Murder in the Supreme Court (Capital Crimes Series Book 3) (3 page)

“Miss Pinscher. Yes, I have three. They live with my former husband.”

“Very modern.”

“It was best for both of us.”

“Undoubtedly. It’s a trend.”

“Pardon?”

“Children being with the male partner. Biology has taken second place to social… progress.”

Teller knew the tenor of the conversation was making Susanna uncomfortable. He sat up and said, “This is just the beginning, Dr. Sutherland. Nobody likes probing into a family in times of tragedy, but that’s what’s going to be happening until we get to the bottom line.”

“Bottom line?”

“A cliché. I work for someone who uses those terms. Look, I’m not sure there’s a hell of a lot to discuss today. It was important that we make contact because—”

“Because along with many other people, I am a suspect in my son’s murder.”

Teller nodded.

“I understand that, Mr. Teller.”

“How about Mrs. Sutherland? Will she understand it?”

“To the extent she needs to. I didn’t kill my son.”

“I don’t doubt it. Who else is in the family?”

“My daughter. She’s in California working on her doctorate in English literature.”

Teller asked, “Will she be here for the funeral?”

“There are some logistical problems with that, Mr. Teller.” Sutherland stood and his height surprised his visitors. His posture on the couch indicated a shorter man, but he’d unraveled himself into over six feet. He extended his hand and said, “You will excuse me.”

Teller asked as he shook hands, “What about Mrs. Sutherland, doctor? When can we see her?”

“Obviously not for quite a while. She’s under heavy sedation. Perhaps later in the week.”

“Of course,” Teller said. “Well, thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch.”

“I suppose you will.” He left through a door to the rear of his office.

Teller and Susanna went to where Vera Jones sat ramrod straight behind her desk, her hands crossed on the legal pad.

“Thank you for your time,” Susanna said as she headed for the sliding doors.

Teller didn’t follow her. He walked to a row of built-in bookcases and perused the books. “Has he read all of these?” he asked.

“I would imagine so,” Vera said.

“I have a lot of respect for doctors, especially ones with Dr. Sutherland’s reputation.” He openly admired a large landscape that hung behind her. “That’s a Sutherland, isn’t it?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Graham Sutherland. I always liked his landscapes better than his etchings. Any relation to the family?”

“Distant.” She led them to an outside door used by patients.

“Thanks for your time, Miss Jones,” Teller said. “By the way, where were you the night Clarence was murdered?”

“Here with Dr. Sutherland. We were working on a paper he’d written for a psychiatric journal… he’s widely published.”

“I’m sure he is. Have a nice day.”

Teller escorted Susanna to her car. Before getting in she looked back at the house, bit her lip and said, “Strange.”

“Did you ever know a shrink who wasn’t?”

“It’s her. She bothers me. I feel sorry for her.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, a type, a sadness in her eyes.”

“I know what you mean. Say, how are you fixed for dinner tonight?”

He couldn’t tell whether she legitimately wasn’t sure of her plans or was groping for an excuse. She said, “I’m busy.”

“Well, maybe another time. Let’s keep in touch.”

He watched her drive away, then drove back to MPD headquarters. At six he went to his apartment in Georgetown, where he fed his two cats, a male named Beauty, a female named the Beast, put a TV dinner in the oven and settled into his favorite reclining chair. Two paperback books were on a table next to him, a historical novel by Stephanie Blake and a collection of Camus’s writings. He chose Camus, promptly fell asleep and awoke only when the odor of a charred TV dinner was strong enough to get through to him.

***

Across town in a large and tastefully decorated cooperative apartment, Susanna Pinscher said into the telephone in her bedroom, “I love you, too, honey. I’ll see you this weekend. Okay. Pleasant dreams. Let me speak to daddy.”

Her former husband came on the line. Their three children lived with him by mutual agreement, although Susanna visited freely and had taken them for the entire previous summer. The decision to give her husband custody had been a wrenching one but was, she continued to tell herself, the right one.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“No problems. How about you?”

