Whatever Remains (8 page)

             
Ben’s thoughts locked up hard. He held his breath. Here he sat,
watching
Clara…Asher McMahon had been
watching
the Latham girls. He’d filed the information away as exaggeration because Jade said Heidi and Grace hadn’t been over very often, but a perv didn’t have to be up close to get his ogling on; he could have watched them while they’d lingered at the fence: two girls captivated by horses who were captivating some sick freak…

             
“Whatchu doing, Pixie Stick?” Jeremy asked as he drew alongside them.

             
Ben didn’t hear her answer – something chirpy again; his mind was reeling. Harding hadn’t said anything about a sexual assault on Heidi, but post wasn’t until tomorrow morning; they wouldn’t know for sure until then. And if there was anyone with even so much as a random fantasy of a perverted nature near his kid…There was a very good chance he’d have to hand in his badge before this case was over.

             
“Hey.” Ben lurched to his feet, startling Jeremy. “Can you tell Jade I had to get back to the precinct?”

             
Once he’d recovered from his start, Jeremy’s refined little brows snapped together. “What? You reached your five minute quota on visitation?” His voice dropped to a hiss. “She’s old enough to feel abandoned now, you know.”

             
“I’m working a murder, princess, get over yourself.”

             
“Daddy?” Clara stood up on the bench. “You can’t leave yet. We hafta have dinner.”

             
“I can’t, love.” He turned and tried to pull her into a hug, but she jumped to the ground. “Clara –  ”

             
She ducked around Jeremy’s legs and into the barn.

             
“You –  ” Jeremy started, hands on hips, and Ben cut him off.

             
“
You
better hope Jade hasn’t been bringing a goddamn pedophile around my kid.” Satisfied with the guy’s expression – he looked like he’d been slapped – Ben took the long way back to his car, around the outside of the barn. He was dialing Trey before his boots hit asphalt.

             
“Bring in McMahon,” he said before his partner had a chance to say hello. “I want a go at him before the autopsy.”

6

             
“
S
o, apparently, your Jade doesn’t have a particular type,” Trey said. His shoulder was propped against the frame of the one-way mirror and he leaned close to the glass, peering through at McMahon who sat uneasily in the interrogation room’s single chair.

             
In an objective sense, Ben knew what he meant. This guy was nothing like him in appearance, dress, or mannerisms. Jade must have been going for the mild-mannered, scholarly type these days.

             
But Ben caught Trey’s shoulder in a play punch that wasn’t a bit friendly. Objective or not, the comparison pissed him off.

             
“Ow.” He made a face. “I was only saying…”

             
“Don’t say it again.” Ben adjusted the file under his arm. “Bring chairs for us and follow my lead. If he gets too flustered, step in. Otherwise, keep your trap shut.”

             
They had put him in one of the windowless interior rooms – unsteady fluorescent tubes, block walls a nice shade of sick, cheap card table and hard plastic chair – and he was doing a poor job hiding his anxiety. Ben led the way, holding the door for Trey who dragged two extra chairs in and set them side-by-side across from McMahon. It was always tricky with a new partner – presenting a seamless production to the suspect. Whatever the bit, however they chose to play it, it had to look organic. Trey fell into his chair and shoved his hands through his hair, yawning great big and obvious, sleepy and indifferent. That was good. Ben could work with that.

             
“Mr. McMahon,” he said, dropping into his own chair and smoothing his tie. His suit was wilted and starting to smell like sweat; he needed a shave. But none of that would matter. Their suspect saw an alert, focused cop, and that had him scared out of his mind, apparently. “I suppose you know why you’re here?” A fast lift of a brow, a flat stare, the expectation of a direct answer: it was unsettling and Ben meant for it to be.

             
“I…no, I dunno. I mean, I assume it’s about finding…the other night.” He’d looked bad the night before; tonight, he looked worse. He was medium height and build, a little soft-looking under his sweater and khakis, sandy hair and blunt, plain features. Ben had the feeling he was the kind of guy women described as “sweet.” He didn’t have bulging eyes or an alcoholic’s nose or little creepy rat eyes; nothing about him jumped out as alarming. But that was the point: creeps didn’t go around in fingerless gloves with scraggly hair and rotting teeth. Creeps were smooth and subtle and blended into middle class suburbia perfectly. Asher McMahon could have been a mild-mannered professor, or he could have had a deep freeze full of tiny bodies; it was anyone’s guess. Tonight, the red around his eyes, the tremors in his hands, the lines across his cheeks, left Ben suspicious. Either he was such a pussy as to make Jeremy Carver look like Rambo, or Heidi’s death had affected him deeply. Personally. 

