One Little Secret (ARC)

by Cate Holahan

  Ben glanced toward the backdoor. “Where’s Rachel?”

  “She got a call from Chloe, said to start without her.”

  Ben scratched at the shimmer of gold along his jawline. “Is something wrong?”

  Nadal settled back into his former seat. “First-day jitters, maybe?”

  Worry drew down Ben’s mouth. He tried to cover it with a forced smile as he brought the fish platter over to the table and sat down on Susan’s other side, opposite Jenny.

  “Be right back.” Susan used her husband’s shoulder for leverage as she rose. “Somebody forgot the dressing.”

  “Rachel was supposed to bring out the rest,” Nadal said.

  “Well, since she’s on the call, I’ll just grab it.” Susan headed toward the house, stopping for a moment at the back door to punch in the lock code. As she entered, she could hear Rachel’s voice rising and falling in the hallway.

  “Who is it, though? Did you see her?”

  Susan shifted her weight to the pads of her feet before continuing toward the kitchen. There was a harshness to Rachel’s tone reminiscent of how Susan sounded right before she shouted or started mentally ticking off the minutes until five o’clock happy hour. She knew better than to interrupt the person making that voice.

  “What do you mean, you didn’t see her? You saw the kiss, didn’t you? How could you really not see her face?”

  Rachel sounded even louder in the kitchen. Susan could hear her pacing on the other side of the wall, her sandals slapping the concrete floor. Susan opened the pantry door like it was the electrical panel of a bomb, pulling it back a centimeter at a time to avoid it squeaking.

  “All right. No. Honey. You’re right. I don’t mean to get upset with you. I’m not upset with you. I’m glad that you told me. You were right to do that. It’s just upsetting to hear.”

  A stuttering inhale penetrated the wall. Susan froze with her hand wrapped around the dark bottle of balsamic. Was Rachel crying? Did Rachel do that? Everyone did under the right circumstances, Susan supposed, though she couldn’t imagine what those circumstances might be for a woman that seemed to have it all: healthy children, handsome husband, high-powered career that even helped people. She grabbed a bottle of olive oil and began looking for a small glass dish to whip her dressing in, excusing her eavesdropping as a desire to be of use. If Rachel needed someone, she could offer a listening ear. Being there for someone when it was uncomfortable or difficult was the difference between friendliness and real friendship.

  “You think she’s a mom at school or just in town? Uh-huh. So you’ve never seen her at any of your school events? Maybe? Well, what is it, Chloe? Is it that you don’t want to tell me?” Rachel’s voice raised to a decibel below a shout. “No. I know. I’m sorry. I love you. I love you so much, you know that, right, honey? This isn’t about you. It’s about your father.”

  The back door slammed shut. Nadal strode into the room, an annoyed look on his face. Susan grabbed a glass dish and closed the cabinet door. “Sorry. It took forever to find this balsamic.” She said it more for Rachel’s benefit than to give Nadal an excuse for her delay.

  Nadal went to the cabinet by the wine fridge. “I should probably bring out a few more wine glasses, too.”

  Susan squirted the balsamic atop the pale-green oil she’d poured into the glass bowl. As she did, she gestured with her head to the wall. Instead of Rachel’s voice, she heard the harsh rumble of someone pulling the sliding bedroom door. “Rachel’s crying,” Susan mouthed.

  Nadal’s eyebrows pinched together. He shook off the expression and resumed grabbing glasses from the cabinet.

  “Should I—”

  Nadal interrupted her murmured question with a sharp shake of his head. He started toward the back door. “People are waiting to eat. Let’s go before the food gets cold.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE DAY AFTER

  The police station had only two interview rooms. After fingerprinting all the houseguests—ostensibly to rule out any prints not belonging to Rachel’s unknown assailant—Gabby told Detective DeMarco to place Ben Hansen in “Interrogation One.” The room was a closet-sized space with gray walls, griege carpet, two chairs, and a single slate-colored table bolted to the floor. The desk had two handles on it for cuffing suspects to the furniture—though the detectives didn’t typically advertise that fact to “visitors” without bracelets. Gabby figured she might mention it to Ben. Since Louis had publicly accused him of murder, there was little point pretending that he wasn’t a prime suspect. He’d be anticipating a grilling. She might as well show him just how hot the fire could get.

