Sucker Punch

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  “If Joshie was out with girlfriends, then she wasn’t home killing Ray. If Bobby didn’t do it, then someone else did. She had to have an accomplice, so it’s a conspiracy.”

  “Unless she was able to leave the club long enough to do it herself,” I said.

  “We need to talk to the dancer she was with,” Newman said.

  “Wait a minute,” Leduc said. “I’ll believe what I heard on the video, so she’s involved, but she couldn’t have done that to Ray. Human hands and fingernails could not have done that.”

  “Duke is right,” Newman said.

  “We need to see the body and the crime scene,” Edward said.

  “We need to find a murder weapon that would explain the wounds,” I said.

  “If I’d used something to commit murder, I’d have dumped it by now,” Newman said.

  “What do you need to help Bobby?” Duke asked.

  “We need a smoking gun, and we need it soon,” Newman said.

  “I’ll chase the money,” Duke said.

  “We’ll talk to Helen Grimes,” I said.

  Olaf said, “Could she be the accomplice?”

  “We’ll find out,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said, “we will.”

  And then he smiled, an anticipatory, predatory smile. He was hoping that we’d get to hurt the cook to make her tell the truth. A few minutes ago, I’d have been certain that I’d never help him torture another person, but if it was a choice between terrorizing a woman I’d never met or having to kill Bobby, then I knew what my choice would be. I hate that sometimes the path to hell really is paved with good intentions.

  56

  THE MARCHANDS’ COOK, Helen Grimes, was sitting behind the table in the small interrogation room. She was a little heavy—not like she was built that way, but like she was eating more of her own food than maybe was good for her. The lines in her face seemed harsh, with sagging skin, but I didn’t hold that against her. Grief will do that to people of all ages. On a normal day she might have looked ten years younger, but today was not a normal day. In fact, she looked so shaky that Olaf put himself in a corner as far from her as possible without being asked. Edward took another corner, leaving Newman and me closest to her.

  Helen huddled over the glass of water that someone had gotten her; she had a crumpled tissue in her hand. “I caught Bobby at Jocelyn’s door one night. He made some excuse, but it didn’t feel right. That was the first hint I had that there was something wrong between the two of them.”

  “What were you doing there so late, Helen?” Newman asked.

  “Mr. Ray was out of town on business, and he asked me to stay over in case the kids needed anything.”

  “I thought Carmichael was the live-in handyman,” Newman said.

  She made a derisive sound. “Carmichael is spending most of his nights with his new girlfriend. I’d started staying over in one of the guest rooms off and on, but Mr. Ray made a special request of it when he was out of town last time. I think he’d started to suspect that something was wrong.” Her voice broke at the end, shoulders hunching forward even more as if she was collapsing over the water glass.

  “Would you like some coffee?” I asked. Maybe a little caffeine would help revive her. It always helped me.

  She shook her head but gave me a weak smile. Her eyes were red rimmed with all the crying she’d done. “Thank you, but caffeine makes me jittery nowadays, and my nerves are bad enough right now.”

  “How about something a little stronger?” Edward asked from his corner.

  Helen looked at him, and the smile got a little firmer. “I wouldn’t turn down a little sip of something.”

  Edward gave her his best Ted smile, all bright and reassuring. She looked a little calmer from that alone. He asked, “Any preferences, little lady?”

  She laughed, and I almost jumped, because her reaction startled me. “No one’s called me little lady in quite a while.”

  Edward just grinned at her, putting all his good-ol’-boy charm into it. Color crept back into her face; her eyes were bright enough that I noticed they were hazel with so much dark green mixed in with the brown that she probably could have put either on her driver’s license. She damn near giggled at Edward, and her expression didn’t look silly. It was like a glimpse of a younger woman, back in the day when she might have matched the history behind her first name more. Helen, the beauty whose kidnapping started the Trojan War, always seemed like a lot to live up to, but suddenly there was a sparkle in Helen Grimes. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of being younger, but of being happier.

