A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) (8 page)

I looked hard at him.
 

“But none of that happens until I’m certain about
whether Michael’s death was a fluke or a murder.
 
If it was an accident, then I’ll just
move on with my life.
 
But if it was
a murder?
 
I can tell you right now
that it will consume me until we find whoever did this to him—and bring
them down.”

*
 
*
 
*

“So, where do you think you’ll start?” I
asked him later as I returned to the living room and handed him a fresh bottle
of water.

“With Lydia.”

“Why Lydia?”

“Obviously, I don’t know anything about her
family history when it comes to health-related issues, but I do find it odd
that she died of heart failure at the age of forty-five—and only six
months after Michael’s death.
 
Do
you know if she had any heart-related issues?
 
For instance, did she ever tell you that
she couldn’t lift heavy objects because her doctor had warned her against that
kind of activity?”

“She never said anything like that to
me.
 
Lydia was a workhorse.
 
As for her lifting heavy objects, I saw
her do it many times.
 
And then
there was Bruiser, who was a beast of a dog.
 
He died a year ago.
 
Whenever Michael and I took him for a
walk, we were exhausted when we returned home.
 
I don’t know how Lydia managed to walk
him on her own, but she did.
 
And
she never once complained about it.”

“This doesn’t sound like a woman who was
fearful of her health,” Ben said.

“I agree.
 
Maybe there was no family history of
heart problems.
 
But we can’t rule
out that
she
might have been the beginning of
that history.”

“It’s possible,” he said.
 
“I’ll find out where she was working
when she died.
 
If her former
employer or employers will grant me an interview, I’ll talk with them about
that day.”

“To what end?”

“In this business, you question everything,
Kate.
 
Especially when a healthy
young woman unexpectedly dies just six months after witnessing your husband’s
death.
 
I don’t like the sound of
that,” he said.
 
“Not at all.”

“Are you suggesting that she could have been
murdered?”

“Everything is worth considering until you
rule it out.”

“But she died of a heart attack.
 
How can that be considered a murder?”

“There are a whole host of ways to induce
heart failure, Kate.
 
For instance,
if Lydia had been asked to clean something that had been rigged to send
thousands of volts throughout her body, that would have brought on heart
failure.”

“Jesus,” I said.

“I’m not saying that happened.
 
I’m just saying that it could have
happened.
 
There’s a difference.”

I closed my eyes at the thought that Lydia
might have died because of her association with Michael and me, and then I just
shook my head in resignation.
 
“What
else could have happened to her?”

“That’s subjective.”

“When it comes to her heart, I want to know
what could have happened.”

“All right.
 
When it comes to inducing heart failure,
one of the more popular options is succinylcholine, which is a strong muscle
relaxant that paralyzes the respiratory muscles.
 
It’s normally used in hospitals to allow
for the insertion of a breathing tube into the throat of a still-conscious
patient.
 
In higher doses, it can
paralyze the entire breathing apparatus, and the victim suffocates to death,
which leads to heart failure.
 
The
win for the murderer is that it’s not normally tested for in toxicology
screens.”

He took a sip of his water and said, “And
then there’s aconite, a plant indigenous to many parts of the world.
 
All parts of that plant are poisonous,
but the root is highly toxic.
 
Aconite has been called ‘the perfect poison to mask a murder.’
 
It can be detected only by sophisticated
toxicology analysis using equipment not always available to local forensic
labs.
 
If someone slipped it into,
say, a cup of tea, her heart would have seized up and she would have died from
it.
 
Again— this is pure
supposition. The point here is that there are many ways to bring on a heart
attack that a medical examiner could easily overlook.”

Overwhelmed, I closed my eyes.
 
How was I even having this conversation
now?
 
Had my friend been murdered?
 
She couldn’t have been.

But what if she had…?

“So, you’ll seek out where she was when she
died?” I asked him.

“I will.”

