Enemies Closer (8 page)

“I’ve got it.”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, thanks.”

“So,” he said tentatively, “I’m going to my meeting, then I’ll talk to these detectives. Then where can I find you?” When she didn’t answer right away, he said, “Look, you’re going to need some local help to figure out what happened. I know the city and I know more about Maddy’s everyday life than you do. And, I know a little about what’s been troubling her.”

Clara knew that he was right. Standing, she said, “Call me after you speak with the detectives. If they green-light you, I’d love to have your help.”

Chapter Seven

P
romising to call later in the afternoon, Ben took his leave. It was a five-minute walk to his office and he spent the time considering what he’d just heard. He had underplayed Madeline’s money concerns because he didn’t want to scare Clara more than she already was, but he was going to have to come clean when he saw her again. Taking out his phone, he tapped on the telephone number that Clara had sent him. When a woman’s voice answered he introduced himself to Detective Carlisle. Listening for a moment, he said, “I have a meeting in ten minutes. It’ll probably go on for an hour, but after that I’m all yours.”

In spite of his fears for Maddy, he couldn’t get Clara’s face out of his head. She and Maddy looked a lot alike, and both were undeniably beautiful, but the snapshots she’d shown him of her sister didn’t do her justice. Clara looked like a Russian ballerina. She had a long, graceful neck, high cheekbones and huge blue eyes. Her posture and movements were graceful even though she had seemed completely unaware of herself. Even when she cried, looking at him with a bewildered expression, eyes red and splotchy, a smudge of mascara on her cheek, she was stunning. Maddy had been right. He could definitely fall for Clara.

At the meeting he managed to focus completely on the matter at hand – in this case, a biotech start-up out of San Francisco. RD Investments was a successful venture capital firm, focusing mostly on emerging pharmaceuticals and biotechnology. That Ben had managed to start a company that used both his undergraduate degree in biology and his master’s in business and finance was still a marvel. He and his partner, Jack, had started the fund five years ago with a lot of hard work and a heavy dose of nepotism, both having come from long lines of Wall Street success. But even though Ben was born under a lucky star in that regard, his parents had always insisted he work for what he had. Apart from a few well-placed recommendations, they had left him to make his own success. This was the last meeting with the San Francisco people before the board of RD Investments met to decide whether to put money behind their research. Afterward, Ben told Jack about Maddy.

“Jesus!” was his only intelligible response.

“I’m going to the police department now. And they might want to check you out too, since you dated her.”

“Yeah,” he replied, looking pale and devastated. “Give them my number.”

Ben left the office wondering if he had underestimated Jack’s affection for Maddy, or if his partner’s response had just been shock and concern for a one-time girlfriend. He knew that Jack had been disappointed when he and Maddy called it quits, but neither of them ever confided their feelings about it.

He took a taxi to the police station and got there at quarter to three. The receptionist told him to have a seat and two minutes later a tall, athletic woman in her mid-forties called his name.

“Thanks for coming in, Mr. Radcliffe,” said Judy Carlisle without shaking his hand. She led him through a large, clean room of new cubicles and cluttered desks, each distinguishable from the other only by its occupants until finally they approached a redheaded man in a decent suit with a powerful red pompadour rising above his forehead. He was younger than his partner, but not as fit, and he didn’t bother to rise when Carlisle made the introductions but simply looked Ben up and down.

“Do we have an open interview room?” he asked his partner, still looking at Ben.

“Room two. Why don’t you bring Mr. Radcliffe in and I’ll get us some coffee.”

Detective Kincaid stood, taking a folder and a notebook from his desk, and silently led the way to interview room two.
Good cop, bad cop?
Ben followed and took a seat in the windowless room.

Opening the folder, Kincaid said, “So you’re Madeline Gardner’s
friend
?”

He asked as if the word ‘friend’ was code for something nefarious. “Yes, I am.”

Carlisle came in holding three mismatched coffee mugs by the handles in one hand and a pile of sugar and creamer packets in the other. She set everything on the table and took a seat next to her partner. “Where are we?”

