by Elle Gray
His pain hits all too close to home for me. I can relate to him in ways I wish I couldn’t, and the pain I see in his eyes is like a mirror to my own, not too long ago.
“I spoke to Eric, Mr. MacMillan.”
“I’m sure he had some rather unflattering things to say. He’s always been a victim in his own mind.”
“Well, he’s not happy with how things are. That much was clear,” I say. “But I know he misses being part of the family. He misses you.”
“He said that?”
“Not in so many words. But it’s obvious.”
Marshall chuffs and takes another drink. It’s obvious he’s not ready yet to forgive and forget. It’s unfortunate. They suffered a tremendous loss, and to my mind, this is a time they should be coming together. Not pulling further away from each other. But helping this family reconcile isn’t my job. That’s something they’re going to have to figure out on their own.
“Did you know that Charlotte was still seeing him?” I ask.
He nods. “I know she would go down to his foundation now and then, yes. She liked being a part of it. And since the seed money for it came from us, she was well within her rights—”
“I’m not saying she wasn’t, Mr. MacMillan. I was just curious. My understanding from Sarah is that you and your wife had severed all ties with Eric and Lance.”
A shadow crosses his face, and he drains the last of his glass before snatching up the bottle and refilling it again. He takes another slug before he turns to me.
“You don’t understand what it was like for us, Mr. Arrington. When they were using. We did what we could to help them for as long as we could, but they were out of control. They tore our family apart,” he says, his voice gruff.
“I’m not here to judge you or your family, Mr. MacMillan. I’m just trying to get to the truth of things and find out who murdered your wife.”
He settles back in his seat, seemingly mollified, though his eyes still carry a hard edge.
“Do you think he did it? Are you thinking it was Eric?”
I shake my head. “I’m not assuming anything at this point, Mr. MacMillan. Right now, I’m just trying to gather all the facts and put the pieces of the puzzle together.”
He drowns the words that are sitting on the tip of his tongue with another swallow of his drink. His anger at Eric is deep-seated; there’s no question. It just shows me once again how terribly destructive addiction is both for the addict and their family. “Do you know where Lance is?” I ask.
His expression tightens and darkens even more. I didn’t think it possible, but his face grows even stonier than it was before. Clearly, his feelings for his youngest son are even harder than for his middle child.
“I do not know where he is. And as long as he stays away from me, I’ll be satisfied,” he says.
“I understand things didn’t go so well when you found out she was still giving him money,” I state.
He chuffs again. “She was feeding his weakness and continuing to let him tear this family apart. I’d had enough and would not stand for it. So yes, we had an argument about it, and then I put him on a bus to Portland and told him to never come back again. I told him he wouldn’t get a nickel from this family ever again.”
“And how did he react?”
“About how you’d expect. He was angry. Threatened me,” he tells me. “But in the end, he took the bus ticket and the money I gave him and left.”
“Have you had any contact with him lately?”
He shakes his head. “I think he knows better than to contact me again. And now that Charlotte’s… gone… he’s got no other lifelines to exploit.”
“Do you know if he’s still in Portland?”
He shrugs. “I haven’t given it much thought. I don’t really care where he is, to be honest.”
I watch the boats cruising by on the water as people enjoy what could be one of the last sunny, beautiful days before the cold winter weather takes hold of the Pacific Northwest. Mr. MacMillan is getting emotional and progressively drunker. My window for getting anything of value from him is closing quickly.
“Mr. MacMillan, can you think of anybody who’d want to hurt your wife?”
He shakes his head, looking miserable. “People loved her. I can’t imagine anybody who’d want to hurt her.”
That’s not quite the picture I’m getting of her, but that’s not something I’m going to share with him. Let him hold onto his image of his wife. It’s probably not going to hurt anything if he continues to believe that she was a saint. If her reputation becomes relevant at some later juncture, I’ll have to revisit that opinion, but for now, there’s no reason to shatter his belief in her.
“What about you? Did you have any clients who were upset and might want to get back at you?”
A wry grin stretches across his lips. “In my line of work, there is always somebody who’s upset. But I don’t think anybody was upset enough to murder my wife.”
I give him a nod. “I understand it’s difficult, but I’m going to need you to go through your old case files and think of anybody who might have a serious grudge against you, Mr. MacMillan. Anything you may have done pro bono, or maybe something you handled off the books. I need you to really think about it.”
He nods vaguely. I know I already have Brody going through his electronic files, but I’m fishing here anyway. I want to know if there’s anything not on his firm’s servers. Anything he’s done on the side that may be coming back to haunt him now that I can flush out of him.
As I sit there for a few moments, silently watching him power down two more drinks, a frown touches my lips. I know I need to do my due diligence, but it’s hard for me to do when he’s obviously in the grip of grief and is trying to drink it away. But I know that no matter how much I might relate to him or feel his pain, I need to do my job. I need to explore all avenues if I’m going to find his wife’s killer.
“Mr. MacMillan, I need to ask you some difficult questions that might be… insensitive,” I start.
