Twisted Interest by Nora Kane (best mystery novels of all time txt) 📗

“The phrase was ‘I hear my name coming out your mouth one more time, bitch and I’m putting a cap in your pretty face.’”

“Said like a man,” Cranston added.

Margot motioned for them to turn back on the recorder.

When they did she said, “Go fuck yourselves.”

“You’re not helping yourself here, Margot.”

Margot shrugged. “I think I’ve said all I’ve got to say.”

Anderson changed tactics. “Where were you at eleven o’clock Thursday night?”

“At your colleague’s place. Do you want to know what we were doing?”

“I think I can guess.”

“So, can I leave now?”

“Where was your old pal Malachi Flynn?”

“I have no idea.”

“You sure? You haven’t seen him since he bolted from that crime scene up in Riverside?”

“Yeah.”

“What if I told you he’d been seen driving out of the parking lot of your apartment building as recently as last week?”

“Are you telling me that or is this a hypothetical?”

“What if I were to tell you that same vehicle was seen speeding out of Cassandra Cole’s neighborhood the night someone took a shot at her?”

“I think you have my answer on tape. Go ahead and play it back, save me the trouble of saying it again.”

“Did you send your old lover to scare that kid? Or maybe he was supposed to hit her?”

When Margot didn’t reply Anderson said, “Could be he doing it on his own? When it came to you, he was always like a lovesick puppy.”

“You going to say something?” Cranston asked.

“No, I’m not,” Margot told him. Even though Anderson's second theory made some sense to her, she didn’t want to tell him that.

“You sure you don’t know where Mal is these days? We could be asking him these questions instead of you.”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Which makes it kind of a bummer I don’t.”

“How about last Saturday around 11 a.m.? Were you doing something unmentionable with Detective Radcliff then too?”

“Why? Someone shoot at Cassie twice?”

“That’s when Lucas got shanked in the county infirmary.”

“I wasn’t there.”

“How well do you know Dennis Thorn?”

“Who’s that?” Margot asked even though the name sounded vaguely familiar.

“You tell me.”

Margot couldn’t have told him if she wanted to. Even though she felt she’d heard the name before, she couldn’t place where.

“You know, it has occurred to more than one person that if Lucas ever got to tell his story, your client would go back to being the lead suspect in a double murder. It kind of makes it convenient for you that the poor kid got stabbed,” Cranston mused.

Margot decided this was a good time to exercise her right to remain silent.

“And one of those people who was saying Lucas might be innocent and Phoebe Masterson should still be the main suspect was Cassandra. In fact, she dedicated a whole episode of Coastal Crime Alert to the subject. It was a popular episode. Did you watch it?” Anderson asked.

She hadn’t, but she was still exercising her right to remain silent. Margot examined her nails on her left hand. It had been a long time since she got a manicure.

“Maybe after Cassie shined a big old spotlight on you and your involvement in Lucas getting shanked, you thought you needed to scare her off,” Cranston added.

Margot didn’t answer him either.

“Silence isn’t helping, Margot.”

She was tempted to tell him to fuck off again, but in truth, she knew every word she said to them was too many.

After a few more minutes of uncomfortable silence, a lawyer from Browers and Associates came through the door. She wasn’t sure his name; like a lot of their litigators, he was tall, fit and nice-looking, in an aristocratic kind of way. Browers had been her client as they’d represented Phoebe Masterson when she was the prime suspect in the murder of her husband and Rita Helms.

She’d thought they might be unhappy with her. By finding another suspect, she’d robbed them of a high-profile trial. Instead, it was the opposite. It seemed they were more interested in helping their clients than getting on the news. With this in mind, they’d kept Margot on a retainer. She still took other clients, but when they called, they were the priority.

One of the perks of this business arrangement was, if she needed a lawyer, they were there for her.

“Have you charged my client with something?” he asked.

“Not yet,” Anderson told him.

“When you do, give me a call,” he said as he put his card on the table, “otherwise my client will be leaving.”

He motioned for Margot to stand up. After she got up, they walked out the door together.

“Thaddius Wolf,” he told her as they exited the station.

“I know, I saw your card.”

“I’d like to say call me Wolf because everyone does, but the sad fact is everyone calls me Thad.”

“Nice to meet you, Thad. Thanks for getting me out of there.”

“No problem. I needed to talk to you anyway and you're much more fun than our other investigators.”

“How is that?”

“They never get hauled in for questioning.”

“That was fun?”

“For me, anyway. I could see how it would be less so for you. Is this something the firm needs to know more about?”

“Not yet. They were just going fishing. Unfortunately, the way I left the department didn’t make me many friends. If you can help it, don’t make enemies of cops.”

“Are you saying I should have been nicer back there?”

“Never mind. You’re a defense attorney; if you wanted to avoid making enemies of cops, that ship sailed a while ago.”

Thad unlocked a midnight blue Porsche 911 Carrera remotely as they approached it.

“Nice ride,” Margot said.

She couldn’t help thinking about something she and Thad’s mutual client, Phoebe Masterson, said. She’d told Margot it wasn’t Radcliff’s