Natural Suspect (2001) Read online

  "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 was fear 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.

  Devin pulled up alongside and took a look in the Bentley. It was Julia, all right, and she seemed to be singing at the top of her lungs.

  Devin waved at her, then tooted the horn, but Julia drove on, merrily oblivious to everything.

  Maybe it was better this way, Devin thought. Instead of pulling Julia over, which wasn't working anyway, she'd follow her. Her destination might reveal more than she would ever reveal herself.

  Devin dropped back and cut in behind the Bentley and followed it like it was a white Bronco on the Santa Monica Freeway, the only difference being that Julia didn't have a clue she was being followed. Also that there were no helicopters or news cameras tracking her progress. But Devin wondered if her motivation might be the same. Could it be a guilty conscience that was driving Juli
a's flight? Oh, God, she thought with a sudden sinking in her stomach. Could Julia be suicidal?

  She pulled up tighter to the Bentley's bumper and followed at a closer distance as Julia drove on toward the city. She left the Long Island Expressway for the Brooklyn-Queens, then crossed over the Brooklyn Bridge into Lower Manhattan. Was she headed for Wall Street? Devin wondered--but then the Bentley turned left, then left again, and continued south along the East River seaport. Julia seemed to be driving purposefully, although as she passed under a streetlight, Devin could see that she was still singing.

  The right blinker switched off for the first time in thirty minutes, then the left one came on, and slowly the Bentley turned down a narrow street. At the end of it stood a ten-foot-high chain-link fence broken only by a drive-through security gate. The bar of the gate swung high as Julia approached it, and she drove through and made another turn around the corner of a building.

  Devin stomped on the gas, but the bar descended before she could follow. She lowered her window and studied the security box, but there was no indication of what was required to open the gate. She backed up and parked in an empty space along the fence, then got out and ducked under the bar and ran after the Bentley.

  As she rounded the corner of the building, she realized where she was, and an alarm went off in her brain. This was the Commodore Marina, a place where Wall Street tycoons could conveniently berth their yachts so that when they were in the mood for some ocean air, all they had to do was put on their skipper's caps and order their drivers to take them to the Commodore. Arthur Hightower kept his yacht here, she remembered. It was called the Silver Girl VI, the latest descendant of the first Silver Girl, which he acquired after cornering the silver market with the Hunt brothers back in the eighties.

  Devin spotted the Bentley, and it was heading toward her. She shrank back into the shadows of the clubhouse as it passed. But the driver wasn't Julia. It was a young man in a sailor's cap.

  Frantically Devin scanned the marina in search of Julia, and at last she saw her climbing aboard a long gleaming yacht while its captain and crew stood at attention on deck.

  "No, wait! Stop!" Devin shouted and sprinted for the yacht. But its engines were already purring; it was slipping out of its berth and moving into the harbor.

  "Julia! Don't do this! Come back!" Devin screamed.

  But Julia couldn't hear her. She was standing on the forecastle with her head thrown back, her arms flung wide, her mink coat whipping in the wind, and she was singing so loudly that Devin could hear the words where she stood. "Sail ony Silver Girl sail on by. .. . "

  "Nooo!" Devin wailed. "Don't do this to me!" She stamped her foot so hard she broke the heel off her shoe, then just to spite herself she stamped the other foot until that heel broke, too. She stood there, three inches shorter, and cursed like a sailor as the yacht glided out to sea and into the black depths of the night.

  "Excuse me?" a soft voice spoke behind her. "Aren't you Devin McGee?"

  She started to spin on her heels until she remembered she didn't have any. Slowly she turned around. Behind her stood a nice-looking man of about thirty with curly dark hair and big dark eyes. "Devin Gail McGee, to be precise. Who are you?"

  "My name's Patrick Roswell."

  Her eyes opened wide. "From the Gazette?"

  "You've heard of me?" he said, amazed.

  "Just today. I think we may have a mutual enemy."

  "Huh?"

  "Six-foot-six, likes to play dress-up?"

  "Oh, God," he said, gulping. "He came after you, too?" His eyes darted to her feet.

  "Yes," she said, cringing. Her sodden, broken shoes were such a disgrace that this man apparently couldn't keep his eyes off them. She tried to hide one behind the other as she spoke. "He came to my office today and said that you and I should talk."

  "Did he tell you how long you had? Because I found out he lied about the thirty-six hours."

  "What?" she said, confused.

  "He didn't--? I mean--did he hurt you?"

  "Well, no. Not really."

  "Oh. Good."

  Was that relief or resentment in his voice? "Anyway," Devin continued, "I called you today and left a message on your office voice mail. You didn't get it?"

  He shook his head glumly. "It's disconnected. I--I got fired today."

  "Oh." Devin stared out into the harbor. "What do you know? I think I just got fired, too."

  He followed her gaze. "Was that Julia Hightower?"

  Devin nodded bitterly.

  "Wow," he breathed. "What happens to the murder trial now?"

