Death by Sudoku by Kaye Morgan Page A

picked up from Michelle to keep him around. “You’re a witness,” she told him. “If you drive off, the police could begin to think you’re a suspect.”
    “B-but you’re with me,” the cabdriver protested. “You chose the destination.”
    “Precisely. And I’m staying here to talk with them. If you want to make sure what kind of story I tell the police, so will you.”
    Long minutes passed. Liza spent them with her back determinedly turned to the horrible thing that once had been her friend. Even a quick glance showed that Derrick had hit the mountainside several times before finally getting caught up in the tree. Between the impact wounds and the fact that all the blood had settled in the lower parts of his suspended body, Derrick’s handsome face had become a horribly distorted parody of itself. If it weren’t for that cheesy sweater—
    Derrick’s lucky sweater. The one I’d threatened to throw off the terrace.
    Liza shuddered at the idea. Then another notion hit her. Unless somebody visited after her cab left, she and Jenny were probably among the last people to see Derrick alive.
    The arrival of a police cruiser derailed that train of thought. A uniformed officer got out. “We got a report—”
    He broke off as he followed the cabdriver’s pointing hand, immediately grabbing his car’s radio and speaking in a low voice. When he looked at the two of them again, his eyes were suspicious. “You didn’t touch . . . ?” The officer broke off that question as he glanced again at the body hanging high above them.
    It was patently clear that neither the cabdriver nor Liza was dressed to scale the mountain or climb a tree. If they’d tried it, their clothes would have been in disastrous shape. There was no way that either of them had made the attempt.
    “You said in the report of this incident,” the cop continued, “that you were going to this gentleman’s house?”
    Liza nodded. “I had an appointment with him this morning. We were supposed to have breakfast and then head on to his plane for a trip to John Wayne Airport.”
    The officer had another question for her: Was anyone else at the house? Liza admitted she had no idea. She’d been too rattled to call when she saw her host hanging like a bat from a tree on the mountainside.
    She offered to call Derrick’s home phone, and the cop took her up on it. When she tried the number, all she got was voice mail.
    “Not conclusive,” the cop said. “Anybody up in the house could be refusing to answer. Did you pass any other vehicles on the way up here, going either way on the road?”
    The cabdriver shook his head. So did Liza.
    The questions kept coming, even as backup started to arrive. Between the cab and the cop car, they were blocking the road; nobody could get by.
    In the end, the police had the cabbie pull his car to the shoulder of the road. One officer stayed with them while his partner continued on to Derrick’s house. From the beady eye the cop aimed at them, Liza didn’t have to ask the officer whether she was a suspect. The question in the cop’s eyes seemed to be when, not if, to charge her.
    While they stood at the roadside, a whole parade of vehicles passed by them—another police cruiser, an ambulance, and what had to be an unmarked police car.
    Homicide detectives, Liza figured. Whatever had happened to Derrick, she was willing to bet natural causes had nothing to do with it.
    More minutes passed. Then the officer’s radio set squawked. Liza couldn’t make out what was said, but apparently the cop deciphered it. He turned to the cabdriver. “We’re going up. I’ll follow you.”
    Derrick’s SUV still stood in the drive in front of the house, just as it had when Liza left the previous night. But it was surrounded by the cavalcade that had passed them while they waited below. There were so many cars parked on the spacious driveway that some of the new vehicles were drawn up on the lawn.
    A man in a suit came out of the door,