by Sandra Brown
“Is it within the realm of possibility—not even probable, just possible—that an officer could… borrow… a weapon from the warehouse without your knowledge?”
“No, sir.”
“It’s not possible?”
“I keep strict records, Mr. Cross.”
“Yes, I see,” he said, giving the computer printout another quick scan.
Basset was getting nervous. “What’s this about?”
“Just a notion I had,” Hammond said with chagrin. “I’ve turned up empty on the weapon that killed Lute Pettijohn.”
“Two .38s in the back.”
“Right.”
“We’ve got hundreds of weapons in here that fire .38s.”
“You see my problem.”
“Mr. Cross, I pride myself on running a tight ship. My record with the force—”
“Is impeccable. I know that, Sergeant. I’m not suggesting any complicity on your part. As I said, it’s a delicate subject and I hated even to ask. I simply wondered if an officer could have fabricated a reason to take a weapon out.”
Basset thoughtfully tugged on his earlobe. “I suppose he could, but he would’ve still had to sign it out.”
Nowhere. “Sorry to have bothered you. Thanks.”
Hammond took the records with him, although he didn’t think they would yield the valuable clue he had hoped they might. He had left Harvey Knuckle on a high, having got the computer whiz to admit that both Smilow and Steffi had coerced him into getting them information on Pettijohn.
But now that he reflected on it, what did that prove? That they were as interested as he in seeing Lute get his comeuppance? Hardly a breakthrough. Not even a surprise.
He wanted so desperately for Alex to be innocent, he was willing to cast doubt on anyone and everyone, even colleagues who, these days, were doing more to uphold law and order than he was.
Despondently, he let himself into his apartment, moved straight into the living room, and turned on the TV. The anchorwoman with the emerald green contact lenses was just introducing the lead story. Masochistically, he watched.
Except for the arm sling, his bandages were covered by his clothing, but his complexion looked waxy and wan in the glare of the leeching TV lights, making his day-old beard appear even darker. When asked about his injury, he had dismissed the mugging as inconsequential and cut to the chase.
Being politically correct, he had complimented the CPD for an excellent job of detective work. He had dodged specific questions about Alex Ladd and said only that Trimble’s statement had been a turning point in the investigation, that their case was solid, and that an indictment was practically ensured.
Standing just behind his left shoulder, lending support, Steffi had nodded and smiled in agreement. She photographed well, he noted. The lights shone in her dark eyes. The camera captured her vivacity.
Smilow also had been swarmed by media, and he received equal time on the telecasts. Unlike Steffi, he had been uncharacteristically restrained. His remarks were diluted by diplomacy and more or less echoed Hammond’s. He referred to Alex’s connection to Bobby Trimble only in the most general terms, saying that the jailed man had been integral to making a case against her. He declined to reveal the nature of her relationship to Lute Pettijohn.
He never referenced her juvenile record, but Hammond suspected that this omission was calculated. Smilow didn’t want to contaminate the jury pool and give Frank Perkins grounds for a change of venue or mistrial, assuming the case made it to trial.
Video cameras captured a granite-jawed Frank Perkins ushering Alex out. That segment was the most difficult for Hammond to watch, knowing how humiliating it must have been for her to be in the spotlight as the prime suspect in the most celebrated homicide in Charleston’s recent history.
She was described as thirty-five years old, a respected doctor of psychology with impressive credentials. Beyond her professional achievements, she was lauded for her participation in civic affairs and for being a generous benefactor to several charities. Neighbors and colleagues who had been sought for comment expressed shock, some outrage, calling the speculation on her involvement “ludicrous,” “ridiculous,” and other synonymous adjectives.
When the anchorwoman with the artificially green eyes segued into another story, Hammond turned off the set, went upstairs, and drew himself a hot bath. He soaked in it with his right arm hanging over the rim of the tub. The bath eased some of the soreness out of him, but it also left him feeling light-headed and weak.
