Puzzled Indemnity Read online

Crowley blinked. “I’m not sure I even follow that. But when you sort it all out, I’m not sure I’m in the wrong.”

  “If you deceived me, you’re in the wrong.”

  “So. It all comes back to Stephanie.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Stephanie.”

  “Really? You could have fooled me.” Crowley got in the car, slammed the door. He rolled down the window. “You know, I could help you a lot more if you’d just level with me. Good luck with your case. Hope it doesn’t come back to bite you.” He slammed the car into gear. “I’ll try to get you a bad sketch artist,” he said, and drove off.

  Chapter

  39

  “What a mess!” Cora stalked Becky’s office like a caged tiger. “What a mess!” she repeated, adding a few choice modifiers.

  “It’s not so bad,” Becky said.

  “It’s not so bad for you. You got a client paying you money and no one’s charging you with blackmail.”

  “You’re not guilty of blackmail.”

  “Wonderful. That’s the sort of thing you like to hear your lawyer say.”

  Cora marched to the window, flung it open.

  “If you’re thinking of jumping, it’s only one floor.”

  A blast of cold air hit Cora in the face. She closed the window, turned around. “I could probably beat this blackmail rap. I got a hell of a lawyer. On the other hand, I got a puzzle I can’t even begin to figure out. Why the hell does a New York woman who may or may not have been sleeping with a philandering husband who may or may not be dead wind up with a crossword puzzle yielding the possible corpse’s address?”

  “You fault yourself for not being able to figure that out?”

  “I fault myself for not having a clue. Here’s a crime that doesn’t make any sense. There’s a million-dollar insurance policy, but the wrong person’s dead. The mistress isn’t the mistress, but she seems to have some connection with the victim.”

  “She’s more connected against than connecting,” Becky said. “Unless she sent herself that puzzle.”

  “You’re in an awful good mood.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t I be? Things are popping very nicely for me. My client’s got a perfect alibi and no motive. And she’s so scatterbrained I’m going to rack up a bunch of billable hours tracking down who issued her policy.”

  “Come on, Becky. You know you won’t rest easy until you know who did it.”

  “I’d like to know who did it, but I don’t have to.”

  “Yeah, well, I do,” Cora said. She picked up her purse, fidgeted, set it down, paced back to the window.

  “Would you sit down?” Becky said. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  “I’m driving you crazy? I thought you were the one without a care in the world.” Cora flopped into the client’s chair. Snorted. “Crowley’s got a girlfriend.”

  “Oh?” Becky said.

  “A peace/love hippie who’s never gotten out of the sixties.”

  “Isn’t that your gig?” Becky said.

  “I was never a hippie. I did try to levitate the Pentagon.”

  “How’d that work for you?”

  “It failed to live up to expectations. Kind of a metaphor for life.” Cora bounced up, resumed pacing. “Anyway, he’s known Stephanie—that’s her name—he’s known Stephanie ever since they were old enough to reach each other’s laps. I gather he was seeing her the whole time he was seeing me.”

  Becky whistled. “And you wonder why you can’t concentrate on the murder.”

  “I don’t wonder. I’m just not happy about it. And that’s not all. Crowley had to go and tell her I can’t solve crossword puzzles. You know who solved the one we brought in? And she’s good at it. Not Sherry-caliber good, but good. She does the Saturday Times puzzle.”

  “What about Sunday?”

  “Sunday’s just bigger. Saturday’s actually harder. And you know the worst part of it?” Cora said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I like her,” Cora said disgustedly. “She’s nice! Ain’t that a kick in the head? I can’t even resent her without feeling guilty about it. I’ve always hated the other woman. It’s one of the perks of the relationship. Having some cheap slut to disparage. But no! Little Miss Hippie Britches has to deny me that.”

  “Hippie Britches?”

  “See? I can’t even come up with a good derogatory nickname. As if that weren’t bad enough, I feel guilty about Melvin.”

  Becky’s eyes widened. “You slept with Melvin!”

