Twilight Whispers Read online

  “Did Jack play any part in that?”

  If only, Cavanaugh thought. It would have been something else to condemn. “He was too young. By the time he joined his father Prohibition was being lifted.”

  “So?”

  “So he took the old man’s airplanes, spruced them up, launched an aggressive advertising campaign, and began a legitimate air-passenger service.” He paused. “Founded on bootleg capital.”

  “Which wasn’t unusual at the time,” Jodi pointed out gently. “Or now, for that matter. There’s many a mobster’s son who has established himself in a legitimate business with funds from an illegitimate one. It may not be right, or satisfy our belief in justice, but can we criticize the sons who have chosen to straighten up? Often they’re the most charitable people.”

  “Yeah. They use their money to buy respectability.”

  “But if the money goes to a worthy cause, isn’t that something?”

  “I think you were right the first time.” He looked up at her. “It does offend my sense of justice.”

  Grabbing a handful of his hair, she gave it an affectionate tug. “That’s because you have a super sense of justice. But we’re getting off the subject. So Jack Whyte had a going business concern to come back to after the war. What about Gil Warren?”

  “Gil had a law practice.”

  “Before the war?”

  “Mmm.”

  “With someone else?”

  “As in someone who handed it to him on a silver platter?” He darted her a look of resignation. “No. His father was a house painter. Gil started from scratch. He was a scholarship student at Amherst, then went on to Harvard Law. But damn,” he shook his head in grudging amazement, “the guy had a knack for it. From what I’ve learned he could put on a show even back then. Not long after he opened his office he was attracting some of the best clients—stole them from prestigious firms, no less. I don’t know what it was, whether he was a good talker or a good lawyer or simply a good looker.”

  “Charisma, Bob. Some people just have it. He did. He does.”

  Cavanaugh grunted. “You can say that again. Not only charisma, but virility. He may not have seen combat, but he sure saw action of another sort. I mean, the guy was a notorious playboy before he decided that it would be good for his image to get married, but you can be damn sure that he wasn’t spending his nights in England alone behind blackout shades.”

  “Bob.…”

  “Okay, okay. I can’t document anything but what he did with his wife. Do you know that by the time he got back from England at the end of the war he had two kids, with a third on the way?”

  Jodi couldn’t help but grin. “I think you’re jealous.”

  “Of a prize stud? Are you kidding? He was probably only trying to do one better than his buddy Jack. Besides,” he coiled his arm around her waist and threw the issue back at her, “I’d have all the children in the world if you were willing. So who’s the source of the problem around here?”

  Jodi held her breath for a minute before offering a sheepish, “Me.” She wished she hadn’t brought the subject up. They always argued about it. She would be more than happy to have children if Bob would marry her, but he wouldn’t, so he was as much the source of the problem as she—but to say so would invite war. He had been through a marriage that had scarred him badly, and he had a thing against discussing it.

  Jodi was not holding out for marriage on principle; she was a little more modern than that. But she knew Bob wasn’t ready to make a total commitment, and until he was she feared bringing their children into the world.

  “Do you really think Gil was competing with Jack when it came to children?” she asked in an attempt to nip that more personal discussion in the bud.

  “I don’t know,” Bob said, pondering the possibility as he spoke. “Actually, maybe not. The two of them were closer than most brothers. They worked with each other rather than against each other.”

  “A symbiotic relationship?”

  “I suppose you could call it that. It’s sick, in some ways. They met at Amherst. Gil went on to Harvard Law and Jack followed him to Cambridge—to the business school—a year later. They both decided to stay in Boston, and once they were working they constantly sent each other business. They married women who were best friends, even had a double wedding ceremony.” He arched a brow. “One of those quickie things right before they left for the war.” The brow settled. “Jack had two kids of his own by the time he returned from the Pacific, and there were more to come. All told, by the mid-fifties, the tally was four for Jack and five for Gil.” He paused, scratching his chin. “But no, I don’t think they were competing, because if that were the case their friendship would never have lasted all these years. Something would have come up to tear them apart.”

  “Maybe the competition was between their wives.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Jodi sat for a minute longer, gently stroking his hair, before she ventured to speak again. “What do you hope to get out of all these papers?” She gestured toward his lap.

  Cavanaugh looked at the files, absently flipping the corner of the pile. “Understanding. Where they came from, what made them tick.”

  “That’s usually my line.”

  He grinned. “I know. See what happens to a man when he lives with a guidance counselor for three years running?”

  She was going to ask if he was complaining, but knew that he wasn’t. Their relationship—aside from the issues of marriage and children, which weren’t major ones since she was only twenty-seven and had a rising career—worked well, symbiotic in its own way. She gave him tender loving care in exchange for his apartment, his companionship, his affection, and great sex.

  “Okay. Let me take a different tack. How does all of this background relate to your investigation?”

  That was a tougher one for Cavanaugh to answer. He was having trouble explaining his fascination with the Whytes and Warrens to himself, because in theory he despised them. And he wasn’t prepared to tell Jodi that he was looking for internal treachery, because she was an eternal optimist. She’d be on him in a minute.

