by Ray Backley
Carlton scratched his large forehead pensively, while Gomez kept her eyes locked onto Vinnie.
“Does my client’s version of events tie in with the facts?” Gerry asked. “Is he correct about this woman placing the calls and making the diner reservation?”
“We can’t say,” Carlton replied.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Hey, cool it,” Vinnie said to Gerry. “These guys are only doing their jobs.”
Carlton tutted and shook his head. “Oh, for Christ’s sake just cut the bullshit, Vinnie. You really expect us to believe Daniel Brewer’s cell phone just dropped onto your buddy’s doormat one day?”
“It’s what happened.”
“Why would Catherine Brewer organize all of this?” Gomez asked. “Have you thought about that?”
Vinnie took a long breath, pursed his lips to one side. “Look. I didn’t want to bring this up because it’s a little unkind. But since you’re asking the question, well I’m thinking perhaps she has a . . .”
“Has a what?”
“Well, have you considered the possibility that she’s trying to frame me – that she has a vendetta, a score to settle?”
“More likely you have a score to settle.”
“I get that, I really do. I know what you guys are thinking. But I’ve just got out of prison. I have no wish to go back inside. And you only have to look at the facts to see I’m innocent.”
Gomez folded her arms, tipped her chin up a little. “Talking of facts, Mr. Lemont, there is one you’re forgetting. We have witnesses from Frederick’s Diner – four, to be exact – who say they heard you threaten Catherine Brewer. You told her you’d take her husband and children away from her one by one.”
“And what your witnesses say is correct.”
“Excuse me,” Gerry interjected. “Could I have time to discuss this with my client?”
Vinnie shook his head. “No need for that, Gerry.” He turned back to the officers. “I told you guys that I have nothing to hide, and I don’t. When your fellow officers came into Frederick’s and started ordering people around, I realized what was happening. I knew that I shouldn’t have been with the woman who helped put me away, that I was breaking the terms of my release. And right at that moment, I figured – and I still do, if I’m honest – that she was framing me. Perhaps she thought thirteen years behind bars wasn’t enough for what I did, that she couldn’t live with me being free. So I was upset that I’d been tricked. I was angry. I was very angry – at her and at myself. She’d already told me about her husband and two kids. I guess I just lashed out because I was annoyed at being set up. I wanted to get back at her and it was the first thing that came into my head. Did I say that? Yes. Did I mean anything by it? Definitely not.”
“One more thing,” Gerry said. “Why would my client threaten to take this woman’s husband and children if – as you allege – he already has the little girl holed up somewhere? He would have threated to take her husband and son, not her husband and children.”
“Good point,” Vinnie said, nodding. “Thank you, Gerry.”
“Jesus Christ,” Carlton said. “Will you two quit the double act already? Look. That sounds reasonable. But are you really suggesting Catherine Brewer has somehow hidden her own daughter to get you into trouble?”
“Sir, please remember that you didn’t know this woman thirteen years ago like I did, and I knew her pretty well. Even way back then she always was a little . . . I think today they talk about having mental health problems. Fact is, she’s not quite right in the head.”
“I agree,” Gerry said. “And isn’t it also true that Catherine Brewer drugged her family and trapped them in some kind of home-made prison cell?”
Carlton narrowed his eyes. “How the hell did you know that?”
“I didn’t know that either,” Vinnie said. “But I have to say, knowing Karen or Catherine or whatever you prefer to call her, it sounds like the kind of thing she’d do.”
“Never mind that.” Carlton glared at Gerry. “How did you know about it?”
The man chuckled. “I’ll take it that it’s true. But it’s none of your goddamned business how I found out. It’s called doing your research, otherwise known as being good at your job. You ever tried that?”
Carlton still glared, his upper lip twitching. Gerry matched his glare and continued speaking.
“Talking of being good at my job, I’m also pretty certain that doing that sort of thing isn’t exactly good for witness reliability; it stinks of mental instability. Now let me cut to the chase, Detective Carlton. If you want to slap my client’s wrists for meeting with Catherine Brewer, then be my guest, slap away, but I strongly suggest you let him go free with no charges.”
“On what basis?” Gomez asked.
“Well, for one thing, we know the woman in question contacted my client, not the other way around. For another, she’s clearly been exhibiting deranged behavior and we both know that even a rookie lawyer would rip any testimony apart as unreliable. But mostly, you have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that my client had anything to do with the kidnapping of Phoebe Brewer. Understand?”
Carlton stared at Gerry for a full ten seconds, then glanced at his watch. “We’ll park this for now.”
“No,” Gerry said. “You’ll park it for good unless you get some reliable evidence, otherwise you’ll get your asses sued for harassment. Understand?”
Carlton read the time out and turned the recorder off.
Vinnie placed his hands on the table, about to push himself up, but Carlton told him to stay where he was.
“How did you know?” Carlton asked Gerry. “How did you hear about what Catherine Brewer did?”
Gerry glanced at the recorder. “Off the record?”
Carlton nodded.
“Well . . . I heard about an hour ago.”
