Skies of Ash

by Rachel Howzell Hall

  “And Juliet?”

  “Was hopelessly in love with my husband,” she said matter-of-factly. “And I have the e-mails to back that up. Perhaps I’ll send them to you.”

  My heart jumped in my chest. Would they come from that mysterious Google account we’d found?

  “Funny: Ben has that effect on women, where they just completely lose their way. You know this is true.”

  “But you never confronted her,” I said, ignoring her observation.

  She laughed that nasty, bitter laugh of hers. “Juliet wanted him, but she couldn’t have him. She knew that. Therefore, there was nothing for she and I to discuss. Well, that’s not true. That evil spawn of the devil she bore.”

  “No love lost on Cody Chatman, then.”

  “He tortured my daughter,” she spat. “And now he’s back in hell, where he belongs.”

  “Wow.”

  “You obviously are not a mother. If you were, and a teenaged boy had abused your daughter, you’d do anything to protect her, to punish him.”

  My stomach lurched. Protect her. Punish him. “You were pissed off at three of the four Chatmans, then.” I held up one finger, even though she couldn’t see it. “Juliet, for sleeping with your husband. Chloe, for being the product of that affair. And Cody, for bullying Amelia, your sick daughter.” When she said nothing, I added, “Your rage is certainly understandable.”

  “I don’t need your pity,” she whispered.

  I leaned forward on my desk. “You said you visited the Chatmans on the night of the fire. Right before Zumba.”

  Sarah said nothing for several seconds. “I did visit them, yes.”

  “Just that one time? Or did you come back later that night? After class?”

  Silence again.

  “And you took Juliet’s keys that first visit,” I said. “So that you could enter the house on your own. Am I right?”

  I glanced at Colin, then walked onto the ledge. “I’m asking because a witness told me that you did return to the Chatman house that evening. The witness also told me that you were very upset with Juliet, that Cody had done something else to Amelia, and that both Juliet and Cody had reasons to fear you.”

  “If you’re implying that I’ve committed a crime,” Sarah said carefully, “if that’s what you’re doing, Detective Norton, then we have a problem.”

  “Did you return to the Chatman house before the fire?”

  No response.

  “Did you visit the upstairs bathroom when you stopped by to see if Juliet wanted to go to Zumba with you?”

  Sarah Oliver snorted. “Ridiculous questions, one after the other.”

  Had Juliet peeked out her bedroom window that night? Had she glimpsed Sarah Oliver’s SUV parked out front and so she grabbed the gun? Because she knew that Sarah had wanted to kill her?

  My bladder pressed against my waistband. “I’d like you to come down to the station for a formal interview, for more ridiculous questions.”

  “My daughter is sick—Cody’s fault. He harassed her every time she visited, and it just wore her down. Did you know that he locked Mimi and Coco out of the house last week? And he thought it was funny. She’s not a regular little girl, Detective Norton. She can’t handle stress like other children can.”

  “I understand—”

  “I don’t think you do,” she snapped. “You wouldn’t be asking me to come see you if you understood. I wasn’t there last week when Cody Chatman was bullying her, but I’m here now. I will not leave her, not while she’s vulnerable.”

  “Ben can watch her while you’re here,” I offered, not budging. “Shall I send a car to come get you?”

  “Are you accusing me of murder?” she asked. “If so, I should call my lawyer before talking anymore to you.”

  “Who you should call first is your business.”

  She snorted. “Fine. See you soon, Detective Norton.”

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16

  57

  WHEN LIEUTENANT RODRIGUEZ PAGED ME, I WAS CATCHING A NAP IN THE COT ROOM for much-needed slumber. Colin had been hunkered in the break room, weary-eyed and too tired to eat his breakfast burrito. Together, we plodded back to our desks. Colin dropped into his chair, and I sank into mine.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez glided out of his office as though it were three in the afternoon and not three in the morning. He smiled broadly at us and waved a single sheet of paper in his hand. “Prints came back.”

  That yanked me awake. “And?”

  He handed me the results.

  Colin rolled his chair next to mine and peeked over my shoulder.

  My hand flew to my heart as I studied the magnified whirls, ridges, and little pink dots. “On all three vials?”

