by Lora Roberts
“Not necessarily,” Claudia argued. “It seems to take them forever to get the lab reports back when any kind of drug or poison is involved. They may be as clueless as we are.”
“But they have the scene. They know Don’s and Kim’s movements.”
“We reconstructed that.” Claudia was into her argument now. “You told us where you were, where Kim was, where everyone was except Don, and we assume he was sleeping.”
“Yes, but we haven’t questioned them. We haven’t seen any inconsistencies in their stories. We haven’t fit those together with what Hannah has to say.” I shook my head. “We just don’t have the big picture. I’m calling Drake.”
“You don’t have to,” Bridget said.
“Yes, I do. It’s a matter of playing fair.”
“No, you don’t have to.” She was looking over my shoulder. With a frisson of doom, I turned too.
Drake stood in the front hall. He had one hand behind him, and I knew he was gripping the gun he kept in his waistband. Bruno Morales, his partner, stood behind him and to one side.
“Drake.” I stepped out of the door, so he could see into the kitchen, where the harmless-looking group of women sat around the table. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Right.” He didn’t look at me after the first searing glance. “Where’s the suspect?”
“You mean Hannah? She’s having tea.”
Bruno shook his head. “You are incredible, you women. We search the whole Peninsula for you, and all the time, you’re having tea.”
“Drake—”
“Later, Liz.” He strode into the kitchen. “Ms. Couch? I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”
She stood slowly, throwing a reproachful look at me. I felt bad too, as if I’d turned in my best friend.
“Look, Hannah, if you’re right and you didn’t do it, they’ll figure that out. Truly. I used to think they didn’t try, but they will get to the truth.”
I was babbling. Bridget came over to stand by me and put her arm around my shoulders. “It’s not your fault, Liz. This was bound to happen.”
“I know.” I whispered to her, “I called Drake earlier. When I hid the gun.”
“Oh.”
“I didn’t want this to be occupying your house. I didn’t want the kids involved.”
“I know. Thanks.” She hugged me again. “And speaking of the gun—”
“Gun?” Drake whirled, his hand going to his weapon again.
“The gun Hannah used to—” With her eyes on me, I couldn’t say that she abducted me. No doubt that was a horrible federal crime of some kind. “To persuade me to drive her.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll get it—”
“Just tell Bruno.”
“It’s in the top filing drawer in the office. The key is on the top of that tall bookcase. I used a chair.” I didn’t want to be babbling so incessantly, but I couldn’t make my mouth stop.
Drake’s expression was so closed, so cold. I had just gotten a little used to our relationship, to the warmth and closeness we’d built together. I wasn’t sure what rejection would do to me at this point, but it wouldn’t be pretty.
Bruno came back in the room with the Ziploc bag containing Hannah’s little gun. “It was fired, Paolo.”
Drake looked at all of us. Claudia had come to stand in the kitchen door, her notebook clutched in her hand, her face mutinous. “Would anyone care to explain how this weapon came to be fired recently?”
“It went off accidentally, when Hannah was deciding to disarm.” Claudia spoke before anyone else could. It looked like we were going to have womanly solidarity in the face of all this male dominance.
“No one was hurt?” Bruno looked alarmed for a moment. “The children, they are not here?”
“They’re at play groups for the afternoon.” Bridget spoke to Bruno. Even she was getting a little miffed with Drake’s hard-ass stance.
“All right. We’ll be back sometime later to take statements from the rest of you.”
“Bridget could follow us to the station and give her statement before picking up her children at their play groups,” Bruno murmured. “Then we would not need to disrupt her evening.”
I could see that Drake cared little about disrupting anyone’s evening, but he nodded curt agreement, his hand on Hannah’s arm. “Let’s go, Ms. Couch.” He gestured at me with his head. “You too, Liz.”
Bridget walked with me to the police cruiser, and gave me one last squeeze. “It’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
But she was worried. And so was I.
Chapter 15
I had been in the little interview room at the Palo Alto police station before, a few years ago. I hadn’t known Drake then; he’d been just another police officer trying to move me along. At the time I lived in my VW bus on the streets of Palo Alto, and tried to have as little contact as possible with the powers that be. If anyone had told me then that I’d not only be neighborly with a policeman, but something far more intimate, I would have thought that person was crazy.
Now I wondered if I was crazy. Drake had been assuring me for the past year that a relationship was possible between us, despite the wide divergence in our lifestyles. Not that I wanted my lifestyle to involve murder and its aftermath. But it happened. And every time, I felt cut off from him, by his policemanly attitude toward my behavior. I try to behave well. I follow my own moral code, which holds me to a much higher standard than most of the people in government making the rules we all have to live by. But when push comes to shove, I’m still on one side of the fence, the outlaw side, with Drake on the other.
And given the way he was acting, no one would be opening the gate anytime soon.
He and Bruno were questioning Hannah in a different room. Bruno had told me that much, when I’d asked what the drill was. Drake wouldn’t talk to me at all. He had driven the police cruiser to city hall while Bruno sat sideways in his seat, chatting amiably. They would let the San Francisco police department know we had been located. Depending on how it went, they would take us up there, or the San Francisco police would come down to fetch us.
