The car was heating up, but Grace turned on the air conditioning instead of opening the windows. The parking spaces on either side of them were empty, but she wasn’t taking a chance on someone walking by and overhearing whatever was about to come out of her client’s mouth.
Whitney angled the side air vent to her face before continuing. “It was all up to me, as usual. If I didn’t stop her, Felicia would ruin our lives and turn Rebecca and Sean into mini versions of herself. After everyone was asleep, I went into Hallie’s room to have it out with Felicia, but she didn’t wake up, and I saw the pills on the table beside the bed. I hoped she’d overdosed, but I couldn’t take a chance, so I picked up a pillow, and you know the rest.”
Grace’s mind raced with the implication of Whitney’s words. “Where was Melanie during all this?”
“I told you. They were all asleep. You believe me, right? And you’ll do it? Find out if I killed her, and take me to the police, so I can confess? I mean, if I need to.”
“Let me think for a minute. There’s no rush. If the police show up here, we’ll deal with it.”
“No. The sooner the police get the answers they want, the sooner we can take the kids away from here.”
There was no dissuading Whitney. Grace drove to Mallard Bay trying to remember everything she knew about arrest procedures for violent crimes. When she was parked behind her office, she turned to Whitney and said, “Who unlocked the door?”
“What?” Whitney looked dazed.
“You said Felicia locked herself in Hallie’s bedroom. Then you said you went in the room. Who unlocked the door?”
After a moment, Whitney smiled and reached out to clutch Grace’s hand. “Thank you so much,” she said. “That could’ve really messed me up.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Whitney accepted her offer of tea but said no to food, leaving Grace with no way to nibble on the saltines without an explanation.
“Sorry. This is rude, but I haven’t eaten. These keep me going.”
Whitney smiled. “I know. Mel guessed right away, but I didn’t agree with her until yesterday. Congratulations. When are you due?”
Grace froze, a saltine halfway to her mouth. “What? No. I just didn’t get breakfast.”
“Please. Between us, Mel and I’ve been pregnant nine times. I’m a novice compared to her, though, and if she says you’re having a baby, you are.”
Grace was saved from having to respond when the rear entrance buzzer sounded. She found Mac on the back stoop.
“We need to talk,” he said without preamble.
“I’m with a client. Can it wait?”
“Sorry. No. I need her, too.”
“Ten minutes.”
He nodded but said, “If she tries to run, I’m arresting her.”
Whitney listened to Grace’s instructions and answered her questions without verbal wandering or embellishment. If she had to have a client confess to murder, Grace was glad it was Whitney. Melanie would have sobbed the entire time asking, ‘why me?’ But then, Melanie might not have been lying.
By the time they faced McNamara, Whitney was resolute. She hadn’t argued when Grace accused her of covering for someone else but had sat silently, wearing a sad smile. When McNamara read her Miranda rights and asked Whitney if she understood them, she looked him in the eye and said, “I do.”
“You weren’t entirely honest in the statement you gave yesterday,” McNamara said.
Grace shook her head at Whitney.
McNamara said, “She needs to cooperate. Certain information came to light in the autopsy.”
“Then ask a question. She can’t read your mind.”
McNamara nodded and turned back to Whitney. “Who smothered Felicia Jones-Overton?”
It went quickly after that.
McNamara couldn’t remember anyone ever thanking him for arresting them, but Whitney came close. She looked so relieved, he thought she’d have hugged him if he hadn’t been putting handcuffs on her. She confessed, talking right over Grace’s objections.
The arrest had the added benefit of keeping one of the sister wives out of the way, even for a few hours, as they investigated Heath Overton’s death. The situation seemed agreeable to everyone except Whitney’s attorney.
“What are you charging her with?” Grace demanded as she followed him from the booking area into an empty conference room in the State Police Barracks in Easton.
“Your client fell all over herself confessing to smothering the woman who’d broken up her family.”
