We Can See You

by Simon Kernick

  ‘Some people like to show how clever they are,’ said King. ‘Maybe she thought it would work better like that.’

  ‘By starting a fire in her own yard and then abducting her husband’s lover? That doesn’t sound remotely clever.’

  Brook could see that Detectives Giant and King still looked completely unconvinced.

  Angie hadn’t finished. ‘My client says Maria Reyes shot herself. Surely we can prove whether or not she did. Is the autopsy report available yet?’

  Brook saw from their expressions that this had caught them out.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Giant.

  ‘Okay. Please can you share its conclusion, when it’s ready. And another thing: have you examined the gun used to kill Cervantes and his son – assuming it’s the same weapon – for prints? My client claims she never touched that gun. And she was arrested at the scene without gloves on, so if she had shot them, her prints would be on it, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘We haven’t had the results back yet,’ said Giant. ‘But we’ll be sure to let you know them as soon as we do.’

  ‘Please do,’ said Angie, ‘because they’ll prove my client’s innocence. You see, someone’s set her up to take the blame for all of this. And it’s the same person who killed Cervantes and his son, and who’s almost certainly holding Paige against her will.’

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ said Giant, ‘but do you have any idea who this person might be?’

  And this was their big problem of course, because in the end Brook knew that neither she nor Angie had a clue who lay behind this. And even as Brook was thinking this, she was wondering where Angie herself had been earlier that evening, and whether she knew more about Paige’s abduction than she was letting on.

  Angie looked at Brook, then at Detective King and finally at Giant. ‘The person you should be looking for is someone calm, well versed in forensics and familiar with crime scenes. Someone well connected enough to cover their tracks as effectively as they have …’ She raised her eyebrows at the two detectives in turn. ‘Maybe a police officer.’

  52

  Giant gave Angie Southby a withering look. ‘So now you’re accusing us? You’re getting pretty desperate here, aren’t you?’

  Southby shrugged. ‘I’m just giving you some alternatives to your current theory. We still have the issue of the photo of you meeting up with my client’s dead husband ten days ago.’ She gave Giant the kind of probing look that he knew was meant to intimidate him. The fact was that he was worried. He hadn’t expected Southby to bring this back up, and he knew that if there were any copies of the photo out there, he was going to have to destroy them, otherwise he was in serious trouble. In the meantime, though, he needed to head this off at the pass once again.

  ‘I told you already,’ he said, ‘there must be some mistake. I’ve never met Logan Harris.’

  ‘It was you,’ said Connor with a certainty that unnerved him.

  ‘Well, I’m telling you it wasn’t. And be careful what accusations you make without evidence.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Connor answered petulantly. ‘Lock me up?’

  Angie Southby raised a hand to shut her up. ‘Look, Detectives,’ she said. ‘My client’s told you what happened. She’s answered your questions. And she very strongly states her innocence. So if you’re not going to charge her, then we’d like to go.’

  ‘You know it doesn’t work like that,’ said Jenna.

  Southby stared her down. ‘Are you charging her?’

  Jenna glanced across at Giant, who addressed Southby directly. ‘Not yet, but she’s not being released, either. I’m afraid you’re going to be staying here tonight, Ms Connor.’

  Angie Southby started to protest, but Giant terminated the interview and headed into the observation room, where the Chief and the lead marshal, Seamark Jeffs, had been watching proceedings through a one-way mirror.

  The Chief looked as exhausted as Giant felt. It was now 2.30 a.m. and it had been a long day for all of them. Seamark Jeffs, however, was sitting ramrod-straight in his chair and looking totally alert. Giant knew that Jeffs was royally pissed off that it was he and Jenna who’d made the Brook Connor arrest, and not Jeffs’s own team, and knew too that he wasn’t going to get an apology. He’d expected to get a little bit of praise from the Chief, though, but that wasn’t forthcoming, either.

  ‘What the hell’s all that about a photo of you with Logan Harris?’ were the Chief’s first words to Giant.

  ‘It’s just them pissing in the wind, sir,’ answered Giant with a confidence he wasn’t feeling. ‘I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. So what do you want to do, regarding charges?

