The Proof is in the Pudding (20 page)

“Wait.” Parker took a small white card from his pocket, scribbled something, and handed it to me. “Me numbers. Call if there’s anything I can do for you.”

I thanked him and we said good night.

Outside in the cold night air, I shivered. To my amazement, the ordinarily chivalry-challenged Hugh Weaver offered to give me his jacket.

“No, thanks. My car is right over there.”

As I unlocked the Jeep, Weaver said, “Keep this to yourself, but I figure you deserve to know what we learned so far. One of the SID guys is ex-Special Forces. Even before Ballistics gets a look, he says he’s sure the sniper’s bullet came from a Walther WA 2000. If the shooter had that kind of weapon, it’s unlikely he could have missed if he really was shooting at you, so Hatch dropped that theory. Good news for you—you don’t have to look behind you on every corner—but it puts John back as Hatch’s number one suspect. The other thing we know is that the shot came from the roof of that two-story building directly across the street from the coffeehouse. SID measured the angle the slug hit the window at and traced the trajectory backward.”

“Did they find a shell casing?”

Weaver shook his head. “The shooter policed his brass.”

I knew what that meant: Whoever fired the weapon was smart enough not to leave a shell casing behind for evidence.

“I’m guessin’ we’re not dealing with some ‘disadvantaged youth’ out to pop one off at the folks drinking designer coffee,” Weaver said.

“If the shot wasn’t random, then Roland Gray really was the target.”

“That’s how I see it.” Weaver glanced back toward the hospital. “But Hatch still has a hard-on for John. Tomorrow he’s going to start looking for a connection between John and the writer.”

“There isn’t one, Hugh.” I wanted to scream in frustration, but I forced myself to stay calm. “You’ve got to make Hatch look at the facts. Keith Ingram was murdered on Wednesday night. Less than twenty-four hours later, someone tried to kill Roland Gray. I know that John lost his temper and slugged Ingram in front of a room full of witnesses, but he had no argument with Gray. He never even met the man until earlier tonight, after my TV show. Whoever killed Ingram had a reason to try to kill Gray. John did not.”

“I hope you’re right about that, but you can bet that if John ever so much as gave Gray the finger, Hatch is going to find out about it.”

Because there was very little traffic at this early hour of Friday morning, I drove home from the hospital concentrating on two nagging questions: Who killed Keith Ingram, and who tried to kill Roland Gray? I visualized this puzzle as a triangle, with Gray and Ingram at opposite sides of the base but with a question mark at the triangle’s apex.

Thinking of the father and daughter I loved, my stomach roiled with concern. Weaver believed in John’s innocence, but Detective Hatch didn’t. Or perhaps the truth was that he didn’t want to. According to Weaver, Hatch was focusing his energy toward linking John to Roland Gray. I knew he wouldn’t be able to find anything, but Hatch was wasting precious time looking in that direction when his efforts could be put to much better use trying to find the real killer. But Hatch was stubborn, and because of the old grudge he held, it looked as though he was determined to find evidence against John. By the time he abandoned that course of investigation it might be too late to find the person who murdered Ingram. Statistically, the longer that a case was unsolved, the less chance there was of it being solved. Unless there was an unexpected lucky break, and it was foolish to count on that happening.

The only evidence against John was his fury at Ingram. That was flimsy, but people had been arrested on flimsy evidence before. The longer John was under suspicion, the harder it would be on the O’Hara family. Because of her relationship with Ingram, Eileen already felt responsible for the trouble her father was in. I was worried, too, about what the pressure would do to her emotionally fragile mother, Shannon.

A block from home, my cell phone rang. I pressed the “Answer” button, said hello, and heard a man’s voice that always made me think of dark clover honey with biceps.

“Hey, baby. Where are you?”

“Almost home,” I told Nicholas D’Martino. “Where are you?”

“Standing on your doorstep. That will be me, waving at you.”

As I turned into the driveway my headlights swept the front of the house and illuminated his muscular body. The stray lock of black hair that perpetually fell across his forehead brushed the top of his thick eyebrows.

I jammed on the brakes and cut the ignition. No sooner had I reached for the door handle than it was opened from the outside and Nicholas pulled me into his arms.

We kissed, and held each other tightly. The deeper he kissed me, the louder my heart pounded.

When we came up for air, he asked, “Do you have to walk Tuff?”

“I’ll let him out into the backyard for a little while. I have so much to tell you.”

Caressing me through my clothing, he whispered, “I want to hear everything, but later. Okay?”

My responding kiss signaled that was definitely okay with me.

Later, happily spent, and Tuffy now curled up on the rug next to my side of the bed, I told Nicholas all that had happened earlier that night.

“You have to be right about Ingram’s murder being connected to the shooting of Gray,” he said. “Nothing else makes sense. The question is
how
are they connected?”

“I don’t know, but I have to find out.”

