Angel's Verdict Part 19

"Keep your cell phone on. I'm not sure where I'll be."

"h.e.l.lo!" Dixie yodeled. "Remember me? So you're just takin' off without talking to me?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm sure you can see it wouldn't be appropriate." Francesca's Southern-girl training kicked in and Bree smiled at her. "It was very nice to meet you. Thank you for taking the time to come and see me."

"Is it a conflict of interest to tell you the real reason why my sisters have it in for Justine?"

"No," Bree said promptly, and with sudden, intense curiosity. "It isn't. If it turns out to have a bearing on the case you and your sisters are bringing against Justine for theft, it would be sneaky. Sneaky is not a conflict of interest."

"Boss," Dent said in a warning way.

"The case is going to be set aside until the actual disposition of the brooch is settled, anyway," Bree grumbled. "But you're right." She sighed. "You can't tell me that, either, Dixie." Her smile broadened.

"But you can tell Mr. Dent."

Bree found that resting her weight lightly on the iron bar across the bottom of her foot steadied her enough to get down the asphalt path, using her crutches, of course, at a fair rate of speed. A patrolman stepped out from the warehouse overhang and stopped her at the bottom.

"Sorry, ma'am. You're approaching a crime scene."

The patrolman looked familiar. He had blond hair and very fair skin that turned pink under her puzzled scrutiny. A collection of police cruisers, emergency vans, and rescue equipment were gathered an eighth of a mile or so beyond him, down the cobbled street. Suddenly, recognition kicked in. "It's Officer Banks, isn't it?"

"So my ID tag says, ma'am."

"No. I mean we've met before. You helped me rescue my dog. Remember? About five months ago. He was caught in a steel trap just off Mulberry, and I called for help and you came. I'm Bree Beaufort."

His face lightened. "Sure. I remember. What happened to the dog?"

"He's fine. Healed up in record time. You'd just started on the job, as I recall."

"That's correct. Been on the force ever since." He looked a little wary. "You're a lawyer, right?"

"Yes. Is it true that you discovered Florida Smith's body this morning?"

"Can't confirm that, ma'am."

Bree decided it wouldn't hurt to stretch the truth a bit. "Ms. Smith was my client. Lieutenant Hunter should have been asking for me already."

"I'd have to confirm that, ma'am."

"Thank you," Bree said. "I'd appreciate that."

Banks spoke into the transmitter on his collar. "Arnie? The lieutenant handy? There's a Miss Winston-Beaufort wants access to the scene."

After a short delay, the transmitter erupted into a series of squawks. Banks looked at Bree's cast. "Yes, sir." Then he peered up the sloping road to Bay Street. "Yes, sir." Then, "I'll do that, sir. Ms. Beaufort?" It took her a second to realize Banks was addressing her. "You're supposed to wait right here."

One of the cruisers in the distance started up and b.u.mped slowly toward them. It came to the end of the road and reversed before it stopped. Banks held the rear door open for her. "You're to go on up with Officer Arnold, Ms. Beaufort."

Bree backed into the seat and sat sideways while the cruiser b.u.mped its way back. Officer Arnold was a stone-faced woman in her midthirties with bottle-blonde hair. She looked back at Bree once or twice but never said a word.

The walkway in front of the hotel was roofed and open on three sides. All of it had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. A crowd of onlookers on the far side were held back by the presence of two patrol officers. A few tourists, a clutch of media people with cameras, and the shopkeepers and regulars who were usually present on Front Street throughout the year milled around behind the tape. The crowd on the side closest to Bree was backed into a small section in front of a seafood shop specializing in buckets of oysters and cold beer. It was composed of the cast and crew of Bitter Tide. Hatch huddled with a couple of his handlers. Tyra Steele stood with her hairdresser, her makeup man, and a woman carrying a small white dog under one arm and holding up a cell phone with the other. Tyra, occasionally tossing her hair, was talking into the phone. A video feed, Bree guessed, with a direct link to Facebook. Justine sat on a camp stool, head erect, back straight. Craig Oliver stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder. Mercury-out on bail-and Vince White stood shoulder to shoulder, arms folded, with identical scowls.

