FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (17 page)

“Don’t answer that,
Kate. What’s this about, Detectives?” This time, Rose’s sharp tone was
intentional.

Two sets of chocolate
brown eyes locked on each other. “Mrs. Huntington,” Jones said, without
breaking the staring contest with Rose. “We need to speak with you alone.”

“Not happenin’,” Rose
said. “Kate, call Rob.”

“Rob as in Robert
Franklin, the lawyer?” Bradley said.

“And why exactly do you
think your friend needs a lawyer, Officer Hernandez?” Jones said.

“Because I don’t
particularly like the fact that you won’t tell us what this is about.”

“You’re very protective
of your friends, aren’t you, Rose? May I call you Rose?” Bradley’s voice was
gentle.

Rose looked at him and
resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. Did they really think they could play
good cop-bad cop
with a cop?

“We’ll answer your
questions when Mr. Franklin arrives,” Rose said evenly.

Meanwhile Kate had gone
into the kitchen to call Rob. She quietly told him what was happening.

“I’m on my way. Don’t
say anything until I get there.”

Kate quickly dialed a
second number. Rose’s bad feeling was contagious.

S
kip was walking out of
the Sheraton, a little bounce in his step. He didn’t care for these sleazy
adultery cases, but it still felt good to have done a job well. And he was
particularly pleased with the way the tiny digital camera he could hide in the
palm of his hand had worked out.

He had trailed the
husband from his office to the hotel, then up to the room. He’d gotten a shot
of the guy going into the room. The room number on the door was crystal clear
in the photo.

When a room-service
waiter had arrived with a cart of food two hours later, he’d bribed the waiter
to let him take the cart into the room. He’d worried a bit that the occupants
might question his sport shirt and khaki slacks. Not exactly a waiter’s
uniform. But they had been so preoccupied with each other, they hadn’t noticed.

The man had answered
the door and given him a little added bonus. He’d slipped Skip a twenty and an
expensive looking bauble with whispered instructions to put it on the lady’s
plate. Skip had done so, his back turned to the occupants of the room, and then
had snapped a quick shot of the pearl necklace before hiding it under the
folded napkin.

Then, at the door, he
was able to turn back toward the couple, now sitting together at the little
table by the window, and discreetly snap a shot of them making goo-goo eyes at
each other. The woman was wearing a very flimsy satin robe, hanging partway
open, with lots of cleavage and the top of a sheer negligee showing. The man
was naked from the waist up.

The twenty had gone to
the desk clerk in exchange for a photocopy of that morning’s page in the hotel
register. The jackass had actually registered under his real name.

Oh, yes, a very
satisfying few hours of work, indeed. He was calculating in his head what he
would charge the betrayed wife when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

Kate’s tense voice said
into his ear. “We’re safe, but can you come home?”

“I’m on my way. What’s
the matter?”

She had already
disconnected. He sprinted to his truck.

Skip and Rob pulled up
in front of the house within seconds of each other. Rob paused at the foot of
the porch steps for Skip to catch up with him. “You know what’s going on?” Skip
asked.

“Police detectives
showed up,” Rob said. “It’s not about the notes, but they won’t say what it is
about.”

