“No!” Tess cried. It was a simple enough question and one she thought she could answer honestly enough. But then she wondered about her former in-laws. Could they be considered enemies? God, I wish I could speak to Hudson alone.
“What about the large inheritance you received? Were you aware of the victim’s financial situation before you got married?”
“No. And I have a letter to prove that.”
“Tess!” Hudson hissed.
“Yes, I’ve heard about the letter. We would appreciate receiving a copy of that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t prove anything. You could have written that yourself.”
Tess frowned. I’m the prime suspect. I should have been expecting this. She looked from the detective to Hudson, feeling her anxiety level rise to new heights. Her palms became clammy and she had to consciously resist the urge to wipe her hands on her lap.
“I can attest to the fact that my client didn’t know anything.” Hudson folded his hands on the table, over top the report. “It was Mr. Kingston’s wish at the time of the drafting of his estate plan that his future wife not be told anything.”
“Did you record your meeting with the victim?”
“No.”
“Then we don’t know for sure he didn’t go right home and tell his fiancé at the time.”
“I swear I didn’t know!” Tess shouted.
“Shut up!” Hudson yelled back. She glowered at him, knowing he was only trying to protect her.
“Who did the victim see the day of the wedding, within six to eight hours of the ceremony?”
“If the window is six to eight hours,” Hudson mused, “then Jack could have been poisoned within an hour after leaving his apartment. His family didn’t know he had made a will and had far more to gain from his death than my client.”
Detective Isham smirked in a condescending way. “The Kingston family claims the victim–”
“Stop calling him the victim!” Tess hissed. “His name was Jack!”
Detective Isham glared at her and returned his focus to Hudson. “As I was saying, the Kingstons’ statement is that Jack Kingston did not consume any food or drink in their presence.”
“How convenient,” Hudson muttered.
“The poison could have been in the coffee served to him by his fiancé the morning of the wedding.”
“I didn’t poison my husband!” Tess yelled, jumping to her feet. Hudson’s hand snaked out, grasping her around the wrist.
“Sit down, Tess,” he said calmly, but his tight grip said far more. “You have no proof of anything,” he continued. “Are you charging my client?”
“Not yet.”
“Then we’re done here. If you have any more questions, call me directly.”
* * * * *
Hudson walked Tess out of the police station with every intention of taking her back to David Kingston’s office for her car. Instead, they found Ford sitting on his motorcycle in the parking lot and Lilly in the spot next to him with Tess’s car. They both rushed over to begin asking questions.
“What’s going on?” Lilly demanded.
“Are you all right?” Ford asked in a softer voice.
“Stop!” Tess pleaded, throwing her hands up to ward them off.
“It’s okay, she isn’t being charged–” Hudson started.
“Yet,” Tess muttered.
Hudson gave her a stern look. “Yet. But we are in the shit now. Lilly, please take Tess home. Ford and I need to get back to the office so we can study the tox report and get to work. I’ll call you later to set up a time when we can meet. And if anyone calls you – the police, the Kingstons – I mean, anyone, you are not to speak to them. Not under any circumstances. Got it?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I’m serious, Tess. Do not speak to anyone but me or Ford or your immediate family.”
Tess gave him a chastised and anguished look as her sister led her to the car.
“What the hell happened?” Ford growled when the women had driven away.
“David Kingston fucked us. Somehow he managed to get his hands on the report before us and he went to the police.”
Hudson started walking toward his truck at a fast clip; Ford close on his heels.
“What did the report show?”
“Just what we thought. Jack was poisoned.”
Ford let out a low, long whistle. “Shit.”
Chapter 31
Standing under the hot spray of the shower, Tess sighed with pleasure and relief. Her respite was short-lived because she knew she was at risk of spending the rest of her life in a real prison much uglier than the one of widowhood in which she found herself.
“Thanks a lot, Jack,” she muttered to the shower loofa in her hand. “If this is some cosmic joke, I’m gonna kick your ass when I see you again.”
Tess scrubbed her body until her skin was sore from the exertion. She gave her scalp and hair the same vigorous workout until she felt reasonably confident she was clean. All those nasty questions from that detective made her feel dirty. Polluted somehow. She got out and wrapped up in her oversized terrycloth robe and then threw her hair up into a fluffy towel. Padding along to her bedroom, the kitties followed and joined her when she flopped onto the bed. As she petted them, her mind whirled and swirled.
This was getting too crazy for her. Going back over the events of the day, she was stunned at how she’d been set up. Somehow, David had gotten a hold of the toxicology report and discovered that Jack had been poisoned. Because she was the only person to be alone with Jack the morning of the wedding until he went to his parents, all evidence pointed to her as having been the person to give him the poison.
Poisoned! Jack had been murdered. Her stomach clenched and her heart ached. Not her Jack. Not the boy and then man who had been her very best friend for most of her life. Had he suffered? How could anyone think she could do such a thing? Visions of tabloid headlines flashed through her mind and Tess grabbed a pillow to hold over her head, trying to make them go away.
