Incriminating Passion

by Ann Voss Peterson

  At the moment, that didn’t seem to be such a good thing.

  Mylinski dropped the thick file on the desk with a thud and narrowed his eyes on Andrea. “Andrea, you killed your husband, didn’t you?”

  Andrea leaned forward. “No. I didn’t kill him. I swear.”

  “I’m sorry, Andrea. After what we found in the house and on the grounds, there really isn’t any doubt you did it.”

  She opened her mouth to protest.

  He held up a hand. “Before you say anything more, let me call Chief Putnam in here. Maybe you can explain to us what happened.”

  Andrea’s eyes went wide.

  John gripped his coffee cup, the foam creaking under his fingers. The cup broke, sloshing hot coffee over John’s hand. “Damn.” He shook his hand. As hot as the coffee was, what was going on behind the glass pained him more. Andrea was so frightened. So confused. He couldn’t let Putnam question her. He rapped his knuckles on the glass.

  Mylinski spun in the direction of the sound. Heaving a sigh, he picked up the file from the table and ambled to the door. He popped back into the cubicle, shutting the door behind him. “What’s up? This had better be good.”

  Inside the interrogation room, Andrea dragged in a relieved breath.

  John did as well. He turned and met Mylinski’s gaze. “Didn’t she ask for an attorney?”

  “Not that I heard,” Putnam said.

  He ignored the chief, keeping his attention glued to Mylinski. “She should have an attorney present.”

  Mylinski shook his head, as if he saw right through John’s smoke screen. “I Mirandized her. You heard it. That’s all I’m required to do. We got to talk, Ace.” He turned to Putnam. “You want to take a shot, Putnam? I’ll join you in a minute.”

  John held up a hand. “You do the questioning. Not Putnam.”

  Mylinski’s brows shot toward his nonexistent hairline. “Why?”

  “Just do it. As a favor to me.”

  “No favors. Not unless you tell me why.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of candy. Unwrapping the cellophane, he popped it into his mouth and waited for John’s answer.

  John glanced at Andrea sitting so small, so scared in the interrogation room. “She thinks someone in the Green Valley police department was driving that truck that ran her car into the quarry.”

  Mylinski choked on his candy. Holding up a hand, he coughed until he cleared his throat. “And why does she think that?”

  John filled him in on Andrea’s returning memory, her phone call to the police station and the subsequent appearance of the black truck. “I hate to say it, Putnam, but you and your officers were the only ones who knew she saw her husband’s murder.”

  Putnam flushed red. “I resent what you’re implying. My men are good cops, honest cops.”

  “I don’t doubt it. But…” He left his sentence hanging, the implication clear.

  Putnam’s flush deepened. “You son-of-a-bitch. I don’t believe this.”

  Mylinski held up a hand. “Before we start something here, I didn’t tell you what else we found in the house.”

  John pulled his gaze from Putnam and focused on Mylinski. “What?”

  “Listening devices. The phones were tapped. So whoever tapped them would have heard that call. And whoever tapped them could’ve tried to run Andrea Kirkland into that quarry.”

  A smile curled Putnam’s thin lips.

  Mylinski gestured toward the interrogation room. “Go on in, Gary. I’ll be right there.”

  Putnam looked from Mylinski to John and back again. Finally he nodded in his military-man way, picked up the file Mylinski had dropped on the chair and pushed into the interrogation room.

  Andrea’s eyes flared wide when she saw him.

  John’s gut clenched. He could feel her fear even through the glass.

  Mylinski stepped in front of him, blocking his view. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know if the widow Kirkland killed her husband or not. Something doesn’t feel right about this whole situation, and I can see why you think that might mean she’s innocent. But either way, you’ve got to stay away from her. Protecting her is not your job, and I’m not going to cover for you while you go off on some damn self-destructive path. Nor am I going to let you screw with my investigation. Either you start thinking with the head on top of your shoulders instead of the one in your pants, or I’m going to Harrington with this. He’ll have another ADA assigned to this case faster than spit.”