  She led the other couples to the “soft” interrogation room. A homely space, it had been modeled after a family sitcom set in hopes of putting victims and their loved ones at ease. The room contained a taupe couch and a floral easy chair, probably picked up at an estate sale. The walls were nonthreatening neutrals.

  Gabby didn’t plan to interview the neighbors as a unit. But she did think it all right—perhaps even beneficial—to leave them as a group under the glare of Officer Kelly and a mounted camera. If they talked about the case, she’d have everything recorded.

  Gabby pulled back the door and waved the foursome inside, hanging back to watch how they chose their seats. Louis entered first, holding his wife’s hand. He led Jenny to the sofa, subtly guiding her to the inside seat against the armrest, furthest away from Officer Kelly’s position by the door. As Jenny assumed her designated place, she hung her head low so that her hair fell into her face. Louis stood beside his wife, partially blocking her from view, as Nadal and Susan perched on the opposite side of the couch. When they sat, Susan leaned into her husband as though she might not be able to hold herself up. He put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her to his side.

  “We would appreciate if you all would stay here while we talk to Mr. Hansen,” Gabby said. “I will be back shortly to answer as many questions as I can.”

  Louis stood straighter. “You’re not going to let Ben come back to the house with us, are you? He’s a murderer.”

  Gabby held up a hand. “If there is any evidence to support that Ben hurt Rachel, he’ll be arrested. But we have to talk to him first.”

  Louis patted his wife’s shoulder, apparently satisfied by the statement. Jenny shuddered at the touch, or, perhaps, at the possibility that she’d been sleeping in the same house as a murderer. She adjusted the bizarre scarf around her neck so that it covered nearly to her chin.

  Gabby made eye contact with Officer Kelly and then glanced up to the corner of the room with the camera, reminding him they would be recording all interactions. He followed her gaze a little too obviously, though without eliciting an apparent reaction from the group. Louis was, thankfully, still gazing at Jenny’s lowered head, and Susan’s face was nearly buried in her husband’s side. Only Nadal was staring at the officers as though anticipating his coming interview.

  As she pushed the door shut, Gabby’s phone vibrated against her leg. She checked the caller ID while striding down the linoleum hallway to Interrogation One. “Bae” was calling. In spite of the seriousness of her circumstances, Gabby felt a smile crack her stern expression. She’d altered the nickname for her husband several weeks earlier to tease her daughter, who’d been using the moniker to refer to the baby-faced ballplayer who had escorted her to junior prom. As Derrick often joked: Teenagers. If you can’t beat them (and you really can’t nowadays), mortify them.

  “Hey, Deuce.” Gabby had called her husband by that nickname since high school, when he’d been on the baseball team playing under the number two. As terms of endearment went, it wasn’t much more mature or original than Kayla’s “Bae.” But she’d chosen it at eighteen, and it had stuck. Derrick had even had the number tattooed on his bicep. “What’s up?”

  “When you getting home tonight?”

  Gabby felt her smile fade as she strode down the hallway. “The way things are going, I’ll be lucky to make it home
at all. A woman was found dead on the beach this morning. It’s looking like murder.”

  The speaker crackled with Derrick’s exhale. “Man. Okay then. We’ll discuss it later.”

  Gabby stopped walking. Summer was the busy season for Derrick’s landscaping company. He wouldn’t have called her in the middle of the day to talk unless it was important. “What’s up? Did something happen with Kayla or Dan?”

  A heavy sigh confirmed her suspicion. Gabby felt the surge of motherly panic that always accompanied phone calls about her kids. Police work had made her hyperaware of the threats to women, particularly young ones who pretended to act grown like Kayla, as well as the dangers of binge drinking, which college sophomores like Daniel were apt to do. “What happened?”

  “Don’t worry. I don’t want to bother you while you’re dealing with all this. Just know that Kayla is fine and under house arrest. We can discuss appropriate sentencing later.”

  The panic receded. Kayla was home and Derrick was handling it. No doubt their daughter had lied about something boy-related. Derrick had always been strict when it came to dating and curfews, but he was particularly so with Kayla, allowing her only on group dates to public places. Her husband remembered too clearly how he’d gotten Gabby pregnant the summer before her freshman year of college, leading her to defer acceptance to the University of Michigan and ultimately withdraw.

