Veritas

by Anne Laughlin

  “Tea, if you could.”

  Sally sent the officer stationed outside the room on the errand and then turned on the recording equipment on the table, stating the date and time of the interview, the names of the parties.

  “Mr. Landscome, do you acknowledge having been read your rights at the time of your arrest?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do you understand those rights?”

  “I’m a college president. Of course I understand them.”

  “And do you waive those rights at this time?”

  Landscome was silent for a moment. The tea was brought in and he fussed with it a bit before answering. “I did not have anything to do with John Barrow’s murder. If I bring a lawyer in, he will not allow me to answer any questions and you’ll not see that you have nothing to hold me on. So for the time being, I waive my right to counsel.”

  “Mr. Landscome, you say you didn’t have anything to do with John Barrow’s murder. Can you explain to me, then, why you lied about your whereabouts on the night of the murder?”

  Sally thought he was a little relieved. “Yes, well, that was daft of me, frankly. I should have realized that you would actually call Brown’s Hotel to verify my stay there. They answered your questions, did they?”

  Sally took a piece of paper and slid it across the table. “An affidavit from the manager of the hotel saying you never checked in.”

  “Ah. Well, here’s the thing of it. You may or may not know that I have lived in this area of the country for a long time and ran a successful Fortune 1000 company in Center City for many years.”

  “And?”

  “My late wife and I bought a lovely cottage on Lake McDeere and spent many weekends there. That’s where I was.”

  “Why would you tell your staff you were in London when you were at Lake McDeere?” Sally asked. “And then lie about it to the police?”

  Landscome took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief, taking his time putting them back on. “You’ve no idea how stressful it is running this college. I think running AgriCorp was easier; in fact, I’m sure of it. I just found that I needed to get away for a bit without anyone bothering me. It seemed a perfectly good idea at the time.”

  “Who would be able to confirm that you were at your cottage last Friday?”

  “No one, I’m afraid. Unless someone saw me drive up, but I don’t know who that would be. The place is well stocked, you see, and I’d brought a few things from home for the fridge. I didn’t stop anywhere on the way.”

  “I still don’t understand why you felt the need to sneak around. As you keep reminding us, you’re the president of the college. Can’t you do what you want?”

  A brief scowl came on Landscome’s face. “Really, the pressure is enormous to always be pushing something forward, assuaging people’s wounded egos, hitting up the most tedious of alumni and other donors for ever more money, putting out fires, and the like, all while looking ‘presidential.’ I just returned from a long vacation a few weeks ago and I didn’t feel the administrators would understand my need for more time away.”

  Sally opened her file and leafed through a few pages. Landscome resumed. “Tell me, Chief Sullivan. What do you have that puts me at the scene of this murder? It can’t be anything, because I wasn’t there. So perhaps we are at an impasse?”

  “No, I don’t think we’re at an impasse,” Sally said, pulling the four 8 x 10 inch photographs from the bottom of her file. The last bit of color drained from his face as she spread them out on the table. “I think your troubles are just beginning.”

  “I want to call my attorney,” Landscome said. And then he shut up.

  “Do you know where we found these, Mr. Landscome? We found them in Barrow’s computer,” Sally continued. “But it looks to me like you know that already.”

  Sally shuffled the photos around in front of him, knowing he could hear them. He kept his eyes clamped shut.

  “I’m sure any jury—particularly once they see this young girl—is going to find it easy to return a guilty verdict on the child sexual abuse charges. I’d say that’s a slam dunk, there. Tying her hands behind her back will certainly make an impression.”

  Landscome’s breath was coming in short rasps.

  “Are you feeling a little panicky, Mr. Landscome? I would be too if I was thinking about doing time for this crime. They are so nasty to people like you in the penitentiary.”

  Landscome leveled his gaze at Sally. “I said I want my attorney.”

