CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“They’re charging Jillian with murder?” I asked.
“Based on what evidence?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said. “All I know is that they picked her up at her house an hour ago and are bringing her in. Her husband called me to ask for help. I tried calling her lawyer and had to leave a message with his secretary.”
“I’ll phone Bob Maguire,” Case said. “He’ll see to it that she’s treated right.”
As Case headed into his office to make the call, Abby said, “I want to be at the police station when they arrive. I want to let her know we’re working on getting her out of there.”
“Good thinking,” I told her.
She checked her watch. “They should be here in half an hour.”
Thirty minutes later, we stood at the police station’s back door and watched as a squad car pulled up. A police officer got out and opened the back door. Jillian climbed out, pale and distraught, her hands behind her back in handcuffs. She caught sight of Abby and began to cry. “What’s going to happen to me?” she sobbed.
“Don’t worry,” Abby said. “I’ve contacted your lawyer. He’ll be here soon.”
As the officer led Jillian away, she turned back to Abby. “You’ve got to help me, Abs! They can’t believe I’m guilty!”
“I’m doing everything I can, Jill,” Abby called back. “Hang in there.”
As the officer took Jillian through the door, Abby turned to me. “I need to see Detective Walters.”
We walked around to the front of the building, to the police station itself, and went in through the double glass doors. Abby marched up to the front desk, where a female officer by the name of Joyce Winters stood overseeing the entrance. “I need to see Detective Walters,” Abby said.
“Your name?” Officer Winters asked.
“Abby Knight Salvare,” she said. “Salvare Detective Agency.”
“The detective is busy at the moment,” the officer said. “Would you like to make an appointment?”
I knew Joyce because of how often I’d been at the station lately. She was kind and understanding, so I walked up beside Abby and said, “Hi, Joyce. I know he’s busy, but it’s important that we talk to Detective Walters right away.”
The officer acknowledged me with a nod of her head. “Let me call upstairs and see if he’s available.” She picked up a telephone receiver and punched in a number on the phone. She turned her back on us to speak quietly into the phone, then hung up. “He says he’ll give you five minutes.”
“He’d better give us more than that,” Abby muttered as we headed into the next room.
We went through security, then walked up the wide staircase to the second floor. I looked across the room and spotted Walters at his desk. “That’s him,” I said to Abby, pointing.
With fire in her eyes, Abby charged ahead of me, straight up to Walters, and said, “I want to know why you’ve arrested my cousin Jillian Osborne.”
I walked up beside her. “This is Abby Salvare, from the Salvare Detective Agency in New Chapel, Indiana.”
Walters gave us an exasperated look. He waved his hand toward wooden chairs beside his desk. “Have a seat.” He had bags under his eyes, and he appeared unshaven.
We sat, Abby on the very edge of her seat, tension radiating throughout her body.
“You want to know why your cousin was arrested,” Walters restated.
“Yes,” Abby said. “What evidence do you have against her?”
“You want the whole list? Okay.” He shuffled some papers around on his desk, uncovering a thick manila file folder. He searched around again for his glasses, and after securing the thick, brown frames against the bridge of his nose, he opened the folder and began. “She was behind the stage before the fashion show. She had access to the victim’s dressing room before the victim arrived. She provided and delivered the bottled water that held the poison. She had motive. And”—he looked up from the file to emphasize his final point—“Jillian’s fingerprints were found on the water bottle in question.”
“Wait just a minute,” Abby said angrily. “What motive could she possibly have? Are you talking about a falling-out the women had ten years ago?”
“Detective,” I said, jumping in, “we have the names of other people who were also backstage before the show, who also had access to the victim’s dressing room, and who had strong motives.”
“Bring me hard evidence,” he said. “I’d be happy to take a look at it.”
“We do have hard evidence,” Abby said. “The victim’s ex-husband, Donald Blackburn, was caught on security camera video leaving the backstage area before the show started. We also have eyewitness testimony to him being backstage.”
