Joan Pickart - Body of Evidence

“ Franklin didn’t argue.”

“Ever?” Colin didn’t know anyone who never argued.

Cecelia Gardner waved her hand dismissively. “Never seriously. If you’d known him, you’d know that no one would argue with Franklin.”

Because they wouldn’t dare? Colin wondered. What he’d read about the man indicated he’d been a powerhouse, a high-profile international businessman who was at home around the world. The kind of man few others could stand up to.

The kind who could, with the right touch of arrogance and contempt, drive someone to murder?

“What about his son?”

“Stephen?” Cecelia Gardner became instantly tense, and her demeanor changed to a protective fierceness he had to admire. “My grandson is not to be subjected to your interrogation. He is distraught, of course. And he would be of no help. He spends most of his time at school, or here studying. He’s working on his graduate degree.”

Interesting, Colin thought, that she was so forthcoming with all that after we had to pry the rest out of her.

“We’ll need to talk with him anyway, I’m afraid,” he said.

The icy look nearly became a glare. “I’ll see when we’re available.”

“Just Stephen,” Colin said firmly.

“Alone? I don’t think so. His parents are both dead now, so I will stand for them.”

“No, Mrs. Gardner.” The woman blinked, and Colin wondered just how long it had been since anyone had said no to her. “He’s an adult now. We will speak to him alone, here, or at the station, he can choose.”

Cecelia Gardner drew herself up and gave him a stare that was nothing less than insulting. “How dare you?”

“He dares,” Wilson said, unexpectedly speaking for the first time since her comment about the killer getting off, “because your son has been brutally killed, and no one has the right to secrets in a murder investigation. I would think you would want it that way.”

For a moment Mrs. Gardner shifted her stare to the younger woman. Colin stayed silent, watching, but he cheered inwardly when Darien Wilson stared down the imperious woman without faltering. She might just be tougher than she looked.

Amazingly, the older woman gave in first. “You’re quite right. I’m protective of my grandson. I always have been. Too much, Franklin used to say.”

And just why would a kid’s father say that? Colin wondered.

“I will have Stephen call you as soon as he arrives home.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Gardner.” His voice was as polite as it had been cool before.

They left shortly thereafter, the only useful bit of information they’d gotten being that Lyle, who also lived in the estate house, was at the Gardner Corporation offices in the business district.

“Impressions?” he asked his partner when they were back in the car.

“One main one, with two possible interpretations.” She hesitated, but he nodded at her to continue. “I didn’t see a single trace of any grief, pain or loss. She was more worried about us talking to her grandson than the death of her own son, which in itself makes me wonder about the grandson.”

“I agree,” Colin said. “What does your impression tell you?”

“That either she truly doesn’t care, which makes her a very sick sort of mother. Or she’s grieving as any mother would, and just hiding it extremely well, which makes me wonder what else she’s hiding.”

“Indeed,” Colin agreed. Maybe she does have the instincts for this, after all, he added silently. “And the brother is doing business as usual at the office? Great family love there, wouldn’t you say?”

“Nobody can tell anyone else how to grieve, but so far I’m not impressed with the Gardner approach.”

“Nor am I.”

“So we go see if the brother is shedding any tears?”

“That we do.”

Lyle Gardner was not, in fact, shedding any tears. It didn’t surprise Darien to find he was, as Waters had said, doing “business as usual.” The secretary who greeted them outside his office was showing more emotion than either Mrs. Gardner had or Lyle Gardner was now.

“Maybe the rich are just different,” Darien whispered as she opened the door to the inner sanctum of Gardner Corporation.

“At least this place isn’t gilt and marble,” Waters retorted under his breath, making her smile. She was much more at ease with him now, much less nervous at having been assigned to him as a partner. She quickly quashed her smile when the secretary turned back to them. She gestured toward the door and indicated they could go in.

It was true, the glass-and-steel structure that housed the Gardner Corporation clearly demonstrated success, but it was sleek, businesslike and modern rather than ornate and classic. And the office they walked into now had the same feel, that this was a place where efficient-and profitable-business was done.

The man behind the desk had the same black hair and blue eyes as his dead brother, but there the resemblance ended. Where Franklin had been trim, tan and athletic, Lyle looked as if he spent a bit too much time behind that huge expanse of cherry wood. They knew he handled the family trust fund and oversaw all their general business interests, while Franklin had handled the oil refinery and their international dealings.

“What have you found out?” he asked as he rose and strode around the desk.

They really do expect a miracle, Darien thought. Because they’re the Gardners?

“We’re in the information-gathering stage,” Waters said easily. “We just need to clear up a few things with you.”

“Me?”

Why on earth doesn’t the family expect to answer at least a few questions? she wondered. Don’t they watch the news, and know how often in a murder the killer is family?

“Where were you last night, Mr. Gardner?”

“Me?” he repeated, his tone incredulous.

“Yes,” Waters said patiently. “Routine questions, sir. Eliminate the obvious so we can find the hidden.”

Gardner looked as if he were torn between ordering them out or venting his anger at being suspected at all.

“I was at home,” he said finally, stiffly. “As I told the other detectives.”

If that made any difference to Waters, it didn’t show. Again, Darien held back; she didn’t think he’d welcome her intruding until he trusted her. He hadn’t shut her up yet, so she assumed she hadn’t done anything that irritated him, but still she kept quiet; learning, she told herself, was her primary goal right now.

“You were at home?” Waters asked. “Doing?”

“Watching television.”

“Until when?”

“A little after midnight.”

“So you spoke to your mother when she arrived home?”

He seemed to hesitate, but it was so quick Darien couldn’t be sure. “No. I was already in bed, and I didn’t want to bother her. I knew she’d be in a hurry to get to sleep.”

“Who knew you were home?”

He frowned. “No one. I was alone.”

“Staff?”

“No. I mean, they knew I was home, but I’d dismissed them before I went up to bed.”

Convenient, Darien thought.

“So you have no alibi.”

“I don’t need an alibi,” Gardner said, rather vehemently.

Waters kept pushing. “You didn’t leave the house?”

Gardner drew himself up and looked down his nose at Waters, abruptly every inch the haughty Gardner. “I don’t care for your implications, Detective. No, I did not leave the house. And to answer the question underlying all your other questions, no, I did not kill my own brother!”

“Any idea who did?” Waters asked, with a cool she admired in the face of Gardner ’s anger.

“None.”

“No one who was angry at him, maybe someone who got the short end of a business deal, something like that?”