by Rick Mofina
How the hell had his life come to this? His son stolen, his wife dying, a woman murdered, and police suspecting him. How does your life come to this?
“Lee? For this next aspect, I’d like you to answer only ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ All right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you involved in any way in your son’s disappearance?”
“No.”
“Have you ever harmed your son?”
“No.”
Heppler’s glasses had slipped down his nose as he made notations on the graph paper.
“Have you ever harmed your wife?”
“No.”
“Do you know Beth Ann Bannon, the woman murdered in North Seattle?”
“I—don’t know. I—”
“Answer yes or no, please.”
“No.”
“Have you ever had occasion to visit the residence on Brimerley Lane where Beth Ann Bannon was murdered?”
“No.”
“Have you ever had reason to touch the vehicle, a 1998 Toyota Corolla, associated with the crime scene?”
“I don’t know.”
“Answer yes or no, please.”
“No.”
“Did you ever encounter Beth Ann Bannon on a professional or social basis?”
“No.”
“After your marriage, did you ever have sexual relations with anyone besides your wife?”
“No.”
“Did you ever have sexual relations with Beth Ann Bannon?”
“No.”
“Are you employed as a tow truck operator?”
“Yes.”
“Do you desire to establish your own tow truck business?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the financial resources to realize your desire?”
“No.”
Heppler made tiny indecipherable notations on the graph paper.
“Did you and your wife endure a long period where you believed you could not have a child naturally?”
The chart needles tremored.
“Yes.”
“Did you once tell someone that you would do anything to see that you and your wife had a child?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever meet Beth Ann Bannon?”
God, he was going round and round with the same questions, Lee thought.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Answer yes or no, please.”
“No.”
“Did you know Beth Ann Bannon longed to have children of her own?”
“No.”
“Did you arrange in any way to have your son abducted?”
Tears were stinging Colson’s eyes.
“No.”
More notations and a pause.
“Did you harm your wife?”
Colson did not answer. Ten seconds passed. The needles scratched. Ten seconds. Heppler, watching the graph, repeated the question.
“Lee, did you harm your wife? Answer yes or no, please.”
“No.”
“Do you know Beth Ann Bannon’s friends or associates?”
“No.”
“Do you know why your fingerprints are on the 1998 Toyota Corolla found at the murder scene?”
The needles swiped the page.
“No.”
“Do you know how your home address with a personal note naming you came to be in the residence where Beth Ann Bannon was murdered?”
“No.”
“Did you kill Beth Ann Bannon?”
The needles swayed wildly.
“No.”
Heppler’s questions followed the same pattern and rhythm deep into the afternoon. It wasn’t until early evening that they finished and he began disconnecting Lee from the polygraph.
Grace, Dupree, and the senior investigators had watched the process unseen from the other side of the mirrored window.
“I won’t have the results analyzed for several hours,” Heppler told them when they debriefed in another room.
“What’s your gut tell you, Bob?” McCusker asked.
“It tells me to analyze the results carefully.”
After Heppler had left, Sandel emerged.
“Is my client under arrest, or charged with anything?”
“No, we’ll take him back to the hospital to be with his wife,” said Grace.
During the drive, Grace searched Lee Colson’s face in the rearview mirror of her unmarked Malibu and wrestled with her suspicions.
Is he involved? Is there more to this?
She gazed across Seattle as dusk settled over it and lights sparkled throughout the city. Glimpsing Colson, she knew in her heart that sooner or later, she was going to learn the truth about Lee Colson and Beth Bannon.
Her only hope was that when it came, it would not be too late.
47
“It’s time, Nadine,” Axel said.
Yes. It was really happening. Her dream was coming true.
She was in the kitchen feeding the baby. Axel had finished working on his computer and was gripping a suitcase.
“I’ll bring the car to the side, so we can start loading it,” he said.
After she’d finished in the kitchen, Nadine washed the baby’s face. Then she grabbed some of the things she’d gathered earlier and followed Axel outside.
In the darkness, they packed the small Ford they’d rented for the trip. The air was so still, as if the world had stopped to hold its breath. Nadine’s heart began beating faster as she went in and out of the house fetching more bags to put into the car.
She’d put Dylan on the soft grass where he could watch. As they packed, she stole glimpses of him, her angel, then Axel. Her man, their protector. Her hero. He seemed to be watching her more intently now, underscoring what was at stake and how far they’d come together.
No need to worry.
Nadine’s dream was coming true.
Everything was almost perfect.
She had her baby, she had Axel, and they were going far away to start their new life together. She looked up at the stars and her heart swelled. She took Dylan into her arms and told him how it was going to be.
Repeating her dream. Every detail the same.
Like a comforting prayer.
They were going to move into a beautiful little house with a big wraparound porch with hand-carved spindles in the railing. They’d have a big porch swing...
