by Merit Clark
“You told me to stay away from her. I’m away. Let it go.” Evan’s hand gripped the top of the car door. “I was trying to help her, and she repaid me by stealing your car and taking flight. I’m out a quarter mil, let’s not forget.”
Stu squinted against the bright morning sunshine. “That detective has you in his crosshairs. You need to be careful, Evan.”
“I’m done with this conversation. I’m done with the accusations. Assault? I was visiting my wife in the hospital. Murder? I didn’t even know Brice Shaughnessy. If you don’t want to work for me anymore I’ll get a lawyer who inspires confidence.”
“Evan, you had to know visiting hours were over.”
Evan slipped on sunglasses and tipped his head from side to side. “They always allow immediate family. Even if you’re in intensive care, or what do they call it? Even in recovery. Fariel roughed me up pretty good. Let’s initiate a suit against the department.”
“Evan—”
“You have your marching orders, or are you confused?”
“No, I’m not confused.” Disgust, or resignation, tinged Stu’s voice.
“If you want to see me later, you know where I’ll be.”
Stu stood and watched as Evan conscientiously put on his seat belt and backed out of the parking space. Speeding west toward the mountains, Evan made a quick call. “I need to borrow your truck again.”
The man on the other end of the line didn’t need to ask who it was. “What time?”
“Two hours.” Evan’s radar detector chirped as he turned it on. “Maybe a little less. Don’t keep me waiting.”
Evan circled his shoulders and flinched. His neck really did hurt. Maybe he’d have Vangie give him a massage. She’d like that. Evan wondered if anyone had paid her a visit last night or if everyone had stayed where he left them. Evan knew he couldn’t usually count on people to follow orders.
Other than my wife.
But he’d been foolish to trust Corie. He’d let his guard down. He’d let her new friend stay in their guesthouse and what had they done? His wife and Brice had recreated Evan’s first crime scene.
Not Corie.
Her sapphire eyes were frightened when she propped herself up at the bottom of the stairs. Evan knew that look. He never expected to get it from his wife. Contrast that with the look she gave Detective Fariel at the hospital. That trusting look sat in Evan’s gut like a sour, indigestible meal. Apparently those old feelings from high school weren’t dead and buried, at least not on Corie’s side. The detective was harder to read.
Wincing, testing, Evan worked his jaw back and forth. He still felt Jack’s fist, still tasted blood. He’d outsmarted cops before. But this time Corie was involved. You didn’t kill your wife. Everyone looked at the husband when that happened. He’d succumbed yesterday afternoon on the stairs to a fit of disorganized emotion and he couldn’t let that happen again. You didn’t kill a cop either. Evan’s split lip curled into a snarl imagining Jack’s gray, lifeless body. Who would Corie gaze at fondly then?
Not Corie.
But why not Corie? Maybe he was blinded to who Corie really was due to long association, in the same way that he counted on for himself. Why did she say those things? Why did she leave his bed? Why did she push him on the stairs? If only she hadn’t done that. He’d changed. He’d stopped. He’d fought his demons and won and found himself capable of love. He’d become a fool like everyone else.
Evan laughed bitterly. He finally knew what it was to love a woman, and it was going to destroy him.
Chapter 28
Vi put her hand on Corie’s back and guided her into the BMW like Corie was an invalid.
“How are you feeling? Do you need me to adjust the seat for you?”
Vi’s car had the sickly sweet smell of someone trying to mask a worse one. Probably didn’t want her real estate clients knowing she smoked. Better they should gag on vanilla air freshener, like the jar-shaped piece of cardboard hanging from the rearview mirror.
“It stinks in here.” Corie hadn’t slept in what seemed like days and felt churlish and out of sorts.
Vi sighed. “I know we had words, but I’m glad you called me to take you home. I’m still your mother, Corie.”
And that was the closest she’d get to an apology.
“I can’t believe Evan would do something like this,” Vi said softly after a while.
