Bad Intent

by Cheril Thomas

  Mosley gave no indication that he knew Grace and the Chief of Police had made a spectacle of themselves in front of half the village, but she thought the odds that Marjorie had kept her mouth shut were slim and none. Which meant the old guy was having to adjust to her being engaged and pregnant by a man he disliked and involved in a new romantic relationship with one of his closest friends. She expected him to grab his chest with The Big One, but he seemed intent on work. In fact, he was so into prepping for the Overtons; he drove her crazy, mainly because she couldn’t muster the attention or the energy level of an octogenarian.

  But by the time their clients arrived, Mosley and Associate were ready.

  “I know you’ve had a lot to deal with,” Grace said. “But the police have questions for you, not only about Heath’s and Felicia’s deaths, but about Sawyer Renne and the drugs.”

  “We’re not talking about that,” Melanie said. “We can’t burn our bridges with Lightning Strike. They may have canceled our show for now, but I have to consider our future options.”

  Mosley said, “The only future option you should consider involves staying out of prison. Once we accomplish that, everything else will fall in line.”

  “I’m not going to prison because I didn’t do anything,” Melanie argued.

  “Perhaps not,” Mosley drew it out, giving her a speculative look. “But your sister will be, if that matters to you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Melanie didn’t seem moved, but Hallie said, “I understand. I’ll tell the truth.”

  For the next half hour, they discussed how she could do that without going to jail.

  Desiree Marbury’s replacement was Sergeant Wes Everly. Unlike the occasionally aggressive Marbury, Everly was so laid back, he seemed bored. As soon as introductions were made, he relaxed in his chair, apparently content to watch the proceedings.

  When McNamara had expressed his condolences to Melanie and Hallie, he told them how Heath had died. Grace thought she saw real grief in Melanie’s eyes before she closed them and put her hands over her ears.

  Grace patted Melanie’s arm, and then gently pulled her hands down. “You have to listen. Hallie needs you.”

  “How did it happen?” Hallie asked. “Did he trip or something?”

  “That’s what we need to find out,” McNamara said. “An accidental fall would be unlikely. There were no drugs or alcohol in his system that would cause him to be off balance. We believe he either jumped or was pushed over the railing.”

  Both of her clients looked ready to fall apart, and Grace glared at McNamara.

  “Did he suffer?” Hallie asked in a small voice.

  McNamara remembered the mangled body in the morgue. “No, I don’t think he did,” he said. He decided it was truthful enough. There’d have been no suffering after Overton’s head hit the dumpster.

  “And you’re sure it’s him?” she persisted. “It took you an awfully long time to figure it out. Isn’t it possible someone robbed him and took his ring and the robber is the dead guy?”

  “I’m sorry. We’re sure. The DNA match is conclusive.”

  They waited as Hallie bowed her head for a moment.

  “So, did he jump or not?” she asked when she looked at them again. “Did he commit suicide, or was he murdered?”

  “Can you think of any reason for him to commit suicide?” Everly asked.

  The question seemed to startle Melanie. “Absolutely not,” she protested.

  “We were all arguing the day Dad was home,” Hallie said, turning away from her mother and Grace and focusing on the men. “The little kids were all trying to get his attention, and he seemed disconnected. Scattered, you know? Aunt Whitney got mad when he left her to go upstairs with Mom, and then I could hear Mom yelling, but I was the worst.”

  Melanie had been tugging at her daughter’s arm while she talked, and now Hallie jerked away. “I said I would tell the truth, and I am. Leave me alone!”

  Mosley suggested a break, but Hallie rolled over him as if he hadn’t spoken. “I told Dad he needed to stay with us, and when he said he couldn’t, I yelled at him, too. It was the last time I talked to him and I shut my bedroom door right in his face.”

  “What did you do after your father left?” McNamara asked.

  “Watched TV for a while with the twins until they wound down. Then I went to bed, but stayed awake and read. I was waiting up for Dad to call, but he didn’t.”

