Don't Be Afraid (11 page)

The all-points bulletin that failed to produce Trevor Sylvester for almost two weeks finally worked on Friday afternoon. Black and Juarez got a call from the Blacksburg police department that their suspect was in custody and the UPS van he’d stolen had been impounded.

“Our boy did an O.J. and led staties on a high-speed chase after they tried to pull him over for speeding,” Black said as they drove north to pick him up.

“So why’s he in custody with them and not the staties?” Mark asked, wincing as Black came close to scraping the side of a pickup truck as he veered around it. The sun seemed to be shining directly into his eyes. He retreated behind his sunglasses and popped two more aspirin into his mouth.

“You’re going to get an ulcer, you keep taking those things,” Black said. “Blacksburg got him in custody because it was one of their patrol cars that he hit.”

“I guess we know what Brown can do for you,” Juarez muttered and Black laughed.

The shrill ring of Black’s cell phone interrupted his reply and he drove one-handed, fishing it out of his pocket and practically fishtailing the car. Juarez pressed a hand to his head and tried unsuccessfully to ignore the conversation his partner had with his wife.

“Okay, Maureen, I’ll try. . . . No, I can’t promise to do more than that, I told you I’m working on a case.... Well, then maybe you should send Jimmy. . . . Don’t send Jimmy then, just wait for me to pick it up. . . . Yeah, well, it’s the best I can do.... Really nice, Maureen, really nice.... I don’t have time for this now. I gotta go. See you tonight.”

He hung up and shoved the phone back into his jacket pocket, casting a grumpy glance over at Juarez as if daring him to say something. Mark kept his eyes on the road.

“You dating anyone?”

The question caught Mark by surprise. “Not right now.”

“Left someone in the city?”

“Yeah.” He felt Black’s gaze, but wouldn’t look at him.

“Were you serious with her?”

The image that came to him was the delicate feet that always kicked free from the sheets at night and ended up inching over to his side of the bed, tucking, like two small ice packs, against his own larger ones. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

“Did you live together?”

A simple question, but it thrust him back into that argument: “Why not share my place? If you’re worried about what your parents think, then we don’t have to tell them.”

“It won’t work,” he’d said, but it was hard to hold that ground when those large eyes implored him and that smile begged him to reconsider.

He’d delayed ending the relationship as long as he could, knowing he was making excuses, and then a real one came along.

“We were going to, but my dad had his stroke.”

“You got lucky,” Black said. “You think dating’s a bitch, try living with one!” He laughed loudly at his own humor and Juarez tried to laugh along. One of the guys. All of the other single guys on the shift had girlfriends. Even the rookie, pimply-faced and jug-eared twenty-year-old Feeney. She was one of those chubby girls who wore too-tight midriff tops and about whom everybody said, “She has such a pretty face.” They were looking for an apartment together and Feeney was bemoaning the cost of the Vegas wedding they both wanted.

What would it be like to live like that? To be married, to have kids? He tried to picture himself coming home at the end of his shift, walking in and being grabbed around the knees by a toddler calling him “Dad.” His wife he pictured as a pretty, black-haired Latina. She’d speak to his children in both Spanish and English. This was the life his parents wanted for him.

“You going to ask that chick out?”

“Who?”

Black stared at him. “Who? The witness, you moron.”

“Oh. No. I think she’s married.”

“So?” Black grinned. “Seriously, you should call her.”

“You sound like my mother.”

“And you look like a guy who needs to get laid.”

“You would know.”

The older man guffawed and then slugged Juarez on the bicep. “Ain’t that the truth.”

They brought Trevor out wearing a prison-quality jumpsuit, “special order from the state,” with flip-flops on his feet and nothing else. He stank to high heaven, having refused to bathe since they’d had him in custody, the guard informed them, his own personal protest against his “unjust imprisonment.”

“We don’t have the equipment like they do up at a supermax,” the guard said, “otherwise, we could just strap him down and hose him off.”

“That’s what you think,” Trevor said, straddling the chair in the interrogation room as if he were in some old-time Western. The guard rolled his eyes and grinned at Juarez and Black.

