The Perfect Suspect (4 page)

The woman looked away and pulled a hand across her eyes. “She's such a nice woman,” she said.

“You mean, Mrs. Mathews?”

“What a shock,” the woman said, a distant tone in her voice. “So unexpected.”

The man stepped sideways, nudging the woman behind him. “We've already spoken to Detective Beckman. We have nothing to say to you people.” He gave a dismissive wave toward the TV reporters and photographers, the little group of bloggers and Jason. “We don't want anything to do with this. Nobody's been arrested, so far as we know. Whoever killed David is out there someplace. Like I said, it's none of our business. I don't want our names in the newspaper, you got that?”

“I don't know your names,” Catherine said. She knew the last name, and the first names would be easy enough to find. She had the address.

“That's how it's gonna remain. Detective Beckman promised we'd remain anonymous. Come on, Carol,” he said, turning toward the woman. “Let's go inside.”

“I can't help thinking how sad it is for her,” Carol said as her husband nudged her across the lawn toward the gray stucco house.

“It's not our business,” Catherine heard him say. She cupped the notepad in her hand and jotted down the address and the woman's name. Carol was obviously affected by whatever had happened next door.

Just as Catherine started back, the front door of Mathews's house opened and two officers stepped out and came down the sidewalk, waving people aside. A gurney topped by a gray bag with the lumps and edges of a body visible under the plastic bumped down the front step, across the porch and down another step. There was a man at each end, and another man ran alongside, all in gray slacks and blue jackets that flapped open. They guided the gurney to the white van that had backed into the small space vacated by the police car. Black, block letters were painted on the side: Denver City and County Coroner. Photographers shadowed the gurney, cameras clicking.

Catherine looked back at the house. Several people were moving about inside, lab techs, she thought, gathering evidence. Then, for an instant, a woman appeared in the doorway, as if she had paused on her way across the entry. She wore beige slacks and a navy blazer over a white blouse with a collar that stood up at her thin neck. Probably in her late thirties, with shoulder-length, blond hair cut irregularly about her face and a sense of intelligence and competence in the way she moved.

So that was Ryan Beckman, Catherine thought. Nick had mentioned the detective once or twice. Possibly more times than that. Nothing other than the fact that their paths had crossed on some case. He had neglected to mention how beautiful she was.

3

Kim Gregory took a long draw on the cigarette, leaned into the window and watched the wisps of clouds trailing across the sky. The glare of snow on the mountains in the distance made it seem as if the clouds had draped themselves over the peaks. Her heart thumped in her ears. This was her second cigarette, but she couldn't shake the tenseness, the sense that she was coiled around herself like a spring. She should run away. Get in the BMW and drive until she was . . . where? Where could she go that the police wouldn't find her? David Mathews wasn't just some poor slob shot to death in the middle of the night by an intruder. He was a local celebrity. His handsome, smiling face stared out of newspaper photos and TV screens, his silver hair reflected the light. He was going to be the next governor. The police would drag in everybody he knew.

They would question her. She flinched at the rough laugh that erupted from her throat. They would already have the answers. Telephone records, statements of busybodies who had spotted her BMW in the neighborhood. They would ask when she had last gone to David's house, and would wait for her to lie and concoct a story, knowing she had been there Saturday night and that David had asked her to come around midnight last night. She could feel the panic rising inside her; her thoughts were zigzagging off course. She had to stay focused. How could the police possibly know about last night? She and David hadn't spoken since Saturday when they had made plans. But the police could guess. They would hammer her.
Isn't it true, you often went to Mathews's house in the middle of the night? Isn't it true you were there last night?

Her heart was leaping so hard against her ribs she feared it would turn over. She had seen David's killer, that was the thing. A woman. How many women had he invited over last night? What was she, just another knot on a long rope of conquests? Hurrying away one lover before the next arrived? The woman under the light on David's porch had blond hair, tapering about her face, trailing onto the shoulders of her dark jacket. She was beautiful, with high, prominent cheekbones, fine features and eyes that had narrowed in her direction. A quizzical look had come into her expression, as if she couldn't believe someone was actually out there, looking at her. Then the woman had swung around, darted along the front of the house, and disappeared past the corner.

