Sleight of Hand (14 page)

Chapter 23

Hoggarth had sent over a packet for her. It contained Connie Wilkins's autopsy, photographs and a written report and, to her surprise, it also included a typed sheet of paper with Jay Wilkins's movements starting on Saturday morning, and continuing until Tuesday morning.

After a brief glance at the autopsy pictures, she turned them facedown. Too gruesome. The sea, waves and rocks had savaged Connie's body cruelly. Instead, she began to read through the other typed pages. Exactly what Hoggarth had said, every minute practically accounted for with receipts, credit card purchases, Realtor statements... She read slower when she came to the time she was interested in: six-thirty on for Saturday night. He checked into the Sand and Surf resort hotel about six-thirty, got directions for a bar and grill called The Waves and went out for dinner. Credit card purchase of two drinks at The Waves. Arranged for the group who played that night to call the next week for an engagement in Eugene. The casino a little after ten, turned his car over to valet parking at eleven-fifteen. Picked it up the next morning at ten, then with another Realtor until two Home on Sunday, phone calls from a cell phone, the last one at midnight to his business manager.

She put the papers down, frowning. His time had been accounted for almost minute by minute. And that was just too damned unnatural. Too damned convenient.

And why a call at midnight to his manager? What had been so important that it couldn't keep until the following morning? She started to look up the number to call him, then changed her mind. She would just drop in, she decided.

It was a short drive to the dealership on Good Island Pasture Road, where a number of car dealerships were clustered like covered wagons getting ready for the assault.

When she walked into the showroom, a salesman met her at the door. She smiled and shook her head. "I'm looking for Mr. Levinson. Is he around?"

He was and, summoned by the salesman, he approached her, beaming. "What can I do for you, young lady? A coupe? Convertible?"

"Sorry," she said. "I'm not buying. I'd like to talk to you for a minute or two if you have the time. Barbara Holloway. I represent Wallis Lederer, who is accused of murdering your late employer."

His smile vanished and a wary expression took its place. "Oh. I already talked with someone you sent over."

"I know. I have only one question, actually. Just to clear up a detail. I was in the area and decided to ask in person."

He glanced in annoyance at the salesman, who was hovering nearby. "Come on, my office is over here."

Inside the office he motioned toward a chair and sat behind his desk. "Okay, ask your question."

"It's been reported that Jay Wilkins called you at midnight on April 20, a week before his death. Can you tell me why? What was so important that it couldn't wait until working hours?"

"Nothing," he said. "It wasn't about anything. I got out of bed. You do, you know, when the phone rings late at night. When I heard who it was I let him talk to the answering machine. He said he wouldn't be in on Monday, he was waiting for his wife to check in. And he said a music group would call him and I should tell the receptionist to transfer the call to me. He had listened to them play, thought they were good and that they would work out for the dealers' meeting we were to host in September. And he told me to e-mail him the weekend activities on Monday. That's it. And it could have waited until morning."

"Was that usual for him, late-night calls, and to arrange for a group to play like that?"

"First time ever for either one. I arrange everything —meetings, company dinners, entertainment. The meetings rotate among the northwest dealers. Our turn this year."

His words were precise and his voice completely neutral then as he added, "Mr.

Wilkins delegated tasks and never gave them another thought unless they were not carried out to his satisfaction."

"Well, as I said, I had one question, and you answered it. Thank you, Mr.

Levinson."

In her car, she put in a call to Bailey on her cell phone. "Drop in if you're anywhere nearby. Otherwise, in the morning. I'll be in the office until about six."

When two people act out of character, she thought, driving, you want to know why.

Hoggarth being so cooperative was out of character, and it could mean that he was as dissatisfied with the case being made for suicide as she was.

And Jay Wilkins acting out of character and arranging for entertainment himself.

Why?

Bailey arrived at ten minutes after five. He headed straight for the little bar that he claimed was his, and helped himself to the Jack Daniel's that she kept just for him.

