After the visit with his father, Jordan returned to New York. He didn’t snap at a single flight attendant or chew out a single cabbie, though either of those must have thought him soft, what with the silly smile he wore. He spent every free minute dreaming, conjuring up the most exquisite seduction. If Katia wanted satin sheets and candlelight, satin sheets and candlelight she would have. If she wanted champagne and caviar, or a bed of roses, or a goddamned Bedouin tent, he’d get those for her, too.
Unfortunately, she wouldn’t know beforehand, so he would have to use his own judgment. He wanted their first time together to be a wonderful surprise.
He was in for the surprise, though, when he went to Katia’s office the following morning. Oh, she was there, all right. She was bent over her drawing board as he had seen her many times before. But there was no smile on her face when she saw him. She neither stood to give him a hug nor held out a hand.
“Jordan,” she said with a short nod in greeting.
The chill in her tone brought back their phone conversation of the Friday before. Jordan had been so delighted by what he had learned from his father that he had completely forgotten that Katia was angry with him.
No sweat, he told himself. She would come around in no time. She always had. After all, she loved him.
“I brought the architects’ preliminary drawings,” he offered on a light note as he crossed her office to place them in front of her.
She promptly tossed the large envelope of drawings onto her desk. “I’ll take a look at them later. You say they’re only the preliminaries?”
“I pushed for even these.”
“You shouldn’t have bothered. If they’re only preliminary they won’t do me much good. I can’t plan artwork around sketches that are bound to change. I’ll wait for the final ones and save myself some work.”
“I thought … well, maybe these will give you some ideas.”
“I already have some ideas. When I get the final drawings I can do something with them.” Pen in hand, she returned to her board.
“Working on something good?” he asked in his most congenial tone.
“I hope so.”
“What is it?”
“A soup ad.”
“Mmm, mmm, good.”
“Cute.” But still she didn’t smile.
“Ah, listen, Katia. I know you’re pissed at me.”
Her pen went to work. “No I’m not.”
“You are. I can tell.”
“I’m busy. That’s all.”
“Then maybe we can meet later and talk.” He pictured a lunchtime rendezvous at his place. He would supply the lunch, but they would never get to it because they’d be feasting on each other.
“It’s a bad day, Jordan. I’m sorry.”
“Tonight, then. I don’t care how late.”
“I’m really bushed. It was a busy weekend.”
“Busy … how?” he asked with caution.
“Use your imagination.”
His imagination was lethal. “Katia, we have to talk,” he stated gruffly.
“Go ahead,” she offered breezily.
“I love you.”
“So what else is new?”
He shot a glance behind him, then stalked to the door, closed it, and returned. “I love you, man to woman.”
Her pen stayed in motion. “That’s nice.”
“I’ve never told you that before,” he protested. “All I get is a ‘that’s nice’?”
“What else would you have me say?”
“You could say, ‘I love you, too, Jordan.’ Or, ‘Do you really mean it, Jordan?’ Or, ‘Oh, Jordan, I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that.’” He’d given each possibility a properly excited inflection, but Katia appeared to be unmoved, and that frustrated him tremendously. It also frightened him. “Katia, do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear.”
“And it means nothing? Is it every day that a man tells you he loves you—damn it, put down that pen. Is it, Katia? Don’t you have any reaction to what I’ve said?”
Katia sighed and hung her head. “I feel very sad, if you want to know the truth.”
“Sad?” he asked on a note of panic. “What do you mean by—”
“Katia!” Roger opened the door and stuck his head through the narrow gap. “We’ve got a problem on the mattress thing. I need you. Now.”
“She’s busy,” Jordan growled.
But Katia was capping her pen. “It’s okay, Roger. I’m on my way.”
“But what about me?” Jordan asked.
“What about you?” She stood and straightened her skirt.
“I’m business, too.”
She glanced around the office as though checking to see if there were anything she wanted to take along for her meeting with Roger. “Is that what this has all been about, business?”
“No, you know that, but—”
She passed him on her way to the door. “I have to run, Jordan. Let me know when you get those final sketches.”
Jordan opened his mouth to speak, but before he could get a word out Katia was gone. So he closed his mouth, frowned down at the storyboard, and tried to take in what had happened. He replayed the conversation, wondering what he had done wrong, finally deciding that Katia simply hadn’t been in a receptive mood.
Maybe it was a bad day. Maybe she was bushed. Maybe—though the thought bugged him—she had had a busy weekend. He would simply have to catch her later. That was all.
She did love him. He knew it, and he knew that love didn’t end with a single falling out. Okay, so it was more than one time he had turned her away. She thought he was trying to manipulate her. But she would understand in time. She was a reasonable woman. He would simply have to keep trying.
