The Scent of Lies: A Paradise Valley Mystery (11 page)

“Why aren’t you talking to her, then?” Delia blinked back her tears.

“Because we don’t know who she is,” Colin answered. “Do you?”

“How would I know?”

“Dark hair to her shoulders, about five six, maybe late twenties or early thirties. Ring any bells?”

Delia shook her head.

“That description could fit a lot of women,” Alex answered.

“Did you know your husband was having an affair?” Colin questioned.

“Don’t answer that.” At least Alex was consistent.

“Did you kill your husband because he was cheating on you?”

“I did not kill my husband!”

“Please, Delia, stop.” Alex put a hand on her shoulder.

Delia felt compelled to answer, to defend herself, in spite of Alex’s repeat warnings.

He reminded the detective that she had already given her statement at the house and she had nothing else to say. Alex rose from his chair. “I think we’re done here.”

“Not by a long shot,” Colin countered.

“My client has nothing more to say.”

“I suspect she does have more to say.” Colin leaned both hands on the table and stared into her eyes. “She just doesn’t want to tell me.”

“That’s enough, Detective,” Alex cautioned.

Delia bit her lip, struggling to maintain her silence as Colin watched, looking ready to pounce—he did. “I think she wants to tell me her husband was a lying, cheating scum bag and he had it coming.”

“He got what he deserved,” she blurted out, “he just didn’t get it from me.”

“This has been very stressful on my client and I’m taking her home now,” Alex said, helping Delia to her feet.

Detective Andrews looked like he wished Alex wasn’t there to restrain her from talking. He appeared as though he thought her feelings were ready to boil over and spill out—like a big-city cop who wasn’t about to let a small town socialite get the better of him. Alex’s warnings to Delia for her to remain tight-lipped had definitely foiled the detective’s hopes to draw a confession out of her.
 

With Alex at her side, Delia took a step toward the door.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you leave, Ms. McCall. You refuse to answer my questions, so you leave me no choice. I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Ricardo Vega. Please put your hands behind your back.”

“But I didn’t kill him! I’m innocent,” she screamed at the detective. “Alex! Don’t let him do this!”

“This is totally uncalled for,” Alex protested in her defense. “You’re making a big mistake. All your evidence is circumstantial. You know it won’t hold up in court.” Alex spoke indignantly, his lips becoming thin and a vein pulsing in his neck. “While you’re wasting time arresting my client, Colin, the real killer is out there getting away with it,” Alex argued, his arms making wide sweeping motions.

“That’s Detective Andrews, and I’m just doing my job. You need to calm down, Counselor.” Their eyes met for a moment, as if daring the other to flinch. “You won’t let her answer my questions, she’s not cooperating, and she was found holding the murder weapon leaning over her husband’s dead body. You tell me, what choice do I have?”

Delia’s eyes were wide and watery, and her brow furrowed, as she silently screamed her fear, glaring at Alex, begging for his help. The officer pulled her arms behind her back to cuff her. “Ouch!” Delia cried as he clamped the handcuffs on her delicate wrists.

Emily was resting on a bench in the hall now, no longer pacing, but she shot to her feet when the door opened and Colin walked out with a handcuffed Delia and a defeated-looking Alex. He walked her down the hall and Emily hustled to catch up with them.

“What’s happening? What are you doing, Colin?” she questioned frantically.

“I’m taking your client to booking. She’s under arrest for murder.” He pulled Delia past Emily, not stopping to talk.

Delia looked to Emily as Colin escorted her through a door where Emily and Alex could not follow. “I’m innocent, Emily. Please, find out who did this!”

“I will, I promise.” Delia heard Emily call out after her as the door shut and she was gone.

* * *

“Alex?” Emily questioned, searching his eyes for answers.

“They’re taking her to booking. Since it’s a Sunday night, she won’t be arraigned until Monday morning.”

“She has to spend the night in jail?”

“I’m afraid so, but I’ll be in court with her tomorrow, and I’ll ask the judge for bail. With any luck, she’ll be home by that afternoon. If you’re the praying sort, I’d suggest you start now.”

“That’s doesn’t sound good.”

“It’s not. If we don’t find out who the real killer is, she might go to prison for a very long time.”

Emily nodded in agreement.

“I have to be honest with you, Em. I’m not convinced you’re up to the job. We both know you don’t have much experience at this sort of work.”

“Now you sound like Colin.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“I can do this, Alex. Just give me a chance.”

“I know you’ve already put in some time working on the case investigating Ricardo, and Delia says she wants you on it, but I have some real concerns. So tell me now if you have any doubts. I have other more experienced investigators I can call.”

“No. I’m up to it. Right now, helping you with this case is my top priority—there’s nothing more important. I know I can do this, Alex.”

“All right then, Emily, we have our work cut out for us.”

She took Alex home, driving down the wide, winding streets in his posh neighborhood of River Woods. They found the cars were gone from the driveway and the street in front of his house was empty. It was past ten o’clock and all the guests had apparently gone home. She pulled her car into his driveway.

“Thank you for coming with me, Alex. I don’t know what Delia would have done if you hadn’t been there.”

“No need to thank me. It was your quick thinking that brought me into this.”

“So what’s next?”

“I’ll find out first thing tomorrow morning when she’s being arraigned, and I’ll be in court with her. I’m hoping to convince the judge to release her on bail.”

“Did you get a look at the housekeeper’s statement?” Emily asked.

“Not yet. I expect to get that on Monday, as well. But Colin did mention a few things from it, like there was another woman at the house while Delia was in her bathroom, arguing with Ricardo over their affair.”

“And Delia didn’t know?”

