Authors: Elizabeth Adler
He heard her deep intake of breath, then she said, “I understand. I’m not sure you are quitting for the right reasons, but I understand. I never thought I’d say this, but I want you to think about it first, Harry. And if you want to talk to me, then get on the next flight. Okay?”
“Okay,” Harry said. And this time he meant it.
36
Rossetti was not surprised when Harry called him in the middle of the night. He was used, anyhow, to odd-hour telephone calls. He was surprised, though, by what Harry wanted.
“Come get the dog” was exactly what Harry said.
Rossetti, the cool guy who always had an answer, was taken aback. “You mean, like come and get Squeeze? What the fuck for? What am I gonna do with him?”
“Look after him for a few days while I’m in Paris,” Harry said.
Rossetti took in the sound of him. “You’re slurring your words,” he said. “That’s booze talking, Detective, not common sense.”
Harry’s sigh was magnified in Rossetti’s ear and he held the cell phone away, staring amazed at it. This was so not Harry.
“It’s my heart talking, Rossetti,” Harry was saying. “I can’t take sitting here alone, except for my dog, remembering that poor murdered girl bleeding out with her broken pearls strewn around. I can’t bear to think I might be responsible. I don’t want to be the man who has to speak to her family, to attend her funeral, to nail the guy that killed her. I’m cracking, Rossetti, and I need you to take Squeeze because I’m off to Paris to see Mal. See if she can put me back together again.”
Rossetti understood. His friend’s life was at crisis point. “If anybody can help you, it’s Mal,” he reassured him. “Go to her, my friend. I’ll come round now and collect the dog. Don’t worry, I’ll care for him like he’s my own kid.”
“I know it,” Harry said. “And thanks. For everything.”
Harry rang off and Rossetti thought, panicked, it was as though he had said final goodbyes. Jesus, he said to himself, climbing into the BMW and setting off for Beacon Hill. I hope he’s gonna be all right. I just hope he’s gonna be all right.
Harry had not even mentioned the two suspects and he seemed to have forgotten all about the fact that they were holding Bea Havnel for questioning and Wally Osborne for suspected murder. Harry’s own life had overtaken him and he was not coping. It was up to Rossetti to set him straight, remind him of his duty, of his respect to the dead girl’s family. They were cops. This is what they did.
Harry had obviously heard the car pull up and was standing on the steps to greet Rossetti. They held each other in a hug for a long minute. Rossetti could smell the alcohol on his friend’s breath. Squeeze whined softly, wagging his tail.
“Don’t worry, Squeeze, he’ll take good care of you.” Harry spoke to his dog, urging Rossetti indoors.
In the living room, he indicated the bottle of Jim Beam, lifted a glass questioningly. Rossetti shook his head. “It’s better if only one of us is drunk, my friend,” he said, taking a seat opposite Harry, who sank into his red leather chair, gazing back at him, as though, Rossetti thought, he had all the cares of the world on his shoulders.
“You didn’t do it, you know,” Rossetti said, deciding to get straight to the point.
Harry raised his brows, but said nothing.
“Jemima died because of her own foolishness, not your misguidance of her. You did not encourage her. You had no idea she would take matters into her own hands. Jemima was young but she was obviously very much her own woman. She was reckless and got herself into a game that was bigger than she knew how to play.”
Rossetti leaned forward, shoulders stooped, hands clasped between his knees, his handsome face worried. “Harry, the girl got herself into a situation she shouldn’t have, and suffered the unfortunate consequences. Unfortunately, ‘consequences’ is a word few of us ever think about when we lose our heads, whether in sex, marriage. Or murder. She put herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.”
Harry’s eyes met his over his glass of Jim Beam. “Did you see the look on her face?” he asked, as though suddenly remembering it himself.
All Rossetti could think of was the amount of blood and those pearls like from a little girl’s necklace … they had grieved his heart, those pearls.
“Jemima was surprised when it happened,” Harry said, recalling her expression. “Not just that somebody was gonna strike her, but as though she recognized the person that did it. I think she knew him, Detective.”
Rossetti said nothing. He went to the bar and found some Perrier in the refrigerator. He drank it out of the bottle, went back and sat again in his chair opposite Harry, who, Rossetti thought, seemed to be coming to his senses. At least Harry was thinking again. Constructively thinking about Jemima’s killing, not simply hiding from it.