“We’ve reviewed that video footage,” Walters explained. “I talked to Mr. Blackburn personally and subsequently cleared him. There is no evidence pinning him to the murder.”
“There are two more suspects with strong motives,” Abby countered. “Have you cleared them, as well?”
“Mrs. Salvare,” Walters said with a heavy sigh, “I suggest you drop this investigation and go on home to Indiana. Without any further evidence, I’m afraid you’re just wasting our time. Now, if you’ll please excuse me,” he said, sliding a pile of paperwork across his messy desk, “I have a job to do.”
That was the problem. Going by what Bob Maguire had told us, Walters wasn’t doing his job. What he meant to say was, “Leave me alone so I can close this case and retire.”
I looked at Abby and saw stony determination in her gaze. There was no way she was going to drop the investigation. We either had to bring Walters the evidence he needed or solve the case ourselves.
* * *
At eight thirty that evening, Case pulled into the riverboat’s on-shore entrance and circled the enormous lot. After parking at the far end, the three of us got out of the Jeep. In front of us, across the water, stood the riverboat, which didn’t seem all that large at first glance. It was sided in white, with an enormous neon sign in flashing blue letters above it: BLACKBURN CASINO.
The riverboat was docked in an inlet off Lake Michigan, just a few miles away from the fairgrounds. We crossed a wide bridge to get onto the boat, then walked in through ornate sliding-glass doors, stepping into a vast, low-ceilinged, dimly lit room filled with people, slot machines, gaming tables, and noise—lots of noise. I flexed my fingers and curled them at my sides. Crowds and noise. I was already feeling anxious.
“Let’s head to the bar,” Case said loudly. “It’s at the back of the room.”
He led the way through the packed room to a long, polished wood bar that ran across the end of the boat. For a weekday evening, the place seemed very crowded, but the bar was mostly empty. We took seats on padded red bar stools, Abby on one side of me and Case on the other. Case leaned in. “What would you ladies like to drink?”
“I’ll have a glass of cabernet,” Abby said. “I need to calm down.”
“Make that two,” I added.
Case motioned to the bartender and placed our orders. “Is Donald around this evening?” he asked the man.
“He’s around here someplace,” the bartender said, stretching his neck to look around the room. “Who wants to know?”
“Just a couple of old friends,” Case answered casually.
The bartender, who seemed unconvinced, studied us as he uncorked the cabernet and filled our glasses.
We sipped our drinks and waited for a while but saw no sign of Donald. What I did notice was the bartender slipping away momentarily to the other side of the bar, where he picked up a telephone and had a short conversation. I suddenly had an eerie feeling of being watched, as if the multitude of cameras above our heads were all pointing directly at us.
We had only partially finished our drinks when Case spotted him and pointed him out to us. Donald Blackburn was a stocky man of medium height, with thick, short brown hair combed back off a high forehead. He wore a black T-shirt with the Blackburn Casino logo on the front and a pair of light denim blue jeans with black sneakers. He approached the casino bar with two burly men dressed in black T-shirts and baseball caps.
“You looking for me?” Donald asked bluntly.
“Mr. Blackburn, I’m Case Donnelly with the Greene Street Detective Agency. This is my partner, Athena Spencer, and this is Abby Salvare, also a private investigator.”
“You’re private eyes?” Donald’s eyebrows pulled together. Then he turned to his bodyguards and made some kind of joke at our expense. The two men laughed heartily while Donald turned back to face us. “You don’t look like detectives to me.”
Ignoring his remark, Case continued, “We’d like to talk to you about Carly.”
Donald’s expression hardened, and his jaw pulsed with anger. “I have nothing to say about Carly. And just so you know, the police have already cleared me.” He motioned to his two bodyguards, and they turned around to leave. Before Donald could follow them, Abby made her move.
“Do the police know about your argument with Carly on the night she died?” she asked.
