Liquid Lies (11 page)

“No, it’s okay. I’ve got a lot to do,” Mayor Pike said. Juanita reappeared holding a phone in her hand, motioning to him that he needed to take the call.

“Mayor Pike, do you mind if I take Ms. Coe for a while?” Detective Wurkowski asked.

“No. By all means do. Did you find anything yet?” Mayor Pike brushed his hair off his forehead.

“We’ve developing a couple of leads. We’ll keep you posted. We sure do appreciate you giving us access to your home,” Detective Wurkowski said.

“Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.” Mayor Pike’s swollen eyes watered up. He cleared his throat and took the phone from Juanita.

Detective Wurkowski led me to the kitchen. “You like yours black.” He poured a mug of coffee and handed it to me.

The kitchen table was filled to capacity with a smorgasbord of pies, cakes, and baked goods. It smelled like a bakery. A silver coffee pot, a crystal carafe of orange juice and a variety of mugs and glasses sat on the dark granite counter in the spacious, well-appointed kitchen. A handful of officers roamed in and out of the kitchen grabbing drinks and food. The background hummed with conversations and the pounding of footsteps.

Juanita scuttled about in perpetual motion as she answered the constantly ringing phone and took messages. She rushed to the door every time it chimed, which was often.

I slumped in a chair, wanting nothing more than to crawl back into bed and forget the past twenty-four hours had ever happened.

“Is there anything you want to tell me about your relationship with Ms. Pike?” Detective Wurkowski sat next to me.

Nothing like getting right to the point. “No, sir,” I replied.

“Ms. Coe, we found Ms. Pike’s journal. Anything you want to tell me now? Anything that you want to add or change from last night?” he asked.

“No sir. I can’t think of anything,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “Really?”

I shifted in my seat and looked into the coffee mug. “Yes sir. Nothing more to add.” The thought crossed my mind to get a lawyer. I let the thought go. I was innocent, at least of this crime. My strategy with the detective was to be safe and cautious with honest answers. I had my own suspicions that Francesca’s murderer could be linked to the truck stop blackmailer. I felt I needed to explore that option on my own before involving the police. If I was wrong, then I would have disgraced the Pike family, and that’s the last thing I wanted to do.

“Have you ever heard of the term obstruction of justice?” Detective Wurkowski got up and stood over me.

I felt his breath on me. This is how a matador must feel when the bull is next to him. He seemed to stare at the top of my head. Beads of perspiration formed on my temples.

“We need you to cooperate with us,” Detective Wurkowski said as he turned on his heels and walked over to the kitchen window. He pulled a small floral covered notebook out of his jacket. He flipped open a page, turned to me and began to read, “This is a recent entry. ‘Today I saw my best friend, CiCi, she had almost drowned. Maybe that would have been better.’ Interesting, huh?”

Yeah, and for a fleeting moment I wished I would have drowned too. Avoiding answering, I took a sip of my coffee.

“Best friend, huh? So you knew the victim much better than you led us to believe last night. Explain this to me,” he said.

Attempting to not sound like a smart aleck but striving to get my point across, I said, “If I remember Detective, I said we were former friends from school. Did it really matter if we were best friends? Isn’t that a minor detail?”

“Not in a murder investigation. Details are important.” Detective Wurkowski dragged a chair next to me, and then straddled it. “Yesterday the victim saw you after you nearly drowned?”

“Sort of. She might have been in the crowd of gapers after Mark pulled me from the lake.”

“Yes or no?”

“She was in the crowd.”

“Did she see you?”

“Maybe she did. I saw her.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No,” I answered.

“Let me see here.” He flipped open his notebook. “Last night, I asked you when the last time you saw Francesca alive was and you said it was at H&K’s.”

“Yes. That’s what I said.”

“Yet, you didn’t tell me that earlier in the day you saw her too.”

“But you asked when the last time I saw her alive, not what other times I saw her.”

He shook his head and drummed on the table with his pen. He let out a long sigh. “You also led me to believe that you hadn’t seen her in four years. Now you admit you saw her earlier in the evening. What other times had you seen her?”

“Yesterday morning in the crowd that was hovering around me after my near drowning, but I just told you that. Then later in the evening I saw her again at H&K’s. The last time was her head floating in the lake if you want to count that as seeing her too.” I tried to keep my body movements steady even though I felt jittery. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or nerves or both.

“In the victim’s journal, she wrote ‘Maybe it would have been better if she hadn’t been saved from drowning. Because our lives will change forever now that someone knows what happened. I want to spare her any more pain.’ What’s going on Ms. Coe?”

We killed someone and she was being blackmailed for the crime we committed together. “Please call me CiCi. Nothing is going on. Really.” Shit oh shit.

“Ms. Coe, could you think of why she wished you’d drowned? And what does she mean that someone knew what happened? And why does she want to spare you more pain?” he asked.

Oh yeah, I can definitely think of why she did. “I have no idea,” I said.

“Isn’t that odd though? You told me you hadn’t seen her in four years, and then when you finally reunite, she wishes you would’ve drowned. Then later on she’s found dead. Ms. Coe, you can certainly understand why that sounds out of the ordinary. Very perplexing.” He took a deep breath and extended his arms above his head in a stretch. “What occurred to create the four year rift?”

“Nothing really. I mean, we graduated. She left for Europe and I stayed and went to college.”

“Hmm.” Then he stood and poured another cup of coffee. “We’ll be going over the victim’s journal in detail. What I read was just a recent entry in it. If there is something you need to tell me, you should do so now. Do you want to recant any part of your story?”

“No, sir.” Not until I got some facts. Then if my hunch was correct, he would arrest the blackmailer. How could I get the facts? Where could I start? I still hadn’t worked that out yet. However, I had a feeling that time was running out.

