Suspicion (10 page)

  With an indifferent shrug, Carpenter turned his back on her and started walking down the hall, leaving her in charge of closing the door.

  The room where he led her was large and featured several scenic backdrops ranging from a fake sandy beach to a snowcapped mountain. A tripod camera and two umbrella diffusers angled toward what looked like an exact replica of the Golden Gate Bridge completed the decor.

  As if she wasn’t even there, Brad walked over to the camera, removed a roll of film from the film chamber and replaced it with a new one.

  Kate positioned herself near a small console so she could observe him. "Lyle tells me you were a good friend of Gina’s."

  "I was. I met her when she first arrived in Washington."

  "How long ago was that?"

  He shrugged. "Can’t remember. Eighteen years. Maybe more." He turned to look at her, his gaze hostile. "Why did he do it? Why did your ex-husband have to kill her?"

  "He didn’t, Mr. Carpenter. That’s why I’m here."

  "The police say he did. They say he got scared and split."

  She doubted Mitch Calhoon had phrased it quite that way, but then, what did she know about the detective’s interviewing techniques? "The police are wrong. Someone else killed Gina, and with your help, I might just find out who that someone is."

  He kept staring at her. It was obvious from the expression in his eyes that he didn’t entirely trust her, but he surprised her by nodding. "All right." He returned his attention to the camera and checked its focus. "What do you want to know?"

  "My theory is that Gina’s death was connected to her life as a call girl, so whatever you can tell me about her profession and the people she was seeing would be very helpful."

  He shook his head. "You came to the wrong guy. I don’t know anything about her job. Or close to nothing."

  "You said you were her friend."

  "I was. But I didn’t approve of what she did for a living, and she knew it. So we never talked about it. That’s how we stayed friends."

  Kate tried to conceal her disappointment. "All right then, tell me about the night of Lyle’s party. I understand you took Gina with you."

  "That’s right. Gina loved parties, especially the kind

  where the champagne flowed. When Lyle said I could bring a guest, I asked her."

  "Who did she talk to while she was there?"

  "A number of people, although I couldn’t tell you who they were. Gina was very social, never at a loss for words. And of course, she was very beautiful. That alone made her a hit." He slanted her another glance. "Just ask your ex-husband."

  "Eric says she came on to him."

  Brad laughed. "Yeah, well… Nobody held a gun to his head."

  "No." She glanced around the room. "Gina told Eric that she was a model. Is that true?"

  "She was a model when I first met her, before she changed professions. Then, a few months ago, she came to see me and said she wanted to start modeling again."

  "Why did she need to model all of a sudden? Wasn’t she earning good money as a call girl?"

  Brad turned around to face her again. "She was. Until they fired her."

  "They?" Kate snapped to attention. Finally, a clue she could hang on to. "You mean…she worked for someone? Like an organized ring?"

  "That’s what I understood."

  "Do you know who ran that ring?"

  He shook his head. "No idea."

  "Why was she fired?" Brad’s expression changed and he turned away from her, pretending to be fussing with the camera again. Surprised by his sudden silence, Kate came to stand beside him. "Brad? If you know something, please tell me. It could make the difference between finding her real killer and letting an innocent man go to prison."

  His eyes shut briefly, as if he was in deep pain. It was

  another two or three seconds before he spoke again. "She was doing drugs."

  "Heroin?"

  "Cocaine. She tried it at a party a couple of years ago and she got hooked real bad." His expression turned grim. "I tried to tell her that the stuff was deadly, that it would drain her financially, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she had it under control, that she was just doing it for fun, not because she was hooked." He let out a small, mournful sigh. "She was just kidding herself."

  "And that’s why they let her go?"

  Brad nodded. "Those bastards. They could have tried to send her to a rehab center, but instead they told her to hit the road."

  "Do you have any idea who her supplier was?"

  Carpenter’s jaw tightened and his eyes flashed. "I wish to God I did. If I’d known who he was, I would have gladly punched the life out of that snake." He raked his long hair back. "After a few months on the stuff, she was broke. That’s when I started arranging for her to do some modeling, but she never really got into it."