Slouching down in his chair, holding his drink, barely discolored with water, he regarded her with his usual morose expression. "What now?"

"I might have found the three hours I wanted," she said, taking the account of Jay Wilkins to the round table to show him. "Credit cards, personal reports, all tallied, except for this period. He checked in at his hotel at about six-thirty Then nothing until the credit card payment for two Bloody Marys at a tavern called The Waves, no time given, and the casino a little after ten. No credit card or cash receipt for dinner that night."

He shook his head. "You don't down two drinks like that in a couple of minutes. Not like quick shots."

"Check it out," she said. "Did he actually talk to the group playing there? Was he there for their entire performance? Where did he have dinner? You know the drill."

He drank thoughtfully, then shook his head. "A group like that, playing in a place like Florence months ago? They could be scattered to the wind by now. And who's going to remember who ate what and when back in April? You don't think you're chasing a dead horse that's just laying there rotting away?"

"Check it out," she repeated. "It's the only three hour period there is. Bailey, he asked directions to the tavern at the hotel desk. He already knew what he had to do.

He was covering his tracks. He went out again. But when he met Wally and Meg, his pants were noticeably wet from the knees down and there was sand on his shoes. If he'd been in a bar for a couple of hours, doesn't it seem likely that the pants would have dried by the time he got to the casino, when it was no longer raining? And where did he run into sand in a restaurant and then in a bar? Check it out."

He drained his glass and set it down. "Okey dokey. That group might be playing in a beach cabana in Tahiti by now."

"Make sure your passport is in good order."

Chapter 24

"Still nothing," Barbara said glumly on Frank's porch that Sunday.

"Doesn't it always seem that way along about now?"

"God, I hate waiting for other people!"

He sighed and stopped trying to be reasonable with her. He knew how much she hated having to wait for others, but there was little to be done about it. Nothing new was surfacing on Wally's case. Bailey was tracking down a bunch of musicians.

Barbara had drawn back from a question she wanted to ask, aware of the line around him that she dared not cross. Had her mother ever mentioned a career of her own, a life of her own? Had she really been content to sacrifice her own life in order to take care of her husband and child, especially since neither of them had needed such care? It seemed incredible to Barbara that Stephanie had little life beyond caring for her daughter, and that Meg had spent forty years existing in Wally's shadow and was finally having the role reversed. Wally was determined to enthrone her even at the risk of prison. One after another eclipsing their own lives for others. And Darren?

She forced her thoughts away from that direction, determined not to go there.

One hot day followed another hot day and she only grew more restless. Sonia Carrolton sent a packet of papers by FedEx and Barbara had a delivery service take them to Stan Konig, Connie Wilkins's attorney. He was delighted with them.

There was nothing to go to court with, she told Frank.
I didn't do it
. That was all she had. Wally's denial. It didn't help her mood an iota when Frank commented that you go with what you have or you take a plea bargain. Or else you tell the police what evidence you're sitting on, and why you didn't disclose it earlier. Let them go after the black van or car.

She wanted to kick one of the cats.

Then, in late July, Bailey came in as unkempt as always, but he was looking self-satisfied, perhaps even happy, and that was so rare that Barbara felt her pulse quickening. He helped himself to the bourbon, slumped down into a chair and grinned.

"Got it," he said. "What the doctor ordered. Signed, sealed and now delivered. Long or short?"

"Just tell me, for heaven's sake. Don't make a production out of it."

He tossed a folder down on the table, took a long drink and told her. "Okay. I located that group. A trio, two brothers and a sister, citizens, parents from Brazil.

They call themselves the Amazonians, and they play a bunch of weird instruments that no one ever saw before. Just starting out. I tracked them to Falls City, Idaho, and talked to them."

He took another drink. "On the nineteenth they got a card from Jay Wilkins. He wrote, 'Great show! Call early next week for an engagement in Eugene.' They showed me the card. They were all atwitter, figure it's the kind of break they dreamed about."

"Did he talk to them?"