  Cora waved it away. “No. Perish the thought. But when Crowley wouldn’t blackmail the woman, I had Melvin do it. Wouldn’t you say that was subconsciously cheating on him?”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that, because I wouldn’t think that. You needed a blackmailer, and Melvin’s typecast for the role.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Cora said. She flopped back into the chair, picked up her purse, set it down.

  “Good God, will you stop fidgeting! You’re driving me crazy and—” Becky’s mouth fell open. “Oh, my God!”

  “What?”

  “You stopped smoking!”

  Cora glared at her.

  “What were you doing?” Becky said. “Waiting to see how long it would take me to notice?”

  “Frankly, I wasn’t thinking of you at all.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you quit smoking?”

  “I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t want to talk about it.”

  “How long has it been?”

  Cora said nothing.

  “I haven’t seen you smoke since this case started. Three, four days. I bet it’s been a week.”

  “Nine days,” Cora said.

  “That’s terrific!”

  “Easy for you to say. You don’t smoke.”

  “You on a patch?”

  “No.”

  “Chew the Nicorette gum?”

  “That’s like kissing your brother.”

  “Kissing your brother?”

  “You get all the nicotine with none of the pleasure.”

  “You used to kiss your brother?”

  “I never had a brother. Look, I’m bouncing off the walls a little, so maybe I’m missing something. If so, I’d sure like you to tell me what it is.”

  Brittany burst in the door. “Got it!” she cried triumphantly, waving a document. “It was in the one place I never thought to look.”

  “Where’s that?” Becky said.

  “In his file cabinet.”

  “His file cabinet?”

  “Yes. But it wasn’t in the file marked IMPORTANT PAPERS.”

  “Where was it?”

  “In the file marked LIFE INSURANCE.”

  Cora rolled her eyes. “And you just found it now?”

  “Well, I wasn’t looking for a file marked LIFE INSURANCE. If he was trying to hide the policy, why would he leave it there?”

  “I guess he wasn’t trying to hide the policy,” Cora said.

  “Of course he was trying to hide the policy,” Brittany said. “Otherwise I would have found it.”

  Becky jumped in before Cora could formulate some devastatingly sarcastic put-down. “Well, I’m glad you found it. Even if Harper does think it’s a motive for murder.”

  “Why is that a motive for murder?”

  “Your husband was trying to kill you, and you beat him to the punch.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “Of course it is, and I’ll have no problem proving it. At least this will get him off my back.”

  The phone rang. Becky scooped it up. “Becky Baldwin.… Hi, Chief.… No, I haven’t forgotten. She just found it. She’s here right now.… No, I’m not stalling. She just got here. I’ll bring it over.”

  Becky hung up the phone. “See what I mean? All right, let’s take a look at the policy, make sure it says what you think it does.”

  Becky skimmed the document. Turned the page. “Here it is. Double-indemnity clause. One million dollars. Everything seems to be in o
rder and—” Becky’s face froze.

  Brittany looked alarmed. “What’s the matter? Isn’t it for a million dollars?”

  “Yes, it is. One million dollars, two million for accidental death.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “You’re the beneficiary. It’s not a million dollars on you. It’s a million dollars on him!”

  Chapter

  40

  “Widow charged!” Rick Reed proclaimed from the front steps of the Bakerhaven police station. “In a stunning development in the firebombing death of Bakerhaven resident Hank Wells, the grieving widow has been arrested and charged with his murder. Chief Harper refused to comment on the incident, but high-placed sources indicate that new evidence has come to light linking Brittany Wells with the crime. Late this afternoon rumors surfaced of a million-dollar double-indemnity life insurance policy on the victim, Hank Wells, giving the widow, Brittany Wells, a two-million-dollar motive for wanting him dead. Becky Baldwin, Brittany’s hotshot young attorney, could not be reached for comment.”

  Sherry picked up the remote control from the coffee table, froze Rick Reed with his head cocked and his mouth wide open.

