Hide and Sneak

by G. A. McKevett

  “Hm. That bad, eh?”

  “Reckon so,” he replied.

  “You gonna make it through the evening over there without bloodshed?”

  “Nothin’ a wad of chewed bubble gum and some duct tape wouldn’t plug.”

  “I’d invite you over to our house for supper, but I have no idea when we’re going to get home. Once Dirk finishes with Mr. Malloy, I doubt that’ll be the day. We’ve still got a lost baby and its mother to find.”

  “Thank you for thinkin’ of us, Sis, but we’ve got supper plans already sewed up. Ryan and John done invited us to that fancy restaurant of theirs.”

  “That’ll be nice. You’ll have a heavenly meal. Ryan and John are good company—great social buffers. Tammy’s folks will wind up having a fine time there, whether they want to or not.”

  She heard him laugh and thought what a heartwarming sound it was. Waycross had always been the soul of sweetness.

  “We’re supposed to show up around seven-thirty. Why don’t y’all join us? I’m sure Ryan and John wouldn’t mind.”

  Savannah could hear the slight pleading tone in his voice. It wasn’t an invitation. It was a cry for help.

  “We’ll make it if we can, darlin’. Just depends on how long the rest of this takes.”

  Savannah watched as Dirk pulled onto the station house property and headed for the more private parking lot in the back. Even having seen the scratches on Ethan’s chest, she was glad when Dirk had put him in the front passenger’s seat, instead of in the rear.

  Until they knew for sure what he had or hadn’t done, she didn’t want to see a picture of one of her clients on the cover of the grocery store tabloids sitting in “the cage” of a police squad car.

  “I’ve gotta sign off, kiddo,” she told Waycross. “We’re at the station. I’m sorry it’s not going well there. You can tell me all about it later, blow-by-blow. If you survive, that is.”

  “I grew up as Macon and Shirley Reid’s kid—the only redheaded boy in a small town, remember?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, if you can handle that, you can make it through anything. Toodle-oo.”

  Again, she could hear him chuckling as she finished the call, so she figured she had done her job as Big Sister Comforter. Half done, anyway. Sadly, sometimes, even Big Sister Superpower had its limitations.

  Following Dirk’s lead, she drove to the last row of the parking lot and squeezed the Mustang into a narrow spot in the corner that was partially blocked by some overgrown oleander.

  As she did so, it occurred to her that, if she was going to keep hiding her awesome car in strange, out-of-the-way places to avoid detection, she should think about hiring Waycross to give the red pony a camo paint job.

  She cut the key, reached over, and snatched one of Dirk’s old baseball caps off the passenger floor. As she got out of the car, she slapped the hat against her thigh a couple of times to dislodge any surface debris. Then she hurried over to Dirk and Ethan, who were just exiting the squad car.

  She rounded the black-and-white, walked up to Ethan, and shoved the cap into his hand. “Here. Wear this.”

  She turned to see Dirk staring at his hat, which was now sitting on the actor’s head.

  Her husband was wearing his “deeply disgruntled Dirk” expression.

  Anticipating an awkward verbal spat in the making, she told him, “The last thing we need right now is to have your good buddies inside there snapping phone pictures of the ‘famous dude we got in the station house’ and posting them on Facebook.”

  Turning to Ethan she said, “Put on your sunglasses.”

  “I don’t have any,” he replied.

  “You live in Southern California, and you don’t own sunglasses?”

  “I own some,” he replied. “I just don’t have any with me at the moment.”

  “I thought you movie stars always wore sunglasses,” Dirk said with a touch of sarcasm.

  Ethan shot him an unpleasant look and said, “When your wife told me to get to San Carmelita as quick as possible, I had a few other things on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about fashion accessories.”

  Dirk softened his voice and his expression when he said, “Okay. Just be sure to give me that cap back. It’s one of my favorites.”

  “My husband’s wardrobe is limited,” Savannah added, handing him her glasses. “Every garment he owns is his favorite.”

