by Cate Holahan
Instead, Nadal sat at the desk, actively waiting. His eyes, which were alternatively trained on the mirror or his hands, were focused and alert. His palms lay atop the desk in a relaxed position. His feet rested flat on the floor. He didn’t appear comfortable—the stark room was designed to make sure he couldn’t be. But he didn’t seem itching to shed his skin, either.
Gabby wished she could talk to him. On the advice of his wife, Nadal had declared he would not utter another word without his attorney present. Furthermore, Susan had laid into her husband about revealing the lawsuit, shouting in front of Gabby and DeMarco that he’d made a terrible mistake conversing with the enemy.
“The detectives here are not on the side of truth, honey,” she’d said. “They’re on the side of keeping their community calm and the tourist dollars coming in. They’d prefer, I’m sure, to arrest someone that Rachel knew, because then her killing becomes an isolated incident rather than what it is: a predator roaming the area. And, since they lack any evidence to suggest that her murder was at all personal, they’re keeping all of her friends in here, hoping to shake us up.”
Though Gabby had thought Susan’s characterization grossly unfair, she hadn’t objected to her speech. The woman was entitled to hurl a few unfounded accusations at her—after all, she’d suggested that Susan had killed her neighbor for cheating with her husband. Besides, arguing with Susan would have only riled her up more, and the woman was already strutting around like a rooster in a cockpit. She’d stormed out of the station, swearing at the top of her voice to call Nadal’s lawyer and personally sue the East Hampton police for all kinds of damages should they dare arrest her husband on baseless allegations or release one iota of info concerning a yet-to-be-filed lawsuit against a privately held business, not at all relevant to their investigation.
Gabby had read enough of Rachel’s intent letter to realize that much of Susan’s ranting had been little more than posturing. The lawsuit was definitely not irrelevant to the murder. If a two-million-dollar suit wasn’t enough to make friends mortal enemies, Gabby didn’t know what was. Her new theory was that Nadal had approached Rachel on the jetty to negotiate a settlement favorable to his company. Rachel had refused, and he’d lost it. Although Gabby had to admit: the self-possessed man in Interrogation One didn’t seem like the kind of guy to lose it.
A copy of Rachel’s letter lay in her lap, printed from a PDF in Nadal’s email. Gabby read the argument set forth in the document a second time, seeking a better reason for Nadal to want Rachel dead. Gabby couldn’t imagine he would have killed Rachel in blind hope of making the case go away. He was too smart for that. Nadal had to have been so angry that he’d lost the ability to see things rationally, she decided. But why become so enraged that night? He’d known about the lawsuit for days. What had changed?
Gabby rubbed her eyes and opened her mouth in another face-swallowing yawn. She’d reached the portion of her sixteen-hour workday when even a third cup of coffee couldn’t keep her alert and focused. She transferred the letter from her lap to the desktop, stood up, and jogged in place, trying to jolt her brain with a little exercise. Think, Gabriella. Think!
She stared at the stoic figure in the one-way window as she shifted her weight from the ball of one foot to the other. An hour earlier, she’d accused Nadal’s wife of murdering Rachel over a betrayal. The same motive, she supposed, could apply to Nadal. He’d likely thought Rachel had wronged him, using their friendship to target his life’s work. Perhaps Rachel had admitted as much during the vacation, thus justifying his growing fury—or she’d been pestering him about the suit, stoking his rage.
Gabby tried to imagine Nadal livid. But the image didn’t materialize.
A knock pulled her attention from the screen. Gabby stopped her Richard Simmons impression before the door opened. She stood in the center of the cramped space, no doubt looking guilty and embarrassed for having nearly been caught running in place. DeMarco hovered inside the doorjamb. He held a manila folder between both of his hands, an altar boy with a prayer book. “Sorry for interrupting. The coroner’s report came back. They rushed it given the nature of the crime.”
Gabby stretched her arms over her head. She felt less tired, though her second wind had more to do with her hope for what lay inside the envelope than her brief exercise session. “Tell me we have some hard evidence.”