Obviously that was a load of crap. She had loved Jack and never would have killed him. No matter how many doubts she had about the wedding and marriage itself, she never would have killed him. It was ludicrous. Thankfully, Hudson and Ford believed her. Hudson had seen Jack in his nervous state, there was no way he thought Tess was capable of killing Jack. There was no motive, even if there had been plenty of opportunity. He had promised he would defend her and find a way out of the mess.
Anyone else in her situation would probably break down from the kind of pressure that had just been dumped on her. Not Tess. No, she was raging mad. Not only had her fairy tale ending been stolen from her, but now she was accused of causing it all as well. There was no way in hell she was going to go down for something the Kingstons had obviously orchestrated. And all in the name of money.
Tess believed to her core that it had to be Roger or David and the thought of it sickened her. They had more motive than she. They knew about the adoption and the money and the inheritance. And hadn’t their actions after his death shown they were trying to keep his money? All those lies in the probate documents. How could the police even look at her?
No, it was the Kingstons. Tess was sure of it. And she was going to prove it.
Chapter 32
“Well, at least we know for sure now. And your life won’t be in danger,” Lilly said, trying to sound glad but failing miserably. The worry in her eyes and the way her voice cracked gave it all away.
“Oh sure, there’s that.” Tess snorted and stared into her glass of lemonade. She sat on the couch in her parents’ living room with them and her sister, waiting for Hudson to arrive. “They sure wouldn’t want to kill me now, because then I wouldn’t go to jail, framed for the death of their son.” Tess was trying to find hope and stay positive, but it was pretty hard. She couldn’t have anticipated being suspected of Jack’s murder. It was just too far off her radar. She tried to remember all the promises she made to herself that day on th
e patio. Her confidence was dwindling fast.
“As morbid as it sounds, it’s true,” Harry Langford admitted. He sipped a beer and stared into the empty, cold fireplace. “I can’t believe this is happening to you, Padunkin.”
“Neither can I.” Tess put the glass on the table, not willing to take another sip. Everything upset her stomach since that horrible day at David’s office.
“I have to believe Hudson will find a way out of this,” Ruth said softly. She reached out to pat Tess’s hand. “He’s a very smart young man and he knows you didn’t do this.”
Tess smiled half-heartedly and accepted the soothing touch from her mother, though it didn’t comfort her at all. All she could think about was prison and guards and bars and vicious female inmates beating the shit out of her every single day. Oh, and her family, grieving for her every day she was gone. Tess would never have admitted it out loud to anyone, much less her family, but sometimes she wondered if running away or killing herself might not solve some of the more egregious problems. But then Jack’s voice would explode in her head, telling her what an idiot she was for even thinking of something like that.
“Hello everyone,” Hudson called out, as he knocked on the front screen door and walked right in, Ford trailing behind him, looking somber and sexy as always. Tess nodded, but did not wave or smile as they entered the living room. Even noticing how handsome Ford was didn’t perk her up. She might be determined not to let the Kingstons win, but that didn’t relieve the cloud of depression settling over her.
“Hello Hudson, Ford,” Ruth greeted. “Iced tea or lemonade?”
“Thanks, Ruth. I’ll take some tea,” Hudson replied as he sat down on the couch beside her.
“Nothing, thanks.” Ford smiled and nodded, then moved to the only chair that was left: her mother’s rocking chair in the corner beside the couch.
Hudson pulled a legal pad from his briefcase and a pen from the chest pocket of his short-sleeved button down shirt. Clicking it loudly, he was poised to begin writing. “Okay, Tess. I want you to try and remember everything you can from about three days before the wedding. Tell me everything you did, everywhere you went, anything at all.”
Tess sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand. We’ve already been over this a hundred times, she thought. But she knew it was important. At some point she was going to remember something that would lead them in the right direction. At least that was her hope and prayer.
Lilly and Ruth interjected several times when they were with Tess to run some errand or make some preparation. Harry remained quiet because, as her dad, he’d had little to do with all the “wedding nonsense” as he’d called it, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile in his voice. Those twinkles and smiles were gone now and Tess wanted them back.
Over an hour later, Hudson stopped his barrage of questions and put down the pen, shaking his fingers back and forth. “The poison found by the ME was organic in nature. I’ve been doing research and it’s supposed to imitate a heart attack perfectly, which it did. No one would have thought to look for it, which is why the tox report took so long to come back. I think someone might have requested a deep screen.”
“What does that mean exactly?” Harry leaned into the conversation. “Deep screen?”
“A deep screen gets requested when a death is suspicious. Thing about it: Jack was a healthy young male. There was no reason for him to have a heart attack unless he had a previously undiscovered heart condition, which he didn’t. The poison being organic means it was most likely plant based and not a chemical. Unless Jack had a drug habit or someone gave him an injection the day of the wedding, he probably ate or drank something that had the poison in it.”
Tess shook her head vehemently, unable to believe what she was hearing. “But we were together the night before the wedding, and that morning. Neither one of us ate or drank. Or, if we did, we would have had the same things. Why wouldn’t I have died too?”
“Maybe that was the plan?” Ford said this quietly, like dropping a depth charge into the silent sea and waiting for the explosion to roil upward into the atmosphere.
