The Second Man (21 page)

“Don’t try and work this out yourself. Call the detective and tell the truth. Don’t hold anything back because you’re worried it might hurt Max in some way.” Dave patted her shoulder. “Carly and the baby are at my place. You’re welcome to come by anytime. She wanted to come with me this morning, but I told her to chill for a while. But call her and let her know how you and Dorothy are doing, okay?”

“I will.” She pressed her fingers so hard against the thin paper card that they trembled. “I’ll call Detective Martin right now.”

He nodded at her slumbering mother. “Is she staying here for good?”

“No. Even if I hired three shifts of home health care aids she wouldn’t get the kind of therapy and care she was getting at Friend’s House, and we’ll run out of money fast. I will probably take her back there. But I need a few days to figure it out.”

Dave hugged her. “I know you’ll do what’s best for your mom, honey. But be sure you do what’s best for you, too. Okay?”

“Thanks, Dave. Tell Carly I’ll call her tonight.”

“Will do.”

Chapter 20

Jill glanced at her watch. She was sitting on a hard chair at an empty desk in the Santa Barbara police station, waiting for Detective Martin to return. Uniformed officers milled around, talking, joking, and more than one had glanced in to look at her with speculation.

Detective Martin had taken her statement, asking all the questions she had expected about the incidents at the nursing home, Max’s return, and her phone conversations with Marissa Pierce. He also asked her one question she had not been prepared for.

“Has anyone suggested to you that Marissa Pierce was having an affair with Hamilton Stewart?”

“What?” she had blurted out. “Since when?”

“No one told you those two were involved?” Detective Martin had replied. “Do you know if Mr. Stewart’s wife, Carly, thought her husband was seeing Miss Pierce?”

Jill had told him the truth, that Carly had expressed a worry that Hamilton was seeing someone, but she didn’t know who. She was going to have to admit this to Carly, and hoped that her friend would forgive her for sharing her confidential thoughts.

Jill rubbed the center of her forehead.
I thought Marissa was involved with Andrew, despite his declaration that he wasn’t sleeping with the ex-cheerleader. But Hamilton? Detective Martin has to be wrong about that.

Doesn’t he?

A commotion outside the door made Jill look up.

Two policeman were leading a man through the outer office. The man was dressed in prisoner denim, handcuffed, and his ankles were shackled. He stared straightforward, his face calm.

Max.

Jill gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. The policemen stopped outside the office. “Detective Martin wants a few words with you before the transfer. Sit down, Kallstrom. The bus isn’t going to be here for an hour or so.”

Max sat in a chair ten feet away from her. One of the cops left, and the other sat next to his prisoner. Both men stared at her.

“How’s your mother?” Max asked softly.

“She’s fine.” Jill walked to the doorway, leaning against it for support.

“I didn’t take her out of her room. And I didn’t take her necklace.”

“How did it get in your jacket?” Her voice was brittle.

Max clenched his jaw.

Jill sighed. If Max was being set up for a series of crimes, he was not doing very much to help himself. She saw the cop listening carefully, his body tense.

She crossed her arms over her chest. She had a million questions, but suddenly her mind felt empty.

“I don’t suppose you could leave me and the lady alone for a few moments,” Max said to the guard.

“No can do,” the cop replied.

Max stared back at Jill. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you everything I need to before all hell broke loose.”

She was sorry, too, but mostly she was angry again. He should have trusted her, she thought. “Where are they taking you?” she asked, her voice tight.

“Los Angeles.”

“Why?”

Max glanced at the cop. “Evidently the feds are trumping the local boys for wanting to accuse me of things I didn’t do.”

The cop smirked and shook his finger at Jill. “Don’t believe this guy and his ‘I didn’t do it’ line of bull. I’ve seen a lot of fine women like you waiting around for men who didn’t deserve them.”

“Thanks,” Max said drily. He stared at Jill, taking in her face and body. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about, Max.”

“Don’t give up on me. You didn’t before. Don’t do it now.”

She didn’t answer, but turned and walked back into Detective Martin’s office, her skin hot and cold at the same time. Her face flushed when she heard the other policeman return and tell Max it was time to go.

The sound of his leg shackles clanking together was the only sound Max made as they herded him down the hallway.

Tears filled her eyes. Her brain felt frozen with suspicion, and fear
. I let him make a fool of me again.

