He clipped his badge to his belt where it could be seen and waded through the clog of onlookers, ducking under the crime scene tape and asking the first uniform he came to, "Have you seen the lieutenant?"
"He's inside."
"Thanks."
Sarah was somewhere inside, or in that little house behind the pool. He didn't search for her, though; he had to see the lieutenant first.
The house was a warren; a big warren, but a warren nevertheless, as if the architect had been both schizophrenic and dyslexic. He finally found the lieutenant standing in a hallway peering inside a room, but not stepping inside and carefully not touching anything. The room would be the crime scene, then, or one of them.
"I need to talk to you," he said to the lieutenant, motioning his head to the side.
"This is a fucking mess," the lieutenant muttered under his breath, still staring inside the room. He looked tired, though the day had just begun. "Yeah, what is it?"
"You may want to keep me clear of this case. Conflict of interest. I'm involved with Sarah Stevens."
"The butler?" Lieutenant Wester said sharply. "Involved, how? You've been out a couple of times?"
'We're practically living together." That was an exaggeration, but not by much.
"I thought she lives in that little house out back."
"That's her quarters when she's on duty. When she isn't, she's at my house."
"Shit." The lieutenant rubbed his hand over his head. He didn't have much hair and what he did have he kept very short, so he wasn't disturbing anything. "How long has this been going on?"
"Since she was dropped from the suspect list in the Roberts murder."
"Shit. I gotta tell you, Doc, I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe we cleared her too soon in the other case. What are the fucking odds, huh?" he asked in a furious whisper. "We don't have a murder here in years; then she comes to town and whoever she goes to work for gets popped in the head, clean shot, professional. The first guy left her a hundred grand in his will. A big diamond worth a quarter of a million is missing now, and, get this: She's the one who noticed, when she ID'd the woman's body. Coincidence, my ass. Coincidences like this don't happen. My gut says it isn't looking good for your girlfriend."
"Yeah," Cahill said bleakly. "I know."
Chapter 23.
LIEUTENANT WESTER WAS IN A QUANDARY. HE NEEDED EVERY detective he had, but he didn't want to jeopardize the case by muddying the waters with a conflict of interest. The conflict came only if Cahill allowed emotion to get in the way of his job. He figured Cahill could do the job; Cahill knew he could. It would hurt, but he could do it. It was best, though, if he was assigned to something else.
Cahill knew it was best, but it still pissed him off. Not that the lieutenant made the decision, but that there was a decision to be made at all. Cahill figured he should have been smarter than this; he'd missed something, somewhere. If Sarah had done all the killings-or had them done, he couldn't forget that possibility- then he'd screwed up by not following his initial thought, and two more people were dead.
And if Sarah was innocent-a possibility that was looking more remote by the minute-then there was something colossally wrong. That thing with the pendant: had she picked up a stalker, or had she sent it to herself as a means of deflecting suspicion, if necessary?
Maybe he wasn't on the case, but his brain was working anyway, sifting through all the possible scenarios.
He asked permission to see her. Part of him wanted to make certain she was all right, but the cop part of him wanted to see how she looked, how she acted. Body language and physical responses said a lot.
Sarah was in the bungalow, sitting on the sofa in the cozy living room while a medic put a dressing on her right knee and a patrol officer watched from the doorway. Her pants leg was torn, and Cahill could see the bloodstains, like rust, on her leg. Her face was paper white.
'What happened?" he asked, standing back and watching.
"She fell in the courtyard and hurt her knee," the medic said matter-of-factly, taping a bandage over the bluish, oozing wound. "It'll be sore tomorrow," he told Sarah.
She nodded absently.
'When did you fall?" Cahill asked her. "And how?"
"I didn't fall." Sarah's voice was so wispy it was almost transparent, and without inflection. She didn't look at him. "I wobbled and went down on one knee."
'When?" he repeated.
She made a vague gesture. 'When I was hunting for a telephone."
'Why were you hunting for a telephone?" From what he'd seen, there were telephones all through the house, including a shattered one in the kitchen.
"To call. About-" She made another vague gesture, this time toward the house.
"There are telephones in the house. Why did you come out here?"
"I didn't know where she was. I didn't . . . want to see her." She paused, and for the first time made eye contact. "But I saw her anyway. They asked me to identify her. I saw her anyway."
The symptoms of mental shock were very good, very convincing. Hell, maybe they were real. Her body language was consistent with shock, too, sitting motionless unless something was required of her, and then her movements were slow, sluggish. She was very pale. Makeup? Her pupils were dilated, too, but eyedrops could produce that effect.
He hated what he was thinking, but he couldn't let himself be blinded. He might not he on the case, but that didn't mean his analysis couldn't be used.
Another thought occurred: Had she developed a relationship with him as a means of deflecting suspicion, maybe, or keeping tabs on any progress with the Roberts killing? If so, she must have been congratulating herself on her success, because the Roberts case was going exactly nowhere.
He wanted to keep questioning her, but it would be better if he backed off now, let the detectives assigned to the case ask the questions. Besides, there was something he needed to check.
He nodded to the patrolman and stepped out of the bungalow, taking a deep breath of the fresh warm air. He sought out Lieutenant Wester again. "Do we have a rough time of death?"
