by B. J Daniels
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Nash had been a cop for too long. There was no way Jonathan Fairbanks would fork over twenty-five grand to a blackmailer. Especially someone like Lucinda.
But Jonathan had. And that’s what scared the hell out of Nash as he looked at his young wife.
IT WAS LATE BY THE TIME Walker drove to Tiny’s Garage where Anna Collins’s car had been taken.
The garage, one of two in Shadow Lake, was closed this time of year. That’s why the police department used it to store vehicles involved in accidents that needed to be investigated by the state patrol.
Walker planned to get in and out as quickly as possible. The state boys would be down tomorrow and take over the case. He knew this would be his only chance to check out the Cadillac. His fear was doing anything more that could jeopardize the case against Anna Collins.
He parked next to the darkened garage and hesitated, telling himself he shouldn’t be here. Nash had made it clear that he was to let him and the state boys take it from here.
Walker had already screwed it up by opening the trunk. He’d catch holy hell for that. A good lawyer would use that to try to get Anna acquitted. But when he’d had the trunk opened, he sure as hell hadn’t expected to find a body. He’d just been curious about why she’d put that damned suitcase in the backseat of such a nice car instead of putting it in the huge trunk.
Swearing under his breath, he got out of the patrol car and used the police station’s master key to open the garage.
It was pitch-black inside the shop. He felt around for the light switch, flipped the switch and blinked as the overhead lights came on.
Anna Collins’s Cadillac sat in the middle of the largest bay, the one used for motor homes. The top was crushed, the pretty blue paint scraped off from being dragged up the steep mountain over the rocks and sheered-off trees. A piece of pine bough was caught in one door, and the interior was still soaking wet.
As he stepped closer, he drew the latex gloves from his pocket and tugged them on over his large hands.
The suitcase had fallen into the backseat again after the tow operator had righted the car for the trip into town.
He didn’t dare look inside the suitcase, although he was curious about what he’d find there.
He’d been so sure there was something not quite right about Anna Collins’s story. Being right gave him little satisfaction.
Now he wondered if he was also right about his suspicion that she’d purposely driven her car into the lake—and hadn’t even been in the car when the Cadillac had gone into the water. At first he’d thought she’d done it for attention from her husband who was supposedly divorcing her.
He suspected now that she’d done it to get rid of the body, but that something had gone wrong and she’d ended up getting caught in the car and going into the lake as well. Hadn’t she realized the car would be pulled from the lake and the body discovered?
No doubt she hadn’t been thinking straight. Still wasn’t, if she was to be believed. Like coming up with the story that Jack Fairbanks had saved her life. Walker still couldn’t believe she’d gone out to the island.
But this was turning into a cop’s dream case. It had it all: the body—complete with bullet hole—in the wife’s car trunk, the husband’s alleged affair with the victim and the wife’s threat to kill the victim. All that was missing was the gun.
It all wrapped up so nicely. Even with him blowing some crucial evidence, Walker didn’t doubt that the state boys would be able to make a case for murder one.
He approached the driver’s-side door of the Cadillac and, clasping the door handle, carefully swung the door open.
Reaching for his flashlight, he clicked it on and shone the beam into the front seat. Sure enough, the seat belt wasn’t connected. So it hadn’t been jammed, after all.
He pulled on the belt and felt a start. The driver’s side restraint had been cut. Holding the cut end under the beam of the flashlight, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The end hadn’t been cut clean. The edge was ragged, as if sawed through in a manner that would suggest urgency.
He let out a breath. What the hell? Leaning in, he shone the flashlight beam around the inside front of the Cadillac, looking for what Anna Collins had used to cut the seat belt. She must have had one of those tools…
There was nothing in the front of the car, but he told himself it could have been lost when the car was retrieved from the lake.
He looked at the seat belt again. On closer inspection, he saw that whatever had been used to cut the seat belt had left some kind of shiny residue. And that’s when it came to him.
If he was trapped underwater drowning, with nothing to cut a jammed seat belt, what would he use? He’d heard of guys using fingernail clippers, dull pocketknives, a piece of glass. Automobiles now came with safety glass, which was worthless for cutting anything.
The only other thing you might find in a car, especially a fancy one, was a vanity mirror.
He flipped down Anna Collins’s visor and saw the gaping jagged hole where the mirror had been ripped out. As he shone his flashlight over the front of the car again, he didn’t see any pieces of broken mirror on the floor.
Then he remembered. The car had been upside down on the bottom of the lake, according to Anna Collins’s story. He shone the beam on the headliner and spotted the tiny slivers of the mirrored glass embedded in the lush fabric.
The seat belt hadn’t just been cut with a piece of broken mirror. It had been sawed, with the car upside down at the bottom of the lake.
Walker swore again. Cutting a seat belt with a piece of broken mirror would have been an extraordinary feat for a man trapped upside down underwater—let alone a woman.
And it would have been impossible for the person not to cut herself.
He recalled Anna Collins’s hands during his interviews with her. There hadn’t been any cuts. Had she worn gloves?
