by M. S. Parker
“What reason do I have to lie?” I asked.
“To throw suspicion onto someone other than yourself,” Rheingard countered.
“What happened, Mrs. Lockwood?” Reed leaned forward again, putting his elbows on the table. “One year of matrimonial bliss and you were already tired of your husband?”
I could smell his cologne from where I was sitting, and it made me want to gag almost as much as his questions did.
“Did he beat you?” Rheingard asked.
“No!” I stared at the detective, shocked he would even ask such a question. “Allen was a kind, compassionate man. He never raised his hand to me or anyone else.”
“If he didn't hit you, what was it? Did he have an affair? Maybe one of those cute little workers at the vineyard?” Reed asked. “Did you catch them going at it in the office? Maybe right out in the open? Was that why you set fire to that row? Was that where they'd done it?”
My mouth was hanging open, but I couldn't seem to find the willpower to shut it. I couldn't believe they were asking this.
Reed kept going. “You'd only been married a year, but you'd been together for, what, eight years? That's a long time to only be getting it from one place.”
“You're a pig,” I snapped, face flaming. “Allen and I were happy together. He never cheated on me. We were going to start a family.”
I waited for that last statement to hurt, but it didn't. Maybe I was moving on. Or maybe I couldn't feel anything but anger and shock at what was happening.
“If you were happy together, then why'd you kill him?” Reed asked. “Or, maybe you were the one sleeping around, and he caught you. Was that it?”
“I didn't kill my husband,” I said. My nails dug into my palms and I concentrated on the pain to keep myself from slapping him. “It was either an accident or suicide, but that's your job to figure out. I just came in here to give you some information that might help with your investigation.”
“If it was an accident or suicide, Mrs. Lockwood, then we should only have found Allen's prints on his parachute pack, right? After all, he's the one who packed it. That's what you said.” Rheingard leaned forward now, folding his hands in front of him. “But we didn't only find Allen's prints. We found another set.” He paused for a moment, smoky blue eyes studying me. “We found your prints as well. Would you care to explain that?”
Chapter 2
That wasn't possible. There had to be some mistake. I hadn't touched Allen's pack at all. Had I?
I racked my brains, thinking back to that day that I wanted to forget. I'd tried so hard to push it to the back of my mind that it was hard to focus at first. We'd gotten to the airport and he told me what he planned. We talked to the pilot, the videographer, and the instructor who'd be going up with us even though we'd both done it before. Then, I'd gone to the bathroom, and when I came back, Allen had been ready to go. I'd packed my own chute, and we'd gotten onto the plane.
We kissed in the air before...it happened, but had we touched on the plane? I couldn't remember. The only thing I knew for sure was that I hadn't sabotaged his chute, either accidentally or on purpose. He'd had his packed before I'd come out of the bathroom.
After I'd gotten his letter, I assumed that had been why he'd packed his chute when I wasn't there, so I wouldn't see him rigging it not to open. He had to have sabotaged it since he needed it to look like an accident. If he just failed to pull the ripcord, it would've looked suspicious.
“Well, Mrs. Lockwood?” Rheingard asked. “How can you explain your fingerprints on your husband's pack when you told us that you didn't touch it?”
“I don't know.” I shook my head, confused. “I didn't pack it. Maybe I touched it on the plane, like when we were standing near each other. I wouldn't have thought of that before. He was wearing it, so I wouldn't really have been paying attention to where I was putting my hands.”
“You expect us to believe that the prints we pulled from the parachute itself came from you touching your husband's back while you were in the plane?” Reed asked.
Rheingard shot him a look I couldn't exactly read, but I got the impression that something about Reed's statement bothered him.
“I don't know how you found them,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “But I didn't touch that parachute.” An idea popped into my head and it blurted out of my mouth. “Maybe Allen switched them.”
“Switched what?” Reed asked.
“My pack and his. It's the only logical explanation. I wasn't even there when he packed his parachute, but I did pack mine, so my fingerprints would've been all over mine. If Allen packed a parachute, then switched my pack and his, my fingerprints would've been all over it.”
Reed snorted a laugh and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “You seriously expect us to buy that?”
“I don't care if you 'buy' it or not,” I said back at him. “It's the only possible explanation.” I was getting seriously sick of his patronizing tone.
“You think that sounds more logical than you wanting to kill your husband for his money?” Reed scratched his head and looked over at Rheingard. “I don't know, Anker, you think a jury will buy that load of crap?”
“I didn't kill my husband!” I snapped.
“You were wearing your rings when you came in, Mrs. Lockwood,” Reed continued. “You don't think that's the tiniest bit inappropriate? Banging your husband's best friend while still wearing your wedding rings? Or did you think that people might talk if you sold them too early?”
“I think your line of questioning is inappropriate.” I could feel tears burning against my eyelids, but I refused to cry. Not here. Not in front of them. “Do you think I want to believe my husband killed himself? That he chose to leave me, and to do it in such a horrible, vicious way right in front of me?” I leaned forward. “I don't care what you think you know, or what evidence you think you have, because it's never going to prove I killed my husband because I didn't do it. You could have a hundred of my fingerprints all over that pack and it still wouldn't mean that I'd done–”
I stopped suddenly when I saw Reed's eyes shift. It was small, but he'd clearly looked away. Then I remembered something I'd learned from watching one of those cop shows Allen always loved.
