Sawyer, Meryl (43 page)

The money had to be the key. What had Paul Talbott told her? Most
crimes fell into two categories: crimes of passion and crimes of greed.

If only she could talk to Mitch, she'd have a better idea of what
to do. He hadn't deserted her, had he? True, he liked to be on the winning
side, but surely he'd stick with her. Or had she become a political liability?

Some inner sensitivity that she didn't quite comprehend told her
Mitch had suffered loss and betrayal. He understood what she was going through
and would never desert her. Still, so many terrible things had happened that
she couldn't help worrying he might toss her aside.

This seemed out of character—but then did she really know Mitch?
Once she would have sworn Talia and Val were above reproach, but now she
questioned their motives. God help her, she even wondered about Wally. When it
came right down to it, she could rely only on herself.

"That's my bunk." A short Vietnamese woman interrupted
Royce's thoughts, speaking with a heavy accent.

Royce looked down from the top bunk at the three Vietnamese women
who'd come into the cell just after she had. Small but wiry, they stood
shoulder to shoulder, itching to take her on. The Vietnamese gangs were
notorious for their brutality.

But beneath Royce's debilitating sense of hopelessness rage
simmered raw and primitive. She was sick of everyone ganging up on her. She'd
had enough. Now was the time to fight back and she didn't give a damn if they
beat her senseless.

No one—but no one—was going to take advantage of her. The spark of
anger—in an instant—became full-blown fury.

She swung down from the top bunk as if she were capitulating to
their demands. At the last second she kicked up one foot and rammed it into the
gut of the woman Royce instinctively knew was the leader. The woman collapsed,
doubled over in pain. Royce grabbed another woman and dragged her over to the
toilet in the corner. She shoved her head into the bowl.

The third woman jumped on Royce's back, her fingers clawing at
Royce's eyes. But Royce refused to let go, banging the woman's head against the
rim of the toilet bowl. For an instant Royce was surprised at her own strength
and the depth of her fury, barely recognizing the primal urge to survive.

Finally, the woman screamed, "Stop."

Royce let go and the woman slumped to the floor. Whirling around,
hardly conscious of the blood dripping from the scratch on her cheek, Royce
charged the woman who'd been on her back, knocking her against the cell's metal
bars.

A surge of adrenaline gave her unusual strength; a riptide of past
injustices spurred her to fight until her tormentors were vanquished. Or she
died. At this point Royce didn't care which.

"Hey! What's going on in there?" called a guard from the
cell door.

Royce let go of the woman and drew back, the sudden interruption
stunning her. What was she doing? She'd never attacked anyone like this, but
her animal instincts cautioned her. Inside the gray-bar Hilton—as the prisoners
called jail —only the strong survived.

She kept the side of her face with the scratch away from the
guard. "Nothing's happening."

The guard looked at them suspiciously, but the Vietnamese women
didn't contradict Royce. They all knew the rules of the jungle. Snitches were
as good as dead.

Mitch checked his watch. Almost six. Jesus H. Christ. This was unbelievably
late. Most judges knocked off at four. The expert witness the prosecution had
called was boring as hell. Even the jury foreman was nodding off. It was a dead
cinch that Mitch would win this case—after they waded through days of tedious
testimony and a parade of experts about as interesting as tapioca.

Toying with his pencil Mitch detected someone staring at him. He
eased his chair sideways and gazed across the courtroom. Paul.

What the hell was he doing here? Jenny, Mitch thought, then quickly
changed his mind. No. Royce. Something had happened to Royce. Something
terrible.

It was the longest twenty minutes of his life until the witness
completed his testimony, and the judge adjourned the court. Mitch rushed to the
back of the courtroom. Paul put his hand on Mitch's shoulder, and he was
positive Royce was dead. What else could bring Paul halfway across the country
and make him look this grim?

"Royce has been arrested for Caroline Rambeau's murder."

It took a second for the words to register. "Caroline
Rambeau? Who'd want to kill her and try to pin it on Royce?"

"Beats me." Paul jammed his fists in his trouser
pockets. "I've always felt there was something strange about this
case."

Mitch refused to believe this was happening. "They can't have
any proof."

"I haven't talked to the detective in charge, but I hear they
have physical evidence implicating Royce."

Mitch turned away, damning his own arrogance. Early on he'd been
dead certain he could beat the charges and save Royce. But day by day he'd
discovered his pride had been assaulted by an unknown enemy—one bent on
destroying Royce. He'd saved numerous felons, a few murderers, and even a
starving cougar. Hell, he'd pioneered the challenge to DNA.

But he couldn't save an innocent woman. He'd isolated her, setting
her up, making sure no one knew where she was and no one saw her. No alibi.

"Paul," Mitch said, realizing his voice was barely above
a whisper, "see what you can find out."

"I will... but—"

Paul didn't have to spell it out to Mitch. He knew the truth. He'd
gambled and lost.

Paul ducked under the yellow and black crime scene tape at
Caroline Rambeau's Nob Hill home and yelled, "Yo, Wilson, you there?"

"Yeah, in the living room. Come in."

After Paul had told Mitch about Royce's arrest, he'd returned to
the airport, where the jet he'd chartered flew him back to San Francisco in
record time. Shit! He'd never seen Mitch as traumatized as he was when he heard
the news.

That's why Paul had flown halfway across the country to tell him
personally. It didn't take a rocket scientist to realize Mitch was nuts about
Royce. And Paul had known exactly what Mitch would tell him to do: Throw
everything you've got into this case.

Paul had to confess he hadn't seen this one coming. Was he losing
his touch? Who would have thought Caroline Rambeau would be murdered? Or that
the police would find Royce's prints at the scene as well as other evidence
she'd been there?

