Treasure Hunt Part 22

Startled, Alicia jerked her hands away from the wheel and her head toward Juhle, who wore a practiced professional expression and held his badge open next to the window.

After a brief moment of what he took to be confusion, she moved one hand over to the door and the window came down.

"Yes?"

"Ms. Thorpe. Inspector Juhle, you may remember. I wonder if we could ask you just a few more questions?"

She dropped her head before lifting it back up again. Then she dredged half a smile from somewhere, said, "Sure," grabbed her purse, rolled up the window, and pushed open the door.

By this time, Russo had joined Juhle, and now the three of them marched across the lawn and down the side path that led to the entrance to her room in the back. The wind wasn't as strong as it had been downtown, although the mist and drizzle out here had intensified into true rain, falling straight down on them.

It didn't make any of them walk any more quickly.

When they got inside with the door closed behind them, Alicia hit the lights and adjusted the thermostat, then turned. "I'm just going to throw on a pullover, if that's okay." She crossed the room and took down a bright green knitted sweater that was hanging from a peg on the opposite wall, and brought it over her head. Coming back to them, she got to the table and pulled out one of its chairs, indicating that they do the same.

They all sat.

"I'm supposed to be at work in about an hour and a half. Should I call them and tell them I'll be late?"

Juhle and Russo exchanged a glance, and Russo said, "I don't think we'll be that long, but if we get close, you'll have that opportunity. Okay?"

"Fine." She looked from one inspector to the other. "So." She drew a breath. "What can I do for you?"

"Well," Juhle began, "as I said, we've got a few more questions for you."

"About Mr. Como?"

Russo had gone solemn, and she nodded. "Him and a few other things, yes."

"Am I some kind of a suspect?" Alicia asked.

Juhle answered. "We haven't identified any true suspects yet, Ms. Thorpe. We're trying to fill in gaps in our understanding at this time. And hope you might be able to help us."

"So I'm not under arrest?"

"You are absolutely not under arrest," Juhle said. "You don't have to talk to us at all and can terminate this interview at any time."

"So I don't need to call a lawyer?"

Russo forced a conspiratorial smile. "If you want to call a lawyer, Alicia, that is your right," she said. "We could wait here for him or her to show up, or make another appointment later. But we are hoping to keep making progress on this case and thought you would want to help us keep it moving along to catch Mr. Como's killer."

"It shouldn't take us more than a half hour," Juhle added. "Maybe less."

"Okay," Alicia said. "In that case . . ."

"Great. Thank you." Juhle took out his pocket tape recorder and placed it on the table between them. "We'll just be taping what we say to preserve an accurate record. We did this last time, too, you recall?"

"Yes."

"All right." Juhle pushed away from the table and leaned back in his wooden chair. He crossed one leg over the other, his body language clearly stating that he was no threat to Alicia or to anyone else. "I apologize if we cover a few things we went through last time, but we've been talking to a lot of people and sometimes we lose track of the sources of certain information."

This was the purest of twaddle, and Juhle knew it. What he was really hoping was that Alicia would contradict her earlier answers, and thus give them substantial leverage. And of course, if Alicia had elected to wait to talk to a lawyer, she would have known this. But there wasn't anything she could do about it now. She didn't even seem to realize it might be a troublesome issue.

"Now, then," Juhle began, "you'd been driving for Mr. Como for how long?"

Tag-teaming, Juhle and Russo walked her through most of her earlier statement-her service at Sunset, her duties as Como's driver, her perceptions of some other key members of the staff at the Ortega campus-and finally got to her personal relationship with her boss, which she answered as she always had. They were close friends, but not intimate.

Juhle kept it casual. "So, once again, you did not have any kind of physical relationship with Mr. Como?"

"No."

"Never kissed him?"

She hesitated. "Not in a romantic way, no."

Russo picked up the distinction. "What other way did you kiss him, then?"

Alicia showed her first sign of true frustration, a sigh accompanied by a slight puckering around her lips. "More like a buss on the cheek, sometimes, when I'd first see him or when I was leaving."

"Both?" Russo asked.

"Sometimes."

Russo wasn't letting it go. "Usually?"

Pausing again, nodding, Alicia said, "By the end, yes. Most days. Just like friends do. Maybe a small hug and a little kiss h.e.l.lo."

"A hug and a kiss, then?" Juhle asked.

"Not a big hug. Really just like a greeting or a good-bye." She leveled her gaze at both of the inspectors in turn. "Come on, you guys. You know what I'm talking about. We usually kissed h.e.l.lo and good-bye, just like I'd do with my brother. It wasn't s.e.xual. We had become friends, that's all."

Juhle asked, "And you were still friends on the day he was killed?"

