by Jane Graves
And that bastard Henderson was laughing his head off.
It had been about half an hour since Alex had made that one phone call granted to anyone who was arrested. And if only he’d had a family like everyone else’s, the decision of who was going to receive that phone call might not have been so difficult. But no. He had a family full of cops. And those who weren’t cops were connected to law enforcement in one way or another. For the most part, they were prone to over-reaction, and by coming down here they’d probably only make the situation worse.
Alex’s brother John was also a detective, but he and his wife, Renee, were on their honeymoon in the Bahamas. That was probably a good thing. When he was pissed off, John didn’t always do a lot of thinking before acting. He’d demand to know what the hell they thought they were doing arresting his brother, then stomp so loudly into the jail that they’d consider arresting him.
If Alex called his sister Sandy, chairman of the Tolosa Crime Watch Council, she would probably tell him that getting caught up in this was his own damned fault, that it wouldn’t have happened if he’d gotten married years ago and went home to a wife every night instead of hanging out in sleazy pool halls. Then she’d give him a big, useless hug and tell him everything was going to be all right, and he could certainly do without that.
His grandfather was likewise out of the question. He was an ex–prosecuting attorney who would first express total outrage that somebody thought his grandson had shifted to the wrong side of the law, then start spewing legal crap left and right that Alex was in no state of mind to try to decipher. And his aunt Louisa—was the solution to his problem really a plateful of double-fudge brownies and a good night’s sleep?
Then there was his cousin’s wife, Brenda. Oh, Lord—what if she got wind of this before he could get the hell out of here? Brenda was a gung-ho patrol cop and sharpshooter for the SWAT team, whose idea of justice frequently bordered on the bizarre. Within five minutes, she’d be arranging to meet Henderson in a dark alley, then swear later that she wasn’t responsible for the twisted mass of flesh that used to be his face.
In the end, his brother Dave had been his only real option.
Two years ago Dave had lost his wife in a car accident, leaving him alone to raise their baby daughter. It was a tragedy that would have paralyzed most men, but somehow Dave had picked up the pieces and moved on, making both of his jobs—as a patrol cop and as a father—look easy. Even though he was the youngest brother, he had a way of taking care of things. Making them right. Making even the worst crap that life could throw at a person seem a little less grim.
Alex had awakened Dave from a sound sleep and given him the facts of what had happened. True to his brother’s nature, he didn’t overreact. He didn’t ask any questions. He merely said he was going to drop his daughter off at Aunt Louisa’s house, then come down to the station. And Alex was thankful for that.
Twenty more minutes passed that seemed like two hundred. Then Alex heard footsteps, and the sound of a key in a lock. The door swung open and his brother was allowed into the cell. Alex found he could barely look him in the eye. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was innocent, for God’s sake. So why did he feel so guilty?
Dave sat down beside him. “How are you doing?”
“How do you think I’m doing? I’ve been accused of murder.”
“Okay. Tell me all the details. Start from the beginning, and don’t leave anything out.”
Alex did as his brother asked, trying to speak as calmly and rationally as he could, but there were a few times, especially when he talked about Henderson, that he was on the verge of losing it. But his brother calmly took it all in, asking a few questions here and there and nodding occasionally to encourage him to go on.
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Alex said when the story was finished. “I can only tell you what happened.”
“Okay. Tell me again about this PI who was tailing the victim. Did she see anything suspicious while she was watching the house?”
“She says no. But once the cops got there, I couldn’t talk to her anymore.”
“Surely she was questioned.”
“Yes. She was.”
“And she saw nothing?”
“I’m not sure what she saw.” He closed his eyes. “There are a lot of things concerning her I’m not sure about.”
“Like what?”
Damn. Why Valerie Parker? Why? “This particular woman …” Alex sighed. “She might have a bit of a grudge.”
“You know her?”
“Yes. Five years ago she was a cadet at the academy. I was instrumental in having her dismissed.”
Dave’s gaze faltered. “Oh, boy. So she’s a PI now?”
“Yeah. And let’s just say she may not be inclined to speak kindly on my behalf.”
“You really think she’d still be out to get you for having her dismissed? A lot of time has passed. Surely she wouldn’t—”
“There was a little more to it than just her being dismissed from the academy.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. It was … personal.”
“Personal? How personal?”
“As personal as it gets.”
Dave held his gaze steady, but Alex could tell he’d gotten the gist of the problem, and he didn’t much like what he’d heard. “Did this personal stuff take place before or after her dismissal?”
“Before.” Alex paused. “The night before.”
“Shit, Alex. Are you telling me—”
“I don’t want to go into it,” Alex said sharply.
Dave let out a long breath. “Okay, then. How vindictive do you think she’s inclined to be?”
That was a loaded question. Whatever Val did in life, she did it for all she was worth. Did that include hating him?
“I’m not really sure. But I’m innocent. In the end that’s all that’s going to matter.”
“Wrong,” Dave said. “If the truth were all that mattered, you’d be walking the streets right now.”
