Even an interrogation room that smells as pristine as a new car can’t disguise its unpleasant purpose. Molina gestured her inside to a seat at the familiar bare table.
Somewhere during their progress to the room, Detective Alch had turned into a tail and brought up the rear. The veteran detective, with his salt-and-pepper shock of hair and laid-back manner, reminded her of TV’s Lt. Columbo, Peter Falk. He spun to shut the door behind him while Lester Savoy pulled out the chair next to his and…left Temple to seat herself.
As Savoy sat, he slapped the briefcase to the tabletop, a small mountain of scuffed calf-excrement-color brown leather. It stank of cigars too.
Molina recited the date and names of all present for the recording device. Her voice was as flat and factual as her wardrobe of solid-color pant suits were monotone and her working shoes were loafers to spare the egos of shorter male colleagues or superiors.
Temple wondered how Electra had fared when she had sat in this same room earlier today? Temple wished she’d been able to consult with Electra beforehand. No chance when she’d been whisked from airport to police headquarters, and the Fontana brothers had played accessories before the fact.
Temple also wondered if Molina’s new rapport with Julio Fontana was a cynical plan to use them to her advantage…or the start of a real romance for the relationship-averse single mother pushing forty.
Right now, Molina was all cop and started the session. “To begin, Miss Barr, you’ve just arrived back in Las Vegas after a two-day trip to Minnesota?”
“Yes.”
“The purpose?”
“To see family.”
“Did Mrs. Lark call you or communicate with you in any way during that time?”
“No.”
“Were you aware that she had been questioned in connection with a murder?”
“No.”
“Did you communicate or try to communicate with her when you landed in Las Vegas?”
“No. I hadn’t heard anything—” Temple glanced at the warm hand with hairy knuckles resting on her forearm and stopped her answer with a simple, “No.”
“Before you left town, you accompanied Electra Lark to the Araby Motel last Friday night?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s in a bad neighborhood. Safer for two.”
“So you knowingly went into a ‘bad neighborhood’ in the middle of the night?”
“Yes.”
“Again why?”
“Electra needed to go there.”
“For what purpose?”
“To see a man about a property sale.”
“This man was known to Mrs. Lark?”
“He…she said he was her ex-husband.”
“Did Mrs. Lark give you a name?”
“She called him Jay, and later, Jay Edgar.”
Molina rolled her eyes at the name. “Was she afraid of him?”
Temple wanted to squirm for the first time. She was starting to wonder what kind of case the police were building against Electra. And what she might say that would seem harmless and could be damning instead. How could Molina ever believe Electra capable of murder, a nice elderly lady like Electra—with a kooky youthful spirit, granted. Darn.
“More afraid of the neighborhood he was in,” she said.
“What property was involved?”
“Some land near Electra’s residential building.”
Molina consulted the contents of the file. “Property that Jay—not an initial, J-a-y—Edgar Dyson had promised to offer to Mrs. Lark before he sold it to anyone else?”
“Yes. That’s what she said.” Temple winced to hear Molina being as precise as a coroner like Grizzly Bahr doing an autopsy in recording information for the casebook. This was super serious.
“But he had sold it to someone else?” Molina asked.
“It looked like that, but he was vague about how far the deal had progressed.”
“He said that in his motel room?”
Temple nodded.
“Respond vocally please,” Molina instructed.
“Yes.”
“What was the tone of the discussion between them?”
“Tone? Um, mixed.”
“Mixed?”
Temple eyed Savoy, who’d been scribbling illegible notes on a yellow legal pad with an edge soaked in brown liquid, either coffee or tobacco spit. He didn’t look up, so she committed truth.
“Electra wanted him to live up to his promise—”
“So she was angry.”
“More…adamant.”
“And Dyson?”
“He was apologetic. He complained that the people interested in the land had flown him into town, put him up at hotel, and then, when he lost at the gaming tables, started pressuring him to sign over the property to cover his losses.”
“His tone as he revealed this?”
“Whiney,” Temple answered promptly. She saw Alch stifle a smile.
“And Mrs. Lark’s reaction?”
“She was…upset.”
“Angry.”
“Yeah.”
“She threatened him?”
“Not exactly.”
“How inexactly was it?”
Temple sighed. “It was sort of a political correctness thing.”
“Political correctness?”
“She implied he was taking up too much space on the planet.”
“Well, it’s worse now.”
“How?” Temple asked, startled.
“The space Mr. Dyson’s taking up now is horizontal, not vertical.”
“Oh.” Temple imagined Jay Edgar laid out on Grizzly Bahr’s autopsy table and shuddered. A much too ugly mental visual.
Molina turned over some papers. “You left the victim’s room at the Araby Motel at…?”
“Two twenty a.m.”
“How did you know the time?”
Temple thrust her left wrist forward to display her unusually large analog watch. “My job depends on good timing. No LEDs for me. I keep my eye and trust on the big hand and the little hand at all times, and I was eager to get home. Back to the Circle Ritz.”
“Because?”
“It was late, the area was shaky…and my fiancé was due home from work at a night job.”
“So you told him—it is a him? One never knows these days.”
“That you very well know, Lieutenant.”
“So you told him about your offbeat expedition.”
“No.” Temple shut her mouth, irritated. Molina’s ridiculous last comment had been calculated to needle her into giving a knee-jerk answer. And she had. The truth.
Temple glanced at Savoy. He held a shading hand over his eyes, and she couldn’t read his expression.
Molina had tuned out his presence. “So you didn’t mention this midnight outing to anyone.”
“No.”
“Not your fiancé, and not even when you and he flew off the very next day for Minnesota?”
“No.”
“Not even when you spent five hours captive in airplane seats with plenty of time to converse.”
“No.”
“What did you talk about during the flight?”
Temple sighed. “I don’t know. The latest national news. Who was going to drive the rental car. My various relatives’ names and ages.”
Molina leaned forward, narrowed her eyes. “Who did drive the rental car?”
“I did,” Temple snapped. “I knew the area. I didn’t need a GPS.”
“And you’re sure Mrs. Lark never said anything that threatened Jay Dyson?”
“I, ah, didn’t say that.”
“Oh, she did?”
“He was reneging on a deal made when they were divorced. She wanted him to know she expected him to keep his word.”
“Someone’s word is not legally binding.”
Temple turned to the Fontana family lawyer, who’d been irritatingly silent. “I don’t know. We have a lawyer in the room. Is it legally binding, Mr. Savoy?”
“Depends,” he said.
“And I should probably put you in some of them for all the good you’re doing here,” Temple answered, immediately realizing Molina had pushed her into making an irritated response again.