Evidence of Murder (25 page)

“No.” Her stomach had had a bad day so far, and the idea of eating out with a man who was not Paul finished it off. “Thank you, but I will need only a few minutes of your time. We’re still looking into Jillian Kovacic’s death, trying to figure out why it happened.”

If disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm for his company, he hid it well. He also wore a wedding ring on his left hand, which made her go
hmm
. But he nodded with no change of expression and she went on. “Everyone who knows Jillian is at a loss to explain how she wound up in those woods. I’d like to know if there were any financial worries in her life. I’m sure your arrangements with Kovacic Industries are confidential—”

“Not necessarily. We keep fairly open books here, once a deal is made. Secrecy produces things like the Enron disaster. Cannon, Jennings, and Chang does not believe in secrecy.”

She stifled the urge to smile at this prim announcement. “At the tech show you told me that you finance Evan’s work. I understand he’s been quite successful.”

“Enormously.”

“So he and Jillian should have plenty of money.”

The man chuckled and leaned back. “Successful doesn’t always mean plenty of money. His games are selling like hotcakes. We expect part two to sell equally as well, which is why we lent him the start-up money to produce it. We’re sort of the meantime people.”

She lifted her eyebrows, and that gave him all the encouragement he needed to go on. “In the meantime, between selling game one and when game two will be on the shelves and generating income, Evan needed extra cash flow to buy equipment, hire more staff, and support himself while he’s writing the game. We provide that cash flow. We became limited-term partners with Kovacic Industries.”

“So both sides are betting that the new game, part two, will be successful enough to pay everyone back.”

“With a healthy profit, yes.”

“But there’s a risk.”

“There is no profit without risk, Mrs. MacLean. We study it, do our best to minimize it, of course, but there is always risk. The biggest risk here would be a competitor releasing a similar, or worse, better product shortly before we do. That would be about the worst that could happen. Other than that, Kovacic Industries is a sure thing.”

He beamed, delivering this reassuring news. Problem was, it did not reassure her about her theory. If Evan had no money woes, why would he kill his wife?

Perhaps she
was
wrong, biased, overreacting in her grief. “At the tech show, you said something about a release date.”

He stopped beaming. “Yes. Polizei Two was supposed to be out five months ago. Evan has been too distracted with his factory and his virtual-reality tie-in to finish it. Not that it isn’t all going to make money eventually—I’m not as enamored of the virtual-reality hardware as I am of Polizei Two since it doesn’t have a proven track record, but I do recognize the potential.”

“That’s why you agreed to finance it. Does—”

“Not the hardware. Just the game, Polizei Two. Say, I’m stuck at an awards banquet this weekend for the city business council—it would be a lot less boring if you’d come along.”

“You’ve only financed the game? Then where did he get the money for that reality ball or whatever it is?”

“The virtual-reality sphere? I assume he used his profits from Polizei One. And what does all this have to do with his Jillian killing herself? Not that I believe she’d do that.”

Theresa had opened her mouth to make one response, and now made another. “You knew Jillian well?”

Did that half-a-heartbeat moment of hesitation spring from a disinclination to speak ill of a client, or something else? “We loaned Evan Kovacic a great deal of money, Mrs. MacLean. Even though all went well, I still spent a lot of time with him and his concerns in the past few months. And frankly, I still don’t see what it all has to do with his wife.”

Theresa kept her voice calm. “When people are unhappy with their lives, it’s usually because of love or money. She seemed happy with her husband, so that leaves money. This must be an interesting job, trying to figure out what’s a good investment and what’s not. You must have to consider every factor that could affect the outcome, just like Evan designing his game.”

“Sure. Except that in my case, it’s real. No vampires or zombies, only interest rates and stock market dips. Which are a lot scarier.”

Theresa worked on a smile. “So you investigated Evan’s finances before you agreed to take him on, of course.”

“Sure. Sterling, absolutely. Yet another reason we felt confident investing in Polizei Two.”

“And he had the money for the factory and the hardware line?”

Cannon paused. “Some, yes. But he formulated those plans after our agreement had been reached. I believe he has separate financing for the factory.”

