Stain of Guilt

by Brandilyn Collins

  Oh, really. How presumptuous of Chetterling!

  But I could not dwell on that. Instead, I wondered at the man’s confidence in me. How could I tell the Tarells no when he’d given me such rave reviews? Even if they were undeserved.

  I stared at my feet, Sharon’s and Edwin’s request sucking at me like quicksand. I wanted to help. But I so feared the process of creating a fugitive update. How had Emily put it? Descending into the mind of a murderer. I did not welcome such a descent.

  “Okay, tell you what.” I spoke the words to the floor. “I’ll . . . think about it and give you a call tonight or tomorrow. How’s that?”

  A tired smile creased Emily’s face. “I suppose that’s all we can ask. Thank you.” She rose, Edwin doing the same. “Don’t worry about your fears,Annie. If you take this on—when you take it on—I will pray for you. God has helped me through the last twenty years. He’ll see you through this.”

  Descending into the mind . . .

  A shiver snaked down my spine.

  If I took on this assignment, I’d need all the prayers Emily Tarell could muster.

  Thursday, May 6

  Chapter 2

  Three boxes of copied files. I slumped in my office chair and stared at them, lined up like sentinels upon the area rug.

  At the moment I’d term my situation anything but an answer to someone’s heartfelt prayers. This wasn’t God’s doing. It was all Ralph Chetterling’s fault.

  Yesterday, after a night of tossing and turning over my decision, I’d paid a visit to the Sheriff’s Office in Redding. Just to talk to Chetterling. Ask him why on earth he’d been so confident about me to Emily Tarell. Well, now, and hadn’t the detective acted like he’d expected my visit? He proved downright jovial, which was hardly the Chetterling I knew. The man stands six-foot-three, towering over my five-foot-five frame, with huge hands and small dark brown eyes. At one time he’d intimidated the daylights out of me. I’ve worked with him enough by now to get over most of that, but still, Chetterling is Chetterling: no nonsense, pulsing with authority.

  “Annie, what’s the matter with you?” He folded his arms and looked down his nose at me. “It never occurred to me you wouldn’t want this assignment. One year’s training as a forensic artist, and nothing less than American Fugitive lands in your lap?”

  “Ralph, it’s not the show that bothers me, it’s the assignment! You know how sensitive to people I am. The last thing I want to do is get under the skin of some cold-blooded killer. The very thought gives me the creeps.”

  He shot me a look. “The last thing I’d expect from you—sensitive, caring Annie Kingston—is to turn down a request from someone who really needs you. How could you say no to Emily Tarell?”

  I glared back at him. Clearly, I’d have to change my tactics. “For your information, I really would like to say yes. But I’m just not ready. I need more training.”

  He pulled his law-enforcement stance on me—hands on hips, legs spread apart. “Care to try again?”

  I looked up at him, my shoulders slumping. He was almost as bad as my sister. But not quite. Even with all his bulk, Chetterling couldn’t match Jenna’s bullheaded bossiness. When I’d called her the previous night about my predicament, she’d done everything but crawl through the phone line and force my fingers to dial Emily Tarell’s number on the spot.

  The world was pitted against me. As I faced Chetterling, all remaining argument died in my throat.

  “Oh, Ralph.” I summoned my most plaintive expression. “I’m going to hate myself in the morning.”

  He smiled with slow satisfaction. “No, you won’t. And I predict, when this case is all over, your career will never be the same.”

  Chetterling insisted that I call Emily Tarell from his office before I changed my mind. Emily responded with a simple, “I knew you’d say yes. I’ve been praying.”

  Then, with an air of victory he couldn’t hide, Chetterling led me straightaway to Sheriff’s Sergeant Justin Delft, who’d been one of the detectives called to the scene of the Tarell/Dessinger murders in 1984. Delft was ecstatic about the upcoming American Fugitive show. He wanted nothing more before he retired than to close the case that had plagued him for two decades. Delft went through the bureaucratic procedure of releasing the files of the case to me. We agreed that I would take a full day to read through everything before meeting with him for an interview.

