Judging Time (6 page)

Liberty waved his hand at one of the spans of sofa but didn't go so far as to invite the two detectives to sit. April noted his demeanor carefully. The man was clearly annoyed by their intrusion, but she couldn't attribute a meaning to the tension in his jaw. He looked as if he were about to, or just had, bitten off the end of his tongue. As men often did, Liberty concentrated on Sanchez, stared at him challengingly as if he did not want to lower himself by asking again what was the reason for their predawn visit.

As she watched the set of Liberty's powerful clenched jaw that was so photogenic and had daunted so many opponents on the playing field, April flashed back to the story she'd heard several years ago of the middle-class man who claimed his wife had thrown herself from the fifteenth-floor window in their bedroom. Simple case. The husband gave a great performance, weeping, telling the detectives how the tragedy occurred—what the distraught woman had said, how she stormed out of the living room where he had been sitting reading the evening paper. Everything. Problem was it didn't add up. For one thing, there had been no sign of an evening paper. For another, the woman's makeup was carefully laid out on the dressing table, and only one of her eyes had been completed. The picture was of a woman interrupted in the middle of an activity. In addition, one of her slippers had snagged on the claw foot at the end of a leg on her dressing table. The other slipper was on her foot when she was found. When confronted with the question of the unfinished makeup and the snagged slipper, the man calmly confessed that after thirty years of his wife's boring conversation he couldn't face another dinner with her and threw her out the window as she was getting ready to go out.

"I'm sorry to have to bring you bad news," Mike said now.

Liberty swallowed. "What kind of bad news?"

Mike glanced at April.

Liberty closed his eyes. "Is it my mother?"

"It's two people," Mike said slowly.

The man looked hostile. "Who?"

"Your wife. And the man who was with her."

"That's not possible. You're mistaken."

"I'm sorry, sir," April said. "Would you like to sit down?"

"No." Liberty spun around as if there were a sound at
his
front door. "My wife's fine. She's on her way."

He stared at the door, waiting for it to open. Nothing. The tan gallery was dark and silent.

Mike and April watched him watching for an elevator that wasn't going to come.

"I'm sure you've made a mistake. They're fine. I know they are," he said again, concentrating on the front door.

Mike shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir."

Suddenly Liberty's face contorted. He put his hands to his forehead and gripped it with both huge paws, shielding his eyes.

"Do you want me to get you something?" April murmured.

"I get migraines. My doctors say they come from an old football injury. But I've always had them."

Mike glanced at April.

Liberty's hands dropped to his sides. "I have to call the restaurant. My wife
is
there."

"It's four in the morning," Mike said. "There's no one there."

"Four?" Liberty lifted
his
arm to check his watch. He wasn't wearing it. He frowned. "I just spoke to her. Four in the mornings—? I must have fallen asleep." He stared at them. "What happened?"

"We're not sure yet. Mr. Petersen may have had a heart attack."

"A heart attack?" Liberty cocked the head he said was hurting him. "A heart attack? Where's Merrill? Did she go to the hospital with him?"

"No, she was assaulted in front of the restaurant."

"What?" Sweat glistened on his forehead. His two-hundred-pound physique still looked like solid muscle. He towered over them. April would not like to fight him in a dark alley.

"She was struck as she left the restaurant," April said, taking up the slack.

"Struck? That just can't be true—"' Finally Liberty sat down.

Mike and April remained standing. After a second the big man got up again. "Tor had a heart attack and my wife was attacked? How could such a thing happen? Where were they? I—"

"They were leaving the restaurant. Somebody attacked your wife in the yard. She's dead. I'm sorry," April said softly.

"Dead—?" Liberty clutched his head. "In the yard?" His face was ashen. "Oh Jesus. This can't be happening. He was a thief. I didn't think he was a killer. No, no."

"Who?" Mike said sharply. "Who's a killer?"

"I told Tor that guy Jefferson was trouble. He just wouldn't listen. First my car. Now this—I can't believe—" He broke off.

