Chapter 16
ONE LARGE HAND gripping my upper arm, Matt escorted me out into the street. Rushed me out, was more like it. He didn’t stop this forced march until we were nearly a block away, in front of a seedy old brownstone that had been converted into apartments. Below a sign in the window that said VACANCY, the ledge was encrusted with pigeon droppings.
His mouth set in grim determination, Matt steered me down several steps below the street until we were almost at the building’s closed basement door, and far enough away from the stream of pedestrian traffic above us to have some privacy. Positioning me with my back against the steps’ wrought iron guardrail, he released me, but immediately clasped his left hand around the railing on my “escape route” side. His grip was so hard his knuckles turned white. To get away from him, I would have had to pry that big hand loose, or push through his firmly planted body. Neither option seemed promising.
“This is unlawful detainment,” I said.
“It’s protective custody!”
“I don’t need protection.”
“You’ve needed protection since the day I met you,” he snapped. “A couple of months ago you were almost killed—for the third time!”
Actually, that was the fourth time, but I didn’t think it would be wise to correct him. “Since I’m still alive, you’ve just proved that I can take care of myself,” I said. “Let me go.”
“I will—as soon as you promise to stay out of the Veronica Rose case.”
“Then you better use your cell phone to send out for meals, sleeping bags, and a port-a-potty because I’m not making that promise.”
He expelled a gut-deep sigh in surrender and stepped back. “It was worth a try,” he muttered. “You take so many chances with your life you make me crazy.”
I moved away from where he’d imprisoned me against the railing, but didn’t go up the steps. Instead, I reached out and took his hand. Reflexively, his hand closed around mine. “Let’s go someplace where we can talk,” I said.
OVER SURPRISINGLY GOOD diner coffee, Matt and I took off our twin masks of hostility. As angry as I could get at Matt when we were on the opposite sides of a difficult situation, I hadn’t been able to rid myself of the physical attraction I felt for him. And that I suspected he still harbored for me.
We had come very close to making love a few months ago, and I’d never stopped wishing that we hadn’t been interrupted before we got up to my apartment. An attempt on my life intervened. I really thought that we’d eventually make it up to my bed—or across Central Park to his bed, or to some bed, somewhere. Hadn’t happened, and wasn’t likely to. Matt stopped dating me when I accepted an inheritance that put me into a higher financial bracket than he was in. (On hearing about this, Nancy had referred to him as “an idiot.”)
Now we were looking at each other across a scarred old table, its vinyl top discolored from years of scrubbing and beginning to peel off at the corners. Not exactly a romantic setting, but suddenly I felt a stirring of physical longing. Resolutely, I pushed it away. That horse had left the barn, so to speak. Concentrate on Nancy’s situation, I told myself.
“I’m a lot less likely to annoy you if you’ll just give me some information,” I said.
He smiled ruefully.“‘Less likely’ isn’t much of a concession.”
“It’s something. Come on, please tell me what you know about Nancy’s problem.”
“Okay, I’ll give you as much as I can, because I want to convince you that there’s absolutely nothing you can do to help her. What do you want to know?”
I’d been thinking about scenarios other than Nancy as the killer, so I was ready with questions. “Couldn’t Veronica Rose have surprised a burglar and been killed because she saw him?”
“The apartment was empty; they hadn’t moved in yet. Nothing to steal—and no forced entry.”
“Her rings. She wore a diamond engagement and wedding ring set. The engagement ring had a huge stone—I’m guessing ten carats. It had to cost at least fifty thousand dollars, maybe a lot more.”
He shook his head. “The rings were on her fingers. And there was a platinum and diamond pendant watch around her neck, and a diamond bracelet on her wrist.”
“It could still have been a burglar—somebody who went to the wrong—”
“No mistake. This was personal. Mrs. Rose was hit more than once, even though the medical examiner says she probably died from the first blow.”
I shuddered; I knew that multiple blows were indications of rage. The killer had wanted to utterly destroy the victim, not just kill her.
“Since I saw you this morning, another report came back from the lab. There were no fingerprints on that paint can. It had been wiped clean. That doesn’t exonerate Nancy.” He reached across the vinyl and took my hand in a gesture of comfort.
“It’s hard to think that someone we like could commit a murder,” he said.
“Nancy isn’t capable of murder. For God’s sake, Matt, she’s not some stranger suspect—you know her!”
“One of the first things I learned as a cop was that you can never tell about people, or guess for sure what’s going to push them over the edge into a place you never thought they could go. Nancy had some ugly encounters with the victim in front of other people. One witness said the two women nearly came to blows in the law office.”
Alarmed at how damning such a statement was, I jerked my hand away from Matt’s and demanded, “What witness? Who said that?”
“Sorry, I can’t tell you. Her attorney will get names during the discovery process.”
“But if he’s going to find out anyway, why can’t you tell me now?”
Matt straightened up in his seat and frowned at me. “He? Her attorney’s a woman named Cynthia Ruddy.”
“Not anymore.”
“Then who?”
“B. Kent Wayne,” I said.
Red spots of anger burned on Matt’s face; I half expected steam to start coming out of his ears. “Is this one of your jokes?”
“No joke,” I said. “Nancy needs the strongest possible defense.”
An astonishing string of expletives spewed from his lips! The vehemence of that reaction shocked me. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
“That lawyer you went to doesn’t just defend people, he gets his kicks humiliating cops on the stand. A few months ago, he got G. G. so tangled up he made him sound like a damn fool. Our arrest was righteous, but he painted us as a pair of rabid fascists so the perp walked. Whatever that scum of a client of his does next is on Kent Wayne’s miserable head!”
Matt stood up so fast he knocked over his glass of water. Angrily gesturing at the mess of soaked paper napkins, he tossed a ten-dollar bill at me. “This is for the waitress. You can pay for the coffee.”
He stomped out of the diner. Our pleasant coffee date was over.
I signaled to the waitress. When she came over with the bill, I apologized for the spilled water, gave her Matt’s ten-dollar bill, and a five of my own for our coffees.
The diner was almost empty, which gave me quiet and privacy. I telephoned Kent Wayne and told him that Nancy had agreed to hire him, and filled him in on what I’d learned about the murder.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll get to work.”
Me, too, I thought. Just as soon as I figure out where to start.