Maggie and the Empty Noose

by Barbara Cool Lee

  "Stanley?"

  He opened his eyes, squinting like the light hurt, even though it wasn't that bright in the room. The pupils were pinned, tiny black dots in the huge expanse of deep blue irises. He was definitely on something.

  "I don't feel right," he said, very softly, as if that fact was just sinking in.

  "I can see that," she said. "Come with me."

  She led him by the arm out of the room. They came out into the upstairs hall, where the huge picture windows usually offered a breathtaking view of Carita Cove far below. But this morning the glow of sunlight was shuttered by the thick fog. She barely noticed.

  She kept guiding Reese along the upper hallway, and he followed where she led him, passive and cooperative. She could feel the trembling in his limbs as she led him forward.

  She guided him down the stairs, and he stumbled, grabbing onto the oak railing to steady himself. His feet dragged, and he moved slowly, still acting like a sleepwalker.

  Finally they got to the living room. She sat him on the sofa that faced the fireplace. She switched on the gas, and the flames shot up from the ceramic logs, instantly warming the space.

  Reese was shivering, which made sense given he was shirtless and barefoot. But something far more than lack of a flannel shirt was wrong with him. Had he really just gone to sleep in a bed next to a dead woman?

  She fought the logical answer, the answer that told her Reese Stevens had spectacularly fallen off the wagon. That he had shot himself up with drugs, had gone crazy, and had followed through on the threat he had very loudly and publicly made just the day before: I'm going to kill her.

  It couldn't be true. She watched his face. He seemed stunned, confused, appalled. But wouldn't he feel that way if he had committed this murder? No. She just didn't buy it.

  He wasn't a killer. He couldn't be.

  She heard a knock on glass.

  She glanced toward the sound and panicked when she saw Reese's fourteen-year-old son Shane standing at the sliding door.

  She took a deep breath to try to calm herself, then went over and opened the door, putting her arm up to keep him outside.

  He slipped past her before she could stop him. "Mom wasn't home when I woke up," he said. "So I walked over here to get breakfast. Dad?" he added, noticing Reese hadn't looked up at him.

  She grabbed the boy by the arm. "Your dad's really sick. You shouldn't be here."

  He tried to shake off her hold, but she gripped him tightly. "No, Shane. You can't be here. You need to go to—" She thought frantically "—to Eddie and Paige's." Their home was just a dozen houses away up The Row, the string of million-dollar homes that fronted on the cove. And it was a place of serenity and peace.

  She turned him around and pointed him back out the sliding door.

  "But I need to talk to Dad." He turned back toward the sofa. "I'm sorry I was mad last night—"

  "No," she said firmly, and, when Reese didn't look up at him, Shane finally let her lead him back out the slider to the pool.

  She shut the glass door behind them.

  "I don't know where Mom went, and now Dad is acting all weird," Shane said.

  Maggie put up her hand to stop him talking. She looked down at their feet to avoid answering him. He was wearing checkerboard Vans, and they were covered in sand. She knew where his mom had gone. She had walked along the beach from her house at the far end of The Row, just like Shane had done. And she'd gotten sand all over her shoes, just like the boy had. And then somehow, she had ended up dead in the bed upstairs.

  Maggie pulled out her phone and called Paige Zimmer.

  They stood in the swirling fog on the patio. The pool filter made a slapping sound as it churned the water, and the rebar that made up the wave sculpture rattled an accompaniment.

  She listened to the phone ring while Shane looked warily at her.

  Paige finally picked up on the fifth ring, sounding sleepy.

  "We've got a problem here," Maggie said quickly. "I need you to take care of Shane for a while."

  "Okay," Paige said.

  "But—" Shane started to say.

  "I'm sending him over right now," Maggie said, then hung up without another word.

  She pushed the boy toward the wooden stairs that led down the cliff to the beach.

  Shane planted his feet. He was taller than her, and she tried in vain to keep him moving.

  "Stop it," he said. "What's going on?" The seriousness of the situation was starting to sink in. But she didn't dare tell him what was going on.