  Jennifer pointed at the screen and squealed delightedly.

  “Becky Baldwin could not be reached for comment?” Sherry said. “When did Becky Baldwin ever pass up a chance to strut her stuff on television?”

  Aaron grinned. “Strut her stuff?”

  “Becky didn’t trust herself to go on TV,” Cora said. “She wasn’t sure she could answer questions without looking like she wanted to strangle her client.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you kidding me? The idiot hired her to find out if her husband was trying to kill her because he took out a double-indemnity life insurance policy, only the policy was on him. How stupid do you have to be to miss that little tidbit?”

  “Is she really that dumb?” Sherry said.

  “Jennifer could outwit her.”

  “So what? Jennifer outwits me,” Aaron said.

  Jennifer squealed at being mentioned.

  “Trust me, she’s a tree stump. Either that or she’s the most cunning criminal mastermind ever. And she’s not. The woman’s just plain stupid. No, Becky’s better off standing pat and waiting for Chief Harper to come down to earth. He was so thrilled with the motive he picked her up without stopping to think it over. When he wakes up he’s gonna realize she was in his office when it happened and couldn’t have set the damn thing off.”

  “Yeah, but if it was a car bomb that went off when he started the car—”

  “He was in the passenger seat,” Cora said impatiently. “Everything points to the fact he was trying to kill her. If the names on the policy were reversed, it would all make perfect sense.”

  “Maybe there’s another policy,” Aaron said.

  “Not according to Hartford Life.”

  “Couldn’t he have taken out a policy with another company?”

  “He certainly could. And Becky may spend a ton of her client’s money having me look for it. But she doesn’t have to. Chief Harper’s got motive. Or he thinks he does. He’s still gotta prove she knew the policy existed. It’s not going to be easy. But even if he could, he hasn’t got the opportunity, he hasn’t got the means, and he hasn’t even got a positive ID on the corpse. Which is why he let her go.”

  “He let her go?” Sherry said.

  “Rick Reed missed that tidbit. Only one of many factual errors in his report.”

  “Such as?”

  “Start with the lead. Widow charged. She wasn’t charged with anything. She was picked up for questioning. You can call that being arrested—she was read her Miranda rights. She exercised her right to an attorney, which didn’t take much doing since Becky was right there. She wouldn’t let her answer questions and said charge her or release her. So they called in Henry Firth.”

  “The prosecutor was there?” Sherry said. “I don’t recall that from Rick’s report.”

  “Probably because it spoils his story,” Aaron said. “The whole widow-charged bit.”

  “And he let her go?”

  “Ratface ran out of steam when he found out Chief Harper was her alibi witness.”

  “You’ve gotta stop calling him Ratface,” Sherry said. “You’re going to slip and do it at the wrong time.”

  “Ratface!” Jennifer cried gleefully.

  “Or that’ll happen.”

  “Ratface!”

  “See what you started.”

  “Me?” Cora said. “I didn’t do anything. She got excited because Mommy said it.”

  “Right, right,” Sherry said. “You make up the expression and I’m the bad guy.”

  Cora picked up the zapper, clicked Play. Rick Reed unfroze and finished the story. He talked for about three minutes and divulged no new information whatsoever.

  Cora zapped the screen again, said to Aaron, “So, what’s the paper going to run?”

  “The boring, factual version of the story. The widow was brought in for questioning and released; both the police and her attorney declined to comment.”

  “Sell a lot of papers?”

  “No, but I can sleep at night.”

  “I’m sure Rick can, too. He’s blissfully unaware he’s doing anything wrong.”

  “Yeah,” Aaron said. “You know the difference between a journalist and a gossip columnist?”

  “No.”

  “Neither does Rick. He reports rumors and innuendo. If I don’t have a source, I don’t have a story.”

  “Your man has integrity,” Cora told Sherry. “Did you know that when you married him?”

  “Why? Is that bad?”

  “I don’t know. I never married one.”

  “Speaking of sources,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah?”