She sat heavily in the chair at the detective’s desk, unable to think of a single thing she could do to make any of the fifty things wrong in her life one bit better.

At home that night Jill stared at her cell phone. It was after nine and she owed Carly a call. Her best friend had left two messages, but she could not seem to screw up the courage to call her back.

She had to tell her what the Detective said about Ham and Marissa, and that she’d told the cops Carly had worried Ham was having an affair.

I shouldn’t have told them that, she thought.

When Dave Hart called, she had not been able to bring herself to tell him about the detective asking about Hamilton. But sitting alone now, she had the sudden thought that maybe he already knew, and maybe so did Carly, and that was why she and the baby were now staying with Dave.

The only new information Dave had passed on was that Andrew was also seen on the security tape from Marissa’s condo the day she was killed.

What that meant is anyone’s guess, she thought.

Exhaling loudly, Jill got up and rummaged in the refrigerator. The home health care aide who had watched her mother for a few hours today had offered to share her homemade tamales with her, but Jill had declined.

She wished she had one now. She took out bread and popped two pieces in the toaster, and opened the peanut butter, her go-to dinner when she was on her own. Her mind kept returning to Max.

She was furious with him, but her heart ached as she imagined what he was enduring.
What will he tell his daughter?
It was going to take time to clear all this up, especially to explain why he was seen going into Marissa’s.

As far as explaining away how he was found with her mother’s locket, the more she thought of it, the more she was convinced that someone had stolen it from her mother and had put it in his pocket to frame him.

Andrew’s been there. Could he have done such a thing?
It had a lock of his hair in it, and if it was found on Marissa’s body, it could have been taken out of the locket.
Could the crime lab people tell how old a strand of hair was?

As for the cops finding Ben Pierce’s phone, well, Max might be a lot of things, a lot of things she didn’t have any idea about, but he wasn’t stupid. Only someone stupid would carry around a cell phone belonging to a man he had murdered. That evidence had surely been planted, too.

Her front doorbell chimed and Jill jumped. She licked a trace of peanut butter off her finger and squinted out the front window. There was a car in the drive, a silver compact she didn’t recognize. She hurried to the door and looked out the peephole.

Andrew stared directly at her through the tiny lens. “I need to talk to you,” he said at the top of his voice.

Shit.

“Now, Jilly.”

“Go away,” she yelled. “I’m not interested in talking to you.”

Anxiety pumped through her. Even though Carly’s dad had validated Andrew’s credentials as an investigator, she didn’t trust him at all.

“I’m not the bad guy,” he shouted. “Come outside for five minutes. I need to tell you a couple of things.”

The check
, she thought.
I can give him the damn money and make it clear I don’t ever want to talk to him again.
She hurried down the hall to her bedroom, grabbed the check from under the mattress, and a few moments later pulled open the front door.

“Here.” She held it out, eerily mimicking Andrew’s movements when he pushed a vase of roses at her a few days ago.

“Your mother could use that,” he said.

“My mother is no concern of yours.”

Andrew pursed his lips and grabbed the check. He stuck it in his coat pocket and then glared at her.

Jill stepped outside, pulling the front door closed behind her. “You want to talk? Talk.”

“I told you Max was trouble,” he said. “You should have listened to me.”

She crossed her arms. “Why didn’t you tell me you enlisted Hamilton Stewart to spy for you?”

He blinked. “Who told you that I did?”

“Did you tell the police Marissa was sleeping with Ham?”

“You said I was sleeping with the lovely Marissa the other night. Changed your mind?” He laughed sarcastically.

“Don’t make jokes, Andrew. The poor woman is dead.”

He sobered. “I know that. No, I didn’t tell the police that Hamilton was sleeping with her. Why would I? Marissa never confided anything like that to me. Who said they were having an affair anyway?”

“I have no idea. But the cops think they were.”

Andrew frowned. “That’s interesting. I know Marissa was attracted to Hamilton. She chattered on and on the other night about how he dressed, and how polished he was. But she did the same thing about Carly. And Max. She was star struck to see all her old idols close up after all those years.” He stuck out his chin. “But you know, if the cops think she was screwing Hamilton, maybe she was. Our class isn’t known for marital fidelity.”

