The Scent of Lies: A Paradise Valley Mystery (10 page)

“Hey, guys, is there a place I could speak to my client in private?”

“There’s a study just across the foyer,” Delia offered.

“I guess that’d be all right,” Donnelly agreed.

Delia led Alex and Emily back through the kitchen and across the foyer to the study. As they passed the front door, which Emily had left ajar, it swung open and Detective Colin Andrews walked in, almost knocking Emily down as she passed by it.

“Whoa, sorry!” Colin exclaimed in surprise, reaching out to catch her. She shook free of his hands. “What are
you
doing here?” He flashed Emily a quizzical look, and then he acknowledged Alex.

“Same thing you are, looks like,” she snapped back. That condescending attitude was becoming a habit, she thought.

“What’s going on?” Colin asked the officers who were now standing in the foyer. “I was told there was a murder. Why isn’t this crime scene secured?”

“Secured?” Donnelly asked. “Nobody’s moved the body or been walking close to it.” This was his first murder and likely the only thing he knew about protocol for a murder scene was learned from books years ago.

He explained that another officer was talking to the housekeeper in the kitchen, and he and his partner had been questioning the wife in the dining room until these two showed up, motioning toward Emily and Alex. He went on to tell Detective Andrews that Mr. Martinez was the wife’s attorney, and he had asked to speak with the victim’s wife privately. “He claims the young woman is working for him,” the officer said, eyeing Emily inquisitively.

“I see,” the detective said with a smirk, raising a suspicious eyebrow. She could tell from his expression that he was not pleased with the situation. “I’ll leave you to talk to your client, Alex, while I get the whole scoop from my guys—sorry, my officers.”

As she followed Alex and Delia into the study, Emily looked back over her shoulder at Colin and noticed he was watching her. She wished she could tell what he was thinking. Turning, she peeked out of the door as she pushed it shut. He still had his eyes on her.

* * *

Once Emily closed the door, Colin spoke to the two officers who’d questioned Delia then headed to the kitchen at the back of the house to discover what the housekeeper had to say. He found Marcela and the other officer sitting around the breakfast table. The officer rose and sauntered into the open kitchen area to speak with the young detective, hiking up his trousers by the belt.

“Ernie.”

“Colin.”

“Donnelly says this is the housekeeper. Is that right?”

“Yes, her name is Marcela Montoya,” Ernie replied, looking down at his notes.

Colin looked over at the young woman. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing a sky-blue jogging suit, or perhaps they were pajamas. He couldn’t be sure these days.

“What has she told you?” Colin asked, keeping his voice down, turning so Ernie’s broad back would face her, trying to shield their conversation.

“She said after Miss Delia, which is what she calls her, had dinner alone, she went upstairs to take a bath and Marcela went to her room to change out of her work clothes and read.” Looking down to recall what he had written, he went on. “She said that sometime after that she heard Mr. Vega’s voice, so she knew he had come home. It sounded like he was arguing with someone in the living room, but it didn’t sound like his wife.”

“So she said he wasn’t arguing with his wife, but there was another woman here?”

“Looks that way. The report continues,” Ernie said, reading what he had written. “So she crept into the kitchen to listen and find out what they were arguing about. It sounded like Mr. Vega was having an affair with this woman, she heard the woman say she was pregnant and she wanted him to tell his wife. Then Marcela heard a slap. Out of curiosity, she poked her head into the dining room to see if she could tell who he was arguing with. She saw a young woman with dark hair, about to her shoulders, wearing a beige coat, but she did not recognize her. Then the argument died down and Marcela went back to her room. A little later—”

“Well,” Colin interrupted, “we’ll have to find out who the mystery woman is.”

“That’s what they hired you for,” Ernie kidded, before returning to his notes. “She said...” he scanned the report with his stubby pointer finger and found where he left off, “Okay, there it is. She was in her room, just over there off the end of the kitchen,” he noted, pointing in the direction of her room with his clipboard. “She told me she heard a scream and came running. She ran through the kitchen, into the dining room, and saw Ms. McCall kneeling on the floor in the living room next to her dead husband with a bloody knife in her hand. Then,” he looked down at his notes again, “Ms. McCall ordered her to call the police, saying that her husband was dead.”

“So, Miss Montoya is the one who called this in?” Colin asked, glancing over at her.

“Looks that way.”

“Miss Montoya,” Colin said, moving to the table where she sat waiting, “can you tell me about Ms. McCall’s relationship with her husband?”

“I do not understand,” she answered, her words were thick with her Hispanic accent.

“How did Miss Delia get along with Ricardo?” Colin asked again.

“Oh, okay. They argue sometime.”

“About what?”

“I don’t want to get Miss Delia in trouble,” Marcela said. “She is very good to me.”

“I need you to tell me the truth, Marcela. Don’t you want to help us find Mr. Vega’s killer?”

“Yes.” She paused, thinking. “They fight sometime about money, about his going out after supper. She cry. I tell her to no worry. I tell her he need to go out for business. He is a man, and she should not try to stop him.”

“Did they have a fight tonight?” Colin asked.

“No, I do not think so.”

“Do you have any idea who the other woman was that came here tonight?”

“No, I never see her before.”

“All right, we’re finished with you for now, Miss Montoya,” Colin said. “I just need you to read over the written statement and sign it.” He motioned to Ernie to set the statement before her.

Colin told her she could not stay at the house that night because it was a crime scene, so she would need to pack a bag and stay somewhere else for the next few days. He asked her if she had any friends or family she could stay with and she replied yes. Then, he asked her to remain in the area and, seeing on the report she showed a cell phone number, he told her he would be in contact with her if he had any more questions.

