Dead Ringer

by Allen Wyler

  “Is the Volvo your wife’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why were you driving her car this morning?”

  Lange’s tone triggered a queasy feeling in Lucas’s gut. Where was this headed and why? He saw problems with a truthful answer. The cheating husband kills his wife so he can be with his lover. He decided to stick close to the truth, but not every detail. “I cleaned out the garage yesterday and piled a load of junk in the driveway. It blocked half of the garage, so when Laura came home yesterday, she parked in the driveway directly behind my car. When I needed a car this morning, I used hers.” Which, if taken at face value, was true. Just not quite the whole story.

  Lange kept looking at him. “For?”

  Careful now. The queasiness grew. He was treading into the lie quagmire and knew that once entered, it could suck him down, forcing lie upon lie until he’d lost all sight of his starting point. What was he going to say? “I was out last night sleeping with a detective from this precinct”?

  “I went out for a cup of coffee.” Technically speaking, this was the truth. Wendy had given him one.

  Lange nodded as if appreciating the response.

  What if Lange knew he’d been with Wendy? Had they talked? Was he trapped already?

  “Mind telling me,” Lange said, “where you were between the time you last saw your wife and when you returned to the house?”

  “Why are you asking me this?”

  “Thought I made that obvious earlier. There was an explosion in the garage while you were out in your wife’s car. Your wife isn’t accounted for and there’s a body in the wreckage of what’s probably your Audi. There’s every reason to believe your wife was killed in the garage in the explosion. Can I make myself any clearer?”

  “Not another word until my lawyer gets here.”

  WENDY WAS AT THE two burner hot plate pouring a cup of overcooked coffee when she got wind of an interrogation in progress down the hall. Out of curiosity she ambled to the observation room and glanced at the video screen. Oh shit, now what?

  40

  IN SPITE OF THE irregular hours his work demanded, Ditto doggedly clung to daily routines. Up by seven, pack the coffee maker with Starbucks Kenya roast, listen to the local news while grunting out fifty push-ups, shave, spruce up the goatee, shower, dress for the day. Always in that order. Routines were what allowed a busy life to remain ordered and running smoothly while permitting you to concentrate on other things. Business, for example. Only the ditzy, fractionated people of the world allowed their lives to run haphazard.

  Maybe when he retired he would allow himself the luxury of sleeping in occasionally. But he doubted it because, well, it just wouldn’t seem right. Besides, his internal clock woke him at seven regardless of what time he went to sleep.

  Ditto sat in his office with the door closed and his black leather executive chair positioned to comfortably watch the local news. He was waiting for one particular story. He leaned forward as the words “This Just In” flashed on the screen.

  The announcer said, “And now we take you to Mark Lee, reporting live at a developing story.”

  The picture switched to a reporter in a yellow KING TV Windbreaker holding, a wind-screened microphone to his mouth. Behind him a chaotic array of emergency vehicles with flashing lights. Fire, police, a Medic One van.

  “Thanks, Ed. What you see behind me is the residence in the Magnolia neighborhood where Seattle Police and Fire Departments are investigating an explosion earlier this morning that is thought to have taken the life of one person, apparently a woman.”

  A woman? Fuck.

  “Police are saying the source of the explosion was a car. Why the car exploded is under investigation, but sources close to the case have said that the woman’s husband has been taken to the West Precinct for questioning as a person of interest.”

  Ditto watched in stunned silence as the anchor assured viewers the news team was monitoring the situation closely and would break to the story the moment more developments were available.

  How could that have happened? Gerhard had assured him …

  He wiped his mouth and smoothed his goatee. Clearly an unanticipated turn of events. That McRae’s wife became the victim was irrelevant. What was relevant was that McRae remained alive and quite possibly even more of a threat than before.

  But McRae wasn’t a reasonable person.

  Ditto picked up the phone and dialed Gerhard’s line. “I need to see you. Right now.”

