Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  “My client is in no condition—”

  “Be quiet,” Hazard said.

  “This is ridiculous,” Gensler snapped back. “He’s out of his mind on drugs. Nothing he says will be admissible, not against him, and definitely not against Ms. Hall. You need to leave right now.”

  Somers ignored her; Josh was shaking his head.

  “The fighting started earlier, didn’t it? You really did see her throw the sweater into the lake and you knew something was wrong. She changed the plan. She wasn’t telling you everything. And you panicked and tried to pin it on her before she could pin it on you.”

  “This is absolutely unacceptable,” Gensler said, trying to put her body between Somers and Josh. “Officer! Officer, you in the hall! Get in here!”

  “You were right,” Somers said around Gensler’s bulk. “She was already setting you up. She’d been setting you up since the night she killed Donna May.”

  Carlson poked her head into the room.

  “Officer, I insist that you escort the detective and his consultant out of this room at once. They are badgering a sick man, and they’re—”

  “We have proof,” Somers said quietly.

  Gensler stared at him, and then her jaw snapped shut.

  Hazard stepped forward, opening a manila envelope, and he shook the photographs out onto the bed. They were bagged to preserve prints, but the images were clearly visible. “We found these in her office. She was getting ready to mail them to the police. Anonymously, of course.”

  Josh struggled to sit up, and then he remembered the control and pressed buttons until the hospital bed shifted, propping him up with the slow whir of machinery. He fumbled through the pictures.

  “These are me,” he whispered, starting to cry.

  “Give me those,” Gensler said, reaching for the pictures. “My client doesn’t know—”

  “These are me,” Josh repeated more forcefully, twisting to keep the photographs out of Gensler’s hands. “These are me.”

  “My client is in no condition to—”

  “Moving Donna May’s body into your car,” Hazard narrated the pictures. “Taking her out of the car. Moving her into the boat house.”

  “How did she—”

  “That’s enough,” Gensler said. “Officer, if you won’t have these men leave, I’ll call 911.”

  “Get out,” Josh said.

  “You heard,” Gensler said as she tapped at her phone. “Get out.”

  “No, you. Get out, Ms. Gensler. Get out of here.”

  “Absolutely not. You’re not in your right mind, and—”

  “You’re fired. Get out. Get the fuck out of here!” The last sentence was a scream.

  Gensler’s eyes got huge, and then she stuffed the phone in her purse and stalked out of the room. As she pushed past Carlson, she said, “Good fucking luck, you selfish, spoiled brat.”

  Josh made an effort to gather the photographs, and then he started sobbing and buried his face in the pillow.

  Hazard said, “Josh—”

  Somers touched his leg, and Hazard went quiet.

  The crying went on for a long time. When it was over, Josh looked around the room, and Somers passed him the box of tissues.

  “Thanks,” Josh said before blowing his nose. “God, everything is so messed up. I really—I really screwed up.” He grabbed more tissues and blew his nose again. “Can you not tell my parents, please?” And then he started laughing, a wet, sick sound, and pressed the tissues against his eyes. “Oh my God, that is so stupid. I’m—I’m a grown man. This is serious, really serious.” He lifted the tissues and looked at Somers as though for confirmation, and when Somers nodded, Josh sighed and said, “So why is this part of me so worried about how disappointed my dad’s going to be?”

  “Because you love him,” Hazard said. “And there’s nothing worse than disappointing someone you love.”

  Josh crushed tissues against his eyes again and nodded.

  “Everybody’s treated you like a kid for a long time,” Somers said. “I think you’re tired of it.”

  “Yeah,” Josh said thickly. “Yeah, I’m so fucking tired of it.”

  “Now’s the time to change that,” Somers said. “You take responsibility for what happened, you tell us your part, and you handle this like an adult.”

