Charred (23 page)

She was 100 percent right.

He moodily stared at the ruby liquid in his glass. “I don’t like cases based on motive. They’re usually flimsy and can be manipulated if the defendant has the wrong lawyer.”

She didn’t disagree. “She didn’t even try to do herself any favors.”

“She was a kid. Besides, all she said was that she wasn’t sorry he was dead and that he was a mean bastard.”

“She was eighteen and that constitutes, under the law, that she was old enough to be tried as an adult, not to mention, she—”

“Jesus, Rachel, you interviewed her. Do you honestly think she was stable enough to be tried as an adult?”

It was true. Lisa Martin wasn’t mentally challenged, but she was edgy, combative, and not very inclined to defend herself in the spirit of being defiant. All things he’d told Santiago and MacIntosh. The only reason he’d not suggested he go along was he was afraid his presence would ruin the interview because of the arrest. He doubted you ever forgave someone who put you in handcuffs no matter what came afterward. MacIntosh might be able to get her to talk.

Lisa had a hard life, no doubt about it. Junkie mother. He could never find out anything about her father. Now she was serving time for check kiting and fraud, multiple offenses, but at least it wasn’t murder.

In his opinion, Carl thought the U.S. legal system was one of the finest in the world, and also irrevocably flawed.

“I thought the arrest was wrong too,” she said slowly. “But you know all that. We talked about it then and gnashed our teeth but couldn’t do anything. Why are we talking about it again now? I thought your purpose was to get reinstated as a homicide detective.”

“It still is. Let’s see what MacIntosh and Santiago can find out when they talk to Lisa. They owe me now. It has to be them because all that will happen is that Lisa will remember me as the man who arrested her.”

“So you’re using them to get information you can’t get without drawing attention to your side investigation? I get it. The supposed spirit of cooperation. Sure. You’ll look like a hero if your leads point them in the right direction.”

“That sounds calculated and I can’t say that I sat around and thought about it that way, but all I know is that tonight there is very little I can do about it. How about dinner?”

Rachel accepted the change of subject, but her gaze was speculative. “I’m not dressed for it, but there is an Italian place around the corner that delivers. We could order in.”

Maybe he’d be invited to stay the night. It had been awhile …

He said soberly, “I don’t want to be a hero.” He was a born investigator, not afraid of violence, willing to bend rules if he had to—in short exactly what the law-abiding world needed between them and the bad guys. His methods weren’t always perfect, but he got the job done.

But hero?
No
.

Rachel took a sip and set down her glass. “Being a homicide detective
makes
you a hero. People who catch those who kill other people are considered heroes. Now, it gets a little gray when you get kicked off the team for breaking your own rules, but you get points for trying to get back in good graces.”

“I’m not interested good graces, those of Metzger or the mayor or anyone else.”

He said it with enough force he could tell she believed him.

“Then?”

“I really want to work this case.”

“I get it. I do. I’d love to stand in front of that camera still. Stupid in my opinion, but most of the reporters are young. At a certain age they start nudging you into the newsroom.”

Carl smiled ruefully. “Sorry. You miss reporting. I know it.”

“I do,” she acknowledged. “But life changes. You miss homicide, but at least it sounds like you might get a second chance. Now then, if I remember correctly you like veal parmesan, right?”

Chapter 19

The past was like a booklet that had gotten wet and come apart at the edges. A little blurred, some of the pages still bright and not stuck together, glossy in places and in others like glue I can’t seem to wash off my fingers.

I needed to finish.

I sat by the window and drank a glass of good scotch. Two fingers of a single barrel, single malt, my one true indulgence, though I don’t do it often.

Logic told me I was going to have to wait.

The creature was incensed at the delay, but a problem had arisen and the internal struggle was going to be turned into a war and not just a battle at this point.

And here I was so close.

That young trooper, or maybe it was a deputy, had seen me. Briefly, true, and through the old screen door, which wasn’t particularly clean and was spotted with cobwebs, but he’d stood a few feet away and heard my voice and looked right at me.

Not a small problem.

