Death by Marriage (3 page)

At that moment, Mattheus strolled by on
the lawn, in front of the large, glass windows.

Kendra put her drink down and looked at
him.

“He’s very gallant,” Kendra said
suddenly. Very handsome and very smart.”

“Your
husband?” asked Cindy.

“No,
your friend out there. I suppose both of you have to know everything?”

“Of
course we do,” Cindy said.

Kendra
raised her eyebrows for a moment. “Quite a team,” she said. Then she reached
out for her drink again, only to think better of it and put it down. “You’re right;
it doesn’t make sense to drink so early. Besides in a few minutes, my daughter
will be coming home from school.

“The
papers haven’t said much about your daughter,” asked Cindy, curious.

“Why
should they?” Kendra was quick on the uptake. “She’s in her late teens,
grieving.

Why
drag her into this mess?”

“No
reason,” Cindy responded.

“Besides,
she’s a handful,” said Kendra. “Always has been. She was close to her father,
but she and I were mostly at odds. Not so unusual for mothers and teenage
daughters.”

“So
I’ve heard,” said Cindy. “I look forward to meeting her.”

Kendra
shrugged, “Whatever.” she said. “

“Anything
else you want to tell me now?” asked Cindy.

Kendra
sat up stiffly in her chair. Cindy could see this was hard for her. She
resented every minute of it, was brittle and proud.  It wasn’t her way to speak
freely to strangers.

“What
I wanted to say is something simple, but it hurts like hell. I told it to the
cops, but it didn’t make a dent on them. They laughed in my face.”

“What
is it?” said Cindy.

“Paul
stayed out of town a few nights every week. Said he was in St. Croix.
[MSOffice1]
 
He had cases there, but he also he liked to gamble.  It was his one weak spot,
if you can call it that. He told me he stayed in St. Croix for his work, but I
often wondered if something else drew him.”

“The
gambling?”

“I
grew to wonder if he had a woman.”

Cindy
took a deep, quick breath. It made sense.

“It’s
not that unusual, you know,” Kendra added quickly, surprised at Cindy’s
reaction. “We’d been together for almost twenty years. It wasn’t that he wasn’t
good to me. He was. By a woman, I mean a mistress. Something on the side, not
important. His murder could have something to do with that. These island women
out here get crazy, start dreaming about all kinds of things.”

 The
door to living room opened and   Mattheus walked in and came over to Kendra.  

Clearly,
he was eager to get to the next step.

“I
think it’s important for us to check into the police station now, let them know
we’ve arrived, and see what else they have for us to do.  We’ll all have plenty
of time to talk to each other, fill in the details.”

Cindy
knew it was time to move on for now. She needed to get the name of the bar Paul
hung out at, and more information about his work on St. Croix.  

A
strange pall came over Kendra’s face as the two of them got up to leave.  “You
just arrived and now you’re leaving,” she said in an odd tone.

“We
need to get filled in on as much as we can as soon as possible,” Cindy said. “We’ll
be back in a little while. You’re not alone.”

 “Wrong
again,” Kendra echoed in a husky voice. “I’m completely alone.  More alone than
you can ever imagine.  And no one even really knows.”

The
police station was located in a mid-sized, stucco building off the main road. A
wide entranceway surrounded by a fence, bordered by palm trees, led up to the
main entrance. Little geckos jumped happily along the fence, peering out at
visitors unsuspectingly. Mattheus had notified the police that he and Cindy
would be arriving and had been hired to work on the case.

When
Cindy and Mattheus walked in, a few policemen were sitting at desks, a few
others gathered in the rear talking. At first no one looked up.

Mattheus
walked up to the policeman at the front desk. “Mattheus -- Private
Investigations,” he said and extended his hand.

The
officer at the desk looked up and took Mattheus in. In a flash, he decided that
he liked him and extended his hand. “Heard you were coming. Fred Brayton,” he
said and took Mattheus’ hand.

Mattheus,
an experienced cop, felt at home with the police, and the guy probably felt it.
Cindy watched the two of them size each other up favorably.

“Welcome
to the island,” Brayton continued. A few of the other cops looked up and came
over.

“This
is my partner, Cindy,” Mattheus said, including her.

Fred
Brayton smiled a wide smile, showing huge white teeth. “Now that’s what I call
a fine business,” he said.

Some
of the other cops looked at Cindy briefly. One raised his eyes, surprised.
Clearly they were not accustomed to women detectives down here on the islands.
She saw she would have to earn their respect.

