CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Veronica felt frozen to the spot. Her legs were heavy against the chair, her hands clenched against her thighs. She stared across the table, her mind a blank, all of her theories and assumptions floundering with one sudden electric jolt.

Next to her, Leo sputtered in shock. Bellamy leaned forward, elbows on the table, while his lawyer smirked beside him. For a moment the air felt scarce, the room too small and close.

It was Leo who recovered first. Swiping his hand over his face, he fought to regain composure. “So you’re saying you hired this girl?” He looked down at the photos of Grace Manning’s battered body, unable to keep a note of skepticism out of his voice.

But even in her numb state, Veronica had to admit it sounded plausible. She mentally replayed every conversation she’d had with Grace, every seemingly unanswerable question about the case. Bellamy’s assertion credibly answered them all. It explained why Grace wouldn’t tell them the name of her boyfriend. It explained why she used the stairs instead of the elevator, in an effort to stay off the surveillance cameras. It explained why Charles Sinclair hadn’t been a DNA match even though he’d obviously recognized the photo. He wasn’t the boyfriend. He was a boyfriend. Why had she not even considered that possibility before?

“My client has a very prominent position in the community as a representative of Pacific Southwest’s basketball program,” Campbell put in. “It’s no surprise he’d want to avoid a scandal.”

“Okay,” Leo said, regaining his composure. “Okay. Let’s start at the beginning. I need you to tell me everything you remember about that night, Mr. Bellamy. From the beginning.”

Bellamy pressed his hands together, looking down at his fingertips. “We played Hearst that weekend. Our boys won and after the game we all went back to the hotel.” He hunched his shoulders slightly, as if embarrassed. “I was lonely. I haven’t had any time to date since my divorce a few years ago. Been too busy with work, you know? It takes over. Anyway, I was looking at some sites online, and I saw her ad. I’d never hired a call girl before. It’d never even occurred to me. But then, you know, kind of on a whim, I called her up. She sounded sweet—soft-spoken, easy to talk to. So I set up an appointment.”

The footage Veronica had watched over and over spun through her mind. She saw Grace in her designer dress, her high heels, the makeup, all of it designed to make her look expensive.

“What time did you call her?” Leo asked, scribbling notes on a legal pad.

“I guess it would’ve been about nine, nine thirty.” Bellamy cleared his throat. “She said she’d come to my room at eleven.”

“All right. What did you do then?”

Bellamy glanced at his lawyer. “I killed some time in my room. Watched TV, checked e-mail. I ordered room service champagne for when she got there.”

“Did she arrive on time?”

Bellamy nodded. “Yeah, she showed up just before eleven.”

Veronica noticed that the man’s eyes kept flitting to the photo of Grace’s injuries on the table, lingering there as he talked.

“And then what happened?”

Bellamy actually blushed. “Well, you know, we talked for a few minutes. Had a glass of champagne. And then we…we had sex.”

His forehead crinkled anxiously, and his face was droopy and hangdog. He seemed incapable of meeting anyone’s eyes. Veronica had, over time, become well attuned to near-ineffable signs that could give away a liar. She had to admit she wasn’t picking up any of those tells right now. Bellamy just looked like a scared, chastened, middle-age guy staring into the face of public shame and potential unemployment.

“After that, she went into the bathroom and tidied herself up,” he continued. “I paid her, and she left. Like I said, she was fine when she left my room.”

“Did you see how she left your floor of the hotel?” Veronica asked.

Bellamy gave her a blank look.

“Stairs or elevator?” she said impatiently. He shrugged.

“I don’t know. I locked the door behind her and went to sleep.”

“Around what time was that?” Leo asked, giving Veronica a quelling glance; she wasn’t supposed to be asking any questions. She pressed her lips together.

“Around midnight. I paid her for an hour.” He looked at the picture again. This time he stared openly. “Maybe she had another client after me. Someone who did this to her.”