After Nadine put Dylan in his car seat, she concentrated on making sure she didn’t forget anything. Everything had to be perfect. They were so close to the life she’d yearned for, the life she was owed. Soon they would leave this city of lies for the shores of paradise, just like an old song she knew.
Going through the house, Nadine dragged her forearm across her moist brow as she started a final inventory to ensure nothing was overlooked.
Passing Axel’s office, she stopped.
His computer was still not packed. It was open and running, a few papers spread over his desk. Isn’t that like a man, messy, forgetful, she thought, walking around his worktable. Should she close it up? Maybe he was doing a few last-minute things. She began to read—
“Nadine!”
She stepped to the window and saw him looking up at her.
“What are you doing up there?”
“Making sure we have everything.”
“We’re done.”
“But your computer?”
“Get down here, I want to show you something. Hurry up.”
Joining Axel outside by the car, Nadine glanced around for Dylan.
“Where’s the baby, Axel?”
“In the garage, come on.”
“The garage?”
“Come on, I have a surprise for you.”
In the few steps it took to reach the garage, Nadine’s eyes went to the door, closed but unchained and unlocked. She puzzled over Axel’s surprise. What could it be? And why did he move the baby to the garage?
What was Axel planning?
Her stomach fluttered as
she stepped inside and under the harsh light of a naked hundred-watt bulb. In an instant, she saw the tarp had been removed from the van. And she knew.
She saw Dylan in his car seat, tiny hands balled into fists, working on his eyes as she inhaled the fumes, felt the vapors, the overwhelming pungent, choking odor.
Gasoline.
She sensed Axel behind her, heard the door close.
48
Jason Wade was running out of time.
He sat at his desk staring at his monitor and the story he’d drafted. This thing was a ballbuster. As promised, he’d kept his word and kept Joy Montgomery’s name out of it. But the piece was based on her revelations about Beth Bannon’s secret life as some sort of guardian angel baby dealer.
It was dynamite stuff.
Exclusive.
He would kill the Times and the Post-Intelligencer. But he couldn’t use it. Not the way it was. He needed a second source to back him up and so far his efforts to find one had failed.
The newsroom clock was sweeping his deadline closer.
Lights across Elliott Bay blinked as dusk fell over the city and he picked up his phone to call Grace Garner. It had been ten minutes since he’d tried to reach her. Where the hell was she? He’d left messages on her office line and cell phone. Even tried paging her through communications.
No luck.
All right. He took a deep breath and analyzed his situation. He needed Grace to work out a deal. If she’d confirm police either “are investigating” or “would investigate” what the Mirror had learned about Beth Bannon’s life, his story would have official validation.
A green light.
And if he didn’t reach Grace?
Plan B.
He’d go back to the supermarket girls, Pam and Candice. Push them on his Beth Bannon angle. What was it they’d told him? He flipped through his notebook. Maria had “a hell of a time getting pregnant... one time the doctor told her she’d never conceive Maria was baby crazy... Lee would do anything for her.”
They might know something more.
But there was a risk his exclusive could be repeated back to the competition if they were trolling the community for leads, updates. The supermarket cashiers could say: “Oh, yeah, the Mirror called us and they said there was something about Beth Bannon dealing in babies.”
Stealing thunder.
It happened.
“Wade!” Fritz Spangler had returned from his late meeting upstairs on circulation and staffing levels. “Print off whatever you’ve written and meet me in my office. I gotta take a whiz.”
Minutes later, Spangler’s expression tightened as he finished reading Jason’s draft.
“I want this on page one of tomorrow’s paper.” Spangler jabbed an extension for Beale, the night editor. “Vic, Metro’s got a Colson story coming for front and you’re going to want to line it.”
After hanging up, Spangler clicked his pen and began editing the piece.
“This takes the Colson tragedy to the next level. It raises disturbing questions. The implications are huge and we’re out front. Damn, this is evocative of that California case where the guy killed his pregnant wife after cheating on her.”
“But you’re going to let me get a second source before we go, right?”
“We have to go with it now.”
“But we need a second source. I’ve been calling all over the place. Look at the time, we’re going to miss first edition.”
Spangler checked his watch, then said, “We’re walking a tightrope with it the way it is, I know. But until you hear more, this is what we do.” His pen tip touched Jason’s notes and rearranged grafs, changed words. “We’ll frame it as a situational and weave in your exclusive as speculation from the community, rather than confirmation. It’s safe, still powerful, and keeps us in front.”
“I don’t know.”
“What’s to know? Just do it. Listen, the mother’s knocking on heaven’s door. We’ve got a murder mystery with a baby broker. The kid’s missing. The old man’s not looking good in light of what you’ve dug up here.”
Jason was weighing everything against the deadline when Spangler flipped him a business card of someone based in Manhattan with several crossed-out and penned-in numbers.
“This will help. Call him, get a few quotes, it’ll firm up the piece.”
“Clay Wilson?”
