Night Whispers Read online

  At the desk in front of his, Andy Cagle swiveled his chair around and pushed his glasses up on his nose. He’d already interviewed the remaining housemaids earlier and had finished writing his report. “Anything interesting coming in from ROC?”

  “Nothing,” Flynn said. “Zero. Zilch. According to ROC, the Reynolds household is one great big bunch of law-abiding citizens.”

  The phone on his desk rang, and he picked it up; then he straightened expectantly when he recognized the caller’s voice. “Tell me something good,” he said to the lieutenant in charge of the investigation team at the Reynolds house. “What have you got?”

  “We’ve got a burglary that wasn’t a burglary.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that nothing seems to be missing, other than one of the old lady’s wedding rings, which we already knew about last night.”

  Flynn’s brow furrowed. “You sure?”

  “We’ve been going room to room with the butler, the assistant, the housekeeper, and Paris Reynolds. None of them can spot anything that’s been disturbed or taken except in the study.”

  “That’s it?

  “We’re still looking, but that’s it so far.”

  “That’s bad,” Flynn said, watching Captain Hocklin pacing in his office. “The press is all over the place like a swarm of wasps and more of them are arriving by the minute. CNN is camped on our doorstep, the Enquirer is trying to sneak in through the men’s room window, and MSNBC is looking for a place to park. Hocklin has already had calls from the mayor and three senators, demanding a quick arrest; he hasn’t had any sleep, and he is a little cranky. Be a hero, give me something to tell him to get him off my ass.”

  “Okay,” Lieutenant Fineman said. “Try this: The window in the study was broken from the inside.”

  “We figured that last night.”

  “Yeah, but now we’re sure. Also, we’ve ruled out the front fence as an escape route. The flower beds are clean, no footprints. What have you got from the ME?”

  “Not much so far. Time of death approximately ten o’clock. Based on the angle of entry, she was shot from a distance of three feet. She was sitting on the sofa, and the assailant was standing. That’s all we’ve got. Keep in touch.”

  Flynn hung up and looked at Cagle. “Nothing’s missing over there,” he said, and his cheerful mask fell away. He put his hand behind his nape, wearily massaging the tense muscles. “Now what?”

  “Now we stop looking for a burglar with a bad temper and start looking for someone who was in that house last night who had a motive for murder. I checked with the neighbors on both sides of the Reynolds house, and they have infrared beams that were operational last night at ten P.M., so the murderer didn’t scale the fence on the sides of the property. He didn’t go out the back, or Maitland and Sloan Reynolds would have seen him.”

  Flynn sighed. “He didn’t go over the fence at the front, because Fineman just told me there are no footprints in the flower beds out there.”

  “Which means our man—or our woman—was very likely right there, chatting with us last night.”

  Flynn rocked absently in his chair, then leaned forward abruptly and picked up a pencil. “Okay, let’s go down the list of names, one by one, for motive and means. Everyone there had opportunity. Wait—” he said. “Now that we know we aren’t looking for a career criminal, let’s give a copy of this list to Hank Little and let him start checking them out with DBT.”

  “I took the liberty of doing that earlier,” Cagle replied with a modest smile. Access to the ROC data banks was limited to law enforcement agencies. It was free of charge and available to all the personnel at Palm Beach PD on their own computer terminals.

  By contrast, it cost one dollar per minute to query the giant data banks at Data Base Technologies in Pompano Beach, and access was available to a variety of legitimate users, from insurance companies to credit bureaus. Police departments all over the country used their services, but when they went on-line, their access was cloaked to prevent anyone else from seeing who was checking out whom. “In a few minutes Hank should be wheeling over a forklift full of files,” Cagle joked, referring to the enormous output of information that DBT generated on even the most uninteresting citizen.

  “Okay,” Flynn replied. “Let’s get some coffee and start down the list.”

  As the junior member of the duo, Cagle accepted the getting of coffee as part of his role. He returned with two cups of strong, black coffee and put them on Flynn’s desk; then he swiveled his chair around so they could work together.

  “If murder was the intent, I think we can tentatively rule out the butler, cook, housekeeper, and caretaker,” Flynn said.

  “Why? I got the feeling during the interviews that the old lady was cantankerous as hell.”

  He smirked. “If she was that bad, the cook or one of the others would have helped her get dead before now. They’ve put up with her for years.” He drew a line through those four names. “The housemaids you interviewed this morning give you any reason to believe they would risk prison to have her murdered?”

  Cagle shook his head; then he took a sip of scalding coffee while Flynn crossed off two more names.

  “What about Dishler?” Flynn asked.

  “I don’t think so. He’s worked for Reynolds for several years, and he’s obviously loyal. He was pretty quick to confirm Maitland’s story. Seems like a long shot.”

  “I agree, but let’s check him out,” Flynn said. “What about Maitland?”

  “What’s his motive?”

  Flynn rolled the pencil between his fingers. “I don’t like him.”

  “Then why are we wasting time? Let’s get a warrant,” Cagle said dryly. When Flynn continued to scowl thoughtfully at his pencil, Cagle became curious. “Why don’t you like him?”

  “I had a run-in with him a year ago when I tried to question his little sister about some pals of hers who we knew were getting drugs from somewhere.”

  “And?”

  “And he’s got a temper. He’s arrogant as hell, and his attorneys are a pack of Dobermans. I know, because he turned them loose on us after that minor episode.”

  “Then let’s skip the warrant and toss his ass in jail,” Cagle said straight-faced.

  Flynn ignored that. “His kid sister’s a brat. She kept calling me ‘Sherlock.’ ”

  “Hell, let’s throw her in jail with him.” When Flynn glowered at him, Cagle urged mildly, “Can we move on to someone more likely?”

  “There’s hardly anyone left.” He looked at the list. “Paris Reynolds?”

  Cagle nodded thoughtfully. “Possible.”

  “Why?” Flynn said. “Give me a motive.”

  “When I asked Carter Reynolds about his grandmother’s will, he told me that he and Paris are the sole beneficiaries.”

  Flynn let out a mirthless guffaw. “Are you suggesting that either one of them are in urgent need of money?”

  “Maybe Paris got tired of waiting for her share. Maybe she wanted to be independent of Daddy.”

  “But Edith Reynolds was already ninety-five. She couldn’t live much longer.”

  “I know, but don’t cross Paris off the list yet.”

  “Okay, I won’t. What about the insurance guy— Richardson?”

  “Sure, right,” Cagle said with a snort. “He drops in for a visit with his girlfriend—who is not an heir to anything, according to Reynolds, and who therefore has nothing to gain by Edith Reynolds’s death. Not only that, but he accomplishes the deed by remote control, because, according to Dishler, Richardson didn’t return until about eleven.”

  “You’re right,” Flynn said. “I’m more tired than I realized. I forgot about the alibi.” He crossed off Paul Richardson. “What about Carter Reynolds? He said he didn’t get home until eleven, and Dishler confirmed it, but Dishler might lie for his employer.”

  Cagle nodded. “Dishler might, but I don’t think Senator Meade would. He was one of the people who