Chapter Nine: Taking control
When we were finally cleaned up and back downstairs, it was time to look for Lurch. Having Lurch catch us in flagrante was going to make questioning him one of those interesting experiences I usually tried to avoid, but there was a price to be paid for anything worthwhile. The sex had definitely been worthwhile; hell, the sex had been both fun and fantastic, but there was a killer on the loose, and events were proceeding whether we liked it or not.
I turned to Gretchen and gave her my cop face. "Honey, I love you, but this is my interrogation. My rules, my way. Do not try to fight me on this. If you want to help me, keep him on the fire while I grill him. If you can't do this, go into the kitchen and talk to Vanessa, because I'm going to hit him a lot harder than Sweeny hit you. I'm going to be everything I'm not with you: I'm going to be offensive, hurtful, and unrelenting. You need to decide right now: are you in or out on the questioning of people you know?"
Gretchen swallowed hard. "I'm in. I won't interfere and if I can't help, I'll keep quiet or leave the room. Hawk, Ivan wouldn't do this. He couldn't. Look how old he is. Cartwright would twist him into a pretzel."
I stopped and put my hands on her shoulders. "Get that out of your head right now, Sweetie." I sighed and pulled her into a gentle hug. Pulling back, I said, "This is why I asked if you could stand being with me when I questioned people you know, and care about. When I interrogate a suspect, when any homicide cop interrogates a suspect, they are guilty until the facts rule them out. If you are going to be with me when I talk to them, you are going to have to accept that. I've seen old people who have killed before, and killed people that you wouldn't expect. It happens when this old, non-threatening person surprises them, and, Honey, Lurch moves more quietly than most. We have no choice but to grill Ivan and the rest of them."
Gretchen sighed, and then met my eyes. At her nod, I kissed her cheek and went into the main part of the house. "Ivan," I shouted. "Where the hell are you in this pile of rubble?"
"I'm here, Miss Shauna," he said from the doorway of the Brown Room. He had a duster in his hand, an apron around his waist and looked completely ridiculous.
"Fine," I said brushing past him. "This will work fine. Gretchen, please close the door." I arranged the seats so one was away from a table, in the open and exposed. Two others went behind a small table. Emotional leverage. "Please have a seat. I'll try to keep the impact on your time as minimal as possible."
Stiffly, almost daintily, he sat upright in the seat, only occupying the forward edge. "I have already given a statement to the police, Miss Shauna, so I am uncertain what more information I can provide."
I tapped the table lightly with one fingertip. "I may not be on the clock, but it feels like it, so let's keep things more formal. I'm Detective Hawkins this morning, and we'll be going over that night from the beginning. Since I have no access to the official police records. What is your full name and where were you born?"
"Ivan Orlov, Detective," he sniffed. "I was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1936. My parents immigrated to the United States that same year."
"Fine, Mister Orlov, let's get down to brass tacks. After the announcements, I saw Kat and Cartwright, still in the room, so they must have left sometime after that point. Where were you after Hans finished speaking?"
Ivan adjusted his seat slightly and cleared his throat. "I returned to the serving area to make certain that the staff was prepared to serve the guests."
"Isn't that your daughter's job?" I asked.
Ivan shrugged, looking a bit more human with the simple gesture. I pushed that thought away and refocused. "No, not really," he said. "Vanessa prepares the food, and I see that the staff does the work required in a timely fashion. However, she was there."
"Did you see either Kat or Everett Cartwright alive after that?"
"Yes," he said testily, "I've already told you I saw Mistress Kat go upstairs several minutes before she was found dead."
"So you did," I agreed. "You also told me you spilled something on your jacket. Let's hear about that in more detail."
"One of the hired servers spilled champagne on my back, the clumsy oaf," he said dismissively. "It's a constant problem when dealing with temporary workers."
I leaned forward, lacing my fingers on the table in front of me. "The jacket is still here, I assume. I'll need to see it after we finish talking."
"Talking," he sneered. "We're not talking, Detective. You're questioning me in an effort to see how I fit as a suspect. Let's not be coy."
"You want plain talk, fine." I slitted my eyes and pierced him with a stare. "You look good for the part to me, Lurch. You had access to the murder weapon, and full run of the house. You also have a damned good motive."
"What motive would that be, Detective? Find me one person, other than the Master, who could stand the woman. You'll have far better luck finding ten honest politicians. To know her was to hate her."
I smiled without humor. "Oh, I believe you when you say you didn't kill Kat, Ivan. My instincts, and the evidence at the scene, support that Senator Cartwright killed Kat and then someone killed him. A source in the local PD tells me that CSI is backing that view of events. That still begs the question, how did he get a knife from the kitchen? Did someone get it for him and then follow him upstairs to finish him off after he did Kat? Was that you, Lurch? Did you give him a knife to get rid of a bitch you disliked and then kill the man that raped your daughter?"
He paled and recoiled from me, slipping back into the chair. Gretchen wheeled and stared at me. All in all, it was a good response to an educated guess. His reaction confirmed it, and Gretchen's told me that she had never guessed.
"What?!?" she exclaimed. "He did what?"
I tilted my head and looked at Gretchen. "Why don't we let Ivan explain that to you." Then I skewered him again with my glare. "Why don't you fill Gretchen in?"
"Because it's none of her business or yours," he snarled back at me, his calm faΓ§ade not completely shattered. "What that bastard did to Vanessa has required years of healing, and I will not see her dragged back into that morass of despair again."
"It's too late for that," I assured him. "His death makes both of you very nice suspects, so if you hope to clear yourselves, now is the time to be open and honest, at least with me. The sooner I can clear you two, the sooner I can find the killer. If, indeed, you are innocent."
He exclaimed something in Russian that didn't sound very complementary as he rose from his seat, his face a mask of rage. "How dare you come into this home and treat me and mine like this? You don't know us!"
I looked up at him, towering over me and smiled that cop smile. "I dare because it's what I do. Get off that fucking high horse of yours, give me some reason to clear you and you can get this pushy, lesbian bitch off your case. You don't want to tell me the details? Fine. General terms, then. What did Cartwright do to Vanessa?"
Lurch stalked over to the bar and poured himself a stiff drink. As we waited for him to make up his mind, the door to the room opened and Vanessa came in.
"I'll tell you what you want to know," she said, her voice low.
Lurch spun and stalked over to her. "No! I won't have you put yourself through that again for this fucking bitch voyeur. Let her rot!"
Gretchen started to say something, but I put my hand on hers and shook my head. This wasn't the time to interject ourselves. Vanessa would more than likely bring Lurch around.
"If not for her, then for Mistress Gretchen, father." Vanessa's voice faded as she lowered it and pulled Ivan further away. Vanessa and Lurch argued quietly for a minute before he threw up his hands, took a stiff shot of the drink he'd poured and set the empty glass on the table. Vanessa sat in the vacated seat and Lurch stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.