“Hold it. I’m not going to let you put yourself in danger,” he said.

“You hold it.” I sat up in bed, looked down into his dark Mediterranean eyes, and said firmly, “You should know by now that I do not let you tell me what to do.”

His full lips curved in a smile that I found hard to resist. I softened my tone. “However, if there’s something you want me to do, you may
suggest
it.”

Nicholas reached up and started gently caressing my breasts. “Fair enough.” Still lying flat, he inched his body closer to mine. “May I
suggest
that this time you be the one on top?”

A hot charge of desire shot through me again. I laughed, shifted my position, and whispered, “I am happy to take that suggestion.”

In another moment, there was no more talking.

After breakfast, I was saying good-bye to Nicholas at the front door when I saw Hugh Weaver’s personal car, a maroon Chevy Malibu with primer paint on the left front fender, a missing hubcap, and a faded red, white, and blue “Buy American” bumper sticker, screech to a stop in front of the house.

Weaver wrenched himself out from behind the wheel. Crimson-faced and sweating, he hurried up the path and demanded, “Are you crazy?”

With a sly smile, Nicholas asked, “Which one of us are you talking to?”

Weaver ignored him and aimed a worried glance back at the street. “Hatch managed to roust one of the ADAs and get him to talk a judge into signing a search warrant. Soon as he’s got the paper, he’ll be over here.”

A lump of dread formed in my chest. “Why? What are you talking about?”

“SID found your bloody fingerprint on the broken back window of Ingram’s house. Hatch knows you broke in. That’s probable cause for a warrant to search your place for anything belonging to Ingram.”

The lump of dread balled into a big fist and pushed hard against my heart and lungs. The worst had happened.

Nicholas gripped my arm. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“I wasn’t going to.” My voice sounded hollow in my ears, as though it was coming from a far-off place.

Weaver’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the faceplate and scowled. “It’s Hatch.” He answered with a brusque, “Yeah?” and listened briefly. “I’m getting coffee, that’s where the f*** I am . . . In Westwood . . . No, of course I didn’t
call
her—the Carmichael dame means nothin’ to me . . . ’Kay. I’ll meet’cha at her place in ten.” Weaver snapped the phone shut. “He has the search warrant an’ he’s madder than a tiger who missed a meal. You got ten minutes to think of a story, or do what you gotta do. And don’t thank me. I’m not doing this for you, it’s for John. In fact, I was never here.”

Weaver double-timed it back to his Chevy and tore off.

Nicholas looked at me with concern. “Is there anything you want to get rid of before Hatch arrives?”

“No.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” I said.

“I want to ask if you broke into Ingram’s house, and why you’re not worried about Hatch finding whatever he’s looking for.”

“It’s better if you don’t.”

“O ... kay.”

From the way he stretched the word, it was clear he knew my reply had been a silent admission of guilt.

“Do you have a criminal lawyer?” he asked.

“No.”

“I know a good one. I’ll call her for you.”

Her . . . He knows a lot of women.
“Thank you, but I hope I’ll never have to meet her,” I said.

“I think you’d like Olivia. Maybe someday I’ll get the three of us together. You two have something in common.”

From the smile on his face, I was sure now that I didn’t want to meet “Olivia” and find out what the two of us had in common.

“Before Hatch gets here, I want to walk Tuffy,” I said.

I took my Tuffy-walking jacket—the one with the pockets full of plastic bags for picking up after him—from the hall closet.

“I don’t think I want to know what your lawyer friend and I have in common.”

Nicholas chuckled. “You’d be surprised.”

I shoved my house keys into a pocket of my slacks and hooked the leash onto my excited poodle’s collar. Tuffy fairly bounced beside us as Nicholas and I headed for the street, where Nicholas’s prized silver Maserati Quattroporte was parked. He’d bought it several years earlier in a police department confiscation auction and was so careful with it he’d never turn it over to parking attendants.

“You don’t have to stay here,” I said. “Why don’t you go home, or go to the paper?”

“I’m not going to leave you alone with Hatch. He can be one nasty SOB.”

“All in the valley of death Rode the six hundred . . .” I quoted that grim passage from “The Charge of the Light Brigade” as we started down the street.

“I know a poem that’s a lot more cheerful,” he said. “ ‘There once was a soldier from Lutz, who was a—’ ”

“Stop.” I poked him on the shoulder. “I’ve heard that one.” Remembering the naughty rest of it made me laugh.

We were going south toward Montana Avenue. It was the route I usually took with Tuffy in the morning, and it was the direction from which I was sure Hatch would be coming.

“Speed it up, Tuff. We don’t have time to linger this morning.”

As though he understood the situation, or at least understood my need for him to hustle, Tuffy picked out a spot on the grass between the sidewalk and the curb and made a firm and generous deposit. Quickly scooping it up with the plastic baggie, I put that into a larger, Ziploc bag.