Price of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  Maggie snorted. “Are you kidding? She flowed every cent through to their projects and more. If you’re trying to follow the money to find a suspect, you’re a lot better off with her personal assets, especially this house, and some modest trust from her father that her mother shifted all to Jamie when Dana remarried. And, since Ally and I are beneficiaries in her will, you should look at us. Go ahead, ask us for alibis. I don’t have one, but I bet Ally was with her cop husband who’s in a coma.”

  “Maggie.”

  “It’s okay, Ally. I know Maggie. And she knows me.” He switched to Maggie, holding her gaze as he added. “She knows we already checked your alibis.”

  Silence held for two, then three beats. Then Maggie burst out laughing. It had an edge to it that made Ally frown. “Fat lot of good that does you, since you don’t know when she was killed.”

  “We have some idea — between when she was last seen by the Sunshine Foundation people and when the AC was turned off.”

  He saw Maggie’s brain take in the information, smoothing the wash of emotions. “Hell of a lot more likely it was just before the AC was turned off.”

  “Yeah. For that most likely period, you were in Bedhurst with J.D. Carson — you two aren’t as discreet as you might think you are — and Ally was at the long-term nursing facility in Maryland with her husband, seen by staff and others. Throw in commute times and…”

  “We have alibis. Should make us even more suspicious.”

  “It doesn’t.” He said that with his gaze on Ally, who’d gone pale, whether from concern about her own status or — more likely — discomfort with looking at her cousin’s death through a law enforcement lens. “There’s something else. I’d like you both to take another look at your cousin’s closet.”

  The first time had been looking for what valuables might be missing.

  “This is on you, Ally,” Maggie said. “He wants to know about what she wore.”

  Down a flight, Ally looked over the clothes with a care Belichek appreciated.

  She touched a few things, including a bulky red sweater, slid past the hangers of others with a faint frown.

  At the end, she sighed.

  “I recognize some as things she’s worn a lot, but I couldn’t tell you about a number of these. They could be newer, or things for work, or I don’t remember them.”

  “Understood. I have a photo of some fabric that I’d like to know if you recognize in connection with your cousin.”

  Hesitantly, Ally took the photograph, then her attention focused on the task. She looked at it a long time.

  “I’m sorry, Detective Belichek, I can’t tell you for sure about this, either. Jamie has a blouse very similar to that, but I couldn’t swear this photograph shows hers. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  “That’s part of it. Did she wear her black and white blouse with anything in particular?”

  He thought he heard a smile in her voice — a sad smile, but a smile — when she said, “Not black and white. It’s black and cream. She wore it with a pair of cream slacks.”

  The same description as Imogen Wooton.

  She pushed aside several hangers, displaying light-colored slacks.

  “She was thrilled when she found these and they precisely matched the blouse’s cream. But the fact that I didn’t see it, doesn’t mean she didn’t ever wear the blouse with something else.”

  And that piece of common sense also applied to Imogen Wooton.

  He could hear what Landis would say when he reported the conversations.

  Put that pebble on the discard pile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Fairlington County Police Department News Conference

  In progress:

  Public Information Officer Elliott Kepler: …continue to pursue the investigation strongly, exploring all aspects of—

  Death, Murder, Violence Podcast: Are you going to call on the FBI or other federal resources who’d have a lot more experience with a case like this?”

  PIO Kepler: “We’re fortunate to have good working relationships with federal agencies, including the FBI. A good mutual relationship. We cooperate with each other as needed on—

  Death, Murder, Violence Podcast: You sure need. No progress made at—

  PIO Kepler: —a case-by-case basis. It’s far too early in this investigation to predict what resources beyond our own lab and investigative abilities might, possibly be called on. But if we define the need for such, we will certainly be calling on them.

  Death, Murder, Violence Podcast: With a high-profile case you haven’t—

  PIO Kepler: Ted, Fairlington Leader?

  Fairlington Leader: Officer Kepler, do you—?”

  Death, Murder, Violence Podcast: You can’t ignore the facts. The general view is the federal agencies lure the top talent from local jurisdictions — what with offering better pay and benefits. That leaves the dregs working on cases like this. Fairlington Police Department needs the help of those larger, more talented agencies.

  PIO Kepler: This is not a forum for making speeches. This is for journalists to ask questions.

  Death, Murder, Violence Podcast: What about an ID on the victim?

  PIO Kepler: Asked and answered.

  ~~ End news conference transcript ~~

  “Great side-eye at the turd, Kep.”

  “Hell, that was full-blown stink-eye.”

  Landis entered the break room with an announcement. “If you have enough time to listen to that, I’ve got work for all of you.”

  * * * *

  Ford watched his grandfather.

  The strongest man he ever knew. Sitting with his head in his hands, rubbing at the short, stubby hair left in a horseshoe around his head.

  He’d seen his grandfather worried before, but this … this was new the past week and horrifying.

  His grandmother’s hand on his shoulder. “Come away, Ford. We can’t help him with this. It’s his work. The only thing we can do for him right now is let him be.”

  She was right. It was the only thing he could do for his grandfather in that moment.

  But that was not an end to it.

