Suspicion (7 page)

  Mitch motioned to the patrolman at the door and gave him his instructions, then, as he returned to the bedroom, he saw the M.E. remove his glasses and wipe them with

  a tissue. Mitch walked over to him. "What’s the scoop, Abe?"

  Abel Moskowitz, a diminutive man with a bald head and squinty eyes, slid his glasses into his jacket pocket. "Looks like the cricoid was crushed, so it’s pretty safe to assume she died from strangulation. Judging by the marks on her neck, I would guess the murderer, most likely a man, had very large, very strong hands."

  "Approximate time of death?"

  "Somewhere between midnight and 2:00 a.m. I’ll have a more accurate time after the autopsy." His voice was impersonal, almost monotonous.

  "Was she raped?"

  "No. But she put up quite a fight." He pointed at half a dozen lacerations across her neck. "These are fingernail scratches, probably her own as she attempted to free herself." He removed his disposable gloves and dropped them into a paper bag. "I’m done here, Mitch. Send her down whenever you’re ready." Snapping his bag shut, he gave Mitch a cursory nod and left.

  Two ambulance attendants stood nearby, waiting for instructions. "Bag her," Mitch told them. "The bedding, too." He watched as the body was wrapped in the black satin sheets and deposited in a body pouch.

  "Hey, Mitch."

  He turned around to see his identification technician, Roy Johnson, motion to him. Mitch pulled out a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and drew them on as he walked across the room. "What have you got. Roy?"

  Johnson pointed at a video camera on the dresser. "I found this baby tucked into that air return up there." He nodded toward a rectangular opening above the bedroom closet. "And then I found this. It was taped under the bottom dresser drawer." He handed Mitch a videotape.

  Mitch tilted his head to read the side label. The letters E.L. were written in a slanted, feminine scrawl. "Dust it, will you, Roy? Then maybe I should take a look at it."

  Mitch watched as Johnson examined the tape with a flashlight, covering every inch of it. Then he dipped the tip of a large fiberglass brush into the powder and very gently dabbed it all over the tape.

  "You getting anything?"

  "Only a couple of prints," Johnson replied without looking up. "But they look pretty clean." He pressed a strip of special pressure tape on the dusted surface and lifted it in one quick motion. Then, with a speed and dexterity that explained why he was considered one of the best ident technicians on the East Coast, he pressed the tape to the edge of a lifting card, snipped it from the roll and immediately labeled the card. The whole process hadn’t taken more than two minutes.

  He handed the videotape back to Mitch. "It’s all yours."

  Having already spotted a sophisticated entertainment center across from the bed, Mitch walked over to it and slid the tape into the VCR. As the image of a naked couple lying on a big brass bed came into focus, Joe, who had sneaked up behind Mitch, chuckled. "Hey, that’s the lady of the house. Looks like she was into home movies, huh?"

  "Guess so." As the woman rolled on top of her partner, the man’s face suddenly came into view. "Well, I’ll be damned," Mitch murmured.

  "What?" Joe edged a little closer. "You know the guy?"

  "That’s Eric Logan. Megan Hollbrook’s fiancee."

  Joe gave a low whistle. "Eric Logan. Sure, I recognize him now. He was married to that attorney, wasn’t he? The

  one who defended Fuente in that last case you investigated? What’s her name?"

  "Kate Logan."

  "Right." McCormack’s gaze, as if pulled by a magnet, returned to the screen where the action was definitely heating up. The officer chuckled again. "Could it be that our little filmmaker was also into blackmail?"

  "Somebody say the word ‘blackmail’?"

  At the sound of the thin, nasal voice, Mitch’s jaw tightened. He shut the VCR off, removed the tape and handed it back to Johnson. Although a close relationship between the police and the press was considered essential, Eddy Povich was an exception. A crime reporter for the Washington Chronicle, Povich was a weasel of a man in every sense of the word. Skinny as a rat and no taller than five feet, he would stoop to any level for a story. The fact that he was a cousin of the U.S. attorney and had access to information no one else had made him even more despicable. Cops in the District and beyond ran over each other for the privilege of avoiding him.