 Brayton
got up from behind his desk, turning entirely to Mattheus. “We checked you out
when we heard you were coming,” he said. “The guys down in Grenada only had the
best things to say about you.”

Mattheus
flushed. He seemed to like being recognized among his peers.

“So,
let’s go inside and talk a few minutes,” Mattheus said. “You can fill us in on
the details.”

Brayton
threw a quick look at Cindy, wondering if she were coming too.

“Cindy’s
done some fantastic work,” Mattheus interjected immediately.

“Beginner’s
luck,” Cindy heard another tall, muscular cop, mutter under his breath.

“We’re
lucky to have Cindy on board,” Matthew said definitively.

Brayton
seemed taken aback at Mattheus’ vehemence, so did a few of the other cops. They
stopped and looked at her hard. Cindy felt the band of brotherhood between them
that naturally kept a woman at bay.

“The
widow requested a woman detective to work with her on her case,” Mattheus
continued.

“The
widow
?” Brayton laughed in a mocking tone. “Wouldn’t exactly call the
little wife a widow.”

“Why
not?” Mattheus asked at once, alerted.

“Let’s
all go in and sit down,” Brayton said, nodding in Cindy’s direction, inviting
her to join them as well. “There’s a lot to cover.”

He
led them and a few other cops down through a long hallway, into a meeting room,
with a round table, ceiling fan and huge coffee machine in the corner, with
paper cups piled near it.

Brayton
went over to the coffee maker and began pouring coffee into some cups.

“You
take yours with or without milk and sugar?” he asked Cindy first.

“Milk
and sugar,” said Cindy.

“I’ll
have mine black, “Mattheus said.

Brayton
came back with the coffee and the tall, muscular cop, went to a file, yanked it
open and pulled out some papers. Then he came back to the table and sat beside
them. Two other cops joined them around the table as well.

They
all sat quietly for a moment and drank their coffee until Brayton broke the
silence. “This lady isn’t exactly what we call a grieving widow. From the way
things look to us now – we got the killer.”

Cindy
breathed in swiftly. Shocking, she thought. Case closed in their minds.

“Show
me what you have,” said Mattheus.

Brayton
ruffled through some papers with one hand and he gulped more coffee with the 
other.

 “Okay,
here’s what we got. As you probably know, the hubby took out a two million
dollar insurance policy in her name, just three months before he got killed.”

Mattheus
raised his eyebrows. “We heard. That’s a lot of cash.”

“Just
three months before,” the big muscular, cop chimed in. “Tell me why?”

“Good
question,” said Mattheus.

“But
why would she be so stupid to kill him such a short time after?” asked Cindy
asked. “It’s too obvious.”

The
big, muscular cop closed his eyes until they were almost slits and peered at
Cindy.

 “Nothing
is obvious to someone who gets it in their minds to kill,” he muttered. “They
all think they can do anything they want and no one will catch them. I know
these killers inside and out. They think they got a right to snuff out a life
at the drop of a dime. It gives them a thrill.”

Brayton
laughed a little. “Nojo has his theories. He’s a great cop, almost never wrong.”

Nojo
seemed to like that. He cocked his head to the side. “I can smell a killer ten
miles away.”

“Sounds
like you think the case is closed,” Cindy took him on.

Nojo
grinned. “Your little lady has got a feisty nature,” he said to Mattheus.

Mattheus
shook his head. “She likes to hear all the details.”

Cindy
didn’t like being spoken of as a little lady.  She realized that Mattheus was
standing up for her, but she could do it for herself as well.  This crazy cop,
Nojo, made her uneasy. He seemed to have a vendetta.

“Okay,
what else do you have?” Mattheus wanted to move forward.

“No
alibi,” Nojo broke in. “Time of death was about 5:30 p.m. Where was she then?
This is what will get her! She said she was at home. Really? This was a working
lady. Every other day she was out at work, leading tours of the island. How
come this particular day she was home?  She said she didn’t feel well, had bad
dreams all night before. I bet she did.”   As Nojo spoke his mouth grew wet
with saliva. He tasted victory and an easy one at that.

“What
else?” asked Cindy, impatient.

“Hold
on a minute, and listen,” Nojo said. “Did anyone see her at home that day? “No
one.  Her housekeeper was off for the day. Convenient. Her daughter didn’t
happen to come home after school.   She decided to spend the afternoon away.
Very, very convenient. It doesn’t take an idiot to know that none of this adds
up.”

“And
where’s the husband at that time, usually?” asked Mattheus.

