Price of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “It’s not a trade-off for Vivian’s life. It wasn’t a choice I made, I had no choice. I was given a fact — Vivian was dead — and I could do nothing about that. All I could do was deal with how I reacted. So I tried to make sure something good came out of it.”

  “That’s enough for you?” Under his crust of control, he felt the bubbling heat. He let a little spurt loose. “Don’t you ever want to beat your fists into something? Don’t you ever want to tear the world apart with your bare hands? Don’t you ever want to scream until the banshees beg for mercy?”

  As soon as he said that phrase, her face changed.

  He’d gotten what he wanted — she was angry. Mad, furious. But he’d gotten more, and he didn’t want this, this look of violation, of intrusion, of being stripped bare.

  He’d occupied a world where a man could cut open his mother, where a woman could drown her babies, where a teenager could shoot a stranger for the color of his jacket. But this sliced right through a decade’s worth of thick skin.

  “Reading the journals — that phrase — it’s my job, Jamie.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  “Knowing the victim’s a major part of my job.” He closed his mouth. What was he doing? Explaining? Apologizing? Begging?

  “Did your partner read it, too?” He said nothing, but apparently she didn’t need words. “No, I see he didn’t. Only you. I suppose I should be grateful for that, but you’ll excuse me if I don’t thank you.”

  “Jamie, right now, your optimism, your believing the best of everyone could get you killed. People have ulterior motives. You have to look for them.”

  “What’s your ulterior motive?”

  “To catch a killer.”

  “No matter what the cost to you or others?”

  “No matter what the cost.”

  She stared at him a long moment. It was hard to stand still under that stare.

  She jumped when footsteps sounded outside, moving to a window with her back to him.

  * * * *

  Oz smiled as he spoke into the microphone. It did not come through in his voice.

  “Is the lead investigator distracted by his romantic life? Specifically with a shrink? One with great legs, according to talk among the FCPD detective squad.

  “No one knows if the Old Town murder victim had good legs, because the Fairlington County Police Department still hasn’t managed to identify her.

  “Or is this lead investigator, Detective Landis, missing his partner so much that he’s spinning his wheels while the real brains of the partnership is on vacation? And why did Chief of Detectives Palery send Detective Belichek on vacation and replace him with a less experienced detective?

  “Because this investigation is not going anywhere. I’d say it’s not going anywhere fast, but it’s not even doing that fast.

  “Or could it be because they view the women of their cases as Frankenstein Monsters? Pieces in an investigation, but not people.

  “Well, wake up big-shot detectives, you’re supposed to be solving crimes against people. People. All people. Real people. Not Frankenstein Monsters.

  “Maybe if you recognized that, maybe you would start getting somewhere with this murder in Old Town. And not just getting it on with the shrink with great legs.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  “No one had — has — a reason to kill me. I don’t know how many times and how many ways I can tell you that. Following up what Maggie said about thieves taking my phone makes more sense.”

  “We are.”

  “Good. Because the most reasonable explanation is that the victim was one of the thieves. And not anyone connected to me.”

  Her defenses were repairing. A night’s sleep could do that. Though he wouldn’t call it a good night’s sleep, considering the shadows around her eyes.

  “Do you have any suspicions about who the victim was?”

  “I told you, I can’t imagine. I did not give anyone permission to stay at my house. I had no knowledge of anyone coming to visit. The only people I could imagine coming to stay without any warning and who’d have a key, you’ve already accounted for. Thank heavens.”

  “Not all the people who’ve had keys.”

  A wash of color crossed Jamie’s cheeks. “You said the victim is definitely a woman.”

  “Your thoughts — suspicions — got to a man?”

  “I didn’t—”

  Without emotion, Belichek said, “For starters, we’ve interviewed Arbendroth, so he definitely wasn’t the victim. As for the murderer—”

  “Of course, it’s not Carl — the victim or the murderer.”

  Maggie stepped in. Not to keep peace, but to keep them on track. “The victim was female. Early information says about your age. Definitely about your size. I half hoped it would be someone shorter or taller, but when I saw the remains—”

  “Oh, my God. Maggie, you saw—? You went there?”

  “Of course I did. I do it for my job, for the victim I’m going to get justice for. I sure as hell was going to do it for you. And… I had to know.”

  Jamie’s eyes filled with tears. Maggie’s did not. But when Jamie reached across and covered her hand, Maggie turned hers up and it became a mutual grasp.

  Belichek could feel time running out. He forced his impatience to hold off until their hands separated.

  “What made you leave for North Carolina on Saturday, instead of Sunday?” he asked.

  “Don’t you ever just change your mind?”

  Deflecting the question. Interesting.

  “No.”

  Jamie glared at him. Maggie coughed. Carson remained silent.

  Belichek waited her out.

  “Well, I do. I was ready to go, so I went.”

  “Telling no one?”

  “No.” It was impatient. Then her face changed. “Oh. Wait. I called Bethany before I left, to be sure I could get into the cabin that day. She said it was fine, any time I wanted to go.”

