Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

being realistic, but the way she seemed to be accepting a weekend in jail made me worry: about her fighting spirit and about her innocence. It struck me suddenly that it was awfully convenient, my being there. I wondered if I’d been set up. But if Marty’d gone to so much trouble to get me in place for the big moment, why hadn’t she bothered to arrange an alibi?
    She tapped the table, thinking, still pale, but otherwise cool. I was sure it was her ability to operate and plan under pressure that made her good in business, and it seemed to have kicked in. It was a little unnerving in this circumstance. “My mother. I’ll get her to come down from Walnut Creek. But I’ll need somebody tonight.”
    She raised her eyes to mine and simply stared. I’d known this was coming. If I didn’t blink first, could I get out of it? I blinked. She kept staring.
    “Marty, for Christ’s sake. I don’t even know your kids. A stranger’s supposed to tell them their mother’s in jail?”
    I saw the tears pop into her eyes. “I don’t have anybody else.”
    “Okay, okay. I’ll do it.”
    She handed me her keys. “Here. Your room’s the second one on the left at the top of the stairs.”
    “What time do they get up?”
    She gave me an impatient wave, her mind already elsewhere. “Any time. Listen, there’s one more thing. I need something from my office.”
    “You’re going to work in jail? Are you crazy? Do you know how serious this is?”
    “The police might search my office, right?”
    “If they have reason to think there’s evidence there. But there has to be probable cause for that, too, and they’d have to get a search warrant.”
    “I need my calendar.”
    “Your calendar?”
    “And one other little thing. In one of my desk drawers—I don’t know which, dammit—there’s a note. It says, ‘Six tonight?’ or something like that. With a flowery phrase or two thrown in. I can’t remember the exact wording, but you’ll know it when you see it.”
    I was furious. So mad I practically stamped my feet. I didn’t care if she was trying to protect the pope, I wasn’t representing anyone stupid enough to play that game. Especially someone with two children who had to be told Mom was in jail. By me.
    “Marty Whitehead, damn your eyes! Are you telling me you have an alibi?”
    “How do I know, Rebecca? I don’t know when she was killed.”
    “Common sense tells you she was killed after the aquarium closed. Between six and eight-thirty or thereabouts, when we found the body. Are you telling me you weren’t even there at the time? You were with somebody who can give you an alibi?”
    “No.”
    “Isn’t that what you just told me?”
    “I asked you to remove some personal things from my office, that’s all—things I don’t want the whole world to know about.” She avoided my eyes, which probably looked like those of a hanging judge. “I was there tonight. My date was
last
Friday. Will you pick up my things, please? It’s important to me.”
    They did have a jail in the building, and they got hold of a judge nasty enough to want to hold a mother of two without bail.
    I had to leave alone, but I wasn’t yet defeated. There was a chance—an outside chance, a tiny chance (actually an infinitesimal chance)—that sometime over the weekend I could find a judge who’d set bail.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Mommy! Mommy! Keil! Mommy’s not home.” Each word was shriller than the one before.
    I rolled out of bed still groggy—keyed up from the excitement, I’d taken one of Mickey’s Seconals. I grabbed a pair of shorts and pulled them on. I was already wearing panties and T-shirt, and I hadn’t brought a robe.
    “Libby? Libby, it’s all right.” I stumbled into the hall, where I smacked head-on into a ten-year-old juggernaut. Who would have thought such a small girl could seem so solid? She screamed; her eyes were terrified; trapped. Over her head, I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at my heart. It was sticking out of one of the bedrooms, the door slightly cracked.
    “Keil, it’s okay, honey. I’m the sitter.”
    The gun barrel disappeared and Keil stepped out, still wearing pajamas. “It’s only an air rifle.” He was tall for his age, and handsome, blond with brown eyes. A surfer boy, a California dream.
    Libby had plain brown hair, but she’d gotten blue eyes. Right now her teeth looked as big as a rabbit’s, and they had a space between them. She was going through an awkward