Over Her Dead Body (8 page)

“It’s certainly a possibility. All those people had access to our offices. I’ll have to talk to some of them, too.”

“Not a problem. Just keep me posted each step of the way with your story,” he said, gazing at me over his glasses. “As you say, this could involve someone here. I need to know everything major that
you
know—with a lag time of no more than four seconds. Hear me?”

“Of course. Where are Betty and Amy, by the way?” I asked, referring to Mona’s two assistants. I was hoping one of them could shed light on why Mona had gone back to her office last night.

“Betty left for vacation yesterday. Amy is going to help Carl for a while, but she’ll be back later. A couple of detectives ambushed her this morning in Great Neck where she lives with her mother and she’s scared to death. She’s terrified she’s a suspect because of an incident involving the quest for some Jamba Juice concoction.”

“
Could
she be a suspect?”

“I doubt it. She’s too inept to murder anyone—and she apparently was on the Long Island Rail Road when Mona was killed.”

“Have the police told you
anything
?” I asked.

“Not a thing. Dicker was pressuring them for info, but they’re being totally closemouthed.”

“What kinds of
questions
have they been asking? Obviously they wanted to know about any problems Mona had with people on staff.”

“Yeah, that’s how Robby’s name came up last night. But there is one thing you should know about. They asked me to take a look at her office and see if anything was missing. It didn’t look like anything had been stolen. But then it became pretty obvious that they were thinking about something that could have been used as a weapon. And I realized that this paperweight she kept on her table—the one she was given when she was named editor of the year—seemed to be missing.”

“Really?” So Jessie was right about the paperweight. “Sounds like the killer might have taken it with him—or her.”

“Looks that way. Something else you should know about. I’ve asked Ryan to do a separate piece on Mona. A profile of her, kind of a tribute. He’s dying to get in on this story.”

“Isn’t there a chance our stories will overlap?”

“They might a little. But I’ll take care of that in the editing.”

“Speaking of editing, what’s going to happen
here
?” I asked. “Who’s going to be running things?”

“Nothing’s official yet. Look, I’ve got to get busy. The police have already eaten a big chunk of my morning. If you need anything at all on this, just ask. And I want to be kept abreast of
everything,
okay?”

“Fine, but when you have a chance to catch your breath, I’ll need to talk to you again.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I need you to help me flesh out details for the piece. Background info about the party.”

“Okay, but later in the day.”

“Just one last thing. Any word on Katya?”

“Who?”

“Katya Vitaliev—the cleaning lady.”

“From what I hear, they kept her overnight for observation but she’s out now.”

“Can you get me her phone number from the cleaning service?”

“Yeah,” he said distractedly, starting to thumb through some phone messages on his desk. “I’ll see what I can do.”

As I headed back toward my desk, I spotted two men hovering there. Moving closer to them, I realized it was Tate and McCarthy.
Great.

“We’d like to have a word with you, Miss Weggins,” Tate said as I approached. He didn’t look at all happy to see me, and my stomach began to knot as I followed them down one of the hallways toward the back of the floor—with every eye in the place glued to my ass. We reached one of the small conference rooms, and Tate gestured for me to enter. He shut the door as soon as we stepped inside and told me to take a seat. Four or five empty soda cans and a wadded-up baked-chip potato bag littered the table. I realized that poor Katya had never gotten around to cleaning the room last night before she was injured.

McCarthy remained standing, his arms crossed, but Tate took a seat across from me. He stared hard at me for at least half a minute before speaking. With all my might, I fought the urge to squirm in my seat like a four-year-old.

“So tell me, Miss Weggins,” he said finally, his voice hard as a car hood, “why did you mislead us last night?”

CHAPTER 5

“
M
islead you?” I said. “What do you mean?” As I spoke, I could feel a nervous flush begin its way up my chest, relentless as General Sherman’s march to the sea. I prayed it ran out of firepower before it reached the top of my tank top.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. I described everything about the crime scene as accurately as I could.”

