Someone had accessed her old cases somehow. Had whoever it was been in her office? Gotten into her car and taken her flashlight? She cupped her hands, feeling the urge for a drink, almost tasting the liquor burning her throat.
She heard another knock.
“Sam. Open up,” Rob called.
“I’m not taking any phone calls. Just let the machine pick up.” She’d been listening to the messages as they came in. Aaron saying he was worried and asking what he could do. Nick speaking in a somber tone about the different size of the twigs on the latest victim. He didn’t need to tell her what that meant—she knew. The one murder she’d had an airtight alibi for hadn’t been committed by the same killer.
Or if it was the same killer, it was meant to look different. Did the killer know she’d been with Nick last night? Was that why the eucalyptus was different? Was he following her, watching her all the time? She picked up her pen and jotted down “first officers at new scene.” Was it possible that the killer could have found out about her alibi and changed the twigs?
“This isn’t a phone call, Aunt Sam,” Rob said through the heavy wood. “It’s me. Can you unlock the door?”
Sam exhaled, wishing everyone would just leave her alone. She’d drawn the shades, but she could still hear the banter of the press outside her windows. Dragging herself out of her chair, she went to the door and pulled it open. “I’m not much company right now.”
Rob brought in a sandwich and a glass of juice and set them on her desk. Then, scrunching up his nose, he flipped on the lights. “It’s like a dungeon in here.”
“I like the dark.”
“Aaron’s called a bunch of times, and Nick too. Don’t you want to talk to them? They’re worried about you.”
She shook her head. She’d already left Nick a message telling him she wanted to know who had been confirming the information about her old cases to the media. Cops and agents lost their jobs for leaking the kind of information she’d read about herself, but that didn’t stop them from doing it. And whoever had been talking had intimate knowledge of the case. As far as Sam was concerned, that person was the prime suspect.
“You can’t stay in here forever,” Rob said.
“I might just try.”
Rob plunked onto the loveseat and crossed his arms. “It’s just a stupid article.”
“It’s a stupid article that says I killed two people—maybe more. Plus, they ransacked my house—” She waved her arms around.
“So what? What did they take? Some gum.”
Sam dropped her head into her hands, remembering the gum wrapper she’d found on Sandi Walters’ foot. Extra brand, her favorite kind. The kind she bought at Costco in twelve-pack boxes. And now the police had taken her gum to see if they could trace the wrapper from Walters’ foot to a pack she had in the house. It was a method that the evidence labs used on duct tape, too. They would check the evidence against another piece of tape from the suspected roll. They could determine how close together the two pieces were manufactured, and, therefore, what the probability was that they came from the same roll, or in her case, pack. She’d always thought it was cool until now.
“And you’re just going to let them say that you’re guilty?”
Rob’s blue eyes were wide. She saw Polly in those eyes and looked away. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Rob.”
“Don’t they have any idea who the real killer is?”
She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. “No idea. We don’t have a damn clue.”
“Then you should find him.”
“Or her.”
Rob shrugged his shoulders. “You should find him or her. Then they won’t blame you.”
Sam stared at the expression on his face. He believed it was that easy. Just go look and she could find the real killer and she’d be free. The article, the murders, all of it would be gone. She nodded. “Okay.”
Rob sat up. “You’re going to do it? You’re going to find him?”
She smiled. “Sure. I’ll find him. And then I’ll be free. Now, I need to do some thinking. Are you okay?”
He nodded.
“Where’s your brother?”
“He went out.”
She didn’t say anything to that. If she weren’t being accused of murder in the press, she’d want to get out too. As innocent and simplistic as Rob’s advice was, it was true. She knew she wasn’t guilty, which meant someone else was. She took a sip of the juice and wished it was something stronger. But alcohol wasn’t going to help her right now.
Rob was right. The best way out of the noose she was in was to find the right neck to put it around.
