Just Desserts (11 page)

Either she was an exceptionally honest person or she was exceedingly cunning.

“Savannah, I’m not going to bullshit you,” she said, her voice gravelly with fatigue. “I have nothing to gain by lying to you or holding anything back. You’re a good detective and a smart woman; I can see that. Before you’re finished you’re going to know my life, inside and out; the things I’m proud of, the things I’m not. So ask me whatever you want. If I give you an answer, it will be the truth. If I don’t want to tell you, I’ll just say it’s none of your business.”

“Fair enough.” Savannah lined up her mental list of questions and started with the most obvious. “Did you kill your husband?”

“No.”

Well, that was short and to the point. Savannah wondered if all her answers would be so abbreviated.

“Did you pay someone to do it?”

“No.”

“Did you ask, beg, persuade, bribe, or threaten anyone to do it?”

“No.” She paused, then added, “I must admit the thought crossed my mind more than once. Jonathan could be an extremely irritating man.”

“In what way?”

“He fooled around on me, he gambled more than he could afford, he drank like a fish, he was lazy and irresponsible, insensitive, and selfish. Other than that, he was a gem.”

“You sound bitter,” Savannah said softly.

“Yes, but that’s only because I loved him so much. Some people think that hatred is the opposite of love. Of course it isn’t; indifference is. As long as you have the capacity to love someone, you can hate them, too. Strong emotion is the same, no matter which way the river flows.”

“If he was that worthless, why did you love him? Why did you marry him?”

In answer to the question Beverly rose from the chaise and I, walked over to the mantel, which displayed an array of photos in silver and inlaid hardwood frames. Picking up two of the pictures, she brought them to Savannah and placed the first one in her hand.

“These people were my parents. They’ve both passed on now.”

Savannah studied the photo, which was faded and yellow with age. She wasn’t sure what she had expected the Harringtons to look like, but she hadn’t anticipated the stern, hard expressions, the extremely stiff postures, or the lack of contact between the man, the woman, and the small girl, whom Savannah assumed was Beverly.

The child in the picture looked miserably unhappy, lonely, alienated. Quickly Savannah readjusted her previous fantasy about how fairytale wonderful it must have been to be raised in a mansion like this.

“My father was a citrus rancher,” Beverly said. “This house, the family fortune, was built on the backs of migrant workers who were terribly misused. Peter Harrington was a powerful man in his day. He was greatly feared, but he wasn’t loved. Victoria Harrington was his idea of a perfect wife: beautiful, elegant, silent, and totally submissive.”

“What kind of mother was she?” Savannah asked.

“Distant.”

Beverly withdrew the first photograph and held out the other. Savannah saw a young couple in their late teens or early twenties: Beverly and Jonathan in better days. Their arms were draped over each other’s shoulders, and they wore goofy, mischievous grins on their faces. Especially Jonathan, whose eyes sparkled with devilment.

“Looks like he was a bit of a pistol,” Savannah commented, feeling again the pang of regret that a living, breathing person had been robbed of his life.

“A
bit?
” Beverly laughed. “Jonathan convinced me to toilet paper my first house—a former high school teacher who really deserved it. Jonathan and I climbed up on the freeway overpass at three in the morning to spray paint our initials. God, how times change. I’ve passed city ordinances that put kids in jail for stuff like that.” Beverly pulled the photo back and looked down at it, her face softening. “Jonathan was my first lover,” she said. “My only lover for years and years. He knew how to play, and he taught me that it was good to feel joy and passion. Emotions were good things, not frivolous and dangerous, as my parents had taught me. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

She replaced the photographs on the mantel, then returned to her chaise. “Does that answer your question, Detective Reid?” she asked tiredly.

“Yes, very well. Thank you.” Savannah looked down at her notebook, which she had flipped open on her lap. “Mrs. Winston, could you tell me where you were early yesterday morning? About four.”

“Four.” She winced a little. “Was that when it happened?”

“We think so. Around that time.”

“I was in bed, asleep. I’m a bit of a night owl, so I sleep in sometimes.” Savannah heard the underlying sarcasm in her voice and thought how difficult it must be to lose a mate, then be suspected of committing the murder. She supposed Beverly Winston was entitled to a little bitterness.