“Sorry about your perfect son-in-law.” Corie shifted in her seat so she faced the door.
“I’m sure he feels bad. I think when you’re ready, you should give him a chance to explain.” Vi actually sounded sincere.
“What the fuck is there to explain about pushing me down the stairs?”
“It makes me sad to see things turn out this way. Up until now he’s been so good to you.”
“You’re right. On the way home can we stop at a card store? I want to see if they have a special thank you category for situations like this. Homicidal Expressions: When you want to let them know you really don’t care.”
“Ha ha.”
Then Vi took a call from a client and was blessedly, mercifully quiet until she pulled into Corie’s driveway. “I know what happened. You confronted him. About that woman. Even after I told you not to.”
“Yes, of course, this all happened because I didn’t listen to you.” Corie got out of the car and, unfortunately, Vi followed.
“I’m right, aren’t I? Corie, I know you better than anyone.”
Corie wondered if her cringe was visible. “You don’t need to come in with me.”
But she did. Vi looked around the empty house and shook her head slowly. “Such a shame. Everything changed so quickly.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, thanks.” Corie walked into the backyard and let an excited Murphy out of his pen. She talked to the dog for a few minutes and played with him. Murphy cheered her up. She also hoped if she stalled long enough her mother would leave.
No such luck. Vi followed Corie into the kitchen. “Of course I’m worried about you. How could you think otherwise? How exactly did it happen?”
Corie started a pot of coffee and thought about the phrasing of the question. How did it happen? As if it was a spontaneous event that occurred without warning.
“What are you going to do now?” Vi asked.
“I didn’t get much sleep. I might take a nap.” Corie decided not to tell her mother about Evan’s midnight visit.
Vi wasn’t budging. She settled in on a barstool. “I meant, what are you going to do about your marriage?”
“Oh, is that up to me?”
“Corie, you’ve let everything that’s happened go to your head. It’s understandable. Finding a dead body . . . Ugh. But not everyone is trying to kill everyone else.”
Corie turned away and got one mug out of a cabinet.
“Evan made a mistake.” Vi sounded like it pained her to admit fault in her son-in-law.
“You can say that. Several.” Several million.
“Yes. That’s true. But he’s still a human being.”
Corie let that incongruous thought hang in the air between them. She fixed her coffee and didn’t offer Vi anything.
“Well then. I guess your chauffeur service will be leaving.” Although she didn’t move.
Corie sighed and got out a second cup. “Cream? Sugar? Vodka?”
“You have your father’s sense of humor.”
Corie watched Vi take a sip. “I have one simple request. And please, I beg of you, don’t make any smartass comments or I won’t be responsible for my actions. Since it’s one of the last things he worked on, I thought Brice’s family might like to have the model we made together. Can I come by and get it later?”
“For a couple who can’t stand each other, you and Evan certainly think alike.”
Sleepiness fled. A jolt of adrenaline set Corie’s heart pounding. “What?”
Vi beamed as if conveying good news. “Evan came and got it. I believe he’s already se
nt it to them. See? You have more in common than you give him credit for.”
“What? When?” Corie’s voice rose.
“Yesterday morning.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve had a lot going on. What difference does it make?”
“What . . . diff–difference?” Corie was so surprised she stuttered. “Are you insane? Evan doesn’t want the model to do something nice.”
“He’s a good man, Corie, if only you’d give him—”
“Cut the good man bullshit and tell me exactly what happened.”
“Tell? What’s to tell? Are you sure you don’t have a head injury?” Something about the look on Corie’s face made Vi reconsider her cavalier attitude. “Evan asked if I still had the thing in my basement. He came and got it the morning after the murder.”
“Goddamn you.” Corie had stored the model at her mother’s so it would be safe. Tears pricked her eyes and her voice was a low hiss. “Get out of my house. Get out now or, I swear to God, I will drag you out.”
