Smoke Screen (2 page)

T
HEY DON’T BELIEVE ME, DO THEY?
”

Britt addressed the question to the stranger whom she had retained as her attorney. It was now twenty-four hours since she’d discovered that Jay had died while lying beside her, and still she continued to hope that this was all a terrible dream from which she would soon awaken.

But it was all too real.

Shortly after her frantic 911 call, EMTs and two police officers had arrived at Jay’s town house. They’d been followed by the coroner and two detectives, who introduced themselves as Clark and Javier. They had questioned her in Jay’s living room while, in the bedroom, his body was being examined and prepared for transport to the morgue. She had gone to police headquarters with the detectives to give them her formal statement. After the last
i
was dotted and the last
t
crossed, she’d thought that would be the end of it, except for grieving.

But this morning Clark had phoned her at home. He apologized for the imposition but told her he and Javier would like to clear up a few details and asked if she would mind returning to the police station.

The request was issued in a friendly, casual manner, but it made her uneasy, uneasy enough to feel it would be advisable to have counsel meet her there. Her dealings with lawyers were limited to tax issues, real estate transactions, contracts, and her parents’ estate. She doubted the attorneys handling those matters had ever been inside a police station.

Needing a reference, she had called the television station’s general manager.

Of course the lead story on every station last night had been about Jay Burgess’s shocking death. Her fellow broadcast journalists had been discreet in their reports of her involvement, but no matter how they’d couched it, it was a hot story: The highest rated news reporter in the market, Britt Shelley, was now the one making news.

From the objective standpoint of a television journalist, she had to admit it was a juicy irony as well as a sensational story.

The general manager had commiserated with her situation. “What an awful ordeal for you, Britt.”

“Yes. It was.
Is,
actually. That’s why I’ve bothered you at home.”

“Whatever you need. Whatever I can do to help,” he’d said. She’d asked him to recommend a lawyer.

“A criminal lawyer?”

She’d been quick to assure him that she was only being prudent, that the interview—she didn’t even refer to it as an interrogation—was routine, a formality really. “Even so, I think I should have counsel.” He had readily agreed and promised to make some calls on her behalf.

When Bill Alexander had arrived at the police station, he’d been breathless and apologetic for being ten minutes late. “I got stuck in traffic.”

She’d hoped for someone imposing, authoritative, and charismatic, so it was difficult to hide her disappointment when the slight, unassuming, and frazzled Alexander proffered his card and introduced himself only seconds before they were joined by the two detectives.

By contrast, Clark and Javier personified central casting’s call sheet for tough detective types.

Yesterday, when the pair had arrived at Jay’s town house and realized they were talking to
the
Britt Shelley of Channel Seven News, they’d been dumbstruck and awkward, as people sometimes were upon seeing a TV personality out and among ordinary folk.

The detectives had apologized for having to detain her and put her through the police work on the heels of such a traumatic experience, but unfortunately it was their job to learn exactly what had happened. She’d answered their questions to the best of her ability, and they had seemed satisfied with her account.

This morning, however, the tenor of their questioning had changed, slightly but noticeably. They seemed no longer star-struck. Their inquiries had taken on an edge that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Britt was cooperative, knowing that reluctance to cooperate with the authorities usually signaled guilt, at least on some level. All she was guilty of was sleeping with a man who happened to die in his sleep. It was fodder for crude jests about Jay’s sexual prowess, and hers.

He went out with a bang.
Wink, wink.

Bet he died with a smile on his face.
Wink, wink.

He came and went at the same time.
Wink, wink.

If these detectives were after details about the sex, they were out of luck. All Britt remembered was waking up and finding Jay lying dead beside her in his bed. She had no memory of anything else happening in that bed. Even after an hour of intense dialogue, she didn’t think the detectives believed that.

Moments ago, they had suggested taking a break, leaving her alone with her newly retained attorney, which gave her an opportunity to better acquaint herself with him but, more important, to get his read on the proceedings.

