A Killer Column (16 page)

After I got a shot of him standing in front of the duo, he shook his head in disbelief, though the smile was still clear on his face. “We’re not going to be able to show that to anyone, you know that, don’t you?”

“We don’t have to. Isn’t it enough to know that it exists?”

I kissed his cheek, and he surprised me by wrapping me up in his arms. “I love you.”

“More than Andy?” I said.

“Andy, Barney, Opie, and Aunt Bea, too.”

“Wow, I feel special.”

Zach kissed me again, this time more soundly, and then he released me. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some calls to make.”

My husband walked over toward the water, and I moved nearby where I could see the lake myself. It was beautiful, a serene vision just minutes from downtown Raleigh, and I silently thanked the park’s designer for preserving something so special so close.

I don’t know how long I took it all in, but Zach came back and broke into my thoughts. “Savannah, did you hear me?”

“Sorry, I was thinking about something else,” I said. “What did you say?”

“We’ve got a meeting, and we need to get across town in ten minutes to make it in time.”

“Then we’d better get going,” I said as I started back to the parking lot.

“Don’t you even want to know who we’re seeing?” he asked.

“I figure you’ll tell me eventually.”

“I spoke with Derrick’s former business partner, Frank Lassiter. He’s in town at the police’s request, and he wants to talk to me.”

“Not us?”

“I don’t think he’ll mind if you tag along, too.”

“Well, I’ve had warmer invitations, but I’ve had worse ones over the years, too, haven’t I?”

“Probably even from me.”

“Where are we meeting?” I asked.

“We need to head over to Edenton Street. We’re going to talk to him on the grounds of the State Capitol.”

A
S WE DROVE THE SHORT DISTANCE TO THE CAPITOL, I asked Zach, “How did you manage to get him to meet us?”

“He feels like the police are going to railroad him for this, and he wants someone with some influence on his side.”

“And you know someone like that?”

He grinned at me. “I’m talking about me.”

“How did he get the impression you had some pull in Raleigh?”

“Well,” Zach said as he rubbed his chin, “I may have misled him a little on that. After I identified myself as the former Charlotte chief of police, I told him I had an interest in Derrick’s homicide case, which is strictly true. He asked me a few questions, I answered them honestly, and he agreed to this meeting.”

“Can I be there, too?”

“Yes, but it’s best if you don’t say anything.”

I looked over at my husband to see if he was serious. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Normally I would never dream of asking you to do that, Savannah, and you know it, but I want your reactions to his answers.”

“Does he even know I’m your wife?”

Zach hesitated a long time before he answered. “I’m not planning on telling him, and you shouldn’t, either.”

“Let me get this straight. You want me to lie to him?”

“Of course not,” he said as I pulled up into an empty parking spot on Edenton Street. “Just don’t volunteer any information.”

“I suppose I can do that,” I said.

Before I opened my door, I reached into the backseat and grabbed a clipboard I stowed there when I wanted to work on a puzzle.

“What’s that for?” Zach asked.

“Camouflage. People think you’re official if you keep your mouth shut and carry a clipboard around.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“I read it in a mystery novel, if you must know, but it sounds like it could be true, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose it’s worth a shot,” Zach said.

We got out of the car and walked over to a large marble memorial that sported a bronze woman on top. “Where is he?”

“He said he’d be by the small cannons,” Zach said.

“They’re over this way,” I said as I took a left.

“How do you know that?”

“I came here right after Derrick fired me, remember?”

“I thought you said you went to the museum.”

I pointed across the street. “That’s where I ended up.”

We found a pair of small cannons where I remembered them, and there was a heavyset older man in a three-piece suit waiting there, glancing at his watch.

My husband approached him, and I took a few steps back. Zach identified himself, and the man said in a gravelly voice, “I’m Lassiter.”

He looked at me, obviously expecting me to provide my name, but I just stood there, nodded, and then glanced down at my clipboard, as if there was something there more fascinating than a puzzle that was only partially completed.

“Before we get started, I need to know a few things,” Zach said.

“Fire away. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“When was the last time you saw Derrick Duncan alive?” Zach asked.

“In Richmond, the day before he was killed,” Lassiter said. “And I can prove it.”

I couldn’t help myself. I’d promised Zach to keep quiet, but the gear between my mouth and my brain clearly weren’t working. “How could you possibly prove that?”

“There were witnesses,” the man said. “Who are you, anyway?”

“An associate who sometimes forgets herself,” my husband replied. “She does make a good point, though.”

“I’ve got witnesses,” Lassiter said, starting to get aggravated with both of us.

“You have witnesses who saw you together the day before he was murdered, but that doesn’t prove that you didn’t see him again later,” Zach said, and I smiled slightly. He’d gotten my point, even if Lassiter hadn’t.

“He was murdered here, right? I’ve never been to Raleigh before, so it would have been tough for me to kill him.”

“That’s true,” Zach said. “But again, it’s hard to prove that you’ve never been somewhere before, too.”

“What is this? I thought you were going to help me.”

