“I hope we don’t have to wait too long,” I said, an attempt at idle conversation. I had hoped it would help everyone to relax, but my voice echoed coldly inside the room, making our isolation seem even more pronounced.
The minutes ticked by, and I swore I felt each one as a tiny drip of water on my arms. Finally, the door behind us was unlocked, and a woman who looked about my age walked in. She was wearing slacks, ankle-high boots, and a red wool car-length coat. Her hair was black and cut short; her eyes were a brown so dark, it looked like her pupils were fully dilated. Over one shoulder she had a leather messenger bag. She approached us with a warm smile and addressed me before the men.
“You must be this crime-solving savant I’ve been hearing about,” she said, extending a hand.
I took it, shook it, and said, “Something like that. I’m Mack Dalton.”
“And I’m Christine Powell, Ben Middleton’s attorney.” She turned her attention to the three men.
“I’m Tyrese Washington, the cop who set this up.” He extended a hand.
Christine shook it and then shifted her attention to Mal. “What is your interest in this case?” She sounded merely curious, not challenging, but I felt uncomfortable nonetheless.
“This is Mal O’Reilly,” I said. “He’s with me, my moral support.” I smiled, hoping this would be enough. Apparently it was. Christine moved on to Clay.
“Clay Sanders,” he said, also extending his hand. “I’m a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.”
This time Christine ignored the extended hand. She eyed Clay with suspicion. “A reporter? Why?” She looked to me for the answer.
“He’s a member of our group,” I said vaguely. “He’s here solely to observe and help us decide on the veracity of your client’s story. He’s not going to write up anything about it, at least not yet. Right, Clay?” I said pointedly, giving him a challenging look.
“That’s right,” Clay said. “If it turns out that your client really is innocent and that can be proven, then I will write something for the paper. But until then I’m just here to observe.”
This explanation seemed to satisfy Christine, though she still ignored Clay’s outstretched hand. She headed for one of the chairs, set her bag on the table, and went about removing her coat, which she folded over the back of the chair.
Clay let his arm drop to his side.
“I should probably tell you that Ben didn’t want to talk to you,” Christine said. “His sister and I convinced him to give you a chance, but I can’t promise how cooperative he’ll be. He swears he’s been set up and framed, and that has left him very suspicious of everyone along about now. I have to confess, I was a bit wary at first, too, when Sandra approached me with the idea, but I’ve done some digging into Ms. Dalton and her reputation, and I’m comfortable with hearing what you have to offer.”
I gave her an apologetic smile. “I don’t know that we have anything to offer yet. We have uncovered some inconsistencies that have our curiosity piqued, so we’re willing to hear Ben out and take a look at things to see what we can come up with. But at this point we aren’t making any promises.”
“Understood,” Christine said. “Ben should be here any sec—”
With that, the door on the opposite side of the room opened, and Benjamin Middleton was brought in. He and his sister looked a lot alike, the same coloring, the same facial features, and the same chagrined expression. He was cuffed—both his wrists and his ankles—and the noise made by his shuffling gait made my vision go grainy for a few seconds. He settled into the chair on his side of the table, and the guard who had brought him in asked if we wanted him to stay in the room or wait outside the door.
“You can wait outside,” I said, and I saw Middleton shoot me a look.
Once the guard had retreated, Christine said, “Ben, these folks are here at the request of your sister. They’re part of a group of people who look at old crimes to see if there is any new evidence they can find. They’ve had some success with other cases, and they are willing to look into your case. If they find anything significant, anything that points to your innocence, they will do what they can to exonerate you.” Christine paused and looked over at me. “Did I get that right?”
“Essentially,” I said with a smile. I looked at Middleton. “We’ve already run across some items of evidence that don’t seem to jibe with the prosecution’s theory of events, but before we decide whether or not to take on your case, we need to ask you some questions. Are you willing to help us help you?”
Middleton eyed me for a moment and then shifted his gaze to Mal, Clay, and Tyrese. His expression was flat, devoid of emotion. He looked like a man resigned to his fate. An air of defeat lay over him like a heavy, wet blanket. His shoulders sagged, his neck muscles bulged, as if it was an effort to hold his head up, and his eyes looked vacant and tired.
After a long silence, he said, “I suppose I’ve got nothing to lose.” He raised his cuffed hands as far as he could and gave us a grim smile. “Have at me,” he said. “Maybe someone can finally get this right.” And then his hands dropped heavily into his lap.
Chapter 14
We did some basic introductions—names only, no occupations—and then I asked Ben Middleton to tell us what happened on the night his wife was killed. “Be as detailed as you can,” I told him. “And be honest, even if you think the truth will make you look bad. If you lie to us, it isn’t going to help anyone.”
“So far the truth hasn’t done much for me, either,” he said. His voice was a little raspy, and it tasted like peanut butter.
“Try it, anyway,” I said with a smile.
