High Deceit

by C. E. Waterman

  This time, he looked at her and then down as if he didn’t know what to say.

  That made two of them.

  Thompson led her into an interview room, offered her some coffee, and left, closing the door behind him. Unlike the rooms on TV, with a long mirror on one wall, this resembled a regular conference room without any frills, just four once-white walls, ugly vinyl flooring, and a metal table and chairs.

  Robin tried to relax. She had nothing to worry about, right? If one was innocent, one had nothing to worry about. So why did this fear curl in the pit of her stomach?

  Where were Ed and Silvia? Were they being questioned? Hopefully her mother-in-law wouldn’t get too upset. If they started questioning her about Mark, Silvia might not be able to control her temper.

  Robin waited an eternity alone. The briefcase. She couldn’t think of anything else. She put her face in her hands and pictured the people who came to search. Were there any bulges as if they had something under their clothes? The thought was just as ridiculous as Mark selling drugs or taking bribes.

  A knock caused her to jump and hit her elbow on the table, sending a flash of pain up into her shoulder.

  An older man pushed open the door and stepped through. He laid a brown leather briefcase on the table and smoothed back a lock of gray hair that fell onto his forehead.

  Robin rubbed her arm, her gaze fixed on the briefcase, seeing instead a black one full of hundred-dollar bills lying on her bed. She clasped his outstretched hand.

  “Mrs. Clayton, I’m Lester Grimes. You can call me Lester. Susan Legrae told me you needed some help.” He sat next to her. “Why don’t you tell me what happened.” His face was kind while he listened to her account. “Have you ever seen the briefcase before?”

  “No. Mark’s is brown like yours. Only his isn’t as nice.”

  Lester smiled. “Have you a reason to believe Mark had that kind of money lying around?”

  “No, of course not. We don’t even have that kind of money in the bank, let alone in my closet.”

  “Have there been any strangers in your house?”

  She frowned. “Not that I know of.”

  He wrote some notes. “Have you noticed Mark talking to people you’ve never seen before?”

  Why would he ask that? She hesitated, but knowing he was on her side helped. “Not that I can recall.”

  “Is there anything else you think I should know?”

  She pinned him with her gaze. “Mark is a good man and a good cop. He would never do what they’re accusing him of.”

  Lester laid his hand over hers. “They don’t know any more than you do.” He patted her hand and released it. “They found some money in your house. So what? It isn’t illegal to have money in your closet.”

  Robin gave him a small smile.

  “Answer the questions they ask directly and try not to elaborate. He may attempt to goad you into an emotional outburst. Don’t let him upset you. If I don’t want you to answer, I’ll place my hand on your arm, like this.” He touched her forearm. “If you have a question for me, just lean over and whisper in my ear.” He patted her arm. “It’ll be OK.”

  She nodded, exhaling slowly. Thank You, God, for sending help.

  He stepped out to let them know she was ready.

  Thompson entered and sat in the chair across from her. He placed a small recorder and a file on the table, scooted the recorder to the middle, and switched it on. “This interview will be recorded.”

  She stared at it and said nothing. Her hands started to shake so she clasped them together under the table.

  Thompson opened the file and removed a paper tablet. “Mrs. Clayton, did you know the deceased, Cindy Carroll?”

  Why was he asking again? He’d asked already. “Yes, she was a young woman who helped out at the school in the DARE program.”

  He wrote on the tablet. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. “A couple months ago. I saw her at the mall.”

  He kept his focus on the tablet. “Did you stop and talk?”

  What did that have to do with anything? “We said hello. She was coming in as I was leaving.”

  “What about your husband? When was the last time he saw her?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember, but you might ask Peter.”

  Thompson braced his arms on the table. “So tell me about the briefcase. Did Mark tell you to hide it there?”

  Ah-ha, here it comes. “I’ve never seen it before, and I don’t know what it was doing up there.”

  “Do you and your husband share a closet?”