DeMarco passed her the folder. “She was killed between twelve thirty and one AM. If there was any DNA from her killer, the water destroyed it. But there were fingerprints on the neck belonging to Nadal Ahmadi.”
Gabby opened the file and scanned the first page of the near dozen inside. “I don’t know that the fingerprints mean much. He said he checked her pulse.”
DeMarco scratched his chin. His usually shorn jaw showed a significant shadow. “Well, that might be a reason for the prints. Or maybe he only did that to cover up strangling her. There were a couple sets of his index and middle fingers on her neck. And a partial palm print near the center of her throat.”
Gabby looked back through the window. Nadal stared at the mirror as though trying to see through to the detectives he knew were in the neighboring room. His brown eyes seemed to be appealing to her. Don’t do it. Don’t.
Gabby didn’t feel great about her next move, but she had to make it. Nadal’s prints were on the body. He’d been embroiled in a two-million-dollar lawsuit with the deceased. He was refusing to answer questions. And, given that his wife had been passed out after a night of heavy drinking, he lacked an alibi witness for the time frame of Rachel’s murder. She couldn’t let the man hightail it back to Westchester. With his money, it might be the last time she saw him.
“Let’s do this, then.”
Detective DeMarco fished a pair of metal cuffs from a pouch on the utility belt securing his dress slacks. Gabby followed him into the hallway and then pulled back the door to Interrogation One. DeMarco went in first, dangling the bracelets.
“Nadal Ahmadi,” she said. “You are under arrest for the murder of Rachel Klein.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE DAY AFTER
Cicadas were screaming. Their stuttering mechanical screech struck Susan as she exited the police station, barreling over her like a broken lawn mower. She hadn’t noticed the insects at the beach. Though, she supposed, that wasn’t surprising. She’d been so concentrated on setting up her family in their new town this past year, and distracted by her own identity crisis (not to mention her nightly glasses of wine), that she hadn’t critically examined her surroundings—or whom she’d been surrounding herself with.
But now, her focus had returned. A dozen years as a criminal defense attorney had equipped Susan with a psychic X-ray, enabling her to see her opponents’ internal strategies. That detective was going to arrest her husband. Rachel’s submersion had surely corrupted most, if not all, of the physical evidence, leaving the police with little choice but to build a case based on the trio of means, motive, and opportunity. Nadal easily possessed the strength to strangle or drown Rachel, and two million dollars, while not a devastating amount to Nadal’s company, was a sufficiently damaging sum to appear a compelling motive. Her hungover, thoughtless admission that she’d slept on the couch had provided the cops with the final piece of their circumstantial case, depriving her husband of an alibi.
Susan cursed herself as she hurried down the street, rushing to escape the locusts’ deafening crescendo from the tree-lined properties beside the station. She pulled her phone from her purse and began scrolling through her contacts. She needed to get her former boss on Nadal’s team. But first, she needed to call Greg Travers, Doc2Go’s general counsel and chief business officer, not to mention Nadal’s dear friend, back in Seattle. He’d be the one answering calls about the arrest of the firm’s CEO on murder charges related to a lawsuit against the company. She couldn’t have Greg surprised and revealing anything to police or the press that would unintentionally exacerbate Nadal’s already bad situation.
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br /> The lack of a news van parked on the street was a fortunate surprise. Susan attributed it to the police’s desire to keep the murder quiet until they were ready to announce an arrest. The East Hampton department was small enough that they could control the flow of information. It also helped that Rachel had been killed on a private beach and discovered before the people with access had set up their sun umbrellas.
The cicadas’ screech faded as Susan reached the town’s main street, identifiable by the two lanes of traffic in each direction and the wide sidewalks, lined with restaurants. She crossed in the middle of the street, heading toward a white public bench in front of a juice bar. Greg’s line was ringing before she sat down.
“Hello? Susan?” Gregory said her name like his caller ID had made a mistake. She’d never phoned him before.
“Yes. I’m calling about Nadal. He’s been arrested on murder charges, or is about to be.” Had Susan been thinking like Nadal’s wife, saying the statement aloud would have sent her into hysterics. But her shift into defense-attorney mode had given her a preternatural calm.