“They don’t believe me, do they?” she repeated, since he’d faltered on his answer the first time she’d asked.

This time, he gave her an insipid smile. “I don’t get that sense at all, Ms. Shelley.” His tone of voice suggested he was stroking a nervous cat. “They’re being thorough, which they must be whenever someone dies under unusual circumstances.”

“Jay Burgess’s cancer was terminal.”

“Yes, but—”

“He’d had a lot to drink. Probably the alcohol didn’t mix with the strong medications he was taking.”

“No doubt.”

“All too often people mix prescription drugs with alcohol and it kills them. Jay died of cardiac arrest, respiratory failure. Something like that.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Then explain to me why I’m being questioned so extensively.”

“In part, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden death of one of their own,” he said. “Jay Burgess was a decorated police officer, a hero to the men in this department and beyond. Naturally his colleagues want to know what happened during the hours before he died.”

She’d covered the funerals of fallen policemen, and had always been impressed by the global fraternity of law enforcement officers, who rallied ’round when one of them died.

Rubbing her forehead, she conceded the point with a tired sigh. “I suppose you’re right. But that’s just it. I don’t know! I’ve told them I can’t remember. I don’t think they believe that, but I swear it’s the truth.”

“Maintain that,” he said as though applauding the passion behind her voice. “Or, even better, say nothing at all.”

Shooting him a scornful look, she began pacing the compact interrogation room. “Everybody says, especially lawyers, that it’s better not to say anything. But as a reporter, I know that people who refuse to talk look like they have something to hide.”

“Then don’t deviate from your story.”

She came around, ready to object to his calling her account of Jay’s death a “story,” but just then the two detectives returned.

“Do you need a restroom break, Ms. Shelley?” Clark asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you.”

He was tall and rawboned with thinning reddish hair. Javier was short, swarthy, and his black hair was as dense as carpet. Physically they couldn’t be more dissimilar, yet she was equally wary of both. She mistrusted Clark’s politeness, thinking it might be affected to cover suppressed redneck leanings. And Javier’s pockmarked cheeks made her think of fatal knife fights. Clark’s eyes were blue, Javier’s so dark that the pupils were not discernible, but both pairs of eyes were quick and watchful.

Having dispensed with the courtesies, Javier resumed the questioning. “When we left off, you were saying that your memory got foggy after you had a glass of wine at The Wheelhouse.”

“That’s right.” Everything that had happened since she drank that glass of Chardonnay was a hazy, disjointed recollection. Up to a point. Then her memory of events had been completely obliterated. How could one harmless glass of wine wipe clean her memory? It couldn’t. Not unless…Unless…

“Date rape drug.”

Until the three men froze in place, she didn’t realize she had spoken the words. She stepped back from herself, examined what she’d just said, and was struck with the plausibility—no, almost certainty—that she was right.

“I must have been given one of the substances collectively known as date rape drugs.” The two detectives and the lawyer just stood there, staring at her as though she was speaking a foreign language. “They give you temporary amnesia,” she said with a trace of impatience. “I did a feature story on them. An incident at Clemson sparked concern about the increased usage of them at parties and bars where young people hang out. They cause a short-term memory loss. Sometimes the memory never comes back. But it doesn’t matter, because by the time the effects wear off, the damage has been done.”

She looked at each man in turn, expecting them to be sharing her excitement over this credible explanation for her blackout. Instead they continued to stare at her without reaction. With asperity she said, “Blink if you can hear me.”

“We hear you, Ms. Shelley,” Clark said.

“Well, then? Don’t you see? My wine was doctored with one of these drugs. They work quickly. That would explain why I can’t remember anything after reaching Jay’s apartment.”

“How about an empty bottle of scotch?” Javier asked.

“I don’t like scotch. I never drink scotch. If Jay had offered it to me, I would have declined it, especially since I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Your fingerprints were on one of the drinking glasses. Your lipstick on the rim,” said Javier.