  Gabby resumed walking. “She went on a solo date or something?”

  “Remember how she said she was going to Zoe’s house? I found her at this party.” Derrick’s voice rose on the other end of the line, his anger at their daughter’s lie returning. “But don’t worry. You have enough on your plate. We’ll talk later. Love you.”

  She turned left from the hallway into the room of gray cubicles and computer screens where the detectives filled out their paperwork. The door to Interrogation One was at the end of the room, closed and locked like a jail cell. Derrick was right. She had to focus on the possible murderer behind that door and not her teen’s latest indiscretion. “All right, later. And love you too.”

  Gabby pulled back the door. Ben sat behind the bolted desk positioned perpendicular to the exit. The handlebars for the cuffs flanked his free hands. His eyes were bloodshot, even more so than earlier. Gabby thought his split lip looked worse, too, as though he’d reopened the wound by chewing on it.

  She glanced at the camera mounted in the room’s far corner, above the edge of a one-way mirror facing the desk. The camera sent a live feed to the adjacent room where Detective DeMarco sat behind a television-sized monitor, watching the proceedings that he could also see live by gazing through the window. They’d agreed that she’d take first crack at Ben. If her tactics didn’t get him talking, DeMarco could relieve her.

  “Mr. Hansen.” Gabby assumed the seat across from him, adjusting it so she wouldn’t directly block DeMarco’s view. “Obviously, your neighbor made some pretty serious accusations earlier that we need to discuss.”

  Ben folded his hands together. “It wasn’t like Louis said.”

  “Well let’s get this over with, then, so you can tell me what he got wrong. You have the right to remain silent. Your custody officer has informed you of your Miranda rights, correct?”

  Ben rolled his eyes.

  “You have to speak aloud for the camera. Do you understand these rights?”

  Ben looked over her shoulder to where the camera was positioned. “Yes. I understand my rights.”

  Gabby shifted in her chair, turning slightly sideways so that her legs wouldn’t brush Ben’s far longer ones. “You understand your rights. Good. Now, tell me about this argument with your wife.”

  “Louis is lying about me going back to the beach.” Ben leaned over his folded hands. “He started the whole fight, actually. Maybe that’s why he’s saying these things. He’s angry that—”

  Gabby held up a palm. An interrogation was not an exchange of information between equals. She couldn’t let Ben settle into storyteller mode and ramble on about some beef he’d had with the neighbor. It was necessary to interrupt him. Throw off his rhythm.

  “How did the fight start?”

  Ben mashed his lips together. “I don’t know. Jenny had something on her face that …” Ben ran his right hand over his forehead. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, I didn’t hurt my wife. I would never have laid a hand on Rachel, or any woman.” He looked directly at her, dark-blue eyes pulling like a riptide. “I am not an abuser.”

  Gabby shrugged. “I don’t know what you are, Mr. Hansen. But I know what your neighbors think you did. They say you got into a public argument with your wife, one devastating enough for her to run out to the beach, by herself, and stay there for hours. Afterward you went out to talk to her and she sent you away. Then, you tried again—”

  “No, I didn’t. Louis doesn’t know anything.” Ben leaned farther over the table. “I went out once to talk to Rachel a bit before midnight, when Louis and Susan saw me. I left my wife, alive, on that beach. I swear. I’ll take whatever lie detector test you need to prove it.”

  Gabby motioned for him to settle back down into his seat. “Where did you go after talking to her?”

  “I drove to a bar called Pharaoh’s Place, down the block. Had a drink.”

  “How long were you there?”

  Ben’s eyes shifted from her. “I don’t know.”

  Gabby settled back into her chair, as though I don’t know were a completely acceptable murder alibi. “Well, that’s all right. I can check with the bartender there and the traffic cam in front of the place. I’ll see how long you were at that bar, and if you left soon after arriving. It won’t look good for you if you did, though. It’ll seem like you were trying to create an alibi. It’ll seem like you planned everything.”

  Ben made a grunting sound like he’d been tackled to the ground.