  “YOUR LAWYER’S HERE,” Lange said.

  Lucas looked up at the doorway where a trim, tall, middle-aged man squinted behind fashionably narrow glasses. With shoes buffed to a gloss and a charcoal pinstripe Armani, he radiated a simple but emphatic don’t-fuck-with-me aura. Lange’s dour face told Lucas that this attorney probably wasn’t a likely candidate for honorary membership in the police guild, making him a great choice and exactly what he needed now. Lucas stored away a mental note to thank whomever was responsible for the referral.

  The lawyer stepped into the room, hand extended. “Lucas McRae? Palmer Davidson.” After shaking hands, Davidson locked eyes with Lange. “What—if anything—has my client been charged with?”

  Lange said, “Nothing. He’s here to answer some questions concerning the explosion.”

  Davidson smiled knowingly. “You haven’t changed a bit in the last several years. I need some time to talk with my client in private.”

  Lange moved to the door. “I’ll be outside.”

  “No. We’ll talk in the hall.”

  Lange gave him a bemused look. “You can talk in here.”

  “I said private.” Davidson pointed toward the ceiling vent. “This is about as private as the Iraq embassy.”

  Lange frowned. “He tries to leave, you’ll both have big problems.”

  “Bite me.”

  Out in the hall, Davidson sidled up close to Lucas. “All I know is what I heard on the news on the way over. What’s going on?”

  Lange stood about twenty feet down the hall, arms crossed, legs spread, watching like a military guard.

  Lucas explained the events of the past twenty-four hours, including spending the night with Wendy. He figured everything needed to be out on the table. Davidson listened to the entire story before having him repeat it.

  When Lucas finished the second time, Davidson said, “That alibis you for last night, but if the cause of the explosion is proven to be a car bomb—which seems likely with what we presently know—there is nothing in your story that would remove you from being the prime suspect.”

  Lucas’s gut knotted so tightly it ached.

  WENDY STOOD OUTSIDE THE interrogation room conferring with Davidson in hushed tones. Lucas had been One hundred percent truthful to his attorney in recounting his whereabouts last night and the reason for not being in his car this morning. She felt his cheeks blush with embarrassment but didn’t stop eye contact. That Lucas was with another woman the night before his wife is killed would not sit well with Jim Lange, the lead investigator on the case. The truth would have to come out, sooner than later. And it would cast more suspicion on Lucas than was warranted.

  In answer to Davidson’s question, she said, “There’s not enough evidence at this point to determine if this will be considered a murder or accidental death. So I doubt they’ll hold him much longer.”

  “My priority is my client’s safety and if he’s right, if Robert Ditto is behind this, then he’s still in danger. What should I do with him?”

  She’d been wrestling with the same question. “If you’re asking where he’ll be safe, you need to consider several issues. He needs to be readily accessible for additional interviews. I don’t know what kind of support system he has around, but he’s going to need help.”

  “He wants to leave, and now he’s worried about his son being in the house. He called the kid to tell him to come home, and he wants to be there when he arrives.”

  Wendy thought about that a second. “For
the moment, Ditto knows the garage is a crime scene. The last place he wants to go is anywhere even remotely near McRae’s house. And as far as later goes, after things settle down, I’ll make sure McRae hires some security if he can. Also, I’ll make sure the cars assigned to that district keep a closer eye on that neighborhood.”

  DAVIDSON RETURNED TO THE interrogation room but left the door open. “Come on,” he said to Lucas. “Let’s get out of here. They can’t hold you any longer.”

  “What time is it?”

  “A few minutes past nine.”

  “Morning or night?”

  “Night.”

  He stood on shaky legs, wondering what to do next? Laura was dead from a car bomb that had probably been planted when he was in bed with Wendy. How could he have done this to Laura? Yes, they were having their problems and had begun the long process of negotiating a divorce, but he was still married to her. He was a worthless specimen of a husband.

