As Hammond pulled away from the Pettijohn mansion, he hoped to God that he never would have to cross-examine Davee on the witness stand, for two very good reasons.
First, he and Davee were friends. He liked her. She was hardly a pillar of virtue, but he respected her for not pretending to be. When she claimed not to be a hypocrite, it wasn’t an empty boast.
He knew dozens of women who gossiped viciously about her but who were no more moral than she. The difference was that they sinned in secret. Davee sinned flamboyantly. She was considered vain and selfish, and she was. But it was a reputation she herself cultivated. She deliberately spoon-fed her critics reasons to shudder over her behavior. None realized that the persona they censured wasn’t the real Davee.
The finer aspects of her personality Davee kept concealed. Hammond reasoned the charade was her self-defensive mechanism against getting hurt even more than her childhood already had hurt her. She turned people away before they had an opportunity to reject her.
Maxine Burton had been a lousy mother. Davee and her sisters had been deprived of Maxine’s attention and affection. She had done nothing to earn their love or devotion. Nevertheless, Davee visited her mother faithfully each week at the elite nursing facility where she was confined.
Not only did Davee finance and oversee her mother’s care, she was directly involved with it, taking care of Maxine’s personal needs herself during her routine visits. Probably he was the only person who knew that, and he wouldn’t have known had Sarah Birch not confided it to him.
The second reason he wouldn’t want to cross-examine Davee at trial was because she lied so beguilingly. Listening to her was such a delight, one ceased to care whether or not she was telling the truth.
Jurors found witnesses like her entertaining. If she were called to testify, she would arrive at court dressed fit to kill. Her appearance alone would make the jury sit up and take notice. While they might doze through the testimony of other witnesses, they would listen to and anticipate every sugar-coated word dripping from Davee’s lips.
If she testified that, while she hadn’t killed Lute, she wasn’t sorry he was dead, that he had been an unfaithful husband who cheated on her too many times to count, that he was basically wicked and cruel and deserved to die, jurors of both sexes would probably agree. She would have persuaded them that the son of a bitch’s character and misdeeds justified his murder.
No, he wouldn’t want to put Davee on trial for her husband’s murder. But if it came down to that, he would.
Being awarded this case was the best thing that could have happened to his career. He hoped that Smilow’s team would provide him plenty to work with, that the accused wouldn’t plead out, that the case would actually go to jury trial.
This was a case he could sink his teeth into. Certainly it would be challenging. It would require his total focus. But it also would be an excellent proving ground. He fully intended to run for county solicitor in November. He wanted to win. But he didn’t want to win because he was more attractive, or had a better pedigree, or was better funded than the other candidate or candidates. He wanted to merit the office.
Only rarely did a muscle-flexing case like the Lute Pettijohn murder come along. That’s why he needed it. That’s why he had omitted telling Monroe Mason about his meeting with Pettijohn. He simply had to have this case, and he was unwilling to let anything stand in his way of taking it to trial. It was the perfect vehicle to give him the public exposure he needed before November.
It was also the perfect vehicle to spite his father.
That was the most compelling reason of all. Several years before, Hammond had made a career decision to move from defender to prosecutor. Preston Cross had vociferously opposed that decision, citing the differences in earning potential and telling Hammond he was crazy to settle for a public servant’s salary. Not long ago Hammond had learned that a prosecutor’s income level wasn’t his father’s major hang-up.
The switch had placed them in opposite camps. Because Preston was partners with Lute Pettijohn in some unscrupulous land deals, he had feared being prosecuted by his own son. Only recently had Hammond made that discovery. It had sickened him. Their confrontation over it had been bitter, adding a new dimension to the enmity between them.
But he couldn’t think about that right now. Whenever he dwelled on his father, he became mentally bogged down. Peeling away the layers of their relationship for closer examination was time-consuming, emotionally draining, and ultimately unproductive. He held out little hope for a complete reconciliation.
For the time being, he shelved that problem and focused on what had immediately become his priority—the case.
The timing of his breakup with Steffi had been fortuitous. He was free of an encumbrance that was making him unhappy and might have hindered his concentration. She would be pissed to learn that she’d been assigned the copilot’s seat, but he could deal with her peevishness as the need arose.
For Hammond Cross, today spelled a new start—which actually had begun last night.
Steering his car away from the Pettijohn mansion with one hand, he reached into his breast pocket for the slip of paper he had tucked there earlier and consulted the address he’d written down.
* * *
Breathlessly, Steffi barged into the hospital room. “I got here as fast as I could. What’ve I missed?”
Smilow had reached her on her cell phone shortly before she left Hammond’s place. As promised, he had called when the attending physician granted permission for his patients to be questioned.
“I want in on this, Smilow,” she had told him over the phone.
