The Cost of Betrayal

by Dee Henderson

  He rubbed her back and chuckled. “That sounds perfect. Are you fixing that meal or am I?”

  “We’ll call your sister and ask for a delivery from the restaurant. You can choose the movie so long as it’s not one of the X-men ones.”

  “Deal.”

  They ate dinner at the kitchen counter, tabbing through the family messages and photos of the last couple of days to share updates before retreating to the living room to enjoy a movie and decompress together from what life had already tossed at them this month.

  Their month would only get busier. Paul didn’t want to think about how many holiday parties were stacked on their social calendar for the next few weeks. His extended family would start arriving to town. And between Christmas and New Year’s they were hosting a gathering here that the governor was likely to attend. Ann would handle it, but every year at this time he regretted that they couldn’t make December about half as complex as it inevitably turned out to be.

  He idly twisted a strand of her hair around his finger, glad for at least one evening in their week to reconnect. They still functioned best as us, and he wanted more than anything to protect that. Not for the first time he thought about retirement, mulling over his working assumption it was more than five years and less than ten years away. He could feel himself getting closer to the day when he would say more than two but less than five years.

  When the movie was over, and even Black had decided he’d had enough popcorn, Paul steered the conversation to the details of Ann’s last few days. He knew she really didn’t mind talking shop. She’d retired, and he’d been promoted too high to take the lead on a case anymore, but they still kept their hands in the investigative side of things by working the occasional cold case together. “I heard the pocketknife came back as a positive match for the murder weapon.”

  Ann stirred enough to uncross her feet and sit up. “There was blood on the longest blade, and the DNA is a match to Andrew Chadwick.”

  “Your whiteboard looks a lot like an investigation.”

  She glanced his direction. “Just preliminary thoughts. You were right. The box of items belongs to Tanya Chadwick.”

  He was surprised to hear his brief suggestion had turned out to be right. “You found an obituary? She’s dead? Or did you track the box ownership down through the auction company?”

  “Tanya is very much alive and now living in New York City. I’ve learned the box I purchased was brought to the area-wide auction by Mark’s Auction House. They had bought fifty-eight boxes of household goods, twenty-three pieces of furniture, and eight floor rugs from a Michelle Rice, a woman who turns out to be the former house manager for the Chadwick family. Tanya sold the family home this year, and Mrs. Rice has moved on to new employment. I spoke briefly with Mrs. Rice today. She said she would have packed the items that were taken to the auction house. I’m having coffee with her tomorrow under the guise of showing her the jewelry box and ring so I can confirm I’ll be returning the ring to its rightful owner. I should be able to guide the conversation around to learn how that varied collection of items, including a pink pocketknife, made it into the same box. I went ahead and put out requests today for the trial transcript and the case file. I’ll give the materials a few days of my time and see what I can learn.”

  “Want some help?”

  “Do you honestly have an extra brain cell right now?”

  “I’m burned to a crisp.”

  She rubbed a hand across his hair and smiled. “Still just smoking gray showing up. You begin turning active flame and I’ll start to worry. I’ll take a preliminary look at the files and let you know.” She reached for her glass sitting on a coffee-table coaster. “I don’t expect to get very far. The knife probably showed up after the trial was concluded, and Tanya couldn’t convince herself to throw it away but didn’t want to talk to cops ever again, so she dumped it in a drawer. Janelle was already in jail for the murder. Six years later, Tanya decides she’s going to stay permanently in New York and makes arrangements to sell the family home back here in Chicago. The house manager is directing a crew of people, boxing what is going to Tanya in New York, what is going to the auction house, and what is being left for the house stagers to use in showcasing it for sale. In the process, the pocketknife that had been dropped in a forget-me drawer ends up in a box of dresser items heading to auction rather than the trash.”

  Paul could hear the cop in her putting the pieces together in logical order. “The common-sense answer does tend to be what happened,” he murmured. He knew she’d look until the question was resolved to her satisfaction. “Ready to call it a night?”