“We’ve established that Mr. Radcliffe is Madeline’s friend,” said the redheaded detective. “What kind of friend, Mr. Radcliffe?”

“Just a friend. We met in the fall and we’ve become pretty close.” Neither detective spoke so Ben went on, “Nothing romantic. She was more like a sister.”

“You met her in September and by March she’s like a sister? That’s quick for such a tight relationship.”

Ben met Kincaid’s glare with an even expression. “We were fast friends. She started dating my business partner so I got to know her that way. Then they broke up and she and I remained friends. We’re both pretty busy – actually, Maddy is
really
busy – but we only live a block away from each other so it’s easy to get together for a quick drink. We’re friends, detective. Good friends.”

They grilled him about his Monday night dinner with Madeline Gardner. Carlisle was gentle, Kincaid was verging on offensive. All of Ben’s answers were consistent with what they’d been told by other witnesses and eventually, they moved on.

“You said Madeline asked for your financial advice? Why didn’t she ask her boyfriend for advice? He’s your business partner. He must be a good source.”

“
They had already broken up by then. I was the next logical choice, I guess.”

Kincaid made a note and Ben took the opportunity to give the detective Jack’s cell phone number. “I figure you’ll want to talk to him too.”

Carlisle asked, “What kind of financial questions did Madeline have?”

“She basically asked about the ins and outs of maintaining a successful restaurant.”

Kincaid said, “But she
is
maintaining a successful restaurant, right? Why did she need business advice from someone who specializes in pharmaceuticals and biologics? You deal with medical devices and the FDA, not Cuisinarts and lamb shank.”

It was not lost on Ben that the comment was meant to let him know they’d already been checking him out. “I was probably the easiest person to ask because I have no ties to the restaurant community. Asking me questions wouldn’t start any rumors about the state of Dovetail’s success.”

Again, neither detective said anything. He realized this was probably a tactic to get him to keep going. It was working. “And, she wasn’t just asking about how to run a successful restaurant, she was asking about what could cause a successful restaurant to lose money.”

“Ah,” said Kincaid with a sardonic smile, “next time, start with the salient details, Mr. Radcliffe. So she was worried her restaurant wasn’t doing as well as it seemed to be?”

“She never said anything about Dovetail. Maddy was deliberately vague.”

“But you thought she was talking about Dovetail,” said Carlisle.

“Yes, I did,” admitted Ben.

“Other than Madeline’s questions,” she went on, “do you have any reason to suspect that Dovetail is losing money?”

“Not from where I’m standing. It
looks
like they’re doing a booming business, but I don’t have access to the books.” He repeated what he’d told Clara earlier about how a restaurant business could lose money even with consistently high bookings.

“Bottom line, if they’re doing everything right, someone’s stealing.” Ben shrugged.

“Is that what Madeline thought was happening?”

“She never said so. And please keep in mind that everything I’m saying is conjecture. Maddy was cagey about it. When I asked her, she said, ‘It’s all hypothetical at this point.’”

“Who would benefit from embezzlement?”

Ben noted that Kincaid’s voice held a little less edge now; maybe bad cop was over. “The person taking the money.”

The edge came right back. “Apart from the obvious, Radcliffe, would one of the partners somehow profit by stealing money from their own restaurant?”

“Hypothetically?” The detective nodded. “Hypothetically, a partner might benefit in the short term. If he needed money and intended to pay it back. Or, he might benefit if he was going to take all he could get and run to some South American country with no extradition. But if he wanted to keep the business going he would have to replace it before anyone noticed it was gone. But that’s only true for someone with a stake in the business. Plain old stealing is not uncommon in the restaurant world and a staff member would benefit greatly from taking a few extra bucks or comping dinners for friends or going home with caviar and filet mignon, as long as he didn’t get caught.”

“Did Madeline indicate how much money was missing?” asked Carlisle.

“She didn’t even tell me the restaurant was actually losing money.”

