Healing Sands (42 page)

Sully took a long draw from the bottle. When he set it down, she was watching him.

“What?” he said.

“You don't want to talk about my kitchen.”

“I don't?”

“You want to talk about what happened last night. That's why I asked you over for lunch.”

Sully set the bottle aside and felt his grin fade. “Did the police question you?”

“Baranovic did.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't want to get you involved.”

“If you hadn't told them the truth, they would have found out, and it would look bad for you.”

Sully felt the pang he'd been fighting off ever since he left the police station the night before. No one had accused him of anything. The detective had been more than cordial. But he couldn't stave off the uneasy feeling that an invisible finger was pointing at him.

Tess scooped up the pile of diced tomatoes and slid them onto the salad. “I'm going to ask you a question, and if you don't want to answer it, just tell me to back off.”

Sully nodded.

She reached for an avocado. “How do you feel, now that the woman responsible for your wife's death is dead?”

“Funny you should ask.”

“Is it?”

“I've been trying to sort that out. Part of me is shocked, of course, that anybody would do something like that—no matter how miserable she made them.”

“So, no relief?”

“Not that I want to admit to.”

“Isn't that just human, though? I mean, now you don't have to make sure she isn't going to hurt anyone else.”

“I didn't want her dead!”

“But now that she is . . .” Tess paused, knife still at the skin of the avocado. “I'm sorry. I'm putting words in your mouth.”

“Words I probably ought to own up to. But you know, I think I'm more angry than I am relieved. I wanted to have my say. It's like I'm still as frustrated as I was before.”

She put down the knife and leaned on the heels of her hands. “I'm going to ask you another question, and you really,
really
don't have to answer this one.”

Sully smiled at her. She hadn't asked him anything yet that he didn't want to pour out an answer to, right into her magic eyes.

“I know you'll never stop loving Lynn. She'll always be part of you. But do you think you'll ever really get over what happened to her?”

She went back to the avocado. Sully watched her cut it cleanly down to the pit and pull the halves apart like obedient twins.

“This was all about letting Lynn go,” he said. “Maybe now I can.”

Tess smiled and let the skin fall from the avocado. Sully hoped the easing he saw in her face was a sign that he'd said exactly what she wanted to hear.

“Are you going to broil those or what?” she said, nodding at the steaks.

Sully moved to her side of the counter and leaned over them. “You sure you want
me
to do it?”

She looked at the meat and then at Sully and smiled.

“I like mine well done,” she said.

“Seriously?” Sully frowned toward the broiler. “That could take awhile.”

“I know, Crisp.” Tess put her hand on his arm. “If you're not going to do this, I am.”

She came up on her toes and brought her lips close to him—and his dang cell rang.

“Hold that thought,” Sully said. He was still grinning when he opened the phone. “Sullivan Crisp.”

“This is Detective Levi Baranovic, Dr. Crisp. I have a few more questions for you. Would you be willing to come in for another interview?”

“When?” Sully said.

“Right now would be good.”

Baranovic's tone left no room for negotiation. The pang Sully had been avoiding went through his soul.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A
lthough the gray floor and the metal table were just as they'd been the night before, Sully knew the space had changed from interview room to interrogation room. Baranovic dropped a file folder onto the table between them and sat with the finality of someone who wasn't getting up until he got what he wanted.

Sully drew in a long breath. The guy was going to get the truth, because that was all Sullivan Crisp had to give.

Without the offer of coffee or water or apology, Baranovic bored into him. “Dr. Crisp, I need to advise you of your rights.”

Sully stared at him. “My rights? Am I being charged with something?”

“No. It's just a formality at this point.”

At this point? Was it going to be for real at some other point?

The detective was already reading from a card in his hand. Sully barely heard the familiar words he could have recited from late-night reruns of
Law & Order
, hardly saw himself signing the paper that was pushed toward him.

Baranovic slid it into the file and folded his hands on the tabletop. “Dr. Crisp, you told us you did not arrive at Belinda Cox's residence until 7 p.m. Do you want to reconsider that?”

