3 Truths and a Lie: A Detective D. D. Warren Story (Kindle Single)

by Lisa Gardner

  “Shaggy denies everything. Of course he does. With his hands trembling and his eyes darting everywhere, he’s all no, no, no. He did nothing, he knows nothing. Whole thing, very unfortunate, very tragic, but not his fault. Definitely not his fault.”

  D.D. paused, glanced at her audience. “What do you think? We have eight minutes left. Did Shaggy do it?”

  “No,” half the room called out. The other half remained silent, hedging their bets.

  “Why?”

  “The video,” an elderly woman in the back called out. “If he’d entered the motel room as you described, you would’ve seen him on the security tape.”

  “We do have him entering once, then vomiting. Maybe he was very quick to grab the phone, loosen the tourniquet.”

  “Blood evidence,” another person called out. “On his shoes, but also, there’d be a trail from the room to his office.”

  “Good point. If Shaggy had walked all the way to the bathroom, the soles of his shoes would’ve been covered in blood. Sure, he could’ve changed after the fact, but we’d still see bloody footprints leading from the motel room back to his office. Or, maybe realizing that issue, he could’ve removed his shoes altogether, except of course, we’d see that on the video tape—a man walking with shoes in his hands. Basically, it turns out that Shaggy has a pretty decent alibi: the security footage. For that matter, we have a pretty good riddle. Because no matter how many times we watch the video feed, the chain of events remains clear. Only three people enter Wrobleski’s room: Wrobleski; then, over an hour later, the night manager, Shaggy; then, fifteen minutes after him, rookie officer Justin.”

  “What about the rear window?” the elderly woman asked.

  “Very tiny. Might work for the Harmony LaFabs of the world, but definitely not for a grown man such as Shaggy.”

  “So”—D.D. surveyed the room—“who killed Wrobleski? Who finished sawing off his leg, loosened his tourniquet, then grabbed his phone and wallet and fled?”

  “What about the EMTs?” someone called out. “If Wrobleski reached nine-one-one the way the girl said, where’s the ambulance?”

  “The responding officer called off the ambulance,” another writer pointed out.

  D.D. shook her head. “It’s true that Justin called off emergency services upon arriving on the scene—but remember, he wasn’t activated by a dying man’s call to nine-one-one. Justin was dispatched after the call center was contacted by the vomiting night manager, Shaggy. So your question is the right question: What happened to Wrobleski’s call?”

  “You need to listen to the nine-one-one recordings,” several people called out.

  “No. I don’t.” D.D. glanced at the rear clock again. “Five minutes and counting. Come on, people. At least one of you should know who killed Wrobleski by now. I certainly did.”

  • • •

  “Here’s a question for you. Do cops read books?”

  Apparently, it was a trick question, because her audience regarded her blankly.

  D.D. tried again: “Do we read your books?”

  A tentative hand in the back. “I’ve interviewed detectives who are readers, but most of them seem to prefer action and adventure. Or there was this female sergeant who loved romance. But as for thrillers . . . most say they get enough suspense on the job.”

  “Fair enough. I read. Goodnight Moon, mostly. Though lately I’ve been mixing in some Dr. Seuss—I have a toddler. But before my work life became consumed with homicide and my personal life all about my son, I definitely loved reading mysteries. Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler. Pretty much any detective on the job loves a good puzzle. First we grew up reading about them, then we trained for jobs where we got to work them. Which is what we have here, right? The classic dead body in a locked room? According to the security tape, Steven Wrobleski entered that motel room alive. Only two other people walk through the door after him: our night manager, Shaggy, and rookie cop, Justin, neither of whom were in there long enough to hack off limbs or loosen tourniquets.

  “And yet we know someone else had to be present. Someone who finished the amputation Wrobleski started, then pocketed his cell phone and wallet. Assuming we believe Harmony LaFab’s story.”

  “She’s the liar!” Several voices, all at once.

  “She was already in the room!”