  For another moment, Josh scrubbed at his face with the tissues. Then he lowered them, looked Somers in the eye, and said, “Yeah. Thanks.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  MARCH 30

  SATURDAY

  7:27 PM

  IN THE INTERVIEW ROOM, Melissa wore an orange jumpsuit that marked her as a temporary resident of the city jail; Gensler sat at the table, no phone this time, her full attention on Somers.

  “It’ll be easier if you give a full confession now,” Somers said. “Your attorney will recommend that you hold out and attempt a plea deal, but I can promise you: there will be no deal. Write out a full confession now, sign it with Ms. Gensler as a witness, and it will go a long way toward convincing the judge that you regret your decision. That could have a big impact at sentencing.”

  “Or,” Hazard said, “don’t do it and spend the rest of your life behind bars. That’s my preferred option, actually, so I hope that’s the route you take.”

  “My client will not be confessing anything,” Gensler said. “She has nothing to say to you at this point.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Melissa said, in that calm, controlled voice, like they were in session and she was pulling all the strings. “I’m very sorry it’s come to this. I’ve told you already: I loved Donna May. I wanted the best for her. I never could have hurt her. You don’t believe me, and I understand that. It’s your job to be suspicious. But I was home that night, and there’s no way I could have left. When this case gets tossed out, I will be suing the department and the city. It’s obvious that your persecution of me is driven by your own deep-seated insecurities about the relationship you cultivated as partners and that ultimately cost both of you very dearly. I’m sorry about that, but I can’t let you continue to harass helpless people.”

  “That’s enough,” Gensler said.

  “You did several things right,” Hazard said. “A few big things wrong, but several other things right.”

  “Detective,” Gensler said, “please remove your consultant from this interview.”

  “You shouldn’t have changed your hair,” Hazard said. “I saw you in the picture; I had already thought about how you and Donna May and Courtney could pass as sisters: the same height, the same build, the same color and relative length of hair. I didn’t really think anything of it, but once I started putting things together, your new hairstyle was a problem. You didn’t count on the picture, I guess. You thought I’d look at you today, now, and think you didn’t look anything like Donna May.”

  Melissa’s mouth compressed into a thin line.

  “I liked the touch about driving Courtney’s car back,” Somers said to Hazard. “That was bold.”

  “Risky,” Hazard said.

  “But bold. Drove it right back to the Vegas’ home. Let herself inside. Left the keys in the kitchen. And then walked right back out.”

  “I want to know about the headlights,” Hazard said.

  “Me too,” Somers said. “Did Donna May tell you that she did that to antagonize Mr. Warner? Or did you hear about it from Josh?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Melissa said.

  “See, here’s how it went, Melissa: you and Josh were having a nice, intimate encounter. He’d just gotten out on bail, and he was probably randy as a goat because he’d thrown a few punches and felt like a real man. Everything was going all right until Donna May showed up. She lost her mind. Everyone talks about how much they loved her, and for a while, that snowed me. But you know what? I met Donna May. I saw her hijack the microphone at the tree-lighting ceremony. And I know, whatever else you can
say about her, she was a fighter.”

  “This is pointless,” Gensler said. “I think we’re done here.”

  “The problem is that not only did I meet Donna May, but I also remember her. She wasn’t really that nice of a person. In fact, Courtney kept reminding me of that. She kept telling me how Donna May treated Josh badly. Daniel said it too. Everybody agreed that Josh was happier without her, his life was better when she left. And they told us that the only difference was, this time, she was going to stick around. I should have figured it out then. I should have realized that if she were bad for Josh when it was on and off, she would really be bad for him if it was permanent. I should have known that all those times you and Josh were telling me how much you loved her, how wonderful she was, how special—all those times, you were blowing sunshine.”

  “What I want to know,” Hazard said, “is, did Donna May get physical with you when she saw you two going to town on each other? Or did she go after Josh?”

  “That’s enough,” Gensler said.”

