Tattooed

by Pamela Callow

  Kate’s heart began to pound. She had never seen Finn so agitated.

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No. No, it’s not.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It’s Kenzie.”

  “What about her?”

  “She was arrested at supper time.”

  Kate was surprised. Not because she was arrested, but because it had happened so quickly.

  Kenzie, she was sure, had been on the police’s radar from the beginning. “On what grounds?”

  He took a deep breath. “They arrested her for the murder of that girl they found in the bog. Heather Rigby.” He gazed at her, incredulous. “I can’t believe it.”

  Kate had no response to that.

  “Where did they arrest her?”

  “At the tattoo studio where she worked.” That was said with the slightest hint of defiance.

  Kate processed the implications of that. “So she’s at the police station now?”

  “Yes. You’ve got to help her, Kate.”

  “Whoa.” Kate shook her head. “I can’t do that, Finn.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m representing her mother.”

  Finn thrust his fingers into his hair and stared at her. “Why can’t you represent Kenzie, too?”

  Despite Finn’s naive belief that Kenzie would want Kate’s help, she doubted that Kenzie would want to entrust her future to Kate’s hands. But even if she did, Kate wouldn’t take her on as a client, despite the fact that there weren’t any obvious conflicts with Frances’ legal matter and Kenzie’s. “Because things could get messy,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” His obvious skepticism hurt her. He thought she was refusing for personal reasons. And although those were many, they weren’t the reason why.

  She kept her tone neutral. “What if both Kenzie and Frances are suspects, Finn?” she asked. “They could have conflicting interests. Or what if her mother is a witness?”

  That didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.

  Finn exhaled and ran his hands through his hair again. “Oh, shit.”

  “There are hundreds of lawyers in Halifax.” Kate cleared her throat. “And they would be much more experienced at criminal law than I am.”

  “She didn’t do it, Kate.” There was a desperation in Finn’s eyes that stabbed Kate. “I know she’s innocent. I don’t want her to go through the same thing Randall Barrett did!”

  This is not the same. “Has she called a lawyer yet?”

  “No. She said she didn’t want one.”

  “If she doesn’t want one you can’t force one on her.”

  “I can try,” her loyal friend said. “Please, Kate.” She had never heard Finn beg before. Damn him. Finn was her friend. He had helped her in ways that she could never repay. And he had never asked for anything in return.

  Until now.

  “Look, I can’t represent her. Please believe me, I would help you if I could.” And she meant it. “But I can recommend the best criminal lawyer in town.”

  “Eddie?”

  “Yes, Eddie.” She pulled out her cell phone. She didn’t normally carry it with her, but since the break-in last night, she wouldn’t go anywhere without it. “I’ll call him right now.”

  Hope lit Finn’s blue eyes. Kate dialed Eddie’s number and studied her front garden, absently noting that the tulips were beginning to bud.

  “Bent here,” Eddie’s growly voice answered on the third ring.

  “It’s Kate.” She glanced at Finn. Still those anxious, hopeful eyes. She stared at the tulips. “Look, Finn is here. He told me that Frances Sloane’s daughter Kenzie has just been arrested for the murder of Heather Rigby.”

  “And?”

  That was a typical Eddie response. He would be silently parsing the information in his head, while giving nothing away.

  “He wants you to represent her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Down at the station.”

  “Tell Finn I’ll be there in half an hour,” Eddie said. “And ask him to give my phone number to Ms. Sloane.”

  “Thanks, Eddie,” Kate said. “After you meet with her, do you want to come over for dinner? I’m staying at Muriel and Enid’s house.”

  “I might be a while.”

  “I just need to update you on a few things.” She hadn’t yet let him know about the break-in or the stalker. She glanced at Finn. She hadn’t told him yet, either. But this clearly wasn’t the time.

  “Okay, I’ll come over after I brief Kenzie Sloane.”

  “See you then.” She hung up and turned to Finn.

  “Eddie’s onboard.” Finn’s face sagged with relief. “Meet him down at the station. He wants you to give his phone number to Kenzie. Do you have a pen?”