“Not with you?”

“No. As I said, Polizei Two is a sure thing. Virtual reality, well, that’s like gasohol. People keep trying to get it off the ground, but the runway is littered with aborted flights.”

“Who did finance the factory?”

“I’m not sure anyone did. He probably used the profits from Polizei, as I said. It would have been tight, but apparently he’s doing it.”

“Did he ask you for funds to purchase the factory?”

“I don’t recall, really. He might have run it up the flagpole, but we wouldn’t have saluted, so that would have been that.”

“You don’t know if he has arrangements with any other venture capital firm?”

“He doesn’t. That’s a detail we make sure of, to avoid scams where a fake entrepreneur gets financing from several sources, then the next thing you know the money has been transferred to the Caymans and there’s no sign of your guy. We wouldn’t automatically nix the deal, but we’d definitely be aware of any such arrangement with another firm.” He pulled at his lip, apparently toying with the interesting question. “Unless he had an angel.”

“What’s an angel?”

“The corporate world’s version of a loan shark.”

“Like Griffin Investments?”

The name did not produce a reaction. “I’m not familiar with them.”

“Never mind. What does an angel do?”

“Exactly what we do—provides the start-up capital for a growing firm, but is an individual person instead of a group of investors like we are.”

“Is that legal?”

“It’s perfectly
legal,
” he said. “In theory. In execution, of course…the arrangements can be whatever the two parties agree on, and depending on how desperate and/or optimistic one party is, well, you can get into loan shark territory. Outrageous interest rates, percentages of the gross—”

“Murder?”

“I doubt it…well, the CFO of a start-up pharmaceutical turned up dead in California last year, but I think that’s a story brokers tell each other around the campfire with flashlights under their faces. Besides, if Evan had some angel he had to pay off, he would have been asking me for a capital increase, and he never mentioned it. They have plenty of money. At least they will once Polizei Two hits the shelves. This banquet I mentioned is on Saturday night—”

“Except that Polizei Two is late. Is he worried that you’ll pull the plug on his cash flow?”

She expected him to pooh-pooh the idea, but in a somber tone he admitted, “There’s always a danger. If the delay goes on for too long, we could decide to cut our losses and leave him with big bills and a game he doesn’t have the means to finish. Kind of like a Hollywood producer making a movie and having the studio bail out before he’s finished shooting. Everyone loses in that situation. Happily, there’s no need for anything that drastic. Evan will be finished with the game soon, the money will start pouring in, and all will be right in our world.”

“Even though it’s five months overdue.”

“That’s part of the business. No one’s too concerned about it.” He tapped the blotter again, compressing his lips in a way that made her think he overstated his sangfroid. He and his partners had been shelling out money five months longer than they had expected to, without a definite end in sight. But if they were still supporting Evan, why would he need Jillian’s money?

She needed to know how much Evan had profited from Polizei the first, and what he had done with the money. And she doubted this man could, or would, tell her that. She got to her feet. “Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Cannon.”

He guided her back down the sumptuous hallways. “Not at all. Anytime you’d like to hear about the oh-so-glamorous world of venture capital, please call on me. And I do hope we can do lunch sometime.”

She paused at the exterior door. “And would your wife be joining us?”

The question apparently surprised him. No doubt most women didn’t ask, played along with—

“My wife died two years ago. Cancer.” He glanced down at the ring on his hand, for a moment with the same empty, desolate face she saw in her own mirror every day. “I just can’t stop wearing this.”

“I’m sorry.” The words left her throat in a choking rush, and she fled to the elevator bank without waiting for absolution. Gulping in huge, deep breaths, she made it to the lobby before the tears came.

“But it’s just his finances,” she protested to her cousin. The Justice Center sat only two blocks from the venture capital firm and she had walked it, putting her hands over her ears for the last half block to protect the thin flesh from the lake air that whipped past the old courthouse in arctic bursts. Now she sat at the desk across from Frank’s, the desk that had been Paul’s. The cracked Formica top held nothing but dust, a stapler, and a bit of overflow from Frank’s work files. Oddly enough this did not affect her. She had rarely visited the plain, brightly lit, and largely impersonal homicide unit and did not look for traces of Paul there. “Can’t you subpoena Griffin Investments to find out if they gave him the money to pay for the factory?”