  “Maybe there was even more money. She gave you guys the duffel bag with a thousand dollars cash, but Wrobleski entered with ten grand. She kept the rest.”

  “Like that theory,” D.D. assured the speaker, “and in the coming days, we’ll track down the exact amount of Wrobleski’s cash withdrawal, just to be sure.

  “For the record, however, I believe Harmony. In your books, when you write about detectives having hunches, that part is exactly right. I’ve never met an experienced homicide detective who didn’t have some kind of nose for this job. We definitely go by our gut. Then we back up and prove it, because trust me when I say prosecutors aren’t nearly so open-minded about these things. In this case, I believed Harmony’s story. She was just plain too fragile to have been our killer.

  “But here’s the deal, the question we haven’t gotten around to asking yet, and surely the question you should all be considering: Harmony is a prostitute. The motel is a seedy rent-by-the-hour joint in the proverbial bad section of town. Then we got the drug dealer–slash–night manager. Now look at our victim. Steven Wrobleski. Successful business consultant, thousand-dollar suit, gorgeous home out in the burbs.

  “How did that victim make it to this establishment? How did he even hear of such a place?”

  “Internet.” First response. “In those chat rooms discussing where to cut off limbs.”

  “Good guess. But no. Phil read them. Chatter was all about process and, if anything, assumed you were hacking off the offending body part in the comfort of your own house. So why come to a skanky motel? Frankly, it risked infection.”

  “Drugs,” man in front spoke up quietly. “Wrobleski needed narcotics. Can’t buy those at the same place as hacksaws and hammers.”

  D.D. nodded. “Exactly. The final ingredient for this venture was painkillers—and the boards were explicit there was no way the person would be able to withstand the pain of the dry ice without them. So Wrobleski, our successful, high-functioning consultant, needed illegal drugs.”

  She stared at her audience. Stared and stared and stared. One minute to the end of class. Thirty seconds. Fifteen.

  Hand in the back, exactly what she’d been waiting for.

  “The wife,” a young girl called out. “She worked with addicts, right? A counselor? She would know where to get illegal drugs. Wrobleski asked his wife to help with the drugs. She sent him to the motel.”

  “Ding, ding, ding, give the woman a prize. What else?”

  Buzzer sounded. But no one in the room moved.

  “Female operator!” Now they were getting it, the room buzzing with energy. Exactly how D.D. and her squad mates felt with a case that finally came together.

  “Wrobleski hadn’t reached nine-one-one,” someone called out excitedly. “He’d called home!”

  “Which we proved by three o’clock the next day,” D.D. assured them, “by pulling records of all calls, texts, and voice mails from Wrobleski’s cellular provider. We never did find his phone, by the way. But as Wrobleski’s wife learned the hard way, we don’t need the physical unit. Just the call records, available from any cellular provider company.

  “And the final nail in the coffin?” she called out as people gathered up their belongings.

  “Silver glitter,” volunteered the tall man with the mop top.

  “Silver glitter,” D.D. agreed. “Recovered from the silk tie forming the tourniquet, remember? Except Harmony never helped tie off the leg. The transfer of evidence came from the killer—when she was pulli
ng out the pen, loosening up the knot in order to hasten her husband’s demise. We executed a search warrant on Eve Wrobleski’s home and recovered a bloody Canyon Ranch tracksuit from her garbage, complete with glittery trim. After her husband had called her, panic-stricken, she’d told him to wait, she’d come help. Together, they’d get this done. She knew where he was because she’d sent him there. Making it very easy for her to park blocks away, walk down the back alley, and shimmy in the rear window left open by Harmony LaFab. She approached her distressed and doped-up husband, splayed on the edge of the tub. Maybe he thought she’d hold his hand until the ambulance came. Or talk him out of his madness. Instead, she picked up the hacksaw and did it. Sawed through the limb. The damn offending limb that had become the bane of her existence. In her own words, if she had to listen to him talk about his right leg one more time . . .