  "Get out of here, Povich. You know better than to enter a crime scene during a preliminary investigation."

  "Stop treating me like a rookie, Calhoon. I know the drill." Povich’s beady eyes shot back to the now dark screen. "What happened? The hooker was blackmailing one of her Johns, so he iced her?"

  Mitch was having difficulty holding back his temper. "I’m warning you, Povich. If you print a single unsubstantiated word the way you did with the Gallagher case, I’ll come after you personally."

  But the reporter wasn’t a man who was easily intimidated. "The public has a right to be informed, Detective."

  "Then inform them that a woman was murdered. Nothing more."

  "At least give me her name."

  "Not until her next of kin has been notified."

  "What about her John? I can tell you know him. Who is he? Some political bigwig?" Povich grinned, exposing small yellow teeth. "The president maybe?"

  "That information is confidential."

  "You know I’m going to find out anyway. All I have to do is pick up the phone and call my cousin."

  "Then why don’t you do that and get the hell out of my way?"

  "Because I prefer to get my stories from the horse’s mouth." His irritating smile grew wider. "I’ll even spell your name right this time."

  Mitch had about all he could stomach. He nodded to McCormack, who immediately took the reporter by the arm and escorted him out of the apartment, deaf to the man’s protests.

  When the reporter was safely out of the way, Mitch removed his gloves, threw them into a paper bag and used his cell phone to call headquarters.

  "I need an address for one Eric Logan," he said when Officer Devane in Records answered. "That’s Eric with a c and Logan, L-ogan."

  Mitch could hear the click of computer keys as Devane began searching the Washington Area Law Enforcement System database, known as WALES. A few seconds later, he was back.

  "It’s 1035 Norton Lane in Potomac, Maryland."

  "Thanks, Pete."

  The pounding inside his head woke him up. Moaning, Eric opened one eye, then the other. It took him a moment to realize he was in the Corvette, curled up in the front seat in a fetal position. And that he was freezing.

  Gripping the steering wheel with his left hand, he pulled himself up slowly. Little by little, the fog lifted from his brain and he remembered. He had been too drunk to drive home, which explained the splitting headache, and there had been no vacancy at the motel next door.

  Peering through the windshield, he surveyed the small parking lot. Christ, he could have been mugged. Or even killed. And the bitch of it was. the binge had been a complete waste of effort. His problem hadn’t gone away. It was still there, as insolvable as before.

  Shivering from the cold, he turned on the ignition and cranked up the heat. As the powerful engine roared to life, the radio, which he had tuned to a twenty-four-hour news station, came on.

  The broadcaster’s first words hit him like an iced dagger.

  "A Dupont Circle woman, who has been identified as Gina Lamont, was found strangled to death in her home early this morning. Although no arrest has yet been made, a full-scale investigation is under way to locate Eric Logan of Potomac, Maryland. According to several witnesses. Logan, who is engaged to industrial heiress, Megan Hollbrook. was seen leaving a Georgetown party on Saturday night in the company of the victim. Ms. Hollbrook could not be reached for comment. On Capitol Hill, Speaker Gingrich threatened to shut down the government again unless…"

  Totally sobered up, Eric fell back against his seat. Gina dead. The words kept bouncing in his head as he tried to make sense out of them. How could she be dead when she had been in his office only yesterday? And why the hell were they looking for him? What did he have to do with anything?

  In spite of his rising panic, he tried to think rationally.

  There was nothing to be afraid of. He hadn’t killed anybody. How could he? He had been right here in his car most of the night. And in that crummy tavern before that.

  With fingers that shook, he turned the radio dial in search of another news flash. When he found it, the announcement was basically the same. Gina Lamont was dead and the police were looking for him.

  His first impulse was to drive back to Washington and tell the cops everything he knew. Well, not quite everything. He would be a fool to tell them about Gina’s little blackmailing scheme, or that he had slept with her. But how much harm could there be in admitting that he had talked to her at Lyle’s party and that he had walked her to her car?

