Evidence of Murder

He came closer. “I thought you said I wasn’t your suspect.”

“I didn’t think you were.” She would not step back.

“I don’t do violence in this line of work. I don’t need to.”

Toddlers lied with more conviction. “Since you’re already annoyed with me, let me point out that Sarah Taylor used to work for you.”

“Yeah, your cousin was by, asking me about that too.”

“How did you know Frank is my cousin?” she asked out of curiosity.

Georgie smiled in a way she really didn’t like. “I know lots of things. Look, I had Sarah in my stable a long time ago, but she couldn’t stay off the juice long enough to turn a profit, so I cut her loose. Haven’t seen her since. In those days, I’ll admit, my girls definitely slept with clients. That was the whole point.”

“But not now.”

“Okay, look. I’m going to give you a lesson in escorting. Business 101, right?”

“Sure.”

“I charge enough that, whatever arrangement the girls might make with a client, I don’t care. I’ve been paid, understand?”

“Ye-ess.”

“So say the girls make more if they do have sex with the guy. The client is happy and might request them again. The girls are happy to have repeat customers and so am I. Everybody wins.”

“What if a girl made her own arrangement and bypassed you completely?”

“Of course that can happen. No system is without problems. But I would fire that girl, and eventually the client would get tired of her. Now she’s got no client and no job. Everybody loses.”

“I see.”

“It’s a business, Ms. MacLean. Nothing worth killing nobody over.”

“Okay. I get that. So Jillian’s father got angry at the, um, implication that Jillian would have sex for money?”

“I’ll say. Jillian came in later that night for a job, so I told her about it. By then I was laughing, but the poor kid started to cry. We had a cocktail party, like this one, and she kept having to run to the ladies’ room and fix her makeup. Pain in the ass, really.”

“What did her father say, as closely as you can remember? Did he threaten Jillian?”

“Hell no, he threatened me. Said if I touched her, if I even spoke to his baby girl again, he’d come over and bash my head in. Like I’m the one calling on the phone for her, you know? Oh, and then he’d have me thrown in jail. That was about it. I guess he thought better of it, because I never heard from him again. No visits, no cops throwing me in jail.” He shook his head with sympathy rendered false by the smile on his face. “Poor Daddy.”

“But he didn’t say anything about Jillian?”

“Not to me. I don’t know what he said to her later, because she seemed kinda depressed for a couple of weeks. But she kept working. She’d come in with this sort of grim, go-to-hell look on her face. I’d have to jolly her before the job started.”

“Jolly?”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Tell her she looked beautiful, throw in a joke, that sort of stuff. What did you think I meant, force a little Ecstasy down her throat until her mood lightened?”

“Just checking.”

“Not that she wouldn’t do a tablet or two once in a while. But it was never much with her, and stopped totally when she got pregnant. She wouldn’t even drink, then. Nothing but diet ginger ale. For these types of things”-he jerked his head toward the party room-“I’d have to make arrangements with the bartenders in advance for that damn diet ginger ale. The clients don’t want teetotalers around. It makes them feel vulnerable.”

“Interesting.”

Apparently she didn’t sound interested enough, because he straightened and pressed his empty glass into her free hand. “Speaking of clients, I need to get back to mine. If you’ll excuse me, Ms.-”

“Did she say anything more about her father? Her parents?”

“Not to me, and I didn’t ask. He wasn’t the first irate parent I’d encountered and probably won’t be the last. This isn’t an easy business, you know.”

“Then why don’t you get into another line of work?”

He glanced toward the party again. Clouds must have gathered outside and the dimmed light softened the lines in his face. “But I meet so many interesting people.”

I’ll bet. She reviewed the number of expensive suits in the room. Interesting people who then owed him not just the bill but a favor, a consideration, an understanding in exchange for mutual discretion. “Did Evan Kovacic ever contact you or have any problem with Jillian’s job?”

“He called looking for Jillian once or twice, but that’s all. Not at all like Daddy.”

“He was never a client of yours?”

“Nope, never met him.” That fit with Shelly’s statement, that she had introduced Jillian to Evan. “And you know, that’s a good point. Why don’t you just ask Jillian’s husband all your questions?”

She tried to formulate a good answer to that, and failed.

He took his hand off the doorknob. “Oh, I get it. You think hubby killed her.”

Daddy and hubby. George liked his diminutives. “I don’t know yet. I’m working on it.”

“How’d he do it, then? I thought she froze herself to death. Or that serial killer got her.”

“I’m working on that too.”

“All that hard work, and for a government salary.” He pulled the door open, holding the heavy wood with one hand and cocked his head toward the party inside. “Have you ever considered a sideline? Some of the guys get tired of nothing but legs and a giggle. You could wind up with quite the following-”

“No, thanks.”

“Do it for the free booze, then.”

She laughed.

“Suit yourself.” He passed through the door and made a beeline for the group of people, his form breaking up into a kaleidoscope of colors behind the decorated glass panels before the swinging door had time to hit him in the buttocks.

The young man reappeared from farther up the hallway, hustling along as fast as he could with a tray of empty, tinkling champagne flutes, and accepted two more from her with an unhappy sigh.

“I know what you mean, kid,” she told him.

She pulled out of the parking garage onto East Eighteenth and headed south to Euclid, stopping at the corner to wait for the light and to see what currently played at the Playhouse Square theaters. She hadn’t taken Rachael to a show since the Christmas Nutcracker Suite two years before.

So Daddy had been very angry about Jillian’s work as an escort. But that had been several years ago and Jillian’s body had turned up only last week. Evan had not been very angry, but three weeks after marrying him, Jillian died.

Once again, Theresa decided to keep her money on Evan. He had the more immediate motive, a window of opportunity, means…

Her Nextel rang. She peered at it, found the Talk button and pushed it, drifting far enough into the next lane while doing so to earn an irritated honk from a gold SUV. “Hello?”

“I see you’re not at work. I’m not even going to ask why you’re not at work.”

“Hi, Leo. I’m-”

“I said I wasn’t going to ask. Actually, it’s all right that you’re out and about, since you can out and about yourself right over to the old courthouse. You’re wanted in court.”

She groaned. Testifying in court might be the most important part of her job, the end product of all her work, but it was also a colossal pain in the neck. “I didn’t have any subpoenas for today.”

“You do now.”

“But what case? And why the old courthouse?” Criminal cases were always heard high on top of the modern and hideously decorated Justice Center.