  “Sure, sure. We’ll get you to a phone in just a minute. I think you’d be making a mistake, though, not helping us clear up a few things. It would help you out, for instance, if we knew that it was Barrow taking these photographs. Chances are you wouldn’t be the only one he’s been blackmailing.”

  “Get me a phone, Chief Sullivan. I know my rights here.”

  Sally went at him a couple more times, but he was clammed up. She left him in the interview room while an officer brought him a phone and left the station to check on the search at Landscome’s house. She found Bob in the kitchen and asked him what they’d found.

  “Not a damn thing, Chief, unless you count a collection of vintage Playboy magazines in his closet,” Bob reported.

  “Have you been through everything?”

  “We’re just finishing up in the garage and car, but there’s nothing here. He lives like a slob, though.”

  Sally found Ted and briefed him on Landscome’s new alibi before sending him to Lake McDeere to check it out. Then she got in her squad to return to the station and called Beth on her way.

  “It’s Sally.”

  “I know. You’re already programmed into my phone. There’s no going back now, Chief.”

  Sally laughed. “You sound a little more relaxed.”

  “I shouldn’t be, but I am. Go figure. Word has already hit us that the police have invited the president to the station for a chat. Is it true?”

  “You didn’t hear it confirmed by me. You were with me when I heard about the alibi being blown. Now he’s saying that he wasn’t actually in London, he was at his cottage at Lake McDeere. Apparently you all were working on his last nerve and he needed to get away.”

  “So he was in the area the night of the murder? But why would he want to kill Barrow? He was the only one who liked the man.”

  “I actually can’t tell you everything just yet, plus I’ve got to get going. I just wanted to call to say hi.”

  “Any chance we can connect later?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. It looks like we’ll be at the station for a while. Can I call you later?” Sally wanted to put the investigation on hold and concentrate only on Beth. Compared to the feelings blossoming for her, the urgency of finding whether the loathsome Landscome killed the boorish Barrow seemed much diminished. But duty was not only what was required of her, it was also her habit.

  Beth told her to be careful and they hung up. And as soon as they did, Sally felt an intense desire for her, that physical thrum that shoots through the body when you’re newly with a person, originating with a thought, terminating between the legs. Sally thought it was remarkable, one of the marvels of human existence, and at the moment, really inconvenient.

  There were several officers congregating around the rear entrance to the station, a couple smoking and a couple others keeping them company, Jake among them. As Sally pulled into her parking space they started to break up and head inside, Jake waiting with the door held open.

  “Chief, Landscome’s lawyer just showed up. He looks younger than me.”

  “How old are you, Jake?”

  “I’m twenty-two.”

  “Well, the lawyer’s probably at least twenty-five, unless he is one of the genius types who go through college really early.”

  “I hope not, for our sake.”

  “I’m not scared, Jake. We’ll get this guy if he’s guilty.”

  Sally poked her head in the interview room to see what the young lawye
r had to say for himself. Jake was right. His round face and bowl haircut made him look about eighteen years old. He sat in a chair next to Landscome, who looked mortified.

  “There’s been some kind of mistake at my attorney’s law firm,” Landscome said. “They’ve sent the wrong person, clearly, and we’ll just have to wait until proper representation arrives.”

  The young man rose and reached a hand out to Sally. “I’m Ronald Liebson, from Hansen, Peters & Jones.” Liebson’s baritone voice was unexpected coming from his boyish face. “Mr. Landscome’s chief counsel handles only corporate matters, so I was sent to take care of this misunderstanding, having just spent a year at the state attorney’s criminal division, as I’ve just explained to Mr. Landscome. If you could give us another fifteen minutes, we will be pleased to meet with you and conclude this interview.”

  Sally left them to it, returning in a quarter hour with a fresh cup of coffee in her hand. Ronald Liebson began talking before Sally sat.

  “I have had a chance to learn what my client knows of this situation, and as you can imagine, he’s anxious to get this cleared up. Therefore, we will continue the interview, obviously with me present.”

  “Then we’ll pick up where we left off,” Sally said. “Mr. Landscome, when and where were these photographs taken?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And how is that possible?”

