by Sam Sisavath
“We’re back to this Sarah person.”
“We are.”
“I can’t help you with that, Detective. Like I’ve said, I don’t know her. And besides, I don’t own the cabin where you found all those bloodstained clothes that may or may not belong to Sarah Marshall.”
“You were staying in it. Aubrey White’s name is on the rental agreement.”
“That’s right. I rented it. I can’t be responsible for people who might have used the place before or after I left.”
“So if you don’t know who the Marshalls are, and you don’t have anything to hide, why did you assault Deputies Trent and Evans at the Don’t Stop In when they asked about your vehicle?”
“I didn’t assault them.”
“Three eyewitnesses said otherwise.”
“Haven’t you heard, Detective? Eyewitnesses are the least dependable evidence in court. Are you familiar with the Mandela Effect?”
“Can’t say as I am.”
“Well I’ll be sure to introduce it in court to educate you and Detective Shannon here. People sometimes think they remember something one way—sometimes they’re adamant about it—when the truth is something else entirely. Human beings are faulty creatures, easily tricked—sometimes by their own minds.”
Dawson’s lips twitched slightly. Was that anger or annoyance?
“You sure you don’t want a lawyer?” Dawson asked. “If you don’t have one, we can assign a public defender pro bono. That means free.”
Allie smiled. “I know what pro bono means.”
“And your answer is…”
“No. I don’t need a lawyer at this time.”
Dawson looked over at Shannon. “Just to confirm that the interviewee Aubrey White has declined her right to an attorney twice now.”
“Confirmed,” Shannon said.
“You’ve asked me a lot of questions, and I’ve answered them to the best of my abilities,” Allie said. “I think it’s fair I get to ask some questions in return.”
“Is that so?” Dawson said. He eased back in his seat, and this time Allie was certain the expression on his face was one of amusement. “What kind of questions do you have, Miss White? It is miss?”
Allie nodded. “It is.” She leaned forward. “When did Tom Marshall die exactly?”
“Why do you ask? Since you don’t even know the man. What does his death matter to you?”
“Every life matters to me. But beyond that, isn’t it obvious why I’d like to know?”
“Enlighten Detective Shannon and myself, if you would.”
“Obviously, if I know the time of his death, I can tell you where I was at the same period. I can’t very well kill the man if I have an alibi now, can I?”
Dawson slipped out another folder and opened it. It took him a few seconds to find the right information. “The first officer at the scene found Tom Marshall’s body at exactly 4:26 a.m. We’re still trying to pinpoint the exact time of death, but it’s believed to be somewhere between eleven p.m. the previous night and this morning. He was seen alive at dinner with his wife at around eight the previous night, then later, at the Don’t Stop In at around ten when they were on their way home.” He closed the folder. “So where were you during that time frame?”
“You said a police officer found the body at 4:26 a.m.?”
“That’s right.”
“What was the police officer doing there?”
“We received a call of a disturbance in the house. Someone reported that they heard screaming and what might have been the possibility of gunshots coming from within the residence.”
“A neighbor called?”
“We don’t know. It was an anonymous tip. The only reason the dispatcher took it seriously was because she recognized the address and the name.”
“When did this call come in exactly?”
Dawson leaned on the table and stared back at her. “I think you have this backwards. You’re not here to interview me. It’s the other way around. Now. Do you have an alibi for me or not?”
Yes, but anything I tell you would just dig a deeper hole for me, Allie thought as she sat back in her own uncomfortable metal chair.
“Well?” Dawson said. “Do you have an alibi for this morning and would you like to share it with me and Detective Shannon here, Miss White?”
“No,” Allie said.
“No, you don’t have an alibi; or no, you do, but you don’t want to share it with us?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
Dawson smiled. “Think faster. Things are about to get really bad for you, Aubrey. You’re still going to stick to that name, by the way?”
“It’s my name.”
“Of course it is. So what’s your answer?”
Allie glanced over at Shannon. “I’m officially invoking my Fifth Amendment rights. Please confirm my request out loud, Detective Shannon.”
Shannon looked confused before glancing over at Dawson for confirmation.
The veteran detective smirked, as if it’d just dawned on him what Allie had been doing. “Cute. That was cute.”
“I insist Detective Shannon confirm my invocation of my Fifth Amendment rights out loud for it to be put on the record, Detective,” Allie said.
Dawson looked over at his partner and nodded.
“Confirmed,” Shannon said, though Allie could barely hear him because he’d said it through clenched teeth.
Nineteen
Allowing Dawson to interview her without a lawyer hadn’t exactly gone as she had planned, but it wasn’t a complete debacle, either. She’d managed to learn some vital pieces of information here and now, when she could still do something about it. Yes, she would have discovered all of this anyway once the trial began, but Allie had a feeling the people setting her up weren’t going to be sitting around waiting for her to catch up to them. No, she had to work fast because she was already so far behind the eight ball. And that, unfortunately, meant taking risks. A lot of risks.
