Presumed Guilty

by Tess Gerritsen

“Yes?” asked Jill.

  “If I could go over some of my brother’s files.”

  “Business or personal files?”

  “Both.”

  She hesitated, then led him into the back office and through a door labeled Richard Tremain, Owner and Publisher. “These aren’t all his files, you understand. He kept most of them here, but some he kept at home or at the cottage.”

  “You mean Rose Hill?”

  “Yes. He liked to work out there, on occasion.” She pointed to the desk. “The key’s in the top drawer. Please let me know if you take anything.”

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  She paused, as though uncertain whether to trust him. But what choice did she have? He was, after all, the publisher’s brother. At last she turned and left.

  Chase waited for the door to shut, then he unlocked the file cabinet. He flipped immediately to the W’s.

  He found a file on Miranda Wood.

  Chase carried it to the desk and spread it open. It appeared to be a routine personnel record. The employment application was dated one year ago, when Miranda was twenty-eight. Her address was listed as 18 Willow Street. In the attached photograph she was smiling; it was the face of a confident young woman with her whole life ahead of her. It almost hurt to see how happy she looked. Her university record was outstanding. If anything, she was overqualified for her job as copy editor. Under the question “Why do you want this job?” she had written, “I grew up near Penobscot Bay. I want, more than anything, to live and work in the place I’ve always called home.” He flipped through the pages and scanned the semiannual employee evaluation, filled out by Jill Vickery. It was excellent. He turned to the last page.

  There was a letter of resignation, dated two weeks ago.

  To: Richard Tremain, Publisher, Island Herald.

  Dear Mr. Tremain,

  I hereby notify you of my resignation from my position as copy editor. My reasons are personal. I would greatly appreciate a letter of reference, as I plan to seek employment elsewhere.

  That was all. No explanations, no regrets. Not even a hint of recrimination.

  So she told me the truth, he thought. She really did walk off the job.

  “Mr. Tremain?” It was Jill Vickery, back again. “Are you looking for anything in particular? Maybe I can help you.”

  “Maybe you can.”

  She came in and gracefully settled into the chair across from him. Her gaze at once took in the file on the desk. “I see you have Miranda’s employee record.”

  “Yes. I’m trying to understand what happened. Why she did it.”

  “I think you should know she was here just a short while ago.”

  “In the building?”

  “She came to collect her things. I’m glad you two avoided a, uh...unexpected encounter.”

  He nodded. “So am I.”

  “Let me say this, Mr. Tremain. I’m very sorry about your brother. He was a wonderful man, an exceptional writer. He truly believed in the power of the printed word. We’re going to miss him.”

  It was a canned speech, but she delivered it with such sincerity he was almost convinced she meant it. Jill Vickery certainly had the PR down flat.

  “I understand Richard had a story in the pipeline,” he said. “Something about a company called Stone Coast Trust. You familiar with it?”

  Jill sighed. “Why does this particular article keep coming up?”

  “Someone else interested?”

  “Miranda Wood. She just asked about it. I told her that as far as I know, the story was never written. At least, I never saw it.”

  “But it was scheduled to run?”

  “Until Richard canceled it.”

  “Why?”

  She sat back and smoothly flicked her hair off her face. “I wouldn’t know. I suspect he didn’t have enough evidence to go to print.”

  “What, exactly, is the story on Stone Coast Trust?”

  “Small-town stuff, really. Not very interesting to outsiders.”

  “Try me.”

  “It had to do with developers’ rights. Stone Coast has been buying up property on the north shore. Near Rose Hill Cottage, as a matter of fact, so you know how lovely it is up there. Pristine coastline, trees. Tony Graffam—he’s president of Stone Coast—claimed he was out to preserve the area. Then we heard rumors of a high-class development in the works. And then, a month ago, the zoning on those lots was abruptly changed from conservation to resort. It’s now wide open to development.”

  “That’s all there is to the article?”

  “In a nutshell. May I ask the reason for your interest?”

  “It was something Miranda Wood told me. About other people having motives to kill my brother.”

  “In this case, she’s stretching the point.” Jill rose to her feet. “But one can hardly blame her for trying. She hasn’t much else to grab on to.”

  “You think she’ll be convicted?”

  “I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess. But from what my news staff tells me, it sounds likely.”

  “You mean that reporter? Annie something?”

  “Annie Berenger. Yes, she’s assigned to the story.”

  “Can I talk to her?”

  Jill frowned. “Why?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just trying to understand who this Miranda Wood really is. Why she would kill.” He sat back, ran his hand through his hair. “I still can’t quite fit the pieces together. I thought, maybe someone who’s been watching the case—someone who knew her personally...”

  “Of course. I understand.” The words were sympathetic but her eyes were indifferent. “I’ll send Annie in to talk to you.”

  She left. A moment later Annie Berenger appeared.

  “Come in,” said Chase. “Have a seat.”

