The Ex Who Glowed in the Dark (Charley's Ghost) (16 page)

“Okay.” Jake was giving her busy work, something to keep her out of the game. She was going to be at Jake’s interview with Lowell but there was no point in arguing with him. Instead she grabbed her gear and headed out the door. Jake’s appointment with Lowell was at 2:00. If she hurried and Charley helped her, she could check in on Nick and still get to the prison in time to go in with Jake.

*~*~*

Amanda pulled into the prison parking lot just as Jake was getting out of his car a few spaces away.
Success.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Charley said. “But you can if you want to.”

Amanda yanked off her helmet and started toward Jake. “Thank you,” she muttered, then cleared her throat and tried again. She had to admit that Charley had helped. She’d sped over to Fitness 4 You and let him go inside to check on Nick. He’d reported that Nick was helping a “hot”—Charley’s word—brunette work out. He was safely occupied for a while. Then on her way to the prison she’d avoided a ticket because Charley warned her of a speed trap ahead.

He had helped.

She cleared her throat and tried again. “Thank you, Charley.” The second attempt sounded a little more sincere. Give credit where credit was due no matter how much she didn’t like doing it.

“Anything for you, Amanda.”

“Jake!” she called, hurrying over to the detective.

He squinted into the sun and shook his head. “You know what? I’m not even surprised to see you.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

“But you’re not going inside with me. I got permission for one person, me, to go in.”

“You can get me in as your assistant who’s a specialist in interrogation techniques.”

Jake blinked twice and frowned. “What? Where did you come up with that?”

“I don’t know. Probably TV. Look, if they won’t let me in, I promise I’ll leave. But we have to try. There’s no time to argue about it. We’re on deadline now. A little boy’s life is at stake.” She turned and headed toward the prison entrance as if certain Jake would cooperate.

“He’s coming,” Charley said. “He looks mad, but he’s right behind you. You’re in!”

In spite of her bravado, Amanda had to admit she was a little surprised at the ease with which she was admitted to the prison. Jake did his part, flashing his badge and telling the guards she was his assistant. Amanda did her part by affecting an
I have every right to be here
look. Again, give credit where credit was due. She sent a silent thanks to her mother, the one who raised her and taught her to look haughty.

After going through several doors, Amanda and Jake were ushered into a large, stark visiting room with several wooden tables and chairs. Other than the size of the room and the number of tables, it reminded Amanda of the interrogation room where she’d first met Jake Daggett when he questioned her about Charley’s murder. All things considered, she wasn’t feeling entirely comfortable as they took seats at one of the tables and waited for Steven Lowell to be brought to them.

Charley darted back and forth several times past the armed guard at the door. “I just need to know I can get out,” he explained. “Prisons give me the willies.”

Amanda made a mental note to ask him how he knew about
prisons
, plural.

“You didn’t think it would work, did you?” she asked Jake. “You didn’t think they’d let me in here.”

“I hoped they wouldn’t,” Jake replied. “But I’m not surprised. This isn’t exactly a high security prison.”

That was, Amanda thought, a rather rude statement. She resumed her haughty look. “It wouldn’t have mattered if this was Sing
Sing. The outcome would have been the same.”

Before Jake could respond, another guard and a tall, well-built man wearing a white jumpsuit entered from a door across the room. The guard escorted the man in the jumpsuit over to the table where she and Jake waited, then he moved away to stand against the wall.

Jake stood and extended his hand. “Jake Daggett. Thank you for seeing me.”

The man shook Jake’s hand. He seemed more intimidated than intimidating. “Steven Lowell.” Like Nick
Farner, he appeared clean-cut and normal, not the scarred, balding hulk she’d expected to find doing time for dealing drugs. Judging from his broad shoulders and easy movements, he probably worked out like Nick did.

“This is my associate, Amanda Caulfield.”

“Hi, Steven.” Amanda stood but didn’t offer to shake hands. Against her will, her mother’s voice rang through her head.
You don’t know where those hands have been.

Lowell acknowledged her with a nod. “You wanted to talk about my grandmother?”

Jake sat back down in the hard wooden chair. Amanda, Lowell and Charley followed suit.

“Are you aware that Nick
Farner is living in your grandmother’s apartment and pretending to be her grandson?”

“Yes, I know that. Nick’s my friend. Grandmother got a chance to go on a cruise with her bridge club but she needed somebody to take care of her cat. Nick got paroled before me, so he said he’d stay there for a couple of weeks. She’s always called him her other grandson, so we thought it would be okay if he just said he was, and then he wouldn’t have to explain to anybody about this.” He waved a hand around the room. “He wouldn’t have to tell anybody he was an ex-
con, that he’d been in here. Grandmother’s kind of ashamed that I’m here.” Steven smiled weakly as he concluded his story.

“He’s lying!” Charley leaned into Steven’s face. “I’m something of an expert on lying, and this guy is no good at it. He sounds like he’s reading from a teleprompter.”

Steven’s story sounded logical. It covered all the bases. But Amanda tended to agree with Charley. The story sounded rehearsed and mechanical except for the part about his grandmother being ashamed of him. Having been married to Charley, she also considered herself an expert on lying, at least being able to detect when somebody else was doing it. Life with Charley had honed her bullshit meter, and it was shrieking loudly.

“Have you talked to Nick lately?” Jake asked.

“We talk often. They’re pretty lenient about phone calls and e-mail in here.”

“Food decent here?”

Amanda looked at Jake. Why was he asking about prison food? Did he plan to grab a quick bite while they were there?

Steven shrugged. “Not bad.”

“Better than the food in Huntsville?”

Huntsville?
Damn! He’d been withholding information from her!

