by D. L. Wood
Reese pursed his lips together. “It’s not really my thing.”
“It wasn’t mine either.”
Reese sniffed. “Well, maybe I’ll take him next week, if he likes it so much. Can’t hurt, right?”
“No,” Chloe said, shaking her head. “Can’t hurt. You should ask Emma too.”
“Look, I know that on most scores I have no idea what a teenage girl is thinking, but on this one I’m pretty confident she won’t be interested.”
Chloe smiled. “Maybe. But ask anyway. You never know. And,” she continued, raising her eyebrows knowingly, “the last thing you want to do is leave her out.”
“True,” Reese agreed. He leaned back in the chair and jerked his head at Chloe’s laptop, open before her. “How’s the article?”
“I’m wrapping it up now. It turned out pretty well, I think. My editor says—”
“Izzie? Your editor, right? And she’s your best friend?”
Though the comments seemed a little like an eager student offering the teacher answers to a pop quiz, she appreciated the gesture. He wanted her to know he had been paying attention. That he cared.
“Yeah. She says it’ll be in the March issue. Just in time for spring.”
“Well that gives me time to tell everyone I know to be looking for my daughter’s article.”
She snorted good-naturedly. “Okay.”
“You ready to get back to your life?”
“Yeah. It’s time. Now that you’re back and moving around…my poor dog is probably losing his mind.”
“Bring him next time. Tyler would love it.”
Next time. The thought was a good one. Who would have ever thought there would be a next time? But watching Jack and Tyler, and sitting here with Reese, drinking coffee as a troupe of bright orange leaves danced down onto the table, it felt right that there would be.
* * * * *
By eight o’clock, Tyler was tucked in and snoring softly. The pizza boxes from dinner lay open on the coffee table, containing a single, lonely cheese slice abandoned and cold. Chloe had just come down from Tyler’s room to sit on the couch beside Jack when the doorbell for the side porch rang.
Holt stood on the landing, his tie opened wide at the neck and hair rumpled from one too many passes through it.
“Hey.”
“You look awful,” she said as he dragged past her.
“I feel every bit of it. It’s been a day,” he said, making his way to the family room and dropping his briefcase beside him as he plopped down on the other couch facing Jack. Spying the pizza, he nodded inquiringly at the slice. Jack signaled he should take it, and he did, folding it in two and inhaling almost half in one bite.
“You want something more than that?” Chloe asked. “I can fix you something—I’ve got some chicken leftover from yesterday.”
“Seriously? That would be great. I’m starved. Didn’t get a chance to eat today.”
“I thought you were grabbing something when you left here earlier?” Chloe called from the kitchen as she rummaged through the refrigerator.
“Planned on it,” Holt replied, sinking back into the couch. “Stuff came up.” He eyed Jack. “I’m sorry to barge in, really, but I wanted to update you guys in person.”
“No problem. Not barging. According to Tyler, you’re part of the family,” Jack said.
Holt chuckled. “Gotta love that kid.”
“So what’s the word on Crutchfield?” Chloe asked from the kitchen.
“That’s as good as done. The guy is too stupid and too mad to keep his mouth shut. He owned up to everything.”
“Which was what exactly?” asked Jack, leaning forward.
Holt swallowed another bite. “Apparently his grand plan was to take Tyler to punish Reese, then go grab his own kids from his ex-wife. After that he was headed out to Oklahoma or some such place where he has a cousin. He says he was planning on dropping Tyler off in a Walmart parking lot somewhere along the way, but who knows if that’s true.”
“How did you find all that out?”
“The investigators brought me up to speed once they had a handle on what was going on. And he copped to the hospital note and thing with Emma at the antique mall.”
“Were you right about the box on the porch?” Chloe asked, bringing a warmed plate of chicken and rice over to Holt.
Holt nodded, taking the plate out of her hands. “Oh, man, this smells good.” He shoveled in a bite and kept talking. “It was a Coalsworth Chewing Tobacco packing box. Crutchfield chews the stuff constantly. His wife complained about it nonstop during the divorce proceedings. He figured one of us would remember and know he was sending us a message to back off, without being able to actually prove anything against him. Only we didn’t notice because he ended up turning the box so the logo was on the bottom. Neither one of us ever saw it.”
“He sounds like an idiot,” Jack said.
“An idiot with a plan, though. Apparently he had been following the kids around for a couple weeks—driving to their schools, parking down the street and watching the house—looking for the right moment. He was following you, too,” Holt said, nodding at Chloe. “Did you ever notice anyone following you?”
Chloe thought of the car running her off the road. “Yeah. I might’ve, now that I think about it.” She shifted in her seat. “Did you see Trip?”
“Yeah, well, that’s the thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Did the forensics come back on the gun?” she asked.
“It’s not that.” He wiped his hands on his pants and set the plate on the coffee table. “So when I got home today, there was something waiting for me.”
“What do you mean?”
He reached into the outer pocket of his leather briefcase and pulled out a generic, recordable DVD. “Somebody left this leaning against my door.”
“Did you watch it?”
“Yeah. And that sent me right back to the investigators for another three hours. I just left there.”
Jack leaned forward on his knees. “So what’s on the DVD?”
