Guilty as Sin

by Tami Hoag

  “Childs.”

  A scowl knitted Ellen's brow. “Grungy weasel. I can't wait to get him on cross and nail him for the lying little shit he is. Although I have to say, I'm hoping the police find him first—up to his ears in incriminating evidence.

  “No,” she said. “It's not just Childs. I know Costello. He's always cocky, but there's a certain quality to this. . . . I've been over his disclosure until I've got it memorized, and I don't see any red flags, but there's still . . . something.”

  “You're working too hard,” Cameron pointed out. “And they're working hard to make you crazy. Between vandalizing your car and that business last night, you've got good call to be jumpy. But we've got enough to hang Wright at the hearing. Costello can't change the evidence we've got.” He gave her a smile. “Aren't you the one who said ‘Don't let him get to you'?”

  “Was that me?” She forced a laugh. “What was I thinking?”

  That she knew Tony Costello, knew all his tricks, all his secrets. But now the ground had shifted beneath her feet—or Costello had pulled the rug out from under her. Again. “Our mutual friend Mr. Brooks . . . Small world, isn't it?” In her mind's eye his image faded into Jay's, dark eyes turning translucent blue. “Then your leaving Minneapolis had nothing to do with the rape trial of Art Fitzpatrick? . . . I do my homework, Ellen. . . .”

  Or he had it handed to him.

  She told herself it shouldn't have mattered. She knew better than to trust either of them. She knew better than to let her guard down.

  Then why did you go to the hospital last night, Ellen?

  She raised a hand and brushed her fingers across her lips, the memory of his kiss stirring, warm and restless inside her.

  “Let's get to work,” she said. “I want plenty of rope in that figurative noose.”

  They settled back into their chairs. Cameron pulled a cookie out of the tub and munched on it as he looked over their list of evidence.

  “So, aside from the arrest itself, do you have any idea what Costello is going to challenge?”

  “No,” Ellen admitted. “And he'll wait till the eleventh hour to tell us, you can bet on that. Speculate, though. What do you think he'll try to get rid of?”

  “The gloves. They weren't discovered for days. He'll argue they could have been planted. He'll argue they could belong to anybody, that we don't have proof they're Wright's.”

  “Good points. So we don't enter the gloves as evidence at the hearing. We hang on to them for trial. By that time we should be able to prove they are his. If we're extra lucky, the snow will be gone by then and we'll find the gun to go with the gloves. Has anything turned up as to Wright having registered a handgun in this state?”

  “Nada. Big surprise. I'm checking with Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, but maniacal serial criminals tend to think themselves above such mundane formalities.”

  Ellen conceded the futility of it. “He'd never be so careless as to leave a paper trail. What else?”

  He shrugged. “We've got the ski mask, the bloody sheet, Mitch's testimony, Megan's testimony, Ruth Cooper's lineup ID—”

  “Which happened B.C.—Before Costello.”

  “So? Wright had an attorney. It went down by the book. No problem. We've got a hell of a lot more than Costello. His witness list consists of Childs, who we can turn inside out, the neighbor who saw Wright's Saab on Saturday, and Karen Wright. What's she going to say? All anyone's been able to get out of her so far is that her husband's arrest is just a big misunderstanding.”

  “Good question. No one has ever claimed she's an alibi witness. If Wright was at work at the times the crimes were committed, as he claims, what can she say?”

  “That he called her on the telephone!” they said in unison.

  They both grabbed the phone records again.

  The door swung open and Ellen glanced up, expecting to see Phoebe, her eyes widening instead on Megan O'Malley with Mitch standing right behind her.

  “Megan!” she said with genuine surprise. “It's good to see you up and around!”

  “And more or less in one piece,” Megan said dryly.

  She looked like hell. The bruises on her face had reached the putrid-fruit stage. The crescents beneath her vibrant green eyes were the color of eggplant. She limped in, leaning heavily on one crutch. Her right hand was encased in a rigid cast that extended to the very tips of her fingers.

  Cameron moved to pull a chair out for her, but she waved it off. Mitch cut her an impatient look that she completely ignored.