“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Tate said, and allowed his remark to hang in the air. Gosh, he did the pregnant pause thing almost as well as Cat Jones did. I fought off a momentary urge to confess to burning down several warehouses or killing Jimmy Hoffa and sat there with what I hoped was a look of innocent bafflement—or baffled innocence—on my face.

“I’m talking about the real reason you were here last night,” Tate said finally, his voice laced with frustration. “It wasn’t to collect your work, was it?”

So did this mean Robby had given me up? I couldn’t believe it. Why would he have done that? I knew that I had to come clean quickly rather than end up any deeper in a hole.

“It sounds like Robby Hart mentioned to you that I was supposed to find some letters for him last night,” I said. “But it was only
one
of the reasons I came by here. I also picked up my work. I’d been out all day on a story, and since I was hoping to avoid having to come into the office today, I wanted to grab my stuff. I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone.”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized how idiotic they sounded in light of everything that had happened.

“You couldn’t have arranged for someone to send you your work today?” Tate asked.

I shrugged in a helpless gesture. “I’m basically a freelancer, and I don’t have an assistant,” I said.

“Why not tell us about it last night?”

I gathered my words carefully. “Robby feels very private about the adoption, so I didn’t want to mention it when there seemed to be no reason to. If I’d thought it had any bearing on things, I would have. The way I saw it, I was here, I heard moaning, and then I discovered that two women had been assaulted. The
reason
I was on the floor didn’t really seem to matter.”

He smiled with half of his mouth, a sarcastic smile that suggested I’d just said something totally naive or ridiculous, like a predilection toward violent behavior was partially due to consuming too many raisins during one’s childhood.

“No
bearing
?” he said. “We’re talking about a request from a man who had been fired that day and was extremely angry with Ms. Hodges and you didn’t think it had any bearing?”

“But his—” I was about to elaborate but caught myself. I would have loved to point out that if Robby had begged me to
off
Mona, I might have thought it had some bearing, but since he’d asked me only to run what amounted to an errand, it wasn’t worth mentioning in my view. It was time to shut up, however. I’d covered enough crime stories to know that the biggest mistake someone can make with cops is to
overexplain.
Plus, since I was now reporting the story, I was going to have to rely on these guys for information in the future. It wasn’t a good idea to get off to a cantankerous start with them.

“I’m very sorry if it seemed I misled you,” I said instead. “I really didn’t mean to.”

“Tell us about the phone call Mr. Hart made to you yesterday evening,” Tate demanded. “What exactly did he say?”

I tried to take a deep breath without them noticing it. I was afraid they’d think I was attempting to fortify myself for a round of truth obfuscation.

“He told me that he’d gotten fired and, as you might expect, he was feeling upset,” I said. “Then he mentioned that he’d forgotten the letters and asked if I’d pick them up for him—they’d taken away his ID, so he couldn’t get into the building.”

“Did he say anything threatening—about Ms. Hodges?”

“No. No, he didn’t.” I had a vague recollection of Robby suggesting that he’d love to throttle Mona, but it had been pure hyperbole and I wasn’t going to reveal it.

“No?” McCarthy asked skeptically. It was the first time he’d opened his mouth.

“No. Robby’s a terrific guy and a very
gentle
guy. I can’t imagine him feeling vindictive toward anyone.”

“So if he asked you to retrieve the letters,” Tate said, “why do you think he came up here and did it himself?”

I described the follow-up conversation I’d had with Robby after I’d returned home last night, in which I discovered that he’d gone to the office after failing to hear from me. Tate and McCarthy exchanged a look that I couldn’t decipher, and then Tate told me that was all—for now.

I needed to make one more effort, though, to smooth things over.

“I apologize again for being less than straight with you last night,” I said. “But I really had no idea Robby had come down here. He told me he’d taken an Excedrin PM as he was going to bed. Plus, he had no ID card to get into the office.”