  He looked back at the house, where his father, visible through the glass doors, hadn't moved an inch.

  "I need to talk to him," Shane said, starting back that way.

  She got in front of him. "No."

  She said it so firmly that he stopped.

  "But—" She could see from his expression he was about to get adolescently stubborn and argue with her, so she took the boy's head between her palms, stroking his blond hair much like she had his father's a few minutes ago. "Please, Shane. You have to trust me. Go directly to the Zimmers and stay there. This is an emergency."

  "But if Dad needs me—"

  "—I'm so sorry," she said, trying not to choke up in front of him. "Things are going to be very hard for a while. I can't explain right now. But you have to trust me and go stay with them. Please. Don't speak to anyone except them. Stay with them until we can talk to you. Got it?"

  He stood there with that thoughtful, assessing air about him that was so much like his father's she had to blink back tears.

  Then he made his decision. "Okay," was all he said, and he turned to run down the beach stairs.

  She went back into the house.

  Reese had made it onto his feet, swaying. "Where is he? I gotta get him. We gotta go. Gotta hide somewhere."

  "Sit down," she said firmly. "He's gone to stay with Paige and Eddie."

  "But we gotta run. Get away."

  "You're Reese Stevens. You can't run. Sit down."

  He ignored her. "But I… if I did… I need to see Shane… to explain."

  She saw the moment his brain finally clicked to life and the truth hit him. He let out an anguished moan. "His mother's dead," he whispered. "This will destroy him. I've got to talk to him. To help him."

  "No." She wasn't going to let him talk to Shane in this condition, to possibly ruin his relationship with his son by confessing to a crime she just knew he couldn't have committed.

  "Sit down," she ordered.

  He didn't move, so she gently pushed him and his legs gave out, sending him backwards onto the sofa. He landed awkwardly, but didn't seem to care.

  She watched him sit there trembling while she thought frantically about what to do. How long had she been here? How long did she have before the inevitable?

  She speed-dialed Nora McJasper, the woman who had known Reese since he was a teenager. She lived at the other end of The Row, near Olivia's house. Maggie woke Nora up just like she'd woken up Paige. Told her that Reese was in major trouble.

  Nora's voice snapped to alertness at the words. "What kind of trouble? What does he need?"

  "Send lawyers, guns, and money kind of trouble," Maggie said. She turned around and whispered into the phone, "He's acting like he's on drugs and Olivia's dead in his bed."

  "What?!"

  "Get over here to Casablanca. I want you and a lawyer here by the time the police show up."

  "On it," Nora said, and hung up.

  Reese was sitting on the sofa, holding his head like it was about to fall off, and moaning softly.

  There was nothing else to do, so Maggie made the call she had been dreading.

  "Lieutenant Ibarra?" she said when he answered. "I need to report a dead body."

  Chapter Three

  Ibarra was pounding on the door within five minutes.

  Maggie let him in, reluctantly.

  "Where's the body?" he asked. Lieutenant Will Ibarra was in his forties, with graying hair and a lot of muscles.
He was wearing sweatpants and an Oakland A's jersey, and he was perspiring like he'd been interrupted on a quiet Sunday morning and had run all the way here from his apartment downtown.

  "Wait a minute, Will," she said. "I need to explain first."

  "Not now, Ms. McJasper." She wasn't Maggie this morning. She was Ms. McJasper. His voice was coldly professional. "Where's the body?"

  "Upstairs," she said softly. "In the master bedroom. I'll show you."

  Ibarra was a tall man, almost as tall as Reese. And like Reese, he normally had a certain air of authority, like a man used to getting his own way. But usually, Will's aura of command was tempered by humor.

  Not now.

  He looked down his long nose at her with chilly contempt. "No. You will not show me. You will wait here. When the rest of the team gets here, you will let them in. Then you will sit on that couch and wait with that man who is currently throwing up on the floor."

  She swirled around to see Reese completely losing it.

  She turned back to Will. "But—"

  He continued as if she hadn't spoken. "And you will not say one word." He lifted a finger in the air. "Not. One. Word."