“I don’t see why you need Liz,” Hannah had said, looking down her nose as she was so good at doing. “She was just doing her job, obeying my orders.”
“She will be involved in the questioning,” Bruno said. He spoke mildly, but with finality.
Bruno had taken my statement after Hannah had been led off. Now I waited. And I began to get angry. I expected that the San Francisco police would treat me as a criminal, because they knew nothing about me except that I had a prior conviction.
But Drake should have known better. I had done my best. I had kept myself and anyone else from getting killed. I had called him as soon as possible. Why, then, was he so upset that he couldn’t even look at me, much less say an encouraging word?
I wore no watch, but I estimated it to be close to four P.M. One of the longest days of my life was still in progress, with no end in sight. I sighed, and pictured Barker. He was probably sitting, with his leash in his mouth, on the rug in front of the door, staring at it, willing it to open and reveal me or my substitute. Something told me that I wasn’t going to be free to walk him for at least a few more hours. Finally the door opened and Bruno came in. He sat on the other side of the table and looked at me sadly.
“I am sorry, Liz. This is not really fair. But the San Francisco police wish us to take you up to the hotel, where they are still investigating. They question your story, you see.”
“They can question it all they like, but it’s the truth. Doesn’t Hannah corroborate it?”
“She has contacted her lawyer, and he has advised her to say nothing until he arranges for a suitable attorney to be there, which could be as long as tomorrow. The police are very frustrated with this, naturally, and they wish to take you through your account at the scene. It seems that they have heard you slapped the deceased yesterday.”
“She slapped me fi
rst.” As soon as I said it, I thought how childish it sounded. “Is Bridget still here?”
“She has given her statement and gone to pick up her children.” Bruno tapped his fingers on the table. “For what it’s worth, her statement corroborates yours.”
“Great.” I could see his watch, upside down on his wrist. It was three-forty. Barker would be good for another two or three hours at most. “Let’s get it over with. Sooner or later they’ll figure out who really did this, and then I can go about my business.”
Bruno hesitated. “If you will promise not to try to escape, I will not arrest you. However, the San Francisco police may do so. Once we are up there, they may hold you without charging you, at least until Ms. Couch talks. Do you understand?”
“Sure,” I said, acting nonchalant.
I was struggling with tears, actually. My feelings were hurt that Bruno, who I’d come to count a friend, was treating me like this, even though I knew that he had to. I took a deep breath, then another.
“You have the right to remain silent,” Bruno droned. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. You can have an attorney present. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided without charge. You have the right to one phone call.”
“I don’t care about a lawyer or any of that nonsense. I want to call Bridget and ask her to take care of Barker for me.”
“She said to tell you that she will care for your dog.” Bruno looked troubled. “You should call an attorney, Liz. My wife knows someone who will represent you without charging too much.”
“Anything is too much. I don’t need an attorney. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The door opened before he could answer me. Drake stood there. His face was set in those hard lines I wasn’t used to seeing. He still wouldn’t look directly at me.
“Are you ready? Let’s go,” he said to Bruno.
Bruno hesitated. “Perhaps you should stay here, Paolo. There is no necessity for us both to go.”
“If either of them gets away, we’ll never hear the end of it.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. There was no point talking to someone who wouldn’t look at you. A part of me that Drake had gradually coaxed into warmth and friendship began to shrivel.
Bruno looked from me to Drake. “Liz will not flee. She has promised.”
“Let’s go. I don’t want Scarlatti and the rest of those city cops talking behind my back. If they have anything to say, they can say it to my face.”
This was a bewildering statement. While Drake strode on ahead, gripping Hannah’s arm firmly enough to draw a protest from her, I whispered to Bruno, “What was that about? Why would they talk behind his back?”
“As you are asking me to do?” Bruno shook his head, then relented. “Because a woman who was presumed to be abducted used Paolo’s telephone to call her attorney, who gave that number to the police in Massachusetts, who passed it along to San Francisco. We were obliged to search both your house and Paolo’s house to make sure you were not there.” Bruno hesitated. “He was worried, Liz. He was afraid he would find your body.”
I stole a look at Drake’s unyielding back, marching down the hall. “Well, thank goodness I managed not to be killed. He appears so grateful for that.”
“Give it time,” Bruno urged. “He will settle. Of course it looks bad that a suspect in an abduction has a key to his house. That is why he goes to San Francisco too, because he wants to confront that issue.”
“So now I’ve ruined his job. I knew this relationship was a mistake.” I took another deep breath. I never used to cry, no matter how bad things got. I would not start now. There would be plenty of time for that later.
“No, no.” Bruno said no more, because we were at the elevator to the parking garage, but he patted my hand. Drake stood facing the doors. He hustled Hannah out of the elevator and into the backseat of an unmarked car. Bruno hopped in with her.
“What are you doing?” Drake spoke to him in a furious undertone. “Suspects in the back.”
“In case she tries to leap from the car, you understand.” Bruno turned his limpid gaze on Drake. “I must be ready, Paolo. Of course Liz will not try that. She may sit up front with you.”