So what did she know now that she didn’t before? A couple of things:
One: Tom had died last night, either before Allie arrived at the Marshall home or sometime afterward. He’d been shot, which just about confirmed her theory that the revolver at the cabin was the murder weapon. She had no evidence, of course, but it was probably a safe assumption.
Two: Sarah was still missing. So was her child. Someone had either taken them from the cabin, or they’d run off on their own will. But if it was the latter, then why hadn’t she resurfaced yet? Why would she continue to hide? There were two possibilities: She was involved in the setup, or she was afraid to reveal herself. Right now, it could be either one.
Allie replayed the last conversation she’d had with Sarah back in her head. It was still fresh in her mind; after all, it hadn’t even been a full day yet.
“They call the shots,” the housewife had said about the Marshalls. “Nothing happens around here without their okay. Mayors, assemblyman, even state representatives.”
“They’re that powerful?” Allie had said.
“They have that much money. Everyone knows it…including everyone in the WCPD. That’s why I can’t go to them. Why I couldn’t, before last night, and why I still can’t, this morning.”
Maybe that was it—the reason Sarah hadn’t resurfaced willingly. Fear could make people do some crazy things, including run into the woods with your infant son. Was it enough to make her stay in there, though?
The other, more depressing possibility was that Sarah was a part of the setup, and had been from the very beginning. Except that didn’t explain why she was running from the house covered in blood with her baby in the back seat last night. Surely she couldn’t have expected Allie to show up and take mother and son back to the cabin. Could she?
The interview with Detective Dawson and his mostly-silent partner, Shannon, had ended as soon as Allie invoked her Fifth Amendment rights. After that, she was taken back to her cell by Parker and the two behemoths, and Allie s
at on the bench at the back now, recycling every bit of information Dawson had provided—whether unwittingly or not—and what she already knew.
While she was lost in her thoughts, trying to make sense of her predicament, night creeped silently up on her. Soon, activity in the building dropped to a crawl and she could hear her fellow detainees next door snoring. There was no window back here, so she had no idea if the media was still gathered outside waiting for a glimpse of her. She guessed they probably were. Wells City didn’t have anything approaching a twenty-four-hour news cycle, but Allie imagined this was going to keep a lot of them occupied for days to come, or however long until it got resolved.
Parker had left after her shift ended and was replaced by a younger woman named Jackson, who checked on Allie twice before vanishing for a long spell. There were also new deputies coming and going, and though she couldn’t confirm it with her own eyes, Allie could feel the station emptying out except for the necessary personnel. A big murder or not, people still had to go home to their families.
Allie finally came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything else she could learn from inside her jail cell. It wasn’t as if she’d allowed herself to get arrested, but she’d made the best of a bad situation. The answers were out there, waiting for her, but to get from here to there was going to involve violence.
She loathed the idea. Parker, Dawson, and even Parker’s replacement, Jackson, were just doing their jobs. Allie had spent so much of her second life avoiding hurting innocents that to start now, just to get her own neck out of the noose… It left a big knot in her gut.
But what choice did she have?
There was Melissa. Could she get the young secretary to help her? It would be payback for Allie rescuing her from the bikers last night. Then again, given how fast Melissa had run off—and pretended she didn’t know Allie before that—Allie was probably barking up the wrong tree. Besides, she’d need to make contact with the girl first, and that didn’t seem likely. Maybe she could ask Parker to give Melissa a message…
So what other options was she left with?
Not much. Not much at all. At least, not tonight. Not sitting on a bench in the back of a jail cell, in a police station that, if not filled with cops, then enough of them to make it hard to get out of here without hurting at least some of them…
It was a bad situation all around.
Allie lay down on the hard surface and let her legs dangle off the edge. She was a foot taller than the bench, not that she thought she was going to get any sleep anyway. Even with the lack of rest she’d gotten the previous day, there was no way she was going to…
Allie opened her eyes, the thoughts, I fell asleep. I can’t believe I actually managed to fall asleep! racing through her mind once, twice, three times.
There was no fourth time, because her mind had shifted gears.
Something had woken her.
Allie sat up on the bench and swung around to face the cell bars.
There were three figures in the hallway looking back at her. The lights had been dimmed sometime after she closed her eyes, so the men—and she was sure they were all men from their broad shoulders—had either picked an excellent spot to stand and watch her sleep, or they had gotten lucky. She couldn’t make out their faces, just their ghostly shapes.
One of the men was wearing a Wells City deputy’s uniform, but the other two were in civilian clothes. Allie didn’t recognize the deputy, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary; just as Parker had left after her shift was over, so too would the others. This was a second-shift deputy—but who were the other two with him?
Allie stood up when the uniformed figure tossed a pair of handcuffs into her cell. The manacles skidded across the floor, the dimmed lights from outside glinting off their smooth metal surfaces.
“Put them on,” the one wearing the deputy’s uniform said.
Allie didn’t move to pick up the cuffs.
“Now,” the deputy said.
Allie still didn’t move.