Veronica managed to keep her mouth shut, but her eyes narrowed at Bellamy. For a moment, he met her gaze, his watery blue eyes mild and almost apologetic. She thought of how cool he’d looked as he checked out of the hotel, how he’d known exactly how to act then too.

“Now, if that’s all, we’ll see ourselves out.” The lawyer said. Leo nodded, and the lawyer and Bellamy stood. Veronica watched as Bellamy exited the interrogation room and headed toward the elevators behind his lawyer, free to go.

“It’s a good-sounding story, and he sold it like Olivier, but he’s lying,” she said under her breath as soon as the door closed. Leo didn’t answer. “I mean, come on. The last time we see the victim on camera, she’s going straight to his room. And his was the only semen the medical examiner found.”

Leo didn’t respond. He just closed his notebook and pushed back from the table. “Come on, Veronica. I’ll walk you out to your car.”

She exhaled loudly, and nodded.

As soon as they were on the elevator, he turned to face her. “Straight up, Veronica—do you buy his story that’s she’s a prostitute? Or have you maybe known that she was one all along and kept it under your hat for some reason?”

He didn’t sound angry so much as confused.

She shook her head exasperatedly. “If I’d thought so for even one second I’d have told you.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “But it’s not like you to miss something like that.”

“I didn’t miss it. She hid it. Well. And we still don’t know it for a fact. I’ll be damned if I’m going to blow up this whole investigation just because Rape Suspect Number Ten Billion plays the ‘it was consensual’ card.” Veronica paused as the elevator doors opened. She and Leo stepped off and walked through the lobby in silence, before pushing through the glass double doors onto a sunlit plaza beyond.

Veronica stopped to pull a pair of sunshades out of her handbag, then stared into the distance for a long moment. “Leo,” she finally said, “We’re not half as smart as people give us credit for.”

“You’re describing a problem with which I’m totally unfamiliar,” Leo said, bewildered.

“Detectives in general, I mean. Conan Doyle deluded a century of readers into thinking we’re all deductive geniuses.”

Leo laughed. “You mean like: ‘It’s elementary, my dear Watson. The bird poop on this hat came from a species of lark that only exists in one village in Romania, so that’s where our killer is from.’ ”

“Yeah. But that’s not how it usually works, right?” said Veronica. “Often as not, it’s some feeling or intuition we start with. And we’ll charge straight ahead with that belief, even when the evidence for it seems…less than crystal clear. Look, we need to check out Bellamy’s call girl story because it changes a lot of things. But true or not, a bottle of the finest Chianti says he’s guilty.”

“I believe you.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “But this case is pretty much over now. You know that, right?”

She stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean, over?”

“Veronica, there’s no prosecutor in the country who’d take this to trial. And if they did, the defense would just turn the whole thing into a bad joke.”

“I’m not laughing,” she snapped.

“Neither am I, okay?” For the first time a defensive note crept into his voice. “But I can’t bring him in if the Neptune DA doesn’t want to prosecute. You understand what I’m saying?”

Chastened, she looked away. “I’m sorry, Leo.” The sun was starting to sink below the tree line. A cool breeze moved in off the ocean, but the day’s heat still radiated from the ground. They started walking again, across the parking lot toward her car. “But I’m not giving up. There’s got to be some way to get this guy.”

“Yeah. Well, my CO’s gonna have me on a short leash for a little while because of this, so I’m not going to be much help.” He watched her for a moment, his face serious. “But Veronica, if there’s something I can do, you let me know. Promise?”

She hugged him, a quick impulsive squeeze, and moved away by the time he realized what was happening.

“You’re a prince,” she said. She rummaged for her car keys in her purse, and then, finding them, opened her door. Before climbing in, she paused. “I’ll call you soon, okay? I owe you big.”

He lifted his hand in farewell as she backed out of the parking spot. As soon as she pulled out onto the road, she hit the gas pedal, hard.

It was forty minutes to Neptune, and she had a lot of questions that needed answering.

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 517