Broken Grace (5 page)

“Could this be the same woman from the Facebook picture?” Lisa asked.

“It’s possible,” Hackett said, taking the pictures back and laying them side by side.

“Dick,” said Lisa. Grace looked at her. “I knew he was a dirtbag.”

Bishop raised his brows. “Did you know Michael?”

“Of course.”

“Why ‘of course’?”

“We’ve known him forever. He lived next door when we were growing up. We played together for years. But I wouldn’t say we were friends or anything.”

“Why’s that?”

“Like you said, he got into drugs. He wasn’t a good guy, in my opinion. And he was too old for Grace. He was kind of controlling. So of course that put a strain on things. That’s why Grace and I weren’t all that close in the last few years.”

Finally, Lisa was sharing a little more about their relationship. Grace sat forward, listening intently.

“Any knowledge of him dealing drugs?” Bishop asked.

“No,” she said.

“Okay. Again, we’re simply chasing possibilities. It was a pretty large stash of marijuana. Obviously if someone’s involved in illegal activities, there are dangerous types one’s going to run into.”

“Well, that seems unlikely. I’d hope Grace would not have stood for that.”

“Were you aware of Cahill cheating on Grace?”

Now it was Lisa who seemed taken aback by the cop’s intense gaze. “I didn’t say that.”

Hackett followed up. “Is there anything else?”

Lisa glanced toward Grace again before responding. “I did wonder if maybe that’s why Grace left him, that’s all. I mean, isn’t that the cause of a lot of breakups?”

Bishop nodded noncommittally. “Grace, we’d like to ask you for a couple of things.”

She looked at him but couldn’t maintain eye contact with that piercing gaze. She kept her eyes on the table. “Sure.”

“First, we’d like to get your fingerprints. We have a lot of prints from the scene, but since both you and Michael lived there, we’d like to know which prints are yours and which belong to someone other than you or Cahill.”

“Okay.”

“We’d also like you to take a polygraph.”

“What?” Lisa straightened like a rod.

“It’s standard procedure.”

“She has no memories; how the fuck could she be lying?”

Grace reached out to touch Lisa’s arm, a surprise to both of them. Lisa was obviously trying to help, but it seemed like a mistake to make the police angry.

Bishop raised both hands, palms forward. “We’re not suggesting that Grace is lying. But we’d like to confirm what she might and might not remember.”

“I don’t mind,” Grace said, hoping her own calm would settle her sister. “I don’t know how that will help, but if you say so, fine.”

“That’s great,” Bishop said with a smile. “It will help a lot. We can get the prints from you today. We’ll have to call you back to do the poly on another day.”

“Fine,” she said, satisfied at having extracted a smile. She rose from her chair but then stopped suddenly to brace the table, closing one eye for balance. Hackett came around quickly and offered his arm. He guided her out the door and down the hall to the fingerprinting computer.

“You doing okay?” he asked.

She withdrew her arm from his, regaining her equilibrium, and smiled up at him. “Sure, thanks. You’re a lot nicer than the other one.”

The compliment didn’t get the reaction she expected. Instead, his smile faded.

But when he placed her fingers one by one onto the plastic board, holding them steady as the digital print was taken, he stood so close she could smell his cologne. She knew that scent. “What’s your name?”

“Justin,” he said without looking at her face.

“Justin,” she repeated. “Nice name.”

He looked at her, searching her expression, and she smiled.

“Do you remember something, Grace?”

“Should I?”

He smiled and shook his head. There was something about him, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She didn’t feel hunted by him. She felt safe, even as he took her fingerprints.

When they returned to the room, Bishop watched her as if she were some sort of alien. “Is there anything else you remember about Saturday morning?” he said to Lisa. “Hearing Grace in the bathroom, perhaps, or shutting the door, or the sound of a car leaving? It would really help us establish her whereabouts.”

“We’ve been through this. She was in a car crash.”

“Yes, but the officers at the scene got there a little before nine in the morning. Their investigation concluded that the accident had occurred between thirty minutes and an hour earlier.”

“And when did Michael die?” Lisa asked.

“We can’t say for certain. Given the delay in discovery, the medical examiner has given us a window. It definitely happened in the early part of Saturday, but it could have occurred before or after the time of Grace’s accident.”

Grace sat up and confirmed what everyone was thinking. “So you think it’s possible I did this.”

Officer Hackett shook his head. “We can’t rule anything or anyone out yet. That’s all.”

Lisa’s cheeks flushed. “This is crazy. You don’t know her. It wasn’t Grace. It couldn’t have been. Yes, she was upset, but . . .” She paused, maybe unsure of what might help.

“Can you think of where she might have been going at the time?” he asked.

“I already told you.” Her voice rose again. “Maybe running. Maybe coffee. I don’t know.” She slammed her hand down near the pad of paper where Hackett was taking notes. “Hey, I know what you’re suggesting.” She stood. “I don’t think we should continue this, Grace.”

