In Her Shadow

by Kristin Miller

  But tonight, we had to entertain Michael and Colleen. All smiles and stupid games and expensive bottles of the finest liquor. Anything to keep things upbeat and happy and, most important, surface-level.

  Because we can’t afford for Michael and Colleen to look any deeper.

  Especially not now.

  As I prop my leg up on the stool in the bathroom and slather vanilla and coconut lotion over it, the bedroom door clicks shut. It’s nearly midnight. I’ve been up here for an hour, showering and getting ready for bed. Travis has been making sure our guests are settled in the guest room.

  When I glance up, he’s standing in the doorway, staring at the lights above the mirror. One is flickering.

  “Michael doesn’t look good,” he says. “It’s like he’s falling apart.”

  “Wouldn’t you be if the police pulled me out of the mud across the street?”

  “Absolutely.” But he doesn’t sound like it would trouble him much. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he’s really torn up about Joanna. But I think the stress of the investigation is taking a major toll. He doesn’t like being questioned.”

  I don’t mention that Travis doesn’t like being questioned either. They’re alike in that way. Instead, I rub lotion on my arms as the sweet scent fills the bathroom.

  I glance up at Travis. I’m standing in front of him spreading lotion all over my naked body, exposing the most intimate parts of me, and he still won’t drag his attention away from that bulb. He’s so fixated on the one problem, he doesn’t notice anything else. Not even me.

  The guy’s a perfectionist. One of the reasons I love him. And hate him.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says.

  He disappears for a few minutes and returns with not one bulb, but an entire box. Kneeling on the counter, he goes to work unscrewing each one and replacing it. I don’t need to ask why. I have before, and the answer is always the same. If one is about to go out, the others are too. This way, they’ll all be new. They’ll all be perfect. And then he’ll be able to sleep at night without brooding about one ultra-bright bulb among the dimming ones.

  “Colleen is nice,” he says, as he reaches for another bulb.

  My gaze snaps to his. “You think so?”

  “Yeah.” He drops the dead one in the box. “Kind of a goody two-shoes though.”

  I massage the lotion into my skin a little harder. “They don’t seem like a good match to me.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I can’t really put it into words. But I get the feeling she’s easily manipulated by men. “She’s naïve, I guess.”

  “Well, yeah. She’s green. Much younger than Michael.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Exactly what?” He pulls out a new bulb and spins it into place. “Why does that make them a poor match? You’re younger than I am.”

  I hesitate, shooting him a sideways glance as I move on to lathering my breasts. “By a year. Come on. There’s an entire generation between those two. What do you think he sees in her?”

  Travis laughs. “What every guy sees in a younger woman. A tight piece of ass.”

  Now Colleen is nice and a tight piece.

  I ignore the clench in my gut. “What do you think that detective wants to talk to us about tomorrow?”

  “I’m sure they’re going to want to know more about Michael.”

  I follow Travis out of the room as we begin our routine. He undresses down to his boxers as I change into a silk chemise. Before sliding into bed, he arranges the pillows behind his back, puts on his reading glasses, and drags a book into his lap. He doesn’t say a word as I settle in beside him.

  “And Michael doesn’t want to hear it,” he says, “but he’s a major suspect. I assume they’re going to ask about what kind of boss he is, what it’s like living next to him, how he and Joanna treated each other. Things like that.”

  I turn on my side to face him and pull the covers over my shoulder. The sheets are icy, sending waves of gooseflesh scattering across my skin. Travis doesn’t like to talk after he gets into bed, but after the excitement of the past hours—the headlines about Joanna, the reporters and cops everywhere—I’m not going to be able to sleep. It doesn’t help when I remember that Michael and Colleen are in the room down the hall. It feels like Joanna’s murder is everywhere I turn.

  “What do you think they want to know from me?” I ask, tracing my fingers around the intricate tattoos swirling around his forearm.

  Sighing, he turns a page. “You were her friend for a long time.”

  “I know, but not near the end.”

  He doesn’t reply. Did he even hear what I said?

  “That big blowup was the last time I saw her,” I go on. “Do you think they’re going to ask me about that?”

  He’s so immersed in his book, he doesn’t answer. I worry my lip between my teeth as the memories come flooding back. I’d confronted Joanna that day. I’d said things I shouldn’t have said, especially under the circumstances. Am I going to have to tell the detectives everything? God, how will that make me look? Like a murderer, that’s how. Everyone will think I murdered Joanna.

  “Travis,” I whisper. “When was the last time you saw Joanna?”

  He drops the book to his lap with a huff. “Do you need attention? Is that what this is about?”

  “No, I just wanted to know…”

  I can’t finish.

  Tossing the book and his glasses onto the bedside table, he climbs on top of me, pressing his body over mine. Tattoos of women and dragons flex over his arms with each movement.

  “You don’t think I had anything to do with what happened to Joanna, do you?” he asks, hovering over me.

  “Of course not.” I shake my head.

  “Trust is important in a relationship.” He nuzzles my neck, then bites my earlobe playfully. “Especially now, when we’re faced with something like this.”

