“We had to do this sometime.”
“That we did.”
I wondered if they would be arrested for not coming forth earlier. I hoped not. They were victims in all of this as well.
“This is Charley Davidson,” Mimi said when she saw me hovering.
Kyle took my hand. “I owe you everything.”
“Warren!” Mimi ran into her husband’s arms as he practically stumbled into the station, looking as harried as usual.
I spoke to Kyle under my breath. “I hate to have to tell you this, but I thought you were the one behind these murders for quite some time.”
He smiled sadly in understanding. “I don’t blame you, but I promise,” he said to Uncle Bob, “I had nothing to do with them. I’m not exactly innocent, but I’m not guilty of murder.” He took out his cell phone. “I know we have an interview, but would you mind if I called my mother? I couldn’t get a hold of my dad. I think he went fishing, and he never carries his cell. I just want to let them know where I am and what’s going on before they see it on the news.”
“Not at all,” Ubie said.
“Thank you.” He spoke over his shoulder as he walked away. “She’s visiting my grandmother in Minnesota.”
Uncle Bob and I both froze. I stepped up and placed a hand on Kyle’s, lowering the phone from his ear.
He frowned and closed it. “Is something wrong?”
“Kyle … Congressman—”
“Kyle is fine, Ms. Davidson.”
“The murder suspects were hired henchmen from Minnesota. Did you tell your mother or grandmother what was going on? What happened in Ruiz? Or even that Tommy Zapata wanted to step forward and confess what he did?”
Kyle blinked in surprise, contemplated what I’d said, then turned from me, his face a mask of astonishment.
“Kyle, everyone who was in that room with Hana Insinga is dead except for you and Mimi. And trust me, Mimi was not going to see another day if those men had anything to say about it.” I touched him gently on the shoulder. “That leaves you.”
He covered his eyes with a hand and breathed deeply.
“Your mother didn’t happen to borrow a hundred thousand dollars from you recently, did she?”
“No,” he said, facing me with a resigned expression. “My mother comes from money. She would never have had to borrow any from me.”
That explained the ritzy house in Taos that she lived in with a retired sheriff.
“Do you think she’s capable of—?”
“My mother is more than capable, I promise you.” A bitterness suddenly edged his voice, cold and unforgiving. “I told her everything that happened that night twenty years ago. She made me swear not to tell my father. She said I would be arrested, that people would say I was just as much to blame as anyone. The minute school let out for the summer, she sent me to my grandmother’s.”
“She knew all along?” Uncle Bob asked.
He nodded. “When I told her I was going to step forward with Tommy Zapata, she went ballistic. She said nothing mattered more than the Senate. And eventually, the presidency.” He laughed, a harsh, acidic sound. “It would never have worked, anyway. They would have found out about my past, my lifestyle. People like me don’t get to be president, but she insisted that I try, beginning with a seat in the Senate.” He leveled a hard gaze on me. “That woman is nuts.”
“Maybe we should get that statement now,” Uncle Bob said.
He led him to a separate interview room while I hung back. My head was still pounding out a symphony, but it had moved from Beethoven’s Fifth to Gershwin’s “Summertime.” I did feel better about one thing. My stepmother may be nuts, but she wasn’t a murderer. Not that I knew of, anyway.
I took two ibuprofen and sat on one of the chairs in the waiting room. My lids grew heavier than I would have liked, but I wanted to wait on Cookie and see what Uncle Bob came up with. I was pretty sure we just solved a murder mystery. Still, my lids didn’t care. The world blurred, dipped, spun a little, did the Hokey Pokey and turned itself around. Then my dad came in. I figured he’d heard what happened and came to check on me.
“Hey, Dad.” I pried my body out of the chair and gave him a groggy hug. I hadn’t seen him since the night of the attack, which made me a very bad daughter.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, holding me tight.
“Um, what are you doing here?”
“I still have to give my statement on the attack.”
“Oh.” Duh.
“Why are you wrapped in a blanket? What’s going on?”
“Dad, I’m fine. Just the usual. PI stuff and all that.”
“Charley,” he said, exasperated, “you need to find another job.”
I scoffed as Denise and Gemma walked in. I was surprised to see the old ball and chain with him as well as my sister.
“What are you doing here?” Denise asked. “I thought she wasn’t coming.” She glanced at Dad questioningly.
He gritted his teeth. Sucks when the old hag spills the beans. Gemma raised a cordial hand in greeting, then yawned. She looked as exhausted as I felt.
“And why wasn’t I coming?” I asked Dad.
He shook his head. “We’re just going over some things. I didn’t think you’d want to be here,” he said, stumbling over his tongue. This was interesting. “You have to give a statement from your perspective later. I didn’t want to take up your time or influence your testimony.”
“Well, I guess we’re in luck,” I said, a humongous smile brightening my face, “I’m already here. I’d love to join in the fun.”
Dad worked his jaw as Uncle Bob joined us. “The congressman is writing everything down,” Ubie said to me. “I think he’s going to be a while. We can go over those tapes now.”
“Tapes?” I asked, all innocence and virtue.
“Yes, the tapes of Caruso when he was calling your dad. Leland started recording them. But I have to admit, bro,” he said to Dad, “I’m not sure Denise and Gemma will want to hear these.”
“Certainly, we do,” Denise said, strolling past them toward the conference room. My Dad was so whipped, it was embarrassing.
“This is awesome,” I said, following her with a new bounce in my step, “killing twenty-seven birds with one stone. Who knew a visit to PD would be so darned productive?”
“She’s still a little miffed,” Ubie explained to Dad.
Apparently, this was a community event. We, meaning the family and a couple other detectives, sat around the conference table while cops of every size and shape, mostly nice and really nice, lined the walls. Even Taft showed up. It was interesting, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why everyone was so fascinated with these tapes, especially Denise and Gemma.
“Who should I kill first, Davidson?” the speaker on the recording, Mark Caruso, asked. For the most part, he had good vocal projection, decent pronunciation. He just needed to tweak his tone to better reflect his mood. “Whose death will bring you to your knees?” That was a great opening. He’d really thought out these little speeches of his. “Whose death will send you spiraling down a pit so deep and dark, you’ll never be able to claw out of it?” I felt his question was more rhetorical than inquisitive.
Everyone in the room took turns slashing furtive glances in Dad’s direction, wanting to see what pent-up emotions Caruso could stir in him. This situation nailed why reality TV was such a hit. The human appetite to witness tragedy, to observe the subtle difference between pain and anguish, to see each emotion twist the features of a normally smiling face, was irresistible. It wasn’t their fault. A certain amount of morbidity was innate in each of us, part of our biological makeup, our DNA.
