The Perfect Suspect (9 page)

“Did you keep a gun in the house?” Martin said.

The woman closed her eyes a moment, as if she were trying to readjust to a new and unexpected scenario. “David bought a gun some time ago. Said I should have it for protection when he wasn't here. I told him to get rid of it. I didn't want it around.”

This was good, Ryan was thinking. They could take this to the district judge to get a search warrant for the house: the grieving widow had access to a gun.

“Did your husband have a study here?” Ryan heard the sound of her own voice, disembodied and distant.

“On the other side of the entry,” Sydney said, tossing her head backward.

Ryan got to her feet and fitted the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Do you mind if I take a quick look?”

“Why is that necessary?”

“This is an investigation,” Martin said. “We might find something that leads to the killer or to other avenues for us to look into, you never know. I'm sure you are eager to have us find your husband's killer.”

“Take a look if you must.” Sydney shrugged and got to her feet.

“We can finish up here,” Martin said, stepping in front of Sydney before she could head into the entry.

Ryan walked past them, passed Wendell Lane in the entry and let herself through the double carved wooden doors.
The home office,
David had said, opening the doors a few inches so that Ryan had only the briefest glimpse of the dark wood desk, the computer and printer, the gilded leather books lining the shelves on the far wall.
Nice, quiet place to get some work done, but I have no intention of working tonight.

She had to hurry. She had sensed the uneasiness in the way Sydney had jumped to her feet, the reluctance to allow anyone into David's study. Wendell Lane would surely sense it. Martin might hold both of them for a couple of minutes, if she was lucky. She found the handkerchief in her bag, stepped behind the desk and pulled out the middle drawer, using the soft cloth on the handle. An assortment of paper clips, Post-it notes, a stapler and a box of rubber bands. She shut the drawer and opened the top drawer on the left. Too shallow to slip the gun underneath the ream of stationary. She could hear Martin's voice, a low drone, punctuated by the impatient voice of Wendell Lane. Then she sensed the slightest change in the atmosphere, the motion of bodies. They were coming into the study.

Ryan had the middle drawer open. Papers and folders stuffed inside. Nothing looked organized or in place. She wrapped the handkerchief around the gun in her bag and slid it out. Then she set it in the back of the drawer and pushed the papers on top. She jammed the handkerchief back into her bag.

“What the hell are you doing?” Wendell stood in the doorway.

Behind him, peering around his arm, was Sydney Mathews. She elbowed past her brother and marched across the study. “You have no right to look inside David's desk,” she said.

Ryan started to say this was a murder investigation, but Sydney Mathews put up one hand. “What are you looking for? Something to incriminate me? Is that it? You think I killed my husband because he was unfaithful? You're crazy! You have no right to rummage in my husband's private papers.”

“You're mistaken,” Ryan said. “I haven't touched anything in this desk. I've merely confirmed you have a computer here. We'll want to take a look at it.”

“Get a search warrant,” Sydney said.

8

“Looks like they've closed.” Martin peered through the narrow rectangular window that abutted the door. Plastered to the door itself was a brown plastic plaque with stenciled white letters: Mathews Campaign Headquarters. Doors to the other offices along the corridor were also closed.

“I hear somebody moving about inside,” Ryan said, pounding on the door. The sign jumped and vibrated. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martin flip open a wallet and press his badge against the window.

The door swung open, and a big man with bushy hair and glasses, dressed in blue tee shirt and khakis, waved them into an outer office. Computers, printers and opened cartons were strewn about the floor. Sheets of papers towered beside a shredding machine in the corner. Side chairs and desks were almost lost under cardboard boxes and piles of folders. The noise of a ringing phone burst from the debris on a desk.

“I'm Don Cannon, David's campaign manager,” the big man said, ignoring the phone and throwing a glance about the office. “You can see, we're packing up. Packing it in. All our hopes and plans flown out the window. The state's the big loser, you know. David Mathews would've been the best governor in our history. Wondered when you'd be showing up.” He hadn't drawn a breath.