In need of food, he went downstairs and began preparing scrambled eggs.
Working with his left hand made him clumsy. He was further incapacitated by a dismal foreboding. When remembered in posterity, he didn’t want to be a dirty joke. He didn’t want it to be said, “Oh, you remember Hammond Cross. Promising young prosecutor. Caught a whiff of pussy, and it all went to hell.”
And that’s what they would say. Or words to that effect.
Over their damp towels and sweaty socks in the locker room, or between glasses of bourbon in a popular watering hole, colleagues and acquaintances would shake their heads in barely concealed amusement over his susceptibility. He would be considered a fool, and Alex would be regarded as the piece of tail that had brought about his downfall.
He wanted to lash out at those imagined gossips for their unfairness. He wanted to lambast them for making lewd remarks about her and their relationship. It wasn’t what they thought it was. He had fallen in love.
He hadn’t been so doped up on Darvocet last night that he didn’t remember telling her that this was the real thing for him, and had been from the first. He had met her less than a week ago—less than a week—but he had never been more sure of anything in his life. Never before had he been so physically attracted to a woman. He had never felt such a cerebral, spiritual, and emotional connection to anyone.
For hours at that silly fair, and later in his bed at the cabin, they had talked. About music. Food. Books. Travel and the places they wanted to visit when time allowed. Movies. Exercise and fitness regimens. The old South. The new South. The Three Stooges, and why men loved them and women hated them. Meaningful things. Meaningless things. Endless conversations about everything. Except themselves.
He had told her nothing substantive about himself. She certainly hadn’t divulged anything about her life, present or past.
Had she been a whore? Was she still? If she was, could he stop loving her as quickly as he had started? He was afraid he couldn’t.
Maybe he was a fool after all.
But being a fool was no excuse for wrongdoing. He and his guilty conscience were becoming incompatible roommates. He was finding it increasingly difficult to live with himself. Although he hated to give his father credit for anything, Preston had opened his eyes today and forced him to confront something he had avoided confronting: Hammond Cross was as corruptible as the next man. He was no more honest than his father.
Unable to stomach the thought, or the scrambled eggs, he fed them to the garbage disposal.
He wanted a drink, but alcohol would only have increased the lingering muzziness in his head and left him feeling worse.
He wanted his arm to stop throbbing like a son of a bitch.
He wanted a solution to this goddamn mess that threatened the bright future he had planned for himself.
Mostly, he wanted Alex to be safe.
Safe.
A safe full of cash at Alex’s house.
An empty safe in Pettijohn’s hotel suite.
A safe inside the closet.
The closet. The safe. Hangers. Robe. Slippers. Still in their wrapper.
Hammond jumped as though a jolt of electricity had shot through him, then fell impossibly still as he forced himself to calm down, think it through, reason it out.
Go slow. Take your time.
But after taking several minutes to look at it from every conceivable angle, he couldn’t find a hole in it. All the elements fit.
The
conclusion didn’t make him happy, but he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on that now. He had to act.
Scrambling from his chair, he grabbed the nearest cordless phone. After securing the number from directory assistance, he punched in the digits.
“Charles Towne Plaza. How may I direct your call?”
“The spa, please.”
“I’m sorry, sir, the spa is closed for the evening. If you wish to make an appointment—”
He interrupted the switchboard operator to identify himself and told her with whom he needed to speak. “And I need to talk to him immediately. While you’re tracking him down, put me through to the manager of housekeeping.”
* * *
It didn’t take long for Loretta to decide that coming to this fair was a bad idea.
Fifteen minutes after parking her car in a dusty pasture and going the rest of the way on foot, she was sweating like a pig. Children were everywhere—noisy, rowdy, sticky children who seemed to have singled her out to annoy. The carnies were surly. Not that she blamed them for their querulous dispositions. Who could work in this heat?
