It was almost noon by the time Hammond reached the judicial building. On his way past the receptionist’s desk, he asked her to bring him a cup of coffee. He wasn’t happy to see Steffi lying in wait for him inside his office.
To his further annoyance, she took one look at him and said, “Rough night?”
He hadn’t returned home until nearly dawn. Once he fell asleep, he had slept hard for several hours. When he finally woke up, he cursed the time he read on his bedside clock. He didn’t need Steffi to point out how late a start he was getting on the day.
“What happened to your thumb?”
It had taken two Band-Aids to cover the gash. “I cut myself shaving.”
“Hairy thumbs?”
“What’s up, Steffi?”
“Smilow’s got some more evidence on its way up to SLED. He’s hoping for a hair match.”
He hid his inward knee-jerk reaction by calmly going about his business—setting his briefcase on his desk, shrugging off his suit jacket and hanging it up, flipping through a stack of mail and phone messages. Studying one, he asked absently, “Which case?”
Extremely perturbed, Steffi folded her arms across her waist. “The Lute Pettijohn murder case, Hammond.”
He sat down behind his desk and thanked the receptionist when she brought in a cup of coffee. “Want one, Steffi?”
“No, thanks.” None too gently she closed the door behind the departing receptionist. “Now that you’re settled and have your coffee, may we please discuss this latest development?”
“Smilow found a hair in Pettijohn’s hotel suite?”
“Correct.”
“And he’s having it matched to…?”
“To one he took from Alex Ladd’s hairbrush this morning during the search.”
That jolted him. “Search?”
“He obtained a warrant first thing this morning. They’ve already conducted the search.”
“I didn’t even know he was going for a warrant. Did you?”
“Not until a while ago.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I saw no reason to until we had something.”
“It’s my case, Steffi.”
“Well, you’re sure as hell not acting like it is,” she said, raising her voice.
“How am I acting?”
“You figure it out. For starters you might ask yourself why you’re dragging in here so late. Don’t get mad at me because you weren’t here when things started rolling.”
They glared at each other across his desk. He was angry over being excluded from the tight loop that she had formed with Smilow. They were practically joined at the hip over this case. But, as much as he hated to admit it, her arguments were valid. He was angry at himself and at the situation, and he was taking it out on her.
“Anything else?” he asked in a more civil tone.
“He got the cloves, too.”
“Cloves? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Remember the fleck of something removed from Pettijohn’s sleeve?”
“Vaguely.”
She explained that the speck had been identified as clove, and that Alex Ladd had clove-spiked oranges in a bowl in her entryway. “They scent the rooms like a natural potpourri. Plus, they found a wad of money in her home safe. Thousands of dollars.”
“Which is supposed to prove what?”
“I don’t know what it proves yet, Hammond. But you must admit it’s unorthodox and suspicious for someone to keep that much cash in a home safe.”
Throat tight, he asked, “What about the weapon?”
“Unfortunately, that didn’t turn up.”
His telephone beeped, and the receptionist informed him that Detective Smilow was on the line.
“He’s probably calling me,” Steffi said, reaching for the receiver. “I told him I would be in your office.”
She listened for a moment, consulted her wristwatch, then said cheerfully, “On our way.”
“On our way where?” Hammond asked when she hung up.
“I guess Dr. Ladd realizes she’s up you-know-what creek. She’s coming in for further questioning.”
Although his desk was covered with untouched paperwork, briefs, memos, and unanswered messages, he didn’t even think of sending Steffi on his behalf. He needed to be there to hear what Alex had to say, even if it was something he didn’t want to hear.
His living nightmare continued. The horror of it escalated. Smilow was irrepressible, although the man couldn’t be faulted for doing his job and doing it well. Alex… hell, he didn’t know what to think about Alex. She had admitted to deliberately compromising him by sleeping with him, but she refused to explain why. What other reason could there be except for a link with Pettijohn and/or his murder?
