by Rene Fomby
“So she made you the focus of her article,” Gavin said.
“No, actually, the story got dumped, because the paper’s editor at the time was virulently anti-jock. But that kinda worked out for the best, in the end. She dropped by the dorm to apologize, and I wound up asking her out for pizza. Things really clicked between us, and by the time it became obvious to everyone concerned that my football career was going to wrap up for good my senior season, that I wasn’t destined for pro ball, we decided to go for it and ran off to Vegas and eloped. Little White Wedding Chapel, Elvis, the whole bit. After undergrad I got accepted to South Texas to study law, and she landed a job with the Houston paper. And the rest, as they say, is history. You know, I really think I won the jackpot with Tara, married way out of my league. And I spend most of my days just making damned sure she knows it.”
Again, Gavin noted the easy rhythm of a story well told, the natural cadence that told so much and yet hid so much more. As a lawyer himself, he could appreciate that kind of nuanced misdirection, even when, like now, he knew he was just being played. There was more to this story of Brett and Tara, the apparent love of his life. The girl who had made him forget all about the hurt of losing dear Katy. But he also knew that there was no way he was going to crack that nut tonight, at least not with Brett. The lawyer angle, though, that was a low hanging branch that might still offer up a little fruit.
Gavin glanced at Espinosa over Brett’s back shoulder, raising an eyebrow to ask permission to continue. And getting a permissive wink in return.
“Okay, Brett, so now we’re down in Houston, and you’re studying at the South Texas School of Law. What did you focus on? Civil lit? Criminal defense?”
“Actually, civil litigation is really big at South Texas. As a matter of fact, it’s big all over Houston, probably one of the best cities for civil lit in the country. A long and sordid history of big-time courtroom cowboys. They actually call them gunslingers down there, which isn’t all that far off the mark. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that famous depo with Joe Jamail, where Joe basically challenges the other lawyer to step outside and settle their dispute man to man?”
Gavin knew it well, but shook his head no.
“Oh, well, if you ever get the chance to Google it, it’s worth the effort. Ask a lawyer friend, I’m sure they’ll know all about it. Anyway, I signed up for the moot court and mock trial competitions, but to be honest I just didn’t have the fire in my belly for that sort of thing. So I wound up focusing on transactional law, with a concentration on real estate deals.”
“And how did that work out for you?” Gavin asked in a quiet voice, happy to see that he had finally drawn Brett out into discussing something off-the-cuff.
“So-so, I suppose. I signed up with a small firm as a baby lawyer right out of school, but that turned out to be more like a factory job, showing up at eight in the morning and working until late in the night, and having nothing left in the end to show for it. Then Trevor suggested I take on some of his deals as a side job. Which I did for a while. But at some point things got a little strange between us, and I decided to move on. Right now I’m about half busy taking care of a string of minor clients with an occasional big payday when one of the larger deals closes. Not all that much, but the trend is heading upward, so I’m pretty optimistic for the long haul. Not like I’m so desperate I’m having to take on family law clients, right? That is the true kiss of death.”
And had been for Gavin, which was the real reason he had jumped at the chance to join the FBI in the first place. But he didn’t need to share that little bit of insight with Brett.
“Okay, so let me see if I understand this. You’re now managing a real estate transaction business, basically just dotting the i’s on various deals, and Tara’s doing what exactly?”
“She’s got a day job as an editor for a small local magazine and freelances whenever she can on the side. Mostly food critic stuff. She’s quite the cook.”
“And that’s enough to support a family in a city like Houston?” Gavin asked, hanging the question out there.
“Uh.” Brett’s energy, a force that had been so obvious a moment earlier, seemed to have faded as soon as the words left Gavin’s mouth. “That—that’s maybe a question you might want to leave for Tara,” he answered evasively.
“You don’t know the answer?” Gavin pressed.
“What I’m saying is, that’s not a question I’m at all comfortable speaking to. Life can be a struggle sometimes, you know? And for that matter, I’m not at all sure what any of that has to do with Katy’s death. So, if you don’t mind, gentlemen, with that I’ll take my leave.”
Without any further discussion he stood up and stalked up the stairs, leaving Gavin and Espinosa once again wondering how and when they had lost control of this murder investigation. And what, if anything, they needed to do to get it back under their wings. If that was even possible, with a hurricane now beating down upon them all.
18
Tara
Gavin’s first impression was that he hadn’t been wrong to hold off a bit on interviewing Brett’s wife, Tara Cutler. Her dirty blonde hair was cropped short and tight, in a way that suggested a nod to convenience, not style. She was a petite woman, barely reaching to his shoulders, but her eyes flashed a fire that hinted there was a lot of woman stashed away inside that tiny body. Unlike the way she had been dressed a little earlier, her clothing was simple, modest and comfortable, denim mid-thigh cutoffs and a simple cream cotton blouse, unbuttoned just a little bit too far, in his personal opinion. But other than that, not anything too suggestive, just what you would expect a woman her age to be wearing, hemmed in on a boat in the middle of a raging thunderstorm.