"Yes, of course."

Russo: "You weren't having any troubles at work?"

"No."

"None?"

Alicia straightened up in her chair. "What's this about?"

Russo came forward, but did not answer her. Instead, she said, "You were at Mr. Como's service this morning."

"Not for long."

"We understand that Mrs. Como asked you to leave."

A bitter chuckle. "If that's how you want to put it."

Juhle asked, "How would you put it?"

"Were you there?"

"No, ma'am."

"Well, the way I'd put it is she had me thrown out."

"Why would she have wanted to do that?" Russo asked.

"Because she's a crazy woman," Alicia said. "She thinks I had something going on with Dominic, which I think we've been through enough, huh?"

"Were you aware," Juhle said, "that she demanded that Mr. Como fire you?"

"That wouldn't surprise me. Nothing she did would surprise me."

"But Mr. Como didn't tell you that?"

"What?"

"That his wife wanted him to fire you."

"No. When?"

"Anytime. It never came up?"

"No. Never."

Sarah Russo, her hands clasped in front of her on the table, raised her head. "And he didn't, in fact, fire you?"

"No, he didn't."

"That last Tuesday was just another day at the office for you," Juhle said. "Is that what you're saying?"

"That's what I'm saying. G.o.d knows, I've thought about it enough, trying to remember any hint he might have given me while we were on the road about his appointment that night. But it was just a normal day."

"Tuesday, you mean?"

"Right. That last Tuesday."

"But you didn't come into work the next day?" Russo asked.

"Yes, I did. I went home when I saw Dominic wasn't there."

"And what about the day after that?"

"What about it?"

"Did you come in then?"

Alicia paused. "No."

"Why not?"

Alicia hesitated a moment longer. "Well, Dominic wasn't in, so there wouldn't have been anything for me to do."

Russo, on a scent, came forward. "How did you know he wasn't in?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean-it's a straightforward question-how did you know Dominic wasn't in?"

"I don't know. I don't remember. I must have called."

"You must have called? Why would you have called? Did you call most mornings to see if he was at work before you came in?"

"No. Sometimes. I must have those days. Or I had heard he was missing. I think that was probably it. His wife by then had said he was missing." Alicia's eyes were bright with emotion, and suddenly she found a voice for it. "And while we're on that, listen," she said. "I've been sitting here letting you guys ask me all these questions, but don't you think-forget all these innuendoes about me and Dominic-don't you think it's just a little suspicious that his wife didn't even call to report him missing until he was already gone for a whole day? Isn't that a little hard to explain? Doesn't that bother you at all? Plus the fact that Mrs. Como is the one who was jealous, regardless of whether I gave her a reason to be or not. And I didn't. She's the one who thought Dominic was cheating on her, and if she thought that, she might have wanted to kill him for it. Doesn't that make more sense than sniffing all around me?"

Juhle raised his eyebrows at his partner. He wasn't here to tell Alicia everything or anything that they knew, or a.s.sumed: that Ellen Como had had no real access to the presumed murder weapon, that they had no indication or information that she'd ever ridden or even been in her husband's limo, and hence couldn't have left a possibly incriminating scarf there, that both Ellen and Al Carter, apparently independently, had stated unequivocally that Dominic had in fact fired Alicia on his last morning at work. Ellen's behavior and unsubstantiated alibi notwithstanding, she was not really their prime suspect. Although of course they had not totally written her off.

But Juhle only said, "We appreciate your perspective, but as we've told you, the investigation is ongoing. We're just trying to gather information."

"And to that end," Russo picked up, "I wonder if you could tell us what you did last Monday night."

If the question was meant to shake her up, it succeeded almost to the point of panic. Alicia's mouth turned down, her eyebrows came together over her eyes. She looked to Juhle as if verifying that this was what they wanted to know. "Monday night a week ago?" she asked. "The night before Dominic was killed?"

"No," Russo answered patiently. "This past Monday night, two nights ago."

"Two nights ago? Why?"

Juhle had his professional face back on. "If you could just answer the question, Alicia."

The official tone hit its mark and Alicia sat back meekly, holding her hands together in her lap. "Monday night, Monday night. Tuesday I was at a friend's for dinner, and then Monday . . . oh, I got it. Monday I slept in my car down by the beach. Ocean Beach. I wanted to go surfing Tuesday morning."

"And you were alone in your car?" Russo asked.

"Yes."

"And from what time?"

"I don't know exactly. I had a pizza with my girlfriend Danielle at Giorgio's. On Clement? I guess I left at around ten."

"And drove out to the beach?" Russo asked.

"Right."

"Did you talk to anybody out there?" Juhle asked. "Were they having bonfires that night?"