“No,” Sully said. “That's when I got there.”

“That's interesting, because a neighbor said it was six, which, according to the medical examiner, is much closer to the time of Ms. Cox's murder.”

“I don't even know any of her neighbors,” Sully said. “So I don't see how—”

“You don't know Angelina DeCristo?”

Even as Sully shaped the words on his lips, he remembered. “She could be the woman I met the day before in a café. I don't
know
her.”

“She apparently knows you. She says she saw you get out of your car and go into the entrance to Ms. Cox's property. At 6 p.m.”

Sully could only shake his head. “I was still at my office then.” “Anybody see you there?”

“No.”

“That's your story and you're sticking to it.”

“It's the truth,” Sully said.

“There may be room for error there, but how are we going to get around the fact that your fingerprints are on the knife used to slit Belinda Cox's throat?”

Sully felt like his own had been cut. “I don't understand.”

“We found it in the trash can at the back of her property, with blood still on the blade.” His eyes narrowed at Sully, as if he were contemptuous of the sloppiness of the cover-up. “Your prints were on the handle. Can you explain that?”

“No.”

“You've never eaten in her home?”

“I'd never been there before last night.”

“Where are the clothes you wore last night?”

Sully licked his lips, which had turned to sandpaper. It was time to get this under control. “They're probably on my bathroom floor where I left them. Look, I don't even own a knife.”

“You don't have a set of steak knives? Everybody has steak—”

“No!”

Baranovic put up his hand and lowered his voice. “Forget the murder weapon. Let's talk about your motive. You've been stalking Belinda Cox.”

“
Stalking
her?”

“Didn't you look her up in Oklahoma City?”

“Yes—”

“Little Rock? Amarillo? You've left quite the trail, Dr. Crisp.”

Sully ground his teeth. If the guy used his name one more time, he was going to—to what? There
was
no getting control over this. He was racing in front of a runaway train and losing ground.

“Why?” Baranovic said. “Why did you spend . . .” He flipped the folder open again. “A year looking for this woman?”

“You know what?” Sully said. “I want a lawyer.”

“You sure?” Baranovic spread his hands. “A confession might be the best thing for you—make the DA go easier on you. You're an upstanding citizen. No record. We couldn't even find a parking ticket. This was obviously a crime of passion, committed by a famous Christian—a ‘professional' Christian.”

“I said I want a lawyer.”

Baranovic looked almost sadly at the folder before he brought his gaze back up to Sully. His eyes held the first glint of last night's compassion. “There's no way you murdered that woman in cold blood, and yet the evidence doesn't lie. You had motive, means, opportunity. We have a witness who puts you at the scene. We have others who report you've been on the victim's trail for twelve months. You were just in Mesilla the day before the murder asking about her. The neighbor feels pretty bad that she all but gave you the address.”

He waited, like a therapist, Sully thought crazily. This whole thing was insane.

“You seem like a heck of a nice guy, Dr. Crisp. If I could pin this on anybody else, I'd do it in a heartbeat.” He shook his head. “I like it a lot better when the bad guys are gangbangers and crack addicts.”

Again he waited.

Sully shook his head. “I want an attorney.”

“That's your right.” Baranovic stood up, picked up the folder, smacked the table with it. “I hate it. I really hate it.”

When he walked out, something pounded the silence he left behind. Moments passed before Sully realized it was his own heartbeat, trying to drive him mad.

He leaned back in the chair and searched the ceiling. He didn't even have a lawyer here—he was going to have to contact Rusty Huff. Healing Choice Ministries had an attorney, but he wasn't in criminal law. What ordinary citizen retained a defense attorney?

Sully fell forward and dropped his face into his hands. It was absurd. There must be something he could say to wipe the suspicion from the detective's face, a different way to explain his fingerprints on a knife he'd never seen. Couldn't he just call Baranovic back in and go over his alibi once more, until he no longer saw it as a thin veil to cover lies? Sully couldn't leave them believing he had slit a woman's throat.