Chapter Thirty-two
Nick sat down in the interrogation room across from Betty Herman. The woman’s small brown eyes watched his every move, and Nick did his best to be nonchalant. He’d been sent in to talk to Betty—heart to heart. But Betty didn’t act like she wanted to talk.
Her official statement had already been taken. So far, none of the neighbors could even say that they’d heard gunshots. The weapon was yet to be found. Martin Herman had a twenty-two-gauge shotgun, but the bullet that killed him had come from a .44 Magnum. The police were still checking to see if either Betty or her sister, Dolores, had a registered weapon.
“Coffee?”
Betty nodded.
“Black, right?”
Her gaze narrowed.
“I remembered from your house,” Nick explained.
Betty crossed her arms and waited.
Nick stood up and left the room, purposely leaving the door wide open. It was a psychological thing. It meant that Betty was free to go. She wasn’t being held. The police were just asking for her cooperation on some questions. They had also called in Dolores, who was being interviewed by another detective.
Nick fetched two cups of black coffee and brought them back, placing one in front of Betty. He wanted to be done with this—he needed to be working on the other case, finding whoever was trying to frame Sam. Instead, he sipped his coffee with the casual air of someone who had all the time in the world.
When Betty had taken her first sip, Nick spoke. “I need to ask you some questions about Martin.”
Betty didn’t look up but shrugged to acknowledge the question.
“When was the last time he hit you?”
Betty tucked her head down against her turtleneck.
“I can see the bruise on your neck.” It looked fresh.
Betty’s head snapped up. “He did that three days ago, ’fore he left for the trip.”
Nick held on to his cup and kept talking. “I know this is hard for you.” He didn’t know shit. “Did he hit the kids too?”
“Not this time.”
“But?” he prodded.
She stared at the table and then nodded. “But yeah, he hit ’em. He hit us all. Little Jamie’s had two broken arms, an’ she’s only four.”
Nick nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“People always said, ‘Why don’t you leave him?’ It ain’t that easy.”
Nick felt the slight change in the mood. He was getting somewhere. “Was your sister helping you leave him?”
“She wanted me to. She offered to help. I was figuring to leave next time he was out of town. But he’d know where to find me. He always said he’d come find me and he’d kill me if I left.”
“He’s not going to kill you now.”
Betty lifted her chin and set her mouth in a thin line. “No. No, he ain’t. And I can’t say I ain’t glad. I am. I’m glad someone shot him. But it weren’t me.”
Nick finished his coffee and tossed the cup in the trash. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
Betty didn’t hesitate. She shook her head. “I want to see my kids.”
“Of course.” Nick thought she seemed a lot stronger than other abuse victims he’d seen. From what he’d heard Martin used to do to his wife and kids, Nick wasn’t sorry Martin Herman was dead. Unfortunately, he still had to lock up
his killer. And he hoped it wasn’t Betty, but his gut was telling him otherwise.
Nick left Betty and wandered back to the conference room that had been turned into the headquarters for their case. He stared at the victims’ pictures, waiting for something to hit him, anything. Nothing did.
Some time later, the door opened and a red-haired police officer stepped in. Nick didn’t even know what Curly Matthews’ real name was. He’d been Curly ever since he’d come in from the academy. It was a soft name for the man, who was easily six-five, with broad shoulders, a thick neck, and a barrel chest. “They found it, Detective. A forty-four Mag registered to William Holmes.”
“Dolores Holmes’ deceased husband.”
“Yes, sir.”
Betty Herman’s sister had a .44 Magnum.
“They’re speaking to her in the interrogation room at the end of the hall.”
Nick followed the officer out the door. It didn’t look good for Betty now, and that meant it wasn’t good for Sam either, because last night’s alibi was no longer going to help her.
Out the corner of his eye, Nick watched the D.A.’s expression as they listened to Betty Herman tell the story of killing her husband. Alice Carlson was doing an imperfect job of masking her disgust for Martin Herman’s abuse.