“As I said before, Lydia had a high-end
clientele.
 
When you find out who
employed her, let me know.
 
Because
I’ll probably know them on some level.
 
If they’re resistant to working with you for whatever reason, I can
probably change that.
 
We’re a team
when it comes to this.”

“To a point, we are.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’ll let you help me out on
the sidelines, and by that, I mean that if I need information about certain
people and you have it, then you can share it with me in private.
 
But that’s where it ends.
 
I need to keep your name out of this
investigation as much as possible so that I can protect you.
 
If, for some unknown reason, that
psychic was right and Michael was murdered and the murderer finds out that
someone like me is asking questions about his death, things could escalate
quickly in a very bad way.
 
When you
murder someone, Kate, you never once stop looking over your shoulder.
 
That stain is on you for the rest of
your life.
 
Unless you’re dealing
with a sociopath or a psychopath, murderers always are hyperaware of their
surroundings because they’re paranoid about being found out.
 
That kind of paranoia can last for
life.
 
That’s what we’re going into
here.
 
So, I need you to listen to
me and do as I say for your own sake.
 
Or I won’t take this job.”

“I need you to take it.
 
I trust you—you know that.
 
Because of our past, I trust you more
than anyone.”

“Then I need for you to promise me that
you’ll do as I say.”

When it comes to my husband, I can’t promise
you any of that, Ben.
 
If I find out
that Michael was murdered,
I
will
be the one who slices his murderer’s throat.
 
Not you.
 
Not the police.
 
It will be me.
 
If my husband was murdered, Michael will
have his vengeance through me.

I hated to lie to him, but what choice did I
have?
 
So I said, “I will.
 
I get it.
 
I concede.
 
So, we go forward?”

“We go forward,” he said.

 
When he stood to leave, he said that he’d
be in touch with me in the morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT

And he was.

At seven sharp, while I was making coffee, my
cell rang on the kitchen countertop.

“Hello,” I said.
 

“It’s Ben.”

“You’re up early.”

“I get up at five.”

“Is that the SEAL in you?”

“Might be.”

“I remember a time when you wouldn’t get out
of bed until noon.”

“I was a lot younger then.
 
Look, I have a question for you.”

“OK…”

“Do you know a Maxine Witherhouse?”

“I do.
 
Why do you ask?”

“Because Lydia died in her home.
 
She was under her employ at the time of
her death.”

“Lydia worked for Maxine?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t.
 
She never mentioned Maxine to me.
 
And if the press reported on it when she
died, I don’t remember it.
 
How did
you find out?”

“I have friends on the force.
 
I made a call and got my answer.
 
It’s all in the police report.”

“Do you have a copy of the report?”

“I will in the next hour.
 
First, tell me what you know about
Maxine.”

“Beyond the fact that she’s a horrible
snob?”

“Yes, beyond that.”

“Maxine is as fake as they come.
 
She can be nice to your face, and a
mean-spirited bitch behind your back.
 
A year or two ago, she almost had a big, splashy divorce with her
husband, Bill, after he found out that she was having an affair.
 
In the end, divorce ultimately became
out of the question because there was no prenup between them.
 
Maxine would have lost too much
money.
 
As for Bill, he would have
lost his social standing, which matters very much to him.
 
So, apparently they worked it out.”

“What else do I need to know about them?”

“Maxine is the one with the pedigree,” I
said.
 
“She’s in the book.”

“What book?”

“The Social Register.
 
If you’re a member of society, you’re in
the book.
 
It’s so exclusive, only a
few hundred people in the States can claim that they’re in it.
 
It’s the closest we Americans get to
underscoring our own royalty.
 
Maxine is in it thanks to her lineage.
 
Her grandfather and father helped to
build Manhattan into what it is today.”

“What did they do?”

“The Witherhouses first made their fortune
in oil.
 
Then, they used that money
to build Manhattan’s subway system.
 