“Where?”
“Here. While you kept me waiting.”
“From who?”
“Funny what you overhear sitting on the can. I wasn’t sure who the guys were talking about at the time. But the phrase ‘bunny-boiler nut-job woman from hell’ was used, and I thought I heard the name Brewer when they described what they saw.”
Carlton cursed.
Vinnie laughed. “Hey, Gerry, perhaps you should be on the other side of this table.”
“Let’s go,” Carlton said.
A few minutes later, Vinnie and Gerry were shown out of the interview room. They shook hands, Gerry left, and Vinnie was taken to the desk to be checked out.
“Let him go,” Carlton said to the duty officer. “And there’s a cell phone connected to this case. No longer required. Arrange for it to be returned to its owner, a Mr. Daniel Brewer.”
Chapter 19
Despite Cath’s attitude to the cops, she’d agreed with Dan’s suggestion of letting them set Vinnie up at the diner. So when the two of them later returned to the Toledo Motel, they felt happier to talk about their future, about what they would do once the police had found Phoebe and put Vinnie back behind bars.
It also helped that Benjie needed a nap, so they could talk more freely. They agreed that now Cath’s history was out in the open, they somehow felt stronger as a couple. Cath assured Dan that there was no way she was going back to her old ways or her old name or anything else, and they were vaguely discussing the possibility of moving home to lose the final vestiges of this awful episode of their lives, although they both accepted that they would be unable to make any firm plans before Phoebe was back with them. But surely that would be very soon.
At that point in the conversation, Cath’s cell phone rang.
“I have some bad news for you,” Detective Carlton said to her.
Cath felt her pulse pounding in her head. This couldn’t be happening; it was her worst possible fear about her daughter. “Is it . . . is it Phoebe?”
“No. It’s not about Phoebe. We still don’t know where she is.”
“He’s not talking?”
“I’m afraid we had to let Vincent Lemont go.”
“What?” She broke off her cell phone to tell Dan, whose jaw hovered open.
“Put it on speakerphone,” Dan said.
Cath glanced at Benjie’s sleeping form. “It’s okay. I can handle it.”
Dan didn’t speak, but was at the door within seconds, opening it and ushering her outside, then shutting it behind them. “Now put the goddamn thing on speaker!”
She did as he asked, and then he started more or less shouting at it.
“You let him go? Is that true? You let Vinnie go? Vinnie, the man who’s kidnapped our daughter?”
“Let me explain, Mr. Brewer. Whatever you know to be true, we have no evidence he broke into your house and stole your cell phone. He said he got it in the mail.”
“The mail?” Cath said. “Seriously? You believe that?”
“Frankly, not in a million years, but we have no evidence to the contrary.”
“Have you looked for some? How about searching his house?”
“He doesn’t have a room, let alone a house. He’s just staying with friends.”
“But there must be something you can do?”
Carlton sighed. “Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. Mrs. Brewer, you admit you were nowhere near the house at the time. Mr. Brewer, you were holed up in the basement. So, neither of you actually saw him in the house. Isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, he denies being at your house, denies stealing the cell phone, and denies having anything to do with your missing daughter. We have no witnesses to place him there – not even either of you. And we’ve checked the phone records. It seems, Mrs. Brewer, that you called the cell phone number twice, once when you might have been mistaken and intended to talk to your husband, but the other time when you must have known Vincent Lemont had the cell phone in his possession, which leaves everyone thinking you must have called with the intention of talking to him.”
“That’s . . . but that’s twisting things.”
“No, those are facts. Vincent Lemont says he didn’t call you, says you called him, and that checks out. He says it was you who suggested you meet up, and you who chose Frederick’s Diner.”
“But—”
“And we checked with the diner. It turns out it really was you who booked a table there.”
“I know I did, but only because he asked me to, and . . . I mean . . . look, he told me he was taking Phoebe. He told me. I even spoke to her on the phone. He knows where she is, detective. I’m telling you he does.” Cath huffed and puffed a few times, getting her breath back.
“I appreciate all of that. But we have to act on evidence, not just what complainants tell us. It’s a bummer sometimes, but it’s the way it works, as I’m sure you know. And it doesn’t mean we won’t keep an eye on him.”
“Well, make sure you do that, because the man is dangerous.”
At that moment, Dan hissed to her, reminding her of the events at Frederick’s.
“What about what he said to me at the diner?” she said to the phone. “He made a direct threat to myself and my family. I wasn’t making that up. You have witnesses.”
“Yes, yes.” Carlton sighed. “It’s true we have witnesses to that effect. It’s also true that Mr. Lemont threatened to come after your husband and both your children. Now, you tell me, would he say it like that if he already had your daughter?”
“He would if he was smarter than you,” Dan replied.
There was a pause and a long groan from Carlton. “Hey, I know you’re both angry. We all get that. And nobody’s saying you’re making things up. But we’re trying our best here to piece a case together with little or no evidence. You have your temporary safe accommodation, and we’ll do all we can to keep your location secret. Even I don’t know where you are. Your daughter is down as a missing person case, receiving the attention she deserves, and you know you can call me or any other officer here if you ever feel unsafe.”
