The Perfect Indiscretion, page 7
“What if I don’t want to get out of here faster?’ he countered. “What if I prefer to spend the rest of the afternoon here with you lovely ladies?”
“You’re welcome to stay at this hangar as long as you like,” Jessie told him. “But if you’re unhelpful, it will be alone, in a cold office, with just a silent police officer for company, and without your phone. So if you’d like to spend your time in our company, you’ll need to hold our interest by being helpful. Are you capable of that, Mr. Thacker?”
“Fire away,” he replied enthusiastically.
“Was Eddie Morse cheating on his wife?” Jessie asked flatly.
“Whoa,” Thacker said, leaning back on the stool and almost losing his balance. “When I said fire away, I didn’t expect you to come at me with both barrels.”
“Please answer the question,” she repeated.
“What does Eddie’s fidelity have to do with him overdosing on a plane above the Pacific Ocean?”
“It’s our obligation to follow up on all leads, even if they don’t initially seem relevant,” Jessie said perfunctorily, before pushing back. “I can’t help but notice that you seem to be evading the question, Mr. Thacker. It’s as if you’ve suddenly developed a sense of propriety out of nowhere.”
“How dare you!” he exclaimed, faux-angry. “I have no sense of propriety and I demand that you retract such a scurrilous accusation.”
“Then prove it,” Jessie replied, unmoved by his dramatic flourishes. “Was Eddie cheating?”
“You know, normally, I have a strict ‘bros before hoes’ philosophy,” he said with a nasty glint in his eye, “but for you and your legs, which seem to go on for days, I’ll make an exception.”
“Waiting,” Jessie said, as if he’d just said that he admired her pocket protector. She noticed that to her left, Valentine’s body language was much stiffer, as if she was on the verge of cold-cocking him.
“Okay,” Thacker said, his sing-songy tone replaced by something approaching seriousness. “Did I ever actually see Eddie physically committing a technical act of biblical adultery? I can’t say that I have. But have I seen him in compromising situations on dozens of occasions with multiple women, some less than half his age? The answer to that is: does a seal like water?”
“So that’s a yes?” Valentine confirmed, engaging with the guy for the first time.
“Most assuredly, Miss February,” he cackled. “You won’t take offense if I tell you that if you had a poster, I’d pin it up in my bedroom.”
“Hey Gareth,” Jessie said, redirecting his attention away from Valentine, who she could almost feel vibrating with anger. “I learned something really fascinating a little while ago. Did you know that anything that gets flushed down the toilet on one of these jets stays in a holding tank until it’s sucked into a tanker here at the airport? Interesting tidbit: we had the ground crew remove the waste. They have the ability to separate organic material from other items, like let’s say, large quantities of drugs, many of which are in capsule form that degrade very slowly.”
Thacker’s grin disappeared.
“What are you saying exactly?” he wanted to know.
She smiled sweetly at him before continuing with the yarn she was spinning. In fact, no waste had yet been removed from the holding tank and she had no idea how fast capsules degraded.
“Two things, actually,” she informed him, beginning with a flat-out lie. “First, I’m telling you that we have a medic on site who’s authorized to draw blood from anyone we think may be in an altered state.”
He sat quietly, contemplating that barely veiled threat, fully aware that his bloodstream was a cocktail of items on a “just say no” list. As he sweated that, she continued.
“Second, I’m telling you that some of our interviews lead us to believe that Eddie may have died as a result of drugs that were later flushed down the toilet, specifically by you,” she said, mixing together what she knew and what she was making up. “Now we can pursue that angle of the investigation, or you can stop with the games and tell us what we want to know.”
“How do I know that you won’t pursue that angle anyway?” he challenged.
“You don’t,” she told him. “But I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Personally, I think that theory’s a long shot. And to be frank, I’m happy to let you go on your way. Hell, I don’t care if you walk out of here and immediately start calling up Eddie’s artists to join you at whatever label you plan to jump to. But if you stonewall us, then I can just as easily see an obstruction of justice charge in your immediate future. In that case, you may end up walking out of this hangar in handcuffs.”
Thacker hung his head and slumped in the chair. Jessie could feel Valentine’s eyes on her and glanced over to see the woman wearing an expression somewhere between awe and jealousy.
“What do you want to know?” Thacker mumbled.
Jessie didn’t need to be asked twice.
“In a moment, we’re going to have you write down the names of every date, location, and woman you can recall Eddie stepping out with over the last month. But before we get to that, I have another more pressing question.”
“Yes?” he asked.
Jessie paused before asking it. This was the most crucial moment in their probe so far. The answer Thacker gave them could change the course of their entire investigation.
“Eddie was clearly a serial adulterer,” Jessie noted. “Did his wife know?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Can I get you something to drink?” Jessie asked.
Patricia Morse shook her head, which was still resting in her hands, just as it had been when they last saw her. For some reason, the officer in the office where she sat had allowed her to turn off the lights. Jessie flicked them on.
Now able to get a better look at the woman, it was clear that whatever semblance of self-possession she had earlier was now gone. The enormity of her husband’s passing had taken hold. Whether her melancholy was actually due to his loss, the perks that might be at risk with him gone, or the fear that she might be accused of playing a role in his death, she seemed unable to generate the energy to look up.
