Playing God (14 page)

She shrugged, a big gesture, not the subdued, muscle-bound one most people used. "I don't know. Except that bankers are too dull to be killers, I'd suggest you look at his creditors. Or anyone he owed money. He always pled poverty as the excuse for being late with his support. And he was arrogant about his right to be irresponsible. Other than that? It could have been anyone. He was so terribly selfish and unkind."

She fingered the necklace again. Caught his look. "My power necklace," she said. "I got it to celebrate the divorce. I needed courage to face you."

He'd been rough on the phone. But necessarily rough, or she wouldn't have agreed to see him. It was one of the facts of his life that violence—assaults, rapes, murder—was never easy on the people who had to talk about it. "I don't bite," he said. "I think there was something else you wanted to say?"

"For your suspect list. What about Ted Shaw? Stephen married Jen for her money. Maybe Shaw got sick of dishing it out, given Stephen's sordid habit of visiting hookers."

"Did he do that while he was married to you?"

"Come on, detective. You think he left a saggy-baggy woman like me, married that young beauty, and suddenly was driven to hookers? Neither the little princess, nor I, nor any normal woman was enough for Stephen. It wasn't about normal. We had a good time in bed. For all I know, Stephen and Jen did, too. It was about power. Being larger-than-life, with larger-than-life needs. Being serviced with no need for reciprocity."

"Did Jen Kelly know about her husband's sexual proclivities?"

"Proclivities?" She shrugged. "Depends on what you mean by 'know.' I tried to tell her what she was getting into. Fairly explicitly. That's one of the reasons she hates me. I told her what he was like and she called me a bitch and a dirty liar. Said I was being horrible because he'd divorced me and wanted to marry her. But she had to believe that, didn't she?"

"You're awfully generous."

"I don't have any animosity toward Jen. I feel sorry for her."

"It didn't bother you that she had a big house and the money to redo it while you were struggling to make ends meet?"

"It bothered me. But most of that money came from Ted Shaw, and he doesn't owe me a thing."

He tried to think how to word his last two questions. "Did your ex-husband ever have trouble with angry patients?"

"Not that I knew of. But he probably should have."

"Were you ever aware of him prescribing unnecessary drugs or giving drugs or drug samples to anyone other than his regular patients?"

She hesitated. "I sometimes wondered..." then shook her head. He was about to ask a follow-up question when a voice called, "Mommy." A pause. Called again, and after the second call, quickly ascended into an hysterical wail.

"I've got to go to her," Janet Pleasant said. "You mind letting yourself out?"

"Not at all. Thank you for your cooperation. If I have more questions..."

"Then I'm sure you'll ask them, detective. You don't strike me as a shrinking violet." She hurried out of the room and a second later he heard her calling to the child as her feet clattered up the stairs. She could have done it. She was strong and angry and stood to gain by Pleasant's death. He took another look at the wedding picture, set it back on the desk, and left.

Chapter 11

Investigating a crime was a lot like painting by numbers. Fill in enough spaces with blotches of the right color and gradually a crude picture emerged. So far, he'd gotten a fair picture of Pleasant, but the killer remained a dark blur. The bloodhound in him wanted to keep going, but he'd reached the point where he was almost past being useful. He only had to make it through Ted Shaw and he could crash.

He pushed the bizarre crime scene and Pleasant's grotesque face away by pulling up questions he came back to often. What was a cop, anyway? Why would someone choose a job where you were simultaneously desperately needed and detested? Why be the one who got to see so many others, good and bad, at their worst? And what was a detective? Was he like a net, scooping up great gobs of material and then sorting through it? Like a filter through which information poured, trapping only the needed stuff? Or like fly-paper, to which the perpetrator would eventually be drawn and stick? And the hardest question—if he couldn't prevent pain and sorrow for good people and those he loved, couldn't always bring wrongdoers to justice, was it worth it?

These answerless ponderings carried him to his destination. Shaw's house, a great stucco and timber pile big enough to shelter scores of Portland's homeless, was reached by a winding driveway, sheltered from the prying eyes of the great unwashed by a grove of hemlocks. The nine-foot, carved oak doors towered above him as if to remind him of his insignificance. He parked and forced his whiny knee up the steps. Even in the damp and cold of winter, the brass knobs were freshly polished. He rang the bell and waited as cold sneaked around his ankles, crept down his neck, nuzzled his ears. Nothing happened. He rang the bell again.

The wind blew in his open coat and stole his body heat. Last night, he'd been so cold when they finished he hadn't stopped shivering for an hour. Now it was happening again. He zipped his coat but the cold had done its job. He stood hunched on the porch, hands plunged deep in his pockets, feeling the desolation of the night, the weight of his tired body, the spacey moodiness that hits when you're thirty-six hours out. Waiting dumb as a dog because changing course took decision.

Either Shaw had given up on him and gone to bed, or he'd been killed, too, and couldn't answer the door. Burgess fervently hoped it wasn't the latter. Once he might have welcomed the challenging complexity of two interwoven investigations. Now he longed for simplicity. He scribbled "Sorry I missed you. Please call me," on the back of his card and was bending to shove it under the door when it opened.

Ted Shaw, silver-haired, aristocratic, and at least two sheets to the wind, stood swaying in the doorway, a heavy crystal glass filled with golden brown liquid in his hand. "Dee... tec... tive. Excuse me. I was out back in the... kitchen." He swung the glass in a welcoming arc. "Please come in." Burgess stepped into a dark hall from which he gleaned only an impression of shiny floors and a high ceiling before his host conducted him into a dark-paneled, book-lined room with a crackling fire flanked by two leather wing chairs. English library stage set. The hand with the glass waved toward the chairs. "Sit down. You want a drink?"

