Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (38 page)

“I need to know what happened,” I said to Ilena. “If I’m going to put together a story, I’ll need your side of things.”

Ilena’s shoulders relaxed a little. “I intended it to be real,” she said. “
I met Erik at Shoulders, where he was working as the manager. He had vision. We were going to do something amazing.” She blinked away a tear. “Roman promised me he would put up some money but stay out of it. He wasn’t even listed as an official owner. I really thought…” Her voice trailed off, then got strong again. “I lined up Doug to get investors. And he brought me that silly woman who asked all those questions.” She pointed to Vera, who, to her credit, didn’t seem to care about the insult.

“And you thought threats would put an end to them?” I asked.

“She seemed less formidable than she turned out to be,” she said. “She even had you wrapped around her little finger.”

That made me smile. Vera was, in her own way, more strong willed than I. “When did it change from being a real restaurant to being a way to get money?”

“You saw it,” she said. She was so calm, almost distracted. “Roman took over. Made every decision. Hounded everyone. Insisted on Walt. Canceled the uniforms Erik and I had chosen. Then Walt started playing silly games the way all chefs do, angling for more money. Roman gave him three of my points.” She looked at me, anger and fear mixed with a determination that frightened me. “It was supposed to be my business, and Roman was handing it out to a prima donna fry cook. He and Walt started teaming up against me. They wanted it to be their restaurant. Little by little, they were pushing me out.”

“So if you couldn’t have the restaurant, then you’d have the money,” I said.

She nodded. “I asked Doug to get me more investors. We found ten people, civilians, to give two hundred and fifty thousand each, in exchange for ten percent of the restaurant. I had set up an account offshore a few years ago, trying to hide what money I could from Roman. We sent money there. I halted construction. I made up stories about wanting the very best of this and that, hoping I could delay by pretending I was waiting for a shipment from some exotic place.”

“And with a TV crew doing interviews, it would distract the others and keep you involved.”

“That was the plan.”

“
But if you wanted to get away from Roman, why kill Erik?” Vera asked.

She looked at the spot where Erik had died. “He found out the restaurant wasn’t really going to happen. When Roman canceled the uniforms, Erik went back and reordered them. The check bounced. Erik started checking into things. He went to Doug because Doug had been in charge of getting the money. He wanted to know how much money had been raised. And of course, Doug came to me.”

“But then Doug made different plans with Roman,” I said.

“It was all falling apart. If Erik talked to him, then Roman would figure out that the money was missing, and my last chance at freedom would be gone. I just needed a few days. Just a few more days. I told Erik that,” she said. “There would be other restaurants for him. All I needed was to get away. I just needed to get the last of the investors’ money. I’d earned it after twenty years of hell.”

“But this was Erik’s dream. And you were taking it away from him,” I said.

“Why couldn’t you do it together?” Vera asked. “You and Roman?”

Ilena laughed. “You are a romantic, aren’t you?”

She started to move, so I stepped next to her, keeping her in the shot. I scratched my head, the signal Andres and I had worked out for when it was time to call Makina.

“Roman killed his cousin when they were involved in some legal mess,” I said. “He slashed his throat, set his house on fire.” I laughed a little. “That was the reference, right? ‘Next to be slashed.’”

“I thought you would be more curious,” she said. “I thought journalists hunted down stories and you would look into the fire and…” She rolled her eyes. “I even told Roman that you were asking questions about his cousin’s fire. That pissed him off. I figured he’d do something to you and then you would have to make the connection.”

“I’m not really a journalist. I’m a TV producer.”

It sounded feeble. I could see Ilena losing energy with each minute that went by. Every ounce of that energy had gone into hating Roman. Now she had nothing left to feed her, and she seemed weak and tired. As we talked, I heard a noise from the front of the restaurant. Makina
and his men entering, I assumed. Vera heard it too. Her eyes widened and she looked, for a moment, panicked. But Ilena didn’t move. Either she didn’t notice, or after everything, she didn’t care anymore.

“You provided Roman’s alibi for his cousin’s murder in exchange for a wedding ring and access to his money,” I said. “You figured it was a ticket to an easy life.”

“It turned out to be a life sentence,” she said. “Roman wanted absolute control over me. Over everything. After Erik’s murder, he had the restaurant he wanted, but he still didn’t let up. He found out the money was missing. I had no choice. I told him Doug had hacked into Roman’s computer and put all of Roman’s account numbers on a thumb drive.”

“That could have gotten Doug killed,” Vera said.

“He deserved it, after agreeing to sell his shares to Roman.” She shrugged. “Besides, Roman persuaded me to tell him.” She removed the expensive scarf to expose bruises on her neck. “I managed to break a vase over his arm and get away,” she said. “But I knew it wasn’t over. He planned to have me killed on the opening night of the restaurant. Even the idea that I wanted something separate from him was a betrayal.”

Ilena was the “package” Tim had mentioned. He’d been telling the truth about that. I wish people could be made simple—the bitch, the bad boy—the way they are on TV reality shows. That way I wouldn’t have to feel sorry for people I disliked, the way I had, temporarily, for Tim. And the way I did now, for Ilena.

“I told him where Doug lived,” she continued. “I knew he couldn’t stay away, and when he got there, I shot him. I called Doug and got him there too. I told him Roman was dead. I just didn’t tell him he was dead in Doug’s kitchen.”

“You figured you’d have the victim and killer in one neat package,” I said.

“It just didn’t work out that way. Things never work out the way I plan them.” She didn’t say anything, but underneath that artificially smooth face she seemed to be crying.

