An Intimate Murder (The Catherine O'Brien Series) (30 page)

Chad sat on the lower bunk bed with his head down. He held a blue icepack to the back of his neck. His eyes flicked up briefly, and then returned to the space between his feet.

I knelt next to the bunk bed. “Chad, do you know who attacked you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It was my Mom’s cousin Katie.”

I looked up at Louise. Jane Katts took a deep breath and said, “B –"

I snapped my fingers and shook my head.

“I told you.” Linda pushed her way past two officers toward us. “You didn’t listen to me and now she’s trying to hurt Chad.”

“Is that true, Chad?” I said.

“Yes!” Linda shot back.

“Mrs. Myers, please wait in the hallway until we’re finished here,” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere. Someone needs to protect Chad and it sure as hell hasn’t been you.”

She stabbed an accusing finger in my direction. I motioned to the officer closest to her.

“Take Mrs. Myers into the hallway please, Officer,” I said. “We’ll be finished here in a minute.”

He took Linda Myers by the arm. Part of me felt a twinge of guilt. She bitched her way out of the room and thrashed out of his grasp. Linda Myers was going to make him work for his money today.

“Chad,” I said. “Can you please tell me what happened?”

He sat up and leaned against the support post of the bunk headboard. His eyes focused on me for the first time.

“Jesus, what happened to you?”

“Car accident.”

“That sucks.” His brows knitted together. “I bet it hurts.”

“Yeah, it does. How are you?”

Confusion flickered across Chad’s features. His eye alighted on the ice pack in his hand, and the confusion on his face cleared. He put the pack back on his neck.

“I’m fine.” He shrugged. “Or I will be.”

I moved closer to Chad in an effort to block the rest of the room. I wanted him to forget there were others watching and listening, to forget that his Aunt was ranting in the hallway. Forget everything except what I wanted him to focus on.

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

“Katie was waiting for me in my room. She hit me on the back of the head and I ran for the hallway.” His eyes shifted to over my right shoulder. “That’s it.”

“What did she hit you with?”

“Ah, I don’t know.”

“When was this?”

Chad gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Maybe a half an hour ago.”

That explained the parade of police cruisers outside. The officer who arrived on scene first, believed Chad’s attacker was still somewhere on campus.

“We’re going to take you to our office. You’ll be safe there.”

For a moment, I smiled at the thought that I no longer believed my office was the safest place to be. Not for Chad and not for me. How ironic, that the person Chad thought he needed protection from, was the person who had changed my idea of security forever.

Chad nodded his agreement and got to his feet.

“I’ll take him to the car with me,” I said to Louise. “You wrap things up here.”

I winked at her and Louise’s head tilted forward in acknowledgment.

Once in the hall, Linda Myers pounced on us.

“Where are you taking him? What’s going on?”

“Mrs. Myers.” I tried to use the same tone that Louise did when she was dealing with hysterical people. “We’re taking Chad to our office. He’ll be safe there.”

“I’m going too.” She crossed her arms over her chest daring me to say otherwise.

“Of course.” I inclined my head to the uniformed officer behind her. “Would you please escort Mrs. Myers? Our car will be full.”

The officer rolled his eyes skyward then nodded. I was going to owe him a lunch for sticking him with Linda for that long.

By the time we reached the parking lot, word must have come down that the suspect in the attack was no longer in the area. Only two squads remained with their lights flashing, the rest had returned to their regular patrols.

I squeezed into the back of Louise’s Toyota with Chad.

“Where were you this morning?” I asked.

Chad looked startled as if he didn’t realize I was next to him, or I had just pulled him back from a very deep thought.

“What?”

“This morning when Katie broke into your room, where were you?”

His gaze was stony. “Why?”

“No reason. I was just wondering if the University has early classes or something?”

“No.” He turned toward his breath-fogged window. “I went to the Union for breakfast.”

I looked out over the common.

“I missed breakfast this morning. Do they have daily specials?”

“Why?” He turned toward me. “Do you want to know what I ate? Just say so. I had two eggs, soft boiled, sausage – patties not links – wheat toast with strawberry jam and orange juice. It’s what I have every morning.”

Chad’s breaths came out in short, angry, puffs.

I held my hands up at my shoulders, palms out. “Sorry, Chad. I’m just not really good at uncomfortable silences. I tend to want to fill the emptiness. It’s not personal.”

He relaxed against the seat, satisfied with my explanation. His features hung on his face like an old man who’d been down many bad stretches of road in his life.

“Louise, my partner –” I jerked my thumb toward the dorm, “is better with people than I am. When she’s not around I’m sort of . . .”

I wiggled the fingers of my right hand as if I’d be able to grasp the word from the air.

“Awkward.” Chad provided.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Awkward. Thanks.”

Chad’s lips melted into a flat smile.

“Did you call your Aunt before you called the police?”

“No.” Chad looked as if a cattle prod had been rammed into his back. “I called the police first.”

“Then you called your aunt?”

“Yes.”

“It’s nice to have someone who cares so much,” I said.

“Yeah, it is.”

Louise and Jane emerged from the arched, stone, dorm doorway. Louise opened the driver’s door letting in a cold rush of wind before she got in and closed the door. She glanced at Chad in the rearview mirror.

“How are you doing?”

His response was automatic. “Fine, thank you.”

The ride back to the office passed in silence, except for the occasional uncomfortable outburst from Jane Katts. The officer transporting Linda Myers arrived before we did, which didn’t surprise me. He had probably used his lights and sirens all the way to the office, then up the stairs to the right floor.