  What a strange question. He must have seen Mark’s closet across the room. “No, he has his own.”

  “And yet he chose to put it in your closet. Do you find that strange?”

  Her lawyer touched her arm. She closed her mouth.

  Thompson followed with another question. “Did you see Mark hide it there?”

  Her frustration bubbled over. “Mark didn’t hide anything. I told you I don’t know how it got there!”

  Lester put his hand on her shoulder as if to calm her. She took a breath and sat back in her chair, surprised she’d been sitting on its edge.

  “Has your husband been acting strange? Maybe staying out later than usual?”

  Where was he going with this? She twisted her hands before answering. “He’s been working hard, if that’s what you mean.” Was that fear she heard in her voice? “Otherwise, no, he hasn’t been acting strange.”

  “What about people he’s been seeing? Have you seen him with anyone you don’t know?”

  She shook her head.

  “Speak into the recorder please.”

  She faced the recorder. “Not that I know of. No.”

  Thompson leaned back and twirled his pen. “Have your husband’s habits changed?”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but no, his habits haven’t changed."

  “Any major purchases? Like a car or other expensive item?”

  Ah, so that’s where he was going. “No, we haven’t bought anything new for a while.”

  “The inside of your house is pretty fancy. We can tell if he’s living above his means.”

  Lester had warned her about this. She gritted her teeth for a moment and then forced herself to relax. “I am an interior designer. My house needs to reflect my ability, and I purchased the things in it at designer’s cost.”

  “We can look at your taxes, you know. We can have you and your husband audited if necessary. The IRS will love to know whether you’ve paid taxes on that money.”

  Her lawyer touched her arm. “Detective, I believe we’re getting off the subject here.”

  Thompson exhaled. “Think about the last time you looked up in the closet. When was the last time you’re sure the case wasn’t there?”

  Robin pictured the tiny space. “I painted my bedroom and closet a month or so ago. It wasn’t there then.”

  “Is that the last time you looked up there?”

  “That’s the last time I can remember, yes.”

  He stared into her eyes.

  She held his gaze.

  “I believe you, Mrs. Clayton.”

  What? He believed her? Something in his face didn’t make her feel better. In fact, she tensed. “You do?” It was a squeak. She cleared her throat again.

  “Yes, I believe you didn’t know about the briefcase.”

  She released her breath, but his manner kept her from lowering her guard.

  Thompson lowered his gaze and wrote on the tablet. What would he write that wasn’t on the recorder? She eyed the tablet but it was upside down. Plus, his handwriting was so bad, she couldn’t have read it anyway. “I also believe you didn’t know your husband was having an affair.”

  She jerked back and started to rise from her chair.

  Lester grabbed her arm.

  She sank into her seat, shaking. “My husband is not having an affair.”

  �
��Come on, Mrs. Clayton.” His gaze softened as if with pity. “You know what infidelity looks like, don’t you?”

  Her mouth filled with saliva. She was going to be sick. Did he mean Carl, her lying, cheating ex-husband? How could he know about him?

  Lester placed his arm around her shoulders. “Where are you going with this, detective?”

  Thompson ignored him. “Why did you get divorced?”

  “My ex-husband cheated on me with his secretary,” Robin whispered.

  Lester’s arm stiffened, and he said nothing. Should she have told him? It simply hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Robin, the only person you call at that hour is your boyfriend.” He talked slow and gentled his voice as if she wasn’t too bright. “Cindy Carroll was in trouble, so she called her lover. Too bad he was in on it with them.” He paused. The worst was coming.

  She held her breath.

  “That young woman called your husband for help, and he shot her.”

  Heat filled her face, and she wanted to scream at him to shut up. She was caught off balance, exactly as he intended. Calm down. But she couldn’t. She felt like a blithering idiot.