  And how would that look to the police? He knew that when a person was murdered, the police first looked at the spouse, then at people close to the victim. And what would they find? That on the night before the murder, he’d slept with another woman. If the cops began to look into his and Laura’s relationship, they’d quickly find out they’d been in the first stages of a divorce.

  Davidson pulled his arm. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

  41

  LUCAS LEANED AGAINST THE passenger door, forehead on the glass, staring at the passing darkness as Davidson drove. God, what he’d give to turn back time one year knowing what he did now. How differently he would do things. If only …

  Lucas lets himself into Laura’s apartment, closes the door, yells, “It’s me.”

  “You’re early. I’m still in the tub.”

  “Stay there, Calgon Girl. I’ll be right in.”

  He sets the plastic bag of Chinese takeout on the counter, then carefully places the other bag next to it. From the second bag, he removes two champagne flutes and a chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot with its distinctive orange label. He peels the price tags off the bottoms of the flutes, rinses them out, polishes both with a dish towel, tears off the foil seal, and uncorks the bottle. His stomach churning with anxiety as he carries the glasses and sweating bottle into the bathroom where Laura is up to her neck in bubble bath.

  She glances at the glasses and bottle, her eyes lighting up. “You got your residency?”

  He closes the lid to the toilet, sets and bottle the glasses on it, starts taking off his shoes and socks, throwing them into the bedroom. “I got crispy walnut prawns, broccoli beef, Buddha’s Delight, and brown rice. That okay?”

  “All my favorites. What’s the occasion?”

  He starts on the shirt next. “I thought I’d bring dinner over. You know … a quiet night at home, so we don’t have to go out.”

  “My God, Veuve Clicquot. You can’t afford that.”

  He tosses the rest of his clothes into the other room, pours two glasses, hands her one. “Move over.”

  She slides forward and he slips in behind her, pulls her back against his chest, begins to cup, then drip water over her breasts. “You know how much I care about you, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” She snuggles into him more, relaxing, her head under his chin, the scent of her hair in his nostrils.

  “We’re so good together …” He stumbles on the words because he wants them to sound right. “We have so much fun … we like the same things like movies and neither one of us like slapstick … it just feels so right.”

  “Lucas—”

  “What I mean to say, is I love you, Laura.”

  “And I love you too, Lucas. But what’s going on?”

  He sips the wine to bolster his next words. For three restless nights he’s thought about this moment, agonized over how to ask, wondering how she’d answer. “What do you think about getting married?” Aw shit, that didn’t sound right.

  “She squirms around to look at him. “Is that a proposal?”

  “Yes. I mean … absolutely.”

  She leans over to kiss him. “Yes, Lucas, absolutely. Did you have any doubt?” She studies his eyes a moment. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  He’s at a loss for words, overcome by the moment. He was so afraid she might not want to marry him. Finally he says, “I got UC San Francisco.”

  She turns back around and nestles back against him. “San Francisco, huh. Always thought that’d be a neat city to live in.”

  He’s struck again with the realization that the person, the woman he loved so much that night was now gone from his life forever.

  My fault … responsible.

  If only …

  … he hadn’t gone to Hong Kong.

  … he hadn’t worked too hard to build a practice.

  … tried harder to be a good husband.

  … insisted she get help.

  … encouraged Laura to find part-time work when Josh started school. And if she hadn’t wanted to work, maybe volunteer for something that resonated with her heart. Anything to enrich her life might have prevented such bitterness these past few years.

  Lucas said, “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

  “What?” Davidson shot him a strange look.

  The realization of what had happened hit and brought him back to the present.

  And the horror of seeing the smoldering garage came flooding back.

  Davidson was right. Although the police investigation was only hours old, they all knew this wasn’t an accident, an accident from cleaning out the garage. It was a car bomb intended to kill him, not Laura.

  Any previous dislike for Ditto was now hateful rage. He wanted to find a gun, walk into DFH, and blow the son of a bitch’s head off.