“Mrs. Morse,” Jessie said, hoping to strike the right balance of sympathy and firm professionalism, “when we spoke earlier, you were very helpful about giving us details of your trip and about the other guests. But I wanted to return to something else you mentioned.”
Morse still kept her head down. Jessie looked over at Valentine, who shrugged uncomfortably. With little in the way of assistance from the detective on the case, she continued.
“You said there were lots of blowouts among the group, that it was a pretty normal thing. You said that even between you and Eddie, things could get volatile, that the conflict was part of what kept things ‘spicy’ between you. Do you recall that?”
“Of course I recall it,” Morse said sharply, looking up for the first time. “It was only a few hours ago.”
“Right,” Jessie noted, a little taken aback by the intensity of the woman’s reaction but glad that at least she was alert now. “I’m wondering what the source of that volatility was.”
“What do you mean?” Morse demanded, her red, tear-stained eyes squinting suspiciously.
“I mean, would you argue about money? I know you have two teenagers. Maybe they were a sticking point? Or was it something else?”
“It was just the usual stuff,” Morse told her, sitting up straight. “All couples have arguments. Is it really that big a deal that we did too?”
“No, or course not,” Jessie assured her. “My fiancé and I can get testy from time to time. What about you, Detective Valentine?”
Her partner looked surprised at the question, which Jessie found mildly satisfying. It was always nice to remind Susannah Valentine that Ryan was taken. When the detective recovered, she answered simply.
“I’m not involved right now. But I’ve had arguments in the past, yeah.”
Jessie turned her attention back to Morse.
“You see, we get it. I guess we’re just trying to get a better handle on your relationship. What kind of guy was Eddie?”
Morse thought about the question for a long second before responding.
“I know he had a complicated reputation in the business,” she conceded. “People thought he was a shark, that he would do anything to lock down an artist he wanted for the label. And I admit that he liked to party harder than most. We both did. But at home, he wasn’t like that. He was a good husband, a good father.”
“How so?” Valentine asked, managing to sound genuinely curious rather than like she was probing for a weakness.
“He almost always showed up for the kids’ stuff,” Morse said, getting teary as she spoke. “Unless he was out of town on business, he’d always make the soccer games and the dance recitals.”
“He sounds great,” Jessie said. “And how about you guys? Was that magic spark still there?”
Morse screwed up her face as if confused by the question.
“Well, we were married for nineteen years,” she said primly, “so something was working.”
“Pretty loyal guy?” Jessie dropped in there casually.
“Mm-hmm,” Morse muttered.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Jessie said. “Of course, and please don’t take offense at this, but that’s not exactly what we heard from some of the other folks. Is it, Detective Valentine?”
“No,” Valentine agreed, seemingly reluctantly. “We kind of got a different picture of Eddie.”
“From who?” Morse demanded, her eyes suddenly blazing.
“It wouldn’t be appropriate to say,” Valentine informed her. “But there was this recurring theme.”
“What theme?”
“Just that, well,” Valentine said, pretending to be hesitant to bring it up, “we heard that Eddie sometimes liked to—”
Jessie took over, as if she’d grown tired of her partner’s seeming reticence to be direct, which she knew was an act.
“We heard that Eddie slept around, Patricia,” she said, “like a lot.”
“Yeah,” Valentine added. “It sounds like he was going at it with everything with two “x” chromosomes. No offense.”
Jessie watched the woman closely for any tell on her face that she could read. Next to her, she could feel Valentine doing the same thing. But Morse didn’t offer any incriminating reaction. The new widow looked like she wanted to be offended but couldn’t muster up the conviction.
“He wasn’t perfect,” she admitted, vastly understating the situation, at least based on what Gareth Thacker told them. Her voice was so tired and muted that Jessie couldn’t draw any firm conclusions about her believability. She pressed harder, hoping to get answers and generate more of a response.
“Did you know about his indiscretions?” Jessie asked. “Did you give him the green light for that kind of thing?”
“Are you kidding me?” Morse half-shouted, finally showing some emotion, before regrouping, “Do you think I’m the kind of person who would just say, ‘you go have fun, darling, while I say home and watch the little ones?’”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Jessie replied.
“Well, that wasn’t me,” Morse shot back, the floodgates opening. “Yeah, I knew he was sneaking around. I never saw him do it. But more than once, I smelled perfume on his clothes and found lipstick on his collar. There were phone calls where I could hear a purring voice in the background. I told him I knew what he was doing and he had to stop. He always denied it. And he was very convincing. Whether it was rumors about a singer at the label or an employee who accused him of groping her, he always had an explanation ready. And since I never actually saw anything happen, I allowed myself to buy what he was selling. That is, until Friday.”
“What happened on Friday?” Valentine asked, a little too eagerly for Jessie’s taste, though Morse didn’t seem to notice. She plowed on.
“We were in San Francisco for dinner on Friday. We stayed there the first night before leaving for the island. Everyone was at dinner at this place in North Beach. Eddie said he had to go to the restroom. He was gone for about fifteen minutes, so I texted him. When he didn’t reply, I called. He didn’t answer so I got worried and went to go look for him.”
