“Now you’re going back on your word. How can you do that?”
“I wasn’t—”
Mom jerked her back straight and raised her chin. “I’m not going.” She turned on her heel and headed toward her room.
Please, God, not now.
I followed after her. Touched her again—a mere gentle finger on her wrist. “Mom—”
“No!” She whirled on me, face reddening. “I don’t want to go. I. Won’t. Go!”
“I’m sorry. We have to.” Even as I said the words, I knew.
My mother locked her mouth tight, hard breaths whooshing from her nose. Both arms stiffened, and her fingers splayed. Her eyes squeezed shut, then popped open. She glared at me. When her jaw unhinged and her lips pulled back, I braced myself.
Mom shrieked. That high, piercing, primal sound that weakened my knees and curled my shoulders inward. The first time it had happened after she moved in, my neighbors called the police, convinced someone was being tortured.
My mother screamed again, and I could swear the walls rattled.
“I’m not goiiiiingg!” The last word ended in a third screech. Then another. And another. I stood there, helpless, hopeless, swallowing hard. Nothing I did would stop this now.
Mom kept at it. And at it. Until her voice hoarsened, and she wound down.
The yells stopped. The final one hung plangent in the air, roughening my ears.
Mom swiveled toward her bedroom and stalked away. The slammed door pummeled the air from my lungs.
For a moment I swayed there, an abandoned puppet. Then I leaned against the wall and cried.
Lady Gaga kicked on.
Why had my life come to this? I didn’t want to take care of my mother, a two-year-old in an old woman’s body. I didn’t want to be a widow, without my Jeff. I wanted him here beside me, our old life back. I wanted to feel his arms around me, see his smile, smell him, touch him. He died far too young. What was I doing a widow at fifty-five?
And now this new mess. I didn’t want to deal with the police. And a murder. And fake FBI agents who threatened me.
The tears came hot and welcome. Needed. But the crying didn’t last long. Never did, since Mom had moved in. There was always too much to take care of. I lifted my head and dragged in a shaky breath. Dried my tears. A few more came, and I wiped them away, straightened my back.
Like a worn soldier, I headed into the kitchen.
For Mom’s dinner, a ham sandwich would have to suffice.
By rote I made the sandwich, my sodden thoughts turning to my next challenges. First, I still had to convince Mom to leave the house with me. When we reached the station I would have to tell Deputy Harcroft everything. Including how I’d lied to him the first time around. That wouldn’t be fun.
I wrapped the sandwich and put the ingredients back into the refrigerator. Went into my bedroom to pull the flash drive out of my computer. My hand stopped just as I touched it. I stared at the rolling pictures of my screen saver, biting my lip.
Did I really want to give away my one copy of the video? Why I would ever need to see the thing again, I didn’t know. But too many strange things had happened already . . .
With a sigh at my own doggedness, I copied the video onto my computer’s hard drive.
Mom’s bedroom door opened, her music still on. She walked into my room, purple hat on her head. Her face looked worn, as it always did after one of her episodes. Did she even remember it had happened?
She might be placid now, though more from exhaustion than anything.
She spread her hands. “I’m hungry.”
My head nodded. “I made you a sandwich. We need to take it with us to see the deputy, remember?”
“What for?”
“We have to talk to them about Morton.”
Mom’s expression softened. “He died.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“What do they want?”
“They want to hear from you what a good friend Morton was.”
“Oh.” Her gazed wandered across the room. “Okay.”
I gave her a weary smile.
“When do we go?”
“Soon as a deputy gets here to drive us.”
“I’m ready now. Well, maybe I should comb my hair.”
“Okay. Then you can sit in your chair and wait.”
Mom fussed with her hair, then settled into her rocking chair.
A short time later the doorbell rang. “He’s here!” She headed for the door. In the kitchen I snatched up her sandwich, some napkins, a bottle of water, and my purse.
“How nice to meet you,” I heard Mom say. So polite. So in control. “I’m Carol Ballard. My daughter’s almost ready. She always has so many things to do.”
Deputy Gonzalez stood in the doorway, a short man with thick, dark hair. “Mrs. Shire?”
I gave him the once-over. Beyond him at the curb sat a white car marked “San Mateo Sheriff’s Department.”
“Hannah, say hello.” Mom frowned at me.
The deputy tipped his head to me. “You ready to go?”
His question reverberated. Not an hour ago I’d faced two other official-looking men, believing everything they said. Now I was putting myself and my mother in the car with this man. I should have said no to Harcroft. Told him I’d drive myself.
“Hannah.” Mom’s tone reprimanded.
Again I stared at the car—and my worries about Gonzalez spritzed away. This was real law enforcement, for heaven’s sake. I should be glad he was here—and that my mother was willing to get into his car. I’d tell Harcroft what he needed and be done with this. As for those fake FBI agents—if they hadn’t been satisfied with my answers, they wouldn’t have left. They knew I was just some woman who stopped at a car accident. I’d given them what they wanted. They were done with me.
Tomorrow, all of this would be behind us.
“Sorry.” I managed a weak smile. “It’s been . . . a lot has happened today.”