  She nodded and went to sit at the opposite end of the sofa from Reese, who had finished being sick and now leaned back, shivering and shaking, looking just like a man who was coming down to Earth after having murdered his ex-girlfriend in a drug-fueled rage.

  She wanted to clean up the floor, to clean up Reese, to do something to fix this.

  But she sat. And waited. And didn't say one word. And tried not to think.

  The rest of the Carita police department arrived in the next few minutes. Every cop in the department had come, from what she could tell. She recognized some of them, but none of them acknowledged her, or the drugged-out junkie on the couch next to her. Ibarra's boss wasn't here yet. She was not looking forward to seeing him. Police Chief Randall was a political cop, and expertly walked the fine line between the town full of normal people, and the celebrities that used Carita as a getaway from the Hollywood scene, always making sure he came out on top.

  The police went about their business, securing the house, beginning the painstaking work of checking for fingerprints, collecting evidence, doing all the things that she normally would have found fascinating, but now found frightening.

  Each new piece of evidence might be another nail in Reese's coffin.

  Eventually, after what was probably only a matter of minutes but seemed like forever, Ibarra came back downstairs.

  If he had looked cold before, now he was positively arctic.

  "I think the body might have been moved," was the first thing Maggie said to him. "I think it looks like too little blood for the size of the wound—"

  "Shut up, Maggie," he said.

  She shut her mouth.

  He looked out the glass door at the fog-shrouded pool, and grimaced.

  When he faced her again, he blinked a couple of times, and she could see he was trying to hold it together.

  He glanced around at the room filled with police and investigators.

  Then he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her with him over to the slider.

  "This handle cleared?" he asked the fingerprint guy who was working there, and the man nodded.

  "Don't touch anything on the patio," the man added.

  Ibarra pulled the door open and, still holding her by the arm, led her outside.

  He shut the door behind him, then let go of her arm and turned to her. "Chief Randall's going to be here in a couple of minutes, so I need to know before he arrives. Do I need to Mirandize you before we talk?"

  "No! Are you joking?"

  "This isn't a joke, Maggie! How could you get yourself involved in something like this?"

  She realized to her shock that Will wasn't angry with her, he was scared for her.

  "Oh," she whispered. "Oh, no. I—" She glanced back at Reese, who hadn't moved, but was now being flanked by two uniformed officers, who were staring at him like he was a depraved Hollywood celebrity who had murdered his girlfriend. "I'm not involved."

  She swallowed hard, feeling like she was throwing Reese under the bus, but needing to be honest. "I just got here a few minutes ago. Reese called me and he sounded sick, so I came over and found…." She waved her hands at the house. "All this."

  Will let out a huge sigh. "Gracias a Dios," he muttered. He cleared his throat, then his professional demeanor back in place, asked her, "so you didn't actually see him kill her?"

  "No, no, no!" Maggie shook her head violently to accompany her frantic denials. "He didn't kill her."

  "What? Then who did?"

  She felt the tears start, the tears she had managed to hold back all this time. She brushed them away angrily. "I don't know. I don't know what happened. I just know that what really happened is not what we're seeing here."

  Will narrowed his eyes at her. "Why?"

  She glanced at him, then back out at the pool. The pool filter was still churning, making a grinding noise that sounded like the motor was straining. She would have to call the pool company and get that checked. Reese liked to swim, and she had to keep her tenant happy—

  She sobbed involuntarily, and then took a couple of deep breaths to regain control. "I don't know, Will. I just feel like this isn't right."

  "No kidding." The sarcasm dripped off his tone, thick as the morning mist.

  "I'm serious," she said. "I know him. He wouldn't do this."

  "How well do you know him?"

  "What do you mean?"

  He let out an exasperated sigh. "Maggie, get real. You're standing here with your hair all a mess, looking like you just rolled out of bed, telling me a drugged-out movie star with a dead woman in his bed is innocent. The first question Chief Randall is going to ask me is—" He stopped cold. Turned beet red. Then blurted out: "Did you spend the night here?"