Dreading the unknown, Hammond moved as though slogging through quicksand as they left the building. The sun felt like a broiler. The air was heavy and still. Even the air-conditioning in Steffi’s car was insufficient. He was sweating as they climbed the steps to the entrance of police headquarters. Today, he rode the elevator with Steffi up to Smilow’s territory.
Steffi knocked once on his office door before barging in. “Did we miss anything?”
Smilow, who had started without them, continued speaking into the tape recorder’s microphone. “Assistant D.A.s Mundell and Cross have joined us.” He stated the time and date.
Alex turned toward Hammond where he was crowded in behind Steffi. When he had bent down from the side of the bed to kiss her goodbye early this morning, she had curved her hands around the back of his neck and lifted her mouth to his for a sustained, deep kiss. When it finally ended and he groaned his regret, she had smiled up at him from her pillow sleepily, sexily, her eyes slumberous and heavy-lidded.
Now he read in them an apprehension that matched his own.
Once the formalities were out of the way, Frank Perkins said, “Before you start, Smilow, my client would like to amend some of her previous statements.”
Steffi smirked. Smilow, showing no reaction, signaled for Alex to proceed.
Her steady voice filled the expectant silence. “I lied to you before about being in Mr. Pettijohn’s penthouse suite. I was there last Saturday afternoon. As I was waiting for him to answer his door, I saw the man from Macon going into his room, just as he told you.”
“Why did you lie about it?”
“To protect one of my patients.”
Steffi snorted with disbelief, but Smilow cut her off with a hard look.
“Please continue, Dr. Ladd.”
“I went to see Mr. Pettijohn on a patient’s behalf.”
“What for?”
“To deliver a verbal message. I can’t divulge any more than that.”
“Professional privilege is a very convenient shield.”
She conceded the point with a small nod. “Nevertheless, that’s what I was doing there.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“I was afraid you would browbeat me into disclosing the patient’s name. That individual’s best interests came before mine.”
“Until now.”
“The situation has become precarious. More so than I anticipated. I’ve been forced to tell what I had hoped to keep confidential for my patient’s sake.”
“Do you usually go to such lengths for your patients? Delivering messages and so forth?”
“Customarily, no. But it would have been terribly upsetting for this patient to have a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Pettijohn. It was a small favor to grant.”
“So you saw Mr. Pettijohn?” She nodded. “How long were you inside the suite with him?”
“A few minutes.”
“Less than five? More than ten?”
“Less than five.”
“Isn’t a hotel suite an odd setting for that kind of meeting?”
“I thought so, too, but it was at Mr. Pettijohn’s request that we meet there. He said the hotel would be more convenient for him since someone else was joining him there later.”
“Who?”
“I wouldn’t know. In any case, I didn’t mind going there because, as I told you, the remainder of my day was free. I had no other commitments. I did some window-shopping in the area of the Charles Towne, then left the city.”
“And went to the fair.”
“That’s right. Everything else I told you stands.”
“Which version?”
Frank Perkins frowned at Steffi’s wisecrack. “There’s no need for sarcasm, Ms. Mundell. It’s clear now why Dr. Ladd was reluctant to tell you about her brief meeting with Pettijohn. She was protecting a patient’s privacy.”
“How noble of her.”
Before the solicitor could admonish Steffi again, Smilow continued, “How did Mr. Pettijohn seem to you, Dr. Ladd?”
“How did he seem?”
“What was his mood?”
“I didn’t know him so I have nothing with which to compare his mood that afternoon.”
“Well, was he jovial or cranky? Happy or sad? Complacent or upset?”
“None of those extremes.”
“What was the gist of the message you delivered?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Was it provoking?”
“Do you mean did it make him angry?”
“Did it?”
“If it did, he didn’t show it.”
“It didn’t make him upset to the point of causing a stroke?”
“No. Not in the slightest.”
“Did he seem nervous?”
