McGuire's grunt allowed that it was. Had Jack known the .38 was missing a week before Belle was killed, the muzzle would still point at him now. "Where did you find it?"
"Where you left it." A reproachful head shake. "A dresser drawer in your bedroom. Second from the top."
Under the pile of orphan socks Ms. Pearl wanted for miniblind dusters, Jack presumed. Had he not bailed from the apartment, the Dumpster or shrubbery scenario would have been substituted.
The search warrants led to the gun's discovery, rather than the reverse. Except one fingerprint at the scene and a relationship to the victim don't constitute probable cause.
"Somebody's doing a sweet job of framing me for murder." He gave McGuire a tight smile. "What prompted the warrants?"
The deliberation extended several seconds. McGuire's answer might cue whether he believed the Easter Bunny left registered murder weapons in sock drawers for good little detectives. "A witness put your Ford at the deHaven house at about ten-thirty Sunday night. The individual was jogging, saw the residence was dark and memorized your plate."
Wouldn't ya know, Jack sneered to himself. I must have zoned out from boredom about the time Marathon Man laced up his cross-trainers for a nice run in the rain.
"Approximately ninety minutes later," McGuire said, "a uniform responded to check-the-well-being and trouble calls at that address. A vehicle of that description was observed in a driveway across the street."
"Of that description pertains to about what, about a thousand blue Tauruses in Park City? No approach. No tag, model year or VIN recorded by the responder. No suspicious-vehicle report to dispatch."
Jack leveled a "you gotta be kidding" glare. "Jesus. I'd truly love to hear how you reconcile me killing my ex-wife, then hanging around at the house for another hour and a half."
McGuire shot back, "Were you at that location at any time between the hours of noon and midnight on Sunday."
"I told you on Monday, I was working." Jack realized the error the instant it was made. "Working" is what he should have said during that interview.
For one, it was true. The rent-a-dog phone calls, the trip to the shelter, the meet with Cherise, surveillance at Belle's and interview with Dina were all hours billable to Gerry Abramson. For that reason, Jack needn't have provided contact information for Cherise and Dina.
Being a typically sharp detective and inveterate note taker, McGuire said, "How's Cherise Taylor, the mall and your dog groomer fit with working?"
"Take my word for it" epitomized too little, too late.
"I'm not auditing your time sheets or tax deductions, McPhee." Failing that, McGuire stated, "Ms. Taylor mentioned a stalker is harassing you."
Grateful for the deflection, Jack said, "A mope that needs a new hobby." Possibly something besides serial lock picking, stealing guns, using them, then planting it.
Detailing Blankenship's vendetta would get Jack nowhere. McGuire might indulge him and canvass the apartment complex for witnesses who might have seen a fat fuck enter or exit Jack's building. If so, unless Blankenship told a witness he'd dropped by to dump the .38 in Jack's dresser, it'd prove precisely nothing.
"And what's with the dog?"
"Protection," Jack said, with a straight face. "While I was in the mall, the windows were down in the car enough, he wouldn't overheat."
"Your Ford, with a loaded .38 allegedly in the glove box."
"No."
Shit.
Jack hadn't lied on Monday, but the selective truth had tripped him up, anyway. When he met Cherise at the mall, she'd already taken Phil to Merry Hills.
McGuire knew Jack had been pulled over in the S-10. If there was a God, let the assumptions begin.
"Your other friend, Ms. Wexler. I spoke with a Mrs. Wexler at the number you provided. She refused to answer questions about you and said she'd tell Ms. Wexler to call back. Didn't happen."
Jack gave him Dina's cell-phone number.
"Generous of you, but I already got it off your cell."
"I didn't know Dina's cell number, until she called me on it Monday afternoon."
"Real close friends, are you?"
Ignoring him, Jack went on, "I guarantee, Mrs. Wexler forgot to pass on your message to Dina. I told you her mother isn't well. And you did confirm that 911 for an ambulance."
McGuire blew a raspberry and sat back. The knot in his Father's Day tie was adjusted, the ends aligned and ironed smooth. "On Monday, you denied being at the residence. We have two eyewitnesses, plus print evidence contradicting that. You bucked me on volunteering the .38. We execute search warrants and find it in your apartment. Now you say it was stolen. You said you screwed off all day Sunday. Forty-eight hours later, you tell me you were working."
"Yeah," Jack said. "I'm not helping myself a whole lot here."
"Cabbage, me lad, if you were this stupid back at the academy, you sure had me fooled."
Self-preservation is a primordial instinct. It stokes feats of superhuman strength and endurance, miraculous cures, heinous crimes and political scandal. If the unvarnished truth were Jack's salvation, the decision would be academic.
It wasn't. Explain the stakeout at the deHavens, and he had to cite the Calendar Burglar. Do that and McGuire would ask why Jack believed the thief would hit that house, that night. Relating the kennel setup implicated Ms. Pearl, Angie Meadows, and Cherise Taylor impersonating Belle deHaven.
Above all, giving up Dina Wexler in the process would enlarge the frame to include her. Christ, even if it magically erased Jack from the suspect listwhich it wouldn'the couldn't do that.
Dina was a thief, a smart aleck, wore kids' department clothes, stuffed tissues in her shoes so they wouldn't fall off and snored in her sleep. Instead of assuming the best about a woman, then reality skewing the image, Jack had known the worst about her almost from hello.
It was like Harriet's damn fall-out-of-a-well analogy. Except the bottom kept sinking from under Jack, and he couldn't climb out with a friggin' crane.