The old man’s death would lead to a ballistics report. I knew this the minute I pulled the trigger, so I’d had to ditch the gun. I wiped it carefully, but a single half print could be incriminating enough to raise a flag and I just couldn’t afford that to happen. Unless it was being kept very quiet, there was no suspect in the hunt for The Burner.

The name I didn’t care for. I don’t know what I’d prefer, but something less plebian, certainly. It smacked of blue collar to me, of seedy neighborhoods, and sleeveless dirty shirts, and loud music.

Not at all my style.

The clink of the ice in the bottom of the glass told me my drink was gone. The scotch would have to be my sleeping pill tonight because mixing the two was dangerous.

And I am always careful
.

JULY 10

Lisa
Martin was
in the infirmary, which Jason had to admit was a relief. Maybe it was territory that came with being a previous offender, but prisons made him jittery, reminded him of what people could lose at the hands of the system. If anything on this planet would keep him clean besides his own sense of right and wrong, it was the idea of being locked in a cell.

Lesson learned a long time ago. It had straightened him out.

His juvenile foray into lawlessness was more than enough to convince him he didn’t need to go in that direction. If he could say anything for himself it was that he was a damn fool sometimes, but he wasn’t a damn fool for long.

Ms. Martin was recovering from a particularly bad case of a skin rash he was positive he didn’t want to get, her entire right leg encased in bandages. She was bored, watching television when they came into the small, curtained room, and looked up from her bed with mild curiosity.

Ellie slipped out her badge. “I’m Detective MacIntosh and this is Detective Santiago. Can we ask you a few questions? The physician and warden have given us permission to talk to you.”

The young woman shrugged. “Since no one comes here voluntarily, I’m gonna take your word for it. Dr. Phil is the highlight of my day, so just don’t keep me long.”

She was of slender build, her nose slightly too big for her face, her dark hair copped short around gamine features. There was an air of vulnerability around the set of her mouth, but an unmistakable hardness in her eyes.

Jason recognized that look. It came from seeing far too much, far too young. For all he knew he still had it.

Ellie said in a gentle voice, “We’d like to talk about Reverend Cameron.” There were curtains around the bed separating the space, but no chairs, so they had no choice but to stand.

“No kidding.” Lisa stared at her in derision. “Why? I told pretty much everything I knew about that bastard in court and they let me go.”

“We weren’t there,” Jason interjected quickly. “We’d kinda like to hear it from you firsthand. Reports leave out the emotions, you know? Tell us the truth. Was he really a bastard?”

Her gaze focused on him, and he held it, letting her see his lack of judgment. After a second, she answered. “Total bastard. You have no idea. And I didn’t kill him.”

“It said in the file that—” Ellie started to say, but Jason interrupted.

“How much of a bastard?” he asked point blank, because it was sure as hell easier to deal with pragmatic than with soft and caring. Female cops routinely messed up there, in his opinion, and in this case, he recognized that resentful air because he’d seen it in the mirror a few times too many.

Lisa adjusted the sheet a little over her supine body, staring at him. “What kind of scale are we talking? One to ten?”

“That’s fine with me. One to ten. Ten being the biggest prick on earth.”

“One hundred. Ah, what the fuck, make it a thousand.”

He recognized pure hate when he heard it.

They’d agreed before they walked through the prison doors that Ellie would do the talking because Lisa was young and female, but he knew her kind, he’d been one once, so he had no trouble talking over his partner. When she shot him a look and opened her mouth, he spoke quickly. “In a nutshell, why’d you hate his guts?”

Lisa was pale, and there was a slight tick in her cheek, the muscle jumping now and then. She looked away, back at the now-silent television. Her dark hair was lifeless, without the sheen of good health. “Tell me why you want to know. Is this about Margot? If it is, no thanks. She didn’t help me. I’m not helping her.”

