Whiskey Beach Part 91

Resentment curdled inside his belly like sour milk. "I'm not looking to make a splash off my family's money, or my wife's murder."

She shrugged. "It is what it is, Mr. Landon."

"Make it Eli if you're going to insult me."

"Just getting a gauge. You cooperated with the police more than I'd have expected after your wife's murder."

"More than I should have, in hindsight." He set her coffee in front of her. "I wasn't thinking like a lawyer. By the time I did start thinking, it was a little late."

"Did you love her?"

He'd asked for a woman, he reminded himself. Someone fresh and thorough. He'd gotten one, and an investigator nothing like the one he'd hired after Lindsay's death.

Now he'd have to deal with the result.

"Not when she died. It's hard not knowing if I ever did. But she mattered. She was my wife, and she mattered. I want to know who killed her. I want to know why. I spent too much of the last year defending myself and not enough really trying to find the answers."

"Being the prime suspect in a murder tends to keep you on the hot seat. She cheated on you. Here you're trying to have a fair and civilized divorce with a lot of money and family rep at stake. Even with the prenup, a lot of money and goods at stake, and you find out she's been playing you for a fool. You go into the house, one your money paid for as hers was still in trust when you purchased it. You confront her, lose your temper, pick up the poker and let her have it. Then, it's holy s.h.i.+t, look what I did. You call the cops, covering it with the old 'I came in and found her.'"

"That's the way they saw it."

"The police."

"The police, Lindsay's parents, the media."

"The parents don't matter, and the media, again, is what it is. And the cops couldn't, in the end, make the case."

"The police couldn't, not definitively, but that doesn't make me innocent to them, or anyone else. Lindsay's parents? They lost a daughter, so they do matter, and they believe I got away with it. The media may be what it is, but it's weight. They made a pretty good case in the court of public opinion, and my family suffered for that."

She studied him quietly as he spoke, and he realized now she'd gotten a sense of him just as she'd gotten one of Bluff House.

"Are you trying to p.i.s.s me off?"

"Maybe. Polite people don't tell you much of anything. Lindsay Landon's case looked slam-dunk on the surface. Estranged husband, s.e.x, betrayal, money, crime of pa.s.sion. You're going to look at the husband first, and the person who discovers the body. You were both. No sign of break-in, of struggle. No sign of a burglary gone bad, the public fight with the victim earlier that day. A lot of weight."

"I'm aware of the weight."

"The problem is, that's all there is. Surface. You go below, and it falls apart. The timing's sticky-the time of death, the time you were seen by a number of witnesses leaving your office, the time you deactivated the alarm to come in. So you couldn't have gone in and out again, then back, as you were seen at your office, had appointments, conversations until after six p.m. And witnesses corroborate when the victim left the gallery where she worked. She entered the house, again verified, about two hours before you walked in the house that night."

"The cops figured the timing was tight, but it was possible for me to go in, argue, kill her, then try to cover it before calling nine-one-one."

"It didn't hold up well on reenactment, even the prosecutor's reenactment. Good coffee," she said in an aside, then continued. "Then there's forensics. No spatter on you, and you can't deliver blows like that without spatter. No spatter on your clothes, and witnesses verify the suit and tie you wore when you left the office. When did you have time, in an approximate twenty-minute window, to change your clothes, change back again? And where were the blood-spattered ones, or whatever you used to cover your suit?"

"You sound like my lawyer."

"He's a smart guy. Add no history of violence, no prior bad acts. And no matter how they came at you, you stuck to the story. They couldn't shake you off it."

"Because it was the truth."

"Added to it, the victim's own behavior weighed on your side. She was the one lying, the one cheating, the one planning on a generous settlement while she carried on a secret affair. The media made that case, too."

"It's easy to smear a dead woman, and it's not what I wanted."

"But it helped, so did the phone calls logged between her and Justin Suskind after you confronted her that afternoon. s.h.i.+ned the light on him awhile."

He couldn't face coffee, he realized, and opened the refrigerator for water. "I wanted it to be him."

"Problems there. One, motive. Unless you subscribe to the theory she decided to break it off or step back after her confrontation with you. The motive problem deepens because she was good at keeping him a secret. Friends, coworkers, neighbors-n.o.body knew about him. Some suspected there was someone, but she never talked about it. Too much at stake. She didn't keep a diary, and the e-mails between them were careful. They both had a lot at stake. They met almost exclusively in hotels or out-of-town restaurants, B-and-Bs. Nothing the cops dug up pointed to any tension between them."

"No." He wished that didn't continue to sting, even if the sting had gone dull. "I think she cared about him a great deal."

"Maybe she did, or maybe she just liked the adventure. You're probably never going to know for sure. But the biggest problem with Suskind as killer is he's alibied by his wife. His betrayed wife. She comes across as mortified, even devastated, by this affair, but she tells the police he was home that night. They had dinner together, alone as both kids were at a school function. Then the kids get home about eight-fifteen and confirm Mom and Dad are hanging out at home."

She opened her briefcase, took out a file. "As you know, the Suskinds recently separated. I figured she might change her tune now that the marriage is going under. I talked to her yesterday. She's bitter, she's tired, she's done with the husband and the marriage, but she doesn't change her story."

"Where does that leave us?"

"Well, if you cheat with one, maybe you cheat with others. Maybe another lover isn't happy about her and Suskind, or maybe another wife confronts her. I haven't found anybody yet, but that doesn't mean I won't. Mind?" Sherrilyn asked, and gestured to the coffeemaker.

"No, sure."

"I'd make it myself, but that machine looks like I'd need a training manual."

"No problem."

"Thanks. So you'll see-and I believe your previous investigator reported-she didn't always use a credit card for rooms. Sometimes she used cash, and that's hard to track.

"At this point we have witnesses who've identified Justin Suskind as her companion in several locations. Now we look for some that identify someone else."

He brought the fresh coffee back, sat again to skim through the files while Sherrilyn talked.

"She let her killer into the house. Turned her back on him. She knew who killed her, so we look at who she knew. BPD was thorough, but they liked you for it, and the lead investigator was dug in hard on that."

"Wolfe."

"He's a bulldog. You fit the bill for him. I can see where he's coming from. And you're a criminal defense attorney. That's the enemy. He busts his a.s.s to take bad guys off the street, you line your pockets getting them back out."

"Black and white."

"I was a cop for five years before I went private." Cupping the coffee in both hands, she leaned back to enjoy it. "I see plenty of gray, but it's a p.i.s.ser when some hotshot suit gets an a.s.shole a pa.s.s on some technicality or because he's got good style with some fancy tap dance. Wolfe looks at you, he sees rich, privileged, spoiled, conniving and guilty. He built a d.a.m.n good circ.u.mstantial case, but he couldn't shoot it home. Now here you are in Whiskey Beach, and before you know it, there's another murder on your doorstep."

"Now you're not sounding like my lawyer. You sound like a cop."

"I have many voices," she said easily.

She took out another file, set it on the counter. "Kirby Duncan. He was basically a one-man operation, kept it low-key, and low-tech. He wasn't bargain bas.e.m.e.nt, but you'd find him on the sale rack. Cops liked him. He'd been one of them and he played things pretty straight. Wolfe knew him, was friendly with him, and he's p.i.s.sed off he can't pin this on you, then boomerang off it to circle your wife's death back on you."

"I got that, loud and clear," Eli agreed.