  “Been ready since about the second half of the movie. I don’t sleep as well without you.”

  He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Now you’re just being kind. I’ll walk the dog tonight if you tackle unpacking my bag. I’d rather not see a reminder that I might get pulled away again.”

  “How deep is the snow?”

  “They’re saying ten inches by morning, mostly lake-effect.”

  “You can walk the dog.”

  Paul laughed. The dog enjoyed fresh snow, liked to crash through drifts and climb mountains when it got piled. The walk that would take twenty minutes in the summer would take forty in winter. “Black, want to walk?”

  The dog shook himself awake and headed out to the entry for his leash.

  Paul kissed his wife, content this one corner of his life was in good order, and went to join their dog.

  three

  “TANYA IS AN INTERESTING WOMAN, although possibly in a bad way,” Ann said from the closet, looking for a pair of shoes.

  Paul straightened his tie and picked up the watch he still preferred to wear rather than pull out his phone to check the time. “How do you mean?”

  Ann found the shoes to go with her dress and sat down on the bed to slip them on. “She was considering taking her brother to court over his decisions about the family’s trust.”

  Being the eldest son and future trustee of a sizable family business, the one being groomed to provide direction for brothers, sister, and cousins on any number of enterprises the family owned, the comment caught Paul’s attention in a personal way. “She was, what, in her twenties?”

  “Yes. There’s a desperate need for money in Tanya’s history, and her brother had been doling out their parents’ estate in a too-little, too-late fashion in her estimation. She’d lost out on a boutique franchise, a clothing-line launch, the upper-tier design school. Tanya wanted better than a comfortable allowance. She wanted New York and fashion and had looked at taking her brother to court over the matter. I got that from Andrew’s college buddy, who is not a fan of Tanya. Andrew was a business major, finishing up his MBA.”

  “How sizable a trust are we talking about?”

  “Four to five million. They both were drawing eighty thousand a year.”

  “She wasn’t going to win a complaint in court,” Paul assessed.

  “I suspect legal counsel told her the same. Her brother was a healthy young man destined to live a long life. The trust did not sunset when she reached a particular age, plus there was no exit to the terms while Andrew was alive. She had a problem that was never going to go away. And money is a big motive for murder. Why split it when you can just have it all?”

  Paul glanced over, hearing in Ann’s tone a cop who had caught the scent of something tangible. She was fixing the ankle strap on her shoe. “A good motive isn’t proof of murder.”

  Ann sat upright, gave him a distracted nod. “I know. She’d been considering taking the trust matter to court but hadn’t taken that step yet, hadn’t fully breached the relationship with her brother, and on other matters they were apparently still on good terms. Tanya was living at the family home, while Andrew would be back at the house between college terms. The house manager said they got along as well as a brother and sister would a few years apart in age, different groups of friends, interests—but family.

&nbs
p; “And what the jury heard makes sense,” Ann continued. “Janelle and Andrew broke up that night, and Janelle was furious about it—her own words. The break-up fight was at the beach where he was found dead. There were traces of blood in the treads of her tennis shoes. And we now have her pink pocketknife with his blood on it. There is plenty to say Janelle did this murder.” Ann crossed to the dresser and selected a necklace, earrings. “But I think Tanya did this, Paul, and framed Janelle.”

  He studied her reflected face in the mirror as she slipped in the earrings, met her gaze. He knew his wife. She didn’t make a statement like that if there wasn’t a certainty inside that she had found a thread connected to the real truth. Sister kills brother, frames his girlfriend. Put it in a newspaper headline and it would get nods like any other murder case. It happened. Only rarely, though, did it actually succeed.

  Ann wouldn’t set the case aside now until she had figured out if she could prove it. “I’ll find time for you to walk me through the details,” Paul offered. He held out his hand as she was ready to go. “A party is calling our name.”

  “What number is this one?”

  “Three.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Deal still in effect?”