Kim had also swung about. She had run for the BMW parked down the block.
For godssakes, don't park in front of the house.
David's voice kept injecting itself into her thoughts, as if he were on the other side of the living room, issuing orders. He was always in control, managing all of his lives, she thought. She wondered which life she had fit into, or if she had really been part of any.

She took a last, long draw on the cigarette that was now no more than a butt, the heat licking at her fingertips, then squashed what was left into the saucer on the windowsill and studied the little flume of gray smoke that laced her fingers. She had been hurrying toward the house when she heard the gunshots. Three loud pops, like an engine backfiring, but different, more hollow and definite. She had heard gunshots before, last year on South Beach in Florida. She had seen the colored lights twirling over the bodies sprawled on the dance floor, the crowd shouting and pushing through the doors, and somehow she had managed to push with them and gotten outside. She remembered running down the street and weaving through the parking lot, frantic to find her car, finally getting behind the wheel and driving and not stopping until she was so far away no one would remember she had ever been there.

Last night, she had done the same, when she should have gone to him, gotten inside somehow, called 911. Maybe she could have helped him. David might be alive, and this thought was like a balloon expanding inside her head, a balloon filled with tears. When it exploded, and it would explode, she would never be able to stop crying. She pressed the tips of her fingers against her eyes. She must not give in. She had to think straight, fix in her mind everything she had done.

She had driven to her apartment, parked in the lot, and run—shoulders hunched around herself—through the lobby and up the stairs, which might have been a mistake. A neighbor could have seen her in the lot, heard her on the stairs, and checked the clock. Almost one o'clock. Enough time for her to have left David Mathews's house and driven home. She had spent the rest of the night huddled on the sofa, smoking, barely aware of the stuffiness and warmth of the apartment. She had felt colder and colder, as if her muscles and tendons and the blood in the blue veins that popped from her hands were turning into ice. At some point, she realized it was morning. Light glowed in the windows and ran like water around the living room. She had pushed herself to her feet, brewed a pot of coffee, and turned on the TV. Banners ran along the bottom of the screen. “Shooting at home of gubernatorial candidate, David Mathews. Male body found. No ID yet.” She had turned it off.

Now she went over, flipped the TV back on and took up her perch on the sofa, cradling a mug of coffee in her hands. The heat warmed her palms. A woman announcer spoke over the scenes flashing across the screen, like scenes from a disjointed movie. “. . . positively identified the gunshot victim as David Mathews, the Republican candidate for governor. His body was found by his housekeeper at five o'clock this morning. Police estimate that Mathews was shot sometime around midnight.”

A picture of the house appeared on the screen. The house and lawn and sidewalk marked off by yellow police tape, people milling about beyond the tape, cameras flashing. Then the front door opened, and two men in dark jackets wheeled a gurney down the sidewalk. “At this point, police say they have no suspects,” the woman announcer said. A man's voice cut in: “We should point out the investigation has just gotten under way.” The woman again: “Absolutely. We understand the victim's wife, Sydney Mathews, a prominent Denver socialite, was denied access to the house.”

“Well, police always want to protect the scene, you know,” the man said. “Only officials allowed inside. Police, medical examiner, lab technicians, people like that.”

“The body was removed to the Denver morgue,” the woman went on. “A viewing was held there, and Mrs. Mathews positively identified her husband.” The woman was shaking her head. “David Mathews was a well-known figure, and his death is a significant loss to the community. The police will be under a lot of pressure to solve his murder.”