As he left the office something else occurred to him. It was a ray of hope, a flicker on the bright side. Other than the instant when she had glanced up from her desk to find him at her door, Katia hadn’t looked at him. She had staunchly avoided his eyes. It was, he thought in the psychoanalyst’s mode, a very good sign.
* * *
Jodi Frier, who should have been even more adept at psychoanalytical thinking than Jordan, was stymied. Cavanaugh had returned from the coast looking disgruntled. When she asked about his trip he simply grunted. When she asked if he’d come up with anything new he turned away. He spent most of his time at home—surprisingly more than usual, which made it, ironically, all the harder for her—sitting in a chair with his legs sprawled out, his shoulders slumped and his eyes troubled. She knew that his mood had to relate to the Whyte-Warren case, but after three days of enduring his brooding presence, she also knew that this wasn’t how she wanted to live. If she could glimpse what was on his mind she could be sympathetic. But he wouldn’t talk, and her patience waned.
Late on that third night, as she was getting ready for bed—alone—something inside her rebelled. Tossing a robe on over her nightgown, she stalked back into the living room.
“You must have run into a tube of super glue out there,” she remarked caustically.
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up.
“Your frown is set. Permanent. Immovable.”
“Not now, Jodi. I’m thinking.”
“You’ve been thinking night and day since you got back. Well, I’ve been thinking, too, and it occurs to me that you could just as well do your thinking without me around. The bare walls won’t complain. Neither will an empty bed.”
He did raise his eyes then, and they pleaded with her as he spoke. “Please. Jodi, I’ve got problems. Don’t do this to me now.”
“Damn it, Bob. You have to be one of the most selfish people I know. Your problems always come first.” She held up a hand. “Okay. I know. You warned me at the start. But all of a sudden I’m realizing that I can’t live this way. You’ve got problems. Fine. In any kind of meaningful relationship, people try to work problems out together.”
“My problems have to do with my work.”
“So do mine. Your work is making me a little crazy. You sit around here like a mummy—a disgruntled mummy—and you won’t give me the slightest clue about what’s eating you.”
He pushed himself straighter in the chair. “My work is confidential. I can’t be blabbing my thoughts to the world.”
“I’m not the world. I’m me. Just one person. You’ve told me confidential things before. You know I keep everything to myself.”
“What do you want me to do?” he snapped. “Lay my case out in every minute detail so you can go over it with a fine-tooth comb?”
“I don’t want details. Just the overall drift—if that’s what will help me understand why you’ve been so withdrawn.”
“Don’t nag me, Jodi,” he warned.
“Because I’ll sound like your ex-wife?” She was angry enough to be reckless. “You know, I’m beginning to side with her more and more each day. A relationship demands trust, but you obviously lack it. That’s enough to drive any woman away. Maybe she was smarter than me, because she hounded you more instead of brooding off by herself. Well, I’m tired of brooding by myself. I’m tired of brooding, period!”
“No one’s asking you to brood.”
“No one’s giving me any reason not to.”
“You’re pushing me.”
“Likewise.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I can’t take this now, Jodi,” he said in a voice that warned of imminent explosion.
Which was exactly what Jodi wanted, she was that disgusted. “I can’t take it either, Bob!”
He stood abruptly, as angry as she. “Feel free to leave!”
“I will!” She whirled and would have started off, but he caught her arm.
“Don’t.”
She didn’t look at him, but her voice lowered, as his had. “Why not?”
“I don’t want you to. I want you here.”
“So I can watch you agonize over your case while I agonize over mine?” Unspoken, but understood, was that he was her case.
Hands on her shoulders, he slowly turned her to face him. “I don’t want you agonizing. I don’t want to agonize either, but, my God—” he looked away and shook his head, “I feel so torn.”
“About us?” she asked more timidly than she would have liked at that moment.
He shook his head again, but this time he was looking at her. “About this case. It’s killing me.”
“I can see that, which is why it’s so hard for me to stand by and watch. What’s happened? It wasn’t so bad before. Challenging, yes. Sensitive, yes. But something happened on this last trip that’s knocked you for a loop. Tell me, Bob,” she urged softly. “Maybe I can help.”
A gruff sound came from his throat as he put his arms around her and drew her to him. She didn’t know whether it was his case or their relationship that made him hold her so tightly, but just then she didn’t really care.
“Ahh, Jodi. What a mess.”
She held her breath. “Us?”
He chuckled softly against her hair. “No. You were right. I have been like a mummy. Everything’s bound inside. It’s not fair of me, but it’s hard to change sometimes.”
“Change is easy if you want it.”
“That’s not true. When you’ve lived your life one way you get stuck in certain ruts. Maybe if you’d come along when I was twenty-one—” he caught himself. “But then you’d have been nine, so nothing would have come of it.”