  He grinned. “No shop talk at a holiday party. Kids, vacations, sports, even politics if necessary, but not a single tangent related to work. That goes for both of us.”

  Ann smiled. “It’s a good rule. I like parties for the food, the music, and the fact we’re mostly surrounded by interesting people I’ve met before. We need this.” She picked up her purse.

  “We need an extra few hours of sleep even more, but I like dancing with my wife; you’re beautiful tonight.” He trailed a finger down her cheek, pleased with the fact she still blushed easily.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” He would make sure they were home by eleven so they could have a reasonable night. “Which of us tells Black he’s being left behind?” The dog was already trailing them down the hall, ears perked up.

  She laughed softly. “There’s one of his favorite jerky treats by the entryway statue, so we can say goodbye with kindness. He’ll forgive us. He likes the party cookies I’ve been smuggling home for him.”

  “Smart thinking.” Paul held her coat for her, then slipped on his own. She said goodbye to their dog, and they headed out for the evening. If his wife was right, someone was sitting in a prison cell who hadn’t committed a murder, and someone who had was enjoying the holidays. He couldn’t justify diverting someone from his office to look at a concluded state case, but between himself and Ann, there was more murder-case experience than anyone he could assign. He’d find the time to help her take a deeper look at it.

  It had been a nice party, the kind that reminded Paul why they said yes to the varied holiday invitations. He was able to meet the spouses of those who worked for him, see photos of kids, hear vacation plans, enjoy some laughter as “Did you hear about?” stories circled the room. The value was in the connections renewed, the new ones formed.

  He glanced over at Ann as traffic halted at a red light. She had enjoyed herself by all appearances, but now rested with head against the headrest and eyes closed. He reached over to slip a strand of tinsel from her hair. She’d become a princess for twenty minutes, sharing with a child how to make a handmade Christmas crown. They were of like minds that parenthood had passed them by, but she was good with other people’s children in a way he loved to watch. He held up the tinsel and got a smile.

  “I’m going to show the kids how to make them when we host your family. I was practicing.”

  “They’ll enjoy that.” He could hear the fatigue in her voice and planned to make sure she slept in tomorrow morning. Traffic began to move again, so he turned his attention back to the road ahead.

  “The lights are pretty tonight,” she mentioned. “Those who put out strands of Christmas lights do a favor for the rest of us.”

  “It is beautiful,” he agreed. The fresh white snow and colored lights made a festive combination. He gave her a brief glance. “I don’t like to dampen what is a relaxed mood, but we have twenty minutes at the pace traffic is moving, and I have a feeling Christmas lights are not the only thing now on your mind. Tell me about the murder scene.”

  Ann reached over and squeezed his free hand. “Thanks.”

  “I prefer doing the hard stuff with you.” Taking apart a solved murder where a jury had already convicted on the crime was the picture of a hard undertaking.

  “The murder happened at a beach north of Lake Point. You don’t think of the Chicago area as having such interesting places—we spend so much of the year in this snow. But during the summer months, there are destination beaches around the lake. This one is a long stretch of sand and not one tourists visit often. You can’t carry your chairs and blankets and coolers from the parking lot directly to the sand. Instead you have to traverse several staircases to reach the beach or else use the steeper direct staircase about a mile from the parking lot. But if you want to take your date for a walk on the beach, or see a full display of sunset colors reflecting on the water and in the clouds, this is where the locals go. I can see why Janelle and Andrew ended up there that Friday night. By late August it’s cool in the evenings, plus there’s a wind off the lake to deal with. But it’s a place to walk and talk with some privacy.”

  Paul could visualize the scene. “So what played out that night? How did Janelle end up in prison?”