“I’ll keep Hannah from jumping out,” I said. The knot of emotion that clogged my throat made it difficult to speak.
“I’m not going to jump out.” Hannah sniffed. “Let’s go. I want my attorney; I want this to be over.”
“We all do.” Drake’s pinched features didn’t relax when he spoke. “Bruno, let’s get going. The traffic will be bad enough already.”
Bruno fastened his seat belt in the backseat. “Climb in, Liz,” he said, smiling at me.
I didn’t want to drive up to the City in thick traffic beside a man who radiated anger at me. But it seemed I had no choice.
The last time a man evinced such harsh emotions in my direction, I’d ended up in jail. This time, I was sure that after all the stories had been told, after Bridget’s statement had been read by the San Francisco police, I would be free. But the tentative blossoming of feelings between myself and Paul Drake, I feared, was irreparably damaged.
He chose to go up 280, hoping to duck some of the traffic. I sat passively in the front seat, not moving, not talking, as if maintaining a low profile would get me out of trouble. It had worked in the past. I didn’t think it would this time.
In the backseat, Bruno chatted amiably with Hannah about the renovation he and his wife Lucy were doing. Everyone was renovating. Everyone wanted bigger houses. The face of Palo Alto was changing. More than ever, it was becoming an enclave of the rich.
I felt sad about that. I had planned to live the rest of my life in my little cottage, fixing only what was necessary to keep it standing. But if I had to sell to escape the bad vibes coming from the house in front of me, at least I’d get top dollar.
I would be able to afford a place in Denver, close to my folks. The notion was not a happy one. My family was not especially rich in warmth, and my parents made a lot of judgments about me that I found painful to live with. But it seemed preferable to enduring the feelings Drake was dishing out.
At this point in my brooding, I detected an unfortunate pattern. After serving time for trying to kill my abusive husband, I’d begun running away, spurred on by his attempts to find and punish me. By the time I’d confronted him, it had almost been too late to salvage my self-respect. Now I was planning how to run away from another man, one fundamentally decent and caring.
I wanted to put my head down on my knees and weep. And I wanted to scream at Drake. It had been his insistence that had made me open up, caused me to unwrap my vulnerabilities.
By the time we reached South San Francisco, my thoughts had shifted from my present misery to trying to imagine a future without Drake. If he cut himself off from me, which might well happen if his job was on the line over our association, what would I do? I had become dependent on him, and that didn’t sit well with me. I used his telephone instead of getting one of my own. When my ancient computer faltered, he figured out the reason. I had been in a time warp after three years of living in my bus, with no access to media except the magazines that bought my articles. He had brought me up to date on current events, introduced me to movies, made me reevaluate my loner stance.
I opened my knapsack and got my notebook out. Ignoring the notes we’d made about Naomi’s death, I turned to a fresh page. It looked like I wouldn’t need to worry about how Naomi met her end. The police would do that in their usual clear-cutting fashion, hacking down the forest to get to the one guilty tree.
“What are you doing?” Drake’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion. It was the first time he’d spoken to me on the whole trip.
“I’m figuring out how much more I need to earn each month to afford a telephone.”
His mouth tightened. He took a right where Highway 1 turned into Nineteenth Avenue, and we
drove along Junipero Serra in silence for a few minutes. The traffic was thick, but Drake moved though it with automatic ease.
“If you’d done that when I first asked you to,” he said finally, spitting out the words as if they caused him pain, “none of this would have happened.”
“That’s a crock and you know it, mate.” The casual endearment slipped out without my realizing it. We had called each other that, in fake Australian accents, at some of our tenderest moments. I rushed to fill the small, pregnant silence between us. “Of course, your career wouldn’t have been endangered by my illicit use of your phone, but everything else would still have happened.”
“If you’d had a real job—”
“This was a real job. The kind in an office, like you are always after me to get. Keyboarding, answering the phones, filing. It lasted for all of five hours. I’m realist enough to know that something in me is not acceptable in an office setting, even if you still think all I need is a pair of pantyhose and a meek demeanor.”
The chitchat in the backseat ceased. Drake didn’t reply, and I felt ashamed of my outburst—but not very. What I said was the truth, no matter how unpalatable it was to him. I had temped in many offices, and I had never been asked back after my initial assignment was over. Not because I was inefficient. I worked steadily and didn’t steal office supplies or make personal telephone calls. But somehow I didn’t fit in with the other cubicle dwellers.
I could understand why Drake wanted me to have a real job. I would have health insurance, retirement, the safety net that was so important. And I had come to want those things too. If I got sick, if I had a serious accident, I would be in trouble.
At least I had come to terms with my inability to do the corporate culture thing. And I knew that if trouble was looking for a person, it would find them, whether they worked at home or in an office.
“I’m sorry if I’m being mean,” I said, low voiced. In the backseat, Bruno had resumed his light chat with Hannah Couch; he was a model of thoughtfulness. “I know it’s a setback to your career to be associated with a person like me. I’ve known it all along. We can call it quits right now. No questions asked.”