  So he fudged it as best he could. “I’m not sure that it does relate. But every little bit helps.”

  Jodi was too savvy to settle for that. “The official position still holds that it was a murder-suicide. If you’re trying to understand how Mark Whyte could have murdered his wife and then killed himself, why are you concentrating on their parents?”

  “I’m not concentrating on them. It’s just a place to begin.”

  “That’s an awful lot of investigative work for a here-and-now murder-suicide. Isn’t it above and beyond the call of duty?”

  “Let’s just say I’m dedicated.”

  “Oh, I know that,” she teased, but her smile never quite made it. “You’re looking for foul play.”

  His eyes met hers. “What gives you that idea?”

  “I know you.”

  Sliding down in his chair, Bob propped his feet on the small oak coffee table before him. “I’m a detective,” he said offhandedly. “It’s my job to consider every possibility.”

  “Some of which are?” When he shot her another, sharper glance, she held up a hand. “Hey, I was just curious. But it’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.” At times like these she wondered if he didn’t trust her. Or if he doubted her intelligence. More likely, he feared she was too intelligent and might just upstage him in psyching out a case.

  She started to rise, but he dragged her back by a wrist. “It’s not that I don’t want to, just that there’s not much to say.” He felt her body slowly relax, so he went on, but more slowly. “On the surface, a murder-suicide could be plausible. Mark Whyte had problems. So did Deborah Warren.”

  “But we all do, don’t we?” The subject interested her. Suicide among the young was a problem on the rise, one she had had to face at the school were she worked. True, the Whyte-Warren deaths weren’t exactly the teenage variet
y, but still … “Were either Mark’s or Deborah’s problems that great to warrant self-destruction?”

  “We’re looking into it, but we haven’t got anything definitive yet. Rumor has it that Mark was having money problems. And drug problems. And sex problems.”

  “In your opinion, were any of those severe enough to explain what happened?”

  “What is this, the third degree?”

  She caught her breath, stung by his tone. There it was again. His ego. “No. Just me. Wondering.”

  Something in her voice got to him. Whether it was her softness, her sincerity, or an odd kind of sadness he didn’t know. But he felt instant remorse, so he relented. “I don’t know the details yet, but from what I’ve heard … my opinion?” His voice lowered. “No.”

  “Has your investigation turned up any evidence of foul play?”

  He stared at the fingernails of his right hand and puckered his lips. “Concrete evidence? Not … yet.”

  He was frustrated. She heard it in his voice, saw it in the downward cast of his head. “If there’s something to be found, you’ll find it, Bob. You’re the best they’ve got. That’s why you were put in charge.”

  “Yeah. So the best they’ve got comes up with a big fat zero. What then?”

  “Then it really was a murder-suicide.”

  Cavanaugh considered that possibility for several minutes. When he spoke it was with a touch of bewilderment. “The weird thing is that, in my gut, I don’t buy the suicide bit. And it has nothing to do with anything Ryan or anyone else might have said.” He jabbed his stomach. “It’s just here.” His bewilderment deepened. “There was something about that scene, about the way the bodies were lying on the bed—no, about the way the gun was in his hand, like the whole thing was staged—I mean, if you were to shoot yourself in the head, wouldn’t you lose your grip on the gun as you toppled over?”

  He fell silent, grappling with that question. After a minute he resumed speaking with a more forceful inflection. “Those families are strong. I may hate it, but they are. They’re doers. They don’t sit back and wait for things to happen. I can’t believe that they’d stand by and watch two of their number get so thoroughly screwed up that they’d commit murder, much less suicide.”

  “But mental illness—”

  “They’re strong. They bounce back and wind up on top. Jack Whyte has had setbacks in his day, but for each step back he took three ahead. Mark was his son. That’s got to amount to something.”

  Jodi knew that he was being unrealistic. Genes could only take a person so far. Likewise upbringing and example. At some point circumstance took over. Some of the suicides she had seen had involved the most improbable victims.

  “No,” Bob went on distractedly. Again it was as though he had forgotten her presence, as though he were reasoning with himself. “I don’t buy suicide. But damn it, we have so few leads! We’ve taken the waterfront apart looking for witnesses, but no one saw or heard anything unusual that night. With the rocking of the boats in their slips there could have been any number of noises that sounded like a gunshot. Mark’s prints were the only ones on the gun, but that doesn’t mean anything if whoever killed him wiped the gun clean and then put it in his hand.”

  “A nitrate test?”

  “Inconclusive. Could have been from gunpowder lingering on the gun after it was fired.”

  “The gun was his,” Jodi prompted softly.

  “Which could mean that whoever used it either stole it beforehand or knew where Mark kept it on the boat. So we could be dealing with a stranger or someone who knew him well.” He raked a hand through his hair, then looked up at her beseechingly. “The lab went over every inch of that boat. There were dozens of other fingerprints, apparently left there over a period of time. The only possible clue is a footprint on the threshold to the cabin where they were found. The cabin itself is carpeted, so there was nothing, and it rained the next morning, so any prints on the deck were washed away. Anyway, there’s no way to tell if the footprint was from another of those guests who left their fingerprints.”