A red-faced John Stubblefield harangued Sam Hunter. Stubblefield had one arm around Sammi-Rose Waterman. Her cold self-possession was gone. She was furious. And scared, Bree thought. Hunter's red-headed sergeant Nancy Markham stood at his back.

Stubblefield shook his finger in Hunter's face-a mistake, for anyone who knew anything at all about him. Hunter turned, nodded at Markham, and walked away. Markham pulled Sammi-Rose's hands behind her, cuffed her, and propelled her toward a patrol car.

"Good grief," Bree said.

"That got right up Stubblefield's rear end," Officer Arnold said gleefully.

"They've arrested Mrs. Waterman for the murder of Florida Smith?" Bree said.

Officer Arnold clammed up. "I wouldn't know anything about that, ma'am. Lieutenant Hunter wants to have a word before I take you home. You can ask him."

"Hang on a second." Bree swung her legs to the floor and tried the door handle. It was locked. "Hey," Bree said. "Would you let me out, please?"

"Sorry. The lieutenant doesn't want any civilians at the scene."

"You've got civilians all over the scene," Bree said furiously. "Either arrest me, Officer Arnold, or let me out. You can't do this." She whacked her hands on the gla.s.s. "Right now!"

"She giving you a little trouble, Arnie?" Hunter opened the back door. "I didn't give in to the temptation to leave you standing on one leg at the end of the street, but right now, right here, I'm asking myself why the h.e.l.l not."

Bree glared at him.

Hunter didn't twitch. "Arn?"

"Yes, sir."

"Get yourself a cup of coffee."

"Yes, sir." Officer Arnold touched her finger to her Stetson. "Ma'am. Pleasure driving you." Then she ambled off in the direction of the clam bucket restaurant.

"Pleasure driving me? Was she being Southern-polite or sarcastic?"

"Since she's from Detroit, I hazard a guess at the latter. Come on, Bree. Move over." He eased in beside her and took her hand in his. "This is a bad business. You're in no shape to take it on."

"I'm fine."

He c.o.c.ked his head. His eyes were gray, with fine wrinkles at the corners. He looked older than he was; most cops did. Sometimes, Bree thought she might love him. Sometimes she thought she could never love anyone, given the job she had to do. Mostly, she wasn't sure. "You don't look as bad as you might." He touched a finger to her cheek. "You're peeling."

"Really?" She strained to catch a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror. "Yikes. So I am."

"You've made a remarkable recovery. No doubt about it. But it's a little soon to be back in the game, don't you think?"

"What I think is, I'm capable of making that decision myself."

"Fair enough. So what's with the intemperate invasion of my crime scene?"

"Intemperate?" she flashed.

"Yep. As in ill-considered. What's your real interest in this case?"

I'm trying to solve a sixty-year-old murder on behalf of my client, who's been dead for more than thirty years wasn't going to cut it. "Florida Smith was a friend of mine. And a client." Bree thought a bit and improvised. "She had me on retainer to defend her against the Bulloch lawsuit."

"I thought the Bitter Tide attorneys would take care of that."

"As far as the script is concerned, of course. Flurry was worried about the book deal."

"Wouldn't her publisher pay for her defense?"

"She had an advance, Hunter. She didn't want anything to jeopardize publication. It was her first big break."

"Fair enough."

"Was she murdered, Hunter?"

"I don't know. I won't know until the results of the autopsy are in."

"But you arrested Mrs. Waterman."

"Mrs. Waterman arrived on the set this morning about nine thirty, with her lawyer, John Stubblefield, and an injunction to stop filming Bitter Tide. She got into a shouting match with Florida Smith and a.s.saulted her."

"With what?"

"She picked up a folding chair and hit Ms. Smith on the back of the head."

Bree's hand went to the back of her own head. The area was still tender. And she was really angry about the shaved patch at the base of her skull. Criminals were known to stick with the same MO. Maybe Sammi-Rose had clocked her after all. "Is the back of the victim's head a usual target for Mrs. Waterman?"

Hunter's smile was faint, but his eyes were cold. "That possibility occurred to me. Florida left to get a cold compress. She wasn't seen again until they pulled her out of the river at ten fifteen."

