Sooner or Later (27 page)

“Señor, dinner is ready,” Florita called from the hall.

“Think you can eat?” Maya looked hopefully at her.

“I must. I have to be strong so I can help find the killers.”

Ellie was being too calm, and her voice had a flat tone to it that Maya had never heard before.

“Are you okay?” She touched Ellie’s arm lightly, looking anxiously at her.

“I just need to clear my head. I need to try to remember every single detail, so I can tell Johannsen. I must do all I can to help….”

Dan put a CD on the player and the Brahms violin concerto filtered soothingly into the room, filling the empty silences. Maya’s eyes met Dan’s uneasily.

“I forgot to ask,” Ellie said as Florita ladled out the black bean soup and passed the terra-cotta pot with the hot tortillas. “What about Chan, and the cafe?”

“I spoke with them,” Maya replied. “The cafe is closed until after the … until you feel better.”

Ellie thanked her, wishing her head didn’t throb so much. Not even Advil every few hours had taken the ache away. She guessed it was part of the pain she had to
bear now. She hardly tasted the good soup, but at least its warmth eased the tight knot in her stomach.

They heard the sound of a car coming up the hill, and looked apprehensively at each other. “What now?” Maya said as Florita sped to answer the door.

They heard Johannsen’s familiar brusque voice. “Is Mr. Cassidy home?”

“Sí, Señor, I tell him who you are?”

“It’s okay, Florita.” Dan was already in the hall.

“Mr. Cassidy.” Johannsen was formal, polite, cold. “Is Miss Duveen with you?”

Dan’s antennae alerted him to trouble. “She is.”

“Then I have to ask both you and Miss Duveen to accompany me to the precinct, sir. For questioning in the murder of Mrs. Parrish.”

Ellie was standing behind him. He heard her gasp, then she said, “Detective Johannsen, I’ve told you everything I know. Everything I saw … if there were anything else I could do, don’t you think I would be doing it?”

“I’m sure you would, miss, but right now we would like to question you in a bit more detail.”

“They want to jog your memory, Ellie. And mine.” Dan’s eyes met Johannsen’s. He was used to being on the other side of this situation, he’d never been a murder suspect before. It was not amusing.

“We were just having dinner. Miss Duveen has not eaten since yesterday morning. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s important that she has some nourishment before the ordeal of questioning. After all, she has just lost her grandmother in the most terrible of circumstances.”

Johannsen’s mouth tightened. He didn’t care to be branded an unfeeling bully, but his job was his job, and Dan Cassidy knew it. “Finish your dinner, miss. We’ll be waiting.”

Maya was standing next to Ellie, clutching her hand. “What does he mean, he
wants to question you in more detail)”

She sounded frightened and Dan reassured her quickly. “It’s just routine, there may be details Ellie’s forgotten, subliminal things, hidden in her memory.” He wasn’t about to scare the hell out of them by telling them Johannsen suspected them of murder.

Ellie sat at the table again. She spooned a little of the soup. She looked at Dan. “Let’s just go,” she said, despairingly.

“I’ll come with you.” Maya was on her feet, ready, but Dan shook his head. “Stay here, field any phone calls. I’ll get back to you later, tell you what’s going on.” He looked at Ellie. “Do you have an attorney?”

“Miss Lottie does … did. Michael Majors lives in Montecito.”

He remembered, Majors had called today and left a number. He leafed through the sheaf of notes by the phone until he found it.

Majors was also just about to have dinner, but when Dan called and told him what was happening, he agreed to meet diem at the police station right away.

“Okay.” Dan slung his arm round Ellie’s shoulders, deliberately cheerful. “Let’s go tell ’em all we know.”

“Ellie.” Maya ran after her, hugged her. “Call me, when you know what’s going on.”

“I will.” Ellie wished, bewilderedly, that she knew.

I
T WAS ODD
, D
AN THOUGHT ON THE SILENT RIDE INTO
Santa Barbara, to be sitting behind the protective screen in the backseat of a police Ford Crown Victoria he had driven so often himself. Only now, he was the suspect instead of the law, the hunted not the hunter.

He ran through the facts in his mind. The two different methods of killing made it possible there were two killers. But there was also something about this murder that spoke of ritual. He could have sworn it had been planned and carried out meticulously. Despite the copycat “signature,” it was exactly like an execution. But he knew Johannsen was on a different tack.