Ryan said she was Detective Beckman. “Detective Martinez,” she said, tilting her head toward Martin. “We're investigating Mr. Mathews's homicide. Anything you can tell us that might help find his killer? Did he have any known enemies, anyone angry enough to want him dead?”

“You must be joking.” Cannon gave a raspy laugh. “Everybody loved David. He didn't know what an enemy was.”

“Somebody shot him to death,” Martin said. He held a ballpoint over the notepad cupped in his hand. “Recent altercations? Traffic disputes? Anything happen that might set somebody off?”

Cannon was shaking his head. “David would've told me. We discussed everything.”

Ryan felt her breath knot in her throat. David, who took such stringent precautions. No e-mails, no phone calls, except on the disposable cells that he changed every week, no meetings in public. She had slunk around, hiding in hotel rooms until his campaign staff had cleared out, leaving by the stairs so she wouldn't run into anyone. And he had discussed everything with Don Cannon?

She made herself push on through the list of routine questions: “Did Mr. Mathews seem despondent recently? Upset or nervous?”

“No, nothing like that,” Cannon said. “Recent polls showed David ahead by thirty points. I mean, that's phenomenal. David was ecstatic.”

Ryan had to look away. The polls seemed real, more real than she was. She half expected them to start dancing in front of her eyes. Was that all David had cared about, the polls? Had their breakup meant nothing, not even the slightest disturbance to his equilibrium? The truth of it coiled inside her like a poisonous snake that might strike and kill her. She'd had the right to protect herself. It was clear now. David had deserved to die, a man incapable of understanding the suffering he had inflicted, strolling through a charmed life, thirty points ahead.

“What about the rumors of Mr. Mathews's infidelity?” Martin said. Ryan felt a wave of relief that he had asked the question; she needed a moment to trust her own voice again. She crossed her arms and dug her hands into her sides to quiet the tremors. They had discussed
everything
, David and Don Cannon? Even a breakup that had meant nothing to David?

Cannon hesitated. He pushed up the glasses that had slid down his nose and fixed them in place with an index finger. Then he drew in a long breath that expanded the blue tee shirt, as if to steel himself for whatever turn the conversation might take. “If there were any indiscretions,” he said after a moment, “and I'm not saying there were, they were in the past.”

“We've spoken with Mrs. Mathews,” Martin said. “She doesn't deny her husband was unfaithful. We understand they were separated.”

Cannon shrugged. “Only temporary. Sure, Sydney flew off the handle once in a while, but they always reconciled.”

“Flew off the handle?” Ryan said. Oh, this was helpful; she had to remember this: a jealous wife who flew into rages.

Cannon hesitated, as if it had struck him that he shouldn't have started down this road. “Only once that I saw. Came in here one day and gave David hell. They got into a big shouting match, but I figured it would all blow over.”

“We need names of the women he had affairs with,” Martin said.

“Can't help you there.” Cannon pulled a face as if he were disappointed. “Maybe David took risks, and I'm not saying he did, but he was very discreet. He was a focused man, focused on his business and his political ambitions. He wouldn't have let anything get in the way.”

“And yet he and his wife were living apart.” Martin kept going, and Ryan had to stop herself from saying, I think Mr. Cannon has answered our questions. “If he was planning a reconciliation,” Martin said, “maybe a jealous mistress . . .”

Cannon waved one hand between them. “Let me clear something up. David loved his wife. Any dalliances he might have had were passing flirtations. Hardly serious enough to drive somebody to commit murder.”

“What about the campaign staff?” Ryan said, desperate to steer the conversation in another direction. Dalliances? Flirtations? She was thinking she had been no more than an object that David could attach to his belt, a wallet or eyeglasses case that he could toss aside when he chose. Cutting her loose had been an automatic response, nothing that required thought.

“The campaign staff?” Cannon blinked behind the lenses of his glasses. “Everybody here worked their butts off because they believed in David one hundred percent, no holds barred, no reservations. We were devastated when we got the news this morning. We started packing up, but I had to let people go home. Everybody was upset. Crying. Sobbing.”

