Last Girl Standing

by Lisa Jackson

  She nodded, taking another swallow. She looked scared. McCrae didn’t blame her. It was scary to be in a police interview. He just hoped it wasn’t from something more serious.

  “My husband and I love each other,” she began, “but we’ve hit a rough spot in our marriage. Since Tanner took over his father’s clinic, it’s taken a lot of work to stay . . . happy. But let me say this clearly: I did not attack my husband. I found him lying on the floor with all that blood.” She shook her head. “My hand touched the knife, and I got a cut.” She lifted her palm. “But it was on the floor already. I don’t know who would do this to him. I mean, why? I just don’t understand.”

  McCrae glanced at Quin, who was watching Delta closely. McCrae couldn’t tell if he was moved by her words, as his face hadn’t changed expression in the slightest.

  “That’s what we aim to find out,” McCrae told her.

  Quin asked, “Is there anything else, say over the last year or so . . . anything you can remember that maybe stood out? Something that seemed off?”

  Delta deliberated, then slowly shook her head, before remembering another party that she and Tanner had attended about six months prior. Tanner and another man had had some words about the way their cars were parked, how Tanner had pulled into a parking spot too fast and punched his car into the pickup across from him. Minor damage to the pickup, although Tanner’s hood had lifted and buckled and the radiator had needed replacing. “They tossed some insults back and forth, but it didn’t last long.”

  Quin moved on, but then circled back and seemed to ask further questions that really covered the same ground they’d already gone over. It was all McCrae could do to remain silent.

  Finally, they were wrapping up, and Delta had scooted her chair back, when Quin asked, “Where were you just prior to going to the clinic to ostensibly meet your husband?”

  “Ostensibly? I was meeting my husband. That’s why I was at the clinic.” She looked slightly perturbed. “Before that I was at a fund-raiser for Englewood Academy.”

  “At the Bengal Room?”

  “Well . . . uh . . . yes, it started out as a tea and sort of continued,” Delta answered, flustered.

  McCrae gave Quin a long look. Who’d been feeding him information today?

  “And you saw Dean Sutton there?”

  Delta regarded him in confusion. “Coach Sutton? No. I . . . was he there? At the Bengal Room?”

  “You’ve talked to Sutton?” McCrae asked Quin, a little surprised he’d kept it from him.

  “He called into the department and said he’d seen Mrs. Stahd at the Bengal Room last night with some people.”

  “We all just went to have a drink,” Delta said a bit dazedly. “Seems longer ago than just last night.”

  “Agreed,” McCrae said. He was running on fumes after a night of no sleep, and Tanner’s stabbing felt as if it was days ago.

  Meanwhile, Delta had grown paler, if that was possible, and had shrunk into her chair. Something was up there.

  “What did Sutton have to say?” McCrae asked Quin.

  “Maybe Delta could tell us,” Quin suggested.

  “I didn’t see him. I wasn’t there long. I had to meet Tanner and relieve my mother from babysitting.” She licked her lips. “I had a drink, maybe two, and then I left. I wish Coach would’ve talked to me.”

  “He said you were busy.” Quin was sober.

  What the hell? McCrae was feeling tense. He hated being left in the dark, and he really hated seeing Delta look so guilty. He was going to have to talk to Dean Sutton himself.

  “I spoke with your receptionist and an assistant who worked at the clinic,” Quin switched subjects when Delta didn’t respond. “Tia Marvin and Amy Panterra.”

  “Yes,” said Delta.

  “You’ve been on the phone a lot today,” McCrae observed to Quin.

  “They said your marriage is over,” Quin went on, ignoring McCrae, “and that your husband has made advances toward them.”

  Delta uttered a sound somewhere between a laugh and a moan.

  McCrae wanted to burst in and help her. Held himself back, barely.

  Quin said, “Dr. Stahd’s nurse called the department as well, as soon as she heard. She reiterated what the other women said about the state of your marriage.”

  “Candy. She has a husband and two teenage boys, all of them over six feet, which kept Tanner from hitting on her. Or maybe she says he went after her, too. I don’t really know.” Delta gave a twisted smile. “They’ve all believed our marriage has been on the brink of failure for years.”

