Some Like It Hawk(89)

I waited until we were on the road to interrogate him.

“So what were you and Colleen Brown arguing about the night before she was killed?” I asked.

He sighed.

“Nothing’s very private in a small town, is it?”

I waited. I was about to prod him again when he finally answered my question.

“It wasn’t really an argument,” he said.

“You were heard shouting ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?’” I said. “Told you what sooner?”

He frowned slightly.

“I don’t remember,” he said. “She’d probably just told me about Leonard Fisher bringing in the falconer to harass Mr. Throckmorton. Something about Fisher, anyway. That was what our whole conversation was about. We both thought he was up to something.”

“What?”

“We had no idea. She kind of thought maybe he was trying to set her up to take the blame for the fact that they still hadn’t gotten the hermit out of the basement.”

“Seems a little far-fetched,” I said. “Since she only came here a month or two ago, and he’s been here since the day they seized the building.”

“That’s what I thought,” Denton said. “But according to her, half a dozen FPF execs have seen their careers wreck on the shoals of Caerphilly. Apparently, assigning you to come down here and work on the problem is FPF’s way of saying, ‘Hey! Get your resume ready!’ So maybe it’s not so paranoid.”

“And what did you think he was up to?”

“No idea,” he said. “That’s not what we disagreed about. She wanted to confront him about what he was up to. Have it out. Clear the air.”

“You thought that was a bad idea?”

“The guy’s a seasoned corporate weasel,” he said. “You don’t have it out with someone like that. You get the goods on him if you can, and otherwise you steer clear. I told her it was a stupid thing to do. Stupid and dangerous.”

The last word hung in the air for what seemed like a long while. Then he spoke again.

“Of course, I only thought it was dangerous to her career,” he said. “I didn’t think her life was in jeopardy.”

“You think Fisher killed her, then?”

Another long pause.

“No idea,” he said. “I’d have pegged him as sneaky, not violent. A knife in the back, maybe. Or setting it up so it looked as if she committed suicide. Something well planned and executed. And unless the picture has changed a lot since last night, the murder doesn’t sound very well planned. More like a crime of impulse or opportunity, and one the killer didn’t think through very well—at least not if he was trying to frame Mr. Throckmorton.”

“True,” I said. “Of course, maybe it was planned to look like a crime of impulse. Is Fisher that devious?”

He shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just can’t figure out how he’d benefit from this. But one thing I can tell you—if the theory is that the murderer changed his clothes between the time of the murder and the time they evacuated the building, Fisher could do that, easy. He always wanted to look snappy if some corporate dignitary showed up or if one of the local TV stations wanted to interview him. He’d always have a change of clothing in his office, and in weather like this, probably several changes. The guards, on the other hand—can’t see any reason for them to keep a change of uniform lying around.”

I nodded.

When we got home, I ushered Denton into a room on the third floor—one of the few not already occupied by Festus’s paralegals.

“You’ve got your own bath,” I said. “The door beside the bureau. I hope you won’t be insulted, but I’m going to lock you in and keep the key myself.”

“How can I possibly be insulted?” he asked with a yawn. “I’m not actually conscious. Thanks, and good night.”

As I walked downstairs again, I pulled out my phone, intending to tell the chief that I’d found Denton. But when I hit the second floor, I ran into Kate Blake trudging up the stairs from the front hall.

“There you are!” she exclaimed.





Chapter 34




“Evening,” I said. “What can I do for you?” With luck, she wouldn’t have seen the moment of panic on my face as I realized how close Denton and I had come to running into her on our way in. And I couldn’t remember whether I’d let Denton take his gorilla head off before he got to his room.

“I was going to leave you a note,” she said. “I have to go back to Washington.”

“Now?”

“They’re pulling the plug,” she said. “I have to be at Mount Vernon at nine to cover another story.”