  “Did he say he would?”

  “No,” she whispered. “The last thing he said was that I disappointed him.”

  Grace looked to Melanie, who had her arms wrapped around herself and was staring into space.

  “Let’s take a little break,” Grace said, leaning forward to touch the girl’s shoulder, only to be immediately shrugged off.

  “Were drugs involved?” Hallie asked. “With Dad or Felicia?”

  Now they had Melanie’s attention again.

  “Possibly,” McNamara said, waiting to see if she’d take the next step.

  “So that’s it, then.” Melanie broke in, stopping whatever Hallie’d been about to say. “Can we take Heath to Atlanta for the funeral?”

  “The Medical Examiner’s office will release the body in a few days,” McNamara said. “But for the time being, you must remain in the area.”

  “We can discuss the details later,” Grace said.

  “No, we won’t,” Melanie said. “I’m not accused of anything, and I didn’t do anything. I can go wherever I want.”

  “Mrs. Overton has suffered a terrible shock, gentlemen,” Mosley started, but Melanie ignored him.

  Pointing a shaking finger at McNamara, she said, “I want my husband’s death certificate, and I want to bury him in Atlanta, got it?”

  McNamara decided he might prefer Heath’s first wife twisted into a human knot and running a river of tears. “All yours,” he said to Everly.

  Wes Everly’s smile wasn’t nice. “Where’s your cell phone, Mrs. Overton?”

  “I haven’t been able to find it,” Melanie said. “I think one of you people stole it when you went through my house without my permission.”

  “Oh, Mom, stop it.” Hallie stood and pulled a phone from her back pocket and put it on the table.

  Grace raised a hand to stop Everly’s reach. Raising her voice to be heard over Melanie’s complaints and Hallie’s ‘whatever, Mom,’ she said, “Not without a warrant.”

  Everly didn’t seem to be particularly bothered. Turning to Hallie, he said, “Do you often have your mother’s phone?”

  The exasperated looks that passed between mother and daughter gave the answer, but Hallie said ‘yes’ for the recorder.

  “Why?”

  “She’s always losing it. When I find it, I stick it in my pocket and give it to her when I see her. If one of the littles gets it, they can mess it up.”

  McNamara said, “Hallie, you told us you lost your phone, too. Did you find it?”

  “No.”

  “We did.” Everly produced a plastic bag and removed a pink, rhinestone-studded phone.

  Hallie looked at Grace and said, “They know.”

  Do you have it yet? Everly read aloud from Hallie’s phone.

  “What did Sawyer Renne mean by that?” McNamara asked. He waited while Grace made her objection and instructed her client not to answer.

  Hallie watched the exchange impassively while her mother glared her displeasure. Grace could tell the countdown to Melanie’s next outburst was getting short.

  “How many texts did he send you after the fire in your garage?” McNamara asked.

  “It’s not my garage,” Hallie said, then listened to Grace whispering in her ear. She gave the Chief a sheepish look. “Uhm, two?”

  “Two texts?”

  “That’s her recollection,” Grace’s usual sarcasm was gone, but she wasn’t letting him get away with anything, either.

  McNamara picked up the pink phone. “There are five texts from Renne.” He loo
ked at Grace over the top of his reading glasses. “They are all versions on a theme. Shall I read them to you or paraphrase?”

  Grace held her hand out.

  McNamara handed her a single sheet of paper. “Thought you might feel that way, so I had them transcribed.”

  She read the terse messages quickly, her heart growing heavier with each one. She handed the paper to Hallie, who took it and twisted away from her mother to read.

  Melanie turned on the officers. “I have a right to see that!”

  Everly said, “No. Actually, you don’t.”

  “No, no, no.” The words came out in a long sigh as Hallie returned the paper.

  “Give us a minute, please, Mac?” Grace asked.

  McNamara and Everly left and waited in the empty reception area, while Melanie yelled over her attorneys and shredded what was left of her relationship with her daughter. Eventually, things quieted, and there were only two low voices, Grace and Mosley.