“What?”
Tess couldn’t tell who else said the word other than herself because it seemed to come from all sides. Her mother, Lilly, her father. All of them stared at Ford in disbelief.
“If you two had died before the wedding could take place, then Jack’s inheritance would have reverted to his family. No fuss, no muss. My guess, our guess,” Hudson pointed at Ford, “is that whoever poisoned Jack was trying to poison you too. But you didn’t eat or drink something that Jack did.”
“Those rotten bastards!” Lilly shouted, jumping up from her seat on the couch. She pounded a fist into her palm. “And they managed to convince the cops to look at Tess? What a bunch of holy horseshit!”
“Lilly!” Ruth admonished.
“I don’t care, Mom! This is absolutely ridiculous! They have a million times more motive and opportunity, but Tess is the one being investigated. You have to do something Hudson. You gotta convince the police that Tess isn’t involved in this.”
“Calm down,” Hudson soothed. “I will do everything I can.” He picked up his pen and the legal pad, scanning through the notes again. “Again. Tell me everything you can remember, again.” His eyes burned with determination.
Tess wanted to cry, but refused to allow herself the luxury. Now was not the time to fall apart, especially not if Hudson was willing to fight so hard for her. She would go over the details as many times as he asked. Her entire life depended on it.
Chapter 33
It was long after midnight as Ford flipped through the paperwork in Tess’s files for the millionth time, searching for something he had missed. For a week, he and Hudson had been racking their brains, asking questions, gathering names of people to speak to, but they hadn’t yielded anything to assist in Tess’s defense. Yet.
Hudson had gone home a couple of hours ago, having been at it himself since the predawn hours. That was how they worked best together. Ford was the night owl and his baby brother was the early bird. Between the two of them, they were determined to find the missing pieces of the puzzle to exonerate Tess. The longer he looked, the more frustrated he got. Ford wasn’t used to not figuring shit out. It was his best asset. His weird and fucked up brain would often look at things in a way that Hudson didn’t. But this one had him stumped.
The toxicology report said that the poison had to be administered within six to eight hours of Jack’s death and Tess had been the only person with him in that timeframe, except his parents. She could have given him any type of poison she wanted at any point in time, but they didn’t believe that at all. Even though Ford loathed the idea, Hudson had arranged a private polygraph for Tess, which she passed with flying colors. When they’d provided the results to Detective Isham, he’d reminded them that it wasn’t proof of anything or admissible in court.
“The poison had to have been meant for both of them.”
All Ford’s private investigating up to that point had yielded nothing. The license plate search hadn’t shown David or Roger’s cars in the vicinity of Tess’s apartment at any time. The cell phone records didn’t show any pings for anyone’s phones. He’d combed through all the financial records again and the only thing they could find was Roger Kingston’s occasional poor choices for investing the money. But there wasn’t anything illegal about it. “He’s just a lucky sonofabitch,” Ford muttered.
Ford had spoken with everyone in the ME’s office to try and figure out if there had been any hanky panky there, but his uncanny sixth sense hadn’t picked anything up. The case seemed as airtight as any he’d ever seen, albeit circumstantial.
But still, in his gut, he knew he was missing something.
He got up to make a fresh pot of coffee and movement caught the corner of his eye. His hand went immediately to his gun. Whenever he was in the office late and alone, he carried a pistol even though St. Clair Shores wasn’t necessarily a mecca of crim
e. As he turned to face the glass front door of the office, Ford’s eyes went wide when he saw Tess standing there, her hand poised to knock.
Without a word, he withdrew his hand and strode to the door to let her in.
“Hey, I hope I’m not interrupting something,” she said as she walked in. She held a large manila envelope and looked scared and thin in her jeans and black hoodie.
She’s wasn’t sleeping before, but now she’s not eating. “Nope.” He pulled the door closed behind her and turned the deadbolt. “I was just about to make coffee. Want some?”
“Sure,” she said softly as she took a seat at the table with all the paperwork. “Working hard or hardly working?”
Ford snorted. “That’s a silly question.” He grabbed the glass pot and took it into the bathroom to fill. He poured the water into the machine and slid the pot on the burner, flicking the brew button. Then he joined her at the table. Her hair was loose around her shoulders instead of the ponytail she favored. Her blue eyes looked bigger and wider in her face because of the weight she was losing. The hoodie seemed to swallow her up and she looked much younger than her twenty-five years.
The only noise in the room was the sound of coffee dripping into the pot. The strong smell wafted through the room, swirling around them. Finally, Ford spoke. “What are you doing here?”
Tess shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. Well, I don’t sleep anymore. I found some more wedding paperwork, so I thought I’d put it through the mail slot. When I drove by and saw the light on, I figured I would stop in.”
Ford said nothing. When the sound of falling liquid stopped, he went to get their coffee. He put cream into hers and left his black.
“Thanks,” Tess said, as she took the cup. She blew on the hot coffee before taking a tiny sip. Ford was a bit mesmerized by the sight of her pink lips on the rim of the cup. Other images floated into his head, catching him totally off guard. Look away, Ford.
The Widow and the Will Page 18
