Deadly Fall (37 page)

The receptionist directed her into the large room that looked like any office. No uniforms in Major Crimes. Vincelli's head popped above the last workstation as he stood to greet her. He had his jacket and tie off, his collar open.

“I was in the area,” she said, “and wondered if you had any news about the case.”

“No more than I told you an hour ago.”

“An hour? I haven't seen you since the morning.”

“Didn't Isabelle pass my comments on?”

“Isabelle?” She settled in the visitors' chair, prompting him to sit down.

He looked at her across the desk. “She's phoned me it seems like a dozen times today.”

“About what?”

“It's always some little thing or other. She thinks she's some God-damn Nancy Drew. Can you find her a job to keep her occupied?”

“She found herself one, in my office.”

He blinked in apparent surprise. “Good luck.”

His desk phone rang. Not Isabelle again, she hoped.

“Yes . . . no . . . no . . .” he said. “I told you . . .” Something about his tone made her think it was a personal call. Did he have a girlfriend, or a wife? There were no photos in the cubicle. A calendar with a waterfall scene was the only remotely personal item. A handful of papers lay neatly stacked on his desk. He hung up the phone.

“By the way,” she said, “have you had a chance to read Felix's story yet?”

“This day has been hairier than I expected.” He scanned his uncluttered desk. His cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” He took it out of the pouch on his belt. This call appeared related to police work. “Noon tomorrow,” he said, jotting the details on his notepad.

He finished the call and apologized for the interruption. “Felix's writing is impossible. I'm waiting for the typed version.”

“It shouldn't take long to type it up, if you give it priority.”

“We're a busy place, as I've told you, what with people being off.”

“I had an idea about that,” she said. “Maybe Novak, your partner, could read it while he's recuperating with his leg. I'd be willing to drop it off at his house, if you give me his address.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

Her face grew warm. The idea had seemed more brilliant as a mere thought, but it wasn't stupid. “Calgary Police is paying Novak's salary. Why not get something for it? That's what we'd do in my office.”

“We aren't a two-bit insurance firm.”

“You don't have to insult me.”

“I'm sorry.” Not looking too sorry, he clasped his hands on his desk as they waited out a third telephone ring. “There's no time to discuss this right now. I've got a staff meeting in ten minutes.”

“Your staff meeting was this morning.” That sounded accusing. “I mean—”

“When we're busy there can be two or three a day.”

“I know you're busy. That's why I suggested—”

He stood up. “I can't miss this meeting.” His tone was almost shrill for him. He really was stressed and shaking. His face turned sheepish; as though he was embarrassed he'd lost control—by his standards.

“I am sorry,” he said. “It isn't your fault. I have this meeting and . . . I promise to phone you about any further developments. Pass that along to Isabelle. You'll have to trust us to handle this. Now, I've got to get to that meeting.”

She doubted the staff meeting's existence. Why was everyone accusing her of mistrust? She trusted everyone, she decided on the way down the elevator to her car, except for overworked policemen and suspected killers. And men who slept with you and blew you off the next day. Greedy insurance claimants. Cheating ex-husbands. Isabelle, who might blab to the wrong person about Felix's story. Who was left? Her daughters, her co-workers, Alice and Nils, and Hayden, who had offered to listen. This past week Hayden had given her lots of advice, most of it annoying and spawned by his jealousy. Yet, every time, it had helped her decide what she wanted to do.

Hayden listened to
her garbled recap of the story with surprising attention, considering the litter of work on his desk.

“There's a copy in your briefcase?” he said when she paused for a breath. “Can I have a look at it?” He pushed the paper and files in front of him out of the way.

She dug out the story. “You can skip the first five pages about wheat and little boys playing with guns.”

He put on his reading glasses, squared the corners of the sixteen-page stack and turned over the title page.

“I know his writing's hard to read,” Paula said.

“I've seen worse.”