Margot Cameron, the wife, the lover … the woman had almost been brought up on charges of child molestation, but Lisa had been seventeen when she’d been put into foster care in their home and the charges had been dropped because Mrs. Cameron had cooperated. By the time of the murder Lisa was of age and no one could prove the affair had started earlier. Lisa certainly, according to Grasso, hadn’t cooperated at all, so no formal investigation of that aspect of the case had ever been opened.

“We haven’t spoken to her,” Ellie said. “She lives in Utah now, but maybe you know that. We’re just investigating another murder.”

Or two. Or three. Or
five
.

“Well I didn’t do it. I’ve been here for a while.” Lisa gestured wide, her arm flinging out clumsily. “Ask anyone. Why would I leave paradise?”

“Why’d you hate him?” Jason asked it again in a flat voice. She didn’t want his sympathy, and at her age, he wouldn’t have either. That life was behind him and he was glad, but it wasn’t part of his most pleasant memories and he wasn’t sure he had a lot of those anyway.

After a second where they made full eye contact again, Lisa seemed to deflate. “For about a million reasons, but mainly because he was just a hypocritical, bullying son of a bitch. He beat his wife, but in places it wouldn’t show, he bragged to me once that he stole from the church all the time because he was that kind of an asshole, and he…”

“What?” Jason was aware Ellie had gone very still.

Lisa shrugged, her skinny shoulders lifting her gown. “He tried stuff. A touch here, a little feel-up there. Margot was afraid of him, but I really wasn’t. Not all that much. Pervert. He was pretty cruel to her and the rest of the kids, but he was sneaky about it, you know? Deprived privileges and punishments … I’m glad someone killed him. It wasn’t me, but I still don’t mind at all he’s dead.”

Pay dirt
. He could feel it in the very marrow of his bones. It was
that
sort of moment. He could read people pretty well and after that one attempt when they arrived, he did note that Ellie let him have the lead in the questioning, so maybe she felt it too.

“You didn’t do it. Okay, any idea who did?”

“Hard to tell. I haven’t done a poll or anything, but we’d all have tried if we thought we could get away with it.”

“We all?”

“Saint Ralph Cameron’s kids.” She made a face. “That’s what he called us. Cameron’s Kids. He did foster care. Made Margot do it, actually—like
he’d
lift a finger. In the church, he was viewed as doing his Christian duty.”

A lightbulb lit up. Jason took in a steadying breath. “Anyone else hate him as much as you?”

With conviction, she said, “Every single one of us.”

*   *   *

All right.
He
was
good at this.

Ellie had to admit it even if she didn’t like him all that much. Jason Santiago knew how to talk to a reluctant witness, or at least one like Lisa Martin, and cut through the fine nuances of trying to pry information from someone who was distrusting and just demand it from them.

And she was learning something.

Not that she really approved of his methods, but …

This was a real lead. If this worked they’d have the car from the tenement fire, the face-to-face with the deputy, and then this damaged girl with her hollow eyes … all clues leading back to the killer.

Jason crouched by the bed. Not touching it, but on his haunches so he was nonthreatening, hands clasped in front of him, his voice surprisingly soft. “Okay. Thanks. I think you might have just helped us a lot. Why didn’t your lawyer bring up that there were a lot of other candidates besides you for Cameron’s murder when you were arrested?”

Before that moment Ellie would have voted him number-one least sensitive cop in Wisconsin law enforcement.

But … maybe he wasn’t a contender.

Lisa took a minute, but she did answer him. “My lawyer was a tired, overworked public defender. Besides, Margot denied everything and did her best to bury me, painting me like some crazy stalker or something. I know she was scared she was going to get accused of the murder. She was under suspicion just like me because she hated him. Maybe more than I did. And the whole lesbian thing … she was ashamed of that.” Lisa’s voice cracked as she finished and her eyes were unfocused as one thin hand plucked at the blanket. “I was so pissed at her I didn’t help myself either. I refused to cooperate, wouldn’t testify, told my lawyer to go fuck himself most of the time when he asked me questions. I’ve had five years to think about what I could have done differently and I think the answer is just about everything, but there is one mistake I didn’t make. I know they never figured out who did it, but
I
didn’t kill that douche bag Cameron.”