Linda paced furiously in the lobby. From the red that tinted our receptionist’s face, Linda had been ranting since she arrived.

I pushed through the glass door followed by Chad, then Jane, and finally Louise.

“Chad.” Linda Myers rushed toward him, but Chad turned away before she could embrace him. She settled for rubbing her hand across his shoulders, as if she were soothing a crying baby.

“Are you alright, Chad?”

He crossed his arms over his chest, head down. “Fine.”

“I demand that you arrest my cousin.” Linda ranted into Louise’s face. “How many members of my family does she have to kill before you believe me?”

The placid, unreadable, but friendly expression that Louise used like a mask, when confronted with an irate member of the public appeared and seemed to do its job. Linda eased back, maybe only an inch or two, but enough.

“Mrs. Myers.” Louise’s voice was calm and even. I envied her ability to switch off any personal feelings. My natural instinct when under attack was to attack back, defend myself.

“We need to get an official statement from Chad and he has to press charges. If we do everything by the book, when we bring her in, we may be able to find evidence, which helps us with your sister’s murder. If we rush in, a good defense attorney, which with her money wouldn’t be hard to find, would have any evidence we found regarding the murder thrown out of court.”

All that was left of Linda Myers’s anger dissipated. She considered Louise as if trying to decide if she could be trusted or not.

“I apologize,” she said. “I’m just a little upset about everything that’s been happening.”

“We understand, Mrs. Myers,” Louise said. “We need to speak to Chad alone.”

Louise swept her hand toward the front desk.

“Rebecca can get you something to drink. She’ll show you to the lounge where you’ll be more comfortable.”

Rebecca gave Linda a hesitant smile.

Louise placed her hand on Linda’s shoulder.

“We’ll only be a few minutes,” she said. “We’ll come get you in the lounge.”

I held my breath until Linda Myers was out of sight, afraid she would realize she was being led away, and change her mind. She didn’t. Instead she followed Rebecca and gave Chad only one backward glance.

We escorted Chad to a hallway that leads to the interrogation rooms.

“Chad,” I said. “Are you sure Katie attacked you?”

Part of me wanted him to say, no. Here was his chance, and I wanted him to take it.

Chad didn’t hear opportunity knocking. He only heard a simple question. He turned hard eyes toward me.

“I saw her. She hit me. What part of that is hard for you to grasp?”

I took Chad’s elbow with more force than I probably needed to, jerked open the door to my right, and pushed Chad through the opening. Louise and Jane followed me inside and I closed the door.

Chad faced the glass. I stood beside him and crossed my arms over my chest. On the other side of the one-way mirror, Katie Dolan gestured wildly at Bob Shackelford.

“You caught her?”

“Yes,” I said. “About forty-five minutes
before
you claim she attacked you. Can you grasp that, Chad?”

His eyes narrowed at me. “Why did you arrest her?”

“For attacking me.” I pointed to my face. “You see, she really did attack me.”

Chad turned toward Louise looking for confirmation. She nodded. He let out a deep breath and moved to one of the viewing seats. He dropped into the chair, propped his elbows on his knees, and held his head in his hands.

“Shit.”

Louise sat in the chair next to him and I moved to the mirror and blocked the view of Katie Dolan. We’d give him a few more minutes to decide if he would try to concoct another lie, or tell the truth. I was routing for the truth.

To my surprise, Jane Katts settled against the back wall and held her tongue. In the last few days, Jane hadn’t proven herself tactful in these situations.

Chad lifted his head and fixed his eyes on mine.

“She did that to your face?” he asked.

“Yes, she did,” I said. “Are you sure you want to stick with your story? Do you know the penalty for filing a false police report?”

“Why, Chad?” Louise asked.

He sagged against the back of the chair and scratched at his left eyebrow.

“Is there really a good reason?” He said. “I can’t think of one. Can you?”

“Then tell us the truth bad or bad,” I said. “I’ve gotta tell you Chad, the suspense is killing me.”

“Oh, then maybe I should hold out a little bit longer.” Cold cruelty fixed in the expression on his face. He reminded me of a kid caught kicking a dog that shows no remorse.

“Funny,” I said and jerked my thumb over my shoulder. “Maybe I should go in there and tell your cousin that you’re trying to frame her. My guess is you, and your Aunt Linda, have decided to not only frame her for your attack, but also the murder of your parents.”

A cocky swagger washed over him. In my mind, I had given Chad the status of frat-boy-wannabe-punk but as we pealed back the layers, Chad was slowly changing from wannabe, to professional punk.

“Chad if you don’t tell us what’s going on we’re going to have to arrest you,” Louise said. “Do you know something about Katie’s involvement with your parents? Is that what this is about?”

Chad scratched at his eyebrow again. “Linda said Katie was involved with my parents somehow. The attack was her idea. She said it was my word against Katie’s and with her record, no one would believe her.”

Linda Myers had probably been right. Had she executed her plan, before we picked up Katie for questioning, I would have been willing to believe Katie capable.

“What’s the big deal? It’s not like she was going to face the death penalty or anything.” His gaze returned to the floor. “They’ll just send her back to the looney bin, which is where she belongs anyway.”

“From what I can tell, you and your aunt, belong in cross-your-heart, white jackets next to her.”

Chad gave a low chuckle.

“Yeah, maybe mental illness runs way down deep in the roots of our family tree.”

Louise stood and moved to my side.

“There’s more to this ruse than framing Katie,” Louise whispered in my ear.