He chuckles though it seems more rueful than amused. He looks over at me, his gaze glassy-eyed. He's starting to look a bit sloppy, but he’s hanging onto his self-control by a thread still.
“My marriage was fine. We weren’t having any problems, and there was no infidelity. We were having sex regularly, and aside from our disagreements about our sons, our marriage was healthy and strong,” he says before I can ask the questions. “We each had our own spheres of interests and hobbies, but to me, that only strengthened our bond. We never ran out of things to talk about, and it kept things interesting.”
A pained look crosses his face, but he fights it off. I swallow down the last of my drink and carefully set the glass down. When I look up at him again, he’s grinning at me. He picks up the bottle, offering me a refill, but I decline.
“The spouse is always a suspect. It’s the first rule of most domestic murders,” he continues. “You always look at the spouse first. You always look into their relationship and see what kind of problems you can dig up. Trust me; I’ve defended my share of domestic cases in my time. Some of them were even innocent.”
I purse my lips and look at him. “So no problems in the marriage at all, huh?”
“Not unless you count my irritation at how much she spent on clothing and shoes.”
Everything he’s told me lines up with what Sarah had told me earlier. Admittedly, a lot of it would be hard to verify. For a family as used to keeping their internal strife out of the public eye, finding out whether or not there actually were problems inside the marriage is going to be a tough nut to crack. But for the moment, I’ll take him at his word. There’s no reason to invent problems that don’t exist. And until proven otherwise, I have to believe they actually were as solid and in love as Mr. MacMillan is telling me.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text, so I pull it out and call up my messages. It’s from Marcy.
Got a line on Lance. Where are you?
I
glance over at Marshall and see that he’s slipping further and further into his glass. It probably won’t be long before he doesn’t realize I’m even sitting here with him. I key in a quick response to Marcy, telling her where I am, and hit send. A moment later, she sends me another message.
He might not be there long. You need to get here fast.
I tap out my reply and hit send, telling her I’m on my way, then turn to Marshall and get to my feet. Though I’m tempted to tell him Lance might be in town, I bite my tongue. For one, it might not be Lance at all. I won’t know until I see him in the flesh. And two, if it is Lance, I have no idea how Marshall will react. In his current state, he’s liable to do anything.
“I think that’s all I have right now, Mr. MacMillan,” I say. “But I may have more for you later.”
He nods. “You know where to find me.”
I give him a tight smile and take my leave, feeling sorry for the older man as I watch him pour yet another drink.
Fourteen
Rainier Plaza Motel; South Elridge, Seattle
“When I said you had contacts on a street level, I didn’t think it was this… street level,” I note.
She grins. “Not all of us sit in hermetically sealed bubbles in our ivory towers, high above the little people, every day of our lives.”
I arch an eyebrow at her. “You really want to go there with me?”
She shrugs. “Yeah fine, you’ve got some street cred. Not much, but some.”
“And you say I’m an ass.”
“And I’d say it again, ass.”
I laugh and shake my head at her. We’re standing outside the Rainier Plaza Motel, which is u-shaped with two floors of rooms. It’s a drab, gray, concrete building that’s pitted and cracked, with chunks of it missing in some places. The windows are all boarded up, the glass long since busted out, but the plywood covering the door had been busted out. It’s not hard to figure out why.
The motel sits half a dozen blocks from Redemption House. This neighborhood is even rougher looking. Half the buildings on the street are boarded up, and the other half look like they should be. There are cars without tires, rusting and falling to pieces against the curb up and down the street. It looks like something straight out of a dystopian movie.
There are some houses and apartment buildings sprinkled in along the street that are tended a bit better than everything around them. The owners are obviously doing their best to keep their homes up in a world that’s rotting and decaying all around them. Apparently, the march of gentrification hasn’t caught up to South Elridge just yet. But I’m sure it’s coming.
“So, he’s in there?” I ask, gesturing to the building in front of us.
“According to my sources, yeah.”
“And how trustworthy are they?”
“Rock solid. They’ve helped me break more stories than I can count.”
I nod. “Good enough for me then. So, what’s the plan?”
The place is obviously a flophouse. A crack den. It’s where junkies come to get their fix and ride it out. Some of them carve out a home for themselves in there, and some are transient. It’s never a good place to be in and can be dangerous as hell. You not only have to worry about stepping on needles, crack pipes, or all sorts of paraphernalia; there’s the junkies themselves. Most of them aren’t going to do anything, but some of them are aggressive if they think they can roll you for a few bucks to feed their habit.
“Please tell me you don’t regularly hang out in places like this,” I mutter.
“Awwww… are you worried about me? That’s so sweet.”
“Only because if something happens to you, I don’t want to deal with Brody turning all morose and depressed.”
She nudges me in the rib with her elbow. “Nah, I just think that deep down, you’re just a big ol’ softy.”
“Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“The truth usually helps me sleep at night.”
“Okay, anyway.” I flash her a grin. “Why don’t you wait in the car while I run—”
“Yeah, nice try. I’m not the wait in the car kinda girl. You should know that by now. I’m going in with you.”
