The Husbands

by T. J. Brearton

  They stood side by side and looked over all the papers and photos. Dixon said, “Problem with all this? Gun — registered to someone else. Vehicle — common, could be a coincidence. Internet searches on game hunting and even tracking devices aren’t enough. Seeing him at a gun range — not enough. It may be what it takes for a judge to set bail today, but it’s not what we need to convict.” Dixon looked at her. “The only way this shakes out in our favor is with a confession.”

  “I know.”

  There was the faint suggestion of a smile on his lips. “I got one last thing, though. You’re going to love this.”

  She waited.

  He set out more paperwork — an employee profile for Jason Sandaker. She studied it for a few seconds, felt the hairs standing on the back of her neck.

  “He’s moved up in the world,” Dixon said. “No longer loading and unloading trucks. He’s their Information Technician at Xylem.”

  She picked up her gun and holster and strapped it on. “Let me talk to Sandaker first. And I’ve got one last request for you, if you’re up for it.”

  Dixon held her gaze. “Anything you need.”

  * * *

  In an interview room of the Cayuga County Jail, Kelly set out her coffee and her notepad on the table and crossed her legs. She had a bandage over the stitches on her forehead, another one on her cut hand, and her side still ached from crashing into Roger Payton’s chair. But otherwise she felt pretty good. Orzo sat next to her, his cheek puffed out from the dentist, but wearing a snappy silver suit.

  Sandaker sat opposite them. Pale.

  “So,” Kelly began. “You work at Xylem as their IT person.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “You went to school at SUNY Plattsburgh, got your degree in computer science while working at Georgia-Pacific.”

  “Yes.”

  “And as part of your job at Xylem, you deal with the facial recognition software the company uses to identify employees coming and going — is that accurate?”

  “I’m responsible for upgrading the firmware, making sure everything is running, yes ma’am.”

  “It’s possible to trick that system, isn’t it?”

  He swallowed and looked down. “Not really, ma’am, I mean . . .”

  “Even if you can’t, say, digitally alter a face, you can change the time code — the date and time of the video, so someone coming in on a Tuesday, say April twenty-fourth, can be made to look like they were there on a Wednesday, April twenty-fifth. Isn’t that right?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t think so.” Sandaker seemed to go a shade paler, his eyes big and ringed red.

  Kelly leaned forward. “Jason . . . Blake Haig told us you manipulated the video — you changed the time code so that what the police were looking at, to corroborate his alibi, it was not actually for the time in question. And that you did it again for him three other times. Why?”

  He looked at her, his mouth working, like he was having a hard time dealing with his own tongue. “He didn’t say that. You’re trying to . . . he didn’t say that.”

  “You admit to doing it, though.”

  “I’m not admitting anything. And I want a . . . I need a lawyer, please. I need my lawyer.”

  “You have a lawyer? Or you mean a public defender. Well, look, you’re not being charged — you’re here voluntarily. We could charge you, arrest you, and then at your arraignment you could seek counsel. Hopefully your wife doesn’t have her baby while you’re going through the system. How is she doing, by the way?”

  “Charge me with what? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Well, there’s this — obstructing a federal investigation. Otherwise we’ll take you in on your pot plants. It’s still illegal to grow in the state of New York, and as far as federal law is concerned, the charges carry a weight similar to heroin. So we can go that way, where you spend the next year or so of your life in county jail, fighting an uphill battle to keep yourself from going down for seven-to-ten years in federal prison. Or, you can cooperate with us, admit that you lied for your friend and co-worker Blake Haig, that you helped provide him with an alibi.”

  Sandaker didn’t speak, just looked at Kelly and Orzo some more and then glanced at the camera in the corner of the room.

  “You have a family,” Kelly said. “Jason? Why risk all of that? Why lie for a friend, why break the law for a friend? Blake Haig is a multiple murderer. Whatever he told you, it’s a lie. It’s a manipulation. He probably resents you because of what you have.”