  “And has it?” Quin was relentless.

  “I don’t think so.”

  McCrae started, “If Delta—”

  “I didn’t stab him!” Delta broke in. “I didn’t. Someone tried to kill my husband, but it wasn’t me. I’ll sit here and answer any and all of your questions, but it wasn’t me. When Tanner wakes up, he’ll tell you.”

  “If he wakes up,” said Quin repressively.

  McCrae said, “I’ll call the hospital and get an update.” He wanted to glare at Bob Quintar. It wasn’t like the man to barrel forward so coldly, but then anything that had to do with his daughter’s death, even peripherally, stirred an unresolved anger and sadness within the man, and Delta, by virtue of being one of Bailey’s classmates, a member of the Five Firsts, had reminded him acutely of his loss.

  But that didn’t make Tanner’s attack Delta’s fault.

  “We’re going to find out who’s behind the stabbing,” McCrae added.

  Quin nodded in agreement. “I just have a few more questions.”

  “More?” Delta asked wearily.

  McCrae thought the same thing. It was clear Quin had purposely left him out of the day’s developments. Maybe he felt McCrae was too close to Delta to be impartial. There was wisdom in that. He probably would’ve done the same thing if the situation were reversed. But he didn’t have to like it.

  “Mr. Sutton said you were flirting with a man at the bar at the Bengal Room,” Quin said.

  She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. This, then, was what had made her go pale, McCrae decided.

  “He was flirting with me,” she corrected. “It wasn’t anything. I really wish Coach would’ve said hi to me. I would have liked to see him. He didn’t come to the reunion. But now . . .” She swallowed, and for a moment, McCrae worried she was going to break down, but she tightened her lips and her resolve, straightening in her chair.

  Quin switched tactics. “You said you and your husband love each other, but you seem to believe your husband has been . . . unfaithful?”

  “Marriage is sometimes . . . challenging. But we love each other,” Delta said doggedly.

  Quin was doling out rope, letting her pick up the slack, before he yanked the line tight in the hopes of pulling her off her feet. He’d done the same thing with suspects more times than McCrae cared to count. But it just felt wrong, him doing it to Delta.

  Delta, however, gamely went on with what she knew about her husband. She seemed to want to set the record straight about their relationship. Mostly Tanner stayed late at work, and therefore she saw him only a few hours a day. She’d caught him once on an angry phone call, but when she’d asked him about it, he’d said that people expected instant miracles, and the only one who could do that was God, so she’d assumed it was one of his patients complaining about the results of his diet supplements. He’d also had several meetings with his father, one of them spilling out of the clinic and to their house after an apparently contentious encounter. The two Stahds hadn’t spoken for nearly a month afterward. Delta didn’t know what the rift was about but felt it had been over Tanner’s running the clinic differently from what the older Dr. Stahd had started.

  Quin asked a few more pointed questions, one being if Delta were dating anyone outside the marriage, to which he got a resounding “No.”

  Quin finally turned to McCrae and asked if he had any further questions.

  “I
think you’ve about covered it,” he answered dryly.

  A few minutes later, Delta got up to leave. McCrae rose from his chair to drive her home, but she waved him back down, telling him she’d catch an Uber or Lyft.

  Clearly, she’d had enough of the West Knoll PD.

  “Oh, one other thing,” Quin added as Delta was at the door of the interview room, her hand already twisting the knob. “All three of your husband’s employees said the knife he was stabbed with came from your house, but you said you’d never seen it before.”

  She stopped short, her back to them. A long pause and then a small voice, “I don’t know . . .”

  “Apparently he told them he’d taken it from a set from your house and that you hadn’t wanted him to take it, but he did. You had a huge fight about it, but he took it anyway. It was on his desk. He used it to cut up fruit in the break room.”

  Another pause. She still didn’t turn around as she said, a bit unsteadily, “No, I’m not sure . . . I need to go to my mom’s and then pick up my son.”

  “Okay. No more questions for now. I hope your husband recovers and we can get some answers.”