“I understand.” Deputy Gonzalez stepped out onto the porch, holding the door for Mom.
In the back seat of the deputy’s car I offered Mom her sandwich. She waved it away. “Two other men visited us just a while ago, did you know that?” She leaned forward, aiming her words at Gonzalez. “They were very nice. But they told us Morton had died.”
“Yes, I know.” Gonzalez nodded.
“It made me very sad. He was my friend.”
I remained silent, watching houses go by. Soon we turned onto Edgewood Road, headed toward Freeway 280. A sudden wave of grief for Jeff rolled over me. If he were alive, he’d know how to handle this. Two years after his death, the world could still threaten to overwhelm me. For thirty years I’d faced life’s challenges with him by my side.
We wound our way past the eucalyptus trees on Highway 92, Mom again breathing in deep and saying, “Vicks VapoRub.” In Half Moon Bay, we turned onto Kelly Street and parked at the substation. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Inside the building, Gonzalez ushered us to a small windowless room with a table and three chairs. Looked like a place where they’d interrogate suspects. My skin prickled.
“Hello, Mrs. Shire.” Deputy Harcroft approached, another man by his side, this one tall with gray hair and steel-blue eyes. A no-nonsense air hung about him, an air that exuded the power and confidence of law enforcement. “Thank you for coming,” Harcroft said. “This is Sergeant Charles Wade.”
Wade held out his hand, and I shook it. This was the man I’d have to tell that I’d lied to Harcroft?
A far worse thought nipped at me. What if I hadn’t lied? Could the doctors have saved Morton? If they’d known that something beyond the car accident was wrong . . . If they’d thought to look for a wound . . .
But nothing Morton said made me think he’d been attacked.
Wade lo
oked me straight in the eye, as if he could see the thoughts swirling in my head.
I managed a little smile. “This is my mother, Carol. She has a sandwich to eat. Maybe she could—”
“Oh, I’m not going to eat now.” Mom’s voice carried her what-are-you-thinking tone. “I need to find out about Morton.”
A female deputy rounded the corner, a cute young woman with sandy-blonde hair. Smiling, she introduced herself to Mom as Nance Bolliver. “Way cool hat.”
My mother tilted her head. “Thank you. I want to know about Morton.”
Nance nodded. “That’s what I’m here for. Let’s go somewhere so we can talk, okay? It’s too crowded in this bare little room. I understand you brought a sandwich? Time for me to eat too.”
Almost before I knew it, Nance was whisking my mother away, sandwich and water bottle in hand. I watched Mom go, anxiety pinging in my chest. We’d just gotten here, and already every move seemed orchestrated.
Why had I taken Tunitas Creek Road? Why hadn’t I just driven straight home?
“Please. Have a seat.” Harcroft indicated one of the straight-backed wooden chairs. I chose a seat at one end of the rectangular table and set my purse on the floor. Harcroft sat on my right, Wade straight across from me at the other end. In the top corner of the room hung a camera. Was it recording? Isn’t that what they used for suspects? My frightened eyes flicked from it to Harcroft.
“Don’t worry about the camera, just standard procedure.”
“For what?”
“For interviews. We don’t want to forget anything you tell us.”
Understanding hit. That nice young female deputy wasn’t just sharing a sandwich with my mother. She was questioning her—alone. With her own camera running.
“I want my mother back in here right now.”
“She’s fine, she’s fine.” Wade held up a hand. “Nance’ll take good care of her. She’s very good with the elderly. When she heard you and your mother were coming in, she asked to help.”
“Help, using one of those?” I pointed to the camera.
“Really, your mother will be okay.”
“I don’t want you interrogating her. She’s easily upset. She’s already upset about Morton dying. You don’t know how to handle her like I do.”
“Mrs. Shire, we understand.” Harcroft sat forward, forearms on the table. “We’ll take good care of her. Trust me in that.”
I pressed back in my chair. Managed a reluctant nod.
“Okay,” Harcroft said. “We didn’t have long to talk at the scene of the accident. The reporter was there, and you needed to get your mother home. We wanted to go over everything again with you in light of what we now know.”
“Am I a suspect?”
Harcroft spread his hands. “We just need information from you, including that flash drive you told us about. And we need to hear about the two men who came to your home.”
He hadn’t answered my question.
“It’s vitally important that we find those men.”
Yes, it was. Something inside me relaxed. A little.
Sergeant Wade ran a finger along his jawline. “Let me ask you this first—why were you on Tunitas Creek Road?”
Hadn’t Deputy Harcroft asked me this already? I shrugged. “I don’t know. It was just a different way to go home. A scenic route. My mother loves pretty scenery. And we weren’t in any hurry.”
“Have you ever been on that road before?”
“I guess. I can’t remember when. But I somehow knew it intersected with Skyline, which would take us over to Highway 92.”
The two men seemed to digest that.
I bent over and rustled through my purse, my fingers closing on hard plastic. “Here’s the flash drive you want.” I set it on the table.
Wade pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to pick up the drive. Too late I realized it had my fingerprints all over it. “What’s on the video?” Wade asked.