He sighed, put his cuffed hands on the table, and idly twiddled his fingers, staring at them as he began to speak. “Tiffany and I were heading home after a romantic retreat to celebrate our anniversary and Valentine’s Day. We had rented a small house on the shores of Lake Michigan, up in Door County, and we’d been there for four days so far. A storm had come in overnight, dropping six inches or so of snow, and they were calling for a second storm that evening and throughout the night, with high winds and lots of lake-effect snow. At first we thought we would just ride the storm out, since we still had a couple of days left on our rental. I headed into town around noon that day to pick up some provisions to see us through. The nearest place to shop was about ten miles away, and the road to our place was narrow and it hadn’t been plowed, so the driving was slow. It took me almost two hours to make the trip. When I got back to the house, Tiffany was in a mood.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked him.
“She would get that way sometimes, quiet, withdrawn, distant. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it always seemed to come on fast and without warning. When she got like that, she sometimes had panic attacks or crying binges, so I’d learned to leave her be unless she asked me for something. When I got back from the store, I saw that she was pacing and biting her nails, a sure sign that one of her moods had settled in. She kept looking out the windows of the house, like she expected to see a goblin out there or something. I asked her what was wrong, and at first she said nothing. But I persisted, and eventually, she told me that she didn’t want to stay in the house with the big storm coming. She said it made her feel claustrophobic and isolated.”
He paused, still staring at his fingers, but now they were still. “I should have agreed to leave right then. It was obvious from her behavior that she was close to a panic attack already. But our time together up until then had been so great, and she’d been so happy and calm and affectionate. I desperately wanted that version of Tiffany back, so I tried to convince her that we would be fine, that we had plenty of stuff on hand to keep us warm and fed, and that it would be cozy and romantic. But I couldn’t sway her, and when her voice turned shrill and she started looking like a trapped animal, I knew it was pointless to try any longer. So we packed up our stuff and headed out.”
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, letting his h
ands drop to his lap. “It was after five and getting dark out by the time we left. The storm had already begun, coming earlier than predicted. It was snowing heavily, and the road still hadn’t been plowed from the night before, because it’s a narrow back road that doesn’t see much traffic. The wind had picked up, gusting and drifting and making for whiteout conditions at times. It was a slow, white-knuckle drive, and after about ten minutes we’d gone only a couple of miles down the road.”
He paused, licked his lips, and his breathing sped up a hair. “All of a sudden I see this guy up ahead, standing in the middle of the road, waving us down. I thought he might need help or be in trouble of some kind, so I stopped and rolled down my window.” Middleton paused again and swallowed hard, his eyes still closed. “I started to ask the guy if he needed some help, and the next thing I know, he’s sticking a gun in my face and telling me to get out of the car. I . . . I tried to reason with him. I told him he could have the car and begged him not to hurt anyone. But he just repeated his demand for me to get out of the car, and I could tell from the look in his eyes that he meant business. So I—”
Mal stopped him and asked, “Was your car in park or in drive when this happened?”
Middleton opened his eyes and looked at Mal with a puzzled and slightly impatient expression. “I don’t know,” he said after several seconds. “I don’t remember shifting into park.”
“Was your foot on the brake?” Mal asked.
Middleton thought about it and grimaced. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I can’t remember. All I remember is grabbing for the gun, wanting to push it away from me and Tiffany.” He looked at Mal, and his expression turned sad. “If the car had been in drive, I could have hit the gas and gunned it, right?”
Mal said nothing, did nothing. Neither did any of the rest of us.
Middleton closed his eyes again, looking sad and remorseful. “I think the car must have been in park, or it would have lurched forward at some point. I can’t imagine that I managed to keep my foot on the brake during the struggle. The idea of hitting the gas never occurred to me at the time, though given the road conditions, I doubt it would have done any good. The wheels would have just spun. And all I could think about was that gun.”
“Tell us about the struggle,” I said. “Give us as much detail as you can remember regarding where your hands and body were, anything you said or did, any movements you made.”
Middleton opened his eyes and zeroed in on me. Then he nodded slowly. “I reached up and shoved the man’s arm with my left hand, and then I grabbed the barrel of the gun with my right. It fired, and I remember the sound was deafening and the barrel felt hot. The man tried to swing the gun back toward me, but I had the advantage, I think, because I was pushing straight out and he was trying to move his arms sideways. When he realized his efforts weren’t working, he started pulling back on the gun.” He shifted his gaze to the tabletop, and his face scrunched up with pain. “That’s when the gun fired for the second time.”
“Where inside the car was the gun when it fired the second time?” Tyrese asked.
Middleton furrowed his brow and held his cuffed hands in front of his face, about eighteen inches away. “About here,” he said. He stared at his hands for a moment and then readjusted their positions slightly. The right hand closed tighter, as if it was gripping something, and he bent the left one back at the wrist. “Like this, I think,” he said.
It was easy for me to imagine his left hand wrapped around a man’s forearm and the right one gripping the barrel of a gun. That jibed with the blood splatter evidence Tyrese had mentioned.
