'I was hoping someone here might recognize these women from last
weekend,' I said, pointing to the pictures.
'Yeah, I remember those birds. That one was pretty well preserved for
her age, if you know what I mean,' he said, gesturing toward
Clarissa.
This one definitely had a thing for mature women. God bless him.
'Do you remember what day that was?'
'Not exactly. But if it was last weekend, it was Saturday. Sundays
for wind surfing. Yeah, that definitely could have been Saturday. I
remember it was the lunch menu, and I don't work days except
Saturday.'
'Do you remember what time?'
'Weekend lunch menu's good till four, and I don't come in until two.
You do the math.'
'Do you remember what they ordered?'
He laughed and pushed the hair back again. 'I don't have nearly that
many brain cells left.'
When you looked like this guy, you probably didn't need them. 'Is it
possible the well-preserved one had linguine with browned butter?'
'Yeah, might have been something like that. 'Cause I remember the
other one saying something bitchy about the pasta. She was one of
those salad-with-the-dressing-on-the-side types. You chicks can be
terrible to each other, you know?'
He had no idea.
It wasn't the perfect ID, but it was enough for probable cause. I
called Russ as soon as I left the restaurant.
Before I even made it to the precinct, I got a call from Chuck. 'We
found her on a flight roster for American Airlines, outbound to JFK.
She had a one-way ticket to Portugal.'
'Otherwise known as one of the last few lovely retirement areas that
puts up a fuss about extraditions. So you've got her?'
'It took a fight, but we finally convinced the airline to hold the
flight. We're bringing her in now.'
'Is she talking?'
'Not yet. Ray's putting her in the car. We figured we'd wait until we
got her in the box downtown.'
Once they had her in a holding room, Russ and I watched the questioning
through a one-way mirror. Susan played it cool. According to her, she
'might' have gotten tied up in a scheme Townsend had with Gunderson,
but Chuck and Ray were nuts if they thought she'd do anything to hurt
Clarissa.
Then Walker called my cell with some preliminary feedback from the
search at her house.
'I don't know how you figured it out, Kincaid, but it's just like you
said. We found a copy of the video of Clarissa and Caffrey. It was
right there in the entertainment center with a bunch of yoga tapes. And
the lab guys are saying there's some seepage in the concrete beneath
that wine room. It could definitely be blood, but it's going to take
awhile to confirm it.'
'No sign of those documents I saw piled next to the file cabinet in the
basement?'
'Nothing.' Johnson didn't find them in Susan's car either. She must
have dumped them somewhere on her way to the airport.
'Sorry you can't be here for the questioning,' I said. 'You might've
gotten a second chance at catching the look.'
'Yeah, right. That's OK, as long as I get to see a different kind of
look the look on Jackson's face when we release him. I feel like shit
we had the wrong guy; every cop's worst nightmare, right?'
'Should be. But you didn't know, Jack. Susan Kerr sent us off track
from the very beginning.'
'Well, you did real good, Kincaid.'
'Thanks,' I said, flipping my phone shut so I could pass the word on to
the rest of the team.
Russ and I watched Johnson and Chuck break the news to Susan. She'd
already met the nice Ray at her house, so Chuck was playing the bad
cop. If I hadn't been so nervous, it might have been fun to watch his
performance.
The MCT guys were pros. They told her about the videotape first,
reeling her in with questions about the bribery scheme before
confronting her with the murder.
