The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know that she stopped by your desk on her way out, on her way downstairs?”

  “I mean, yes, sure. You said you were going downstairs for the training session.” When she addressed Phoebe, Annie’s gaze trained several inches over Phoebe’s good shoulder.

  “What time was that?”

  “Just before ten. Just a few minutes before ten.”

  “You were aware the lieutenant intended to take the stairs down?”

  “Everyone knows Lieutenant Mac Namara uses the stairs.” Annie tugged on a heart-shaped button on her pajamas. “I really don’t feel well. I’m sorry.”

  “Lieutenant Mac Namara doesn’t feel very well either. Do you, Lieutenant?”

  “No.” Her sunglasses were back in her bag, where she’d tucked them on entering the building. Phoebe knew the bruised eyes, the scrapes, the bandages were a shocking and painful sight. Just as she knew how to wait, how to use the silence as a lever to pry Annie’s eyes to hers. “He pushed me down, after he’d cuffed my hands behind me so I couldn’t break my own fall.”

  Her gaze steady on Annie’s tearful one, Phoebe lifted her hands to show her bandaged wrists. “After he’d taped my mouth, put a hood over my head.” She brushed the hair back from her forehead so the livid bruises showed more clearly. “After he’d smashed my face into the wall.”

  Tears spilled, plump drops on pale cheeks. “I…I heard it was really just a bad accident. I heard that you fell. That you fell down the stairs.”

  “Was it an accident his fist rammed into her face?” Liz demanded. “That the cuffs snapped over her wrists?” She pulled up Phoebe’s arm, gestured to the wrists. “Did her clothes accidentally rip off her body so she had to crawl, half naked, for help?”

  “Things get exaggerated. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t feel well. Can you go? Can you just go?”

  “Did he tell you he just wanted to talk to me, Annie?” Phoebe kept her voice low, the tone even. “Just talk to me in private? Maybe scare me just a little, or push his point just a little, since I was being so unfair? I was being unfair to him, wasn’t I? Did he tell you that when he asked you to signal him I was heading down?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. I didn’t do anything. If you fell—”

  “I didn’t fall. Look at me, Annie!” Phoebe snapped the words out so that Annie jumped, then hunched her shoulders. “You know I didn’t fall. That’s why you’re sitting here, sick, scared, trying to convince yourself it was an accident. He told you that. He told you it was an accident and I—what?—lied to save face? I made up the attack so I wouldn’t be embarrassed about falling?”

  “How long have you been sleeping with Officer Arnold Meeks, Annie?” Liz demanded.

  “I didn’t! We didn’t. Not really. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t do anything.” As the dam broke, Annie snatched up tissues from a flowered box of Kleenex and buried her face in them. “He said it was an accident, that you were going to make things up, maybe to try to get him in trouble. He told me how you came on to him, and then—”

  “Officer Meeks told you Lieutenant Mac Namara approached him sexually?”

  “He turned her down, and she’s been trying to ruin his reputation ever since.” Lowering the tissues, Annie turned a pleading face toward Liz. “He’d file sexual harassment charges, but he’s embarrassed to, and his wife’s not giving him any support at home. Plus she’s sleeping with Captain Mc Vee, so what good would it do?”

  “He told you all this, and you swallowed it?” Liz shook her head from side to side. “Maybe that’s excusable, maybe not. Maybe you thought, really thought, you were just doing Arnie a favor. Maybe you didn’t want to believe he was lying to you, again and again and again, leading you on. But you know he lied to you now, don’t you, Annie? You can’t look at Lieutenant Mac Namara and believe what he told you.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “How about some pictures?” Liz pulled some out of her satchel. “There’s the lieutenant’s blood in the stairwell. Oh, here, here’s her clothes thataccidentally tore off her body. How about the laundry bag he pulled over her head? Here’s a good one, of her blood on the cuffs he snapped on her. That’s some accident.”

  “Oh God.” The tissue shield went up again. “Oh God.”