  So here I sat in my office, the three boxes of files mocking me. Why had I gotten myself into this?

  I could not put off opening the first box any longer.

  Pushing to my feet, I lugged the box marked #1 off the rug and onto the desk that had once been my father’s. Only in recent months had I been able to think of it as mine. It looked the same as it had when my father used it. The rest of the room had changed considerably, however. Gone were the couch and end tables, the pictures on the wall of airplanes, and the tall wooden file cabinet. I’d replaced them with a drawing table, a pair of squat, three-drawer cabinets to hold my art supplies, and a montage of scenery photos. In case I ever again interviewed a victim in this office, as I’d done with Erin Willit, I could not hang pictures of people on the wall. Someone trying to recall the face of a suspect could be influenced by the features of others.

  I opened the box. “Read them in order,” Delft had told me, “starting with Emily and Edwin Tarell’s statements. You’ll get the best picture of what happened that way.”

  That’s what I was afraid of.

  But I had the perfect excuse to put off my reading for another minute or two. First I wanted a good look at Bill Bland. I sifted through the files until I found a picture of him blown up to a grainy eight-by-ten.

  So this is the man.

  I stared at the photo for a long time, pulling in every detail. He did look bland. His hair was medium thickness, parted on the left and cut above the ears. He wore black-framed glasses. His eyes, a sort of dull gray, were small and rounded. Was he near- or farsighted? If the former, his lenses would make his eyes appear smaller than normal.

  “Doughy,” Emily had described him, and she was right. Little definition to the jawline, a soft chin, although he did not appear overweight. He reminded me of an unfinished clay sculpture, the artist called away before its final shaping. His lips were fairly thin, with the slightest downturn at the edges. He had not smiled for the picture. His suit jacket was dark blue over a white shirt and solid dark maroon tie. About as conservative as one could imagine.

  Bill Bland looked harmless. Even his photo exuded a reserved, quiet personality.

  Yet the longer I gazed at it, the more I sensed a certain . . . essence. What was it? Something about the way he looked at the camera, his chin raised a little too high, one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly.

  Arrogance. That was it. A preoccupation with his own intelligence.

  What do you look like today, Bill Bland? Why hasn’t anyone been able to find you?

  I turned the questions over in my mind, imagining the pull of two decades upon his skin and eyes, the deepening nasolabial furrows—“laugh lines”—from the nose to the outside of his lips . . .

  Okay. Enough of this, Annie. Time to read.

  I took a deep breath and pulled out the top file, marked Emily Tarell.

  Within minutes I found myself immersed in Emily’s description of her unsettling premonition that fateful night as the four men met in her husband’s study. On cue, the ever-present movie projector in my brain whirred into gear, translating the flat words on paper into a vivid scene. I visualized Emily making a cup of tea, sitting down to drink it—waiting. How the shots had rung out. The fight she’d witnessed after stumbling into the study. Wailing over her husband’s body. Retching . . .

  Oh, Emily.

  The torment of her emotions battered my heart. I leaned back in my chair, eyes closed. Emily’s story was too real, too raw. Different, certainly, from the circumstances Erin had faced when her mother was killed in their home, but all too reminiscent
of the shock and fear.

  It was a good thing ten months had passed since Lisa’s murder. If it were any more recent, I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the emotions this new case was sure to bring.

  Five minutes passed before I forced myself to reach for the file on Edwin Tarell—the interview that would contain details of what had transpired in that study as the four men met. Slowly, I opened the folder.

  “It’s all my fault!”

  Right at the top Detective Delft had recorded these words: “It’s all my fault; it’s all my fault!”

  My eyes closed again. I pictured a much younger Edwin, crying those words.

  Edwin told the detective that he, his dad, and Peter had met at his parents’ house a half hour before Bill was scheduled to come over. Peter came directly from work. Edwin made a quick stop at his own town house and then headed to the home in which he’d grown up. The moment Bill appeared at the door, Edwin felt sure the man knew something was up. He could see how stiffly Bill moved, how both elbows hovered away from his sides.