  “Wrobleski might have lost his courage that night. But his wife hadn’t. Unfortunately for him, she wasn’t just over the leg; She was also over him. Leg off, she loosened the tourniquet around his thigh, picked up his phone, his wallet, and disappeared back through the rear window. Given his long history of actively discussing self-amputation, she figured his death would be ruled accidental. Just another BIID sufferer driven to extremes.

  “Her husband would be dead, his leg buried with him, and she could finally get on with her life aided by a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy. Frankly, it wasn’t a bad plan. If only she hadn’t been so partial to expensive tracksuits with shimmery trim.”

  D.D. picked up her bag. Time was up, her audience moving toward the door.

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Several of the writers halted. “What’s the lie? You said three truths and a lie. So what part of the story is a lie?”

  “You tell me. That’s the deal.”

  “The wanting to cut off his own leg. That was real.”

  “BIID is very real,” she assured them.

  “Seedy motel is probably real.”

  “Have a couple of those in Boston, definitely.”

  “Shaggy the drug dealer?”

  “Nah, he’s both real and still out there. Can’t solve all the problems in the world.”

  “Harmony LaFab?”

  “Name is an alias. You’re writers—does that count as a lie, or more like an occupational requirement? Last I heard, Harmony was enrolled in beauty school. Nothing like watching a guy take a knife to his own limb to make someone reconsider her line of work.”

  “Is it the glitter?” someone else spoke up. “I mean, can you really trace glitter?”

  “Want to have some fun? Attend my husband Alex’s lecture on blood spatter. Ask him about glitter as trace evidence. I’m telling you now, the man will practically levitate with excitement..”

  “So what’s the lie?”

  Time to go now, the doorway and hall stacking up with the next class waiting to enter.

  D.D. smiled. Followed her own students to the door.

  “The lie was implicit in the story. Why did the wife do what she did? Because she honestly believed she could get away with murder.

  “That’s the lie. For your savvy detectives in your thrillers, and for me and my squad dedicated to the job. Killers can be as creative and clever as they want. We’re always gonna get ’em in the end.”

  Chapter 1

  These are the things I didn’t know:

  When you first wake up in a dark wooden box, you’ll tell yourself this isn’t happening. You’ll push against the lid, of course. No surprise there. You’ll beat at the sides with your fists, pummel your heels against the bottom. You’ll bang your head, again and again, even though it hurts. And you’ll scream. You’ll scream and scream and scream. Snot will run from your nose. Tears will stream from your eyes. Until your screams grow rough, hiccuppy. Then, you’ll hear sounds that are strange and sad and pathetic, and you’ll understand the box, truly get, hey, I’m trapped in a dark wooden box, when you realize those sounds come from you.

  Pine boxes aren’t composed entirely of smooth surfaces. Air holes, for example, can be crudely drilled. When you run your finger around them, when you poke your fingertip into them, desperately seeking . . . something . . . you’ll get splinters. You’ll chew out the wooden shards best you can. Then you’ll suck on your injured digit, lick the blood beading the tip, and make more hurt puppy dog sounds.

  You’re alone in the box. It’s frightening. Overwhelming. Awful. Mostly because you don’t yet understand how much you have to fear.

  You’ll get to know the box well, this home away from home. You’ll wiggle against it with your shoulders to determine the width. You’ll trace the length with your hands, attempt to bring up your feet. Not enough room to bend your knees. Not enough room to roll over. It’s exactly your size. As if it’s been made just for you. Your very own pine coffin, straining your lower back, bruising your shoulder blades, paining the back of your head.

  One convenience: newspapers lining the bottom. You don’t notice this detail in the beginning. Don’t understand it once you do. Until the first time you wet yourself. Then spend days lying in your own filth. Like an animal, you’ll think. Except most animals are treated better than this.

  Your mouth will grow parched, your lips chapped. You’ll start jamming your fingers into those air holes, ripping apart your own skin, just so you have something to taste, swallow, suck. You’ll know yourself in a way you’ve never known yourself before. Broken down. Elemental. The stink of your own urine. The salt of your own blood.