“Excuse me, but...” Savannah cleared her throat. “... but do you have anyone who can vouch for the fact that you were here?”

“No,” she replied evenly. “No one. I was sleeping alone, if that’s what you want to know.”

“Yes, thank you.” Savannah scribbled in the notebook, not trusting anything to memory. “And how about yesterday evening around sundown? Say about eight-thirty?”

She quirked one eyebrow. “Do I need an alibi for then, too?”

“It’s just a routine question.”

“I was here, sitting in this chair, reading as I always do in the evenings. And before you ask, no one was with me. I read alone, too.”

“How about Leah? Can she vouch for you?”

Beverly shook her head. “No. She and her husband—he’s my gardener and handyman—only work for me from eighty-thirty a.m. to four-thirty in the afternoon. They live in the apartment above the old carriage house. I value my privacy too much to have help living with me twenty-four hours a day.”

“How about the phone? Did you take any calls yesterday evening here at home?”

“No. I always turn off the phone after dinner and let the answering machine take messages for me. It’s a policy I’ve had to adopt in order to preserve my sanity.”

“I understand. That’s unfortunate, because...” Her voice trailed away as Savannah watched the woman carefully. She was puzzled by her seeming nonchalance. Beverly was the prime suspect in a murder investigation; surely she knew that. She must also comprehend the importance of having an alibi under these circumstances.

“I’m sorry I have no alibi, Detective,” she said, as though reading Savannah’s mind. “Believe me, I would love to say I was giving a speech at City Hall before two or three hundred people at the moment my husband was being killed, but I wasn’t. If I had known I’d need an alibi, I would have arranged to have a good one for you, but...” She shrugged her broad shoulders.

“Mrs. Winston,” Savannah said, assuming a cooler, more detached tone, “are you aware of a home videotape taken of you and Norman Hillquist coming out of the Blue Moon Motel?”

“Yes,” she said, her face freezing over, her voice tight. “I’ve heard of it. I haven’t seen it.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Jonathan told me ... in great detail. He was quite pleased with his results. Better than he had hoped for, I think.”

“Do you recognize this?” Savannah reached into her tote and pulled out the large, Ziplocked plastic bag that contained the videotape in its black rectangular box.

“I can’t be sure,” she replied, eyeing it carefully, “but it looks like the kind of cases I buy on sale at the local department store. I tape some of the programs aired on public television when I’m away in the evening. I file them in boxes like that.”

“Have you noticed if any of your boxes are missing?”

“No, but I wouldn’t. I don’t keep that close a track of them. What’s the significance of that one box? I’m sure there are hundreds of them sold every day.”

“This one,” Savannah said slowly, “is special because it contains the video footage of you and Chief Hillquist at the Blue Moon.”

Savannah could swear that the cool and incredibly calm Beverly Winston turned a shade more pale.

“And,” she continued, “it has only one person’s fingerprints on it. Yours.”

Yes,
definitely
, Savannah decided.
Maybe even two shades
.

W
hen Savannah entered Captain Bloss’s office, as ordered, at three that afternoon, she was only mildly surprised to see Chief Hillquist sitting there, too. Usually he stood when she walked into a room—a quaint but rather endearing custom that she didn’t expect but appreciated.

Today he just sat there, elbows propped on the arms of the more comfortable of the three chairs in the office, his fingers interlaced and his forefingers steepled against his lips. She waited only briefly for his customary smile and nod before realizing she would probably never see it again, at least not directed at her. Whatever rapport they had shared was a thing of the past, thanks to this damned case. A smile? Hell, she’d be lucky if she had a job after this.

“Park it, Reid,” Bloss said, pointing to the remaining chair, a rusty folding type that was strategically placed in the corner.

As she sat on it, feeling the cold metal through the thin linen of her skirt, Savannah couldn’t help being a little miffed. Not that they would stick her in the corner, like a naughty little girl, but that they didn’t realize that she was well acquainted with the ploy. She used it herself, for heaven’s sake. Shove the subject into a corner while you’re interrogating him, boost his stress level, make him feel even more vulnerable, if possible. It worked. Once in a while.