  Wait, calm down. That’d accomplish nothing.

  There had to be another way …

  This time Lucas’s street wasn’t chock-a-block with blue flashing lights, smoke, and chaos, but the smell of charcoal and melted plastic lingered. Lucas noticed Josh’s Nissan parked at the curb, asked Davidson, “Just so I’m sure, you talked with Wendy … I mean, Detective Elliott, and she thinks it’s safe to be in the house?”

  Davidson pulled the car to the curb, set the hand brake. “They believe that if the explosion was an accident due to flammables in the garage—which I’m not sure I agree with—there’s no continued risk. On the other hand, if this is Ditto’s work—which we believe is the case—he won’t take the risk of coming here. At least for a while. So, yes, you’re okay if you want to stay there.”

  Lucas’s primary concern was Josh’s safety. Followed closely by helping Josh through the heartbreak of losing his mother.

  Josh must have been at the window because as soon as Lucas began to get out of the car, he came flying out the front door of the house, ran to Lucas with wet cheeks, and threw his arms around him. Lucas hugged him fiercely.

  “Who is that?” Josh asked as Davidson pulled away. “My lawyer.”

  “Your lawyer?”

  Josh stood still, a look of dismay etched in his face. Neither one spoke, for a long moment until Josh asked, “Mom’s dead?”

  “Yes son.”

  Lucas started toward the house, knowing he had to pull it together for Josh’s sake.

  “I still don’t understand. Why a lawyer?”

  “Because the police wanted to question me.”

  “About what? It was an accident.” Josh looked at him. “Wasn’t it?”

  Lucas’s first reaction was to protect Josh from the truth. But there was nothing to gain from lying. He decided to tell him everything. Well, except for last night. He looked at Josh, thinking about the drive over, how he probably hadn’t had anything to eat and Laura would’ve made sure he was fed. Most of all, right now, he wanted to take care of his son, then slowly try to explain what he thought was going on. “We’ll get to that. First, have you eaten anything?” As the words came out, he thought about how trivial they sounded.

  “No. I drove st
raight over. When I got here firemen were still going over things and I …” His voice trailed off.

  “I’ll order pizza.” Even though the thought of food nauseated him.

  After calling a neighborhood pizza joint that delivered, Lucas grabbed two glasses and the bottle of Green Label from the cupboard. While filling the glasses with ice, he began explaining.

  He carried the drinks over to the table and handed one to Josh.

  Lucas finished the story without mentioning that he spent the night with Wendy.

  Josh sat silent, lips pressed tight in anger, fists balls of white.

  The doorbell rang. Lucas jumped, thinking maybe Ditto realized he hadn’t succeeded and was coming back …

  Christ, get a grip. I ordered pizza.

  He took a deep breath to slow his heart back to normal. Still, he glanced out the window to make sure before opening the door.

  Lucas placed the open pizza box on the table, but Josh waved it away. Fine with him. The cheesy greasy smell made him nauseated. He closed the lid and moved it to the counter.

  “It’s over here if you change your mind. In the meantime, how about another?” Lucas asked, holding up his drink.

  Lucas stopped to gaze at the label of the very same bottle purchased from the duty-free store at the airport. Hong Kong. And wondered if anything he did during that twenty-four-hour period caused Laura’s death. The butterfly effect, some called it when taken to its extreme logic. If he hadn’t pissed off Gerhard… What if the explosion was nothing more than something he did while cleaning out the garage? The red gasoline container … paint thinner … a pile of rags … He felt sick to his stomach, thinking he’d never forgive himself if Laura’s death was from some stupid mistake he’d made. Well, in a way it did. If he had never gone on that trip … would Laura still be alive right now?

  At the thought of Laura dying in an explosion, tears began welling up along his lower lids. He sniffed and swiped at them, but they only got worse. A moment later he was standing at the counter with tears streaming down his face. Josh got up, came over, and wrapped his arms around him and hugged. Both men stood there crying and hugging.