Murder at the B-School Page 19

  “I don’t know. Sounds vaguely familiar.”

  “He’s the one who tells Bogart that if Bogart keeps riding him, they’ll be ‘pickin’ iron out of his liver.’” He took a breath. “And then Bogart says, ‘The cheaper the hood, the gaudier the patter.’ That’s Wilmer.”

  “Well, if that’s the best you can do, Wilmer, I think you’re making my point for me.” She put the magazines back on the coffee table, tidying up a few stacks in passing.

  “Oh, please,” he complained, “don’t use Wilmer on me. I already offered you Wim when we talked downtown, and you turned it down. I think I’d rather be Professor Vermeer than Wilmer.”

  “Yeah, I can definitely see that.”

  They looked at each other. Both were aware that the conversation needed to take a serious turn. “So,” she finally said, “my read is that you didn’t need an ambulance ride, and that you don’t need a doctor just now, although an X-ray of those ribs might make sense. You tell me if I’m wrong. If I’m not, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Starting with, what the hell was that little scene on the sidewalk all about?”

  He shook his head, looking blank. “I was hoping you could tell me. I step outside. I get jumped by Libby’s bodyguard. He collapses my lungs with his right pile driver and tries to stuff me into a car. You show up and rescue me.” He paused for a moment. His brow furrowed. “And how do you show up just in time, by the way?”

  “Let me ask the questions for now. You had your dinner with Libby last night, right? Did you run into him then? Did you do anything to really piss him off—I mean, to get him angry enough to come down here and try to wipe you out?”

  Again Vermeer shook his head. He noted that Brouillard had produced a notepad and pencil out of some pocket inside her coat, which she was still wearing. “You can take your coat off, if you’d like. I’m not hanging it up for you, though.” She shook her head impatiently and tapped her pencil on her pad. He retold the story of his earlier phone conversation with Beyer, in which he had deliberately provoked the bodyguard. Then he recounted the short scene at the bar, with Beyer basically ignoring him. “Less nasty than the phone call,” he said. He replayed Libby’s confession that she was using the dinner as a pretext to get out from under Beyer’s watchful eye. Briefly he summarized the frustrating dinner conversation, ending with him stalking out. “Maybe that was dumb on my part,” he acknowledged, seeing the look on Brouillard’s face. “But she seemed to think that she could just waltz in, tell me next to nothing—except, of course, reassuring me that my nonexistent relationship with her dead brother was perfectly okay with her—and then waltz out again.”

  “And then?”

  “Then what?”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “Then nothing. I came home and went to bed.”

  “No further contact with Libby after you left the restaurant?”

  “No, of course not. She was half in the bag at that point, in any case. She wouldn’t have been easy to talk to.”

  “Any sign of her mystery date showing up as you were leaving?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did she have a coat with her? A bag? Outdoor gear?”

  “Not that I saw. She got there before me and left after me. I guess she could have checked them in the coatroom. Or she could have been planning to go upstairs and get whatever she needed, before she went out. Why?”

  “What kind of shoes did she have on?”

  “I have no idea. Black. Fancy. Expensive. Heels, I think, but not too high. Why in the world do you care what kind of shoes she was wearing? What does that have to do with me nearly getting kidnapped and killed?”

  “What time did you leave the Four Seasons?”

  “I don’t know. Around nine thirty or so.”

  “Valet park?”

  “No. I’m too cheap. I found a meter about a block away. I’m good at that.”

  “What time did you get back here?”

  “As long as it took me to walk to the car and drive home. I don’t know—say, ten o’clock.”

  She looked down to take some notes. Once she turned the pencil around, erased something, and started over. Intent on her writing, she seemed oblivious to his presence.

  “So,” he said. “Good thing you were shadowing Beyer. I haven’t thanked you for saving my life. So thanks.”

  Finally, flipping the pad shut, she looked up again. “You’re welcome. But frankly, Professor Vermeer, we weren’t tailing him. We were tailing you.”

  She watched his reaction. He sagged a little. He didn’t say anything. She took a note. “And it gets worse, Professor. Libby was killed last night. In her hotel room. Too late to be in today’s paper, but you can read all about it tomorrow. Front-page news, no doubt.”

  “My God,” he said hoarsely, rubbing his face hard with both hands, as if trying to wake up as somebody else. “My God. Do you know who did it? And why?”

  “We don’t have a lot so far. We’re still checking out the scene, running tests, and so on. These things take time. But put it this way: I’d feel better if we had more to go on.”

  “Jesus. Poor kid. Does it look like a random thing?”

  “On the face of it, no. I’m really not in a position to talk about it at this point.” She continued to watch his face, and his body language, intently. He seemed oblivious to the scrutiny, shaking his head slowly, side to side.

  Then he stiffened and looked up, his features cold. “So Libby gets killed, and you decide to shadow me? And then I step out my front door and nearly get killed, and you want to check out my alibi?”