Holt stood, moved towards the media console, and slipped the disc into the Blu-ray player. “I think it’s better if you see it for yourself.”
SEVENTY-TWO
It’s night, the colors filling the screen with mostly muted versions of black, brown, and gray, though lit by a decent amount of what must be moonlight, amplified by the night mode of the camera of whatever cell phone was being used to record. The screen pans wide, resolving into a shaky view of what looks like a clearing, significantly obscured by heavy brush and tree trunks between the clearing and the person holding the camera. Two figures stand in the clearing. Furthest away, on the far side of the clearing but facing the camera, is someone who appears to be dressed in something dark. About ten feet closer to the camera is a second person, who has their back to the camera. The two people appear to be in some sort of standoff.
The person filming seems to be doing it from a hidden location, far enough away so that the conversation between the two in the clearing is indistinct, muffled. The camera wobbles, as the person recording inches forward, presumably to get a clearer shot. The lens finds a path through the branches and the picture resolves with new clarity.
It’s the trailhead at Wilton Hollow Overlook.
Trip is the one dressed in black, his arm outstretched with a gun pointed towards the person opposite him, Phillip Donner. Though Donner’s back is to the camera, something about his stance makes it clear he isn’t scared. His hands rest on his hips, like a father angry with a petulant child, as Trip waves the gun in his direction, yelling something that sounds like, “You should have left her alone!”
This goes on for another half a minute, Trip’s body language growing increasingly tense until finally he fires a shot in Donner’s direction. The picture juggles chaotically as the person filming reacts suddenly, dropping to the ground. For a second or two, heavy breathing overtakes the audio. The deep browns and rust of the nearb
y ground cover fill the screen, the camera pointed down after the holder’s knee-jerk reaction to the gunshot. Then the view swings upward again. Donner is still standing, and Trip is still pointing the gun at him. The shot must have gone wide. And now Trip is shaking violently, and Donner is bowed up, yelling at him to drop the gun. Donner reaches into his waistband and withdraws his own gun, pointing it at Trip, who drops his and takes off, charging into the brush in the direction of the main road.
Donner turns toward the overlook’s edge, and the camera catches a side view of his face. First, he’s smirking, then he’s laughing, apparently amused by the turn of events. His laughter fades, and he pauses for several moments, looking over the cliff’s edge, as if mulling something over. He tucks the weapon back in his waistband and turns to go.
His face fills with shock and the camera pans right quickly.
Claire Donner is standing in the center of the clearing. Trip’s gun is no longer on the ground. It’s in her hand. Donner’s hands fly up, holding her off as he bellows, “Claire! Claire—don’t!”
She fires, the first shot catching him in the side. He stumbles towards her, and she shoots again. This time it strikes him in the chest and Donner goes down.
She waits several feet away as he struggles to breathe. Finally she ventures towards him, until she is hovering over him. He has stopped moving. She raises the gun once more. She fires one last shot into his chest, then walks away. The camera follows her as she exits down the path leading to the parking lot.
The person filming doesn’t check on Donner. Instead, the camera remains trained on Donner’s body, lying in the dirt. The screen zooms in. Donner’s face isn’t visible, but the blood spreading and soaking the earth is. Donner is still. Very, very, still.
All goes black.
* * * * *
“Yeah,” Holt said, leaning back into the couch again as both Jack and Chloe swiveled their gazes onto him. “Trip was telling the truth.”
“And it was just left at your door?” Chloe asked, bewilderment flushing her face.
Holt nodded. “No note. No nothing. I watched it, made a copy, and took the original straight to the investigators. That’s why no dinner,” he said, smiling weakly. “The good news is that now Trip won’t be charged with the murder, obviously.”
“But, Claire Donner…I mean,” Chloe pitched forward, “I thought you said you didn’t find anything on her. Your private eye guy was looking at her, right?”
“Yeah, but, he had just started, really. Something could’ve easily been missed.”
“Or not,” Jack said, piping in. “Maybe there wasn’t anything to find. What was her motive?”
Holt shrugged. “They picked her up about an hour ago. And that’s all I know. For now, anyway.”
“But the gun, in Trip’s car?” Chloe pressed.
Holt held out his hands wide. “I don’t know. But she could’ve easily planted it. She’s had lots of time. Obviously she was there at the overlook. My guess is that she stumbled onto an opportunity and she took it. She would’ve known she could frame Trip if she needed to, and probably planted the weapon in preparation for that. Frankly, if this DVD hadn’t landed in my lap, it probably would have worked.”
“Which begs the bigger question,” Jack said, voicing what they were all thinking. “Who recorded that?” he asked, pointing to the screen. “And why did they keep it quiet until now?”
SEVENTY-THREE
“Mr. Adams. We speak finally.” Elise Banyon held the phone to her ear as she swiveled to face the panoramic glass window that made up one wall of her office.
“Mmm. Although it’s not like we haven’t communicated. I’m sure you know I got your message. Though I was surprised it wasn’t delivered by a better class of thug. Plaid shirt didn’t exactly scream college graduate.”
“Sorry?”
“I doubt you are. But it isn’t why I called.”
