by Margot Hunt
“What sort of trouble?” Nat asked.
Venetia didn’t speak for a minute. She put down her wineglass and began nervously pulling at her fingers, cracking each knuckle in turn.
Nat glanced at me, her eyes flickering toward the door.
“Why don’t I give you two some privacy?” I started to stand. “I’ll go to the study.”
“No, no, don’t go.” Venetia flapped a hand at me. “Sit down. I’m sure Nat will tell you, anyway.”
I sat. We waited for another several moments while Venetia continued to fidget with her fingers.
“I knew something about Robert,” she finally said. “Something...terrible. I haven’t told the police about it because I’m worried I might get in trouble. Is that possible? Can I be in trouble for knowing someone did something...bad...and not telling anyone?”
“You’ll have to give me more details.” Nat’s voice was surprisingly neutral. “Generally speaking, failure to report a crime isn’t itself a crime, but there are exceptions. For example, you can be considered an accessory after the fact to a crime if you helped destroy evidence.”
“Oh, good.” Venetia looked relieved. “I definitely didn’t do that.”
“It’s also a crime if you fail to report the abuse or neglect of a child. In fact, Florida has one of the broadest mandatory reporting statutes in the country. If you know of a child being hurt, and don’t report it, you can be charged.”
Venetia clenched her hands into fists and pressed them down on her lap. “No, it wasn’t anything like that.”
I saw Nat exhale and relax slightly. “Good. So what happened?”
“I’ve never told anyone this, but...it’s bad. It’s actually why Robert and I divorced.”
“It did seem like your divorce was sudden,” Nat commented.
Venetia nodded. “I was cleaning out the bedroom closet one day. Robert was out of town, at an educator’s conference, and I decided to tackle it. It’s one of those big projects you never get around to, you know? I wanted to pull everything out so I could wipe down the shelves, sweep the floors.
“There was a bunch of stuff on the top shelf, so I had to get the stepladder out to reach everything. It was mostly just junk—old tennis racquets, boxes of books, that sort of thing. But...there was also a briefcase. One of those old-fashioned ones, do you know what I mean? The kind with hard sides and the latches that snap down.” Venetia mimed the snapping motion. “My dad had one like it when I was a kid. But I’d never seen this one before. So I took it down, and set it on the bed. At first I thought it was locked, because I couldn’t get the latches to budge, but then suddenly they popped open and—”
Venetia stopped, her mouth sagging open, her eyes unfocused.
“What was inside the briefcase?” Nat asked. Her tone was professional, as though this were just another client interview.
“Pornography,” Venetia said, looking up at her. “But not normal photography. Not men with women or even men with men. It was all...children. Well, children with adults. Picture after picture.” She shook her head. “There were hundreds of images. Hundreds...”
“What did you do?” Natalie asked. She sounded calm, but there was an edge to her voice. I looked at her sharply, but she was still completely focused on Venetia.
“I ran into the bathroom and threw up.” Venetia looked dazed as she shook her head. “And then I put the briefcase on the coffee table so Robert would see it when he got home. I was sitting on the couch waiting for him. He walked into the house, called out a hello, then saw the briefcase...and just stopped dead. He went pale.” Venetia swiped a hand in front of her face. “All the color just drained out of him. And I knew.
“He tried to claim that it wasn’t his, that it must have belonged to the people we bought the house from. But I knew from the way he’d looked at that briefcase when he walked in that it was his. And eventually, he broke down and admitted it. Said he had a problem. Promised he’d get help.”
“And you just left,” Natalie said.
“I had to.” Venetia craned her neck to look at Nat. “Can’t you see that? I couldn’t stay married to him after I knew he was a—” She stopped, and when she finally spoke the word, it came out in a whisper. “Pedophile.”
“But you also didn’t tell anyone.”
“I couldn’t! How could I? It was just all so awful and humiliating, and—I just couldn’t bear for anyone to know. You have to understand that.”
“No,” Nat said, and now her voice was like a shard of glass. “I don’t understand how any decent person could allow a man she knew to be a pedophile to continue working in a school.”
Venetia reared back as if she’d been slapped. “He told me he would never hurt a child. He told me that he used the porn to control his urges. I believed him.”
“Then you’re an idiot.” Nat stood abruptly and walked to the sink with her wineglass, dumping out the wine inside.
“What?”
“You need to leave. Now. Please go.”
“Nat—”
“Did it ever occur to you that those children in the pictures were being hurt? They were hurt when they were preyed upon. Hurt when their pictures were spread out into the world. Hurt every time someone like Robert looked at them. Did that ever occur to you, Venetia?”
Venetia looked at me helplessly, as if I could somehow protect her from Nat’s wrath.
“Why don’t I walk you out,” I offered.
Venetia nodded and stood clutching her handbag to her side. But she hesitated.
“I should have told someone. I know that. They’re saying that Robert might have molested a student at the school. It may be connected to why he was killed. But...they can’t bring charges against me, right? I mean, it’s not like I committed a crime. It’s not like I’m the guilty one, right?”