“I can’t wait on you. The doctor might rescind the offer if I don’t jump on it.”
“Okay, but go slow. I’m on my way.”
Hammond’s condominium neighborhood wasn’t far from the hospital complex. Even so, she had exceeded every speed limit to get here. She was very anxious to know if the food poisoning patients had seen anyone near the penthouse suite of Pettijohn’s hotel.
Following her abrupt arrival, she paused in the doorway for a moment, then crossed the tile floor toward the hospital bed. The patient in it was a man about fifty years old, whose face was the color of bread dough and whose eyes were sunken into his skull and rimmed with dark circles. His right hand was hooked up to an IV drip. A bedpan and a kidney-bean-shaped basin were within easy reach on the bedside table.
A woman that Steffi presumed was his wife was seated in a chair beside the bed. She didn’t look sick, just exhausted. She was still dressed for sight-seeing, wearing sneakers, walking shorts, and a T-shirt on which was spelled out in glittering letters: GIRLS RAISED IN THE SOUTH.
Smilow, who was standing beside the bed, made the introductions. “Mr. and Mrs. Daniels, Steffi Mundell. Ms. Mundell is from the district attorney’s office. She’s closely involved with the investigation.”
“Hello, Mr. Daniels.”
“Hi.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“I’ve stopped praying for death.”
“I guess that indicates some improvement.” She looked across him at his wife. “You didn’t get sick, Mrs. Daniels?”
“I had the she-crab soup,” she replied with a wan smile.
“The Daniels are the last ones I’ve talked to,” Smilow said. “The others in their group couldn’t help us.”
“Can they?”
“Mr. Daniels is a definite maybe.”
Seeming none too happy about it, the man in the bed grumbled, “I might have seen somebody.”
Failing to curb her impatience, Steffi pressed him for accuracy. “Either you saw somebody or you didn’t.”
Mrs. Daniels came to her feet. “He’s very tired. Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow? After he’s had another night’s rest?”
Instantly Steffi saw her mistake and forced herself to relent. “I’m sorry. Forgive me for being so abrasive. I’m afraid I’ve picked up a few bad habits from the people I prosecute. I’m accustomed to dealing with killers, thieves, and rapists, usually repeat offenders, not nice folks like you. It’s not too often I get to interact with tax-paying, law-abiding, God-fearing people.” After that speech, she didn’t dare look at Smilow, knowing that she would see derision in his expression.
Gnawing her lower lip, Mrs. Daniels consulted her husband. “It’s up to you, honey. Do you feel like doing this now?”
Steffi had sized them up and immediately concluded that there would be no contest between her I.Q. and theirs. She took advantage of their indecision to do some more manipulating. “Of course if you want to wait until morning for our questions, that’s fine, Mr. Daniels. But please understand our position. A leader in our community has been murdered in cold blood. He was shot in the back with no provocation. None that we’ve determined, anyway.” She let that sink in, then added, “We hope to catch this brutal killer before he has another opportunity to strike.”
“Then I can’t help you.”
All were taken aback by Mr. Daniels’s unexpected declaration. Smilow was the first to find his voice. “How do you know you can’t help?”
“Because Ms. Mundell here said the killer was a ‘he,’ and the person I saw was a woman.”
Steffi and Smilow exchanged a glance. “I used the pronoun generically,” she explained.
“Oh, well, it was a woman I saw,” Daniels said, settling back against his pillow. “She didn’t look like a killer, though.”
“Could you elaborate on that?” Steffi asked.
“You mean what she looked like?”
“Start at the beginning and talk us through,” Smilow suggested.
“Well, we—that is, our choir group—left the hotel directly after lunch. About an hour into our tour, I started feeling queasy. At first I thought it was the heat. But a couple of the kids with us had already got sick with upset stomachs, so I suspected it was more than that. I got to feeling worse by the minute. Finally, I told my wife that I was going back to the hotel, take some Pepto or something, and would catch up later.”
Mrs. Daniels confirmed all this with a solemn nod.
“By the time I’d walked back, I was on the verge of… of being real sick. I was afraid I wasn’t going to make it to my room in time.”
“When did you see the woman?” Steffi asked, wishing he would get to the point sooner rather than later.
“When I got to our room.”
“Which was on the fifth floor,” Smilow verified.
“Five oh six,” Daniels said. “I noticed another person at the end of the hall and glanced in that direction. She was standing outside another door.”
“Doing what?” Smilow asked.
“Doing nothing. Just facing the door, like she had knocked and was waiting for somebody to answer.”
“How far away from you was she?”
“Hmm, not far. But pretty far. I didn’t think twice about it. You know how awkward it is when you make eye contact with a stranger and you’re the only two around? It was like that. You don’t want to seem either too standoffish or too friendly. Got to be careful of folks these days.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I just glanced her way. Truth is, I wasn’t thinking of anything except getting to the bathroom.”