  “My guess,” Hazard said, “is she got physical with Josh, and he managed to restrain her. That’s when she really lost her mind. She started threatening you. You realized she was serious, she was going to ruin your career, take everything from you.” Hazard paused. “I don’t know if you started another physical altercation, and in the heat of the moment, you grabbed Josh’s sweater from the floor and strangled her with it. Or you might have just grabbed the sweater and strangled her. The second one is more likely, I think; you’re not a brawler. Of course, Josh had to help you. Did he hold her down?”

  “Josh loved Donna May,” Melissa said, her lips trembling.

  “Enough,” Gensler said. “I am advising you not to continue this conversation.”

  “I loved Donna May.”

  “You and Josh kept saying you loved her,” Somers said. “I couldn’t figure that out. At first, I thought it was just the idea that you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, you know? But remember: we knew her. She was aggressive, nasty, a royal pain.” He set his phone on the table and tapped the screen.

  Josh’s voice filled the interview room: “I hated that bitch, hated her, couldn’t wait to be fucking rid of her. She’d come back and she’d want to fight and fuck and fight and fuck, and she’d . . . she’d threaten me, ask for money. I mean, sometimes the sex was good, and Christ, I couldn’t just tell her to go away. Because of Dolly, you know? But it just kept getting worse and worse, and things with Melissa were really getting good, and Donna May started talking about getting an apartment, staying here, and I knew she was going to ruin everything again.”

  Somers stopped the recording.

  The last color had drained from Melissa’s face.

  “We’ve got some other interesting soundbites you might want to hear. Your neighbor is one of them; she’s one of the reasons we were able to get the arrest warrant. She’s got a really nifty story about doing some housesitting for you. She set the alarm. She stayed at your house. She even got a phone call from you on the landline, and you guys talked for a few minutes. That’s the same night Donna May was killed, by the way. The same night you were supposedly locked up inside your house with a perfect alibi. But it wasn’t you; it was Gladys. Josh played the same trick—and yes, he already confessed to that part. He left the TV on upstairs that night so his parents would think he was still home. Mr. Hazard stopped by his house earlier this week and found him still using the same trick. He needed an alibi, so he had to go home after you killed Donna May. But you didn’t want him safe and cozy while you were hiding in the neighbor’s garage, so you made him sneak out and spend the night with you.” Somers smiled at the first crack in Melissa’s façade. “That’s right. We connected your one-night vacation to the break-in at the neighbor’s heated garage. We have some guys over there right now, dusting for prints. How are you and Josh going to explain being in there? You don’t even know those people; we already checked.”

  “You killed her,” Hazard said, leaning forward. “You drove her car back. You left the keys. You stopped by Daniel’s trailer to call home and talk to Gladys—you needed another way to throw us off the trail. Did you fuck him?”

  “I insist—” Gensler tried to say.

  “Probably,” Hazard said, answering his own question. “And then you walked the mile across undeveloped land, crawled over the concertina-wire fence—we can’t prove you cut yourself, but Daniel told us someone threw a fit about the fencing and made the neighborhood pull it down, and I bet we’ll find your name on the complaint—and then you spent the night hiding out with Josh. Both of you with your perfect alibis.”

  “A lot of good stuff,” Somers said. “A few mistakes, but mostly pretty good work.”

  “Your big mistake,” Hazard said, “was turning on Josh.”

  “He’s alive, by the way,” Somers said. “In case you didn’t figure that out from the recording. We found him in the crawlspace. They gave him naloxone. He’s not going to feel very good tonight, but he’s alive. And he’s already talking. You just heard a snippet of all the snazzy stuff he’s ready to tell us.”

  “Did his nerve break?” Hazard asked. “When I started poking around, was that what did it?”

  “I insist on having a private consultation with my client. This information about Mr. Dobbs is new, and I need time to—”

  “That’s all right,” Hazard said, pushing the pad of paper and the pen toward Melissa. “You can have all the time you need. We have Josh’s version; if yours is different, now’s the time to tell it.”