“Do you want to change?”
“I don’t want to lose you,” was his hoarse response.
She ignored the way his hands had begun to roam her back. “Then you’ll have to change, at least a little.”
“I’ll try.” He was cupping her bottom, urging her hips to his.
“Do you mean it?”
He breathed deeply of the faint lemon scent lingering in her hair. It turned him on. “Let’s go to bed,” he murmured.
Jodi closed her senses to the pull he had on her. “And forget it all with a good romp?” she croaked.
“If you want to help me, that’d be one way.”
“Like putting a finger in the dike?”
Cavanaugh’s hands came to rest on her hips. “I wasn’t thinking of it that way. I thought … I wanted to show you what you mean to me.”
Drawing her head back, she framed his face with her hands. “If you want to show me what I mean to you, you can sit down and talk to me,” she whispered. “That’s what I need more than anything.”
His lips thinned, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse her. He closed his eyes briefly, and his frown was back in place. But when he looked at her again she knew that the pain reflected in his eyes was caused by something else.
“What is it, Bob? What is upsetting you so?”
“This case,” he said at last. “Things are pointing in the direction that I thought I wanted them to go, but suddenly I’m not so sure of my own feelings.” He let himself be led to the sofa, then seated. Jodi came down close beside him, never taking her hands from him. “I’ve hated those families for years. I’ve read stuff in the paper about how wonderful they are, how powerful they are, how successful they are. It always seemed unfair to me that they should have so much when others had so little.”
She pondered that, as well as Bob’s reasons for saying it. “I’ve guessed that you blame Jack Whyte for your father’s demise—”
“With reason!” Bob interrupted. “The man ruined my father!”
Jodi was slightly stunned by his bluntness. It was a minute before she could ask, “What happened exactly?”
He blew out an uneven breath, diffusing his sudden spurt of anger. “You know the gist of it. After he was hurt in the war he insisted on going back. They wouldn’t let him fight, so he stayed in the background, working with machines mostly. By the time he left the service he’d had a taste of electronics. He saw it as a field that had nowhere to go but up. So he collected every cent he could, took out a slew of loans and started a business, and it was really going well, more employees every year, more contracts. But when he got what he thought would be the first of many lucrative government contracts, he went a little wild with expansion. The very next year he lost the contract to Whyte Electronics.”
“Fair and square?”
“Who knows? Warren was still in local politics, but he had friends in high places. Between Whyte’s business acumen and Warren’s pull, a pattern emerged. My dad’s story wasn’t unique. He was far from the only victim. Whyte drove other companies out of business in precisely the same way—by stealing a critical contract.”
“But it was only one contract…”
“It was the one he needed. Without it he found himself so heavily in debt that the only thing he could do was sell out.”
“To Whyte?”
“Not voluntarily. But Whyte had already stolen away several of his top men, and without them no one was about to make a reasonable offer. Not that Whyte did. He gave him shit, which was exactly what my dad felt like from that day on.”
The rest Jodi knew. “When you first got this case you were aching to pay someone back for all that. Is the problem now that you can’t do it—that you’ve come up with something to make the families look like martyrs?”
Cavanaugh was silent for a minute before admitting quietly, “Just the opposite.”
“I don’t understand.”
He looked her in the eye. “The evidence we have points to Jordan Whyte as a murderer.”
“Jordan Whyte? Killing his own brother and sister-in-law?”
“That’s what the evidence suggests.”
There was much she didn’t understand, but what immediately concerned her was Bob. “Then … where’s the problem? I’d think you’d feel as though justice were finally being served.”
“I’m not sure it is justice. That’s the problem.”
“What do you mean?”
Sliding his arm around her shoulder, he held her closer. Far from being sexual, the gesture reflected the need he had for encouragement. What he was about to say—and the fact that he had to say it to Jodi—was hard, because he had been wrong, damn it. He had been wrong.
“I really did want to believe the worst. When Ryan suggested that there might be some funny business going on inside those families I couldn’t have been happier. Then I started to learn about them—you know, all those files and documents I read—and I was angrier than ever. The Whytes and Warrens have gotten away with hell over the years. When one of Whyte’s planes crashed in seventy-five, he and Warren managed to fix it with the FAA so that the cause of the accident was listed as the weather rather than shoddy maintenance. Whyte and Warren arranged more junkets between businessmen and politicians than you could count. Warren’s lobbying was what got Whyte Electronics its huge contract with the Air Force in seventy-nine, even though there were other bids that were better and lower. They’ve come this close,” he held his fingers a fraction of an inch apart, “to being caught, and they’ve always escaped.”
“But?” she urged him on. There was another side to the negative; she knew it, and right now she knew that Cavanaugh did, too.