“I don’t know. Some big machine.”
“Machine? What’s it doing?”
I shrugged. “Falling apart, maybe?”
Wade stood. “I’ll go get a laptop.”
Harcroft waited until Wade had closed the door behind him. “So this is the original. You gave a copy to those supposed FBI agents. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Did you keep a copy for yourself?”
I froze. Why had he thought to ask that? I locked eyes with the deputy, not wanting to admit the truth. Knowing I couldn’t lie again.
“Yes. On my laptop.”
“Why?”
I focused on the table. “I don’t know. Curiosity, I guess. And because I knew it was important. Morton must have struggled to get it into my pocket. So I figured I’d better back up the file. I knew I’d be giving the original to you.”
Deputy Harcroft gave me a long look. “When you get home, erase it. Now that you’ve put the original in our hands, we’ll worry about backing it up.”
“Okay.”
The man’s eyes lingered on my face, as if he wasn’t sure he believed I’d follow his orders.
“Did Morton Leringer say anything to you about the video, Mrs. Shire?”
Here it came. “No. But he did say some things. Nothing that made much sense.”
“Things you didn’t tell me about?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . my mother was upset. And I thought what he’d said was personal, perhaps something I could talk to him about later when we visited in the hospital. But then I found the flash drive. And two men showed up at my house. Now I think it all must be connected.”
The door opened. Wade strode in, carrying a small computer, already running. He set it on the table and stood beside Harcroft. “Let’s see what this is.” He pulled on a latex glove and plugged in the drive. Started the video.
I leaned over to see the monitor. We watched in silence. When it was done, Wade played it a second time, then hit pause as the video ended, keeping the picture of the machine on the screen.
The two men looked at each other.
I studied their faces. “What is that machine?”
Wade frowned at the frozen picture on the monitor. “A generator of some kind.”
“The last scene looked like a power plant.” Harcroft narrowed his eyes at the video.
Of course. The steel structures that seemed so familiar. The kind I’d seen from certain freeways in the Bay Area.
In the same second a realization rippled the expressions of both men. The air stilled. I watched them exchange silent, grim messages. Fear—of what?—rooted me to my chair. The moment stretched out, a taut rubber band.
The band snapped. A mask slid over their faces.
Harcroft turned to me. My throat felt tight, pressed in by the atmosphere of the room.
Wade pushed the computer to the side and sat down. Took off his glove. “The two men at your house. Did they seem to know about this video before you mentioned it?”
I blinked, trying to rip my mind from its questions of what had just occurred. Hugging my arms to my chest, I tried to think back. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I’ll tell you one thing—they knew what was said at the ambulance, just before Morton was put inside. They must have gotten that out of the paramedics.” I related how the men had repeated my mother’s words to Morton: “We won’t forget.”
“When the men asked me about it, I told them it was just Mom’s way of saying we’d remember Morton.”
“But it was something else?” Harcroft raised his eyebrows. “You said Leringer talked to you.”
“Yes.” I told them every word I could remember, focusing on Harcroft. Wade listened, silent, his expression unchanging. When I was done no one spoke for a moment. “Again, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Harcroft nodded.
He sat back in his chair, narrowing his eyes at the wall. “Raleigh.” He looked to Wade. “North Carolina?”
“Maybe.”
“Was Morton from there?” I asked.
A beat passed, as if the men hadn’t heard me. Harcroft shrugged. “We’re still learning about him.”
Wade asked me about the scene of the accident. Had I seen anyone else nearby? Any cars? Had Leringer given any clues as to who stabbed him?
Not a word, I told them. “The things he did say seemed more important to him.”
Wade consulted his notes for a moment. “Do you know a man by the name of Nathan Eddington?”
I repeated the name. “No.”
“Never heard of him.”
“No. Who is he?”
“Did Morton Leringer say anything about him?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Wade nodded. He tapped his finger against the table and focused on Harcroft.
Was that finger tap a bad sign?
“Okay.” The sergeant leaned forward. “Let’s go through this again. Tell us everything Leringer said to you.”
“Why? I told you everything the first time.”
“We’d like to hear it again.”
For the second time I told them Morton’s words. When I finished I was tired, but they wouldn’t let up. They wanted to hear a third round. I glanced at the camera. Were they trying to trip me up? Or just make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. With each question my muscles tensed more, and my head started to pound. What was all this about? Had I stepped on some sort of land mine? The thoroughness of these two men, their intense body language made me more frightened as each moment ticked by.
After an interminable time their interrogation slowed. I pressed my hands to my temples. My stomach was empty, my nerves shot. I needed to eat. “Where’s my mother? I want to know if she’s all right.”
“I’ll check on her.” Wade left the room. I had the distinct impression he left to do more than just see about my mother.
In Wade’s absence I faced off with Harcroft. “What’s happening? I want to know what this is all about.”
He shook his head. “We’re not sure.”
“Who do you think those fake FBI men were?”
“Don’t know. Wish we did. We’ll bring in a forensic artist before you leave. We need a sketch of their faces.”
Dark Justice Page 6