Kathy shrugged.
'How about a hot chocolate? I could make one while we're cleaning the dishes.'
'Okay,' Kathy said without much enthusiasm. Betsy followed her daughter into the kitchen. She was too small to have to carry the heavy burden of her parents' problems, but she was going to anyway. That was the way it worked and there was nothing Betsy could do about it.
After they were finished in the kitchen, Betsy read Kathy two chapters of The Wizard of Oz, then put her to bed. It was almost nine o'clock.
Betsy looked at the TV listings and was about to turn on the set when the phone rang. She walked into the kitchen and picked up on the third ring.
'Betsy Tannenbaum?' a man asked.
'Speaking.'
'This is Martin Darius. The police are at my home with a search warrant.
I want you over here immediately.'
A high brick wall surrounded the Darius estate. A policeman in a squad car was parked next to a black wroughtiron gate. As Betsy turned the Subaru into the driveway, the policeman got out of his car and walked over to her window.
'I'm afraid you can't go in, ma'am.'
'I'm Mr. Darius's attorney,' Betsy said, holding her Bar card out the window. The officer examined the card for a second, then returned it to her.
'My orders are to keep everyone out.'
'I can assure you that doesn't include Mr. Darius's attorney.'
'Ma'am, there's a search being conducted. You'd be in the way.'
'I'm here because of the search. A warrant to search doesn't give the police the right to bar people from the place being searched. You have a walkie-talkie in your car. Why don't you call the detective in charge and ask him if I can come in.'
The officer's patronizing smile was replaced by a Clint Eastwood stare, but he walked back to his car and used the walkie-talkie. He returned less than a minute later, and he did not look happy.
'Detective Barrow says you can go in.'
'Thank you,' Betsy answered politely. As she drove off, she could see the cop glaring at her in the rearview mirror.
After seeing the old-fashioned brick wall and the ornate scrollwork on the wrought-iron gate, Betsy assumed Darius would live in a sedate, colonial mansion, but she found herself staring at a collection of glass and steel fashioned into sharp angles and delicate curves that had nothing to do with the nineteenth century. She parked next to a squad car near the end of a curved driveway. A bridge covered by a blue awning connected the driveway with the front door. Betsy looked down through a glass roof as she walked along the bridge and saw several officers standing around the edge of an indoor pool.
A policeman was waiting for her at the front door.
He guided her down a short set of stairs into a cavernous living room.
Darius was standing under a giant abstract painting in vivid reds and garish greens. Beside him was a slender woman in a black dress. Her shiny black hair cascaded over her shoulders and her tan spoke of a recent vacation in the tropics. She was stunningly beautiful.
The man standing next to Darius was not. He had a beer gut and a face that would be more at home in a sports bar than a condo in the Bahamas.
He was dressed in an unpressed brown suit and white shirt. His tie was askew and his raincoat was draped unceremoniously over the back of a snow-white sofa.
Before Betsy could say anything, Darius thrust a rolled-up paper at her.
'Is this a valid warrant? I'm not going to permit an invasion of my privacy until you've looked at the damn thing.'
'I'm Ross Barrow, Ms. Tannenbaum,' said the man in the brown suit. 'This warrant's been signed by judge Reese. The sooner you tell your client we can go through with this, the sooner we'll be out of here. I could have started — already, but I waited for you to make certain Mr. Darius had representation during the search.'
If Darius was a black dope dealer instead of a prominent white socialite and businessman, Betsy knew the house would have been a shambles by the time she arrived. Somebody had ordered Barrow to go very slowly with this case.
'The warrant seems okay, but I'd like to see the affidavit,' Betsy said, asking for the document the police prepare to convince a judge that there is probable cause for the issuance of a warrant to search someone's house.
The affidavit would contain the factual basis for the suspicion that somewhere in the Darius mansion was evidence of a crime.
'Sorry, the affidavit's been sealed.'
'Can you at least tell me why you're searching? I mean, what are the charges?'
'There aren't any charges yet.'
'Let's not play games, Detective. You don't roust someone like Martin Darius without a reason.'
'You're going to have to ask District Attorney Page about the case, Ms.
Tannenbaum. I've been told to refer all inquiries to him.'
'Where can I reach him?'
'I'm afraid I don't know that. He's probably home, but I'm not authorized to give out that number.'
'What kind of bullshit is this?' Darius asked angrily.
'Calm down, Mr. Darius,' Betsy said. 'The warrant is legal and he can search. There's nothing we can do now. If it turns out that the affidavit is faulty, we'll be able to suppress any evidence they find.'
'Evidence of what?' Darius demanded. 'They refuse to tell me what they're looking for.'
'Martin,' the woman in black said, laying a hand on his forearm, 'let them search. Please. I want them out of here, and they're not going to leave until they're through.'
Darius pulled his arm away. 'Search the damn house,' he told Barrow angrily, 'but you'd better get yourself a good lawyer, because I'm going to sue your ass all over this state.'
Detective Barrow walked away, the insults bouncing ineffectively off his broad back. just as he reached the steps leading out of the living room, a gray-haired man in a windbreaker entered the house.
'The tread on the BMW matches and there's a black Ferrari in the garage,' Betsy heard him say. Barrow motioned to two uniforms who were standing in the entryway. They followed him back to Darius.
'Mr. Darius, I'm placing you under arrest for the murders of Wendy Reiser, Laura Farrar and Victoria Miller.'
The color drained from Darius's face and the woman's hand flew to her mouth, as if she was going to be sick.
'You have the right to remain silent Barrow said, reading from a laminated card he had taken from his wallet.
'What the fuck is this?' Darius exploded.
'What is he talking about?' the woman asked Betsy.
'I have to inform you of these rights, Mr. Darius.'
'I think we're entitled to an explanation, Detective Barrow,' Betsy said.
'No, ma'am, you're not,' Barrow responded. Then he finished reading Darius his Miranda rights.
'Now, Mr. Darius,' Barrow went on, 'I'm going to have to handcuff you.
This is procedure. We do it with everyone we arrest.'
'You're not handcuffing anyone,' Darius said, taking a step back.
'Mr. Darius, don't resist,' Betsy said. 'You can't do that, even if the arrest is illegal. Go with him. just don't say a thing.
'Detective Barrow, I want to accompany Mr. Darius to the station.'
'That won't be possible. I assume you don't want him questioned, so we'll book him in as soon as we get downtown. I wouldn't go down to the jail until tomorrow morning. I can't guarantee when he'll finish the booking process.
