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

I’ll give him that. “Want to come up to the roof with me?”
    We took the freight elevator, and when we got off, the first thing I saw was a body bag—Sadie, awaiting her ride to the morgue.
    From this vantage point, the kelp forest looked like nothing more romantic than a swimming pool surrounded by a flimsy fence of plastic wire. The wire was attached to posts by hooks that could easily be removed, and some of them had been, to get the body out. The lights around the tank were giant, powerful ones—had to be to illuminate twenty-eight feet of murk—and near the surface swam the phosphorescent sardines, a habit they have that made them easy prey on moonless nights back in the cannery days. Even now, a sea gull dived at a silvery target.
    The jacket I’d seen floating in the tank was lying on the floor.
    “That’s been identified as your client’s. It’s got blood all over it. Like maybe she wore it while she stabbed the victim. And I want to show you something else.” He produced a plastic evidence bag, holding it so the contents could be very clearly seen. In the bag was a letter opener with a scrimshaw handle, the thing I’d seen sticking out of Sadie’s face. Its steel point was almost blunt—a lot of force and a lot of brutal rage would be needed to shove it into a person.
    “We hear her husband gave her this.”
    I could have said, “Estranged husband,” just to set the record straight, but it wouldn’t have been politic.
    Tillman continued, “The body has been identified as that of Sadie Swedlow. We understand she was your client’s boss.
    “One of the witnesses says they haven’t been getting along lately. We hear her husband moved in with Sadie about three months ago. And we hear they had quite a fight about that time.” He flipped some pages of his notebook. “We also hear she made a remark to the effect that she’d like to feed Ms. Swedlow to the sharks. And she was seen here tonight.”
    Terrific. Fights, threats, physical evidence, and placed at the scene. Why the hell hadn’t she told me about the fight?
    I said, “She’s got two little kids. She’s not going anywhere.”
    He shrugged. He’d brought me up there to brag. He thought he had a pretty good case.
    “All these witnesses you mentioned—did any of them see Marty with Sadie tonight?”
    He was silent.
    “With all due respect, Detective, you haven’t got a damn thing.”
    Again, he shrugged. Why should he say anything? It was a one-sided argument, lost before it began.
    I said, “I need to talk to her some more.”
    “Meet us at the station.”
    * * *
     
    The police department was off Friendly Plaza, a small-town touch I liked. It was housed in an unimposing one-story building that could have been used for dentists’ offices it looked so innocuous, but I wondered what else was in there. Was there a jail, or were prisoners sent to a county institution?
    We were ushered into a suffocating interview room, big enough for one person to breathe comfortably, but unfortunately there were two of us. Marty’s face had turned as white as Jacobson’s hair, and it wasn’t much healthier-looking. The walls were covered with fake paneling, there were no windows except one to the room next door that was obviously a two-way, and the only furniture was a small table and two chairs covered with turquoise vinyl.
    I was sure Marty had never been in such a place before. She swiveled her head continually, as if committing the whole place to memory, no doubt redecorating in her mind, removing the tacky paneling. Her nose seemed set in a permanent sniff. I didn’t think she had a clue what kind of trouble she was in.
    I told her what Tillman had told me.
    “I didn’t threaten her.”
    “You didn’t say that about feeding her to the sharks?”
    “That wasn’t a threat! It was just one of those things you say.”
    I shrugged.
    “Her little boyfriend must have told them that. Ricky Flynn.”
    “I thought Don was her boyfriend.”
    She blew her nose, leaving me with my mind on her husband.
    “Where is he, by the way? Surely the police must have notified him. Will he do anything—” I searched for the right word “—inappropriate?”
    I meant would he come to her house and make some kind of scene involving the kids—maybe say she was a murderer and try to haul them away. But Marty’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Dear God, he’s in Australia! Who’ll take care of the kids?”
    I guess I should have been glad she was