The Innocent
“Is there a point to this?”
Adam Yates finally stopped with the eye contact. “I have a son. His name is Sam. He’s fourteen now. When he was three years old, he got meningitis. We thought he might die. He was in the hospital in this great big bed. It was too big for him, you know? It looked like it would swallow him up. And me, I just sat next to him and watched him get worse.”
He gulped a breath and swallowed hard. Loren let him take his time.
“After a couple of hours, I picked Sam up and held him in my arms. I didn’t sleep. I didn’t put him down. I just kept holding him. My wife says it was three full days. I don’t know. I just knew that if I kept Sam in my arms, if I kept watching him, then death couldn’t take him away from me.”
Yates seemed to drift off.
Loren spoke softly. “I still don’t see the point.”
“Well, here it is,” he said, his voice back to normal. He locked eyes again. His pupils were pinpricks. “They threatened my family.”
Yates put his hand to his face, then back down as if he wasn’t sure where he wanted to put it. “When I first started this case,” he went on, “they set their sights on my wife and kids. So you understand.”
She opened her mouth, said nothing.
The phone on the desk rang. Loren picked it up.
Lance Banner said, “We lost Matt.”
“What?”
“That kid who lives with them. Kyra, whatever. She started screaming and. . . . Anyway, his wife is here. She says that she was driving the car, not him, and that she doesn’t know where he is.”
“That’s crap.”
“I know it.”
“Bring her in.”
“She refuses to come.”
“Excuse me?”
“We have nothing on her.”
“She’s a material witness in a murder investigation.”
“She’s lawyering up. She says we either have to arrest her or let her go.”
Her cell phone chirped. Loren checked the caller ID. The call was originating from Max Darrow’s house.
“I’ll get back to you.” She hung up the office phone and clicked on the mobile. “Investigator Muse.”
“This is Gertie Darrow. You left me a message?”
Loren could hear the tears in her voice. “I’m sorry about your loss.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t mean to disturb you at such a terrible time, but I really need to ask you a few questions.”
“I understand.”
“Thank you,” Loren said. She grabbed a pen. “Do you know why your husband was in Newark, Mrs. Darrow?”
“No.” She said it as though it was the most painful word she ever uttered. “He told me he was visiting a friend in Florida. A fishing trip, he said.”
“I see. He was retired, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Could you tell me if he was working on anything?”
“I don’t understand. What does this have to do with his murder?”
“This is just routine—”
“Please, Investigator Muse,” she interrupted, her voice up a notch. “My husband was a police officer, remember? You’re not calling me at this hour for routine questions.”
Loren said, “I’m trying to find a motive.”
“A motive?”
“Yes.”
“But . . .” And then she quieted down. “The other officer. The one who called before. Investigator Wine.”
“Yes. He works in my office.”
“He told me that Max was in a car, that”—there was a choke in the voice but she kept it together—“that he had his pants down.”
Loren closed her eyes. So Wine had already told her. She understood, she guessed. In today’s society of openness, you couldn’t even spare a widow anymore. “Mrs. Darrow?”
“What?”
“I think that was a setup. I don’t think there was any prostitute. I think your husband was murdered for some other reason. And I think it might involve an old case of his. So I’m asking you: Was he working on anything?”
There was a brief silence. Then: “That girl.”
“What?”
“I knew it. I just knew it.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Darrow. I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Max never talked about business. He never brought it home. And he was retired. She had no reason to come around.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know her name. She was a young thing. Maybe twenty.”
“What did she want?”
“I told you. I don’t know. But Max . . . after she left, he was like a madman. He started going through old files.”
“Do you know what the files referred to?”
“No.” Then: “Do you really think this could have something to do with Max’s murder?”
“Yes, ma’am. I think it might have everything to do with it. Does the name Clyde Rangor mean anything to you?”
“No, I’m sorry.”
“How about Emma Lemay or Charles Talley?”
“No.”
“Candace Potter?”
Silence.
“Mrs. Darrow?”
“I saw that name.”
“Where?”
“On his desk. There was a file. Must have been a month ago. I just saw the word ‘Potter.’ I remember because that was the name of the bad guy in It’s a Wonderful Life. Remember? Mr. Potter?”
“Do you know where the file is now?”
“I’ll go through the cabinets, Investigator Muse. If it’s still here, I’ll find it for you and call back.”
Chapter 44
MATT LEARNED HOW to steal cars in prison. Or at least, that was what he thought.
There was a guy named Saul two cells over who had a fetish for joyriding with stolen cars. He was about as decent a guy as you’d meet in prison. He had his demons—his seemingly more innocuous than most—but the demons did him in. He got arrested for stealing a car when he was seventeen, then again when he was nineteen. On his third go-round, Saul lost control of the vehicle and killed someone. He’d already had two priors so he got a life sentence.
“All that stuff you see on TV?” Saul had told him. “That’s all crap, unless you want a specific make. Otherwise, you don’t jam the lock. You don’t use tools. And you don’t hot-wire. That only works on old cars anyway. And with all the alarms, you try most of that stuff, the car will lock down on you.”