He continued his cursory inspection, looking for anything that jumped out at him, anything out of tune. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. There were afghans tossed over every chair and the couch, and someone living here was obviously the source, judging by the large basket full of yarn festooned with scissors and what he guessed were knitting needles. There were some amateurish oil paintings on the walls, of floral arrangements and bowls of lopsided fruit, and he wondered if they were by the same hand. The upholstery was floral, much like the things his mother had preferred, which probably explained why he felt more at home here; he might not like all the fussy details but he’d grown up with the stuff, unlike the marble and leather of the late Franklin Gardner’s abode.
Carter came back with the list of tenants. “Must have been tough,” Colin said, pretending to scan the list while in fact he was watching Carter with his excellent peripheral vision, “to have your wife dislike your star tenant so much.”
“She’s that way about anybody with that kind of money, not that we’re doing all that bad. I mean, we live in this building, after all. Anyway, I just try…tried to keep her out of his way.”
“Hmm,” Colin said, wondering just how deep Mrs. Carter’s dislike of the penthouse tenant had gone. It seemed unlikely a woman could take him. Gardner had been a strong, healthy, athletically built man, but the element of surprise could turn any situation on its head.
“Who were the regular visitors to the penthouse that you knew about?”
Carter thought for a moment. “Ladies, of course. He had lots of those. And he held a lot of business meetings and dinners up there. He and Mr. Reicher.”
Hmm. Second time that name had popped up. “What was he like? Mr. Reicher.”
“Oh, he’s much worse than Mr. Gardner. Mr. Reicher wasn’t very pleasant at all. Very cold, my wife says.”
Colin asked a few more routine questions, gave the man his card and told him to call if he thought of anything that might be useful.
“What’s your take on the wife?” he asked his new partner as they left the apartment.
“Bored out of her mind, so she minds everyone else’s business,” she answered.
“Social climber? Aspires to the Gardner level?”
She thought about that one. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t really like them enough to want to be one. It’s not envy, she seems to view them more as an affliction.”
“To be eliminated?”
She stared at him. “You’re thinking of her as a suspect?”
He shrugged. “Just curious about her attitude. And thinking those knitting needles in there could leave a wound a lot like an ice pick.”
Quickly she glanced back over her shoulder as if she could still see into the apartment they’d just left. When she looked back at him there was acknowledgment in her eyes, he supposed for seeing something she’d missed.
“I don’t think so,” she said after a moment of thought. “She’s more of a complainer than a doer, I think.”
Colin listened, then nodded. “All right.”
He saw an odd expression flit quickly across her face, as if she were surprised he had accepted her assessment so easily. But he’d arrived at the same conclusion after his short interaction with the woman, so in fact she was simply confirming what he already thought.
“What’s next? A door-to-door?” she asked, indicating the tenant list he now held with a nod of her head.
“Chances are you’ll get mainly staff this time of day,” he said. “Family should probably come first.”
“Okay.”
She didn’t sound particularly nervous about going up against a family the stature of the Gardners. Colin didn’t know if that meant she was sure of herself, or too naive to realize what she was about to get into.
“You drove from home?” he asked. She nodded. “Let’s take my city car, then. I’ll bring you back here when we’re ready to head to the barn. Or on my way home.” He didn’t mention that would likely be well after normal quitting time; he guessed they’d be putting in a lot of long hours on this one.
“All right. Shall we pick up his computer now?”
“Might as well. I’ve got an evidence lock box in the trunk. We’ll secure it there.”
The lock boxes were an innovation added after one too many cases had been lost due to a fast-tongued defense lawyer convincing a jury that somebody could have broken into a police unit trunk, tampered with evidence, and then locked it back up and leave no sign, nor be seen by any witnesses. They never explained why that “somebody” simply hadn’t stolen the evidence altogether, but logic didn’t seem to apply much to such things.
He doubted logic would apply much to this case, either.
“Now this is more like it,” Darien said.
“Think you could live like that, Wilson?” Waters asked, gesturing toward the huge house in the distance as they drove up the sweeping, half-circle driveway.
She glanced at her new partner. “I didn’t mean the house. I just meant the space.”
The grounds of the Gardner estate were, indeed, spacious. She was a little surprised at how comforting it felt to be able to see more than a tiny patch of sky between towering buildings.
“What’s the point, besides to impress people that you can afford it?” he asked
“Peace. Quiet. Privacy. Room to breathe. Air to breathe. Trees. Grass to walk on, lay down in on a sunny day. A garden. A dog.” She looked around once more and grinned. “Or a horse.”
She thought she saw the corners of his mouth quirk. But he only said, and grudgingly, “Okay, I’ll give you that. But who needs this much room and privacy?”
“Hey, I grew up near farm country. This is nothing but the back pasture. Besides, what if you want to go out and get the paper in your pajamas?”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t ever want to just sneak outside-”
“I don’t wear pajamas.”
The image that shot into her mind was overpowering. Trying to recover, she muttered, “T.M.I.”
He slowed the car as they neared the house. “What?”
“Too much information,” she translated with a wry grimace.
“Computer talk?”
“Started out that way,” she said, not quite sure if he was ribbing her or if he really didn’t know the acronym that had come into general usage.
He braked the car to a stop, then leaned forward to look at the majestic stone steps that led up to the covered portico. “Suppose they’ll want us to use the servants’ entrance?”
“Would you?” she asked, curious.
He shot her a sideways look. “Not a chance. Murder doesn’t take a back seat to anyone.”
“Amen,” she said softly. And for a long moment their gazes locked. The sense of being caught and held by a pair of amber-gold eyes was unlike anything she’d felt before. She wondered if it had the same effect on a suspect. She guessed it did; it would certainly account in part for his stellar arrest rate.
He turned his attention back to driving. He inched the car up until it was not exactly in front of the front doors, but no farther. He put it in park and shut the motor off; out of the way was apparently as far as he would accede to wealth and position.
“I’ll bet you forgot to call ahead for an appointment, too,” she said.
His head snapped around, and this time the grin broke loose. “Darned if I didn’t.”
“Oh, well,” she said with a dramatic sigh.
Still with the grin, he said, “Let’s go.”
When they walked up the grand steps, Darien felt a sense of camaraderie for the first time since she’d been on this job.
Chapter 3