Skip nodded and got out
his house key as they climbed the steps.

~~~~~~~~

I
nside Rob introduced
himself, shaking the detectives’ hands. He then said, “This is Skip Canfield,
Mrs. Huntington’s fiancé.”

Skip moved quickly to
Kate’s chair. Perching on the overstuffed arm, he took her hand in his.

Detective Jones was
thinking that there were now way too many people in this room. She stood up and
said to her partner, “I think we need to take this to the station.”

“Detective,
I
think you need to tell us what this is about,” Rob said in a firm, even voice.
He gestured toward the sofa, as he took the other armchair.

Rose saw Maria coming
down the stairs, the baby in her arms. With a quick spate of Spanish she told
her cousin that she should make herself and Edie scarce. Then Rose leaned against
the wall behind Kate’s chair.

“Now, Detectives, I
suggest we start over,” Rob said pleasantly. “What is this about?”

With a different set of
brown eyes now locked on hers, Jones said, “Phillip Wells was found dead in his
office, at eleven o’clock this morning.”

Bradley noted surprise
but not shock on the faces in the room.

“What do you need to
know from us?” Rob asked.

Jones was still not
happy with the number of bodies in the room. “Mr. Franklin, we need to speak
with you and your client alone.”

Skip and Rob exchanged
a quick glance. Skip tightened his grip on Kate’s hand.

“Detective,” Rob said.
“I think, unless this is an official interrogation of a
suspect
, that we
need to keep things a bit informal.”

Jones’ annoyed
expression didn’t change as she glanced at her partner. He shook his head
slightly. Jones turned to Kate. “Again, where were you, Mrs. Huntington,
between the hours of three o’clock yesterday and eleven this morning?”

Rob nodded at Kate. “I
had a client until three, left the office about fifteen minutes later.”

She looked pleadingly
at Skip. “I went shopping... Rose was supposed to go with me, but she’s not all
that into shopping, so I suggested she go home.” Kate had actually insisted,
reassuring Rose that she would be extremely cautious. Kate had wanted to be
able to savor the process of picking out her purchases, without Rose looking at
her watch every five minutes.

Skip’s jaw was tight.
Kate knew she and Rose were going to hear about it later.

“I got home a little
after five-thirty last night. I’ve been home here, either with my fiancé and my
nanny, or with Rose, from then until now.”

‘Where did you go
shopping?” Detective Bradley asked, in a conversational voice.

“Kohl’s and then Home
Depot.”

“I didn’t go home,”
Rose said. “I waited in my car, until I saw Kate leave Kohl’s, then I followed
her to Home Depot and went in after her, watched her from the next aisle over.”

For the first time,
Jones’s face showed something other than irritation. Her partner blurted out
what they both were thinking. “Why the hell were you watching your friend,
Rose?”

Rose hesitated, not at
all sure how to answer that.

“Okay, let’s back up
here, folks,” Rob said. He explained to the detectives about the notes and the
kidnapping of Kate’s niece.

“So you can understand
why we’re all feeling a bit paranoid at this point,” he concluded.

Bradley’s expression
had become more sympathetic, but Jones remained skeptical. She was
contemplating Mrs. Huntington’s alibi. Not a bad one, but not ironclad either.
The woman could’ve called a cab from her cell phone, left Kohl’s by a different
exit, and maybe gotten to Wells’ office and back. They’d have to time how long
it took to make that round trip.

And what were all the
strange looks and hand squeezing about? Jones was having trouble believing that
the tension in the room was just about some notes, and a teenager who
disappeared for a few hours and came back doped up.

“How long was Mrs.
Huntington in each store, Officer Hernandez?” Jones asked.

“Hour and a half at
Kohl’s.” This time Rose did roll her eyes just a little. How could anybody
spend that much time picking out sheets and towels? “About forty minutes in
Home Depot.”

“Did you buy anything,
Mrs. Huntington?”

“Yes, at both stores. I
have the receipts.”

“May we see them,
please?”

As Kate headed toward
the master bedroom, Jones turned to Skip. “And where were you, Mr. Canfield,”
she asked, “between three yesterday and eleven this morning?”

“Yesterday afternoon,
here, with the baby and the nanny,” Skip said calmly. “Around three-thirty, I
stepped outside to speak to a client, out front on the sidewalk.”

“A client?” Bradley
asked.

“I’m a private
investigator,” Skip said.

“Why were you
consulting with a client on the sidewalk?” Jones asked.

Skip hesitated. “The
client called my cell phone. She was a bit hysterical. Insisted on seeing me
immediately to discuss a development in her case. Because of the notes, Amy’s
kidnapping, I wasn’t willing to leave the house when my fiancée wasn’t home. To
leave the baby and the nanny unprotected. So I told the client to come here.”
He hoped they wouldn’t ask why he hadn’t invited his client inside. It would be
hard to explain in any concrete way his gut feeling that the woman was a
nutcase. He hadn’t been willing to have her inside the house, that was starting
to feel like his home.

“And the name of this
client, Mr. Canfield?” Bradley asked.

“I’d rather not say.
This client’s a bit...” Skip paused, searching for the right word. He rejected
neurotic
,
although it was accurate. “Uh, she’s a bit high-strung. And also quite rich.