“Whatdya want?” Trevor said, stretching his tall and lanky frame. His arms were sinewy ropes of muscle that Juarez could easily picture wielding a nail gun. His head was shaved and he had a small blond goatee that looked carefully trimmed.

“When was the last time you saw Sheila?” Black said, sitting down across from him.

“Sheila who?”

“Sheila, your ex-wife,” Juarez said, taking the other seat.

Trevor made a hacking noise and Juarez thought he’d actually spit on the floor, but he seemed to think better of it. “I haven’t seen that bitch in months.”

He had a meanness to him that was evident in the coldness of his muddy brown eyes and the stubborn set of his small mouth. Juarez thought of what his ex must have endured and about the sad bloated woman and her vacant-eyed child at the town house.

“That’s not what Mandi told us,” Black said. “Mandi told us you talked to Sheila a few weeks ago. She said you were mad about not getting to attend the graduation of your son.”

“What the fuck business is it of yours?” Trevor said. “Mandi’s a stupid bitch if she’s talking to you.”

“Were you upset about Sheila refusing to allow you to attend your boy’s graduation?” Juarez said.

Trevor looked away for a minute, then stared back at them and Juarez was surprised to see a shine in his eyes. Trevor crying? It didn’t fit with his image.

“I’ve got a right to see my sons,” he said. “A father should be allowed to see his sons. That’s basic, man, a basic right.”

Not if he’s beating the crap out of the boy’s mother,
Juarez thought, unmoved. It was one of the first things you learned as a cop, to stay immune to the self-pity of perps. He’d interviewed a perp who’d sliced open his own mother without showing any emotion while she begged for her life, yet cried like a little boy remembering the loss of his favorite dog. It wasn’t his job to understand that madness. Leave it to the defense attorneys and the psychologists to unravel and explain what made someone that way.

“Wow, that sucks. Must have really pissed you off,” he said, faking sympathy he didn’t begin to feel. “Women like that, makes you wonder why someone hasn’t shown them.”

“They need to be taken down a peg,” Black added. “They need a real man to show them who’s in charge.”

“Got that right,” Trevor said with a smirk, leaning back in his chair. He looked unconcerned and that wasn’t where they wanted him, Mark thought.

“Do you own a nail gun?” he said, abruptly changing the subject.

The smirk left Trevor’s face. “Yeah,” he said slowly.

“Where is it?”

“Who knows? My house, my garage? I’m not doing construction now.”

“When was the last time you used it?” Black said.

“How the hell should I remember?” Trevor said. “Why are you asking about my nail gun?”

“You hated Sheila, didn’t you, Trevor?”

“Fuck, yeah.”

“You wanted to make sure she couldn’t keep you from your boys.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanted her to hurt, the way you were hurt. You didn’t mean to kill her—”

“Kill her?” Trevor sat upright. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You took your nail gun, maybe just to threaten her, but then she was arguing with you and you put it to her head—”

“No!”

“—and you pressed that trigger. Pop! Pop! Two shots—”

“No fucking way, man!”

“—and she was gone.”

“I did not kill Sheila! I didn’t even know she was dead!”

Black slammed the table with his fist and Sylvester jumped. “Don’t lie to us, Trevor!”

“I’m not lying!”

Mark stood up and leaned over Trevor. “You shot her and you took off in your van because you knew what you’d done, you’d killed your ex. And that’s why you ran from the police, too.”

Trevor’s mouth hung open and he whipped his head from Black to Juarez before turning to look at the guard who was leaning casually against the wall closest to the door. “They’re trying to frame me, man!”

“Just tell them the truth, Sylvester.”

“This is bullshit. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anybody!”

“If you didn’t kill anybody, then why did you run from the police?” Black said.

“I was drunk!”

Black hesitated and Juarez felt the truth of that resonating in his gut.

“You got drunk after you killed Sheila,” Black said slowly, making it more of a statement than a question, but Trevor shook his head hard.

“I had a fight with Mandi and I got drunk and didn’t go to work on Monday morning. I just took off in the van.”

“Monday?” Juarez said. “You disappeared on Tuesday.”