  “Finding any goodies?” she asked, scanning the papers strewn over the table.

  Ellen closed the folder and rose, blocking her view. “Just hunting for tidbits,” she said casually. “You know, phone records, that kind of thing. Dry stuff. Are you all set to testify?”

  Megan's mouth curved in a nearly feral smile. “I can't wait.”

  “We're not staying,” Mitch said, catching Ellen's body language. “I just wanted to let you know I talked to Hannah about trying hypnosis with Josh. We talked to the psychiatrist and she's reluctant, but she agreed to try it.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. Four o'clock. Her office in Edina. We'll videotape the session, just in case.”

  “I want to be there.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “Have you found anything in Wright's background?” Megan asked. “Any connection to Priest or Childs?”

  “We're looking,” Ellen said. “Priest and Wright taught at Penn State during the same period. We're checking into it. As far as Childs goes, nothing. We know he went to high school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, and that he's willing to perjure himself. We know he's nowhere to be found at the moment. We know someone broke into the Pack Rat last night—might have been Todd, might have been anybody. Wilhelm is supposed to be there right now. The evidence techs are going over the place. Of course, we don't know what they should be looking for, so how can we expect them to find it?”

  Megan scowled. “I wouldn't expect Wilhelm to find Waldo.”

  “The thing is,” Cameron said, “it could be just another diversion. One more stunt to make Wright look innocent.”

  “But why target a place where Wright's phony alibi works?” Megan's gaze sharpened as the wheels of her mind began to spin. “And why pull this stunt that late at night when it was just a fluke that anyone would happen by and see?”

  “So,” Ellen speculated, “maybe it was Childs and he sneaked in because he had something stashed there—drugs, for instance—which he grabbed and ran with. In which case your BCA pals are spending a lot of manpower on nothing.”

  “That's the way it goes,” Megan said. “Though I wouldn't want to be in young Marty's shoes when he has to explain that to headquarters.”

  Phoebe came slinking back into the room. “Agent Wilhelm is on his way over.”

  “My cue to leave,” Megan said. “If Wilhelm catches me here, he'll pop a cork and I'll end up hitting him with my crutch.”

  Ellen walked her and Mitch to the door of the outer office, sympathy welling inside her at Megan's hobbling gait, and at the proud tilt of her chin.

  “You know about the benefit for Wright tonight?” she asked Mitch.

  He nodded. “Got it covered. We'll keep an eye on Wright, see who approaches him. If Childs is there, we'll grab him.”

  “Good. Thanks for stopping in. Mitch, I'll see you tomorrow. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Josh can clear everything up for us. In the meantime, we keep digging.”

  “The key is Wright's past,” Megan insisted. “I wish I could help with that hunt.”

  Ellen gave her an apologetic look. “You know I can't involve you, Megan. You're not the agent in charge anymore, you're a victim.”

  Megan's eyes blazed with a hatred Ellen could only guess at. “I know exactly what I am. And I have Garrett Wright to thank for it.”

  “Ellen's hands are tied, Megan. You know that,” Mitch said.

  He had stopped by her
apartment that morning, fed her two cats, and turned the thermostat up so the place would feel more like a home than like a cold, drafty converted attic—which was essentially what it was. The third floor of a big old Victorian house on Ivy Street, it was probably the least accessible apartment in town. Two flights of stairs to climb with a bum knee and a crutch. He had to clench his jaw to keep from commenting yet again on her stubbornness.

  Megan stood by the window in her pink living room, stroking the head of her little gray cat with her good hand, cradling the bad one against her. The set of her mouth was stubbornness personified.

  “You're off the case, Megan,” he reminded her. He stepped around a pair of boxes she had yet to unpack. Josh had been kidnapped her first day on the job here.

  “Officially,” she said grudgingly. “But that doesn't mean I couldn't do a little background work off the record—”

  “And risk getting the case turned on appeal? You're not thinking straight. Come here,” he said, turning her gently toward the old camelback sofa. “You need to sit down or that knee is going to swell up like a water balloon.”

