French Silk (44 page)

Josh was a man at war with himself. At least that's the impression he gave. He wiped his damp palms on his pants legs. "Contrary to what Ariel's saying to the media, she's unhappy about this pregnancy. In fact, she's livid over it. She plans to stage a miscarriage, which will serve a dual purpose—get rid of the baby and win more sympathizers."

Playing along, Cassidy registered shock. "She sounds like a monster."

"You don't know the half of it, Mr. Cassidy. She envisions herself a megastar, wielding influence over millions of people. You ought to hear the plans she has for the
Prayer and Praise Hour
. Outlandish stuff. For a start, she wants the pulpit to become a political forum for candidates who share her views on current issues. She's already extended invitations to several guest speakers. She's ambitious and shrewd, and determined not to let anything or anyone stand in her way. She's gone off the deep end, lost all touch with reality."

"Get back to the murder."

Josh resumed his seat. He linked his fingers between his knees and stared at them as he spoke. "My daddy was a tyrant. He played God over everybody, including Ariel and me. Especially Ariel and me. He teased her about her tendency to gain weight until she developed an eating disorder."

"The newspapers hinted that she'd been diagnosed bulimic, but it was never confirmed by the hospital staff in Kansas City."

"It's true. And this baby, she sees it as just another of Daddy's cruel jokes. See, it's like he's still got control over her. I think she knew she was pregnant long before that night she collapsed. I think she was furious with Daddy for forcing a child on her when she'd made it clear to him that she didn't want one. I think she killed him over it."

Cassidy decided to play devil's advocate by shooting holes in Josh's allegations, the way a defense attorney would shoot holes in a case no better corroborated than this. "It works in theory, Josh, but it's still circumstantial. Did you hear your father and Ariel arguing over this pregnancy?"

"No. I didn't know she was pregnant until the night she was rushed to the emergency room."

"Did you hear her threaten to kill your father?"

"No."

"Ever?"

"No. He wouldn't have tolerated that kind of talk."

"Does you stepmother own a gun?"

"No. At least not to my knowledge. But her brother is a convict."

Cassidy had uncovered that in his preliminary investigation. "According to prison records, Ariel hasn't had any contact with her brother for years, not even a postcard. I doubt he could have procured a weapon for her without somebody finding out."

Josh shrugged. "That was just a guess. She could have gotten a gun on the sly and disposed of it where it wouldn't be found."

"Maybe," Cassidy said noncommittally.

"Think of the wounds. A man gets a woman pregnant. She's furious with him for saddling her with an unwanted child. She shoots his balls off. Doesn't that make sense?"

Cassidy squinted one eye as though considering the viability of the hypothesis. He rubbed the back of his neck. "I have to tell you, Josh, it's shallow."

"I thought you'd be more excited," he said morosely.

"When she left your suite that night, was Ariel wearing shoes?"

"Shoes? No. She was barefoot, I think. She had taken off her shoes when we made love. I don't think she put them back on. Why?"

"We're still checking on some carpet fibers found in your father's bedroom." He paused for a moment. "Did either you or Ariel rent a car while you were here?"

"I did. I like having my own transportation."

"You drove around New Orleans?"

"Plenty. Every day. I rented a convertible and enjoyed driving with the top down."

That information could easily be checked out. "Did Ariel ever accompany you on these drives?"

"Once, I think. Twice maybe. Why?"

"Are you still sleeping with her?"

"No. Not for weeks now."

"What happened?"

Josh glanced up at him, then away. "I don't know. She got so carried away with being the leader of the ministry, there never seemed to be time. Or she'd be tired and cranky. Or I'd fuss at her about throwing up and she'd get mad. Now that I know about the baby…"

"What?"

"Well, I wouldn't feel right making love to her while she's carrying my stepbrother."

Cassidy leaned forward. "Do you see the irony in that, Josh? It was okay to screw your father's wife while he was alive, but now that he's dead and she's pregnant with his baby, you've gone squeamish."

Josh turned defensive. "That's how I feel."

"Okay." Cassidy leaned back in his chair. "For the moment, let's pretend it happened like this. Ready? Ariel left your company, returned to the suite she shared with your father, killed him with a gun no one knew she possessed and which hasn't been recovered, then came back for round two in bed with you, correctly assuming that you'd be her alibi."

"That's how I see it."

Cassidy smacked his lips with consternation. "What I'm having trouble with is your motivation for telling me this now."

"The lie has been on my conscience."

"Conscience?" Cassidy repeated skeptically.

Again, Josh took umbrage. "I might be an adulterer. I admit to cuckolding my own father. But I'm not going to share a murder rap with Ariel."

Indecisively, he gnawed on his lower lip. "Okay, it's more than conscience, Mr. Cassidy. You might not believe this, but I'm afraid of her."

Cassidy snorted.

Josh exclaimed. "It's true. Before all this, I knew she was ambitious and shrewd, but she's gone way overboard. She's ruthless. Mean. She stops at nothing to get her way. If somebody crosses her over the least little thing, she fires him. No mercy. No discussion. Zap," he said, smacking his fist against his opposite palm. "He's expunged."

He stared down at his shaky hands. "It's as though I've had blinders on. Maybe I was so focused on my father, I didn't see Ariel as she really is until now. I think she's capable of doing just about anything to protect her interests. I think she's unbalanced. Dangerously unbalanced."

Cassidy subjected him to a long, thoughtful stare, then stood, signaling an end to the interview. "Thanks, Josh." He extended his right hand. The young man shook it, looking bewildered.

"That's it? I thought you'd have a million questions to ask me."

"There'll be plenty later. I'm going to work on this immediately. In the meantime, act normally around your stepmother. Go about your business as usual. Don't do or say anything that might tip her that you've been to see me. Let her continue thinking that I eliminated her as a suspect weeks ago." Cassidy looked at Josh solemnly. "I know this wasn't easy for you."