“No, she looked as surprised by the news as I was, maybe more so. Colin said, according to the housekeeper’s statement, that the woman was late twenties or early thirties, about five six or seven, with long dark hair.”

“That sounds like Delia’s assistant, Anna.”

“You’ve met her assistant?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean it was her. Sounds like a pretty average description. That would describe your own wife, for instance.”

“I guess you’re right, but we should check that assistant out all the same.”

“Consider it done,” she assured him.

“I’d like to question the housekeeper myself, if I could find her,” he remarked.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sure they’re not letting her stay at Delia’s house right now. I expect they have it sealed off as a crime scene.”

“I’ll do some snooping around and see if I can find her,” she said.

Alex opened the car door and slid out. “I’ll call you in the morning and let you know what time the arraignment is scheduled. Go home and get some rest while you can.”

As she drove away, Emily thought about poor Delia, sitting alone in a stark jail cell. According to her, Ricardo was alive when she went upstairs, so someone had to have killed him while she was up there. But who? Who would have gotten in the house? The police said there was no sign of forced entry, so was it someone he knew? And why? Maybe he was into something dangerous and someone was after him. Maybe some sort of deal he was involved with went south.

By the time she got home, Emily’s stomach was grumbling loudly in protest to her missing dinner. Delia had called before she’d gotten the chance to eat anything at Isabel’s party. She took a box dinner out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave. Standing in front of the oven, she watched her dinner spin around just like the questions that were spinning in her head.

The microwave beeped, jerking her out of her thoughts. She grabbed a tea towel and removed the hot dish, then moved to the table to eat. But as soon as she sat down, she noticed the photo from the safe deposit box lying on the table. Emily studied it for a minute. “He looks so young,” she muttered, staring at Evan’s engaging blue eyes and that sexy, crooked smile.

How long ago was this picture taken, and who was this woman
? Evan obviously knew her well—he had his arm around her and they looked happy. Was she a friend or a relative? A cousin maybe?

Emily’s mind was such a jumble of questions that she hardly realized she had devoured her entire dinner without really tasting it. She pushed the plastic plate aside and concentrated on the photo, propping her head on one hand. Maybe she was an old girlfriend? If so, why would he have kept it in that safe deposit box?
Or could he have had a wife before he married me? No. If that were the case he would have told me, I know it
—Emily shot up straight in her chair—
then again, maybe not.

From the items she found in the safe deposit box, there were obviously a lot of things he
hadn’
t told her. Besides wondering who this woman was, she was starting to wonder who Evan really was.

When they had first met about six years ago, she had just graduated from Georgetown University with a degree in US History. She had intended to teach high school, but teaching jobs in the Washington, D.C. area had been scarce. So she had waited tables in a restaurant near Alexandria, Virginia, to pay the bills until the right job came along.

Evan had wandered into the restaurant one afternoon for a late lunch and they’d struck up a conversation. He’d come back a few more times before he had finally asked her out. She’d happily said yes, and they began to date. Before long they fell in love, over picnics on the grass in the Capital Mall and during late night dinners at out-of-the-way restaurants.

He worked as a private investigator, he had told her, and sometimes his job took him away for a week or two at a time. Some of his clients, he had said, were corporations with offices in other cities around the world and he had to travel because of it.

She’d never met any of his family members. He’d said he didn’t have any. The story was that he’d grown up in England, as an only child, and that his parents had died in a car crash when he was about eighteen. After that, he’d come to America, to find his fame and fortune, as he put it. She’d never questioned him, she’d trusted him implicitly—but now she wondered if it had all been a lie.

Maybe she had been too trusting. Maybe she should have asked more questions. Certainly when you decide to give someone your whole heart you give them your unwavering trust, as well—
don’t you?
She couldn’t overlook the missing diamond ring, however, or the suspicious contents of the secret safe deposit box. She let out a long, loud sigh. Emily didn’t know what to think.

She changed into her pajamas, got ready for bed, and switched off her lamp. She laid her head on the pillow, but her thoughts and emotions were roiling. As with most nights lately, Emily tossed and turned for hours, not able to quiet her mind long enough to drift off to sleep. The questions kept coming at her, no matter how hard she tried to fight them off.

Glancing at the alarm clock on the night table, it was glowing three thirty-five. Emily dragged herself out of bed and padded to the kitchen to make a cup of warm milk. As she waited for it to warm in the microwave, she picked up the photo again and studied the woman’s face. Then she noticed the building in the background. It looked old, like the ancient buildings in Europe. She wondered where the photo had been taken
.
More questions would do nothing to help her get to sleep, she realized, so she set the photo back down and picked up the warm milk.

Chapter 10

Emily stood perched on the edge of a precipice, figuratively speaking, about to embark on a frightening and exciting new phase of her life. She needed to find out who killed her client’s husband, and why, and at the same time she was desperate to discover who murdered her own.

She lay in bed and wondered if maybe the two were connected somehow. Was Evan killed because he was getting too close to uncovering the truth about Ricardo and what he may have been into? Did Ricardo kill Evan? If so, then who killed Ricardo?

No answers came. Just questions leading to more questions.

Weary from yet another sleepless night, Emily turned her alarm clock off, dragged herself out of bed, and wandered to the kitchen, yearning for a cup of coffee. She needed to get her caffeine fix and hop in the shower before Alex called.

As she dressed, the boxes of Evan’s clothes, stacked precariously on his side of the closet, caught her attention. The rack and shelves looked so sad and empty, and for a fleeting moment she felt like putting a few things back, just to ease her pain. Instead, she drew in a deep breath.
No, Emily, you did the right thing
. Now move forward.