Home Before Midnight

by Virginia Kantra

  Right after his own conversation with the chief this morning. You think you’re the only one who can conduct an investigation around here?

  “You should have called me,” Steve said, keeping his voice even with effort.

  “Why? You were on your way to Raleigh.” Walt rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Though I guess I could have saved you the trip.”

  Anger edged under the worry, a thin, sharp blade. “You’re not taking me off the investigation.”

  Walt rocked back in his chair. The old springs squeaked. “What investigation? Ellis killed his wife and then shot himself. End of story.”

  Relief caught him like a wave. Ellis shot himself. Meaning Bailey didn’t.

  So why bring her in for questioning?

  “You’re sure,” Steve said, not quite making it a question.

  Walt shrugged. “Night of his wife’s funeral. No sign of forced entry. No sign of struggle. The way I see it, he’s drinking alone in his study, pulls out his revolver and puts a .22 in his head.”

  “Note?”

  “We haven’t found one yet.”

  Okay. His mind weighed, measured, considered options. Suicides sometimes hid notes in places significant only to them. An investigator had to know where to look.

  “Who caught the call?”

  “Tom Sherman.”

  Sherman, a ruddy-faced veteran with a diehard nicotine habit, was one of the detectives who had made his resentment of Steve plain. Steve wouldn’t help department morale by questioning his handling of the crime scene.

  Too bad. “He swab for powder residue?”

  “Of course he did. And took the gun for prints.” Walt leaned forward over his desk. “But I’m not chasing after zebras when I hear hoofbeats and can see the horse’s ass in front of me.”

  Nothing wrong with that scenario, Steve told himself. Remorse might have driven Ellis to suicide. Maybe the writer couldn’t face his guilt anymore. Or maybe, with the investigation closing in, he couldn’t face prison.

  His motive didn’t matter as long as Bailey wasn’t involved.

  All Steve had to do was keep his mouth shut.

  “Where did he get the gun?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “You said Ellis pulled out his revolver. I searched that house two days ago. There was no gun.”

  “So, you missed it.”

  Steve ignored the slur. “Who’s it registered to?”

  Walt frowned. “It’s not registered.”

  “Then I didn’t miss anything,” Steve said flatly.

  Walt’s face turned red. “Except the murder weapon. Or are you wrong about that, too?”

  Irritation licked him. He tried to keep any trace of it—or of apology—from his tone. “That award wasn’t in the house when I searched. Ellis moved it.”

  “If you can believe the girl’s story.”

  “I believe her,” Steve said quietly. “And Regan Poole can testify she saw Paul Ellis carry a carton identical to the one holding the murder weapon out to Bailey’s car. Now tell me why Sherman brought her in.”

  Walt’s gaze dropped. “Goes to the victim’s state of mind. She was with him yesterday.”

  “Hell, Walt, half of Stokesville was in and out of that house yesterday.”

  “Half of Stokesville wasn’t lip-locked with Paul Ellis a couple hours before he put a bullet in his head.”

  Fuck, Steve thought.

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “That’s what Regan Poole told me. She saw them together.”

  “Define ‘together,’ ” Steve suggested through his teeth.

  The chief waved his hand. “Together. Kissing.”

  “So he took advantage of her.”

  “I don’t care if he was fucking her six ways to Sunday. But we have to look at her, you know?”

  His neck prickled. “Look at her for what?”

  “You’re the hotshot detective. You need me to draw you a diagram?”

  He needed the truth. It might be all he had to protect her.

  “What’s the time of death?” Steve asked.

  “We’re waiting on the ME’s report.”

  “But you have some idea.”

  Walt sighed. “Victim was cold and stiff—fixed lividity, full rigor—at seven-thirty this morning. Say, six to eight hours.”

  Steve did the math. “So, even at the outside, Ellis was killed sometime between eleven last night and two this morning.”

  Walt shrugged. “Looks like it.”

  “Then Bailey wasn’t involved.”

  “I’m not saying she was. But the stepdaughter—”

  “Saw Bailey leave the house around eleven.”

  “She could have come back.”

  “No. I told you. She was with me.”

  “Until two in the morning?”

  He could save her. He could provide her with an alibi. All he had to do was confess to his chief he had been up half the night with one of the main players in a high-profile case.

  “Until after three.”

  “Well, now.” Walt’s eyes were as bright as the buttons on his uniform. “Isn’t that convenient.”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking.” Not exactly. “She came to me to provide a lead in an ongoing investigation.”

  “Or provide herself with an alibi.”

  His fury startled him. It was one thing for Clegg to yank his chain. But he had no call to pick on Bailey.

