Suspicion (39 page)

  Mitch shut off the machine. "Heard enough, Maddy?"

  "What the hell did you do to him to get him to say that crap?"

  "We made a deal with him. Information in exchange for leniency. We do that all the time-provided, of course, the suspect has something valuable to offer."

  Tom rolled up his sleeve, as if he was readying himself for a long, tedious session and had all the time in the world. "The kidnapping charges alone will get you fifteen to twenty," he threw in casually. "Then there’s bribery, prostitution and, most likely, conspiracy to murder." He started to roll up the other sleeve. "I’d say you’re looking at a hundred years."

  Maddy gave Tom a hate-filled look. "I want to see my attorney," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

  "Well, you see…" Mitch scratched his head. "We’ve got a little problem locating him, just as you did when you tried to call him earlier." He smiled innocently. "Mr. Fairchild, it would seem, has flown the coop."

  A little vein in Maddy’s right temple began to pulse rapidly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "According to his wife, Douglas went home at about three o’clock this afternoon, packed a few clothes, took a

  pile of money from his safe along with his passport, then took off. We’ve got APBs out for him all over the East Coast, but so far we haven’t been able to locate him."’

  That wasn’t quite true. On his way back from McKackney’s cabin, Mitch had gotten word that Douglas had been apprehended by the Miami police as he was about to board a plane bound for Buenos Aires and was being escorted back to Washington.

  "Rose thinks he’s gone to Argentina," Mitch continued, noting with satisfaction how Maddy’s eyes were beginning to narrow. "Where there’s no extradition treaty." He studied her carefully, wondering how close she was to her breaking point. "Looks like he’s left you to take the fall, Maddy."

  "That son of a bitch." The insult hissed out of her mouth like venom. "That two-timing, back stabbing, good-for-nothing son of a bitch."

  "You ought to choose your friends more carefully, Maddy," Tom commented.

  "Oh, shut up, why don’t you?" Maddy shouted as she finally lost control. "You’re beginning to get on my nerves."

  Tom and Mitch exchanged an amused glance.

  There was a fierce, vengeful look on Maddy’s face as she leaned forward. Looking from Mitch to Tom, she slapped her palms on the table. "All right. You two jackasses want details? You want to know who masterminded the murder of those two women? And Chuck Winslow? I’ll tell you, but not until I get some guarantees."

  Mitch, who had already been told by the U.S. attorney to make whatever deal was necessary to nail the murderer, or murderers, began to relax. "Kidnapping is a federal offense, Maddy, so the U.S. attorney won’t be able to help you there, but even the FBI has been known to be lenient

  in certain cases. Now, about the other charges Detective Spivak mentioned, the U.S. attorney is prepared to drop them, provided you give us the information we need."

  "Will I still go to prison?"

  "I’m afraid so, Maddy. But the sentence will be considerably reduced. Of course, you’ll have to prove that what you’re telling us is true."

  "Oh, I can prove it all right. I’ve got recordings of conversations that’ll make your head spin." She gave him a thin smile. "I wasn’t born yesterday, you know."

  Mitch smiled back. "I’m all ears, Maddy."

  She looked from one detective to the other. "Shouldn’t I have an attorney present?"

  Mitch shrugged. "You can call one if you want to. Or we can provide one for you. But I’m telling you, Maddy, all an attorney is going to do at this point is advise you not to say a word, which, of course, would negate our deal."

  Maddy was silent for a moment, as if mulling the thought over, then, having made her decision, she nodded. "All right. What do you want to know?"

  Tom removed the tape with Jarvis’s confession on it and replaced it with a blank one.

  "Let’s start with Lilly Moore," Mitch said as soon as Tom had pressed the Record button. "Who killed her and why?"

  Maddy lowered her gaze to her hands, which were loosely clasped on the table. "Lilly had a habit of poking around Fairchild Baxter’s old case files. One day, she found one that intrigued her-the rape charge against Sean McKackney-and decided to look into it. Before long, she had found out that Mary Sweeney and Gina Lamont were the same girl." She looked at Mitch. "But you already know that, don’t you, Detective?"

