen her, hair pulled back, pearls around her neck, already looking like the wealthy matron she was about to become. He saw the dark glasses and then the tears in her eyes, and he wanted to believe her but he didn’t.

He stared through the windshield, the voice of his old friend in his head:
So if you want to lose the only friend you’ve got around here, go right ahead and continue doing what you’re doing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.