Save Your Breath

by Leigh, Melinda

  Morgan found her voice. “Yes. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  He nodded, his eyes growing moist. In his midfifties, Olander struck an imposing figure. Tall, with thick white hair and a beard that needed trimming, he could have passed for an aging Viking.

  “I wanted to talk to you about my wife.” Mr. Olander stepped forward and held out a hand.

  Morgan hesitated for a second, then shook it.

  Heavy calluses on his big hands indicated many years of manual labor. He wore dark jeans and a wrinkled blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The morning was too cold to be out without a jacket. Chilly air was blowing inside the open front of Morgan’s peacoat.

  “Come inside.” Morgan moved back, allowing him into the foyer.

  She led the way to her office. Inside, she removed her coat and set her tote on her credenza. “Can I make you a cup of coffee?”

  “All right.” Mr. Olander looked lost.

  Morgan gestured to a chair facing her desk. “Please, sit down.”

  He lowered his frame into the seat, resting trembling hands on the arms of the chair. Morgan opened her credenza drawer and found a package of cookies. She put a few on a plate and brewed a cup of coffee. When it was finished, she handed the mug to Mr. Olander and set the plate of cookies on the desk in front of him. “Cream or sugar?”

  “No, thank you.” He picked up a cookie.

  Morgan settled behind her desk, content to wait until he was ready to talk. Understandably, he seemed to need to collect himself. While he did, she held her phone in her lap under the desk and sent Lance a quick text, letting him know Mr. Olander was here and not at his farm. After Mr. Olander had eaten two cookies and sipped his coffee, his color improved.

  He settled back in the chair and stared into the coffee. “I’d like to say I can’t believe my wife killed herself, but that would be a lie. It didn’t surprise me one bit.” He wrapped all his fingers around the mug.

  “I’m sorry for all that has happened to you.”

  His life had been destroyed.

  He nodded once. “She was at a breaking point. I honestly thought she was going to do it when Erik was convicted. I’m almost surprised she held out this long.”

  “Did she get counseling?”

  He huffed. “No. She refused. It was almost like she didn’t want to feel better. Plus, our health insurance deductible is so big, we can’t afford to use it. We mortgaged the farm to hire the best lawyer. We even sold off some of our furniture. We eventually put the farm up for sale, although it took a while to find a buyer. No one wants a dairy farm these days.”

  He’d lost his son, his wife, and his home. What did he have left?

  Hope that his son might win an appeal.

  “Where will you go?” she asked.

  “We’re moving to a small house in town. I can’t imagine living so close to other people, but it’s all I can afford. But I guess it doesn’t matter. The farm is just an empty shell now. I sold the equipment. The livestock is gone.” He sighed. “Everything is gone.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Olander?” Morgan asked in a soft voice.

  “My wife wanted to hire you right before she . . .” He inhaled and steadied himself.

  “Yes. That’s correct.”

  “Erik’s conviction broke her, until that writer lady came to see us. She got Lena all fired up.” He dug into his pocket and produced a wrinkled business card. “Olivia Cruz.” He shoved it back into his pocket. “Ms. Cruz told us she was researching Erik’s case. When she said the jury foreman had lied about her background, Lena went ballistic.”

  “Did Ms. Cruz actually say the juror lied?” Morgan asked. Olivia’s previous book had been based on one of Morgan’s former clients. Olivia knew legal procedure. She would have understood the technicalities of the jury selection process.

  “I don’t remember if she used the word lie.” His forehead wrinkled. “She might have said something like neglected to disclose, but that’s the same thing.”

  Not exactly.

  So often, people heard what they wanted to hear.

  “Ms. Cruz said she was going to continue researching and she’d let us know if she found anything else. Erik’s lawyer already filed a notice of appeal, but he doesn’t think we’ll get any traction with what Ms. Cruz discovered. He’s working other angles.”

  Morgan agreed with the attorney, but Mrs. Olander hadn’t.

