Never Sorry: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (19 page)

She was recovering in her apartment when Maura stopped by. "I'm sorry I couldn't get to your folks' house," the policewoman apologized. "I was really looking forward to that lasagna, too."

"Well, today's your lucky day," Leigh answered tiredly. "I've got some leftover in the fridge. Help yourself."

It was dinnertime, but Leigh wasn't hungry. The post–family conference depression still lingered, and the lasagna she'd already consumed would last well into the evening.

Maura wasted no time loading a large helping into Leigh's microwave. "Ick," she protested. "Don't you ever clean this thing?"

Leigh didn't respond. She was lost in thought. "Maura," she asked. "What do I do next? I mean, I have to do
something
."

"You can talk to me," Maura answered matter-of-factly. "There are a lot of things about this case I still don't understand."

"Like what?"

"Like why the police only found two legs and an arm. Where is the rest of the body, and why did the killer take it with them?"

It was the last thing Leigh wanted to think about. Pondering in the abstract about who might have wanted to kill Carmen was one thing. Reliving the horrors of what she'd seen in the tiger run was another.

"And what about Stacey Tanner?" Maura continued. "Are the two murders connected? Frank already thinks you were working with somebody—otherwise there's no way the rest of the body could have disappeared. I'm sure he suspects Tanner. They don't have evidence against you for Stacey's death, just like they've got nothing on Tanner for Carmen's. But don't think they're not working on it."

Leigh sighed and stretched out prone on the couch. Maura rotated the plate of lasagna, then continued. "I want you to tell me everything you know about Carmen. If we're lucky, maybe we can figure out what might be going on here."

Leigh was highly skeptical, but Maura's calm confidence was comforting. "It's like this," she began. "Carmen had no conscience whatsoever. As far as she was concerned the world was a hopelessly rotten place, and she had every right to do whatever she had to do to get along in it. She used people, especially men. Women bored her. For whatever reason, she was possessive of Tanner. He liked certain things about her. Somewhere along the way, he and Stacey divorced."

"Stop there," Maura instructed, checking to see if the lasagna was done. "Are you saying Tanner with involved with Carmen?"

Leigh ground her teeth. "Evidently."

"And when did you find this out?"

"Last night," Leigh answered, wishing Maura would show some mercy. "But I suspected all along."
I just couldn't face it
.

"Well, that explains it!" Maura said happily, pulling out the plate of lasagna and diving into it on the way to the table.

"Explains what?" Leigh asked irritably.

"Why Frank didn't believe your story."

Leigh sat up enough to glare at her friend. Maura had the most annoying habit of talking in teasers—she really should be in advertising. "Explanation, please?"

Maura downed a few hearty mouthfuls of lasagna before answering. She wasn't trying to be dramatic, she just had uncanny timing. "You're right," she said, pointing at the lasagna with her fork. "Primo." Then, before Leigh could explode, she began explaining.

"Your story isn't that far out. Most anyone who found a body under those conditions would freak. Picking up the knife was a stretch, but it was understandable. And yet from the very beginning, Frank suspected you."

"Frank doesn't like me."

"Probably not. But only because he's a misogynist and you like to bait him."

"
I do not
—"

Maura waved away the protest. "The point is, Frank is a good detective. He knows how to keep his personal feelings out of his work, or so I hear."

As Maura paused for another large mouthful of lasagna, Leigh sat quietly and glared. She was in no mood to hear praise for Detective Gerald Frank.

Maura went on. "I can see now what must have happened in your interrogation. You were telegraphing guilt all over the place."

Leigh's brow furrowed. "I was what?"

"You felt guilty. Not about having killed Carmen, but about your feelings for Tanner. You suspected he was involved with Carmen and you were afraid if the police knew how you felt about him, they'd think you killed her out of jealousy."

"That's ridiculous."

"Sure it is. Aren't most people's subconscious thoughts? Or maybe it was more than that. Maybe you felt guilty about Tanner regardless of Carmen. Maybe the sixteen-year-old in you still considered him a married man."

Leigh had had enough ten-cent psychology. She rose and went to the refrigerator for a drink. It was empty. She sat back down.

"Look, Koslow," Maura continued. "I'm not trying to get you upset. I'm just trying to explain what might have happened in the interrogation room. If you felt guilty, for whatever reason, Frank would sense that. Maybe you hesitated before answering, maybe you fidgeted—whatever. But it explains a lot."

Leigh sighed and turned away. It was true, she did feel guilty. About everything. She hadn't done anything wrong, but she still felt guilty. It was a curse.

"So what do we do now? Go back and tell Frank he misread my body language? I'm sure he's open to that."

Maura grinned. "Probably not. Let's concentrate on the real killer. Who do you think did it?"

The question caught Leigh off guard. She didn't know, and even though it was her ticket to salvation, a part of her didn't want to know. "Tanner thinks it was a professional hit," she offered, explaining.

Maura seemed skeptical. "It's a bit too labor intensive to fit that profile," she said thoughtfully. "Besides, there's the matter of the bone saw being taken from the hospital. And the fact that this person managed to wander around the zoo without being seen, or at least without raising suspicion. I think it was an inside job."

Leigh could see the logic, but it led her down a path she didn't want to take. She knew—or at least had met briefly—almost everyone at the zoo. She preferred not to have any of them be a murderer.

"Do you know if Carmen had any enemies at the zoo?" Maura asked.

Leigh scoffed. "A lot of people hated her, but for different reasons, I think."

'You'll need to figure out those reasons, then. Your lawyer should have copies of their statements, but likely as not, what's written down won't tell the whole story. When's your next meeting?"

"Tomorrow morning," Leigh answered regretfully. She would like to spend one day thinking about something else, but it wasn't meant to be. She had already called off from Hook for the next few days—one could hardly fend off murder charges one minute and write pizza slogans the next.

