Last to Know: A Novel(50)

He walked through the precinct, stopping to check on work in progress only to find he had been abruptly removed from Jemima Forester’s murder and assigned to a case involving a series of armed hold-ups, mostly small shopkeepers bashed over the head, cash registers lifted bodily from the counter, nobody killed. The captain had demoted him. Rossetti thought at least it would take his mind off Harry and Mal, and off Jemima and the rest of the bloody fiasco.

First, though, he’d go to see Bea Havnel before she got off scot-free. Just to test his instincts about her. He’d find out who she really was. Murder for gain was common and Bea stood to inherit Lacey’s money, plus two insurance policies that he’d bet amounted to another couple of million. The motive was there all right. And if Roman was in fact involved with her, he’d be the first to show up. A man in love could be guaranteed to be there for his woman. Poor Rose Osborne, as if she didn’t have enough to cope with already.





38


Bea Havnel and her lawyer, whose name was Mike Leverage and who was known to be a legal killer and cost more than a yacht to run, were sitting at the table in the interview room at the precinct when Rossetti walked in. He glanced quickly at the young woman, who managed to be as demure and innocent as always, even in an orange prison jumpsuit. She had a way of looking up, under her lashes, chin down, a timid half smile on her lips as though asking for approbation, or maybe, Rossetti thought, for forgiveness for something he was certain she was going to call her “foolishness.”

He was correct. Mike Leverage shook his hand across the table, leading off immediately with an account of his client, Bea Havnel’s “silly behavior,” which he claimed to be quite understandable “under the circumstances.”

Rossetti sat quietly, listening. He gave Bea a long look and she looked back, directly into his eyes. Hers were wide and very blue and innocent. His were brown and cold and skeptical.

“The circumstances?” he asked, folding his hands on the table in front of him and not asking if they wanted coffee, something he knew would get under the collar of the lawyer, who expected due deference whether he wanted the coffee or not. That was who he was, and how powerful he was.

“No thanks, Detective,” Leverage said, allowing irony to permeate his voice. “I don’t want coffee. Meanwhile the special ‘circumstances,’ as you well know, are that my client, Ms. Havnel, was running because shots were being fired at her. Ms. Havnel was afraid for her life, Detective. I call that a very ‘reasonable circumstance,’ as I am sure you will too. Now you know the truth.”

“The truth is still debatable, sir.” Rossetti was careful to be polite, though he hated this f*ckin’ lawyer and did not trust his client one bit, and knew he would not be able to hold her in jail any longer.

Mike Leverage shuffled some papers on the table, clipped them together, and pushed them across to Rossetti. “Here is a copy of my client’s sworn statement of the events of that night,” he said. “You may read it at your leisure, Detective, when Ms. Havnel has been released and the charges against her erased from the record.”

“Those charges are ‘being present at a murder,’ as you well know,” Rossetti said. “I assume Ms. Havnel is not disputing that?” He looked at Bea, who looked him straight in the eye again. Rossetti thought of Harry, of how he saw innocence personified in this young, lovely blond woman. He wondered for a quick moment whether Harry could be right and he was wrong, but dismissed it immediately. She had been present at two major disasters, two suspicious deaths, he was hoping there would not be a third but he knew she knew he could not keep her there. The questioning was over.

“Ms. Havnel was indeed at the scene, but as you will see from her sworn statement that was because the young woman, Jemima Forester, was following her. In some sort of charade as a detective, I believe. I think you can confirm that with your colleague, Detective Jordan,” Leverage added with a smugly confident smile.

Rossetti nodded, keeping his eyes on Bea. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you, Detective Rossetti,” she said in her low, sweet voice. “I don’t know where Harry is but please, would you thank him for me, for all the help he gave me. For his trust,” she added.

At that moment even Rossetti was inclined to believe her; after all, he had no concrete evidence. But he needed to find more about who she really was, and who the woman who called herself Lacey Havnel—and also called herself Bea’s mother—truly was. Meanwhile, he would ask her no questions about her identity; see where she took it. He’d bet the insurance would have no choice but to pay up. And meanwhile also, the burned woman could not yet be buried, not until it was found who had put that knife in her right eye. And also why.

*

Half an hour later, when Bea had changed from her prison overalls into her usual jeans and the new black sweater her lawyer had thoughtfully bought for her because the weather had turned cold, she told him she wanted to go back to the lake. “I need to stay out there,” she said. “Somehow, there, I will feel closer to my mother. Until they find out who did this to her. To me.” She put a hand gently on his arm as he held the car door for her.

Mike Leverage looked at her, surprised. “But your house is gone. Where will you stay?”

“Why, with the Osbornes of course.” Bea looked surprised he had even asked. “You must take me there right away. I have to apologize to Rose, explain my mistake in thinking it was Wally because I saw him there too. I mean, it was exactly the same thing that happened to me. Wally and I were put in the same position. Somebody killed that poor girl and we were just there and we got the blame. Somebody with a motive, somebody who hated her, did it, then ran off, drove off, escaped … and I want to know who that person was. And so, I am sure, do Rose and Wally Osborne.”