"I'm beat," Heller added.
Vaguely Howard understood that something was taking place that was not necessarily to his benefit. But the two detectives were right about one thing. It had indeed been a long night. He was reluctant to walk out of the interview now, only to return later and go through all this rigmarole again. And if he did walk out, he'd have to contact Martin Greenfeld, his attorney.
Martin would never let him talk to any detectives or waive any rights.
Martin believed in handling every situation as if it were an adversarial contest played for the highest stakes.
Howard imagined the consequences of refusing to talk. The story would leak to the media. People would suspect him of complicity in the attempted murder of his wife. And if his relationship with Amanda came out… On the other hand, if he simply kept Martin and all other lawyers out of it and did as the detectives asked, he could be done with this interview in thirty minutes.
No suspicions, no rumors, no damaging publicity, no journalists digging up dirt.
"Fine," he said evenly.
"Let's proceed." Giacomo recited Howard's rights. Howard said he understood them. Yes, he wished to give up his right to remain silent.
Yes, he gave up his right to have an attorney present. Yes, yes, yes.
Then there were questions about his activities last night. He told his story about taking the Lexus for a long drive up the coast. The detectives didn't interrupt or challenge him. He began to think this really was a routine interview. By the time he narrated the climax of the story-the moment when, standing on his beachfront deck, he'd heard gunshots-he was relaxed and confident. He didn't need Martin to hold his hand.
He could take care of himself.
"So that's the way it happened," he finished.
"Great, Mr. Barwood." Giacomo spoke in the tone of a man adjourning a meeting.
"I guess you drove that Lexus of yours here today, didn't you?"
"I drive it everywhere. I love that car."
"Maybe when we're done here, Kevin and I could take a look at the odometer."
This froze Howard.
"The odometer?"
"Just to note the number for our records. If you've been driving up to Santa Barbara on a regular basis, you must have logged some serious miles."
"Well… I may have exaggerated the number of trips I took. And it's a new car, quite new. There aren't a lot of miles on it yet." He was starting to babble. He shut up.
Heller wrote something in his pad.
"Okay, well, we'll talk about that later," Giacomo said blandly.
"Now I wonder if you could tell us anything about this company of yours.
Western Regional Resources."
Western Regional. How the hell could they know about that? How was it possible? Why would it even come up?
"I don't think my business holdings are relevant," he said stiffly, playing for time.
"Oh, you're probably right, Mr. Barwood." Giacomo would not stop smiling.
"It's another of those loose ends we told you about. You do own a company called Western Regional Resources, don't you? Or are we wrong about that?"
By all logic Howard knew he should stop the interview and get Martin Greenfeld on the phone, but stubbornly he still believed he could talk his way out. He was a good talker. He had developed parcel after parcel of prime Westside real estate on the strength of his facility with words, his charm, his self-possession. He called on those faculties to rescue him now.
"I own it," he said slowly, punctuating the admission with an insouciant shrug.
"Western Regional Resources is a corporation I established in the Netherlands Antilles. All perfectly legal. There are sound reasons-tax-liability reasons-for setting up such an entity. As I say, it's all within the bounds of the law."
Giacomo said he was sure it was.
"And in the course of setting up this offshore, uh, entity, you presumably set up a few other things? Like a bank account?"
"Yes."
"And you arranged for someone to oversee the account and handle any legal issues for the company, right?"
"A bank officer in the Antilles does that for me, yes."
"And I suppose you might have acquired, say, a residence in the Antilles for business purposes."
"No residence. I used a hotel the one time I went there."
"How about other acquisitions? A car, a phone, a club membership?"
"Nothing like that. Western Regional Resources is-well, it's a legitimate corporation-I mean, it's legal in every way, but-but it has no tangible assets, it's not a going concern, it's-"
"A dummy corporation?" Giacomo asked.
Heller was writing in his pad again.
"It could be described that way," Howard said.
"A tax haven?"
"It's all legal," he repeated for what felt like the fiftieth time.
The hell of it was, the goddamned arrangement really was legal. But he wouldn't expect these two ruffians to understand that. They could hardly relate to his problems, his priorities. If he claimed he was hiding money from the IRS, they wouldn't sympathize.
And if he admitted the truth-that he was executing an end run around California's community property laws to smooth his way through an upcoming divorce-well, they would think he had a motive for getting rid of Kris… And in fact, he did have such a motive, didn't he?
Didn't he?
"Do you have any other business entities offshore, Mr. Barwood?"
Giacomo asked. He put a slight, disdainful emphasis on the word entities.
"} don't think I'm under any obligation to discuss the details of my financial situation with you," Howard said.
Heller's pen scratched again.
"Okay, that's fine." Giacomo was still smiling. He must smile in his sleep.
"We're trying to tidy things up here, that's all. I guess you were over at KPTI the other night."
The change of subject startled Howard, but he was happy to drop the issue of his business dealings.
"That's right."
"What night was that? Tuesday, wasn't it? March twenty-second?"
"Yes. How'd you know?"
"Some people who work there mentioned that you were around. It's nice to share an evening with your wife at her place of work, isn't it?"
"Yes," Howard said warily.
"Though I understand you weren't with her the whole time. You spent a good part of the night with the producer. Miss. Gilbert-isn't that her name?"
Howard focused all his willpower on the task of holding his face expressionless.
"Amanda Gilbert," he said.
"Amanda, yeah. She a friend of yours?"
"Why would you say that? She works there, that's all. She works there-"
"Hey, hey." Giacomo held up both hands.
"Take it easy. It's just that some folks at the TV station seemed to think you and Amanda were pretty friendly with each other. Maybe a little less friendly when your wife was around."
"What are you implying?" Howard breathed, as if the question needed to be asked.
"Not implying anything, Mr. Barwood. How does Amanda feel about those offshore accounts? She like the idea?"
"I never told-" He caught himself.
"She doesn't know anything about my private affairs." Damn, affairs-the wrong word to use.
"She's Kris's business associate, that's all. We have no personal relationship-"
"Funny." That was Heller, finding his voice for the first time in a long while.
"She told us something different when we talked to her a couple of hours ago."
There was silence. The detectives stared at him.
Howard stared back, his gaze ticking from one interrogator to the other.
He had no way of knowing if they had actually talked to Amanda or were merely hoping to elicit some incriminating response. But if they hadn't interviewed Amanda yet, they soon would. And she would break. She was weak. Any woman who needed to assert her individuality by having a tattoo stamped onto her butt, for God's sake, was weak by definition.