“But then I read further. Not just the papers Ryan gave me. Many of those nights you thought I was at the station I was really in the library digging up obscure little articles, or talking with people who at one time or another had known the Whytes or the Warrens. I told myself that I wanted to have all the facts at my fingertips. And—I know what you’re thinking—maybe there was a thirst for vengeance, and even a little bit of fascination that went along with it, but in any case I saw the other side of the coin, the one the public doesn’t often see, and I realized that life hasn’t been all hunky-dory for those families, either.”
He paused, absently stroking her shoulder. “I’m not sure,” he resumed slowly, “that those kids had any more of a life with their fathers than I had with mine, or that Natalie Whyte’s marriage has been much better than my mother’s was. Or that Lenore Warren—do you know that she’s an alcoholic?”
“No!”
He nodded. “They covered it up well, but in the late seventies she spent time under treatment at a sanitarium. She’s been dry since then from what I can gather, but there must have been something very wrong with her life to drive her to drink.”
“Which goes to show that PR can be misleading.”
Cavanaugh was staring off toward the window. “And along comes this thing with Mark and Deborah. I’ve spoken with all the brothers and sisters now. To a one they can’t understand what happened. I met with them separately, so it wasn’t a case of them putting words in each other’s mouths, though I suppose they could have fabricated something beforehand.”
“What about Jordan?”
“The damnedest thing.” He gave a quick, almost angry shake of his head. “I actually like the guy. I wanted to despise him, but I can’t. Maybe he just turned on the charm—but I can’t even say that, because some parts of our conversation were pretty heated. When I suggested that Mark and Deborah’s deaths might have been an inside job he hit the roof, and it wasn’t just righteous indignation. I’ve seen the reactions of criminals when they’re caught, even white-collar criminals, but I’ve never seen such legitimate anger.” His voice dropped. “At least I thought it was legitimate.”
“Is the evidence conclusive?”
“No.”
“But it does point a finger at Jordan. What does Ryan say?”
“Ryan’s delighted—which bothers me, too. I mean, hell, I’m the one who has reason for wanting revenge, but he’s even more obsessed with the case than I am. He managed to put together in-depth files, and it was like he knew the tape existed that would incriminate Jordan. He told me to take my time, but he’s the one who’s put on pressure for the rush. I’m willing to look at the whole picture with an open mind. Not Ryan. He wantes me to run to New York and arrest the guy.”
“Will you?”
“Not yet. There are still a couple of things I’ve got to work out.”
“What did Ryan say to that?” Jodi asked, as if she didn’t know.
A small smile tugged at Cavanaugh’s mouth. “He was furious. Threatened to have me removed from the case if my stalling gave Jordan a chance to leave the country.”
“Would he do that?”
“Remove me from the case? You bet.”
“Not that, Bob. Would Jordan leave the country?”
“I can’t see it. I’d post bond for him myself, I’m that sure. His family means too much to him. And his work. And Katia.”
Jodi hadn’t missed the slight softening of his voice. “Katia?”
“Katia Morell.”
“The housekeeper’s daughter. Very attractive from what I saw in those pictures.” She was watching him closely. “Have you talked with her?”
Cavanaugh held her gaze, pleased to see an inkling of jealousy. “Uh-huh.”
“And?”
“She’s lovely.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear.”
For the first time in days he smiled. “I know.” He gave her a squeeze. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. Jordan’s in love with her and he’s very protective.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted to hear, either,” she came back with a pout.
“Okay. She’s lovely. She’s beautiful. She’s personable. But the chemistry just wasn’t there between us.”
“It got that far?”
“Jodi, it didn’t get anywhere! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! I liked her very much, which isn’t to say that I want to go to bed with her.”
Jodi relaxed against him. “But Jordan does.”
“I didn’t ask the man whether he wants to, or already has for that matter. I was a cop interviewing him for the investigation. It was enough that I dug out his feelings for her, because that’s all that’s really relevant. I can’t see him leaving Katia, any more than I can see him dumping a scandal in his family’s lap and taking off. If he’s guilty. Which I don’t think he is.” Again, that angry little head-shake. “Damn it, I don’t. But I’m almost afraid to trust my instincts. They’ve been so biased in this case. If only I had facts to work with.”
“Can you get them?”
“I don’t know. Ryan gave me a week to come up with something. If I’m empty-handed at the end of that time I’ll have to bring Jordan in.”
“Do you have any possibilities?”
“Not many.” He screwed up his face in frustration. “There are little things that smell—I mean, things that may or may not be relevant but that just aren’t setting right. I’ve got this uncomfortable feeling that I’m missing something, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is.”
“It’ll come to you if you think hard enough.”