"I told your lawyer I'd be happy to do some investigating for you," Maura offered. "But don't advertise the fact. It could be viewed as a conflict of interest, even though I'm not on the city force. Ms. Bower wouldn't even consider it if Warren hadn't put in a good word for me."

Leigh smiled. It was nice to have your friends pulling for you behind your back. Carmen didn't have any friends, or so Lisa Moran had said. The closest thing she'd had was Kristin. Kristin with the Eldorado.

"Maura," Leigh began thoughtfully, "I'm not sure why, but the trooper asked both Tanner and me if we knew anyone who drove a tan Eldorado. Tanner said a keeper named Kristin Yates did—but a few weeks ago she left to take a job at the zoo in D.C. Kristin was supposed to be Carmen's closest friend, but another keeper told me they had a falling out over a man."
A man
. And she had credited Carmen with some mysterious love interest. Mysterious, ha!  Ten bucks said it was Tanner.

"I don't know what the car had to do with Stacey's murder," Leigh continued, "but Kristin's worth checking into, don't you think?"

Maura nodded.

Chapter 14

Instead of reporting to work Monday morning, Leigh reported to her lawyer's office. She hoped the change would not become a habit. Katharine seemed unusually chipper, and Leigh wondered idly where Warren had been last evening. She had a hard time concentrating on Katharine's tedious summary of recent events, though she did gather that false prosecution in Butler County was unlikely. Katharine's enthusiasm for Leigh's case seemed boundless. "Your alibi is feeble," the lawyer said happily. "But there are plenty of weaknesses in the prosecution's case, as I said, and the murder of Stacey Tanner has provided several new options for our defense theory—your friend the cop is certainly proving helpful, there."

Leigh shivered a little at the memory of last evening's conversation with Maura. Someone on the cabin road (perhaps the Rottweiler grandmother) had seen a car speeding away from the direction of the cabin long before Leigh—and presumably even Tanner—had arrived. If the car was in fact a tan Eldorado, Kristin Yates might no longer be safely in D.C.

Horse-faced Kristin. No female had inspired such fear in Leigh before or since that fated day in eighth-grade biology. Leigh hadn't meant to splash formaldehyde on Kristin's new Calvin Kleins, even if she was pretty sure—given Kristin's economic situation—that the jeans were hot. Kristin had threatened bodily injury, even going so far as to announce a time and place. But nuisances like Leigh were a low priority for the likes of Kristin Yates, and the threat had soon been forgotten.

Just to be on the safe side, however, Leigh had stayed out of Kristin's way for the next four and a half years—until graduation—and it was a policy she had every intention of continuing now.

"We'll need some serious investigative work done on this Kristin Yates," Katharine said pleasantly, "and on Dena Johnson too, of course."

Dena Johnson
. The name switched Leigh's mind instantly from fear to anger, but it took a moment for her to figure out why.
Of course
!  The Dena of  "I saw Leigh Koslow in the tiger run just before the murder" fame. So much had happened since yesterday morning, she'd almost forgotten her mysterious accuser. "The enemy I didn't know I had. How flattering," Leigh said morosely. "Why would she lie?"

"People have different reasons," Katharine said with a light-hearted shrug. "You can't assume she's the killer. She may be protecting someone else, or she may have even made an honest mistake. Sometimes people tell police what they think they want to hear. Do you know if she was an enemy of Carmen's?"

"I can't even remember what she looks like!" Leigh said with frustration. "Tanner introduced me to so many people at that stupid cookout, and I'm terrible with faces. Whoever she is, I bet she didn't get a very good look at me, either. It was dark most of the time. And I'm pretty sure I didn't meet anyone named Dena earlier in the week."

Katharine typed away. "The darkness angle is good. But remember, you were the new girl, the belle of the ball, if you will. It would be normal for her to pay more attention to you than vice versa."

Leigh got that sick feeling in her stomach again. The belle of the ball, indeed. More like Tanner's latest plaything.
Come on everybody, let's see how gullible this one is!

"We'll need to get the other zookeepers talking if we're going to get anywhere," Katharine instructed. "But you've got to be very careful what you say to them yourself. If they feel the least bit threatened by you and your questions, they could complain to the authorities and get your bail revoked."

"But I work there!" Leigh insisted, though she wasn't sure if she still did. Her boss was in jail. What would she be able to do, anyway? "I'm sure I can still talk to Lisa Moran—and maybe a few others. I've already talked to them since I became a suspect, and it didn't scare them then."

Katharine looked at her skeptically. "It's your cell. If you think you can get good information out of someone without intimidating them, it might be worth a try. But the decision is yours. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"But if I don't talk to them, who will?"

"I will, your friend Maura might, or another private investigator."

Leigh shook her head. "Lisa Moran knows more than she's saying, but I don't think she'd tell you or a six-foot policewoman she's never met. She'll talk to me, though. I think she feels sorry for me."

Katharine repeated her previous warnings, then launched into a long list of motions to be prepared and information to be requested. Leigh appreciated the lawyer's efforts to keep her informed, but boring was boring, and legal jargon was well down in the excruciating range. She squirmed in her seat and wondered how much she was being charged by the word.

"That's all for now," Katharine said finally. "I'll keep you informed, and you'll do likewise. Oh, and one other thing—could you give this to Warren when you see him?"

Leigh accepted a small cardboard box, closed loosely with clear tape. She waited for an explanation, but none came. "Sure," she answered. "No problem." She tucked the package under her arm and carried it out to her car. A package for Warren, eh? She wondered, jaw muscles idly clenching, if he had left something at Katharine's place last night. She threw the package in the car's back seat and took off. Warren Harmon could buy another damn toothbrush. She had work to do.