  He pulled one out of the back pocket of his jeans. “I’ll write it on my hand.”

  Kate gave him the number.

  He smiled. “Thank you, Kate. I appreciate it.”

  His gratitude saddened her. He has no idea what is going down.

  She forced a smile in return. “You’ve got the best.” She walked him to his truck. “Keep me posted. If you need me to take care of anything, just shout.”

  “Thanks, Kate.” He gave her a quick hug.

  She returned it. “By the way,” she said. “Was Kenzie at your place last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “All night?”

  He flushed. “Yeah. Why?”

  She smiled. “Just curious. And don’t worry. Kenzie is in excellent hands.”

  She gave him a quick hug, her fingers brushing his bandaged shoulder. She had hoped this would be the only scar that Kenzie inflicted on her friend.

  But she knew this was nothing compared to what was coming.

  35

  Finn sat on a varnished wooden bench in the foyer of the police station, his head against the wall, fingers drumming his knee. Eddie hadn’t spent much time with Finn, but he had never seen the dog walker so tense. He jumped to his feet as soon as Eddie pulled open the heavy wooden entrance doors.

  “Kenzie just called me—”

  Eddie noted Kenzie Sloane called Finn rather than her dying mother.

  “I told her you were coming to the station.”

  “And?” He brushed a stray fleck of ash from his shirt.

  “She said she’d talk to you.”

  “Okay, I’ll let the police know I’m here to see her.”

  The relief in Finn’s eyes was palpable. “She didn’t do anything. You have to tell the police they’ve arrested the wrong person.”

  “Look, Finn, there isn’t that much either of us can do for Kenzie at this moment. I can tell her not to say anything, but until she is formally charged, that’s about it.”

  He walked over to the reception desk. A police constable watched them, making no effort to hide the fact he’d listened to Eddie’s conversation with Finn. They were in a public space. All was fair in love and war. Everyone wanted Heather Rigby’s killer to be caught and punished. Even more reason for Kenzie Sloane to get a good lawyer. Eddie gave the constable a friendly smile. “I am Eddie Bent. I need to speak to my client, Kenzie Sloane.”

  The constable dialed a number and relayed Eddie’s message. He hung up the phone, nodding to Eddie. “Someone will be down to let you in.”

  Eddie hiked up the legs on his jeans and settled down on the bench next to Finn. “So tell me what Kenzie told you,” he said. “When did the police arrest her?”

  “About an hour ago. At the tattoo studio.”

  Eddie shot Finn another look. “But she’s not living in Halifax, correct?”

  Finn shook his head. “No, lives in Manhattan. She came home to see her mother. And to work some tattoo gigs.”

  The security door opened.

  “Mr. Bent,” Detective Ethan Drake said, his expression closed. As Eddie expected it to be. This was a high-profile case with a sensational arrest. Kenzie Sloane was a celebrity, and her profession had a colorful enough histo
ry to make every element of the case subject to intense scrutiny. The police would make every effort to follow the process to a T. “Please come with me.”

  Eddie had not seen Ethan Drake since that day last summer at Randall Barrett’s bail hearing. He wondered if Drake had felt remorse for what he put Randall through. For what he put Randall’s kids through.

  Eddie guessed he did. Drake seemed like a decent enough cop. He didn’t know all the details about what happened between the detective and Kate, but it didn’t seem like the detective had been fully to blame.

  And as Eddie had learned over the ups and extreme downs of his life, no one was perfect.

  Certainly not him.

  They walked into a corridor, as bland as Ethan Drake’s demeanor. He held open a door. “Your client is in here.”

  “The room isn’t miked or set up with a camera?” Eddie was sure it wasn’t—the police were too smart to foil their chances at a conviction—but the question needed to be asked.

  Ethan flashed him a look, but his tone was neutral. “You will have complete privacy as per your client’s rights.”

  Eddie strolled into the room and closed the door.

  His client sat behind a table, her finger tracing the lines of a tattoo that covered her entire arm. She wore cargo pants and a tank top. A distressed leather moto jacket hung over the back of her chair. It looked expensive. In fact, all of her urban-style attire appeared expensive. Whatever Kenzie Sloane did for a living, she was successful.