“Exhausted. They’ve assigned me to the Sutherland case.”

“A biggie. That’s all everyone talks about these days.”

“I don’t wonder. Murder in the Supreme Court. A first.”

“Take care of yourself, Susanna. You’ll be out this weekend?”

“Yes. Good night.”

She prowled through the apartment, ending up in the kitchen, where she made herself an English muffin and coffee. She hadn’t had dinner, had come straight home from the office, her briefcase bulging. She’d changed into a nightgown and robe and read until calling the kids.

She finished the muffin and went to the bedroom, where
she took an art book from a shelf. She climbed into bed and found an entry on the British artist Graham Sutherland. She read it, closed the book and turned out the light, wondering as she did why a detective from the MPD would know anything about a relatively obscure British artist.

What was law and order coming to?…

Supreme Court Justice Temple Conover sat in the sunny breakfast room of his home in Bethesda. He wore a pale blue flannel robe, blue terry-cloth slippers and a red wool scarf around his neck. Next to him was an aluminum Canadian crutch he’d used since his last stroke. The final draft of an article he’d written for
Harper’s
magazine on the growing perils of censorship was on a place mat.

A grandfather clock in the dining room chimed out the time, 7:00
A.M.
Conover poured what was left of coffee made for him by the housekeeper and looked out a window over formal Japanese gardens, a gift to his second wife, who was Japanese.

“Good morning, Temp,” his current wife said from the doorway. Long blond hair flowed down over the shoulders
of a delicate pink dressing gown secured at the waist by two buttons. A childlike, oval face was puffy with sleep. She leaned against the open archway, the toes of one foot curled over the top of the other, the bottom of the robe gaping open and revealing smooth white thighs.

“Hello, Cecily,” Conover said. “Do you want coffee?”

She came to the table, saw that the glass carafe was empty. “I’ll get more.”

“Call Carla.”

“I’d rather get it myself.”

She returned ten minutes later with a fresh carafe, poured herself a cup and sat across from him, one shapely leg dangling over the other. He coughed. “How do you feel this morning?” she asked.

“Well. The article is finished.” He slid it across the table. She glanced down at it, then sipped from her cup.

“How was the concert?” he asked.

“Boring.”

“Where did you go after?”

“To Peggy’s house for a nightcap.”

“More than one. You didn’t come home until almost two.”

“We talked. Okay?”

“You might have called.” He started coughing again. His eyes teared up and he gulped water. She started toward him but he waved her away. When he stopped coughing he asked, “Why didn’t you call? I worry, you know.”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Who was there?”

“The usual group. Temp, I’m tired of the questions, of the suspicion every time I go out.”

“Is it so without cause, Cecily?”

She exhaled a burst of air and returned her cup to the table with enough force to send its contents slopping over
the rim. “
Please
don’t start on that again. One single incident doesn’t—”

She was interrupted by the self-conscious clearing of a male throat. Standing in the doorway was a tall dark man of about thirty whose name was Karl. He wore tight jeans and a gray tee shirt stretched by heavily muscled arms and shoulders. A helmet of black curls surrounded a face full of thick features, heavy eyelids, a full sensuous mouth and a nose worthy of a prizefighter. He’d been hired six months earlier as a general handyman, gardener, and occasional chauffeur to Justice Conover. He lived in one of three garage apartments at the rear of the property.

“Sorry to barge in,” he said with a trace of a German accent, “but I wondered if you needed me today to drive. You said yesterday that the Court limo might not be available.”

Temple looked at the young man, whose attention was fixed on Cecily. “In an hour,” he said. “I’ll be ready in an hour.”

“Yes, sir.” Karl vanished from the doorway.

“What happened to your Court limo, Temp?”

“Maintenance, I think, or being used for the funeral.”

“You’re not going?” she asked.

“Of course not.”

“You should. He was chief clerk.”

He tried to control the trembling in his right arm but couldn’t, and it quickly spread throughout his body. The crutch crashed to the floor and his hand hit the carafe.

“Are you all right, Temp?”