"Your car?" Mike frowned at April.

"He took my car while I was in Europe. When I got back last week he told me the car had been stolen off the street. I tried to convince Tor to fire him right then."

"Who are you referring to, sir?" April asked gently.

"Wally Jefferson, Tor—Mr. Petersen's driver. My head is bad. I need a doctor."

"Yes, sir. We can call one right away."

"And call Jason Frank. his wife was with them, with Merrill and Tor. Emma's not—?"

"No, she wasn't with them." April had been feeling hot and dizzy and a bit confused herself in the warm apartment. Now she relaxed a little. They had a suspect. Liberty seemed to think the chauffeur who had stolen his car might have been the killer. That was a start. She was also comforted by the fact that Jason Frank was Liberty's doctor. April narrowed her eyes at him. So the former football player was seeing a shrink. In her eyes that made him suspect of something, but she wasn't sure what. It could mean Liberty was depressed, or mentally unbalanced in some other way. Maybe violent. Interesting about the headaches. Certainly Jason Frank would know. April had influence with Jason Frank.

Mike's hand brushed April's arm. She knew what the gesture meant. Everything in their lives had changed, and yet here they were again, back on a case together—she, Mike, and Jason Frank. The ghost of Merrill Liberty was like the wing of a butterfly fluttering against April's cheek. Her heart thudded so loudly in her chest she could almost hear it.

5

W
ell, what do you think then?" Daphne Petersen directed her question at Sanchez, who seemed to expand a few inches under her gaze. The new widow was an intense young woman with big blue eyes, the fairest skin, hair even inkier than April's own, and a voluptuous body clearly visible under her tightly belted satin robe. She spoke with a strong English accent and seemed to enjoy the reaction she was getting from the visiting detective.

"Ah . . ." Mike stalled. Paired with the pose she had taken, the question seemed to confuse him.

April made a little disapproving noise through her nose. The victim's wife was supposed to be in shock, not the detective breaking the news. Daphne Petersen, however, was nowhere near shock. She was hardly surprised to see them, nor did she seem to mind being roused before dawn to hear about the death of her husband during the night. She responded to the news with a somewhat detached interest, as if the deceased had been a neighbor with whom she had shared a driveway.

"What do you mean?" Mike got out at last.

"Well, do you think it's some sort of drug thing, a hit of some sort? A buy gone wrong? A jealous husband?' ' She tossed her head of black curls that didn't look as if they'd been disturbed by sleep. They bounced back to their former position. The curls framed a face that, at 6:17 in the morning, was not by any means devoid of makeup.

As April examined her, she wondered if the English lady of the house already knew her husband was dead, and if she had not been alone in the bedroom when they arrived. Daphne Petersen was probably around thirty, some fifteen years younger than her late husband.

The only feeling the new widow exhibited for the situation was to shudder at the word "hit." Then she sought immediate relief in a package of Marlboros. Unlike Liberty, she expressed no shock or denial. She almost seemed to have been expecting them. April wondered if the woman's detachment might be a cultural thing. From what she had read about the English in the newspapers, it was pretty obvious that they didn't care much about anything. April turned her expressionless face to Mike to see what he thought.

He was scratching the side of his nose, considering her list of suspects in her husband's death. Drugs, hit men. Jealous husbands. Interesting.

"Did you know who your husband was with last night?" he asked gently.

She shook her head. "Who?"

"Merrill Liberty," April said.

Daphne's breath caught on a gulp of smoke. "Is she-"

April nodded.

"She's dead, too? Jesus!" She looked out the window.

Outside it was not yet light. The heat was just coming up in the Petersens' Fifth Avenue living room, which faced the fountain still ringed with Christmas trees in front of the Plaza Hotel, the huge menorah on the park side of the street with all its lights ablaze, and the section of Central Park bordering Central Park South. There were so many arresting views available that April hardly knew which way to look. Mike wasn't having any problems on that score. He was concentrated on the widow.