  “On all three vials,” Lieutenant Rodriguez confirmed.

  “Holy shit,” Colin muttered. “Good job, partner. I doubted you.”

  “And the petroleum jelly?” I asked.

  My boss sighed. “Sarah Oliver’s prints are in the system from her days as a lawyer.”

  Chatman and Sarah had worked together to murder his family. What the hell?

  The requests for arrest warrants took twenty minutes to complete.

  A judge approving the warrants took another hour and a half.

  The drive to Westchester by Colin, Lieutenant Rodriguez, and me, along with seven giants from our Violent Criminal Apprehension Team (including my favorites, Gino Walston and Ro “Samoan Ro” Matua), took only fifteen minutes.

  At dawn, our convoy of Crown Vics and blacked-out Suburbans rolled silently up the hill and through twisty, tree-lined streets to arrest Christopher Chatman and Sarah Oliver for three counts of capital murder. The eastern rim of the world, edged in purples, oranges, and reds, promised a ray of sunshine before clouds rushed in to remind us that it was December 16th. We parked, careful not to slam car doors and awaken the man we had come to apprehend.

  After Gino divided us into two teams—one team to apprehend Sarah Oliver, and another for Chatman—I tugged at the straps of my ballistics vest, then checked my Glock. I slowly inhaled, and my nerves loosened from their bundles.

  “Ready, Lou?” Gino asked.

  “Yep,” I told him. “Make my dreams come true.”

  Gino and I led the Chatman team to the south side of Ben Oliver’s house, while Samoan Ro and Lieutenant Rodriguez led the second team to the main house.

  We crept past the wrought-iron gate and reached the backyard.

  The early birds, mostly sparrows, were getting the worms and hopping on wet grass. A stray cat lounged near Amelia’s abandoned scooter, licking its paws and washing its face.

  We descended the slick flagstone steps to the cottage.

  I banged on the door. “Police! Open up!”

  No response.

  Lieutenant Rodriguez, up at the main house, also banged on the door. “Police! Open up!”

  My heart pounded as I banged the door three more times. “Police! Open up!”

  Silence.

  Gino twisted the doorknob.

  Locked.

  On a three count, my foot flew at the door’s sweet spot, and the wood crunched and splintered. One more kick, and the door flew open. Gun drawn, I moved aside and let the big guys roll in.

  “Anybody in there?” I shouted.

  “Found him,” Gino shouted back.

  We rushed in and found Christopher Chatman’s limp body draped across the couch. Colin and I huddled over the big cop, who was now moving Chatman to the floor.

  “Looks like he tried to off himself,” I said, eyeing the empty vial of Vicodin and near-empty bottle of vodka.

  Samoan Ro and Lieutenant Rodriguez had run from the main house and now rushed into the cottage. “Ain’t nobody in there,” Samoan Ro shouted. “We checked every room. Empty.”

  I muttered, “Shit,” then keyed the mic on my radio and called for EMT.

  Chatman lay on the carpet, still not moving.

  Gino pinched Chatman’s nose and started CPR.

&n
bsp; Colin took a team and canvassed the Olivers’ property.

  The rumble of fire trucks made lights in the houses on either side of us pop on.

  Firemen hollered for us cops to leave the cottage as two red-faced EMTs shoved an endotracheal tube down Christopher Chatman’s throat. They turned Chatman onto his left side, then gently slipped another tube into his mouth and down his esophagus to reach his stomach to start pumping out poison.

  Once the EMTs had lifted Chatman onto a stretcher, I followed them as they rolled the man out to the front of the house.

  Colin and Lieutenant Rodriguez came to stand beside me as Chatman was being loaded into the ambulance.

  “It’s a mess in that little house,” Colin said. “Vicodin, vodka bottles, a handgun, a loaf of bread, wads of cash… I don’t know what he was planning, if he was staying or going or throwing a party.”

  “I’m gonna ride with him,” I told my boss and partner. “We need to find Sarah Oliver, and Chatman will wake up and he’ll tell us. She may be at the hospital with her daughter, though I doubt it.”