  “Bill has this weird tic of jutting his chin upward in two rapid jerks, then letting it sink,” Edwin told the detective. “When he’s nervous or stressed it gets worse.”

  Jutting his chin upward. I wrote that down in my notes. Would Bill still have that tic today? How might that affect how his features had aged?

  I looked back to the file. Edwin had described to Delft every detail, including his own thoughts as he reacted to Bill Bland. In no time I again was sucked into the vortex of the story, the movie camera in my mind beginning to whir. Vividly, I pictured Bill Bland through Edwin’s eyes,

  standing in the foyer, his chin jutting and sinking. Bill still wears his suit. Edwin, his dad, and Peter have their jackets off, ties loosened, as they often do at work. But Bill never takes his jacket off. Edwin once teased him that he slept in it.

  Bill’s so precise about everything. So finicky.

  “Come in, Bill.” Edwin’s dad does not even attempt a smile. He still can hardly believe the news Edwin brought to him and Peter the previous week. Neither can Edwin. Not even when the proof in the books stares them right in the face.

  “Thank you.” Bill nods. So formal, like a stranger. Like he’s already pulled back from them emotionally, knowing what he’s about to do. Edwin will think of this only later, wonder why he didn’t see what was coming, why he didn’t know. Peter says nothing, slipping into the study behind Dad and Bill like some funeral home attendant.

  Edwin’s stomach flutters. Maybe he shouldn’t have told them. Maybe he should have just confronted Bill on his own, made him give back the money.

  But then what? Say nothing and let Bill keep working at the company he’s stolen from? The company Edwin will own one day?

  Bill hesitates, then lowers himself to the edge of an armchair. Peter takes the couch on Bill’s left, perpendicular to the chair. Edwin wanders over to the fireplace, opposite Bill, and leans against the mantel. Out of habit his dad makes for the desk but stops in front of it, knuckles rapping against the wood.

  No one speaks. Bill swallows, and his throat clicks.

  Edwin’s dad pushes away from the desk, faces his chief financial officer. “I’ll get right to the point, Bill. We know what you’ve been doing. We’ve seen the books, and there’s no use denying it. We’ve spent the last week trailing the money—almost half a million. The trail led to an account you opened at the Huntington Bank three months ago. When I talked to the bank president— someone I happen to know—he only went so far as to confirm that you’d opened the account. He wouldn’t show us the statements without a police warrant. Bill, we’re willing to bet the money’s there, and we’ve got plenty reason to go to the police right now. But before we do that we wanted to talk to you first, give you a chance to explain. Peter and Edwin are here as my witnesses. I’m asking you—is our company money in that account?”

  Bill flicks his eyes at Edwin, then to the floor. His fingers fumble with the hem of his jacket. “Yes. Some of it.”

  Edwin’s dad sags against the desk. Bill’s uneven breathing fills the room.

  “Why, Bill, why did you do it?” Peter’s voice thickens.

  Bill works his jaw. When he speaks, the words are barely audible. “I was trapped. Susan took everything in the divorce. I needed money fast to buy out her half of the house or I’d have to sell it—the last thing I could call mine. And I didn’t know where I’d get the money to pay for child support and alimony. So I took a little. And then it was so easy, I just . . . kept taking it.”

  Disgust burns in Edwin’s throat. The guy is a cheating, whiny weasel. A coward. Can’t even look them in the eye. Edwin knew he would crumble the minute he was confronted. Bill lacks the imagination to be a good liar.

  “I’d have lent you money. I’d have done anything to help you.” Grief crosshatches Edwin’s dad’s face until Edwin can’t bear to look at him.

  Bill’s right hand works up to his jacket buttons. “I’m . . . sorry.”

  Hours from then, when it is far too late, Edwin will remember the way Bill says those words. The way they squeeze out of his throat. Like he isn’t only apologizing for what he’s done but for what he’s going to do.