  “Actually,” Brouillard responded, choosing the question she wanted to answer, “we had a tail on you before Libby’s death. One of my colleagues had a very nice dinner last night at the Four Seasons. A rare treat for him, I can tell you. Unfortunately, he was a little too far away to hear much of what you two were talking about. He did see what looked like some signs of passion, though. She cries a little bit; she holds your hand; you get pissed off and stalk out. She finishes her drink all by herself, then orders another, and finishes that one. Then she goes upstairs and dies.”

  Vermeer got to his feet slowly, corkscrewing his way up and using the arm of the couch for balance. He made his way over to the windows overlooking the river. His back was to her. She could see his hands appear from under his armpits. He was hugging himself.

  “So, did your people follow me home? If they did, then they sure as hell know I didn’t kill Libby MacInnes last night.”

  “Well, it’s not that simple, Professor.” In a matter-of-fact tone, Brouillard sketched out ways he could have accomplished it: sneaking back out of some side door of this hulking building, going back into town, using the second hotel passkey that Libby asked for when she registered but which was now nowhere to be found. And so on. He stood motionless, looking out the windows as she spun the dark scenario. “So it’s time to pop the question, Professor. Did you kill her?”

  “No. You know I didn’t,” he said, turning to look at her. “You know I didn’t kill Libby MacInnes.”

  She nodded noncommittally. I hear you, the gesture said. Not I believe you.

  “I had no motive. This is ridiculous. I barely knew her.”

  “Like you barely knew Eric.”

  “Yeah,” he said icily. “Exactly like that.” Then another thought returned to him. “You were tailing me before last night.”

  “Correct.”

  “Why? Because I had already killed Eric, or because I was about to kill Libby?”

  She was standing up, snapping her pad shut, getting ready to leave. “There’s a third possibility,” she replied. “Maybe we wanted to make sure nothing happened to you.”

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Look, Professor,” she said, standing up to rebutton her coat and pulling the belt tight around her waist, “let me give you some advice. The proverbial shit is about to hit the proverbial fan. You are about to become famous. It could be as soon as about twenty-tw
o hours from now, when the Sunday papers hit the street.”

  “Thanks. My friends in the police department, looking out for my best interests again by pointing the media toward me?”

  “Actually, no,” she said, deflecting his hostility. “We don’t talk to the press at this stage of the game, at least beyond the bare minimum. We’re certainly not volunteering anything about you, or about anybody, for that matter. I’m telling them the truth, which is that at this point, we don’t have a suspect. But based on the questions I’m already getting, I’d say that somebody has tipped off somebody. Your name is definitely floating around. The Herald has already connected Libby and Eric and linked you with both of them. The Globe won’t be far behind. Whether they have the balls to drop your name at this point is anybody’s guess. But if not tomorrow, then not long after that, unless we bring someone else in first.”

  He looked at her from across the room. He was still hugging himself. “Good to know, Detective. Good to have something new to look forward to. Is that all the advice you’ve got for me? Get ready to be a celebrity murder suspect?”

  “No, there’s more. Get yourself a lawyer. A mean one—someone you don’t like. Don’t take any calls from the press. If they buttonhole you on the street, stiff-arm them. No comment. Take my word for it; you’re better off saying nothing. Lay low—someplace other than here; they’ll be swarming all over this place pretty soon. Leave your cell phone on, in case I need to find you. And don’t leave town.”

  “Is that last bit ‘advice,’ or is that an order?”

  “Please don’t leave town.”

  26

  HE WAS SITTING BY HIMSELF IN THE REAL INTERROGATION room—the one with the one-way mirror—but he wasn’t alone. Behind the glass were two officers, keeping an eye on him. A third waited in the hall outside.

  Brouillard entered the room warily, although she took care not to show any fear. She sat down across the table from Beyer. His uncuffed hands were folded in his lap, making him look like an enormous errant schoolboy. But looking at his upper body, she was glad that the table and chairs were bolted to the floor.

  “This conversation is being recorded,” she began. No response. She took out her pad and pencil. You never knew when the recorder would break or the tape would run out. “You’ve been told that you have the right to have an attorney present?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’ve decided to waive your right to legal counsel?”

  “Uh-huh.” Stretching a little, he moved like a fat snake on a cold day.

  “You’re talking to me voluntarily, and you’re aware that anything you say can be used against you in a court of law?”

  “Nothing much to hide, I’d say.” He looked her in the eye for the first time. “Did I go after that little fuck-weasel professor? Yeah, I did. I’m only sorry you showed up when you did and I didn’t get the chance to finish the job.”

  “What job? Where were you planning to take him, and what were you going to do with him?”

  He looked slightly surprised. “I was going to kill him. I don’t know where. Somewhere not in the middle of an intersection, I guess. Find some woods somewhere.”

  “You were just going to kill him and dump him in the woods?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he killed Libby.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  Again he looked a little surprised, although he didn’t look particularly interested in what was going on around him. “Why do I think he killed Libby? Because she went out on a date with him and wound up dead. And because he’s already killed one of the MacInnes kids, right? Why not kill another one? Maybe he’s going for all three.”

  “Tell me what happened last night.”

  “He killed her.”

  “Just tell me what you saw.”