  For a beat, Belichek enjoyed the satisfaction of adding one potential pebble to the build-the-mountain pile. Then got back to it. “You had no logical reason? You just went?”

  She responded to that tiny needle. “I thought I could get more work done at the cabin.”

  “Because?”

  “It’s quieter.”

  “Something at your house wasn’t quiet?”

  She stared back for a moment. “You’ve been talking to my neighbors?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why are you asking?”

  “To hear your answer.”

  She streamed a breath out through her teeth.

  Kimby was wrong — Jamie Chancellor could get annoyed. By him.

  “You talked about it yesterday. A neighbor who has been persistent in wanting to buy my house.”

  “Persistent in what way?” he asked.

  “I said I have no interest in selling, yet Phil continues to make offers.”

  “How much?”

  She named a figure.

  Belichek was used to masking surprise and accustomed to Fairlington real estate prices. It still knocked him back. “For a garage?”

  Maggie’s head snapped up. “A garage?”

  Jamie raised one open, dismissive hand. “That’s a rumor. That he thinks he’d use it as a garage.”

  “Has he done anything other than make offers?”

  She smiled. “That’s enough for me to dodge him.”

  Call her on it? Or keep moving ahead?

  He regarded her steadily. She looked away. Tried Maggie, bounced away toward Carson, then down.

  He waited.

  She wasn’t used to looking down. She was used to looking up.

  She didn’t last long.

  Back to him, she met his gaze. He held it.

  “Did you talk to him Friday night or Saturday morning before you left?”

  “No.” Relenting, she released a breath. “I did hear him over the back fence Friday when I came home from work.”r />
  “Directed at you?”

  “No. Victorina, his wife. They were walking out as I was crossing the patio to my back door and he was commenting — complaining — about being in the heat. He said he needed an air-conditioned garage and he wasn’t waiting any longer. He was going to make me an offer Sunday afternoon after he played golf and pin me down, once and for all.”

  An offer at the end of a shotgun? Shot before he identified the person who opened the door? Never realized his mistake?

  “So, you packed and left.”

  “I was mostly packed already.” She shrugged. “Better to start early on the book and avoid unpleasantness.”

  And he would have had plenty of time for unpleasantness. It rained hard that Sunday. No golf for Xavier.

  “You left Saturday morning, before noon, but you’re not sure exactly when. Say before eleven. Did you leave the air-conditioning on?”

  “Yes.” After their conversation while she stood on the stairs, she knew the significance of the air-conditioning.

  “Leaving for that long, it would be natural to adjust the temperature,” he said.

  “I rarely touch it since I bought a new HVAC system last year. It’s programmed and it switches on its own when the weather changes. But it’s complicated. I tried to adjust it one time, messed up the whole thing, and had to have the company back out. I don’t touch it.”

  “Someone did,” Belichek said. “Because the AC was turned off Sunday afternoon.”

  Maggie raised one eyebrow.

  He answered, “Power usage.”

  “I did not touch the thermostat. I don’t keep the house that cool anyway and I didn’t want the plants to whither.”

  “Anybody see you arrive in North Carolina?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Did anything happen while you were in North Carolina? Anything suspicious?”

  “Suspicious?” she repeated as if she had no idea what it meant.

  “Someone hanging around.” She’d think they were friendly. “Unexpected noises.” She’d think they were innocent sounds from the woods. “Anything.”

  “Nothing.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  “Okay. Where’s the painting from?”

  She blinked. Whether at his okay or the switch in topic, he didn’t know. “Painting?”

  “Over your living room fireplace.”

  Her gaze flicked to Maggie. Communication and connection sprang up, strong enough to offset any differences.

  Then both looked away.

  “That’s Ally’s. Our cousin. She…” The trailing off referenced the tragic murder of the three cousins’ aunt and their ongoing connection.

  “I know about Ally Northcutt. Why do you have her painting over your fireplace?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? It’s a wonderful painting and…” More referencing. This time to the fact that it meant something to her, to them all. She pulled away from it, strengthening her voice. “I like having something Ally painted.”

  That’s Ally’s… She hadn’t meant possession, but creation. “Artist’s signature is TL-something.”

  “Theodora Allison Lindell before she married Chad Northcutt,” Maggie said. “But she’s always gone by Allison — Ally. Her husband didn’t approve of her painting, so she didn’t use his name on them.”

  “And the photograph from the same place?”

  Another flash of connection between the cousins.

  Maggie drew in a breath. He moved only his eyes to her. But she caught it, and said nothing, though it cost her.

  “We all went back there for the dedication of a park in our aunt’s name.” Jamie’s voice washed warm memories over pain. “She loved that place and her estate bought the property and gave it to the town.”

  “Would that photo mean anything to anybody else?”

  Her brows drew together. “Other members of the family, probably.”

  He let it go. For now.

  * * * *

  “Jamie needs a break,” J.D. said.

