Lawman Lover

by Saranne Dawson

  Amanda was lost in an icy fog, her mind unable to comprehend what Jesse was saying, let alone accept it. And yet, perhaps a part of her was hearing and accepting it, because there was a hollow space inside her that seemed to be growing with each beat of her heart.

  Finally, when Jesse said nothing else, Amanda groped her way through the fog and fixed her gaze on her sister, who was watching her with eyes that mirrored her own horror.

  “Are you saying that Father was...was having an affair with Eve Lauden?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” Jesse replied, then made a motion as if to brush away any comment Amanda might make. “That’s what I called it to myself, too. It was easier than admitting that your own father was...was seeing a prostitute who was even younger than you were.”

  Amanda stared at her sister, seeing the pain still in her eyes, but now seeing a rising anger, as well. She was about to try to ask a question when Jesse spoke again.

  “Do you know how it made me feel, how I hated the way he always treated me? I was sure it was just because he was afraid that I knew about them.”

  Amanda found her voice. “But he always favored you, Jesse, long before that...happened.”

  “I knew that rationally, but it didn’t matter.”

  “Did you see them together?” Amanda asked, knowing that a part of her was still seeking a way out of this.

  “Yes. He tried to be discreet, you know. He was driving that old green station wagon we kept for Mrs. Moser to use. I saw her come out of the house and get into it with him. But he didn’t see me. I was in a car with some friends.”

  “Was this when Eve disappeared?”

  Jesse shook her head. “No, it was a month or so before that. But I’d met Eve before that, and then I knew why she’d acted like she had toward me.

  “Then, right before she disappeared, someone told me that she was pregnant and she was bragging that she’d be set up for life.”

  Amanda was beginning to feel sick, but she pressed on, knowing now that there was nothing to do but bear all of it. “So you don’t know for sure what happened on the island?”

  “I wasn’t there, if that’s what you mean. Like I said, when she disappeared, I thought she’d gone to the city, that he’d paid her off. For years, I kept expecting her to show up with...with our half sister or half brother.

  “And then they found her on the island. I even tried to tell myself that maybe it was an accident, and he’d just buried her because he didn’t know what else to do.”

  Amanda the prosecutor was seeking evidence even as the woman remained locked in a fog. “You don’t have any proof that he really killed her or even that he was the one who buried her.”

  Jesse gave her a pitying look. But before she could speak again, Amanda said, “That doesn’t make sense, Jess. If he buried her out there, he would have tried to stop the construction—or he would have gone back out there and...dug her up before it started.”

  Jesse frowned. “I thought about that, too. I can’t explain it.”

  They were both silent for a time, considering that, both of them clearly hanging on to a slim thread of hope.

  “We know about Elaine Barker,” Amanda said after a few moments. “Mary sent her away, so we couldn’t talk to her.”

  “You and Michael, you mean?”

  Amanda nodded.

  “I think Elaine will know if she was with him right before she disappeared. Eve and the others always met the men at her house.”

  After another silence, Jesse got up to reheat the kettle. “Michael said that he thought there might be a connection between your accident and Eve’s death.”

  Amanda stiffened. “That’s only speculation on his part. We’ll never know exactly when Eve was killed.” She was thinking about the school-attendance records Michael’s team had uncovered, but she said nothing.

  “But what if it was that same night?” Jesse demanded, her voice edging close to hysteria. “What if the real reason you can’t remember anything is that you saw it?”

  “The doctors said that a loss of memory like I had isn’t uncommon in a situation like mine. I mean because I was in the water for so long.”

  “But don’t you see?” Jesse cried in that same near hysterical voice. “It would explain what we could never understand—why Trish would have been so reckless. If you both saw something and then maybe he chased you...”

  “No!” Amanda found herself shouting, as well. “No! It couldn’t have happened that way!”

  “Father might not have recognized the boat,” Jesse continued. “Rob had just gotten it a few days before that.”

  But Amanda was still shaking her head. “No! I can’t believe that.”

  Instead of sitting down again, Jesse came over and put her arms around Amanda’s shoulders. “It’s all going to come out now. If Michael knows about Elaine, it will come out.”

  AMANDA DROVE slowly up the hill. When she reached the street at the top, she very nearly didn’t turn. Then she was driving down the beautiful, familiar street, overhung with giant oaks and sycamores that were already showing the pale, tentative green of spring.

  She was still lost in that cold fog, despite the warm spring morning, and so she didn’t notice the black Porsche parked in front of the garage doors until she was nearly upon it.

  Michael! So Jesse was right. She’d said that Michael would persuade Mary to tell him how to reach Elaine. And if he was here, then Jesse must also have been right that Elaine would have known if Eve had gone with her father that night.

  She cut off the engine and sat there, staring at his car, still clinging to the hope that Michael had no proof of anything and was only here to ask questions.

  But why was she here? Had she come to get the truth or to warn her father and give him a chance to come up with something that would exonerate him?

  The fog prevented her from thinking clearly as she got out of her car and started to the front door, her hand automatically grasping the key.