  Annie shut the door and sat in the chair across from him. She looked like a reporter: frizzy red hair streaked with gray, sharp eyes, wrinkled slacks. She also reeked of cigarettes. It brought back memories of his father. All she needed was a splash of whiskey on her breath. A good old newsman’s smell.

  She was watching him with clear suspicion. “Boss lady says you want to talk about Miranda.”

  “You knew her pretty well?”

  “The word is know. Present tense. Yes, I do.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  Her mouth twitched into a smile. “This is your own private investigation?”

  “Call it my quest for the truth. Miranda Wood denies killing my brother. What do you think?”

  Annie lit a cigarette. “You know, I used to cover the police beat in Boston.”

  “So you’re familiar with murder.”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Leaning back, she thoughtfully exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Miranda had the motive. Oh, we all knew about the affair. It’s hard to hide something like that in this newsroom. I tried to, well, advise her against it. But she follows her heart, you know? And it got her into trouble. That’s not to say she did it. Killed him.” Annie flicked off an ash. “I don’t think she did.”

  “Then who did?”

  Annie shrugged.

  “You think it’s tied to the Tony Graffam story?”

  Annie’s eyebrow shot up. “You dig stuff up fast. Must run in the family, that newsman’s nose.”

  “Miranda Wood says Richard had a story about to break. True?”

  “He said he did. I know he was writing it. He had a few more details to check before it went to print.”

  “What details?”

  “Financial data, about Stone Coast Trust. Richard had just got his hands on some account information.”

  “Why didn’t the article get to print?”

  “Hones
t opinion?” Annie snorted. “Because Jill Vickery didn’t want to risk a libel suit.”

  Chase frowned. “But Jill says the article doesn’t exist. That Richard never wrote it.”

  Annie blew out a last breath of smoke and stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray. “Here’s a piece of wisdom for you, Mr. T,” she said. She looked him in the eye. “Never trust your editor.”

  * * *

  Did the article exist or didn’t it?

  Chase spent the next hour searching the files in Richard’s office. He found nothing under G for Graffam or S for Stone Coast Trust. He tried a few more headings, but none of them panned out. Did Richard keep the file at home?

  It was late afternoon when he finally returned to the house. To his relief, Evelyn and the twins were out. He had the place to himself. He went straight into Richard’s home office and continued his search for the Graffam file.

  He didn’t find it. Yet Miranda claimed it existed. So did Annie Berenger.

  Something strange was going on, something that added to all his doubts about Miranda’s guilt. He mentally played back all the holes in the prosecution’s case. The lack of fingerprints on the murder weapon. The fact she had passed the polygraph test. And the woman herself—proud, unyielding in her protestations of innocence.

  He gave up trying to talk himself out of his next move. There was no way around it. Not if he wanted to know more. Not if he wanted to shake these doubts.

  He had to talk to Miranda Wood.

  He pulled on his windbreaker and headed out into the dusk.

  Five blocks later he turned onto Willow Street. It was just the way he’d remembered it, a tidy, middle-class neighborhood with inviting front porches and well-tended lawns. Through the fading light he could just make out the address numbers. A few more houses to go....

  Farther up the street a screen door slammed shut. He saw a woman come down her porch steps and start toward him along the sidewalk. He recognized her silhouette, the thick cloud of hair, the slim figure clad in jeans. She’d taken only a few steps when she spotted him and stopped dead in her tracks.

  “I have to talk to you,” he said.

  “I made a promise, remember?” she answered. “Not to go near you or your family. Well, I’m keeping that promise.” She turned and started to walk away.

  “This is different. I have to ask you about Richard.”

  She kept walking.

  “Will you listen to me?”

  “That’s how I got into this mess!” she shot back over her shoulder. “Listening to a Tremain!”

  He watched in frustration as she headed swiftly up the street. It was useless to pursue her. She was already a block away now, and by the set of her shoulders he could tell she wasn’t going to change her mind. In fact, she had just stepped off the sidewalk and was crossing the street, as though to put the width of the road between them.

  Forget her, he thought. If she’s too stubborn to listen, let her go to jail.

  Chase turned and had started in the opposite direction when a car drove past. He would scarcely have noticed it except for one detail: its headlights were off. A few paces was all it took for Chase to register that fact. He stopped, turned. Far ahead, Miranda’s slender figure was crossing the street.

  By then the car had moved halfway down the block.

  The driver’ll see her in time, he thought. He has to see her.

  The car’s engine suddenly revved up in a threatening growl of power. Tires screeched. The car leaped forward in a massive blur of steel and smoke, and roared ahead through the shadows.

  It was aiming straight for Miranda.

  Five

  The headlights sprang on, trapping its insubstantial victim in a blaze of light.

  “Look out!” Chase shouted.

  Miranda whirled and found her eyes flooded with a terrible, blinding brightness. Even as the car shot closer and those lights threatened to engulf her, she was paralyzed by disbelief, by the detached sense of certainty that this was not really happening. She had no time to reason it out. An instant before that ton of steel could slam into her body, her reflexes took over. She flung herself sideways, out of the path of the onrushing headlights.