  “When was the last time you heard from Sawyer?” Everly asked when they reconvened.

  The question was directed at Hallie, but Melanie said, “Those texts are all lies. He’s trying to come between my daughter and the family.”

  “Do you mean you didn’t pay him ten thousand dollars, Mrs. Overton?” Everly asked.

  Melanie shot Grace an angry look, then said, “He told me he’d loaned money to Heath for our expenses, and his uncle wanted it back.”

  “Renne told you he gave money to your husband, not your daughter?” McNamara asked.

  “Yes,” Melanie said. “The texts are lies.”

  Far from relaxed now, Everly’s impatience was visible. “He sent Hallie five texts over a five days. The first on the night of the fire. The last was early Saturday morning, approximately two hours after your ex-husband’s wife was murdered in your home.” He picked up a transcript of the texts and began to read.

  Do u have it

  WTF. 10K now

  Time’s up

  MOS? Talking w her tom

  Sorry kid

  Melanie rounded on her attorneys and shouted, “Do something!”

  Grace said, “Mrs. Overton explained that Sawyer demanded repayment for money he’d given her husband.”

  “He demanded repayment from Hallie,” Everly said.

  “Who informed her mother,” Grace argued. “Further, Hallie told you she didn’t see the final three texts from Sawyer because they were sent after she’d lost the phone. The person you should be questioning is Sawyer.”

  “I will, eventually,” Everly said. “Mrs. Overton, how often did you talk to him?”

  “Me? What’re you talking about?” Melanie demanded.

  Everly said, “It’s right here in the next to last text. ‘MOS’ is ‘Mom Over Shoulder.’ Renne’s asking Hallie if you’re nearby and says he’ll be talking to you the next day. Since Hallie so helpfully provided your phone for us, shall we see if he called you?”

  “I told you, not without a warrant,” Grace said.

  Everly took folded papers from his jacket pocket, handed them to her, and picked up Melanie’s phone. It didn’t take long for him to scroll through her calls and texts. “Well now, Mrs. Overton, what did you discuss with Renne about on the day before Felicia Overton died?”

  Melanie’s eyes narrowed to slits, but she answered him. “Probably the show. He’s our producer. Or he was.”

  “Did he come to your house that day?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Everly said. “But I have a question for Hallie. Did you pay your boyfriend to kill your father’s new wife? Or,” he turned back to Melanie, “did you pay him to kill the woman who stole your husband?”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “I don’t do a lot of criminal law, as you know m’dear.” Mosley said to Grace as she moved around the office, turning off her computer and straightening up. “But I’d say it’s a poor game when you save one client from an arson charge by letting two others implicate themselves in half-dozen other felonies.”

  “The real crime is that Sawyer blackmailed Melanie, but she might have been too dumb to realize it.” Grace stopped and sat on the corner of the conference table. “It’s a monumental mess, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s review our accomplishments,” Mosley hooked his thumbs under his belt and rocked back on his heels.

  Grace smiled at his familiar posturing.

  In his ‘address to the jury’ voice, Mosley summarized the hole their clients had dug for themselves. “Melanie says she paid Sawyer for Heath’s debt, but Hallie insists she owed Sawyer the money for the drugs he lost in the fire she may have accidentally started.” He paused for a breath. “Meanwhile, the police believe mother and daughter paid the young man off so he wouldn’t tell his uncle — the real film producer — that it was Hallie’s hashish and cocaine that were destroyed in the fire.” Another pause before he added, “A lie, of course.”

  “Of course,” Grace said. “Don’t forget Everly also likes the theory that either, or both, mother and daughter paid Sawyer to kill the last Mrs. Overton.”

  Mosley held up a heavily veined hand and began to count. “Drug possession, trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder, murder for hire, murder in the second degree. Did I miss anything?”

  Grace sighed. “Who knows? I wouldn’t bet a nickel that Melanie and Hallie told us everything. At least right now there’s no evidence to charge either of them with anything.”

