Premeditated

4. Interrogation

Interrogation

It didn’t take us long to get back to the station. Ribs wasn’t kidding when he said Tip-Denton speed. I don’t think the odometer dropped below eighty once he hit the freeway.

HPD Headquarters

“You want some coffee or tea, or anything else?” I asked as we walked toward the interview room.

“Yes, a martini,” Mr. Hemphill said. “I believe that would fall into the anything else category.”

I wanted to smack him in the mouth, but I chuckled instead. “You’re a riot, Mr. Hemphill. If I could get you a martini, I would.”

I took a few steps toward the end of the hall, then said, “We’re going to use separate rooms, if you don’t mind. It will make it less confusing.” I pointed to the door on the left. “Mr. Hemphill, in here please, if you don’t object?”

Ribs took Mrs. Hemphill to the interview room on the right.

Mr. Hemphill settled into the seat at the end of the table, and I handed him a bottle of water, which was the compromise we agreed on since a martini was not included in the offer.

“So what do you want to know?” he said.

I sat in the chair next to him. “What are you in Houston for?”

“If you mean why did we choose such an inhospitable place, you’ll have to ask my wife.” His tone was full of sarcasm, bordering on bitterness.

“All kidding aside, why? As you’ve already mentioned, this is not the ideal place to visit in the summer—the heat makes it inhospitable as hell.”

“An understatement, Detective, but the short answer is that we have a vacation home on the lake.”

“Which lake?” I asked.

“Conroe. In Bentwater.”

I whistled. “Nice place. You play golf?”

“Not really. I’ve got a set of clubs, but they haven’t seen much use. I usually only venture out with clients.”

“If you don’t golf, why Bentwater?”

“My wife wanted someplace safe and secure, a place where she could have solitude to write. She’s a mystery writer.”

I perked up. “A mystery writer?”

“Sheila Wingate is her pseudonym. Ever hear of her?”

“Sheila Wingate? You’re shitting me? I’ve read a few of her books. They were great.”

Hemphill seemed to loosen up. “Yes, she is quite good. I’m proud of her.”

“So what brought you to Houston now? Is she in the middle of writing something?”

Hemphill shrugged. “I’d like to say I knew definitively, but I don’t. She’s forever working on something, but unfortunately, I don’t know what it is. She’s a prolific writer.”

“So what do you do while she’s writing?” I asked. “It must be boring.”

“Not really,” Hemphill said. “Once in a blue moon, I play golf, as I said. I go to the Galleria to shop. I drive around. I work. And if all else fails, I go sailing. It makes it a natural choice with the lake right there.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

“I’m a consultant in project management. Mostly for biotech companies.”

“Travel much?”

Hemphill sighed. “Yes, I do, Detective, but I’m sure you didn’t bring us here to inquire about my work, that is, unless you would like a recommendation for a pancreas transplant. Assuming that is not the case, what else would you like to know?”

I could see the slow approach wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I went right for the jugular. “Why do you want to kill your wife?”

Hemphill almost choked on his water. “Kill my wife? Are you crazy? I love her. Not to mention that she’s the one who makes all of the money.”

“What kind of money does she make?” I asked.

“The green kind,” he said.

“You know what I mean. If you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I can find out from IRS records.”

Hemphill set his bottle of water down hard. “She makes more than a million a year, if that’s close enough to satisfy you.”

He brushed against the bottle of water as he sat. “And if she were dead, I’d collect a nice insurance policy, but not nice enough to cover her earnings for more than a year or so.”

“Define nice,” I said.

“Nice is about $2.5 million. That’s less than two years of income. So yes, I would be fixed well if she were to die, but no, it would not be enough to warrant me wanting her to die.”

I nodded. He was right. Unless divorce was imminent, as in a few months away, he’d be better off hanging in there. “And what about the policy on you?”

“The same,” he said. “They’re policies to cover grievance, not income. If I were to die, I’d hope she would be upset enough that she couldn’t write for a while, a short while anyway. The insurance would cover the loss of income while that transition took place. The same goes for me.”

“So you’re saying that you don’t need the money?”

“Correct. We don’t need it. Both houses are paid for, plus we have a small villa outside of Sienna, in Italy. We usually go there in the winter months.”

