Smoke Screen Read Free Page B

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