“It’ll all get resolved soon enough, even with Henderson on the case.” Alex made a scoffing noise. “Bastard never should have arrested me in the first place.”
“From what you’ve told me, it was a solid arrest.”
Alex looked at him with disbelief. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. And that’s why I’m telling you that before this thing goes any further, you need a lawyer. Innocent people go to jail every day. Most of them have crappy legal counsel. That’s not going to happen to you.”
Alex hated this, but Dave was right. He needed a lawyer to help him untangle whatever legal mess this situation was creating. Anybody would, innocent or not.
“Any suggestions?” he asked Dave.
“Ethan Millner.”
Alex jerked to attention. “Millner? Are you crazy?”
“He’s the best.”
“He’s an asshole!”
“Listen up, Alex. You’re not part of the prosecution’s team here. You need a defense attorney. A good one.”
“Ethan Millner is underhanded. Manipulative. He bends the law—”
“But he never breaks it, and he wins practically every case he takes.”
“That’s right! Criminals are running loose all over this city because he got them off!”
“If he can get guilty people off, then he shouldn’t have any trouble with an innocent person. He’s your best bet.”
“I said no!” Alex stood up and paced toward the wall. “You know how much I hate him!”
Dave rose and followed him. “But you hate him for the very reason you need him now. Because he’s good enough to have decimated you a time or two on the witness stand.”
Alex whipped around. “No! I’d rather go to prison for twenty years than deal with that money-grubbing bastard!”
Dave sighed. “Look, I know how you feel about him, but—”
“No, goddamn it, you don’t know how I feel!”
“Alex—”
“If this is the best you can do for me, then why don’t you just get the fuck out of here?”
In an instant, Dave slapped his palm against Alex’s chest and backed him against the wall, his face tight with restrained anger. “Listen to me, big brother, and listen good. This is murder we’re talking about. With the right spin by the prosecution, you could end up frying for this no matter what the truth is. If it takes Ethan Millner to make sure that doesn’t happen, then that’s who we’re bringing in. Do you understand?”
Fury and frustration tore through Alex. He tightened his hands into fists, desperate to lash out at something. But his brother? Good God, what was he doing?
Acting like a fool.
He consciously relaxed his fists, only to realize that his hands were shaking. Shit, he was losing it.
Dave backed away, and Alex sat down on the bed and dropped his head to his hands. “I’m sorry, Dave. Christ, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that I don’t know what to do here. How to handle this.” He gave a humorless laugh. “A murder accusation. That was pretty much last on my list of things I thought I’d ever have to deal with.”
“Forget about it.”
Alex rubbed his eyes, feeling as if he hadn’t slept in two days. He’d hoped that somehow this would blow over. He’d hoped that Dave would scoff at the charges and tell him not to worry. Instead he wanted to bring in Ethan Millner, a man who made Johnnie Cochran look like an amateur. A man who, if the price was right, wouldn’t think twice about bringing Hitler up from South America to convince a jury that the Holocaust was just a big misunderstanding. A man who Dave thought just might be the only thing between him and a guilty verdict.
“Millner,” Alex said wearily. “We’ve clashed too many times. He probably won’t even take the case.”
“He’s on his way over here right now.”
“You called him?”
“Right before I left the house.”
“Figured you’d be able to talk me into it?”
“Figured you’d flip out, then eventually come to your senses. As usual.”
Alex liked to think he was the levelheaded, intuitive one in the family, but Dave had him beat in that category by a mile.
“Just talk to Millner, then go from there. One way or the other, he’ll have you out of here tomorrow.”
“I don’t want you getting dragged through the mud with me, Dave. You or anyone else in the family.”
“Will you forget the family? They’re not the issue here.”
“And Dad. God, can you imagine what he would think about this?”
“He’s dead. He’s not thinking a damned thing.”
But it never really felt that way to Alex. He’d always felt as if his father were watching him, whether in this world or the next, ready to pat him on the shoulder if he toed the line and knock him senseless if he didn’t.
His father had been invincible. A towering icon of everything that was upstanding and upright. A man whose life had been like an arrow leaving the bow and finding the center of its target—traveling without a single deviation along the way. Right was right, wrong was wrong, and anyone who thought otherwise was either a degenerate or a Democrat.
Ruthless.
Alex had heard the word tossed around a time or two by people who didn’t know he was within earshot. But they just didn’t understand a man whose code of behavior was so finely tuned, so sharply honed, so ingrained in his everyday life that he wasn’t swayed by anyone or anything. And it was true that if somebody crossed Joseph DeMarco they lived to regret it, but not once in his life had he been anything but above reproach, because he’d never stepped off the straight and narrow. He merely expected everyone else in his midst to live up to the same standards. Particularly his three sons.
Yes, he’d enforced those standards with the business end of a belt more times than Alex cared to think about, because his father believed wholeheartedly in corporal punishment. And that punishment had grown more intense the older he and his brothers got, with a whole lot more power behind the old man’s punch, but only because he couldn’t get through to his big, rambunctious, hardheaded boys any other way. It had been the best thing for him. His father had taught him right from wrong, because he’d had the guts to slap him back in line whenever he stepped out.
