Smoke Screen

CHAPTER 2

THEY DON’T BELIEVE ME, DO THEY?”

Britt addressed the question to the stranger whom she had retained as her attorney. It was now twenty-four hours since she’d discovered that Jay had died while lying beside her, and still she continued to hope that this was all a terrible dream from which she would soon awaken.

But it was all too real.

Shortly after her frantic 911 call, EMTs and two police officers had arrived at Jay’s town house. They’d been followed by the coroner and two detectives, who introduced themselves as Clark and Javier. They had questioned her in Jay’s living room while, in the bedroom, his body was being examined and prepared for transport to the morgue. She had gone to police headquarters with the detectives to give them her formal statement. After the last i was dotted and the last t crossed, she’d thought that would be the end of it, except for grieving.

But this morning Clark had phoned her at home. He apologized for the imposition but told her he and Javier would like to clear up a few details and asked if she would mind returning to the police station.

The request was issued in a friendly, casual manner, but it made her uneasy, uneasy enough to feel it would be advisable to have counsel meet her there. Her dealings with lawyers were limited to tax issues, real estate transactions, contracts, and her parents’ estate. She doubted the attorneys handling those matters had ever been inside a police station.

Needing a reference, she had called the television station’s general manager.

Of course the lead story on every station last night had been about Jay Burgess’s shocking death. Her fellow broadcast journalists had been discreet in their reports of her involvement, but no matter how they’d couched it, it was a hot story: The highest rated news reporter in the market, Britt Shelley, was now the one making news.

From the objective standpoint of a television journalist, she had to admit it was a juicy irony as well as a sensational story.

The general manager had commiserated with her situation. “What an awful ordeal for you, Britt.”

“Yes. It was. Is, actually. That’s why I’ve bothered you at home.”

“Whatever you need. Whatever I can do to help,” he’d said. She’d asked him to recommend a lawyer.

“A criminal lawyer?”

She’d been quick to assure him that she was only being prudent, that the interview-she didn’t even refer to it as an interrogation-was routine, a formality really. “Even so, I think I should have counsel.” He had readily agreed and promised to make some calls on her behalf.

When Bill Alexander had arrived at the police station, he’d been breathless and apologetic for being ten minutes late. “I got stuck in traffic.”

She’d hoped for someone imposing, authoritative, and charismatic, so it was difficult to hide her disappointment when the slight, unassuming, and frazzled Alexander proffered his card and introduced himself only seconds before they were joined by the two detectives.

By contrast, Clark and Javier personified central casting’s call sheet for tough detective types.

Yesterday, when the pair had arrived at Jay’s town house and realized they were talking to the Britt Shelley of Channel Seven News, they’d been dumbstruck and awkward, as people sometimes were upon seeing a TV personality out and among ordinary folk.

The detectives had apologized for having to detain her and put her through the police work on the heels of such a traumatic experience, but unfortunately it was their job to learn exactly what had happened. She’d answered their questions to the best of her ability, and they had seemed satisfied with her account.

This morning, however, the tenor of their questioning had changed, slightly but noticeably. They seemed no longer star-struck. Their inquiries had taken on an edge that hadn’t been there yesterday.

Britt was cooperative, knowing that reluctance to cooperate with the authorities usually signaled guilt, at least on some level. All she was guilty of was sleeping with a man who happened to die in his sleep. It was fodder for crude jests about Jay’s sexual prowess, and hers.

He went out with a bang. Wink, wink.

Bet he died with a smile on his face. Wink, wink.

He came and went at the same time. Wink, wink.

If these detectives were after details about the sex, they were out of luck. All Britt remembered was waking up and finding Jay lying dead beside her in his bed. She had no memory of anything else happening in that bed. Even after an hour of intense dialogue, she didn’t think the detectives believed that.

Moments ago, they had suggested taking a break, leaving her alone with her newly retained attorney, which gave her an opportunity to better acquaint herself with him but, more important, to get his read on the proceedings.

“They don’t believe me, do they?” she repeated, since he’d faltered on his answer the first time she’d asked.

This time, he gave her an insipid smile. “I don’t get that sense at all, Ms. Shelley.” His tone of voice suggested he was stroking a nervous cat. “They’re being thorough, which they must be whenever someone dies under unusual circumstances.”

“Jay Burgess’s cancer was terminal.”

“Yes, but-”

“He’d had a lot to drink. Probably the alcohol didn’t mix with the strong medications he was taking.”

“No doubt.”

“All too often people mix prescription drugs with alcohol and it kills them. Jay died of cardiac arrest, respiratory failure. Something like that.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

“Then explain to me why I’m being questioned so extensively.”

