Martin Freuland surely knew that Laura was dead. If Guidry hadn’t questioned him yet, he certainly knew he would be a logical suspect for her murder. So what was he doing at Laura’s house? And what had the locksmith done with the new keys? I had an image of him calling Guidry or Celeste and saying, “I put the keys under a rock by the front door,” or some such silliness.
I didn’t really believe he would do that, but on the other hand, Freuland hadn’t backed that sedan out of Laura’s driveway yet, so what was he doing? I imagined him standing at Laura’s door, staring into the house through the glass panels. Celeste had told Guidry that Laura had tipped off the feds about his work for drug dealers. Guidry had said he was under investigation and could end up spending twenty or thirty years in prison. Maybe Laura had records in her house that implicated him, and he wanted to destroy them.
While I was wondering all that, my feet had gradually moved down Mazie’s driveway and turned onto the sidewalk, sort of ambling toward Laura’s house as if they didn’t really have a destination. I told myself that it wasn’t any of my business. I told myself that Martin Freuland hadn’t been arrested for Laura’s murder, that he was a free man, and that there was no law that said he couldn’t go to Laura’s door. But my feet kept moving, and when I got to Laura’s driveway I turned in and ambled past the empty sedan.
My Keds were careful not to make scuffing sounds, which might have seemed as if I were sneaking up on the man at the door, but it is simply the nature of Keds to do that. Especially when they’re careful.
Martin Freuland was bent forward examining the pane of glass closest to the lock. The one that would, if it were knocked out, allow a person to stick a hand in and turn the thumb switch that unlocked the door. Forget new keys, that door would be a snap to open.
I said, “You may not have noticed, but the door is locked.”
He jerked upright and spun to look at me, mouth open, eyes wide. He looked like a man who wasn’t accustomed to being surprised. He also looked desperate.
Rage began to climb me like a swarm of fire ants. I’d been deceived, tricked, conned, and manipulated. I’d had old murky fears and guilts raise their hoary heads and slash at my sense of safety. I’d been accosted by a psycho nurse who smothered old ladies in their beds, and now I was confronting a corrupt bank president who might also be a murderer. At the very least, he was obviously contemplating breaking into Laura’s house.
He walked toward me, his face not sure whether to try for appeasement or defiance. The first time I’d seen him, I’d seen him as a former football player turned orthopedic surgeon. Even knowing he was really a bank president, the form still applied. As Laura had said, the man was big. He wore an expensive charcoal suit with a pale blue shirt and dark tie, the threads of power in any profession.
He said, “You’re Ms. Hemingway. I’m told you were one of the last people to see Laura alive.”
“Who told you that?”
He made a vague gesture, erasing my question as if it weren’t important. “They say you’re taking care of her cat. I gave her that cat as a birthday present. I named him Cohiba for the cigar.”
I squinted at him, wondering how he knew who I was.
I said, “I know. Laura told me.”
His face lit. “She spoke of me?”
“She said the man who’d given Leo to her had called him Cohiba.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Mr. Freuland, I hardly knew Laura.”
He looked slightly nonplussed when I spoke his name, then a flash of anger lit his eyes.
“She stole from me. Did she tell you that?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She went in the vault and took it, brazen as always. Waited until the whole city was preoccupied with our George Washington celebration, and then made her move.” His firm lips stretched a fraction in an aborted smile. “She was like that. It was one of the things that made her exciting.”
“George Washington?”
He scowled, as if my surprise was annoying.
“Laredo has a huge George Washington festival every year. It lasts a month, and half a million people come to it. Carnivals, parades, concerts, marathon runs, cook-offs, all kinds of parties, brings in millions for local businesses. The big finale is the debutante ball on February twenty-second. Elaborate gowns that cost upwards of twenty thousand dollars apiece, lots of spectacle.”
“What does that have to do with Laura?”
He looked surprised again. “Laura was like a big sister to the debs. She showed them how to walk, how to do makeup, hair, all that kind of thing. She’d been a model.”
I made a stirring motion with my hand, meaning Get on with it!
Doggedly, as if he had to tell the story in a particular order, he said, “Every year she’d bring her model’s bag to the bank on the morning of the twenty-second. Everybody expected her to do that, she’d been doing it for years, had all the tricks of the trade in that bag. Then she’d leave and spend the day helping the girls.”
His jaw tightened, and for a minute he seemed loath to tell me the rest. “This year, she went in the vault and stuffed her model’s bag with money. Then she drove to her sister’s house in Dallas. I reported her missing, but the police didn’t take me seriously. They thought she’d just left me. It took awhile to track her down.”
I said, “I don’t suppose you told them about the money.”
He had the grace to look embarrassed. “It was too complicated to explain.”
Some perverse part of me was glad she’d gone to Dallas. At least it made that part of her story true—the part about coming from Dallas. It wasn’t much, but it was a teeny truth, and I was irrationally grateful for it.
With an effort, he got his face under control. “I didn’t kill her, Ms. Hemingway. I know I’m a prime suspect, but I didn’t do it. I was furious at her for stealing from me, but I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
I remembered what Guidry had said and almost laughed at Freuland’s self-pity. The cash Laura stole might have been illegally deposited in his bank by drug dealers. Or it might have been payoff money the drug dealers had given to Freuland as a commission for not reporting them. In either case, I wasn’t sure whether Laura had stolen from drug dealers, the bank, or Freuland. Somehow stealing either drug trafficking money or money paid to a corrupt bank president didn’t seem as onerous as stealing money honestly earned.
Freuland said, “I have to get that money back. I have to. If you know where it is, I’ll give you a handsome reward for taking me to it.”
My nostrils pinched inward and I took a step backward, the way you do when you’ve stumbled on something nasty.
I said, “I don’t know about any money, Mr. Freuland.”
I spun around so fast I almost tripped myself, and stalked away from him. As I walked, I pulled out my cell and punched in Guidry’s number again. My fingers didn’t even need to think, they’d done this so many times.
This time he answered, with a curt, “Guidry here.”
I said, “Martin Freuland is at Laura’s house. He says she stole money from the bank vault and he has to get it back. He was examining the glass pane on her front door, and I imagine he’ll be inside her house in about ten seconds. He offered to share the money with me if I told him where it was.”
Guidry actually chuckled. “People who take bribes expect other people to take them too. If she took money from the bank vault, it was probably his payoff money.”
“He wants it back.”
“I imagine he does. I’ll send somebody over there. By the way, the Autrey woman has officially named you the person responsible for her sister’s cat. Says you can do whatever you want to with him.”