The camera had focused on the opened door to the house, and for just a moment, a woman with blond hair appeared in the doorway. Kim gripped the mug that jumped in her hands. Hot coffee spilled onto her blue jeans and bit into her thighs. She got up and went to the TV. God! She had seen the woman before! Last night, coming out of David's house, standing under the porch light, running away. In an instant, the blonde was gone, melted into the shadows inside, and the camera had moved to the gurney being loaded into a white van with black letters, Denver City and County Coroner, across the side.

Kim stayed in front of the TV, waiting for another glimpse of the blond woman. David's killer in the house! It made no sense. No one had been allowed inside except for the police and people working with them. Unless the woman was someone the police wanted to talk to. But that didn't make sense either. Why would they interview her at the house? They would have taken her to police headquarters.

Which meant David's killer had a right to be at the house. She had to be some kind of official. Maybe a policewoman, a detective wearing civilian clothes.

Oh, this was good, almost funny in fact. The woman who killed David could be a detective. She could even be in charge of the investigation. Kim tried to swallow back the laughter that burned her throat like acid. If she were to start laughing, she wouldn't stop. Laughing, crying, screaming, she would lose herself in the hysteria she could sense crouching close, like a fanged monster ready to pounce and drag her under.

She refilled the mug, lit another cigarette and went back to the window. Morning traffic crawled along the street below, and the sun shone in the windows across the street. The sound of a horn came from a long distance. This was a new complication to consider, something she hadn't foreseen. If what she suspected was true, no one would believe her. She could go to the police, tell them that the woman she saw outside David's house last night was the same blond-haired woman, the same cheekbones and jawline, the same narrowed eyes, as the woman on TV, standing in the doorway, dressed in a dark blazer and tan slacks. A killer and, most likely, a detective. One and the same. By admitting she had seen the killer, she would be admitting that she was there last night, outside David's house. The police would look into her relationship with David, the on-again, off-again one-night stands that had gone on for six months, her stint as an escort in Denver, even though she had given that up shortly after she met David. It would never do, if their relationship became the subject of gossip, for anyone to think David Mathews had to resort to an escort service, even one with the assurances of quality and confidentiality as Morningtide, LLC. She would become the suspect—the former escort, the party girl from South Beach, the throwaway woman. They would never believe her.

But she had to tell someone. Someone had to know. She glanced over at the TV again, the sound so low she could barely make out the banter between the announcers. Again the gurney moved down the sidewalk in what seemed like an endless, revolving loop, and the blond-haired woman appeared in the doorway. For a moment, Kim thought about calling the TV reporters and telling them what she saw. An anonymous call with no hint of who she might be. She dismissed the idea. Why would they believe her?

She went into the bedroom, opened her laptop and typed in “David Mathews.” A series of sites materialized, most linking to articles in the
Journal
. She clicked on the first. David's picture came up, standing on the top step at the capitol, all smiles and nods and victory fists thrown in the air, announcing his candidacy. The byline read: “Catherine McLeod, investigative reporter.”

She had to think. Catherine McLeod had covered the campaign. She probably knew more about David than anyone else. But she couldn't call the newspaper from the apartment. She couldn't leave any traces. She glanced at her watch: almost ten thirty. Walmart was four blocks away. She found her bag, hurried across the room and stopped at the door. She had to compose herself. Nothing about her could seem unusual. There could be nothing that the clerks who helped her select a disposable cell phone or checked her out at the register might remember. Just another woman making a purchase.

4

The new offices of the
Denver Journal
occupied three floors in a sleek concrete building that rose against the skyscrapers of downtown Denver and overlooked Civic Center Park. A short walk from the capitol, library, art museum, history museum, dozens of restaurants and the shuttle that ran up and down Sixteenth Street. Catherine wheeled off a side street and onto the ramp that dropped like an amusement park ride into a fantastic underworld of dim, surrealistic light suffusing rows of parked cars. She slid into her slot. The sound of her door slamming bounced off the concrete walls. Musty chemical smells that accumulated with the dozens of vehicles that crawled up and down the ramp every day filled the garage. She hurried toward the swoosh and crank of the elevator in the far wall, conscious of her heels clicking on the concrete.