TWENTY-FOUR
At first, when she began to waken on Saturday morning, she lay with her eyes closed, snuggling more comfortably into the warm curve of Rex’s body, feeling his moist breath against her neck, breathing in the male scent of him. She smiled, remembering their lovemaking that had lasted into the early morning hours. That was how sleeping with a man should be. Rex had given her a sense of rightness—of wholeness and belonging—so different from the feeling of fragmentation and inadequacy she had felt with Chuck.
“Awake?” he murmured into her ear and brushed her cheek with a kiss.
“Almost. I’ll open my eyes if you’ll promise not to disappear.”
“Promise.”
She opened her eyes, seeing the morning’s dull gray light illumine a jute-covered wall, a brown leather chair, the polished floor. Her big toe touched the smooth mahogany of the four-poster bed. A man’s room.
“Glad you stayed?” He raked his fingers through his hair in the familiar gesture she knew so well.
“Very glad.” Reluctantly, she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She groped for her shoes, her clothes.
“For one who’s so very glad, you seem in a hurry to leave.” He pulled her into the curve of his arm. “I’ll make breakfast. It’s Saturday and we have the whole weekend ahead of us. How would you like to spend it?”
“Don’t tempt me.” She kissed him lightly. “A detective working on a case can’t afford to think in terms of free weekends.” She hoped she sounded sincere. Nothing would have pleased her more than to spend Saturday and Sunday with him, yet she held back. He had made it clear that he was avoiding commitments and she had announced that she didn’t want to be involved in a relationship at this time. Yet when she slept with a man she tended to feel involved. Deeply involved. Rex’s lovemaking, his total approval, affected her like a narcotic. She wanted more. Before she became totally hooked, she needed to distance herself from him—to be on guard. Her life had changed and she wasn’t sure she liked the direction it had taken.
She dressed quickly as he watched from his cocoon of blankets, then he rose.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Let me walk. I need to walk.” She kissed him and tried to leave, but he held her.
“Have dinner with me tonight?”
“It’s a deal. I’ll cook the grouper.” She kissed him once again, then let herself out of the house. He didn’t stop her. The short walk through the gusting wind refreshed her, and nobody noticed her quiet entry into her apartment. The children were watching TV cartoons, and she heard Randy and Diane talking in the kitchen.
She had barely reached her room, showered, and changed into fresh clothing when her telephone rang.
“Dear child, I need to talk to you right away. Could you run over for a cup of coffee?”
“Of course, Beck. What’s up?”
“Tell you when you get here. The coffee’s on.”
Katie ran a comb through her hair, grabbed her shoulder bag, and left the apartment as quietly as she had entered, walking through the garden gate to Hibiscus House where Beck waited in the doorway.
“Hope I didn’t waken you.” Beck thrust her hands deeply into the pockets of her lavender jumpsuit as she watched Katie climb the steps to the porch.
“I’m an early riser.” She felt her face flush. Had Beck called earlier? Had she seen her come in just now? No matter. “What’s the big news? Have you learned something important about the case?”
“Perhaps.” Beck led her to the kitchen and they sat at a round oak table next to an industrial-sized stove. “Weather’s not fit for a sea urchin today, but it’s cozy in here. My cooks won’t arrive for an hour or so.” She poured their coffee from a blue china pot then offered Katie a pineapple-filled sweet roll.
“Just coffee, thanks.” Katie sipped the brew and felt herself gradually coming to life.
“Katie, didn’t you tell me that Elizabeth Wright was in Naples on business at the time of Alexa’s murder?”
“Yes. That’s what Elizabeth told me—that she left on that Monday morning and didn’t return until Tuesday afternoon. I checked with Mac’s friend at the airport. He confirmed her story from airport records.”
“That’s very strange. I talked again with Angie. I had mentioned nothing about Elizabeth Wright. We were discussing Angie’s visit to Miami.”
“Recent visit?” Katie asked, puzzled as to where the conversation was heading.
“On the morning of Alexa’s murder, Angie was in Miami seeing a gynecologist. She suspected she was pregnant so she avoided visiting a local doctor. In this town nothing stays a secret very long.”
“Nothing except the identity of Alexa’s murderer.” She cupped her hands around her coffee cup, enjoying its warmth.
“Angie was embarrassed because she almost ran face-to-face into Elizabeth Wright in Miami.”
