Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (4 page)

The jacket I’d seen floating in the tank was lying on the floor.

“That’s been identified as your client’s. It’s got blood all over it. Like maybe she wore it while she stabbed the victim. And I want to show you something else.” He produced a plastic evidence bag, holding it so the contents could be very clearly seen. In the bag was a letter opener with a scrimshaw handle, the thing I’d seen sticking out of Sadie’s face. Its steel point was almost blunt—a lot of force and a lot of brutal rage would be needed to shove it into a person.

“We hear her husband gave her this.”

I could have said, “Estranged husband,” just to set the record straight, but it wouldn’t have been politic.

Tillman continued, “The body has been identified as that of Sadie Swedlow. We understand she was your client’s boss.

“One of the witnesses says they haven’t been getting along lately. We hear her husband moved in with Sadie about three months ago. And we hear they had quite a fight about that time.” He flipped some pages of his notebook. “We also hear she made a remark to the effect that she’d like to feed Ms. Swedlow to the sharks. And she was seen here tonight.”

Terrific. Fights, threats, physical evidence, and placed at the scene. Why the hell hadn’t she told me about the fight?

I said, “She’s got two little kids. She’s not going anywhere.”

He shrugged. He’d brought me up there to brag. He thought he had a pretty good case.

“All these witnesses you mentioned—did any of them see Marty with Sadie tonight?”

He was silent.

“With all due respect, Detective, you haven’t got a damn thing.”

Again, he shrugged. Why should he say anything? It was a one-sided argument, lost before it began.

I said, “I need to talk to her some more.”

“Meet us at the station.”

* * *

The police department was off Friendly Plaza, a small-town touch I liked. It was housed in an unimposing one-story building that could have been used for dentists’ offices it looked so innocuous, but I wondered what else was in there. Was there a jail, or were prisoners sent to a county institution?

We were ushered into a suffocating interview room, big enough for one person to breathe comfortably, but unfortunately there were two of us. Marty’s face had turned as white as Jacobson’s hair, and it wasn’t much healthier-looking. The walls were covered with fake paneling, there were no windows except one to the room next door that was obviously a two-way, and the only furniture was a small table and two chairs covered with turquoise vinyl.

I was sure Marty had never been in such a place before. She swiveled her head continually, as if committing the whole place to memory, no doubt redecorating in her mind, removing the tacky paneling. Her nose seemed set in a permanent sniff. I didn’t think she had a clue what kind of trouble she was in.

I told her what Tillman had told me.

“I didn’t threaten her.”

“You didn’t say that about feeding her to the sharks?”

“That wasn’t a threat! It was just one of those things you say.”

I shrugged.

“Her little boyfriend must have told them that. Ricky Flynn.”

“I thought Don was her boyfriend.”

She blew her nose, leaving me with my mind on her husband.

“Where is he, by the way? Surely the police must have notified him. Will he do anything—” I searched for the right word “—inappropriate?”

I meant would he come to her house and make some kind of scene involving the kids—maybe say she was a murderer and try to haul them away. But Marty’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Dear God, he’s in Australia! Who’ll take care of the kids?”

I guess I should have been glad she was being realistic, but the way she seemed to be accepting a weekend in jail made me worry: about her fighting spirit and about her innocence. It struck me suddenly that it was awfully convenient, my being there. I wondered if I’d been set up. But if Marty’d gone to so much trouble to get me in place for the big moment, why hadn’t she bothered to arrange an alibi?

She tapped the table, thinking, still pale, but otherwise cool. I was sure it was her ability to operate and plan under pressure that made her good in business, and it seemed to have kicked in. It was a little unnerving in this circumstance. “My mother. I’ll get her to come down from Walnut Creek. But I’ll need somebody tonight.”

She raised her eyes to mine and simply stared. I’d known this was coming. If I didn’t blink first, could I get out of it? I blinked. She kept staring.

“Marty, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even know your kids. A stranger’s supposed to tell them their mother’s in jail?”

I saw the tears pop into her eyes. “I don’t have anybody else.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll do it.”

She handed me her keys. “Here. Your room’s the second one on the left at the top of the stairs.”

