Natural Suspect (2001) (16 page)

"But that takes time--"

"You got until the jury goes into deliberations. If I have half a mill in cash in my pocket, I'll do my best to get you off. If I don't, then that jury's gonna vote unanimously to convict you. I guarantee it."

"I see," Julia murmured after a moment. "And how will I find you to give you the cash?"

"I'll find you. Don't worry."

He made her lie facedown on the concrete floor--a disgusting surface, she thought; why did they never install carpeting here?--until he left, and when she finally pulled herself to her feet, the door was open and he'd disappeared into the night.

She leaned shakily against the fender of Morgan's Maserati while she reviewed her options. She could report this threat to Judge Hardy, of course, but whom would he believe? A presumed murderess on trial for her life, or an honest citizen trying to do his civic duty for $8.45 a day? Another option was simply to pay him the half million, but Julia knew all about the never-ending circle of blackmail. One of her former millionaire, former friends was the victim of blackmail. His company had bribed a foreign official to gain a lucrative shipping contract,
but
too many people knew too much, and he paid out ten times more in extortion than he ever could have realized from the shipping contract. Eventually the company was bankrupt and he wound up teaching the fox-trot at an Arthur Murray studio in Paramus, New Jersey. And although he was reportedly happier than he'd ever been, Julia decided she'd rather not get sucked down that particular drain. Her fox-trot wasn't that good.

No, the only palatable option was the one that had been lurking in the back of her mind since Thanksgiving. Now was the moment. It was time to take her bow, bid her adieu, make her
exit, flee.

She hurried back up the hill to pack a bag and make a phone call, then snowplowed back to the garage again. Who knew? she thought, backing her Bentley out of the bay. Life on the lam might be fun. It could be a glorious adventure to live in hiding. She looked in the rear-view mirror and shuddered. At any rate, she'd never have to fret about the ruin of her face again.

Patrick Roswell
was
being stonewalled.

"Joe Kellogg was our attorney," Robert Rutledge said gravely. He was on his feet behind his desk with the Manhattan skyline arrayed behind him, a deliberately dazzling display. "Though why I should be the recipient of that appalling package--" He spread his hands in helpless surrender to the vagaries of violence. "After all, isn't it enough that we lost our lawyer?"

"Wait," Patrick said. "I thought he was Arthur Hightowers lawyer."

"Was he?" Rutledge shrugged. "Well, I expect Joe had many other clients. He was free to do so, you know. An attorney-client relationship isn't like a marriage." He gave a worldly chuckle. "Or--perhaps * * >>

it is.

Patrick laughed politely and drew closer to the little man. The resemblance was uncanny, but now he could see that that was all i
t w
as--a resemblance. The features were the same, but where Henrys were soft and dull, Rutledge's were sharp and bright.

"Was he working on some kind of deal for your company?" Patrick asked him.

Rutledge pursed his lips and shook his head regretfully. "I'd like to be able to answer your questions. Really. But that would be privileged information, and if I tell you, it's the same as telling the world. I am sorry."

Patrick gritted his teeth with frustration, not to mention pain. He shifted his weight to ease the pressure on his missing toe. "Can you at least tell me when you last saw him?"

"No harm there, I suppose. Let me see." Rutledge flipped through a few pages on his desk calendar. "Lunch last Wednesday." He looked up with a keen light behind his smile. "Meanwhile--you said something on the phone about information I'd find valuable?"

"What? Oh, right." Patrick decided to stonewall, too. If he wasn't going to get any information, he sure as hell wasn't going to give any. As an unemployed amputee, he had the right to be moody. "Actually, it's a stock tip."

" You
have a stock tip for
meV'

"Yep. Miller Tool and Die. Know it?"

Nothing registered on the man's face beyond astonishment at Patrick's audacity.

"Low tech. Trust me, it's the latest wave," Patrick said.

Rutledge stalked around his desk. "Young man--," he began in high dudgeon.

"I'll show myself out," Patrick said hastily, and closed the door as he left.

The neurons were screaming up and down his leg, but he found that it didn't hurt so much if he turned his foot to the inside as he put his weight on it. He hobbled that way across the wide expanse of the reception area toward the bank of elevators. Then abruptly he stopped, pivoted, and marched himself back to the desk outside Rutledge's office door.

He blinked.
Cordelia Baxter
, the nameplate read. Folded besid
e t
he blotter was todays
New York Times.
Turned to the crossword puzzle. Which was completed. In ink.

He hurried to the elevator, all pain forgotten, and as it descended the floors, he reviewed the facts: Robert S. Rutledge, master of the universe, had a puzzle-loving assistant named Cordelia. Henry Cloutier, mild-mannered night watchman and dead ringer for Rutledge, had an unlikely fiancee, a beautiful, puzzle-loving woman named Cordelia, who took him to the Sweeney Hotel on the same night that Arthur Hightower happened to be a guest in the room next door. And finally, Joe Kellogg, attorney for Arthur Hightower and, perhaps, Robert Rutledge, was lured to that same Sweeney Hotel by a beautiful, puzzle-loving woman named Cordelia, and he hadn't been seen since. At least not in one piece.

"Coincidence?" Patrick said to himself as the doors opened on the lobby. "I think not."

He looked at his watch. It was six-thirty, and Henry's shift began at seven. A rush of adrenaline carried him out of the building, where he hailed a cab at the curb and jumped in, blurting the address for Miller Tool and Die.

Now the neurons were humming in his brain. He was on to something, he knew it. Cordelia was the glue that held this web together. She was the centerpiece of this mystery, the linchpin of these axles, the hub of all these spokes, the key to all these locks-- A hundred cliches sprang to life as the story began to write itself in Patricks mind. This was his big break. So what if he didn't have a job at the
Gazette
? He had a story! In fact, thank God he got fired, because now he was a free agent and could peddle his work to the highest bidder. He owed a debt of gratitude to John Whitechapel. When his story ran--page one, above the fold, in, say, the
Times
, or no! the
Post
--he'd send Whitechapel a bottle of cognac and let him stew in it.