  Suddenly she was flying, suspended for an eternity in the summer darkness as death rushed past her in a roar of wind and light.

  And then she was lying on the grass.

  She didn’t know how long she had been there. She knew only that the grass was damp, that her head hurt and that gentle hands were stroking her face. Someone called her name, again and again. It was a voice she knew, a voice she thought, in that confused moment, she must have known all her life. Its very timbre seemed to blanket her with the warmth of safety.

  Again he called her name, and this time she heard panic in his voice. He’s afraid. Why?

  She opened her eyes and dazedly focused on his face. That’s when she registered exactly who he was. All illusion of safety fell away.

  “Don’t.” She brushed his hand aside. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Lie still.”

  “I don’t need you!” She struggled to sit up, but found herself unable to move under his restraining hands. He had her pinned by her shoulders to the grass.

  “Look,” he said, his voice maddeningly reasonable. “You took a mean tumble. You might have broken something—”

  “I said, don’t touch me!” Defiantly she shoved him away and sat up. Pure rage propelled her to her knees. Then, as the night wavered before her eyes, she found herself sinking back to the grass. There she sat and clutched her spinning head. “Oh, God,” she groaned. “Why can’t you just—just go away and leave me alone.”

  “Not on your life,” came the answer, grim and resolute.

  To her amazement she was suddenly, magically lifted up into the air. Through her anger she had to admit it felt good to be carried, good to be held, even if the man holding her was Chase Tremain. She was floating, borne like a featherweight through the darkness. Toward what? she wondered with sudden apprehension.

  “That’s enough,” she protested. “Let me down.”

  “Only a few more steps.”

  “I hope you get a hernia.”

  “Keep up the damn wiggling and I will.”

  He swept her up the porch steps and in the front door. With unerring instinct he carried her straight to the bedroom and managed to flick on the wall switch. The room—the bed—sprang into view. The bed where she’d found Richard. Though the blood was gone, the mattress new and unstained, this room would always remind her of death. She hadn’t slept here since that night, would never sleep here again.

  She shuddered against him. “Please,” she whispered, turning her face against his chest. “Not here. Not this room.”

  For a moment he paused, not understanding. Then, gently he answered, “Whatever you say, Miranda.”

  He carried her back to the living room and lowered her onto the couch. She felt the cushions sag as he sat beside her. “Does anything hurt?” he asked. “Your back? Your neck?”

  “My shoulder, a little. I think I fell on it.”

  She flinched at the touch of his hands. Carefully he maneuvered her arm, checking its range of motion. She was scarcely aware of the occasional twinges he evoked from her muscles. Her attention was too acutely focused on the face gazing down at her. Once again she was struck by how unlike Richard he was. It wasn’t just the blackness of his hair and eyes. It was his calmness under fire, as though he held any emotions he might be feeling under tight rein. This was not a man who’d easily reveal himself, or his secrets, to anyone.

  “It seems all right,” he said, straightening. “Still, I’d better call a doctor. Who do you see?”

  “Dr. Steiner.”

  “Steiner? Is that old goat still in practice?”
<
br />   “Look, I’m okay. I don’t need to see him.”

  “Let’s just be on the safe side.” He reached for the telephone.

  “But Dr. Steiner doesn’t make house calls,” she protested. “He never has.”

  “Then tonight,” Chase said grimly, dialing the phone, “I guess we’re going to make history.”

  * * *

  Lorne Tibbetts poured himself a cup of coffee and turned to look at Chase. “What I want to know is, what in blazes are you doing here?”

  Chase, leaning over Miranda’s kitchen table, wearily rubbed his face. “To tell you the truth, Lorne,” he muttered, “I don’t know.”

  “Oh.”

  “I guess I thought I could...figure things out. Make sense of what’s happened.”

  “That’s our job, Chase. Not yours.”

  “Yeah, I know. But—”

  “You don’t think I’m doing a good job?”

  “I just get this feeling there’s more than meets the eye. Now I know there is.”

  “You mean that car?” Lorne shrugged. “Doesn’t prove a thing.”

  “He was aiming for her. I saw it. As soon as she stepped into the street he hit the gas.”

  “He?”

  “He, she. It was dark. I didn’t see the driver. Just the license plate. And the taillights. Big car, American. I’m pretty sure.”

  “Color?”

  “Dark. Black, maybe blue.”

  Lorne nodded. “You’re not a bad witness, Chase.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I had Ellis check on that license number. Matches a brown ’88 Lincoln, registered to an island resident.”

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Eddie Lanzo. Ms. Wood’s next-door neighbor.”

  Chase stared at him. “Her neighbor? Have you brought him in yet?”

  “The car was stolen, Chase. You know how it is around here. Folks leave their keys in the ignition. We found the car over by the pier.”

  Chase sat back, stunned. “So the driver’s untraceable,” he said. “That makes it even more likely he was trying to kill her.”

  “It just means it was some crazy kid out for a joyride. Got his hands on that wheel, got a little overwhelmed by all that power, pushed too hard on the gas pedal.”