  That day he realized Gran had been disposing of newspapers before his grandfather — or he — could read them.

  He skipped baseball practice and rode his bicycle to the library.

  It wasn’t hard to find his grandfather’s name in the paper and the reports on the trial from a case he’d led.

  The not guilty verdict a week ago coincided with the day his grandfather’s despair began.

  He read the coverage backward. Looking for references to his grandfather. There were many. Including one with a photo of Vivian Frye walking into the courthouse.

  She was a compelling woman without being beautiful. He’d seen her in town. Now he looked up her address in the phone book and, yes, he knew exactly which house. He could picture her on the swing on the deep front porch.

  Had he seen that or only imagined it?

  He’d gone all the way to the start of the story in the newspaper and read the articles through again, this time in chronological order.

  There was something in them — not stated directly, but hinted at.

  There’d been an attempted abduction of a young girl in town. It had been broken up by the girl’s cousin.

  His grandfather arrested a man for the attempted abduction.

  The arrested man had dated the aunt of both the intended victim and the girl who’d broken up the abduction.

  The man was found not guilty.

  What the articles hinted at still hadn’t been clear to him then, telling him pieces without letting him see the whole.

  Now — now he saw it all.

  Now that he understood police and courts from the inside, and could translate the coverage into what had happened beyond it.

  Now that he knew the cousins.

  Now that he knew the whole story.

  A sexual predator, wooing the adult aunt to try to get
at the girl.

  The attempted abduction.

  The older cousin breaking it up.

  Everything relying on her testimony because the intended victim was traumatized.

  The defense poking holes in the testimony of the teenage girl.

  His grandfather trying to shore up the testimony, but it not being enough.

  The man going free.

  The guilt, the frustration, the concern. He knew his grandfather’s feelings, because he’d taken them on as his own.

  But that day in the library, barely a teenager himself, he’d struggled to make sense of what happened.

  He’d left the library and went to find his grandfather. As he neared the station, he saw two cars speeding away, his grandfather in the lead car.

  He put his head down and pedaled as hard as he could. His first tail job.

  He’d lost his grandfather’s trail — not surprising, since he was on a bike and his grandfather in a squad car.

  But he had a hunch…

  He went to the aunt’s address.

  That’s when he’d first seen the girls — the older cousin, trying to get to the house, but held back by neighbors. The younger two in the shadows, frozen in shock as whispers of their aunt’s murder reached them.

  He’d also seen his grandfather, emerging from the house, crossing that deep porch, and coming into the light on the steps to the walk as a different man from the one he’d known all his life.

  His grandfather looking at the oldest cousin, meeting her gaze, then giving a quick shake of his head.

  As young as Ford had been, in that single moment, he had seen what his grandfather bore. His pain. His failure. His … defeat.

  He’d promised then.

  To take that away from his grandfather.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tanner Landis paused at the top of the third-floor stairs of Jamie’s house, arms spread across the opening, hands wrapped around the railing at either side, and dropped his head in a pantomime of despair or disgust, or both.

  “Now, how did I know I’d find you here, Bel?”

  Belichek didn’t answer. He’d heard Landis enter the front door and, recognizing the gait, followed his progress through the house and up the three flights. He didn’t move from the overstuffed chair. He didn’t lift his eyes from the pages of snapshots.

  “Department would have a fit you being here,” Landis added.

  “Department can’t tell me how to spend my vacation time. And I have permission. Written, if you want to see it.”

  “Maggie?”

  “The parents.”

  “Because Maggie got it from them.”

  Belichek grunted.

  “What did the other cousin have to say this afternoon?”

  “Not much. Said Jamie had a blouse of similar material as the photo. Couldn’t swear to it being the same blouse. But, same as Imogen Wooton about the clothes possibly being a different pairing from usual. She spotted more missing valuables, details on some we already knew about. I sent it to Felicia, since she’s following that. Copied you.”

  “You brought Ally here? Why on earth—”

  He looked up at his vehemence. To most people, Tanner Landis skated through stress. Belichek knew differently. “She wanted to. Maggie, too. Don’t suppose it was easy for either one, but easier with each other. I sent details to Felicia. The glass offices can think the information came before my forced vacation. Your ass is covered.”

  “Yeah. Good.” He breathed out audibly. “Break the case yet?”

  “All wrapped up.”

  Landis strode across the room and pulled out the desk chair, taking time to hitch his pants legs slightly to preserve the crease, and ignoring the lie. “You’re obsessed, Belichek. That’s one of the symptoms of burnout.”

  “Are we back to those talks by the department shrink again?”

  “Consultant. Not staff. The talks are interesting.”

  “And she’s got legs, but she’s married and he’s in one of those alphabet-soup agencies who could probably have you taken out with a snap of his fingers and nobody’d ever figure it out. Or worse, he could get you audited.”

  Landis twisted a grin. “If I get taken out, you sure as hell better figure out who did it, Belichek, or I’ll come back and haunt you. Although I suppose I’d have to wait in line behind Jamison Chancellor. What with all this.” He jerked his head toward the pile of journals.