“No.”

“You can’t just call them and ask, then?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already.”

“I did.”

“Tess!”

“I’m establishing Jillian’s frame of mind, and she may have been acquainted with Evan’s financial manager at Griffin. He may even have been her financial manager, for all I knew. The receptionist didn’t find it that bizarre.”

“Unless the receptionist doubles as the firm’s legal counsel—”

“It doesn’t matter, because I didn’t get anywhere. You know why? Because Evan’s financial manager at Griffin is on a second honeymoon in Asia and refused to take his cell phone with him. The receptionist—she found this very romantic—said it was a dream of the guy’s wife but they’d never wanted to spring for it until a generous client gave them the trip as a thank-you. Want to guess who the generous client was?”

Frank pulled at his lower lip. “Evan?”

“That’s my guess too, but I can’t be sure. The receptionist either didn’t know or wouldn’t tell. They left Detroit
yesterday
, Frank. I had to open my mouth when Evan complained to the coroner about me. He wasted no time in getting this guy out of the country for a few weeks. If I had called Griffin the minute I learned their name—”

“They wouldn’t have told you anything anyway,” Frank stated.

“I know, they probably wouldn’t have…you can’t find out that information somehow?”

“I’m sorry, Tess, but no. This isn’t communist China or something. We have a little thing called civil rights here. Not that I’m always fond of them myself, but if I want to keep my job I have to get something like a
warrant
. Which, as I believe I’ve explained, no judge is going to give me based on your—what, hunch?”

She had warmed in the interior temperature and now removed her coat. “Means, opportunity, motive. He had opportunity. I want to find out if he had motive.”

“What about means?”

“I’m still working on that.”

“Work harder. We don’t even need motive. Besides, they were married, that’s motive enough.” She gave him the look she had learned from their aunts and he added, “Sorry, but it’s true. Husbands and wives always have motive, anything from a million-dollar insurance policy to a piece on the side to leaving the cap off the toothpaste tube. You don’t need motive, you need concrete facts. The kind that will convince a judge that Evan Kovacic murdered his wife.”

“Like what?”

“How about some evidence? Isn’t that your stock in trade?”

“Anything he left on Jillian, hairs, fibers, bodily fluids, is not significant. They lived together. You would expect to find his trace on her and vice versa. That’s the problem with family killings. If he used some kind of weapon, poison, pills, I don’t know what it is and I won’t know if it’s on his property without getting a search warrant to search it, and you say I can’t get the warrant unless I have reason to believe the weapon is there.”

“Welcome to my world.” Frank sipped from a porcelain mug, then made a face as if the coffee had gone cold. “So the body isn’t going to help you.”

“Except for the fact that it was moved. He somehow got Jillian from her apartment to Edgewater Park. Maybe in the middle of a freezing-cold night, so no one saw him. Maybe she was somehow still conscious, so he might not have had to carry her.”

“Then why would she agree to go to the lake in the middle of the night? Especially if it meant taking the baby out in the cold or leaving her alone in the apartment?”

“She wasn’t thinking clearly, perhaps. Even if she had been…Jillian was too sweet for her own good. Evan could have convinced her to go there. He probably could have convinced her to jump in.”

“So that brings us to his car. What did you find on the stuff you stole from it?”

“Two of her hairs and one pink cotton fiber in the cargo area.”

Frank saluted her with his mug.

“But that doesn’t mean anything, as I said. She could have gotten stuff in and out of his car a million times. The only really interesting item is the diatoms in the tire treads. That proves he drove to a location near the lake.”

“Even better.”

“Except that the whole city is on the lake.”

He scowled. “So you stole this stuff and now you’re telling me it’s worthless?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m going to get samples of other lakeside parking lots, anyplace he frequents near the water, and see if there’s any difference in the diatoms. I never had marine biology, so I don’t know if diatoms are homogeneous throughout the lake or if different types flourish in different areas. And I didn’t steal it.”