  He rejected the idea almost immediately. The newscasts hadn’t given the time of death, only that Gina had been found dead early this morning. How early? What if she was killed after he’d left Joe’s Tavern? Would the cops believe he had spent the night passed out in his car? Or would they haul him to jail and book him for murder?

  He swallowed to get rid of the dryness in his throat. Before he handed himself over to the wolves, he had to find out the time of death. If he was in the clear, he’d go back. If not…

  Christ. He had no idea what he would do then.

  He waited until his breathing had returned to normal before putting the Corvette into Reverse. Then, after a last look around, he drove out of the parking lot and headed for the highway.

  When Alison came down for breakfast on Tuesday morning, one of the first things she saw was the mismatched saucer on the kitchen counter. "Was Daddy here?" she asked.

  Following her gaze, Kate cursed herself for not having thrown out those cigarette butts before going to bed. "He stopped by for a few minutes last night," she said, ladling pancake batter onto the hot griddle.

  "What did he want?"

  "Nothing important." Anxious to change the subject, Kate opened the refrigerator. "Do you want Aunt Jemima Light or should we live dangerously and try that sinfully rich maple syrup Grandma brought back from Vermont last month?"

  "I don’t care." Alison came to stand beside Kate. "It must have been important for him to come all the way here." Her gaze drifted back to the saucer. "And to smoke so much. He always chain-smokes when something’s on his mind."

  Kate held back a sigh. For a thirteen-year-old, Alison’s powers of observation were uncanny. She would make an excellent attorney some day-although the way things were going between them, it was doubtful that she was still interested in following in her mother’s footsteps.

  For a moment, Kate was tempted to make up a story,

  then changed her mind. Maybe Douglas was right. How was Alison ever going to realize that Eric wasn’t perfect if Kate kept covering up for him? "If you must know, he came here to borrow money."

  Alison raised an eyebrow. "You gave it to him, didn’t you?"

  Kate flipped two pancakes onto a plate and took them to the kitchen table by the bay window. "No, Alison, I didn’t give it to him. I’m not a bank, you know. And I’m certainly not rich."

  "How much did he want?"

  "Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars."

  "Wow." Alison’s eyes gleamed with curiosity. "What did he need all that money for?"

  This time, a slight deviation from the truth was necessary. No matter how upset Kate was with Eric, she couldn’t allow his daughter to see how low he had sunk. "A business venture," she improvised as she took her own plate to the table. "Something I thought was quite risky."

  "But I don’t understand why he came to you. He knows you don’t have that kind of money."

  Encouraged by Alison’s calm reasoning, Kate met her gaze. "He was hoping I would let him borrow your trust fund."

  Too late, Kate realized her mistake. Rather than be outraged at Eric’s gall, Alison turned on her, eyes flashing. "And you told him no? Without asking me?"

  "Of course I told him no. That money is for your education, Alison. I wouldn’t touch a penny of it myself, no matter how badly I needed it, much less risk it on some crazy venture."

  "It’s my trust fund, isn’t it? Which means I have the

  right to do what I want with it. And I want Daddy to have it."

  "Not as long as I’m the trustee. When you turn twenty one and the trust reverts to you, you’ll be free to do what you want with it. Not before."

  Alison’s body was rigid. "You are so mean, Mom. And so unfair. You’d think Daddy had asked you for the moon. It’s only money, you know. My money," she emphasized.

  In a rare display of frustration, Kate hit the table with the palm of her hand, causing the plates to rattle. "Dammit, Alison, why do you always have to take his side? Why can’t you see things my way for a change? I’m only trying to protect you, to do what’s best for you."

  Flipping her hair behind her shoulder, Alison gathered her schoolbooks. "Yeah, right."

  "Where are you going?"

  "School. Where else?"

  "You haven’t touched your pancakes-"

  "You eat them. I lost my appetite." She scooped up her lunch money from the island in the center of the room. When she turned around again, her eyes were flat. "I want to move back into Grandpa’s house," she said in that defiant tone that had become so familiar. "And after Dad is married, I want to live with him and Megan. They said I could."