  Lieutenant Rodriguez grabbed his radio and called in another crew to process the scene. Then, he called Luke and Pepe to join Samoan Ro and Gino to search for Sarah Oliver.

  Before I climbed into the back of the rig, I glanced over to the Oliver house and stared at the dark first level to the upstairs bedrooms and bathroom windows. No life, nowhere.

  Where were they?

  58

  TWO ONE-WAY TICKETS TO CARACAS, VENEZUELA, FOR SARAH AND AMELIA Oliver,” Colin said over the phone. “Their plane left at three fifty-seven this morning.”

  “Shit,” I growled.

  “And guess what else we found in the cottage?”

  “Aurora Borealis.”

  “Close. Juliet Chatman’s car keys.”

  I hung up and considered the jail ward at County Hospital. Injured bad guys, some wearing orange jumpsuits, others still wearing civilian clothes, sitting in plastic chairs, each suffering from a bloody condition. All were shackled to metal bars welded to the floor as they awaited stitches, bandages, and rides to jail.

  “Detective Norton.” An ER doc, his thick black hair in a ponytail, his last name possessing too many consonants for me to pronounce correctly on a first attempt so early in the day, came to my side. “Mr. Chatman’s awake now.”

  “And lucid?”

  “I’d say more lucid than ninety percent of the folks here,” Dr. Chattopadhyay said. “We gave him charcoal to absorb the rest of the drug. And we’ll keep him under observation for at least twenty-four hours. He’s in five.”

  I strode down to exam room 5, also shackled—to wires and a tiny microphone to record the most important conversation I would have since catching this case.

  Christopher Chatman lay wide awake in bed. His lips were black from the charcoal, his left hand was captured in another cast and taped up with life-saving interventions, and his right hand was handcuffed to the lift bar on the hospital bed.

  I read him the Miranda, then said, “You know, I was just on my way to arrest you and Sarah Oliver this morning. For the murders of your family. But then this happened. Best-laid plans and whatnot.”

  Tears filled his eyes, even though his mouth lifted into a smile. “Did you arrest Sarah?”

  “Your partner in crime? Nope. That’s one smart lady. She’s in Venezuela and you’re… here. With me.”

  “The fire was her idea,” he said. “She wanted to be sure. I would have never burned…”

  “Down something you loved more than your family?” I cocked my head. “Which is why you chose your wife’s pills.”

  He looked away from me.

  I tsk-tsked him. “I guess this is custom for you. Women one-upping you, being cleverer than you. And so much smarter. Juliet sleeps with your best friend right under your nose. Gets pregnant. Passes Chloe off as yours for how many years?

  “And then Sarah. She’s pissed that her husband and your wife had this great love affair. She’s pissed that Cody Chatman, your son, bullies her daughter. She harnesses the power of your possessive, sociopathic nuttiness to get you to help her kill your family. And then! I’m guessing that she steals the money you’d stolen from your clients. Talk about girl power.”

  He glared at me. “I’m no one’s helper.”

  “Again: you’re here and she’s in South America eating empanadas.” I folded my arms. “Pills. And pills that won’t even kill somebody, not really. But Sarah goes hard and handles big shit like fire. I thought I was badass.”

  His eyebrows furrowed. “So you’re parsing murder techniques now? One way is better than another?”

  “No. Some are just wack and pointless. Valium? Really? Let me tell you: us cops sit around sometimes after a case, and we tell each other stories. And the way Sarah Oliver did it? And how she manipulated you? We’ll be talking about her forever.”

  He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths.

  “Tell me,” I said. “What happened that night? What did Sarah do, and what did you do? Did she put the lint in the electrical outlet that night?”

  “Are you really peppering me, a man just waking up from almost dying, with questions?”

  “I don’t need your confession.”

  He licked his stained lips. “Of course you do.”

  “Why kill Juliet, though? Why not divorce—?”

  “So you’re still asking questions?”

  “I’m just interested in how a man can hurt an innocent—”

  “Not innocent,” he hissed. “My wife wronged me. And then she lied to me. Tried to humiliate me. Tried to force me to accept this girl who—”

  “Tried to?” I gaped at him. “She didn’t try to. She did. And that’s why you’re pissed and decided to play God.” I cocked my head. “But why kill the kids?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Bored now?” I asked.