So, enough about them and the kind of money and power they wield,
wouldn’t you say?”

“What does Bill do?”

“He’s in banking.”

“And Maxine?”

“Maxine drinks martinis before noon.
 
If she isn’t drunk, she pulls herself
together and lunches with the right people.
 
She and Bill also host elaborate parties
at their mansion on Fifth.
 
I call
them ‘statement’ parties.
 
‘I’m-richer-than-you parties.’
 
Am I forming a portrait of them for you?”

“You are.
 
Do you know anything else about Bill?”

“I don’t.
 
But I think that when you start to research
them, you’ll have plenty of material on your hands, because they’re that well
known—and their lives are that well documented.”

“What are your plans for today?”

“After yesterday?
 
I was planning on staying here and reading
a good book to try to distract myself.”

“Good.
 
I’ll call you when I know more.”

“More of what?”

“Depends on what’s in the police
report.
 
I’ll call you as soon as I
get it.”
 

*
 
*
 
*

I was in the living room, sitting on one of
the sofas and re-reading my favorite novel, Dominick Dunne’s
An
Inconvenient Woman
, when my cell rang at one o’clock.
 
I put my iPad down on the table next to
me, and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“It’s Ben.
 
Busy?”

“No.
 
I’m just reading
An Inconvenient Woman
.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Do you know Dominick Dunne?”

“The guy who reported on the O.J. Simpson
trial?”

“That’s him.
 
But he was a best-selling novelist
before that.
 
He’s my absolute
favorite writer.
 
And this
book—in my opinion—is his best.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s complicated.
 
But if I was to simplify it, I’d say
it’s about a woman who is eventually murdered for trying to protect the love of
her life.”

A silence stretched between us after I said
that, thinning the air as if no air existed at all.
 
The irony wasn’t lost on either of
us.
 
After all, isn’t that what I
was doing?
 
Not trying to protect
Michael, but trying to at least uncover the truth about his death and bring him
the justice he deserved.
 
If he was
murdered and whoever murdered him learned what I was up to,
I
could become the inconvenient woman.
 
It was enough to give each of us pause.

“Anyway,” I said in an effort to break the
tension.
 
“I assume you have the
police report now.
 
Have you learned
anything from it?”

“A bit.
 
Bill Witherhouse was home when Lydia died.”

That surprised me.
 
“He was home?
 
But Bill’s a senior VP at Chase—I
checked the Internet after we spoke this morning.
 
I know the banking industry, Ben, and
that’s the sort of job you don’t leave until seven or eight at night.
 
Lydia died in the afternoon, didn’t
she?”

“Two-thirty, to be precise.”

“Why was Bill home then?
 
Why wasn’t he at work?
 
Was he sick?”

“I’ll read you what he said to the officer
who first responded to his 911 call, which will answer your questions.
 
Then, you can tell me if his answers
satisfy you.”

“All right…”

“Here’s his retelling of the events,” Ben
said.
 
“Straight from the police
report.
 
You’ll hear the interchange
between him and the first officer on scene.
 
There will be a give and take as she
asks him questions.
 
Ready to go?”

“I’m ready.”

“By the way, the person questioning him is
Officer Brenda Marsh, who I know.
 
She’s been on the force for over fifteen years.
 
And she’s outstanding.
 
So, here goes.”

He launched into the Q&A Officer Marsh
had had with Bill Witherhouse.

“‘When did you find the deceased, Mr.
Witherhouse?’”

“‘I had just returned home and entered my
office when I heard something heavy hit the floor downstairs.
 
I called out to Lydia, but she didn’t
answer.
 
So, I went to investigate,
and found her on her back and unresponsive on the kitchen floor.
 
She’d been cleaning it.
 
There was a bucket next to her—you
can see it right there.
 
I checked
her pulse, felt nothing, and immediately called 911.
 
The person who answered walked me
through how to perform CPR, which I did to the best of my ability while they
sent for an ambulance.
 
