“Maybe the rich are just different,” Darien whispered as she opened the door to the inner sanctum of Gardner Corporation.
“At least this place isn’t gilt and marble,” Waters retorted under his breath, making her smile. She was much more at ease with him now, much less nervous at having been assigned to him as a partner. She quickly quashed her smile when the secretary turned back to them. She gestured toward the door and indicated they could go in.
It was true, the glass-and-steel structure that housed the Gardner Corporation clearly demonstrated success, but it was sleek, businesslike and modern rather than ornate and classic. And the office they walked into now had the same feel, that this was a place where efficient-and profitable-business was done.
The man behind the desk had the same black hair and blue eyes as his dead brother, but there the resemblance ended. Where Franklin had been trim, tan and athletic, Lyle looked as if he spent a bit too much time behind that huge expanse of cherry wood. They knew he handled the family trust fund and oversaw all their general business interests, while Franklin had handled the oil refinery and their international dealings.
“What have you found out?” he asked as he rose and strode around the desk.
They really do expect a miracle, Darien thought. Because they’re the Gardners?
“We’re in the information-gathering stage,” Waters said easily. “We just need to clear up a few things with you.”
“Me?”
Why on earth doesn’t the family expect to answer at least a few questions? she wondered. Don’t they watch the news, and know how often in a murder the killer is family?
“Where were you last night, Mr. Gardner?”
“Me?” he repeated, his tone incredulous.
“Yes,” Waters said patiently. “Routine questions, sir. Eliminate the obvious so we can find the hidden.”
Gardner looked as if he were torn between ordering them out or venting his anger at being suspected at all.
“I was at home,” he said finally, stiffly. “As I told the other detectives.”
If that made any difference to Waters, it didn’t show. Again, Darien held back; she didn’t think he’d welcome her intruding until he trusted her. He hadn’t shut her up yet, so she assumed she hadn’t done anything that irritated him, but still she kept quiet; learning, she told herself, was her primary goal right now.
“You were at home?” Waters asked. “Doing?”
“Watching television.”
“Until when?”
“A little after midnight.”
“So you spoke to your mother when she arrived home?”
He seemed to hesitate, but it was so quick Darien couldn’t be sure. “No. I was already in bed, and I didn’t want to bother her. I knew she’d be in a hurry to get to sleep.”
“Who knew you were home?”
He frowned. “No one. I was alone.”
“Staff?”
“No. I mean, they knew I was home, but I’d dismissed them before I went up to bed.”
Convenient, Darien thought.
“So you have no alibi.”
“I don’t need an alibi,” Gardner said, rather vehemently.
Waters kept pushing. “You didn’t leave the house?”
Gardner drew himself up and looked down his nose at Waters, abruptly every inch the haughty Gardner. “I don’t care for your implications, Detective. No, I did not leave the house. And to answer the question underlying all your other questions, no, I did not kill my own brother!”
“Any idea who did?” Waters asked, with a cool she admired in the face of Gardner ’s anger.
“None.”
“No one who was angry at him, maybe someone who got the short end of a business deal, something like that?”
“The Gardners don’t deal like that, Detective.”
Waters didn’t even react. “The oil business is a delicate thing these days, any problems there?”
“None.” Gardner ’s voice was becoming icy.
Waters retracted the point of his pen with a click of the top, and looked at Gardner straight on. “So, nobody had any reason to kill your brother.”
“None that I’m aware of.”
So why’s he dead? Darien muttered to herself.
“Who stood to benefit from his death?” Waters asked.
Lyle Gardner ran out of patience. “You’re on the wrong track, Detective, and you’re wasting valuable time. Yours and mine. Weren’t things taken from the apartment? Doesn’t that make it clear this was a robbery, and poor Franklin interrupted it?”
“Perhaps.” Waters tapped the pen against his notepad. “What about your nephew, Mr. Gardner?”
“Stephen? What about him?”
“He’ll be quite a wealthy young man now, won’t he?”
“He already is,” Gardner snapped. “He’s a Gardner.”
“But now he’ll have his own money, won’t he?”
“He’s never lacked for whatever money he needed.”
“But now it’s his,” Waters persisted. Darien wasn’t sure what he was up to, but guessed it had been triggered by Mrs. Gardner’s fierce protectiveness of her grandson.
“He’s doing graduate work, getting ready to take his place with the corporation. The family takes care of his expenses. He doesn’t need more money now, doesn’t want the worry of it.”
“I don’t know any twenty-three-year-olds who don’t think they need more money. Of their own.”
“Look, they may have fought about the money he was going to inherit, but Stephen had nothing to do with this!”
Waters froze. And the moment the words were out, Lyle flushed.
Well, well, Darien thought.
“I wonder,” Colin mused aloud.
“What?”
“How long it would take to get to Franklin ’s apartment from that fancy college his kid goes to.”
As they walked toward the elevators, his partner glanced at her watch, as if to see if they had time to make the run themselves. “Maybe we should find out firsthand,” she said. “Before grandma has a chance to talk to him about what to say.”
“Good idea,” Colin said. “But first I want to track down those security tapes. The guy should have contacted me by now.”
“So we go back to the apartment building?”
He nodded again. But as they continued down the hall, the name on an office door slowed him. “Hold on a sec,” he said, and made a turn in that direction. He opened the first door, to find a blond, tan young man behind a desk.
“Can I help you?” the man asked quickly.
“We’d like to see Mr. Reicher.”
“And you are?”
“Detectives Wilson and Waters.”
“Oh!” The young man leapt up. “I’m sure he’ll want to see you. He’s very upset about Mr. Gardner. Just a moment.”
He opened the door behind him, and disappeared inside. Less than a minute later he emerged again, and gestured them into the inner office. Again, the room was exquisitely and expensively decorated, but they had little time to notice the decor.
“What took you so long?” the man standing behind the large desk snapped.
Well, hello to you, too, Colin thought. He studied the tall man in the very expensive-looking suit. His assessment stalled at the man’s gray eyes; he’d seen warmer eyes on a python. Score one for Mrs. Carter, he thought. Cold was definitely the word. The chief operating officer of the Gardner Corporation was clearly a man used to being the boss. And pity the underlings, Colin added to himself.
“We’re working our way down the possible suspect list,” Colin said bluntly.
“Suspect list!” The eruption came just as he’d expected.
“Of course,” Wilson put in with an icy cool that would have done Cecelia Gardner proud. “You’re merely another name on it. We’ve eliminated several, we’re hoping to eliminate you.”
Reicher looked torn, as if uncertain whether to react to her placating words, or the disdain with which she spoke them. Silently Colin congratulated his new partner; he doubted Reicher often was at such a loss.