  Ethan gave Dirk’s attire a quick once-over, taking in the battered bomber jacket, the faded Harley Davidson T-shirt, the frayed jeans and scuffed sneakers. “Gotcha.” He slid on Savannah’s shades. “Okay? Am I now incognito enough to enter your police station?”

  “You’ll do,” Savannah replied. “Just don’t say anything if you can help it. You’ve got a distinctive, car commercial–kinda voice.”

  As the three of them made their way to the back of the station house, Savannah heard Dirk mutter under his breath, “It must suck, bein’ a famous movie star with women throwing themselves atcha right and left.”

  She hoped that Ethan hadn’t heard. It was seldom a good idea to alienate a suspect before you even began an interrogation.

  But he had heard. He stared at Dirk for a long time, and Savannah wasn’t sure how to read that look. Sad? Angry? A bit of both?

  Then, in a voice that was definitely more dejected than angry, the world-acclaimed, fan-adored actor said, “If you know where your loved ones are right now, Detective Sergeant Coulter, I’ll gladly trade places with you.”

  * * *

  Savannah sat quietly in an uncomfortable metal folding chair in the corner of the tiny, gray, claustrophobic room and watched Dirk do what he did best. Interrogate.

  Although today it wasn’t going as well as usual. He and his prime homicide suspect, Ethan Malloy, had gone in verbal circles for the better part of an hour. The “beaten path” around the proverbial “bush” was well trampled, and from what Savannah could tell, little if any progress had been made.

  “Believe me, Detective,” Ethan was saying for at least the fifth time, “if I’d known that I’d need to furnish you with an alibi, I would’ve spent the afternoon giving some sort of interview at a local TV station or signing copies of one of my movie DVDs at Walmart, instead of driving up and down the coast, searching for my family.”

  The two men were sitting across from each other at a small, scarred, and timeworn table. Like everything else in the room, it had been deliberately chosen for its depressing gray color and total lack of charm.

  Prime homicide suspects weren’t supposed to feel at ease in cheerful surroundings when being interviewed. They were potentially in a lot of trouble and needed to feel as such.

  Adapting his usual “grill ’em on high heat” pose, Dirk was leaning far forward, elbows on the table, taking up more than half of the space between him and his subject, and blatantly violating his personal space.

  Displaying typical interviewee body language, Ethan was leaning back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest. The look on his face said it all: at that moment, he would prefer to be absolutely anywhere else, with anyone else, doing anything else.

  In all the years that she had watched Dirk question suspects, Savannah had never heard any of those express a desire to do it again.

  It wasn’t supposed to be fun, and Detective Sergeant Coulter made sure it wasn’t.

  Dirk glanced down at the notebook he had open on the table in front of him, at the scribblings he had made during the interview so far. He picked up his pen and began tapping the paper, making such a loud and annoying sound that even Savannah wanted to reach over and smack him.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ve got this list of all the places you said you drove to. Some of these have closed circuit cameras, you know. I’m going to be able to check them and see if you were really there when you say were.”

  “Good. Check. I want you to.” Ethan’s face was pale, his eyes red. He was appearing more frustrated and desperate by the moment. “I wish to God you were doing that right now
, instead of wasting time sitting here with me. I told you, Detective, I didn’t kill Pilar! I didn’t harm my family! But somebody out there murdered that poor girl, and for all we know, they’re doing the same damn thing right now to my wife and child!”

  He paused and took some deep breaths as though trying to compose himself.

  Dirk didn’t give him time. “Then tell me what’s really going on between you and your wife,” he shot back. “The sooner you’re honest with me, the quicker you’re outta here, and I’m back on the street, searching for them.”

  “I have been honest with you,” Ethan replied. “Every word I’ve told you was the truth.”

  “But not the whole truth,” Dirk insisted.

  Ethan threw up his hands in a gesture of utter frustration. “What? What the hell do you think I’m holding back? What do you want to know that I haven’t already told you ten times?”

  Dirk gave him a small, wry smile—an almost-smirk that Savannah had seen before. One that had chilled the hearts of far more hardened criminals than Ethan Malloy.