  Mitch nodded. "Did Lilly suspect that Douglas was involved in the conspiracy?"

  "No, but she told him she had enough for him to reopen the case. She said she wanted justice, not just for Peggy Bertram, but for all of womankind." She barked a short laugh. "Have you ever heard such a load of crap?"

  "What did Douglas do?"

  "He got scared. We all did."

  "Can you tell us, for the record, who you mean by ‘all’?"

  "Me, Douglas Fairchild, Senator Sander McKackney and Dr. Sean McKackney."

  "Go on."

  "That same morning, Douglas came to see me and told me we had to kill Lilly. That scared me even more. I didn’t want anything to do with murder. I was prepared to pay Lilly anything she wanted, but Douglas said she wasn’t interested in money. So that afternoon, Douglas took Lilly’s keys from her purse, made a copy of her apartment key and gave it to me."

  "And you gave it to Bruno."

  "I didn’t want to. I argued with Douglas until I was hoarse. I’ve got it all on tape."

  "Why did you feel you had to tape your conversations with Douglas?"

  "Because I didn’t trust him. Or Sander for that matter. They both agreed that Lilly had to be killed, but they didn’t want to hear how it was going to be done. They said I should handle that part. That’s when I became suspicious."

  "They knew Bruno worked for you?"

  "Yeah. And they knew he was devoted to me, that he would do anything I told him to. Bruno and I go way back, when we both worked for Dom Costa."

  "Where are the tapes?"

  "In my office safe. With copies in my safe-deposit box at First Federal."

  Mitch wrote the information in his notebook. "Whose idea was it to buy Winslow’s testimony?"

  "Douglas’s. He talked to all of Lilly’s neighbors before selecting Winslow. The poor bastard might as well have signed his death warrant that day."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Douglas had planned to kill him a week or two after the trial was over. He was afraid he’d start spending that hundred grand all at once and give the whole thing away. When Kate Logan told him she was going to question Winslow again, Douglas decided to speed things up."

  "What about Gina?"

  "Ah, Gina." Maddy’s smile was a mixture of pride and regret. "My best girl. I taught her everything she knew. The problem with her, however, was that she wasn’t very bright. Imaginative, but not bright, otherwise she never would have tried to blackmail me."

  "How much did she hit you for?" Tom asked.

  "A total of three million bucks. One million from me, one from Douglas and one from Sander. She said if we didn’t give it to her, she would go to the police and tell them everything."

  "Why didn’t she try to do that sooner?"

  "She didn’t have to. First of all, her payment for agreeing to help Sean was very generous. She could have retired on that money alone. Second, as one of my most popular girls, Gina was swimming in money. Until eighteen months ago when she got hooked on coke." She gave a sad shake of her head. "She was no good to me then. And worse, she was beginning to give my operation a bad name. I had to let her go."

  "I’m surprised she didn’t try to blackmail you then."

  "I was afraid she would, but I don’t think she even thought of it. She was having a great time with her new drug habit and her trendy friends. Besides, I had given her the phone numbers of a few clients-those I didn’t mind losing, and she was able to keep on working. I don’t think she got the idea of blackmailing anybody until she really hit the skids two or three months ago."

  "Was killing her Douglas’s idea, also?"

  Maddy nodded. "He said that with her drug habit and her lifestyle, the three million wouldn’t last long. He was afraid she would keep on blackmailing us until she bled us dry."

  "What about Kate Logan’s beating last week? Whose idea was that?" Mitch’s easy manner had vanished.

  "We had another argument about that one, but not because I wanted to spare Kate Logan’s life." She tugged at a shirtsleeve. "I knew that broad was trouble the moment she walked into my office. I told that to Douglas, but he wouldn’t listen. He said that all she needed was a warning. But he was wrong on that one." When Maddy looked up at Mitch, her eyes were cold and hard. "Kate Logan should have died."

  Mitch had never had the urge to strike a woman before, not even when he had found Ava making love to another man. But in Maddy’s case, he would gladly have made an exception.

  As if sensing his frustration, Tom looked at Maddy. "What about LuAnn? Was she supposed to die, too?"

  "No. We just wanted to teach anybody who might be tempted to talk a lesson."