“Where did they meet? A gynecologist’s office? Elizabeth’s not preg…”
“They didn’t exactly meet. Angie stepped into a bank to write a check so she could pay the gynecologist in cash, and she saw Elizabeth in the bank lobby. She recognized her because she had waited on her many times—sometimes here at Hibiscus House and sometimes at Rico’s. She didn’t think Elizabeth would recognize or remember her, but she wasn’t sure.”
“Then they didn’t speak.”
“No. Angie ducked from Elizabeth’s sight, got her cash, and left the bank.”
“Interesting.” Katie sipped her coffee. “Wright buys a round-trip ticket to Naples, yet she’s seen in Miami.”
“Why?” Beck poured them more coffee. “If she was going to Miami, why wouldn’t she have bought a ticket to Miami?”
“Good question. Why? I’ve kept her on my list, and I’ll look into this bit of subterfuge—if that’s what it is.”
“Your list?”
“The list of suspects you suggested I make.”
Beck laughed. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Well I did make a list and Wright was on it. Her alibi seemed convincing on the surface, and airport officials corroborated it, yet something about her puzzles me. I feel warning vibes every time I think of her.”
“And now this.”
“Yes. And now this. Thanks for telling me about Angie’s experience. Wright may have flown to and from Naples as she claims, but she could have rented a car in Naples and driven to Miami. In fact, now that I think about it, she could have driven to Key West from Naples or from Miami, killed Alexa, driven back to Naples, and caught her scheduled flight home.”
“Could you ever prove she did that?”
“With a lot of leg work, I might be able to. I’d have to go to Naples and talk with car rental people. They keep careful records. If Wright rented a car, there’s a record of it somewhere.”
“Could she have used a phony name?”
“Anything’s possible. It’s easy to get fake IDs.”
“She could have borrowed a car from a friend,” Beck said.
“That would be harder to check on.”
“Will you try?”
“I don’t know yet, but several things about Elizabeth Wright don’t ring true. I’m not through thinking about her and about what bearing she may have on the Chitting case.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Not just yet, but you’ve given me fresh facts to think about. Sometimes plugging into another person’s thinking helps me see the fallacies in my own reasoning.”
“You miss your partner, don’t you?”
“Yes. We bounce ideas off each other when we’re on a case, but I’d really like to solve Alexa’s murder on my own.”
“Success builds confidence. Why not tell me your thoughts about Elizabeth Wright? I’ll try to be impartial, but frankly there’s something about that woman I detest.”
“She won’t let me see any of the documents concerning the Cayo Hueso project. They’re public information, yet I can’t get to see them and that stinks.”
“What reason does she give?”
“First she said they were in Tallahassee, but when I called that office they said copies of the documents were in Key West. When I confronted her with that information, she made a pretense of having her secretary search for the file, but of course it was missing. The secretary seemed genuinely surprised, but Elizabeth didn’t.”
“A file missing right when it’s needed. Some coincidence.”
“Yeah. For some reason she’s withholding that file. And she acts smug about it, too.”
“Why wouldn’t she want you to see it?”
“Good question. I’m certainly no expert on blueprints or contracts.”
“Maybe she resents your friendship with Rex. Being difficult could be her way of getting even.”
“She may be using the file as a red herring. Maybe she’s flaunting her authority to try to keep my attention focused on those papers so I’ll overlook something else that’s far more important to the Chitting case.”
“That’s an interesting thought. What did you hope to find in the documents?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes a detective never knows what he’s interested in until he sees it. But since that housing project loomed uppermost in Alexa Chitting’s thinking, I thought the papers might in some way reveal clues that could lead to her murderer.” Katie eased her chair from the table and stood.
“There’s still more coffee.”
“Thanks, but I must go. I appreciate your sharing this information. I feel sure that it fits into this tangle somewhere. Now I have to figure out where.”
“You’re welcome, dear child.” Beck followed Katie to the steps. “Let me know how your investigation progresses.”
“I will.”
Instead of going home, Katie jogged through the chilly morning to her office. Beck’s story galvanized her into action. Elizabeth Wright’s alibi sucked. Her refusal to relinquish the Cayo Hueso file not only piqued Katie’s curiosity, but it also rekindled her anger. She prepared to take action that could either fast forward her investigation or cause her a multiplicity of police problems.
Saturday. A good time for breaking and entering. The Office of Community Affairs would be closed for the weekend. She tucked her picklocks, miniature tape recorder, and the tiny camera she used for photographing documents into her shoulder bag and headed for Simonton Street.