“You and Evan deserve each other. You’re both insane.”
Chapter 29
Len Funderburk showed up for his ten o’clock interview fashionably late at ten fifteen.
Jack examined him more closely. Len was thirty-nine although he looked older. Deep wrinkles were already setting in around the corners of his eyes and he had a receding hairline. He wore his sandy blond hair on the long side but at least it wasn’t in a ponytail. He was dressed in a long-sleeved, denim button-down shirt and jeans. Around his neck was a striking necklace—large, irregularly shaped hunks of turquoise strung on a leather string.
Len took a sip of the water Jack had provided, then folded his hands in his lap and sat back.
“I appreciate you coming in and talking to me,” Jack said. “I’d like to review what you told us about your whereabouts the night before and the morning of Brice Shaughnessy’s murder.”
Like the first time Jack talked to him, Len said he and Jessie watched a movie and then went to bed. They were both sound asleep at six the next morning and didn’t get up until after eight.
Jack thought about Jessie’s dramatic flourishes when she talked. “Mrs. Markham seemed very fond of that movie. What was the name again?”
“Cinema Paradiso—it’s one of her favorites.”
“So you watched the movie, had some wine, and went to bed around . . . what time did you say?”
“I’d say we were asleep by midnight.”
“Great, thanks.” Jack remembered Jessie had said it was earlier. “There’s one more thing I’d like to go over. We’ve been looking into the victim’s background and we found out that Brice’s sister was murdered. It was a long time ago and we don’t think it’s related, but your name came up in that investigation. What can you tell me about that?”
Len didn’t startle but his smile faded. “Monique.” He said her name the way a lover would and then seemed to go into a kind of reverie.
Jack settled back into his chair and let the silence stretch out. He watched Len take another sip of water.
Len broke the silence first. “I’ve cleaned up my life since then.”
“How did you know Monique Lawson?” Jack asked.
“I worked for her grandfather.”
“Pretty girl,” Jack said, still friendly. “Did you date her? I know I would have wanted to.”
“No. She was out of my league.” A hint of a smile touched the crevices at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not sure Monique knew I was alive.”
“Sounds like you had a crush on her.”
“Everyone did, Detective. Monique was wonderful. I think half of the men that worked for her grandfather were in love with her. She was friendly to everyone, not a snob. That was one of the great things about her. Her death messed us all up.”
Len’s face was open and his memories of Monique seemed fond. Jack almost felt bad asking the next question. Almost.
“Maybe you wanted to do something to get her attention?”
“Like what?”
“You tried to see her, you wanted to talk to her, to get her to notice you, and it backfired?”
“Oh, I see where you’re going. Oh no. No, no, no. I could never hurt Monique. I could never hurt anyone. I know that about myself.” Len spoke softly but adamantly. His deep-set blue eyes looked right at Jack, darting neither right nor left.
“You said you’ve cleaned up your act. What did you mean?”
“I used to drink. A lot. I lost my license, I went through jobs. I let people down, most of all myself. I assumed that was why I was here. Because you found out about my record.”
“When we talked to you and Mrs. Markham yesterday you both said you didn’t know Brice.”
For the first time, Len seemed uncertain.
“Len?”
“Jessie doesn’t know.” Len’s voice grew even softer.
“That you know Brice?”
“About my past.”
“Or your connection to Brice.”
“About any of it. And I didn’t know Brice then. He was only a kid when—at the time of the—” Len seemed unable to use the word “murder.”
Jack did. “At the time of his sister’s murder, Brice was only fifteen.”
“Awful.” Len shook his head. “That poor kid. But he never came around to the factory. I had no reason to talk to him. I didn’t even know what he looked like until I saw his pictures in the paper.”
“How did you meet Jessie Markham?” Jack asked.
“At an artist’s colony in North Carolina. She was there taking a workshop. We hit it off.”
“So you still live in North Carolina?”
“I’m what you could call a citizen of the world.”
