Mitch gulped. “He was murdered, is that it? Somebody pushed him.”
“Slow down, cowboy,” Des cautioned him. “Nothing is obvious yet. If you want to spin it that he jumped, there’s still a perfectly plausible explanation.”
“Which is?…”
“That the man changed his mind at the very last second. Tried to save him himself, failed, and over he went. Which would also explain the position of his body when he landed.”
“Oh.”
“Except for one other interesting piece of information our canvassing turned up,” Des continued. “A lady who lives in one of those farmhouses on the Devil’s Hopyard Road says she heard a car sideswipe the guardrail near her house sometime around one in the morning. It’s a harsh, god-awful noise. She knows it well. She claims the car was heading in the direction of the falls. This would correspond with the fresh scrapes we found on Tito’s Jeep, okay? Now here comes the interesting part-she couldn’t get back to sleep. Was still up at about two-thirty, heating up some milk in her kitchen, when she heard another car speed by. Only this car was heading backdown to Dorset from the falls. It’s a dead-end road, Mitch. That means somebody else was up there when Tito died.”
“His killer,” Mitch declared.
“Or a material witness, at the very least. Not that we’ve found any physical evidence to support it. The rain washed all of the shoe prints away. The only fingerprints on the schnapps bottle were Tito’s. The only tire tracks in the ditch belonged to his Jeep. Of course, somebody could have just left their car in the middle of the damned road at that time of night.” Des paused now, her face tightening. “There’s one other ingredient we have to stir into the mix… Esme Crockett’s fat lip.”
“You think Tito hit her, don’t you?”
“Somebody sure did.”
“How did she explain it?”
“She hasn’t. She’s in seclusion. Too distraught to talk, according to her big-time New York doctor. Her big-time New York lawyer says he’ll make her available for questioning tomorrow. In the meantime, I need for you to come back to Dorset with me.”
“What for, I’ve already told them everything that I…” Mitch trailed off, swallowing. “Wait, they don’t think I killed him, do they?”
“Rico doesn’t know what to think. At this point, he just wants to learn whatever he can.”
“Is that new sergeant of his any good?”
“Boom Boom? She’s got her some game.”
“Why do they call her Boom Boom?”
“You trying to tell me you didn’t notice?”
“Seriously, Des, am I a suspect?”
“You’re a material witness. The last person who had contact with him.”
“Other than his killer, you mean.”
“Assuming that’s how it plays out,” she countered. “Real life, the autopsy report supports either suicide or homicide. Let’s say it’s suicide… He left no note, which doesn’t fit the pattern. But he did call someone-you. He didn’t plan it out very carefully, putting his business affairs in order and so forth. Again, that doesn’t fit the pattern. But, hey, he was an actor, not a notary public. Okay, now let’s turn it around, say somebody killed him… Where’s the stanky?”
Mitch frowned at her. “The stanky?”
“I’m thinking of a murder I worked a couple of years back. A housewife up in Newington. It played suicide right on down the line-except we had us a husband who’d removed five thousand from a joint account the day before his wife died. He had a girlfriend. He had three different post office boxes in his own name. He just plain stank of it, understand?”
“Yes, I do.”
“You said Tito told you he was into something that he wanted to get out of, right?”
“You are.”
“Could he have been talking about something romantic?”
Mitch considered this. “He sure could have. Of course, Des! He was meeting someone up there for a tryst. He wanted to break it off, and she didn’t, and so she killed him. Wait a minute-he made some vague reference to Chrissie Huberman last night. I jotted it down when I was making notes this morning. I remember him saying, ‘None of it’s real. I’m not real. Esme’s not real. Esme and me, Chrissie and me… ’ And I said, ‘What about Chrissie and you?’ And he quickly changed the subject. I assumed he was talking about Chrissie’s influence on his career. But maybe the two of them were involved. That would certainly explain why Martine hates her so much. Although why on earth he’d get mixed up with Chrissie when he’s got Esme Crockett-”
“Don’t try to understand other people’s love lives. You’ll get nowhere.”
“Well, if this does turn into a murder investigation I just hope the tabloids don’t come after me. We did have that brawl at The Works and I could be construed as a-” Mitch broke off, gazing miserably across the seat at her. “They can do that, can’t they? They can actually turn me into the prime suspect.”
“Baby, they’ve got a license to do anything they damned please.”
“But Tito called me from the falls,” Mitch pointed out. “His cell phone record will show exactly what time that was. How could I have killed him if I was talking to him on my phone moments before he died?”
“Okay, there are a couple of holes in that,” Des answered. “The time of death is never that precise. Twenty, thirty minutes either way is well within the margin of error. You could have had that phone conversation, then driven up there and pushed him.”
Mitch sat there massaging his tender jaw, not liking this. “What’s the second hole? You said there were two.”
“There’s no proof it was you who he spoke to. Someone else could have answered your phone while you were on your way up to the falls to kill him. Anyone who was in your house at the time.”
“You’re right. God, I am a suspect, aren’t I?”
“Boyfriend, if I didn’t love you I’d be taking a cold hard look at you. You have motive, opportunity, and no alibi. Unless, that is, do you have an alibi?”
“What kind?”
“Was someone else with you at the time of his death?” she asked tonelessly.
“How can you ask me something like that? You know I was alone.”
“I know only what you tell me.”
“Okay, I’m telling you I was alone.”
“Okay, fine,” she said shortly.
Mitch gazed out the window at the sidewalk. Two smartly dressed young professional women walked by together. Both were talking on cell phones, though presumably not to each other. “Des, do I need to hire a lawyer?”
“You’re a material witness, not a suspect. But I do have to bring you back, understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good, then let’s ride. We split now, we can still beat the rush hourtraffic.” Des put the cruiser in gear and eased it along Houston Street, heading west toward Varick. “Will this get me to the West Side Highway?”
“Can’t we go back in the morning?”
“Why would we want to do that?”
“Because we never spend any time here together. I want to eat spinach fettuccine with you at the Port Alba Cafe.”
“Yum, sounds totally off the hook,” she responded as they came to a dead stop at Varick. The intersection was gridlocked-trucks, vans, horns. “But now isn’t the right time.”
“It’s never the right time,” Mitch grumbled, because there was something else going on here. She considered his apartment Maisie’s turf. She would not stay over. She would not keep any clothes there. “I left my computer and stuff at my place.”
“So we’ll stop on the way,” she said easily.
“Des, we should stay over tonight. This is something you need to do.”
“We are never going to move,” she said distractedly as the signal went from red to green to red, the gridlock failing to budge. “Okay, why do I need to do this?”
“Because you’re lost, that’s why.”
She drew back, scowling at him. “Is this about those damned trees?”
“You can’t find your way, and it’s making you crazy. Making you a big nonfat pain to be around, too, I have to point out. Because I can’t lie to you.”