  “What kind of person does this, Annie? Maybe the kind of person who’s thinking about doing it to you, or doing worse. Because you’re the one who can tie him to it.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Annie sobbed, yanked more tissues from the box. “I didn’t do anything wrong. He just needed a few minutes to talk to her, to show he wasn’t going to be intimidated. That’sall. I only called his number, let the phone ring twice. That was the signal. It’s all I did. I didn’t know.”

  “But you know now. You’re going to have to get dressed and come with me.”

  “Are you arresting me? Oh God, am I under arrest?”

  “Not yet. If you get dressed and come in now, give a true statement—tell the truth, Annie—I’ll talk to the DA for you. He lied to you. I believe you when you said he lied.”

  “So do I.” Phoebe kept her fury banked and spoke soothingly. “I believe you, Annie.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lieutenant. I’m really sorry.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you are.”

  Liz looked over at Phoebe. “I’ll drop you back home and take it from here.”

  10

  “I want to be there. I need to be there.”

  Dave leaned back in his desk chair, continued to scan Phoebe’s face. “First, it’s not my call. Second, this is Liz Alberta’s case. You’re the victim. If you have trouble remembering that, I can have a mirror brought in.”

  She knew how she looked. A couple of days meant some of the bruising was turning from black to sickly yellow and storm-cloud purple. Her jaw and eye were angry watercolors. Still, the worst of it was decently hidden under her clothes.

  “The victim needs it. I need to sit in that room, look Arnold Meeks in the eye so he knows I’m not afraid of him.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Enough that I need to show him, and myself, that I’m not going to be. You and I know how the pathology works. How it is for someone who’s held against their will, threatened or injured in a situation beyond their control.”

  “This isn’t identifying an attacker in a lineup, Phoebe. Or facing the attacker in court.”

  “It’s just more proactive. My mother faced Reuben in court. She got up on the stand to testify while he was only feet away from her, and I know that was nearly as terrifying for her as being trapped in that house with him all those hours. But she did it, and still she’s trapped.”

  All the affection and understanding he felt was there to read on his face. “You’re not your mother.”

  “No, but…” Phoebe fisted a hand on her heart. “I feel her fear, and I don’t want it living inside me. How can I do what I need to do if it finds a place to live in me? So this victim needs it.”

  “Observation,” he began, though they both knew he was losing ground.

  “Isn’t enough.” She shook her head. “Face-to-face, and this time I know he won’t be controlling the situation. The cop wants to be in that room with him because I may be able to help Liz get a confession out of him. I was there. Victim, witness, police officer. Makes me a triple threat.”

  “And still doesn’t make it my call. It’s up to Detective Alberta, her captain and the DA. The DA,” Dave continued before she could speak, “who fishes with Arnie’s daddy.”

  “Whoever he fishes with, Parnell’s always struck me as solid. Do you really think he’ll ease off an investigation of an attack on a police officer because he’s buddied up with the father of a suspect?”

  “It’s a lot of who-you-know in Savannah, Phoebe, just like anywhere else. But I’ll agree, Parnell’s solid. Meeks is bringing his delegate and a lawyer in with him. Annie Utz is lawyered, too.”<
br />
  “All the more reason for me to give Liz—Detective Alberta—some backup—someone well invested who doesn’t give a damn who Arnie’s daddy drowns worms with. And I’ll tell you something else. Having two women question him, put pressure on him?”

  She wandered the office as she spoke now, because she could feel it, she could see it. She could all but taste it. “Oh, Arnie’s not going to like that one little bit. He’ll make a mistake. He’ll end up leading with his ego, especially if I’m in there. Not your call, Captain, but you could make one. You could reach out to Detective Alberta’s captain or her lieutenant, ask that I get a seat.”

  “I’ll make a call, but I’m not making any promises.”

  “Any worthwhile negotiator’s careful with his promises.” She touched a hand to his shoulder. “The call’s enough. Thank you.”

  “If you buy a ticket into the interrogation, have to deal with him that way, I might not have done you any favor. How’s your family handling this?”

  “It shook them up. My mother…you know how it is.”

  “I do. Would me coming by help things or add to them?”