  Images flashed in her mind. Carl packing his clothes, saying he was the father of his assistant’s baby. Her and Mark’s repeated tries to get pregnant, and the cold hard realities of her miscarriages. Could it be true? Could he have gone to a younger woman looking to her for the family he wanted so badly? She must have lost whatever Lester said next, because when she came back to the conversation, he was telling her it was time to go.

  Thompson smirked, knowing he’d scored.

  Lester helped her stand on shaky legs, and she hobbled to where Ed and Silvia were waiting. Every muscle, held so rigid during the entire interview, now twitched. She wasn’t sure how long her legs could support her.

  “You did fine.” Lester told her.

  But it didn’t feel that way. Why did she let Thompson get to her?

  After taking one look at her face, Silvia shot up and guided her to a chair against the wall.

  Robin rested her head on the wall and closed her eyes, putting all her effort into not throwing up.

  Lester took her in-laws aside, their voices a blur.

  She didn’t try deciphering what they said. She wanted to get out of here—this station, where Mark loved working. She focused on Ed and stood. “Have you called the hospital?”

  He put his arm around her as she stumbled. “Yes, but there’s no change. Let’s get you some lunch, and then we’ll go.”

  Her watch said twelve twenty, but she wasn’t hungry. They stopped in the hospital cafeteria, and she picked up a sandwich. Moving past the condiment stand, they found a table in a corner. Ed blessed the meal, and she took a bite. It tasted like paper, dry and sticking to her tongue. A gulp of water forced it down. Placing the sandwich back on her plate, she told them what the detective said.

  “Well, he’s just stupid then. One would think someone of his rank would have a few more brain cells upstairs than that. I can’t believe the police department would promote such an idiot.”

  Robin laughed over Silvia’s vehemence, but before she knew what was happening, tears coursed down her cheeks. Not again. Then came the hiccups.

  The cashier gave her a gentle smile, and some people nearby turned their way.

  She rushed to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.

  When she got control, they finished lunch and hurried to Mark’s room. The guard still sat outside the door, but now she viewed him less as a protector and more as a jailor. Either way, having someone guarding him would at least keep him safe.

  Her heart warmed when she saw Peter sitting next to the bed trying to talk to Mark. Robin leaned over and kissed her husband’s cheek. She sat in the chair next to Peter’s and told him what happened. When they reached the part about the briefcase, he stiffened.

  “How in the world did Mark get so much money? Did he say anything about a sting operation?”

  “No, and wouldn’t you have known about it if there was one?”

  A funny look crinkled his face. “Yes, I suppose so. Unless the chief thought I was the leak.”

  “Mark would have been upset if that had been the case, and he would have told me. I’m sure Chief Donovan wouldn’t have used Mark to trap you.”

  Peter’s shoulders relaxed, and no one spoke.

  Silvia pushed up from her chair and went into the restroom.

  After she left, Ed broke the silence. “Peter, have you been investigating Cindy, and why she was in the warehouse with Mark?”

  “You know she was working on the DARE program. But she was in a lot deeper. She thought she was helping the department by trying to discover the producer on her own. Apparently, she’d been following some pretty scary people around.”

  “Her little brother was killed about a year ago from an accident relating to drug use, wasn’t he?” Robin asked.

  “Yeah, he was ten. He somehow got hold of some cocaine, and he and his friends sniffed it. Then they climbed on the roof, convinced they could fly. He jumped first, flipped over, and landed on his back. They thought he was going to make it, but something happened, and he started bleeding internally. They stopped it. He died a couple days later. There was some speculation surrounding whether he had been given too much of a medication that induced the bleeding, but nothing was proven.”

  He resettled in his chair. “Cindy went kind of nuts. She found out who gave him the cocaine, and we arrested him. But we weren’t able to go any higher. Someone told her about DARE, and she’d been traveling around telling her story in grade schools and middle schools since then.” He crossed one leg over the other. “It seemed to be enough for a while but apparently not anymore. Mark and I had no idea she was following someone. If we had, we would’ve made her stop.”