  That meant she had a certain level of discipline.

  She glanced up. Her eyes were startling. Sky-blue in a porcelain face, they were artfully enhanced with makeup. They could be a great asset on the stand.

  Or, as in now, they could be her worst enemy. Her gaze flicked with unmistakable contempt over his rumpled plaid shirt and baggy jeans that still bore mud on the knees from Randall’s garden bed. “Are you my lawyer?”

  He sat down in the chair facing her. “I’m Eddie Bent. I am a criminal defense lawyer. Your friend Finn told me that you had requested my services to represent you as legal counsel.”

  Her gaze traveled over his face. Her fingers, he noticed, still traced the lines of her tattoo with unerring accuracy, rising and falling on the Japanese waves as if only they knew their true destination. “I suppose so.”

  “First things first. These are my fees.” He outlined his fee structure. Her gaze was expressionless. “Is this a problem for you?”

  “No.”

  “Second, everything you tell me—except in a very narrow set of circumstances—is protected by solicitor-client confidentiality. I will not reveal it to anyone. So the more frank you are, the better I can mount a defense.”

  There was a flicker in her gaze.

  She cared more than she let on. Those tough-on-the-outside girls usually did.

  Unless they were psychopaths.

  Was she one?

  He studied her as closely as she studied him.

  Her fingers ceased their meandering. She straightened in her chair. “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything.” He smiled. “But let’s start with the actual arrest. There are certain procedures the police need to follow to ensure your constitutional rights are protected. Tell me what happened.”

  “I was at a tattoo studio. I had just finished work. I’m a tattoo artist,” she added, glancing with defiant pride at the full sleeves of tattoos on her arms. He knew that, he had seen the item on the news when the police had gone to Frances Sloane’s house. The media were all over the fact that her daughter was a celebrity tattooist. “I had just finished packing up my kit bag.”

  “Were you going somewhere?”

  She flashed him a defiant look. “I had finished my gig. I was going back home to Manhattan.”

  “Were you scheduled to go home tonight?” This definitely had a get-the-hell-out-of-town desperation to it.

  “Sort of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She glanced away, her eyes glittering. Finally, she spoke. “I changed my flight. I was supposed to go home three days from now.” Her tone was flat.

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “The police questioned me.”

  “And?”

  “It made me uncomfortable. I did what I had come to do. I didn’t see a need to stay longer.”

  Eddie decided not to push it. There was time for that later. “And what happened?”

  “I had finished packing, like I said. I was saying goodbye to the guy who owns the shop. And the police arrived.”

  “What did they do? Did they knock, or did they make a forced entry…?” Eddie asked the question in an idle tone.

  “They just walked in.” That was said with the slightest edge to her voice. She took a sip of water from a foam cup. “They asked if I was Kenzie Sloane. I said yes. They read me my rights, and one of the cops put cuffs on me and took me down here.”

  “Did they tell you that you had a right to remain silent?”

  “Yes.”

  “And were you silent?”

  “Yes. Except when I asked them to call Finn, my boy—my friend—to take care of Foo. My dog.” She blinked. “And then they drove me here.”

  “Did you say anything other than that?”

  “No.”

  “And did you come straight here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did they take you?”

  “To a room. They said they were video recording my statement. And then they told me I had a right to counsel.”

  He had many clients who had been in that room. Concrete block walls painted a dingy off-white color. Hard furniture. Fluorescent lights.

  “I told them I wanted to call Finn, because he knew some lawyers he could call.”

  “And after that, did they ask you any questions?”

  “No.”

  That told him more than anything else that Drake and his team were proceeding extremely carefully. They either had enough evidence that they didn’t want to risk contaminating their case, or they had very little evidence and didn’t want to risk having her statements thrown out. Either way, they meant business with Kenzie Sloane.

  “Okay, tell me everything they said to you.”

  It wasn’t much. The police kept a tight lid on their evidence.

  Eddie jotted notes. “At this stage, Kenzie, say nothing. You have a right to remain silent, do you understand?”