Suddenly he wasn’t so sure. Anna wasn’t a physically strong woman. Doc was right about Anna being weak after everything she’d been through. She’d lost a lot of weight during her time in a coma and clearly hadn’t gained it back in the two months since. According to Doc, it was one reason she’d contracted pneumonia.
Did Walker really think Anna could have cut the seat belt? But if she hadn’t, then who had?
With a curse, he closed the car door and went back to the trunk. The lid had been secured with a bungee cord to keep it from opening, since Walker had broken the lock.
He removed the strap and lifted the lid. Shining his flashlight into the trunk, he considered how Anna could have lifted the dead weight of someone Gillian’s size. It seemed impossible.
That’s when he saw the bullet hole. He blinked. That’s how she did it. She had Gillian climb into the trunk and then she shot her. The beam of the flashlight made a large gold circle on the pale blue carpeted bottom of the trunk. He stared at it, not realizing at first what he was seeing.
He hadn’t questioned it before, since the car had been underwater and he’d just assumed the water would have washed away any evidence.
His heart began to pound. He hurried out to his patrol car, got his forensics kit from the back and entered the garage again.
He knew even before he sprayed the luminol onto the carpet he wasn’t going to find the blood residue which should have been there. He swore and felt his head spin.
Gillian Sanders had been shot in the trunk of this car and yet there was no blood. Which could mean only one thing. She was already dead when she’d been put into the trunk—and the gunshot to her temple hadn’t been what killed her. So given there was no blood at all in the trunk, how the hell had Gillian Sanders been killed?
ANNA COULDN’T BELIEVE SHE’D taken the gun when she went to see Gillian.
What had she been thinking when she’d been hit with the news about Marc and Gillian coming right after the rollercoaster ride of the divorce and Marc changing his mind? Gil
lian’s betrayal could have been the last straw. How could Anna be sure what she’d done?
“Please, I need you to leave.” She felt as if they’d been at this for hours. It had definitely been longer than five minutes. She thought about ringing for Dr. Brubaker but feared Marc would get into it with him.
“Marc, please.”
“I know. You’d never hurt Gillian,” he said in a mocking tone. “Then what was she doing in the trunk of your car and the cops asking about your gun?”
She looked at him, eyes narrowing. “The police wouldn’t have known about the gun unless you told them. You’re the one who insisted I get that gun,” she said, remembering how he’d forced it on her. “You know I hated having a gun in the house. I wouldn’t even touch it.”
“Well, apparently you did more than touch it.” He shook his head at her. “I never dreamed you’d kill Gillian or I wouldn’t have told you about the two of us.”
She didn’t bother to argue the point again. “What do you want, Marc?” She felt nothing but contempt for him. He’d hurt her so badly, blaming her for Tyler’s death when she’d been too sick from the accident to fight back. When she’d blamed herself and was grieving. When she’d needed someone so desperately to give her comfort.
“Nothing,” he said, looking at her.
Anna felt too tired to speak. Just looking at the man she had once loved drained life out of her. But she had to ask, “Why didn’t you go through with the divorce, really?”
“Why can’t you believe I wanted to salvage our marriage?”
“Did you ever love me?” she asked, her voice a whisper.
“I thought you would make me a good wife.”
“I thought I had.”
His gaze met hers, his a mixture of anger and alcohol and…fear. The fear surprised her. Gillian’s call. What had Gillian said to her on the phone? Something that had sent her rushing to her friend’s house. Not about an affair. Something else. Something that had made Anna furious enough to take the gun.
She frowned, realizing how little sense that made. She wouldn’t have been furious by news of a possible witness to the hit-and-run. And she couldn’t believe she would have felt more than hurt about what transpired between Gillian and Marc.
So why was Marc still afraid if all he was worried about was Gillian telling Anna about the two of them?
“The doctor says this time my memory will come back,” she said, knowing it was the last thing Marc wanted to hear.
The look on his face confirmed her suspicions. Gillian had told her something that night that Marc didn’t want Anna to remember.
“What else did you tell the police about me?” she asked.
He gave her a droll look. “I had to tell them the truth. That I wanted to reconcile, start over with a clean slate, no secrets. When I told you about me and Gillian, you went ballistic.”
Didn’t he realize she knew him so well she could tell when he was lying? Obviously not. “Why, if I was so upset and had the gun, why didn’t I shoot you?”
“Because women always blame the other woman,” he said. “Especially after I told you that Gillian begged me not to tell you.”
That sounded nothing like Gillian. Anna felt an awful ache in her chest at the reminder that Gillian was gone.
“Why did I pack a suitcase?” she asked.
He shrugged. “You were leaving me.”
“But it was my house.” She’d bought the house with her own money.
“It was our house and, as your husband, I had every right to move back in,” he growled.
That’s why she’d been packing so furiously. Marc had planned to stay in the house. She must have been going to a motel until she could get her lawyer to have Marc evicted. That’s why she hadn’t taken the time to change her clothes. She’d left to get away from him.
Or had it been to get to Gillian’s? Something about her friend’s call?
“You broke my heart, Anna. I wanted this marriage to work. You know I’ve been having financial problems with house sales down…”
“Who took my suitcase downstairs?” she asked.