  “You got anything you haven’t shared yet would send me running back to the paper?”

  “Relating to the men I’ve married? I certainly do, but you’re not going to get it.”

  “You’re in a much better mood,” Sherry said.

  “I am not in a much better mood,” Cora said. “I’m punchy. I’m losing it. I might say anything. It’s a good thing I didn’t have to deal with Henry Firth.”

  “Ratface!”

  Chapter

  41

  Cora got up, let Buddy out, let him in again, threw a bowl of kibble on the floor, and went back to sleep.

  The phone rang at ten thirty-five. She fumbled the receiver to her ear, murmured, “Mumph.”

  “Wake up. I need you.”

  “Becky?”

  “Yeah. Get in here.”

  “What’s up?”

  “You see Rick Reed’s report?”

  “His fairy tale?”

  “It just came true.”

  Cora splashed water on her face, struggled into her clothes. Her skirt was tight. Of course it was. She hadn’t dared step on the scales since she stopped smoking. If he skirt was tight after ten days, what would it be like in a month?

  Cora went out the door, slipped on a patch of ice. She regained her balance, cursed the gods of just about everything, got in her car, and sped to town a little too fast for road conditions.

  Becky was at her desk, talking on the phone. “How large a device are we talking?… Could it fit in the palm of my hand?… Well, could I carry it in my purse, surreptitiously reach in, and press it?… That’s the wrong answer. Thanks anyway.” She hung up.

  “What’s going on?” Cora said.

  “Motive and opportunity just fell into the prosecutor’s lap. An expert technician from the bomb squad managed to recover enough of the explosive device to determine it wasn’t any ordinary car bomb. It wasn’t wired into the ignition to go off when the car started. It had a radio trigger detonated by remote control.”

  “They’re claiming she set it off while she was in the police station?”

  Becky spread her arms. “Perfect alibi.”

  “Yes, but how would she know he w
as in the car?”

  “That’s what I’ll have to argue. Doesn’t matter. The fact is it wasn’t physically possible. Now it is. And if I raise the point, it will mean we’ve gone to trial. Do you know how far that is from yesterday’s we-haven’t-enough-grounds-to-hold-her-on-suspicion-of-murder?”

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s being booked and fingerprinted. They’re arraigning her at noon.”

  “For the murder of whom? They haven’t IDed the corpse.”

  Becky grimaced. “That’s the other kick in the head. They got the dental records. It’s a match. The grieving widow is officially a widow. The man she’s charged with killing is on the policy she worked so hard to find. You couldn’t ask for a worse case to defend. If I don’t put her on the stand, she’s dead meat. If I do put her on the stand, she’s such a nitwit the prosecutor could probably get her to confess to the Lindbergh kidnapping.”

  “You’re too young to cite Charles Lindbergh.”

  “I went to school.”

  “Whaddya want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. The facts of the case are terrible. I’d like them to disappear. Failing that, I’d like some new facts that contradict these facts, or at least cast reasonable doubt.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Ordinarily, I’d say the girlfriend. If only you hadn’t blackmailed her.”

  “Are we going to keep coming back to that?”

  “I certainly hope not. How about it? You got another angle?”

  “There’s the firebug.”

  “No, there isn’t. Chief Harper didn’t bite, and he was plenty pissed you finessed Rick Reed into asking him about it. You know and I know the guy had nothing to do with it, so lay off.”

  “Getting a conscience? I thought you were a lawyer.”

  “I’m a good lawyer. I don’t waste time beating a dead horse.”

  “Well, you woke me up and got me in here. Whaddya want?”

  “Oh,” Becky said. “Did I just want someone to listen to me gripe? I hope not. That would mean I was really losing it.”

  “Becky.”

  “I want you with me in case they throw anything at me at the arraignment.”

  “What could they possibly throw at you at the arraignment?’

  “I have no idea. But I’m spooked. Things come in threes. We have the detonator and the dentist. What else starting with D could possibly go wrong?”