“But you got a good look at her?”
“Not that good.”
“Good enough to determine her age?”
“She wasn’t old. But not a girl, either. About your age,” he said to Steffi.
“Ethnic?”
“No.”
“Tall, short?”
Daniels winced and rubbed a spot on his lower abdomen. “Honey?” his wife said, anxiously picking up the basin and tucking it under his chin.
He pushed it aside. “Just a mild cramp.”
“Want some Sprite?”
“A sip.” Mrs. Daniels brought the covered cup to his lips and he sucked through the bent straw. When he was finished, he looked at Smilow again. “What’d you ask… oh, her height?” He shook his head. “Didn’t notice. Not too extreme one way or the other. I guess about average.”
“Hair color? Was she blond?” Steffi asked.
“Not too.”
“Not too?” Smilow repeated.
“Not too blond. It didn’t strike me that she was a Marilyn Monroe type, know what I mean? But her hair wasn’t dark, either. Sorta medium.”
“Mr. Daniels, could you give us a general body description?”
“You mean was she… like fat?”
“Was she?”
“No.”
“Thin?”
“Yeah. More thin. Well, sorta thin, I guess you could say. See, I really didn’t pay her much mind. I was just trying to keep from having a god-awful accident out there in the hall.”
“I think that’s all he can tell you,” Mrs. Daniels said to them. “If you think of something else to ask, you can come back tomorrow.”
“One final question, please,” Smilow said. “Did you actually see this woman go into Mr. Pettijohn’s room?”
“Nope. Quick as I could, I unlocked my door with that credit-card-looking thing and went inside.” He rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “For that matter, I don’t know if it was the room where the guy got killed or not. It could have been any room down the hallway from mine.”
“It was the penthouse suite. The door is slightly recessed,” Steffi said. “It’s different from the others. If we pointed out Mr. Pettijohn’s suite to you, would you be able to determine if that was the door you saw the woman standing in front of?”
“I seriously doubt it. As I told you before, I only glanced down the hall. It registered with me that there was a woman standing at a door waiting for it to be opened. That’s all.”
“You’re sure she wasn’t stepping out of it, leaving it?”
“No, I’m not sure.” Daniels was beginning to sound querulous. “But that wasn’t the impression I got. There was nothing unusual about her or the situation. Honestly, if you folks hadn’t asked, I never would have thought of her again. You asked did I see anybody in the hallway yesterday afternoon, and that’s who I saw.”
Mrs. Daniels intervened again. Steffi and Smilow apologized for having to bother him, thanked him for the information, wished him a speedy recovery, and left.
Out in the hospital corridor, Smilow was glum. “Great. We have an eyewitness who saw a woman standing not too far away from him, but pretty far, who may or may not have been standing outside Pettijohn’s suite. She was neither old nor young. She was average height. ‘Sorta medium’ hair and ‘sorta thin.’ ”
“I’m disappointed but not surprised,” Steffi said. “I doubted he would remember anything given his preoccupation at the time.”
“Shit,” Smilow swore.
“Precisely.”
Then they looked at one another and laughed, and were still laughing when Mrs. Daniels emerged from her husband’s room. “He’s finally talked me into returning to the hotel. I haven’t been back since the ambulance brought us here. Are you going down?” she asked politely as the elevator arrived.
“Not just yet,” Steffi told her. “I’ve got other business to discuss with Detective Smilow.”
“Good luck with solving the mystery.”
They thanked her for her cooperation and willingness to help, then Steffi motioned Smilow toward the waiting room, which was presently empty. When they were seated in facing armchairs, he bluntly informed her that Hammond Cross would be prosecuting the Pettijohn case.
“Mason awarded it to his golden boy.”
Making no effort to mask her disappointment or resentment, she asked when he had learned this.
“Earlier this evening. Chief Crane called and told me because I had campaigned for you.”
“Thanks. For all the good it did me,” she said bitterly. “When was I supposed to be told of this development?”
“Tomorrow, I guess.”
Hammond hadn’t known about Pettijohn’s murder until she told him. It must have been Mason’s call he had received while she was still there. It was doubly galling that moments after ending their affair, he had beat her out of a career-making case.
Smilow said, “Davee Pettijohn pulled strings.”
“Just as she promised.”
“She said she never settles for second best. Apparently she thinks you are.”
“That’s not it. Not entirely, anyway. She would much rather have a man working on her behalf than another woman.”
“Good point. Better chemistry. Besides, her family and the Crosses have been friends for decades.”
“It’s not what you know, but who.”