“Where was he? Jessie asked, though she already had an idea.
“In a storage room with the coat check girl. When I opened the door, they were on the floor. He was on top of her with his pants around his ankles. There was no way to smooth talk that. You’d think that in a moment like that, I’d want to take a hanger and strangle him, but weirdly, I was more hurt than angry.”
“What did you do?” Valentine asked, this time managing to sound concerned rather than ravenous for incriminating details.
“What could I do?” she said. “I stormed out of there. He caught up to me, still pulling up his pants. He got on his knees and begged me to give him another chance, promised that he was done with all that, starting at that moment.”
“Did you believe him?” Jessie wanted to know.
“I didn’t know, but I wanted to,” Morse said. “He seemed sincere, truly remorseful in a way I’d never seen before. So I chose to believe him. Part of it was the situation. We had this big weekend. It was his fiftieth birthday. I didn’t want to blow it all up. Besides, we had two kids together. And I’m ashamed to say it, but I’d gotten used to our lifestyle. So I accepted his apology and tried to move on.”
“And did he live up to his promise the rest of the trip?” Jessie pressed delicately.
Morse sighed deeply before responding.
“How the hell do I know?” she finally answered. “He was sweet the rest of the weekend. Even when he was high out of his mind, he was sweet. But I wasn’t with him every second of our time on that island. I don’t know what he got up to when I was in the lighthouse or bird watching. I made a conscious decision to take him at his word. I guess I’ll never know if he lived up to it.”
After she finished, Morse seemed to shrink in on herself, as if she’d given all she could and had nothing left in her. She bent over and put her head back in her hands. Jessie and Valentine exchanged a look that indicated that they both felt they’d taken this as far as they could for the time being. They wrapped up quickly from there and returned to Navasky’s office.
“What do you think?” Valentine asked as she closed the door.
“Hard to say,” Jessie replied. “Certainly, she had motive from a traditional perspective. He cheated and she was clearly furious about it, even if she claimed she was more hurt than mad. On the other hand, she admitted to us what happened when she didn’t have to. We might not even know about this coat check girl incident if she hadn’t told us. She could have claimed to be clueless about all his indiscretions. If she was the killer, she had to know that telling us about them would put her near the top of the suspect list. Why would she drop a motive in our lap? The fact that she came clean suggests that she still thinks his death was an overdose, that she doesn’t realize he was poisoned. I’m inclined to believe her for now. What about you?”
For the second time today, Susannah Valentine stunned her.
“I’d bet money that she did it,” she said. “In fact, I’d like to arrest her right now.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jessie did her best not to physically react.
She wanted to come back hard at Valentine for her “bull in a china shop” mentality and her arrogant certainty about Morse’s guilt. If it had been Ryan investigating the case with her, she’d already have done it. But this was her first time working with the detective and getting into an argument that might escalate served no purpose.
If she wanted to avoid a blowup and solve Eddie Morse’s murder, she needed to find a way to work with this woman, even if right now she had a strong desire to kick her down the stairs. Plus, as she was reminded when Valentine refused to let the passengers leave, the detective was the one in charge.
“Okay,” she said evenly, “why do you think she did it?”
“Several reasons,” Valentine said without hesitation. “First of all, she could have told us about the coat check girl as a preemptive measure, knowing it might come out anyway. It’s possible that someone saw Eddie chase after her with his pants down or maybe she told someone during the weekend and figured they’d eventually tell us.”
“I guess,” Jessie conceded. “But no one did.”
“She doesn’t know that,” Valentine countered. “She might have just been covering her backside. But that’s not all. If she was capable of pulling off this kind of murder—poisoning her own husband with over a half dozen other people around in a confined space—then she’s pretty brazen and pretty clever. I would argue that she’s also brazen and clever enough to admit to the coat check girl incident because she knew we’d draw the conclusion you just did: that admitting it would make her a suspect, and why would she ever voluntarily do that unless she was actually innocent?”
Jessie had encountered killers who were just that brazen and clever, so she couldn’t dismiss the theory entirely, but it seemed like a stretch to jump straight to it without any underlying evidentiary support. But before she could say that, Valentine added another thought.
“Also, with Eddie now dead instead of engaged in a protracted divorce battle, Patricia can maintain the lifestyle she’s become accustomed to. Hell, it might even get cushier, depending on what he left her in his will.”
Jessie couldn’t deny the strength of that last argument, even if she was less convinced by the earlier ones.
“Those are all good points,” she said, trying to be as diplomatic as she could, “but let me ask you something: what if you’re wrong?”
“What do you mean?” Valentine asked, her face screwing up in confusion, as if the possibility had never occurred to her.
“What if Patricia Morse didn’t do this and we arrest her,” Jessie wanted to know. “That has all kinds of consequences. Right now, most of the people out there in that hangar assume Eddie Morse died of an overdose or a heart attack or something. No one thinks a major crime has been committed. But if we bring Morse in and she’s not culpable for this, we’ve tipped off the real killer that we know what they did. They’ll have a chance to cover their tracks.”
_preview.jpg)