“Must be nice,” I said.

Hemphill leaned forward. “It is nice, Detective. And it has been nice for twenty-five years. I married Susan when we were eighteen. We love each other. We have a great s*x life. There isn’t a reason in the world for either one of us to want to kill the other.” He leaned back and slugged another drink, then looked me in the eye. “Satisfied?”

“I know about the café,” I said.

“Which café? The Café de Flore on the Boulevard Saint-Germain in Paris? Or the Antico Caffé Greco on the Via dei Condotti in Rome? My wife loves to haunt both of them.”

“I’m talking about the one in San Francisco.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hemphill said. “And I think it’s time to leave. I’ve had enough of your company. If you want to detain us, I’ll call my lawyer. It’s your decision.”

Mrs. Hemphill sat in the seat near the center of the table. She had her hands wrapped around a cool glass of unsweetened iced tea.

Ribs placed his coffee on the table and then sat. “Mrs. Hemphill, in light of the reports we’ve had from San Francisco, do you have anything to say?”

“As of yet, I have nothing to say. You haven’t asked me anything. And I know nothing of reports from San Francisco.”

“Then tell me, why did you come here?”

She laughed. “Come on, Detective. You can do better than that. We have a house here. If you were any kind of detective, you should have known that; therefore, I could just say we were coming here to stay for a while.”

Ribs shrugged. “I guess so. Why would you be coming here to stay?”

“Again, if your detective skills were up to snuff, you’d know that I am a writer and, as such, might want privacy to write.”

“Guess it makes sense,” Ribs said. “You write anything I might know. I read thrillers and suspense novels.”

“I’ve written a lot, but Death and Deception, and A Poisonous Illness were two of my better-known ones.”

“Dios mîo, they were classics,” Ribs said. “I read both of them. I loved how the killer selected his victims in Death and Deception.”

“Did you guess?” she asked, “Or were you surprised at the end?”

“Surprised, for sure. You had me guessing about everything. They were good reads. I finished them in two nights.”

Mrs. Hemphill smiled. “I’m glad to hear that, Detective. It’s always nice to hear good things from people who’ve read my books, especially professional detectives.”

“You’ll have to sign a book for me before you leave,” he said. Then he took another sip of water, and looked over at her. “You’re a writer, so tell me—if you were going to kill your husband, how would you go about it?”

She thought a moment, then said, “First, by not telling you.”

They both laughed before she continued. “Seriously, though. You’d have to have a motive, a real one. Not something stupid like you read in so many books.”

“Like what?”

“Well, money is always a motive, as is jealousy. You know, one spouse cheating on another—that kind of thing.”

“Should I suspect something?” Ribs asked.

Hemphill laughed again. “Don’t be silly, Detective. We’ve been married forever. And neither one of us needs the money. I’m afraid you’re fresh out of motives.”

“How about the café? Why did you go there?”

Hemphill looked confused, and it appeared to be a real reaction. “Café ’? I don’t know what you’re talking about. The last café I was in, was during a trip to Italy, and that was too long ago.”

Just then a knock sounded at the door. A few seconds afterward, it opened. Gino poked his head inside. “Mr. Hemphill said he’s ready to leave. Or to get his lawyer. It’s our choice.”

Ribs pushed his coffee cup to the side. “I’m done anyway. She can go any time she wants.”

Susan Hemphill stood, shook hands with Ribs, then smiled at Gino as she left. “It was a pleasure, Detectives.”

“I’ve got somebody waiting at the front door to drive you to the rental service or home or wherever you want to go,” Ribs said.

“Susan Hemphill waved and said, “Thank you, Detectives. It was fun.”

Gino waited until she was down the hall, out of earshot, before saying, “You get anything?”

Ribs shook his head. “Nothing, unless you count realizing that I like what she writes. How about you?”

“Not even that much,” Gino said. “He was an ass. I found out they have multimillion-dollar insurance policies on each other, but it doesn’t make much difference. She makes so much money, he’s better off with her alive, and she has no reason to kill him.”

Ribs shrugged again. “I guess we let them go and see if one of them winds up dead.”

“Guess so,” Gino said. “Not much else we can do.”