“In part, it’s a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden death of one of their own,” he said. “Jay Burgess was a decorated police officer, a hero to the men in this department and beyond. Naturally his colleagues want to know what happened during the hours before he died.”

She’d covered the funerals of fallen policemen, and had always been impressed by the global fraternity of law enforcement officers, who rallied ’round when one of them died.

Rubbing her forehead, she conceded the point with a tired sigh. “I suppose you’re right. But that’s just it. I don’t know! I’ve told them I can’t remember. I don’t think they believe that, but I swear it’s the truth.”

“Maintain that,” he said as though applauding the passion behind her voice. “Or, even better, say nothing at all.”

Shooting him a scornful look, she began pacing the compact interrogation room. “Everybody says, especially lawyers, that it’s better not to say anything. But as a reporter, I know that people who refuse to talk look like they have something to hide.”

“Then don’t deviate from your story.”

She came around, ready to object to his calling her account of Jay’s death a “story,” but just then the two detectives returned.

“Do you need a restroom break, Ms. Shelley?” Clark asked.

“I’m fine.”

“Can I get you something to drink?”

“No thank you.”

He was tall and rawboned with thinning reddish hair. Javier was short, swarthy, and his black hair was as dense as carpet. Physically they couldn’t be more dissimilar, yet she was equally wary of both. She mistrusted Clark ’s politeness, thinking it might be affected to cover suppressed redneck leanings. And Javier’s pockmarked cheeks made her think of fatal knife fights. Clark ’s eyes were blue, Javier’s so dark that the pupils were not discernible, but both pairs of eyes were quick and watchful.

Having dispensed with the courtesies, Javier resumed the questioning. “When we left off, you were saying that your memory got foggy after you had a glass of wine at The Wheelhouse.”

“That’s right.” Everything that had happened since she drank that glass of Chardonnay was a hazy, disjointed recollection. Up to a point. Then her memory of events had been completely obliterated. How could one harmless glass of wine wipe clean her memory? It couldn’t. Not unless…Unless…

“Date rape drug.”

Until the three men froze in place, she didn’t realize she had spoken the words. She stepped back from herself, examined what she’d just said, and was struck with the plausibility-no, almost certainty-that she was right.

“I must have been given one of the substances collectively known as date rape drugs.” The two detectives and the lawyer just stood there, staring at her as though she was speaking a foreign language. “They give you temporary amnesia,” she said with a trace of impatience. “I did a feature story on them. An incident at Clemson sparked concern about the increased usage of them at parties and bars where young people hang out. They cause a short-term memory loss. Sometimes the memory never comes back. But it doesn’t matter, because by the time the effects wear off, the damage has been done.”

She looked at each man in turn, expecting them to be sharing her excitement over this credible explanation for her blackout. Instead they continued to stare at her without reaction. With asperity she said, “Blink if you can hear me.”

“We hear you, Ms. Shelley,” Clark said.

“Well, then? Don’t you see? My wine was doctored with one of these drugs. They work quickly. That would explain why I can’t remember anything after reaching Jay’s apartment.”

“How about an empty bottle of scotch?” Javier asked.

“I don’t like scotch. I never drink scotch. If Jay had offered it to me, I would have declined it, especially since I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Your fingerprints were on one of the drinking glasses. Your lipstick on the rim,” said Javier.

“You’ve already examined the drinking glasses? Why?”

The two detectives exchanged a glance. Clark said, “Let’s start at the beginning and go through it again. Tell us everything that happened.”

“I don’t know everything that happened. I can tell you only what I remember.”

“Okay, then, what you remember. You don’t mind if we videotape it this time, do you?”

Immediately suspicious of Clark ’s dismissive tone, she said, “Why would you?”

“Just so we have it, so if the need should arise, we can refer back to the tape, get the details straight in our own heads.”

Mistrusting his explanation as well as his snake-oil salesman’s smile, she looked at Alexander, who said, “It’s standard practice, Ms. Shelley. You still don’t have to answer any question you don’t want to.”

“I want to answer the questions. I want the answers myself. Probably more than they do.”

Since calling 911, she’d been swept up in the disagreeable technicalities of an unexpected death-the pronouncement of the coroner that Jay was indeed dead, the questioning by police, the paperwork. She hadn’t had time to indulge the personal aspects of it. She hadn’t yet actually grieved the loss of her friend.

Nor could she now. Not until she got past this unpleasantness. Restating her point, she said, “I’m desperate to know what happened to Jay.”

“Then we’ve got no problem.” Javier sat down at the small table and motioned her into the chair facing the video camera. “I sure wouldn’t expect you to be camera shy.”

His grin made her think again of sharp blades piercing soft tissue. She turned away from it and sat down. Clark checked the focus of the camera, stated the time and date and who was present, then sat down on the edge of the table and began swinging his skinny leg back and forth. “Who called who?”