  They left Melissa with Gensler; moments after the door closed, muffled shouting picked up inside the interview room.

  “Do you think she’ll confess?” Somers said.

  Hazard shook his head and glanced at his watch.

  “Neither do I,” Somers said.

  “But you’ve got everything you need: the full story, corroborated in places by key witnesses, the blackmail photos, and, of course, Josh.”

  “If he doesn’t change his mind. Once his new attorney gets a hold of him, he might clam up pretty damn fast.”

  “One step at a time,” Hazard said, shaking his watch down his wrist, as though trying to keep himself from checking it again. “You might even get lucky with the forensics on the sweater.”

  “Come on,” Somers said, taking Hazard’s hand and threading their fingers together. “Let’s get you back to your family.”

  “You’ve got work to do. I’ll find someone to drive me down there tomorrow; damn it, I should have thought of this. I shouldn’t have left the van there.”

  “Come on,” Somers said again, tugging him toward the door.

  “John, it’s almost two hours down there and two hours back. You’ve got a million things to do, and—”

  “And I’ve got a very fast car.” He smiled and squeezed Hazard’s hand. “Come on.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  MARCH 31

  SUNDAY

  2:21 PM

  HAZARD’S DAD PASSED AWAY the next afternoon. He declined steadily all day, and then he fell asleep, and then he died. Hazard was sitting in a chair next to the bed when it happened; his mother had fallen asleep in the chair next to him, her head propped on her hand. An alarm beeped. Hazard’s mom sat upright, blinking, and stumbled to the bed. She didn’t cry out or weep; she just stood there, white knuckling the bed rail. A nurse came in and pressed something, and the alarm ended. She checked a few things on the machines, left, and returned a few minutes later with a doctor. He ran some more checks.

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor finally said to them. “He’s moved on.”

  “Big fucking surprise,” Hazard said.

  That was when his mom started to cry. Hazard hugged her for a long time, and then he helped her out of the room and asked for somewhere they could sit. They ended up in the chapel, which was a glorified shoebox with Lutheran hymnals, the stale smell of air freshener, and silk flowers exploding o
ut of vases. They sat on a hard pew, and Hazard traced the crucifix mounted on the wall with his eyes—no bloody Jesus, thank God—while his mom cried softly into his shoulder. He kept an arm around her, rubbed her shoulder, patted her back.

  Once, it seemed like she might have stopped, and she pulled back and looked at him with red eyes and wailed, “Oh, bunny,” and started crying all over again.

  But everything wears out, even weeping, and eventually she was quiet. Hazard asked her if he could leave for a minute, and she nodded. He found a nurse, gave his name, and she picked up a file without being asked.

  “Your mother and father have already arranged everything.”

  “They’ve got someone to take the body?”

  The nurse, who was probably twenty, said, “We prefer to say the remains.”

  “And I’d prefer my dad were still alive. Do they have someone to take the remains?”

  “Yes, I told you, it’s all—”

  “Then we’re leaving.”

  He gathered his duffel and his mom’s things from 503, which was now empty, and found his mom in the chapel. She was standing in front of the crucifix, hands clasped, head down. Hazard waited until she finished.

  When she turned around, she said, “Emery, are you ok?”

  “Yes.”

  She waited.

  “That crucifix isn’t square,” he added. “The right arm has a slight angle.”

  “That’s ok,” his mom said, coming across the chapel to take her purse. Then she slid her arm through his. “Nothing’s perfect, bunny.”

  They drove home; Hazard’s parents had moved here after his dad had finally retired, and although Hazard had visited a few times, he still came to the house as a stranger. It was a surprisingly cute mid-century home with an open plan and walls of windows, part of a neighborhood of similar homes, all of them built for some reason in Kermit, Missouri, the official middle of nowhere. As soon as they were through the door, his mom curled up on the couch, tucking her stockinged feet under an afghan and resisting Hazard’s efforts to get her into the bedroom proper.