  “Well, then, the men in this town should be ashamed of themselves, Helen. May I call you Helen?”

  The look on her face said he could call her most anything and she’d like it, but aloud she said, “Helen will be just fine, Marshal.”

  “Ted. The name’s Ted.” And he tipped his cowboy hat at her. It would have been over-the-top for me, but Helen ate it up.

  “Do you have a preference on what flavor of stronger you would like me to fetch for you, Helen?”

  He moved forward, and I moved back so that he was across the table from Helen. She smiled up at him, looking better by the minute. It would never have occurred to me that a little flirting would revive the witness, but then, that’s why I’m still learning from Edward.

  She damn near simpered at him as she gave her preferences on Scotch versus rye whiskey. I didn’t drink enough to follow most of it. She was sitting upright, a healthier color in her face, as Edward went off in search of her order.

  Newman smiled at Helen and said, “I’d like to be able to wait for your drink, Helen, but we need to know the truth before Bobby runs out of time.”

  Her face clouded and her shoulders started to slump, but then she straightened up and forced herself to look Newman in the face. “I hate the idea of you having to kill Bobby, but I think the animal in him just got too strong.”

  “What do you mean . . . Helen?” I asked. I’d use her first name if it made her feel better. Belatedly, I wondered if I should offer for her to call me by my first name, but she was answering, so I let it go.

  Her face was grim as she looked at me. She gripped her hands together tight enough for the skin to mottle as she said, “First, he started sniffing around Jocelyn, his own sister, and then he lost control and killed his uncle. Bobby was a good person, but he wasn’t strong enough to fight off all the animal urges.”

  “When did Bobby stop being a good person, Helen?” Newman asked.

  She looked startled. “I didn’t say he wasn’t. It’s the beast in him that’s bad.”

  “You used the past tense: ‘Bobby was a good person,’” I said.

  “When did you decide he wasn’t a good person, Helen?” Newman asked, his voice gentle.

  “I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and saw a flash of light coming from Jocelyn’s room. The door was partially open. I walked closer, and Bobby came out, wearing just a pair of underwear. He had his phone in his hand. I remember thinking it was odd.”

  “What did he say when he saw you, Helen?” Newman asked.

  “He said that he thought he’d left his headphones over in her room. He had insomnia and wanted to listen to music and not wake her.”

  “Did you believe him?” I asked.

  “No . . . maybe . . . I don’t know.” She wiped at the tears on her face with the crumpled tissue, but it was used up. Newman got a plastic travel packet of them out of his pocket and handed it to her. I’d never thought to add tissues to one of the pockets in the tactical pants. I filed it away for later as a good idea.

  “Thank you,” Helen said, and wiped at her eyes and nose.

  We waited for her to get control of herself. Sometimes you don’t want witnesses to regain control, because the breakdown helps them spill what they know, but Helen wanted to talk to u
s. She’d come down to the station to tell her story and to bring new evidence. She wasn’t going to clam up on us.

  “What happened next?” Newman asked, voice so kind. He had a nice light touch, better than mine.

  “I asked Jocelyn if she’d found Bobby’s headphones in her room. If she’d said yes, then I would have left it alone. They’re siblings. Things end up in the wrong room for a lot of innocent reasons, but she didn’t know what I was talking about, so I told her.” Helen gulped hard and tried to breathe deep as if the next part was harder. “Jocelyn broke down and cried in my arms. She’d woken up with Bobby lying in bed with her once, and he’d walked in on her when she was dressing or showering so many times, she tried to keep her door locked, but she’d forgotten the night I saw him. I told her she had to tell her stepfather, Mr. Ray, that he had to know. I tried to ask if Bobby had done more than look, and she broke down completely.” Helen started to cry again.

  “What did she say Bobby had done?” I asked, trying to keep my own voice as gentle as Newman’s.