“Was there someone in her life named or called Ace? There was a recent entry about him too,” he said.

“Nope. I don’t know anyone called Ace,” I said. “What did she say about him?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t disclose that.” He scratched his head and furrowed his brows. “Do you know if she was involved in a romantic relationship with anyone recently?”

“How could I? I told you I hadn’t seen her in four years. That is, until yesterday.” Was she involved with Ace? Who was Ace?

“Can we go over the events last night again? I want to make sure I have all my facts correct.”

“Yes sir.”

“You said you saw Ms. Pike at H&K’s around nine in the evening. After you had dinner with your friend and your mail boat co-worker, Mark Stevens, is that correct?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“Are you in a relationship with Mr. Stevens?”

“No. Just really good friends.”

“Let’s move on. Then you and Dr. Wilson were on his boat a little after ten that same evening. Dr. Wilson told us you were on the water an hour and a half or so. Then sometime after eleven thirty he said you found the victim. Correct?”

I did a quick mental time check of last night’s events. “Yes, sir, that sounds pretty close.”

“Where were you from nine until the boat ride?”

Having a fight with Francesca and paying off a blackmailer. “I can’t remember.”

Detective Wurkowski flipped through the pages in his little black notebook. “Were you in H&K’s the whole time?”

“No sir,” I said.

“Then where were you?” he asked.

I took a sip of now cold coffee. “I had to get some fresh air. So I went outside for a while.”

“Outside? Where?”

“Sitting on a bench by the pavilion dock.” This was partly true. The other part of my time was spent putting on a disguise, then making a drop of twenty thousand dollars for the blackmailer.

“How long were you outside?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. For a while I guess,” I said.

“Can anyone corroborate your story? Did you see anyone else, or talk to anyone while you were sitting outside?”

My hands tightened around the coffee mug. I hoped he didn’t see it.

Mayor Pike walked in the kitchen. “Detective, I have to make arrangements at church for a memorial. Juanita is here if you need anything.”

“I have to leave too,” I offered.

“Thank you mayor. We certainly appreciate your cooperation.” Detective Wurkowski looked over at me with slit eyes. “We need all the cooperation we can get.”

I said to Mayor Pike, “Please let me know if I can do anything for you. Feel free to call or drop over. Anytime at all.”

“Thank you CiCi. I’ll let you know.” Mayor Pike stood looking out the kitchen window at the Lake. He turned to me, and gave me a hug. “Oh. I appreciate the cake. Estelle is quite a cook.”

“She’d love to know that, I’ll make sure to tell her.” I smiled at Mayor Pike, and then he turned and walked away. I caught Detective Wurkowski’s glare. My legs couldn’t move fast enough as I began to jog away.

Detective Wurkowski followed on my heels. “Not so quick, Ms. Coe.”

I stopped in my tracks, him at my side. “Yes, detective?”

“There are gaps in your story that we need to clear up. These unaccounted for times oddly enough are the time when your best friend was murdered.”

I knew damned good and well what he was saying, that I was, or could be, a suspect in her murder.

“Don’t leave town.” Detective Wurkowski stared me down.

Our eyes met. If I had a passport and a ticket I would be on the first plane out of here. “Yes, sir.”

As I left the Pike mansion, I turned back to see Detective Wurkowski standing, with his arms crossed, watching me. Attempting to give off a casual nonchalant innocence, I waved at him and smiled. Damn it to hell. That guy was driving me nuts. I was a suspect? Was he kidding? I would never kill Francesca. Talk about my life going from tranquil to thorny. Actually, after the trucker’s death, there was always something evil brewing beneath the calm exterior of my life. It was only a matter of time before the trucker’s death resurfaced.

A white van with the words TV4 on the side pulled in at the end of the driveway, near the wrought iron gates at the entrance of the property. My heart thumped and my mouth went dry. There was no way I wanted to be a part of any television broadcast.

“There she is. That’s the girl that found the head.” A middle-aged man in a navy polyester suit ran after me. “Ms. Coe, right? I’m Paul Zellers, news anchor from Channel Four. I need to ask you some questions.” He turned to a tall gangly bald man with oversized glasses who looked like a stick with a round ball on top, “Get the camera rolling.”

Ignoring him, I kept my pace up, out the end of the driveway and onto the street. Before I knew it the cameraman barged in front of me, and the anchor stuck a microphone in my face. He bothered me when he was on television, and more so now that he stood in front of me. “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” I said.

“Ms. Coe, I’m Paul Zellers from TV4. Can you tell me about last night?” Paul asked as the cameraman walked backward while he filmed.

Paul, the balding, whiny news anchor and the cameramen were not going to get any significant details out of me. My loyalty was to Francesca, and I planned to honor her life and death.

“No comment,” I said as I sped up my pace to near a race walk pace.

“Ms. Coe, we know that you and your fiancé found the mayor’s daughter’s head in the lake. The public has a right to know what’s going on.” Paul was huffing as his face turned red.

I shrugged my shoulders.

“We just need a quick interview. It won’t take much time.” He followed alongside me.

“No thank you,” I said.

“You’re the mail jumper aren’t you?” He sped up his pace. “You’re a public figure so why not just give the public what they need to know now?”

“Public figure?” I laughed.

“Of course, and so we have a right to know about your life,” Paul said.

“If I was a political figure, a movie star or a professional athlete. But me?” I said.

“You’re Estelle Andrew’s niece? We know where you work and live. Sooner or later we’ll get something on tape from you.”

“Wouldn’t that be considered harassment?” I asked.

“Just giving the public what they deserve,” he said.