  That she didn't put up a fight told him she was as near exhaustion as she looked. She eased herself down on the couch and sat quietly while he pulled a box of books over to prop up her leg.

  “I just feel so damn helpless, Mitch,” she admitted as he carefully tucked a pillow beneath her damaged knee. She heard the little tremor in her voice and knew he had, as well.

  “I know you do, honey. I know exactly.”

  He had been in the same boat, hadn't he? she thought. On rougher seas than this. He had been a detective on the Miami force at the time his wife and son had been gunned down. She knew damn well he wouldn't have been allowed within a hundred yards of the investigation. And the guilt still weighed on him.

  “It's so hard,” she whispered, sliding her good hand over his. “We're cops. We're trained to think a certain way, to act, to go after the bad guys. To have that taken away when we need it most . . . It's hard.”

  Mitch settled himself on the couch beside her, draping his right arm behind her shoulders. Friday, the black cat, hopped onto a stereo speaker box, curled his paws beneath him, and watched them across the gathering gloom of late afternoon.

  “You still haven't told me what your surgeon had to say yesterday.”

  Megan looked away. If she stared at her cat instead of at Mitch, it would be easier to lie, and that was what she wanted to do—lie, to Mitch, to herself.

  “What does he know?” she muttered.

  Mitch held back a sigh. Bad news. News that hurt her and frightened her, not that she would want to admit to either, or to concede defeat.

  “Yeah.” He drew her over to lean against him. “It's too soon for them to know anything for sure.”

  “It is,” she said, her voice tightening. She settled her cheek into the hollow of his shoulder, and he could feel her chin quivering. “They can't know yet.”

  She didn't want to hear it yet. She wasn't ready to accept it, wouldn't go down without a fight. As much as Mitch admired her courage, he knew it would only make it harder for her in the end. He already knew the prognosis. He had called her doctor, lied and told him he was Megan's brother Mick. The hospital would release information only to family, and Megan's family didn't give a rat's ass what happened to her.

  The best thing the orthopedic surgeon had to say was that they hadn't had to amputate her hand. There would be more surgery and months of physical therapy, but it was unlikely she would ever regain full mobility.

  Mitch would have sent Garrett Wright to the blackest pit of hell for what he'd done to Megan, to Josh, to Hannah, to Deer Lake. If he was lucky, he would get to help send him to prison. Justice and the law were seldom one and the same. He had learned that lesson the hard way a long time ago.

  “We have to get him, Mitch,” Megan mumbled against his chest, where her tears soaked into his flannel shirt. “He has to pay.”

  “He'll pay, sweetheart.” Mitch wrapped his arms around her, hoping to God the promise didn't sound as hollow to Megan's ears as it did to his own.

  She sniffed and raised her head, fighting to force one corner of her mouth up. “Don't call me sweetheart.”

  “I will if I want to,” Mitch growled, gladly falling into what had already become an old joke between them. “What are you gonna do about it, O'Malley? Beat me up?”

  “Yeah. With one hand in a cast.”

  The smile sobered. Her gaze remained locked on his. “What am I going to do, Mitch? Being a cop is all I've ever wanted.”

  He brushed a tear from her cheek. “But it's not all you've got, Megan. You've got me. You'll find a way around the obstacles. And I'll be there, hanging on to your good hand.”

  “Jeez, Holt,” she whispered, leaning up to kiss him. “You ought to write that down for Hallmark.”

  CHAPTER 26

  The music wasn't half-bad—a fusion of blues and rock with lyrics by an English major. The band was a campus group that called themselves HarriSons. The lead singer was a rangy, raw-boned kid in ripped blue jeans and a sweaty T-shirt. He hugged an old red Stratocaster guitar and squeezed his eyes shut tight beneath the brim of a dirty baseball cap as he coaxed the music out of his soul.

  Jay took a long pull on his three-dollar beer and did a slow scan of the place. Wright's followers had taken over the Pla-Mor Ballroom, a dance hall located just off campus. The Pla-Mor had apparently hit its peak in the forties and had not been changed a lick since. The dance floor had been sanded dull by decades of scuffing feet. The lights were kept low to serve the dual purpose of setting a mood and hiding the fact that huge scabs of plaster had flaked off the walls.