  “That won’t last long,” Mosley said. “I don’t think Sergeant Everly misses much, and Mac certainly doesn’t, so we’d better work on our contingency plans.”

  “Tomorrow, okay?” She didn’t know where Super Mosley had come from, but she was ready to send him back.

  “Certainly, m’dear. Everly will be working, but I hear Mac may have other things on his mind.”

  “Please don’t start, Cyrus. I’m going home.” She got up and headed for the back door.

  “No, no.” Mosley followed her, still talking. “Wait, please. I want to say that, unlike Marjorie, I think it’s grand.”

  She stopped so fast, he nearly ran into her. “Do you really?” she asked him, shocked.

  He gave her a huge smile. “Why not? As usual, you went about it backward, but yes, if you’re both happy, it’s wonderful.”

  “Even with this complication?” She briefly touched her abdomen.

  Mosley’s smiled dimmed a bit.

  She was too tired to finesse the announcement. “It’s David’s baby,” she said and watched his face fall, then harden when she told him the rest. “Mac doesn’t know, yet.”

  Actually, she thought Mac had guessed, but they hadn’t discussed it. In fact, they didn’t discuss anything at all in the brief time between the first kiss and resuming their work roles.

  “Well, as I said, you went about it backward.” Mosley managed another smile. “But I’m glad you came to your senses and made the right choice.”

  When she hugged him, he added, “Tell him soon, Grace.”

  “Are you happy now?” Marjorie demanded. “You’ve made a spectacle of yourself.”

  “Let me see,” McNamara said, then smiled. “Yes, I believe I am. Quite happy, thanks. But I think you’re exaggerating.”

  When he arrived home, Marjorie had been waiting for him, bursting with the news she gotten from the choir director at St. John’s who had been passing by McNamara’s office window at the very moment he was kissing Grace. There’d been no point in denying the gossip that Marjorie said was all over town.

  “How long has this been going on?” Marjorie demanded. “And right under my nose, too. When were you going to tell me?”

  “Not long, and I thought I’d enjoy myself for a while, first.” He didn’t want to argue. He wanted to keep the one bright spot of his day to himself.

  For once, Marjorie was speechless. She sank down on a wrought iron patio chair and stared, unseeing, at the bed of roses her sister had planted two decades before. Ambushing her brother-in-law was
n’t going the way she’d planned.

  McNamara’s happiness ebbed a bit in the face of Marjorie’s distress. He dragged a chair up next to her and waited until she looked at him.

  “Come on, Margie,” he said. “You can’t be rattled by a little gossip.”

  “Little? Want to see my messages? Do you have any idea what people are saying?”

  McNamara shrugged. “If Mallard Bay statistics hold, it thrilled half of them, the others are outraged, and someone is worried about the scandal if I continue to coach junior football. Am I right?”

  She shook her head.

  He’d never seen her so angry. “Tell me the rest,” he said. “It will be all right, just tell me.”

  She grabbed his arm, whether to anchor him or herself, he didn’t know.

  “What’s going around now is nothing compared to what they’ll be saying soon. Grace is pregnant, Lee. She’s pregnant and that DC lawyer left her.”

  Grace wanted to call Mac as she walked home. She wanted to hear his voice, but it was much too early in whatever it was between them for that kind of behavior. And there was the fact that he and Everly had sandbagged her clients.

  An incoming text chimed on her phone. David was waiting at her house.

  He was sitting on the front steps in full view of the neighborhood, and she knew it would add to the gossip.

  “No key, remember?” he said before she could ask him what he was doing there.

  “Not a good time,” she said. But he still followed her inside and up the stairs to her apartment.

  “Well, I’ve driven all this way, you can at least listen to me, can’t you?”

  “I’ve been listening to people all day. My ears are worn out. Please go home.” She didn’t think he’d leave, but she wasn’t going to make him comfortable if he stayed.

  “May I have something to drink?”

  “No,” she said. She finished unloading her briefcase and poured a Coke for herself.