But she was also clearly drunk. Gavin, always the cop, calculated the effect three beers would have on a tiny little woman at an age that usually didn’t allow for any significant alcohol tolerance to develop, and determined in his professional judgement that she was completely toasted. Easy fodder for the gristmill, so bad cop it was for this one. He held off on the usual name-rank-serial number questions to dive right into the deep end.
“So, Tara, when was the first time during the dive you realized you were separated from your husband?”
“What? Separated?” She seemed spatially disoriented for a long, drawn-out moment before finally answering. “I—I was never separated from my husband, I was with him the entire time. Why would you suggest such a thing?”
Espinosa jumped in. “Because it’s obvious to us that your husband killed Katy Mulcahey. So we’re just trying to rule out the possibility that you were in on the whole caper as well. That you’re every bit as guilty as he is.”
Confusion flickered in her eyes as she processed Espinosa’s words. “I—I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Brett didn’t kill anyone, least of all Katy. He worshipped that woman.”
“Tell us about that worship, Tara,” Gavin asked in a soft tone, picking up on the accusation Espinosa had just laid out in front of them. An accusation that the two of them had agreed on in advance, thinking it might serve to rattle Brett’s drunken wife and get her to spill more than she otherwise might have.
“Well, maybe that was too strong a word, worship. What I meant was, after he got over their breakup, and after the two of us were married, they sort of patched everything up between them, shoved all of their history together back into the ancient, forgotten past. In fact, Katy’s the only reason we even came on this trip. I don’t think either Brett or I would cross the street for Trevor these days even if he needed us. Or even if he offered to pay us, for that matter.”
Espinosa wrote something into his notebook, circled it, then looked up. “Okay, about that pay bit. Brett told us he worked on a few projects for a short while for Trevor. When was that?”
“I don’t know. I guess right about the time he left the law firm, so maybe two years ago?”
“And when did he stop work
ing for Trevor?”
Tara gave Espinosa a suspicious look, then glanced back at Gavin, who like Espinosa was wearing a face of stone, not showing anything.
“I’m not sure. I don’t keep track of Brett’s business affairs. You’ll have to ask him.”
“Fair enough. And what about you, Mrs. Cutler? Any little Cutlers running around?” Gavin had made a note of Sally’s earlier cryptic comments on that subject and thought it might be worth exploring a little deeper. Might even serve to rattle her a little bit, which was never a bad thing, in his experience playing the role of bad cop.
“Brett and I haven’t gotten around to starting a family yet,” she said, her voice slightly slurred from the alcohol. “What with law school and all. And my job.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” Gavin cut in. “Children are complicated.”
Tara nodded. “They’re a lot of work, that’s for sure. And not much reward to show for it.”
Espinosa tapped on his notebook to get her attention. “You mentioned you have a job. And what is that?”
“I’m a journalist. I write freelance articles, mostly for magazines. And I help out sometimes in Brett’s law office. That girl he has, she’s way too focused on the legal side and tends to let the office go to pot. She’s got absolutely no clue as to how to maintain a good filing system. You know, it’s almost impossible these days to find anyone who’s willing to do the dirty work in an office, much less someone who’s actually any good at it.”
Espinosa nodded solemnly, almost sorry he had asked, then gestured toward Gavin, who took it as a sign to take over the questioning. When he spoke up, Tara was forced to turn her chair slightly to her right to face him. Gavin noted that the effort seemed to give her considerably more difficulty than it would if she were cold sober. And he also couldn’t help but notice that, unlike when she was facing Espinosa, she made certain to keep her legs tightly crossed the entire time.
“Let’s get back to Katy, shall we? When was the first time you met Brett’s ex?”
Tara’s eyes were slightly slitted as she answered, whether from the alcohol or the question, Gavin couldn’t tell for sure. “I don’t know, it was probably during the first dive trip after Brett and I started dating. Why?”
“And would you say the two of you were close?” Gavin asked, ignoring her question.
“Pretty close, I suppose. I mean, she ran in much ritzier circles than I could ever afford, and she and Trevor lived up in Dallas, so I almost never saw her outside of the dive trips. But we got along like sisters when I did see her. Where is all this leading?”
“And Brett. You said he worshiped her. What was the nature of his relationship with Katy?”
“Again, we hardly ever saw Katy or Trevor, outside of the dive trips. But I would say he was kind of like a big brother to her, someone she could trust. But nothing more than that.”
“I see.” Gavin paused to flip back a few pages in his notepad before continuing. “Okay, let’s talk about the dive trip. Did all of you make it on the night dive?”
“No. Jillian and Sally stayed back. Sally was way too drunk, or more likely too stoned to risk taking along. And Jillian said she didn’t feel comfortable enough with her diving skills to try a night dive. So they tried the hot tub instead. It’s located near the front of the boat, next to the trapeze.”
“Okay, and I take it the rest of you buddy dived?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And as I understand it, Trevor buddied up with his wife, you went with Brett, and Billie and Casey made up the third group.”
“Right. And the dive master was by himself.”
“Let’s focus in on Billie and Casey. From what you saw, did they stay together the entire dive, or did you ever see them get separated at some point?”
“Actually, I very seldom saw either one of them until we met up on the bottom at the end. For some reason they were way in front of us pretty much the entire time.”