  She heard the low murmur of male voices coming from her father’s study at the back of the house. And as she walked unsteadily in that direction, the murmurs became more distinct.

  “...no proof! Don’t try to treat me like a common criminal who doesn’t know the law!”

  “I have all the proof I need,” Michael said in a steely tone that made her shiver as she hesitated just outside the open door. “But a prosecutor will have to decide if it’s enough to charge you.”

  “Naturally, you’d believe a woman like Elaine Barker over me. She’s more your kind! But a prosecutor isn’t going to see it that way.”

  “What I want to know,” Michael said quietly, “is how someone like you could have a daughter like Amanda.”

  “You leave her out of this!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Judge. This is going to destroy her. She was upset enough when she thought it was Verhoeven. And when she finds out that it was you who killed her cousin and nearly killed her...”

  “Get out of here, Quinn! I’m ordering you out of this house right now! Get back down there with the scum where you belong!”

  “Did you try to kill Trish and me, Father?”

  Michael, whose back was to the open door, turned at the sound of her voice, but Amanda’s eyes were locked on to her father’s. Then his eyes slid to Michael.

  “How dare you bring her into this?” he shouted, his face flushed with rage.

  “Michael didn’t bring me into it,” Amanda said in a voice she heard as if from a very great distance. “I came on my own because last night, Jesse told me about you and Eve Lauden.”

  “Jesse’s sick! You know that! You can’t believe anything she says!”

  “She was sick because of what she knew,” Amanda replied, still in that distant voice. “Or what she feared—until Eve’s body was found. Then she knew.”

  Michael started to move toward her, but she waved him off and walked unsteadily to her father’s desk. There she stopped, now only
the width of the desk away from him.

  “You killed Eve because she told you she was pregnant, and then you chased Trish and me because we’d seen something. But maybe you didn’t know it was us. The boat was brand-new.”

  Amanda could hear the plea in her voice at the end, the hope that he hadn’t known who was in the boat. But all the while, she was staring at her father. And she saw the truth in his eyes. He had killed Eve, but he hadn’t known it was Trish and Amanda in the boat.

  She backed away from the desk, then turned and fled. Behind her, she heard her father shout, “I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”

  There was more, but Amanda didn’t hear it. Instead, she ran out the door. Then, realizing that she’d left her purse and her keys on the table in the foyer, she turned away from the driveway and ran around the side of the house, to the pretty little gazebo at the back of the property.

  She didn’t think about her father. Rather, she thought about her mother, and now she understood what had prompted those same thoughts in Jesse. Had she known anything? Had she lived—and then died—with the knowledge that her husband had betrayed their marriage? Didn’t wives always know things like that?

  She thought that she should get back to Jesse and prepare her for the fact that their father was about to be arrested. But she didn’t move. There was time yet. Michael wouldn’t take him in now. Instead, he’d have to go before a judge and request that another prosecutor be brought in to make the decision. And either Elaine would have to come back or she’d have to make a statement wherever she was and have it sent.

  The D.A.’s mind took over, running through the process, guessing how long it would take. A few days at least. Michael couldn’t make the case that her father might flee. Or could he?

  The sound didn’t register at first. From back at the edge of the woods, several hundred yards from the house, it was muffled. But then she knew what it was.

  Horror propelled her out of the gazebo and across the lawn to the terrace door. It was locked! Stumbling and awkward in her terror, Amanda ran around to the front of the house. Only much later would she remember that it was Michael’s name she was shouting—Michael for whom she feared.

  She fumbled with the ornate brass handle of the front door, then finally succeeded in pulling it open. A figure hurtled toward her from the dimly lit hallway that led to the rear of the house.

  “Michael,” she murmured as he first grasped her hands, then pulled her into his arms.

  Her relief was followed quickly by renewed horror as she felt the hardness of his gun in its shoulder holster pressing against her. “Father!” she gasped, backing away from him.

  “He’s dead,” Michael said in a strange, hollow tone, his dark eyes pleading for understanding—an understanding she wasn’t capable of as she stared at him through a dark mist.

  “You killed him!” she shouted, stumbling backwards until she bumped into the foyer table.

  She could barely see him now as a wave of dizziness washed over her. Her father dead? Michael? Why?

  He reached for her, but she evaded him and started back down the hallway toward her father’s study. Michael caught her before she could reach the open doorway. She fought him, cursed at him, made sounds that she didn’t recognize as coming from her own lips.

  But he held her in an iron vise, then dragged her back to the living room and pushed her unceremoniously into a chair. In the awful silence, she could hear the wail of sirens in the distance, slowly growing louder. Michael knelt before her, one hand on the carved wooden arm of the chair; close, but not touching.

  “It’s my fault he’s dead, but I didn’t kill him. I should have guessed that he might have a gun. I shouldn’t have left him there.”

  The dark mist retreated a bit, though she still had difficulty focusing on him. “He always kept a gun in a locked drawer of his desk—here and at the island.”

  “He asked me if he could be alone for a few minutes—‘to collect his thoughts’, he said. So I went to look for you. I knew you had to be here somewhere because I saw your keys on the table with your purse.