  "If she's not in court tomorrow morning, Judge Hardy will revoke her bail and issue a bench warrant for her arrest. Then he'll probably declare a mistrial and dismiss the panel. Damn it!" she cried. "Why'd she have to pull this stunt now? The message our friend Stretch seemed to be giving me is that she's innocent. But after tonight, everyone will assume she's guilty. I'll never be able to get an untainted jury after this. Even if she comes back."

  "But you know," Patrick said hesitantly, "maybe this is a good thing."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Stretch gave me the same message. That Julia didn't do it. Devin, there's more to this than meets the eye."

  She turned. "Thats another thing Stretch said to me."

  "Until you--we--figure out what's going on here, maybe it's better to call a time-out in the murder trial."

  "When it's out of your control," Devin murmured, "get it out of the courtroom."

  "Exactly."

  She reflected a moment. Perhaps Julia's hiatus--a better word than flight--was actually a golden opportunity for Devin to do some digging and try to get to the bottom of all this.

  "Wait a minute," she said, her head snapping up. "What are you doing here?"

  "Tailing a suspect," Patrick said. He pointed to a smaller yacht at the other end of the marina. "She's in there right now."

  Devin's eyes moved between Patrick and the yacht. "Fill me in?" she asked, intrigued.

  "Sure. Could we sit someplace--?"

  Briefly she considered, then made up her mind and pointed to her car.

  Patrick's pain evaporated in the heat of his excitement as he sat in the front seat of the Taurus and related all he knew about the mysterious woman named Cordelia. But it was the woman named Devin who was making his heart flutter. He couldn't remember ever sitting so close to a woman so lovely. And she was smart, too. He could see the wheels spinning in the irises of her eyes as he told her all about Robert Rutledge and Henry Cloutier and Joe Kellogg.

  "So she dropped Henry off at seven," he wound up his tale, "--and broke up with him, too, I'm pretty sure--and drove straight here. She went aboard that boat, the Starry Night, a couple of lights went on inside, and I've been waiting here ever since."

  Devin nodded musingly. "It must have something to do with Hightower Oil. Remember how Arthur deflected that takeover bid a few years back? What if this Rutledge guy decided to take a run at him? And Arthur just wouldn't budge?"

  "I was thinking the same thing," Patrick said. "But is Cordelia working^r him or against him?"

  "Look!" Devin's eyes were riveted on the Starry Night. "Is that Cordelia?"

  A woman stood backlit at one of the windows, still and watchful.

  "Yes," Patrick whispered.

  "She looks like she's waiting for somebody."

  "Maybe we better wait, too."

  Devin nodded. After a moment, she reached down and slipped off her shoes and tossed them into the back. A little shiver traveled down Patrick's spine at the intimacy of the gesture.

  "I guess--" He stopped and cleared his throat. "I guess you found out that I wasn't really a reporter at the Gazette?"

  She shrugged. "So? I'm my own secretary and paralegal. There's nothing wrong with wearing multiple hats."

  He gazed at her in silence while a symphony played in his head.

  Suddenly a grinding of gears sounded behind them; then a wash of headlig
hts poured over the trunk of the Taurus and started to rise up into the rear window.

  "Duck!" Devin whispered.

  They both dived center and sideways, but Devin dived faster, so Patrick ended up with his chin resting on her back, while her head was rather firmly resting in his lap.

  "Umm," Patrick said after a frozen moment. "You think we could switch places here?"

  "What? Why?" she whispered, then a second later, "Oh."

  He blushed, and she gave him a pat on the knee that was meant, he imagined, to reassure him, though it had a decidedly different effect.

  The engine gears ground again, and as the headlights passed up and over the car, Patrick sat up and so did Devin. He shifted uncomfortably to the far side of the seat.

  "McGinty's Meats," she said, reading the name on the side of the truck. "Delivering at this hour?"

  He jerked forward. "McGinty's!" he exclaimed. "That's where Stretch told me I'd find Joe Kelloggs body."

  They watched in horror as two men emerged from the back of the truck, each one grasping a handle of a large freezer chest, which they heaved aboard the Starry Night.

  "Oh, God," he gasped. "Could that be it?"

  "They couldn't fit him into that chest. Could they?"

  "Believe me, they could," Patrick said.

  Cordelia came out on deck wearing something long and flowing and white. She looked like Ophelia, or maybe Lady Macbeth. One of the truckers handed her a clipboard, and she scanned it, then signed it and handed it back.

  "But I don't know," Patrick said. "Seems funny to sign for a corpse."

  "Duck," Devin cried again as the truck headed back out the gate.

  This time Patrick was ready. He dived first and ended up with his head in Devin's lap.

  "Know what I could go for right now?" Devin whispered as they lay motionless across the seats.

  "What?" Patrick tried to find the correct way to turn his head. He was no longer sure that this was a better position for him.

  "A cheeseburger." The truck passed by, and she sat up straight again.

  "You like cheeseburgers?" he said, sitting up.