  Edwin’s dad shakes his head. “We demand the money back immediately. And you’re out of the company as of this minute. Even with that, Bill, we’ll have to go to the police. This is just too big to let—”

  That’s when it happens—those few seconds of stunning sequence that will last a lifetime. Edwin keeps his eyes on Bill as his dad speaks. Bill unbuttons his jacket. Reaches into an inside pocket as he pushes from the chair and pulls out something. Something black, metallic. Edwin’s eyes see it, and his shocked brain scrambles to interpret, but it is slow, too slow. Bill raises the thing and points it at Peter.

  Gun, it’s a gun! Edwin’s mind shrieks, but there’s no time to do anything. An explosion rips the room. Peter never makes a sound. He just falls over on the couch.

  Edwin’s jaw drops open to yell, but his throat closes up. The world grinds into a strange, slow gear like it’s tilting the wrong way on its axis. And then that gun starts to move through the air, rotate right toward Edwin. Bill is turning, turning, the barrel aiming at the table lamp, and then the wall, and then the mantel and then Edwin’s chest. I’m dead, Edwin thinks, but then the gun keeps moving. Past him, to the end of the mantel, Bill’s feet pivoting, turning that deadly weapon toward Edwin’s dad.

  “No!” The scream rips Edwin’s throat like a jagged knife. His body shudders into motion, feet running, arms outstretched. He runs a step and the gun turns; runs a step and the gun turns.

  Boom! Edwin’s dad falls. Edwin sees this from the corner of his eye as he is launching toward Bill—

  My office phone rang. I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  Half focusing on the file before me, I hovered in two worlds. My mind rushed with Edwin to tackle Bill Bland while my hand slowly lifted from the desk. I blinked a couple of times, then picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Annie. You sound like you just saw a ghost.”

  It was Jenna. “Oh, hi. Yeah. Maybe I did.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I told her.

  “Oh.” She hesitated. “Is it as bad as you thought?”

  “Worse. And I haven’t even begun to learn about Bill Bland yet.”

  “Think positive thoughts, Annie. Think your name on American Fugitive.”

  “Think my body in the mental ward.”

  Jenna sighed. Which spoke volumes. Although seven years younger than I, my sister possessed two lifetimes’ worth of extra gumption. And she’d used it too—to run my life whenever she considered I wasn’t doing such a hot job of it. Which was often. I’d told Emily Tarell the truth—I did have Jenna to thank for pushing me into forensic art. Although I’d bolstered my dignity by pretending to have made the decision entirely on my own.

  I’d come a long way in the self-confidenc
e department during the last ten months. Even Jenna couldn’t deny that. Still, it would be years before I caught up to her.

  “So, Jenna, what’s up?”

  “First things first. You didn’t know it was me calling, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Uh-huh. Which means you still haven’t gone out and bought new phones so you can hook up to caller ID. And I’ll bet you haven’t taken the time to make your phone number unlisted yet.”

  I winced. Great, here we went again. My know-it-all sister had caught me red-handed.“Um, no, but I really was planning on—”

  “Annie, you’ve been planning on it for months. What are you waiting for?”

  “Well, nothing’s happening now; I haven’t had a reporter bother me in months.” Since last fall, to be exact.

  “Doesn’t matter. In the line of work you’re in, I just don’t think you should be listed. After all—”

  “Okay, okay, I get your point. You’re right, as always. I’ll do it, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Wonderful. I’d now lost all concentration on the Edwin Tarell file. “Did you call just to bug me about this, Jenna?”

  She made a sound in her throat. “No, you ingrate. I just wanted you to know I have a heavy project to finish here so I may not be flying up this weekend.”

  Last summer Jenna had been laid off from her job in the marketing department of a Silicon Valley software company. After a month of floundering, she’d decided to do consulting on her own.

  “You could work from here.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Why? You worried about flight time? In that plane of yours it takes less than an hour to get here.”