Justified

by Carolyn Arnold

  Either he bounced back quickly or the drunkenness was a show. “Was that the last time you saw him?” Candice had said Simon Angle was staying with her. Was she referring to that brief interlude or a more substantial period?

  “No, like I said, he was staying with me. We hit it off. He’s been here since that night.”

  “Do you know where he is now?”

  Candice shook her head. “I haven’t seen him since yesterday morning.”

  Madison took a deep breath to conjure patience and returned to one of her initial questions. “Why do you think he killed Claire Reeves?”

  “He has a temper.” Candice met Madison’s eyes.

  Simon’s roommate had said the same thing.

  “He’d—” Candice swallowed roughly and her lashes soaked with tears. “He’d mumble sometimes.”

  “Mumble?” Madison sure wished this wasn’t a wasted trip. “About what?”

  “About her.” She pressed a fingertip to the article. “It started when he heard about her murder on the radio.” Candice gathered her damp hair in her hands, twisted it, and swept it upward. She took a pen from the table and slid it into her hair to hold it in place.

  “What did he say about her?” Madison asked.

  “He said life was a lot better before she came into it. And that’s saying a lot.” She met eyes with them. “We haven’t known each other long, but Simon wears his heart on his sleeve. He told me about his mother.” She looked at them as if they should know what she was talking about.

  Madison leaned on the table toward Candice. “What about his mother?”

  “Oh, no. You don’t know? I’m not telling you.”

  Claire had been a successful woman and maybe she had reminded Simon of his mother somehow and it wasn’t a good thing. “Was his mother a powerful woman?”

  “I’m sorry,” Candice began. “He told me in private. He’d probably be mad at me for telling you this much.” She continued in a low voice. “The murder… It happened last Wednesday?”

  Madison could have slammed a fist on the table from frustration. The date of the murder was in the article under Candice’s hand. And hadn’t they just touched on how strange Simon was that day? “Yes,” Madison said. “Between two and four in the morning.”

  “Well, like I said he was up on Wednesday morning like he didn’t have a drop to drink the night before. He was kind of different with me than he was the night before. I don’t know how exactly, just different.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for a man to lose interest in a woman he had a one-night stand with, but that didn’t really apply in this situation. Simon had returned to Candice, or more correctly stayed with her. But why? Was it just to avoid his ex-wife? Then the many possibilities hit.

  Simon could have been establishing an alibi. If Simon had gotten up in the wee hours, gone over, killed Claire, and then just disappeared, it might seem suspicious to Candice. But that didn’t make sense. Candice wouldn’t necessarily be able to connect Simon with Claire. There were other good reasons for Simon to stay, though. One, he could use Candice as an alibi. He’d know she would have been too drunk to know he’d left the bed during the night. Two, to avoid his ex. And three, he could hide out here from law enforcement. He’d have to know that he would be a murder suspect given his background with the victim.

  All their heads turned toward the door. They had all heard it—the steady thump of feet.

  “Someone’s coming up the stairs,” Candice whispered.

  Madison stood, bracing an arm in front of Candice while her other hand went to her holster.

  Terry rose in rhythm with Madison.

  “Candice, it might be best if you go into the other room,” Terry suggested, and Candice complied.

  Madison’s heartbeat sounded in her ears. The thumping outside stopped. Whoever it was stood outside the door. The motion sensor light had turned on, revealing the silhouette of a man through a frosted sidelight.

  She motioned for Terry to step to the side of her. The knob turned and the door opened.

  “Stiles PD! Put your hands up!” Terry shouted.

  “Fuck!” The man turned on his heels and started down the stairs in a run.

  Terry bolted out the door first. Madison took her steps gingerly, taking note of the blowing snow, and appreciating that the staircase would be more slippery than when they had arrived.

  “Stop right there,” Terry called out.

  The man’s footing slipped out from under him, and he slid down the last few steps on his rear end. He sat there moaning in pain, his arms flailing to reveal the helplessness he must have been feeling. He was caught.

  “Put your hands above your head.” Terry came up behind him and had him cuffed in a matter of seconds.

  “I didn’t do it, I swear!” The man was speaking through sobs of pain.

  Madison squeezed by Terry and got her first good look at the man who had been forced to his feet. “How nice of you to come out of hiding, Simon Angle.”

  -

  Chapter 29

  “I DIDN’T DO IT.” Simon Angle held to his original story as he sat across from Madison and Terry in the interrogation room.

  “Then why run? Only the guilty run,” Madison said.

  “I think I need to see a doctor.” He winced and clenched his teeth. “Fuck, this hurts. Can I stand up?”

  “No, you can stay seated right there.”

  “This is abuse. I’ll report you.”

  “If you’re smarter than you look, you’ll sit there and be thankful that we haven’t booked you yet,” she said, stretching things.

  “I know why you’re looking for me. I knew from the moment I heard about her murder that you’d be coming after me. That’s why I had to disappear.”

  Madison cocked her head. “So you admit to hiding from law enforcement?”