She would not take kindly to the police showing up at her door, asking
questions.”

“Client names are not
privileged information, Mr. Canfield, for private investigators,” Jones said.

“Yeah but, Detective,
this lady will totally freak out if you show up, asking to verify my alibi, not
to mention that her cheatin’ husband might be home at the time, which would
definitely complicate things.”

“Tell ya what, son,”
Bradley said. “It’s early on in the investigation. We don’t really have much
reason to suspect you or your fiancée at this point. Her case was just one of
many that the victim was involved in. So you give us the woman’s name and we’ll
hold off talking to her, unless and until we have more reason to think you
could have been involved in this.”

Skip figured that was
the best deal he was going to get from them. “Tammy Wingate,” he said.
“Husband’s Mark Wingate.” Bradley, who had been taking notes in a small pad,
wrote down the names.

“And how long were you
outside talking to her?” Jones said.

Skip thought for a
moment. “Probably half an hour, maybe a little longer. She was pretty upset.”

The detectives
exchanged a glance. Jones figured it would take about fifteen minutes, barring
major traffic, to get from here to Wells’ office. Another trip they would have
to time to be sure. Would be tight but possible, maybe.

“Did you leave the
house at any other point during that time frame, son?” Bradley asked.

“No, sir. Not until
this morning. I left about nine. To do some surveillance, same case.”

“So I don’t suppose
anyone will be able to verify your whereabouts then, while you were lurking in
the bushes?” Jones said, a slight sneer in her tone.

Kate returned to the
room just in time to see Skip’s jaw tighten again, but he kept his voice calm.
“It was actually a stairwell, in a rather swank hotel. But you’re right. The
only proof I have of what I was doing would be the photos I snapped. They’ll be
date and time stamped. First one would have been right around eleven.”

“We’ll need the camera,
son,” Bradley said, in an apologetic voice.

Skip wasn’t buying the
good cop-bad cop routine, but he kept his expression pleasant as he said, “Not
real comfortable with that, sir. Client confidentiality again. But you can
watch while I upload the first two to my computer and I’ll print y’all copies
of them. They’re fairly innocuous.”

As he and Bradley went
back to the desk in the office area to do that, Kate handed Detective Jones two
slips of paper.

Jones looked down the
long list of items on the Kohl’s receipt. It would probably take that long to
buy all this, or the woman could have pre-selected the things at a previous
time and then just quickly grabbed them up, after getting back from blowing
Wells away.

She put the receipts in
her jacket pocket and turned to Rob. “According to his secretary, you had a
two-thirty appointment with Wells. What happened during that meeting, Mr.
Franklin?”

“We had a short
discussion about the possibility of settling out of court,” Rob said.

“And how did that
discussion go?”

Rob shrugged. “He made
an offer. I told him I would have to consult with my client and get back to
him. I called later and left a message that my client wasn’t interested in his
offer.”

Of course, the detectives
had listened to the victim’s voicemail messages. “Actually your rejection of
the offer was rather vehement,” Jones said.

“Yes. I believe I said
she wasn’t interested in his
damned
offer. I don’t mind telling you that
Wells is... was the kind of lawyer that gives the rest of us a bad name. I
didn’t particularly like the guy.”

“Then it’s a good thing
Wells’ secretary brought him a cup of coffee after you left, before she went
home early to get ready for a date.” Bradley gave Rob a friendly smile as he
and Skip came back into the room. Skip sat down again on the arm of Kate’s
chair.

Jones gave her partner
a repressive look that Rob suspected was part of the good cop-bad cop routine.
“Where were you, Mr. Franklin, during the rest of that time frame?” she asked.

“Went from Wells’
office straight to a meeting with a corporate client in Timonium. That lasted a
couple hours. Then I swung by here to discuss the offer with Mrs. Huntington.
Went home and ate dinner with my wife. Been at home since then.”

“Alone or was your wife
home the entire time?”

“Mostly alone today. My
wife was in and out all morning running errands.” Rob resisted the temptation
to point out that if he killed off every colleague who annoyed him, after
awhile he’d be the only lawyer left standing.

“We’ll need the name of
that client in Timonium,” Jones said, then turned her attention to Skip. “I
assume you have a license to carry concealed, Mr. Canfield?”

Skip nodded.

“I’m afraid we’ll have
to take the gun, son, to test to see if it’s been fired recently.”

“What caliber was the
bullet?” Skip asked, stalling.

“Won’t know until
ballistics get’s done examining it,” Bradley said. “Might never know. It was
pretty messed up, imbedded in the wall.”

Jones gave her partner
another repressive look.

Kate saw Skip’s jaw
clench again, but then he shrugged, accepting the inevitable. He stood up
slowly, lifted his shirttail and turned around. Detective Bradley walked over
and removed the pearl-handled .38 from its waistband holster.

“Detectives, that
pistol has great sentimental value to my fiancé. It was his grandfather’s. I
trust that you will be very careful with it and get it back to him as soon as
possible.”