She smiled at that. “Mr. Pettijohn didn’t strike me as a person who would get nervous easily. Nothing I’ve read about him suggests that he was timid.”
“Was he basically friendly toward you?”
“Polite. I wouldn’t go so far as to say friendly. We were strangers.”
“Polite.” Smilow pondered that. “Did he play host? For instance, did he offer you a seat?”
“Yes, but I remained standing.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew I wouldn’t be there long, and I preferred standing to sitting.”
“Did he offer you a drink?”
“No.”
“Sex?”
Everyone in the room reacted to the unheralded question, but none more violently than Hammond. He jumped as though the wall he had been leaning against had bit him. “What the hell?” he exclaimed. “Where’d that come from?”
Smilow switched off the microphone, then turned toward Hammond. “Butt out. This is my interrogation.”
“The question was inappropriate, and you damn well know it.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Frank Perkins said, his anger almost matching Hammond’s. “Your investigation has turned up nothing to indicate that Pettijohn had a sexual encounter that afternoon.”
“Not in the bed in the hotel suite. That doesn’t preclude all sexual activity. Oral sex, for instance.”
“Smilow—”
“Did you perform oral sex on Mr. Pettijohn, Dr. Ladd? Or he on you?”
Hammond lunged across the crowded room and shoved him hard. “You son of a bitch.”
“Get your goddamn hands off me,” Smilow said, shoving him back.
“Hammond! Smilow!” Steffi tried to step between them and got knocked aside for her efforts.
Frank Perkins was beside himself. “This is outrageous.”
“That was a cheap shot, Smilow!” Hammond shouted. “Even you’ve never stooped that low. If you’re going to take potshots like that, at least have the guts to keep the tape recorder on.”
“I don’t need lessons from you on how to conduct an interrogation.”
“This isn’t an interrogation. It’s a character assassination. For no good reason.”
“She’s a suspect, Hammond,” Steffi countered.
“Not in a sex scam, she’s not,” he fired back.
“What about the hair, Smilow?” Steffi asked.
“I was getting to that.” He and Hammond continued facing off like leashed pit bulls. Smilow was the first to collect himself. He smoothed back his hair and shot his cuffs. Returning to his desk, he switched the recorder back on. “Dr. Ladd, we found a hair in the hotel suite. I’ve just heard from the state lab in Columbia that it matches strands taken from your hairbrush.”
“So what, Detective?” She no longer appeared passive to what was going on. There were spots of color in her cheeks, and her green eyes were flashing angrily. “I’ve admitted to being in the suite, and I’ve explained why I didn’t tell you the truth before. I shed a hair, which is a natural biological occurrence. I’m sure mine wasn’t the only human hair you collected from that room.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“But I’m the only one you singled out to insult.”
Hammond wanted to shout, Bravo, Alex. She had every right to be indignant. Smilow’s question had been calculated to shake her, to throw her off, to break her concentration so he could trap her in a lie. It was an old trick used by pros, and it usually worked. Not this time. Smilow had failed to rattle her, and had only succeeded in making her mad as hell.
“Can you explain how a speck of clove got on Mr. Pettijohn’s sleeve?”
Her angry expression relaxed somewhat, then she actually laughed. “Mr. Smilow, clove can be found in most kitchens in the world. Why did you isolate my clove? I’m sure there’s a supply in the kitchen at the Charles Towne Plaza. Maybe Mr. Pettijohn picked it up from his home kitchen and brought it into the hotel room with him.”
Frank Perkins smiled, and Hammond knew what the defense attorney was thinking. On cross-examination, he would follow this same track until the jurors were also laughing at the prosecution’s allegation that the clove was Dr. Ladd’s clove.
“I think you’d better cut your losses here, Smilow,” Perkins said. “Against my advice, Dr. Ladd has cooperated fully. She’s been terribly inconvenienced and so have the patients whom she had to reschedule. Her house has been turned upside down, and she’s been unforgivably insulted. You owe her several apologies.”
