She snuffled and wept and groaned and wept some more and dug in her purse for the crumpled Kleenex that all women are apparently required to carry, and rubbed her nostrils raw with it, and Lucas stuck her again.
“Do you know a woman named Amity Anderson?”
The snuffling stopped, and Widdler uncoiled, her eyes rimmed with red, her voice thick with mucus, and she asked, “What does that bitch have to do with this?”
“You know her?” Getting somewhere.
She looked down in her purse, took out the crumpled Kleenex, wiped her nose again, looked out the window at the houses along Randolph Street, and said, “I know her.”
“How long?” Looking for a lie.
“Since college,” Widdler said. “She… knew Leslie before I did.”
“Knew him? Had a relationship with him?” Smith asked, eyes in the rearview mirror.
Snuffle: “Yes.”
Lucas asked, “Did, uh… were there ever any indications that a relationship continued?”
She leaned her head against the side window, staring at the back of Smith's head; the morning light through the glass was harsh on her face, making her look older and paler and tougher and German, like a fifteenth-century portrait by Hans Memling or a twentieth-century farm woman by Grant Wood. “Yes.”
“When you say yes…?”
“When he stayed out all night… that's where he was,” she said.
“With Amity Anderson,” Lucas said.
“Yes. She had some kind of hold on him. Some kind of emotional hold on him. Goddamn her.” Turning to Lucas, teeth bared: “Why are you asking about her? How is she involved in this?”
Lucas looked back at her, and saw a puzzle of Botox tics and hair spray, expensive jewelry and ruined makeup. “I don't know,” he said.
When Leslie Widdler was in the car, he looked somewhat dead. There might have been other possibilities, that he was drunk or drugged, sprawled uncomfortably in the backseat of the car, at least until you saw the hole in his temple.
At the ME's, they had peeled him out of the body bag and placed him on a steel table, ready to do a rush autopsy. There, under the harsh white lights, he looked totally dead, pale as a slab of Crisco. His expensive black alligator driving shoes pointed almost sideways, his tongue was visible at the side of his mouth, his eyes were still open. He looked surprised, in a dead way.
Jane blinked and walked away. “Yes,” she said as she went, and outside the examining room, she crumbled into a chair.
Lucas said, “We'll ask you to wait here. Detective Smith and I have to discuss the situation.”
They walked just far enough down the hall to be out of earshot, and Lucas asked, “What do you think?”
“I don't think we've got an arrest,” Smith said. “What about the warrants?”
“We got crime scene both at her house and the business. If you want to send along a couple guys…”
“I'll do that,” Smith said. He looked down the hall at Jane Widdler. “Cut her loose?”
Lucas looked at her, turned back to Smith, and nodded, but reluctantly. “I agree that we don't have an arrest. Yet. We tell her to get a lawyer, and we talk to the lawyer: keep her in town, don't start moving money, or she goes inside. We can always find something… possession of stolen property.”
“If we find any.”
Lucas grinned. “Okay. Suspected possession of stolen property. Or how about, conspiracy to commit murder? We can always apologize later.”
“Tell that to her attorney.”
They walked back down the hall, Widdler watching nervously, twisting her Kleenex.
Lucas said, “Mrs. Widdler. You need to get an attorney, somebody we can talk to.
We believe that you may be involved in the illegal activities surrounding Leslie's death…”
“You're going to arrest me?” She looked frightened; fake-frightened, but who could tell? “We're searching your home and your business right now,” Lucas said. “We're not going to arrest you at the moment, but that could change as we work through the day. You need to be represented. You can get your own attorney, or we can get one for you…”
“I'll get my own…”
Lucas was looking in her eyes when he told her that she wouldn't be arrested; she blinked once, and something cleared from her gaze, almost like a nictitating membrane on a lizard. “You can call from here, we can get you privacy if you want it,” Lucas said, “or you can wait until you get home.”
“I don't care about privacy,” she said. “I do want to make some calls, get an attorney.”
Her chin trembled, and she made a dismayed look. “This is all so incomprehensibly dreadful.”
They offered to drive her home, since they were going there anyway. This time, she sat in the backseat by herself, calling on her cell phone. She talked first to her personal attorney, took down a number, and called that: “Joe Wyzinsky, please? Jane Widdler: Mr. Wyzinsky was recommended by my personal attorney, Laymon Haycraft. I'm with police officers right now. They are threatening to arrest me. Charges? I don't know exactly. Thank you.”
When Wyzinsky's name came up, Lucas and Smith looked at each other and simultaneously grimaced.
Widdler, in the backseat, said, “Mr. Wyzinsky? Jane Widdler, of Widdler Antiques and Objets d”Art. My husband was shot to death this morning, apparently suicide.
The police say that he was involved in murder and theft, and I believe they are talking about the Bucher case. They suspect me of being involved, but I'm not.”
She listened for a moment, then said, “Yes, yes, of course, I'm very capable…
With two police officers, they're driving me home. They say my home and business are being searched. No, I'm not under arrest, but they say they might arrest me later this afternoon, depending on the search.”
She sounded, Lucas thought, like she was making a deal on an overpriced antique tea table. Too cool.
“… Yes. Lucas Davenport, who is an agent of the state, and John Smith, who is on the St. Paul police force. What? Yes. Hang on.” She handed the phone to Lucas. “He wants to talk to you.”
Lucas took the phone and said, “What's happening, big guy?”
Wyzinsky asked, “You Miranda her?”
“Absolutely. John Smith did it, I witnessed. Then we insisted that she get representation, so there'd be no problem. Glad she got a pro.” Lucas wiggled his eyebrows at Smith.
“You're taking her to her house?” Wyzinsky asked.
“Yup.”
“She says you might arrest her. For what?”
“Murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to murder, attempted murder, arson, theft, possession and sale of stolen goods,” Lucas said.
“Cruelty to animals,” Smith added.
“And cruelty to animals,” Lucas said. “We believe she took part in the killing of a dog named Screw, after which Screw's body was thrown out on the streets of St.
Paul. Make that, cruelty to animals and littering.”
“Anything else?”
“Probably a few federal charges,” Lucas said. “We believe she may have been involved in murders in Chippewa Falls and Des Moines, as well as here in St. Paul, so that would be interstate flight, transportation of stolen goods, some firearms charges, et cetera.”
“Huh. Sounds like you don't have much of a case, all that bullshit and no arrest,” Wyzinsky said.
“We're nailing down the finer points,” Lucas said.
“Yeah, I got a nail for you right here,” Wyzinsky said. “How's Weather?”
“She's fine.”
“You guys going to Midsummer Ball?”
“If Weather makes me,” Lucas said. “I do look great in a tux.”
“So do I,” Wyzinsky said. “We ought to stand next to each other, and radiate on the women.”
“I could do that,” Lucas said.
“So-let me talk to her again,” Wyzinsky said. “Is it Widdler? And, Lucas-don't ask her any more questions, okay?”
Widdler took the phone, listened, said, “See you there, then.” She rang off and said to Lucas, “You two seemed pretty friendly.”