  “For all I paid him, he should be able to get some results!” Mr. Olander’s voice rose. He looked away, his jaw sawing back and forth, as he composed himself.

  Morgan gave him a minute to cool down. Then she changed the topic. “How did your wife find me?”

  “She saw you on TV a while back, about the same time Erik was first arrested. She wanted to hire you to represent him then.” He shifted his weight. “But our funds were limited. I wanted someone with more experience in criminal defense. Your practice had just opened.”

  Morgan had additional experience as a prosecutor, but now was not the time to mention it. She wasn’t selling her services. She’d already refused the case.

  Mr. Olander set his mug on the desk. “Here’s the thing. The damned prosecutor was such an arrogant prick in the courtroom. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knew all about the juror and picked her on purpose.”

  ADA Anthony Esposito had prosecuted Erik’s case. Morgan had a sometimes adversarial, sometimes cordial relationship with Esposito. His moral code seemed as gray as the charcoal suits he favored. He could be arrogant, and he liked to win. But Morgan couldn’t see him committing an ethical violation and jeopardizing his career by withholding critical information from the defense, especially not in a case where he already had a clear advantage.

  Morgan said, “In most cases, neither the prosecutor nor the defense counsel would know about an event from a juror’s distant past.”

  “Well, he treated Erik like dirt.”

  Of course he had. Esposito had wanted the jury to feel his certainty that Erik was guilty. He had wanted them to feel—and share—his disgust. Much of what happened in the courtroom was theatrics. The truth was irrelevant if an attorney could not convince the jury.

  Olander’s fist suddenly slammed down on her desk, rattling it—and surprising Morgan with the rapid shift in his demeanor.

  “Erik’s trial was a farce.” Olander’s face twisted until he barely resembled the man she’d let into her office. “I paid a lot of money for a good lawyer, and the first thing he did was suggest Erik plead guilty.”

  The firm the Olanders had hired was based in Albany. Morgan was familiar with their attorney’s reputation. He was experienced and seemed competent.

  The skin of Mr. Olander’s already-lean face had tightened with anger. Maybe Erik had inherited his father’s volatile temper. She considered Olander’s behavior on the doorstep. He’d lost his entire life. Some emotional instability should be expected, but Morgan had interviewed hundreds of suspects, victims, and witnesses. Mr. Olander set off her well-honed bullshit detector.

  Was he truly volatile, or had his depression been an act? Had he been trying to manipulate Morgan’s sympathy and cooperation? Which one was the real Mr. Olander?

  Morgan remembered Mrs. Olander’s statement when she’d first entered Morgan’s office: Kennett doesn’t know I’m here. He wouldn’t approve. At the time, Morgan hadn’t thought much of the comment, but now she wondered if Mrs. Olander had been afraid of her husband.

  Erik’s wife had been researching domestic violence shelters on the sly. Maybe wife beating and being a control freak ran in the family.

  “Our fucking lawyer should have found out about the juror’s partiality,” Mr. Olander said. “We shouldn’t have learned about it from a reporter.”

  “As I explained to your wife, being a domestic violence victim more than twenty years ago would not automatically disqualify her from serving on the jury.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Mr. Olander spat out the wor
ds. “I hate lawyers.” His voice rose, and he banged a fist on his thigh. “Can’t I get a fucking straight answer from you either?”

  “Mr. Olander, it isn’t that simple.”

  “No shit. I’m not stupid,” he snapped. “I’m pissed off. I sold my farm, and I’ve nothing to show for it.”

  Had he thought with enough money he could buy his son’s freedom?

  “The past few years have been tough. I have nothing left. The fucking lawyers took what was left, and then Lena comes to me saying we need to hire another one. I told her”—his voice dropped off abruptly and his gaze shifted, as if he had barely stopped himself from saying something he knew he shouldn’t—“I told her, ‘No. We already have a lawyer. I’m not throwing more money at a different one.’ I need you to give me whatever money my wife gave you as a retainer.”

