Merchant took a deep breath. Baiba was dead. She was dead. He shook his head.
“That bitch,” Pamela muttered.
“Tell me about it.” Merchant stood and paced back and forth. He could still see Baiba yesterday afternoon pitching the Tiffany box into the stairwell. He could feel the box whizzing by his face. He could smell the citrus shampoo in Baiba’s hair when she finally calmed down and sat on his lap. He could taste her salty tears when she told him he had hurt her. He could hear himself saying, “Daddy wants you so much.”
“Jesus Christ, Thomas. Focus!”
Thomas looked Pamela in the eye. Thank God he’d summoned her. Codella might know how to deal with lawyers, but his lesbian sister-in-law was a whole other story. She’d gotten him through the Grand Hyatt thing, and if anyone could get him through this, it was her.
“Tell me right now what I’m dealing with, Thomas. Is this another Jackie Freimor?”
“I was seeing her,” he admitted.
“Seeing her?”
“You don’t want the gritty details.”
“You’re right. I know you too well.” Pamela combed her fingers through her short hair. “Just tell me you didn’t kill her.”
“Of course I didn’t kill her.” He loosened his tie.
“You know this looks incriminating for you.”
“Don’t tell me the obvious. Just get me out of this.”
Pamela tapped her fingers on the table. He watched her think for several seconds. “You had consensual sex,” she finally announced. “That’s it. No details. You’re a married man with an incapacitated wife, and you were trying to have a discreet relationship under difficult circumstances. A jury would sympathize with that. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Is there any curveball she could throw at us?”
Merchant remembered the Tiffany box he’d left at Baiba’s apartment. Even if the police found it, how could they prove he’d given it to her on the day she died? If they traced it back to the flagship store, they would find that Roberta Ruffalo had charged the earrings to his credit card a week ago.
“Well? Is there?”
Merchant considered Baiba’s Monday night visit to his apartment. If Codella questioned Felipe or the doorman, they would acknowledge they had seen Baiba. But that was no crime. Codella could never know he’d given Baiba something in her drink. It wouldn’t be in her system now. That drug couldn’t be traced after four to six hours. “No,” he finally said. “Not that I know of.”
“Well, if she does throw a curve, do us both a favor. Don’t try to catch it. Remember, anything you say in here can be used against you later, so let me do the talking. I’ll tell you when to speak and when not to. Understood?”
She was a control freak like him, he thought. She probably controlled things in bed, too. It wasn’t at all hard to imagine his sister-in-law taking someone like Baiba over her knees for a little spanking. The question was, could she get Codella over her metaphorical knee right now?
Two minutes later, Codella was back in the room staring at him with her penetrating blue eyes. Pamela broke the silence. “Look, Detective. My client admits he had a consensual sexual relationship with Baiba Lielkaja. There’s nothing illegal about that.”
“How many times did you see her, Mr. Merchant?”
Pamela nodded for Merchant to speak.
“Only four times.”
“When?” Codella asked.
“I don’t remember the dates.”
“Do you remember if you had consensual sex with her on Monday night?”
“Yes.” He returned her sarcasm with his own.
“Is that yes, you remember, or yes you did have sex with her on Monday night?”
“My client answered the question, Detective,” snarled Pamela.
“Where did you have sex on Monday night?”
“Where are you going with this, Detective?” Pamela demanded. “This Baiba person died yesterday, not Monday. She didn’t die as a result of her relationship with Mr. Merchant.”
Codella seemed neither impressed nor intimidated by Pamela’s pronouncement, Merchant noticed. “Where did the two of you have sex that night?” she asked.
“In my apartment,” he answered.
“And how did she get there?”
“My driver picked her up.”
“Felipe, you mean?”
She knew his driver’s name. She was letting him know she’d done her research. He might have underestimated her, he thought. “That’s correct,” he said, barely controlling his fury.
“What time did she arrive?”
“Around nine thirty.”
“And how long did she stay?”
“Felipe drove her home around one AM.”
“And how would you characterize the sex you had?”
Pamela broke in. “Enough, Detective. That’s a gratuitous question.” She leaned across the table. “He already told you the sex was consensual. That’s all you need to know.”
Merchant watched Codella lean forward in response to this statement. “I was at her apartment today, Ms. Martinelli. I saw her body.” Then she opened the manila folder in front of her, pulled out two photos, and slid them across the table so they faced him. “Take a good look at your consensual handiwork.” She watched him closely. “Are you telling me she liked having your hands around her neck, cutting off her oxygen supply?”
Pamela slammed her hand on the table. “That’s enough!”
Codella completely disregarded her display of outrage. Her eyes remained on him like a relentless cameraman’s lens. “At what time exactly did you go to Ms. Lielkaja’s apartment yesterday?”
There it was, Merchant thought. The curveball Pamela had anticipated. Pamela recognized it too and gripped his arm to keep him from speaking. “Quit fishing, Detective,” she said.
Codella reached in her pocket and cracked open a fresh piece of Biotene gum. She slid it into her mouth and chewed. “Don’t get cancer,” she said casually. “The chemo gives you dry-mouth, and it never goes away.”
“Cut the bullshit,” said Pamela. “Come on, Thomas. You’ve cooperated enough.”
Codella spoke as he pushed out his chair. “The crime scene unit has been all over that apartment. We’ve got a cell phone, fingerprints, and neighbors who saw things, Mr. Merchant. We know who’s been there and who hasn’t. What time were you there?”
Pamela tugged at his arm. “Let’s go, Thomas.”
He got to his feet. His mind felt immobilized. Inert. Baiba is dead. He pictured her again, on his lap yesterday in her apartment, just before he left her. He could still feel her arms around his shoulders as if she would never let him go. “Why do I want you so much?” she had whispered as she moved on top of his thighs, her desire already erasing her memory of the pain he’d caused her the night before. Maybe it wasn’t desire that kept her coming back to him, he thought now. Maybe it was a terrible need—a need as deep as his own—that had nothing to do with him.
Pamela put on her coat. “My client has been frank with you, Detective. In return, we expect you to respect his privacy. His wife has been incapacitated for a number of years. He’s a man trying to have some semblance of a life. We don’t expect to read about his sex life in the New York Post. Are we clear?”
“You are,” answered Codella. “But I don’t know about your client.”
Martinelli moved to the door.
“I still want the answer to my last question,” said Codella. “What time did he go to her apartment. And I’ll talk to everyone until I get my answer.”
Merchant opened his mouth again, but Pamela said, “Shut up, Thomas. She’s bullshitting you.”