A Wicked Truth (2 page)

Detective Rheingard leaned back in his seat and gave me a scrutinizing look. “How did you happen to be looking through a box of medical files? I'm assuming your new boyfriend didn't have them lying around.”

Heat flooded my face, but I refused to look down. I hadn't done anything wrong. “Jasper left his father's practice and is starting a clinic. He brought home several boxes of things and put them in the study. I was helping unpack, and found the box by accident. I saw Allen's name and read the file.”

“Home?” Detective Reed's eyes took on a light I didn't particularly like.

“Jasper is living with me at the vineyard,” I said, lifting my chin. “Or at least he was until I confronted him with the file and the email. When he said he didn't know about either one, I kicked him out.”

“So you're saying that the day we planned on coming to arrest you, you just so happen to bring us information to implicate your lover in the death of your husband?” Reed smirked at me. “Pardon me if I don't believe you.”

“What reason do I have to lie?” I asked.

“To throw suspicion onto someone other than yourself,” Rheingard countered.

“What happened, Mrs. Lockwood?” Reed leaned forward again, putting his elbows on the table. “One year of matrimonial bliss and you were already tired of your husband?”

I could smell his cologne from where I was sitting, and it made me want to gag almost as much as his questions did.

“Did he beat you?” Rheingard asked.

“No!” I stared at the detective, shocked he would even ask such a question. “Allen was a kind, compassionate man. He never raised his hand to me or anyone else.”

“If he didn't hit you, what was it? Did he have an affair? Maybe one of those cute little workers at the vineyard?” Reed asked. “Did you catch them going at it in the office? Maybe right out in the open? Was that why you set fire to that row? Was that where they'd done it?”

My mouth was hanging open, but I couldn't seem to find the willpower to shut it. I couldn't believe they were asking this.

Reed kept going. “You'd only been married a year, but you'd been together for, what, eight years? That's a long time to only be getting it from one place.”

“You're a pig,” I snapped, face flaming. “Allen and I were happy together. He never cheated on me. We were going to start a family.”

I waited for that last statement to hurt, but it didn't. Maybe I was moving on. Or maybe I couldn't feel anything but anger and shock at what was happening.

“If you were happy together, then why'd you kill him?” Reed asked. “Or, maybe you were the one sleeping around, and he caught you. Was that it?”

“I didn't kill my husband,” I said. My nails dug into my palms and I concentrated on the pain to keep myself from slapping him. “It was either an accident or suicide, but that's your job to figure out. I just came in here to give you some information that might help with your investigation.”

“If it was an accident or suicide, Mrs. Lockwood, then we should only have found Allen's prints on his parachute pack, right? After all, he's the one who packed it. That's what you said.” Rheingard leaned forward now, folding his hands in front of him. “But we didn't only find Allen's prints. We found another set.” He paused for a moment, smoky blue eyes studying me. “We found your prints as well. Would you care to explain that?”

Chapter 2

That wasn't possible. There had to be some mistake. I hadn't touched Allen's pack at all. Had I?

I racked my brains, thinking back to that day that I wanted to forget. I'd tried so hard to push it to the back of my mind that it was hard to focus at first. We'd gotten to the airport and he told me what he planned. We talked to the pilot, the videographer, and the instructor who'd be going up with us even though we'd both done it before. Then, I'd gone to the bathroom, and when I came back, Allen had been ready to go. I'd packed my own chute, and we'd gotten onto the plane.

We kissed in the air before...
it
happened, but had we touched on the plane? I couldn't remember. The only thing I knew for sure was that I hadn't sabotaged his chute, either accidentally or on purpose. He'd had his packed before I'd come out of the bathroom.

After I'd gotten his letter, I assumed that had been why he'd packed his chute when I wasn't there, so I wouldn't see him rigging it not to open. He had to have sabotaged it since he needed it to look like an accident. If he just failed to pull the ripcord, it would've looked suspicious.

“Well, Mrs. Lockwood?” Rheingard asked. “How can you explain your fingerprints on your husband's pack when you told us that you didn't touch it?”

“I don't know.” I shook my head, confused. “I didn't pack it. Maybe I touched it on the plane, like when we were standing near each other. I wouldn't have thought of that before. He was wearing it, so I wouldn't really have been paying attention to where I was putting my hands.”

“You expect us to believe that the prints we pulled from the parachute itself came from you touching your husband's back while you were in the plane?” Reed asked.

Rheingard shot him a look I couldn't exactly read, but I got the impression that something about Reed's statement bothered him.

“I don't know how you found them,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “But I didn't touch that parachute.” An idea popped into my head and it blurted out of my mouth. “Maybe Allen switched them.”

“Switched what?” Reed asked.

“My pack and his. It's the only logical explanation. I wasn't even there when he packed his parachute, but I did pack mine, so my fingerprints would've been all over mine. If Allen packed a parachute, then switched my pack and his, my fingerprints would've been all over it.”

Reed snorted a laugh and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “You seriously expect us to buy that?”

“I don't care if you 'buy' it or not,” I said back at him. “It's the only possible explanation.” I was getting seriously sick of his patronizing tone.

“You think that sounds more logical than you wanting to kill your husband for his money?” Reed scratched his head and looked over at Rheingard. “I don't know, Anker, you think a jury will buy that load of crap?”

“I didn't kill my husband!” I snapped.

“You were wearing your rings when you came in, Mrs. Lockwood,” Reed continued. “You don't think that's the tiniest bit inappropriate? Banging your husband's best friend while still wearing your wedding rings? Or did you think that people might talk if you sold them too early?”

