Coached to Death

by Victoria Laurie

  “I’ve been divorced for eight months, and prior to that, separated for six more. Should I wear a black veil and pretend to be in mourning for another year or so to satisfy your high societal ideals?”

  “Speaking of your divorce,” Shepherd said, referring again to his notes, “your husband was a little concerned about your temper, was he not?”

  I looked at Marcus, who was again studying Shepherd. He nodded, but I had the feeling that I’d need to tread carefully with my answer here. “My ex-husband is an adulterer. You can’t be an adulterer and not also be a liar, Detective. If you’re referring to the statement he made when he was attempting to procure sole custody over my twin sons, the court decided his statements had no merit, and we retained joint custody.”

  “But they don’t live with you, right? They attend boarding school near New York City, correct?”

  “They do.”

  “Why don’t they live with you, Catherine?”

  “What the heck does any of this have to do with the charges?” Marcus interrupted, and his tone wasn’t so gentle anymore.

  “I’m trying to identify a pattern,” Shepherd said.

  “What pattern?” Marcus demanded.

  “A pattern that suggests that when your client doesn’t get her way, she turns violent.”

  “That’s absurd!” I said.

  Marcus laid a hand on mine, and I bit back the argument I’d wanted to launch at Shepherd.

  “I’m going to ask you again, Detective,” Marcus said. “What. Pattern?”

  “We found an incident report,” Shepherd said. “It’s a statement given by a bakery that refused to bake a cake for Ms. Cooper, and she proceeded to demolish two other cakes on her way out the door. The report notes that Ms. Cooper threw a wedding cake against the shop window, ruining the display.”

  I felt my insides go cold. Oh, God, I’d all but forgotten about that.

  When I’d planned Gilley and Michel’s wedding, I’d ordered a cake from a local bakery here in the Hamptons that made the most beautiful wedding cakes. But when I went to personally place the order, the man behind the counter got angry at me when I said that I wanted two grooms for the top of the cake. He was a religious man, he explained, and he absolutely refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

  I’d felt so indignant on Michel and Gilley’s behalf, and so furious at the bigotry of the proprietor that I had indeed lost my temper, but I hadn’t thrown a whole cake. In fact, I had only thrown a piece the size of a brownie, which had been served to me before the proprietor and I got into an argument. I had indeed thrown it at his window on my way out the door, but that was it. It’d been nothing more than that.

  Marcus turned to me. “Is any of that true?”

  “Only the part about me throwing some cake, but it wasn’t a whole cake, Marcus. It was a piece this big.” I used my fingers to indicate how small the piece of cake was.

  “That’s not what the bakery owner said,” Shepherd told me.

  “Of course it’s not,” I said. “Because he’s a liar.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s a pattern. And it says something about your temper.”

  I sighed and sat back in my chair. “So you’ve arrested me for murder because I threw a piece of cake at a window?”

  “No,” Shepherd said. “I’ve arrested you for murder because of this!”

  Shepherd slapped a crime-scene photo on the table in front of me, and I was so startled that I jumped in my seat, but I also stared at the photo as if it had a tractor beam for my gaze.

  What I saw was disturbing. It was what looked like Heather Holland’s body, lying facedown on the floor. All about her were shards of glass, and clearly they were pieces of crystal, judging from the way they reflected the light in the room and from the camera.

  On the back of Heather’s head there was a rather large gash that definitely looked lethal. Whoever had murdered Heather had been in a violent rage—the wound was clearly evidence of that.

  I shoved the photo away and averted my eyes. “That’s dreadful,” I said.

  “That’s your punch bowl,” Shepherd replied.

  And that made me think of something. “You know, Detective, for someone so smug in assuming he has all of the answers to this crime, you seem to have missed the fact that I loved that punch bowl. It was a gift from a dear friend of mine, and I would never, ever use it, even in a fit of rage against someone else. It was far too precious to me.”

  “If it was the only thing handy, I’m sure you were willing to use it,” Shepherd said back.