But then, there was the other possibility. Maybe they realized that she knew the ploy... and they just didn’t give a damn.

“So ...” she began, eager to beat Bloss to the first punch, “...why have I been called on the carpet?” She glanced down at the gouged and scraped gray linoleum. “So to speak,” she added sarcastically. The ugly flooring was a major sore spot with the captain. One factor in his negotiations when being shuffled between precincts was that his office would be given new carpeting. He was still waiting.

His color rose and the corners of his mouth dropped. At least he was bright enough to realize that he had been insulted. Savannah had a long-standing policy not to insult anyone who was too dense to get it.

“You aren’t exactly on the carpet, Savannah,” Hillquist said with forced friendliness. “We just want to hear how the investigation’s going, what you’ve got so far.”

“I don’t have much more than I had the last time the two of you asked—less than twelve hours ago. I did go home and sleep for about four hours. The other eight haven’t been all that productive, I’m sorry to say.”

“Now isn’t a good time to get smart, Reid,” the captain said, leaning back in his squeaky, black wanna-be-leather chair.

Savannah gave him a benign smile that didn’t extend to her eyes. “What would you like to know ... specifically?” she asked sweetly.

“Specifically,”
Hillquist interjected, “everything you’ve uncovered to this point.”

“Everything?” She gave him a covert, questioning look.

He glanced at Bloss, paused, then said, “Yes, Detective, everything.”

Reaching into her tote, she pulled out the notebook and flipped it open. Reading in a monotone, she said, “Time of death approximately four
A
.
M
.
No substantial trace evidence found at the scene, at least not yet. No signs of forced entry. Three shotgun blasts. First one to the head, fatal. Other two, lower right arm and thigh. Cash roll, jewelry still on body. Blood alcohol level .14. No narcotics, prescription or otherwise.”

“Get on with it,” Bloss said, interrupting her. “We can read that stuff ourselves on the reports. You know what we wanna hear. Now what have you got?”

Her temper flared, and she snapped the notebook closed. “Yes, Captain, sir,” she said, “I know what you want to hear.” She turned to Hillquist and fixed him with blue lasers. “Yes, Chief, I know that the Winstons’ marriage was down the crapper. I know that you and she were having an affair. I know that Jonathan knew. I know that he videotaped the two of you coming out of a motel and threatened to expose you both. I’ve seen the tape and I’ve run it through the lab. The only prints were Beverly’s.”

Hesitating, she waited for that to sink in; then she continued, “Beverly threatened Jonathan’s life. It appears he believed her. He got a restraining order against her. I also know that the reason you wouldn’t let me question her yesterday was because you wanted the opportunity to talk it over with her first.” She paused and drew a deep breath. “How am I doing so far?”

Hillquist said nothing, but his fingers were no longer steepled in that irritating, condescending manner. His arms were crossed tightly over his broad chest and his face was frighteningly blank.

Realizing the gravity of what she had just said, Savannah felt her anger, and some of her courage, melting away. Dear Lord, when would she learn to think before she shot off her mouth?

Finally Bloss broke the silence. “Well, you’ve been quite the busy little beaver,” he said in a castor-oil tone that made her nauseous.

Any other time she might have made a comment about sexual innuendos being inappropriate, but she decided to let it slide. She was in enough shit as it was; no point in digging the septic tank deeper.

“Is there anything else, Chief?” she asked, forcing a note of humility into her voice.

His face remained blank, enigmatic. Savannah could feel a drop of cold sweat trickle down the back of her neck and into her collar. Yes, she had definitely screwed herself this time.

“Do you have the tape?” he asked, so quietly that she wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said, do you have the videotape with you right now?”

Savannah glanced down into her tote at the most valuable piece of evidence she had collected so far in this investigation. “Ah... yes, as a matter of fact, I do.”

His poker face disappeared and he gave her a look that went through her like a cold, sharp jolt of whiplash pain. In that moment the thought occurred to Savannah that Chief Hillquist could be a dangerous man under the wrong conditions. And she had a sinking feeling that she had just fulfilled some of those conditions.