“Stop acting like a jealous thirteen year old boy,” she shot back. “Now look, the cops also think Max killed Ben and Marissa, and that’s not true, and you know that it isn’t. Someone is giving them bad information and trying to frame Max. You need to keep investigating. You’ve overlooked something.”

Andrew threw his head back and laughed. “Oh my god, Jill, are you that naïve? You continue to think the best about everyone, despite proof to the contrary.”

“There’s no real proof Max did anything wrong.”

Andrew shook his head. “He met with a known felon involved with a worldwide financial fraud scheme. He pulled a gun on me. Ben Pierce’s cell phone was in his hotel room! And, according to a cop who told me off the record, his hair was found at the murder scene.” Andrew pulled on his necktie, the red stone in his college ring sparkling. “I think you’ve taken leave of your senses.”

“Why, because I think someone could be framing Max?”

“Because you aren’t facing the facts.”

She blinked. “Marissa told me on the phone that she had Max’s class ring. If she did, then whose ring was found at the scene of Ben’s murder?”

“When did she tell you that?” Andrew’s voice was shocked.

“She called me the night before she was killed. So if Marissa had it, then the cops will find it when they go through her room. But they might not know about Ben’s murder details. I think you need to tell them if they find a ring it’s important. That could prove that Max is innocent.”

Andrew’s eyes narrowed. “You realize that you’re a weak witness for his defense, don’t you?”

“I’m an honest witness,” Jill said. “And if you are interested in solving Ben’s murder, like you say you are, then explain to me why Max would have killed him.”

“If Max is guilty of bank fraud, which the facts say he clearly is, perhaps he went to see Ben and tried to bribe him, or intimidate him.”

“And when Ben wouldn’t cooperate, what, Max killed him? Why would Max think that would stop an investigation? Ben wasn’t working alone, for god’s sake.”

Andrew frowned. “It’s clear you’ve given this a lot of thought. But you’re forgetting a couple of things. One, criminals often don’t act in a logical way. And two, Max Kallstrom has gone to some lengths to hide his identity. If you ask me, I think he killed Ben because he was trying to buy time so he could disappear with the monetary fruits of his crime, before the investigation was complete.”

“Then why show up at the reunion? Why would he risk it?”

Andrew opened his mouth, then closed it with a click of his teeth. “To see you, I imagine. Test the level of gossip about Ben. Look, I don’t have all the answers as to how or why Max Kallstrom has acted as he has, but it is clear he has secrets. And he’s a man. And men, even if they are a thief and murderer, feel love. And lust. Maybe you were his Achilles heel.”

“So you don’t believe he has amnesia about the year he was here for college?”

“No.” Andrew stuck his left hand in his pocket. “No. I don’t believe that for a minute. I think it’s a smokescreen to distract people. Give them something to talk about other than us.”

“Us?” Jill’s voice rose. “Jeez, Andrew, I didn’t get asked a single question about our break-up. Let it go.” She stared at the scar on his forehead. “No one even asked me about shooting you.”

“A couple of people asked me about it,” Andrew said defensively. “It was humiliating,” he added.

Jill blinked. “Why aren’t you allergic to peanuts anymore?”

“Now that is a true non sequitur.” Andrew narrowed his eyes. “I once thought I was allergic to peanuts, but it was actually all the illegal chemically-enhanced weed I was ingesting. One I got clean, the allergic reactions went away.”

She considered that for a moment. “Look, cash the check and consider all issues between us now complete.” Jill half-turned away and grasped the doorknob. “For the record, I am glad you beat the drugs. Goodbye, Andrew.”

“Wait.”

She turned. “What?”

“Will you please go to dinner with me?” Andrew put his hand on her arm. “Let’s go back a week. I want to see you. We once had things to talk about. Let’s give it another try.”

Talk about an Achilles heel
, Jill thought. Andrew’s the one who
can’t let go of the past.
Somehow she kept from rolling her eyes. “No. Thank you, but no.”

He squeezed her arm harder. “You gave Max a chance. I deserve at least that much.”

Jill pulled away and held up her hand in warning. “That hurt. Jeez, just when I thought you weren’t a total shit, you act like one.”

“Fine.” Andrew ran his eyes down her body. “I’m staying around for Marissa’s funeral, and I’ll be at the hotel for another week before I head back to San Francisco. You know how to reach me.”