What a load of crap. “It seems quite a coincidence that you were a person of interest in Monique’s murder, and now you’re right nearby when her brother’s killed.”
“It struck me that way, too. I’ve been wondering what it means,” Len said with no trace of irony.
“You have?” Jack was used to dealing with combative suspects, withholding suspects, or, as in Evan’s case, arrogant suspects. But there was nothing about Len’s demeanor that suggested anything other than a man being forced to relive a painful memory.
“I’ve wondered if it’s some kind of opportunity.”
“How so?”
“I know it sounds hokey, but I wonder if the universe put me in Jessie's life to give me a chance to atone.” As he spoke, Len’s hand went to the necklace he wore. He fingered the rough chunks of turquoise.
Interesting choice of words. Jack nodded at the necklace. “Does that have significance? The turquoise?”
Len smiled.
“Something funny?” Jack asked.
“The Native Americans believed turquoise brought peace to the dead.”
I should buy that in bulk. Jack said, “You haven’t told me what you need to atone for.”
“I wasn’t as helpful to the family as I could have been. At the time. I was too impaired and dysfunctional. I’ve always felt bad about that. So if there’s anything I can do now, perhaps that’s my opportunity.”
“Good to know.” After Len left, Jack picked up his empty cup and put it in an evidence bag, which he personally delivered to Tiffany in the lab.
She huffed out an aggrieved sigh when she saw him. “You gonna have any more extra, special rush DNA samples for me today? Just wonderin’. You’re wearing out all of your favors at once, you know.” Tiffany took the bag containing Len’s cup and regarded Jack with a wry expression. “It is Saturday.”
“Got a hot date?”
“Just ’cause some of you don’t have a social life is no reason to ruin it for the rest of us.”
Jack leaned against a counter. “Who’s the lucky guy? Please tell me it’s not that rookie Rodriguez who’s been sniffing around you lately. I hear he still lives at home.”
“Get out of here and let me do my job. I’ll cal
l you as soon as I’m finished. Which I plan to be by six, just FYI. You look like crap, by the way.”
“You sure know how to brighten a guy’s day.”
Tiffany smiled. “You’re welcome. Seriously. This’ll take a while. Maybe you should go home and take a nap.”
“Can’t. But I appreciate your concern.”
Chapter 30
Jack stopped in the men’s room and splashed cold water on his face. He dried off with a rough, brown paper towel and regarded himself critically in the mirror. A nap sounded like a stellar idea but was unfortunately out of the question. His concession to well-being consisted of a relatively healthy lunch—a Cobb salad from a nearby restaurant—that he didn’t eat in his car.
Serena found him later in his office slumped tiredly in his chair, staring at the whiteboard on his wall. A list of open items extended down the left side written in black marker. Answers, when they had them, were written in blue. Next to “3 unknown prints,” “Vi Bellenger” and “maid” were scrawled. The third had now been identified as belonging to Alex Cantrell. DNA results were also back from the various glasses. Three samples from Brice, Corie, and Evan. The fourth unknown would most likely belong to Alex, and Jack expected they’d also find his DNA on the second condom. Jessie owned the ring. All of the usable shoe impressions were accounted for. No trace of Vangie.
“You were right.” Serena followed his gaze.
“’bout what?”
“The maid was there the day before the murder. I talked to her boss at the cleaning company who was extremely cooperative, to the level of paranoia. Probably afraid we were gonna call INS, lose them some of their Mexican employees.” Serena grinned. “Cleaning lady left shoe impressions in the dirt outside. Apparently the Markham’s cleaners do windows.”
Jack didn’t laugh.
“What’s more interesting is the bank account.” Serena handed him a piece of paper.
Why did he feel reluctant? “You’ve been busy this morning.”
Serena watched him read. “Before you ask, I had them double-check.”
Corie Markham was the beneficiary. Jack’s head snapped up and he stared at his partner.