  Sandaker swallowed hard as some color worked its way back into his face, his blood coming up. “You don’t know him. He’s not a murderer.”

  “Did he threaten you?”

  Sandaker turned his head, looking away. His lower lip was shaking. He kept quiet.

  “That’s your right not to talk,” Kelly said. “I respect that, I genuinely do. Here’s the thing, Jason — I don’t want to see anything bad happen to you. I think you made a poor decision, but you had a reason. You were trying to protect your family. So, think of the other families out there. Think of what Blake Haig is liable to do again if he walks away from this, the more lives he’ll take, the more he’ll ruin.”

  “Think of what he’ll do to me if I say anything.” Sandaker’s voice was wet and his eyes shone with stark fear. “He has no . . . I don’t know. He’s missing something inside of him.”

  Kelly eased back into her seat. “He can’t do anything to you if he’s locked up.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Haig sat where Sandaker had been, only Haig had on navy-blue inmate fatigues. Tomlin, his lawyer, sat beside him in a dark suit, his eyes hooded and a nose that looked like it’d been broken more than once. Agent Dixon had joined her and Orzo.

  “Mr. Haig,” Kelly said. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Agent Roth.” His voice gave her chills she attempted to ignore, his eyes glinted with self-satisfaction. “Like I said, anything I can do to help.”

  “It’s very kind of you. Let’s get right to it — what’s the nature of your relationship to Mr. Sandaker?”

  “We’re coworkers.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “Sure. I guess you could say that.”

  “I’ve spoken with Mr. Sandaker, who’s admitted to us that he manipulated the video of you at work — he used video from a different date and altered the time code to fool the Auburn Police Department. He also covered for you the hour you were not at Xylem, on April twenty-fifth, and he did the same for the August and November dates.”

  Tomlin grunted and leaned toward Haig and whispered in his ear. Haig nodded.

  “This is your game?” she asked after a moment. “Hiding behind your lawyer? Come on, Mr. Haig. I thought you had this all figured out — you know everything that’s going to happen. You knew you were going to be sitting right here, right now — and this is it? Just deny everything? That seems like a shame. To do all of this, to set this whole thing up, to accomplish everything you’ve done . . .”

  There was a smile playing at the corners of his mouth — he was enjoying her attempts to provoke him.

  “If you beat this,” she said, “then nobody will ever know. Isn’t the whole point for people to understand? We’re just programmed machines, playing out our roles?”

  Haig yawned and looked away, like he was more interested in the cracks in the puke-green walls.

  “I wonder if you even thought about this sort of thing before Adam Grumett. Before reading his book. Maybe Tammy was coming home, though, sharing some of those ideas herself. Did she read the book first? I bet she did. I know the two of you both liked to read,” Kelly said.

  The lawyer looked at Dixon. “How long are we expected to sit here and endure this? We have a bail hearing in less than an hour.”

  “Before you go back to hiding out,” Kelly said, “there’s something you might be interested in.” She pulled out a clear evidence bag with a copy of The Myth of You, several pages mark
ed by fluorescent pink tabs. She set the book on its face and read from the back blurb:

  “Healing, Grumett demonstrates, is possible when we stop heaping ‘blame and shame’ upon ourselves, but seek to understand the conditions shaping our lives.”

  She pulled out Archer’s notes next and slapped them down. “And this is Ted Archer’s recollection of the call he received from a man claiming to be his wife and son’s killer: ‘He says healing is only possible when people stop heaping “blame and shame” upon themselves. Keeps talking about the nature of suffering. Conditions shaping our lives.’” She looked up. “Sound familiar?”

  Haig allowed his cockeyed grin full form. “Are you saying that Adam Grumett killed my wife? Because that’s what it sounds like to me.”

  “I could see how someone would make that connection.” She patted the hardcover book through the bag. “But guess where I found this? Or — rather, where Agent Dixon did? At the Goodwill, right near here in Auburn.”