  While Shepherd and I were arguing, Marcus had pulled the photo forward, and he seemed to be studying it carefully. “Detective,” he said.

  “What?”

  Marcus held up the photo and tapped at the gaping wound on Heather’s head. “Explain that to me, would you?”

  Shepherd’s brow darkened. “Okay. Your client threatened Mrs. Holland at a luncheon that Mrs. Holland had been kind enough to invite her to. Once there, your client had trumped up some lame reason to feel offended and she lashed out verbally at the victim before storming out the door, leaving her punch bowl behind. Sometime later, your client decided to retrieve her punch bowl, but when she arrived at Mrs. Holland’s she decided to feel offended all over again, and in a fit of rage, she waited for Mrs. Holland to turn away from her before striking out with her precious punch bowl hard enough to crack Mrs. Holland’s skull.”

  Marcus eyed Shepherd with heavy lids, giving the impression of a parent about to lose patience with a child. “That’s not what I’m talking about,” Marcus said. “I’m talking about the wound itself.”

  “What about it?” Shepherd said.

  I was curious too. What was it about that awful wound that Marcus found so interesting?

  “Where’s the blood?” Marcus asked.

  I gasped and immediately looked again at the photo. “Ohmigod, he’s right! There’s barely any blood!”

  Marcus nodded. “Exactly. Head wounds bleed, and they bleed bad.”

  “The M.E. thinks she was killed almost instantly,” Shepherd said, but there was doubt in his voice.

  “Even if she was killed instantly,” Marcus told him, “there would still be a pool of blood about her head. At best, you have a wound here that looks like it was delivered postmortem.”

  Shepherd’s jaw clenched and unclenched, and for the first time, I could see the smokescreen he’d put so much effort into.

  “You knew that,” I said, anger making my voice sound sharper than I’d intended. “You knew that wound was delivered postmortem!”

  “We have nothing confirmed yet,” Shepherd said. “The M.E. has yet to receive the toxicology report back. The most likely cause of death is still blunt-force trauma.”

  “That’s a load of crap, Detective,” Marcus said, his own voice rising angrily. “Why did you arrest my client on such flimsy evidence that you know I’ll destroy in court?”

  “She threatened the victim with violence,” Shepherd snapped. “And just a few hours later, the victim came up dead, surrounded by shards of glass from a punch bowl owned by your client.”

  Marcus turned to me, and he was now ignoring Shepherd. “Catherine. We’re not answering any more questions. If the detective continues to question you, you simply say, ‘On the advice from counsel, I refuse to answer that question.’ Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Excellent.” Turning back to Shepherd, Marcus said, “Your move, Detective.”

  “She’ll be in here until tomorrow,” Shepherd said angrily.

  Marcus looked at his watch casually. “I’ll pull some strings. Her bond hearing will be in front of Judge Cartwright first thing in the morning, and since it’s already close to one a.m., I’m pretty sure my client is tough enough to handle a few more hours in your . . . charming establishment.”

  I gulped but tried to put on a brave face. I wanted to go home more than anything I’d ever wanted in my life, but I knew it wasn’t going
to happen until morning.

  Shepherd folded his notes back up and stood up. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll send someone in to take her to lockup.”

  With that he was gone.

  Marcus stood after the door closed. “Will you be okay in here tonight?”

  “I don’t know, will I?”

  He offered me a crooked smile. “I think you’ll be fine. If anything goes sideways, you demand to speak to me, okay? I can be here in less than twenty minutes.”

  “Where do you live, Marcus?”

  “Sag Harbor.”

  “Ah,” I said. It was a relief knowing he lived nearby.

  Moving to the door he said, “Sit tight, Catherine. I’m going home to get a few hours’ sleep, and I’ll be back at nine a.m. We’ll have you out of here by noon.”

  “Noon?” I said, my voice quivering. “You can’t get me out any sooner than that?”

