“Yeah, but offing her own parents?” LaTour asked skeptically.
“Seventeen point two percent of murderers are related to their victims.” Tal added pointedly, “I know that because of my questionnaires, by the way.”
LaTour rolled his eyes. “What about the Bensons?”
“Maybe they met in some cardiac support group, maybe they were in the same country club. Whitley might’ve mentioned something about the will to him. Sandra found out and had to take them out, too.”
“Sounds crazy.”
“It’s a theorem, I keep saying. Let’s go prove it or disprove it. See if she’s got an alibi. And we’ll have forensics go through the fireplace.”
“If the ash is intact,” LaTour said, “they can image the printing on the sheet. Those techs’re fucking geniuses.”
Tal called Crime Scene again and arranged to have a team return to the Whitleys’ house. Then he said, “Okay, let’s go visit our suspect.”
“Hold on there.”
When Greg LaTour charged up to you, muttering the way he’d just done, you held on there.
Even tough Sandra Whitley.
She’d been about to climb into the BMW sitting outside her luxurious house. Suitcases sat next to her.
“Step away from the car,” LaTour said, flashing his badge.
Tal said, “We’d like to ask you a few questions, ma’am.”
“You again! What the hell’re you talking about?” Her voice was angry but she did as she was told.
“You’re on your way out of town?” LaTour took her purse off her shoulder. “Just keep your hands at your sides.”
“I’ve got a meeting I can’t miss.”
“In Hawaii?”
Sandra was regaining the initiative. “I’m an attorney, like I told you. I will find out how you got that information and for your sake there better’ve been a warrant involved.”
Did they need a warrant? Tal wondered.
“Meeting in Hawaii?” LaTour repeated. “With an open return?”
“What’re you implying?”
“It’s a little odd, don’t you think? Flying off to the South Seas a few days after your parents die? Not going to the funeral?”
“Funerals’re for the survivors. I’ve made peace with my parents and their deaths. They wouldn’t’ve wanted me to blow off an important meeting. Dad was as much a businessman as a father. I’m as much a businesswoman as a daughter.” Her eyes slipped to Tal. “Okay, you got me, Simms.” Emphasizing the name was presumably to remind him again that his name would be spelled correctly in the court documents she filed. She nodded to the purse. “It’s all in there. The evidence about me escaping the country after — what? — stealing my parents’ money? What exactly do you think I’ve done?”
“We’re not accusing you of anything. We just want to—”
“Ask you a few questions.”
“So ask, goddamn it.”
LaTour was reading a lengthy document he’d found in her purse. He frowned and handed it to Tal, then asked her, “Can you tell me where you were the night your parents died?”
“Why?”
“Look, lady, you can cooperate or you can clam up and we’ll—”
“Go downtown. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I’ve heard this before.”
LaTour frowned at Tal and mouthed, “What’s downtown?” Tal shrugged and returned to the document. It was a business plan for a company that was setting up an energy joint venture in Hawaii. Her law firm was representing them. The preliminary meeting seemed to be scheduled for two days from now in Hawaii. There was a memo saying that the meetings could go on for weeks and recommended that the participants get open-return tickets.
Oh.
“Since I have to get to the airport now,” she snapped, “and I don’t have time for any bullshit. Okay, I’ll tell you where I was on the night of the quote crime. On an airplane. I flew back on United Airlines from San Francisco, the flight that got in about eleven p.m. My boarding pass is probably in there”—a contemptuous nod at the purse LaTour held—“and if it isn’t, I’m sure there’s a record of the flight at the airline. With security being what it is nowadays, picture IDs and everything, that’s probably a pretty solid alibi, don’t you think?”
Did seem to be, Tal agreed silently. And it got even better when LaTour found the boarding pass and ticket receipt in her purse. Tal’s phone began ringing and he was happy for the chance to escape from Sandra’s searing fury. He heard Shellee speak from the receiver. “Hey, boss, ’s’me.”
“What’s up?”
“Crime Scene called. They went through all the ash in the Whitleys’ fireplace, looking for a letter or something about changing the will. They didn’t find anything about that at all. Something had been burned but it was all just a bunch of information on companies — computer and biotech companies. The Crime Scene guy was thinking Mr. Whitley might’ve just used some old junk mail or something to start the fire.”
Oh.
Damn.
“Thanks.”
He nodded LaTour aside and told him what Crime Scene had reported.
“Shit on the street,” he whispered. “Jumped a little fast here…Okay, let’s go kiss some ass. Brother.”
The groveling time was quite limited — Sandra was adamant about catching her plane.
She sped out of the driveway, leaving behind a blue cloud of tire smoke.
“Aw, she’ll forget about it,” LaTour said.
“You think?” Tal asked.
A pause. “Nope. We’re way fucked.”
As they walked back to the car LaTour said, “We still gotta find the mysterious babe in the sunglasses and hat.”
Tal wondered if Mac McCaffrey might’ve seen someone like that around the Whitleys’ place. Besides, it’d be a good excuse to see her again. Tal said, “I’ll look into that one.”
“You?” LaTour laughed.
“Yeah. Me. What’s so funny about that?”
“I don’t know. Just you never investigated a case before.”
“So? You think I can’t talk to witnesses on my own? You think I should just go back home and hump my calculator?”
Silence.
“You heard that?” LaTour finally asked, no longer laughing.
“I heard.”
“Hey, I didn’t mean it, you know.”
“Didn’t mean it?” Tal asked, giving an exaggerated squint. “As in you didn’t mean for me to hear you? Or as in you don’t actually believe I have sex with adding machines?”
“I’m sorry, okay?…I bust people’s chops sometimes. It’s the way I am. I do it to everybody. Fuck, people do it to me. They call me Bear ’causa my gut. They call you Einstein ’cause you’re smart.”
“Not to my face.”
LaTour hesitated. “You’re right. Not to your face…You know, you’re too polite, Tal. You can give me a lot more shit. I wouldn’t mind. You’re too uptight. Loosen up.”
“So it’s my fault that I’m pissed ’cause you insult me?”
“It was…” he began defensively but then he stopped. “Okay, I’m sorry. I am…Hey, I don’t apologize a lot, you know. I’m not very good at it.”
“That’s an apology?”
“I’m doing the best I can…Whatta you want?”
Silence.
“All right,” Tal said finally.
LaTour sped the car around a corner and wove frighteningly through the heavy traffic. Finally he said, “It’s okay, though, you know.”
“What’s okay?”
“If you want to.”
“Want to what?” Tal asked.
“You know, you and your calculator…Lot safer than some of the weird shit you see nowadays.”
“LaTour,” Tal said, “you can—”
“You just seemed defensive about it, you know. Figure I probably hit close to home, you know what I’m saying?”