“No,” said Rook, loving the nickname, “but now that you gave me a title, I have an article to pitch Rolling Stone.”
“The way I see it, how many million is enough when half the world is starving or doesn’t have water to drink? Of course, that’s all too radical and socialistic for the old man, but he’s just a big Scrooge. Now, how’s that for irony?” Carey laughed and finger combed the unruly curtain of brown hair that had fallen over one side of his forehead. “Sorry about prattling on. You didn’t make the trip here this morning to listen to this.”
The three of them took seats on red leather bar stools in the empty pub, and Nikki said, “Actually, I do have some serious business to discuss. I’m investigating my mother’s murder, and since you knew her so long, maybe you can help provide some information.”
“Of course. Now I feel even worse for blathering on. Whatever I can do.” Then his eyes widened. “I’m not a suspect, am I? Because that would pretty much suck, especially considering how I felt about her. I mean, Cynthia was wonderful.”
She didn’t tell him whether he was a suspect or not because she hadn’t decided. Instead, Nikki moved forward with her questions. She’d prepped carefully, knowing an interview like this would be tricky because she faced the challenge of not revealing that her mother had been a spy. So Heat decided to proceed as she would with any other interrogation of an eyewitness or person of interest and see what shook out: nervous behavior, inconsistencies, lies, or even new clues. “Think back, if you can, to the month leading up to her killing,” she began. “November of ‘99. Did you see any changes in my mom’s behavior?”
He thought it over and said, “No, not that I recall.”
“Did she confide any worries? Seem agitated? Mention anybody who was bothering her, threatening her?”
“No.”
“Or say that she felt like she was being followed?”
He thought and wagged his head. “Mm, nothing of that sort, either.”
And then Heat tried to ascertain if her mother had been snooping his home. “During that last month she worked for you, did you or your wife ever get a feeling that things in your house were disturbed?”
His brow was puzzled. “Disturbed in what way?”
“Any way. Items in disarray. Items out of place. Items missing.”
He shifted on his bar stool. “I’m trying to makes sense of this, Detective.”
“You don’t have to, just think back. Did you ever come into a room and find something was moved? Or gone?”
“Why would that be? You asked me if she was agitated. Are saying your mother had developed some mental problem and gone klepto?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just asking if things were disturbed. Do you need to think about it?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t remember anything like that.”
“Let me ask about other people who may have been in your home back then.”
“You do realize that was ten years ago plus.”
“I do. So I’m not talking about plumbers or deliverymen. Houseguests. Did you have anyone staying with you?”
“Hello. You think somebody we knew might have killed her?”
“Mr. Maggs, it would be helpful for you not to keep guessing what I’m trying to learn and just focus on the question.”
“Brilliant. Carry on.”
“I just want to know if you had any houseguests. Overnight, weekends?” Heat had circled a notation in Joe Flynn’s surveillance log that a man, about thirty, had been at the Maggs residence that week just before the PI got pulled from his stakeout by her dad. “Anyone stay in your apartment with you while my mom was there giving lessons?”
He shook his head slowly as he thought. “No, I don’t think so.”