“Okay,” she replied, looking back down at the papers. After signing at the bottom, she hurried to her room to pack.

“What do you think, boss?”

“Well, Donnelly told me Ms. McCall said she was upstairs taking a bath and didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, which lines up with what the housekeeper told us.” Then Colin relayed to Ernie the rest of the report he received from Officer Donnelly, which seemed to correspond somewhat to Marcela’s statement, except Delia did not mention anything about another woman coming to the house. Colin peeked around the corner to see if Delia and her defense entourage had come out yet. “Either she didn’t know or she isn’t saying.”

“Do you believe the wife’s story?” Ernie asked.

“I can’t say yet. It’s a little too early, my friend.” Colin patted Ernie on the shoulder and walked back to the foyer. Ernie was the reason Colin knew the Paradise Valley Police Department was looking to hire a new and experienced detective. Ernie Kaufman had been a friend of his father’s when he’d lived in California, and they had kept in touch since Ernie decided to move to the Pacific Northwest.

Colin was standing in the foyer with the other officers, not far from the door to the study when it opened and Emily walked out first. He caught her gaze and felt a magnetic energy pulse between them. Her soft green eyes drew him in until she looked away and broke her hold on him. He took a step back to compose himself.

There was a sharp knock at the door and one of the officers opened it. It was the county medical examiner, Dr. Walters, and a two-person crime unit from Boise, there to do the initial inspection of the body and a full inspection of the crime scene.

“I hope you haven’t let people trample through the murder scene, Ernie,” Dr. Walters warned.

“No, Doc, I think it’s pretty well intact.”

“You think?” Dr. Walters challenged. “These small town cops,” he mumbled under his breath as he ducked under the tape. “Any idea where the murder weapon is?”

“On the dining table,” Officer Donnelly answered, motioning toward the dining room.

“Did you touch it, Officer?” Dr. Walters asked.

“No. That’s where it was when we got here.”

While the medical examiner and the CSI unit set about processing the body and the scene, Detective Andrews motioned for everyone else to move toward the foot of the staircase in the foyer.

“Ms. McCall, I’ll need you to come down to the police station with me for further questioning,” the detective ordered.

“Only if I can be in the room with her,” Alex clarified.

“Of course,” Colin acquiesced, with a patronizing smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.” He would rather question her without her attorney present, hopefully get her to confess, but he knew Alex was never going to let that happen.

“You know this lawyer?” Ernie whispered in Colin’s ear.

“Yes. I’ll explain later,” he whispered back.

“I don’t understand, Detective Andrews, I—” Delia started to say.

“That’s enough, Delia, please. Let me do the talking,” Alex warned.

“But the officers already asked me a lot of questions, Alex. I’ve already told them what happened. I did not kill my husband.”

“From the evidence so far, ma’am, it looks like you are my prime suspect,” Colin noted.

“Don’t worry, Delia,” Emily said, putting an arm around her shoulders, shooting Colin a cold stare. “We’ll help you through this.”

“All right,” Delia replied, throwing up her hands in surrender.

“We’ll meet you down at the station after Ms. McCall gets dressed, if you don’t mind, Detective,” Emily remarked, apparently the only one who noticed Delia was still in her robe.

“I’d rather she came with us, so I’ll wait while she changes,” Colin said. “Officer Sanchez, please escort Ms. McCall up to her room and stay with her.”

“You don’t believe she’ll come to the station on her own?” Alex asked, raising his eyebrows at Colin.

“She’s a woman with a lot of money and contacts. If she wanted to, I think she could disappear while we’re sitting down at the station, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for her.” Colin had seen suspects run many times in his years on the force in San Francisco, particularly suspects with means.

“I don’t have a lot of money, Detective. Everything I have is mortgaged to the hilt because of the business,” Delia argued in her defense. “The house, the commercial property—everything!”

“Calm down, Delia. Let me handle this,” Alex told her. “I promise you, Colin, she’s not going anywhere. She’s as anxious as you are to get this over with. Aren’t you, Delia?” Alex asked.

“You have no idea,” she replied, eyeing the detective as she pulled her robe tighter around her chest. She turned and grabbed hold of the banister, beginning to climb the stairs. “I’m more than happy to come down to the station, Detective, as soon as I put some clothes on,” she explained, leaving everyone else waiting in the foyer.

“We’ll bring her down to the station, Colin. You have our word,” Alex said and Colin nodded his agreement.

“You don’t have to treat her like a criminal, you know.” Emily spoke to Colin with her arms crossed and a sharpness lining her voice.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist. If you had any experience at all, you’d know I’m treating her like a murder suspect.”

Chapter 9

They all headed down to the police station and once inside, Colin escorted Delia into one of the interrogation rooms, with Alex close behind, leaving Emily to pace outside in the hall.

Delia said that she had never been inside a police station before, let alone being taken into an interrogation room suspected of murder. She was sure the glazed look of terror she must have had in her eyes as she walked through the station would confirm it.

Seated across the table from Delia and her attorney, Colin read her rights then proceeded to pepper her with questions.

“Your housekeeper said that you and your husband often fight—about money and other women. Is that true?” the detective asked.

“Don’t answer that,” Alex told her.

“She also said there was a woman who came to the house while you were upstairs supposedly taking a long bath. Were you aware of that?”

“Don’t answer that.”

Colin was undeterred. “Marcela said the other woman and your husband were arguing over their affair.”

With that comment, Delia felt like someone had just slapped her across the face. She had hired an investigator to find the woman Ricardo had been cheating with and there she was, standing in her house, right before her husband was killed.