"Nope. They never laid eyes on him. Just the card. So I went looking for the cashier who delivered it to them."

He finished his drink and held up the glass in an inquiring way, as he always did for the second one. She nodded impatiently.

"She remembered him," he said. "And she remembered the group because the guys were so cute, with thick wavy hair and big brown eyes, and the neatest accent. Just quoting, just quoting," he said, stilling her impatient protest. "They play mambas, sambas, maybe sousas for all I know, and the joint was packed, and rocking with people dancing their legs off. Jay Wilkins went to the cashier's station and said he'd had two Bloody Marys and lost the tab but he paid up and gave her a tip for the waiter, if she could find him. And he gave her a ten spot to deliver the card. She said he was really nice, to pay up like that when he could have just walked out with no one the wiser. And, naturally, she read what he had written on the card, and was impressed that a rich Buick dealer had spent time listening to the group, and so on."

Barbara let out a long breath. "You done good, kid," she said. "Have another drink.

Have three. You gave me the three hours I needed."

"I always do good," he said amiably. "You just don't show the kind of appreciation a guy needs from time to time."

"Now just shut up. No dinner receipt, a sham at that bar. He killed her, and that's when he had time to dispose of her body. After carting it around all day in the trunk of his car, I guess."

Bailey shuddered and took a very long drink.

As soon as he was gone, Barbara called Milt Hoggarth and was put on hold until he got off another line.

"What do you want, Holloway?" he snapped. "I'm busy."

"Ten minutes of your time," she said. "I have something for you."

"I'm tied up and will be till hell freezes over. Just tell me."

"Nope, not on the phone. I'll spot you to some lunch tomorrow. Here in the office.

Sandwiches and coffee. Deal?"

He hesitated, then said, "Twelve-thirty. It better be good. I'm swimming in stuff to get done yesterday."

"It's good. See you tomorrow."

"Pastrami on rye. Two. With pickles. Iced coffee." He hung up.

Grinning, she called Frank. "I'm having an office party tomorrow, twelve-thirty. One other invited guest, Milt Hoggarth. Care to join us?"

"What have you found?"

"Tomorrow. I promised Hoggarth two pastrami on rye sandwiches. Place your order."

"I'll pick them up on my way over. You sound pretty pleased."

"Bailey delivered the goods," she said. "He's really not a bad sort."

Hoggarth was hot, his face as red as his scalp; he was rumpled and tired, and he was bad-tempered when he appeared the following day. Frank had arrived minutes earlier looking cool and neat as only an affluent attorney could manage to do in the heat.

"Lieutenant, iced coffee coming up," Barbara said cheerfully. "Get comfortable."

He muttered something in a growly voice and sat down after a curt nod to Frank.

Barbara passed two sandwiches to him, put iced coffee in front of him and sat on the sofa with an iced coffee of her own. "I understand how limited your resources are these days," she said. "Budget cuts, vacation season, vicious crimes being committed right and left. I had Bailey do your work for you. No cost to the department or the city."

"Cut the comedy and get to it," he said unwrapping a sandwich.

"I suppose they're still looking for the mysterious driver who secretly drove Connie Wilkins to Dr. Sugarman's cabin and left her there, then went back a few days later to clean up any evidence that she had been in the place. And when they exhaust that option, they'll move on to an alien abduction," she said meditatively.

Hoggarth's face went shades darker and he looked as if he might grab his food and march out with it.

"Down, Hoggarth. Down," she said, and told him about the wills, and what Bailey had found. He attacked his sandwich savagely as he listened, and was unwrapping the second one when she finished.

"And not a shred of proof," he said.