The perp was clever, Paul granted, but somewhere he'd made a
mistake. And Paul wouldn't give up until he found it. There was no perfect
crime.

Inside the marble foyer that spoke of money—lots of old money—Paul
whisked out a book of matches. Christ, nothing, but nothing, smelled like
death. The sulfur from matches helped mask the odor of decaying flesh, but not
much.

He couldn't help remembering the last time he'd been here. There
hadn't been any hint of trouble. How wrong he'd been.

He walked into the living room where evidence technicians were
combing the carpet, using hand-held mini-vacs that sucked everything loose into
special filters. Later the bits of hair and fibers would be analyzed as
possible evidence.

The outline of Caroline Rambeau's body had been drawn in red chalk
on the arctic white carpet, but a bloodstain covered an area two feet on either
side of where her body had been.

Whoa! That's a lot of blood.

A charge of excitement jolted Paul. He hated to admit it, but he
found murder stimulating. The ultimate crime. Was there anything more precious
than life? No. And for a detective nothing was more satisfying than finding a
killer. It was a challenge he missed.

Tom Wilson was the homicide detective in charge of the
investigation. When Paul had called him and told him to meet him at the scene, Tom
had readily agreed. He didn't have to be reminded he'd be in jail if Paul had
rolled over on him.

But Paul hadn't told anyone that Tom had taken the money during
the drug bust that had cost Paul his job. He figured Tom had more than paid for
his crime. He'd taken the money to help his kid, but the boy had died of
leukemia anyway.

"Over here," Tom called to Paul.

He crossed the plush carpet, his feet sinking in as if he were
walking on a sponge. He came up to Tom, who had the murder book spread out on a
card table marked SFPD. The blue binder contained the chronological record of
the investigation and the various reports from the coroner and the crime techs.

"Who discovered the body?" Paul inquired.

"Brent and Wade Farenholt. Caroline was supposed to come to
dinner. When she didn't show or answer the phone, Eleanor sent them over."

"And the last person to see her alive?"

"The Farenholts. She'd been at their home."

Paul mulled over the information. The statistics were overwhelming
that the last person to see the victim alive or the person who discovered the
body was the perp. But there were exceptions. So far, nothing about this case
followed the rules.

"What happens to the fortune Caroline was about to
inherit?" Paul asked.

"Some distant cousin living in Rome is about to become a very
rich lady."

"Rome, huh?" Paul decided to take another look at the
phony Italian count. "May I see the photos?"

Tom took a stack of crime scene photos out of the special pouch in
the back of the murder book. Even in death Caroline was exceptionally
beautiful. She wore an ivory peignoir set trimmed in marabou fur with matching
mules. She'd been shot in the abdomen and the blood showed up in the photos
with astonishing clarity. He could just imagine the jury gagging.

"Here's how we figure it," Tom said, obviously anxious
to show off his skills. "The victim let in the perp. No sign of forced
entry."

Paul had already noted that, but didn't point it out. He also
noticed Wilson's years of training kept him professional, referring to the
killer as "the perp." The papers had trumpeted Royce's arrest, but to
the police she was innocent until proven guilty.

Paul intended to be the one to clear her name.

"Caroline was comfortable enough to have a Coke with the
perp," Wilson continued, pointing to one photo showing two Coke cans on a
small round table. "They sat in those wing chairs, chatting."

Paul glanced across the room at the two white brocade wing chairs
and the antique table between them. It was exactly where he'd sat when he'd
interviewed Caroline, pretending to be a reporter from
Town and Country.
He
examined the photo more closely. "No glasses? They were drinking out of
cans?"

"Yep. We got the perp's prints on one can."

"Rich, classy women like Caroline don't serve guests drinks
in cans."

Wilson shrugged off the observation. "They must have argued.
Caroline Rambeau stood up and the perp shot her here." Wilson pointed to
his gut, which slopped over a belt that was already on the last hole.

Paul nodded, not because he agreed with Wilson's scenario, but
because he knew Abigail Carnivali, like the media, would build her case on the
jealousy theory. The women had fought over Brent Farenholt.

"Were Royce Winston's prints found on anything but the Coke
can?"

"Nah." Tom shook his head. "We cut the pearl
buttons off the victim's gown. We're cookin' them."

Paul doubted that the heat chamber filled with Super Glue would
reveal any latent prints. The killer was too careful to make an obvious slip.

"Now, this is the good part." Wilson chuckled and Paul
winced. He'd almost forgotten the gallows humor that was a cop's way of dealing
with all the shit they saw every day.

"The shot wasn't fatal. But the perp sat in that chair"—
Tom pointed to one of the wing chairs—"drank a Coke, and waited for
Caroline to die."

"Jeee-sus." Paul whistled. "A wacko."

"Wait. It gets better." Wilson pulled out another photo.
"The perp moved this phone close to Caroline. See, it's on the floor not
far from her head."

Paul looked at the photo and saw the phone had been moved from the
sofa table, its cord stretched taut to position it close to Caroline.

"You see, the perp wanted her to suffer, to know she was
going to die." Wilson shook his head, disgusted. "The phone was so
close that if only she'd dialed 9-1-1, she would have lived."

Paul turned away. For some reason he imagined Val sprawled on the
floor at the mercy of some psycho. He managed to keep his voice steady.
"How long did it take for her to die?"

"Coroner figures she lived close to three hours."

"What kind of a person does something like this?" Paul
directed the question to himself. Serial killers were charmers. Mass murderers
were sullen, antisocial. But what about this killer? What kind of a person was
he looking for?