Unfortunately,
I failed.
 
I’m so sorry that I
failed.
 
I’m devastated that I
couldn’t help her.
 
Save her.
 
Lydia was a mainstay in this house.
 
She’s worked with us for over eight
years.
 
She kept this place running,
for God’s sake.
 
She was family.’”

“‘Do you happen to know how old she is?
 
She appears to be young.’”

“‘She is young.
 
I don’t know—maybe
mid-forties?
 
Something like
that.
 
She has two children and a
husband.
 
How could this have
happened?
 
What am I supposed to say
to her children and husband now?’”

“‘Nothing—we’ll take care of that, Mr.
Witherhouse.
 
As for how this
happened, that’s what we’re here to find out.
 
Do you know if she had any
health-related issues?’”

“‘I don’t.
 
Lydia was a powerhouse.
 
I can’t imagine that anything was wrong
with her.
 
None of this makes
sense.
 
I can’t believe that I’m
seeing her like this.
 
When I came
home from work, she was all smiles as usual, busy washing the kitchen floor.’”

“‘And why did you come home?’”

“‘To retrieve a file I was working on last
night.
 
I thought that I’d brought
it with me this morning, but I hadn’t.
 
I’m stunned that this has happened.’”

“‘She died only moments after you entered
the house?’”

“‘Apparently, yes.’”

“‘That’s interesting timing.’”

“‘I—what are you insinuating?’”

“‘It was just an observation, Mr.
Witherhouse.
 
Nothing more.’”

“‘I gave her CPR.’”

“‘I’ve noted that.
 
Your DNA on her lips will prove that.’”

“‘And it will.
 
I’ll submit to any DNA test you
want.
 
I did all that I could do to
recover her.’”

“‘I’m not saying that you didn’t.’”

“‘She was like family to us.’”

“‘So you’ve said.
 
If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a
few more questions.’”

“‘Why do I feel as if you have an ulterior
motive?’”

“‘Do you believe that I should have one?’”

“‘Absolutely not.’”

“‘Then it’s just a few more questions, Mr.
Witherhouse.
 
You’ve said that Lydia
was like a member of the family.
 
I’m just trying to find out what happened.’”

“‘And I’ve told you what happened.
 
And given your tone, I think it’s best
that I don’t answer any more of your questions without my lawyer present.
 
I feel as if you’re trying to corner
me.’”

“‘Corner you?
 
Why would I want to do that?
 
I’m just trying to understand what took
place here.’”

“‘What happened here is that Lydia died.’”

“‘A ‘powerhouse’ in her mid-forties…’”

“‘I see where this is going.
 
All of you cops are the same.
 
You’ll hear nothing more from me without
my lawyer present.
 
That’s it.’”

Ben paused for a moment, and then he said,
“So, what do you think?”

“I don’t know what to say.
 
When Marsh first started to question
him, Bill seemed genuinely rattled and upset.
 
But I wasn’t there, was I?
 
I couldn’t hear the inflection in his
voice, or see the look on his face and in his eyes like Marsh could.
 
Maybe that’s why the conversation took a
harsh turn.
 
Because it did sound as
if she was trying to corner him.
 
If
I had been in his shoes, I also would have wanted my lawyer present before I’d
gone any further.”

“Given the fact that he came home just moments
before Lydia died, I don’t think her line of questioning was unreasonable.”

“Still, in a situation such as that and when
it comes to that line of questioning, you have to be careful what you say.”

“You don’t have to be if you’re telling the
truth.”

“You and I both know better than that.
 
Look, he called 911.
 
He administered CPR.
 
Marsh clearly was trying to bait him
when she said that they’d know if he’d done so by checking for his DNA on her
lips.
 
And then he challenged her to
take a sample of his DNA to prove that he’d given her CPR.
 
So, unless he’s an idiot—which I
doubt—I have to assume that he did try to help Lydia.”