Tate offered a small smile, begrudgingly, it seemed, while McCarthy regarded me skeptically.

“You may go now,” Tate said.

“Just one more thing. I do most of the crime coverage for the magazine, and I’m the person on staff who will be reporting this story. I’ll have to be in touch with you over the next week.”

Tate’s expression soured. “I hope you remember what we discussed. I don’t want to read anything about Mona’s injuries or the position of the body.”

“You have my word.”

I slunk down the corridor, trying not to look as rattled as I felt. I’d ended up trapped in a lie and paid the price with my discomfort, yet I still didn’t regret my decision to protect Robby last night. What I didn’t understand was why he had put me in such a vulnerable position today—he’d obviously told the cops about the secret mission he’d sent me on. I wondered just how much trouble he was in and how good of a lawyer he’d managed to rustle up.

Jessie was at her desk now. We smiled wanly at each other, and as soon as I sat down, she rolled her chair closer to me.

“What was that all about? I saw those two cops walk off with you just as I was coming in.”

“Oh, just some follow-up questions about last night. You haven’t seen Ryan, have you?” I not only wanted to ask him about the party, I also wanted to discuss our assignments and make certain we didn’t end up stepping on each other’s toes over the next few days.

“No, but I heard someone say he’s due in around noon.”

“I’m going to need some help from you if it’s okay. Nash wants me to cover Mona’s death for the magazine.”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“Nash is going to get me the party list, and I’d like to go over it with you. You know lots of those people, I don’t. I’d also love to have a conversation with that contact of yours at the hospital, the one who told you Mona had died. Do you think she’d talk to me?”

“
He.
Yeah. But he’d probably only do it on the phone, and he’d never let me tell you his name. You’ll just have to trust me that he’s a doc there.”

“Great.”

Over the next five minutes, I drew up a quick plan for myself. I was going to have to interview a ton of people for this story: party guests, Mona’s husband, Mona’s assistant Amy, Katya, Jessie’s doctor friend, my cop contacts, and of course as many
Buzz
staffers as possible. I was going to be a very busy girl.

One of my biggest challenges was how to set up my story about Mona’s murder. The crime had fallen in an awkward part of the weekly cycle for
Buzz.
We’d just closed an issue, and the next issue—with my article in it—wouldn’t be shipped until next Monday. By the time we hit newsstands on Thursday, people would have learned tons of details about the murder from TV and newspapers. I was going to have to find a fresh take.

One possibility would be to play up the insider angle. That’s something I had that no one else could duplicate. I even wondered if I should write the story in the first person. Granted, I couldn’t divulge the details that I’d promised Tate I’d keep confidential, but I could certainly describe the overall situation and how chilling it had been. The decision on this one would have to be Nash’s.

Though interviewing
Buzz
staffers was going to be a critical part of the process for me, it would have to wait until at least the afternoon. Tate and several other detectives were now making the rounds, questioning people. Tate wouldn’t be at all pleased if I spoke to someone before he had the chance.

What I could do, though, was make sure that my priority list—the people besides Jessie who had attended the party—saved time for me. I called Nash’s assistant, Lee, and asked her to set up an appointment for me to talk to him again later in the day. I’d grab Ryan as soon as he showed up. That left Hilary, the “Juice Bar” reporter who Jessie said had been in attendance. When I called her, she announced in a slight southern drawl that she had urgent business to take care of this morning and couldn’t make time to talk to me until three. I wondered what business was more important than Mona’s death.

Next I left messages for my contact in the medical examiner’s office and some of the cops I knew, who I hoped would give me a heads-up on anything in the case. I also secured official statements on Mona’s death from the police department, from St. Luke’s, and even from Dicker’s corporate PR department. I wasn’t necessarily going to use the stuff, but it was always good to have, especially before you started interviewing people. Once, when I was working for the
Albany Times Union,
I learned through an official statement that a victim was forty-one, not thirty-six as she had led the whole world to believe. That piece of info had given me an invaluable edge when I talked to people. As I was hanging up from one of my calls, Jessie was setting down her phone, too, and gave me a thumbs-up.