“What time do they get up?”

She gave me an impatient wave, her mind already elsewhere. “Any time. Listen, there’s one more thing. I need something from my office.”

“You’re going to work in jail? Are you crazy? Do you know how serious this is?”

“The police might search my office, right?”

“If they have reason to think there’s evidence there. But there has to be probable cause for that, too, and they’d have to get a search warrant.”

“I need my calendar.”

“Your calendar?”

“And one other little thing. In one of my desk drawers—I don’t know which, dammit—there’s a note. It says, ‘Six tonight?’ or something like that. With a flowery phrase or two thrown in. I can’t remember the exact wording, but you’ll know it when you see it.”

I was furious. So mad I practically stamped my feet. I didn’t care if she was trying to protect the pope, I wasn’t representing anyone stupid enough to play that game. Especially someone with two children who had to be told Mom was in jail. By me.

“Marty Whitehead, damn your eyes! Are you telling me you have an alibi?”

“How do I know, Rebecca? I don’t know when she was killed.”

“Common sense tells you she was killed after the aquarium closed. Between six and eight-thirty or thereabouts, when we found the body. Are you telling me you weren’t even there at the time? You were with somebody who can give you an alibi?”

“No.”

“Isn’t that what you just told me?”

“I asked you to remove some personal things from my office, that’s all—things I don’t want the whole world to know about.” She avoided my eyes, which probably looked like those of a hanging judge. “I was there tonight. My date was
last
Friday. Will you pick up my things, please? It’s important to me.”

They did have a jail in the building, and they got hold of a judge nasty enough to want to hold a mother of two without bail.

I had to leave alone, but I wasn’t yet defeated. There was a chance—an outside chance, a tiny chance (actually an infinitesimal chance)—that sometime over the weekend I could find a judge who’d set bail.

“Mommy! Mommy! Keil! Mommy’s not home.” Each word was shriller than the one before.

I rolled out of bed still groggy—keyed up from the excitement, I’d taken one of Mickey’s Seconals. I grabbed a pair of shorts and pulled them on. I was already wearing panties and T-shirt, and I hadn’t brought a robe.

“Libby? Libby, it’s all right.” I stumbled into the hall, where I smacked head-on into a ten-year-old juggernaut. Who would have thought such a small girl could seem so solid? She screamed; her eyes were terrified; trapped. Over her head, I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at my heart. It was sticking out of one of the bedrooms, the door slightly cracked.

“Keil, it’s okay, honey. I’m the sitter.”

The gun barrel disappeared and Keil stepped out, still wearing pajamas. “It’s only an air rifle.” He was tall for his age, and handsome, blond with brown eyes. A surfer boy, a California dream.

Libby had plain brown hair, but she’d gotten blue eyes. Right now her teeth looked as big as a rabbit’s, and they had a space between them. She was going through an awkward stage.

She screamed, “Where’s my mom?”

“My name’s Rebecca and I’m a friend of hers.” I knelt down to make contact.

“Where is she?”

“She’s all right. She’s fine. I just—”

But Libby flounced away in midsentence. Keil said, “She’s always like that.”

I gave him a big smile. “I don’t blame her. It must have been pretty upsetting waking up to find your mother gone.”

“Ahhh—no big deal.”

I thought he was working very hard to be brave. “Listen, Keil, I’m going to need some help. Could you get dressed and show me where things are in the kitchen? I’ll make you some—uh—” What did kids like? “—French toast.”

“Okay,” he said, and went back to his room. Screams and wails were now coming from Libby’s. I didn’t know where to start.

I knocked on Keil’s door. “Keil. Do you know how to make coffee? I think I’d better talk to Libby.”

“Sure. I’ll go make you some.”

Libby was lying facedown on her bed, emitting high-volume screams. Keil came up behind me. “She’s just trying to get attention.”

Very well then, I’d give her some. “Libby, do you know who I am? Your mom’s friend from San Francisco that likes fish?”

No answer. Gingerly I touched the small of her back. Her legs kicked out violently.

I said, “Honey, your grandmother’s on the way—”

“I hate my grandmother!”

“How about breakfast? What do you think about breakfast?”