“Well . . . thank you for that.”
“The only remaining issue is your husband’s cell phone. We could get someone to bring it over or he could collect it from the station.”
Cath looked up at Dan.
“I’ll drive over there now,” he said. “I could do with some thinking time.”
Cath hung up. She and Dan embraced.
“Take care of yourself,” she said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“And don’t get angry with them.”
“Yeah, right.”
It took Dan twenty-five minutes to reach the station.
It was a lot of time to think. His love for Cath was definitely still there – that could never go away completely in such a short space of time. But he had to accept that he’d been lied to – lied to big time. The woman he’d been in love with all these years wasn’t exactly a different person now – her personality hadn’t changed in the space of a couple of days – and yet, the many years of deceit were hard to swallow.
By the time he reached the station, he still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Yes, he’d told Cath he didn’t want a divorce; yes, he’d agreed with her when she’d talked about coming out of this stronger as a couple; the problem was, now that he was away from her, he wasn’t so sure. What he did know was that he’d done so much thinking his head hurt. And there was a job to do. He had the return journey to decide exactly what he might say to Cath when he got back.
He parked, hurried into the station, and seethed at the injustice for fifteen minutes while he lined up. At the desk he bit his tongue, remembering to behave himself, while he filled in the necessary forms.
“Hi, it’s me,” he said from his car in the parking lot a few minutes later. “Got my cell back.”
“Cool.”
“And I didn’t cause a scene, didn’t give them any hassle, even though they deserve it.”
“It’s for the best, Dan. Hurry back.”
“I will. And, uh . . .”
“What?”
“I’m sorry I was in a mood earlier. I, uh . . . I love you, Cath.”
“I love you too, Dan. And I always will. Drive carefully.”
He hung up and started the engine. He waited a moment, remembering what he’d thought on the way over: whether he still loved her, how he felt about the deceit, the realistic option of divorce. And he felt awful. He shouldn’t have been thinking such things at a time like this. None of it mattered; none of it would ever matter until Phoebe was back safely with them. She was the most important thing in their lives right now.
He drove off, but didn’t want his mind fogged up any more than it already was, so decided to listen to some loud rock music on the drive back to the Toledo Motel.
He only switched the music off when he was approaching the Motel. It was an awkward turn in from a narrow road, so he pulled to one side to let the car behind pass on through. But the jerk just pulled up too, a foot or so behind him. Dan waited, but so did the car, a battered old Toyota sedan, Dan guessed, white, one guy inside. Whatever the guy’s problem was, he wasn’t going to move. Dan cursed, pulled as wide as he safely could, and carefully steered to enter the parking lot. He glanced in the mirror again. At least the battered Toyota had parked up on the road so had stopped following.
A minute later, parked in the space reserved for room 6, he switched the engine off and his mind turned again to his predicament. Phoebe was the immediate priority, of course she was. But he wasn’t going to allow that to downplay the wider problem.
He closed his eyes and exhaled. Even that felt painful. As if his heart ached for a forbidden love.
The sound of the car passenger door opening made him flick his eyes open. Before he could do anything, a man was sitting in the passenger seat, and the end of a pistol was digging into the right side of his ribcage.
It took Dan one painful gulp and a few lonely seconds to have the self-awareness to breathe in again.
“Cell phone,” the man said, holding out his other hand.
It was almost a relief that all this piece of shit wanted was his cell phone. The thing was jinxed anyhow.
“You know what? You’re welcome to it.” He reached for his jacket pocket.
“Easy!” the man snapped, digging gun into flesh just a little more, making Dan flinch.
Dan slowed up, gradually revealing his cell phone to the man. “Here. Take it. Just take it and go, okay?”
The man dropped it into his own pocket, returned his stare to Dan and, most importantly, only moved the pistol back a fraction.
“Ah, shit. Look, whoever the hell you are, and whatever you want, I’m having a really rough time just now. Seriously, you have what you want, could you just give me a break and move onto the next guy?”
A crooked smile crawled across the man’s lips, which made a sickening feeling crawl into Dan’s stomach.
“How do you know I got what I want, Daniel?”
Dan quickly checked out the man’s features, assessed his age. By then, the sickening feeling had reached his throat. “Vinnie?” he hissed.
A wink. “Just start the engine and drive.”
Dan cursed and hit the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. He looked Vinnie in the eye.
This was the man who had done so much harm to his wife and had now kidnapped his daughter. There had been just a fragment of doubt in his mind about whether Cath was telling the truth about this man. Not any longer. Here he was in his full glory. And it hadn’t taken very long for Dan to be sure the guy was perfectly capable of taking Phoebe. And if the bastard was now taking him away somewhere, at least it might lead him to Phoebe. He started the engine.
“Take a left out of the parking lot.”
Dan did nothing for a while, just sat and stared ahead, then said, “Are you taking me to Phoebe?”
“I’m taking you where I’m taking you. Take a left out of here and I’ll give you more directions as you need them.”