  “I searched the house and was just about to go outside when I heard the shot.” Michael stopped, the plea still in his eyes. “He left a confession. It’s on his computer.”

  They both turned toward the door as the sirens grew louder still, then stopped abruptly. Doors slammed. Michael got to his feet.

  “Are...are you sure he’s dead?” she asked, knowing he must be, but not yet accepting it.

  Michael nodded. “Stay here. I’ll get you out as soon as possible.”

  A seemingly endless parade of uniforms poured into the house and vanished down the hallway, led by Michael. She heard his voice, and then it was lost in the general noise of other voices and squawking radios.

  She struggled to her feet, swaying a bit at first, then walked through the dining room to the terrace door. Then she stopped. Jesse! She had to call Jesse. She stumbled toward the kitchen, fumbled the cordless phone from its base and punched out her sister’s number. Steve’s recorded voice came on. She spoke her sister’s name and waited to see if she’d pick up, but she didn’t. Then she tried the shop, but Jesse’s assistant hadn’t heard from her, though she was expecting her in. Amanda hung up without leaving a message.

  She went back to the terrace doors, pushed them open and walked across the wide expanse of flagstone, across the soft green carpet of grass and came at last to the gazebo once again. Birds called in the trees, but otherwise, all was quiet. Her old home looked as it always had: stately, dignified, a place where nothing terrible could ever happen.

  She sank into one of the Adirondack chairs and tried to gather the peacefulness to her. She had to be strong for Jesse. As soon as she could find that strength, she’d go look for her sister. Jesse would need her. Steve wouldn’t be back until evening.

  She couldn’t see any of the vehicles from here, but now she heard the sound of engines and then more doors slamming. Could it be Jesse? Could Michael have reached her?

  Amanda struggled to her feet and started back across the lawn. Several figures burst into view, cutting across the lawn in front of the house. As soon as they saw her, they began to shout her name. Video cameras were aimed at her, but only for a moment. In the next instant, two uniformed police officers appeared and herded them back to the front of the house, out of view.

  She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to find Jesse, but she knew her car would be blocked by all the other vehicles. Her brain seemed to be whirring at a very high speed, but no solution was presenting itself.

  And then Michael was there, his hand touching her arm tentatively. “Come on. I’ll get you out of here. We’ll go through the woods to Mayor Teddy’s. I sent a car to meet us over there.”

  She let him lead her through the woods—the same stretch of woods they’d crossed all those years ago. The memories of that night, so clear for so long, now seemed lost—or nearly lost.

  “I called Jesse’s therapist,” he said. “She’s going to meet us at Jesse’s house.”

  “Jesse wasn’t home. I tried to reach her.”

  Michael’s hand squeezed hers briefly. “We’ll find her.”

  “I WANT TO SEE his confession.” Amanda wasn’t as certain about that as she sounded, but she was struggling to fit herself into the mold of the prosecutor, a role that seemed safe right now.

  “I do, too,” Jesse said, sounding even less certain.

  Steve reached for the attaché case at his feet. “Michael said you’d probably want to see it, so he made a copy. He also said to tell you that the Duchess County D.A. has been called in to handle it.”

  He gave her the copy, and she and Jesse huddled together on the sofa to read it. Amanda had to read it twice before she could get the words to make sense.

  He gave no explanation for his involvement with Eve Lauden. The statement was brief and obviously rushed. He’d known that Michael wouldn’t be likely to give him much time.

  He’d u
sed the Verhoeven house for their assignations. That was the term he’d used for them. He’d chosen it because he knew that John was going out there often and that anyone who saw the lights would assume it was him. He simply made sure to go only when John was down in the city or otherwise out of town.

  Eve told him she was pregnant and that he was the father. They argued about it, with him claiming that she couldn’t possibly know who the father was. He’d had too much to drink. When she told him that it didn’t matter who the father was, that she intended to claim it was his, he slapped her.

  She staggered backwards and said she’d tell the world. He slapped her again, and this time, she fell hard against the big stone fireplace, striking her head on the mantel. The impact had killed her instantly.

  He couldn’t remember anything clearly after that, but at some point, he’d decided he would have to bury her on the island. She was heavy and it seemed that he’d carried her quite a distance in the darkness before he started to dig her grave. He knew that she’d been talking about running away to the city and figured everyone would think she’d done it.

  A boat pulled into the dock just as he was returning to the Verhoeven house with the shovel. Its lights swept over him. He hid the shovel quickly and ran to John’s boat. The other boat was already backing away, turning toward the mainland.

  He followed it. He was in a state of shock and didn’t know what he’d intended to do. Then the other boat slammed into the ski jump and exploded. He circled around it and saw two bodies in the water. He hadn’t recognized the boat. So he went to the marina and made an anonymous call to the police, then went home only to learn within the hour that Trish was dead and Amanda was barely alive.

  The statement ended there, with no expressions of regret for either Eve’s death or Trish’s death. Just the facts. Amanda wanted to think that he had suffered twenty years of guilt, but she’d never know. If she had to guess, she’d say that he probably didn’t, that he’d managed to build a wall between the man who’d committed those acts and the man he believed himself to be.