If Smilow heard the solicitor, he gave no sign of it. His crystal stare didn’t waver from Alex’s face. “I’d like to know about the money we found in your safe.”
“What about it?”
“Where did you get it?”
“You don’t have to answer, Alex.”
She ignored her solicitor’s advice. “Check my tax returns, Mr. Smilow.”
“We have.”
She raised her eyebrows as though to say, So what’s your question?
“Wouldn’t it be more financially sound to keep your money in an interest-bearing bank account instead of a wall safe?”
“Her finances and how she manages them are totally irrelevant,” Perkins said.
“That remains to be seen.” Before the lawyer could further object, Smilow held up his index finger. “One more thing, Frank, and then I’ll be done.”
“This is getting you nowhere.”
“When did you have the break-in, Dr. Ladd?”
Hammond sure as hell didn’t see that question coming. Apparently neither did Alex. For once her reaction was visible and telling.
“At the kitchen door?”
Watching her closely, Smilow said, “Off the piazza, yes.”
“I don’t remember exactly. A few months ago, I think.”
“Were you robbed?”
“No, I think it was just some neighborhood kids up to mischief.”
“Hmm. Okay, thanks.” He turned off the recorder.
Perkins held her chair for her as she stood up. “This is getting very old, very fast, Smilow.”
“No apologies, Frank. I’ve got a murder to solve.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree. You’re harassing Dr. Ladd while the culprit’s trail grows colder.”
He nudged his client toward the door. Hammond tried to keep his eyes off her but couldn’t. She must have felt his stare because she looked over at him as she moved past. Consequently they were looking at each other when Smilow said, “Who’s your boyfriend?”
She turned quickly toward the detective. “Boyfriend?”
“Your lover.”
This time the barb worked. Alex’s self-control slipped. She didn’t exercise her customary caution, or hear her lawyer’s admonishment for her not to speak. She reacted on reflex. “I don’t have a lover.”
“Then how do you account for the sheets we found in your dirty clothes hamper that are stained with blood and semen?”
* * *
“That story about covering for a patient was pure fiction,” Steffi chortled. “I recommend that you charge her without further delay.”
She, Smilow, and Hammond had remained behind after Frank Perkins had furiously hustled his client out. The two men weren’t listening to anything Steffi had to say, however. They were squared off like gladiators about to engage in a fight to the finish. Last one to die wins.
Hammond got in the first thrust. “Where the hell do you get off—”
“I don’t give a damn what you think about my tactics. I’ll do this my way.”
“You want her to walk?” Hammond fired back. “You keep up that bullshit about her personal life, Frank Perkins will be all over that. A sheet in her clothes hamper? Jesus,” he said, sneering in disgust.
“Don’t forget the robe,” Steffi interjected. That was the part she found most amusing. “Miss Goody-two-shoes fucks with her robe on.”
Hammond looked at her with fire in his eyes, but Smilow demanded his attention. “Why did she lie about having a boyfriend?”
“How the hell do I know?” Hammond yelled. “How the hell do you know? She explained that she wasn’t presently involved with anyone. Enough said.”
“Hardly,” Steffi threw in. “The semen stains—”
“Have nothing to do with her seeing Pettijohn last weekend!”
“Maybe not,” she said curtly. “It’s plausible that she nicked her leg shaving, as she explained. Okay, that accounts for the blood, although I think it should be typed. But sperm is sperm. Why would she deny having a personal relationship with a man if it doesn’t somehow relate to Pettijohn?”
“There could be a thousand reasons.”
“Name one.”
Hammond pushed his face close to hers. “Okay, here’s one. It’s none of your goddamn business who she sleeps with.”
The cords in his neck were strained. His face was red, and a vein in his forehead was ticking. She had seen him furious with cops, judges, juries, her, himself. But she had never seen him this angry before. It raised questions in her mind, questions that she would mull over when she was alone and had time to think about them carefully. Now she said, “I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“Because I know what he’s capable of.” He pointed at Smilow. “He finesses evidence to make his case.”