  “I don’t think you could have changed her mind.” Ed shook his head. “It sounds like she was obsessed.”

  Peter’s eyelids drooped. “I wish now I’d talked to her about becoming a cop. At least if she was determined to do police work, she would’ve been trained. Maybe she’d still be here.”

  “Detective Thompson accused Mark of having an affair with her,” Robin blurted, studying Peter’s face.

  His foot thumped to the floor, and he sat up straight. “Of course he wasn’t! You don’t believe such nonsense, do you? Mark wouldn’t do that to you. He has better values. The chief wouldn’t have said it either.” He stopped for a breath, understanding crossing his face as he gave a quick nod. “Detective Thompson was trying to get a rise out of you.” He swallowed. “IA does that.”

  “He certainly got a rise out of Silvia back at the house.” She chuckled. “I thought she was going to slap him. I think she would’ve if Ed hadn’t stopped her. Now, it’s kind of funny, but at the time, I was afraid she would get herself arrested.”

  Both Ed and Peter laughed. “I thought so, too,” Ed said. “I saw myself bailing her out for assaulting a police officer. I wouldn’t blame her. I wanted to slug him, too.”

  “I wish I’d said something,” Robin whispered. “I let him run over me like a train in that interview room, and I didn’t fight back.”

  Peter sat back and looked her in the eye. His gaze was like a laser. “Trust me, Robin. You don’t win by fighting in a police interview, especially with Internal Affairs. You did the right thing.”

  “When he said Mark shot Cindy, I freaked out. I had no idea they were trying to pin murder on him. What about the fact he was shot, too? I should have asked how he thought that happened.”

  Peter crossed his legs again. “He wouldn’t have answered. Like I said, he was trying to get a rise out of you. He wanted somewhere to take the investigation. You didn’t give it to him. From what I hear, it sounds like you did great.”

  It didn’t feel great. It felt as if she’d let Mark down, as if she’d failed to defend him when he couldn’t defend himself. But how would she explain the money? First, the two thousand dollars i
n his pocket, and now however much was in the briefcase. Was it possible the police planted it? It didn’t seem possible, but neither did the other explanations.

  Her face burned over what the detective said. One thing was true though. She knew what infidelity looked like, and it didn’t look like Mark. Did it? Robin tried to compare Carl’s behavior with Mark’s. Was there any similarity? No. Mark worked late, but he called to let her know. And when she called him, he was always where he was supposed to be.

  Carl would expect her to believe the most ridiculous things. She pretended at first, but down deep, she knew he was lying. She searched her heart. Did she ever feel Mark was dishonest? In the beginning of their relationship, she believed everything was a lie, so she was tough on him. But after a while, she began to believe in him. Would this break her trust?

  12

  Peter headed to the station. If Internal Affairs searched Mark’s house, they must have thought they had something on him before they found the money in his closet. The money in his pockets would’ve been suspicious enough, but wasn’t it overkill? He wouldn’t have been carrying it around. He would have left it with the rest of the money.

  Did IA think he was paying someone off? That didn’t make much sense because it wasn’t enough money for a payoff. It seemed as though someone wanted to tease Internal Affairs. As if they wanted to ensure a search of Mark’s house. If so, then they must have known there’d be something to find.

  If Mark was guilty of a bribe, then he wouldn’t have shown up at the drop unless he was there to either distract or kill Cindy. If that were the case, they wouldn’t have shot him, would they? Why would they shoot their protector? One thing he knew: if IA believed Mark was the leak, they would concentrate on him to prove their case.

  In his gut, he felt Mark was innocent, but how could he prove it? He needed to know what IA was thinking. He settled at his desk. Libby’s picture smiled out at him from the frame on the corner. His World’s Greatest Dad coffee mug sat unwashed since he’d gotten the call about Mark. He needed to clean it out, but first he had to call his contact at the lab.

  “Hey, Bob. It’s Peter. I know this is a lot to ask, but I need a favor.”