"That's it and you know it," she said flatly. "There's the will business. From eight million down to four, then probably less than one million. The so-call suicide note on the computer that he conveniently wrote for her. Tourist class ticket. She didn't give a damn about money, but he did. Scouting out the tavern ahead of time, that very careful day full of alibis, all those phone calls to make sure everyone knew how concerned he was that she was suicidal. He checked in at his hotel at six-thirty and no one saw him again until ten. He had it planned to the minute. Even the Bloody Marys. Not the kind of drink you turn bottom's up and have another, not shots you can drink in a couple of minutes. You take your time over drinks like that. Proving he was in the tavern for a long time, when everything we know about him said it was the last place where he would have spent a second. Loud music, frenzied dancing, noisy. Not his kind of thing. Your boys swallowed it all, suicide, his alibis, everything he tossed out, I'm afraid."

"What about her brother?"

"He saw her two years ago, after her first husband and son were killed, just like all the others they talked to, and not since. And on the phone he told the detective who called that he didn't believe it when Jay said she was suicidal. That his family aren't the suicidal types."

She gave him a searching look. "Why didn't you swallow it, Lieutenant? Your people took it hook, line and sinker, but not you. Why not?"

"I'm Catholic," he said. "She was Episcopalian, what we call Catholic lite. She might have thought of it right after the accident that got her husband and kid, but not years later."

"Did you read her autopsy report? There was bruising on her right temple. She was pretty battered, but you don't bruise after you're dead."

"They figure she hit her head on rocks when she jumped."

"Or he slugged her and drowned her in the bathtub. Did they think to check the water in her lungs for fresh water? Of course not. You fish a drowned person out of the ocean, that's that."

Frank had not touched his own sandwich, nor had Barbara, and he had remained silent throughout, but now he said, "Milt, tell me something. Did they hand you a package all wrapped up as a suicide? Confirmations on those receipts, credit card purchases, all of it?"

"Something like that," Hoggarth admitted after a moment. Then he said bitterly,

"You don't backtrack and double check on a colleague. It will go down as an unsolved murder. You know how welcome an unsolved case will be, new investigations, the works? And what's the point in charging a dead man with murder?

Especially when it's circumstantial? It's going to rot in the unsolved file, most likely."

"Do I have your assurance that it will be called murder?" Barbara asked softly. "Can I tell the family that?"

He nodded. "We'll check on the tavern, the group, first, all that, of course, but it was murder. There are others who have to be checked out, you know. The kid, Eric Wilkins, the ex-wife."

Frank didn't know if Hoggarth was aware of Barbara's satisfaction with his answer, and he thought that was what she had been after: an unsolved murder on the books.

That explained a little about why she had left Wally out of it, what he had seen that night, how he had put her on the right track. Later, he thought. Talk about it later.

She began to eat her chicken salad on wheat. "He had to do it before those notes were incorporated into her will, that's why the fake suicide note appeared on the computer when it did. He was starting to set the stage in March at about the time she was making her notes."

"Will notes like that hold up in probate?" Milt asked Frank.

"Your guess is as good as mine. But there's no doubt he would have contested it if admitted as a codicil, with a coin toss as to winning. I expect he wasn't looking to get murdered himself."

Hoggarth finished the last of his sandwich and coffee, wiped his mouth and hands carefully, crumpled his napkin and tossed it down. He stood up, and for a moment he looked awkward. "Thanks, Holloway" he said. "For the sandwiches. They were good. I've got to go."

She walked to the outer door with him, and when she returned, she commented,

"Well, as his captain said, we have a good working relationship. Sometimes. For a second there, I thought he might even call me Barbara. One step at a time."

"What are you up to?" Frank asked.

"Just doing the job Sonia Carrolton hired me to do."

"You know that none of this business about Connie Wilkins will be allowed in Wally's trial."

"I read the rule book, Dad. It's been a while, but I really did read it once. I know the rules."

He finished his sandwich in silence. She knew the rules, and she would not hesitate to take a battering ram to them if necessary, and if that wasn't enough, resort to dynamite. But the judge always had the last word.

Barbara began to gather up the sandwich wrappers. "I'll call Sonia in a few minutes and drop in later if you'll be around."

No more talk about rules, he well understood, or what any of this had to do with Wally's case, but it was just as well. What was there to say?