  “What was to see? When he showed up for dinner, I left him and Libby alone. I asked her to call me before she went to bed. Standard operating procedure. She didn’t call. Sometimes she forgets. I called her around midnight. No answer. A little after two, I took the elevator downstairs. Two floors down. Her door hadn’t shut all the way. That wasn’t too unusual. She was often careless like that. No lights on, I could see. I knocked. No answer. I walked in. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor. I called for her. Still no answer. By now, I’m getting worried, wondering what’s going on. So I walked into the back room, the bedroom, and she was on the bed. I thought she was maybe passed out.”

  His voice began to get a little thicker. He cleared his throat. “I went over to her. It was dark, but I could see. Her eyes were open. Her neck didn’t look right. I could see she was, uhm”—he cleared his throat again—“dead.”

  “What did you do next?”

  He looked down at the table. “What did I do? I covered her up.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because she was naked. And I didn’t want a bunch of assholes like you coming in and gawking and seeing her like that.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I don’t remember very well. I was torn up. Mad. I must have picked up the phone and dialed the hotel operator, and told her there was a problem. After that, all hell broke loose. The cops came. I told them what I knew. But you know more about that than I do. I saw you there, right?”

  “You were going out as I was coming in. So you went back to your room, and—”

  “Yeah. That’s right.” Now his face began to shift, away from morose, toward murderous. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about that little skinny shit-ass, that professor, killing her. Wringing her neck. Squeezing the life out of her. So I decided to go pay him back. You know the rest.”

  She waited a few beats. “Dan Beyer, did you kill Libby MacInnes?”

  His jaw was clenched. She could see the muscles working. “No. You dumbshit cop. My job was to keep her alive. What’s his name—Vermeer—he killed her.”

  “You went from the restaurant to your room”—she checked her notes as she recited—“where you waited, made a phone call to her room, and a little after two, you went down and found the body. Can anybody confirm that?”

  “You mean, like the bimbo in my room? No. I was by myself. Room service came, pretty early on. I ordered a movie. Don’t recall seeing anybody in the hall when I went to her room. But this is bullshit . . .” He made a move as if to stand up.

  “Sit down, Beyer. I tell you when you can stand up.” He sat. “And,” she continued, “I decide what’s bullshit and what’s not. Got it?”

  “Yeah. Whatever. Go ahead. Pin this on me.”

  “Nobody’s going to get pinned. I’m going to figure out who did this. Using your own logic: We caught you in the act of trying to kill one guy. Maybe you also served up the last corpse that we found in your vicinity.”

  “I sure as fuck didn’t kill Libby. And I sure as fuck would have killed Vermeer, if you hadn’t gotten in the way.”

  “How often did you find her passed out?” She intended to catch him off guard, and did.

  “Huh?”

  “You said when you called her name and she didn’t move, you thought maybe she was passed out. Did she pass out a lot?”

  “Sometimes she drank too much. Sometimes I made sure she got to bed okay.”

  “Sounds cozy.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So you weren’t her boyfriend?”

  “No. Go fuck yourself.”

  “So why did she ask for two passkeys when she checked in? Why did she always ask for two passkeys? When we search your room this afternoon, will we find the other passkey there?”

  “No. Fuck you. Search all you want. Maybe she liked to have two in case she lost one of them.”

  “Think she might have been carrying on with someone else, behind your back? Think she might have been in the habit of giving that second key to that person?”

  He looked offended at the suggestion. “What, you think I wouldn’t have known about something like that? I practically
lived with that woman. No way. You want to find the second passkey? Go search Vermeer’s place. Or look in that shitty river behind his place, more likely.”

  She turned the pages of her pad, as if searching for something missing. A full minute went by. “I don’t get it, Dan.”

  “You don’t get what?”

  “I don’t get what’s driving you. Okay, sure, you fucked up—you were hired to protect Libby, and she got killed on your watch. Doesn’t look so good on your bodyguard résumé—”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Let me finish. Doesn’t look so good, but hey, it’s only a job, right? You try and draw another paycheck or two from the MacInnes family, who are probably good for it, and then you bail. You walk away. You go looking for the next thing. Maybe you get a job as a stud-muffin on a cruise ship, helping overweight suburbanites keep an eye on their blood pressure while they pretend to tone up, and you just forget about all this crap. What I mean is, you don’t risk a life sentence for killing the guy who you think killed your client. Or am I missing something?”

  “Fuck you.”

  She pressed on in the same bland voice, seeming to overlook his hostility. “Actually, you loved her a lot, didn’t you, Dan? More than you could stand? And she’d get shit-faced, chasing these losers, and count on you to tuck her in at night. And for a guy like you, she was always going to be out of reach, wasn’t she?”

  She watched his face purple.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  27

  VERMEER NORMALLY WENT TO WORK ON THE EARLY SIDE IN ANY case, out of the house by 6:15 in an effort to beat the South Shore traffic into town. This particular Monday, however, he decided that leaving even earlier might be a good idea.

  He had chosen to ignore Brouillard’s cautions about lying low. There were two possible explanations for why his life was swirling clockwise down the toilet bowl. The first was that this Boston cop didn’t know what she was doing. The second explanation was that she did know what she was doing.

  In either case, following her advice didn’t seem to make much sense.