“That’s what I was trying to do when you ruined my concentration.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, but she was teasing and not a bit contrite.
He arched a brow at her. “Are you?”
“Of course. Now that I know the reason behind that corrugated brow of yours.”
“But the corrugated brow is gone. My concentration’s shot for the night. See? You’ve stripped me of all my defenses, made me feel like a sentimental idiot. So what are you going to do about it?”
Jodi knew a challenge when she heard one. She looked up at him, grinned, and before he could say another word swung around to straddle his thighs. Her robe and nightgown had risen in the process, but that was all right, because she had every intention of baring him as well. Her hands were already at work releasing the button of his pants. “I’ll just have to restore your sense of masculinity,” she murmured against his lips.
If Cavanaugh had indeed feared that he had shown a weak side that night, he rose to the occasion and corrected the image.
* * *
Jordan had no occasion to rise to. In the two days succeeding the day he’d seen Katia he tried to contact her, but call after call proved fruitless. He phoned her at the office, but she was either at a meeting or in the field. When his timing finally clicked and he caught her at her desk, she refused to discuss anything but business. He phoned her at home only to find that no one answered, that the line was busy, or that he had woken her from sleep and she was, she claimed, too groggy to talk. Elaborate plans of seduction notwithstanding, he was contemplating taking firmer measures—such as posting himself at her door and refusing to budge until she had let him in and talked—when something happened that momentarily took his mind off her in a way that the pressing demands of his own work hadn’t been able to do.
Cavanaugh appeared unannounced at his office, looking tired and grim. Immediately Jordan sensed that something was wrong.
“Have you got a VCR around here?” Cavanaugh asked.
“Sure. Why?”
“I need to show you something.”
Puzzled, Jordan led him down the hall to a conference room, in a concealed portion of which was a TV and VCR. He took the cassette Cavanaugh handed him, loaded it into the machine, then started it off. Twenty minutes later he had seen enough.
“I can’t believe he filmed that!”
“He filmed everything. You should’ve seen what we found.”
“Other private conversations?”
Cavanaugh nodded.
“And none of the participants knew they were being filmed?”
“Looks that way.”
“Nuts. He was nuts!”
“Maybe not,” Cavanaugh said with care. “If he’d ever been nabbed on cocaine charges, he’d have had a hell of a lot of people to bring down with him. The tapes would have been insurance. He’d have been able to cop a tidy deal for himself.”
But Jordan was thinking beyond cocaine. He spoke slowly, warily, looking at Cavanaugh all the while. “If you’d brought those other tapes to show me, I’d be asking whether you thought someone on the tapes killed Mark to get them. But you didn’t bring those tapes. You brought this one.” He paused and watched Cavanaugh look down at his shoes.
“You did threaten to kill him.”
“I was furious at the time. It was an idle threat, the same kind any person makes in the heat of anger. Hell, you’ve seen me blow up, but I calm down right afterward, don’t I?”
“That’s what I’ve seen.”
“But whoever killed Mark and Deborah had to have planned it. The boat had to have been staked out, as well as the area, because whoever stole onto that boat did it when there weren’t any witnesses around. It was premeditated. Do you honestly think me capable of the premeditated murder of—forget my brother—anyone?”
“No. But you did have a motive.”
Jordan made a harsh sound and thrust his hand through his hair. “We’ve been through that. I did not have a motive, at least not one that I’d consider valid.” He stood straighter. “Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Why not—if the evidence says I’m the prime suspect?”
“Because I’m not convinced you did it.”
“Why not?”
Cavanaugh shot him a slanted smile. “Maybe for old time’s sake, ’cause you were one hell of a player at Duke.”
“More than one football player has served time.”
“Well then, let’s just say that I’m not ready to book you. There are still too many questions that haven’t been answered.”
“Like what?”
“Like where you were at the time of the murders. I asked you that once before and you said you were here, but I don’t know exactly where ‘here’ is, since we got off the subject.”
“Here is in New York. Mark and Deborah were in Boston.”
“Where in New York?” He took the small notebook from his pocket.
“On Eighty-Second Street between Third and Lexington.”
“Doing what?”
Jordan looked him in the eye. “Screwing a woman who will gladly tell the entire world that you questioned her and why.”
“Which answers my next question.” It also told Cavanaugh something else. If Jordan were guilty he wouldn’t be so concerned either about his image in the press or the hurt any publicity would bring to his family. He was a smart man. If he were guilty he would know that the publicity would come sooner or later. “So you don’t want her involved. She will have to be, you know.”
Jordan did. “Just tell her … tell her that … ach, use your imagination and make up some story, but so help me, if she goes to the papers I’ll hold you,” he pointed, “responsible.”
“Will she back you up?”