“What do you mean?”

“Who made the date?”

“Jay. I told you that.”

“We can check phone records.” Javier’s statement wasn’t just that. It was a veiled threat.

Looking him squarely in the eye, she said, “Jay called me earlier that day and asked if I would meet him at The Wheelhouse for a drink. He said he wanted to talk to me.”

“Before that, when was the last time you saw him?”

“I don’t know the date for certain. Several months ago. When the man accused of child molestation at the preschool in North Charleston was arrested. Jay was at the press conference and addressed questions about the police investigation. I covered it for the station. We waved at each other, but I didn’t talk to him. I got my story from one of the arresting officers, not Jay.”

“But you and Burgess were friendly.”

“Yes.”

“More than friendly?”

“No.”

The two detectives exchanged another telling glance. Alexander sat forward in his chair, as though about to warn her to be cautious.

“Never?” Clark asked.

“Years ago,” she replied with equanimity. Her brief affair with Jay hadn’t been a secret. “I relocated to Charleston to take the job at Channel Seven. Jay was one of the first people I met. We went out a few times, but our friendship was always more or less platonic.”

“More or less?” Javier’s raised eyebrows suggested more.

“We’d been nothing more than friends for the past several years.”

“Until night before last, when you became lovers again.”

“I-” She hesitated. Alexander raised his index finger as though forestalling her from answering. She lowered her gaze to her lap. “I don’t know whether or not we were intimate that night. I’m not sure. I can’t remember.”

Clark sighed as though he found that impossible to believe, then said, “So you met at The Wheelhouse.”

“I arrived at seven, the appointed time. Jay was already there. He’d had several drinks.”

“How do you know?”

“By the empty glasses on the table. Have you questioned the cocktail waitress?”

Ignoring that, Clark said, “You ordered a glass of white wine.”

“Yes. It wasn’t very good.” Speaking directly into the camera lens, she added, “I believe something was put into it.”

“By Jay?”

Actually, on that point, Britt shared Javier’s apparent skepticism. “I don’t see how he could have without my noticing. I don’t think he ever touched my wineglass. Anyway, why would he drug me?”

Clark tugged on his lower lip. Javier didn’t move. Both continued to stare at her. She was aware of the video camera recording every blink, every breath. To anyone viewing the recording later, would she look guilty? She knew that investigators looked for tell-tale signs of lying. She tried to remain perfectly still and to keep her face composed.

“What did you talk about?” Javier asked.

“I’ve told you,” she said wearily. “This and that. ‘How’s your job? Fine. How’s yours? Do you have any vacation plans?’ That kind of thing.”

“Nothing personal?”

“He asked if I was seeing someone. I told him no one in particular. He said, ‘Good. I’d hate to depart this earth leaving you to some undeserving but lucky bastard.’ He was grinning, and it was the teasing kind of flirtation Jay was famous for. I laughed. And then I realized what he’d said and asked him what he meant about departing this earth. He said, ‘I’m dying, Britt.’”

Recalling that moment and Jay’s somber expression, her voice became husky with emotion. “Then he told me about the cancer.”

Pancreatic. Advanced. Not a chance in hell of beating it, so I’m not putting myself through chemo and all that shit. At least I’ll have my hair when they bury me.

After a quiet moment, Javier said, “According to Jay’s oncologist, he had only a few more weeks. Month or two at the outside. Shocked the hell out of everybody in the department when he announced it. Some people cried for days. Jay offered to surrender his badge, but Chief said he could work right up till…well, the end.”

Britt nodded, confirming that was what Jay had told her. “He was such a vital individual. He created his own energy field. When he told me, I couldn’t believe it.”

Clark cleared his throat. “Do you think maybe he was trying to get around to all the women he’d wanted to sleep with one last time before-”

“No,” she said adamantly. “When he invited me to join him, he said he needed to talk to me. I got the impression it was about something serious.”

Javier snorted. “More serious than terminal cancer?”

Her temper snapped. “A basic part of my job is to evaluate people, Detective. I can sense when someone is holding back the key element of a story because they don’t want to be in the news, or when someone exaggerates their role in an attempt to seem more important to the story than they are.

“Jay dismissed my condolences and said he had something much more important to talk about. He said he was about to give me an exclusive that would make my career. And it wasn’t a flirtation and it wasn’t a come-on. I would have known if it was. Jay was serious. Whatever he wanted to tell me was important to him.”

There she paused. Clark leaned forward expectantly. “Well? What was it?”

“I don’t know. That’s when Jay suggested we leave so we could talk in private.” She didn’t want to tell them it was at that point that Jay also had seemed to grow nervous. Already her veracity was being challenged. Who would believe that Jay Burgess would ever become nervous?