Police were allowed to lie to a suspect.
“There aren't any fingerprints, are there?” I asked softly. “Not mine anyway. You were trying to get me to incriminate myself or change my story.” I shook my head, giving them both a disgusted look. “Well, it might've worked. If I'd lied at any point, or if I'd actually done something wrong. But I'm innocent, so there wasn't a lie to catch me in.”
Reed and Rheingard exchanged glances, and I knew I was right.
“What will it take for the two of you to believe me?” I asked suddenly. “A written confession from my dead husband?” I gestured towards the papers in front of Detective Reed. “Oh, wait, you already have that.”
“What we have is a letter you could've written yourself,” Reed said. “Especially when we have a source who says that you sabotaged Allen's chute, and that you'd do anything to keep us from uncovering the truth, even making up false evidence.”
“A source.” I pressed my fingers against the top of the table. “Which Lockwood is it? May? Gregory? Or is it Marcus? Maybe they decided to get Alice in on the action? None of them like me and they have everything to gain if I go to jail.”
“It's called an anonymous source for a reason,” Reed snapped back.
“Faris!” Rheingard's voice was sharp and he glared at his partner.
Apparently, sharing that bit of information with me hadn't been a part of their strategy.
“Is this anonymous source going to testify in court that they saw something I didn't do? In front of a jury. Under oath.” I looked from Reed to Rheingard and back again. “I think you know exactly who this person is, but it doesn't matter if you do or not. We all know that they're not going to come forward, because they didn't see anything, a
nd they're not going to risk going to jail for perjury. The reason they didn't see anything is because there was nothing to see.”
If this was an ordinary case, they never would've been allowed to arrest me on the uncorroborated word of an anonymous source and I would've walked out of there as soon as I delivered my little speech. But this wasn't a normal case because the Lockwoods had a long reach, and Allen had been well-known and well-liked.
I also thought Detective Reed was just a dick.
I didn't walk out after my speech. No higher-up in the department came in and told the detectives that they'd gotten it wrong and that they had to let me go. Instead, I went over my story again. And again. At one point, I was pretty sure they had me tell it backwards. No matter which way they came at me, my replies stayed the same because I was telling the truth. They just didn't want to accept it.
I lost track of how long I'd been there. Without windows or my phone, it was impossible for me to know how much time had passed, only that it began to feel like I'd been in that tiny room forever. I knew that couldn't be true since, legally, they had to put me in front of a judge within twenty-four hours of my arrest, and since it was a Saturday, they were going to have to do it soon. The knowledge didn't help the time move any differently though.
I considered asking to use the bathroom, just to get a bit of a change of scenery, but I knew that the detectives – and anyone who happened to be on the other side of that two-way glass – were watching my every move. They'd look at how I crossed my legs, my arms. How I held my head and when I blinked. When I hesitated. How much I drank, when I drank.
At one point, I thought it might be a good idea to ask for a lawyer just to try to get things to move along a bit faster, but I knew as soon as I did that, they'd assume I was guilty. Not having one and continuing to answer their questions with the same information over and over was my best defense.
After what I assumed was at least a couple of hours, the door to the interrogation room opened and a sour-faced older man stepped inside.
“Mrs. Lockwood's lawyer is here.”
I opened my mouth to say that I hadn't requested a lawyer, but then Savill Henley walked past the older cop and came to my side. I had no idea how he'd found out about the arrest, but I couldn't deny that I was relieved to see him, if for no other reason than I was glad to have someone there who didn't think I was a murderer.
“Mrs. Lockwood is done answering your questions. If you want to speak with her again, call me.” He glared at the detectives.
Savill Henley was in his late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and the large build of a once-muscular man who was starting to go to seed. He was also a corporate attorney who dealt with business matters and had taken care of Allen's will and things like that. He wasn't a criminal lawyer, but he'd been there for me through the Lockwoods' attempts to take my home, and had dealt with the Aime Vargas situation. A murder charge would definitely be out of his depth, but he wasn't showing even the slightest indication that he didn't know exactly what he was doing.
“Your client is under arrest for murder.” Detective Reed stood.
He was probably used to intimidating people with his badge and the fact that his stocky build looked quite solid, but Henley towered over the younger man by more than a few inches, and intimidation was a bit tougher when you had to look up at the other person.
“Not anymore.” The sour-faced man spoke up from the doorway. “It seems that Judge Hanson felt that she'd been deceived regarding the evidence the ADA said he had against Mrs. Lockwood.”
Detective Reed shifted in his seat.
“The judge is looking in to whether or not it was a misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of facts on the part of ADA Kline.”