Middleton began to move his hands up and down, back and forth, covering an area about a foot square. “I can’t be sure of the exact positions, but we struggled something like this. And then the guy just let go of the gun, turned, and ran off. That’s when I looked over and saw that Tiffany was . . . that she’d been . . .” He swallowed hard and seemed unable to finish his sentence.
“Which way did the man run?” I asked.
“Toward the back of the car,” he said without hesitation. “I had my finger on the gun’s trigger, ready to fire, and I kept craning my neck around to see if he was coming at us from the back window or going around to Tiff’s side of the car. But he didn’t. He just disappeared into the night.” He hesitated and stared at all of us, his gaze moving from one face to another. His expression was expectant, querying, and a little suspicious, as if he was waiting for us to call a foul on his version of the events.
“What did you do next?” I asked after a period of silence.
Middleton looked away from us then and stared down at the tabletop. He winced and said, “I hollered at Tiffany, asking her if she was okay. There was blood and . . . other stuff all over the side of her head and neck and shoulder. I grabbed her arm and tried to find a pulse and couldn’t. . . . She had this empty, vacant stare.... I knew she was gone.”
Tears welled up in his eyes as he spoke, and the expression on his face was one of pure agony and despair. I had no doubt then that the man had loved his wife. But that didn’t mean he didn’t kill her.
“Where was the gun at this point?” Mal asked.
“In my lap,” Middleton said without hesitation. He leaned forward and swiped at his nose with one hand, the other one dangling below it within the cuffs. “I tried to call for help, but I couldn’t get a signal on my phone. So I started driving. I’m not sure how far I drove or for how long. It seemed like an eternity. When I reached a main road and finally got a signal, I called nine-one-one. I wanted to keep driving, but they told me to stay put. So I did.... I knew Tiff was gone,” he said with an expression of hopelessness.
“Did the cops find any prints in the snow?” I asked.
Middleton shook his head. “By the time they reached me and checked Tiffany, some time had passed. Eventually, one of the cops put me in his car, and we drove back the way I’d come, trying to find the spot where it all happened. But the wind and the snowdrifts had covered everything up. We couldn’t even see my tire tracks on the road.” He hung his head, and I saw a tear roll down his cheek.
“Mr. Middleton,” I said, “the evidence presented at your trial suggests that your wife was having an affair at the time.”
Middleton looked up at me, his face a thundercloud of emotion.
“Did you know about it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I had no idea. I thought everything between us was fine.”
The taste of his voice changed with this statement. It went from its prior peanut butter to something more like a rancid nut. I narrowed my eyes at him. “You just lied to me.”
Middleton stared at me, eyes wide.
“I told you in the beginning that you had to be totally honest with us. No lying. Now that you’ve lied to us, it makes everything else you said seem suspect.”
“But I didn’t lie,” he insisted. “I didn’t know anything about Tiffany having an affair.”
With this, his voice returned to the peanut butter taste, momentarily making me doubt my reaction and interpretation. Then a lightbulb turned on in my head—both figuratively and literally, since I had a vision of an actual lightbulb coming on.
“You lied when you said you thought everything was fine between the two of you,” I said.
He looked startled and then chagrined. “How did you . . .” He left the question hanging, but I knew what he meant to ask.
“I have an ability to tell when people are lying to me,” I explained.
He stared at me, looking bemused. “Are you a mind reader or something?”
“Something like that.”
He weighed my proclamation for a few seconds and then said, “Okay then. Yes, things had been strained between me and Tiffany for a while, but we were getting it back on track. This trip was supposed to be a chance to reconnect.” He paused and frowned. “If I’d known she was seeing someone else, I probably wouldn’t have arranged the trip. But I didn’t know, I swear.”
&n
bsp; As far as I could tell, this was the truth. “Were there specific issues between you and Tiffany that were causing problems?” I asked. “I apologize for getting personal, but how were things in the bedroom?”
“They hadn’t been good for some time. Several months, in fact. I knew something was bothering her, but like I said before, she sometimes had these moods. I knew my schedule was an issue for her a lot of the time. I worked long hours, and that didn’t leave us much in the way of together time. But I felt like I had to pull my weight financially, you know?” He gave me an appealing look, begging me to understand, and I nodded. Marrying into a rich family couldn’t have been easy. “If I had it all to do over again, I’d let the work stuff go and pay more attention to my marriage. In retrospect, I don’t think the money mattered all that much to her.”
I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between Ben and Tiffany’s relationship and mine with Duncan. Duncan’s long work hours often frustrated me. My expectations were pretty simple and basic, but the opportunity to share time together was important in any relationship. I wondered how the lack of it would impact Duncan and me.
“So you don’t have any idea who the other man was?” Mal asked.
Middleton shook his head. “I’ve thought about it, believe me.” He flashed his attorney a mirthless smile. “Christine nagged me on the subject, saying it would give us another suspect and the reasonable doubt we needed, but I didn’t have a clue. I still don’t.”
Shots in the Dark Page 12
