“You live at 675, North Drive, don’t you, Mr. Morton?”
“Yes.”
“Penthouse?”
“Yes.”
“And you are the President and CEO of Vanguard Advertising.”
“Yes.”
“You own a hundred percent of it.”
Brian hesitates. There is a technicality involved, and he wonders if he should tell the good officers about it, especially since it has nothing to do with the case. “Yes. But my uncle, Jefferson Morton, is still the Chairman. Vanguard belongs to the Morton group.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t see what this has to do with the case,” Karen interrupts.
Brian says, “In the spirit of being an open book, I’ll answer. My uncle gave me the money to start up Vanguard after college. I had an experienced partner, Jane, my uncle’s daughter. She taught me everything she knew. She left after three years to start up the New York office.”
“So you are beholden to your uncle,” Officer Cutter remarks.
“You could say that, yes. But I do own a hundred percent of Vanguard now.”
It didn’t start out that way, but as a reward for growing it by triple figures every year, Jefferson Morton ceded his majority shares to his nephew. With one written caveat.
Little does Brian know that this caveat will return in full force to slam him in the face within the next few days.
Karen quickly cuts in, “Which goes on to show that a man of my client’s position has no reason or motive to do what you claimed he did.”
“We’ll get to that soon enough, Ms. Sandler. Please continue, Mr. Morton. Tell us what happened last night.”
Brian isn’t sure if Officer Riley has been selected to play good cop today, or if being the CEO of a company begets natural politeness on the part of policemen.
“I returned to my apartment. The security guards were already there. We found nothing amiss. I locked up to return to the Galois.”
“But the opera had already finished by that time, Mr. Morton,” says Officer Cutter. “Why would you be trying to get back to the Galois?”
Brian frowns. He hadn’t thought of it like that. “I was trying to catch my friends for a drink.”
“Did you call or text any of your friends?”
“No.”
“If you were trying to catch your friends at the tail end of an opera, wouldn’t you at the very least text them to ask to meet you someplace, or at least to stay put at the Galois to wait for you?”
Fuck. Now they are trying to make him look like a criminal.
Karen says, “Brian, let me answer.”
Brian says drily, “I didn’t have time to call or text my friends because when I got down to the lobby, the elevator doors opened, and I literally crashed into Ms. Faulkner. Only at that time, I didn’t know her name.”
He only learned her full name at the police station.
He goes on, “She was carrying some sort of dish filled with Bolognese. I was thinking . . . who the hell carries an uncovered dish?” He pauses, his mind churning.
Yes . . . it did seem premeditated. Almost like an accident waiting to happen.
“The sauce spilled down the front of her dress. I apologized and asked if she would like to use my apartment to clean herself up.”
“You apologized?” Officer Cutter says.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Karen narrows her eyes. She says in an icy tone, “Because Mr. Morton is a gentleman?”
Brian can see where this is heading. “Apologizing is the natural thing to do in this sort of situation. Or would you rather I push her brusquely away and tell her she’s a dodo for carrying spaghetti sauce around without a warning siren?”
Officer Riley holds up a hand as a conciliatory gesture. “The security camera captured the lobby incident rather well, Mr. Morton. It is as you described, although we can’t hear what you are saying, of course.”
He gets up, his chair pushing back with a creak. He walks to the TV and depresses a button. The screen flickers to life.
Validation, Brian thinks. And hopes.
The entire lobby scene displays, showing grainy images of Brian colliding into the woman. They speak. The camera is fixed on Brian’s face while the woman has her back to it. Her body language appears doubtful, reticent. Brian coaxes her. They finally reenter the elevator. The time clock on the lower left hand corner of the screen shows 9.15 p.m.
The smile on Brian’s face is predatory. Smug.
Premeditated.
Oh shit. He can see how this looks.
Brian says with heat, “I was offering to let her clean up at my place.”
“I’m sure you were, Mr. Morton,” Officer Cutter replies.
Karen says, “That’s precisely Mr. Morton’s defense, Officer Cutter. He wasn’t doing anything he normally doesn’t do. Mr. Morton has quite a reputation for being a ladies’ man. I’m sure that if you go through all the security camera recordings for the past three years, you will find that Mr. Morton has had similar visitors.”
Well over several hundred, Brian has to admit. Who would ever have thought that such a legacy would now come to his defense in his hour of need?
For the first time, he’s ashamed of it.
In the video, the elevator doors slide shut noiselessly.
“Are there any security cameras in your penthouse, Mr. Morton?” Officer Riley asks.
“No.” Shit. He had them taken out because he didn’t want recordings of his sexploits.
“So we have only your word against Ms. Faulkner’s as to what happened last night?” Officer Cutter says with meaning.
“Yes.” He’s afraid so.
“Tell us what happened.”
“Brian,” Karen warns.
“We went up to my apartment. She asked to wash the pasta sauce off her dress. I pointed in the direction of the guest bathroom. I went up to my bedroom to change into something more comfortable. When I came down, she was in my white silk bathrobe. She was seated on the sofa in my lounge. She had poured both of us drinks from my bar.”
He pauses, trying to remember through the fugue in his brain.
“We started fooling around.”
“Be specific,” Karen encourages.
Yeah. Specificity is important here, he gets that now. “I sat beside her on the couch. We downed our drinks and put the glasses down. We started kissing.”
“Who kissed who first?” Officer Cutter interrupts.
“I kissed her first,” Brian says, his eyes meeting the policeman’s. “It’s what I do.”