Grace didn’t move right away. Lisa nudged her. “I don’t want to sit here and help you build a case against my sister simply because she can’t properly defend herself right now.”

“Maybe I should go to Michael’s house,” Grace offered. “Maybe it would help me remember.”

“That would be great,” Bishop said.

“Absolutely not.” Lisa pulled at her arm. “Come on, we’re leaving.”

Bishop stood as well. “Miss Abbott, we’re only looking for help. No one is being accused of anything.”

Grace carefully stood to join Lisa, who was now at the door, holding it open. “I understand you’re doing your job and trying to solve a murder, but I’m trying to help my sister get better. Her doctor told her to take it easy, and now she’s come home to a murder investigation. This must all be very confusing, and I don’t think we should do anything to upset her, certainly not without speaking to her doctors first.”

The officers followed them to the station lobby.

“As far as I can tell,” Lisa said, “there are other possibilities here—gambling, drugs, who knows what else. Maybe Michael messed with the wrong guy at a bar. You don’t know anything yet, and you’d better not just go after the easiest suspect.”

Grace watched the confrontation and giggled. They all seemed very cartoonish—this scrappy, punk-rock chick, dragging a drugged-up basket case out of the room, and these two officers, like keystone cops, shuffling after them.

Bishop was trying to control her sister, who was obviously not going to be controlled. “Okay, Miss Abbott. Let’s give her another couple of days. We’ve got some other things to track down. Do us a favor and stay in town.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Lisa said.

She yanked at the station’s front door, causing it to bounce off its hinges and hit Grace as she trailed behind. It propelled her forward, causing a strain in her rib cage that made her yelp in pain, but Lisa was oblivious as she rushed to the car. Grace followed like an old woman in the ten-degree air.

Once inside the car, Lisa turned to her, deadly serious, her pointy little face scrunched with stress. “Grace, don’t be stupid.”

Grace forgot about her pain and laughed.

“You have no idea what went on Saturday morning. You can’t blindly offer to go back to that house. They’ll be watching your every move, your every reaction or lack of reaction. For all we know, they’re trying to build a case against you. Don’t help them do it.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t have done it.”

“Just because I said that doesn’t mean they’ll believe me.”

Grace’s head began to ache again. She closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the seat.

“And quit laughing. This isn’t funny. Come on.” Lisa checked her watch. “Let’s go home. You need to be resting and I need to get to work. And until you know what happened, don’t volunteer to help the police, okay?”

Grace agreed.

SIX

H
ACKETT WATCHED THE WOMEN DRIVE
out of the lot. “Why didn’t you mention the casino?” he asked. They already knew the photo with the blonde had been taken at the Four Winds Casino, and the woman’s profile listed it as her place of employment.

“We’re walking a fine line here. Grace could be traumatized from that accident, she could be traumatized by something she saw at Cahill’s house, or maybe she’s our perp. I’m not ready to share all our cards yet.”

“Shouldn’t we get over there and find out more?”

“No need. We got what we needed this morning,” Bishop said, walking back to his desk.

“What do you mean?”

“Kewanee, with the tribal police, checked it out. The Potawatomis own the casino, so their tribal police are deputized and help us out when it comes to tribal property. He already learned that the woman’s a waitress, she arranged for another waiter to cover her shifts last week, and she’s off this week. No one has seen her at home or work, and everyone assumes she’s left town. She’s not due back at work until this coming Friday.”

“So this woman is connected to the victim the day before his death and now she’s skipped town?”

“Well, yeah, but we don’t know enough to assume anything too nefarious yet. She may just be on vacation.” He sat behind his desk and reviewed some notes. “Anyway, how are you coming with Grace’s cell records?”

Hackett went to his own desk that faced Bishop’s and leafed through the paperwork. “I got the warrant processed last Thursday, but the phone company said it could be at least a week for the texts and phone records.” He hoped it would take longer. It would all be over if Bishop saw the call logs before they figured out who killed Michael.

His boss sipped his coffee and continued working on the half-eaten muffin he’d abandoned when the women arrived. “We also got some new information just now.”

Hackett took a seat. “What’s that?”

“When you took Grace to get the prints, Lisa mentioned that Cahill had a temper. She said Grace was afraid of him.” Bishop cracked a half smile, like he’d just gotten a great nugget. Like maybe Grace blew him away, a battered woman who’d had enough.

Hackett was surer than ever that he’d been right to keep quiet. Someone had to keep Bishop from going after the easiest target. “We don’t have any record of abuse,” he pointed out.

“True. But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Call the crime-lab fingerprint unit, ask for Miles. Tell him we got Grace’s prints and we need them checked against the prints found on the photos.”