  Helen shook her head hard enough that her short hair bounced around her face. “She was so upset that she couldn’t talk, but her reaction let me know it was worse. I told her to go to the police if he’d touched her, and she completely fell apart. I told her that I’d go with her, that she didn’t have to do this alone, but she refused to go to the police. She said if I went to the cops without her, she’d lie and say I’d made it up. She didn’t want everyone to know, and if the police got involved, then it would be courts and lawyers. She was ashamed, said it was her fault, too. I couldn’t convince her that it wasn’t her fault or to go to the police, so I told her to tell her stepfather. I offered to go with her for moral support, but she wanted to do it on her own. She was so brave.”

  Helen raised her face and looked at me with an almost radiant expression, as if the memory of that brave moment from Jocelyn had been some magnificent gesture. I let the moment of shining sisterhood fill Helen’s face and make her eyes look even greener.

  “Do you know if she told Ray?” Newman asked.

  “She came into the kitchen and hugged me that morning, said that Mr. Ray had believed her and was going to talk to Bobby that night. She was so happy. I offered to stay that night, but she said she was going out with friends and that Mr. Ray wanted to be alone with Bobby for the talk.”

  I glanced at Newman and our eyes met. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking: It all sounded so reasonable. If Olaf hadn’t heard Jocelyn’s voice on the video, if we hadn’t put our ears nearly touching the phone to hear her being seductive with Bobby, we’d have believed Helen’s story. It would have been enough for one of us to go into the cell and end Bobby’s life.

  “I should have gone to the sheriff and told him that Bobby was molesting his sister. I should have done it, even if Jocelyn hated me or they fired me. I should have told someone. If I had, maybe Mr. Ray would still be alive.” Helen started to cry harder again, shoulders rounding and starting to shake.

  We were trying to reassure Helen that it wasn’t her fault when Edward finally came back with her drink. I moved back to stand beside Olaf so that Edward could have the room to work his sweet Ted magic on her. I was out of sweet talk about this case.

  So Jocelyn had lied about the affair with her brother because she was embarrassed about it. It didn’t mean she’d killed her uncle. Ray Marchand could have seen it as incest and told Bobby to break it off with Jocelyn that night. Nothing we’d learned—even Jocelyn’s lying—helped clear Bobby of the murder. We needed another murderer to put in Bobby’s place, with enough evidence to convince the judge, or we were still going to have to kill him.

  I had a sudden urge to lean my head against Olaf’s arm, because I couldn’t reach his shoulder, just to touch someone. It’s one of the ways that lycanthropes soothe themselves, and I carried enough beasts inside me to just want to lean against someone for a moment so I could think. As if Olaf had read my mind, he moved that small distance to me so that his arm touched my shoulder. Yeah, I knew it was Olaf, and he was a scary fuck, but I found myself leaning my head against his arm, resting my weight against him for a moment. It felt good, comforting in that puppy-pile kind of way that I’d grown to depend on when I was home with my polycule. I’d thought it was because they were metaphysically tied to me, but maybe it was just the physical closeness, the way stray dogs huddled together for comfort.

  Whatever it was, it helped me think. Leduc had said that Helen Grimes had brought in Bobby’s phone because it had evidence that proved Jocelyn was telling the truth, or something like that. How had Helen known what was on the phone? How had she been that certain that it was worth bringing in to the police?

  Those were good questions—questions we should have thought of earlier. I stopped arguing with myself about what felt good and what was a bad idea and just leaned against Olaf, finally feeling in the front of my head what the back part had already noticed, a faint hum of energy: his lion to my lion. It didn’t raise our beasts, it didn’t do anything bad, it just was, and in that moment, it was enough. If he would only give up the serial killer stuff, maybe we could cuddle.

  57

  BY THE TIME Edward got Helen calmed down, I had stopped leaning against Olaf. Even if he’d been my sweetheart for real, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to show affection in the middle of an interrogation. The other marshals would have made fun of me.