  John pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. He wanted to argue, but he couldn’t. Mylinski was right. He should get another ADA assigned to the case. He should get as far away from Andrea Kirkland as humanly possible. But he couldn’t. He’d told her the truth in Chicago. He believed in her as he hadn’t believed in anything in a very long time. No matter what the consequences, he couldn’t leave her twisting in the wind.

  However, if he wanted to protect her, he had to be smart about it. He had to know when to cut his losses. And he had to stay away from her from here on out. If he didn’t, not only wouldn’t he be able to protect her, he wouldn’t even be able to protect himself.

  He leveled Mylinski with a pointed stare. “Fine, Al. You win. I’ll go home. I’ll stay away from Andrea Kirkland. I’ll let you do your job.”

  Mylinski nodded and took a slurp of coffee to wash down his candy. “I sure as hell hope so. Because I like you too much to watch you ruin your career over a woman. Even if she might be worth it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Andrea leaned her elbows on the scarred table in the interrogation room and buried her face in her hands. Detective Mylinski and Chief Putnam sat on either side of her at the table questioning her. Questioning? Who was she kidding? They seemed to have made up their minds that she had killed Wingate before they stepped in the room.

  She had to convince them she hadn’t. She had to persuade them to listen to the truth.

  “It sounds like your marriage was hell, Andy. Can I call you Andy?”

  Detective Mylinski’s voice had softened since he’d come back into the room. So much so that she had to keep reminding herself he wasn’t her friend.

  He leaned forward, concern etched on his face. “If I had a husband like that, you can bet I’d want to get away from him as fast as I could.”

  “Yes. That’s it. I wanted to get away. Like I told you before, I was planning to leave that night.”

  “And then he came home unexpectedly.”

  “Yes.”

  “Here you’d planned your escape for months. You’d squirreled away money. And the SOB shows up just as you were leaving. You had to have been desperate.”

  “I was. At least I think I was. I don’t remember.” She held her hand up to her forehead. Their questions were giving her a headache.

  “Did he find out you were leaving him that night? Did he try to stop you?” The detective leaned forward as if to confide an intimate secret. “Did he hit you, Andy?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

  Chief Putnam rolled his eyes, but said nothing. Detective Mylinski lowered his voice. “He threatened to hit you, didn’t he? You told John that the day you first visited his office.”

  She looked down at the folder in Detective Mylinski’s hands. So that’s what was inside. John’s notes from their first meeting. A pang registered in her chest. A ridiculous reaction. It was John’s job to prosecute. It was his job to help the police. She couldn’t expect him to keep his notes secret, as if the contents were a private tête-à-tête between lovers. “Yes. Wingate often threatened to hit me.”

  “You couldn’t let him know what you planned to do that night,” Mylinski continued. “So you found his gun. The one he bought for you.”

  She shook her head. “That’s not the way it happened.”

  “No one blames you for killing the bastard, Andy. You had no choice. Not if you wanted to save your own skin. Anyone would understand that.”

  “No. It di
dn’t happen that way.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “I don’t— I don’t remember.”

  “Sometimes we block awful things from our minds. Awful things that we’ve done. Is that what happened, Andy? Because you don’t have to feel guilty. Anyone could see you had no choice in what you did. Anyone would have done the same thing in your place.”

  “I didn’t kill him. I just don’t remember what happened.”

  Mylinski leaned forward. The overhead lights reflected off his balding pate, crowning his head like a halo. “What do you remember, Andy?” His voice was low. Gentle. As if he’d run out of speculation. As if he was finally ready to listen.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, trying to see the memories in her mind as if they were playing out on a movie screen. “I heard a shot. I saw him fall to the floor. His eyes were open, staring. He made a sound, a gurgle low in his throat. There was blood. So much blood. It soaked into the Persian rug.”

