Джозеф Файндер - House on Fire

“She was hired by another member of the family.”

“Which one?”

“Megan, I believe.”

“Miss Benson told you this?”

“Yes.”

“Hired for what? Same reason? ‘Due diligence,’ whatever that means?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was Ms. Benson intoxicated at dinner?”

“No. She was acting that way, though.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “Part of her cover. But she wasn’t drunk.”

“You know this how?”

I paused. “We exchanged a few words after dinner.”

“Did she tell you what she was here to do?”

I instinctively held back. “Just that she was working for Megan.”

“Was she afraid for her life, Mr. Heller?”

“I don’t know. But I know she was killed.”

“You know this how?”

“Because she had no reason to go outside, especially beyond the gardens. And because Dr. Kimball is a very private man and Kimball Pharma is a very suspicious company. So she was careful.”

“And I’m a very simple man, and not very bright, so maybe you can explain to me how Kimball Pharma being a ‘suspicious company,’ as you put it, has anything to do with homicide.”

“Maybe she found something they didn’t want found.”

“‘They’?”

I shrugged again. “Have you had a chance to talk to Mr. Heston?”

“Mr. Heston was the one who called this in. He was nineteen miles away.”

“He may know something,” I said. I didn’t want to push too hard. “I would pay some attention to Fritz Heston.”

He gave me a long, penetrating look. “Thank you, Mr. Heller,” he said. I couldn’t quite read his tone, but I had a feeling he knew more than he was letting on. “And where were you last night? In bed?”

I had to be careful how I answered that.

I was fairly certain my image was captured on the CCTVs in the front foyer, coming into the house. It was probably an always-on system, ever recording and recording over. Once they saw me coming into the house, I’d automatically become a suspect in Maggie’s murder. But in the normal course of events, it would be a few days before he got access to the security system’s recordings.

If I told him the truth, I’d be a suspect in her murder. That could tangle me up for quite some time. Plus, my DNA might be on her. We’d kissed.

So telling the truth seemed like a bad idea at that time. “I was here, sleeping in my bedroom in the east wing.”

“You said you spoke with Ms., uh, Benson? When was this?”

“Right after dinner. After Megan and her kids left, the remaining couples were standing around in the foyer.”

He nodded, like he’d just figured something out. “You and Ms. Benson couldn’t let anybody know that you knew each other, isn’t that right?”

“Right.”

“So how were you able to talk openly with her?”

He had me there, of course. “In a low voice. At a moment when no one was paying us any attention.”

“How do you know Ms. Benson?”

The wrong answer: We were lovers once .

“We both worked in the Pentagon at the same time.”

“Not good enough,” Goldman said. “There are, what, hundreds of thousands of people working in the Pentagon. A decent-size city. How’d you know her?”

I shrugged. “Friend of a friend. Army friends.”

He seemed to accept this. He pulled out a tan box that I recognized as a police footwear impression system. “Are you wearing the shoes you wore last night?”

“Yes.”

He had me stand on a piece of paper, which made an impression of the soles of each of my shoes.

“Can I have your cell phone number, Mr. Heller? Email, address, home phone number? In case I need to reach you?”

I gave him all my contact information. I had no doubt I’d be hearing from him again in a couple of days.

He said, “And when was the last time you’d seen Miss Benson?”

Seven years ago

Dinner with Maggie Benson was great. After one glass of wine, she loosened up a little, and the stern Major Benson relaxed into a funny, sexy woman. She had an amazing gift for accents. I asked her to do Marjorie Cairns, the defense contractor she’d pretended to be the other night. Her Texas accent was perfect. She’d done a lot of plays in high school and once wanted to be an actress, but that was before she’d enlisted. Now she hunted for corruption in the procurement process within the Pentagon. She said she was a happy warrior.

But there was something sad in her eyes. Her effervescent personality hid it most of the time, but I could see it was there.

After dinner she invited me back to her apartment. She poured us liqueur, Poire Williams, which I don’t like but I didn’t tell her so. Her apartment, in Crystal City, was small but neat. Her bookshelves were full of college books, including the collected Zora Neale Hurston. Her coffee table was covered with hardcover novels by Jodi Picoult, Lisa Gardner, Tess Gerritsen, all broken-backed and obviously read. I noticed a couple of wigs on wig holders, which I assumed she used for work. She had short reddish-brown hair, a pixie cut, not a standard military cut.

We sat together on the couch and talked about her search for Harkins and why she wanted to get the son of a bitch. Then there was a long pause, and to my surprise she leaned over and kissed me.

I kissed her back, tasted the liqueur.

And then suddenly she pulled back. She hugged herself, started breathing deeply. It looked like she was in the throes of a full-fledged panic attack.

I put my arms around her and said, “Are you okay?”

“I don’t know, Heller.”

“Hey, it’s not a problem,” I said. “We work together. I totally understand.”

“No, actually, you don’t,” she replied. “There’s something we should talk about.”

I went to find Sukie and say goodbye. I found her sitting in the game room in the basement, with some of her siblings. The room was painted deep green and was crowded with toys — a pool table, a dartboard, a foosball table, an air hockey table. The air was hazy. Cameron was smoking a cigarette, and Sukie was vaping. She was still wearing a bathrobe over her nightgown. And a pair of suede sandals, which looked too dressy, until I realized she was wearing the shoes for the footwear impressions the cops wanted.

“Why the hell are the cops wasting our time with this?” Cameron was saying. He looked angry. No longer the fun-loving drunk. He was almost pouting. “It was so obviously an accident.”

“They have to do their job,” Megan said. “Rule out homicide.”

“For God’s sake, she was drunk as a skunk. She was a hazard. Couldn’t handle her liquor.” Did he not know she was faking it?

“Don’t use that word, ‘hazard,’” Megan said. “That makes us liable.”

“Well, I was asleep,” Sukie said through a haze of vapor.

“Me too,” said Cameron. I remembered seeing him in the hallway at around four in the morning, dressed, coming in from somewhere. I knew he was lying.

I said, “I wonder if the security cameras were on.”

Cameron’s face quickly flushed. He winced.

“Oh no,” Paul said. “Oh, shit, you didn’t. A booty call at the Hole in the Wall? It even rhymes.”

Sukie turned to me. “Cam has a relationship with Big Boobs Betty, the barmaid at our local Irish pub.”

“She goes by Beth these days,” said Cameron. “I guess she’s my alibi, then.”

Megan said, “What did you tell the police? Did you tell them you were asleep upstairs?”

“I forgot about the cameras,” her brother said.

“You have to be honest with these people,” said Megan.