  But you still don’t know anything yet.

  When you finally hear footsteps, you won’t believe it. You’re delirious, you’ll tell yourself. You’re dreaming. You’re a lost, pathetic waste of human skin. A stupid, stupid girl who should’ve known better and now just look at you. And yet, the sound of a metal lock jangling on the other side of the box wall, inches from your ear . . .

  Maybe you cry again. Or would if you had any moisture left.

  When you first see his face, the man who has done this to you, you’re relieved. Happy even. You gaze upon his puffy cheeks, his beady eyes, his gaping mouth, yellow-stained teeth, and you think, thank God. Thank God, thank God, thank God.

  He lets you out of the box. Lifts you up, actually, because your legs don’t work, and your muscles lack all strength, and your head lolls. Which makes you giggle. Head lolling. One of those words from English class that never made any sense. But there you have it. Heads loll. Your head lolls.

  God, the smell. Garlic and BO and unwashed clothes and skanky hair. Is it you? Is it him? You gag, helplessly. And that makes him laugh. As he holds up the bottle of water. As he spells out exactly what you’ll have to do in order to earn it. He’s fat. Old. Disgusting. Repulsive. The unkempt beard, the greasy hair, the ketchup stains splotching the front of his cheap checkered shirt.

  You’re supposed to be too good for him. Young, fresh, beautiful. The kind of girl who could have her pick of the litter at a frat party. You have moves. Had moves?

  You cry for your mother. You beg him to let you go as you lie in a crumpled heap at his feet. Then, finally, ultimately, with the last of your strength, you remove your clothes. You let him do what he’s going to do. You scream, but your throat is too dry to make a sound. You vomit, but your stomach is too empty to yield any contents.

  You survive.

  And later, when he finally offers up that bottle of water, only to dump it over your head, you lift your hands shamelessly to capture as much of the moisture as you can. You lick it from your palms. Chew it from your oily, filthy hair. You wait till he’s distracted, then suck that spot of ketchup from his now discarded shirt.

  Back to the box. The box. The Box.

  The lid hammers now. The lock snaps shut. The repulsive man walks away. Leaves you once again all alone. Naked. Bruised. Bloody. Knowing things you never wanted to know.

  “Mo
mmy,” you whisper.

  But this monster’s real. And there’s nothing anyone can do to save you anymore.

  • • •

  This is what I do know:

  There’s not much to do day after day trapped in a coffin-size box. In fact, there’s really only one thing worth imagining, obsessing, contemplating minute by minute, hour after terrible hour. One thought that keeps you going. One focus that gives you strength. You’ll find it. You’ll hone it. Then, if you’re anything like me, you’ll never let it go.

  Revenge.

  But be careful what you wish for, especially if you’re just a stupid girl trapped in a coffin-size box.

  Chapter 2

  She started with a pomegranate martini. Paid too much, of course. Boston bars being very expensive. Pomegranate juice being very trendy. But it was Friday night. Another week survived, and by God she deserved at least an overpriced fruity cocktail.

  Besides, she had some faith in herself. Loosen another button of her white fitted shirt, pull a few clips from her shoulder-length blond hair. She was twenty-seven, fit, and with the kind of ass that brought notice. She might buy her first drink. But odds were, she wouldn’t be buying the second.

  She took a sip. Cool. Sweet. Biting. She warmed it on her tongue, then let the vodka slide down her throat. Worth every penny of the fourteen bucks.

  For a moment she closed her eyes. The bar disappeared. The sticky floor, the strobing lights, the high-pitched squeal of the opening band, still warming up.

  She stood in a void of silence. In a place that was solely hers.

  When she opened her eyes again, he was standing there.

  • • •

  He bought her a second drink. Then a third, even offered a fourth. But by then the vodka and the dance floor lights were starting to mix in a way that didn’t make for a great morning after. Besides, she wasn’t an idiot. Whole time Mr. Haven’t I Seen You Around Here Before was plying her with martinis, he stuck to beer.