  She glanced back then, her gaze touching on McCrae a moment before sliding back to meet Quin’s. With a little more grit, she said, “I hope so, too,” and then she headed out the door and down the hallway.

  “That was quite a show,” said McCrae.

  Quin nodded. “You would’ve been too soft on her.”

  You can’t blame her for Bailey’s death, he thought, but what he said was, “You’re probably right, but from now on, I want a heads-up.”

  Quin met his eyes, thought about that a moment, then nodded gravely. “She’s gonna need a lawyer.”

  “A good one,” he agreed.

  Chapter 16

  Zora watched the midday news with her mouth dropped open. It took her a few moments to actually shut it. Amanda had called her and told her about Tanner, and she’d asked for help getting in to see him. Zora had said she’d do what she could, although Brian could be such a butt about asking his friends for favors, it was doubtful; then she’d scoured the Internet for bits and pieces of information about Tanner, still in a state of disbelief. The live newsfeed had made it all seem so real.

  It is real, she reminded herself. It is.

  She was perched on the white leather chair in Brian’s den. He’d wanted black or espresso, but she’d insisted upon white, and as ever, he’d given in to her. Brian was a sweet man, but he was kind of a wimp. His father’s death had knocked him down, for sure, but she realized now he’d always sort of been that way. He’d only been happy teaching, it seemed, but when he’d inherited his father’s estate, Zora had told him those days were behind him.

  “Let’s have a baby together,” she’d exclaimed almost as soon as they’d started dating.

  “What?” he’d responded, boggled.

  “I think we could make beautiful children together.”

  She’d dragged him, bemused and laughingly protesting, to the bedroom on their third date. She would have tried on their first, but that had been the night of the reunion, and he’d spent most of the time concerned about whether he should have left Anne Reade and Clarice Billings and Principal Kiefer at the event. Coach Sutton hadn’t made an appearance at the reunion, which Brian had said was because a lot of the blame for Carmen’s death and other kids’ injuries had been laid unfairly on him by the parents.

  “Dean never got over it,” Brian told her that night. “He’s been teaching phys ed at Montgomery in Clackamas. I talked to him about the reunion, but he didn’t feel right about coming.”

  Zora had wanted to talk about other things, more personal things, and she’d steered the conversation as best she could. She’d been only partially successful, but she had managed to catch a ride home with him that night and had thanked him profusely. She’d pretended she didn’t think she should drive, when in reality she hadn’t consumed enough to get a buzz on, but he’d complied.

  He’d dropped her at her doorstep, and she’d fervently clasped his hand before climbing out of the car. “Can we do this again?” she asked. “I really could use someone to talk to. Max and I have been separated for years (a lie, but one she made good on as soon as possible); our relationship has been over a long time. Practically from the get-go. Sometimes you make a mistake, and it just takes a while before you have the courage to make it right.”

  She could tell Brian fell for her story hook, line, and sinker, so she picked a fight with Max the very next day and moved out by the end of that week. From there, she and Brian began seriously dating. Amanda told her she was railroading him into marrying her, which really hurt, but then Amanda always said mean things. Maybe she had railroaded him a little. Was that a crime? By the end of that year, she and Max were divorced, and she and Brian were married and spending hours in bed having sex like lovesick bunnies.

  She’d been so sure it would work. She would be pregnant before a moon’s turn, and yet . . . nada. Same old disappointments. Same old frustrations.

  Her gynecologist could find nothing wrong with either her or Brian. Healthy sperm. Healthy people. Just no babies.

  But . . . Brian had inherited tons of money. That was a fact. While they were dating, Brian had introduced her to important people, people with cold, hard cash, and life had been full of fun and expensive toys and . . . just everything. For a time, it was all just perfect. But then, while Zora indulged her every whim, her husband grew content to live in his office easy chair and only gather himself to go out once a weekend, generally to a good restaurant. Sometimes they stayed in all weekend . . . and all week . . . It was a nice, predictable, fingernails scraping on a blackboard existence.

  Zora was going out of her mind.