  The place was likely cheap, and it was handy and served its purpose well enough. There were enough tables and chairs for 250—all of them full. The place was SRO. It looked as if everyone in Deer Lake who believed in Wright's innocence had felt compelled to trudge out into the cold night to show their support. At five bucks a head admission, and with the jacked-up prices on the beer and setups and the Sci-Fi Cowboys' fifteen-dollar T-shirts, Wright's supporters would probably raise enough tonight to pay for a couple days' worth of Anthony Costello's time.

  The man himself sat at the table of honor, his client beside him, the pair of them holding court like monarchs. Wright's wife and Costello's lackeys filled the rest of the chairs. A steady stream of students and what were probably faculty members offered words of friendship and support. Wright's expression was serene. Not the cocky, bullshit arrogance of his attorney, but a glassy calm, as if he knew something the rest of them didn't.

  I want inside his mind, Jay thought, but knew he would have to wait. If Costello allowed the good doctor to say anything at all before the hearing, it would only be more propaganda. Still, the experience of an introduction was in itself useful, and so, as the band announced its break, he pushed himself out of the dark corner he had taken as his watch post and sauntered toward the table.

  He spotted no fewer than three plainclothes cops. A squad car sat in the parking lot. If the accomplice showed with Dustin Holloman in tow, they'd be on him like flies on roadkill. But if he showed up the same way everyone else showed up, looking ordinary, unassuming, offering Dr. Wright nothing more than a handshake and a smile, would anyone be the wiser?

  There was nothing to make Wright himself stand out in a crowd, no glowing eyes, no sign of the devil branded into his forehead. That was what frightened and fascinated people most—that monsters moved among them, unknown, unsuspected. They stood behind them in the line at the bank, bumped carts with them at the Piggly Wiggly. It was just that factor that kept readers returning to his work, Jay knew—the need to pull cases apart in the attempt to see the signs that should have been obvious to those involved. Too many times there was nothing there to see.

  Costello spotted him before he reached the table, and a big, hungry smile stretched across the lawyer's face. He rose to offer the kind of hand-pumping, back-thumping
greeting that struck Jay as too familiar. He endured it with a pained smile.

  “Jay, I'm glad you could make it to our little soiree!” Costello said, the benevolent host although he'd had nothing to do with setting up the party. “We heard you had a little adventure last night.”

  “That's one word for it.” Jay discreetly rotated the sore right shoulder Costello had slapped. He had crawled out of the sack after noon feeling as if he had been trampled by a herd of Clydesdales. Only steady, lowdose self-medication of the Jack Daniel's variety had taken the edge off the aches.

  “And of course the cops are trying to somehow associate that break-in with Dr. Wright.” Costello made a grave face at the injustice. “The level of incompetence here is unbelievable.”

  The usual defense attorney shuck-and-jive. The cops are screwups, the prosecutors thickheaded plodders with no view of the big picture. Jay knew the drill. He had spouted the same trash talk himself once upon a time. He let it go in one ear and out the other as he turned to look at Garrett Wright—who was watching him with steady dark eyes and a placid half smile.

  “Mr. Brooks,” he said, rising, offering a hand that seemed nearly delicate. “Anthony tells me you've taken an interest in the case with an eye toward doing a book.”

  “Possibly. Depends on how it all shakes out in the end.”

  The smile took on amusement. “You mean it depends on my guilt? Quite a commentary on our society, isn't it? People don't want to read about innocence. They want twists, betrayal, blood.”

  “That's nothing new, Dr. Wright. People used to pay money to go to hangings—and they took their kids.”

  “So they did,” he conceded with a tip of his head. “Perhaps what mankind has been evolving toward all these centuries is simply a more streamlined, brilliant savagery.”

  “That would certainly explain serial criminals, wouldn't it?” Jay said. “You might just have a topic there for your next academic publish-or-perish project, Dr. Wright.”

  “No, no. Learning and perception are my areas of expertise. I don't pretend to be an expert on criminal behavior.”