             
“About finding Heidi Latham’s body,” Ben said, without emotion. He laid the case file on the table top and flipped it open, right to a blown up shot one of the crime scene techs had taken of Heidi’s face, her skin as white as the sand beneath it. “Yeah. You’re here about that.”

             
Asher swallowed, Adam’s apple leaping in his throat. His eyes touched the photo and skittered away like they’d been burned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I haven’t ever seen anything…like this. My stomach’s a mess.”

             
“Hmm.” The next shot was from further back, Heidi’s dark hair fanning around her head in a mermaid halo. “Had you seen Heidi before last night? When she was alive?”

             
Another swallow. A fine sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. “Just from over the fence a few times.”

             
Just
. Two questions in and he was already justifying himself. “You never spoke to her?”

             
“I waved ‘hello’ once or twice.”

             
“And that was it?”

             
“Yes.” He fidgeted in his chair, soles of his shoes squeaking against the tile. “What’s this about? I gave a statement last night. I got to the farm; I picked up Jade; she saw something…and you know the rest.”

             
When it came to situations like this, there were two general approaches: trapping the perp, or accusing him outright. Since he didn’t have a shred of physical evidence yet, and because he wasn’t afraid this guy would try to deck him and force a police brutality lawsuit, and because the thought of Clara being in the same room as him was clouding Ben’s head with angry layers of red, he went direct. “Mr. McMahon, have you ever acted on your attraction to underage girls?”

             
Beside him, Trey went statue still.

             
McMahon exploded. Ben had seen the clammy skin and shaking hands and heard the trembling voice, and chalked it up to some sort of mild post traumatic bullshit. But he’d missed that high frequency tension running like electrical currents just beneath the skin. Instead of sick, Asher had been ready to snap. “What?!” His hands clapped down onto the table, loud as gunshots in the confines of the room. His color came rushing back, a hot, angry red mottling his cheeks and neck. Something flashed in his eyes, something dangerous and feral that left Ben terrified to think the man had been around his girls. What the hell had Jade been thinking?

             
“If you could just answer the question –  ”

             
“No! Are you – are you fucking kidding me?! I never –  ”

             
“Sit down, Asher,” Ben snapped when the guy made a move to lunge to his feet.

             
He pushed his hands through his hair instead, eyes wild. His breath sawed through his open mouth. “I
am not
some kinda sicko. Do you – Jesus, do you think I actually
killed
her?”

             
“Sir,” Trey said, “we’re not saying anything –  ”

             
“Sure we are,” Ben said, and the glare McMahon turned on him transformed his dough boy face into something from a nightmare. “We’re saying that you’re dating a single mom who lives next door to a single mom for a reason; why surf the net when you can look at the real thing right up close, right?”

             
“You’ve lost your goddamn
mind
,” Asher said through his teeth. “I’ve never even
spoken
to that girl, and I sure as hell never…” His eyes bugged and his breath caught. “Oh. Oh, I get it. This is about me dating Jade.” Some of the horror left him, replaced by disgust. “This is unbelievable. Maybe you should have married her if you didn’t want her to see other guys. But dragging me in here and accusing me of
this
…Are you even allowed to work on this case? Does your supervisor know what you’re doing?”

             
Thank God they weren’t recording this. Ben didn’t trust himself; he couldn’t remember a time – not even with violent junkies or indignant fathers who’d murdered their families – when he’d wanted to harm a suspect more.
Suspect
: shit, McMahon wasn’t one, but he was treating him like one. He, disturbingly, wanted him to be one.

             
Trey stepped in, responding to the silent, tense cues around him. “Look, Asher.” He linked his fingers and rested his hands on the table, shaking off the professional stiffness. “My partner is an old school cop; he’s not above switching off the interview camera and roughing somebody up.”