  Maggie and Bel turned nearly identical expressions to him. Partially blank at the concept of a break, partially fiercely determined to wring every last ounce of information from a source.

  “I’m taking her for a walk,” he added.

  “You can’t,” Belichek said. “If anyone sees her—”

  “They won’t. Not the route we’re taking and wearing Maggie’s jacket, with the hood up. Even if someone saw us, they’d think it was Maggie.”

  He ignored their disapproval, got Jamie up, and held the jacket for her.

  At the door, he turned back. “You two could use a break, too.”

  * * * *

  Maggie watched them go. “He’s right. Jamie needed a break. She’s not used to this the way we are. She’s not as tough.”

  Not as used to it, true. Not as tough? He wasn’t so sure.

  He got up and headed for the coffeemaker. After a minute Maggie followed him, and took one of the stools on the far side of the island.

  “What about your other cousins?” he asked her.

  “What about them?”

  “You talk about Jamie and Ally.” Mostly in connection with eluding Jamie’s efforts to involve her in the Sunshine Foundations and concern about Ally. “But you’ve got other cousins, too, right. Jamie has siblings. What about Ally? Others?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got other cousins.”

  Not exactly a wide-open door. He went on anyway. “Don’t have much to do with them?”

  “Don’t know them as well.”

  “Because?”

  She side-eyed him in irritation. “Just the way families shake out. I crossed paths with Jamie and Ally more when we were kids.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah what?”

  “Shared experiences.”

  That closed her down.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to go there, either. He’d have to at some point. Soon.

  If it came too late, whatever trust existed would…

  Real soon.

  Instead, he asked, “That happen a lot?”

  “What?”

  “Carson being right. And you admitting it.” He placed a fresh mug in front of her.

  Her mouth twitched. More than that, her eyes softened. “A fair amount.”

  “This thing with you two is serious.” He didn’t make it a question.

  She said nothing while he returned to the coffeemaker, poured himself a mug, then faced her, his hips propped against the edge of the counter.

  “I’m scared.” She lifted her head. Her gaze met his then ricocheted away. “And happy.”

  “Guess the happy’s obvious. What’s the scared about?”

  “That I’ll stop being happy.”

  He huh’d comprehension. “Stop wanting to be with him? Him stop wanting to be with you? You screwing up? Him screwing up.”

  “All of the above. And more.” Her voice went small, totally unlike her lawyer voice. “Something happening to him. He never backs down. Came back here because there were people who thought he’d committed murder.”

  Including her. No need to remind her of that.

  “Sounds like a match for you.”

  She grinned, but so fleetingly it could have been a grimace. “You’re saying he might be scared, too?”

  “No might about it. That man’s shaking in his boots that something’ll hurt you. Ready to slay dragons.”

  She tipped her head, skepticism rising.

  Slowly, deliberately, Belichek added, “And he’ll do his damnedest to slay that dragon — even if it’s inside you.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Back in their positions, Belichek didn’t begin with questions. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  Maggie’s brows popped up.

  He’d gotten this far. Now he stalled.

  There should be a way to say this that would make it easier on them. A way that got in the implications and side history all neat, so they got the whole picture�
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  Oh, hell. There wasn’t.

  “My grandfather was the chief of police who investigated the attempted kidnapping of Jamie and your aunt’s murder. I lived with him and Gran then.”

  Silence fell like a wall.

  What else there was for him to say depended on them.

  “The chief of police. I remember him.” Maggie’s eyes narrowed, her lawyer face on. “I said you looked familiar. First time we met — or was it the first time? You said we’d never met before, but you lied—”

  “I didn’t tell you this, but I never lied to you, Mags. We didn’t meet until I was a detective and you were an ACA. Back when your aunt… I saw you, saw all three of you a couple times. I would’ve just been a face in the crowd to you.”

  Into the silence — the silence of Maggie’s suspicion, the silence of his patience — Jamie’s voice came in hesitant steps.

  “Rutherford. His name was Rutherford. Your grandfather’s.”

  He looked at her, surprised she remembered. “Rutherford Webster.”

  But she wasn’t seeing him, only looking into the past. “He… he was kind to us. He cared about Aunt Vivian. He’s a good man.”

  Gratitude opened almost painfully in Belichek’s chest. “He was… He was a good man. He died a number of years back.”

  “And then your grandmother a few years ago,” Maggie murmured. Neutral.

  “She put up a good front, but she wasn’t the same after he died. They’d been together a long time.”

  “You were named after him,” Jamie said. “It sounded … familiar when Maggie said it. That’s where Ford came from, right?”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to get this out there. It doesn’t affect this situation, but if it came up another way…”

  He left another pause, but they didn’t appear to have any questions for him.

  Thank heavens, because he felt as if he were walking a tightrope over their raw memories.

  “So, we’ll get back to work. Jamie, what happened last time you went to the cabin you usually go to?”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  Delaying tactic? Or truly caught off guard by the switch.

  “What I said. What happened the last time you were at the Pennsylvania cabin you used to go to? Hendrickson’s cabin.”