“I was there, Mac! You could see she’s half out of her mind with worry over her husband and would confess to anything to keep the police away from her family.”
McNamara thought Grace looked sick again. Sick and angry, a combination he was learning could be dangerous. He didn’t want to think about how she’d react when she heard the information he wasn’t sharing on the missing husband. He’d decided when she finally went off to France, he was going on a long fishing trip. Alone.
She yanked a small laptop out of her leather tote before slinging the bag onto the table. “For God’s sake, listen to the tape of your conversation with her. She confessed to killing Felicia and then asked you how she died!”
“That was odd,” McNamara agreed. “Good thing she has legal counsel.”
“Funny, funny man. You show me the coroner’s report that says conclusively, beyond any doubt, Felicia didn’t overdose on sleeping pills and was alive when the smothering happened, and I’ll agree you have cause to arrest someone for something, but it won’t be Whitney Overton. She’s — ” Grace stopped and tried to look engrossed in her laptop screen. Mac had made her so mad she’d almost done just what she’d forbidden her client to do.
“She’s protecting someone?” McNamara supplied in a helpful tone.
She pounded the laptop keys as if they had offended her. “It won’t take me long to get her out of here, and what will you have gained?”
He didn’t answer because she didn’t stop talking.
“You could have at least had the courtesy to contain this farce to Mallard Bay instead of dragging her in here. The press will send you a thank you note, I’m sure.”
“The Easton Barracks serves Kingston County, too, as does the Talbot County Department of Corrections,” he said, telling her what she knew very well, and winding her up further. He wanted to keep her here and occupied until the techs were finished at the Overton house.
“She’s not going to jail. I’ll petition for a release for a medical evaluation.”
“Which can be done in jail.”
“What else has happened?” she demanded.
“Undoubtedly a lot, but you’ll have to be specific. I’m not a mind reader.” Throwing her own comments back at her didn’t go over well. He’d dropped the artificial politeness and stood, arms crossed, waiting to end the argument. He hadn’t expected to fool her for long, but another hour would have been nice.
“Let’s start again,” she said. “I am the family attorney, Mac. All of the family. That means everyone named Overton living in Mallard Bay, in case you’re about to split hairs about the definition of family.”
As if on cue, her cell buzzed. Even standing four feet away, McNamara could hear Melanie’s squawking. Grace glared at him and jabbed a forefinger in the direction of the door. He’d barely cleared it when she slammed it behind him.
He checked his messages and made a call, which led to two other calls. While he and Grace had been wrangling over Whitney, the medical examiner’s office had issued updates on the autopsies, and the search of the Overtons’ house had wrapped up.
Saliva and mucus on a pillow at the foot of Felicia’s bed and bruising inside her nostrils confirmed homicide by smothering. Whitney’s confession wrapped up that investigation, or would if she proved to be telling the truth. He wouldn’t admit it to Grace, but if she believed Whitney was lying, he’d have to consider it, too.
The State Police were at the hotel with
Melanie, delivering the news of the John Doe and asking for DNA samples from the children.
Grace had a real problem now, he thought as he walked back to the holding cells to check on Whitney. Even a very good attorney couldn’t be in two places at one time. It would be interesting to see which of her clients got her.
Cyrus Mosley, Esquire, did not do criminal work, and on the rare occasions when he had to attend to a client facing the police, he was off-stride and irritable. But despite his determination not to represent the Overtons, it took Melanie less than a minute to win him over.
First, there were the tears in her big blue eyes. The trembling of her slight body and delicate hiccuping completed the picture Mosley saw when he arrived to find her huddled with Hallie in a small conference room of their Easton hotel. Melanie didn’t argue when he introduced himself as her attorney, and the MSP detectives looked relieved to see him, which in his long experience was never a good sign.
