Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“I don’t know the date for certain. Several months ago. When the man accused of child molestation at the preschool in North Charleston was arrested. Jay was at the press conference and addressed questions about the police investigation. I covered it for the station. We waved at each other, but I didn’t talk to him. I got my story from one of the arresting officers, not Jay.”

“But you and Burgess were friendly.”

“Yes.”

“More than friendly?”

“No.”

The two detectives exchanged another telling glance. Alexander sat forward in his chair, as though about to warn her to be cautious.

“Never?” Clark asked.

“Years ago,” she replied with equanimity. Her brief affair with Jay hadn’t been a secret. “I relocated to Charleston to take the job at Channel Seven. Jay was one of the first people I met. We went out a few times, but our friendship was always more or less platonic.”

“More or less?” Javier’s raised eyebrows suggested more.

“We’d been nothing more than friends for the past several years.”

“Until night before last, when you became lovers again.”

“I-” She hesitated. Alexander raised his index finger as though forestalling her from answering. She lowered her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know whether or not we were intimate that night. I’m not sure. I can’t remember.”

Clark sighed as though he found that impossible to believe, then said, “So you met at The Wheelhouse.”

“I arrived at seven, the appointed time. Jay was already there. He’d had several drinks.”

“How do you know?”

“By the empty glasses on the table. Have you questioned the cocktail waitress?”

Ignoring that, Clark said, “You ordered a glass of white wine.”

“Yes. It wasn’t very good.” Speaking directly into the camera lens, she added, “I believe something was put into it.”

“By Jay?”

Actually, on that point, Britt shared Javier’s apparent skepticism. “I don’t see how he could have without my noticing. I don’t think he ever touched my wineglass. Anyway, why would he drug me?”

Clark tugged on his lower lip. Javier didn’t move. Both continued to stare at her. She was aware of the video camera recording every blink, every breath. To anyone viewing the recording later, would she look guilty? She knew that investigators looked for tell-tale signs of lying. She tried to remain perfectly still and to keep her face composed.

“What did you talk about?” Javier asked.

“I’ve told you,” she said wearily. “This and that. ‘How’s your job? Fine. How’s yours? Do you have any vacation plans?’ That kind of thing.”

“Nothing personal?”

“He asked if I was seeing someone. I told him no one in particular. He said, ‘Good. I’d hate to depart this earth leaving you to some undeserving but lucky bastard.’ He was grinning, and it was the teasing kind of flirtation Jay was famous for. I laughed. And then I realized what he’d said and asked him what he meant about departing this earth. He said, ‘I’m dying, Britt.’”

Recalling that moment and Jay’s somber expression, her voice became husky with emotion. “Then he told me about the cancer.”

Pancreatic. Advanced. Not a chance in hell of beating it, so I’m not putting myself through chemo and all that shit. At least I’ll have my hair when they bury me.

After a quiet moment, Javier said, “According to Jay’s oncologist, he had only a few more weeks. Month or two at the outside. Shocked the hell out of everybody in the department when he announced it. Some people cried for days. Jay offered to surrender his badge, but Chief said he could work right up till…well, the end.”

Britt nodded, confirming that was what Jay had told her. “He was such a vital individual. He created his own energy field. When he told me, I couldn’t believe it.”

Clark cleared his throat. “Do you think maybe he was trying to get around to all the women he’d wanted to sleep with one last time before-”

“No,” she said adamantly. “When he invited me to join him, he said he needed to talk to me. I got the impression it was about something serious.”

Javier snorted. “More serious than terminal cancer?”

Her temper snapped. “A basic part of my job is to evaluate people, Detective. I can sense when someone is holding back the key element of a story because they don’t want to be in the news, or when someone exaggerates their role in an attempt to seem more important to the story than they are.

“Jay dismissed my condolences and said he had something much more important to talk about. He said he was about to give me an exclusive that would make my career. And it wasn’t a flirtation and it wasn’t a come-on. I would have known if it was. Jay was serious. Whatever he wanted to tell me was important to him.”

There she paused. Clark leaned forward expectantly. “Well? What was it?”

“I don’t know. That’s when Jay suggested we leave so we could talk in private.” She didn’t want to tell them it was at that point that Jay also had seemed to grow nervous. Already her veracity was being challenged. Who would believe that Jay Burgess would ever become nervous?

Apparently the detectives sensed she was withholding something. Clark leaned toward her again. “You had privacy at The Wheelhouse, Ms. Shelley. You and Jay had a cozy little corner in the bar. People saw you. Witnesses said you two had your heads together like nobody else in the world existed.”

Witnesses? The word struck a criminal note that was unsettling. “That’s a gross distortion,” she said. “Jay and I had our heads together very close so we could hear each other above the noise.”

“Or to whisper sweet nothings.”

She glared at Javier. “I’m not going to honor that with a comment.”

“Okay, okay. Uncalled for.”

He left it to Clark to continue. “Jay asked you to go to his place.”

“To continue our conversation, yes.”

“And you went willingly?”

“Willingly? Of course. I thought he was about to give me a big story.”

“So you go to the apartment of any man who offers you an exclusive?”

“Mr. Javier!” Alexander exclaimed. “I will not let my client be subjected to insults like that.”

“It was a follow-up to what she said herself.”

“Let it drop,” she said to the lawyer. Actually she was glad to know he was still awake, since he’d said nothing for several minutes. Javier’s crack was low, but she had reached the crux of her story and was eager to move it along. “When we left The Wheelhouse, I felt dizzy.”

“Had you had a drink before you met Jay?”

“I’ve already told you that. No.”

“Did you take any…medication? Cold remedy, antihistamine?”

“No.”

“One glass of wine made you tipsy?”

“Apparently it did, Mr. Clark. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Not particularly. Not for a lady who doesn’t drink scotch. One glass of wine could make you drunk.”

“It’s never affected me that way before.”

“First time for everything.” Javier shifted to a more comfortable position in his molded-plastic chair.

Ignoring him, she said into the camera, “By the time we got outside The Wheelhouse, I wasn’t feeling well.”

“How so?”

“Well, drunk. Nauseous. Disconnected.”

“Anything unusual occur between the bar and Jay’s town house?”

“Again, my memory of the walk is hazy, but I don’t think so.”

“No exchanges with anyone else along the way?”

“No.”

“Did Jay ask you to spend the night with him?”

She looked directly at Javier. “Not that I recall.”

“Did Jay know you weren’t feeling well?”