  “I’m not haunted, I’m not obsessed, and I’m not burned out. Not giving a shit about any case, that’s how you know you’re burned out.”

  “That’s the end stage. But before you get there,” his partner said in a disgustingly cheerful tone for discussing the hypothetical finish of a career, “you go through a lot of other stuff. Getting obsessed with a single, hopeless case is one of the earlier stages.”

  “This isn’t hopeless.”

  “You’re right,” Landis conceded. Too easily.

  “You don’t start labeling a case that way that’s only a few days old.” No matter what the Chief of Detectives said.

  “No. But you’ve practically moved in here. I wouldn’t be surprised if you start sleeping in her— No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “I’m not sleeping in her bed, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Is that because you’re not sleeping at all?” Clearly not expecting an answer, Landis looked toward the photo albums and journals spread at Belichek’s feet. “You’re starting to scare me, Belichek. Maybe you’re not obsessed with the case. Maybe you’re obsessed with the victim.”

  “If doing a job’s being obsessed, then I’m obsessed.”

  “We’re doing the job. Interviewing family, neighbors, acquaintances—”

  “Background on Carl Arbendroth done yet?”

  “In process. Jenkins. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, we’re interviewing everyone.”

  “I want to go back to the Sunshine Foundation. Hendrickson York wasn’t telling us everything. Probably not Celeste Renfro, either.

  “Putting aside the fact that you’re off the case and supposed to be on vacation, you’d get a second time. Yeah, neither of us took a shine to Hendrickson York and he was a bit pissy about Chancellor, but we go back again now, without something more to rattle him and we’d get that they all loved her. Worshiped her. She was a saint. Blah, blah, blah. Whether they did or not.”

  “Most of them probably did love her. Finding any who didn’t is what matters.”

  Landis glanced at the glass-domed clock on the shelf by the window.

  Jamie’s aunt gave her the antique clock for her twelfth birthday. Belichek had seen photos of her opening it, and read the neat labels underneath. They weren’t in Jamie’s handwriting. Maybe her mother’s.

  It was Jamie’s handwriting, though, in a later album that wrote under a picture of her aunt, “Last photo of Aunt Vivian.” The articles on Vivian Frye’s murder were not labeled, were not even attached to the pages of the album. They’d been slid in between blank pages of the album loose, as if they didn’t belong to the same life.

  “This doesn’t smell right, Tanner.”

  His partner looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”

  Ah. Landis felt it, too. Wasn’t admitting it, but he wouldn’t have responded so quickly otherwise.

  “It’s off. Something’s not right.”

  “Great. That’s what I’ll tell Palery when he has me to his office tomorrow. The investigation? It’s going great. We don’t have the official ID yet, no suspects in sight, but we definitely know something doesn’t smell right — and we’re not talking about the decomp in the house. Hell, with insight like that, they’ll have me lead the next news conference, too.”

  Undeflected by the sarcasm, Belichek said, satisfied, “You feel it, too.”

  “Are you back on the purse?”

  “That and more. She’s supposed to be leaving. Why isn’t everything packed? Clothes hanging in the closet, cosmetics in the b
athroom, and where were her suitcases?”

  “The ones in the attic—”

  “With a gap. Some are missing.”

  “Perp took them to carry the valuables,” Landis said.

  “The killer takes suitcases from the attic, but not the electronics up here? Takes the purse like he’s in a big hurry, but tosses the first two levels like he’s got all the time in the world. It doesn’t add up.”

  Landis shrugged with impatience. “Who can figure these guys?”

  “You’ve been around Terrington too much with a line like that.” The back of Landis’ neck reddened. “Why hasn’t any of her stuff shown up? The electronics, maybe, since they’ve got a wide market. But that silver is a specialized market. Not one piece has shown up. You know Felicia would have found them.”

  “He dealt it at face value three weeks ago. He’s an out-of-towner, so we should be looking in Dubuque or Peoria. He doesn’t know what he has and isn’t bothering with a specialized market. Or all three.” Landis had his lines down.

  They just didn’t convince Belichek.

  Landis continued, “I’m going to work this as hard and long as they’ll let me. Maggie.” The name stood in as a dissertation on motivation. “But you need to give it a rest, Belichek. Give yourself a rest.”

  He couldn’t.

  That was the hell of it.

  Did that make Landis right? Did it make the Palery right? Was he getting burned out?

  It didn’t matter. If he burned out to a pile of ashes, he was working this case until it was solved. And then past that, until there was justice.

  He owed it to Jamie Chancellor.

  And to … others.

  “You’ve gotta go on that vacation, Bel. Look at you — you sure as hell need the rest.”

  Landis worried about him? Well, he worried right back. Him and that psychologist. Not to mention the judge.

  “After. You get a break in a case by working it, not by resting.”

  “It’s not your case, Bel.”

  “If you’re going to pull primary on me—”

  “Fuck you,” Landis said evenly. “You don’t think I’d rather have you than Terrington as second to make me look good and let me gather in all the glory?” He was rubbing it in that Belichek had stepped over the line with the primary crack. “Besides, it’s not the case, it’s the victim that’s got your balls in a knot.”