Crooked Little Lies (28 page)

28

T
wo officers approached Lauren’s SUV, one coming to the passenger side and the other rounding the tailgate to the driver’s side.

“I need y’all to step out of the vehicle,” he said when Lauren lowered her window.

“Are we under arrest?” Tara asked as she slid from the passenger seat, and the quaver in her voice made Lauren’s heart falter.

“Are we?” Lauren got out of the car.

The deputy cupped her elbow. “The detectives just want to ask you some questions.”

“About Bo Laughlin?” Lauren pressed.

“Yeah, that, and there are some other related matters.”

What other related matters?
Lauren would have asked, but the officer was walking her toward the street, where the squad cars waited, and she was frightened now, enough that she balked, causing the deputy to tighten his grip.

“Can’t we ride together?” Lauren heard Tara ask, and looking around, she realized they were being led to separate patrol cars. She glanced over at the detectives, Cosgrove and Willis, who hadn’t left the vicinity of their vehicle. They didn’t meet her eye, and it seemed deliberate. She wanted to shout at them, to demand they tell her what was happening. But panic made it impossible to speak. Her ears rang with it. Her stomach was knotted in its huge fist. The officer who was escorting her opened the back door of his car and gestured her inside. She sat gingerly, wiping her sweaty palms down her thighs. Once he closed the door, the smell of something rancid in the air—body odor and a fainter stench of vomit mixed with something harsher, like fear—her own and that of countless others—almost gagged her. She took air in shallow dips and prayed not to faint.

She didn’t speak on the ride into town and neither did the deputy, and when they arrived at the sheriff’s headquarters, and he let her out of the car, she gulped air like a person saved from drowning. Inside the squat two-story building, she caught sight of Tara for a moment, long enough to see she’d been crying and needed a tissue. Lauren thought of her purse, left behind in the Navigator. She always carried a tissue. Mothers did that.

Her uniformed escort ushered her to the end of a short corridor lined with doors, stopping at the last one—the sign beside it identified it as “Interview Rm. A”—and opening the door, he said, “Have a seat, okay? Detective Cosgrove will be here shortly.”

The room was small, not much larger than a good-sized, walk-in closet, and furnished with a metal table and four chairs. Lauren went to the opposite side of the table, facing the doorway.

“Can I get you anything?” the deputy asked. “Water, Coke, coffee?”

She shook her head, struck by his politeness. He was young and clean-cut. His mother would think he was handsome in his uniform. She would be proud. The thought made Lauren’s throat tighten. She didn’t know why. The door was nearly closed when she said, “Wait.”

He popped his head into view, brows raised.

“My purse and my sister’s—do you know where they are?”

“Here. At the duty desk. You can pick them up there when you’re done.”

“Thank you,” she said.

The door closed. Lauren propped her elbows on the table. The top half of the wall to her right was mirrored. She’d seen enough television crime shows to know it was two-way, that she was likely being observed. She hugged herself, feeling self-conscious, and jumped when the door opened.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Detective Cosgrove pulled out a chair opposite Lauren and sat down. He arranged the things he’d brought into the room on the table, a cup of coffee, a manila folder—it might have been the same one she’d seen earlier—a pen, and a notebook. She’d seen him write in that, too, when he’d come to her house.

She met his gaze.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, taking a hasty sip of coffee.

“Did I have a choice?” Her anger now made it possible to breathe, to speak without stammering, something she tended to do when she was scared. Which she was. Plenty scared.

“Well—”

“Tara and I were coming here on our own. If you’d waited, we would have saved you and your department the trouble.”

“That’s me, always jumping the gun.” He made a wry face.

“Where’s your partner?”

“Willis? I don’t think we need him in here. He just pisses people off.”

“What is this about, Detective?” Lauren wasn’t in the mood for humor.

“Why were you and your sister coming here?”

Lauren shifted her glance, but what was the point of being coy for either of them? Bringing her gaze around, Lauren said, “I think you know.”

“Here’s what I know, Mrs. Wilder—”

“Lauren, please call me Lauren.” She didn’t know why she asked for that. Maybe because the use of first names felt less intimidating.