  ‘Connor’s story sounds like a crock of shit,’ said Jeffs.

  ‘I’d agree with that,’ said Jenna.

  The Chief looked at Giant. ‘And you?’

  The problem was that Giant still had plenty of doubts. ‘According to the pathologist, Maria Reyes almost certainly shot herself, so that part of Connor’s story sounds like it’s true … And if Connor’s prints aren’t on the murder weapon from Luis McPherson’s place, then I don’t see how she could have killed them.’

  Jenna shrugged. ‘Connor could have used gloves when she shot Luis McPherson and Chris Cervantes and then hidden them.’

  ‘My people are all over the house,’ said Jeffs. ‘If she hid plastic gloves anywhere, we’ll find them. The tests show Connor’s got gun residue on her hands.’

  ‘The residue could have been from the gunfight the previous night at Reyes’s place,’ said Giant, who was almost surprised to find himself defending Brook Connor. ‘She admitted she shot Reyes’s security people.’

  Jeffs shrugged dismissively. ‘For my money, she’s still the killer.’

  ‘And mine, too,’ said the Chief. ‘At the very least we can charge her with the murder of her husband. I mean, he was found in the family car with a knife sticking out of him with her prints on it, and no amount of bullshit storytelling’s going to get her out of that one.’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pooped. I say we reconvene tomorrow, nine a.m.’

  53

  Brook sat in the cell on the single bunk facing Angie, who stood a few feet away, looking uncomfortable. The cell was bigger than she’d been expecting and was, thankfully, clean. She was also its only occupant.

  She yawned. She was too exhausted to care about the fact that she was about to spend a night in jail for the first time in her life, but she still needed answers.

  ‘How long did you know that Logan was seeing Maria Reyes?’ she asked Angie. ‘Because you must have known that him seeing a woman who was married to a Mexican drug lord was potentially putting Paige and me in grave danger.’

  Angie’s whole body stiffened. She looked more uncomfortable than Brook had ever seen her. She was silent for a few seconds before answering. ‘I didn’t know for very long at all,’ she said eventually. ‘Logan came to see me on Wednesday night. He told me about the affair then.’

  ‘That was the night Paige was taken.’

  ‘I know it was,’ said Angie.

  ‘And yet the following night you came round to our family home and I told you that Paige had been taken, Logan was dead in the car and that I was being set up. And yet still you didn’t say anything about the Tony Reyes connection. Why not?’

  ‘Because I wanted you to hand yourself in, and I knew that if I told you about Reyes, you might do something stupid. I also thought it was possible you might have killed Logan.’

  ‘You let me down, Angie,’ said Brook, her voice filled with disappointment. It felt as if she had enemies at every turn.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Angie replied, but it was hard to tell whether or not she was.

  ‘Logan was wearing Creed Aventus when he came back home on the night Paige went missing. He only ever wore that aftershave when he was trying to impress a woman. He used to wear it for me. Then he stopped. But he wore it for you.’
/>   Angie didn’t say anything. Brook could see that her jaw was set tight.

  ‘You were seeing him, weren’t you?’

  Angie paced the cell, her heels clacking on the hard floor, trying not to meet Brook’s accusatory gaze. ‘It’s not what you think, Brook. Wednesday night was the first time I’d seen Logan in a long time. He called me out of the blue and said he needed to see me urgently. When he turned up, he was terrified. He told me about the affair and said he was being blackmailed by the police about it.’

  ‘So you knew about that, too?’

  ‘I knew he’d been approached by someone, but I didn’t know who it was until tonight. How sure are you that it’s Detective Giant in the photo?’

  With everything going on, it suddenly seemed hard to tell for certain. Brook rubbed her eyes, struggling to fight off sleep. ‘Pretty sure,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s Cervantes’s file with the photo of Giant in it? Tell me you’ve got that.’

  ‘In the glove compartment of the Rav4 I was driving.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll make sure no one touches it until I get there. This could be really helpful to us.’