"No, it wasn't. For years Ariel and I took refuge from my father in each other. I guess you could say we were codependent. We shared a common misery and relied on each other to make it bearable. Since his death, we haven't needed each other to exact petty revenge. Hating him was the only attraction that had drawn us together.

"I believe that Ariel has serious psychological problems that date back to her impoverished childhood. I get mad at her, but mostly I fear her. Still," he added, shaking his head sadly, "I can't let her get away with murder."

"Josh, because of your longstanding affair with Ariel, I have to know—would you be able to testify against her in court?"

Without a moment's hesitation Josh replied, "Yes."

They said their goodbyes. Josh had no sooner left his office than Cassidy pulled on his suit jacket and straightened his tie. As soon as he'd given Josh enough time to leave the building, he took the elevator up to the next floor and headed for Anthony Crowder's office. He didn't heed the secretary's warning that Crowder was terribly busy and had asked not to be disturbed. With a confidence he hadn't felt in days, he barged in unannounced.

"Before you start shouting at me, listen. I think I know who killed Jackson Wilde."

Crowder tossed down the ballpoint pen he'd been using. "Well?"

"His son."

Chapter 22

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P
ractically verbatim, Cassidy repeated his conversation with Joshua Wilde. When he finished, Crowder stopped drumming his fingers. "I'm confused. You said you thought the son was the culprit, but he's claiming it's the widow."

"Out of pique. Tattling is a coward's way of getting even, and Josh has a yellow streak a yard wide down his back."

"Then where'd he get the courage to kill his father?"

"He caught Wilde at his most vulnerable. Naked. Lying on his back. Possibly even asleep. Josh knew his father's habits. He knew when to attack. Which would also apply to Ariel, for that matter," Cassidy mumbled as an afterthought. "Anyway, Josh shot Wilde in the balls to throw us off, to make it look like a woman had killed him. He even reminded me of that when we talked."

Crowder folded his meaty hands beneath his chin and ruminated on it a moment. "Why would Josh want his father dead? Jealousy?"

"Possibly. If Ariel's baby is his father's, as she claims. But I believe he had a stronger motivation."

"Stronger than jealousy? Money?"

"Not directly. No doubt Josh had a hankering to take over the ministry when his old man was no longer around. He figured he was heir apparent to the spotlight. For a young man who had been his father's apprentice, who had always lived in his giant shadow, that would be a reasonable ambition."

"Instead, Ariel seizes control."

"With both hands. Just as before, Josh is in the background. He's still second banana. But discounting the ministry as a factor, there's the personal one."

"Which is?"

"Josh admitted to me that Jackson Wilde was a tyrant who psychologically abused both of them. He had been Jackson's whipping boy all his adult life. He finally had had it up to here. So he gathered his meager courage and disposed of his old man, only to have his stepmother and lover elbow in and overshadow him. Talk about frustrating."

"He traded one despot for another."

"Right. To get rid of her, he makes her out the killer. Or maybe…" Now that he had opened a new channel of thought, other possibilities came to mind. "Maybe they plotted together to off Jackson. Then, for the reasons I cited before, Josh has turned into Judas."

"Sounds feasible either way. Have you discussed it with Glenn?

"Not yet, but he'll do backsprings. He figured all along it was either Ariel or Josh. He'll want to put them under a microscope and probe until we know them inside out. I'd like to put tails on them."

"The P.C. will shit if you ask for more men."

"You gave me until the end of the week, Tony. Play fair. Help us out. Run interference with the commissioner."

Cassidy returned to his office feeling as though he'd had an internal battery recharged. For the first time in days, adrenaline was coursing through his veins. He had a purpose, a new plan of attack. He would stay with it until he'd exhausted all possibilities, as well as himself.

The first thing he did was make a series of telephone calls. There was no need for Cassidy to identify himself on the first call. He simply asked, "Are you still feeding info to that TV reporter?"

The informant system was a two-way street. The D.A.'s office used the same sources as the media, sometimes transmitting information that, like a pistol firing blanks, was loaded with half-facts and innuendos that were intentionally misleading.

Cassidy said, "I had a lengthy and private conversation with Joshua Wilde this afternoon. He left my office looking angry and upset. That's it for now."

He dispatched a clerk to check all the car-leasing agencies in the city. "Find the one that leased a car to Joshua Wilde during the week of his father's murder. I want to know the make and model he rented, the mileage he put on it, and the condition it was in when he dropped it off. If it was a Chrysler product with blue carpet, I want the car chased down and taken immediately to the police lab. Thanks." Perhaps the lab boys would find a speck of dried blood that would turn out to be Jackson Wilde's and—bingo!—he'd have a bona fide suspect.

"This'll be the easiest stakeout ever," Cassidy told the police lieutenant who had been placed in charge of the surveillance team Crowder had weaseled out of the commissioner. "Joshua and Ariel Wilde are more visible than drag queens on Bourbon Street. They can't possibly give you the slip."

Once those responsibilities had been delegated, Cassidy sat back in his chair and sighed with a heightened sense of optimism. Something was bound to turn up. A piece of previously undisclosed evidence would point the accusing finger at either Josh or Ariel and away from Claire.

He had tried not to think about her since their bitter quarrel at Rosesharon, but to no avail. She remained uppermost in his mind—her body, her sweet lovemaking, and her angry allegations.

It was as if she had opened the closet of his soul and found the skeleton there, and she couldn't have rattled the bones of it any louder. She had accused him of deceit and manipulation. At one time that might have been true. As a defense attorney, he'd exercised whatever means were necessary to get an acquittal. He'd used theatrics, tears, laughter, scorn, whatever it took to have his clients walk from the courtroom cleared of all charges.