Lie in Wait (16 page)

“He's not fooling me.”

“Good. Because it's your work that's led us to this point. And you who got me convinced. It's good work. The library and the checking the roster. Besides.” North smiled. It was a goofy. toothy smile, but gracious. “If he didn't do it, who did?”

Yes
, Test couldn't help but wonder at what was meant to be a rhetorical question.
Who?

 

Chapter 32

I
T WAS JUS
T
after 4:00 in the morning when Test got home. She and North had worked on Brad, then gone over their notes. North was a good detective. Thorough. No surprise. And, fortunately, with both of them in the weeds of the minutia of the case, and worn out, North hadn't brought up what had happened at King's place, when Test had drawn her weapon.

In the mudroom, Test shed her coat and let it fall to the floor, then slumped against the wall with exhaustion. She dreaded even the climb up the stairs. She could have fallen asleep if she laid down there on the slate floor.

She kicked her boots toward the neat row of the kids' and Claude's boots. Yawning, she shambled into the kitchen, pressing her balled fists into her sore lower back. Realizing she was as hungry as she was beat, she flipped on the kitchen light and winced at the glare as she opened the refrigerator door to find something to satisfy her empty stomach.

A shuffling came behind her. She turned.

Claude leaned against the doorjamb to the kitchen and stared at her.

“Sorry, didn't mean to wake you,” she said.

“You didn't.” He looked bushed too and she wondered if the kids had behaved for him. Sometimes he was a softy, and if the kids were in a spirited, mischievous mood, they'd take advantage of that and grind him down.

Test was happy to see Claude, but she needed to eat and get a drink of water before she collapsed.

“Sonja,” Claude said.

“Let me grab a bite first,” she said and removed her holster and set it down on the counter with a clunk, peered into the refrigerator. She wanted to eat something nutritious. But the long day, the stress, along with the darkness and cold, was triggering a craving for carbs. She stared at a shepherd's pie Claude had made three nights earlier. There were containers of yogurt and cottage cheese and pudding. A chunk of cheddar cheese wrapped in cellophane, sweating. A head of iceberg lettuce rusting at the edges, tomatoes gone soft, a knob of ginger, a cluster of garlic cloves. Nothing appealed, except a piece of chocolate cake Claude had brought home from his showing at the gallery in Cambridge several days before. It had to be pretty dry. Still. The frosting tempted her. She wished Claude had thrown out the cake like she'd asked. If it weren't around, she wouldn't be tempted.

“I'm going to eat the cake, damn it,” she said and grabbed it.

“Sonja,” Claude said.

She shut the refrigerator door and lifted the cellophane off the plate.

She broke a piece of cake off with her fingers and ate it.

It was dry. But the frosting remained sublime.

Claude was staring at her. His eyes compassionate. But also. Sad.

“Sonja,” he said again. The look on his face was more than exhaustion. It was anguish.

Her appetite left her and she set the piece of cake on the counter. “What is it? What's happened?” His face was grim. “Please tell me,” she said.

Her heart was skipping. “Is it one of the kids?” she said. And then. She knew. The silence of the house. She'd been so exhausted coming into the house she'd missed it. Charlie had not come to the door to greet her.

“It's Charlie,” Claude said.

“Oh,” she said and wilted against the counter. “I knew he was slowing down but I—­”

“No,” Claude said.

“What?” Test straightened, panicked. Claude was scaring her now.

“He ate poison.”

Test felt dizzy.

“Poison? What do you mean?” she said. “What did he get into?” Suddenly she was furious, her ire up. How many times had she told Claude to dispense with his paints and thinners responsibly. “I told you to keep your stupid paints sealed up or—­”

Claude hung his head. Not with guilt, but with an emotion Test could not quite gauge.

“You don't understand,” he said. “Someone poisoned him. I found hamburger outside, near his daytime pen. He—­”

This was too much. It was all too much. And it couldn't be. How could it be?

“Where is he?” she said. “Where's Charlie? I want to see him.”

“He's in the garage, under a blanket.”

“Did the kids—­”

“No.”

“Why the hell didn't you call me?” she snapped, her ire up, though she regretted instantly her misplaced anger. Her moods were swinging wildly. She was too tired to stem impulsive reactions.

“If I'd called or texted to let you know, it would have only distracted you while you were doing important work,” Claude said. “And I knew you would want to come straight home but wouldn't be able to.”

He was right. But it grieved her to know Charlie had died and been left all alone on the cold garage floor.

Her heart heaved and she began to sob.

Claude let her. He'd learned not to try to comfort her in such moments, but to grant her the space she needed to collect herself. Then, he could take her in his arms.

She calmed herself and Claude put a hand on her shoulder.

“You're sure he was poisoned?” she said.