  With the ghosts of the past still haunting us, how can he possibly think I’d trust him now?

  “You’re the only good, decent thing in my life, Rachael.” He takes my hands and pins them over my head before lowering his mouth over mine. “That’s why, no matter what happens, we’re in this together. To the very end.”

  DETECTIVE SHAW

  “It’s your lucky day,” Patel says.

  “Great.” I look up from my computer and rub my eyes. “Remind me which day it is? I can’t remember. They’re all blending together.”

  That’s what happens when I’ve been up for two days straight, researching and putting together pieces of the case. Split screens might as well be seared into my retinas. I can almost recite the information without staring at it. Michael Harris’s depleted bank accounts. Sketchy investments. Hefty insurance policy. Still, I’ll gladly take blurred vision and sleepless nights over ones spent tossing and turning, dreaming of Karen and times I can never have back again.

  “It’s Wednesday,” Patel answers, slouching into the chair on the opposite side of my desk. “Best day this week.”

  “Why? Did you get the autopsy date moved up?”

  “Nope, it’s still scheduled for Sunday. Coroner is swamped. Can’t get her in before then. But this is better.” He drops a stack of papers on my desk and grabs my Rubik’s Cube. “I got the go-ahead from the lieutenant to arrest Michael Harris for the murder of his wife. The commissioner wants this thing wrapped up quickly.”

  “But how? We don’t have the autopsy, the toxicology results, or the murder weapon, for Christ’s sake. What are you bringing him in on?”

  “Everything else, Shaw.” He grins wildly. “Rather than focusing on each square, try looking at the whole cube.”

  But even that analogy is off in this case. Something isn’t ri
ght. I feel it deep in my bones. This isn’t like me, to look beyond what I can prove. I wish Karen were here. She would tell me to follow my gut, even if it defies logic and the solution seems far-fetched. She was the best sounding board. My go-to for advice.

  Would she peg Michael Harris as a murderous husband?

  He’s violent; we already know that for certain. The incident report from the July fifteenth 911 call states that Joanna had discoloration on her collarbone and over her right eye, consistent with early signs of bruising. The caller, Rachael Martin, stated that her neighbor, Joanna Harris, had run over to her house screaming, claiming her husband had beaten her. And the photos in the file testify to that.

  “But the garden tools in his garage came up negative on the DNA tests,” I say, determined to fight him on this. “We need a murder weapon.”

  “We really don’t,” he says smugly, crossing his legs so one ankle rests over the opposite knee, “because we have those pills hidden in the back of their bathroom cabinet.”

  “But we don’t know if the pills had anything to do with her murder.”

  “Yet,” he says. “We’ll get confirmation on what was flowing through her bloodstream when toxicology comes in. I’m betting he fed her enough pills to kill her.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Think about it, Patel. If Michael Harris was going to drug his wife and make her death seem like an overdose, why hit her in the back of the head with a blunt object?”

  “Maybe something went wrong,” he argues, “and he had to really get his hands dirty. Maybe she discovered he’d drugged her and she confronted him about it—who knows? But the bottom line is that her body was buried across the street from their home. Police were called out for domestic violence just days before her murder. His business is going under, and the insurance windfall is about the only thing that could save it.”

  “Still not enough.”

  “Didn’t your wife tell you to follow your gut, Shaw? Well, I’m taking her advice. Those pills had something to do with Joanna’s murder. I feel it.”

  “My wife used to say that, yes.” My stomach clenches from his low-blow shot. “But to close this case, we need evidence, not instincts.”

  “Shaw, you know the guy is shady.”

  “Oh, absolutely.” I glance back at the screen, at his bank statements. “But a cold-blooded murderer? I’m not sure.”

  “With a half-competent D.A., the jury will convict him.”

  “Maybe. But if I’m a juror, I see reasonable doubt everywhere. The biggest problem being that those medications were prescribed to someone else. That’ll be enough for an acquittal.”

  “As soon as we talk to Mandy McKnight, we’ll get that straightened out,” he says. “It’s obvious Michael Harris is our guy.”

  I play devil’s advocate. “Likely, but not obvious. We have other suspects. What about the neighbors? The guy next door reports to Harris. What happens to his job if Harris’s business goes under? Perhaps there’s more going on with them than we know. Crooked business deals? Jealousy?”

  “You want me to let Michael Harris roam free because the neighbor might’ve been a crook and might’ve killed her?” Patel shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not enough, Shaw. We haven’t found a scrap of evidence pointing to them.”

  “What about that cook? Dean Lewis? He seemed to be pretty tight with Joanna. Maybe they had something going on.”

  “You think the chef cooked this one up?” He laughs at his own joke. “One problem with your theory: if he kills her, he can’t be with her. No one wins in that case. Besides, there’s nothing concrete linking them. Next?”

  “Colleen Roper,” I say.

  I’d looked into her immediately after we brought her and Michael in for questioning. But she’s clean. Her parents died in a car accident when she was fifteen, leaving her in the foster system for a few years. Graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in Liberal Studies and worked at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital as a receptionist two years back. She’s rented the same apartment for the last year—a tiny place in a questionable neighborhood. She has no criminal record, not even so much as a traffic ticket, and no fingerprints in our system. She’s never been married and doesn’t have any children other than the one she’s currently carrying.