Steven’s features became slightly pinched and his face took on a guarded expression. “Yes, it is.”

“Whole place is much nicer than Huntsville.”

“Yes.”

“So three weeks ago you got transferred up here to a cushy prison and your buddy Nick got paroled.”

Steven’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know all this and what does it matter? Are you with the police department?”

“I’m a friend of Dawson, the kid who lives across the hall from your grandmother. He’s quite the computer whiz. He can find out anything.”

Amanda watched Steven closely for his reaction to the mention of Dawson’s name. She thought his pupils contracted slightly.
Or maybe not. The light was too dim to know for sure. But he was definitely becoming uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. Apparently this wasn’t covered by his memorized script.

Steven leaned back in the chair and folded his arms across his chest in a defensive manner. “Yes, Nick and I were both in Huntsville for possession of drugs with the intent to sell. It was steroids. All the body builders use them. It’s not like we’re hardened criminals. So Nick got an early parole and I got sent up here. It was a good deal for both of us.”

“You were arrested at the same time on the same charges. Why is Nick out and you’re not?”

Steven’s gaze darted around the room as if looking for an answer to that question. He licked his lips. “He had a better lawyer.”

“Lying!” Charley slapped his palm on the tabletop. The gesture lost some of its impact when his hand went through the wood. “He’s lying and doing a terrible job of it! If anybody knows about lying, it’s me.” Charley paused and frowned. “That didn’t come out quite right.”

Amanda leaned toward Steven. “What cruise line is your grandmother on?
So many of them seem to be having problems lately. I hope your grandmother isn’t on one of those ships with problems.”

Tiny beads of perspiration appeared on Steven’s upper lip though the room was cool, a little chilly actually. He swallowed. “I don’t know. Her bridge club had reservations for a block of rooms, and she opted in at the last minute when Nick came around to take care of Miss Kitty.”

“She couldn’t have boarded Miss Kitty somewhere?”

A small smile touched Steven’s lips. “No, Miss Kitty is very sensitive, and Grandmother would never force her to spend the night away from home.”

That was probably the second truthful thing the man had said yet, the first being that his grandmother was ashamed of him for being in prison.

Jake slid his chair back, the scraping sound loud in the quiet room. Steven jumped at the noise. Jake rose and again offered his hand. “Thank you for your time. You’ve been very helpful.”

Steven Lowell stood, his movements jerky and uncoordinated, no longer smooth like the conditioned athlete he appeared to be. He shook Jake’s hand, gave a phony smile and turned away. The guard came over to escort him.

Jake and Amanda walked silently out of the prison with Charley protesting the entire time. “Don’t let him get away! The man’s lying! You didn’t find out anything from him. He totally stonewalled you.”

As soon as they walked through the last door and stepped into the sunshine Amanda drew in a deep breath of the hot, thick summer air. It felt much better than the cool, trapped air of the prison. “Remind me never to commit a crime. I don’t think I’d like being in one of those.”

“Good idea. Maybe that should give you some incentive to try to stay out of trouble.” Jake headed toward his car.

Amanda stayed with him. “You didn’t tell me about the Huntsville thing.”

Jake paused and rolled his eyes. “There was no reason to tell you. I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“Did you notice that he never asked why we were asking all those questions? I find that very suspicious. Wouldn’t you think he’d want to know why we wanted to know?”

They reached Jake’s car. He stopped and looked at her. He didn’t exactly smile, but he didn’t frown either. “I did notice that.
Very perceptive of you to notice.” It was a sort of a smile. She could hear it in his voice.

Jake had sort of praised her. Amanda lifted her chin. “He was expecting us, wasn’t he?”

“Right again.”

“Every word out of that man’s mouth was a rehearsed lie except for the business about his grandmother being ashamed of him and not sending Miss Kitty away from home.”

Jake nodded. “It’s not looking good for Nick.”

“Not looking good for Hannah either what with the evidence Ross found. Do you think they’re in it together?”

He studied her for a moment then gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “Let’s talk about this in my car, out of the heat. Get some air conditioning going.”

Jake was inviting her to sit in his car with him? Amanda mentally picked her jaw up off the ground. “Yeah, sure,” she said casually though she didn’t feel casual. She wasn’t sure exactly how she felt.
Pleased that he was inviting her to join him? Yes, definitely that. Also maybe a little excited. She wasn’t sure she wanted to examine that feeling too closely.

“No!” Charley darted in front of her. “Didn’t your mother ever warn you not to get in a car with a strange man?”

If only her mother had warned her not to marry a strange man.

Jake’s car had been parked in the sun and the air was even hotter inside than outside, but he started the engine, turned on the a/c and opened both doors. Sitting inside in the shade with the air blowing was marginally cooler than outside in the sun with no breeze stirring.

Amanda laid her jacket and helmet in the back seat next to Charley. “So Steven Lowell was expecting us.”

“He was expecting somebody.”

“He was prepared just in case somebody came around asking questions. Had his story memorized.”

Jake stretched his long denim-clad legs as far as he could inside the car, settling his scuffed boots alongside the pedals.
“A story that exonerates Nick, if we believe that story.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do I.”

“Okay, we’ve got Nick who’s an ex-con pretending to be somebody he’s not, works at the drop site, may have murdered Mrs. Lowell, and Brendan identified him as one of the kidnappers.”

Jake nodded. “And Hannah whose hair we found at the crime scene, whose license plates somehow made their way to that van you saw and who’s a member of Fitness 4 You.”

“Then there’s the man and woman I saw in the van who match the tin man’s description of the other two people who kidnapped Grant.” She held up four fingers. 
“Four people. It’s possible they could all be involved.”