“You decide.”

T
EST KNELT BESIDE
her old Charlie, gently pulled back the blanket covering him. He was stiff now, whether it was rigor mortis or from the cold in the old barn, she wasn't sure. Maybe both. It wasn't clear straight away that he'd been poisoned.

“He was frothing at the mouth,” Claude said and cleared his throat. “And. I found this.”

He picked up a half pack of hamburger and handed it to her.

“He must have eaten the rest, I found the Styrofoam trays,” Claude said.

Test examined the meat. Anger reared up in her again. “Drano?” she said, her voice hoarse. “Fucking Drano?” A sob started to come, but she let her anger rise above her sorrow and crush it. She would need her anger now. Use it to help her focus.

“I'm going for a run,” she said and stood.

“Now? No,” Claude said. “You need to sleep.”

“You think I'll be able to sleep?”

“It's dangerous running in the dark on these roads.”

“Not at four
A.M
.”

“What if—­”

She knew what he was going to say and cut him off before he could say it.

“Whoever did this is a coward,” she said. “They're long gone. We're not in harm's way. The kids aren't. I wouldn't—­”

“I stayed up all night,” Claude said. He was scared. She'd never seen him scared. “Every little sound. I took out my father's old twenty-­two pistol.”

“You can't be walking around the house with a handgun, Claude. You don't even know how to shoot. Or
if
it shoots.”

“I'm not taking chances. If this is linked to—­”

“Trust me,” Test said, though she didn't trust her own words. “If it's linked it's only linked by some cruel asshole gay basher who wants to scare off anyone who pursues the case. Not the person who killed Jessica. We have a suspect in custody.”

“You have him already?”

“That's where I've been all night.”

Claude seemed to relax. It felt odd, Test putting her husband at ease.

“Trust me, no one is out there.” She believed whoever had poisoned Charlie was long gone. But she could not know it.

“Go on to bed,” she said.

“I must look pretty bad,” Claude said, with a dim smile.

“No worse than me.” Test smiled too.

Claude relented. He knew when trying to change her mind was futile. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and lumbered off toward the house.

Test remained kneeling at Charlie's body for a long time, stroking his side and talking to him and giving him the love she'd promised she would the other night when she'd shoved him away.

Then she pulled the blanket back over him to keep him warm and went for her run.

 

Chapter 33

T
HE NIGHT W
AS
dark as tar, with only a small cone of light from Test's headlamp.

When she glanced to her side it was as if she was looking into starless deep space. It was unbalancing.

She took the dirt road slow and steady, wanting to work her heart rate up and clear her mind.

The kids would be devastated when they woke in the morning. And Claude would be left to deal with it on his own, because Test would need to be out the door in a ­couple hours.

She heard a branch snap and slowed her pace, listening.

The sound did not come again, and she relegated it to the noise of a raccoon or some other creature of the night. What else could it be?

She picked up her pace.

A crime committed against a police officer or her family needed to be officially reported and handled, but she would not report the poisoning. She was the detective who would have handled it if it was called in. So. She'd file papers that no one would ever see. She could do that. Right now, the fewer ­people who knew, the better. If she kept it quiet she'd be able to work this thread herself. Despite what she'd told Claude, she now suspected it was linked in one way or another to Jessica. She just did not know how. She hoped it was a pissed-­off local who would not harm the family. Though it seemed extreme and cruel for anyone to do. It occurred to her: What if more than one person had killed Jessica? Brad was in custody. So, he could not have poisoned Charlie. What if he'd had an accomplice? What if it was not Brad at all who had killed Jessica, and Test's gut was right? If it wasn't Brad, the person who killed Jessica remained at large.

S
HE TOLD HERSELF
again that whoever had killed Charlie was long gone and the kids and Claude were safe at home. But believed it less with every step. Anyone who would kill a dog was a sadist. Why was she not listening to music on her iPod as she always did when running? She told herself it was because she had not thought to bring it. But that wasn't the truth. The truth was she hadn't brought her iPod because she had wanted to remain acutely aware of every sound in the darkness.

She stopped running and listened. It was hard to hear anything other sound over the pulse of blood in her ears. But, from the understory of the woods, came a rustling.

It had to be an animal.

No person could possibly keep up with her running on the road by crashing through the woods in the complete darkness.

It was impossible. Even in the daylight, it would be impossible.

Tomorrow she would crack Brad. Break him down and get the confession she knew was coming. Then she would focus on who had killed her dog. Perhaps Brad knew.

She'd break him down for that, too.

She sprinted the rest of the way home.

 

Chapter 34

B
ETHANY LAY IN
bed, asleep under the quilt.