“He’s a retired homicide detective who wrote a textbook on homicide investigation. I’m surprised it’s not on your desk. Wilson consults and lectures. Larry King’s had him on a few times. Call Wilson, lay out what you have, and he’ll give you great quotes on theory. If you get him now, you’ve got time to fix the story for page one. I’ll call front and buy you more time.”
After striking out in New York, Jason reached Wilson at his cabin on the shore of Broken Heart Lake in northern Ontario near the Minnesota border. Clay Wilson agreed to be quoted. After listening carefully to everything, he asked Jason a few questions, then gave him his theoretical analysis.
“This casts a suspicious light on everyone connected to the case. I would go back to Lee Colson’s time line and any evidence while continuing to build a resume on the murder victim. It is unlikely that the Colsons’ family history, with respect to children and the victim’s activities, are entirely coincidental.”
With an eye on the time, Jason took rapid notes.
“Finally, if the lead investigators have not already done so, I would think they would request Lee Colson submit to a polygraph examination. It’s SOP.”
Jason worked fast, rewriting the story, making his deadline with no time to spare. He ran his hands through his hair and tried to concentrate on the next steps when his line rang.
“It’s Garner.”
“Grace, I’ve been trying to reach you, listen.”
He told her everything he’d dug up on Beth Bannon’s secret life as a baby broker, then requested her to confirm what he had, thinking that he would rewrite the story for later editions, making it even stronger. But her response caught him by surprise.
“You’ve got to delay running that story.”
“What?”
A tense silence passed and Grace dropped her voice.
“Please, Jason. Hold it for one day.”
“I can’t.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s too late.”
“I thought we had a deal? A deal to work together.”
“Christ, Grace, what is it? If you’ve got a major break and want me to hold a story I enterprised, then you have to tell me everything.”
He could hear her grip tightening on her phone as a drop of sweat trickled down his back.
“Later this afternoon we learned about Beth Bannon’s past too, through recanvassing and a call to our anonymous tipster line.”
“Then we’re good. I don’t understand.”
“There’s much more that you don’t know. Prior to that, CSI confirmed some key fact evidence at the Brimerley scene.”
“What sort?”
“Damning.”
“Damning against who?”
“All I can say is that we’re continuing to talk to Lee Col-son—”
“Jesus, Grace—you’re looking at Lee for this?”
“It’s preliminary, with a lot of loose ends that we’ve got to sort out. Your story is one major piece—you run that now, it could damage our case.”
“Did you charge him?”
“No.”
“Does he have a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“Did you polygraph him?”
“I can’t—”
“I think you did, Grace. I think you hooked him up to a lie detector and he failed and you’ve got questions about your evidence and Beth Bannon’s link to this. Am I right?”
Jason looked at the clock, calculating time to deadline.
“He agreed to a polygraph,” Grace said. “We’re looking at the results. We’re not done yet.”
“And you’ve got damning evidence?”
/> She didn’t answer.
“Damning evidence against him? Against Lee Colson?”
“Jason, none of this is on the record or usable. I swear, you cannot use this. Do you understand? I’m risking my case, my job. I could be charged for jeopardizing the case, Jason! Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“Swear to me.”
“I swear, so what do we do?”
“Hold your story for one day, and I’ll do all I can to confirm much of what I told you and give you more, if I can. That’s my word.”
“Grace, this is out of my control.”
“I’m not censoring you. If you run the Beth Bannon stuff it’ll damage the case.”
“It’s not my job to help you make a case, it’s my job to report the truth. Besides, how do I know the other papers don’t have what I have on Bannon?”
“You’re the one who found Beth Bannon, no one’s as deep into this story as you.”
“I don’t know what I can do.”
“Jason, we just need some time.”
After ending the call, his fingers trembled as his hand hovered over his dial pad, poised to punch in Spangler’s number. A million images burned through his mind: Spangler calling Vic Beale on the night desk, pagination calling downstairs, the pressmen rolling in the newsprint, the typesetters aligning the presses, alerting the floor, trucks waiting on the loading docks told of a delay. Overtime that would cost thousands.
A murder case possibly lost because of his story and promises broken.
Jason swallowed hard.
Stress, exhaustion, fear, and—Oh Christ—he punched the number, catching Spangler as he was preparing to go home. His reaction spilled from his office into the newsroom.
“You want me to hold the story! Why should we hold it now?”
Spangler shot to his door and yelled to the night desk. “Vic, hold up on Wade’s story. We have to talk!”
Spangler’s and Beale’s attention bored into Jason as he struggled to explain that it was critical they hold off running his story. Rubbing his chin, licking his lips, he told them that he’d just heard from a source close to the investigation that there’d been a development.
“What development?” Beale said.
“They are looking hard at Lee Colson.”
“What? Then why can’t we report that, right now?”
“Because I made a deal we’d wait. They’ve just polygraphed him and are waiting for the results. They’ll give us everything—exclusively—if we hold our Bannon stuff tonight.”