  “It’s possible because that’s not me in the photos and therefore I have no idea where and when they were taken. They have nothing to do with me.”

  Landscome had clearly regained some of his confidence. Sally peered at each of the photos.

  “When I look at these, there’s no question in my mind that it’s you. Same hair, same build, same face.”

  “Chief Sullivan, perhaps we can clear this up with a simple bit of show-and-tell.” Liebson took the photos and lined them up. “I observed on three of these photos that the angle is such that a large mole or birthmark can be seen on the upper right thigh of the male subject. I asked my client whether he had such a marking and he said that he does not. He has consented to demonstrate this to you.”

  Sally wondered about the sudden rapprochement between Landscome and Liebson, and now realized it came about because Liebson sounded like someone who knew what he was doing.

  Sally sighed and pushed herself up from the table. “Fine. Let me arrange for a photo to be taken.” Within a couple minutes Jake came in with a digital camera. Landscome stood and lowered his trousers. Below his blue-striped boxer shorts was an angry red scar that extended an inch or so above and below the area where the photo subject’s mole appeared to be.

  “Did you have a butcher remove your mole, Mr. Landscome? That seems like a big scar.”

  “I had no such thing removed, and no examination will indicate that there was any mole in that spot. It is simply bizarre coincidence that I fell upon some broken glass a month or so ago and required sutures.”

  “Exactly in the spot where a mole appeared on the leg of a man forcing a pubescent girl to suck him off. Lovely. Jake, take a photo so this fucking animal can pull his pants up.”

  “Excuse me, Chief, but there’s no call to abuse my client.”

  “There isn’t?” Sally swept up the four photos and threw them at Landscome in disgust. “I’d say that’s plenty of reason.”

  She leaned back in her chair and took a breath. “I’m going to ask you these questions one more time, and as your attorney can tell you, things will go a lot easier for you if you answer them truthfully. One, and this goes back to our first interview in your home, why did you insist on bringing John Barrow to the college?”

  Landscome acted both bored and annoyed. “As I’ve said, it was simply my ongoing desire to set a higher tone here at Grafton College. The man was highly qualified.”

  “And yet there’s nothing in his file that speaks to his qualifications. Why is that? Did you just make up the fact that he was highly recommended by senior faculty at the London School of Economics, just the way you made up your recent trip to London and your run-in with the broken glass?”

  Liebson jumped in. “Chief, I don’t know what these letters have to do with anything at issue here. I understand that the murder victim was a member of the faculty. If letters were missing from his file, surely that’s an administrative matter.”

  “No, it’s a piece of the puzzle that shows Landscome brought Barrow here for some reason other than his competency—like blackmail, for instance. But we’ll get back to the letters. Number two, do you deny that you told me, in my official capacity, that you were in London at the time of Barrow’s murder, when in fact you were here in the area?”

  “I do not deny it. If that constitutes obstruction of justice or some similar charge, then I’ll just have to deal with it. It never occurred to me that I would be charged with Mr. Barrow’s murder. My lie was to cover up my whereabouts from my staff, as I’ve explained.”

  “And three, do you deny that this is you in these photographs in front of you?”

  “I deny it without any hesitation.”

  Ronny Liebson now leaned forward and folded his hands. “Chief, I think a call to your state’s attorney will result in him instructing you to release my client. There will be nothing found in your search of my client’s home and you have absolutely no evidence that the man in these photos is my client, other than a passing resemblance. We both know that without further foundation, a defense lawyer will destroy their credibility. We don’t know who took them and we don’t know where they were taken. You will have no evidence of motive. In addition, you have absolutely no physical evidence that my client was at the scene of the crime—ever. With all due respect for your zeal, I suggest that you cut my client loose before he gives any serious thought to an unlawful arrest action.”