  "Of course not."

  "You sure about that, Maggie? Don't lie to me."

  "Will, please! I wouldn't lie to you. Stop being a cop for a minute and listen to me."

  He took her by the arm again, but gently this time. He turned her to face him. "Look at me, Maggie."

  She looked up at him.

  "Be absolutely clear on this. I am a cop. I am not going to stop being one. Not even for you. Someone cold-bloodedly bashed that woman's head in. And yeah, you're right. I would guess they moved the body. Put it in that bed. And that means it was deliberate, premeditated murder. It doesn't matter whether you like Reese. Or even love him. If he did this, I am going to throw the book at him."

  She tried to turn away, but he put a finger under her chin and tilted her face up to him. He added softly, "and if you had any part in this, no matter what I feel personally, I will throw the book at you, too. Is that clear?"

  She nodded.

  "Good."

  He motioned toward the house. "Now let's talk to this innocent man and see what he has to say."

  Chapter Four

  Maggie followed Will over to the couch.

  "You read him his rights?" Ibarra asked one of the cops.

  The man nodded.

  Ibarra spoke clearly to Reese. "Mr. Stevens, do you want to talk to me?"

  Reese opened his eyes. "Yeah, sure."

  "No!" Maggie said. She tried to stand in front of Reese. "You have the right to remain silent. Do it!"

  "Get out of my way, Maggie." There was a warning in Ibarra's voice.

  "But you can't question him. He's not himself."

  "Can I question you, Mr. Stevens?"

  Reese nodded. "Sure, kestyun," he mumbled.

  Where was Nora? Why wasn't she here yet? "Can't you see there's something wrong with him?"

  "Yeah," Ibarra said. "I can see there's a lot wrong with him."

  "He's sick. He can't talk now."

  "Can you talk now?" Ibarra asked Reese, and Reese nodded.

  "But—" she started to say.

  "—He's not sick, Maggie. He's a drug addict. That
's not a defense."

  "He's not a drug addict," she said desperately. "He hasn't been for years and years."

  "How do you know?"

  "You think he could be a mess like this and no one would have noticed?"

  "Yeah. I think these spoiled celebrities think they can get away with just about anything."

  "Will, please," she begged.

  Ibarra glanced toward the two cops, who had moved back during this exchange.

  "Wait!" she said frantically as the cops came forward to take her away.

  Ibarra motioned the cops back.

  "You can't question him," she said. "His lawyer isn't here."

  "Do you need your lawyer here before questioning, Mr. Stevens?" the lieutenant asked.

  Reese shook his head.

  Ibarra raised an eyebrow at her. "That seems like clear consent to me."

  "Don't shake your head, Reese!"

  "So what happened here, Mr. Stevens?" Ibarra asked. "Did you try to kill yourself again?"

  Reese waved his hand in the air, the faded old scar on his wrist pale against his tanned skin.

  "He wouldn't do that," Maggie said. "He was an addict then. Not anymore. Reese, please stay silent and wait for your lawyer."

  Reese ignored her.

  "I got home late," he said, his voice slow and monotone. He lifted one hand up to rub his face. The hand shook so badly he couldn't find his face, so he lowered it. "Was real mad and drove home late. Was real late."

  "I think we've established that you were real late. What were you mad about?"

  "Reese!"

  Reese ignored her plea. He ignored Ibarra's question, too. Just continued on this mumbling soliloquy as he tried to piece together what he remembered.

  "Saw moon and Mars," Reese whispered. "Yeah."

  "Moon and Mars?" Ibarra asked. "What's that? A band?"

  "He likes to look at the stars," Maggie said. "But it was foggy. He couldn't have seen them from here. Where did you see the moon and Mars, Reese?"

  "Orion," he mumbled.

  "Orion?" Ibarra said skeptically. "He's just rambling now."

  "Orion's a constellation," one of the cops offered helpfully.

  "I know that," Ibarra said. "But it's not exactly helpful, now is it?"