“What?” He looked like he might have heart failure. “I’m pouring my guts out here and you’re worried about your damned suitcase?”
“Did you put it in the backseat or the trunk?”
“The trunk.” He frowned. “You were struggling with it so I carried it down for you. Why do you care where…” He gave her a knowing smirk. “I guess you moved the suitcase to put Gillian’s body in the trunk after you killed her.”
She didn’t bother to deny it. Instead, she tried to remember the drive out to Gillian’s, ringing the doorbell…
She looked up to find Marc standing next to the bed and it suddenly hit her. If convicted of murder, she would be going to prison and Marc, as her husband, would have the house and everything else, including her money.
“YOU KNOW I ONLY ASSIST ON autopsies,” Dr. Brubaker said as they entered the morgue at the funeral home. “I really don’t think this is a good idea, Walker.”
“We’re just going to take a preliminary look at the body,” he said as he pulled out Gillian Sanders’s body and handing a pair of latex gloves to Doc, snapped on a fresh pair of his own before he unzipped the body bag.
Doc sighed and stepped closer to inspect the body. Walker watched him inspect the bullet hole in Gillian Sanders’s temple.
The cold water of the lake had preserved the body well. Nothing like the lake water had done to Jack Fairbanks’s body.
Walker had to look away for a moment at the thought of Jack’s decomposed body. No one would have been able to get a positive identification from it. Jonathan had provided dental records. Walker frowned, remembering how the coroner had said they matched that of the dead man.
Doc cleared his voice.
Walker turned back to him. “Well?”
“I can only give you my opinion. Until there is an autopsy…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Walker said impatiently. “Sorry,” he said at Doc’s chastising look.
“See this?” He pointed to a spot on the side of Gillian’s head. “I believe she died of blunt force trauma to the head. She definitely did not die from the bullet wound. She was shot after she was dead.”
“I’ll be damned,” Walker said as he watched Doc carefully rezip the bag and return the body to the cooler.
“I need to get back to my patient,” Doc said. He seemed to hesitate. “What does this mean for Anna?”
Walker shook his head—he wished he knew. But there was somewhere he had to go, something he should have done sooner. Something he had to do tonight before the state boys got here.
As he drove out of town, he realized he was starting to believe at least some of what Anna Collins had told him.
Incredibly, she’d survived the crash off the mountain and escaped drowning after being trapped in the car at the bottom of the lake.
He couldn’t ignore that more of her story might be true. Obviously not the part about who had saved her life. But what if she had been meeting someone at the rest stop? There was another Fairbanks brother and if anyone was capable of a clandestine meeting late at night in an isolated spot, it was Jonathan Fairbanks.
Walker passed no other cars as he drove up the mountain road. His mind was reeling. Anna Collins couldn’t have cut that seat belt with the mirror. Nor, he realized, could she have lifted Gillian Sanders into the trunk.
Just past the spot where Anna had gone off the highway, his headlights picked up the turnoff to the rest stop.
He recalled what Marc Collins had told him about putting Anna’s suitcase in the trunk of the Cadillac.
So when had the suitcase ended up in the backseat of the car and Gillian Sanders’s body in the trunk? At Gillian’s house? Or at the Shadow Lake rest stop?
The rest stop was closed for the season, the road in barricaded with a gate. The buildings sat back off the highway, the gate a quarter of the way in, leaving room for a person to pull off, sin
ce past the rest stop was a scenic view of the lake that could be walked to.
As he swung his patrol car in to park, he could barely make out the rest-stop building through the pines. But closer, there were muddy tracks where more than one car had driven around the gate.
“Oh, hell,” he muttered. He’d dismissed Anna Collins’s story—especially after she’d told about the man who’d saved her life and the description matched that of Jack Fairbanks, a dead man.
But Walker knew he’d let that—and his biases about the woman—cloud his judgment, just as Doc had accused.
He parked, cut the engine and lights and sat for a moment, the darkness seeming to close in around him. Blackness had settled into the pines and along the shadowy sides of the isolated closed-for-the-season rest-stop buildings.
Behind the structures, Walker knew that a rusted fence marked the scenic view where the land dropped over a cliff to the lake far below. To the right of the closed buildings was a handicap-access trail to the overlook. To the left was another closed road. This one led to a small county gravel pit.
He picked up his flashlight, opened the car door and stepped out. Up here on the mountain the air was colder, damper, and the rain felt more imminent. Walker snapped on his flashlight, pointed the beam at the tracks in the mud.
There were two sets of distinguishable car tracks. Both had gone in, but only one had come back out.
Unsnapping the release on his holstered weapon, he followed the tracks back into the darkness of the pines. A few yards in, he stopped to listen. Something rustled in the brush off to his right. He felt himself tense until he heard it again, along with the chatter of a squirrel.
Careful not to disturb what could be a crime scene, he made a wide circle to the rest-stop building, shining the flashlight on the locks to make sure they were still intact. They were.
Two sets of the car tracks indicated where two drivers had turned around. Only one of them had left, though. The other car tracks trailed off to the left of the rest-stop buildings toward the old gravel pit.
