Waters gave her a moment longer to consider before he said, “And after all, we only need to know the names of any frequent visitors Mr. Gardner had, and of course any he had last night.”
With a tiny sigh, she surrendered. “Many people came to see him often. Business people, and friends.”
“Family?”
“Of course,” she said, giving Waters a withering look. “Mrs. Gardner comes frequently, and Mr. Lyle.”
If Waters noticed the absence of Stephen, the dead man’s son-and heir-on the visitor list, he didn’t show it. But Darien was certain it had registered.
“Who came the most often outside of family?”
She frowned. “I suppose Mr. Bartley. And Mr. Reicher.”
The victim’s administrative assistant and the chief operating officer of the Gardner Corporation respectively, Darien thought, recalling the organizational chart she’d seen in the file Waters had given her to scan when they’d arrived.
“Who was here yesterday?”
“Mr. Lyle, early in the day, for just a few minutes. No one else that I know of.”
“And last night?”
“I said I don’t know if anyone came to visit him last night. He went out for dinner, didn’t get home until ten, like I told those other detectives. He told me to go on to bed, he wouldn’t be needing me.”
“Was that unusual?” Darien asked.
“No. Mr. Gardner liked his privacy.”
Waters studied her for a moment. “Especially if he was going to have female company?”
Darien realized he’d voiced the thought she’d just had, and she wondered what had been in the woman’s voice to make them both think of this.
“I don’t intrude into such things.”
“It must have been hard to keep track anyway,” Darien said empathetically. “He was a very handsome and wealthy man.”
“Yes.” For a moment genuine pain showed in the woman’s face. “But it was more than that. He had something special. Charisma, they call it.”
“Did Mr. Gardner’s lady friends tend to be happy with him?” Waters asked.
“Not that it’s anyone’s business, but he always treated them well.”
“But never married any of them,” Darien observed.
“He had to be careful. A man in his position could never be sure if they were genuine or after his money. It’s always been that way.”
Poor little rich boy, Darien thought, but said nothing.
“Did he anger anyone in that process?”
“A woman he was seeing, you mean? Enough to…murder him?”
Oddly, her voice sounded merely thoughtful, not startled or shocked at the question. And it was only seconds before she was shaking her head.
“No. I can’t imagine any woman he’d been seeing doing such a thing.”
“You knew them, then?”
“I met most of them.”
“Liked them?”
“It wasn’t my place to like or dislike them.”
That was the end of the woman’s cooperation. Darien couldn’t decide if she was showing loyalty to her long-time employer, or if she had something to hide. Judging by the way Waters was looking at her, he was wondering the same thing.
“Now what?” Darien asked as Waters dismissed the woman.
“What do you think?”
Darien knew he was testing her. She wasn’t a fool, she knew some people thought she’d sailed into this position over the heads of others who had more right to it than she had. She’d thought about refusing it for that reason, but Tony had talked her out of it, pointing out they might decide she didn’t want the job badly enough and she’d never get another chance. Her ex-husband was good for that, twisting the point of view to make you see the other side. It was one of the things she loved about him although it didn’t outweigh the reasons she couldn’t live with him.
But now she had to focus on what was happening here. Patrol officers had thankfully already done a canvas of the immediate neighbors, with minimal results, not surprising given the separation between the penthouse and the rest of the building.
“We need to interview the family, but while we’re still here and he’s primed…the super?” she asked.
“ Benton already talked to him this morning when they got the call. Think we need to bother him again?”
She weighed that one for a moment, then went with her gut. “We’re going to be who he sees from now on, he might as well get used to our faces.”
Waters grinned suddenly. It lit up those amber eyes, and Darien felt as if the sun had come out on this blustery March day. “His place is on the ground floor. Let’s go,” he said.
On the way down in the elevator, Waters leaned against the wall and looked around at the expensive marble and carved wood. He gave a slight shake of his head as he mused aloud. “Looks, power, wealth, charisma. He had it all, didn’t he?”
“For all the good it did him,” Darien said.
“There is that,” Waters agreed, and Darien knew he was thinking, as she was, that all the wealth in the world couldn’t help the man who now lay on a slab in the morgue.
She was doing okay, Colin thought. Wilson had picked right up on the cue he’d given her when the building superintendent’s wife had launched into a tirade about the arrogance of Franklin Gardner, not letting the super himself get a word in edgewise.
“Is he in trouble with the police? Good,” the woman had snapped. “Some kind of financial fraud, I’ll bet. That’s what it always is with his kind.”
It was then Colin had tried to signal Darien Wilson with a flick of his eyes. She caught it and smoothly took the woman’s arm, using body language and tone of voice to invite the woman for a nice, long venting session.
“It seems that way, doesn’t it? Perhaps you can help with the investigation, I’m sure an observant citizen like yourself must have noticed some things.”
The woman smiled, clearly pleased as she was led away. “Oh, I have all right, I could tell you…”
Relieved to have her removed, Colin turned back to Carter. The man gave him a look that was both sheepish and wary. “I didn’t tell her he’d been killed. The detective last night, he said I shouldn’t talk about it to anyone. Since she can’t keep anything secret, I figured that included her.”
“You made the right choice.”
“I’ll remember that when she chews me out for keeping such big news from her.”
As jarring as it was to have a murder reduced to such cold terms, Colin knew it was true; the death of a Gardner was just that, big news.
“I’ll need a list of all the tenants from you.”
The man grimaced. “They’re not going to like that. They pay a lot of money to live here, and they expect their privacy.”
“So did Franklin Gardner,” Colin pointed out.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. But, do I need to see like a search warrant or something?”
Rescue me from sidewalk lawyers, Colin thought. “I can get you a subpoena for the records, if you want,” he said easily, pulling a notepad out of his jacket pocket. “I’ll just need to verify all your identifying information for the court records, in case they need you to testify about the delay.”
It worked, as he had guessed it would. The only thing the average citizen disliked more than getting involved was having to appear in court to explain why.
“We’ve already talked to many of them,” Colin said. “It won’t come as any surprise to them when we go to follow up.”
“I’ll get the list,” Carter grumbled. He turned and disappeared through a doorway that led to a bedroom he apparently used as an office.
The apartment itself, although smaller, was as elegant as the others Colin had seen in this building. But there the resemblance stopped; Carter might be the super of one of the fanciest buildings on the Gold Coast, but obviously they didn’t pay him enough to match the other residents in decor.
Or maybe his tastes are just more like mine, Colin thought ruefully; his own furnishings ran to whatever was comfortable and things he could put his feet up on. After four years of marriage to a woman who kept the living room for company only, he’d sworn he’d never have a room he couldn’t live in.