"The ME hasn't made a determination yet, but I saw the bodies myself and rigor is pretty far advanced. I'd say"-he rocked his hand-"twelve hours. In that neighborhood."
Fuck. That fell in the time span when he'd been out on call and she had made that sudden trip to the supermarket, even though she had bought groceries earlier in the day. The trip was nicely explained by a sudden, convenient craving for a banana split. Was she cold-blooded enough that she had come back here, killed two people, then stopped off for ice cream on the way back to his house? Or had she bought the ice cream as an excuse for being out? An alibi, so she could show him the receipt and say, "See? I was here. I couldn't have been there."
This was practically a mirror situation of the Roberts murder. She had no eyewitness alibi to definitely say she was somewhere else at the time of the killing, but she had the receipt from where she'd been shopping.
On the other hand, she couldn't have known he'd be called out last night. She couldn't have planned anything ahead of time. Had she just been waiting, knowing he would eventually be called out at night, and when he did, she'd make her move? She wouldn't have been in any hurry; she could afford to wait for the right moment. After all, she was collecting that hefty salary, and if she had her eye on the missing yellow diamond ring, it wasn't going anywhere.
She hadn't kept the receipt from the supermarket. He clearly remembered her putting the plastic bags and the receipt in the trash. If she was that sharp, that organized a killer, throwing away the receipt was a sloppy thing to do. Or a smart one. She could then say, "If I thought I'd need an alibi, why would I have thrown away the receipt?"
God, this was driving him crazy. No matter what angle he came up with, a tiny shift put an entirely different light on the most significant, or insignificant, actions.
He went home and went through his kitchen trash can. The plastic bags were right there, practically on top, with only the fruit peelings and empty yogurt container from breakfast on top of them. He pulled out the bags-there were two of them- straightened them out, and looked inside. There was the receipt, crumpled but nice and dry, without any smears.
He looked at the time on it. Eight-fifty-seven. That was about the time he'd gotten home. Where had she been for the rest of the time he'd been gone?
The interview room was small, utilitarian, nonthreatening, with a camera attached to the ceiling recording the interview.
The detective, Rusty Ahern, was a good interviewer. He was about five-nine, with sandy hair and freckles and an open expression that invited confessions. Very nonthreatening, very sympathetic. No matter how neutral Cahill made his expression and his voice, he could never be as nonthreatening as Rusty. He was too big, and as Rusty himself had pointed out, "Your eyes always look like a shark's." Rusty was particularly good with women; they trusted that Howdy Doody expression.
Cahill, along with the lieutenant and two other detectives, watched the interview on a monitor as it was recording. Sarah sat practically motionless, for the most part staring at nothing, as if she had shut down emotionally. Cahill remembered she'd acted the same after the first killing. A protective response, maybe? A way of distancing herself? Or a very good act?
"Where were you last night?" Rusty asked gently.
"Cahill's house."
"Detective Cahill?"
"Yes."
'Why were you there?"
"I spent the weekend with him."
"The entire weekend?"
"Not Saturday. There was a party Saturday night. I worked."
"What time did you get to Detective Cahill's house? After the party on Saturday."
"Four o'clock?" she said, making it a question. "I don't remember exactly. Early. Before dawn."
"Why did you go so early in the morning?"
"So we could be together."
Rusty didn't ask any questions about their relationship, thank God. He moved right on with establishing a time line. 'Were you together all day Sunday?"
"Yes."
"And you spent Sunday night with Detective Cahill?"
"Yes."
"What about yesterday? Monday. When Detective Cahill went to work, what did you do?"
"Damn, Rusty must think he's a lawyer," Detective Nolan muttered. "Listen to those questions."
The questions were unusually detailed, step-by-step. Usually an interview was less structured, inviting the suspect to just talk. But Sarah wasn't chattering; she was answering only the questions asked, and most of those as briefly as possible. Since she wasn't volunteering information, Rusty was dragging it out of her.
"I worked out. Bought groceries."
"Is that all?"
"I had a manicure."
"Where did you work out?"
"The basement."
"The basement, where?"
"Cahill's house."
On and on, establishing when and where she got the manicure, where she bought groceries, what time she was there. What did she do then? Cooked supper. Spaghetti. Had it ready when Cahill got home. Then he got a call and had to leave. He said he'd be gone for several hours.
Rusty looked down at his notes. He had the exact time of the call to Cahill, as well as what time he'd arrived back home. He had the checkout time of the receipt for the ice cream. If she tried to screw with the timing, he'd know. 'What did you do then?"
"I cleaned up the kitchen, and watched television."
"Is that all you did?"
"I went for ice cream." 'What time was this?"
"I don't know. After eight." 'Where did you go?"
She told him the name of the supermarket. 'What time did you leave the supermarket?"
"I don't know."
"Can you estimate how long you were there?" She lifted one shoulder. "Fifteen minutes."
'Where did you go when you left the supermarket?" "Back to Cahill's house."
'Was he there?"
"Yes. He got back sooner than he'd expected." 'What time was this?"
"I don't know. I didn't look at the time."
"Did you stop anywhere else between the supermarket and Detective Cahill's house?"
"No."
"You said you bought groceries earlier in the day. Why didn't you buy the ice cream then?"
"I wasn't craving it then."
"You had a sudden craving for ice cream?"
"Yes."
"Do you crave ice cream very often?"
"Once a month."