“What about you?” Ryan said. “You feel the same way?”

“Yeah,” Cannon said. “I'm not the sobbing type. That's why David put me in charge. But did I feel the loss, the pain? Like I was the one that took the bullets. He was my friend, my boss. I would have walked through fire for him.”

“His running mate feel the same?” Martin asked.

“You mean blustery Easton Sherer? He's been on vacation in Spain for two weeks. Figured nothing he could do would make any difference. David was the whole show. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Easton pulled up stakes and stayed over there. He's got plenty of money. Only reason he agreed to run was so he could bask in David's sunshine for a while.”

“Oh, sorry to interrupt.” The door had opened, and a man still in his twenties, with the wiry, knotted physique of a cyclist and short-cropped sandy hair stepped into the office. There was a dejected look about him—the slumped shoulders, the lost, random way his hands moved about. He finally grabbed the side of the door, slammed it shut and turned toward Cannon. “Should I come back?”

Ryan could hear her heart pounding. She recognized the man—the staffer who had seen her and David last June in Aspen. What had she been thinking, coming here? She should have asked Martin to handle the interview. He could have taken a uniform along. God, she had to get herself together. Everything depended on it.

“Detectives Beckman and Martinez.” She realized Cannon was making the introductions. “The campaign's scheduler, Jeremy Whitman. The man who kept David on time; made sure he accepted invitations that would pay off in new voters, you know, give the fence-sitters a firsthand impression of how great David was.” He looked at the young man. “They're here about David,” he said. “I told them we were pretty beside ourselves this morning, so I sent everybody home. I wasn't expecting you back.”

“Christ, have you arrested the killer?” The young man's voice rose on clanging notes of hope.

“We're still investigating,” Martin said.

“Oh.” Whitman looked from Martin to Ryan, and Ryan felt his gaze focusing in on her. He rubbed a hand over his eyes—blue eyes peering at her past long fingers and short, chewed nails. Then he dropped his hand and went on staring. She tried to suck in a breath, but the air clogged in her nostrils.

Martin had launched into a rerun of the questions: Anything you can tell us? Altercations? Anybody who might want Mathews dead? Any past romances you might know about? Any names?

Jeremy hadn't taken his eyes off her; his arms now rigid at his sides. Finally he stepped backward and looked over at Cannon, as if he were trying to guess what Cannon had already told them.

“How about it?” Martin prodded.

“No,” Jeremy said, settling his gaze on Martin. “I don't know anybody who'd want to harm David. I never knew anything about his personal life. I'm afraid I can't help you,” he said, making a deliberate effort not to look at Ryan.

And now she was certain that he had recognized her. He could connect her to David, raise a lot of unsettling questions, get her pulled from the investigation, and turn the investigation down a path she could never allow it to take. At the moment, at least, he had chosen to remain silent. Witnesses were like that at times, shutting up inside just as the questions got uncomfortable, afraid to say anything that might draw them more into the case.

“I came back for my jacket,” Jeremy said, shouldering past them.

“We may want to talk to you again,” Martin said. “Where can we reach you?”

“He's got a loft in the old Hudson warehouse,” Cannon said. “Any other staffers you want to talk to, you can reach through me. Everybody in this campaign is available whenever you say. We want David's murder solved.”

Jeremy had pulled a tan Windbreaker from under a carton. He hung the Windbreaker over a shoulder and made his way back across the office. “Yeah,” he said, tossing a quick glance over one shoulder. “Anytime you want to talk.”

Then he was gone, slamming the door behind him, a slim, slumpshouldered figure moving across the rectangular window next to the door.

Martin pulled a white sheet of paper out of his inside jacket pocket. “We have a search warrant for the computers, phones, fax machines. Also campaign records, personnel, finance—that sort of thing.” He nodded toward the equipment and cartons. “Lab techs are on the way to photograph the location of any evidence we find. They'll take the items to the lab.”