  “She doesn’t need an alibi. Not if you’re convinced Ellis’s death was suicide.”

  “I am. She isn’t. Look, Steve . . .” It was first names now, Steve noted cynically, man-to-man and everybody friendly. “I’m satisfied Ellis killed himself. We’ll wait on the autopsy results, of course, but I’m sure the DA will see things my way. Murder solved, case closed, everybody’s happy. It’s unfortunate, but it’s in Miz Wells’s best interest to just accept what happened and let all this excitement die down. Because otherwise, with this fuss in the papers, I’ll be forced to investigate, and all kinds of things are going to come out that are best left private.”

  Steve wanted to punch something, a filing cabinet, the wall. He wanted to grab his boss by his pressed uniform shirt, haul him across his desk, and shake him until his service medals rattled. He fisted his hands in his pockets. “Are you threatening her?”

  Walt looked genuinely offended. “Hell, no, I’m trying to help her. And if you care for the girl, you’ll make her see she can help herself by dropping all this talk about how Ellis couldn’t have committed suicide.”

  THE bare white walls, the vinyl upholstered chairs, the cold, hard table . . . Bailey felt like she was in a gynecologist’s exam room. If she’d actually been flat on her back with her feet up in stirrups, she wouldn’t feel any more uncomfortable.

  Any more exposed.

  Or alone.

  The detective had left. Shivering, she hugged her arms, her black pants and tank top no more protection against the air-conditioned interview room than a paper gown would have been.

  When her mother had called up the stairs to say the police were there to see her, her mind had flown to Steve. Her heart had actually skipped a beat. She hadn’t been prepared for Detective Sherman’s sidelong looks and yellow teeth. She hadn’t dressed for a ride in a squad car to the police station.

  She hadn’t expected the news about Paul.

  He was dead. Shot.

  The knowledge surrounded her without quite sinking in, like ice coating a statue. It walled her from the full force and implications of the detective’s questions. Her brain felt frozen, her fingers numb.

  Before Sherman left her to write up her statement, she had answered all his questions honestly and completely.

  She had left the Ellis household around eleven o’clock.

  Yes, there had been an altercation with Ms. Poole and Mr. Ellis before she left.

  No, she and Mr. Ellis were not having an affair.

  Yes, he had been drinking.

&n
bsp; Yes, he had a prescription for the tranquilizer Xanax.

  Of course he seemed depressed.

  At that point, she had realized from the direction of the detective’s questions that he believed Paul had killed himself. Her mind rejected the very idea. Her heart shrank from the possibility.

  The man she had once imagined she could love—vain, self-absorbed, confident—could not have taken his own life. Paul would always believe he would eventually triumph over lesser mortals, that he could bend circumstances and people to serve his will.

  Bailey had been shocked and horrified by the possibility Paul had murdered his wife. But she could accept him as a murderer more readily than a suicide victim.

  She said so, and the interview went downhill from there.

  “Let’s just go through the evening one more time,” Detective Sherman had said, frowning.

  Bailey’s heart thumped. Her hands were icy.

  “Do I need a lawyer?” she asked.

  “You’re free to go anytime,” Sherman said. “But if you wouldn’t mind answering just a few more questions . . .”

  So she had stayed and answered them. She wasn’t under arrest. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Steve would tell them.

  Pleating her fingers together, she glanced at her watch. Where was Steve? It was after ten o’clock. Maybe if she called him . . .

  No.

  He was probably on his way back from Raleigh right now. Just because he had kissed her once—twice. Her mind supplied details with vivid alacrity . . . Anyway, just because he had kissed her and cooked for her was no reason to consider him her personal protector. He had made it painfully clear last night he preferred to keep their relationship on a professional footing.

  I don’t mix sex with the job.

  Good rule. Given the mess she’d made with Paul, she should have adopted something like it.

  She was so cold.

  The door cracked in the flat white wall. She braced.

  “Bailey?”

  Steve.

  The door opened and he was there, strong and solid and safe, his big body crowding the tiny room. Her rush of relief embarrassed her. Her throat closed.

  His gaze sharpened on her face. “You okay?”

  She swallowed. Nodded.

  He frowned and reached for his hip pocket. “Here.”

  A handkerchief.

  It blurred as she stared at it. She hadn’t realized her eyes were wet.

  “Take it,” he commanded.

  Turning her back, she blotted her eyes and blew her nose. She didn’t hear him come up behind her until his hands closed on her shoulders and turned her around. She felt a terrible urge to put her fate in his big, competent hands, to rest her head against his solid chest, and fought to get a grip.