  Marcus walked back to put a hand on my shoulder in an effort to calm me. “Try not to worry. I’ll be pushing for an open dismissal tomorrow. The evidence they have against you is so flimsy it’ll disintegrate in court.”

  I put my hand over his. “Thank you, Marcus. Sincerely.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The door opened again, and a female uniformed officer waved to me. “Let’s go,” she said. I walked toward her, and she put up her hand in a stopping motion, then expertly swiveled me around and said, “Hands behind your back.”

  I sighed as I was handcuffed a third time, then moved through the door and to an awaiting cell down the corridor.

  Chapter 6

  Surprisingly, I actually slept rather well for the next few hours. I was the only one in my jail cell, and the cot was a little hard but not unbearable, and honestly, I was so exhausted from the entire ordeal of being arrested and interrogated that I was out the moment my head hit the prison pillow.

  I was then awakened at six-thirty, offered a surprisingly decent breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee, and allowed to shower and call Gilley again. He answered his phone frantically. “Ohmigod, Cat?! Is that you? Are you okay? What the hell happened?”

  “Hey,” I said wearily. “Shepherd arrested me. At Pierre’s. In front of everyone.” My voice squeaked a little as I spoke. I had no idea how I’d ever live down the humiliation.

  “Holy four-star dinner!” Gilley replied. “What the hell was Shepherd thinking?”

  I sighed. “I have no idea, other than it seems everyone in this town wants to take a crack at me.”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “In jail.”

  “Ohmigod . . . of course. Right. You’ve been arrested. Should I call your sister?”

  “No,” I said, remembering the commotion on the other end of the phone line when I’d reached out to her. “I already reached out.”

  “Is she getting Dutch to pull some strings?”

  “No.”

  Gilley seemed a little confused by my monosyllabic responses, but I was too tired to elaborate. “Do you need me to call that lawyer from the card Tony left here?”

  It was my turn to be confused. “You mean you didn’t send an attorney over here last night?”

  “Um . . . what? No. I was asleep when you called, and I didn’t get your message until about two minutes ago. I’ve been calling your cell ever since.”

  “Well, an attorney showed up here for me last night. And he seems very good.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Marcus Brown.”

  I heard the telltale clicking of a keyboard, then a lengthy pause, then, “Whoa.”

  “What’s whoa?”

  “Marcus Brown is some kind of fabulous legal eagle, honey.”

  “Tell me,” I said. Gilley had obviously Googled Marcus and I was anxious to hear the details.

  Gilley recited his résumé. “Stanford undergrad, Harvard Law, graduated magna cum laude, and spent time clerking for a New York Supreme Court justice before joining the firm of Latham and Watkins . . .”

  “Ooo, I’ve heard of Latham and Watkins. They’re among the best firms in New York.”

  “Yep. Brown worked there for nearly a decade before leaving with two other associates to open his own firm in Sag Harbor of Brown, Duvall, and Kirkpatrick, and they come very highly rated for criminal defense.”

  “So I’m in good hands.”

  “I’d say you’re in some of the best. And if he’s as gorgeous in person as his photo, then I’d say you’re in very good hands.

  “He is beautiful,” I said. “But it wouldn’t matter to me if he were a troll. As long as he can help me.”

  “I think he can help you. And speaking of helping you, how can I?”

  “I need some clothes, Gil. Something appropriate for court.”

  “On it. Give me twenty minutes, and I’ll have a suit for you.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  True to his word, Gilley pulled a charcoal-gray pantsuit out of my closet and hustled it down to the jail so that I could change for my court appearance. Marcus had already sent a message through to one of the officers guarding me that he’d meet me in court by ten.

  At the appointed time, I was handcuffed once again and loaded into a van with two other prisoners, and we were driven to the courthouse just a short distance away.

  After being unloaded, I was placed in a small room with a table and two chairs. The cuffs remained on, which bothered me more than I could say.

  Marcus walked in a short time after, and he looked as if he’d gotten a full night’s sleep, though I suspected he’d gotten even less rest than I had.