Rossetti said, “I have it from forensics that from the angle of the entry, the assailant was pretty much the same size as Jemima. Not more than an inch in it.”
“Then that would eliminate Wally Osborne, who’s well over six feet,” Harry said, surprised because he clearly recalled Wally standing over Jemima.
“It doesn’t eliminate Bea Havnel though,” Rossetti said, noting Harry’s startled expression as he took in what he’d just heard.
“That kid.” Harry got up and began to stride around the room, as far as the ebony baby grand in the window, then back again, and then again with the dog tagging at his heels, hoping for a walk. “She wouldn’t harm a fly. Christ, have you forgotten, man, she almost died in the fire that killed the mother, and she might have drowned if I didn’t get there in time.”
“But she didn’t,” Rossetti said, taking another slug of his Perrier. “Besides, let’s not forget we have some identity issues here. The woman was not Lacey Havnel. That woman died years ago, in Miami, Florida. The young woman who calls herself her daughter might be anyone. Anyone at all. One thing’s for sure, her name is not Bea Havnel. Besides, we need to think again about Roman. I’m willing to bet that kid was lovesick for Bea. And let’s not forget all we know about his movements that night to what he told us. Never forget, he’s the one who could come and go from that house, via his private outdoor staircase, with no one the wiser.”
Harry thought about it. A young man crazy in love? Did that description fit the silent, watchful Roman? He sighed. You just never knew, but for Rose’s sake he hoped not.
“Jesus.” Harry sat down again in the red leather chair. Squeeze went and stood in front of him, ears pricked, eyes pleading, still hoping for that walk. “So,” Harry said, after thinking for a while. “We have two dead people. At least, two that we know about. We know the woman was a drug dealer, how major we don’t yet know, nor who in that line of business might have wanted to eliminate her. We have Divon, who worked for her and claims to know nothing. And a young woman who shall be nameless and who is not anyway who she claims to be.”
“I think you and I have some questions to ask her,” Rossetti said, getting to his feet.
“No time like the present,” Harry said, also getting up, but Rossetti shook his head.
“In the morning, my friend,” he said. “You’ve gotta sleep it off first. Besides, you have to call Mal, tell her you’ll be on the afternoon flight.”
“Oh, God.” Harry’s face fell. He thought for a minute, then, “I’ll call her tomorrow,” he said. “Squeeze and I need a walk.”
Rossetti accompanied his friend and the dog twice around the block, saw him back into his red chair, put away the Jim Beam and the glass, put his friend’s feet up on the ottoman and a cushion behind his head; found the dog food in the kitchen cupboard and fed the grateful Squeeze, gave his friend a long final look, and he and the dog took their leave.
Tomorrow was another day. Hadn’t somebody famous said that? Scarlett O’Hara maybe? All Rossetti knew was that whoever it was, was right. For him, and for Harry, and for Mallory Malone in Paris, and for Bea Havnel, and Rose Osborne and her family, tomorrow would indeed be another day.
37
After he left Harry, Rossetti went directly to the precinct, with the dog on the leash drawing comments from the usual bunch of overworked uniforms and detectives, in that hive of activity, with men hunched over computers or on the phone and where crime never stopped.
He requested to speak to the captain, told him Harry’s story, about his state of mind, that overwork and no time off and stress had finally gotten to him.
“Everybody knows this dog,” Rossetti said, smoothing a hand over Squeeze’s soft head. The dog laid back his ears and gazed adoringly at him.
The captain said, “So, now you’ve got to take on Harry’s work—meaning the Jemima Forester/Wally Osborne/Bea Havnel case. As well as his dog.”
He was a big man in a blue shirt, sleeves rolled, twiddling a pen between his fingers, a frown plastered permanently on his wide brow where his hair had receded years ago into a kind of Donald Trump rusty fringe. “What’s his real problem, anyway?”
Rossetti thought about it for a second, then he said, “His future. Here, as a cop. And elsewhere with a woman.”
“Malone?” The captain knew about her, everybody did. Personally he thought Jordan was a lucky guy to have her in his camp, whatever that might mean. “He marryin’ her, then?”
Rossetti shrugged. “I couldn’t say, but I surely hope so.”