And what Alex had never told his brothers, never told anyone, were the words their father had spoken to him once when it was just the two of them alone: John and Dave. They’re my sons, and I love them. But you’re the one, Alex. You’re the one I’m the most proud of.
Well, there wasn’t a lot for his father to be proud of right now.
“Now, listen to me,” Dave said. “When you get out of here tomorrow, I want you to lie low. Let Millner handle things. Let the investigation proceed—”
“Investigation, my ass. Do you really think Henderson is going to go out of his way on this one? He’s got his suspect, and he’s loving every minute of it.”
Alex could deal with anything but this. Anything but being dragged through a court battle with the whole world looking at him as if he’d committed murder. Every second that ticked by made the anguish he felt seep right down to his bones.
“The rest of the family,” Alex said. “I can’t see them right now. I need a couple of days to get a handle on this.”
Dave nodded. “They won’t like it, but I’ll put out the word.”
“And whatever you do,” Alex said, “don’t tell Brenda.”
“I have to. If she hears it through the grapevine, she really will be pissed. But don’t worry. I’ll keep a tight hold on her choke chain.”
“She’s not the only one who’s going to go nuts. You’d better put a leash on John, too.”
“He and Renee won’t be back from their honeymoon until Thursday. I’ll tell Renee first. She’ll keep a lid on him.”
Renee. If anyone would understand how he was feeling right now, it was her. She’d once been accused of an armed robbery she didn’t commit. John had risked his career to help her clear her name, even when everyone, including Alex, thought she was guilty. Somewhere in the midst of all that, to Alex’s utter astonishment, John and Renee had fallen in love. They’d gotten married just last weekend, and Alex was thankful for that. Marriage would eventually call a halt to the kind of nauseating kissy-kissy stuff the two of them had exhibited nonstop over the past several months.
But even as Alex felt obligated to give them a hard time about that behavior, he felt twinges of jealousy that John had found somebody who loved him as much as Renee did. Alex had never even come close to that kind of relationship with a woman. Not that there hadn’t been candidates over the years, women who would cheerfully have accepted a ring and a wedding date, but it had never taken him very long to find fault with them and lose interest. How strange was it that the only woman who’d ever held his attention for longer than a couple of weeks was the one who’d ended up hating him?
Valerie Parker.
Dave had warned him to lie low, but he had to talk to her. The moment he got out of here tomorrow, he intended to go see her, even though there was a better than average chance she’d slam the door right in his face. He had to find out what else she’d seen at the Reichert house, something she might not even realize she saw, something locked away in her mind that Henderson hadn’t bothered to go in search of.
Right now, it was his only hope.
chapter five
Val woke Saturday morning at eleven o’clock with the king of all headaches. She got up, took a shower, got dressed, and when the headache didn’t subside, she took four aspirin, then poured a glass of orange juice. That made her sick to her stomach, so she followed it with an oatmeal-raisin bagel, which didn’t help in the least.
At the police station the night before, they’d quickly realized that she was a far better witness than she was a suspect. She’d answered every question as truthfully as she could, knowing all the while that every word she spoke pushed Alex one step close
r to jail.
But what she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind was the look Alex had given her as the police came through the door of the Reicherts’ bedroom.
No matter what happens now, no matter what you hear, no matter what you see, I did not kill that woman.
He’d hurt her in ways that had gone bone-deep, yet she still didn’t want to believe that he could have done anything as terrible as murder. If she did, then she’d have to feel even more ridiculous that she’d ever loved him in the first place.
No. You didn’t love him. Infatuation is not love. Admiration is not love. And lust is most certainly not love.
She’d kept the TV on just long enough after she got home last night to watch a late-breaking report on Channel 6 about the murder. The reporter who came on the screen was one of those seasoned, hard-nosed, vulturistic few who stayed up late listening to the police band, hoping to be first on the scene of a sensational story.
This one was right up her alley.
Behind the reporter, neighbors had milled around on the sidewalk near the street. Lights and cameras appeared as if from nowhere, along with police cars and emergency vehicles, with the patrol cops marking the area with black-and-yellow tape.
Val knew the reporters wouldn’t stop until they’d squeezed every bit of loud, irresponsible, in-your-face journalism out of this story that they possibly could. And what a headline they were going to come up with for this one: Woman strangled by cop in sex-related murder.
Val considered herself fortunate that nobody appeared to have released her name to the press. Still, chances were excellent that sooner or later somebody would be knocking at her door and sticking a microphone in her face, and she certainly wasn’t looking forward to that.
She really wished that the moment Alex had shown up at that bar, she’d closed up shop and gone home, so she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Up until last night, she’d succeeded in pushing Alex to the back of her mind. It had been a long time since an hour couldn’t pass without her thinking about him, and now she was back in that place all over again.