  “Good morning,” he said to me with a smile.

  There was such confidence in his voice and his manner that in an instant I felt buoyed and hopeful. “Morning, Marcus. Can you walk me through how this is going to go? If they set bail at anything over five hundred thousand, I’ll need some time to call my broker and liquidate some stock.”

  Marcus smiled wider. “I’m thinking you won’t need to make that call, Catherine.”

  I blew out a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I don’t mind bailing myself out of jail for a crime I didn’t commit, but I hate the thought of tying up so much cash for an extended period.”

  He nodded like he understood, but there was something else that he seemed to be keeping close to his chest. “First, I need to know if there’s anything you haven’t told me that you think could be used against you today.”

  My brow furrowed. “Like what?”

  “Like the thing with the cake at the bakery. What was that about?”

  I blushed. “My dearest friend was getting married, and I was helping to plan his wedding. I found a baker here in the Hamptons that made the most beautiful wedding cakes, but when I ordered two grooms for the topper, he said that his religion wouldn’t allow him to accept our business. In this day and age, it just infuriated me. I took the sample piece of cake he’d offered me when I arrived at his shop and threw it at his window on the way out the door.”

  Marcus nodded. “Got it. Has anyone else ever pushed you to lose your temper like that?”

  I shook my head automatically, and then I gave it a little more thought and . . . “Oh, no.”

  “What’s oh, no?”

  I bit my lip. “Well . . . there was this one time . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “It was a long time ago,” I prefaced, wondering what this man would think of me once I told him.

  “I’m listening.”

  “It was a very stressful time in my life.”

  Marcus simply looked at me expectantly.

  So I took a deep breath and dove in. “I was visiting my sister. It was during a time when I was still attempting to gain the approval of my parents . . . this was before I realized through a great deal of therapy what horrible people they are, and how toxic and abusive they’d been to me and especially to my sister.”

  “Did you harm them, Catherine?”

  “No!” I said. “It was nothing like that.�
�

  “Good. Tell me what happened.”

  I took a deep breath. “My sister, Abby, was having a very hard time with a rental property she owned. It was haunted.”

  Marcus squinted at me. “Haunted,” he repeated.

  “Yes. I don’t know if you believe in ghosts or not, but I swear it was haunted, and it was causing my sister a significant amount of strain. I just wanted to help her, you know?”

  Marcus didn’t say anything. He didn’t nod or in any other way acknowledge that he understood what I was getting at. He simply stared at me.

  “Anyway,” I continued, flustered at the thought of how I must sound to him. “I wanted her nightmare with the house to end, so I went to a construction site, borrowed one of their bulldozers, and headed over to the property.”

  Marcus’s jaw dropped. “You borrowed a bulldozer?”

  I shrugged. “For the right price, you can borrow just about anything. I also paid the guy to show me how to work the gears, so I knew what I was doing.”

  Marcus pressed a finger to his lip and studied me for a moment before he said, “You bulldozed the house?”

  “No.”

  He let out a breath. “Good.”

  “I bulldozed a BMW.”

  His eyes widened. “You got into an accident?”

  “Um . . . not exactly.”

  “Tell me the exactly part then.”

  “My future brother-in-law’s best friend arrived at the scene and attempted to block my efforts to bulldoze the house. I might have accidentally run over his car.”

  “You accidentally ran over his car?”

  “Yes. Two or three times.”

  Marcus stared at me with big wide eyes, and then he let out a bark of laughter, and he quickly pressed his hand to his lips, but his shoulders shook, and his eyes watered, and then he couldn’t seem to stop. And then he actually got up, held his finger up to me in a “wait a sec” manner, and left the room.

  The sound of his laughter from the hallway echoed into the room, and I felt both mortified and a tiny bit giggly myself. Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Maybe it was the ludicrous situation I was in or the ludicrous situation I’d created all those years ago with the bulldozer, but I too allowed myself a few moments of levity.