  “Mama always feels better after a visit from you. We all do. Why don’t you come to Sunday dinner?”

  He kicked back in his chair. “Would that mean sugar-glazed ham?”

  “It could be arranged. Thanks for this.”

  “Phoebe…” Straightening again, he cleared his throat. “I want to say I regret there’s been any speculation or gossip inside the department regarding an inappropriate relationship between us.”

  “Such as me giving you bj’s in your office.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” The tips of his ears went pink, as she knew they did when he was mortally embarrassed. “I’m old enough to be your father.”

  “First, you’d have been a very precocious fifteen to have pulled that one off. Second, since when does age factor into inappropriate sexual behavior? Neither of us is responsible for the speculation of small, ugly minds.”

  He picked up a ballpoint pen, clicked it a few times. “I opened you up for this when I asked you to take the desk in this department.”

  “You gave me an opportunity—which I grabbed—to do the work I’m good at. Am I qualified for the desk?”

  “You know you are.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “Meeks, junior and/or senior, may push this into IAB.”

  “And we can both stand up to that, should that happen. Don’t worry about me in this.”

  But he did. Even as he lifted the phone to put in the call she’d asked for, he worried.

  Phoebe had a moment alone in Observation, studying Arnie Meeks through the two-way mirror. He looked careless, she decided. Carelessly confident. A kind of screw-you posture of a man who believes whatever he’s done isn’t going to stick to him.

  He’d know he was being watched, or could be watched at any time. He didn’t give a damn, Phoebe concluded.

  And when she imagined his hands on her, his fingers inside her, her stomach rolled.

  She gave too much of a damn.

  “Lieutenant.” Liz stepped in with a tall, reed-thin brunette. “ADA Monica Witt, Lieutenant Phoebe Mac Namara.”

  “Lieutenant.” Monica shook hands with Phoebe. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, thanks. I take it you’ll be prosecuting the case.”

  “If you can make one. We have Annie Utz’s statement, and her phone, which shows an outgoing call at nine fifty-eight. We can’t tie that to Arnold Meeks. The number called was to a toss-away phone, untraceable. We don’t have any physical evidence linking Meeks to the attack.”

  “You have motive. You have opportunity, and a pattern of insubordinate and threatening behavior.”

  “My boss wants more than that to charge a police officer with assault and battery, with sexual assault on a fellow officer. Get me more, and I’ll charge him.”

  Two men stepped in. Phoebe recognized Liz’s lieutenant, nodded in acknowledgment. Just as she recognized, through the strong family resemblance, Arnie Meeks’s father.

  He was thicker than his son through the chest, stronger along the jawline, harder in the eyes. But there was no mistaking the relationship. Just as there was no mistaking the insulted anger that pumped off him despite his ramrod posture.

  “Lieutenant Anthony and Sergeant Meeks will also be observing.”

  “We’ll get started.” Liz walked to the door, held it open as Phoebe followed.

  “When my boy’s clear of this,” Sergeant Meeks said as he shifted to block Phoebe’s path, “and his suspension lifted, this won’t be over for you, Lieutenant Mac Namara.”

  “Sergeant, you’re here as a courtesy.” Anthony laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t abuse that courtesy.”

  Phoebe moved around him to the door of the interrogation room. “Like father,” she said under her breath.

  “Shake it off,” Liz advised. “I take the lead on this.”

  “We’ve been this round before.”

  “Just a friendly reminder.” Opening the door, she walked in.

  He didn’t spare Liz so much as a look, Phoebe noted. His eyes aimed straight for her, held.

  “Boys.” Liz smiled easily, with a nod toward the trio at the table. She set the recorder, fed in the data, read Arnie his rights. “You understand all that, Officer Meeks?”

  “I’ve given the Miranda enough times, I better.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  “Yeah, I understand myrights. Shouldn’t you be in bed somewhere with an ice pack and some Darvon?” he asked Phoebe.

  “Arnie.”

  Arnie shrugged off the quiet warning from his attorney.

  “I’m surprised by your concern, Arnie,” Liz began. “The way I hear it, you’re not Lieutenant Mac Namara’s biggest fan.”