“No, Monday. I called off sick and then I just took off. Didn’t want to deal with no shit from nobody. Rolled over the line into another lane and bang. Just like that I’ve got some cop on my tail. I can’t get another DUI conviction. That’ll mean jail time. I left on Monday and they picked me up Tuesday morning.”

“Jesus Christ,” Black said under his breath. Sweating and scowling, he went to confer with the desk sergeant who’d placed the call. He was back looking just as annoyed a few minutes later.

“He was arrested early Tuesday morning,” he confirmed. “He can’t be the perp.”

“Told you I didn’t do it,” Trevor said with satisfaction.

“Shut up!” Black turned on Sylvester and grabbed him by the front of the jumpsuit, yanking him out of his chair. “We’ve wasted more than a week looking for your sorry ass! I’m going to personally see to it that you lose your license.”

“Hey! It’s not my fault you wasted time! You can’t pin that on me. I wasn’t even that drunk.”

“Yeah, and Mandi isn’t even that fat.”

“You can’t talk about my wife!”

“I think I just did.” Black stalked out of the room and Juarez followed. He’d known it in his gut, but having the proof made it easier to accept. Trevor Sylvester might have hated his ex, but he didn’t have the sophistication or the know-how to have killed her.

“Maybe he hired someone and went off on a bender so suspicion would turn elsewhere,” Black said as Juarez pulled the sedan back onto the highway. The sunglasses helped, but the glare was still making his head pound.

“Maybe,” he said, noncommittally. “Or maybe it wasn’t Trevor at all.”

“So what’s your theory, genius? And please don’t tell me that cock-and-bull story about a serial killer.”

“It fits. That’s all I’m saying. Look at the evidence.”

“Like I haven’t been doing just that.”

“But you were looking with an eye toward Trevor. Now we know it isn’t Trevor—”

“We’re not sure of that. Who knows? Maybe the coroner’s wrong with the time of death.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“Why not? Who has the best motivation here? Trevor. And who has the means? Trevor.” Black ticked off each point on his pasty fingers. “You’ve got Mandi lying to us, witnesses to a fight that Trevor and Sheila had before he vanished. It all points to Trevor.”

“Except it doesn’t. The real evidence points to it being someone with a lot more finesse than Trevor. Here’s a guy who’s so out of control that when he fights with his wife he gets drunk and steals the company truck.”

“Or maybe he’s so smart that he’s using wife number two to help him cover up the killing of wife number one.”

“Do either of them strike you as having the sophistication necessary to pull off that crime scene?” Juarez merged back onto the highway, feeling his head throbbing as he accelerated. “No blood, no weapon—seems awfully clean for those two.”

“It’s possible, though.”

“Sure. And maybe we’ll find out that Trevor’s got a Harvard degree.”

 

 

The surgeon didn’t want the house. Meredith could tell that just from the brief glimpse she’d gotten of him as she pulled into the driveway at the same time that he was backing out in a brand-new black BMW. The realtor scrambled into her own little car, probably hoping to avoid conversation, but Meredith wouldn’t let her get away. She slid down the passenger window of her SUV and called Amy’s name.

“I think it went well,” Amy said in a too-bright voice that just pissed off Meredith.

“Did he make an offer?”

“Not yet, but—”

“He’s not going to, so you’re going to need to drum up some more buyers. The house is immaculate and there are fresh flowers. You need to show it again. Tonight.” She zipped up the window and sped past the drop-jawed woman into the garage. Stepping out of the car with a small bag in her hand, she pressed the intercom and called for Gloria to fetch the larger shopping bags from the rear.

There was no answer and no appearance of the small woman. “Gloria!” she shouted as she walked into the mudroom. The sight of the housekeeper’s thin, cheaply knit blue sweater hanging on a hook reminded Meredith that she’d given Gloria the rest of the day off so that all showings could be private.

Cursing under her breath, Meredith schlepped back into the garage and hefted the Saks and Bloomie bags into the kitchen. Let that snippy realtor move them. She pulled a bottle of rum out of the cupboard and searched the enormous fridge for some diet Coke.

The light on her answering machine was blinking and she hit the play button as she sipped her drink.