He pulled his hands away and found tears in them. They would only look like tears of remorse if he said another word. For right now, there was nothing he could do but pray.

I was packing up to leave work when Frances came out of her office, eyes bulging.

“I want to give you the first shot at what just came in.”

I resisted the urge to look at my watch. I needed to get to Alex.

“They've gotten a grand jury indictment on that guy they picked up for last night's murder,” Frances said. “They're taking him over for booking.”

“What's his name?” I said.

She glanced at the sheet in her hand. “Sullivan Crisp. Look, I know you've got a lot going on—”

“I'm there,” I said.

By the time I arrived at the downtown precinct, Levi Baranovic was already standing at the sally port, wearing sunglasses that did little to disguise his contempt for the television cameras and barking reporters clustered around him. I avoided him like a plague of locusts, as did the rest of them when a police cruiser pulled in. While they all surrounded the car, only to be herded back by an officer, I took the steps leading to the door they'd be moving their arrestee through. I'd been there before.

“You're here for the booking, detective?” Ken Perkins called out. “Isn't that unusual?”

You know it is, moron.
I focused the camera on the back door of the patrol car. I could barely see Dr. Crisp's profile, but the look was there—the baffled sense that this could not possibly be happening.

“Is it because this is a first-degree murder charge?” Perkins said. “Is that why you're here—to make sure it sticks?”

I had to hand it to Baranovic. Perkins could have been speaking Dutch for as much attention as the detective was giving him. He turned to the cruiser and nodded to the uniform standing at the door. Sullivan Crisp's head rose above the bevy.

The questions shot from all directions and wound up in a snarl in the air. They wanted the facts, they said.

They wanted blood, that was what they wanted, and it sickened me. They couldn't have cared less that Sullivan Crisp was innocent. That my Jake was innocent. That anybody was. They just wanted a story— something grisly and titillating that would give people a jolt stronger than their coffee tomorrow morning when they opened the paper.

I could scream at them all the way I wanted to. Or I could make pictures of the truth.
God, give me the story I'm supposed to tell.

The media were being moved back so Sullivan could be brought up the steps. I raised the camera as he straightened his shoulders and met Baranovic eye to eye. I shot the lack of anger in his gaze. The quiet set of his jaw. I shot until the tears blurred my view and an officer approached, waving me away.

I moved before he had to say a word. I didn't want Dr. Crisp to see me. He had enough humiliation ahead of him.

Sully now knew why arrested suspects kept their heads down when they passed through the gauntlet of reporters. It was the impossibility of keeping shame from their faces whether they were guilty or not. The handcuffs alone made Sully feel as if he'd committed a crime, but he kept his face up.

He felt something close over his arm and looked down to see Baranovic's hand.

“Vultures,” he muttered near Sully's ear. “Ignore them.”

He wanted to. But all he could think was that Tess would be seeing this on a screen or a front page. At least she wouldn't see what went down beyond the metal door. A sheriff 's deputy searched him for weapons and left him in a holding area with men who were drunk or drugged out or used to being there. The court commissioner set bail at $500,000, high even for murder, because Sully wasn't a New Mexico resident. Another deputy took more prints, electronically this time, a ten-print and palms. A mug shot was made, his clothes taken from him and replaced with an orange jumpsuit. When he was left with nothing but a property receipt, he was finally allowed to make a phone call. When he did, Rusty didn't answer. Sully had never felt emptier.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

I
barely made it to the jail for the four o'clock meeting with the attorney, and I was still shivering inside and out when the guard showed me into an abbreviated version of the room I'd visited Jake in before. There was a small divided table in this one, with Jake on one side and Dan and an African-American man on the other. I was still so addled I didn't realize the guy was our new lawyer until he put out his hand to me and introduced himself as Will Yarborough. He dispensed with any other pleasantries, and I appreciated that. All I wanted to do at the moment was look at my son.