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

you mean.”
    “There’s a good chance you could be arrested tonight.” Finally, as the light dawned, she began to look alarmed. “Me? For what?”
    “Marty, you have a motive, and the weapon’s yours. They don’t need a lot more than that. What else is there? Did you and Sadie fight? Did you threaten her?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Listen, Marty, I’m a good lawyer. I’ll get you out of this if I can. But you have to help. I just called a bail bondsman in San Francisco—he’s standing by, but I have to tell you—the cops’ll call a judge and try to get him to let them hold you on a no-bail warrant. And there’s a good chance they’ll get it. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
    She shook her head. How could she understand? “Marty, if they put you in jail tonight, you might not get out till Monday. All they need is probable cause, and they might think they have it. But our real problem is, it’s Friday. You can’t be arraigned till Monday. If a judge won’t set bail, they can hold you till then.”
    “But this is America!”
    I shrugged, having vented my spleen on this subject enough times. Defense lawyers like this rule of law the way we like black mambas, but there’s nothing we can do about it. I didn’t want to tell her, but they could actually hold her till Tuesday—the rule was seventy-two hours before she had to be arraigned, and weekends didn’t count.
    Marty got hold of herself. “But you can get me out on Monday?”
    “Probably. But listen, Marty, you have to help me. Believe me, you don’t want to go to jail. When did you last see Sadie?”
    “I don’t know—five o’clock maybe. Six. Who knows?”
    “What time does the aquarium close?”
    “Six.”
    “Where were you between six and the time I got here?”
    “In my office. Working.”
    “Were other people there?”
    “Are you kidding? It’s Friday.”
    “Did Sadie leave at six with the others?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t see her.”
    “Did you see anyone in that period? Before I got here?”
    “No.”
    My heart raced. If they decided to take her in, I didn’t see what I could do about it.
    Tillman came over. “Will
you
talk to us, Ms. Schwartz?”
    “Certainly.”
    He sighed, and began the mechanical questions: When did I arrive? How did I get in? Did I go anywhere before coming into the kelp forest area? What did I see when I got here? How did the lights happen to be on?
    What time had it been when we called the control room?
    What exactly did I see when the lights went on?
    What else?
    And on and on like that for several millennia. Similar scenes were being acted out around us with other employees, as public servants of one sort or another—we certainly had a variety on hand—fished out Sadie Swedlow.
    Finally one of the other cops called Tillman away. I felt like a boxer’s corner man between rounds, and wished I had his equipment—Marty needed her face wiped and maybe a little water thrown in it.
    We were alone again for a long while. Marty said, “Why don’t you want me to talk to them?”
    “Surely you’ve heard the phrase ‘Anything you say can and will be used against you.’ They’re not kidding about that.”
    “But if I’m not guilty, how can I incriminate myself?”
    I winced, imagining about three hundred different ways. To change the subject, I said, “Who else had a reason to kill her?”
    “The bitch! Anybody might have. She’d slept with half the guys who work here. Miss Sadie Stoop-Low was certainly never troubled about scruples—she was the boss, and she used it every way she could. Took what she wanted from everybody else—everything from free overtime to sex—and she was nasty.”
    “To whom?”
    “To everybody except her favorites—needless to say, they were all men.”
    “She wasn’t popular?”
    “She was a bitch.”
    “She must have been a good administrator, or she wouldn’t have lasted in a job like that.”
    “I doubt she
would
have lasted. She’d only been here six months.”
    “She was pretty busy if she’d already alienated half the staff and slept with the other half.”
    “That’s our Sadie.” There was real venom in her voice. The cops came back.
    “Marty Whitehead,” Jacobson said, “you’re under arrest.” She proceeded to read Marty her rights.
    I grabbed Tillman. “Are you crazy? You don’t have any reason to arrest her. This is a woman with strong community ties—you can’t afford to make a mistake.”
    He was smooth,