“We gathered this evidence during a legal search,” Smilow said, straining the words through his teeth.
Hammond snickered. “I wouldn’t put it past you to jack off on those sheets yourself.”
Smilow looked like he might strike Hammond. With an effort, he pulled air into his nostrils, which were pinched almost shut by rage.
Steffi thought it prudent to step in. “How often would you guess that a Miss Priss like Alex Ladd does her laundry?”
“At least every three or four days,” Smilow said stiffly, his hard eyes still fixed on Hammond.
“I’m not believing this.” Hammond backed against the wall as though trying to distance himself from the discussion.
Steffi said, “That means that in the last few days, Alex Ladd has had sex and then lied about it. When you mentioned a lover, she didn’t simply decline to identify him, or ask what bearing her love life had on our murder investigation, or tell us all to take a flying leap. She blanched, she lied, and then when trapped in her lie, she tried qualifying it: ‘What I meant to say is that I’m not presently involved with someone.’ ”
Both men were listening, or appeared to be. But since neither commented, she continued. “It could be semantics. Maybe she’s taking the politician’s way out. Not exactly lying, but not exactly telling the truth, either. Maybe she doesn’t have a steady lover, but she enjoys occasional, recreational sex.”
Smilow’s brows drew together. “I don’t think so. We didn’t find any oral contraceptives in the medicine cabinet. No diaphragm, or even condoms. Nothing to suggest sexual activity on a more or less routine basis. Consequently, that’s why I was frankly surprised when we found those stained items in the hamper.”
“But you must have thought of her in a sexual connotation, Smilow. Otherwise, where were you going with that question about her having sex with Pettijohn?”
“Nowhere in particular,” he admitted. “It was saying more about Lute than her.”
“It was a mean attempt to trip her up.”
Steffi ignored Hammond’s sulky remark. “So you don’t really believe that she went down on her knees in that hotel suite and gave Pettijohn head?”
Smilow grinned. “Maybe that’s what caused his stroke.”
Hammond practically launched himself away from the wall. “Is discussing Dr. Ladd’s sex life going to be the extent of this meeting? Because if it is, I’ve got real work to do.”
Smilow nodded him toward the door. “Feel free to leave.”
“What else is there to talk about?”
“The break-in on her back door.”
“She explained that.”
Steffi was becoming increasingly impatient with Hammond’s obtuseness. “You didn’t believe that explanation, did you? She was obviously lying about that, too. Just as she’s been lying all along, about everything. What’s the matter with you? Usually you can smell a lie a mile away.”
“She claims the break-in occurred months ago,” Smilow said. “But the splintered wood hadn’t weathered. It was raw. The scratches on the metal lock were fresh, too. Besides these signs of a recent break-in, as meticulously as she’s groomed, and as immaculate as the house is, I can’t see her waiting months to have repair work done.”
“It’s still conjecture,” Hammond said. “All of it. Everything.”
“But to dismiss it would be preposterous,” Steffi argued.
“No more preposterous than tying up a bunch of unrelated, unsubstantiated guesses and considering them facts.”
“Some of them are facts.”
“Why do you want so badly for her to be guilty?”
“Why do you want so badly for her not to be?”
The ensuing silence was so sudden and tension-laden that the knock at the door sounded like a cannon blast.
Monroe Mason opened the door and poked his head around. “I heard that Dr. Ladd was being questioned again, and thought I’d come over and see how it was going. Not too well, I gather. I could hear the shouting as soon as I came through the security doors.”
Everyone mumbled greetings, then for half a minute no one said anything.
Eventually Mason addressed Steffi. “You’re usually so outspoken. What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue? What did I interrupt?”
She glanced at Hammond and Smilow before going back to Mason. “The search of Dr. Ladd’s house yielded some items of interest. Hammond and I were evaluating their relevance to the case. It’s Smilow’s opinion, and I tend to agree, that they constitute valid evidence against her.”