“If we have to go in there to put them on you, it’s going to hurt,” the man to the right of the deputy said. He was slightly taller than the other two, though not by much. The words were an obvious threat, but the way he’d said them suggested otherwise.
Now that her eyes had adjusted to her new, darkened surroundings, Allie could make out more details on the trio. The deputy was a stranger, and it was still too dark for her to read the name on his uniform. The civilian that had threatened her was wearing black slacks and a blazer with a white shirt—but no tie—underneath. His short blond hair stood out against the dark hair of the deputy and the second civvie, who was wearing thick khaki pants and a gray windbreaker. She couldn’t see enough of their faces to guess their age.
“Put them on,” the deputy said. He was holding a key in one hand, waiting for her to obey his orders.
Allie finally did, picking up the handcuffs and slipping them around her wrists. She’d already decided there was nothing to be gained by staying in here and going through the legal process, which she was pretty sure she’d lose anyway. Even if they never managed to pin Tom Marshall’s death on her, there was still Mickey the bartender and Deputy Evans to testify in court that she’d taken Trent hostage.
She had no idea what these three wanted, but they were going to help her with her biggest obstacle at the moment: Getting out of her cell.
Besides, if they’d wanted to hurt her, they could have done it while she slept. There was no telling how long they’d been standing out there watching her. If any one of them was armed, they could have already shot her as well. Or come inside and suffocated her with a pillow. Allie could think of a hundred other ways to silence someone.
But they hadn’t done any of those things.
“Where we going, boys?” Allie asked.
“For a walk,” Blondie said. There it was again; like he was having a good time here and wasn’t taking any of this seriously.
Asshole must think it’s a game.
“Isn’t it a little late for that?” Allie asked.
“Not tonight,” Blondie said. “You’ll love it. There’s a full moon out.”
The deputy, all business, opened the cell door and pulled it out. “Step outside.”
Allie did as instructed. The deputy didn’t let her outside until he’d checked her restraints.
Up close, she guessed that Blondie was in his mid-thirties, younger than Windbreaker by about ten years. The two civilians looked her up and down, Blondie with something that could almost pass for a wry smirk. Windbreaker just looked bored, like he’d rather be somewhere else. Or sleeping.
Allie glanced at the wall clock behind them: 1:14 a.m.
She hadn’t realized how long she’d slept. That explained why, despite the situation, she felt so much better. And no wonder the entire building was so quiet right now. It was the dead of night.
Next to the wall clock was the security camera. The light underneath it was green, just as it had been all day. So whatever was happening right now was being recorded. That, for some reason, made her feel a little better.
The deputy closed the cell and nodded at Blondie. “She’s good.”
The deputy—Lincoln was stenciled across his name tag—led them up the hallway, passing the other holding cells. A few detainees were snoring on the bench at the back—it was wider than hers—leaving the rest to spill out on the floor. No one opened their eyes or woke up as Allie’s group passed. Either they were all asleep or were too smart to be caught noticing.
At first Allie thought Blondie and Windbreaker might have been detectives, but that didn’t make any sense. Cops didn’t work this late, even if Tom Marshall’s murder was the kind of thing that only happened once in a lifetime in a place like Wells City. Besides, neither men had introduced themselves as detectives, which they would have done.
No, this wasn’t official police business. Not by a long shot. So what was it?
Whatever it was, they weren’t trying to h
ide it, because more active cameras watched them moving up the hallway.
Allie sized up her chances and decided that she didn’t like them very much. Not that she could have done anything to prevent this and whatever “this” led to. If she’d refused to put on the cuffs, they would have probably done what they’d threatened—come in and made her. Even if she’d fought and made a scene—woke up the other inmates and whoever was still working in the other parts of the station—what would that accomplish? She was almost certain Lincoln was the real deal, which meant he could explain away anything. Who would take her word over his? She was already tainted after that stunt with Trent, and was now under suspicion for Tom Marshall’s murder, not to mention his missing wife and child.
At least this way she was out of her cell. That was something. Now all she had to do was figure what the rest of this was.
“You boys have names?” Allie asked.
“Yes,” Blondie said.
“And what would they be?”
“Yes.”
“You’re very friendly, aren’t you?”
“I try to be.”
“Try harder.”
“Nah, I think this is good enough.”
Lincoln led them out of the detention area, but instead of turning left the way Parker had done earlier to take Allie through the station lobby, he turned right.
Both Blondie and his partner, Windbreaker, were at least a foot taller than her. They were also much bigger. She could probably take one—probably, if she had the element of surprise and a weapon—but two? Then there was Lincoln. The deputy would also be a problem. He was also the only visibly armed one among them. That was assuming neither Blondie nor Windbreaker had a concealed weapon on them.
But that baton… If she could get her hands on it, she might have a chance. Lincoln was ahead of her, and all she’d have to do was walk a little faster and lunge for the weapon at just the right moment—
The deputy suddenly stopped and stepped aside, revealing another door at the end, marked EXIT.
Too late.
“Bring her back before dawn,” Lincoln said to Blondie.