"I didn't kill Belle deHaven," he said. "Your blind side that she was deadmurderedflattened me like a Mack truck. We loved each other. It just wasn't the kind you marry for, or can stay married for without losing the best parts of it."
McGuire's index finger and thumb imitated the world's smallest violin.
"Nice, ol' buddy. You don't want to hear me out? Fine. Charge me and add my name to the arraignment schedule."
His former classmate and friend had the grace to look contrite, but said, "Do I need to buy a machine sandwich and a soda? Or is there a chance I'll make it home for supper tonight."
By his girth, skipping meals wasn't a habit. Trading insults would amuse squad members monitoring the video feed in an adjacent room. As they preach in cop school, it wouldn't de-escalate the situation.
"I was working from approximately ten Sunday till approximately two Monday. By law, at Monday's interview and now, that's all I'm compelled to tell you. My mistake was trying to cover my ass without disclosing my client or nature of the case. Instead, I should have let it hang."
"Exigent circumstances," McGuire replied. "They allow statutes prohibiting a licensed investigator's breach of confidentiality to be waived without prejudice."
"Uh-uh. That's why loopholes bear an uncanny resemblance to nooses. Bottom line, what you have on me satisfied the judge who issued the search warrants, but the gaps are big enough for the Mack truck that keelhauled me to drive through."
Jack scooted to the edge of the chair and rested his forearms on the table. "It's what's missing that exonerates me, Andy. A Lone Ranger print on an exterior door frameinteresting. No lifts taken off any doorknobs or interior surfaces? Including the breaker box shut off before or shortly after Belle died? Makes no sense."
"So you gloved up."
"After I touched the door facing? Come on."
McGuire's eyebrow raised. "And you're admitting you knew the electricity was off. That wasn't in the press release."
"Didn't have to be. You showed me the prelim photos, remember? When was the last time you used portable halogens
inside
a house?"
"Six weeks ago."
Startled, Jack cursed himself for conclusion jumping, then recalled a squib in the newspaper. "A homeless guy that croaked in an abandoned shack doesn't count."
"You asked
"
"Yeah, and here's another one. Earlier, you said the patrolman was responding to trouble
calls
at the residence."
"Did I?"
"How many calls? From whom? What time?"
"None of your concern."
"Well, the waterproof jogger's report wasn't one of them. You'd have thrown that at me from the get-go." Along with any neighbor's complaint of a suspicious person or persons skulking around the deHavens' backyard.
The motion detectors might have initiated a silent alarm to the security company. When no one answered at the house, a trouble call might have been forwarded to dispatch.
Jack said, "That leaves Carleton deHaven requesting a check-the-well-being on his wife."
"If you say so."
"Well, if not, when Belle didn't arrive in Little Rock as scheduled, I'd say that's more than passing strange. Wouldn't you?"
"I might."
"Still is, considering she should have landed eight hours before that well-being check." Jack sucked his teeth. "Kinda makes me wonder if it took that long for Mr. Airtight Alibi to realize it
would
seem more than passing strange, when his wife turned up dead."
"DeHaven is in the clear. Mrs. deHaven missed her flight. When the next and last of the day was weather-delayed, he assumed she'd opted to drive down."
"Missed her flight?" Jack repeated. "Shit yeah. She didn't live to make it to the airport."
"Sounds like a lefthanded confession to me, bud."
"
Think,
for God's sake. I had no reason to kill my ex-wife. The prenup gave deHaven five hundred thousand of them."
"How do you know?"
"She
told
me. I told her she was nuts to sign it."
"She didn't listen to you."
"She rarely did." Jack's advice on marrying Carleton deHaven at all was also ignored.
"You can't possibly believe I left a print, gloved up, killed Belle with a registered .38, sat in my car for an hour and a half, then hid said murder weapon in a drawer, hired a neighbor to clear out my whole friggin' apartment and moved in
moved
somewhere else."
"Sure, I can." McGuire splayed his hands on the table and stood up. "Your motive is the oldest one in the book."
"What motive? I don't"
"Soon as we take a DNA swab and the wee, tiny bun in Mrs. deHaven's oven turns out to be yours, the prosecutor may up the charge to capital murder."
Cops lied. The more adept and experienced the investigator, the more he loved the irony in lying to extort the truth. To Jack's knowledge, Andy McGuire had dealt most every card off the top of the deck. And still was.
"Belle was
pregnant?
"
"Funny, her husband said that same exact thing. Except he isn't the father. He had a vasectomy years ago. The lab confirmed he's still shooting blanks."
McGuire picked up the handcuffs. "Since I'm 99.9 percent sure God isn't the daddy, either, whose little cabbage do you reckon it is?"
Jack sat there, stunned. His mind whirled a hundred revolutions per second. One thought clicked into place. "An attorney," he said. "I'm invoking my right to counsel."
14
"S
hit, the" Dina yanked her hand off the saucepan's metal handle. Homemade tomato soup slopped over. The burner's jets crackled, licking at the spill, welding it to the side of the pan.
She abruptly turned off the burner and spun around. Stretched on tiptoes, she batted at the sink faucet. A practiced jab at the spigot with a wooden spoon sent cold water streaming over her palm. The burn crossing from the base of her index finger to the heel of her hand wasn't serious. Just stupid and careless.
Harriet had owned the copper-bottom cookware set so long, Paul Revere might have forged it, then leaped on his horse to holler, "The British are coming!" It was certainly manufactured before heat-resistant handles were invented.
"And a long time after pot holders were, you idiot."
The cold water's supposed power to soothe the sting did the opposite. Deciding her skin wouldn't blister, or if it did, it served her right, Dina shut off the tap and towel patted her hand.