  “She didn’t give me any money. I turned her down. As I told your wife, you need an appellate lawyer—”

  “Fuck you!” He leaped to his feet. “I know she gave you money. She took a check, and it wasn’t in her purse.”

  Morgan had a brief but vivid flashback to the last time she’d dealt with an impulsive, violent client. He’d punched her in the face in the middle of the courthouse corridor. She’d suffered a concussion. Her face had healed, but the incident had left a mark on her confidence. Her heart sprinted, its beats echoing in her ears, and sweat broke out under her arms.

  Was Mr. Olander just a bully? Or was he out of control and dangerous?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lance stared through the windshield of Sharp’s Prius at the Olander farm. “Does anyone even live here?”

  “The place looks abandoned.” Sharp turned off the engine.

  They stepped out of the car in front of a sprawling single-story house. A second house of the same style stood on the other side of a meadow the size of a football field.

  “This is Kennett Olander’s address.” Lance pointed to the home in front of them. With few trees to protect it from the elements, the primary house was old and had been weather-beaten to a dull gray. The second house appeared newer, the sheen of its blue shutters and white clapboards suggested vinyl siding. “He built the second house for Erik and Natalie.”

  Sharp crossed his arms and studied the two structures. “Looks almost like a compound.”

  Behind the houses, a long, low barn stretched out, surrounded by empty pastures and smaller outbuildings.

  Lance headed up the walk to the single step that led to the front porch of the first house. “Someone will probably turn the whole property into a housing development of McMansions.”

  Sharp rapped on the front door.

  Wind blew across the open space. Other than the rustle of dead leaves across the porch, the entire place was eerily silent.

  Sharp knocked a second time. They waited several minutes, but no one answered.

  “Let’s look around.” Sharp walked to the nearest window, cupped his hand over his eyes, and peered inside.

  Lance followed his boss around the side of the house, looking in each window as they passed. Normally, Sharp was nosey but tried to color mostly within the lines of the law.

  “I wonder how long they’ve lived on the farm.” Sharp pivoted on his heel and strode across the grass. “Let’s check out the barn.”

  They followed a dirt footpath from the house to the barn.

  “From the smell of this place, I wouldn’t want to buy their milk.” Sharp skirted the carcass of a large rat. A scurrying sound inside the barn wall suggested there were live ones as well.

  “Agreed,” Lance said. “Let’s hope the place was better maintained when they were in business.”

  “I doubt it. This looks like long-term neglect.”

  They walked into the large indoor enclosure that had housed the animals. Even with the cows gone, the pungent scents of manure and urine bit into Lance’s nostrils. Cobwebs clung to the few pieces of rusted equipment that remained.

  The center space was two stories high. On either side, the building had two floors of offices and storage. Windows overlooked what appeared to be the area where the cows had been milked. Across the back of the building, a catwalk connected the two sides and presumably gave management a bird’s-eye view of the operation.

  The barn was empty except for a few feral-looking cats. Lance poked his head into an office. Dust coated the file cabinets and battered desk. A gray tabby arched its back and hissed before darting through an open doorway into an adjoining office.

  “I guess Mr. Olander isn’t here.” Sharp walked outside and headed back toward the house.

  “We’ll have to try again.” Lance fell into step beside him. “Maybe we should call first.”

  “When you warn suspects, you give them the opportunity to hide the incriminating shit.” Sharp liked to drop in on people.

  “True. But consideration can produce cooperation. We aren’t police anymore. We can’t compel anyone to talk to us.” Lance stopped. “Wait. Do you have some reason to suspect Olander took Olivia?”

  “No, but it would be easy to hide a woman in a big empty place like this.” Sharp turned in a circle.

  “What would be his motivation?” Lance asked.

  Sharp propped one hand on his hip. “Mrs. Olander came to Morgan’s office alone. Why didn’t her husband go with her? Maybe Mr. Olander didn’t want to appeal his son’s case.”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Maybe he killed his daughter-in-law.”

  “Do we have a reason why he might have done that?”