Donald instantly turned his glare on her. “What argument?”
Abby showed him a narrow strip of paper. “This is a receipt from the Back to the Fuchsia flower shop for a bouquet of roses you purchased on the day of Carly’s murder. Those same roses were found backstage in a garbage can. Would you like to explain what happened, or should we let the police know about the argument?”
Donald continued to glare at her, then he shifted his gaze to Case and then to me and finally back to Abby. “That’s not bad detective work. Maybe I was wrong about you.”
“Is there somewhere we can talk privately,” Case asked, “or would you rather we ask our questions here?”
“Follow me.”
We followed Donald through a door on one side of the bar and down a narrow hallway to a room paneled in dark wood, with a long dark wood table down the center. I turned to see the two bodyguards take positions outside the door. Inside, the room was much quieter, allowing me to relax and focus.
The room was lined with long windows looking out onto Lake Michigan. The sunlight shining throughout the room was in stark contrast to the soft, gloomy yellow glow of the casino. We waited until Donald had taken a seat at the head of the table, then joined him. Case, Abby, and I took the seats to his left so our backs were against the sunlight. I took the iPad from my purse and opened the file marked Donald.
“I can explain,” he began. He used two hands to smooth back his hair from his forehead, as though he was trying to compose himself. “First of all, the police know about the flowers. That’s not new information. Like I said before, I’ve spoken with Detective Walters, and I’ve been cleared. But I can understand why you’re not satisfied with the detective’s investigation. I don’t think the redhead did it, either, but I’m not going to cooperate with you if you treat me like a suspect.”
Abby’s tone was very matter-of-fact. “The redhead’s name is Jillian. She’s my cousin, and I’m going to treat everyone like a suspect until I find Carly’s killer.”
“You’re looking in the wrong place, doll,” Donald said. “You’re wasting your time on me.”
“ ‘Doll’?” Abby fired back.
Case jumped in. “Just let us ask our questions so we can get this over with.”
Donald folded his arms across his broad chest and sat back. “Go ahead, hotshot.”
Case lowered his eyebrows and gave Donald a piercing look, but Donald didn’t seem to notice. I, on the other hand, took note of Case’s beleaguered expression. I hadn’t ever seen him anger so easily.
Abby used the awkward silence to flip through her notepad and then started the interview without hesitation. “I’d still like to hear your explanation,” she said. “Why did you show up at the fashion show with flowers?”
“I brought them to the show because I needed to talk to Carly. It was important that I talk to her that day, so I brought the flowers to make things right between us.”
“You wanted to make things right by giving her flowers,” Abby restated.
“Why not? I’d tried everything else.” Donald looked out one of the windows facing the water. “She kept ignoring me.” He continued to stare, as if his answer was sufficient, but then rocked back in his chair, facing us again. “I figured she would appreciate a nice gift, a peace offering, so to speak.”
“You made her angry, Donald,” Abby said. “She threw the flowers in the trash.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “That’s Carly for you.”
“Is that really why you went there?” Case asked.
Donald tilted his head, his eyes narrowed at Case. “Why do you think I was there? What’s your conclusion, detective?”
“You were angry with her, weren’t you?” Case asked. “Because she received the land in the divorce settlement. The land intended for your brand-new casino.”
Donald chuckled at Case’s conclusion as if it were amusing. “I gave Carly the land. That was all she asked for in the settlement. Guess again.”
“But that’s not all she wanted,” Case continued. “She also filed for full custody of your son.”
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “I was very angry about that. I’m a damn good father.”
“Carly must not have thought so,” I said.
“Forget about what Carly thought,” he retorted. “You don’t have the whole story.”
“Then tell us the whole story,” Case said. “Why was it so important to talk to Carly at the fashion show?”
“That’s not where the story starts.” Donald sat back, once again folding his arms across his chest. “What do you know about Ed and Hope Louvain?”