Bill Pronzini - Savages

“And try to keep an open mind,” she added. “You may think me an unduly fixated and suspicious woman, based on our past association, but I assure you I’m not. I have good reason for my feelings about my brother-in-law.”

“Suppose you start by telling me how your sister died.”

“It was prominent in the media. You didn’t see any of the news stories?”

“I’m sorry, no, I didn’t.” That was because I make it a policy not to read newspapers or watch TV reportage. There are news junkies and then there’s me, the anti-news junkie.

Celeste Ogden drew a deep breath, composing herself, before she said, “The official verdict was an accidental fall. Down a long staircase at her home in Palo Alto… severe head trauma. It happened sometime between ten and eleven at night and the light in the upstairs hall was burned out. The police believe she was on her way downstairs for some reason and tripped in the darkness.”

“But you don’t think it was an accident.”

“No, I don’t. She was pushed or thrown down those stairs.”

“By her husband?”

“By his order. He’s much too calculating to have done it himself. He was in Chicago when it happened, at a business conference.” Ridges of anger puckered her mouth, bent it down tight at the corners. “The perfect arranged alibi, while somebody else did his dirty work.”

Hired killing? Well, maybe. It isn’t as easy to hire a hit man as Hollywood and fiction writers would have you believe, particularly for corporate businessmen like Brandon Mathias who move in the upper echelons of society. On the other hand, if you’re cunning and ballsy enough and you’ve got enough money to spread around, anything is possible.

I asked, “Your sister was alone in the house at the time?”

“Except for whoever killed her, yes.”

“No evidence of an intruder?”

“None. Nothing was disturbed and all the doors and windows were locked. The only way anyone could have gotten in was with a key, and he is the only person who could have provided one.”

Not quite true. Keys can be lost and found, or obtained in other ways. Nancy Mathias could also have let another person into the house, someone she knew or a fast-talking stranger with the right kind of story. But there was no benefit in pursuing any of that now.

“Who found the body?” I asked.

“Her cleaning woman, early the following morning. Philomena worked for Nancy for several years and had a key to the house.”

So much for providing that angle. “You said you had good reason to suspect your brother-in-law, Mrs. Ogden. What would that be, exactly?”

She arranged her hands in her lap, palms up, one on top of the other, and sat staring at them for a few seconds before she said, “Have you ever lost someone close to you, someone you loved very much?”

Uh-uh, I thought, I’m not going there. Not with her, not with anybody at this point in my life. “No,” I said. And I’m not going to.

“It’s devastating. Totally devastating. Nancy and I were very close, or at least we were until the past couple of years. She was my only sibling, the only person I cared deeply about other than my husband. When you have that sort of connection, your life becomes intertwined with the other person’s. You develop a sixth sense where they’re concerned that allows you to intuit things about them and the people close to them. By observation and… osmosis, if you will. You understand?”

“Very well, yes.”

“There was a great deal wrong in my sister’s life since her marriage, especially during the past few months, and all of it was directly related to him.” Slight inflection on the pronoun. “He” and “him” every time she referred to Mathias, as if she couldn’t bear to speak his name.

“How do you mean ‘wrong’?”

“She wasn’t the same person after she married him. I sensed it would be that way-the reason I hired you to investigate him-and that was the way it was. Before she met him, she was high-spirited, vivacious… a word you don’t hear much anymore, but it describes Nancy perfectly. Afterward she grew distant, withdrawn, secretive, almost reclusive-a shadow of her former self, living in his shadow. His doing. I told you before he was a controlling personality.”

“Did he abuse her?”

“Not physically, so far as I know. Verbally, yes, oh yes. But never in public, of course. Cold, manipulative… a psychological abuser.”

“His wife as a possession, molded to his will?”

“Exactly. Everyone, including Nancy, is just an object to him. He has no compassion or other human feelings. All he understands is his own ambition.”

“And she tolerated this?”

“Nancy was… malleable. And needy, very needy.”

“Did she ever talk to you about her relationship with her husband?”

“Not to me, nor to anyone else. She was devoted to him; he could do no wrong in her eyes until recently. She defended him so fiercely whenever I brought up an issue that it was impossible to get through to her.”

“Until recently, you said. She showed signs of rebellion toward the end?”

“Not rebellion, exactly, no. The last time I saw her was four months ago, and then only for a few minutes. She wouldn’t return my phone calls or answer my e-mails.”

“If his control over her was that complete,” I said carefully, “why would he want her dead?”

“That is what I want you to find out.”

“Another woman?”

“I suppose that’s possible, although so far as I know he has never shown any interest in other women.”

“Bad investments? Illegal transactions of some kind?”

“Either one is possible,” she said. “I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“I take it there was no prenuptial agreement?”

“I begged Nancy to have one drawn, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She believed that marriage is based on trust. If you couldn’t trust a man, you had no business marrying him in the first place.”

“So he inherits everything.”

“Yes. The company, her bank accounts, everything.”

“Approximately how much does the estate amount to?”

“In liquid assests, more than three million dollars.”

Plenty of motive for murder. But again, why would Mathias take the risk if he had her bent to his will? There’d have to be some other compelling reason besides financial gain. I asked, “Do you have any evidence, anything other than intuition, that Mathias was responsible for your sister’s death?”

“If I did, I would have taken it to the police and he’d be in jail now where he belongs.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Are you one of these men who scoff at women’s intuition?”

“Not at all. I don’t doubt that you believe she was murdered and your brother-in-law arranged it.”

“But that’s not enough for you.”

“I didn’t say that. You know the people involved; I don’t. Does your husband feel as you do?”

“My husband?” She looked at me as if I’d made an offensive remark. “Why would you ask that?”

“No particular reason. It was just a question.”

“Dr. Ogden is a very busy man,” she said stiffly, as if that were an appropriate answer. Maybe it was. “I have his complete trust and support.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I don’t expect the same from you,” she said, “but I’d like you.. no, I need you to give me the benefit of the doubt. As much as I wish I were capable of proving his guilt myself, I simply don’t have the knowledge or the skills. You do.”

“There are other detective agencies-”

“But you already have a dossier on him and an understanding of my position. I trust you and I have faith in the thoroughness of your methods.”

“You weren’t so sure about that four years ago.”