“Our neighbor, Rachel Klein, was found dead on the beach, either strangled or drowned,” Susan continued. “We were vacationing with her. And as I’m sure you are aware, she was representing the family suing the company for negligence.”
Susan paused, giving her points time to find their mark, the way she would have if Greg had been a jury member. When she heard Greg’s breathing quicken on the other end of the line, she resumed her opening statement. “To my knowledge, there isn’t any hard evidence connecting Nadal to the crime. The cops just saw the two-million-dollar suit and thought motive.”
Susan stopped a second time, hoping Greg would fill the silence with facts helpful to Nadal’s defense. The suit is in the process of being settled, maybe. Or, Nadal was under strict instructions not to talk to Rachel about the case, making it unlikely that he would have gotten into any kind of altercation with her about it. Susan would even have taken an assurance that Nadal had looked forward to arguing the case in court, even though any eagerness to fight the grieving family of a dead child would have made him look like a combative jerk. Her husband would need to come off as likeable to combat any negative biases that “a jury of his peers” might harbor against people of his Middle Eastern background, wealth, or occupation. Still, better a jerk than a murderer.
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” Greg whispered the swear over and over, a train chugging toward a cliff. “Shit. Okay. Shit.”
Susan had expected Greg’s shock. But the string of epithets rang with a hopelessness she hadn’t anticipated. She wiped the sweat from her brow, brought on by the bench’s position in the sun rather than fear. She had too much to accomplish in the next few hours to allow herself to feel afraid. “He obviously didn’t do it, Greg. I’m not certain that a prosecutor will even take the case with the circumstantial nonsense they have. But I need you to be ready for the press with something better than a no comment.”
A child shouted in the background on Greg’s end. “Not now. Daddy’s on the phone.” Susan heard the twitter of birds and then the slam of the door. She forced a swallow. Greg had been enjoying the day with his kids, she told herself. He needed a minute to switch into emergency mode.
“Okay. We’ll start working on a statement: ‘Rachel Klein was a dear friend of Nadal Ahmadi and his family. They are saddened by her loss and flabbergasted’—no, not that—‘deeply hurt and shocked that the police would arrest Nadal without any evidence. The lawsuit was a business matter that was already being handled through the proper channels.’ ”
The ease with which the statement rolled off Greg’s tongue relieved Susan. This was the ally she needed. “Yes, stress those last two points.”
“What about his alibi?”
Susan gripped the phone tighter, tempted to smack the side of her head with it. “He’d gone to bed upstairs. I drank too much and passed out downstairs. I’ll say that I would have heard him if he’d left the house, but they’ll argue that I was too inebriated to wake up. I apparently didn’t hear another friend come in.”
Greg cursed again. “The press isn’t going to like that. They’ll think that if his own wife can’t back him, then—”
“I know.” Susan nearly groaned, responding like herself rather than her professional alter ego. She curled her free hand into a fist, fighting the return to the insecure, anxious woman she’d been earlier. “I’ll send you some pictures of him smiling. The business shot on the web page is too stoic.”
“Good idea.” Greg coughed. “It’d be even better, though, to send the media hunting in another direction. Are there any other possible suspects? The victim’s husband, maybe? Or that ER doc? He was at the house with you guys, right?”
Susan took a breath. This was what defense attorneys did in emergencies—they created reasonable doubt even if it meant casting the blame on someone who likely didn’t deserve it. “Rachel’s husband had argued with her right before her murder, but I wouldn’t focus on him. The cops wouldn’t have let him go unless he had a pretty airtight alibi. And, unfortunately, I don’t see how Louis was involved at all. My guess is that someone saw Rachel—”
“Not involved?” Greg said, incredulous. “Rachel was suing Louis’s malpractice insurer for a million dollars. He’s the doctor in the case, the one accused of prescribing without getting a complete medical history.”