  “I don’t think much of her as a cop. Then again, she’s not much of one seeing as all she does is talk.”

  “We’ll save your definition of ‘much of a cop’ for later, if it’s all the same to you.” Smooth as top cream, Liz kept an easy smile on her face. “The two of you—meaning you and Lieutenant Mac Namara—have had a couple of set-tos recently. Is that true?”

  “My client stipulates that he and Lieutenant Mac Namara hold opposing viewpoints and professional styles. Those are hardly motives for a physical attack on her person. The lack of evidence—”

  “We’re talking here,” Liz said. “Just getting things out on the table. Arnie, you don’t much like Lieutenant Mac Namara. Is that fair to say?”

  Arnie kept his smirk aimed at Phoebe. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “Did you have occasion to call Lieutenant Mac Namara a bitch?”

  “I call them as I see them.”

  “So, she’s a bitch?” At Arnie’s shrug, Liz nodded. “And you have no particular problem calling a superior officer a bitch? No problem threatening her when she took disciplinary action?”

  “There’s only Lieutenant Mac Namara’s word on this alleged threat,” the lawyer interrupted.

  “That, and…” Liz flipped through her file. “The statements of two detectives who observed your client in the lieutenant’s office behaving in what they believed was a threatening manner.”

  “Their beliefs aren’t fact.”

  “Arnie, do you remember why you were in Lieutenant Mac Namara’s office on Thursday last?”

  “Sure I do. She was covering her ass after she screwed up a hostage negotiation by suspending me.”

  “Really?” Liz turned round eyes on Phoebe. “My goodness, if that was the case, who could blame you for calling her a bitch? Why don’t we pull out a few statements and reports on that negotiation—at which you were the first responder—just to get the overview? Hmmm. FR did not call for backup. FR did not begin a log…Ah, here’s a good one. FR antagonized the HT with threats. I like this one, too: Officer Meeks hampered and attempted to block Lieutenant Mac Namara’s contact with the HT.”

  Arnie rocked back in his c
hair, balanced on its back legs, rocked up again. “She can write anything she wants. Doesn’t mean that’s how it went down.”

  “Actually, all those examples are from witnesses—civilian and law enforcement. Well now, reading all this, it looks like you screwed things up there, Arnie.”

  “I had the situation under control until she pushed into it.”

  “So, you just needed a little more time to resolve the matter, and she didn’t give it to you.” Lips pursed, Liz nodded. “The guy blows his brains out, and you get the rap. Then, the bitch suspends you. I’d be pissed, too. Hard to blame you for wanting to pay her back.”

  Arnie smiled, shoved his hand at his lawyer before the lawyer could speak. “Just shut up. She’s insulting me thinking she can bait me into saying something stupid. What about you?” he said to Phoebe. “Nothing to say for a change?”

  “I was just sitting here wondering how your wife feels about all this. How she feels about you diddling with Annie Utz, for instance.”

  The smirk twisted his lips. “Annie’s cute, and thick as a brick. I flirted, I admit it. Every guy in the squad did. But when she came on to me, when she wanted to take it past a wink, I set her straight. Got her feelings hurt, so I guess she figured to pay me back with this wild story. Or you pushed her to lie.”

  Phoebe looked over at Liz. “The man’s surrounded by liars and bitches. It’s a wonder he gets through the day.”

  “I don’t know how he gets out of bed in the morning. So Annie’s lying when she states you and she had a sexual relationship?”

  He grinned widely, shook his finger. “I never had sex with that woman.”

  “Cute,” Liz acknowledged. “And really adorable when you consider Annie states that relationship was limited to oral sex. A blurry line, I grant you. She ‘came on’ to you, that’s what you said, and that’s funny, too. In her statement she uses that same phrase. You told her Lieutenant Mac Namara came on to you. And when you, being the moral, upstanding type, turned her down, she got her feelings hurt and looked for payback. My God, man, the women just make your life a living hell. I have to tell you, I’m actively restraining myself from coming on to you right now.”