I
walked outside the restaurant. The air was still cold enough to see every exhalation, but it felt good to be outside. Andres had made sure to get footage of Ilena being led away in handcuffs, and Makina was nice enough to let Andres get it from several angles. He made an apology of sorts for having been wrong about Vera. She, of course, didn’t hold a grudge. I half-expected her to confess to the lies we’d told, but luckily for me she stopped short of that. There probably wasn’t anything Makina could charge us with, but I wasn’t willing to take the chance.

After Ilena had been driven off in the back of a squad car, Andres went back inside to check the tape, and Vera and Victor went in search of coffee. Only Makina joined me on the sidewalk.

“Don’t you have a suspect to question?” I asked.

“She can wait. I have everything I need on tape.” He smiled again, more relaxed this time.

“A copy of the tape,” I reminded him.

He lit a cigarette and I watched the smoke drift into the breeze. “How did you know?”

“She was the only one desperate enough to strip away all the bullshit and live by her instincts,” I said.

“You never suspected Ms. Bingham?” Makina asked. “Not even for a minute?”

I thought about it. “No. She’s the only truly authentic person I’ve ever met.”

I watched Walt park his car in front of the restaurant, get out, and come toward me, smiling. “I’m sorry about Ilena and Roman,” he said. “But I’m glad you realize I was innocent, Kate. Maybe now we can actually have a meal where you don’t interrogate me.”

“Not innocent, Walt,” I said. “Just not guilty of murder.”

Walt stepped back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“
You knew Roman was going to burn down your old restaurant to free you up for Club Car. Maybe you planned it together.”

“That’s crazy.”

I shook my head. “Your recipe book. You kept it here; you cooked from it here. Your kitchen at home isn’t set up for lots of experimentation. If you used it here, then you used it at the old restaurant. The only reason you still have it is because you took it that night, the night of the fire. And the only reason you would do that was to preserve years of collecting.”

“You have proof?” Makina asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Just gut instinct. But I know he and Roman were partners. I guess Walt’s job was to romance me, while Roman tried intimidation.”

Walt bit his lip. “If that’s all you have, I have a plane to catch. There’s a restaurant opening in Seattle. A start-up. I wasn’t sure if I should take it, but I think I could use a change of scenery. I’m just here to get my stuff.”

Some people never recover from the loss of their dreams, I thought, and some people don’t even skip a beat.

Makina dropped his cigarette on the ground and crushed it beneath his shoe. “I got a call the other day from a Tim Campbell. You know him?” he asked.

“He’s an inmate at Dugan. One of the guys I’m interviewing. Murdered his wife,” I said with emphasis. “Why would he call you?”

“He said he had some information on you. On your involvement in this Erik Price business.”

“What information could he have?”

“He said you were covering up for Ms. Bingham. He said you admitted it to him.”

That stopped me. I could have asked why, but it took only a second to realize that I didn’t have to. Tim knew I’d find out he was lying about his wife’s murder. He needed a backup plan. “What does he get out of telling you that?” I asked.

“Transfer out of Dugan. He wanted to go downstate, closer to home,” Makina said. “Is it true? Because even if Ms. Bingham didn’t
commit the homicides, there’s still the matter of filing a false police report.”

I didn’t answer. “You said Tim wanted to go downstate. Past tense. Has he changed his mind?”

There was, just for a moment, the hope that he’d decided to be the good guy he pretended to be. That part of me that was a sucker for a happy ending would not lose easily.

“He’s dead,” Makina said, his voice flat and a little bored. Just another dead killer. “A couple of days ago he was stabbed by another inmate in a stairway on his block. The camera was broken, so…” Makina rolled his eyes. “I guess that means you don’t have to answer my question.”

My stomach tightened, afraid of the answer to the question I had to ask. “What other inmate?”

“I don’t know,” Makina said. “But those guys are always sticking each other. It’s hard enough out here to solve homicides, but when you got a thousand convicts as suspects? Good as you were with this, even you couldn’t find that guy’s killer.”

T
he wind had picked up. There was another storm coming, but I was hoping it would wait until I finished up the shoot. Dugan, on a good day, was isolated. Today, with snow swirling around me and the cold stabbing at my cheeks, it felt like the other side of nowhere.

“You’re getting to be a regular,” the guard at the desk said when I walked in. “Your crew got here before you. They’re already setting up.”

“I had a delay,” I said. My car, once again, had refused to start. A jump from my neighbor had gotten it going, but I’d spent the whole drive watching a flashing engine light and praying.

The guard buzzed me through the security gate, and Russell greeted me on the other side, leading me back to the same small room where the lawyers meet their clients. The room where I’d first met Tim and Brick.

“I didn’t think Joanie would let you guys back in,” Russell said. “You must know people.”

“The power of television.” That, and a promise to the warden that Tim’s death would be seen not as a failure of prison security, but as a tragic end for a man who had gone looking for trouble.

“You heard about Tim?” Russell said. I nodded. “Don’t quite know what to feel,” he said. “It’s something I ought to be used to by now, but somehow I just didn’t see this coming.”

I did. At least it felt like I should have. If I’d been paying more attention, maybe I could have stopped it. Or maybe I was wrong. I got some small comfort from that.

Andres looked up at me as I walked into the room. “We’re all set up,” he said. “Ready whenever you are.”

“I’ll get your man,” Russell said, and left the three of us to stare at each other.

“How’s Vera?” Andres asked.

“Fine,” I said. “Better now that she’s
not a murder suspect. She just needs some rest and a few distractions.”

“We can provide that,” Victor said. “Tomorrow night. Don’t bail on me, Kate.”

“I’m coming to your show, Victor. Promise. Ten o’clock. Andres, Vera, and me, front row.”

“I’ll be the one with the earplugs,” Andres said.

“I’ll be the one with the fabulous new hairdo,” I told them. “My sister made another appointment tomorrow afternoon with her stylist. And then she and I are having dinner at my mom’s.”