             
Asher’s eyes flicked over, tangled with distrust, fury, and fear.

             
Trey dropped his voice. “You can get why he’s freaked, though. I mean, a little girl turns up dead where his little girl lives – that would rattle anybody.”

             
“He’s not supposed to be on this case if he’s emotionally involved. That’s a conflict of interest.”

             
Trey nodded. “It is – a conflict, I mean. But, unfortunately,” he twitched a smile, “this isn’t like on TV. We don’t have that many detectives, this is a small Homicide unit, and we can’t afford to just go swapping cases around because of something as small as this.” It was a pretty lie, and he told it well. He shrugged. “So I’m afraid you’re stuck with us. What worries me – and what’s worrying my partner – is the fact that you’re trying to find a loophole.”

             
“What’s bothering your partner,” Asher sneered, displaying an attitude Ben hadn’t thought him capable of. “Is my relationship with Jade.”

             
Ben had recovered some of his calm. “Mr. McMahon, your relationship with Jade is immaterial. Don’t you think if I wanted her, I’d have her? No,” he said before he could be interrupted, “what’s bothering me is you acting guilty as shit. If you aren’t a baby-raper and you never met Heidi in your life, why didn’t you just tell us that? Why are you flop-sweating all over my favorite interview table and screaming at us?”

             
“I –  ” Asher took a deep breath and released it through his nostrils. “I have a brilliant lawyer friend. You won’t harass me just to get your rocks off.”

             
“We won’t harass you if you’re innocent,” Ben said with a shrug.

             
“I didn’t kill Heidi Latham. I didn’t touch her. I didn’t
look
at her.”

             
“Well.” Ben flipped the case file closed. “I guess we’ll know if that’s true after her autopsy tomorrow.”

It was raining. Clara was in bed and Jeremy was watching a DVD of his last show, the sound off, raindrops pattering at the window. Jade had both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that was mostly Bailey’s, in leggings and wool socks and a favorite old hoodie, cross-legged in the armchair closest to the fireplace. Every so often, she’d flick a glance to the TV – Jeremy in top hat and
shadbelly working his mare, Rosie, through a flawless series of lead changes – but for the most part, she was doing a whole lot of staring down into the taupe-colored contents of her mug. Clara had been hell to go down; her sulk had turned into an all-out crying jag when the covers had been tucked up to her chin. Jade was close to deciding that Ben needed to keep away – permanently – rather than subject Clara to the come-and-go-blues.

             
“She keeps dropping her shoulder when we reach the rail,” Jeremy said, more to himself than to her. “The changes are gorgeous, but she gets excited and flattens out through the turn.”

             
“Half-halt?” Jade suggested.

             
“Darling,” he said in an over exaggerated fake British accent. “Don’t you think I’ve already tried that?”

             
“I think you’d be asking me the same demeaning question if we were watching one of my tapes.”

             
“Feeling bitchy?”

             
“Tired.”

             
“Daddy Dearest got you all twisted up again?”

             
She narrowed her eyes at him across the den. “I don’t have one of those.”

             
He smirked. “There’s
a
daddy in your life, though.”

             
“Unfortunately.”

             
“Jade.” He paused the video and Rosie froze on the screen, suspended in a leaping canter. He rolled toward her and folded his arms over the sofa cushion. “Ben Haley is dangerous.”

             
“I know that.”

             
“He’s a forty-six-year-old bachelor…”

             
“Here we go.”

             
“…who resents his own daughter for being born and cramping his style.”

             
“He’s a shit dad – I’ll give you that – but he doesn’t
resent
her.”

             
“Doesn’t he though?” Jeremy’s brows gave a little jump, his expression earnest in a sympathetic way. “Sweetheart, as crazy as these last five years have been, I wouldn’t trade Clarabelle for a second; neither would you. But Ben would. Some deep-seated sense of responsibility brings him round every few months, but if you ever pushed him away too hard, he wouldn’t come back.”

             
She’d wondered that, at least a hundred times before. Would he? Would he fight her to know his own daughter? Or would he let her slip through his fingers? But wondering and hearing it aloud weren’t the same. She frowned and heard a defensive edge streak through her voice. “What? You think it’s time to push?”

             
A thin smile touched his mouth. “I don’t think you want me to answer that.”