  She found herself fixated on Delta and her little boy, Owen. Had dreams about kidnapping him—just for an afternoon or so—so she could have a child. In desperation, knowing her fantasies were dangerous, she’d gone to a shrink, Judy, a gray-haired granny type with terrible taste in clothing but a concerned manner, who’d suggested adoption. Zora had tried to be enthusiastic about that idea, but she wasn’t, and when she approached Brian with the idea, he was even less eager than she was.

  So . . . what? What was there in life?

  She found herself aimlessly wandering around malls. She flirted with the thought of shoplifting. She was unhappy, uninterested, and uninvolved. It felt a little like death.

  But now someone’s stabbed Tanner!

  Zora dialed Amanda again. Who could have done this? Why had they done it? It was just so . . . terrible!

  Amanda didn’t answer. Instead an annoyingly cool, female voice said, “You’ve reached Amanda Forsythe. Leave a message with the front desk.” She was beeped back to the same cool voice, the receptionist, who took Zora’s name and number and then disconnected. Zora sat tensely for about ten minutes, then couldn’t stand it any longer, so she called Ellie. She still had her cell number from the reunion but had never used it. She was gratified and a little taken aback when Ellie answered with an abrupt, “Ellie O’Brien.”

  “Hi, Ellie. It’s Zora. I just saw on the news about Tanner and . . . and . . .”

  And she abruptly burst into tears.

  “I’m going to go see him,” Ellie said, ignoring her sniffling. “I tried today and failed, but they won’t keep me out tomorrow. Amanda said you had connections.”

  “Well . . . um . . . I’m going to ask Brian, but . . .”

  “Don’t count on it?” Ellie guessed. “Fine. I’ll figure it out.”

  She sounded so sure of herself that Zora said, “I want to go with you. Please. Don’t say no.”

  Ellie made a disparaging sound that might have been a hushed swear word, but then she muttered something kind of condescending about Amanda beneath her breath before saying she would talk to her, then abruptly hung up. Even though high school and the Five Firsts were long over, Zora couldn’t help thinking about how commandeering Ellie was, especially si
nce she hadn’t been part of their clique. She wondered what Amanda thought of her attitude.

  Around 5:00 p.m., Brian stumbled out of his office—what the hell did he do in there all day anyway?—while the news replayed the story about Tanner. He looked from the TV to her accusingly. “You didn’t tell me?” he questioned.

  “I just found out,” she lied.

  “Sweet Jesus,” he muttered, and she watched the color drain from his skin.

  “I know. It’s just terrible.” She paused, then added, “We’re going to try to get in to see him tomorrow.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Ellie and Amanda and me.”

  “Leave the man be. If he’s going to recover, he doesn’t need an entourage hovering over him.”

  This was about as cold and unfeeling as Brian ever got. “If he’s going to recover?” she repeated, aghast.

  “It’s what they’re not saying that makes it sound dire.”

  “Well, he’s not going to die! Tanner? No!”

  He turned to gaze at her, and she thought she saw a flash of contempt in his eyes. Contempt of her? He was the one who never did anything. The one closeted in his office. The one who would barely touch her anymore. From all their early frantic lovemaking, they’d gone to being polite strangers. God, it was difficult to find a good man. Most of them were flat-out losers. “I was going to ask if you could call the Rawlings and ask if you could get us in . . .” She knew Gene Rawling was on the hospital board.

  Brian shook his head and snorted, then stalked back to his office. Burned, Zora tiptoed to his closed door. She could hear murmuring and surmised he was on the phone. Edging closer, she pressed an ear to the panels.

  “. . . I don’t know! God, it could be a drug addict, not, not . . . No! . . . No, it’s no one who . . . I’m just saying, it’s just bad, bad luck. I hope he’s okay. I hope he gets better and he can tell us what happened . . . Of course, I mean it. And I know it’s got nothing to do with anything else . . . You worry too much. I—”

  Zora leaned so far forward that she half-fell into the door with a soft thud. As she collected herself, the door swung rapidly inward, and Brian stood on the other side, glaring at her. His cell phone was still in his hand, but the screen was dark.