“She sure as hell better! That was no phantom who serviced me that night!” His statement was punctuated by the tic in his cheek.
“Why weren’t you with Katia?”
“Katia and I don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“But you’re in love with the woman.”
“So?”
Cavanaugh scratched his head. “Let me get this straight. You’re in love with Katia, but even in this modern age you don’t sleep with her. So you take out your frustrations on other women.”
It was as much the detective’s nonchalance as the callousness he suggested that rankled Jordan. “You’ve got it wrong, Cavanaugh. I don’t use other women, at least, no more than they use me. And as far as the ‘modern age’ goes, it has nothing to do with what I feel for Katia. I would have taken her to bed years ago, but I didn’t think I could—” His nostrils flared. “This is really none of your business.”
“Maybe not. But I’m trying my best to help. My boss, John Ryan, would have liked to have hauled you in two days ago. If he’d had his way you’d already have been booked, processed and arraigned, and if it’s publicity that scares you—”
Jordan held up a hand in surrender. “I get the point. What do you want to know?”
“Your relationship with Katia. What is it exactly?”
“Funny you should ask that,” Jordan said with open sarcasm, “because I’m trying to work that out myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I love her. You’ve got that much, right?”
Cavanaugh nodded.
“I’ve loved her for a long time, but, well … listen, Cavanaugh, what I’m telling you is strictly confidential. I don’t want anyone to know about it, least of all Katia. I’m trusting you, man. Are you with me?”
“I’m with you.”
“Well, you see,” he lowered his head, and his cheeks grew red, “up until last Friday I thought Katia and I might be related.” He looked back up, raising his voice accordingly. “I know that sounds stupid, and it turns out that it isn’t true, so there’s no point in going into it further, but I’m trying to get Katia to see me now, only she won’t. So. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”
“Yet.”
“Right.”
“I can buy that.” What Jordan had said made sense. Cavanaugh knew of Jack Whyte’s philandering. Before he had only sympathized with Jack’s wife; now it appeared that Jordan had done his share of suffering for it. Still, Cavanaugh was curious. He tipped his head to the side. “You really thought that Cassie Morell and your father—”
“I overheard a conversation once and jumped to conclusions,” Jordan grumbled. “I was wrong. Forget it.”
“How do you know you were wrong?”
“Is this necessary to clearing my name?”
“No.”
“Then forget it.”
Cavanaugh let out a long breath. “Okay. So Katia and you don’t have that kind of relationship. I take it you’ve seen lots of different women in the past.”
“You’ve read the papers.”
“Right, and now I’m asking you. Have you seen different women?”
“Yes, I’ve seen different women. What does that have to do with anything?”
“I’m just wondering how come you remembered so fast exactly who you were with on the night of the murders.”
“It was easy,” Jordan said far from easily. His back was stiff, his eyes hard as they bore into Cavanaugh’s. “When I learned about the murders I agonized just like the rest of my family. I conjured the image of Mark and Deborah sleeping peacefully on that boat until someone came aboard and shot them dead. And one of the first things I did was to think about what I was doing at the same time that my brother’s life was being snuffed out. If you think I’m proud of the fact that I was covered with sweat on a fancy bed, fucking a woman who doesn’t mean a goddamned thing to me, you’re crazy!”
More than ever before, Cavanaugh believed in Jordan’s innocence. There was no way a man could put that kind of self-disgust or raw pain in his eyes just for show. Unless he was an actor of award winning caliber—then again, there was the possibility that he was truly psychotic, which Cavanaugh had considered once before but was willing to stake his entire career against.
“I’m sure you’re not proud,” Cavanaugh said, humbled himself.
Jordan scowled at him, then at the VCR. “I’m telling you, that threat didn’t mean a thing. I’d never have hurt my own brother. And I told you right off that we’d argued.”
“I spoke with a waiter at Morton’s.” That was the posh restaurant in Hollywood where Jordan had taken Mark and Deborah after the scene at Mark’s house. “He confirmed that you argued there, too.”
“If he told you that I raised a knife during dinner and aimed it at my brother’s heart he was lying.”
“No, he didn’t say that.”
“Praise be,” Jordan said, shooting a dark glance toward the heavens. But Cavanaugh’s next question brought him quickly to earth.
“Do you own a gun?”
“No.”
“Have you ever?”
“No. I’ve never even held one in my hand.”
“Did you know that Mark owned a gun?”
“No. So where does that leave us?”
“Asking questions and questions and more questions.”
“Of whom?”
“People on the waterfront again. Someone has to have seen something.”
“Yeah. A black blob in the middle of the night. You won’t get any identification there.”
“Do you do any snorkling or scuba diving?”