“Lauren, then,” he repeated. “If you call me Jim,” he added, and he smiled as if he meant it.

Lauren felt her heart ease a bit. “You were going to tell me what you know, Jim. I interrupted.”

“Yes, well, shortly after we left your house, you left and drove by Wilder and Tate, then drove to your sister’s house. You were there for a little over an hour. In the course of your visit, you related to her that we’d been to your house and showed you a photograph of the area rug belonging to your grandparents—I’m assuming here, okay? Am I correct, so far?”

Lauren nodded.

“In addition, you told her you were informed that the rug was what Laughlin’s body was wrapped in and that it had been traced back to you as a result of the cleaning tag that we found attached to it.” He paused, looking at Lauren from under his brows. At her nod, he continued. “About then, she would have told you what happened on Saturday, a little after sunset, how Bo Laughlin came to be shot and wrapped in that rug.”

“You’re assuming again.”

“Yeah. She would have told you what her role was and also what roles your husband and Greg Honey played in Laughlin’s death. Am I right? You know the whole story?”

“It was an accident. They were shooting at targets. They didn’t know Bo was there.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Lauren kept his gaze.

“That’s what your husband, Jeff Wilder, told us, too—that it was an accident.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“We picked him up after we left your house. He’s here.”

“Oh.” The syllable came on a small puff of air, as if she’d been punched, which was how she felt. “You arrested him? For what happened to Bo? Can I see him?”

“He’s not here solely on that matter, Mrs.—Lauren. There are other—well, let’s just say we’ve been discussing a variety of subjects with Mr. Wilder, and your name keeps coming up. Maybe you should hear about that first.”

“What subjects?”

Cosgrove opened his manila folder and took out pages she recognized were the asbestos-notification form. “You remember this,” he said.

“Yes, but what does it have to do with Bo’s death? I don’t understand.” Lauren’s heartbeat was erratic.

Cosgrove flipped to the last page. “Earlier when we showed it to you, you seemed to think this wasn’t your signature.” He pointed it out.

“It’s not,” she said.

“You’re sure? Take your time. We’re in no hurry.”

She looked at her name again. It was Jeff’s handwriting. She’d known it before. But she hadn’t wanted to know. She still didn’t.

“Who do you think signed it, if you didn’t?”

Sidestepping his question, she said, “You told me there wasn’t any asbestos in the Waller-Land building, and that’s accurate to a point. The truth is that it’s there but not at a toxic level.” A more complete recollection of the business dealings surrounding the Waller-Land contract had begun to stir in her mind. “The inspector who did the survey came by the office, and I remember him saying it was unusual in such an old building not to find more of a presence.” Lauren felt confident of this memory. Jeff knew it, too; he’d heard the man, and she told Cosgrove he had. “It’s possible that another survey was done—”

“You’re talking about this inspector, here. He’s the one you spoke with?”

Cosgrove indicated the section on the form that requested the inspector’s name, licensing number, and employer. But the name that appeared there, Cameron Lewis, wasn’t the name of the man Lauren remembered, and she said so.

“You’re sure this wasn’t the guy?” Cosgrove asked for the second time.

Lauren looked at him, and her annoyance must have shown on her face, because he apologized.

“It’s like you said, sometimes you have trouble with your memory. Your husband told me since you took that bad fall and injured your brain so severely, you often do things and can’t recall doing them. It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to imagine you would forget a name, right? Or that you might forget signing a document or a check? Or even meeting with certain people? I mean, for a while, you thought you might have had something to do with Bo Laughlin’s death, am I right? At least that’s a relief, huh? That notepad, for instance. Clearly, your husband brought that into the house.”

“I’m not sure I know what to think or how to feel about any of this.”

“Yeah, I can imagine. All of it, coming down like it has, it’s got to be a shock.”

Lauren could have laughed. She could have thanked him for his empathy.

He took out what looked like a folded brochure from his manila folder and handed it to her. “What do you know about this?”