  Brook sighed. ‘The most important thing is to find Paige. I know she’s still alive.’

  ‘And we will. But we need to get you out of here first. Look, I’ll be straight with you, Brook. Logan wanted out of his relationship with Maria Reyes. He knew it was too dangerous. His plan was to take Paige and move to the other side of the country, well away from her. He didn’t want anything to happen to Paige. Or to you, Brook.’

  ‘Was he going to take me with him?’

  Angie paused, giving Brook her answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Brook shook her head wearily, feeling like the whole world had betrayed her.

  ‘He was a weak man,’ said Angie. ‘I know that. But he had a good heart. He felt responsible for Maria, too, which was why he approached me to help her leave her husband, and which was why I went to see her last night at the restaurant. It was because Logan asked me to.’

  Brook found it hard to keep control of her anger. ‘Did you sleep with him on Wednesday night?’ she demanded, her voice tight.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ Angie answered – too quickly.

  ‘I thought you were my friend. What sort of fucking person are you?’

  Angie’s face darkened and she brought her face close to Brook’s. ‘I’m the sort of fucking person who’s your last hope of of getting out of here, so treat me with some respect.’

  Brook held her gaze. ‘Do you believe my story?’

  ‘Yes,’ Angie said, standing back up. ‘I do.’

  ‘And will you get me out of here?’

  There was a silence that lasted two heartbeats. Then Angie nodded. ‘Yes, I will.’

  But Brook wasn’t at all sure she believed her.

  54

  Jenna had left her car at Luis McPherson’s place when they’d brought Brook Connor in, so when she and Giant were finished for the night, he offered her a ride back to it.

  As they got in Giant’s car, Jenna turned to him. ‘What Connor was saying in there, about seeing a photo of you with Logan Harris last week … What was that all about?’

  Giant wasn’t sure if he could trust her or not, but he also knew he was going to need help if he was to destroy the evidence. He sighed. ‘It was me in the photo. I wanted to get Logan Harris to persuade Maria Reyes to turn state’s evidence against her husband. I followed them, in my own time, and took some photos of them together.’

  She looked at him, and Giant couldn’t tell whether she was angry or not. ‘You were blackmailing him?’

  ‘I don’t know if I’d put it like that,’ he said, even though that was exactly what it was. ‘I thought it was the only way we were ever going to get Tony Reyes.’

  Jenna actually laughed then. ‘Shit! It seems the only person who didn’t know what his wife was doing was Tony Reyes himself. I guess he must have trusted her. There’s a real irony in that.’

  ‘I’m worried the photo Cervantes took of me is going to show up at some point. If it does, I’m in a lot of shit.’ Giant knew he wasn’t being fair involving Jenna in what was a problem purely of his own making, but it was an undeniable relief to get it out there.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, putting a hand on his arm. ‘If what Connor’s saying is true, and Cervantes didn’t want to be involved in the case, he probably destroyed the original photos. That means the only copy in existence is in the file he gave Connor. We just need to find it.’

  Giant reversed his car out of the spot and drove onto the road. ‘I figure it’s only going to be in one of two places. The motel where Connor was staying or the car she was driving.’

  ‘The place she said she’d left the car’s only ten minutes away from here. Let’s try there first. And we’d better hurry. The marshals will be impounding it for evidence soon.’

  Giant felt a spasm of guilt, knowing he was breaking the law yet again by tampering with evidence. By destroying the photo, he was deliberately taking away another plank of Brook Connor’s story. But as he drove, he justified his actions to himself, concluding that the existence of the photo didn’t actually help her disprove her guilt, so it wouldn’t actually do her any harm if it wasn’t there. It would simply prove she was mistaken, that was all.

  The Toyota Rav4 was parked exactly where Connor had said it was. There was no one around and Giant pulled up next to it.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, with a sigh. ‘This is bad.’

  ‘Come on. If we don’t do this and it gets out, you’ll be out of a job, and even more in Tony Reyes’s bad books than you already are.’