  “Tanya found her brother’s body. He had mentioned the plans for the evening with Janelle were dinner and a walk on the beach, then home. It’s getting late. The beach closes after the sunset hour. Tanya is in a snit because her brother was supposed to help her finish up paperwork for a meeting on Saturday morning and she needs his signature. Neither Janelle nor Andrew is answering her calls, so Tanya drives over to the beach. Her brother’s car is still there. Tanya walks down the steeper stairs and discovers Andrew at the bottom. She calls 9-1-1 at 10:46 p.m. Cops are on scene at 10:58. It’s faint moonlight, and she’s been using a penlight on her keychain to move around. She’s desperately trying to stop his bleeding, thinking it’s flowing and Andrew’s alive. Cops have to tell her that her brother is dead.

  “She’s hysterical that Janelle can’t be found. ‘She was with my brother. They were on a date tonight. Is she dead somewhere around here too? Look for her!’ And cops are spreading out to do that very thing, bringing in more law enforcement on the possibility it was an abduction. Janelle was grabbed, and Andrew was stabbed and pushed down the stairs in the ensuing fight.

  “Calm descends when a patrol officer discovers Janelle at her apartment. She’d walked down to the pizza place and called a taxi to take her home after Andrew dumped her. She didn’t want a ride from him. And she’d been ignoring her phone because she didn’t want to talk to anyone. The officer brings her out to the beach to talk to the detective in charge. Things spiral downward from there.

  “They get a warrant to search Janelle’s place, recover the clothes she had worn on the date, look for a knife. Her tennis shoes have traces of blood in the treads. It doesn’t help that Tanya wails ‘What did you do?’ and tearfully tells the cops and later the jury that her friend had a crush on her brother for years and wasn’t going to let him dump her and move on to another girlfriend. The jury buys it and convicts Janelle of second-degree murder.” Ann went quiet for a long moment. “It’s a neat case . . . on the surface.”

  “You don’t think that’s what happened?”

  “I think we’re looking at something well scripted and carefully staged.”

  Paul considered his wife’s words. “Show me. Lay out the photos, the transcripts, the details. I need to see what you have.” He was asking as her husband, but also as the head of the Chicago FBI office. His agreement with her conclusion would be a significant step in determining what happened next.

  Ann nodded. “I mostly see Tanya, her actions, and hear her in the interviews and trial testi
mony. Maybe it’s too many years of murder cases, but there is a serious false note.”

  The traffic had thinned, and they now were nearing home, so he purposefully lightened things. “Were you able to smuggle home a cookie or two?”

  Ann smiled. “Two sugar cookies. I nearly brought Black an oatmeal one, but he would give me that look that says ‘Really? Oatmeal?’” She laughed. “You know he’s been sleeping the entire time we’ve been away. We get home, feed him sugar—the walk tonight is going to last a good hour.”

  Paul thought she had it pegged. “We’ll change and both take him for a walk. The fresh air will do us all good, and then you can sleep in for hours if you like.”

  “I like that plan.”

  Paul parked the car and came around to offer his arm for the short walk to their building. In their building lobby and elevator, he used his key to override the security lock, then pressed the button for their private floor. “Will he be asleep or waiting?” he wondered aloud.

  Ann laughed. “Oh, definitely waiting. He’s learned when the elevator is slowing to stop on our floor.”

  Ann was right. Black sat and promptly lifted a paw to say hi, which Paul accepted so as not to disappoint him. The dog wound a figure eight between them as they slipped off their coats, trying to lean and love on them both at the same time. Paul gave him a bear hug in thanks. “I’ll be back for a walk in a minute, buddy.” The dog’s attention snapped to Ann holding cookies, and his tail about knocked Paul over. With a laugh Paul cleared the field for Ann and went to change clothes for their walk. It felt good to be home.

  Paul dropped the medical examiner’s report back on the stack of case materials that had migrated from their home office to wherever he might have a moment. He heard Ann moving around in the bedroom. He turned to the breakfast he had prepped and checked that the waffle iron was hot, poured the first one.

  “You should have nudged me awake.” Ann joined him in a flurry of plaid flannel over jeans, having pulled on her favorite painting shirt and shoved up the sleeves. “Our Saturday breakfast is turning into brunch.”