Triple Cross (Alex Cross #30)(51)

The writer shrugged. “I don’t remember it that way, but so what? Isn’t it logical to look into the dark underbellies of the victims? Isn’t that what you preached in one of your lectures at Quantico, Dr. Cross?”

That was true and it caused me to sit back. “Still doesn’t explain why you kept yourself out of the narratives in three of the biggest breaks in the cases.”

Tull sighed and for several moments watched me with no guile that I could see.

“I find it odd that you’re, in a sense, criticizing me for being humble, for letting the spotlight shine where it should—on the detectives who drove the cases,” he said at last. “But I’ll tell you what, Dr. Cross. If you’ll let me observe the investigation and I come up with an angle that you two had not considered and it turns out to be big, I’ll take the credit. One hundred percent. Does that work for you?”





CHAPTER 54




Manhattan


BREE WATCHED FROM THE observation booth as Frances Duchaine entered the interrogation room with Katrina French, her young attorney. Wearing a widow-black pantsuit and dark sunglasses, Duchaine folded herself into a chair across the table from Detectives Salazar and Thompson.

Her attorney said, “We’re here as a courtesy, Detectives.”

Salazar was having none of it. “Did you want your client to come in under a subpoena? Or in handcuffs?”

French stiffened. “I’m saying that Ms. Duchaine is here to help in any way she can. She’s devastated and horrified by what happened.”

A tear trickled from under the fashion designer’s glasses and dribbled down her cheek.

“No doubt,” Thompson said. “And if your client won’t mind taking off the shades?”

Though she appeared to be grieving, Duchaine had not lost her flair for the dramatic; she tore off the glasses and said in a hoarse voice, “What can you tell me? Did Paula suffer? Ari? Were they afraid before they passed?”

Salazar said, “Ms. Watkins was shot at close range between the eyes in the dark. I don’t even think she felt fear before she died. Mr. Bernstein may have been frightened, but I do not believe he suffered.”

Duchaine’s lower lip trembled and more tears ran. Her attorney handed her a tissue, and she dabbed at her swollen eyes.

“Who would do such a thing to them?” she whispered. “And why?”

Detective Thompson said, “Who? We think they were professional killers. And why? We were hoping you could help us with that.”

The fashion icon’s lips drew back as she gazed wide-eyed at her hands, as if trying to see through them into some unknowable universe. “I have been asking myself why since I heard,” she said quietly. “I can’t come up with one good answer.”

Salazar said, “Why weren’t you at the party, Ms. Duchaine?”

Sounding bewildered, she said, “Can you imagine if I’d gone?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Frances Duchaine shifted uncomfortably. “I’d rather not say.”

“That won’t work. This is an investigation into a mass murder, Ms. Duchaine. Why weren’t you there?”

Duchaine’s jaw tightened and she glanced at French, who nodded.

“I had hosted a large fundraiser at my estate in Greenwich and I was tired. But it was more than that. I … I was recently diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and I was having a flare-up all yesterday afternoon.”

In the observation booth, Bree studied the fashion icon, who seemed embarrassed. She glanced at the only other two people in the booth: Blaine Roy, chief of detectives for NYPD, and Ellen Larkin, Salazar’s supervising lieutenant.

“My sister has it,” Lieutenant Larkin said. “Times you can’t drag her off the pot.”

Chief Roy’s nostrils flared. He asked Bree what she thought.

“Plausible but convenient,” Bree said.

In the interrogation room, Salazar said, “We’d love to talk to the doc who diagnosed you.”

“Dr. Leeann Webb at Lenox Hill,” Duchaine said without hesitation. “I called her yesterday around five. She gave me a new prescription. I have it all documented.”

“We’d like to see those documents,” Salazar said. “Crohn’s disease. That’s brought on by stress, right?”

Duchaine shook her head. “The flare-ups can be, but not the disease itself.”

“You were feeling stressed yesterday?”

The fashion icon nodded. “I had a ridiculous amount of design work due.”

“Nothing to do with finances?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think about finances. That was Paula’s job. And Ari’s.”

In the observation booth, Bree said, “Don’t let her have a pass on that.”

As if hearing her through the mirror, Detective Salazar said, “You do grasp your financial situation, though, correct?”

The fashion icon looked at her attorney. “What’s she asking?”

French looked at Salazar, seeming puzzled. “What financial situation is that?”

The detective rubbed her belly before saying, “By several accounts, your company has experienced a seventeen percent decline in revenues in the aftermath of a massive expansion of your retail arm. Your company now carries a crushing debt load. You have balloon payments on over four hundred million dollars, which you are personally on the hook for, coming due in less than ninety days. Do you understand, Frances?”