under his roof. I understand his reasons in your case, but not in your brother’s. Did Jeremy have something on him, some kind of hold?”
No response for a time. Her lips were cracked and dry; she bit a piece of skin from the lower, scraped it off her tongue with a fingernail. Then, “He knew some things about Greg, yes.”
“What sort of things?”
“Business dealings. I told you Greg was a manipulator. Well, his manipulations got him into a bind once and he did something illegal to get out of it. I don’t know what it was exactly, just that it involved a small aviation company.”
“And your brother found out about it, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“When did this happen-the illegal act?”
“Five or six years ago.”
“So your brother blackmailed him-”
“It wasn’t blackmail. Not exactly.”
“Call it manipulation, then. Manipulating the manipulator. That’s how Jeremy got him to invest one hundred thousand dollars in the San Jose music show.”
She nodded. “And when Jeremy lost the money, Greg hated him all the more. That’s why Greg killed him and made it look like I did it-to get both of us out of his life at the same time.”
“This secret. Can you give me any details?”
“Jeremy wouldn’t talk about it.”
“He never mentioned the name of the aviation company?”
“No. Wait, yes, I heard him talking to Greg once. Green something Aeronautics. Jeremy knew one of the executives who worked there, that’s how he found out what Greg did.”
“Local company? Bay Area?”
“I think so.”
Tamara ought to be able to find out. I said, “Let’s get back to yesterday afternoon. Your husband made the drinks for the three of you?”
“Martinis for Jeremy and me, scotch for himself.”
“You said you felt woozy before you passed out. Your brother have the same reaction?”
“I’m not sure. I think he said his martini tasted funny, but… I’m just not sure.”
“Where were you, the last you remember?”
“Where? Oh. Sitting on the couch.”
“Your brother?”
“Beside me.”
“Your husband?”
“In his desk chair.”
“This was about one o’clock?”
“About that. Greg kept looking at his watch, saying he had to leave soon for some book auction.”
“The three of you were the only ones in the house?”
“Housekeeper’s day off and Brenda had already gone to the auction.”
“The shotgun? Still above the fireplace, or did your husband take it down for any reason?”
“No. It was where it always was.”
“Did he go near it, touch it?”
“No.”
Three hours. Pollexfen could have put enough of the Klonopin into their drinks to keep them unconscious for that long. Shut them inside the library, go off to Pacific Rim Gallery, come back in time to keep his appointment with me. But how could he have timed the shooting so perfectly, with the three of us right there when the shotgun went off? Some way linked to how he’d rigged the crime in the first place? Maybe, if he’d rigged the crime in the first place. But how in hell could you blow off the back of a man’s head when you were on the other side of a double- bolted door?
Angelina Pollexfen intuited what I was thinking. “I don’t know how he did it,” she said. “All I know is that I didn’t. My own brother… my God, we didn’t get along but I would never have threatened him with a loaded shotgun like they’re saying. I couldn’t kill anybody, not for any reason.”
I believed her. Her voice, her body language, the haunted desperation on her face and in her eyes… they all said she was telling the truth.
Pollexfen, then.
I think maybe I’d known all along it had to be Pollexfen.
20
DiSantis and I parted company in the elevator and I went on into General Works and the Homicide Division on the fourth floor. Linda Yin was away from her desk in the inspectors’ bullpen, but Sam Davis sat working at his. I gave him my signed witness statement, then asked if he had a few minutes to spare.
“Not really,” he said, but he gestured me into a vacant chair anyway. “What’s on your mind?”
“Couple of things. Gregory Pollexfen’s missing books turn up yet?”
“No. We figure they were sold off right away. By the vic or Mrs. Pollexfen or the two of them together.”
“But you haven’t found any record-large bank deposits, large amounts of cash, that kind of thing.”
“Not so far.”
“Well, if you can’t get some kind of trace, Great Western Insurance is stuck with paying off Pollexfen’s claim. So their claims adjuster wants me to keep on with my investigation.”
“We don’t have any problem with that.”
“How about with me doing a little sniffing on the homicide? As long as I don’t get in your way?”
“Better check with my partner on that. Why the interest?”
“I just had a talk with Mrs. Pollexfen, at her and her attorney’s request. I think she’s telling a straight story.”
One of Davis’s bushy eyebrows tilted upward. “Nine out of ten claim they’re innocent.”
“She could be the tenth who isn’t lying.”
“All the evidence says otherwise.”
“Evidence can sometimes be misleading. We both know that.”
“Sometimes. Not this time. Not according to forensics, ballistics, and pathology. We-”
His phone rang. Davis picked up, listened, pulled a grimace. “It won’t do you any good to keep calling, Mr. Pollexfen. I told you, my partner told you, you’ll have access when-What’s that?” He listened some more. “Look, just be patient, all right? Tomorrow, probably, that’s the best answer I can give you.”
When he hung up, I said, “Pollexfen seems anxious to get into his library.”
“Second time he’s called, demanding his keys so he can clean up in there. If he wasn’t a relentless pain in the ass, he might’ve got them back today.”
Keys, plural. Pollexfen’s and the duplicate found on Cullrane’s body. Standard police procedure to hold on to them, to ensure that the room remained sealed in case another examination of the crime scene was necessary.
I said, “Can I ask you some questions about the evidence?”
Long study before he said, “My partner and I asked around about you. You’ve got a good rep for cooperation with the department.”
“I was on the job myself before I went out on my own.”
“So we heard. Go ahead, ask your questions.”
“Nitrate tests indicate Mrs. Pollexfen fired the shotgun?”
“No. They came up negative.”
“But positive on Jeremy Cullrane?”
