Murder on Potrero Hill (15 page)

Peyton met Devan’s dark eyes. “We don’t have enough for arraignment, do we?”

“You don’t have enough to hold him,” said Devan.

“We’re just
gonna let him go?” she asked in frustration. God, Marco was right. This case was a bitch.

“We can hold him for 24 hours on the breaking and entering. Maybe a night in jail will make him ready to confess,” offered the captain.

Peyton looked to Devan for confirmation. He was studying Ryder where he sat at the table, staring at the floor without expression. “You can do that, but if he doesn’t confess, you’ll have to let him go. The breaking and entering without theft is at most a misdemeanor.”

“He’s not
gonna break after a night in jail. He hasn’t broken yet no matter what we’ve done. What the hell are we supposed to do?” she said, holding up her empty hands.

Devan turned to her. “You don’t have a murder weapon, you don’t have a confession, and your motive seems a bit hinky seeing his reaction to it.” He reached out and wrapped a curl around his index finger. “You’re a good cop, Peyton. You’ll think of something. Maybe you need to go at it in a different direction.” He rubbed the curl with his thumb, then released it. “Call me if you get anything.”

He moved past her and disappeared out the door. Peyton was left facing the captain and Marco, who both looked at her with raised brows.

“What the hell was that?” asked the captain.

Peyton dropped her gaze. “I had something in my hair.”

“Yeah, his fingers,” drawled Marco, earning him a glare.

*   *   *

Peyton stared at the white board she’d dragged out of storage. She had written as much information on it as she could, but looking at it this way only emphasized what they didn’t know. She’d traced Dr. Singh like Ryder suggested, but that had quickly led to a dead end.

First of all, she couldn’t find a single complaint about the doctor, even
through the Medical Board. Second, Zoë had been hemorrhaging when the paramedics showed up at the flat. Something had caused her loss of blood and that something was the warfarin that she’d been given before the medics arrived.

Marco handed her a paper cup. “Chocolate,” he said, studying her white board.

She took it and set it down on the desk.

He shifted and gave her a concerned look. “You don’t want it?”

“Of course I do,” she said, “but this case is making me insane. What the hell are we missing, Marco?”

He leaned against the desk with her and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “A lot. Obviously, Dr. Singh is a dead-end.”

“So is everything else.”

A man in his early thirties approached them. He was of average height and thin with glasses and curly brown hair that perpetually looked mussed. He wore his button down shirt tucked into his jeans and his sneakers were scuffed at the toe.

“Hey, Stan,” said Peyton, giving him a smile. “You got something for me.”

Stan pursed his lips. “I finished that tablet you brought me.”

“And?” Peyton reached for the milkshake and took a sip. The beautifully smooth, cold flow of chocolate crossed her tongue.

“I found a search for warfarin.”

Peyton sat up straighter. “That is the best news I’ve had all day.”

“Well, hold on a minute. It was done this morning about 3:00AM.”

Peyton felt herself wilt. “You’re sure about that?”

Stan looked offended. “Of course I’m sure.”

“Nothing else?” asked Marco.

“A bunch of stock quotes, interest rates, but nothing else. Mostly this guy used his tablet for work.”

“Thanks, Stan,” said Peyton.

“No problem,” he said and walked away.

Peyton looked up at Marco. “We have nothing.”

“We have less than nothing. Your boyfriend’s right. This case is hinky.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Peyton, chewing on the end of her straw. “You know what really bothers me?”

Marco exhaled. “A lot bothers me, but tell me anyway.”

“He didn’t know the baby wasn’t his. You can’t fake that reaction. He was stunned…stunned and devastated.”

“I know, which blows our motive to hell and gone.” He drummed his fingers on his crossed arm. “You know what bugs me?”

“What?”

“He hasn’t lawyered. Why? Why hasn’t he asked for a lawyer, Brooks? You get any two bit criminal in here and the first thing they’re screaming for is a lawyer. Not Ryder. Why?”

“I don’t know. You aren’t suggesting that you think he’s innocent, are you?”

“No. It’s always the husband. I know that, but I just wish this case wasn’t so slippery.”

“Noted and reported. Now what?”

“Let’s do what Adams said. Let’s go at it from a different angle.”

“I’m listening.”

Marco rose and picked up the eraser, wiping Dr. Singh off the board. “We know it wasn’t him.”

“Right.”

“Let’s focus on the murder weapon. Where could someone have gotten this warfarin stuff? It would have had to be prescribed by a doctor, but what doctor?”

Peyton shook her head, sipping at the milkshake. “If we’ve eliminated Dr. Singh, the only other doctor on that board is Zoë’s father, Blake.” She set the milkshake down on the desk. “He’s in a coma, D’Angelo. He couldn’t have done this. Besides he’s her father.” She searched the board for another link, but her eyes kept coming back to Blake. “Right?”

“What if the motive isn’t the baby, but something else? If we find the murder weapon, we might find the motive. I don’t know where else to start looking, but the only person who would have had access to prescription medications is Blake Harper.”

“So you’re saying we need to go see Blake?”

“I’m saying we need to go see Blake.”

*   *   *

They led him to a room and made him remove his clothes, then they gave him an orange jumpsuit and a pair of shoes with no laces. He didn’t even realize what they’d done until he automatically sat down to tie them.

He stared at the shoes and a frantic laugh escaped him. No laces. No suicide. Why? So they could keep playing cat and mouse with him.

An officer with coffee-dark skin and a bald head led him down a corridor with cells on either side. Jake glanced into the cells, feeling his heart pick up speed. This was real. They were going to lock him in.