Nick couldn’t help but think of how Betty’s children would grow up without a father and with their mother in prison. Betty had waived the right to have an attorney present, but he wished at least Sam had been there. She probably wouldn’t regret what Betty had done. He knew that in Sam’s mind anything was better than growing up with an abusive father.
His own anger stirred in reaction to Sam’s abuse, and he realized his mother was right: he’d fallen hard for Sam Chase. And now she wasn’t speaking to him.
Betty Herman pulled down the collar on her turtleneck and raised her face, showing the blackish blue and purple bruising on her neck. “He did this to me tonight. I hadn’t even unloaded the kids from the car and he grabbed me by the neck. Why wasn’t I home earlier? he asked me.” The word “asked” sounded like “axed.”
Nick nodded at Betty, trying to encourage her to get the story out. He watched the tape recorder spin and waited for her to continue. He wanted to go home.
“He grabbed me by the neck and started shaking.”
Alice leaned forward and put her hand on the table, careful not to touch Betty. “What happened then, Betty?”
“He finally let me go. I fell to the ground. I swear, I couldn’t feel my legs or nothing.” She made a fist. “He pulled me up and threw me toward the bathroom. I hit my head too. He told me to run a bath. So I went and got the gun,” Betty said, her voice almost a whisper.
“Please speak up,” Nick said.
Both women frowned at him.
“Tell us exactly what you did, Betty,” Alice said.
“I got up from the floor and went into the bathroom. I started the water and then went into the bedroom. Dolores gave me the gun a few months ago, right before Willy died. She was worried Martin would kill me. I had it hidden in a shoebox, so I ran and got it out. My hands were shaking so bad. I didn’t even check to see if it was loaded. I just went back into the living room.” She was holding up an imaginary gun as she spoke. “He didn’t even look at me. ‘Get me a beer and something to eat,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry.” ’
She shook her head. “I said, ‘No.’ He jumped out of his chair before he saw I had the gun. I just started pulling the trigger. I had my eyes closed. I just pulled and pulled and pulled. I don’t know how many times. He wasn’t but ten feet away, but I didn’t even think I’d hit him. Finally, the gun just stopped firing. I opened my eyes and there he was, laying there.” She lifted a shaky hand to her face. “His face was all—” She stopped.
Nick nodded. He could picture the face.
Betty’s eyes widened. “It was gone. His face was gone.”
“What did you do then?” Nick asked.
Betty looked at Alice, who nodded. “I put the gun back and called you.”
“Did you wipe the gun off? Try to erase your fingerprints?” he asked.
Betty shook her head adamantly. “No. I just put it away. I didn’t want the kids to see it.”
Nick wondered if it had occurred to her to prevent her kids from seeing their father missing his face.
Betty grabbed Alice’s hand. Alice started, but didn’t pull away. “He was going to kill me. Maybe not tonight, but one day. He was going to kill me. Right?”
“It’s going to be all right,” Alice said.
“So I was right to shoot him? Don’t you think so? He would’ve killed me. I had to kill him first. I put those twigs on him. I was hoping it might look like one of those other killings I heard about. But mainly I just had to do it before he killed me.”
Alice nodded and so did Nick. Unless the battered-woman defense came through for her, Betty Herman would be put away for a long time. She might not see justice, but maybe Martin Herman finally had.
Chapter Thirty-three
Dumb Randy was back and Whitney had been trying to get a chance to ask him if he’d seen anybody strange talking to Molly’s mom. Randy was out on the street all the time. Her mom didn’t say so, but Whitney was pretty sure it was because he was so loud. He loved anything with a motor and he made really loud engine sounds and inside you could hear him everywhere. He was in a special school that only met part of the day, and the rest of the time he was outside.
Especially when her mom’s soap pop was on. That’s what her mother called it. Her soap. That wasn’t the name of it, and Whitney didn’t understand why it was called soap because she’d never seen anyone with any soap on it, but her mom told her to never mind.