The new information blasted through Susan’s brain, shattering the picture of the prior night that she’d formed in her head. Louis hadn’t asked about Nadal’s company out of personal curiosity. He’d wanted to get a sense of how Nadal intended to respond to the lawsuit. He’d demanded the drink with Nadal to pressure him into settling the case quickly, perhaps hoping that two million would sufficiently entice Rachel’s clients to accept his insurer’s initial offer.
Greg was still talking, arranging the pieces of the puzzle as Susan was putting them together herself. “My guess is that Louis had more to lose from the case than us. Insurers drop physicians for stupid mistakes like that, or they hike the premiums to something unsustainable. And good luck continuing to work without coverage.”
Susan remembered Louis’s hard words about Rachel the prior night. He’d characterized her as greedy and implied that she brought frivolous suits to make money. He’d been angry. More than angry. Her case could have cost him his career—the very thing that defined him. Susan hadn’t realized, but Louis must have been murderous.
“Does he have an alibi?” Greg asked.
“My guess is only his wife, but you know that prosecutors don’t give a spouse’s word much weight. I doubt that the police even know about Louis’s involvement. I didn’t even know.”
Susan recalled how Nadal had consistently referred to the doctor in the case by his profession or pronoun. She hadn’t given it much thought, figuring that he wasn’t mentioning the name since she didn’t know the man or had been bound by a confidentiality agreement. But he’d been protecting Louis.
The cicadas’ softer chirp swelled behind her. Nadal had been trying to keep the lawsuit hush-hush so as not to ruin the vacation. Perhaps Louis had done the same as well, withholding the news from Jenny to avoid causing a rift between her and Rachel. Or, maybe, Louis had simply been too embarrassed to tell his wife. Louis prided himself on being a superb doctor. He wouldn’t have wanted to reveal to anyone that his prescription error had resulted in a child’s death.
But, regardless of Louis’s reasons for keeping the suit quiet, Nadal needed to tell everyone about his involvement. Now.
“I’ve got to go, Greg,” she said. “I’ve made a mistake.”
Susan hung up before he could respond and sprinted toward the police station. She shouldn’t have instructed Nadal to remain silent. They both had to tell the cops everything they knew about Louis Murray.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE DAY AFTER
Jenny knew what she had to do. The plan had come to her the prior night as
she’d run from the house, emerging fully developed like some parasite she’d unwittingly nurtured for years. Its existence had horrified and disgusted her, at first. Still, Jenny had known that she couldn’t kill it. She needed it.
She ran it over in her mind, again, as her body slid on the plastic bench in the back of the police car, threatening to send her careening into Louis. He was sitting too close to her, continuing to play the loving, protective spouse as he had the entire time in the police station. The over-the-top affection was a transparent plea for her silence, fueled by Louis’s fear that she might suddenly unwrap the scarf from her neck and explain the welts all over it. He’d been asleep by the time she’d finally sneaked into the bedroom the prior night, and they’d both woken to the thuds of police boots downstairs. Having not had a chance to apologize and contextualize his actions, Louis didn’t know whether she’d forgiven him or if he was one wrong word away from her pressing charges.
Louis’s concern about the cops was unwarranted, though. Jenny’s plan didn’t involve the police arresting her husband and handing her a restraining order, which Louis would respect about as much as her personal space. There was only one way to keep Louis from murdering her someday—like Rachel had been. She had to kill him herself.
Jenny gripped the handle of the police door as the car swung a right onto the block of beach houses, refusing to let gravity pull her back into her husband’s embrace. She might latch on to a hug as evidence that Louis loved her enough to change. When the truth was that, though he loved her, he wasn’t strong enough to change.
The cruiser stopped in front of the house. She robotically thanked Officer Phillips through the glass divider. The young cop released the locks on the back doors. “You’re lucky the place wasn’t designated a secondary crime scene.” Phillips leaned his head out the open driver’s-side window as Jenny passed. “You wouldn’t have been able to collect your suitcases. Fortunately for you both, the woman that owns the place has some pull. I guess the department didn’t want to risk paying her the fifty thousand she’d lose canceling a month’s worth of renters.”