One Hoof In The Grave [Carriage Driving 02] (12 page)

She stared at him for a moment with her mouth open and her pulse beating in her throat. Then she shrugged and shoved her left sleeve up to her elbow. She took a deep breath, then shoved back the right. “When I get migraines, sometimes I get dizzy. The kitchen in the trailer is so small, sometimes I bounce off the counters.”

“I see.” He let the silence between them lengthen. “Hard to conceal bruises on your arms. Makeup tends to clump in your arm hairs.”

She tried a laugh, but it came out more like a wheeze. “I really am clumsy. Ask anyone.”

“Mrs. Raleigh,” he said gently, “I’ve been a cop a long time. I am an expert on bruises. I know fingerprints on skin when I see them. Should I get a warrant and bring in a female officer to check you over, or would you rather just tell me?”

“You can’t do that, can you?”

“Yeah, I can, but I’d rather not. Let’s be hypothetical. If that officer were to take off your sweater, would she find more bruises?”

She lowered her eyes and began to cry silent tears.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said.

She shook her head but without looking up at him. “I swear he never hit me. It’s just that sometimes he grabbed on to me a little hard. I bruise easily.” Now she met his eyes. “I didn’t kill him.”

Geoff nodded. “If you fought back when he beat you, any good lawyer will get you off on self-defense.”

“I’ve seen
The Burning Bed
and read all the books. If I waited until later and then killed him, it’s first degree murder.”

“Did you?”

“No. I told you, I didn’t even know he’d left the trailer. I was still in bed when they came to tell me what happened.”

She’d certainly seemed to be in bed. Stan said she’d answered the door of the trailer wearing slip on shoes and a silk robe, but she could have raced back from the murder and climbed into bed before Merry found Raleigh. Nobody had checked her shoes or the hem of her robe to find out if they were damp. By the time the CSIs checked, everything was dry and her shoes were clean.

“Why not divorce him?” Geoff asked.

This time the smile she gave him was so feral he nearly choked. “If I stick it out another year, I get three million dollars when I leave. Call it severance pay. I intended to stick it out whatever happened.”

“Even if he kept, as you say, grabbing you?

“He would not have kept—grabbing me.”

“Men do.” Even now she refused to admit her husband had actually hit her, although Geoff would have bet his pension that he had.

She hesitated, then seemed to make up her mind. “All right, he hit me. Not often, but I decided to make it stop.” She nodded at the corner of the room over the door. “Nanny cam. I knew sooner or later he’d go for me in here. A couple of weeks ago he did. My lawyer has the tapes and a letter that says if anything happens to me, if I wind up in the hospital or die, those items go straight to the district attorney. With a backup copy to the Federal agents, in case the Georgia Department of Justice is as corrupt as everybody else Giles knew and owned.”

“Your bruises are new.”

“I just told him about my protection on Friday night. Unfortunately I told him after he shoved me. He was livid. He stormed out to go beat up on somebody else.”

“Physically?”

“Or psychologically. He must have caused somebody some pain, because when he came to bed he was cheerful.” She pulled her sleeves down and wrapped her arms around herself.

“Why was he angry at you?”

She rolled her eyes. “I was handy. He thought his dressage scores should have been higher. As though it mattered.”

“Why did you marry him? I thought his reputation with women was well known.”

“Not to me. I’d just moved to Atlanta from Richmond to work for McCallum‘s. Wealth and power are very sexy, but I didn’t marry him for his money. I fell in love with him. When he wants something, he can be
so
charming. The night he asked me to marry him, he took me for a moonlight drive in the carriage to an arbor where he’d set up a picnic with champagne and foie gras . . .” She caught her breath. This time when she raised her eyes to look at Geoff they were full of tears. “He said I’d disappointed him.”

“Did he tell you why?”

She shook her head.

“When did he say that?”

“The first time he hit me. He actually cried when he calmed down. He swore he’d never do it again and claimed everybody always disappointed him. If you disappoint somebody, how can you ever get past that?”

“It would seem someone decided to stop trying to get past that and got rid of the problem.”

“Not me. I don’t have the nerve or the strength.”

“So, if you didn’t kill him, who did?”

She twisted her hands in her lap. “I truly don’t know.”

“He had an argument with your stepdaughter Dawn at the party Saturday night. Any idea what that was about?”

“Probably Armando Gutierrez, a polo player. She wanted to marry him. Giles told her he’d cut her off without a cent and fire her from the company if she did. He was pulling strings to get Armando’s green card pulled so he could be deported to Argentina.”

That added two suspects to his list. “Was he successful?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. But he had very powerful friends.”

“How do you and your step-daughter get along? You can’t be much older than she is.”

This time she smiled. No wonder Raleigh was besotted. The woman was Angelina Jolie Catherine Zeta-Jones gorgeous. “I am actually four years older than Dawn. She’s twenty-six.”

“Do you get along?”

“Most of the time. She has a perfect right to marry Armando. He’s a hard-working professional horseman. He loves her. I tried once to talk to Giles about it.” She touched her cheek as though remembering a slap. “I didn’t try again.”