  “Come on, Shaw, you can do better than that.” Patel smirks. “She didn’t even know the Harrises until after Joanna was murdered.”

  What would Karen think? Where would she look next?

  “What about the wild card, Mandy McKnight?” I get up and take my Rubik’s Cube away from him. “Her pills, her murder.”

  Patel shakes his head. “We gotta find McKnight, if you’re going to make that link.”

  I sigh. Without a murder weapon, reasonable doubt is shooting holes in the investigation. There are too many ways a defense attorney could spin this to put doubt in jurors’ heads. And with the powerful friends Harris has, the lawyers are going to be heavy hitters.

  If we bring this to court, our case will be demolished before we’ve even had a chance to build it.

  “It’s him, Shaw,” Patel insists. “Michael Harris killed his wife. You and I both know it.”

  I won’t agree with him, at least not aloud. “If you bring him in now, and we can’t charge him on the evidence within forty-eight hours, he walks. He’ll lawyer up so heavy and so hard, we’ll never get him talking to us again.”

  Patel blows out a thin stream of air between his lips. “We can’t wait too much longer. He could run.”

  “He’s not running with a pregnant girlfriend.”

  “If we wait too much longer,” Patel says, taking back my Rubik’s Cube, “that pregnant girlfriend of his might end up just like his wife.”

  “Autopsy is Sunday,” I say, running through the timeline in my head, “and we can get a fast turnaround on toxicology. Let’s wait until Friday. That’s only two days from now. He can sit in custody for forty-eight hours, and by that time, we’ll have concrete results.”

  As he’s considering my proposal, his phone bleeps with an incoming text.

  “It’s Mandy McKnight,” he tells me. “About damn time.”

  After a quick call to arrange a meeting, we hop in the car and head toward Half Moon Bay. There’s been a break in the bad weather, and it feels like everyone’s trying to take advantage of the sunshine between storms. Traffic jams the coastal highway. Surfers flock to the state beach to catch big waves. The sidewalks are filled with people window-shopping and dining on patios. Half Moon Bay has come alive.

  Studio Balance Pilates is in a fading shopping center off the main highway, tucked between a car rental place and a hair salon.

  “Ever been to one of these places?” Patel asks as we step out of the car.

  “Do I look like the bendy type to you?”

  He laughs at that and holds the door open for me to pass through. The place is filled wall-to-wall with exercise mats, ropes, and machines that look more like torture devices than workout equipment. A group of women on the far side of the building arrange the mats, while a petite redhead turns and smiles. She’s wearing black stretch pants, a tight tank top, and can’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds. Green eyes. Freckles on her nose. Slightly sunburnt cheeks. She’s very pretty, in a fresh-faced, athletic way.

  “I’m Mandy,” she tells us, extending her hand. “Which one of you did I speak with over the phone?”

  “That would be me.” Patel shakes her hand as we show our identification. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. This won’t take long.”

  “That’s good. I have a class starting in ten minutes.”

  “As I told you,” he goes on, “we have some questions about Joanna Harris.”

  Her eyes fill with tears. “I can’t believe someone would do that to her.
It’s devastating.”

  “So you and Joanna were close?” I ask.

  “She took classes here Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the last three years. I guess you could say we were acquaintances more than friends.”

  “And do you know Mr. Harris, too?” Patel’s attracted to her, I can tell.

  She shrugs. “I’ve never met him, but sometimes Joanna would mention him in class.”

  “What would she say?” I ask, careful to tread lightly.

  “Just casual stuff. One morning she’d talk about how he’d taken her out to Gary Danko’s—you know, the fine dining restaurant in the city? Another morning she’d say he bought her bouquets of her favorite flower. Once, I remember, she called him a workaholic, but said he supported her in anything she wanted to do.” She smiles. “Their marriage seemed great.”

  At least that’s what she wanted you to think.

  “Have you ever been to their home?” I ask.

  “She invited me over last Christmas for a party or something, but I didn’t go. Went to L.A. for a concert instead. She lives—lived—in Point Reina, right?”

  Patel nods, giving too much away for my taste.

  “I’ve been there, hiking through the grove, and to the tide pools, but never to her house. It’s a gorgeous neighborhood. Maybe someday I’ll be able to afford it.”

  As Patel and I avoid making eye contact, I’m sure we’re debating the same thing. Should we show our hand and ask outright about the pills? Or continue, hoping she’ll offer up something that explains them?

  “Do you take any medications?” I ask finally, when the silence becomes awkward.

  “Well, that’s a personal question.” She frowns. “I can’t see what that has to do with poor Joanna. Why would you want to know?”

  We aren’t getting anywhere by playing coy. Without nudging Patel for approval, I take over. “Our investigation needs to be very thorough,” I say. “We’re looking for anything that’ll help solve this case and bring Joanna’s murderer to justice. While we were searching the Harrises’ home, we discovered two prescription bottles in the back of a bathroom cabinet. They were from Dr. Garcia’s office.”