  “Ah, yeah.” Simon might as well have added duh. “I’ve never been a lucky man. Thought I was when Claire came along but you obviously know how that turned out.”

  “The truth of the matter is, you do look guilty.” Madison flipped open a file. “Here’s how I see it. You planned Claire’s murder and manipulated your way into staying at Candice’s house. She had no prior connection to you, so why would the police or your wife or anyone know where to look for you? You never even updated your friend Jim Sears on where you were.”

  “It’s not how it looks.”

  “You disconnected your cell phone,” Madison stamped out.

  “That’s ’cause all every person wants from me is a buck. And I’m fucking tired of supporting everyone! And I’m fucking tired of sitting in this wooden-assed chair!” He rose to his feet.

  Madison allowed it, but she sensed her partner’s anger rising because of Simon’s foul mouth. “Tell us this. Why would you think we’d come after you for Claire’s murder?”

  “Hmm, I wonder.” He pressed a finger to his chin. “Because I’d have a very good reason! I hated that woman, what she did to me, to the life I had before she came into it. She took it and turned it to shit.”

  “From what I hear, your life wasn’t that great before.” Madison was referring to his mother and a childhood that seemed to hold some mystery.

  Simon rolled his eyes theatrically. “You’re really reaching.”

  “Why react so strongly to a simple statement? Obviously the past still affects your present.”

  “You’re twisting things.”

  Madison remained calm. “Don’t really think I am. You were heard saying you’d kill Claire the next time you—”

  “My wife told you that, didn’t she? I don’t know why I even allowed myself to get involved with that trash in the first place.”

  “So you’d like us to believe you went into hiding to avoid bill collectors?”

  “For that. Among other things.” He braced a hand
on the small of his back. “I am just sick and tired of supporting everyone. And my day job sucked. I said, ‘screw it,’ and gave my notice a couple Mondays ago. I’m tired of my life being sucked out of me. Working for the man… Might as well be called day prison. Anyway, there’s more to me than one might think. I have…dreams…and…aspirations.” The latter statement was fragmented through clipped breaths, seemingly due to back pain the way he was gritting his teeth.

  Madison remembered what his roommate had said about Simon helping that stray cat and hunting women, but she had to ask a question nonetheless. “You ever hunt animals, Mr. Angle?”

  His face scrunched up. “What? Do I hunt?”

  “That’s what I asked.” Now it was her turn to add the inferred duh. “What about woodland caribou?”

  Simon’s face paled. “I would never hurt one of God’s little creatures.”

  “Have you ever been to Newfoundland?” She would keep going until she felt satisfied.

  “No. Is that where those caribous are hunted? Detective, I would never hurt an animal or a person for that matter. Even Claire. Even after all she did to me. And just so you know, I’m a vegetarian. I don’t even want other people slaughtering animals for me to eat.” His eyes held conviction.

  Maybe he was telling the truth, but she couldn’t afford to let her guard down when she was hunting a killer. “We’ll need a sample of your DNA.”

  “If it gets me out of here, let’s do it.”

  MADISON LEFT THE INTERROGATION ROOM and headed for her desk.

  “Do you think he did it?” Terry followed her.

  She didn’t respond.

  “You’re still not talking to me,” he said skeptically.

  Madison stopped walking and turned to face him. “We can talk about it all we want, but until we get the results—”

  Terry was shaking his head. “Since when don’t you speculate?” He flailed his hands in the air and walked off in the opposite direction from their desks.

  She watched him leave, but she was still mad and hurt, even if she didn’t care to admit to the latter. Just because Terry was married and she wasn’t didn’t make his life more valuable.

  Madison dropped into her chair, opened the drawer, and pulled out a Hershey’s bar. She peeled back the wrapper and took a large bite, savoring it with her eyes shut.

  Maybe if she poured herself into her cold case for a bit…

  She pulled out the folder for Bryan Lexan from her drawer. Her mind instantly started to work through the investigation. At the time, they had done everything they could. They’d conducted searches of the residences for both Dimitre Petrov’s men, along with the main Russian mafia business front. But everything had led to a dead end.

  She shuffled through the crime scene photographs and stopped on one of a torn piece of envelope. It was part of the flap, but they hadn’t been able to lift any prints or DNA.

  She pinched the photo between two fingers and held it at an angle; her gaze drifted to the report that documented the envelope into evidence. There was another photo in the file that was zoomed in on the stationary. It showed the fibers that weaved and repeatedly formed the…

  Infinity symbol?

  She dropped the photograph. For some reason, it took until now for this to come together. She rifled through another desk drawer and found what she was looking for. It was an envelope addressed to her from Dimitre Petrov. And just as she’d thought, it was the same stationary.

  She dialed the lab. “Cyn, I need you to do something for me.”

  “WE HAVE THE REPORT BACK on Simon Angle’s DNA.” Terry was coming toward Madison and she quickly worked to stuff everything back into the folder.

  Too slow… He pointed at it. “Please don’t tell me that’s the file on Lexan.”

  “I won’t tell you.” She tucked the file back into the drawer. “What were the results on Simon?”