“Look at you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can’t you at least have the decency to cover up when a man enters the room?”

She looked down, then up at him. “I’m wearing a
robe
, for God’s sake.”

“It has snaps, why don’t you use them—?”

“This is ridiculous,” she said as she pulled the hem of the robe over her bare legs and tugged the upper portion of it across her chest. “Excuse me, I have to get dressed for the funeral.”

He placed the palms of his hands on the table and slowly pushed himself to his feet. She came around, picked up his crutch and handed it to him.

“Why do you have to go to that bastard’s funeral, Cecily?”

“Because I think it’s right—”

“Sutherland was a disgusting—”

“I don’t want to discuss it, Temp.” She left the room. He followed, his steps slow, labored, the rubber-tipped crutch preceding his right leg as he dragged it across the floor. He reached her bedroom, opened the door and said, “You insult me by going to Sutherland’s funeral.”

She tossed her robe on the bed and entered her private bathroom.

“You slut,” he said just loud enough for her to hear.

She’d been leaning over the sink and peering at herself in the mirror. She straightened, turned and said, “And you, Mr. Justice, have the gall to talk about insulting someone?”

He tottered and grabbed the door for support. The trembling increased. It appeared he would topple over at any moment. She ran across the room and gripped his arm.

“Don’t touch me,” he said in a strong voice. She stepped back. He raised the crutch as though to strike her, lowered it. “All right, damn you, go to his funeral, Cecily, and
celebrate
his death for me.”

The Episcopal priest conducting the graveside service for Clarence Sutherland glanced at the thirty people who’d come to pay their final respects. Clarence’s mother was near collapse and leaned against her husband. Their daughter, Jill, who’d arrived on an overnight flight from California, stood with her arm about her mother’s shoulders.

A delegation from the Supreme Court headed by Associate Justice Morgan Childs stood together. Childs looked up into an angry gray sky and blinked as the first drops of rain fell. Next to him was Clarence’s clerk colleague, Laurie Rawls, who was crying.

Martin Teller turned up the collar of a Burberry trench coat. He’d awakened with the beginnings of a head cold. He glanced at Dr. Sutherland’s secretary, Vera Jones, who
stood behind the Sutherland family. She was the only person there, he realized, who’d dressed appropriately for the weather, right down to ankle-length Totes covering her shoes.

The corpulent, ruddy-faced priest still seemed to be catching his breath after the walk from the limousine. He looked down at
The Book of Common Prayer
he held in his beefy hands. “
Unto Almighty God we commend the soul of our brother departed, Clarence, and we commit his body to the ground…
”

Dr. Sutherland stepped forward, scooped up a handful of soil and sprinkled it over the coffin as cemetery workmen lowered it on straps. The rain fell harder and the priest held a hand over his head. He spoke faster.

Teller sneezed loudly, momentarily distracting attention from the grave site of three security men assigned by the Treasury Department to Justice Childs.

Teller watched the mourners return to their limousines. When they were gone, he approached the grave and looked down at the coffin. Who did you in, kid?

“Everybody has to leave,” a workman said.

“Oh, yeah, right. Sorry.”

There were several phone messages waiting for him when he returned to MPD headquarters, including one from Susanna Pinscher. He called her first.

“You were at the funeral?” she asked.

“Yeah. Very touching. And wet. I caught cold.”

“So fast?”

“If it gets serious I can claim workman’s comp. You know, Miss Pinscher, I was thinking about you last night.”

“You were?” Her voice had a smile in it.

“Yes, I was. I finally figured out who you look like.”

“And?”

“Candice Bergen.”

“That’s very flattering coming from Paul Newman.”

“Definitely Candy Bergen.”

“Do you always decide who people look like?”

“It’s a hobby. How about dinner this week?”

“It might be hard. I—”

“To discuss the case. I have some thoughts.”

“I’d like to hear them. Tell you what, Detective Teller, let’s make it Saturday night. I have an appointment Saturday morning with Justice Childs. I might also be speaking with some of the other justices during the week. I’ll be able to fill you in on those interviews.”