Except to change and feed little Jon she'd been in bed with her baby every minute since they'd arrived two days earlier. The baby lay asleep in the crib provided by the inn as Jon shaved in the bathroom. He needed to appear ever the respectable, professional man of the law, for the press conference.

He leaned from the bathroom doorway looking at Bethany. She stirred and blinked awake as if feeling his gaze. She yanked back the quilt. The scent of her unwashed body rose up out of the sheets.

“You should get up. Go for a walk, the stroller is downstairs,” Jon said.

She shook her head and sniffed. The old pajama top of Jon's she wore was buttoned crookedly. From one pocket she pulled a used tissue. She blew her nose in it, then dropped it to the floor.

“Do you good to get ambulatory,” Jon said.

“Don't push.”

“I'm not.”

“You are. You do.”

“Sorry.”

She sighed, exasperated. “
Then
you get all
sorry
. It's one or the other with you. Control or grovel. Be something else. Anything else. In between. Be normal. Please.”

“OK. All right. Stop. I can't hear this now. You need to get up sometime. Do something. It was awful. But it's over.”

“Like you know.”

“It is. I promise. I saw on the TV a boy has been brought in for questioning. It won't be long before he's arrested. I promise.”

“Promises.”

“I lived up to them. The baby and the house . . .”

“I wanted a
home
. And little Jon. I can't believe you.”

Jon clenched his fists. Sometimes she pushed him. Pushed and pushed and pushed. Until all he wanted to do was . . . He closed his eyes, breathed. Opened his eyes again. “Right. OK. It's all me.”

“Don't put words in my mouth.”

“No it is. It's all me. I know.” He cracked his knuckles. “But you. You need to get back to the land of the living. Quit wallowing.”

“How should I behave? Cold. Like you?”

“I'm not cold.”

“You haven't missed a beat.”

“I just haven't shown it.”

“God forbid you should,” she said.

“I need to get done what needs getting done. I won't stop living to grieve for a girl I hardly knew when I have important work to do.”

She looked at him, her lips slightly parted. “What's wrong with you?”

“Me? You act as if it was your own kid who was killed instead of a babysitter.”

“You're cold.”

“This is no time to be a mess.”

“You haven't so much as touched me—­”

“OK.
All right.
Who's cold? To bring that up.”

Jon turned back into the bathroom and slammed the door. The frame shook. Before he could control himself, he punched the mirror. Cracking it.

His knuckles bled.

The baby cried.

Jesus. Why wouldn't that baby shut up?

Trying to collect himself, he rubbed his temples and shut his eyes. He squeezed and unsqueezed his fists, trying to steady his hands, but they would not steady. They trembled uncontrollably. His whole body shook, as if he were standing beside a locomotive as it roared past him.

He slouched against the wall and slid down it until he sat in a heap. He'd not meant to yell. He hated yelling at her. Hated himself for it. She was right. He would crawl back, tail tucked, and say sorry until it sickened them both. Grovel, mouth metallic with the bitterness of a remorse that seemed bottomless.

Ever since the horror in the cage as a boy, he'd calculated every move, exacted it with mechanical precision, however pleasant or unpleasant. It had gotten him through. It had gotten him a wife. It had gotten Bethany her dream house, the baby she'd wanted. She'd had little idea of the legal thorniness and cost related to adopting a white male American baby. How could she? He'd handled the entirety of it, except for their personal interviews. And now all she wanted from him was emotion. Emotion. Life was easier without it. Easier when you saw relationships as they were: a dominant and a submissive. A person was either preyed or preyed upon. He'd learned the importance of control. It was the only way he'd survived.

A knock came on the bathroom door.

“You can't go through with this press conference,” Bethany said through the door. “You have to quit the case. I won't stay here with our son if you go out there in public and announce you will push on, like some hero, and jeopardize our safety any further.”

Jon opened the door. “I can't quit,” he said.

“You
can
,” Bethany said. “If you want to.”

“It has nothing to do with want. I can't just abandon my clients.”

“But you can abandon your family.”

“I won't listen to you when you're being dramatic and irrational.”

She wagged a finger in his face, nicking the end of his nose with a long fingernail, drawing blood. Her face was distorted with anger. “If you give that press conference, you're inviting more violence upon us.”

“No one exacted violence on
us
.” He licked his lips. He needed a drink.

Jon turned from her and finished shaving. He washed his face with cold water. He put on the dress shirt hanging from the back of the door. Pulled himself together.

He slipped on his trousers and pushed past Bethany at the door, then lifted the sports coat from where it was slung over the back of a chair and tossed it on.

He put on his best tie and knotted it. “I have to go,” he said.

“Go,” she said, waving the back of her hand at him. “Go.”

“Nothing is going to happen. The kid is locked up and not going anywhere.”