She would have sold her soul to be inside a nice, dark, cool bar. The stench of stale tobacco smoke and beer would have been a welcome relief from the mix of cotton candy and cow manure that clung to the fairgrounds.
The only thing that kept her there was the constant reminder that she might be doing Hammond some good. She owed him this. Not just in recompense for the case she’d blown, but for giving her another chance when no one else would give her the time of day.
It might not last, this season of sobriety. But for right now she was dry, she was working, and her daughter was looking at her with something other than contempt. For these blessings, she had Hammond Cross to thank.
Doggedly she trudged from one attraction to another.
“I just thought you might remember—”
“You nuts, lady? We’ve had thousands o’ people through here. How’m I s’posed to remember one broad?” The carny spat a stringy glob of tobacco juice that barely missed her shoulder.
“Thank you for your time, and fuck you.”
“Yeah, yeah. Now move it. You’re holding up the line.”
Each time she showed Alex Ladd’s photograph to the exhibitors, ride operators, and food vendors, the response was a variation on a theme. Either they were outright rude like the last one, or they were too frazzled to give her their full attention. The shake of a head and a curt “Sorry” was the usual answer to her inquiries.
She canvassed long after the sun went down and the mosquitoes came out in force. After several hours, all she had to show for her trouble was a pair of feet that the humidity had swollen to the size of throw pillows. Analyzing the tight, puffy flesh pressing through the straps of her sandals, she thought it was a shame that this carnival didn’t have a freak show. “These babies would have qualified me,” she muttered.
She finally acknowledged that this was a fool’s mission, that Dr. Ladd had probably lied about being at the fair in the first place, and that the likelihood of bumping into someone who had been there last Saturday and who also remembered seeing her was next to nil.
She swatted at a mosquito on her arm. It burst like a balloon, leaving a spatter of blood. “I gotta be at least a quart low.” It was then she decided to cut her losses and return to Charleston.
She was fantasizing about soaking her feet in a tub of ice water when she walked past the dance pavilion with a conical ceiling strung with clear Christmas lights. A scruffy band was tuning up. The fiddler had a braided beard, for crying out loud. Dancers fanned themselves with pamphlets, laughing and chatting as they waited for the band to resume playing.
Singles lurked on the perimeter of the floor, checking out their prospects, assessing their competition, trying to appear neither too obvious nor too desperate to link up with someone.
Loretta noticed that there were a lot of military personnel in the crowd. Young servicemen, with their fresh shaves and buzz haircuts, were sweating off their cologne, ogling the girls, and swilling beer.
A beer sure would taste good. One beer? What could it hurt? Not for the alcohol buzz. Just to quench a raging thirst that a sugary soft drink couldn’t touch. As long as she was here, she could show Dr. Ladd’s photo around, too. Maybe someone in this crowd would remember her from the weekend before. Servicemen always had an eye out for attractive women. Maybe one had taken a shine to Alex Ladd.
Telling herself she wasn’t rationalizing just to get near the beer-drinking crowd, and wincing from the sandal straps cutting into her swollen feet, Loretta limped up the steps of the pavilion.
Chapter 32
When Frank Perkins opened the front door to his home, his welcoming smile slipped, as though the punch line to a promising joke had turned out to be a dud. “Hammond.”
“May I come in?”
Choosing his words carefully, Frank said, “I would be very uncomfortable with that.”
“We need to talk.”
“I keep normal business hours.”
“This can’t wait, Frank. Not even until tomorrow. You need to see it now.” Hammond removed an envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to the attorney. Frank took it, peeped inside. The envelope contained a dollar bill. “Aw, Jes—”
“I’m retaining you as my lawyer, Frank. That’s a down payment on your fee.”
“What the hell are you trying to pull?”
“I was with Alex the night Lute Pettijohn was killed. We spent the night in bed together. Now may I come in?” As expected, the declaration rendered Frank Perkins speechless. Hammond took advantage of his momentary dumbfoundedness to edge past him.