I glanced at the detectives and Reed's ears were turning red. I hoped they'd do a thorough investigation, because I had a feeling my arrest hadn't been a mistake on the part of the assistant district attorney or the judge. It wouldn't have surprised me if Detective Reed had pulled that same “fingerprints on the parachute” lie to get an arrest warrant signed. I wasn't sure how much Rheingard had been in on it though. Either he was innocent, or was just much better at concealing his thoughts. It didn't really matter to me. All I cared about was that this was over.
“Mrs. Lockwood's arrest warrant has been voided,” the sour-faced man continued. “She's free to go.”
“Lieutenant,” Reed protested.
“Watch it, Detective,” the lieutenant snapped. “I want to see you and your partner in the captain's office. Now.”
“Before you go,” Henley said. He tossed three separate, folded sheets of paper. “One is a copy of my request for a third, neutral party to be called in to investigate the authenticity of the documents Mrs. Lockwood brought in. The other two are suits – one civil and one legal – against your department for your treatment of my client. Detectives Reed and Rheingard are specifically named.”
“You can't do that!” Reed spluttered. “We're just doing our job!”
Henley leveled a contemptuous gaze at the detective. “I suppose that will be determined after the judge takes a look at the evidence you used to secure an arrest warrant for my client.”
With the way Reed's face was coloring, I certainly hoped he didn't have a heart condition. The last thing I needed was for him to have a heart attack and try to blame that on me too.
“You're free to go, Mrs. Lockwood.” The lieutenant didn't even look at me as I stood.
My knees popped and my legs were stiff as I walked past the detectives and out the door. I kept my head up as I walked out into the station, determined that no one would see how completely humiliated and upset I was about what happened. I wasn't about to give anyone the satisfaction.
My steps faltered only once, and it was when I was halfway through the station and saw who was waiting at the doors. I caught myself though and managed to walk right past Jasper without a word or a look in his direction.
Chapter 3
I didn't stop until I was outside in front of the courthouse. It was warm for this time of year, pushing the high sixties, and the people of St. Helena were out and about, enjoying the sunny afternoon. If I hadn't just come out of several hours of being accused of murdering my husband, I probably would've been just as enamored with the weather as everyone else. At the moment, it was little more than a distraction.
“Shae,” Henley came up behind me.
“How'd you know to come?” I was pretty sure I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it.
“Jasper called me,” Henley admitted. “He said the two of you had a fight yesterday and he left. He came back this morning, saw that you and that medical file were gone. He called a friend at the county clerk's office who told him about the arrest warrant, and then he called me.”
“Figures,” I muttered. I closed my eyes and ran my hand over my face. “Did he tell you what we fought about?”
“No, but I'm guessing it had something to do with those files you gave to the police.”
I nodded.
“I don't want to discuss them now,” Henley said. “Everything was so rushed, and since this isn't exactly my forte, I need some time to look things over.”
“I thought you said the judge invalidated the arrest warrant?” I couldn't keep the frustration out of my voice.
“Yes, but that doesn't mean the case goes away.” Henley squinted up into the sun. “Why don't you come into my office on Monday morning and we'll go over everything. Can you go in to work late?”
“The art teacher has the elementary kids working on a project for Thanksgiving, so she'll have them for the first part of the morning.” I made a silent note to thank Gina. I could arrange things much easier with Principal Sanders this way.
“I'll see you first thing then.” Henley paused, and then added, “We'll get through this, Shae.”
He gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder and then walked away. I felt bad for him having to get involved in all of this, especia
lly since this wasn't the kind of law he generally practiced. He'd been so good to me over the last couple months, helping me deal with the will, the surprise insurance policy. He'd taken meetings with the Lockwoods and their lawyers where they basically treated him like he didn't know his ass from his elbow – as my mother had been fond of saying. Then he'd gotten involved in the whole paternity suit, and had not only managed to get it thrown out, he'd helped out the real biological father in getting things started to have custody taken away from Aime Vargas as well as getting criminal charges filed against her for extortion. He'd gone above and beyond, and now I was asking him to do it again.
If this thing didn't go away, I needed to make sure that he was comfortable proceeding alone. If he felt the need, I wanted him to know he could have me hire a criminal attorney to work with him. I just didn't want him to completely put the case aside. I was having serious trust issues, and he was pretty much the only person I felt comfortable having handle something this important.
“Shae!”
Speaking of trust issues...
My entire body tensed at the sound of Jasper's voice. I was tempted to run away. Well, not literally, but at least walk away at a brisk pace, pretending I hadn't heard him. My car was in a side lot at the back, so I knew there was a chance I could get to it before Jasper reached me, but if he decided he didn't care about running, there was no way I could make it. I was torn between my pride keeping me from sprinting for my car and having to face Jasper. To make things worse, there was a part of me deep inside that wanted to wait, wanted to talk to him. I missed him, especially after what just happened. He'd been there for me through everything else, and my natural instinct was to turn to him. But a larger part of me wished he didn’t exist.
I was saved from having to make a decision when he was suddenly there, his hand closing around my wrist, holding me in place as he stepped around me so we were face-to-face, his muscular body blocking me from going around him. I could go backwards – I knew he'd release my wrist if I pulled away – or I could step out into the street, but those were my only two options for escape. The only other thing I could do was stand there and hear what he had to say.