The officer stopped at a cell and spoke into his shoulder receiver. Jake wasn’t sure what he said, but the cell door slid open and the officer motioned him inside. “Dinner’s at 5:00PM,” he said.

Jake walked into the middle of the cell and stood there. No one was on either side of him, a mercy that he didn’t want to think about too hard. Besides a cot, a thin mattress, one blanket, a sink, and a toilet, there was nothing else in the cell. Three walls were bars, the back one cinderblock,
the floor cement with a drain in the center. He had a hysterical vision of them hosing down the cell after he left, like they do with animals in a zoo.

When the cell door clanged behind him, he looked around dazedly
. A cell. A freakin’ jail cell.
Panic edged his awareness and he clenched his fists in the jumpsuit. A jail cell. He was locked in and there was no getting out.

He whipped around, but the officer was walking away. Across from him, he could see a bearded jaw and two bloodshot eyes staring at him, nothing else. He backed up until he bumped into the cot, then he sat down hard, his hands dangling between his knees.
A jail cell. Oh, God.

He put his head in his hands and tried to slow his breathing. If he didn’t get control, he’d start kicking things or screaming. That would only give them ammunition against him. He searched the ceiling, looking for cameras. He spotted one turning lazily in the corridor beyond the cell.

Okay, he could reason his way through this. They hadn’t told him what they were charging him with…or maybe they had. After Peyton told him about Zoë and the blood typing, he didn’t really hear much else.

Think
, he commanded himself.
What did they say when they fingerprinted you and took your picture?
Picture – oh God, no, a mug shot.
A mug shot.
He was now in their system with a mug shot. For murdering a woman he loved more than anything. A woman he would have done anything to save
. A woman who betrayed him.
He closed his eyes. This wasn’t helping.

What did the officer say when they printed him? They were holding him for…for…breaking and entering. That was it. Not murder. Breaking and entering. He exhaled and tried to lower his shoulders. His back hurt, he was holding himself so tight. Not murder…not yet.

He lay back on the cot, pressing his heels into the thin mattress and tenting his knees. He dropped an arm over his eyes and clenched his other hand into a fist. He tightened the fist as hard as he could until his nails dug into his palm, then he released each finger, forcing them to stretch out until his palm was flat on the blanket.

He could get through this if he just didn’t lose control or look at the bars, or watch those eyes across the corridor watch him. He could do this. He only had to get through the night. He didn’t think they could hold him longer than that.

He tried to remember what else they said to him, but all he could hear was Peyton’s voice, the way she looked at him as if she could see into his skull and read the thoughts parading through his head. She had manipulated him and led him down a path, pretending to understand, yet trying to get him to confess. That’s all it was. She didn’t care if he killed anyone. She just wanted the collar, she wanted the credit for solving this case, whether it was solved or not.

It must have felt so horrible to know she was cheating on you, using you that way. God, what man can stand the thought of his wife carrying another man’s child.
His hand curled into a fist again and he pounded the mattress.

A growl rumbled in his chest, a sound of rage and fury that he couldn’t contain. Horrible? It felt like someone had ripped out his intestines and shown them to him. What the hell did she think it felt like? She was toying with him, trying to make him lose his temper and admit something too awful to think. She wanted him to say he’d killed his wife because she cheated on him.

He rolled to his side and curled his knees into his chest. Oh, God, Zoë, why? Why would she have done something like that? He opened his eyes and stared at the bars. How could she? When would she have had time to carry on an affair?

I can understand that, Jake. I can understand wanting to get rid of the baby. It was tearing your relationship apart, destroying your life.
But it wasn’t. He and Zoë were happy together. They loved each other. She never gave him a moment to doubt her love.

Even as the thought entered his mind, Jake realized he was lying to himself. She had been distant the last few months, refusing to let him touch her. Pulling away when he tried to hug her. He’d felt it, he’d recognized it, but he’d tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. He stuffed the hurt inside and ignored it. Just as he’d done when his parents died.

His sisters had mourned openly, but he had just stuffed it away and retreated back to San Francisco, telling himself he never wanted to see Nebraska again. That was how he handled loss, that was his way of coping – pretending the thing hurting him was gone.

Just pretend it was gone.

*   *   *

Morning light was filtering into the jail as Jake collected his things and was led to the door. The cop guiding him motioned him outside, then left him on the sidewalk looking around. A long, sleepless night had brought him to a few conclusions. One, he wasn’t going to let them control the situation any more. Two, he wasn’t going back in that cell. Three, he was going to have to figure out what happened to Zoë.

He’d been left alone last night, but if they succeeded in pinning this on him, he wouldn’t be granted that luxury. Jake knew what happened to men in prison and he wasn’t going to passively accept victimization.

He slung the strap of his briefcase over his shoulder and started walking down 7
th
toward Townsend. He needed to get to the flat and pray Zoë’s journal was where he hid it. Then he was packing a few things, finding any money they’d stashed around the place, and finally he was sneaking out again.

He would stop by Claire’s and ask her for help. He dreaded that, especially knowing what he did now, but he could think of no one else who had the capital to get him a lawyer, and after what he’d been through, he knew he needed one. Then he was going to find some place quiet and figure this thing out.

Whenever his thoughts touched on Zoë, he shied away from them. He didn’t want to think about her betrayal. He didn’t want to accept it, but he knew that eventually he’d have to face it, confront it. He dreaded that. It made everything about their life seem a lie.

He didn’t have the energy to walk back to Potrero Hill, but he didn’t want to waste money on a cab. As he looked around for a bus stop, he marked the Crown Victoria following him. He sighed. They might not have enough to hold him, but they weren’t giving up on convicting him.