  “Tell me what you fought with your wife about that morning,” Dirk said. “And don’t give me any of that ‘just regular husband and wife stuff.’ That’s crap, and you and I both know it.”

  Instantly, the frustrated expression disappeared from Ethan’s face, to be replaced by one of pure rage. His pale skin flushed red as he said, “I already told you, Detective, that’s not important, and it’s private.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll be the judge of what’s important and what’s not in this conversation. And you can forget about anything in your life being ‘private’ right now. A young woman is dead. So, your privacy and anybody else’s who’s got anything to do with this case—they’re in the toilet right now. Nothing’s private until I find out who killed her and where your wife and kid are.”

  His words seemed to have found their mark. Ethan nodded, sat quietly for a moment, then said, “You’re right. I understand.” He took a deep breath. “When we fought yesterday morning—the topic was, well, infidelity.”

  “Whose?”

  “Does that really matter? I’d rather—”

  “Do not start with that crap again! Whose infidelity?”

  “My wife’s. Okay? I found out that she’s been seeing her ex-husband again. I confronted her about it, and as you can imagine, it got pretty heated.”

  “You didn’t think that was important enough to mention it?”

  “No, I didn’t. Neal Irwin’s not my favorite guy in the world. But he didn’t kill anybody.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “He weighs two pounds. He’s afraid of the dark. He cried when a duck bit him.”

  “A duck bit him?” Savannah hadn’t said a word since the interview began, but that slipped out before she could stop it.

  “Yes,” Ethan told her. “He was feeding bread to some ducks in a park. One got rowdy and bit his finger. Beth told me he cried about it for ten minutes. Does that sound like a cold-blooded murderer to you?”

  “Good point.” Dirk scribbled something on his notepad, then put down the pen. “What else did you argue about?”

  Ethan shrugged. “You know how marital spats go. They start off about one thing, then you wind up getting off on tangents that are irrelevant.”

  “Like your own infidelity?”

  Savannah heard Ethan catch his breath, as though Dirk’s question had punched him in the gut.

  “I haven’t been unfaithful to my wife. I have not. Ever.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Then you heard wrong.”

  “Your wife was overheard yelling at you about an affair you’re having with Candace York.”

  Ethan sighed and nodded. “Oh. Okay. That’s the problem with eavesdroppers. They only hear half of a conversation, and then they act like they know it all.”

  “I have it from a good source,” Dirk said, “that your wife was upset because she had found out that you’ve been sockin’ it to your old fiancée.”

  “Your ‘good source’ would have to be either Amy or Luciana, since they were the only ones in the house with us yesterday morning. They’re both kindhearted, well-meaning women, and I can see why you would believe either one of them. But seriously, truthfully, here’s what happened. I found out about Beth and Neal. I confronted Beth. She got all defensive, as you might imagine, and she turned it back on me, accusing me of being with Candace. But it isn’t true. It just isn’t.”

  “How did you find out about Beth and Neal?” Dirk asked.

  “I got an anonymous e-mail.”

  “Oh-h-h. An anonymous e-mail. Now there’s a reliable source if ever I heard one.”

  “It had a picture attached.” Ethan stared down at his hands, which were clenched tightly in his lap, and added, “An explicit picture.”

  “How do you know it was real?”

  Ethan shot Dirk a look across the table that would have withered a lesser man. “I know what my wife looks like naked, Detective Coulter.”

  “How do you know the picture wasn’t taken before you were married? Back when her and her ex were still together?”

  “Because when our son was born, my wife had a cesarean section. The scar was clearly visible in the photo.” His voice dropped, almost to a whisper, when he added, “Everything was clearly visible in that damned picture.”

  “I’m going to need to see that photo,” Dirk told him. “I’m sorry but—”

  “I know. I know. Our little Pilar is dead. There’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”

  “Speaking of your little Pilar,” Dirk said, watching his suspect closely, “you haven’t asked me how she died.”