“Did your husband think Armando was a fortune hunter?”

“He thought every man who came near Dawn who wasn’t a multi-millionaire was a fortune hunter. Giles desperately wanted an heir to his empire. Since Dawn was an heiress, she was expected to marry the putative heir with his own fortune. Until she does, and produces at least one son, Dawn does the scut work, Giles makes the decisions.”

Interesting that she kept speaking of her husband in the present tense. “Thank you for speaking to me so frankly, Ms. Raleigh.” He stood. “Now, do you know where I can find your step-daughter?”

“I’m sure she’s at the stables. The horses still take priority, so she tries to work from home whenever she can.”

“Did Mr. Raleigh have a home office?”

“Obviously he couldn’t work in here.” She waved a hand at the peach toile. He has a private study upstairs.”

“I’d like your permission to search it.”

“Don’t you need a search warrant?”

“Not with your permission.” He saw her stiffen.

“I don’t think I can give it.”

When he raised his eyebrows, she said, “I don’t know what he had in there, Mr. Wheeler. You might find something that could hurt the family but had nothing to do with his death. I’m not even certain the house is still mine. So I guess you better get that search warrant.”

Geoff nodded, although he knew no judge would sign a search warrant for what would essentially be a fishing expedition. Any search warrant would have to show probable cause to look for a specific item in a specific place. Not gonna happen as things stood.

“I understand.” He did understand, but he was still annoyed. “It would, however, be in the family’s best interests not to destroy or conceal anything that might turn out to be useful in solving the crime. The state of Georgia takes obstruction of justice very seriously.”

“I’m not a fool. I locked the office first thing when I got home Sunday evening. That sheriff took Giles’s keys. I have the only other one.” She came off the couch in one elegant move, started toward the door of her office and asked too casually,” What would you look for?”

“His will.”

She caught her breath, but kept walking.

He’d rattled her. Maybe
nothing
was hers since Raleigh’s death. So long as no one knew about the disposition of Raleigh’s assets, she would remain the lady of the manor. It was a manor worth fighting for.

“Do I need a lawyer?” Her hand went to her throat and grasped the gold chain at the neck of her sweater.

“Do you think you need a lawyer?” he asked.

“Actually, I do.” Suddenly cold and formal. “Please call my attorney in Atlanta, Agent Wheeler.” She reached into the pocket of her slacks, pulled out a business card and handed it to him. “This is his number. If you want to talk further, make an appointment. The next time we speak, he will be present.” So she’d had her lawyer’s card all ready to hand him.

He could only accede gracefully. “Certainly. Of course, that will mean you’ll have to come to me. Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Raleigh. I’ll see myself out.”

At the door, he turned back to her and said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

As he closed the door behind him, he swore he heard her whisper, “I’m not.”

Dawn Raleigh might be
four years younger than her stepmother, but she looked five years older. Her chestnut hair was short, and she wore little or no makeup. If she’d had on lipstick, she’d chewed it off rough lips. Her skin was starting to show the results of too much time in the sun. Not only were there crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, she had shallow parenthetic lines on each side of her mouth. Frown lines. She was handsome enough, and had a lean, taut body, but she wouldn’t be launching a thousand ships anytime soon. She had, however, inherited her father’s piercing blue eyes. When she spotted Geoff, the mouth lines deepened and her nostrils flared.

“Can’t you leave us alone to mourn?” She handed the leather horse collar she held to a stable hand “Clean it properly this time, please, Manuel,” she said. “Then hang it with its harness. Gracias.” She turned on her heel and walked toward what looked like an office door.

He followed her into a handsome paneled room that was part library, part office, and part lounge, with a stone fireplace in one corner, and a galley kitchen across the back. “Is that what you’re doing?” he asked. “Mourning?”

Those blue eyes blazed at him, then she smiled. She might not be Helen of Troy, but her smile transformed her handsome face into something approaching real beauty. “Actually, I’m celebrating. Ding Dong, the wicked warlock is dead.” She sat on a battered maroon leather couch and motioned him to an equally battered club chair across from her.

Ah,
here
was where at least one member of the family lived. Sarah Beth had her peach morning room. Dawn had this room.

“If you don’t mind, I have a few questions for you.”

She waved a hand. “Ask away. I didn’t kill him. I have nothing to hide.”

“Not even your attitude?”

“Not even.”

“Or your fiancé?”

The smile vanished. “You leave Armando out of this, cop. He’s on his way back from Wellington as we speak. You know where Wellington is?”

“South Florida, by Palm Beach.”

“Right. He’s been refereeing a tournament in Wellington all week. Plenty of people can vouch for him.”

“Good. I’m always happy to mark somebody off my list. I will, however, need to speak to him personally. Does he speak English?”

“Probably better than you do. And Spanish, and Portuguese.”

“Are you going to marry him?”

“As soon as this mess is over with, you bet your ass. He’s going to train polo ponies, and I’m going to take over the breeding end of the business.”