“I can’t do anything until I find out more about you and your situation.”

“I’m not the one anyone should be looking at. There are a boatload of people with more motive and opportunity than I ever had.”

“Would you care to explain?”

“Sure I would. Like I told that detective Murphy, Cary Duncan had five hundred thousand reasons to want the man dead. Derrick told me that she took out a life insurance policy on him six months ago. He said he was worth more to her dead than alive. That’s an odd thing to brag about, wouldn’t you say?”

“Did they have problems?”

“Let me ask you something. Are you married?”

To his credit, he didn’t look at me as he answered. “Sometimes it feels like I have been all my life.”

“Then you know.”

“Know what?” Zach asked a second before I could.

“There’s not a couple I’ve ever known who didn’t want to kill each other at least a dozen times over the course of a marriage, and that includes the ones who get along.”

I was about to answer that when Zach shot me a warning look. “She had to have had more of a reason than that.”

Lassiter raised one eyebrow as he said, “How about a little piece of fluff on the side?”

“Derrick was cheating on his wife?”

“Some gal named Mindi,” Lassiter said with a smile. “That’s not all, though. I happen to know that Cary wasn’t sitting at home being faithful when Duncan was out kicking it up.”

“She was having affairs, too?”

“Oh, yes. Sometimes I wondered why they even bothered to stay married. The worst part of it was, from what I heard around town, she was stepping out with somebody Derrick knew.”

“It wouldn’t be you, would it, Mr. Lassiter?” I asked.

Lassiter looked at me with the same expression that Zach had on his face. It said simply, Have you completely lost your mind?

“Lady, I don’t know who you are, but you’re out of line.”

“Perhaps it would be better if you waited in the car,” Zach said.

“I’ll shut up,” I promised, though all three of us knew there was no chance that was going to ever happen.

“You don’t have to. I’m leaving,” Lassiter said as he started to walk away.

“We’re not finished here,” Zach said.

“That’s where you’re wrong. Listen, if you want to be somebody’s advocate, you might want to try believing them when they’re telling you the truth.”

After he was gone, I prepared myself for a barrage from Zach, but he just shook his head and walked back to the car. I felt worse than I would have if he’d chewed me out.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I caught up with him. “I didn’t mean to push him. I should have kept my mouth shut like I’d promised.”

I couldn’t see Zach’s face, but when he glanced over at me, I could see that he was grinning.

“What are you smiling about?”

He ordered, “Keep walking. You might not realize it, but Lassiter is still watching us. I want him to think that I’m upset with you. It might get us another angle inside, if we play it right.”

“You’re not mad?”

“I’d have been disappointed if you hadn’t started goading him when you did,” Zach admitted. “Savannah, did you honestly think I believed for one second that you could listen to me interview someone without interjecting? Give me a little credit, will you?”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment,” I said.

“It wasn’t meant to be. I figured you’d make a crack or two, and I wanted to see his reaction to you. I had a feeling that he was indeed having an affair with Cary Duncan, but you disproved that.”

“How so?” I asked as we got back to the car.

“Lassiter’s not all that fond of strong women, if his reaction to you is any indication. Can you imagine him putting up with Cary Duncan? One of the main questions about him was if he were capable of an affair with her, and I’d have to say no at the moment.”

“He could have been acting,” I said.

“Not the way he was looking at you. I’ve got a feeling Lassiter likes women who don’t talk back. That doesn’t mean he’s off the hook, though. If he lost the kind of money we’ve heard he did, that was reason enough to kill Duncan.”

“So why didn’t you ask him about that?”

“There wasn’t time,” Zach said. “I thought it would take longer for us to make him mad than it did.”

“Then at least I’m sorry about that,” I said.

“Don’t sweat it, Savannah. There are other ways of finding that out. At least we accomplished something.”

“What’s next, then?”

He glanced at his watch, and then said, “I think it’s time we sat down and had a chat with Mindi Mills. She seems to be at the edge of all of this, don’t you think?”

“Why would she kill him? She doesn’t stand to gain by Derrick’s death.”

“Maybe she killed him for another reason,” Zach said.

“True. If he were dumping her, it might give her motive. How do we find that out, though? I shouldn’t have let her go when I had the chance.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’ll track her down and talk to her, then see how she reacts to our questions. How does that sound?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Do I get to participate this time, or am I just going to be a puppet for you again?”

Zach hugged me before we got into the car. “Savannah, my dear sweet wife, you are a great many things, some of them so frustrating I want to howl at the moon, but anyone’s puppet, you are not.”

“Good, at least you admit that. We’re a team, you know.”

“Trust me, I’m well aware of it.”

As I drove back to the Crest Hotel, I kept wondering about all of the people in Duncan’s life who had a reason to want him dead. It made me wonder how a man could alienate himself so thoroughly from the people around him. Had he known how little he’d been loved? Had he even cared? It was hard to believe that he did, knowing the man as I had. He’d aggravated me a thousand times since we began working together, but I’d never disliked him enough to kill him.

It was clear that I was in the minority there, though.