Gavin put a check mark next to Casey’s earlier comments on that topic before moving on. “And Katy and Trevor. Were they together the entire time?”
“As far as I could tell. At least up until they both disappeared.”
“When did that happen? When was the latest you can recall seeing them both together that night?”
Tara considered that, and Gavin could guess she was still struggling a little with orienting herself to time and space. And the alcohol wasn’t helping one bit. “I don’t know. About halfway along, I suppose. I wasn’t really paying that much attention to them. That was the dive master’s responsibility. At least that’s what we paid him to keep track of.”
“Right. Just trying to confirm a few things, is all. Now, how about you and Brett? When was the first time you and your husband got separated during the dive?”
Suddenly Tara’s face flushed bright red and she jumped up from her seat, almost stumbling over it in the process. “Look, am I a suspect in all this or something? Or do you really think Brett had anything to do with it? Because if so, I think we’re done answering questions here. I think Brett and I need to talk to a lawyer!”
Espinosa motioned for her to sit down, but she refused. He looked pleadingly to Gavin for help.
Gavin smiled gently, and kept his voice low and soothing. “Uh, Mrs. Cutler, you may be forgetting something here. This isn’t the United States, and you’re not under the protection of U.S. law. This is Mexico.” Actually, Gavin knew very well that Mexican law provided the same guarantee of right to counsel that existed under American law, but that right technically only kicked in after a suspect was arrested, so at the moment she had no real legal right to demand an attorney. But she did have a right to remain silent, which in fact was the very option that she in her drunken stupor was most likely trying to assert. But in criminal law, there’s a world of difference between trying something and actually doing it. So, of course, the real trick here was to find a way to keep her talking.
Espinosa spread his hands wide in a placating gesture. “Tell you what, why don’t we just try and finish up here really quick, and you can decide what questions you do and don’t want to answer, okay? Then we can all head off to bed and get a good night’s sleep.”
That seemed to have a calming effect on Tara, and she sat back down in the chair, if still somewhat reluctantly, her eyes flitting back and forth between the two men.
“Well, okay. But I’m warning you. If you start getting all accusatory, of either me or Brett, then I’m leaving.”
“Fair enough,” Espinosa agreed. “So let’s go at this a little differently, shall we? Are you saying you and Brett were within sight of each other the entire time you were down there?”
“Yeah, we were. Except for when we first went into the water and dropped to the bottom. He went first, so I didn’t actually see him until I met up with him at around sixty feet. But that wouldn’t have anything to do with Katy’s disappearance.”
“No, you’re right about that. Okay, so you said the last time you saw Katy and Trevor was about halfway through the dive. I’m told you went into the water at right around eight, so that would put Katy and Trevor together as late as eight thirty, am I right?”
“Or slightly later. I didn’t exactly check my dive computer, so I can’t be sure of the exact time.”
“I understand. So, when you did see them, were they swimming close together, side by side, or was one of them lingering behind the other a ways?”
“Yeah, Katy. She had a tendency to hang back a bit. I understand it drove Trevor nuts, because he always had to keep turning around to search for her. I imagine it must have been even worse at night.”
“When you say she hung back a bit, how far are we talking, exactly? Ten feet? Twenty? More?”
Tara thought about that. “It varied, I suppose. Mostly ten to twenty, but sometimes she would get distracted by something she was looking at and he wouldn’t notice until she was maybe fifty feet or so behind him
.”
“Did you notice that happening during the night dive? Katy hanging back at times by as much as fifty feet?”
“I can’t be sure. Like I said, I wasn’t paying all that much attention to them, I was just trying to keep track of Brett. But yeah, maybe once or twice, now that I think about it.”
“And during this entire time, did any of the other members of your group stray close to Trevor or Katy?”
Tara’s eyes slitted again, and her answer came out more like a hiss than anything else. “You mean, like, did Brett or I ever get close to them?”
“No, I—”
“Don’t get smart with me. I know exactly what you’re implying. Since I already told you Billie and Casey were swimming way up ahead of us, that only left Brett and me—”
She made like she was ready to stand up and storm out again, and Espinosa knew he needed to do something pretty quick to calm her back down. Keep her talking. “No, no, you’re right. I guess I wasn’t thinking it all the way through, is all. But you are absolutely right.” He flicked his eyes again toward Gavin, who cleared his throat to get her attention.
“Okay, just one last question if you will, Mrs. Cutler,” Gavin suggested as he flipped to a fresh page on his pad. “When you all grouped back up on the bottom at the end of the dive and then went up together, what were you thinking when you first realized Trevor and Katy were missing?”
That seemed to settle her down a little, and she thought about Gavin’s question for a short while before answering. “I-I think we all had the same idea, that they somehow got mixed up with another group and got separated. In fact, according to Trevor, that’s exactly what happened. Well, at least that’s what happened to him. And of course, that’s assuming you even believe his story. But then later, when we finally got back on the dive boat and heard that Trevor had popped up with another group, we all assumed Katy was with him. We didn’t even think to slap on a fresh tank and go looking for her. If we had, maybe we could have found her in time…”
