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Kaz raised his hands, palms up. “Romy doesn’t listen to nobody, you know that.”
Monty sighed while his client looked straight ahead. She hadn’t said a word since she’d been arrested, not even the classic “I want a lawyer” ‘cause he was with her when she was arrested, which Kaz said suspiciously felt like sheknewshe was going to be arrested.
Monty glanced at the file she had put on the table. “Let me guess, you’re building a case for us to sue you for harassment?”
Romy laughed. “Oh, Monty, you’re so funny. Isn’t he funny, Miss Novak?”
This was my first interrogation, and I had no clue what to expect beyond what I’d seen onLaw & Order. I had, however, not expected the cop to flirt with the lawyer.
“You address only me and not my client,” Monty warned her, pushing his glasses up his hawk nose.
“So, I gotta say, we got the guy who shot Elena Rivera.”
No reaction from Piper, but Elena and I turned to look at Kaz, who shrugged. “You’re on a need-to-know basis.”
“I think we’d need to know this,” I snapped.
Kaz grinned. “You keep on thinkin’ that.”
On the other side of the two-way mirror, Romy turned on a large screen and brought up a photograph using her tablet. She also pulled out something from thefile, which I assumed was a hard copy of what we were seeing on the screen.
The photo was grainy. Piper Novak stood by what looked like a private jet, talking to a man.
“And?” Monty asked. “I think he might be the steward on the plane.”
“I wish air stewards looked like that,cher,” Romy remarked. “No, that’s the man we have in custody. He’s a good friend of yours, Miss Novak.”
“Agent, you address me,” Monty pressed.
“Of course.” Romy flipped through various photos showing Piper with the same man at different places. “Now, this man has confessed to the attempted murder of Elena Rivera and…well, theactualtarget, Duke Wilder.”
Piper leaned close to her lawyer and whispered something. Then she went back to sitting up, spine at attention.
Monty straightened. “That manwasemployed by Novak Enterprises as a consultant but was let go some days ago for incompetence. If he’s a criminal, we’re very shocked and will obviously support the FBI investigation in every way. Would you like us to hand over his employment records?”
Romy raised an eyebrow and took a deep breath. “Now, we have this guy singing like a gator caught in a shrimp net.” She paused. “And then we have Fiona Turner, who’s singing the whole damn opera.”
Piper didn’t blink or flinch, but I saw an imperceptible flicker in her demeanor. She hadn’t expected Fiona to turn, which wasludicrous.
“She’s not worried,” Elena murmured. “She thinks she’s gonna walk.”
She wasn’t wrong. Piper had the kind of lawyers who made problems disappear. They buried evidence, twisted facts, and turned felonies into misunderstandings.
“Not this time,” Kaz muttered. “This time, we got this tighter than a nun’s pussy.”
Romy continued to bring up various matters with evidence, which I was certain was only the tip of the iceberg. They probably had a lot more if they had been investigating Piper Novak for years.
“I gotta say, Miss Novak, all this will lead you into a prison cell for twenty to twenty-fivewithoutparole.”
“That’s why she pays me, Agent,” Monty interjected, “so that doesn’t happen.”
This went on for a while, and it was like watching molasses move. They took breaks, and they repeated the same things over and over. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, we got somewhere.
“During our previous break, I received some information. I think you need to be looking at Gloria Wilder,” Monty said smoothly, opening his satchel and pushing some papers toward Romy, making a mockery of havingjustreceived this information since it was printed and stuck in a nice envelope. “We have wire transfers from Mrs. Wilder to the man who was formerly employed by Novak Enterprises.”
Elena held my hand tighter. I knew this was coming, and yet it felt surreal. Nash was a son of a bitch, alright, but he’d never tried to kill me. This was a whole new kindof hell, to know that your mother was so devoid of feeling that she’d murder you formoney.
Romy looked through the documents and then set them down. “You got anything else you want to bring to show and tell,cher?”