Mosley’s last century manners and Melanie’s ‘save me’ personality connected like magnets. Hallie wisely followed her mother’s lead and stayed quiet while Mosley absorbed the news that Whitney had been arrested for murder, and Heath Overton’s wedding ring had been found on an unidentified corpse.
In short order, Mosley dispatched the detectives by promising to keep the family available and had the Overtons on their way to the Egret Hotel in Mallard Bay. An hour after that, Melanie and the children were settled into the two suites on the top floor of the venerable old hotel, and outside security was engaged to make sure no one breached their privacy without a warrant. A private duty nurse arrived to serve as a nanny, and the hotel’s room service began making regular runs to the larger suite’s dining room.
The success of her decision to pair Mosley with Melanie was a relief for Grace, but she still had her hands full with Whitney. She broke the news about the John Doe as gently as she could, but Whitney’s silent grief was so profound, all Grace could think to do was hold her hand. After a few minutes, Whitney gathered herself, and when she did, she was more determined than ever to take responsibility for Felicia’s murder.
All things being equal, she’d have left Mosley with Whitney, which on the surface only involved keeping her quiet and riding out the arraignment process. But stopping Whitney from confessing to everyone who came near her wasn’t easy, and there was the unpleasant matter of Grace’s raging nausea. She tracked Lily down and offered her triple time to pick up the suit Grace kept at the office and bring it to the Easton Barracks. Once she’d changed from the jeans and tee she’d thrown on that morning, she was at least dressed to handle a crisis.
“We’re a fine pair,” she said to Whitney as she reentered the small room where she and Lily were conferencing with their client. “You won’t stop incriminating yourself, and I can’t stay out of the bathroom.”
“Still insisting you aren’t pregnant?” Whitney asked. “Keep sipping that water. You’re retaining some of it, and that’ll help. But you should see a doctor.”
With a pointed look at Lily, Grace said, “It’s a twenty-four-hour bug.”
“It’s a nine-month bug,” Whitney said. “I’m guessing you have about seven months to go.”
“God help me,” Grace groaned and briefly lowered her head to the table before remembering where she was and jerking upright again.
“Are you sure we aren’t being recorded?” Whitney asked.
Grace mustered the best ‘do not lie to me’ glare she could manage. “Why? Are you about to confess to being on the grassy knoll in Dallas?”
“No. I’m about to tell you the truth.”
“The truth-truth, or your latest fairytale?”
“You’re supposed to be my lawyer and believe me.” Whitney looked at Lily and said, “You, too.”
“I believe we’ve established that I’m not on my A-game,” Grace said. She knew she was in no shape to assess her client’s behavior or determine how to help her. She might have another five minutes before she had to run to the restroom again. “My legal spidey-sense is a little woozy right now, and I refuse to act on anything you say that isn’t in your best interest. Don’t spin another load of crap that you think will confuse the police and stop them from finding out what happened to Felicia.”
“Please try to understand,” Whitney pleaded. “If they don’t have a suspect in Felicia’s death, they may take the children from us. Even removing them temporarily would be terrible. They need their mothers, but one of us has to make the sacrifice. If the police believe me, they’ll leave the family alone.”
“You’re saying you didn’t do it?” Grace asked.
“If she died from an overdose, no. If she was smothered, you’ll get me off.”
“Now wait a minute — ”
“I could hear you yelling at Chief McNamara. You’ll save me, I know it. But I’ll cast enough doubt with my confession to make them think twice about charging anyone else in our family.”
Grace reread Whitney’s statement. “You’re saying you smothered Felicia.”
“Yes.”
“But in your statement to the police yesterday morning you said you went in to wake her. Why would you do that if you’d smothered her?”
“I lied.”
A knock on the interview room door interrupted them. A young officer whose shiny brass nameplate said ‘DFC Blanc’ announced that they had fifteen minutes before the room was needed. Upset at hearing she’d be returning to the holding cell, Whitney demanded that Grace do something.
“I am doing something,” Grace said as she stood up. “I’m leaving.”
