by Gregg Olsen
As Deke spoke, he dribbled Coke down his double chin onto his fish tie. I futilely searched for a napkin to wipe it, and finally grabbed a Kleenex from a dispenser on a craft table and gave it to him.
"I thought your mother might be here," I said to Janet.
Her face went from vacant to sad. "Me and Mom aren't talking now."
"How come?"
"Mom don't approve of Deke. Says Deke is the reason we're in prison."
Deke's bulbous cheeks were crimson. "Hey, I'm a victim," he said, puffing himself up as if being a victim was some kind of badge of honor; the greatest excuse. "I just did what the detective wanted me to do. I was tricked."
I had heard that before, so I withheld comment. I wished the couple well and two minutes after the vows were exchanged, I was escorted out by Muriel, who had just returned.
"How was it?" she asked without looking at me as we walked to the gate.
"Fast."
"They always are."
"You have many like this?"
"About two or three a year. But none like this."
"Like this?"
"Come on, a woman in prison for attempted murder marrying the man whose testimony put her here?"
"National Enquirer material, isn't it?" I said.
A funny little half-smile cracked her frozen face. "Yes, as a matter of fact, they've already called."
Muriel-the-flack turned around and clacked her way down the corridor. Now, I knew how it was that she could afford that beautiful suit. Muriel was a stringer for the Enquirer.
I'd never get a break.
♦
I TOOK THE LONG WAY BACK HOME, which amounted to an extra five minutes. The sun had snipped a slit through the clouds, lighting the tops of the evergreens like fire on a Christmas tree. When I had turned into our driveway, my thoughts remained on the prison wedding. I was glad there had been no reception. I couldn't dance and hated to make excuses to my wife, who I saw running toward the LUV as I pulled in to park.
"Kevin, I'm glad you came right home," she said, nearly out of breath.
"Jett has been calling the house phone. You turned off your cell. There's something bothering her and she has to talk with you. She's very upset, crying, almost hysterical."
"Where is she?"
"First she was at work, then she called from home. That's where she said she'd be until she heard from you."
Valerie was shaken and angry. Her hair was clipped back in one of Taylor's tortoise-shell barrettes. Very tight to her head. It was a severe look and it matched her mood.
"Are you all right?" I asked, reaching for her hand.
She pulled away.
"I'm not all right. Kevin, enough is enough. This book is turning into another Wanda-Lou fiasco. Jett is frightened and I can't help her. Let's see, when I asked her if I could help with whatever was upsetting her, she said, 'It doesn't concern you, Val. Not directly. I've got to talk to Kevin right away.'"
Val took a deep breath, her face was flushed. I knew it was because she was both frustrated and worried.
I let her talk.
"Those books aren't worth it, Kevin," she said. "Just get it over with. Don't get me wrong, I like Jett fine. I like her very much, you know that. I wish her well. But I can't make her life better. Finish the book."
I followed my wife into the house.
"Val, I'll see what the matter is. It's probably nothing. Probably someone at Ho! was rude to her at the sales counter."
Val had blown off the steam that had collected through the series of frantic phone calls.
"I don't know," she said, "I'm worried about Jett. She seems so... " She searched for the words. "Distraught."
I went to my desk and pushed the speed dial button for Jett's number. She picked up before the first ring was completed.
"Kevin! God, I'm glad you called me."
"Val says something is up. Are you okay?”
"I'm fine. I'm worried about you."
"What for? I only attended your sister's wedding. I wasn't the groom, for God's sake."
Usually Jett would laugh at such a remark, but her voice grew hushed. I prodded her to talk.
"What is it?"
"Oh, Kevin, Detective Raines was here this morning."
"What for? Are you in some kind of trouble?" I looked around for my coffee cup and waited for her reply. "Jett, what is it?"
Finally she spoke. "I'm not the one in trouble. I think you are."
“Me?” I asked, my voice full of surprise.