  “No.” Sharp was reaching. “What if he knows his son is guilty, and he helped him try to cover it up?”

  “That sounds more plausible.”

  Sharp resumed walking. “Let’s go look at the other house.”

  Lance followed Sharp to the footpath to Erik’s house. They peered through each window and moved on. The rooms seemed empty, not just of people but of personal possessions as well. The furniture had been pared down to the bare essentials, and cardboard moving boxes were stacked in what Lance assumed was the family room at the back of the house.

  “This window is unlocked. Give me a boost.” Sharp tugged on a pair of gloves and pushed up a window sash. “We have the place to ourselves. We might not get this opportunity again.”

  Lance boosted him over the sill. Then he returned to the rear corner of the building to watch the long driveway in case Mr. Olander came home. Sharp returned in fifteen minutes. “I checked the closets, attic, and basement. She’s not here. Let’s look next door.”

  They jogged across the meadow and repeated the process at the main house, except Sharp had to jimmy a window to gain access.

  “There’s no interior basement door,” Sharp said as he climbed out of the window and dropped onto the grass. He reached up to close the window.

  “It’s an old house. It was common to only have an exterior entrance to the basement.”

  They moved to a set of bulkhead doors around back. A chain and padlock secured the handles.

  “We’ve already searched ninety percent of the property. We can rule out this last space pretty quick.” Sharp took lockpick tools from his wallet and began to work on the lock.

  Lance didn’t bother to argue. This was not a normal investigation. If there was any chance—no matter how remote—that Olivia was in the Olanders’ basement, then they would look.

  Sharp had the padlock off in two minutes.

  “Wait.” Lance pulled gloves from his pocket and put them on.

  They each grabbed a handle. The doors were rusted around the edges but opened easily. Wooden stairs descended into darkness. Sharp took a flashlight from his jacket pocket and shone it into the opening. All they could see was a few square feet of hard-packed earth and footprints.

  “Someone’s been down there recently.” Sharp descended the steps with no hesitation. He shone the flashlight straight down and examined the footprints in the dust. “Looks like the same pair of boots made all these tr
acks.”

  Lance followed him, switching on his own flashlight. Partitions divided the basement into what appeared to be storage areas. Shelves covered with dusty boxes lined the first area. Block print labeled the boxes as CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS and ERIK’S LITTLE LEAGUE TROPHIES.

  Lance lifted a few lids. The labels seemed to be accurate.

  They moved to the next section, a huge shelved closet where labels on the shelves indicated the family had stored a large quantity of nonperishable food. A box of MREs and a few mason jars of home-canned tomatoes and peaches remained.

  The last area held four old steamer trunks.

  “What do you think is in here?” Sharp stood in front of a trunk and examined a keyed padlock that secured the lid.

  Dirt and cobwebs coated the trunks, and the concrete around the trunks was covered in a thin layer of dirt that was clear of footprints.

  “It doesn’t look as if anyone has accessed them lately, but there’s only one way to find out. We’ve already committed a B and E. We might as well finish the job.” Lance went to the second trunk. He kept his own set of lockpicking tools in his wallet.

  “Good point.”

  The trunk was old and the lock simple. Lance had it open in less than thirty seconds.

  Sharp raised the lid of his trunk and whistled softly. “Holy shit.”

  Lance looked over. Sharp’s trunk was full of rifles.

  Sharp whistled. “These are AR-15s.”

  Lance raised the lid of his trunk. It was full of boxes of bullets. “There’s enough ammunition in here to supply a small militia.”

  The third trunk held more weapons, while the fourth was full of body armor and gas masks.

  Sharp waved a hand over the trunks. “What the hell is Olander doing with all this?”

  “I don’t know.” Lance closed the lid and relocked it. “But Olivia isn’t down here.”

  With a short nod, Sharp returned his crate to its original locked state. “The pistol grips on those rifles are not legal.”

  In New York State, a permit was not required to own a long gun, but certain features on semiautomatic rifles were illegal.