Twisted Game (Margot Harris 6)

“What makes you think that?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. Did you use a credit card that night? Did Tim?”

Helms didn’t answer.

“If you did, there’s a record of all of you being there. It’s a busy restaurant, so it won’t be hard to find someone who saw you. Lying right now will just piss me off.”

“I may have exaggerated at lunch about my success.”

“Harry Lee’s offer started to sound better?”

Helms was silent again.

“Unless you killed your wife and Tim Masterson, I don’t care what other crimes you were involved in.”

“I didn’t kill them. I can tell you it pissed me off because I wish I had. Tim was an arrogant bastard who couldn’t tell that he’d be nothing without his daddy’s money and my wife was not only screwing him but planning to leave me as soon he dumped Phoebe. At least, she thought she was. I’m not sure he felt the same way.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Rita was piss poor at sneaking around. I heard them arguing on the phone. I got the feeling from some things she said that this wasn’t the first time they’d gotten in a fight.”

“Okay,” Margot said, thinking this might explain the blowup at the Lighthouse, “back to Harry Lee.”

“No matter what Harry Lee and I are involved in, it doesn’t change what Phoebe did.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Helms sighed and shook his head. “All I’m going to say is Harry realized he was working with the wrong partner. Tim was a screw up who’d eventually get caught. In a rare moment of clarity, Tim realized he might be in trouble and came to me. I would have told him to go pound sand again, but I wasn’t exactly killing it either. I overextended myself when things were booming, but fashion is fickle, and I ended up with a lot of crap no one wanted to buy. So, I made a deal with the devil; actually, two devils, if you count Tim. And here I am.”

“What did Harry Lee want just now?”

“To talk.”

“In his car?”

“He always does it that way. He figures no one is listening and if you say something he doesn’t like, he can always have Lucas drive out to the desert so Bobby can put a bullet in you.”

“Talk about what?”

“What do you think? He doesn’t want this murder coming back on him somehow. He wanted to remind me how important the silent was in silent partner. I must not have listened very well since I’m talking to you.”

“Like I said, I’m not here to trip you up over that. I’m just trying to solve a murder.”

“Why? It’s already solved. Phoebe killed them. If you knew Phoebe like I know Phoebe, you wouldn’t even be questioning it.”

“She’s a killer because you know she’s a killer?”

“That and the evidence. That dress of hers didn’t get Rita’s and Tim’s blood on it on its own.”

Margot couldn’t really argue with him on that point.

“Are you done messing up my day now? I’ve actually got work to do.”

Margot couldn’t really think of anything else to ask him, so she walked out.

Chapter 10

Margot called Radcliff while she walked to her car. “Is it possible the target was Rita?”