“Okay. Didn’t he say there were more than one set of prints on them?”

“Yeah. But we know that Cahill’s wasn’t one of them. If Grace’s prints are on those photos, that’s motive.”

Hackett made the call and said a silent prayer for Grace. And for himself. As he hung up, Bishop was grabbing his coat. “Come on. We’re heading up to Berrien Springs.”

The wind off the lake had picked up, swirling some of last week’s snowfall into the road. The entire landscape was still covered in a thick blanket, and the temperature wasn’t expected to let up anytime soon. Hackett rubbed his hands together, trying to get warm and focus on the facts—to play the part of investigator—but his thoughts kept falling into a ditch, where they went round and round, back to Grace’s face and back to the phone call that might ruin him.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Bishop asked.

“Nothing,” he answered, keeping his eyes on the white-covered fields.

“You watch
Stripes
yet?”

Hackett chuckled. “You just told me to watch it yesterday!”

“Well, what the hell else you gotta do? How does a young guy spend time around here anyway? You never seem to be hungover, so I’m guessing you’re not that type.”

“No,” he said.

“Come on,” Bishop prodded. “Give me something. I’m almost a half century. God, that sounds bad. My free time is spent at basketball games, ballet recitals, chores—did I say ballet recitals?”

Hackett laughed.

“It’s my duty to live vicariously through my good-looking, young partner who’s probably swinging from chandeliers. I mean, look at you!”

Hackett laughed. “Hardly. You’d be so disappointed.”

“You got a girl?”

“No.”

“And your family’s in Indiana?”

“Yeah. Chesterton. I haven’t seen them in a while.”

“Well, I guess that’ll change soon.”

“What do you mean?”

“Christmas.”

“Oh right, yeah, maybe.” Maybe. His mom had left several messages, and he knew it might make things worse if he didn’t go, but everyone else was much better at pretending the family hadn’t been irreparably damaged. And he didn’t want anyone looking at him like he was some wounded bird. He couldn’t stand their pity.

“Well, we need to solve this case ASAP.”

“What’s the rush?”

“It’s just shitty timing.”

“Christmas?”

“That and I’m on double duty right now. Sandy’s mom is in the hospital again. Doesn’t look good.”

“What is it?”

“Cancer. She’s battled it for years, but looks like the fight is about over. Sandy won’t leave her side, sure she’s going to go any minute, so she’s up in St. Joe night and day.”

“That’s tough.”

“Yeah, and don’t get me wrong, I love my mother-in-law and I know it would be shitty to lose a parent, but I’ve never been in charge at Christmas. She’s leaving it up to me to make the magic happen.”

“How old are your kids?”

“Fifteen, thirteen, eleven, and nine.”

“Wow, that’s a brood. At least they’re older, right?”

Bishop shook his head. “You have no idea how hard it is to shop for these kids. The older ones understand that because of Grandma, it’s not a great year, but Paige, my nine-year-old, is still talking about Santa. Last night she asked me to download this app on my phone that tracks his movements so we’ll know exactly when he’s getting close to Michigan on Christmas Eve.”

“They have that?”

“Oh yeah. And the older ones just want electronics: PlayStations, Wiis, Xbox. Lucky for my boy, I enjoy a game or two. But those
iPods, iPads, iPhones—I hate that frickin’
i
company. They need to stop marketing expensive shit to my kids.”

Hackett smirked at his tirade.

“I say no to everything,” Bishop added with a grin, “but nothing makes you feel like more of a failure than disappointed kids on Christmas morning.”

Hackett’s thoughts went to Donny, opening up his gifts on Christmas, probably the first one he’d understand. Beaming as he ripped through wrapping paper, content to play in an empty cardboard box—and Hackett wouldn’t see any of it.

“Well, you’re a chatty Cathy, aren’t you?” Bishop said.

“Sorry.” His thoughts were now stuck on Christmas, on how every future Christmas would bring nothing but dread.

They drove another twenty minutes in silence. As Bishop turned onto Shawnee Road toward the center of town, he smacked the steering wheel to break Hackett’s spell. “Okay, I got another quote for ya.”

“Hit me.”

“Now, this is a classic. Everyone in the world has seen this movie.”

“Okay.”

In his most strained voice, as if he could barely get out the words, Bishop said, “I got no place else to go. I got no place else to go! I got nothin’ else.”

Hackett grinned, watching him mug for a few seconds before giving up. “I got no idea.”

Bishop’s tone was now deeper and gruff. “Oh, come on, May-o-nnaise.”

“What?”

Bishop continued in his best imitation of the unnamed actor, throwing at him some insulting remarks about Oklahoma.

“This is all the same movie?”

“Yes! Kid, what have you been doing all your life? It’s
An Officer and a Gentleman
. Richard Gere. Debra Winger.” He clapped his hands and went into a high-pitched falsetto. “Go, Paula!”