  “That’s why you had to get rid of the rug, wasn’t it, Andrea?” Chief Putnam snapped.

  Startling at the sharpness in his voice, she opened her eyes. “I didn’t—”

  “That’s why you rolled his body in the rug.”

  “No, I—”

  “And you had help, didn’t you, Andrea? Someone helped you bury the rug with Kirkland inside. Someone helped you replace it with a new rug. Did that someone help you shoot your husband as well?”

  “Hank Sutcliffe.” The name blurted from her lips. The name of a man to whom she was somehow linked. A man she didn’t know.

  Detective Mylinski’s eyebrows arched in obvious surprise. “Hank Sutcliffe helped you kill your husband?”

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t kill Wingate. Hank Sutcliffe replaced the rug. Maybe he did it. Maybe Sutcliffe killed Wingate.”

  Putnam leveled a glower in her direction. “Who is Hank Sutcliffe, Andrea? Is he your boyfriend?”

  She tightened her fists under the table. “I don’t know him.” She never should have mentioned Hank Sutcliffe’s name. How could she explain who he was when she didn’t know herself?

  “Did he put you up to it, Andy?” Mylinski prodded. “Was he pressuring you? Did Hank Sutcliffe convince you to kill your husband?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “How can you say that?” Putnam barked. “You don’t remember. You said so yourself. You don’t remember anything but the shot and the blood.”

  She looked down at the table. Her pulse pounded in her ears.

  Detective Mylinski laid a hand on her shoulder. His touch was calming, soothing, entreating her to trust him, to open up. Just as his voice had been before Putnam had pounced. “You had every reason to shoot your husband, Andy. And if you were forced into it by Hank Sutcliffe, you have double the reason. I understand what happened. The judge will understand, too.”

  What could she say? She didn’t remember. And although she knew in her heart she could never have killed Wingate, how could she possibly convince anyone else?

  A knock sounded on the door.

  Mylinski closed his eyes and blew out a frustrated breath. “What?”

  A sheriff’s deputy pushed the door wide and held it open. A short balding man with the face of a bulldog stepped inside. Decked out in an immaculate double-breasted suit, he crossed to Andrea’s chair and set his briefcase on the table in front of her. “I’m Mrs. Kirkland’s attorney. You aren’t questioning her without counsel present, are you, detective?”

  Mylinski groaned and crooked a questioning brow at Andrea. “Your attorney?”

  She glanced from the detective to the attorney and back again. She’d never seen the man before in her life.

  “I’d like to speak to my client. In private.”

  “Fine.” The detective motioned to Putnam and moved toward the door, the skeptical glower still on his face. “For the record, she never asked to speak with an attorney. If you don’t believe us, you can check the video tape.” He gestured to the corner of the room where a video camera hung from the ceiling recording everything. Mylinski and Putnam stepped out and closed the door behind them.

  The bulldog in the expensive suit lowered himself into the chair vacated by the detective. He spread his briefcase open on the table.

  Andrea watched him, unsure what to think about this new wrinkle. “I never called an attorney. Who are you?”

  He stuck out a hand. “Lee Runyon. I was retained to represent you. I got here as quickly as I could.”

  “Retained? By whom?”

  “That doesn’t matter. What’s important is that the police have no right to hold you here. Not unless you’ve done something stupid like confess.”

  “No. Of course not. I didn’t kill my husband.”

  “Then let’s get you out of here.”

  She couldn’t wait to step out of this emotional torture chamber. But she wasn’t going anywhere with this guy. Not until she knew more. “Who called you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he repeated.

  “It does matter. I have to know.”

  He smiled at her, his face muscles stretching stiffly as if the expression was a foreign one. “Let’s just say it was someone who shouldn’t have. Someone who should be more interested in prosecuting you than saving you from Detective Mylinski’s formidable interrogation techniques.”

  A warm flush coursed through her. “It was John, wasn’t it? John Cohen.”

  Runyon merely shrugged, but his silence was as good as a yes.