"Did anyone go with Florida, to give her a hand?"

"Two of the grips. Mercury's got a trailer here. The grips-Grant Thomas and Hudson James-got her settled with an ice pack and offered to call the paramedics. Florida said she was fine. They left her there."

"Then what?"

"We're interviewing the cast and crew, one by one. So far, no one admits to seeing her between the time the grips left her at the trailer and the time she was found in the river."

"Could she have been disoriented? Wandered off and fallen in, then been unable to get out again?"

"It's possible. You're thinking like a defense lawyer. Anything's possible at this point. I don't have the autopsy results back, we aren't finished with the interviews, and we don't have enough information."

Bree scratched irritably at the top of the cast.

"You need a knitting needle," Hunter said.

"So Ron tells me. Sam, you must have a theory of the case. What do you think?"

"My gut tells me it's murder."

"I think so, too." She glanced at him. His eyes were on his team. They were moving methodically through the crowd of restless cast and crew members, taking names, statements. "Why? Her death isn't going to stop the movie going forward. It might not even stop the book. She had a first draft. She told me so. If it's in decent shape, her publisher could hire another writer to finish it off."

"If they find it," Hunter said. "We searched her trailer. Her laptop, her zip files, her CD files. They're all missing."

Fourteen.

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.

-Hamlet, William Shakespeare Bree sat and stared at the whiteboard in the meeting room at the Angelus Street office. She'd added a question mark above her previously scrawled 4:30 a.m.: Haydee's body discovered in the river, and it seemed to leer at her. What had happened between Haydee's running out of the bar at one thirty and her being pulled from the river at four thirty? "I'm missing something here," Bree said aloud.

"I'm sure you'll think of it," Lavinia said placidly. Her gnarled fingers whipped rapidly along. She was knitting a cardigan out of soft violet wool. Bree's request to borrow a knitting needle had reminded her of the unfinished project. Her skin had taken on a faint, bronze glow, as if she were lit from within. She looked happy, and it eased Bree's heart.

"I looked through all of the police doc.u.ments available at the time," Ron said. "Florida Smith didn't miss a thing."

"It would be more accurate to say that there is nothing in the police files that is not in the deceased's files. Those that we have in our possession," Petru corrected him.

Bree scratched at her cast with the knitting needle. Her team politely avoided looking at her. "Nothing about a possible witness to Haydee's whereabouts after she left the Tropicana?"

"Notes of the persons interviewed only." Petru drummed his fingers on the tabletop. "That scratching is most annoying, my dear."

"Sorry." Bree tucked the needle into the tote at her side.

"As far as this current case is concerned, Lieutenant Hunter is of the opinion that Florida's death was motivated by a desire to stop the publication of the book?" Petru asked.

"If she fell into the river because Sammi-Rose gave her a concussion when she smacked her over the head with that chair, it sure was. He didn't come right out and say it, but he's thinking a manslaughter charge, for sure. And maybe that's what it is." Bree rubbed her forehead. "Maybe I'm totally off base about this. Maybe it's not murder."

"Could be. You're still recovering from your own concussion," Ron said cheerily. "All of Flurry's original files have been stolen. If she was murdered, whoever did it doesn't know that we have copies."

"That lets out just about everybody," Bree said crossly. "All of our possible suspects-Waterman, Cicerone, White, Mercury, Stubblefield, and even Justine were in B. Matthew's the night Flurry handed over the stuff to Dent and me. For all they knew, a copy of the ma.n.u.script was with it."

"And all of those suspects were present this morning," Ron said. "Why look for intelligent conduct from a killer?"

Bree stared at him. "Now, that's given me an idea."

"I don't see why it should," Petru said with a look of slight disapproval. "The evidence we do have points to a person who thinks logically, albeit with immoral ruthlessness."

"Something must have happened yesterday," Bree said. "Flurry turned something up. I wish I'd answered her call last night."

"She called you?" Ron said.

"Left a message on my cell phone. I figured I'd call her back sometime today." Bree rubbed her eyes. She wanted to cry with frustration.

Lavinia tilted her head, as if listening to something only she could hear. "I do believe Mr. Dent is outside."