Murder One by Robert Dugoni Page B

hound scratching at a flea. “Didn’t want to call anyone?”
    “She had an attorney with her,” Crosswhite said. “A good one. David Sloane.”
    When Crosswhite mentioned the name, Cerrabone stopped scratching. “Why do I know that name?”
    “He’s the attorney whose wife was murdered last year,” Cross-white said.
    “His wife was murdered?” Rowe asked.
    She shook her head. “Do you listen to anything I say? I already told you that.”
    Rowe made a note in the spiral notebook. “I’ll check with Bernie,” he said, referring to Bernie Hamilton, the detective assigned to the cold-cases unit.
    “I already have,” Crosswhite said.
    Cerrabone said, “Sloane also handled that matter involving Argus a few years back—the one on the National Guardsman. And didn’t he have that magnet case against Kendall Toys last year?” Cerrabone didn’t wait for an answer. He nodded, answering his own question. “He did. In fact, if my memory serves me . . .” He stopped and looked at Reid. “She was the attorney for Kendall.”
    “Strange bedfellows,” Rowe said.
    Cerrabone looked at him. “Figure of speech?”
    Rowe shrugged. “Their hair was wet and the bed looked like someone just gave it a good workout.”
    “Why would he let her come down here without him?” Cerrabone asked, though they all knew that technically, there wasn’t much Sloane could have done. Rowe had another search warrant in his pocket for Reid to provide her fingerprints and the DNA swab had she refused to voluntarily provide them, and Sloane had no right to be in the interrogation room unless she requested he act as her attorney.
    “He advised against it,” Rowe said. “He told her not to say anything.”
    “What did she say?” Cerrabone asked, nervousness sneaking into his voice. “Did you write it down?”
    Crosswhite flipped the pages of her notebook. “She said she wanted to quote, ‘cooperate,’ end quote, and quote, ‘get to the bottom of the matter,’ end quote. She told him she would call him later. Then she asked if she could change her clothes.”
    “Ask her again,” Cerrabone said. “Get it on tape.”
    “Look where she sat,” Crosswhite said. Reid had taken a seat on the side of the table with two chairs rather than the side with just the one chair. “Why would she sit there?”
    Rowe shook his head. He’d never had anyone do that either. Seemed everyone understood the etiquette of an interrogation was to take the hot seat.
    Rowe looked to Crosswhite. “How do you want to play it?”
    Normally, they interviewed witnesses together, though one or the other might leave to run up information on something the suspect said. Sometimes they agreed upon a ruse—the “good cop, bad cop” routine or the “we know more than you do” ruse. But Rowe was not inclined to try to outsmart the name partner of a Seattle law firm.
    Crosswhite said, “Why don’t you handle it.”
    “I was going to suggest you handle it. You know, woman-to-woman–type thing.”
    Crosswhite spoke to the glass. “I don’t think so. Women like her sometimes feel the need to prove themselves to another professional woman, show them how competent they are, how smart. I think you’d do better without me. If I think of something, I’ll come in.”
    Cerrabone agreed with the strategy and told Rowe to play it straight up. “She has a lot of contacts,” he said, “including the governor.”
    T HREE T REE P OINT
B URIEN , W ASHINGTON
    Sloane turned off the engine and sat back, staring at the overgrown laurel hedge. He wondered if, subconsciously, he’d deliberately let the hedge grow, like the bamboo inside Barclay’s fence, his own way of further isolating himself from the world.
    Every instinct told him Barclay should have declined to talk voluntarily to the police without a lawyer present, but she had refused his advice.
    He stepped from the car but did not push through the gate, instead walking down the easement to the bulkhead. With