  Sally once again pushed back her chair and headed out the door, motioning Jake with her. In her office she called the state’s attorney she’d spoken to earlier, a bulldog of a prosecutor named Rhonda Lenski. As soon as Rhonda heard there was no confession and no physical evidence found at his house, she told Sally to release him.

  “But what about that ludicrous scar on his leg? It’s so obvious he cut out the one thing on his body that someone could match to the photos.”

  “Ludicrous, yes, but on its own it’s not enough, not even with the lie about his alibi. It’s too little and too circumstantial. Bring me something else, Sally, and I’ll nail him. And if we can find out where those photos came from, maybe we can nail whoever provided those girls.”

  Sally sent Jake out to release Landscome. She didn’t want to set eyes on the man.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Lou’s Diner at nine in the morning was a crowded, noisy place. The action started at five, when truckers and shift workers came in to fuel up before they headed to the job, followed by farmers after they’d finished up their morning chores. By nine there were mostly town workers and college people in the diner. Beth sat in a booth with a bowl of grits and the local paper. The cowbells over the door to Lou’s clanged and she looked up to see Mel and Katie walk in. Mel spotted her and with a big grin on her face steered Katie over to Beth’s booth and sat.

  “This is so cool that you’re here. This is Katie. Isn’t she great?”

  “Mel, I’ve known Katie for two years.”

  Katie shrugged and smiled at Mel. “I try not to dampen her enthusiasm, Beth. It’s so infectious.”

  Mona came by and took orders.

  “So I guess you’ve talked to Delilah?” Beth asked.

  “No, not yet. I’m seeing her tomorrow night—Wednesday is sort of a standing date—and I plan to tell her then,” Katie said.

  “I say we go over there right now and tell her together, but Katie seems to think that’s a bad idea,” Mel said.

  “I’m with Katie on that. You have to treat her with respect, Mel. You’re just going to make this a big thing if you get all ‘she’s my woman now’ about it.”

  “Ame
n,” Katie said.

  “Anyway,” Beth continued, “it’s not like Delilah is unreasonable. She feels hurt like anyone does. I don’t think she hurts more, it’s just that she’s very vocal about it. When I broke up with her we had to talk it over more than once.”

  “I thought you said it took a while for her to get over it,” Mel said.

  “What can I say? I’m hard to get over,” Beth teased. “Seriously, though, we did talk several times over several months, and that was fine. She just had to understand that I wasn’t going to change my mind.”

  Beth knew that Katie had bigger problems right now than how Delilah was going to react to her breaking up with her. Without a job at the college, it was almost a certainty that Katie would be moving away. Delilah wouldn’t follow. Her full professorship at Grafton was worth more to her than any woman. But Mel probably would. Every town needs good auto mechanics, especially college towns. Beth wanted to tell them what she knew about the layoffs, but until she found out how the day would play out, she’d keep it to herself. Maybe she could save Katie’s job—and her own.

  Katie asked, “Can I come by your office today, Beth? I want to talk about my job, if that’s possible. You’d mentioned the other day that you may be able to avoid the normal search process and just put me into Barrow’s position.”

  “I can’t say anything, Katie, and I can’t do anything—not today.”

  “But the word out there is that the adjuncts are about to be laid off.”

  “There were administrative cuts yesterday. There is nothing definitive on cutting the adjuncts. Please just bear with me today and I hope to have answers for you by tomorrow. Okay?”

  Katie picked up her coffee cup and shrugged. “I trust that you’ll do what you can. I’m not going to worry about it.”

  On her way to campus a few minutes later, Beth called Landscome’s office to see if she could get in to see him. She had her letter of resignation in her bag, but she wasn’t sure she needed to use it. She would resign if he forced her to implement the adjunct layoffs, but she was hoping she could talk him into further budget study or at least some revisions to his list. She was also hoping that the fact that he’d been placed under arrest yesterday would weaken him a little. She knew from Sally that they’d had to release him last evening, though she was unwilling to tell her anything else. Whatever it ultimately meant for Landscome, it had to be a distraction for him in the short run.