"I think so. Detective Raines was here and he asked me about you and Mrs. Parker."
My heart dipped below my waist.
"June Parker?"
"Yeah. He kept asking me about what kind of person you are and if you had ever said anything to me about Mrs. Parker."
"He doesn't think—"
"I think he does. Kevin, I think Raines thinks you might be behind her murder."
I was reeling now. The very idea someone could suggest that I could have done anything like murder shook me hard. I wrote about murder. I didn't commit murder.
"Kevin? Are you still there?"
I pulled it together.
"Jett, I'm here. I just can't believe it. Martin Raines is my friend. How could he even think, let alone say, such a thing to you?"
"He said they have evidence against you."
"Evidence? What evidence?"
"He didn't say."
I thanked her for calling, though I had been the one who called her.
"I'll talk to you soon."
"Kevin? How was Janet's wedding?"
The question caught me off-guard and for a second, in spite of everything, I was embarrassed that I hadn't told her right away that the wedding went off just fine.
"The wedding? Oh, it was lovely. Janet looked terrific. Very pretty. Everyone missed you being there. I'll tell you more when I see you. I'm going to Timberlake tomorrow morning, first thing."
I hung up and looked for Valerie. I nearly cried when I told her what Jett had said. In the instant her words passed through my eardrums, I was already, in my mind, on death row. Another statistic, that was me. Another man falsely accused, convicted, forgotten. I could see it all, because I had written it all before. I had done a piece for one of the women's magazines about a Denver man who had been convicted for the murder of his neighbor. The evidence was weak, almost nonexistent. The man had been involved in a dispute over a tree that had hung over the property line. The dead man was found with a hatchet in the back of his head in his head in his workshop. The prints matched the neighbor's. The hapless con was denied a new trial, even when previously undisclosed fingerprints were matched with a drifter from Colorado Springs who had been passing through the area around the time of the killing. The man hung in legal limbo for three years, waiting for a new trial.
His wife left him for his defense lawyer.
His house was auctioned for legal bills.
His kids claimed he had abused them, too.
He was eventually freed, but for what? He had nothing.
"It'll be all right," Valerie said as my mind drifted back to reality. She held me in her arms and squeezed. I felt better.
"You'll get through this. Martin Raines knows you."
"That's what I thought."
"You'll see."
Chapter Twenty-four
Friday, August 30
I HADN'T SLEPT A MINUTE AND THE OVERPACKED BAGS under my eyes were proof. My face was eclipsed by the stubble of a brown beard that I had often wished could be transplanted to my thinning pate. At 2 a.m., I tapped out the last few paragraphs of my fourth chapter of Love You to Death and put it in a folder for Val to read later. Anxiety was such a good motivator.
That morning, haggard, tired and beat, I stood in the shower letting the spray rush over me like a waterfall until I could feel the chilly result of a hot water tank depleted of its reserves. I caught my reflection in a shaving mirror that hung from the nozzle. I was thirty-eight and the aging p
rocess was accelerating. The fine wrinkles around my eyes were deepening. My blue eyes were set in a field of red. My hair... What hair? I looked terrible. I had always hoped that I would age as my father had, which as the years went by, seemed not at all.
But Dad had never been accused of murder.
I grabbed a towel and dried off, apologizing to Valerie for taking so long.
"Might want to wait a half hour before showering. Hot water's on the fritz."
"No wonder," Val said, handing me a cup of uncharacteristically weak coffee. "Kevin, I'm sure Marty was only doing his job. You're over the top on this. You shouldn't be so worried. Beyond the fact that you're not a killer, you have no motive and no opportunity."
"Yeah, I know that... it's just the idea that he'd even think it."
"You don't know what he thinks."
"I know that he's asking questions about me that are turning my stomach."