  "Didn’t she have parents she could turn to? Siblings?"

  "She had no one. She lost her parents when she was just a little kid. Her aunt raised her, but the old bat didn’t give a damn about her. On her thirteenth birthday, Gina ran away from home. She’s been on her own ever since."

  Since he had begun to warm up to her, Kate decided to push it one notch further. "Had she ever tried to blackmail anyone else besides Eric?"

  "I don’t know. But I can tell you this. She was about to get a bundle."

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because the night she was killed, she called me and

  asked me to cancel the shoot I had scheduled for her the following afternoon."

  "How come?"

  "She said she had just hit the jackpot-a big one-and that she would never have to work another day in her life. Given her age, her lifestyle and her drug habit, she had to be talking about a lot of money."

  "How much, would you say?"

  He shrugged. "A couple of million. At least."

  A couple of million? Far more than what she had expected to get from Eric.

  He glanced at his watch. "I’ve got a shoot in about ten minutes."

  Kate took the hint. "I’ll be on my way. But before I go. could you give me a picture of Gina?"

  Quietly, Brad walked out of the room and returned a few moments later with an eight-by-ten photograph. "Here you go."

  The girl was truly stunning, Kate thought as she studied the black-and-white shoulder shot. A cross between Cindy Crawford and Cher. "Thank you." She nodded at the card he had laid on the console. "If you think of anything else that might be useful, will you call me?"

  He shrugged. "Sure." When it became clear that he wasn’t going to walk her to the door, Kate left.

  "How did it go with Brad Carpenter?" Kate’s secretary asked when Kate returned to the office shortly before three that afternoon.

  Although she couldn’t be called pretty, Francine Morgano, better known as Frankie, definitely commanded attention. Petite and perky, she had lustrous black hair she always wore in a tight French braid, and thin, outrageously arched eyebrows over large, round eyes that made her look like a Kewpie doll.

  Twice divorced, she claimed to have only two passions-her work and men. Her affairs could be monitored through the photo cube on her desk, the contents of which changed with alarming frequency. This month, the featured hunk was a dark-complected Cuban by the name of Romero.

  Frankie had been Kate’s devoted secretary and close friend for eight years, five of which had been in the U.S. attorney’s office. She was trustworthy, opinionated and honest to the point of being blunt. At first, Douglas had been reluctant to hire her, not because he doubted her capabilities, but because he didn’t think she fitted the firm’s highly sophisticated image.

  Kate had held her ground, insisting that she and Frankie were a package deal. In the end, Douglas had capitulated.

  "Not bad," Kate replied in answer to Frankie’s question. "He gave me my first clue."

  "Do tell." Frankie perched herself on the corner of Kate’s desk and crossed her shapely legs.

  "Do you remember that drug dealer who used to operate around the Dupont Circle? The one you said had cute buns?"

  Frankie giggled. "As if I could forget. If he hadn’t been so revolting in every other way, I would have tried to reform him." Pretending to be holding a cigar in front of her mouth, she wiggled her eyebrows in a fairly good imitation of Groucho Marx. "If you know what I mean."

  "Do you remember his name?"

  "Pete something or other. Farley? Finley? That’s it. Pete Finley. What do you want with him, Boss?"

  "Brad Carpenter told me that Gina Lamont was a cocaine junkie. If she was buying her drugs close to home, it’s possible Finley was her supplier." She leaned back in her chair. "You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find him, would you?"

  "What am I? A listing for two-bit hoodlums?"

  Kate fought back a smile. "No, but since you were dating the officer who busted Finley three months ago, maybe you could find out?"

  "I guess I could." Frankie wiggled her eyebrows again. "Or you could ask that hunk in homicide. I have a hunch he’d do just about anything for you."

  Feeling color rise to her cheeks, Kate opened her briefcase and pulled out Tony’s case file. "Don’t be silly."