“I think your line of questioning is inappropriate.” I could feel tears burning against my eyelids, but I refused to cry. Not here. Not in front of them. “Do you think I want to believe my husband killed himself? That he
chose
to leave me, and to do it in such a horrible, vicious way right in front of me?” I leaned forward. “I don't care what you think you know, or what evidence you think you have, because it's never going to prove I killed my husband because I didn't do it. You could have a hundred of my fingerprints all over that pack and it still wouldn't mean that I'd done–”

I stopped suddenly when I saw Reed's eyes shift. It was small, but he'd clearly looked away. Then I remembered something I'd learned from watching one of those cop shows Allen always loved.

Police were allowed to lie to a suspect.

“There aren't any fingerprints, are there?” I asked softly. “Not mine anyway. You were trying to get me to incriminate myself or change my story.” I shook my head, giving them both a disgusted look. “Well, it might've worked. If I'd lied at any point, or if I'd actually done something wrong. But I'm innocent, so there wasn't a lie to catch me in.”

Reed and Rheingard exchanged glances, and I knew I was right.

“What will it take for the two of you to believe me?” I asked suddenly. “A written confession from my dead husband?” I gestured towards the papers in front of Detective Reed. “Oh, wait, you already have that.”

“What we have is a letter you could've written yourself,” Reed said. “Especially when we have a source who says that you sabotaged Allen's chute, and that you'd do anything to keep us from uncovering the truth, even making up false evidence.”

“A source.” I pressed my fingers against the top of the table. “Which Lockwood is it? May? Gregory? Or is it Marcus? Maybe they decided to get Alice in on the action? None of them like me and they have everything to gain if I go to jail.”

“It's called an anonymous source for a reason,” Reed snapped back.

“Faris!” Rheingard's voice was sharp and he glared at his partner.

Apparently, sharing that bit of information with me hadn't been a part of their strategy.

“Is this anonymous source going to testify in court that they saw something I didn't do? In front of a jury. Under oath.” I looked from Reed to Rheingard and back again. “I think you know exactly who this person is, but it doesn't matter if you do or not. We all know that they're not going to come forward, because they didn't see anything, and they're not going to risk going to jail for perjury. The reason they didn't see anything is because there was nothing to see.”

If this was an ordinary case, they never would've been allowed to arrest me on the uncorroborated word of an anonymous source and I would've walked out of there as soon as I delivered my little speech. But this wasn't a normal case because the Lockwoods had a long reach, and Allen had been well-known and well-liked.

I also thought Detective Reed was just a dick.

I didn't walk out after my speech. No higher-up in the department came in and told the detectives that they'd gotten it wrong and that they had to let me go. Instead, I went over my story again. And again. At one point, I was pretty sure they had me tell it backwards. No matter which way they came at me, my replies stayed the same because I was telling the truth. They just didn't want to accept it.

I lost track of how long I'd been there. Without windows or my phone, it was impossible for me to know how much time had passed, only that it began to feel like I'd been in that tiny room forever. I knew that couldn't be true since, legally, they had to put me in front of a judge within twenty-four hours of my arrest, and since it was a Saturday, they were going to have to do it soon. The knowledge didn't help the time move any differently though.

I considered asking to use the bathroom, just to get a bit of a change of scenery, but I knew that the detectives – and anyone who happened to be on the other side of that two-way glass – were watching my every move. They'd look at how I crossed my legs, my arms. How I held my head and when I blinked. When I hesitated. How much I drank, when I drank.

At one point, I thought it might be a good idea to ask for a lawyer just to try to get things to move along a bit faster, but I knew as soon as I did that, they'd assume I was guilty. Not having one and continuing to answer their questions with the same information over and over was my best defense.

After what I assumed was at least a couple of hours, the door to the interrogation room opened and a sour-faced older man stepped inside.

“Mrs. Lockwood's lawyer is here.”

I opened my mouth to say that I hadn't requested a lawyer, but then Savill Henley walked past the older cop and came to my side. I had no idea how he'd found out about the arrest, but I couldn't deny that I was relieved to see him, if for no other reason than I was glad to have someone there who didn't think I was a murderer.

“Mrs. Lockwood is done answering your questions. If you want to speak with her again, call me.” He glared at the detectives.

Savill Henley was in his late fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and the large build of a once-muscular man who was starting to go to seed. He was also a corporate attorney who dealt with business matters and had taken care of Allen's will and things like that. He wasn't a criminal lawyer, but he'd been there for me through the Lockwoods' attempts to take my home, and had dealt with the Aime Vargas situation. A murder charge would definitely be out of his depth, but he wasn't showing even the slightest indication that he didn't know exactly what he was doing.

“Your client is under arrest for murder.” Detective Reed stood.

He was probably used to intimidating people with his badge and the fact that his stocky build looked quite solid, but Henley towered over the younger man by more than a few inches, and intimidation was a bit tougher when you had to look up at the other person.

“Not anymore.” The sour-faced man spoke up from the doorway. “It seems that Judge Hanson felt that she'd been deceived regarding the evidence the ADA said he had against Mrs. Lockwood.”

Detective Reed shifted in his seat.

“The judge is looking in to whether or not it was a misunderstanding or deliberate misrepresentation of facts on the part of ADA Kline.”

I glanced at the detectives and Reed's ears were turning red. I hoped they'd do a thorough investigation, because I had a feeling my arrest hadn't been a mistake on the part of the assistant district attorney or the judge. It wouldn't have surprised me if Detective Reed had pulled that same “fingerprints on the parachute” lie to get an arrest warrant signed. I wasn't sure how much Rheingard had been in on it though. Either he was innocent, or was just much better at concealing his thoughts. It didn't really matter to me. All I cared about was that this was over.