  Helen was smiling at Edward, but when she turned to Newman, the smile vanished. “Why haven’t you done your duty, Win?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, Helen.”

  “It’s not Bobby’s fault that the animal inside him is turning him into a monster, but it’s still a fact. It started with him lusting after his own sister, and when Mr. Ray told him that it was sinful, the animal side of him went crazy and killed him. Ray Marchand raised that boy like his own, adopted him and everything, but Bobby still turned into an animal and killed him. He’s not safe anymore, Win.”

  “Did you see him kill Ray?” Newman asked.

  “No, I wasn’t there that night. I told you that.”

  “Were you safe and snuggled up at home, Helen?” Edward asked in his best country drawl.

  “I was with my quilting group. We’re making a cathedral-window pattern. None of us has ever tried anything that intricate before.”

  “The one that meets in the basement of the Lutheran church?” Newman asked.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling and relaxed from talking about her hobby.

  “Was it your night to bring refreshments?” he asked.

  “No, I was on cleanup duty this week.”

  “So, you locked up and went home pretty late,” Newman said.

  I realized that between the two of them, they had Helen’s alibi. I hadn’t even thought of Helen Grimes as a possible accomplice in the murder, and I should have. I just wasn’t used to looking at ordinary people for my murderer. Once you had a victim who had been clawed to death, normal human fingernails just couldn’t do the job.

  Helen leaned across the table and touched Newman’s sleeve. “I know it’s an awful thing that you have to do, Win, but it’s your job to keep the rest of us safe from the monsters, and that’s what Bobby is now, a monster.”

  He patted her hand but moved back so she couldn’t touch him again. “If Bobby did everything you say he did, then you’re right, Helen.”

  “If? What do you mean, if, Win?”

  “If you had to walk into that cell and kill someone, wouldn’t you want to be certain first?”

  “Jocelyn said you didn’t believe her, that you thought she was lying about what Bobby did to her, but you’ve seen the pictures and the video on his phone now. You know he was stalking her, or I don’t even have a word for what he was doing.”

  I made myself smile at her. “How did you know that the pictures were on his phone, Helen?”

&nbs
p; “Jocelyn told me.”

  “When did she tell you about the phone, Helen?” Newman asked.

  “When I visited her at the hospital today. She’s got no family left now.”

  Newman said, “There’re still Muriel and Todd Babington.”

  Helen looked angry and shook her head. “They never treated Jocelyn like a niece, not the way they treated Bobby, though heaven knows they didn’t treat him all that well. Did you know that they were supposed to take Bobby when Muriel’s sister, his mother, died, but they didn’t want him? Mr. Ray took him because Muriel was the only remaining sister and she didn’t want children. She’d have let the state have Bobby and him just a baby.”

  “I didn’t think you’d worked for the Marchand family long enough to know the history, Helen,” Newman said.

  “I remember when Bobby’s mother died. We all assumed that her sister would take the baby. I mean, Ray Marchand had divorced twice because he was married to his career. Everyone knew that. We couldn’t believe that he took the boy. Muriel Babington got asked a lot why she didn’t take Bobby, and she told anyone that asked that she never wanted children, her own or anyone else’s. We thought Bobby would end up raised by nannies or something, but Ray cut his hours and stopped most of the traveling and was the best father he knew how to be.” Helen started tearing up again. “And to think that all that kindness and love ended up with the boy he raised killing him.”

  Edward patted her hand, and she grasped his hand. How did he do it? “How did Jocelyn know the pictures were on the phone?”

  “She borrowed the phone to look something up and one of the photos was his background, if you can believe it. I mean, bold as brass, that.”

  “Did she confront him about it?” Edward asked.

  “She told him he had no right to those pictures, that she never gave him permission to take them.”

  “How did you know the code to unlock the phone?” he asked, still holding her hand, or letting her hold his.

  “Jocelyn gave it to me so that I could unlock the phone for the sheriff.”