  Knowing she was right, he followed her over to the Rav4. He wanted to take charge of the situation, but found himself watching as Jenna slipped on a pair of plastic gloves and tried the driver’s door. The car was unlocked and she switched on her flashlight and leaned inside, shining the light around before opening up the glove compartment.

  ‘This looks promising,’ she said, emerging with an A4-sized folder that she handed to him. ‘There’s a nine-mill pistol in there as well. That must be hers. We’ll leave it for the marshals.’

  Giant put on his own gloves and opened the folder up, looking through the typed reports and the photos, while Jenna shone the light down. The photos of Logan Harris and Maria Reyes together were exactly as Brook Connor had described. It was another part of her story that hung together perfectly, and it made Giant feel somehow unclean, standing here in the dark sifting through the evidence like a petty thief.

  He stopped when he located the photo of himself at the tennis courts. It was a close-up shot of him walking in profile, and there was no doubt it was him, although on its own it wasn’t incriminating as it could have been taken anywhere. The problem was that there was a second photo beneath it: the exact same shot, but taken from further away, in which it looked a lot like he’d just got out of Logan Harris’s car, with the licence plate clearly visible. ‘This is it,’ he said.

  Jenna took both photos from him while Giant skimmed through the rest of the file until he was satisfied there was nothing else that incriminated him. He closed the file and put it back in the Rav4’s glove compartment underneath the gun.

  Thirty seconds later they were back on the road, heading up towards Luis McPherson’s place, and the guilt was hitting Giant hard again. Beside him, Jenna began ripping up the photos, her face expressionless. He wondered if she thought less of him for getting himself into a vulnerable position like this.

  ‘Thanks for helping me out,’ he said, as she finished ripping and scattered the little pieces out of her window, destroying the physical evidence of his wrongdoing for good.

  She smiled. ‘I hope you’d do the same for me.’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘And I know you were doing it for the right reasons.’

  ‘I still feel bad about it. Connor was telling the truth about the existence of the file, and the photo. The location
of her gun, as well. A lot of what she’s told us is the truth.’

  ‘Maybe so, but the best liars always mix their lies with the truth.’

  Giant nodded, conceding the point, but the doubts he’d been having all evening persisted. ‘You know, Jenna, I’ve got this theory about detective work, and it’s served me well in the past. A lot of criminals can act impulsively or irrationally, but overall there’s a story surrounding the crime. And when you look deep enough, that story always makes sense. But my problem is that so far this one doesn’t. I mean, what have we got? Brook Connor arranges either the kidnap or murder of her stepdaughter. She calls the kindergarten to report that Paige is sick, so we can assume that she’s already dead or kidnapped. She then kills her husband that night, leaves him in the trunk of their car in the garage, calls her lawyer, tells her the same story she’s told us about the kidnap and the set-up, then continues to leave him in the car for another twenty-four hours. Then she sets fire to her garage, flees, abducts Maria the next day, confronts Maria’s husband, shoots two of his men, flees again and ends up killing the man she’s hired to spy on her husband, as well as his son.’ He exhaled and looked at Jenna. ‘The point is, the story I’ve recounted just doesn’t make sense. But the one Brook Connor herself told us: that does make sense. And right now I’m conflicted, because I believe it more than I do the alternative.’

  Jenna gave Giant a sceptical look. ‘If her story’s true, then she’s right and someone is setting her up. But who? Someone jealous of her success? Some cop who’s got an obsession with her, like her lawyer suggested? Or this mysterious figure from thirty years ago who had something against her old man?’ She shook her head. ‘No way. It’s a lot easier to imagine a vengeful woman finding out about her husband’s infidelity, going completely crazy and killing the people involved – maybe even her own stepdaughter – and then going on the run. I don’t know why she killed Lou McPherson and his father, Chris Cervantes, but there could be any number of reasons, and it still sounds a lot more likely to me than some kind of elaborate set-up. I’m a great believer in that old Sherlock Holmes quote: when you’ve eliminated everything else, whatever’s left – however improbable – is the truth. Don’t complicate it, Ty. Let justice run its course. We did well tonight. Even if the Chief didn’t give us credit.’