  A uniformed officer came in and leaned toward Mitch, talking low.

  Mitch rose. "I’m going to have to send you back to

  your cell for now, Maddy." He nodded to the guard at the door. "We’ll finish this a little later, okay?" He shut off the recorder.

  "Why?" Maddy was suddenly alert, glancing from Mitch to the officer who was standing beside him, waiting. "What did he tell you? What’s going on? If it’s about me, I have a right to know."

  "It isn’t about you, Maddy."

  Mitch waited until she had left the interrogation room before nodding to the young officer.

  "Okay, Art, you can bring Douglas Fairchild in."

  Thirty- Four

  Are you comfortable, darling?" Megan, who hadn’t stopped fussing since Eric had returned from surgery, fluffed another pillow and tucked it behind his head.

  Eric leaned back and smiled. Both his mother and Megan had been smothering him with attention. But he wasn’t complaining. After the two and a half weeks he’d endured, he deserved a little pampering.

  "I’m fine," he said as Megan refilled his water glass. "The local anesthetic they gave me hasn’t had a chance to wear off yet, so there’s no pain." He patted the bed. "Stop moving around. Come here." Megan sat down and let him take her hands in his. "Did you hear from Calhoon?" he asked. "Have I been cleared of that stupid murder charge?"

  Megan beamed. "Totally. Mitch called while you were in surgery. Douglas killed Gina. Well, he didn’t actually do the killing, but he ordered it. And the others, as well."

  "What others?"

  "Lilly Moore and Chuck Winslow. He’s even responsible for an attack on Kate."

  "That bastard." Happy though Eric was to be a free man again, his hatred of Douglas almost choked him. The man his mother had loved for twenty-one years, the stepfather who had preached honesty, hard work and integrity, the attorney an entire town respected and admired,

  was nothing but a cold-blooded killer. "That bastard," he repeated between clenched teeth. "I hope he rots in jail for a long time."

  Megan’s fingertips, soft as feathers, brushed against his skin. "I don’t want to talk about Douglas anymore," she said, her expression serious.

  He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. "What do you want to talk about?"

  She drew a breath and released it slowly. "Mother."

  "Your mother?"

  Megan nodded. "She called. She wants to see you." She moistened her lips. "I think she wants to apologize."

  Eric laughed. "Your mother apologize? She doesn’t know the meaning of the word."

  "She’s learning, Eric. And she’s trying. Please give her another chance. I promise you won’t regret it."

  He grinned and pulled her to him. "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean," Megan said, blushing as she settled against him, "that I’ll be forever grateful."

  "How about giving me a sample of that gratitude right now?" He started playing with a button on her blouse.

  She laughed and gave his hand a gentle slap. "Stop that. What if someone came in and saw us?"

  "No one will if you lock the door."

  "Eric, what did they give you in that operating room anyway?"

  He pulled her closer. "Make love to me, Megan."

  "Not here."

  He cupped her breast and heard the little catch in her throat. "If you do, I’ll welcome Mother Hollbrook with wide-open arms."

  "This is crazy-"

  "Go lock the door, Megan."

  Her breath coming a little quicker, Megan stood up and went to lock the door.

  "That horrible woman wanted to kill you. Mom." Alison almost choked on the words. "I heard her say it on the phone."

  Kate tucked the covers around Alison’s neck and kissed her cheek. "That’s all behind us now, darling. Maddy Mays can’t harm us. And neither can Bruno." She pushed back a golden strand of hair, enjoying the simple pleasure of touching and looking at her daughter.

  "Who was she talking to on the phone, Mom?"

  It was the second time tonight that Alison had made reference to that call. She had also inquired about her grandfather, wanting to know why he hadn’t been at the hospital. Kate had hinted at an unexpected out-of-town trip, hoping the small white lie would temporarily satisfy her. It had, but considering how every newspaper and television station in the country had pounced on the story, it was a miracle that Alison hadn’t already heard about her grandfather’s involvement in this lurid affair.

  Tomorrow would be time enough to tell her the truth, Kate thought as Alison stifled a yawn. "Let’s talk in the morning, baby, okay? You’ve had enough excitement for one day."