“Do tell,” she replied.
“I got a DVD a few days ago.”
“Netflix?”
Holt snorted. “Not exactly. But it was a pretty good show.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Now see, I just don’t believe you,” Holt said.
“Mr. Adams, why are you calling me?”
“The DVD was of Phillip Donner’s killing. It just showed up on my doorstep, like a pretty little present. Any idea how it got there?”
“Like I told the Franklin police when they contacted me yesterday, I have no idea. Thank you for that, by the way. I thought you had come to the belief that my office and my client were not involved in the unfortunate events surrounding Mr. Donner.”
“Well, that DVD came from somewhere, and they thought it would be a good idea to talk to the people I’ve had contact with during our investigation. And so your name popped up. They were especially interested in your compulsory car ride with Chloe.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” Banyon told him.
“I’m sure it’s not. So the DVD—it’s quite a show. I mean, the only way I figure somebody would have been able to be at the right place at the right time like that is if they were already following Donner and just happened to think something was going down, and just happened to be recording when Claire Donner shot him.”
“If you say so.”
“I was kinda hoping you’d say so.”
Banyon chuckled mirthlessly. “I doubt anyone who played any part in that would own up to it.”
“Yeah, probably not. And I think you and I both know there won’t be any tracing that DVD back to whoever left it.”
“Probably not,” she agreed.
“But what I can’t figure out is, why? I mean, why would whoever filmed that video choose to reveal it now?”
“Maybe whoever left it didn’t want a seventeen-year-old boy to be charged with a murder they knew he didn’t commit.”
“Naaahh,” Holt sang. “Cause I’m pretty convinced that whoever it was, they don’t really care who is charged, as long as it’s not them.”
“Well, they must have had their reasons,” she said.
“I’m thinking they were business reasons. Of a sort. See, I think they needed Claire Donner to go down for the murder she committed.”
“Needed?”
“Claire Donner’s been talking ever since they picked her up, probably hoping to cut a deal that avoids her ending up with a needle in the arm. Turns out she and Donner’s company accountant, Jernigan, were having an affair. She was a trophy wife, tired of Donner’s multiple affairs, with a prenup hanging around her neck like a millstone. Jernigan had access to the money. They think he had been submitting fake bills to the company for over two years, then paying them, then socking the money away for a sunny day on a Jamaican beach with Claire Donner. Apparently she followed Donner that night, thinking she would catch him in yet another affair and finally have what she needed to invalidate the prenup. Instead she got rid of him in another, less-contested way.”
“You are certainly privy to a lot of inside information on this investigation.”
“It’s not all that inside. She’s cutting a deal and the whole story will be in the press by tomorrow. But that isn’t really what I wanted to talk about.”
“And what did you really want to talk about?” she asked, her tone making it clear that she, in point of fact, was not interested in knowing.
“The thing is—Claire and Jernigan’s little retirement program caused a significant loss of cash flow that helped drive Donner’s company into the ground. Her little retirement plan was part of what destroyed her husband’s company. And even though Claire Donner managed to squirrel away a huge chunk of cash by most standards, lo and behold, she has no idea where it is. Apparently, the money disappeared with Jernigan, who apparently got nervous and had already high-tailed it out of Dodge before her arrest. So now, Claire Donner has nothing, Donner’s company defaults on all its debts, and the lenders, well, they’ll never see a penny now.”
“That must be
terribly frustrating for the people Donner owed money to.”
“I would imagine. I would also imagine that those people, if they had caught onto what was happening in time, would not have wanted to see Claire Donner skate off into the sunset with their millions and her new beau, and live happily ever after. Although, let’s be honest—you’ve probably seen Jernigan. I don’t think anybody believes that relationship would’ve lasted past him carrying her bags out of the St. Kitts airport.”
“It’s a nice little theory, Mr. Adams. Want to hear mine?”
“That is why I called.”
“My theory is that if your theory is correct, whoever left that DVD would not care to be trading theories.”
Holt snorted.
“So are we done here, Mr. Adams?”
“Yeah. We’re done.”
“No. I mean are we done here?”
“If you’re asking whether you’ll be hearing from me again—you and I both know that I know something pretty screwy is going on here, even if I can’t prove it, and frankly, don’t even truly know what it is. But I do know it’s not related to my client and, as it turns out, it’s apparently not related to Donner’s murder. So as long as I, and none of the people I care about, get any more visits from your associates, yeah, we’re done here. I called because I didn’t want there to be any confusion about future repercussions, as in, how quickly the police will come knocking on your door, should there be any further shenanigans.”
“Well, I assure you that your concerns are entirely misplaced. I don’t know anything about any shenanigans, and I feel certain that, you being the smart officer of the court that you are, your future will be entirely shenanigan-free. I wish you good luck with your theories, and best wishes for a speedy recovery from your recent…injuries. Goodbye, Mr. Adams.”
* * * * *
“So you’re sure Adams is not a threat?” The father in New Jersey had taken her call himself, no longer forcing Banyon to deal with his idiot son. She was grateful.
“I’m sure. For all his posturing, I think the real reason he called was to make sure I knew that he wouldn’t be digging in our business anymore, and to call the hounds off.”