“Oh, no, Max, nothing that easy.” He traced his unused fork in the cloth of the table. If he was writing something, she couldn’t tell. “You do remember my little penchant for videos?” One of Bud’s videos had been instrumental in revealing a murderer.
This time the shiver was unavoidable. He saw it and smiled. “I see you do. So think of all the lovely things that can be caught on camera, Max.” He waited, avid eyes on her.
“You have Julia on video with you?” The idea sickened her. Louis sauce boiled like acid in her stomach.
A barbarous smile filled his face and showcased his white teeth. “Something like that, Max.”
*
Max didn’t quite see how a video of Julia and Bud was a motive for Lance’s murder. But she was damn well going to find out, and right from the horse’s mouth. Julia.
Using the card Julia had given her, Max called the woman’s house, then she called her office, as hard as it was to believe that Julia could return to the scene of her husband’s murder.
Max had never once gone back inside the 7-11 where Cameron had died. She hadn’t gone into a convenience store at all, no matter what the name.
Julia, apparently, didn’t feel the same compunction. She was there, but distant. Still, she told Max to come right over since she would be so close. A little white lie, Max had said she was coming into the city on an errand for Bud.
She hated using his name as an excuse. He’d revel in it.
After returning home to get a change of clothes for the evening, Max shot up the freeway, negotiated the San Francisco streets with a tad more ease now that she’d driven up three nights in a row, then arrived at Julia’s office a little after three o’clock.
She took the elevator to the twenty-second floor. Marvelous, absolutely marvelous. Max had wanted to see, feel, and hear every psychic thing that office had to tell her.
Suite 452 consisted of two offices—she knew without being told that the other had been Lance’s—and a lobby area with receptionist’s desk. The suite was unlocked, and Julia’s door ajar. Max walked into the silence within, dropping the garment bag with her evening clothes by one of the cushioned chairs. She planned to change in one of the building’s ladies rooms.
A black leather handbag lay on its side outside Julia La Russa’s office. Julia, seated at her desk, faced away from the door, seemingly transfixed by the panoramic city view, buildings stacked upon buildings as far as the eye could see, the Bay being in the other direction. Max, from her vantage point, saw only the twin building directly across from which witnesses had observed Lance and Angela.
The place had been stripped almost bare, a section of carpeting precision-cut and missing, the credenza cleared of papers except for the printer, computer, and desktop copier. The desk itself lay empty. Gone were the pencil holder, blotter, in-box, pads of paper, and the letter opener Lance had been killed with. Black residue coated the polished mahogany where Angela had lain. The black powder, in fact, coated every surface in the room. Fingerprint powder. Traces of it were on Max’s fingers where she’d touched the doorknob.
Julia turned slowly in the chair. Tear tracks marred her once perfect makeup. What had done this to her, beaten her down to a mere shadow of the self she’d been at her home? Max looked around and thought she knew the answer. It was this office, the place where Lance had died. It had a way of changing people.
Setting her fingertips against her wet cheeks without wiping away her tears, Julia drew a breath. “There are cleaning services that specialize in sanitizing crime scenes.”
Max moved forward so as not to miss one softly spoken word.
Julia had chewed the lipstick from her lips, leaving only a dark silhouette of liner. “A policeman gave me the name of an outfit.” Julia reached up to swipe a hand across her cheek. “Would you call them and set it up for me?”
“Of course.”
Julia handed a piece of paper across the desk, gathering streaks of powder along the sleeve of her blouse, invisible against the black silk. A deep breath, in, out, not a sigh but a fortification. “They came to my house, for fiber evidence, they said. They went through my car. They wanted my fingerprints.”
Julia hadn’t mentioned it before, though the police must have done it on Sunday or Monday. “For elimination purposes,” Max explained. Witt had once taken Max’s prints for that very reason. “And they want to eliminate the fibers you would have tracked here yourself, to isolate anything that might be tied to Lance’s killer.” It paid to know a cop. As far as his wife was concerned, Lance couldn’t have picked a better place to get murdered. All trace evidence and fingerprints that pointed to Julia could be explained away by the fact that it was her office.
With a solid alibi and lack of motive by claiming she knew about her husband’s philandering, Julia was almost invincible.
She was so believable.