  “I was afraid to,” Ethan replied. “I’m very fond of her . . . or, I was. I don’t think I could stand it if I heard she suffered.”

  There was a long heavy silence, broken when Ethan finally asked, “Did she? Was it . . . bad?”

  “Every killing is bad, Mr. Malloy,” Dirk answered. “But we’re waiting for the medical examiner’s report to find out the particulars.”

  Dirk closed his notebook, stuck his pen in his jacket pocket, and stood.

  Savannah thought he was about to end the interview and dismiss Ethan. But instead she saw him take his small camera from his coat’s inside pocket.

  “There’s just one more thing I’d like you to do for me, Mr. Malloy,” he said.

  Instantly, Ethan seemed relieved. “Sure, Detective. What’s that?”

  “I’d like you to remove your shirt.”

  “What?”

  “I’m pretty sure that you heard me, Mr. Malloy. I need you to take off your shirt.”

  “What is this, a stupid joke? You want a picture you can sell to the tabloids? Are you tired of being a cop and want to retire with a little nest egg to go along with your pension?”

  Dirk gave him a level, unflinching glare and repeated quietly, “Take off your shirt, sir. Do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Now.”

  His face turning nearly purple with fury, Ethan ripped off the T-shirt he was wearing with such violence that Savannah heard the fabric rip. He threw it onto the table.

  There they were.

  Her heart sank when she saw the scratches, multiple long, deep ones, crisscrossing the actor’s broad chest. The marks she had seen earlier were only a small portion of the damage that had been done to him.

  Evidence. As damning as she had ever seen.

  Dirk turned on his camera, made a couple of adjustments, then held it up to his eye.

  But before he could take the shot, Ethan Malloy struck a bodybuilder’s pose, accentuating every muscle of that famous chest.

  “There you go, Detective Coulter,” Ethan said, his voice harsh, his words bitter. “Is that what you want? A flesh shot for your Facebook page?”

  Savannah could see Dirk zooming in and knew he was taking close-ups of the scratches—one after another after another.

  Finally, he was finished. He
scrolled through the photos he had taken, nodded as though satisfied, turned off the camera, and stuck it back in his pocket.

  In a manner far calmer than he usually exhibited, Dirk turned to Ethan and said, “Thank you, Mr. Malloy. You can put your shirt back on now.”

  Ethan snatched his T-shirt off the table and quickly climbed into it. “May I go now? Are you quite finished with me? Because if you are, I’m going to call my lawyer. Then I’m going to go search for my family before something horrible happens to them—if it hasn’t already.”

  “No,” Dirk replied. “I won’t be releasing you.”

  Ethan’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? Why? I answered all your questions. I—”

  “You had a big, nasty argument with your wife yesterday morning, and she hasn’t been seen since. You have no alibi for the time when she went missing. You said yourself she’s been messing around on you, and some reports say you’ve been fooling around on her. And to top it all off, you’ve got deep, long scratches all over your chest, and our victim has broken fingernails. Several of them. Do you really think I’m going to release you?”

  Dirk turned to Savannah. “I think we’re done here for the moment.” He reached over and retrieved his baseball cap from the table.

  “What does this mean then?” Ethan asked. “Am I under arrest? Do I need to call an attorney or something?”

  “For the moment, you aren’t under arrest. You’re being detained,” Dirk told him. “But if you keep giving me a hard time, you might get under arrest real quick. Just sit there for a while and cool your heels. I’m gonna send an officer in here to deal with you. I’d advise you to do what he says.”

  As Dirk and Savannah headed for the door, Ethan shouted, “Is this about the scratches? Because if that’s what you’re mostly concerned about, you don’t have to be. I got these two days ago. I was injured on the set. Call my manager, Abel Orman. Ask him, and he’ll tell you.”

  Savannah turned back to her client and saw a man at the end of his emotional tether. He was losing more and more of his sanity, hour by hour. If he was guilty, so be it, but at least for the moment, until proven otherwise, he was an innocent man whose family might be dead.