They were back in the bare little gray room again, with Johannsen at one side of the table and them at the other. Mullins propped up the wall, inhaling a Lucky, and coffee was brought in by a female uniformed officer.

“Two with sugar, two without,” she said, glancing curiously at them as she departed.

“You understand there’s no pressure, Miss Duveen,”
Johannsen was saying. “This is just an informal discussion, between us.”

Dan’s antennae pricked up again. “Do I understand you are questioning Miss Duveen, and possibly myself, as suspects in the murder of Mrs. Parrish?”

Johannsen cleared his throat. “Not exactly …”He knew they didn’t have a shred of evidence and the autopsy had proved that Ellie could not have strangled her grandmother. It had to have been a man. Which indicated her partner, Cassidy. He was big, strong, powerful enough. Ellie could have shot the housekeeper while he took care of the old woman. And then she would inherit everything and they would both live happily ever after…. Also, Cassidy had known about the signature thing, he could have done it just to throw them off the scent, send them looking for a serial killer. Except this serial killer butchered hookers, not old ladies.

Dan said, “Then I suggest you Mirandize both Miss Duveen and myself, and that we wait for her attorney to arrive.”

Johannsen sighed. He’d hoped to break her down a bit before getting to this point. Now the ex-cop had beaten him at his own game. He waved his partner forward, and Mullins proceeded to read them their rights.

Ellie’s stunned eyes met Dan’s. “I don’t understand …”

“It’s all right,” he said quietly. “We’ll just wait for Majors to get here, then we’ll go home.”

“But I want to tell you everything.” She swung round, leaning across the table, her hands clasped tightly together, looking at Johannsen. “I want you to know everything, anything that’s hidden in my mind. I
want you to find who killed my grandmother.”

Johannsen shifted uneasily. She sure didn’t look like a
killer, but then, who did? He said, “That’s all we’re asking of you right now, Miss Duveen.”

There was a knock on the door and the female officer announced Michael Majors.

He stood in the doorway, taking in the cell-like questioning room and Ellie hunched over the table, staring up at him. Majors was an estate lawyer. He dealt in torts and wills and property. This was out of his league, but he knew enough to get her out of there.

He was a small man, youngish, in dark pinstripes and a pink shirt his wife had bought him for his birthday. She’d thought it was young and cheerful, but now it seemed inappropriate for the occasion. Straightening his bold silk tie, Majors walked to Ellie and patted her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how distressed I am, how shocked. My deepest sympathy, Ellie. It is truly a terrible loss.”

“Thank you. This is Dan Cassidy, my friend. And Detectives Johannsen and Mullins.” She introduced them, her good manners ingrained, even under these difficult circumstances, thanks to Miss Lottie’s teaching.

Majors shook hands. “Can I ask exactly why you’re holding my client here?”

“We’re not holding your client, Mr. Majors, we’ve merely brought her in for questioning,” Johannsen replied mildly.

“Then I assume you’ve read her her rights?”

He nodded. “I did.”

“Not at first,” Dan interjected. “I had to ask the detective to Mirandize both of us.”

Johannsen shrugged. “We’d not yet started questioning either of you.” But he was frowning. Cassidy was too much the tough cop, he knew every step of the game. With him here, he was going to get exactly nowhere. “Besides, Miss Duveen volunteered to answer any questions
we choose to ask. In the hope of jogging her memory, y’understand.”

Majors looked uneasily at him, unsure of his ground. “Sure, sure, of course. If that’s what she wishes.”

Ellie just wished they would all give up arguing and let her get on with it. “I want to help you. I’ll do anything I can.”

Short of dragging her out of there, Dan knew there was nothing he could do to stop her. Even though she had nothing to hide, he understood only too well how innocent words could be made to incriminate.

“Well, if that’s settled.” Johannsen smiled happily. Round one to him. “Take a seat, Mr. Majors. If you think we’re out of line at any point, you just holler. Now, tell me again, in your own words, Miss Duveen, exactly the sequence of events last night.”