She had immediate impressions of colors—aqua, brilliant turquoise, pink-tinged taupe, and foamy white—that suggested water and sand. Brighter colors depicted beach umbrellas and palm trees.
The Nautilus at Padre Island
was scrolled across the front panel above an elegant, low-slung building, and below that, in smaller print, the line read:
An exclusive golf club and resort
. She looked at the detective, mystified. “I don’t know anything about it.”
Was that right?
“I’ve only been to Padre once, and that was years ago.”

“You don’t have an interest in the Nautilus?”

“An interest?”

“You haven’t purchased shares of ownership in the resort?”

Lauren searched her mind, scrambling for an answer, the right answer. She had the sense that Jim Cosgrove knew the right answer. There was nothing wrong with
his
brain or memory.

“Mrs. Wilder? Lauren?”

“Why am I here, Detective? Why can’t I see my husband?”

“If you could just bear with me—”

“Is he under arrest? Am I? You can at least tell me that! Is Tara? Do we need a lawyer?”

“Well, of course as far as your sister and your husband are concerned, it would be up to them to ask for a lawyer in the event they were placed under arrest. But so far, you and I are just talking, trying to sort out some things we both find confusing.”

“Am I free to go, then?” Lauren held Cosgrove’s gaze.

“Yes, of course, if you want to, but you want the truth, right? It’s important to you?”

She couldn’t deny that it was.

“It’s important to me, too,” Cosgrove said. “I think it’s a big part of why I became a cop. I like to get to the bottom of things. I like to see justice done. I don’t like seeing innocent people hurt. Especially kids. Man, that gets to me.”

“My kids are fine.”

“Yeah, you’re a good mom. Jeff made a real special point of letting me know that.”

Was it sarcasm she heard in his voice? Had Jeff complained to him about her care of their children? Was this about taking them from her? She wanted to ask but couldn’t find the breath or the courage.

The detective picked up his pen. “Tell me about Wick Matson. At our earlier interview, you said he was a heavy-equipment contractor. How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve seen his name on invoices; I’ve written him checks.”

“Have you met him?”

She took a moment, then said no. “But I don’t have a lot to do with the big commercial jobs. Anyway, I think even Jeff hasn’t worked with him that long. A year, two at most.” She paused again, thinking about it. It was when she’d come back to work after the accident that she learned Jeff had changed heavy-equipment suppliers. She remembered him saying something about the former contractor, that he wasn’t maintaining his machinery and Wilder and Tate couldn’t handle the liability if there was an accident. Insurance was a huge part of the cost of running a salvage yard. She explained this to Detective Cosgrove.

“So you don’t know Matson in the capacity of real estate developer. You don’t know that the Nautilus is his project? You haven’t bought shares in the resort yourself or solicited others to invest in the property?”

Her heart tripped. “No.”

“Your husband said you might know where Matson is.”

“What? No. I have no idea why he would say such a thing.”
Maybe he hadn’t.
“Please let me talk to him.”

Detective Cosgrove lifted another page from the folder. When he pushed it across the table toward her, Lauren saw it was from Cornerstone Bank. She recognized the logo at the top.

Cosgrove asked her to look at it.

She averted her gaze, and it was willful, a child’s tactic. Even she knew it was useless.

“Paul Thibideaux—you know the VP over at Cornerstone, the one who’s an old friend of your husband’s—he was kind enough to have this printed out for me. It’s a record of the deposits and withdrawals made to and from your account there in the last six weeks, basically from the time you opened it until today, this morning, in fact.” He paused. “I’m going to need you to look at the list, Mrs. Wilder.”

She did, scanning it quickly, her eye catching on what to her were enormous figures. There were deposits for anywhere from $115,000 to $136,000. The withdrawal amounts were smaller but more numerous. There was one for $22,000, another for $8,000, and three more for $12,000. “I’ve never used this account.” She put the list down. “I only found out about it a few days ago.”

“Really? Because, like I said before, according to your husband, you opened this account yourself.”

“No. I—we were together when we opened it.” Lauren tried again to think, to conjure any image from that experience, the one Jeff claimed they’d shared, but nothing came. Her head was so full of the white noise of her confusion, a higher dissonance of panic. What was going on? She bent forward. “If you’ll let me talk to Jeff, I’m sure we can straighten all of this out.” She wasn’t sure of that or anything.