Daphne's breasts were several cups too large to stand up as high as they did with no visible means of support. April guessed they were not as nature had formed them. She also guessed the robe cost more than a sergeant's salary for several months. But there was no way of estimating the value of the ruby-studded, heart-shaped pendant the size of a plum that dangled from a heavy gold chain just above Daphne's cleavage. Mike raised his crooked eyebrow at April
The second trophy wife in the case.

April nodded imperceptibly as she watched Daphne stub out her cigarette and take a second from the package.
Yeah., and this one is the survivor.

"What do you mean, jealous husband?" April asked.

"I don't know. I was being smart. I didn't know he'd get mad enough to
kill
them." Daphne studied the cigarette, then lit it with a match from a giveaway matchbook.

"Who?"

"Well, Liberty, of course." She put her hand to her mouth. "They were very close friends—it's hard to—"

"Liberty and your husband?"

"Well, the three of them. Tor was best man at their wedding."

"Did you know where your husband was going last night?"

Daphne lifted a shoulder. "I wasn't here when he went out."

"Where were you?"

She tossed her head. "In church."

Mike hid a smile.

"Which one?" April asked.

"Saint Patrick's."

"What time was that?"

"How would I know? I wasn't here."

"What time did you go out, Mrs. Petersen?"

"Ten-fifteen.
A.M."

"And that was the last time you saw your husband?"

She nodded. "How were they killed?"

"We don't have a cause of death on your husband yet," April said. "He may have died of a heart attack—"

"What? Really?" The woman blew a cloud of smoke out of her nose. Confused, she tapped the cigarette on the side of a crystal ashtray already full of butts. "I thought you said he was murdered."

"Did we?"

"Yes, you said—" She scowled at April. "He wasn't murdered? Then what killed them—drugs . . . ?"

"Was your husband involved in drugs?" Mike asked.

"What do you mean 'involved'? You mean selling?" Daphne shook the curls. "He was rich. He didn't need to." She scowled some more. "He did like his snow-flakes though, didn't he?"

"Your husband was a cocaine user?"

"Oh yes, and woman user, too." Daphne fondled the heavy ruby heart between her breasts. "He loved rubies,". she murmured. "What about Merrill? Did she have a heart attack, too?"

"She was stabbed in the neck," Mike said bluntly.

"O000."
Shocked, Daphne clutched her throat. Then she inhaled with a wincing noise.
"O000."

For the ten thousandth time April thought people were weird. First the well-dressed black man with the terrible headache. And now the trophy wife with the artificial boobs who reacted more to the death of Merrill Liberty than to that of her husband. Weird. April felt a tickle at the back of her throat and fought a desire to sneeze. The tickle didn't come from the cigarette smoke. It came from her suspicious nature.

Mike coughed delicately. "Did you expect your husband home last night?"

Daphne shrugged. "With Tor, one doesn't expect. One takes things as they come. Most of the time he does come home eventually," she conceded. "What time did he die?"

"Sometime last night."

"I was here all evening, if you want to know. All night in fact. Anyway, I'm not powerful enough to give people heart attacks. But Tor was. He gave them all the time." She stubbed out her cigarette, splitting the paper and shredding the tobacco.

"Would you mind identifying his body later today?" Mike asked suddenly.

"Oh, is that absolutely necessary? I'm afraid it would make me sick to my stomach."

"You only have to look at his face through a window," Mike told her.

"Couldn't you arrange something?" Daphne pleaded. "Send his lawyer or something?"

April bristled as the cleavage became more pronounced. Of course they could. Mike would see what he could do. April rolled her eyes and made a note to kick him later. The two detectives stayed, asking the dead man's wife questions until the sun rose. Then they went out for breakfast.

6

J
ason, the last thing in the world I want to do right now is go in that room by myself and lie down." Rick Liberty shot Jason an angry look. "What do you think I am?"

Emma saw Jason check his watch and gave him a pleading look not to abandon them.