  “Boring question.”

  I gave him a sad smile. “Everyone wants to be loved. But if you can’t be loved, you’ll be feared, right? You went Old Testament on them.”

  He grunted.

  “So here Juliet is, thinking that Sarah has forgiven her, now they’re BFFs and doing Zumba. But in reality Sarah’s working with you to one day kill Juliet and the two children she resents.”

  “Your intellect astounds me.”

  I smiled. “I hear that a lot. Are you aware that Juliet knew you were stealing from your clients? Peggy Tanner. Sol Hirsch. Bill Levy. Those checks and deposit slips? Guess who gave them to me? Addy St. Lawrence. Guess who gave them to her?”

  He blinked at me.

  “Juliet knew, and so when the feds get this they’ll know that Juliet knew. And they’ll know that you’ve lied your way around Southern California for years and it all was crumbling around you. And they’ll know that you and your lover—”

  “Sarah isn’t my lover.”

  “Wow. She didn’t even have to fuck you to screw you? And she ends up with all of your ill-gotten gains.”

  “I’m many things, but stupid is not one of them.” He laughed. “Last month, I took out almost all the money from that L.O.K.I. account in Venezuela.”

  “I have deposit slips—”

  “One slip. Where are the others? In that Bankers Box you lost track of?”

  The veins behind my eyeballs throbbed.

  He frowned. “My private information stolen from right under your nose. How grossly irresponsible you are. All for a dog.”

  “How did you know about the dog?” I asked. “Were you there? Did you and Sarah…?” I clamped my lips shut because I knew the answer. Of course they took the boxes.

  “I can’t steal something that belongs to me,” he said with a lopsided smile. “So you still have… nothing.”

  I wanted to tell him that I had seen the tape from Vandervelde, Lansing & Gray on the morning of the fire. I wanted to tell him about the fingerprints found on the Valium vials and so much more. And I still had questions. What happ
ened that resulted in Juliet’s blood getting in his car? Was Juliet telling the 911 operator that Sarah Oliver had planned to kill her?

  Chatman had a faraway look in his eyes. “Wish I was there to see Sarah walk up to the teller and try to make a withdrawal.” He giggled. “I’m not totally cruel—I left her a buck seventy-five.”

  “And the rest?”

  “The rest is buried under the big W,” he said, grinning. “I also left her a note: ‘If you want the remaining six million, you’ll have to come back to the States.’ ”

  I narrowed my eyes. “She may say, ‘Forget the money.’ ”

  He smirked. “You obviously don’t know Sarah Oliver. Also, you’re forgetting that there’s something even more important to her than money. Amelia is a sickly child. Sickle-cell anemia. Sure, there are doctors over in South America, but right now their health-care system is as messed up as ours. Mimi needs care over here, so Sarah will eventually bring her back.”

  Chatman smiled. “If it makes you feel better, Ben didn’t know—he’s a brilliant attorney but refused to acknowledge that his wife and best friend hated his very existence.” He shrugged. “She’s probably slit his throat by now, dumped him off a bridge somewhere. Don’t care. Anyway, by the time Sarah tries to sneak back into the U.S., I’ll be long gone.”

  My face numbed. Ben was dead: somehow, I knew that. “Where will you be?” I forced myself to ask.

  His smile dimmed. “It’s an unspoken rule of all magicians not to reveal their secrets.”

  “How do I know that everything you told me is the truth? That you’re the mastermind, that you left a dollar seventy-five, that a doctor and not you made that scar on your back? Hell, that your name is Christopher Chatman? How do I know?”

  “Have a merry Christmas, Elouise.” He sighed. “That was a lie, but you’re smart—you probably know that I hope you have the most splendidly fucked-up Christmas in the history of the holiday. I’m done now. Please leave.”

  He wouldn’t talk to me, no matter how long I stood over him, no matter how many questions I asked. Despite my jabs, he kept his face turned and his eyes closed.

  For a long time, I stood in the doorway of his hospital room, letting the tape roll even in the silence, watching him sleep, a tense, wary part of me not believing that he was sleeping but believing that the handcuffs would somehow melt and then he would be free.