“Marcy—”
“Uh uh. I’m a big girl. I know the risks. If you’re going in, I’m going in,” she argues.
“Why would you want to go in there?”
“Call it morbid curiosity. Plus, you never know where or when you’re going to get an idea for a new story.”
“So you’re looking for inspiration? In there?” I arch an eyebrow at her. “I’m pretty sure all you’re going to find in there is desperation and a lot of lost souls.”
She nods. “I know what we’re walking into. Maybe better than you do. As I said, I appreciate you looking out for me, but I’m a big girl.”
I clear my throat, knowing there’s no way I’m going to be able to talk her out of this. I settle my holster on my hip and unbuckle the strap to give me easier access. She looks at me, and it’s her turn to arch an eyebrow.
“Really think you’re gonna need that?” she asks.
“Better to be prepared and not need it than to get caught with your pants down,” I reply.
“Fair enough.”
“I don’t want to offend your feminist sensibilities, but when we get in there, I need you to stay behind me.” I hold a hand up when she opens her mouth to protest. “Just in case things go sideways in there, I don’t want you in my line of fire. I need to make sure you’re out of the way.”
She looks at me for a long moment but then closes her mouth and nods. “Fine. I’ll ignore the inherent sexism of you telling me to walk behind you in favor of the practicality of your argument.”
I laugh and shake my head. “I’ll take it.”
“Good, because it’s about the best you’re going to get.”
I let out a long breath and lead her across the street. We carefully pick our way through the shattered wood that had once covered the doors. To our right is the former office, but a quick check inside reveals an empty room. Directly in front of us is what used to be the motel pool, which is now nothing more than a concrete hole in the ground.
We walk out into the courtyard and look around. The doors to all of the rooms have been removed, leaving two levels of dark holes that look like missing teeth all around us. I turn to Marcy.
“Any idea which one he’s in?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “My source wasn’t that specific, unfortunately.”
“Well, we have to go room by room then. Keep your eyes open,” I tell her.
We start on the ground floor and poke our heads into the rooms. Light filters in through the cracked and broken plywood that covers the windows, allowing me to see through the otherwise dim and murky light. We go through half a dozen rooms and see some of the burnouts lying on the ground, lost in a narcotic haze. But no Lance.
We finish the ground floor without finding who we came here for. I’m starting to lose hope that he’s actually here. We make our way up to the second floor and poke our heads into the first room. I see a pair of guys huddled in the corner, one of them holding a lighter to a glass pipe. They look at us, scowls on their faces.
“Got a problem?” the one with the pipe growls at us.
I turn away and move to the next room. It’s empty. As are the next three rooms. But when I step into the next room, I see a girl who can’t be more than sixteen lying on a tattered sleeping bag. She’s mostly naked and filthy, but there’s a pipe sitting next to her and a haze of smoke hovering near the ceiling. She’s got a lopsided smile on her face and a glazed, faraway look in her eyes. Shaking my head, I turn away from her, feeling an overwhelming sense of pity for her.
In the other corner, I see a man slumped against the wall. He looks up at me with that same faraway look in his eyes the girl has. He’s gaunt and dirty, but there’s no question about it.
“Lance,” I say as I step into the room. “Hey, man, I need you to come with me.”<
br />
“Do I—do I know you?” he asks, his voice thick, his words slurred.
“I’m a friend,” I tell him. “I just wanna talk for a bit.”
“I don’t wanna go nowhere, man.”
The overwhelming stench of human waste and decaying garbage fills my nose. It’s so strong, I have to keep myself from gagging. I take short, shallow breaths through my nose, doing my best to keep from inhaling too much of the stink. I glance at Marcy, and she’s not even trying to hide her disgust. She’s got a hand over her nose and mouth, her eyes watering.
I keep an eye on the ground as I make my way over to Lance, trying to keep from stepping on the needles and other trash on the ground. But the debris is so thick, I end up shuffling across the floor, kicking everything out of my way. When I reach him, I reach down and grab him by the arm, lifting Lance to his feet.
“What the hell dude, are you a freaking cop?” he snaps. “Screw you, man.”
“I’m not a cop, Lance. I’m your friend. I just wanna get you some fresh air.” My words are gentle, but my grip is strong.
“Let go of me,” he whines as he struggles feebly in my grasp.
It takes some doing, but with Marcy’s help, I all but drag him out of the room, and when we get out to the walkway, we find the two men who were huddled together in the room down the way waiting for us. They’ve both got hard edges to them, and they’re not entirely wasted away by the drugs. Not yet anyway. Even worse is they both have that feral look in their eyes. This was what I worried about when Marcy insisted on coming into the building with me.
These guys aren’t the get high and sleep-it-off types. These guys are predators. They prey on those weaker souls who stumble into this pit of despair. The one who had the pipe in the room is sneering at me, showing off a mouth that has more gaps than teeth anymore. His face is grizzled and streaked with dirt.