  "Oh, don’t tell me you didn’t notice." Frankie chuckled. "Calhoon’s got the hots for you, Boss. It’s written all over that handsome puss of his."

  "You’re reading too many romance novels."

  "What can I say? I’m a romantic gal. And I can tell love in bloom when I see it."

  Kate shook her head. "You won’t see any blooms over here, Frankie. I swore off romance forever, remember? One disastrous relationship is enough for me."

  "Never give up on love, Boss. That’s my motto."

  Winking at her, Frankie slid down from Kate’s desk and walked back into her office.

  Mitch brought his Ford to a stop in front of Kate Logan’s house and just sat there, looking at it for a moment. He had been here a couple of times before, during his investigation of Lilly Moore’s murder. Kate hadn’t been very friendly then, and he didn’t expect her to be any different now. But he was willing to give it a shot. Partly because he had a hunch Eric Logan had contacted his former wife and partly because he had been looking for an excuse to see her again.

  That last thought brought a smile to his lips. Was his physical attraction to Kate Logan that powerful? Or was it more than that? Either way, he ought to know better. Involvement of any kind between a cop and a defense counsel had always been frowned upon. When that defense counsel also happened to be the ex-wife of a prime murder suspect, the ramifications could be disastrous.

  Stepping out of the car, Mitch glanced up and down the quiet street. Houses of all sizes and shapes, many of them decorated for the Christmas holiday, twinkled with hundreds of lights. It was a picture-perfect scene, almost impossible to associate with the violence that took place every minute of the day in other parts of the city.

  Kate’s house was just as festive, with miniature lights strung through the shrubs and a gigantic wreath hanging on the door.

  Whistling lightly to the tune of "Oh, Tannenbaum," Mitch walked up the path to the front door and rang the bell. Kate answered it after the second ring.

  In her faded jeans and red sweatshirt, she didn’t look anything like the sophisticated attorney he had seen in the courtroom only yesterday. Her shaggy red hair was in disarray and looked inviting enough for him to want to run his fingers through it. That same light scent he had noticed before enveloped him. One of these days, he’d have to find out the name of that perfume and why it was having such an effect on him.

  "Good evening, Mrs. Logan."

  "What is it now, Detective? Another riot brewing?"

  He thought he saw the hint of a smile cross her face, but couldn’t be sure. "None that I can see. But I’d like to ask you a few questions-if you don’t mind."

  "At eight o’clock in the evening?"

  He shrugged. "I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d save myself a trip in the morning." Before she could reply, he leaned forward, hands in his pockets. "You mind if I come in?"

  For a moment, Kate just looked at him, taking in the friendly, unthreatening blue eyes, the light brown hair with a stubborn strand falling over his forehead, the navy blazer over a cream turtleneck, the 501 jeans. Douglas had labeled him, not without some scorn, one of the new breed of detectives, hip and undisciplined. It was easy to see why Frankie, who had quite an eye for men, had turned to mush the moment she had seen him.

  Reluctantly, Kate pulled the door open and moved aside to let him in. She had known that sooner or later he would want to talk to her. She might as well answer his questions now and get it over with. "All right, but please make it

  short. I brought work home and I’d like to get back to it."

  Mitch followed her across the foyer and into a cheery blue-and-white kitchen. A butcher-block island with a circular rack of gleaming copper pots hanging over it dominated the room. To his left, a cosy nook with a round table, piled high with files, and four chairs overlooked a large backyard.

  Mitch tried to imagine Kate in these surroundings, performing a variety of domestic chores, looking relaxed and happy instead of tense and on guard as she was now.

  She leaned against the counter, her arms folded across her chest. "So what was so important that it couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?"

  Mitch eased a hip onto a kitchen stool. "I was wondering if you had heard from your ex-husband."

  Although Kate had expected the question, had even prepared herself for it, the intensity of his gaze as he asked it threw her off. "No," she replied, trying to compensate her slight hesitation with a firm shake of her head. "Why would I?"