Aside from the hum of florescent lights, the office was silent. All his co-workers had left for the day, even though it was only 8:00
PM
. That must be some kind of record for a law firm. He skimmed page six and the next page, turning the sheets over to a neat, upside down pile.

“Are you really reading it?” she said.

He nodded at the page. Her gaze strayed to the windows concealed by horizontal blinds he had closed against the afternoon sun, now gone. Beneath the blinds, legal texts filled his bookshelves topped by photos of his daughter and son, his first grandchild, and her. His kids lived on the east and west coasts. The plan was she would meet them at Christmas. Paula turned back to his desk. Hayden's reading pace slowed. From the size of the remaining pile, he had hit the story meat.

“Do you—?”

He raised his hand, palm toward her, not looking up. His brow creased. Was it possible that, unlike Vincelli, he could see the value in pursuing this?”

To occupy her hands, she fished the music box out from under a pile of papers. His souvenir from New Orleans, a city she'd love to visit someday.
The day was golden
Felix's story began. She tried to picture a young Hayden beneath the graying hair, filled-out jowls, and deepening facial creases. Like the rest of them, he had once been a student, with hopes and dreams. He had known Kenneth at university.

The discard pile was growing. Over halfway through, he would have reached the shooting of the boy. His forehead was pale, his reading pace snail-slow.

She set the paperweight on his desk. “It's hard to believe—”

He seemed stuck on the last page; the paper wavered in his hands.

“What's the matter?” She hadn't seen him shake like that since Sunday, when he came to her house and picked up the monkey-shaped candle. “Monkey in the middle,” she had thought he said. In the story, the circle closed in on the boy in the middle. The character she assumed was Kenneth later became a lawyer. If Samantha was a composite of Sam and Anne, that other character might be a composite of Kenneth and—

Hayden's forehead glowed with sweat.

“You were there,” she said.

He took off his glasses. Fear, resignation, everything but denial rushed over his face. The morning of Callie's death, they both had come to their offices alone. The cops had questioned him, checked for an alibi. She and Hayden had joked about it. When Felix died, she was with Sam and Hayden was—?

Hayden pushed back his chair. She grabbed her purse. He sprinted around his desk and caught her at the door, thudding it back to the wall. His arm shot out to block her exit.

“Let me go.” Paula pushed her shoulder into his rigid arm. She tried to duck the other way. Hayden's right arm wedged her to the door. His chin scraped her nose. She breathed in his odor of sweat along with the onions he must have eaten for dinner.

“Come back and sit down,” he said.

“I'm not crazy.” She had to get herself down that corridor, past the empty workstations, to the elevator, out the building door.

“I want to explain,” he said.

“And then kill me like you murdered Callie and Felix?” This was surreal. Not Hayden, her Hayden couldn't be Callie's killer.

“You're safer here than anywhere else tonight,” he said.

She raised her purse to shove him away. He squeezed it between them. The clasp dug into her chest.

“If I wanted to kill you, which I don't, it wouldn't be here,” he said. “The cops would link it to me in a minute.”

Was there a gun in his desk drawer, on his belt? Would he press it to her back, lead her out of the office, and kill her on some anonymous street? His beard stubble grated her nose. How could she have been with him for six months, shared his bed, and missed this whole side of him?

“Who are you?” she said.

“Don't you see? The cops have the original of Felix's story. If you're found dead anywhere tonight, they'll make the connection and investigate to the limits, starting with me, your jilted ex. I'd be insane to murder you knowing that.”

“Are you insane?”

“You shouldn't need to ask.”

“Were you there when the boy was shot?”

“Yes and no.”

“That doesn't make sense.” None of this did.

“I'll let you go, if that's what you want.” His grip didn't slacken. “But if you call the police, I'll deny everything and make up a story to explain your accusations against me. I imagine they've pegged you as someone hysterical and obsessed.”

She shoved his arm. How could she escape when he was stronger than her?

“I'll tell you what I know because it might save your life,” he said.

“How?”