She was living through the hell all over again. She saw herself calling her grandmother from the car, the swirling fog in the valley near Camarillo, her surprise that there was no reply. Then calling Dan, how she knew from his voice he’d been running. How relieved she’d been when he’d relented and forgiven her for ruining their dinner at the ranch. How lonely the tires had sounded on the gravel; the lamp gleaming from her grandmother’s curtained window. The light out in the hall; the silence that had sent goose pimples up her arms; her own voice echoing eerily as she called for Maria. Herself running up the stairs, two at a time. Bruno’s dead eyes staring up at her, his blood on the rug, on Miss Lottie’s slipper …

Her grandmother, sprawled face-up in the dressing room, her arms outflung, her tiny blue-veined feet, and her face …
dear God, her face….

She saw herself backing out of the dressing room. She was whimpering like a terrified animal … standing in
the pool of Bruno’s blood. The curtains billowing in from the French windows …

“Someone was out there”
Ellie grabbed Johannsen’s hand across the table.
“On the balcony. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, so tell me, slowly, exactly what you saw.”

She concentrated, she had to get it right, had to tell him exactly what it was. “I heard something, a movement, a noise of some kind. The window had blown open and the curtains were billowing in …” She closed her eyes, searching for it, that flicker of something that had caught her attention. A glint of light in the darkness of the night outside on the balcony. “It was the reflective patch on a sneaker,” she said carefully. “You know, the kind runners wear so they’re visible at night? It reflects the light back.” She nodded, triumphant.
“That’s what I saw.”

“And what did you do then?”

Johannsen’s face was expressionless. She’d expected a smile, approval, thanks … “I … well, I don’t know.” She was floundering. “I just remember running down the stairs, throwing open the doors … getting in my car … I was … I was …”

“Miss Duveen was terrified, Detective.” Dan’s voice was harsh. “What else did you expect her to do?”

“Of course.” Majors nodded in agreement. “Exactly. I think you will agree she did the right thing, fleeing from danger.”

“And where were you, Mr. Cassidy, when all this was going on?” Johannsen eyed Dan’s hands speculatively. He could easily strangle an old woman, break her neck …

“I was on my way to Journey’s End to pick up Ellie. We’d arranged to meet there.” Dan’s voice had a weary edge to it, but he was alert, on guard. “I’d just turned into the gates when I saw the Jeep coming at me, fast. I
swung to the right, but it hit me, bounced off the side and went into a tree. I saw Ellie get out. She ran down the road. She was sobbing, screaming, in shock … I thought it must be the accident, maybe she was hurt. I caught up to her. Obviously, she imagined I was the killer. She punched me.” He ran his hand along his sore jaw. “When she finally realized it was me, she tried to tell me what she’d seen.”

“And what happened then?”

“We went back to the house. Ellie couldn’t go in that room again. She waited at the foot of the stairs while I went up and looked around. I found the scene exactly as you saw it yourself. I checked the bathroom, the closets, the balcony. I did the same in the housekeeper’s room. Then I called the police.”

“So there was no man in sneakers on the balcony?”

“No, sir. Not by the time
I
got there.”

“And how long would you estimate that was, Miss Duveen.”

Ellie looked blankly at him. Time had had no meaning. “It was all a blur …”

“I estimate a max often minutes.” Dan was sharp, businesslike.

“Thank you.”

Majors stood. “I assume that will be all, Detective?”

“For the moment.” Johannsen sighed, he was being cut off in his prime, just as he was beginning to roll.

“If I were you, I’d be delighted with what Miss Duveen came up with. There was someone out there on that balcony, wearing sneakers.” Dan’s tone made it clear he thought Johannsen had gotten a bonus and should get off his ass and get out there and find the proper suspect.

“But the sneaker man wasn’t there when you got there, right, Mr. Cassidy?”

“He’d had almost ten minutes to get away.”

“And would you by any chance own a pair of sneakers like that yourself?”

Dan grinned as he shook his head. “Wrong tack, Johannsen,” he said smoothly. “And no I don’t.”

Johannsen stood, hands in his pockets. “Good night, Miss Duveen. Sorry I interrupted your dinner. Thank you for being so cooperative.”

Ellie looked him in the eye. “I did see that, you know,” she said.

He nodded, coolly. “I know.”

She frowned, bewildered by his attitude. “Come on.” Dan had her by the arm. “Good night, Johannsen, Mullins.”

Outside in the parking lot, Majors shifted his briefcase to his other hand while he felt in his pocket for the car keys. It was a Mercedes 500SEL. Black. “Well, what was all that about?”