I dressed, scratched Hedda behind the ears and kissed my girls goodbye. Taylor and Hayley were cuddled up into little balls in their beds. Taylor was uncovered and Hayley was buried beneath the thick folds of a comforter and two blankets. Hedda jumped on Hayley's bed and snuggled next to her. Valerie read the paper at the kitchen table and waited for the water to heat to a tolerable level.
I pointed the LUV toward Timberlake and drove the freeway south. Every so often, I looked beyond the road in front of me to scope out where it was that I was driving. My mind was not on anything other than what I had seen at Mrs. Parker's home. Her blood. Her hands. The slip of paper she clutched barely registered, yet I knew that it was there. I knew from talking to Raines that my name was on it. I knew that the poison ingested by Danny's mother had been the same kind used by the killer in one of my books. I turned off her kitchen tap. I had touched nothing else.
That was all I knew.
♦
I HAD KNOWN MARTIN RAINES FOR MORE than three years. He was one of those instantly likeable law enforcement officers who could joke about being addicted to Dunkin' Donuts honey-dipped doughnuts one minute, and make an appearance at a local junior high school to talk about what drugs can do to young minds the next. He could just as easily grind on a suspect with the force of a man who knew exactly where the internal affairs cops drew the line. Just to the edge. No further.
The Raines I knew was not my best friend, but I felt as comfortable with him as one does with a trusted colleague. He respected my work. I respected his. I had never betrayed a cop in any of my books. Cops were heroes. Editors uniformly considered them the "natural rooting interest. " Cops, quite naturally, liked being cast in the glow of heroism. Even though my books were merely paperbacks, to most cops they were as close to immortality as a set of Britannicas in the local library.
Raines had been thrilled when I told him I was going to do the Love You to Death book.
"Don't make me fat, all right?" he had half-joked.
"You fat? You've got the build of a teenager."
"Smart, too?"
I grinned. "You're Mensa material."
He laughed and so did I. As I remembered it, that particular moment shared between us seemed a million years ago.
I parked under the first floor overhang of the Pierce County Justice Center and went inside. Raines was in the front office and the look on his face said more than any words. His face was ashen. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked around the room—and right through me—before he conjured any recognition.
"Kevin," he said with irritated surprise, "you're here."
"Of course I'm here. I want to talk."
He looked at the clerk typing some ridiculous legal paper. She sat behind a government relic, a manual typewriter. White-out was splashed on its keys like seagull droppings.
"Ginny," he reminded her, "you need to type the middle initial on each page. Every page."
The girl, who looked to be about twenty and weary beyond her years, agreed.
"The L key sticks, detective."
"When are you guys going to get a laptop and get rid of this junk?" I asked.
Raines didn't look back at me. I had the feeling it was that he didn't want to. He was avoiding me.
I stiffened. "Martin, what's going on?"
When he looked up, he didn't have the face of a friend anymore. He didn't look like anyone I knew. If I hadn't known the man, I wouldn't have liked him.
"We need to talk," he finally said. "Come in to the back room."
The back room. What he meant was the interrogation room. One of the very rooms in which Janet and Danny had been questioned. I had been in them. I had written about the cool air blowing from the ventilation ducts. I had noted the mirror that was obviously a window to some faceless observer.
"Kevin," he said, pointing me to a chair. "I guess it's good that you came down. It'll make this a lot easier in the long run."
My stomach jumped. "What easier? What the hell is going on?"
"We have some questions about the Parker murder."
For a second, an instant and welcome calmness washed over me. I hoped what he wanted was my expert opinion on the crime scene. Yes, I thought, that had to be it. I sat up and forced a smile. My face was frozen to the pint of phoniness that I knew I must have looked stupid.
"What can I tell you? I don't know any more than I told you."
"But you do, don't you?"
My eyes bulged. "What are you suggesting?"
"Coffee?"
"Hell, I don't want coffee. I want to know why Jett Carter says that you suspect I was involved.”
I could hardly even say the words.