“What do you think.” It was a statement, not a question, and was offered reproachfully. “I’ve tried just about everything that’s physical and a little dangerous, but the only diving or snorkling I’ve done has been in the Caribbean. I don’t own any equipment. You can search my place. Of course,” he speculated, “it’s possible that I rented the stuff. You could check around the sports shops in Boston. But then you’d have to check with the places here, too, because if I drove from New York that night I might well have rented equipment before I left.”
He was wallowing in scorn when a more constructive thought struck. “I drive a bright red Audi Quattro. Not exactly nondescript. Maybe someone saw it parked near the Boston waterfront. No,” he rubbed a finger along the straight line of his nose and spoke pensively, “I wouldn’t have parked it there if I was going to board the boat from the water. Are you sure that’s what the murderer did—came out of the water?”
“I’m not sure of anything. No one saw a person approach the boat from the dock, but I guess I could check on the car. There was a damp footprint just inside the cabin, so I’m assuming that whoever it was came from the harbor.”
“Which means that I’d have parked elsewhere. You could check out the possibilities. A car like that, with New York plates reading JSW-1 would be hard to miss. Then again, I could have rented a car that wouldn’t be noticed. Check out the rental agencies.”
“Thank you for the hint. I’d never have thought of it on my own.”
Jordan might have appreciated Cavanaugh’s wry grin had the circumstances been different. “Maybe either Deborah or Mark showered before going to bed.”
“The footprint was different. It didn’t match theirs. Besides, the lab found traces of muck from the harbor.”
“Then you definitely have a crazy on your hands. The only ones who knowingly go into that water are police divers looking for bodies embedded in cement.”
“Or men who want their storming of a boat to go undetected.”
“One-footed men. What happened to the other footprint?”
“Pretty much lost in the carpet, for purposes of identification at least. The guys have kept at it and have found microscopic traces of the same muck leading in a trail through the cabin to the bed.” He paused. “Do you use foot powder?”
“No. Why?”
“There were traces of it in the rug, and neither Mark nor Deborah had any on their feet. How about your shoe size?”
“Eleven.”
“Consistent with the footprint.”
Jordan looked at Cavanaugh’s shoes. “What size are those?”
“Eleven. Point taken. Hey, I’m not saying that a competent defense attorney couldn’t get you off.”
“Defense attorney,” Jordan echoed, closing his eyes for a minute. “I can’t believe this has gone so far.” His eyes opened. “Should I be speaking with one?”
Cavanaugh considered that before answering reluctantly, “It wouldn’t hurt to have someone on call just in case.”
“Do you think I’ll need one? I want your honest opinion, Cavanaugh.”
Again Cavanaugh considered the question, and again he answered with reluctance. “I think you well may. I’m trying my damnedest, but whoever did this planned it well. It’s even possible,” he said as the thought dawned, “that you’ve been intentionally framed. Whoever did it may have known about those arguments you had with Mark and about the tape.” He rubbed his temple with the heel of his hand. “God, I should have thought of this before.”
“Yeah. The only problem is that we’re still without motive and suspect. All we know is that we’re dealing with a shrewd cookie, if what you’re suggesting is the case. He couldn’t have feared what was on the tapes if he was hoping they’d be found, so it has to be someone connected with Mark or Deborah in another way. Who could have known about the arguments? Who else saw those tapes? And why the devil would he want to frame me?”
Cavanaugh was as perplexed as Jordan. “It’s possible,” he began slowly, “that you were simply a handy patsy. On the other hand.…”
“What?”
“Maybe we’ve been on the wrong track. Maybe the motive relates to you rather than Mark.”
“You mean someone slaughtered my brother and sister-in-law to settle a gripe he had with me?” Jordan couldn’t believe it, or maybe the thought sent such a chill through him that he simply couldn’t give it credence.
“It’s possible. Do you have enemies?”
“None who’d kill like that.”
“Think, Jordan. Anyone who ever threatened you or let word get around that he’d get even one day or simply had reason to be that angry at you?”
“No, damn it! I’ve had differences with people, but nothing like that!”
“Someone? Anyone?”
“No!”
Cavanaugh let out a breath and pushed off from the table against which he’d been propped. “Okay. Let’s let it go for now. But keep thinking. Please.”
“What are you going to do?”
“First I want to check out your alibi. Can I have a name and exact address?”
Jordan gave him the information. “Once you’ve spoken with her, will I be in the clear?”
“Assuming she backs up your story—”
“She will.”
“Assuming she does, it’ll make my case with Ryan a little easier. But he’s out for blood,” Cavanaugh warned. Tiny murmurings sounded at the back of his mind, but he pushed them aside. “If I don’t come up with something else he’ll go with the charge, alibi or no. He’ll take the chance that the alibi witness can be discredited on the stand.”