Nat stepped toward her. Her face had flushed a dark, mottled red, and her eyes were blazing. She raised one accusatory finger. “That is exactly what you are. Guilty. Because you could have stopped him. You could have told someone what he was. If you did he would never have been allowed to spend one additional single second in that school, around those children. But you didn’t, because you’re a fucking coward. Now get out of my house.”
Venetia didn’t wait to be told again. She hurried toward the front door, while I trailed behind her. I glanced back over my shoulder at my wife, who was standing with her hands balled into fists, her face still a mask of fury.
“I didn’t know he’d ever actually hurt a child,” Venetia said, hesitating at the front door. “Please believe me.”
I nodded, not sure of what else I could say. She wrenched open the front door and rushed out of it. I stood for a moment, watching her walk to her car in a disjointed, herky-jerky fashion, almost like a marionette on strings, before I finally closed the door. I turned and retraced my steps to the kitchen.
“That fucking cunt,” Nat said. Her voice was shaking with rage. I’d never seen her like this before, not even when she first told me what Robert had done. “She knew. She could have stopped it.”
“She was afraid.” I wasn’t sure why I was moved to defend Venetia. “Maybe she thought if it got out, it would taint her, too.”
“So what? She left him here, working in a school, knowing what he was. That basically makes her an accomplice.”
Accomplice. The word caused a chill to pass over me. If Nat thought Venetia was at fault, even in part...what would she do?
“Not if she thought it was just the pictures. She said she didn’t know he’d act on the impulses.”
“That’s like letting an aggressive dog run loose in your neighborhood and then feigning surprise when it bites someone. She knew what he was. That’s why she left him.”
Natalie strode around the kitchen, picking up Venetia’s wineglass, emptying it into the sink, putting the wine bottle aw
ay, loading the glasses into the dishwasher. The fury radiated off her. I watched her, my alarm growing with every cupboard door and drawer banged shut.
“You know there are more children out there, right?” Natalie’s voice was bitter. “It wasn’t just Tate and Charlie. I can practically guarantee you that there are more, kids who are too frightened to come forward, or whose parents know but decided not to come forward, like us.”
“Not like us.”
“What?” Natalie stopped her busy, angry work to look at me. “What did you just say?”
“We didn’t decide not to go to the police. You decided that all on your own. Then you decided to deal with Robert all on your own, except that you couldn’t, so you dragged me into it at the last minute to finish what you started. So don’t say like us. And I’m telling you right now...” Even though we were alone, I lowered my voice. “I will not hurt anyone else. So whatever it is you’re planning—”
“Planning?” Natalie looked blank. “Hurting someone? What the hell are you talking about?”
“You just said she was Robert’s accomplice. That she’s culpable for Charlie being hurt.”
“She is culpable. Probably not legally—although I could make a case for that—but she certainly is morally guilty. But I’m not going to hurt her. Jesus, Will.”
“I thought...”
“What? That I’ve suddenly turned into some sort of vigilante, running around striking down all the bad people in the world? I’m a criminal defense attorney, for Christ’s sake. I represent the bad people.”
I stared at my wife as it occurred to me yet again how little I knew her. Even after all the years we’d spent and distances we’d traversed together. Two weeks ago, I would have said she wasn’t capable of attempted murder.
But, then, two weeks ago, I would have said I wasn’t capable of putting a pillow over a man’s face and smothering him to death.
“Just...promise me you won’t do anything.” I could feel the sweat beading up on my forehead and upper lip. “That Robert was the end.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Nat closed the dishwasher door with more force than necessary. “I’m not a sociopath.”
“You just seem a little...”
“What?”
“Upset.”
“You think?” Nat smacked her open hands on the counter hard enough to make me wince, then turned toward me, her face again alight with anger. I realized how rarely I had seen my wife truly angry. Annoyed, sure, certainly aggravated. But I couldn’t ever remember seeing her this furious, so enraged that it twisted her face into something ugly. “That monster touched our son and changed him to an extent that we probably won’t even know until he’s an adult. Maybe not even then. And that woman—” Nat pointed toward the front door that Venetia had departed through “—could have stopped it from ever happening. But she chose to just walk away. So yeah, I’m a little fucking pissed off at the moment.”
We stared at each other for a long time.
“Can I get you anything?” I finally said. “Do you want some water or another glass of wine?”
“No. You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
My wife turned and strode out of the kitchen. I sat back down at the table, feeling a little shaky. My phone beeped at me. I pulled it out. It was a text from Jaime:
The police were just at my house. Asked about where you were Friday night.
The kitchen felt like it had tilted and spun.
What did you tell them? I typed back.
She didn’t respond right away. I stared down at the phone, willing her to give me something, anything, a small detail that would make this less horrifying.
Finally, her response arrived with another piercing electronic beep:
I told them the truth.
Chapter 27
The police showed up at my law firm the next day.