Frank closed the front door to his comfortable suburban house. Quickly recovering, he came at Hammond full throttle. “Do you realize how many rules of ethics you’ve just violated? How many you tricked me into violating?”
“You’re right.” Hammond took back the dollar bill. “You can’t be my lawyer. Conflict of interest. But for the brief time that you were on retainer, I confided something to you which you’re bound by professional privilege to keep confidential.”
“You son of a bitch,” Frank said angrily. “I don’t know what you’re up to. I don’t even want to know, but I do want you out of my house. Now!”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I said that I spent—”
He broke off when the open archway behind Frank filled with people who were curious to see what the commotion was. Alex’s face was the only one that registered with Hammond.
Frank, following the direction of Hammond’s stare, mumbled, “Maggie, you remember Hammond Cross.”
“Of course,” said Frank’s wife. “Hello, Hammond.”
“Maggie. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this. I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”
“Actually, we were having dinner,” Frank said.
One of his nine-year-old twin sons had a smear of what looked like spaghetti sauce near his mouth. Maggie was a gracious southern lady who had descended from valiant Confederate wives and widows. The awkward situation unfolding in her foyer didn’t ruffle her. “We’ve just now sat down, Hammond. Please join us.”
He glanced first at Frank, then at Alex. “No, thanks, but I appreciate the offer. I just need a few minutes of Frank’s time.”
“It was good to see you again. Boys.”
Taking each twin by a shoulder, Maggie Perkins turned them around and herded them back to where they had come from, presumably an informal eating area in the kitchen.
Hammond said to Alex, “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Frank was kind enough to invite me to dinner with his family.”
“Nice of him. After today, you probably didn’t feel like being alone.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Besides, it’s good you’re here. You need to hear this, too.”
Finally Frank butted in. “Since I’m probably going to be disbarred over this anyway, I think I’ll go ahe
ad and have the drink I desperately need. Either of you interested?”
He indicated for them to follow him toward the rear of the house where he had a home study. The plaques and framed citations arranged in attractive groupings on the paneled walls attested to the honorable man that Frank Perkins was, personally and professionally.
Hammond and Alex declined his offer of a drink, but Frank poured himself a straight scotch and sat down behind a substantial desk. Alex took a leather love seat, Hammond an armchair. The lawyer divided a look between them that ultimately settled on his client. “Is it true? Have you slept with our esteemed assistant county solicitor?”
“There’s no call for—”
“Hammond,” Frank brusquely interrupted, “you are in no position to correct me. Or even to cross me, for that matter. I should kick your ass out of here, then share your confession with Monroe Mason. Unless he already knows.”
“He doesn’t.”
“The only reason you’re still under my roof is because I respect my client’s privacy. Until I know all the facts, I don’t want to do anything rash which might embarrass her any more than she’s already been embarrassed by this travesty.”
“Don’t be angry with Hammond, Frank,” Alex said. There was an honest weariness in her voice that Hammond hadn’t heard before. Or perhaps it was resignation. Maybe even relief that their secret was finally out. “This is as much my fault as his. I should have told you immediately that I knew him.”
“Intimately?”
“Yes.”
“How far were you willing to let it go? Were you going to let him indict you, jail you, subject you to a trial, get you convicted, put you on death row?”
“I don’t know!” Alex stood up suddenly and turned her back to them, hugging her elbows close to her body. After taking a moment to compose herself, she faced them again. “Actually I’m more to blame than Hammond. He didn’t know me, but I knew him, and I pursued him. Deliberately. I made our meeting look accidental, but it wasn’t. Nothing that happened between us was by chance.”
“When did this meeting-by-design occur?”
“Last Saturday evening. Around dusk. After the initial contact, I exercised every feminine wile I knew to entice Hammond to spend the night with me. Whatever I did,” she said, her voice growing husky, “worked.” She looked across at him. “Because he did.”