“You’ve already examined the drinking glasses? Why?”

The two detectives exchanged a glance. Clark said, “Let’s start at the beginning and go through it again. Tell us everything that happened.”

“I don’t know everything that happened. I can tell you only what I remember.”

“Okay, then, what you remember. You don’t mind if we videotape it this time, do you?”

Immediately suspicious of Clark’s dismissive tone, she said, “Why would you?”

“Just so we have it, so if the need should arise, we can refer back to the tape, get the details straight in our own heads.”

Mistrusting his explanation as well as his snake-oil salesman’s smile, she looked at Alexander, who said, “It’s standard practice, Ms. Shelley. You still don’t have to answer any question you don’t want to.”

“I want to answer the questions. I want the answers myself. Probably more than they do.”

Since calling 911, she’d been swept up in the disagreeable technicalities of an unexpected death—the pronouncement of the coroner that Jay was indeed dead, the questioning by police, the paperwork. She hadn’t had time to indulge the personal aspects of it. She hadn’t yet actually grieved the loss of her friend.

Nor could she now. Not until she got past this unpleasantness. Restating her point, she said, “I’m desperate to know what happened to Jay.”

“Then we’ve got no problem.” Javier sat down at the small table and motioned her into the chair facing the video camera. “I sure wouldn’t expect you to be camera shy.”

His grin made her think again of sharp blades piercing soft tissue. She turned away from it and sat down. Clark checked the focus of the camera, stated the time and date and who was present, then sat down on the edge of the table and began swinging his skinny leg back and forth. “Who called who?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who made the date?”

“Jay. I told you that.”

“We can check phone records.” Javier’s statement wasn’t just that. It was a veiled threat.

Looking him squarely in the eye, she said, “Jay called me earlier that day and asked if I would meet him at The Wheelhouse for a drink. He said he wanted to talk to me.”

“Before that, when was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t know the date for certain. Several months ago. When the man accused of child molestation at the preschool in North Charleston was arrested. Jay was at the press conference and addressed questions about the police investigation. I covered it for the station. We waved at each other, but I didn’t talk to him. I got my story from one of the arresting officers, not Jay.”

“But you and Burgess were friendly.”

“Yes.”

“More than friendly?”

“No.”

The two detectives exchanged another telling glance. Alexander sat forward in his chair, as though about to warn her to be cautious.

“Never?” Clark asked.

“Years ago,” she replied with equanimity. Her brief affair with Jay hadn’t been a secret. “I relocated to Charleston to take the job at Channel Seven. Jay was one of the first people I met. We went out a few times, but our friendship was always more or less platonic.”

“More or less?” Javier’s raised eyebrows suggested
more.

“We’d been nothing more than friends for the past several years.”

“Until night before last, when you became lovers again.”

“I—” She hesitated. Alexander raised his index finger as though forestalling her from answering. She lowered her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know whether or not we were intimate that night. I’m not sure. I can’t remember.”

Clark sighed as though he found that impossible to believe, then said, “So you met at The Wheelhouse.”

“I arrived at seven, the appointed time. Jay was already there. He’d had several drinks.”

“How do you know?”

“By the empty glasses on the table. Have you questioned the cocktail waitress?”

Ignoring that, Clark said, “You ordered a glass of white wine.”

“Yes. It wasn’t very good.” Speaking directly into the camera lens, she added, “I believe something was put into it.”

“By Jay?”

Actually, on that point, Britt shared Javier’s apparent skepticism. “I don’t see how he could have without my noticing. I don’t think he ever touched my wineglass. Anyway, why would he drug me?”

Clark tugged on his lower lip. Javier didn’t move. Both continued to stare at her. She was aware of the video camera recording every blink, every breath. To anyone viewing the recording later, would she look guilty? She knew that investigators looked for tell-tale signs of lying. She tried to remain perfectly still and to keep her face composed.