Before they arrived, I was holed up in my office with the door closed, trying to focus on the trust document I was drafting. Not surprisingly, I was having a hard time concentrating. My thoughts kept drifting back to the day before. I was still reeling from the news that the police were following up on my alibi, which meant I hadn’t been ruled out as a suspect. After I’d gotten Jaime’s text, I’d poured myself a double bourbon and drank it standing in the kitchen. The rest of the night was a blur, although I did remember that Charlie woke in the middle of the night. Nat had gotten up to console him and help him settle back down. I lay in our bed pretending to sleep while really not wanting to get up and risk either of them realizing just how drunk I was.
Then there was Venetia’s confession and Nat’s resulting fury, which would have unsettled me even aside from the terrifying news about the police. I felt like I was now constantly on a hill of shifting sand, unable to get my footing. Add in a roaring hangover and the fact that I hadn’t been able to choke down anything to eat in over twenty-four hours. I was not operating at peak performance.
I was just thinking that I should probably take an extended break from alcohol, when there was a knock on my door.
“Come in,” I called.
My door swung open and Ben Miller stuck his head in. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure, come on in.”
Ben stepped inside my office and closed the door behind him. He was an affable guy in his late forties, with the sort of annoyingly boyish good looks that women always went for. My main impression of him, after being law partners for a number of years, was that while he led a charmed life, he was about as deep as a puddle. He had a pretty, vapid wife and a couple of good-looking, vapid children who all excelled at sports. A few years earlier, he’d had an affair with Samantha Grey, a paralegal at the firm. They were caught when one of the executive assistants walked in on them making out in the supply room. The news had spread quickly. Samantha left shortly after, moving to another firm in town. The partnership spent a few uneasy months waiting to be served with a sexual harassment lawsuit that never came. Of course it didn’t. Bad things didn’t happen to Ben Miller.
“So, the police stopped by my house last night,” Ben said.
My stomach shifted nervously. “Oh. Right. I was going to talk to you about that.”
“You told them you were out with me a few Fridays ago?”
“I did.” I hesitated. “I was out that night with someone. But not, obviously...you.”
Ben nodded, understanding immediately as a fellow adulterer. “The thing is, I was out of town that weekend. Beth and I took the kids up to Disney World. Beth basically live-blogged the whole trip on social media. I couldn’t back up your story.”
“No, I shouldn’t have used your name. That was a dumb thing to do.”
“Was Nat there when you spoke to them?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s why you did it. Damn, it’s not like you knew you were going to need an alibi for that night. That’s some seriously shitty luck, man.”
I felt an almost irresistible urge to punch Ben. “Tell me about it.”
“Can I give you some unsolicited advice?”
“Sure.”
“Next time, have your story planned out ahead of time.”
“Good tip,” I said.
There was another knock on my office door.
Ben raised an eyebrow. “You’re popular today. Want me to get that?”
Actually, I didn’t want him to get it, assuming that there was a better than average chance that Jaime was on the other side of the door, wanting to have yet another discussion about our relationship. I shrugged and said, “Sure.”
Ben swung the door open. It wasn’t Jaime. It was much worse—Detectives Monroe and Reddick were standing there.
“Mr. Clarke,” Monroe said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
* * *
The detectives
wanted me to go the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office with them. I knew I didn’t have to, that doing so might be stupid, but I figured that if I didn’t at least attempt to answer their questions, they would just focus that much more intently on me. If they looked hard enough, who knew what they’d eventually find? If I could convince them that my false alibi had everything to do with my affair, and nothing to do with an actual crime, maybe they’d even cross me off their list of suspects.
I thought about calling Nat, but I knew she’d tell me not to talk to the police, or even worse, would insist on being there when they interviewed me. I could hear her voice in my head saying, You never, ever talk to the police. They are trained interrogators, and what’s more, they’re allowed to lie to you. To tell you they know things as facts when they don’t, or they have evidence against you that doesn’t exist. Everyone seems to think that they can talk their way out of trouble, but it never works out. Instead, you risk handing them gift-wrapped evidence that can be used against you at trial.
But this was different, I thought. I actually might be able to talk them out of suspecting me. And I was smart. I stood and put on my suit jacket.
“We’ll give you a ride,” Monroe said casually as we walked out of my office building.
“I’d rather drive myself,” I said.
“We’ll run you back here after,” Monroe said. He was back to his declarative statements, trying to make me think I didn’t have a choice. “I insist.”
I might not have been a criminal defense attorney, but I was married to one. I knew I didn’t have to go with them.
“I’d rather drive myself. I’ll meet you there.”
I turned and walked to my car without waiting for their response. As I did, I felt an unexpected surge of triumph...which lasted just long enough for me to get into my car and start it. Then it suddenly hit me that I was about to be questioned by the very people who, if they were doing their job correctly, would like to see me in jail for the rest of my life. That was enough for any sense of victory I had to drain away, replaced with a bowel-deep dread. I drove the entire way to the police station with a death grip on the steering wheel, barely seeing the road in front of me.
