“No,” Jake said. “I learned it the hard way over the years.”
“Okay, let’s try your approach. Who else would have had a motive to murder Valerie?”
He looked at her. “If you were not a devout conspiracy theorist and if I wasn’t a hotshot undercover investigator for Jones & Jones who was sent out to track down a cabal freak, we’d be looking at an entirely different scenario to explain Valerie Shipley’s death.”
“Think she really did commit suicide?”
“That is still a possibility,” he said. “But if that isn’t the answer then we’ve been overlooking the most obvious suspect, the one person who is always at the top of everyone’s list when a wife is murdered.”
“Oh Lord, of course.” Clare’s hands clenched around the steering wheel. “The husband.”
Chapter Forty-two
Moonlight glinted on the tile roof of the large house. Jake studied the Shipley residence from the cover of a shallow arroyo. The bright moon meant that he would have to take extra care approaching the residence, but once inside it would be an advantage. Together with his jacked-up senses he would not even need the flashlight he had tucked into a pocket.
Clare had spent the evening trying to talk him out of his plan to search the Shipley house but he knew that, underneath the anxiety, she understood as clearly as he did that this was one of the few alternatives they had left.
Tonight was the obvious night to do the job because Owen had been invited out to dinner by Alison Henton, one of the many sympathetic, deeply concerned divorcées in Stone Canyon who were lining up to comfort and console him. Jake had seen enough of Alison in action at the country club during the past two weeks to know that Owen would be lucky to escape before midnight.
He made his way along the dry wash to the point that was closest to the house. There he halted again, pushing his senses to the limit. There was, as always, a lot of activity going on in the desert at that hour, but as far as he could tell nothing human moved in the vicinity of the house.
His preternatural instincts objected to the short dash through the open to the sheltering shadows at the side of the house. He suppressed the atavistic dislike of being exposed in the moonlight long enough to get to his destination.
His night vision was excellent. He could walk through the deepest shadows at the side of the house without fear of bumping into objects or tripping over a hose.
Contrary to the rumors about his kind, it wasn’t quite the equivalent of being able to see in the dark and it wasn’t like using night vision goggles, either. His eyes were human, after all, not those of a cat or an owl. They could only do so much with minimal illumination. But his psychic abilities afforded him a different way of perceiving objects and other living things when there was little light available.
He stopped at the side door. He had a clear idea of the layout of the interior of the residence because he had grilled Myra and Archer earlier that evening. Both had been frequent visitors to the Shipley home over the years.
Best of all, the Glazebrooks had a key to the house and the code to silence the alarm. He could have gotten in without those assets, thanks to the small J&J tool kit he carried, but having them made things easier. Owen had given both the key and the code to the Glazebrooks years ago in the event of an emergency while he was out of town.
He pulled on the plastic medical gloves he had brought with him and took the key out of his pocket. He opened the door and moved quickly into the hall. The alarm pad was right where Archer had said it would be.
He closed the door and punched in the code, disarming the system.
Slowly, he walked through the house, registering impressions on both the normal and paranormal planes.
He was searching for the special emanations of psi energy that clung to scenes where violence had taken place. But that was not all he hoped to find. He was here to do some old-fashioned detective work. In his experience that was usually what it came down to in the end.
People were people, regardless of whether or not they possessed a degree of psychic ability. The same emotions and motivations governed their actions. Once you knew an individual’s agenda and had an idea of how far he or she would go to achieve it, you had all you really needed to know to close a case.
His goal tonight was to nail down Owen Shipley’s agenda.
He replayed the conversation with Clare in his head.
“But why would Owen kill her?” she asked.
“I can think of a couple of reasons, starting with the obvious fact that she had become an embarrassing problem. The woman was a full-blown alcoholic and she was getting worse.”
“If Owen wanted to get rid of her, he could have simply divorced her.”
“Now, why would he do that when she had just inherited the bulk of McAllister’s estate?”
“Oh. Good point.” She paused. “On the other hand, Owen doesn’t need Valerie’s money. He’s rich in his own right.”
“As we have observed on previous occasions, that doesn’t mean he might not want to get richer.”
“I don’t know,” Clare said, dubious now. “Murder is a high-risk enterprise.”
“Sure. So is sex with strangers, but people do it for money all the time.”
“One more small problem,” Clare said. “Owen has an alibi. He was playing golf the afternoon that Valerie died, remember?”
“He was playing alone, in the middle of the afternoon on one of the hottest days of the year. He probably had the course to himself.”
“And the Shipley house is located on the twelfth fairway.”
“All he had to do was drive the cart into the arroyo behind the house, go inside long enough to drown Valerie and then return to the fairway to finish his game.”
“Pretty cold.”
“Yes,” Jake said. “Ice cold.”
Moonlight slanted through the windows of the pale great room. It didn’t seem likely that Owen would conceal his secrets in such an open area where visitors came and went freely. But he decided to give the place a quick going-over before moving into the bedroom wing.
He studied the wet bar and the liquor cabinet. Chances were good that Valerie had made heavy use of those particular items of furniture.
He checked the drawers beneath the small sink first. They were filled with the paraphernalia associated with the preparation of cocktails: bottle openers, corkscrews, napkins and spoons.
He closed the bottom drawer and reached for the handle of the small refrigerator.