After a moment of silent reflection, Steffi stood up and slipped the strap of her heavy valise over her shoulder. “Since I’m no longer—”
Smilow waved her back into her chair. “Mason threw you a bone. Act surprised when he gives you official notice in the morning.”
“What kind of bone?”
“You’re to assist Hammond.”
“No surprise there. A case like this requires at least two good heads.” Sensing there was more, she queried Smilow with a raised eyebrow. “And?”
“And it’s your responsibility to serve as a barrier between us and keep the interaction friendly. Failing that, you’re to try and prevent bloodshed.”
“Mason’s words to your chief?”
“I’m paraphrasing.” He smiled grimly. “But don’t worry overmuch. I doubt it’ll come to bloodshed.”
“I’m not so sure. I’ve seen you two on the verge of what appeared to be mortal combat. What’s that about, anyway?”
“We hate the sight of each other.”
“That much I know, Smilow. What brought it on?”
“Long story.”
“For another time?”
“Maybe.”
It frustrated her that he didn’t commit to telling her. She would like to know the circumstances behind his and Hammond’s virulent dislike for one another. They were entirely different personality types, of course. Smilow’s aloofness repelled people, and unless she was way off base, that was by design. Hammond was charismatic. Close friendships with him were earned, but he was friendly and approachable. Smilow was fastidious and impeccably groomed, while Hammond’s attractiveness was natural and effortless. In college Smilow would have been the one guy in class who aced the exam and ruined the grading curve for everyone else. Hammond’s grades were excellent, too, but he also had been a popular student leader and star athlete. Both were overachievers, but one’s accomplishments were hard-earned, while to the other they came easily.
Steffi could identify more closely with Smilow. She understood and could relate to his resentment of Hammond, a resentment compounded by Hammond’s own attitude toward his advantages. He did not exploit them. Moreover, he rejected them. Spurning his trust fund, he lived on what he earned. His condo was nice, but he could have afforded much better. His only extravagances were his sailboat and his cabin, but he never advertised that he owned either.
He would be much easier to hate if he flaunted his privileges.
It would be interesting, to say nothing of useful, to know the source of the antipathy between him and Smilow. They were on the same side of the law, working toward a common goal, and yet they seemed more disdainful of each other than they were of unredeemable criminals.
“Must be hard,” Smilow said, drawing her out of her musings.
“What?”
“Constantly competing with Hammond on a professional level, but sleeping with him at night. Or is it that competitive edge that makes the affair so exciting?”
For once Steffi was taken completely off guard. She stared at him with mute astonishment.
“You’re wondering how I know?” His smile was so cold it sent chills up her spine. “Process of elimination. He’s the only man around the judicial building who hasn’t boasted of getting there.” He looked pointedly at her lap. “I put two and two together, and your stunned reaction to my lucky guess just confirmed it.”
His smugness was insufferable, but she refused to act angry or upset, which would have pleased him immensely. Instead she kept her features expressionless and her voice cool. “Why so interested in my love life, Smilow? Jealous?”
He actually laughed. “Flirtation doesn’t flatter you, Steffi.”
“Go to hell.”
Unfazed, he continued. “Deductive reasoning is my business. I’m good at it.”
“What do you intend to do with this juicy tidbit of information?”
“Nothing,” he said with a negligent shrug. “It just amuses me that the golden boy has compromised his professional ethics. Is his armor beginning to tarnish? Just a little?”
“Sleeping with a colleague isn’t exactly a hanging offense. As transgressions go, it’s a hand-slapper.”
“True. But for Hammond Cross, it’s practically a mortal sin. Otherwise, why keep it a secret?”
“Well, you can stop your gloating. There’s no longer a secret to keep. The affair is over. True,” she said when he gave her a sharply suspicious look.
“As of when?”
She consulted her wristwatch. “Two hours and eighteen minutes ago.”
“Really? Before or after Mason gave him the case?”
“One had nothing to do with the other,” she said testily.
A corner of his thin lips twitched with a near smile. “You’re sure of that?”
“Positive. You might as well know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Detective. Hammond dumped me. Flat. End of discussion.”
“Why?”
“I got the standard ‘we’re moving in opposing directions’ speech, which usually translates to ‘been there, done that, and I’m ready to try a new vacation spot.’ ”
“Hmm. Do you know of any resorts he plans to visit?”
“None. And a woman can usually tell.”
“So can a man.”
His tone conveyed more than the four words. Steffi regarded him closely. “Why, Rory! Is it even remotely possible that Mr. Ice in Veins was once in l-o-v-e?”
“Excuse me?” They hadn’t noticed the nurse’s approach until she spoke to them. “My patient…” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder indicating Mr. Daniels’s room. “He wanted to know if you had left. When I told him you were out here, he asked me to tell you that he remembered something that might help you.”
Before she had finished speaking, they were on their feet.