“You can’t. Please,” Whitney said.
“You’ve insisted that I represent your entire family. Why would you do that if you were the only one who was guilty? I’ve done all I can here if you won’t tell me the truth.”
The stubborn set of Whitney’s face said any further argument was a waste of time. She was determined to save her family by condemning herself, and Grace knew nothing she said would make a difference.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Grace decided if Whitney wouldn’t tell the truth, her best move was a plea of temporary insanity. She spent the drive from Easton to Mallard Bay trying to decide how to lay the groundwork. When she and Lily arrived at the office, they met with Mosley and compiled their notes and information into an unwieldy narrative with more holes than a sieve. The only good news was that Whitney’s arraignment wouldn’t take place until Monday afternoon.
Mosley didn’t react well to learning she would be out of the office in the morning on a personal matter. Lily had been quiet since witnessing Whitney’s announcement of the pregnancy, and Grace was in no mood for sharing confidences. She left them both and went home, where she fell into bed and slept straight through the night.
A chronic insomniac, she grudgingly admitted that whatever was wrong with her had some nice side benefits. She managed toast and tea, but even a full application of makeup couldn’t make her look like someone who should be on her feet at six a.m.
“Who are you?” she asked the woman looking back at her from the bathroom mirror before re-checking the positive sign on the plastic stick. The third plastic stick in thirty-six hours.
She could wait a few more weeks. See what happened. Early menopause was sounding better and better. Surely that would cause hormones to go haywire. Maybe she’d missed a news report about defective pregnancy tests. Maybe she was delusional.
When Niki knocked on the apartment door ten minutes later, Grace was still in the same spot, and the stick still said ‘pregnant’.
“Why aren’t you ready?” Niki asked. “We need to leave.”
“I told you I’m fine, and I’m going alone.”
“Not happening, sweetie. Now, move.”
Niki drove, swearing for all she was worth as she negotiated bridge traffic on Route 50 and later on the Washington beltway. By the time they’d reached Arlington, Grace had agreed to switch to an OB/GYN on the Eastern Shore if she was pregna
nt, which she still insisted wasn’t possible.
Two hours later, the return trip was quiet. Traffic was bad leaving Arlington and only increased on the beltway. When they hit a standstill at the Route 50 exit, Niki tried to start a conversation, but Grace lowered her seat back and closed her eyes. She didn’t open them until they arrived at Delaney House.
“Okay, give it up,” Niki said as she turned off the BMW’s ignition. “There’s no more road, and you can’t ignore me forever.”
“I can try.” The car seat was comfortable. She could lock the doors as soon as Niki got out.
“You’re gonna need a bathroom sometime. I can wait.”
“You’re a witch.” Grace scrambled to get out of the car. “You and my bladder are conspiring against me.”
A few minutes later, Niki set a pot of cinnamon tea on the kitchen table. “Think you can keep some down?”
“Let’s see if those anti-nausea pills work,” Grace said, reaching for a cup of the fragrant tea. Minutes ticked by, Grace reliving every moment in the doctor’s office and her cousin, for once, mercifully silent.
Niki had insisted on going into the appointment with her. At the last minute, Grace had pulled her into the doctor’s office to hear the exam and ultrasound results. It had been Niki, not David, who’d held Grace’s hand as the doctor had explained that yes, she was pregnant, but there were problems. The baby had attached in a precarious location in her uterus and was small for a ten-week pregnancy. There were other issues, too, all of which bounced off Grace, who was too numb to process them. She’d have to wait another month, assuming she was still pregnant in another month, for the tests to give her answers.
The information wouldn’t sink in, and she’d argued with the doctor. “I saw it moving,” she’d said, waving sonogram photographs that looked like Rorschach tests. “It’s possible that everything could work out, and I could have a healthy baby.” She didn’t know why she’d said that so emphatically. She’d meant it as a question.
Bad Intent Page 18