Apparently the detectives sensed she was withholding something. Clark leaned toward her again. “You had privacy at The Wheelhouse, Ms. Shelley. You and Jay had a cozy little corner in the bar. People saw you. Witnesses said you two had your heads together like nobody else in the world existed.”

Witnesses? The word struck a criminal note that was unsettling. “That’s a gross distortion,” she said. “Jay and I had our heads together very close so we could hear each other above the noise.”

“Or to whisper sweet nothings.”

She glared at Javier. “I’m not going to honor that with a comment.”

“Okay, okay. Uncalled for.”

He left it to Clark to continue. “Jay asked you to go to his place.”

“To continue our conversation, yes.”

“And you went willingly?”

“Willingly? Of course. I thought he was about to give me a big story.”

“So you go to the apartment of any man who offers you an exclusive?”

“Mr. Javier!” Alexander exclaimed. “I will not let my client be subjected to insults like that.”

“It was a follow-up to what she said herself.”

“Let it drop,” she said to the lawyer. Actually she was glad to know he was still awake, since he’d said nothing for several minutes. Javier’s crack was low, but she had reached the crux of her story and was eager to move it along. “When we left The Wheelhouse, I felt dizzy.”

“Had you had a drink before you met Jay?”

“I’ve already told you that. No.”

“Did you take any…medication? Cold remedy, antihistamine?”

“No.”

“One glass of wine made you tipsy?”

“Apparently it did, Mr. Clark. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Not particularly. Not for a lady who doesn’t drink scotch. One glass of wine could make you drunk.”

“It’s never affected me that way before.”

“First time for everything.” Javier shifted to a more comfortable position in his molded-plastic chair.

Ignoring him, she said into the camera, “By the time we got outside The Wheelhouse, I wasn’t feeling well.”

“How so?”

“Well, drunk. Nauseous. Disconnected.”

“Anything unusual occur between the bar and Jay’s town house?”

“Again, my memory of the walk is hazy, but I don’t think so.”

“No exchanges with anyone else along the way?”

“No.”

“Did Jay ask you to spend the night with him?”

She looked directly at Javier. “Not that I recall.”

“Did Jay know you weren’t feeling well?”

It was a good question, and she wished she had an answer for it. “I’m not sure. I don’t believe I remarked on it. I might have. He might have asked me if I was sick. Honestly, I don’t remember talking about anything. We walked to his town house and went inside.”

“Then what? What’s the first thing you did when you got inside?”

“I remember being embarrassed over my condition.”

“Over being drunk?”

“Or drugged,” she said with emphasis. “I remember making my way to the sofa.”

“So you knew where his sofa was?”

“No. I’d never been to that town house before. I saw the sofa and knew I needed to sit down.”

“Did you take your shoes off first?”

“No.”

“Your dress?”

“No.”

“Did you undress before or after Jay started pouring the scotch?”

“I didn’t undress.”

“So Jay undressed you.”

“No!”

Clark jumped on that. “How do you know if you can’t remember?”

Before she could respond, Javier said, “If you didn’t undress yourself, and Jay didn’t undress you, how come you woke up nude and in bed with him, which, by your own admission, you did? Want me to read back that part of the statement you gave us yesterday morning while they were taking Jay’s body to the morgue?”

“No, no! I remember what I said in my statement because it’s the truth. What I don’t remember is how we got undressed and into bed.”

“You don’t remember getting blitzed on scotch?”

“No.”

“Or taking off your clothes?”

“No.”

“Or having sex.”

“I don’t know that we did.”

Javier reached into the pocket of his sport jacket and removed a small plastic sandwich bag. Inside was the foil packet for a condom. It was empty. “We found this among the cushions of the sofa.”

Britt stared at it, searching her memory, coming up blank.

“Do you customarily carry a condom in your handbag, Ms. Shelley?”

Meeting his insinuating gaze, she replied coolly, “It must have been Jay’s. He could have used it anytime.”

Clark shook his head, looking almost rueful. “His maid had come that morning. She said she gave the place a thorough cleaning, even took the cushions off the sofa to vacuum underneath. She’d swear to it this wasn’t there then.”

Britt asked, “Did you find the condom itself?”

“No. It’s assumed Jay flushed it.”

“He could have used it earlier in the day. After the maid cleaned, but before meeting me.”

Clark shook his head. “Jay was here at headquarters all day. Didn’t even go out for lunch. He left at six. Hardly time for him to return home and have sex on his sofa with another woman, then get to The Wheelhouse and down several drinks before you joined him at seven.” He smirked and Javier chuckled, anticipating what his colleague was about to say. “Even Jay wasn’t that fast.”