  She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”

  “Not a problem.” Steve smiled, but his eyes remained serious, fixed on hers. “It’s my day to have women cry on me.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  Lines appeared between his brows. “Maybe you should.”

  She wanted to. She could feel a torrent of mingled emotions rushing and bubbling inside her, like a mountain stream under winter ice.

  She clutched his damp, crumpled handkerchief. “They said . . . Detective Sherman implied Paul shot himself.”

  He released her shoulders. “Looks that way.”

  The ice encasing her cracked. “He wouldn’t.”

  “I know it’s hard to accept,” Steve said in a soothing voice, like a traffic cop delivering bad news to the relatives of an accident victim. “It’s a natural part of grieving. When somebody we care about dies—”

  “Bullshit,” Bailey said.

  His mouth compressed.

  “I’m not grieving,” she continued. “And I’m not in denial. I’m telling you Paul Ellis thought too highly of himself to end his own life.”

  Steve’s professional mask flickered. He looked . . . not convinced. But at least he looked interested. He didn’t dismiss her as Sherman had dismissed her.

  “Under most circumstances, I’d have to agree with you,” he said. “But Ellis was facing a specific, real threat. If he went to prison—”

  “He wasn’t thinking about prison. He was talking about New York. He wanted to go back there.”

  With me. The thought splintered through her, another warning crack in the ice. He wanted to go back with me.

  Steve frowned. “Is that what’s worrying you? You can’t blame yourself for—”

  “I’m not blaming myself!” she shouted.

  Oops. Too loud. He wouldn’t take her seriously if she sounded hysterical.

  Wayne Lewis stuck his head through the door, his earnest young face concerned. “Everything all right in here?”

  “Fine,” Steve said without turning his head. “Close the door.”

  It clicked quietly shut.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Steve repeated, still in that calm cop’s tone, “because Ellis never knew you weren’t returning to New York. Or that you planned to quit. Unless you told him.”

  Bailey rubbed her bare arms. She felt cold again. “Are you trying to make me feel better? Or asking me if I talked to Paul after I left you last night?”

  “Did you?”

  She wasn’t offended. She wouldn’t let herself be.

  She moistened her lips. “No. And that’s why your suicide theory doesn’t make any sense. Paul didn’t know I’d turned the murder weapon over to you. So why would he panic and kill himself?”

  “He knew he was the principal target of the investigation.”

  His neutral tone steadied her. Maybe that’s why he used it. Easier not to think about how she had jumped his bones in his mother’s kitchen when he spoke in that formal, dispassionate voice.

  “Which is why he set me up.” She took a deep breath. How much more humiliating could this be? “I think he wanted Regan to see us together. You said it yourself last night.”

  A wealthy wife. A willing, adoring assistant. All he has to do is convince the police you were pressing for more and he told you no. Then, when the weapon is found in your possession . . .

  For a second she thought she had him, before his shoulders relaxed and he settled one hip against the table. “You’ve been spending too much time coming up with crazy theories for your boss’s books.”

  She gaped at him. And then she got mad. Crazy theories? She knew how to do research. How to organize facts. How to fit disparate bits and pieces together to make a coherent sentence or a cohesive case.

  “At least I don’t ignore facts,” she said.

  “You want facts?” Was it her imagination, or did he raise his voice slightly? “The fact is, Ellis killed his wife. And if he killed himself, it makes things easier for everybody. Including you.”

  “Paul wasn’t into making things easier for other people.”

  Steve shrugged. “So he could have had reasons you don’t know anything about. Grief makes a man do funny things.” His voice was grim. His eyes were bleak. “So does guilt.”

  She felt a flutter of sympathy, a tug of curiosity. But she couldn’t let herself be distracted. “Did he confess?”

  “What?”

  She was onto something. She was sure of it. Her heart banged against her ribs. “In his note. Did Paul confess to killing Helen in his suicide note?”

  Steve met her gaze squarely. “I can’t discuss that with you.”

  Disappointment stole her breath. Can’t discuss . . . ? She opened her mouth to argue and caught the quick flicker of his eyes to the door.

  Can’t discuss. Oh. Understanding and relief bloomed in her chest. She hugged her arms tightly to hold them in.

  “Well, that’s just the most unfair, ridiculous thing I ever heard,” she complained.

  “Tell me about it,” Steve said. “Later.”

  Her heart skipped. She raised her chin, playing along for whoever might be listening. “Tell you about it? I’m not even speaking to you now.”
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  BAILEY escaped into the hot, bright sunshine. After the cigarette- and coffee-tinged chill of the police station, the scent of sweat and pine cleaner and industrial carpet, even the air of the municipal parking lot was a relief. The ice encasing her was gone, leaving her an emotional puddle.