“Put us all out of our misery,” the captain said, stopping his twiddling. “A man can’t do his job right when he has woman trouble on his mind.”
“You bet,” Rossetti agreed. “Anyhow, Harry’s worked his butt off without stopping for the past year. Now he’s exhausted, as well as troubled about Mallory Malone. He needs time to himself.”
The captain leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his big chest, and sighed. “Just when we could use his expertise,” he said. “But then nothing ever seems to happen at a convenient time. He’s friggin’ earned it, though,” he added, suddenly coming round to Rossetti’s point of view. “No man works harder than Jordan, or does a better job. He’s got a mind like a steel trap, it’ll fasten onto the smallest detail and lead him into pastures new.”
“Pastures new?” Rossetti said.
“By that, I mean Harry sees stuff from a different point of view from the rest of us, sometimes several points of view at the same time, and he follows them all up until he sorts out the one that means something.”
Rossetti was remembering what Harry had said the previous night about Wally being too tall to be Jemima’s attacker, about Bea Havnel being the right height, about Lacey and maybe Bea not being who they said they were. And his worries about Roman. “I think I’d better fill you in on Harry’s thoughts, then, sir,” he said, and proceeded to do just that.
The captain listened, nodding occasionally in agreement, then he said, “Forget Roman. But we can’t hold Wally Osborne any longer. We’ll let him go immediately. But it still doesn’t take him out of the equation. The man was caught standing over Jemima’s body with blood all around. And Bea Havnel was caught running through the woods.”
“Maybe she was running for her life—from Wally?” Rossetti suggested, because suddenly it seemed logical.
“Anyhow, there’s no way we can hold her either.” The captain leaned over his desk, looking into Rossetti’s eyes. “She’s got the best lawyers in town, she’ll get more if she has to. This young woman has money to burn and she’s prepared to burn it.”
“Just like she burned the house,” Rossetti said, as though to himself. “The mother dies in the fire, the mother has money, the girl inherits the money.”
“The house was expensive, and it was insured,” the captain said.
“Jesus.” Rossetti looked back at him.
“But…” The captain leaned back in his chair again and recommenced twiddling his pen. “But can we prove anything? All we have is theory. And that’s why we need Harry, because he’s the one that finds the links in these cases. Harry’s a bit of a genius like that.”
“Not in this case.” Rossetti got to his feet and so did the dog, whining, ears down, missing his master and friend. “Harry thinks the sun shines out of that girl. Innocence in a blond package, that’s what he believes, Captain.” Rossetti made for the door. He turned and looked at his superior officer. “And you know what? He could still be right.”
He walked through the precinct, stopping to check on work in progress only to find he had been abruptly removed from Jemima Forester’s murder and assigned to a case involving a series of armed hold-ups, mostly small shopkeepers bashed over the head, cash registers lifted bodily from the counter, nobody killed. The captain had demoted him. Rossetti thought at least it would take his mind off Harry and Mal, and off Jemima and the rest of the bloody fiasco.
First, though, he’d go to see Bea Havnel before she got off scot-free. Just to test his instincts about her. He’d find out who she really was. Murder for gain was common and Bea stood to inherit Lacey’s money, plus two insurance policies that he’d bet amounted to another couple of million. The motive was there all right. And if Roman was in fact involved with her, he’d be the first to show up. A man in love could be guaranteed to be there for his woman. Poor Rose Osborne, as if she didn’t have enough to cope with already.
38
Bea Havnel and her lawyer, whose name was Mike Leverage and who was known to be a legal killer and cost more than a yacht to run, were sitting at the table in the interview room at the precinct when Rossetti walked in. He glanced quickly at the young woman, who managed to be as demure and innocent as always, even in an orange prison jumpsuit. She had a way of looking up, under her lashes, chin down, a timid half smile on her lips as though asking for approbation, or maybe, Rossetti thought, for forgiveness for something he was certain she was going to call her “foolishness.”
He was correct. Mike Leverage shook his hand across the table, leading off immediately with an account of his client, Bea Havnel’s “silly behavior,” which he claimed to be quite understandable “under the circumstances.”
Rossetti sat quietly, listening. He gave Bea a long look and she looked back, directly into his eyes. Hers were wide and very blue and innocent. His were brown and cold and skeptical.