  “You’ve got to let that case go.” He was referring to Bryan Lexan’s.

  “Are you going to hand me that report?” She rose to her feet and scooped a folder from his hand.

  Terry let it go and held up both his hands in mock surrender.

  She read the results and looked up at her partner. “It’s not Simon.”

  “Nope.”

  “You know, I had a feeling. The guy’s a vegetarian, and I believed him when he said he’s not a hunter.”

  “Oh, so now you’re talking to me? Before when I’d asked if you thought he was guilty, you shut me out.” Terry’s eyes were cold and he looked utterly exhausted.

  She was feeling tired herself, and flashbacks to Hershey and what he did to her grandmother’s coffee table were stinging reminders of what she would be going home to. She wasn’t even allowing herself to think of Blake’s betrayal, the brunette on his arm. “Can we just let it go?”

  “Yeah, whatever you’d like,” he stated drily and headed for the door.

  “You want me to speak my mind?”

  Why didn’t I just let him go?

  He turned around. “By all means.”

  With his eyes on her, she found it hard to formulate her words. She wanted to vent to him, tell him how stupid it was that he got her a dog, how her life had been fine before that. But what would be the point? Then the words he had spoken earlier came back to her with renewed impact. “Just so you know, my life is good, Terry. I have no regrets. I put one hundred percent of myself into this job, and why is that a bad thing?” She held up a hand. Now that she’d started opening up, talking about Hershey would be easier. “Let me continue. It’s Hershey—”

  He let out a big moan, slightly exaggerated.

  “We’re not going to work out,” she ground out.

  “Not going to work out? You haven’t even given him a chance. You had your hard head set against him from the beginning.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said. “That’s not the truth.”

  “Who are you trying to fool? Damn right it’s the truth, and your eyes testify to that. You’ve had him less than one week.”

  “Normally, I know what I want in that amount of time…or less.”

  “He’s a dog, Maddy, not a goldfish. It will take adjustment, but trust me when I say it will be well worth it. Not long from now you’ll be singing my praises—”

  “Right now I wonder how that’s possible.” She tapped her fingers on her thigh. “You know what? Forget I said anything.”

  “Sure.” He turned to leave.

  “He gnawed on my grandmother’s coffee table.” Her voice fluctuated, bordering on cracking. “It’s all I have left of her.”

  “I’m sorry, Maddy. I just thought you’d like having something with a heartbeat in your apartment who looks forward to your coming home and who loves you unconditionally.”

  He spoke that word—love—the one that had become taboo to her. No good came of it. What the hell was love anyway?

  “I don’t need you looking out for me.” It came out more defensively than she had intended.

  “’Night.” He waved his hand in the air and left.

  Madison wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed at them as if she were fending off a chill.

  Sometimes—and even more lately—she felt so alone in this world. Maybe she should be thankful for the heartbeat in the chest of that four-legged animal. He did have such soft velvety ears, and when those eyes looked at her, they had a way of seeing through her. The warmth they contained, the love of life, like every day was a new adventure, every activity an event to be excited and thankful for. She could learn a lot from him and benefit from his company. But her grandmother’s table… Had he not committed an unforgivable sin by chewing on it?

  She wiped at a single tear that dripped unexpectedly down her cheek. Her grandmother had meant so much to her, but maybe it was foolishness letting herself become attached to a tang
ible item like it would bring her closer to a memory. If she thought about it, she could still smell her grandmother’s fabric softener. She remembered staying with her on summer vacation, the aroma of homemade macaroni and cheese baking in the oven and the scent of her gas stove as the flame burned under a pot of chicken soup.

  The memories were so vivid it was like she was still here… But she wasn’t. That realization never got any easier. She could never talk to her or listen to her advice again. More tears fought to escape the corners of her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to release them. It probably didn’t matter that the table had been marked. If her grandmother were here, she’d likely say, It adds character, dear. Leave it to her grandmother to roll with whatever life sent her way.

  Maybe Madison could be like that. At least this time. Terry could have been right and maybe she wasn’t giving Hershey a fair shot. He was just a puppy, and he couldn’t be trained overnight.

  A yawn encompassed her face, and she drew her eyes to the clock on the wall. 10:32.

  She still had work to do, and in less than eleven hours, she would face Darren Taylor and his lawyer.

  -

  Chapter 30

  A COUPLE OF BUSINESS CARDS slid across the printout Madison was reading. “What the—” She glanced up to see Terry standing there and went back to the cards, shuffling through them and reading off the sales pitches as she went along.

  “Man’s best friend, behavioral training for your canine. Ben’s boot camp for dogs, obedience training. Make your dog your best friend. Teach your dog to only chew on what you want him to.” She looked at Terry, and he placed a Starbucks cup on her desk. She inhaled and took a small draw on the drink.

  Yum, caramel cappuccino.

  “What is all this?” She held up a card at an angle between her index and middle finger.

  Terry smiled at her and took a seat at his desk across from her. “Just let me know what you’re going to do with him, and Annabelle and I will pay for half of it.”

  “I can’t accept that.”