He turned to Hammond. “You obviously don’t share their opinion.”
“In my opinion we’ve got zilch. They’re getting off on it, but then they don’t have to present the case to the grand jury.”
Steffi realized that the next few moments could be key to her future. Hammond was Monroe Mason’s protégé. As recently as this morning, when she had aired her concerns over Hammond’s seeming indifference toward the case, Mason had jumped to his defense. Contradicting his anointed successor might not be the wisest thing to do.
On the other hand, she couldn’t let a perfect suspect get away just because Hammond had turned squeamish. If she played this right, Mason might see a weakness in his heir apparent that he hadn’t before seen. He might spot a character flaw that would hinder a hard-hitting prosecutor’s effectiveness.
“I think what we’ve got on Dr. Ladd is compelling enough to make an arrest,” she declared. “I don’t understand what we’re waiting for.”
“Evidence,” Hammond said crisply. “How’s that for a concept?”
“We’ve got evidence.”
“Flimsy, circumstantial evidence, to say the least. The worst defense lawyer in the state of South Carolina could easily maneuver around everything we’ve compiled. Far from being the worst, Frank Perkins is one of the best. I doubt the grand jury would even indict her if all I went in with was a strand of hair and a condiment.”
“Condiment?” Mason asked.
“Clove is a spice,” Steffi countered irritably.
“Whatever,” Hammond shouted.
“He’s right.” Smilow’s soft-spoken interjection silenced them instantly. Steffi couldn’t believe that Smilow had agreed with Hammond, and Hammond appeared as astonished as she.
Mason was interested in what Smilow had to say. “You agree with Hammond?”
“Not entirely. I think Dr. Ladd is involved. In what way and to what extent, I don’t know yet. She was there with Pettijohn on Saturday. My hunch is that she was there for no good purpose. Otherwise, why has she been heaping lie upon lie to cover this up? However, from a legal standpoint, Hammond is right. We’ve got no weapon. And no—”
“Motive,” Hammond supplied.
“Exactly.” Smilow smiled sourly. “If she wasn’t intimate with Pettijohn, it really doesn’t matter if she sleeps with every other man in Charleston. What do we care if someone did break into her house for no apparent reason? It’s odd, but not illegal to hoard thousands of dollars in a home safe when there are several banks within walking distance of her home.
“From what I’ve discerned of her character, I believe she would let herself be sentenced to death row before betraying a patient’s confidence, even if that patient were her only defense. Not that I believe that story about delivering a message for a patient. Which I don’t. No more than I believe that nonsense about going to the fair and all the rest.
“But,” he said emphatically, “the bottom line is that I’ve established no motive for her to kill Lute Pettijohn. I haven’t even made a connection between them in either their personal lives or professional ones. If he was a patient, he never wrote a check to her. If she invested in one of his development deals, there are no records of it. I can’t even place them at a dinner party together.
“I’ve got a guy digging around in Tennessee where she comes from, but so far he hasn’t turned up much except her school records. If Pettijohn was ever in the state of Tennessee, he left no trace of himself there.”
“So,” Mason said, “either she’s telling the truth or she’s covered her tracks well.”
“I tend to think the latter,” the detective said. “She’s hiding something. I just don’t know what it is.”
Steffi said, “But if you did—”
“He doesn’t.”
“If you did have a motive—”
“But he doesn’t.”
“Shut up, Hammond, and let me talk,” she snapped. “Please.” He waved his hand, giving her the floor. She addressed Smilow. “If you could make a connection, find a motive, could you move forward with the evidence we’ve got?”
Smilow looked across at Hammond. “That’s up to him.”
Hammond looked hard at Smilow, then glanced at her. He then looked at Mason, who seemed anxious to hear his answer. Finally he said, “Yeah. I could go with what we’ve got. But it would have to be damn strong motivation.”