Sandra Brown - Play Dirty

Woodenly, she left the den and led the way across the vestibule to the double doors of the library. The hardware on them had been dusted for fingerprints. Seeing that she noticed the smudged dark powder, Rodarte said, “Murder is messy business.”

He pushed the doors open, and she stepped into the room. “You remember Carter,” Rodarte said.

His partner detective, whom she recognized from the night before, was standing in front of a wall of bookshelves, silent and grim as a sentinel. Neither his stance nor his expression changed when she came in.

Except for him, most of the room looked surprisingly normal. Only one area near the desk was in disarray. The desk itself and everything on it had been dusted for fingerprints. An end table lay on its side. The lamp and everything else that had been on the table were scattered across the rug, most broken. The rug itself was buckled. Foster had never allowed even the fringe of it to be mussed, insisting that it be raked several times a day.

She made an involuntary hiccuping sound when she saw his wheelchair.

And there was blood. On the wheelchair. On the rug. On the desk.

Rodarte touched her elbow. “Would you like to do this later?”

What she would have liked was for him not to touch her. She removed her elbow from his hand. “Other than what is obvious, it doesn’t appear that anything has been disturbed.”

“Good.” He pointed her toward a seating group. “Let’s sit down.”

“In here?”

He shrugged and made a face that asked, Why not?

Either he was stupid and insensitive, a jerk, or just plain cruel. Laura suspected the latter, but she didn’t want to take issue with him over where he would conduct this interview. “I’ve been sitting or lying down all day. I’d rather stand.” She went over to the wall of windows, keeping her back to the room.

Forgoing a graceful lead-in, Rodarte asked, “Why did you go to Austin yesterday?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Carter had finally moved. He took a small notebook and pen from his breast pocket. But it was apparent that he was merely reinforcement. Rodarte was the lead investigator.

“At my husband’s request, I went to handle a problem. There had been reports of luggage theft. Our handlers had been accused. One, as it turned out, was guilty. The Austin police have the reports if you care to check.”

“You took a SunSouth flight back?”

“The nine o’clock, last of the evening. On final approach for landing, the flight attendant notified me that I would be escorted off the aircraft. Your chaplains met me in the Jetway. They took me to a private lounge in the airport and told me that my husband had died. I didn’t learn that he’d been murdered until you told me.”

“Up to the point when you were escorted off the plane, you didn’t know that anything was amiss here at home?”

“How could I?”

“Phone call? Text message?”

“I didn’t know anything was amiss.”

“You’d been gone all day. Did you talk to your husband yesterday at any time?”

“Around noon, he called my cell to ask how things were going. Then I called him around six to tell him that the matter had been settled and that I would be on the nine o’clock flight back and not to wait dinner on me.”

“Just those two calls?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Speakman have any appointments scheduled last night?”

“None I was aware of.”

“Well, apparently he did meet with someone here.”

She turned and looked at him.

“There was no sign of a break-in,” he said by way of explanation. “Whoever killed your husband was let into the house.”

“Manuelo would have answered the door.”

He frowned. “We still can’t find him, Mrs. Speakman.”

Last night when Rodarte had asked her help in reconstructing the crime scene, she had mentioned the aide. Rodarte had written down his full name. When she explained what Manuelo’s duties encompassed, the detective had ordered that the entire estate be searched. There had been no sign of the man.

“His room over the garage is still empty,” he told her now. “Bed is made, no dishes in the sink. Clothes in the closet. He doesn’t own a car, right?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“And none of the vehicles belonging to you and Mr. Speakman is missing. So how did Mr. Ruiz leave and where did he go?”

“I have no idea. The only thing I know with certainty is that he wouldn’t have left Foster alone.”

“Does he have relatives?”

“I don’t believe so. At least none I know of.”

“You’re sure he was on duty last night?”

“He’s always on duty, Mr. Rodarte.”

“Twenty-four/seven?”

“Yes.”

“Your housekeeper-cook, Mrs. uh-”

“Dobbins.”

“Right. She said she leaves at six o’clock.”

“As soon as dinner is prepared. I can’t imagine why there would have been a change in that schedule. Have you questioned Mrs. Dobbins about last night?”

“She put a roasted chicken in the warming tray and left at six. She said Manuelo Ruiz was here when she left. She’s sure of that because she told him she was leaving. So it’s assumed he was here.”

“I’m certain he was. He wouldn’t have left Foster alone,” she repeated. “Never.”

Rodarte walked over to the area in front of the desk where the rug was bunched up. He squatted down as though to study the dark stains on it. “Much as I hate to, we need to talk about the actual slaying.”

“Must we? You were so descriptive last night. It sounded very…horrible.”

“It was. That’s why I advised you against looking at your husband’s body. It was nothing you wanted to see, believe me. He was still in his wheelchair with a letter opener sticking out the side of his neck.”

She hugged her elbows tightly against her torso. “I’m certain by your description that it was Foster’s letter opener. It was a replica of Excalibur. I gave it to him for Christmas because he loved the Arthurian legend. It stayed on his desk there.”

“Mrs. Dobbins confirmed that. But once I get it from the ME, I’ll have you identify it so there’ll be absolutely no doubt.”

Something else to dread, she thought.

Rodarte said, “What it looks like is, the killer pushed it in to the hilt, then tried to pull it out. But the blade had severed the artery, so when he tried to remove the weapon from your husband’s neck, the wound started gushing blood. I guess he panicked and decided to leave it.”

“And my husband bled to death.”

“Right.” Rodarte stood up. “We found two blood types on the rug. One was your husband’s.”

“Two?” She looked at the bloodstains, then at Carter, finally back at Rodarte.

He shrugged. “We don’t know who the second type belongs to. Could be Manuelo Ruiz’s, but we have nothing to match it with. Except for the DMV, Ruiz isn’t in any database we’ve run him through. He has a current Texas driver’s license. That’s it.”

“He drove Foster in a customized van.”

“Did Ruiz have papers?”

“Immigration papers? I assume so.”

“He didn’t.”

Her temper sparked. “If you knew that, why did you ask?”

He gave her what he probably mistook for a disarming grin. “Habit. Always trying to trap somebody in a lie. Hazard of my job.”

“I’ll tell you the truth, Detective.”

His face brightened. “Will you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Tell me about you and Griff Burkett.”

She hadn’t seen that coming. A wave of dizziness assailed her.

Noticing her instability, Rodarte motioned her toward a sofa. “This may take awhile. Want to rethink sitting down?”

She hated conceding that she needed to, but she did. She sat down in an armchair. Rodarte offered to get her a glass of water. She declined with a shake of her head. He sat in the chair facing hers and, leaning toward her, clasped his hands between his widespread knees. She noticed that his fingernails needed trimming.