The detectives chewed on that for a minute. “Actually,” Ben went on thoughtfully, “another hypothetical person who might benefit from embezzlement is anyone who might want to take over the restaurant. Maddy told me months ago that a couple of the management companies in town had shown more than a little interest in Dovetail.”

Carlisle’s radar was up. “Restaurant management companies? Like Gemma Stein’s company, Steinboch?”

“Exactly like that,” said Ben.

“Did Steinboch express interest in buying Dovetail?” she asked.

“Maddy wasn’t specific about that either.”

Kincaid nodded and looked back at his notes. “Why did Madeline and Jack Duvall break up?”

If Ben was surprised by the sudden change of subject, he didn’t show it. “Maddy told me it just wasn’t working, she was too busy, they didn’t have enough time to spend together. Timing was wrong. Probably all true, but she was vague. Jack said the same thing. Neither one talked to
me
about their relationship, though: it would have been awkward.”

“Madeline was vague about a lot of things, considering you two were like brother and sister.”

“Just money and the guy she was dating, who happens to be my business partner and one of my closest friends.”

“How do you think Jack felt about the break-up?” asked Carlisle.

“I’m sure he was disappointed. Maddy is a catch. But he wasn’t in tears – they hadn’t been dating for that long. Anyway, you should talk to Jack about it.”

“What did you do after Madeline left Gigi’s?”

By now, abrupt changes in their line of questioning were no surprise and Ben rolled with it. “I paid the bill, got my coat and headed home. On the way, I bumped into a friend who’d been stood up and he and I decided to have a drink and commiserate. I sent Maddy a text asking if she was okay and she sent one back saying she was and apologizing for running out. I thought she was. Okay, I mean. I figured she would explain when we hung out again… I can’t believe this.”

Ben Radcliffe looked genuinely stricken, but neither detective was inclined to comfort him. “She responded to the text?”

“Yes. Otherwise I would have called the next day to make sure everything was all right.”

“What time?”

Ben unlocked his phone and scrolled through his messages. “Nine twenty-three.”

“How long were you out with your friend?”

“I was home and in bed by ten-thirty.”

“Anyone to confirm that?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“Where did you go with your friend?” Ben told them the name of the bar on First Avenue and gave them the name and number of his friend. “I’d like to see Maddy’s text message from Monday night,” Kincaid said bluntly.

Ben thought for a minute. This was becoming a little more involved than he had anticipated. “To make sure she sent it?”

“If you’re telling us the truth and this text was the last communication you had with her, it shouldn’t be a big deal. Right, Radcliffe?”

He sighed. “Yeah, go ahead. I’m an open book.” After Kincaid perused his text messages and handed him back the phone, he said, “Are we done now?” Ben had been sitting in the stale interview room for over two hours and had drunk two cups of bad coffee before switching to water. Meaning, he needed to pee, he needed to stretch his legs, and he needed to process how much danger Maddy could be in. Already alarmed and worried when Clara told him her sister was missing, being grilled by two detectives had brought the reality of the situation home and now he was afraid for his friend.

Carlisle reached across the table and pulled his suit coat aside with one long, manicured finger. “You’ve got some make-up on your shirt, Ben. Was someone crying on your shoulder this afternoon?”

“Clara. Maddy’s sister.”

The detectives exchanged a look. Kincaid smirked and Carlisle raised her eyebrows. She turned back to Ben. “We’re done.”

“For now,” Kincaid interjected. “Don’t go anywhere, Radcliffe.”

Carlisle walked Ben to the front of the building. The modern lobby was flooded with sunlight and Ben felt himself relax in spite of the tension emanating from each and every person waiting there.

“Thanks for your help, Ben. I know my partner was a little tough on you, but we just want to find Maddy.”

It was the first time the detective had said Maddy instead of Madeline and Ben wondered if she did it to reassure him that Maddy was important to her. It worked. He left the police station mentally exhausted but certain that the police were doing their best to find her. It was nearing five o’clock. He hailed a cab and left a message for Clara when she didn’t answer her phone.

“The cops cut me loose, does that count as a green light? I’m heading home to get out of this suit. I’ll call you from there.”