Chapter Eighty-One

A 911 call was the right move but Furyk wasn’t ready. Felicia was dead and no EMT was going to bring her back. Cordoza was unconscious at the very least, but not forever. Furyk needed to think, and the pooling blood on the tiled floor was less a distraction than Merrill’s wide eyes and his concern that the scene would push her over the edge. He needed her to keep cool long enough for him to figure this out.

“Merrill.” Her eyes were still on the dead girl. “Merrill,” he barked harder this time and stood. She looked up and focused on him. “I need a glass of water. From the sink.” He pointed where he wanted her to go, which would put the body, as well as Cordoza, briefly out of sight, blocked by the island in the center of the kitchen. She pushed off the floor to help herself up and hesitatingly took a step toward Felicia, the natural path to the sink. Furyk moved to her and took her shoulder firmly, turning her in the other direction to go around the far side of the island. She was pliant and trembling. While she went through the motions of taking down a glass and letting the water run cold, Furyk tried to do the calculation. Cordoza had been aiming for Merrill when she collapsed after hearing about her husband’s complicity in pimping his young clients, at least it seemed he was shooting for Merrill. Was hitting Felicia just a lucky shot? Furyk’s next move would depend on what the reason for Cordoza being there was. No way he could have known Furyk would be there too. But maybe he knew about Felicia. If Merrill had called someone, told her the girl was here, they could have sent Cordoza. She opened the door the instant Furyk had rung the bell, as though she had been waiting for someone

“Merrill.” She turned, glass empty and the faucet running at full. “Did you tell anyone Felicia was here?” She nodded, then turned back to the faucet. Like a child. “Merrill, who did you call?” One question at a time.

“I, oh, I…” She frowned at the stream of water, as though searching for an answer. The second dead body in her kitchen was no easier than the first. She felt sanity slipping away. “I called Perry. He said he would come over. He would know what to do.”

Furyk didn’t have to ask the next question – whether she told the lawyer what the girl had said. The only thing Furyk needed to know was whether Margolin was about to walk in the door. That would have been the attorney’s natural instinct – to tell his client to keep the girl there, believing she was no danger since Merrill had been able to call without being under a threat, and then use the girl to exonerate Merrill. If he didn’t show up, then he’d made his own call and wouldn’t be coming by the Wick house until contacted by the police to be told his client had been killed.

Merrill finally filled the glass and began to walk toward Furyk. He went to her instead and took it. “Merrill, how long ago did you call Perry?”

She seemed more sure of the answer to that. “Oh, I remember looking at the clock, because the jewelry show on Home Shopping Network was about to start. It was a couple minutes before 10:00.”

Furyk looked at his watch. It was 10:48 a.m. The lawyer wasn’t coming. He’d sent Cordoza instead.