"I couldn't believe it at first," he said, his tone turning a little combative. "Couldn't believe it. Now I wonder."
I stood up and slammed my notebook on the table.
"Could you tell me what you're talking about?"
"Yes, but you tell me something first."
I was losing my patience. I was tired. I hadn't slept. I wanted that coffee after all. I was also scared.
"What?"
"Did you kill Mrs. Parker, Kevin?"
"No! How could you even say that?"
"Kevin, it's not me—"
For a moment I thought he was going to be the affable Martin Raines that I knew. I was wrong, for the concern in his voice evaporated.
“—not you?"
"I better call Davidson in here. Just a second."
Davidson was a young deputy and I knew why Raines was calling him into the interrogation room. He needed a witness to back up what he said and what procedures he followed. Davidson was a skinny guy, dumber than pea gravel. He had sucked up to me the last time I came to interview Raines. He offered me a soda while I waited and hung around within earshot of the interview so that he could "figure out what this book writing is all about. " As if I cared, he spilled the beans on a romance he had with another officer.
When Davidson lumbered in, he nodded in my direction and slumped into a chair next to Raines.
"Kevin Ryan?" Raines said.
I stared hard. My eyes were bullets.
"Is that your name?"
"You know damn well it is."
And then he went on... my rights were read and I could barely hear them. If someone had quizzed me about them for a grand prize of one million dollars, I would have been as poor as always. I sat there stunned. I only saw his mouth. Not his eyes. Not the rest of his body. Just the movements made by a coffee-stained mouth spewing out words I could never have imagined in my wildest nightmares would have been meant for me.
"...for the capital murder of June Rose Parker..."
From what I gathered, as Raines began to question me, there had been an informant. An anonymous informant that had placed me at the scene of the murder an hour before I had said I was there. Okay, maybe a mistake. Big deal. But there was more. The cyanide, it turned out, was, in fact, an exact match to the poison used by the killer in my Over the Counter Murders book. A little damaging, but still hardly incriminating.
"Neighbor says he saw
you throw some Weasel-Die out after Mrs. Parker's death."
"That's right. I did. I threw out what I had purchased when I did a demonstration on how easy it was to buy the lethal stuff. I did it and wrote about it in an article for Redbook."
"But you threw it out after the Parker murder."
"So? For God's sake, I was reminded I had the stuff when I talked to you at your house. I have kids," I said.
In your stupid fishing lodge office!
Raines shrugged his shoulders. "Too bad we'll never be able to pull a match on the batch you had."
"Too bad," I echoed. I was terrified now. "Come on, what is the motive here?"
Raines refused to look me in the eye. "We don't need a motive," he said.
"Yeah, but come on, tell me why you think I would do such a thing. You owe me an explanation."
"Kevin, your career is going nowhere. Your latest book flopped. You're up to your neck in credit card debt. You need a winner. You said so yourself. Mrs. Parker didn't want to play your game. We know that you are broke and desperate and to our way of thinking around here, that adds up to a pretty good motive."
I was astonished by his ludicrous reasoning.
"Yeah, I'm going to kill so I can have a best seller! Some peripheral character doesn't agree to an interview, so I killed her. That makes a lot of sense. Let's see, why don't I just go into a classroom and gun down a kindergarten class if I'm so desperate to be a best-selling author? I could call it The Death-Selling Author.”
Raines shot an annoyed and impatient look in my direction.
"You're sick," he said.
"No, you're sick and you know better."
"We have more."
"What more?"
"Your fingerprints in the house."
"I know. I told you. I touched the faucet. I turned off the running water."
"Not just there."
"Where else?" I wondered what I had touched that I had forgotten to mention. I told them about the phone, the door, the faucet. I recalled her eyeglasses crushing under my knee, but I didn't think I had touched them with my hands. There was nothing else.
Raines stared me in the eye. "We pulled your prints off the scrap of paper in her hand. The slip with your name written on it... it has your prints all over it."