Hackett cracked up, suddenly picturing his balding partner in a dress. “Same movie?”

Bishop chuckled and backhanded him on the knee. “Of course.”

“Well, now I have to see it.”

They pulled into the parking lot of The Rack, just a half mile down the road from Cahill’s construction job. Cahill’s foreman had said a stop at The Rack was like the second half of any shift. The building, enlivened only by neon beer signs in the window, was run-down, sandwiched between a thrift shop and a parking lot. Inside, the smell of cigarettes and stale beer greeted them as Led Zeppelin blasted from the jukebox. The bartender, mid-sixties, with long, graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, multiple earrings, tattoos covering both forearms, and a massive belly that spilled out from beneath his Harley T-shirt, leaned against the rail at the end of the bar, reading the newspaper.

Hackett and Bishop took seats at the bar and introduced themselves. The bartender offered them a drink, which they declined. “Had to ask.” He smiled. “I’m Ed.” He shook hands with both of them. “What can I do you for?”

“You recognize this man?” Hackett held up a photo of Cahill.

“This is about that murder, huh?”

He nodded. “We heard from Mr. Cahill’s foreman that he and the boys often came here after work.”

“Yeah, Mike was a regular.”

“How often would you say he came in?” Bishop asked.

“Oh, I don’t know, few times a week? There was usually a load of ’em who came in after their shifts over at the site to kick back for an hour or two before headin’ home.”

Bishop gave Hackett the nod to jump in. “We’re trying to piece together his last days. Can you remember the last time you saw him?”

“Couple weeks, I guess.”

“According to his boss, he’d worked four days on the week before his death.” He checked his notes. “Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Would you have any record of whether or not he was here any of those days—after his shift, perhaps?”

“Nah. No real bookkeeping. I mean, unless someone pays with a credit card, there’s no telling who’s been in and out.”

Bishop spun his barstool away from the conversation, toward the pool tables.

“How well did you know Mr. Cahill?” Hackett asked.

“Not well. I mean, he’s ‘Mike’ to me, for one. I ain’t no Sam or nothin’.”

“Sam?”

“You know, Sam—
Cheers
?”

Bishop turned back and smiled. “The reference is wasted on my partner, here. Turns out he doesn’t know anything from before 1990.”

“Come on, guys,” Hackett protested. “I can’t help it if I’m not old!” The men laughed.

“Shall we get back to it, please?” he asked. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Cahill? Mike?”

The bartender sipped his coffee. “I know he wasn’t here after Sunday, week before last. I know because I was planning to give him some shit, bust his balls a little, but I never got a chance.”

“So you know he was here that Sunday?”

“Yep.”

“And why’d you wanna bust his balls?” Bishop asked.

“Oh yeah. Kinda funny, really. The boys are always hanging out. They’re loud. Riding one another a bit. Placing stupid bets on the games. Sometimes I go in on them, but shit, I’d be broke if I did that with all the customers. Anyway, I remember that Mike was telling all the guys about how he couldn’t place no more bets for a while, that his ring was setting him back a bit.”

“Ring?” Hackett asked.

“Engagement ring. He was showing it off. Had it with him. He’d told the boys that he was finally gonna do it, and they all teased him a bit.”

“So that’s what you wanted to tease him about?” Bishop asked.

“Fuck no. I wanted to tease him because the very night that he’s telling the boys how he’s taking the big plunge, I seen him leave here with some other woman.”

“How do you know it was another woman? Do you know his girlfriend?” Hackett asked.

“No, no. We don’t get many chicks in this place. It’s more of an escape. But this chick came in looking like, I don’t know, like Sharon Stone or something. Fuckin’ hot, that’s my point. Mike’s up at the bar, getting a few, and this girl, she starts chatting him up, flirting. She wasn’t no girlfriend. I mean, I was at the other end of the bar, but you can tell when girls want some just by the way they hold a cigarette, you know?”

“So she smoked?”

“Well, not in here, of course. But she was holding an unlit one at the time. Anyway, next thing I know, he’s leaving with the girl. Got his arm around her and everything.”

“So this was Sunday . . . December first?” Hackett asked, looking at his notes.

“Yeah. Had to be.”

“So he meets some girl and takes off with her? Can you remember what the girl looked like?”

“Skinny thing, high heels, long blonde hair. You know that white blonde, like a porn star. Yeah, I mighta left with her too, if she’d asked me.”

“Did she come in with anyone else? Did you see her talking to anyone else?” Bishop asked.

“She might have come in with someone. I didn’t see. But there weren’t any other women in here. Grant you, it’s not exactly normal for a looker like that to be hanging out in a shithole like this, but she obviously liked what she saw in Mike. I mean, I guess he’s good-looking.
Was
good-looking. Fuck.” Ed shook his head and crossed his arms.