“Usually
the poor jerk’s out working late, or out of town on a case. But that’s beside
the point now. What I’m asking is how come the day he was killed his daughter
didn’t come home?”

“She
could have had her reasons,” said Cindy.

Nojo
closed his eyes completely. “Everyone has their reasons,” he said. “But do they
add up? Or are they just building a noose to hang themselves in?”

Cindy
didn’t like him.  She felt that he lived off these tragedies, expected them,
practically hoped for them.

 “And
besides that, the daughter Nell is weird,” Nojo continued. “I asked her where
were you that afternoon? She said she stayed late in school to study. You even
getting the drift of this bullshit? Now this fish is starting to stink worse
than before.” He turned to Cindy. “One piece of crap after another.”

“Why
wouldn’t she be studying late in school?” Cindy asked.

“Not
something she usually does! And no one happened to see her there either.”

Brayton
took a long breath. So did Mattheus. None of it looked good.

“She’s
covering for the mother. It’s obvious,” Nojo belted out.

Nothing
felt obvious to Cindy. She refused to go along with easy, snap conclusions.

“You
want another detail?” Brayton was joining in. “We found out that Kendra bought
an incredibly expensive ruby necklace, about a week before the murder.  And
what happened to it? You can’t find the piece anywhere in the house. When we
showed her the receipt for the sale, she swore she put the necklace in her
house safe.  When we opened it, there’s nothing there. She said she had no idea
what happened to it. And why’d she even buy it for?  She wouldn’t tell us. It
doesn’t add up. None of it does.”

“No,
it doesn’t,” Mattheus agreed.

“It’s
all circumstantial,” said Cindy. “So far I haven’t heard any direct link
between Kendra and the murder. Do you have any evidence or DNA?”

Nojo
stood up at that, and hovered over Cindy.  “We put plenty of criminals down on
this island, with less circumstantial evidence than this.”

Cindy
shivered.

“You
got some better ideas?” Nojo’s tone was becoming threatening.

Mattheus
stood up between them. “We’ve been called down here to investigate,” he said. “We’ve
got to look at everything.”

“Like
what?” Nojo’s eyes narrowed into slits again.

“Paul
was a criminal lawyer,” Cindy spoke up. “Was there someone he defended who
might have had a grudge against him? A case he lost? Someone who got sent to
jail?”

“That’s
a good point,” said Mattheus.

“Nah,”
said Nojo, “this guy knew what he was doing.  He had a great reputation. His
clients loved him.”

“But
someone might not have,” said Cindy. “Did you check any cases he lost? The
person might have felt ripped off.  Might have spent time sitting in jail
dreaming of revenge?”

“I
hate it when women think they know everything,” Nojo muttered under his breath.

Brayton
bit his lower lip. “Not a bad idea,” he seemed a little embarrassed not to have
thought of it himself. “Okay, we’ll look into it.”

“I’ll
give you a hand with that,” said Mattheus.

Brayton
looked up at him, grateful.  “This guy you got here,” he said to Cindy, “is a 
good guy.”

“I’ll
second that,” said Nojo.

Cindy
felt at a loss as to what to say.  She didn’t
have
Mattheus, they worked
together.

Mattheus
stepped in easily, to smooth everything out. “We’re business partners,” he said
to the guys. “And I’m equally lucky. Cindy’s a terrific partner.”

Cindy
felt grateful, but uneasy as well. She’d stumbled into a male world here that had
no room for her. That’s fine, she thought. Mattheus will handle this part, and
I’ll take on other aspects of this crime. There’s more than enough to go
around.

“Before
we check in to our hotel,” Mattheus said, “We’d like to look over the crime
scene.”

“No
need for it,” said Nojo, haltingly. “It’s been combed back and forth. The guy
was found lying in a pool of blood. Medical examiner found stab marks all over
his body. Lots of them.”

Cindy
closed her eyes. Just the thought of it made her feel woozy.

“What’s
wrong sweetheart?”  Nojo laughed. “We haven’t found the weapon yet. But, when
there’s that many stab marks it’s a crime of passion. The person who did it
hated his guts.”

“Let
them look,” Brayton broke in. “Another pair of eyes can see something else.”

“Great,”
said Mattheus. “Tell us how to get to there and gain access.”

“You
got it,” said Brayton, obviously happy to have Mattheus on the team. “But don’t
let the little lady go down there alone. You can never tell who’s lurking
around. That place has a way of attracting dangerous scum and buzzards,
especially after dark.”