“By preventing you from poking your nose into things you know nothing about.”

“Things that happened in Felix's story?”

His dark eyes studied her face. “You were right. There's a conspiracy going on. It will block the cops from solving the case.”

He dropped his arms. She froze to the door. He turned and walked toward his desk, shoulders slumped, looking so normal, so Hayden, behind his cluttered desk. The insane could look normal. So could sociopaths.

She held her purse like a shield. “Who's involved in this conspiracy?”

“Kenneth, Anne,” he counted them off on his fingers, “Sam, his son, me and, I'm hoping, you.”

“Was Sam there when they shot the boy?”

Hayden crossed his arms. “It's always about Sam.”

He wasn't reaching for a gun. Paula could make a clear break down the corridor to her car and home, where she would bolt the doors and stay light years away from anyone connected to this case. Sam would be definitely out of her life, as would Anne, her friend. She would send Isabelle packing to Montreal. With luck, she would return to her life from before, aside from the absence of Hayden and a nagging wish to know exactly what had happened.

Hayden looked up at her, like a friend, not a lunatic or cold-hearted killer. “You'll have to swear to keep all I tell you a secret. No spilling it to the cops or Isabelle or Sam.”

“If Sam's a conspirator, isn't he already in the loop?”

Hayden raised an eyebrow, his sign he wouldn't say another word unless she came back to the chair. She was free to run down the hall, but this was Hayden. She had to believe he wouldn't kill her.

Hayden moved the folders and papers to the side table. His penholder, jazz music box, and Felix's manuscript were the only objects on the desk between Paula and him. She reconsidered the option of running down the corridor to her car. His jaw shaded by five-o'clock shadow, which she had once found attractive, now felt threatening. He squared the manuscript corners to form the sixteen pages into a solid block.

“You know Kenneth and I were on the debating team at university,” he said, pushing the top sheets out of alignment. “One day, at the start of our final year, we got to talking about chess. He invited me to his place for a game on Saturday night. I wasn't doing anything.” His voice trailed. “I could use a coffee.” He stared as though he expected her to fetch it for him.

“Get it yourself.”

His heavy eyebrows shot up.

“What do you expect after you brutalized me?”

He rolled back his chair to stand. She held her breath, half-expecting him to grab the music box and attack. His walk to the thermos on his legal bookcase seemed slower than normal. Was that a wobble in his leg? She hoped so. Even with the door ajar, she felt claustrophobic. She asked him to open the blinds.

As Hayden carried their coffee mugs back, he described his arrival at Kenneth's house. His recollection was that Kenneth answered the door and took him downstairs without introducing him to his roommates. Hayden and Kenneth played chess in the basement rec room while music, laughter and the scent of patchouli and marijuana wafted from the main floor. Here he was on Saturday night playing a nerd game. “I wished Kenneth would suggest we join the fun,” he said with a wan smile.

Paula realized why her coffee tasted too heavy and sweet. Hayden had mixed up the mugs. He continued his story, not appearing to notice his coffee contained only milk.

Shouting upstairs distracted them from the game; they heard a loud blast. He and Kenneth ran up to the living room full of people shrieking and running around. “The smoke lit up what I thought was a scarlet blanket crumpled on the floor. Then, I realized it was a body covered in blood. My stomached heaved. I ran out to the yard and puked. Got to the bus stop and home and didn't tell anyone anything. Ever.” He spilled coffee onto the manuscript.

“Why not?”

He blotted the coffee with his handkerchief. “Kenneth stayed in there, mopping up the mess. I suppose I felt incompetent, in comparison.”

“Are you telling me you and he weren't involved in the shooting? Felix's story placed Kenneth, a law student like you, there.” Her hand shook. She glanced at the dark sky outside his windows. How did she know he wasn't lying?

“Kenneth took control of the cover-up,” Hayden said. “As an accessory, he could be charged along with the rest of them.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I think, from all he said, he was secretly in love with Callie and did it for her.”