  He paused for a breath, calming himself in the process. “I’ve got the lab doing extra tests on that footprint. If we can find something in it, some unique or characteristic kind of dirt or mud or seaweed … something … anything.…”

  “And in the meantime?”

  He let out a weary sigh. “In the meantime we search Mark’s place in L.A. There may be a clue one way or another. The police out there claim they’ve already been over it. They weren’t thrilled when I told them I’d be sending my own team this week. Can you believe that? It’s like they think this is a game and they insist on holding the cards. Hell, we’re supposedly working on the same side!”

  “Shh,” Jodi murmured. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, damn it! By the time we get a shot at it half the fuckin’ evidence may be gone!”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I know, but you’re doing everything you can.”

  His features tightened. “No. I’ll have my guys tear that place apart, and when they’re done they can start questioning people who had any connection with Mark or Deborah. We’ve already started studying Mark’s financial records. His wallet and credit cards were on the boat, so we’re checking out every possible lead there.”

  “Hoping for?”

  “Something to explain why the guy would kill his wife and then himself or why someone else would do it. Motive. There’s got to be one somewhere. Within the next week or so I’ll start interviewing people around here. I haven’t rushed it because I don’t want to alienate the families.”

  “Why would interviews alienate them? I’d think they’d welcome anything you do. After all, you’re trying to find out whether someone murdered two of their own.”

  “Scandal, Jodi,” he informed her dryly. “As far as the families are concerned it was a murder-suicide. The last thing they want is headlines connecting Mark or Deborah with something ugly. The newspapers are already speculating; something coming from the police would have that much more weight.”

  Jodi stared at him incredulously. “Do you mean to say that they’d be willing to leave well enough alone simply for the sake of their own reputations?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “But aren’t you pandering to them by being cautious?” She would have guessed, given Bob’s feelings toward the Whytes and Warrens, that he would be more than glad to make them squirm.

  “I’m trying to be human,” was his quiet response. “To jump right in with wild accusations the day after the funeral would have been crass. I like to think that I’m a step above the sleaze reporter, regardless of my personal feelings.”

  Jodi’s face slowly relaxed into a smile and she hugged him. “That’s my man.”

  He colored under her praise, realizing that he might have sounded self-righteous even though he had meant every word he’d said. “But don’t worry,” he said more gruffly. “I’ll do my investigation. In my own time and way, I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes until I’m satisfied one way or the other. And if it means that I’ll eventually have to grill the Whytes and Warrens themselves, so be it.”

  Ironically, Robert Cavanaugh found himself on the wrong side of the interrogation table the next morning. Shortly after he reached his desk, he received a call from Jordan Whyte suggesting that they meet for coffee at the Dunkin Donuts on Commercial Street. It was clearly a neutral locale, one where they might be free of curious onlookers.

  Cavanaugh, curious himself, quickly agreed and was at the appointed spot thirty minutes later. The shop was nearly empty, but even if it had been packed he would have had no trouble locating Jordan. He was sitting at the counter staring at his hands, which were clasped on the Formica surface. Even with his head downcast and the short-sleeved polo shirt and jeans he wore there was an aura of power to him. Cavanaugh resented that.

  Approaching the adjacent stool, he gruffly gestured toward the waitress. “Two coffees.”r />
  Jordan looked up. He had never seen Robert Cavanaugh before, and he was puzzled, then wary. In answer to the question in his eyes, Cavanaugh nodded and extended his hand. Jordan met it in a brief shake, but neither man said a word.

  Within a minute two mugs filled with hot coffee were deposited on the counter. Cavanaugh cocked his head toward a small booth where they might talk in relative privacy, and only when they had both slid into their respective seats did he speak.

  “I’m sorry about your brother and sister-in-law.” Death did sadden him; he wasn’t that hardened yet. His enmity toward the families involved couldn’t outweigh his sense of common decency. Not to mention the fact that he wanted to play it safe until he had had a chance to size Jordan up.

  Jordan gave a single nod in thanks for the expression of condolence, then sat back in the booth, staring at Cavanaugh all the while. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of him; he looked clean cut and alert, not exactly the frazzled or slovenly detective Jordan had expected. “I understand you’re heading the investigation.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You’re a detective lieutenant?”

  “Yes.”

  “Homicide?”

  “That’s right.” Cavanaugh bided his time. He knew damn well Jordan Whyte had known the answers to each of the questions he had asked. A man like Jordan, coming from a family like the Whytes, didn’t approach anything blindly. Cavanaugh assumed that Jordan was using the time to assess him, and he was grateful that he had on his sharp, summer-weight tweed blazer, a crisp white shirt and rep tie. Jordan Whyte should know that he wasn’t dealing with a slouch—even if Cavanaugh had splurged on the outfit only at Jodi’s insistence.

  “I understand that John Ryan was the one who assigned you to the case.”

  Cavanaugh nodded.

  “What happened to George Hass? Isn’t he the head of the homicide division?”