The soap had a long twisty, turny name that Whitney could never remember. She’d watched parts of it sometimes when her mother wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see her. But mostly she wasn’t allowed. It must have been sad, though, because even in the parts where people were laughing and kissing, her mom still cried. And they kissed a lot. That’s mostly why Whitney liked to watch it—for the kissing.
The soap was very important, her mother said. She even talked about it with her friends on the phone while she made dinner. Whitney always heard her talk about tons of people she’d never met, like they were her mom’s friends and stuff.
Whitney hoped maybe the people on TV were her long-lost cousins. She hoped so, because they were all so pretty, and right now all she had was dumb Randy. The ladies on the TV were blond and tall and had really pretty clothes.
Once, Whitney had hidden under the coffee table and watched, and she’d seen them all go to a fancy party. They were in the most beautiful dresses. Whitney almost said something to her mom, but her mom was crying again because some man was saying something about finding a little boy.
The woman on the soap had this blue dress with a million tiny beads, and Whitney decided that was the one she wanted. Maybe she’d get married in it. Her mom said people got married in white the first time, but after that they could wear whatever they wanted, so Whitney would wear that.
Whitney walked down the outside steps, and around the corner, looking for Randy. Usually, she could find him a hundred miles away. But he was awfully quiet now. She saw him sitting on a tire down by Justin Rapozo’s house. Whitney thought Justin was cute. He always flirted with her and made her blush. He said she was cute when she blushed. Justin was a mechanical genius. At least, that’s what he said he was.
Whitney wasn’t sure what that was, but he spent a lot of time working on cars and bikes. Right now, he was under the hood of the old blue car. He had three old cars in his driveway—a blue one, a silver one, and a red one. They were always there and he was always working on them. Maybe the genius part meant that he could work on them for a really really long time.
He and his brother lived in the house with their dad. Justin was really friendly, but his brother, Drew, was kind of mean. They both rode motorcycles, and Justin had promised t
o let her ride with him when she was older. But if Whitney was standing too close to the edge of the street, Drew would zoom by her and make the engine real loud right beside her, so she jumped. He laughed when she jumped.
Her mom said boys did lots of stuff just to be jerks, and she said Whitney would just have to get used to it. She said there was no good way to tell the jerks from the other guys, but Whitney didn’t think that was true. She knew who the jerks were at school. There were a lot of jerky boys at school.
That mean Tommy Reicher stabbed her in the arm with his pencil. That really hurt. She had tried not to cry, but it hurt too much, and then they laughed at her.
She sat down next to Randy and tried to think of something clever to say to Justin. Nothing came out.
Randy started making shrieking noises, and Justin signed him to be quiet. Justin had learned some sign in order to talk to Randy. One of the first things you had to learn with Randy was how to say be quiet or you’re too loud. She’d learned shut up, too, but her mom got real mad when she used that one. And Randy always told. Sometimes he told even when she didn’t say it.
Whitney watched Justin work, but he barely did anything. Once, he lifted his head and slammed it against the hood, and that made her giggle. He gave her a dirty look and said, “Thanks.”
But then he went back to working again.
And Randy was busy using a rusty metal box like a car and driving it along the edge of where Justin was working.
Whitney needed someone new to play with. She wished Mr. Gerry would come back again. He’d brought her more candy since the first time, but he hadn’t been back in a few days. He said he was going to teach her some fun games when he had time, but he was always in a hurry when he came.
She thought he must have a very important job that kept him running around. But he called her his Cherry Princess. He said he had a daughter a lot like her, but she lived far away now. Whitney wondered if his daughter knew how much he missed her. Maybe her dad missed her that much, too. Maybe she didn’t need a husband. Maybe her dad would come and fly her away like Peter Pan. Or maybe Mr. Gerry would take her home and she could be his daughter.
(2002) Chasing Darkness Page 24