“I hate breakfast!”

And me
?
You hate me
,
too
,
right
? I nearly had to bite my tongue to keep from saying it. “How about ice cream?”

“I hate ice cream!”

I walked to the door. “Too bad. I thought we’d have some for breakfast.”

She turned around, her face pink and swollen. “I thought we were having French toast.”

“We could—would you rather have that?”

She smashed her head down on the pillow again. “No!”

I went down to my coffee, which Keil, now in jeans, was just dripping into a mug that had a whale’s fluke for a handle. He didn’t waste a word. “Rebecca, where’s Mom?”

“She’s fine, Keil. Do you believe me?”

“If she’s fine, why won’t you tell me where she is?”

“I am going to tell you. I just don’t want to do it twice. If you can get Libby to come down—”

Libby said, “I’m here,” and padded in on bare feet, still in her nightgown. Hair hung over one eye, and, I had to admit it, she looked very cute.

“Aha! You came for French toast, did you?”

Keil said, “Tell us, Rebecca!” sounding as threatening as any street punk. I stared at him, shocked—he had seemed such a nice child. He looked half out of his mind with worry.

“Oh, Keil, I’m so sorry—I know you’re very worried. Kids, your mom is fine, but something really bad has happened. She didn’t do anything wrong—there was a terrible misunderstanding—but I’m afraid she had to spend the night in jail.”

Libby’s blue eyes widened into circles of sky.

Keil had recovered his composure. He rinsed the coffee funnel, making sure he kept his back elaborately turned. “What’d she do? Get in a brawl at a fern bar?”

“Keil. Libby. There’s another piece of it.” I paused, wondering if I really had to tell them, and concluding it wasn’t right to keep it back. For all I knew, it was in the morning paper. “Something really, really bad has happened to Sadie Swedlow.”

Fear, primitive, childish fear, the kind of fear you can only feel when you’re a kid and things go out of control, filled Libby’s eyes, contorted her face. “How bad?”

“Real bad, honey. She died last night.”

Deep, wracking sobs erupted from her small body—not the angry, confused ones of a few moments ago. This was real sadness. I held out my arms to her and took a step forward, but she turned and ran. I realized I was crying myself. The back door slammed and I looked around, but Keil had left. I hadn’t heard him move. I stood in the middle of the kitchen feeling miserable.

I hadn’t been around kids much. I was shocked at how much of Libby’s sadness I had picked up, and I thought I could feel Keil’s, too. It was as if I’d gone suddenly psychic, lost the adult defenses it had taken me a lifetime to build. I took deep breaths, trying to figure out what was happening.

Were they so upset because they had loved Sadie? She hadn’t been around long, but I was sure they’d been spending weekends, at least, with her and Don. There might have been time to build a rapport.

Or had they caught on that Sadie’s death and their mother’s being in jail were connected? Had it hit them in that millisecond that that had to be what their mom had been arrested for, and if so, how had they put it together so fast? Had they heard their mother threaten her? Or was it intuition?

In just a few minutes around these small beings, I was starting to understand that they lived in a different place from the one adults lived in, that they had transmitters and receivers that could get past normal barriers of communication. I don’t mean I’d lived such an isolated life I’d never seen a kid close up—far from it. But I hadn’t been around them much under extreme stress, and I felt I’d just seen something naked and important. I thought that if I could tune in to where they were, I might learn something.

The next question, of course, was what to do next. Try to comfort Libby, probably, though I didn’t think I’d get far. The doorbell rang as I started for the stairs.

“Oh.” The caller was a gold-colored girl with black hair, smaller than Libby, maybe a little younger. Looking confused, she turned briefly around as a silver-painted compact drove away.

“It’s okay. I’m Rebecca, the baby-sitter. Did you come to see Libby?”

She nodded, looking very scared.

“Come in.”

She did, but obviously because a grown-up was telling her to, not because she wanted to. It was clear she wanted to run for her life. Did I look weird?

It came to me that I hadn’t combed my hair. I probably had dreadlocks. I was going to have to fake being motherly—it certainly didn’t come natural. “What’s your name, angel? Would you like to sit down?”