Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [53]
“Great,” Chuck said. “So that’s a possible false lead?”
“I’m afraid so. Unless we find something else more specific, I don’t see what good it does us.” He put the photocopy back on the desk. “When is everyone else getting here?”
“Any minute now—you’re early.”
Lee frowned. “I thought the meeting was at two.”
“Two-thirty.”
“Whatever.” He sank down in one of the captain’s chairs, carefully laying his injured hand on the armrest. He could feel it throbbing with each pulse of his heart.
There was a knock on the door. Chuck was standing next to it, and he flung the door open to admit Elena Krieger, who brushed past him as though she were visiting royalty. She glared at Lee.
“How long have you been here?”
“I just got here,” he lied.
She narrowed her small blue eyes and looked around for a place to sit down. She was wearing tight gray slacks and a white knit shirt with a V neck. She threw herself into the nearest chair, brandishing her cleavage. Lee tried not to stare as her breasts competed with each other to push through the top of her shirt.
“Okay,” she said to Chuck, as if he were the servant and she the master. “What have we got?”
His reply was interrupted by the sound of wheezing. The door was flung open, and Detective Butts stumbled into the room, panting heavily.
“Sorry,” he said. “Goddamn traffic on the GW Bridge.
Am I late?”
“Nope,” Chuck said. “Right on time.”
Krieger raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips, as though Butts were the carrier of an incurable disease and she was determined not inhale the deadly spores.
“Okay,” Butts said, pulling a chair up and sitting. His eyes fell on Lee’s bandaged hand. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I put my hand through a glass partition in a door.”
Butts shook his head. “This is the price you pay for breaking and entering in your spare time.”
Krieger appeared to take his remark seriously. Her mouth fell open, and she turned to Chuck.
“He’s kidding,” Morton said.
Butts pulled a crumpled brown paper bag from his pocket and thrust it toward the others. It was smeared with splotches of grease. “Rugelach, anyone? My wife’s sister made it. Leftover from the funeral.”
Krieger scowled and crossed her arms. “Can we get back to business, please?”
Chuck held up the page with the diary entry. Before he could say anything, Krieger snatched it from him.
“This is from her diary?” she asked, studying it.
“Right,” Chuck answered, with a glance at Butts, who didn’t look at all put out by Krieger’s behavior. It occurred to Lee that he might be deliberately ignoring her.
Krieger held up the diary entry. “So this could be referring to her killer.”
“Unless she made up the whole thing,” Lee remarked.
Krieger stared at him. “Why would she do that?”
Lee explained his history with Ana, and her narcissistic personality.
“She’d do that, then?” Butts asked.
“I think we can’t discount that possibility. She might have even set it up so that her boyfriend would discover the diary.”
“What about the warning note? You believe that is also fake?” Krieger asked.
“Well, it did come from the magazines in her house,” Lee pointed out.
“But the boyfriend definitely could have done that,” Butts said. “We need to have him in for a little chat.”
“I think that’s a good idea,” Chuck agreed.
“Think about it, though,” Lee said. “If he did create the warning note, then why doesn’t he get rid of the magazines once Ana is dead? Why leave them in the house for us to find?”
“Criminals can be incredibly stupid,” Krieger remarked.
“He didn’t strike me as stupid—quite the opposite,” Lee countered. “Did you think he was stupid?” he asked Butts.
“No,” Butts admitted. “He’s a sharp guy. And he seemed real shaken. Unless he’s a terrific actor, the guy was definitely hit hard by her death. I still say we should bring him in, though. If for nothin’ else, maybe he’s thought of something that might