  Haig lost the smile and his lips parted as if to speak.

  “So here’s what I think — your wife is sitting there with Grumett’s book, and you picked it up, curious. Maybe you wait until after she went to bed — she was pregnant after all; pregnant women need their sleep. Is that how it went?”

  “That’s great,” Tomlin said, his gaze shifting between her and Dixon. “So you found a book.”

  She cut a look at him. “What happens when the lab finds matching fingerprints for both your client and his late wife Tammy? Given that he told me he never owned a copy of this book, never saw it before — what is the prosecutor going to think about a suspect lying about such a critical component of this investigation? What would a jury think, if this goes to trial?”

  “That my client forgot he even had it because he simply got rid of it — along with a hundred other books — after his wife was murdered.” Tomlin rose from the table. “We have a bail hearing to get to. If you’ll excuse us.”

  She held up a finger. “But wait — let me read you the inscription: ‘To Tammy, one of my brightest: knowing these things, and that there is still choice, makes what we choose all the sweeter. Adam.’”

  “Thank you,” Tomlin said, with mock cordiality. He slid his paperwork into a leather briefcase. “That’s all we have time for.” He reached a hand toward Haig. “Come on, let’s go.”

  Haig didn’t move. He stared at Kelly with hate. She was getting used to it by now.

  “I think you suspected your wife was cheating and maybe you went to the school,” she said. “You saw them. Where were they? By his car, having a moment? Did you follow them to a hotel? Or even his place?”

  “Don’t answer that question,” Tomlin said, hooking an arm around Haig. He moved him toward the door and called for the guard on the other side.

  She twisted around to watch as they waited for the door to open, remaining in her chair. “Instead of killing Tammy’s teacher, you killed her. But it didn’t satisfy you. No — it opened a door. You went to the mall and watched people and waited until you found what you were looking for — a beautiful woman, a beautiful family, men who would do anything for them. Instead of dealing with Grumett, you became him. At least, you tried to use the philosophies in his book to elevate your crimes. But they don’t. Your crimes reveal you as a coward and a cuckold.”

  The lawyer pounded on the door. “Hello? Let’s go!”

  Kelly rose out of her chair and came round the table. “Did you want to get caught? Was the call to me a cry for help? You rushed through the Spence family once you knew about me. You saw me as a way to end it, you told me what you were planning — you said you knew what I was going to do next.” She spread her arms. “Well, here I am, Blake. The world is watching.”

  He turned and faced her. “You have no idea.”

  “How do you feel? That’s what you asked Ted Archer. It’s right there in your texts — how do you feel? For a while I thought maybe you’ve been gauging the emotions of others because you don’t have any. Because you don’t know what it’s like to feel. But you do have emotions. You have shame. You have hate.”

  “Don’t respond to that,” Tomlin said. He pulled on Haig’s arm.

  “You hated Roger Payton for the way he loved his wife. And you hated Ted Archer for the way he loved his wife and his son — especially since you’d killed your own child. But the thing is, I remembered something — Detective Orzo telling me how in shock you were. How you never even wanted to look at your wife’s body, never read the autopsy report. And you know what I thought? I thought, that pain is real. Maybe he didn’t know that the baby was his. Maybe he thought it was another man’s. But no, it was your child, Blake. Your own son you killed.”

  Haig lurched for her. He grabbed her around the throat and shoved her back against the table and loomed over her. His lips peeled back in a sneer, his eyes wild. Dixon and Orzo grabbed him, tried to pull him off. “Fuck you,” Haig spat at Kelly.

  She wanted to fight back. Every instinct in her told her to knee him in the crotch, take out his eyes. The flashback to Craig Danner was remarkable, as if she was in both the past and the present, two worlds coexisting, two men pinning her down, spitting in her face. But she didn’t move. She felt his fingers pressing into her neck, constricting her windpipe, her air supply, and she didn’t fight.