  “You know that saying, Intent is nine-tenths of the law,” Gabby continued. “There’s some sympathy for a crime of passion. Husbands and wives argue. Emotions run high. Sometimes, things get out of hand. I’m married. I get it. Premeditated murder, though.” Gabby winced as though she could see the dirty prison cell Ben would soon be occupying. “That’s life imprisonment without parole. Even the death penalty. New York still has one, you know.”

  “I didn’t hurt my wife,” Ben said firmly.

  Gabby gestured to his split lip. “How did you get that?”

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t know again? That’s okay. I have a theory. Your wife admitted during the course of an argument, in front of your friends, that she was sleeping with someone else. You went out to talk to her, maybe get her to apologize and beg your forgiveness. But it didn’t go that way. So you walked off, hoping to calm down. Maybe you even went to the bar, thinking a drink would take the edge off. But it didn’t. She’d slept with someone else. That’s a huge betrayal. I get it. So you went back out there to really lay into her. And things got out of hand.” Gabby pointed at Ben’s puffy bottom lip. “Maybe she popped you in the mouth, and you saw red. Maybe she was defending herself—”

  “I didn’t hit my wife!” Ben’s shout broke his composure. Sobs shook his broad shoulders. “I was in the bar for twenty minutes. Some Irish college girls started chatting me up, said there was a party.” He rubbed his hands over his reddened cheeks. “I shouldn’t have gone. But I was thinking, well, if my marriage is over, then what’s stopping me?”

  Ben puffed his cheeks and exhaled. The blood rushing to his face gave him a boozer’s complexion. “I get to the party and start drinking. About an hour in, I’m talking to this attractive woman. She’s young, but I’m thinking twenty-one, at least. Next thing I know, this guy, almost as big as me, is grabbing my arm and throwing a punch, shouting that she’s sixteen. He’s threatening to have me thrown in jail for serving minors, like it was my party.” The flush on Ben’s face deepened. “My daughter’s thirteen, so I get where he was coming from. But this girl didn’t look her age, I
swear.”

  Gabby felt her tongue start to protrude from between her lips, the way it often did when she was puzzling out a connection. Mariel had told her about two men fighting at a party and a man threatening to call police about underage drinking. It seemed Ben had gone to the same place. “Was there a pool at this party?”

  The bones in Ben’s neck bulged beneath his skin. “God, I can’t tell my kids what I was doing while their mother …”

  “Was there a pool at this party?”

  Ben looked confused, as though she’d suddenly asked his astrological sign. “Yeah. I was just talking to girls. I never touched that teenager, either. Once the guy told me, I left. I was back at the house before two AM. Rachel wasn’t there, but I thought she’d gone to a hotel or maybe gotten a car service back home. I never …”

  A cough cut him off. Ben covered his mouth and rubbed his knuckles beneath his nose. As he did, Gabby examined his hair. It was dark blond and silvering on the sides. Graying—or gris as Mariel had said. She wondered whether Mariel would be able to identify him as one of the men at the house.

  “Where was this party?”

  Ben sniffed. “A few blocks from where we’re renting. Pepperidge Lane, I think. I don’t remember the exact address, but I’d know it if I saw it.”

  Gabby didn’t need Ben to show her the house. If the party really was the same one Mariel and Fiona had been at, Fiona would be able to tell her the address. She pushed her chair back from the table. “I’m going to check on your alibi, Mr. Hansen. And you’re going to hang tight here while I do.” Gabby gave Ben a hard stare as she stood. “For your children’s sake, I hope you’re telling the truth.”

  She locked the door behind her and then moved into the neighboring room. DeMarco rose from the single chair behind the monitor. “You believe him?”

  Gabby didn’t know how to answer. Ben seemed distraught and confused, but maybe he was simply a good actor. “You need to interview the others, individually,” she said, ignoring the question. “They’ll probably claim to have been sleeping with their spouses all night, but press them on the timing. We need to know whether they all went to bed around the same hour or if they staggered in at different times. We need to know how much folks drank and get a sense of how aware they would have been of their environment—if anyone heard, or would have heard, the front door opening and closing. Tell Kelly to babysit the others in the chief’s office while you’re doing the one-on-ones.” Gabby held up a finger. “And, most importantly, don’t let anyone leave.”