“That was him—the doctor,” she said to me. “He can talk to you right now.” As she scrawled his number on a page from a
Buzz
pad, I glanced down toward Mona’s office. There was still police activity in there, but I had the sense that it was slowing down.

I took my cell phone and went down the hall in search of a quiet spot. The police were still using the small conference room that Tate had grilled me in, so I slipped into the other one around the corner. Since I worked at home a good part of the time, I hadn’t minded the lack of privacy for me at
Buzz,
but it was going to turn out to be a problem while I was doing
this
story. I needed to be on-site, but I also needed to be away from curious eyes and ears. And no one in the world was more curious than the staff of
Buzz.

I hit the number Jessie had given me, and a guy answered, with a voice that suggested he was around thirty or so. My guess was that he was an intern or resident. I identified myself, and as I was about to ask my first question, he cut me off.

“Just so you know, I’ve got time for three questions, tops,” he said brusquely.

“Okay. What injuries did Mona Hodges have? I saw one wound on the left temple. Was there anything else?”

“No, just the head wound. It looked like she’d been hit very hard twice, maybe three times. The blows triggered a massive brain hemorrhage.”

“Could it have been done with a paperweight?”

“Possibly. Whatever it was, it was heavy. And it was probably roundish.”

“Was the same weapon used on the cleaning lady?”

It was so quiet for a second that I thought he was gone.

“Yeah, seems like it,” he said finally. “She had a concussion, but there wasn’t any internal bleeding. She went home today.”

“Did Mona ever regain—”

“You’re over your limit.”

“Just one more,
please.
”

He didn’t reply, so I kept going.

“From what you know, did she say anything before she died?”

“Negative.”

He disconnected the phone without a good-bye.

Now that I knew exactly what Mona’s injuries entailed, I was in a better position to speak to Lyle Parker, the former FBI profiler I knew. Before I headed back to my desk, I tried her again. This time she picked up.

“Hey, sorry not to call back last night,” she said, sounding as if her nose were stuffed up. “I’ve been consulting on this case in Chicago and I’ve been racing from one plane to the next. What’s up?”

“Does the name Mona Hodges ring a bell?” I asked.

“You mean that editor who was just bludgeoned to death in her office?”

“That’s the one. I haven’t had a chance to tell you that I started working at
Buzz
a few weeks ago.
I
found the body.”

“Again?” she exclaimed. “Boy, you get around. I’ve actually been following the case a little on airport CNN. Have they arrested anyone yet?”

“No, that’s why I was hoping to grab five minutes with that fabulous mind of yours.”

“I was just about to say I’d have to call you back, but they’re flashing a notice that my flight is delayed. Remind me never to come to Illinois again in the summer. There’s a thunderstorm every time you turn around.”

“So can I describe the situation and have you give me your thoughts on it?”

She sighed. “You know I hate to do this without seeing a report—so it’s gonna be nothing more than a guess.”

“Okay, here goes, then. Mona Hodges returned to her office from a party and someone hit her twice, possibly three times on the head with a round, heavy object. Seems like a paperweight is missing, so that may be the weapon. She was in convulsions when I found her and she died a few hours later. While the assailant was still in the room, he apparently heard the cleaning lady coming, hid behind the door, and bopped her on the back of the head when she entered the room. That blow didn’t cause any major damage. Are you with me so far?”

“Yup.”

“So what does it look like to you?”

“Were Mona’s clothes disturbed?”

“No. From what I could see, there was no sign of it being a sexual assault.”

“Anything taken?”

“No sign of robbery, either. The only thing that’s missing apparently is the weapon.”

“What part of the skull was Mona hit on?”