  “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay, Blake.”

  The door burst open and the guard came in. Together with Dixon and Orzo they pried Haig off of her. An instant later, he was on the floor and the guard had a knee in his back and Dixon was mashing his face into the ground.

  Kelly gasped a breath of ragged air and sat up and rubbed at her neck. She was okay — it had only been a few seconds — and she squatted down beside Blake Haig and looked into his contorted face as he blew hot breath against the dirty floor.

  “I did you a favor,” he rasped. “I showed you who you really were. All your pain, your first case — I saw you on TV and you didn’t know if you could do it. You should be thanking me.”

  Tomlin cowered in the corner, half-lidded eyes searching the room as he calculated the damage Haig was doing to their case. Dixon and the guard got Haig up onto his feet and though the guard tried to get him toward the door, Kelly shared a quick look with Dixon. He got it, keeping Haig in the room where the camera and microphone were recording his every action, every word.

  Haig spat on the floor and drilled into her with his eyes. “You chase me, you do this to me — you’ve got no more choice than I do.”

  She pushed herself standing and faced him. “We’ll get you help.”

  “I don’t need help. The rest of you do. I got them to do every fucking thing I asked them to. That’s the world we live in, that’s the reality.”

  The room fell silent, just the sounds of breathing, the odor of sweat and bile in the air. Tomlin stared at the floor. Orzo was slack-jawed, his tie askew. Dixon wordlessly prompted the guard and they took Haig out of the room.

  * * *

  Outside in the parking lot, Dixon caught up with Kelly as he put his phone away. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Kelly said.

  “Doctor checked you out?”

  “It’s nothing. Haig’s a lightweight.”

  Dixon just stared, then cracked a wide smile and laughed. First time she’d ever seen his teeth. Then he gave her ensemble an appraising eye and said, “We going to the funeral service for Broward now?”

  “Yeah — you’re driving.”

  They got in the car.

  “Sandaker just spilled his guts five minutes ago,” Dixon said. “The second he found out that Haig flipped out, he admitted to everything. Said he wants to come out on the ‘right side of things.’ He messed around with the system at Xylem, he said, changed the time code and dates. Says Haig was going to blab about his pot plants and get him fired from Xylem if he didn’t do it. The guy was in deep denial, though, swears up and down he didn’t think Haig was the Park Killer, just cutting out on w
ork, up to no good. Says he doesn’t really watch the news, read the papers.” He gave her a sidelong look as he navigated the traffic. “How did you know for sure?”

  She looked at herself in the mirror and adjusted her blouse, moved a lock of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t.”

  * * *

  The sky was royal blue and cloudless and the uniformed police pointed their rifles into the air and fired their salute. Kelly saw a woman standing on the other side of the open grave with two little girls and figured her for Broward’s ex-wife. They listened as the priest gave his somber eulogy. A wind picked up and harried the autumn leaves in front of it as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

  Kelly caught up with the woman and her daughters as they made their way out of the cemetery.

  “Excuse me — miss?”

  The woman stopped and turned around, put a protective arm around her girls, who huddled against her legs in their little black dresses.

  “I’m Agent Roth: Kelly.”

  “I know who you are.”

  The anger and hurt came off Broward’s ex in waves. Kelly took a step back, offered a smile, then bent toward the girls. “I’m very sorry about what happened to your dad. He was a good man.”

  The woman jerked them away and hurried toward the line of parked vehicles in the street. Kelly watched them go, thinking about how this event would affect the rest of their lives.

  A man approached as she went to her car. “Detective Faber.”

  “I heard he was pleading guilty,” Faber said, lighting a cigar. “Not even going to risk a trial.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told,” Kelly said.

  He blew some smoke out. “That’s how it goes. Courts are overloaded, prosecutor stacks up the charges, defendant pleads to a lesser offense just so everyone can move on with their day.”