  John had called the attorney. John was watching out for her. What she’d felt in that hotel room, in his words, in his touch—it was real.

  Lee Runyon cocked his head, his jowls jiggling with the movement. “So are you ready to get out of here?”

  Andrea nodded. She certainly was. And she couldn’t wait one more second.

  She had someone she wanted to thank.

  JOHN LEANED BACK in the recliner and tried to get comfortable for the hundredth time in as many minutes. Opening his eyes, he looked around the room. The bright sun of mid morning peeked around the edges of the closed blinds, bars of light falling on the old wall clock across the room as it ticked off the minutes. He watched the hands click around the face, keeping his eye on all the minutes of sleep he wasn’t getting.

  Sleep he wasn’t getting because he couldn’t stop thinking of Andrea Kirkland.

  He’d told Mylinski he’d stay away from her, that he’d let the detective do his job. And he had. Sort of. John doubted Mylinski would see his calling Runyon as staying away though.

  He ran a hand over his face. Kicking down the chair’s footrest, he sat up. Now that Runyon was fighting on Andrea’s behalf, he needed to forget her and do his job. But the only way he could do that was if he dug that bottle of Jack Daniels out of the kitchen cupboard and downed the whole damn thing. Who was he kidding? One pint wouldn’t be enough to forget Andrea. He’d have to go for two.

  Before he could work up the ambition to heave himself from the chair, the ancient doorbell echoed through the house—Westminster chimes so out of tune the melody was hard to recognize. Just what he needed. He pushed to his feet and strode for the door. He’d buy a canister of Boy Scout popcorn or a half dozen boxes of thin mints and send the interloper on his or her way. He didn’t have patience for this. Not today.

  He saw Andrea through a window before he reached for the knob. Dark circles marred the tender skin under her eyes. Tension tightened the soft plumpness of her lips. She pulled her coat tight around her. Even exhausted from the long night at the police station, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

  A weight settled on his shoulders like an oxen’s yoke. John wouldn’t put it past Mylinski to have a tail on her. And once the detective found out she was here, John would hardly have enough time to duck before the repercussions hit the fan.

  She hadn’t seen him through the window. He should pretend he wasn’t home. He should stay away from her as he’d promised Mylinski. But
he couldn’t leave her standing on his porch. He reached for the knob and pulled the door open.

  She looked up at him, her eyes clear blue despite her fatigue. “John.”

  He gestured into the house. “Come in.”

  She stepped inside. Her gaze roamed around the room, taking in the plain white walls, the sparse furniture. The typical bachelor pad. He’d never really looked at his house before, the depressing emptiness of it. He saw it now as if through her eyes. Whoever said men were simply bears with furniture must have been talking about him.

  She turned back to him. Her eyes searched his. “If this is a bad time, I’ll go.”

  Bad time? It was the worst possible time. “Stay.”

  “I had to see you. I had to thank you.”

  “Runyon did his job?”

  She nodded. “He got me out of there, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He’s a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s the type of son-of-a-bitch you want to have on your side.”

  “You shouldn’t have called him.” She stepped toward him. Even after a stress-filled night at the police station, she still smelled of the hotel’s herbal shampoo and the sweet scent of woman.

  He breathed in deeply. “I couldn’t leave you in that interrogation room. No innocent person should have to go through that.”

  She looked down at the floor and shuddered, as if reliving the interrogation. “Detective Mylinski thinks I killed Wingate. At least that’s what he kept saying. And Chief Putnam— Every time he asked me a question, I kept seeing that black truck.”

  The bombshell Mylinski had dropped on him at the police station echoed in John’s memory. “Putnam probably had nothing to do with that truck. Your phones were tapped.”

  Her eyes flew wide. “What?”

  “Someone tapped your phones. So the Green Valley police weren’t the only ones who knew your memory started coming back that night. Whoever was listening to your calls knew, too.” He reached out and touched her arm. So warm. So soft.