With a slow nod, Jordan confirmed his assumption. “She can be discredited. She’s scatterbrained. A great lay, but scatterbrained.”
“Again, a good defense attorney could help you there. If the prosecutor tries to discredit her he can probably have it stricken from the record.”
“After the jury’s heard it.”
“The jury will be instructed to forget it.”
“Come on, Cavanaugh,” Jordan said with disgust. “I’m a realist. Once the jury’s heard it they’ve heard it.” He paused, and his voice fell. “Shit, I can’t believe we’re talking trial and jury. There has to be something we can do. There has to be something I can do.”
“Just stay close. Don’t try to run.”
“Hey.” He stood straighter. “I’m not a runner. Even aside from the matter of honor, running would be a sign of guilt. And I’m not guilty.”
“I believe you,” Cavanaugh said quietly. “And it’s been a help talking. Between the two of us we may have latched onto something that may lead us somewhere. I’m not exactly sure where, yet.” There was that nagging at the back of his brain, but he wasn’t quite ready to pin it down. “I’ll do my best to find out.” Sliding his notebook back in his pocket, he started for the door.
“Cavanaugh?”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“Thanks for the show of faith. I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m trying to prove something to myself.”
Jordan didn’t quite understand that, but his mind was in too great a turmoil to try. “You’d never make it as Kojak. You’re too softhearted.”
“Tell that to anyone,” Cavanaugh said, pointing a finger, “and I’ll testify against you myself.”
* * *
Jordan was in agony. He felt angry one minute, terrified the next. He racked his brain for the identity of someone who held a grudge against him strong enough to kill Deborah and Mark and then frame him for it but he came up with nothing. His mind wandered, jumping ahead, imagining himself being arrested, booked and arraigned, imagining the torment that would cause his family. And Katia.
Why now? Why now? Just when he was free to pursue her. But she wouldn’t see him. And he had no one to talk with. He felt more alone than he had in his thirty-nine years.
The rest of the day was a waste of effort as far as work was concerned. Jordan left the office at four-thirty and wandered the streets of Manhattan for hours trying to make some sense out of what was happening. He thought back on his discussion with Cavanaugh, but even the fact that Cavanaugh was on his side was small solace when the other side was so menacing.
Only when his knee began to ache did he go home, but he found little rest there. For hours he sprawled nude on his bed with an arm thrown over his eyes, but what he saw behind his lids was so unsettling and infuriating and downright unjust that he finally bolted up and spent what was left of the night pacing the floor.
By morning he had worked himself into a state of desperation. He knew he couldn’t go to work, and he didn’t want to walk the streets again. He couldn’t go to Boston because his family would know that something was wrong, and he couldn’t go to Katia because she wasn’t seeing him.
There was only one place left. Picking up the phone, he put in a long-distance call to Cavanaugh. He had no idea whether the man had returned to Boston the night before, but it was worth a shot.
For once things went his way. “Cavanaugh, it’s Jordan Whyte.”
“Think of anything?”
“Nothing. Did you check on my alibi?”
“She’s out of town.”
“Shit.”
“She’ll be back in two days.”
“Oh. Okay.” He squeezed his eyes shut against the throbbing in his head. “Listen, I just want you to know that I’m going up to Maine. I know you said to stick around, but I think I’ll lose my mind if I do. I need fresh air.”
“Where in Maine? The island?”
“Yeah. You can call me there if you need me.” He gave Cavanaugh the number. “And if you want to come up for some reason, contact Anthony Oliveri in Portland.” He supplied that number as well. “He’ll take you over.”
“Got it,” Cavanaugh said, putting down his pen.
“Want me to call in when I get there?”
“You’re not under arrest.”
“I’m trying to show you that I’m acting in good faith.”
“I trust you. How long do you think you’ll be there?”
“I have a couple of critical meetings set for Monday. If I don’t make it back by then my business will be shot to hell.”
“Three days. Sounds like a nice vacation.”
Jordan answered him with a harsh, guttural sound.
“Okay. I get the point,” Cavanaugh said. “Are you going to be alone up there?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be.”
“I’ve got no choice, pal. Right about now I’m not fit company for anything that lives and breathes. I wouldn’t wish myself on a dog.”
“That bad?”
“That bad.”
“Listen, don’t do anything drastic.”
“Like slit my wrists? I hate the sight of blood. But I didn’t tell you that, did I? Peter isn’t the only one with the problem, but if you ever tell him I told you so I’ll kill you.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to keep it to myself.” He paused. “Take it easy, Jordan.”
“I’d say the same to you, but I’m counting on you to come up with something, Cavanaugh.”
“I know. I’ll try.”
It was Jordan’s turn to pause before offering a very quiet and heartfelt, “Thanks.”