Jasmine Cresswell - Suspect

He mopped away the first welcome beads of sweat, admiring his own elegant fingers and buffed, neatly-trimmed nails as he did so. Unlike Ron, he would never be confused for a man who worked with his hands. The thought comforted him slightly. What the hell. Ron was officially dead and Paul was very much alive, which gave him the last laugh after all. Best of all, he was finally in charge of Raven Enterprises, after years suffering as Ron’s junior partner. He’d run into a couple of financial rough spots over the past couple of months, but he’d soon be raking in the big bucks. To hell with all those tight-ass bankers who wouldn’t lend him fresh investment funds. When the Arran project came on line, they’d be singing a different song.

His mood lightening as the endorphins kicked in, Paul clicked the remote fastened to the exercise bike. He muted the sound until the ads finished and the news came back on. The weather forecaster promised a day of high temperatures, low cloud and lots of humidity. Paul pulled a face. Jeez, what a miserable climate the city of Chicago had to endure. The summer was barely more tolerable than the winter. Thank God for air-conditioning.

“Let’s go now to our affiliate in Denver,” the anchor said, “where we’re following a breaking story.”

Paul frowned, irritated by the interruption. He tuned in to the local Chicago news precisely so that he wouldn’t have to be taken to Denver, or anywhere else. Who the hell cared about breaking news a thousand miles to the west? He resigned himself to watching pictures of forests burning because some idiot had thrown away a lighted cigarette.

“It was reported just before dawn that the mayor of Denver has been murdered,” a reporter for the affiliate intoned, standing in front of a large Tudor-style home on a sunny street lined with huge old trees.

“The police department is now confirming that the violent death of Jason Hamilton, one of the nation’s most popular mayors, was caused by multiple stab wounds inflicted by an unknown assailant. The mayor was struck quote several times, the blows landing in the general area of the heart and lungs. The police department isn’t saying anything more about the precise cause of death until the preliminary autopsy results are complete, which should be some time tomorrow morning. In the meantime, there are no official suspects, but the chief of police has confirmed that the mayor’s wife, Chloe Hamilton, was found by the couple’s nanny with a bloody knife in her hands, kneeling beside her husband’s body.

“Chloe Hamilton won the gold medal for downhill skiing in the 1998 Winter Olympics, as well as a silver and a bronze in the same Olympics. In addition, she won a bronze medal during the 1992 winter Olympics in Albertville, France, when she was only sixteen. Before being elected mayor of Denver, Jason Hamilton successfully developed property in Telluride and Steamboat Springs….”

Jason Hamilton was dead! Paul stared at the screen and the bike jerked to a halt as he forgot to pedal.

His stomach roiled and for a dreadful moment he was afraid he would throw up. What a fucking disaster. He had every cent he could scrape up invested in Sam DiVoli’s new building project, and with Jason Hamilton dead, they could probably whistle their chances of rezoning approval into the wind.

Paul switched off the power to the bike and listened intently to the rest of the report from Denver, where it was still only six-thirty in the morning. You didn’t have to search too hard for a subtext to realize that Chloe Hamilton was the prime suspect in the death of her husband. Paul didn’t put as much faith in the news reports as he would have three months earlier. Having lived through the media frenzy that followed Ron Raven’s disappearance, he knew better than to believe everything he heard on any news program. It was possible that Chloe Hamilton had killed her husband, but he wouldn’t put money on it. Personally, he would be more inclined to believe Edgar Showalter had ordered the hit. God knew, Edgar was ruthless enough. Not to mention furious that Sam DiVoli had bought the Arran property out from under his nose, acting on a tip that came directly from Jason Hamilton.

Slinging his towel around his neck, Paul hurried into the library, barely noticing his wife when he passed her coming out of the master bedroom.

Julia gave him a nervous smile. “Paul, do you remember that we’re having dinner with the Feldmanns tonight? It’s black tie. Eight o’clock.”

He didn’t remember because Julia had never mentioned the invitation until right now. She knew how much he disliked the Feldmanns, so she had clearly hoped to corner him into accepting an invitation he would otherwise have insisted on refusing.

“Why the hell are we having dinner with the Feldmanns? You know the only reason they ever invite us is because they want a donation for one of their damned charities.”

Julia’s thin, pointed face took on the mulish expression he so disliked. There was a price attached to keeping a forty-nine-year-old body fitting into size four designer clothes, and Julia’s face was paying it. “The Feldmanns know everyone who’s anyone in Chicago. There are going to be lots of people there with money to invest—”

There was so much else going on right now that he couldn’t be bothered to disabuse Julia of her naive notions of how capital was actually raised. “Okay, okay. I’ll be home at seven.”

Julia was shocked into silence. He shut the library door before she could find her voice. His wife speechless was a rare enough occurrence that he needed to savor the moment. He had Sam’s number on his speed-dial, and he barely waited for the door to cut off the view of Julia’s startled expression before he pressed the appropriate key.

“Hello.” Sam picked up the phone right away, but he sounded both sleepy and disgruntled.

“This is Paul Fairfax. You need to switch on your TV right now. Jason Hamilton’s dead. He’s been murdered.”

“Jason’s dead? Murdered? Christ almighty. There has to be a mistake!”

“It’s all over the news. He was killed last night. Stabbed to death in the mayoral mansion.”

“Jesus H. Christ, that’s impossible! I just had dinner with the mayor last night. I had some friends in from D.C. and we were talking about Jason running for the Senate—”

“Well, he’s dead now.” Paul wasn’t interested in hearing how close Jason and Sam had been, and even less interested in hearing about the mayor’s ambitions to hold national political office. Bottom line, Sam’s friendship with the mayor meant zilch now that the guy was dead. It could even be a negative as political factions lined up behind new players.

“I guess that means we can kiss goodbye to getting the Arran property rezoned any time in the next year or two.” Paul didn’t bother to hide his resentment that Sam DiVoli had taken so goddamn long to get the zoning variances he’d promised to deliver when Paul forked over money he goddamn couldn’t afford. “The zoning committee is stacked with Edgar Showalter’s people, and they’ll never grant us a variance.”

Sam swore with truly remarkable variety and fluency. “They’ll stonewall us at best,” he said when he finally ran out of curses. “And every day we can’t get started is costing us money. Worst case, they’ll flat out reject the rezoning, and then the project is dead.”

Paul’s stomach knotted with dread. He simply couldn’t allow this project to turn sour. “There’s going to be a couple of weeks of confusion in the wake of Jason’s death,” he pointed out. “We need to get to somebody powerful on the zoning committee before Showalter has them lined up and on the record as opposed to the Arran rezoning.”

“Yeah, great idea.” Sam’s voice oozed sarcasm. “Which councilman do you suggest we approach while they’re all busy issuing statements mourning the loss of the mayor.” He broke off. “Damn, Jason was a good guy. I’m sorry he’s gone. He would have made a truly fine senator.”