The cab crossed into the factory district north of Chelsea, and Patrick sat up straight and watchful. What was Cordelia's game? he wondered, already slipping into the parlance of a hard-eyed investigative journalist. Why did she latch on to Henry and take him to the Sweeney that night? Was she hoping to trick Hightower into thinking Henry was
Rutledge? But what for? Patrick though t back to his barroom conversation with Joe Kellogg. Hightower missed an appointment on November third to sign papers they'd been working on for six months. The next day--no, wait,
that very night
--Arthur was in the Sweeney Hotel while Cordelia was next door with Henry. Did she somehow use Henry to trick Hightower into signing those papers?

Or did she arrange it so that Arthur would never sign another paper again? Could Cordelia be the killer?

Patricks heart was racing by the time the cab pulled up to the darkened factory. He dug in his pocket for the fare and was starting to hand it over the seat when a small black coupe pulled to a stop on the other side of the street. He glanced at it as the passenger door opened and the dome light switched on inside. A beautiful, auburn-haired woman was behind the wheel, and her passenger was Henry Cloutier.

Patrick ducked down until his eyes were level with the bottom of the window. She had to be Cordelia. It was unlikely enough for Henry to have one such beauty in his life, let alone two.

"You gettin' out or what?" the cabbie said.

"Ssshh," Patrick explained.

It appeared that Henry and Cordelia were quarreling--or at least that she was. Her brows were knitted and she seemed to be biting out her words, while poor Henry was begging and pleading with his whipped-puppy eyes and his lower lip stuck out. Cordelia shook her head, and Henry begged some more; then she pointed to the door and he climbed out of the car with his head down and his shoulders shaking.

She must have cut him loose tonight, Patrick guessed. Whatever her game was, she had no further use for the little night watchman. His door was barely closed before she threw the car in gear and took off.

"Follow that car!" Patrick shouted.

It was something he'd always wanted to say, and the amazing thing was that the driver actually did it. He threw the cab into gear, squealed a U-turn across the street, and lit out after the little black coupe.

The gates were
open when Devin arrived at Hightower Hill, and she drove the rented Taurus through them and up the twisting drive to the entrance court of the mansion. No one had shoveled the walk since last night, and the snow seeped in around the edges of her high-heeled pumps as she stormed to the front door and leaned on the bell. She could hear the chimes echoing inside, but no one answered. She pressed the bell again, then again, and finally resorted to hammering on the door, but there was still no answer.

She stood fuming on the doorstep while the snow melted and formed ice pools inside her shoes. She could believe that Julia was passed out drunk in there, but where were the servants? It must be true what they said: You really couldn't get good help these days.

She waded through the shin-high snow to one of the many back doors of the mansion and there she repeated the ritual of ring-wait-ring-ring-wait-pound-pound. Still no one answered. She stood a moment and strained her ears for any sounds inside, but everything was quiet. There were no lights on this side of the mansion.

Suddenly it occurred to her that whoever planted the bomb in her car last night could very well have done it here, while she was in the house. So far the police had told her nothing about the design and manufacture of the bomb, but she figured it must have been detonated by a timer. Ordinary pipe bombs were detonated by the ignition, but she'd started her car without incident, and it was twenty minutes later that it blew. And it was only her flat tire that kept her from blowing with it. Whoever planted the bomb must have timed it to detonate on her return to the city. And the only people who could have estimated what time that return trip would take place were the people watching her movements here at Hightower Hill.

It couldn't have been Julia--she was dead to the world--and Marilyn and the gardener seemed very much to be otherwise occupied upstairs. But what about Morgan and his wife, Sissy? She'd seen no sign of them last night. They could have been lurking somewhere in these shadows. They could be lurking there now. . . .

No.
Devin gave a firm shake of her head to stop the trail of those thoughts. She'd spent too many years letting fear dictate her life. It wa
s f
ear of rejection that made her a wallflower all through her teens; it was fear of loneliness that made her marry Milton, the first man who asked her; and it was fear of the dental instruments he used to bring to their bed that made her divorce him soon thereafter--although come to think of it, that particular fear was probably a healthy one. Nonetheless, she wasn't going to let fear control her tonight.

She rang the bell one more time, and when there was still no answer, she reached for the knob and was starting to turn it when a heavy hand squeezed down on her shoulder.

"Oh!" She gasped and spun around in her sodden shoes.

"Oh!" a mans voice exclaimed as he dropped his hand and backed away from her. "Sorry. I didn't know it was you."

She squinted into the shadows and saw that it was only Georges, the landscaping Lothario. "I have an appointment to see Mrs. Hightower," she announced, with more authority than she felt.

"Oh? Funny. You just missed her."

"What?"

"She just drove off in the Bentley, five, maybe ten minutes ago. You wanna come in and wait?" He stepped closer and waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Maybe have a drink by the fire?"

She shook her head and backed away. "Where did she go?"

"Beats me," he said, then grinned as if he liked the sound of that.

"Okay, thanks." Devin flung the words over her shoulder as she hurried back to the entrance court and jumped into her Taurus.

Julia had left only five or ten minutes ago, there was only one major highway nearby, and the odds were good that she was heading for the city. How hard could it be to find a Bentley heading west on the Long Island Expressway?

Not hard, as
it turned out, particularly when that Bentley was traveling at forty miles an hour with the right turn signal flashing.
Warning
it blinked in semaphore.
Senior Citizen Driving Here.