"No, thank you, sir. I'm working." Hell, another minute and he would have been gone instead of stepping out on the verbal dance floor with a self-important and belligerent drunk. Ted Shaw was handsome in a Hathaway-shirt-ad way. From a distance, the craggy features, still dark brows, and slim body were extremely photogenic. Up close—which he couldn't avoid because Shaw kept swaying into his air space—he could see the broken capillaries, sagging skin, the effects of an alcoholic's poor nutrition.

As Burgess moved toward the chair, Shaw gave him a friendly cuff on the shoulder. "You don't have to stand on ceremony with me, dee... tec... tive. Not like I'm going to tell anyone, is it? Have a drink. I hate to drink alone." His grin was genial, his balance a bubble off plumb.

Burgess shook his head. Good liquor by a warm fire was enticing, but there were too many reasons not to. He knew Shaw wasn't his friend and wouldn't hesitate to cause him trouble. He also knew that if he had a drink, he'd never get out of the chair. He pulled out his notebook and sat, not expecting much, knowing he had to try. "Now then, sir," he said, clicking his pen loudly, "what was it you wanted to see me about?"

Shaw landed heavily in the opposite chair, picked up his drink from a delicate piecrust table, and drew off the first inch. "Single malt," he said. "Delicious." He held up the glass and watched the facets catch the firelight. "Sure you won't?"

"I appreciate the offer but I haven't slept since yesterday morning and I'm trying to get home to bed," Burgess said. "Can you tell me what you wanted?"

Shaw tried to focus. "I'm worried about my daughter, about how this whole business will affect her. She's recently had a child, you know. Difficult birth. Cesarean. She's barely gotten back on her feet. And now this. As a father, I'm anxious to protect her." He slumped back in his chair, apparently satisfied he'd made himself clear.

Burgess waited for a specific request. When nothing happened, he said, "What is it you want from me?" Probably too blunt to meet Cote's standards of tact, but he was too tired for finesse.

"I want you to keep her husband's ridiculous sexual shenanigans out of the paper, son. That's what I want." He swung his glass for emphasis, sending a wave of Scotch into his lap. He didn't seem to notice.

"Mr. Shaw, we have no control over what the papers print. All we control is the information we give out, which, I assure you, will be as circumspect as possible."

"My son-in-law..." The words were barely distinguishable. "...was a philandering ass. Cost me plenty. Thash no reashon Jennifer should be..."

Burgess thought the last word was "embarrassed." This was a colossal waste of time and now it would be a challenge to get out without a fight. The red face and fist clenching the glass said the genial drunk was rapidly deteriorating into belligerent drunk. Burgess knew Shaw's reputation. He got to his feet. "Sir, I apologize. It's too late and we're both too tired for this. Let me call you in the morning..."

"Sit down," Shaw bellowed, standing up himself. Except, his tongue being thick and slippery, he didn't say "sit."

"I want you to listen to me." He covered the distance to Burgess with two unsteady steps and poked him in the chest. "Lissen. You find whoever killed that boy, and find him fast. Put as many resources as you have on it. None of this waiting for some damned test or other. I don't want this paraded through the papers day after day, reporters camped out on Jen's front steps, poor girl having to read about her husband's misbehavior in ugly detail. You go arrest somebody. Some whore. Pimp. If it turns out the fool's gotten into any more of those financial messes, I'll pay. No reason for any embarrassing stuff to come out. You come to me, I'll take care of it. Unnerstand? Bailed him out before, I can do it again."

Burgess was glad he hadn't taken his coat off. He took a couple steps toward the door and turned. "I'm going right back to work now, sir. And I promise you, we'll get this wrapped up as fast as we can."

"Good!" Shaw tipped up his glass and drained it. "I knew you'd unnerstand, once we'd talked man-to-man. Supervisor wasn't so sure, but I told him, just send the boy to me. I'll make him unnerstand." He took a few unsteady steps forward, peering into Burgess's face. "You do unnerstand, don't you? How important, keep this stuff quiet?"

He had to get out before he got stuck in a conversational loop that could last for hours. Shaw had admitted knowledge of Pleasant's sexual shenanigans, and made some intriguing remarks about Pleasant's financial scrapes, but this was not the time for questions. "I think I do, sir," he agreed, heading for the door. Shaw stood swaying in the study entrance, a shadowy figure back-lit by the fire like those dapper black silhouettes people put in their yards.

Burgess closed the heavy oak door and limped down the steps, his knee hurting like hell. He heard his doctor's voice, "You've got to do your exercises every day. If you don't, it's going to hurt." Well, the doc was right. Doc also rode him about his weight, like he didn't know his knee would feel better if he lost some. So in his next life he'd be a fitness king. A gym rat. In this life, he couldn't even find time to sleep.

He slammed the car door and paused in the icy darkness, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. He could go to sleep right here. Go to sleep and freeze to death—another body the cops would be called out on. At least it wouldn't be his problem. He pressed his tired arm forward and started the car, driving slowly out onto the empty road.

Part-way back, his phone rang and Stan Perry's voice was with him in the car. "Joe? We're at O'Leary's place. Been waiting for the fire department to clear out. Looks like someone wanted to be sure we didn't find anything."

"They succeed?"

"Not entirely. We could use some help sorting through the rubble."

"I'm on my way."

Eat healthy food. Get plenty of rest. And exercise. Just who the hell did doctors think could do that? He'd been awake so long it felt like his eyelids were lined with sandpaper.