Guilty as Sin (67 page)

He drove down Lakeshore, driving through the neighborhood he had chosen for its prestige, toward the home he had wanted, with its lakefront view and park out the back door. This was the life he had coveted since his youth. Now it would end up being Hannah's. She would get the sympathy and the house. The irony was as bitter as bile.

Passing Wright's home, he fought the urge to drive his car in through their front door. He would have liked to have seen the look on Karen's face when he confronted her.

"I love you, Paul. . . . I'd have your baby, Paul. . . . I'd do anything for you."

Except lie for him in court.

She could have given him an alibi. Instead she brought the whole world down on his head. Some love.

Women. Bitches, every last one of them. The bane of his existence. His mother, Hannah, O'Malley, Ellen North . . . Karen.

"I stayed late because I was having an affair with Paul Kirkwood."

Was. Past tense.

"I love you, Paul. . . . I'd have your baby, Paul. . . . I'd do anything for you. . . . I'm so sorry. . . . It was a mistake. . . ."

A mistake.

God knew he'd made plenty of them, not the least of which had been keeping that damned tape.

"We know the call came before six-fifteen, Paul. Were you there? Did you hear it? Where did you go when you left the office? Why can't we find anyone to corroborate that story? Why didn't you tell us about the call, Paul? How could you let Hannah take the blame?"

Because it was her fault. All of it. If she had done her duty . . . if she had been there for her son ... if she had been a decent wife . . .

Guilt was the last emotion Hannah wanted to feel. She had been drowning in it for weeks now. A mother's guilt compounded by a doctor's sense of failure because the patient she had stayed at the hospital for that night had been lost as well. But what came tonight was different, more futile, less deserved.

Could she have been a better wife, a better lover, more supportive, less critical? What had she done to make Paul hate her so? Why had he turned to Karen Wright?

The questions infuriated her. There were more important ones to ask. Had Paul been in his office when Josh had called him that night? Why had he lied and lied and lied—about the van, about so many things? Why was Josh so terrified of him? Why did he seem like such a stranger? Was he involved in all the horror that had taken place over the last three weeks? Perhaps it was because the possible answers to these questions frightened her so badly that she let the others creep into her mind and divert her attention. They made her angry with herself for thinking them, but they didn't make her husband out to be a monster.

"Do you think your husband abducted Josh?"

"Do you think he killed the Holloman boy?"

"He had access to a van—"

"Did you know about the affair?"

"Damn you, Paul," she whispered. Pulling her hands up out of the soapy water, she gathered up the dish towel and pressed her face into it.

She didn't know how much more she could stand. Dawn had brought the news of Dustin Holloman's murder, and with it fear and a terrible relief that it was someone else's child who had died and not hers. Josh seemed more withdrawn than ever, but he was still with her, physically. And as long as she had him with her, there was hope. And then had come the news from the courthouse. Not from Mitch or from Ellen North, but from the reporters who had come to the house demanding answers as if she owed them something for all the hell they had put her through.

"Can we get a reaction from you about your husband's illicit affair with the wife of the man on trial for abducting your son?"

If she had been shaky before, that had put her over the edge. And once again she had turned to Tom McCoy.

God, Hannah, you're not even calling him Father anymore. She remembered the pretense of title when they were speaking, because she didn't want to upset him or jeopardize their friendship. But in her heart she had grown beyond thinking of him as her priest. The need she felt for his company, for his support, for his comfort, was stronger than that.

And people think Paul is rotten for cheating on me. What would they think if they knew I'd fallen in love with a priest?

Of course, no one would ever know, most of all Tom himself. He was too good a friend to lose. When the news came from the courthouse, she had called him. He had come and chased the press away, and forced her to eat chicken soup, and read stories to the kids. He sat with her on the sleeping bag in Josh's room, watching Josh drift off to sleep, then shooed her out of the room because he knew she needed the break but would never take it.

A deep ache of yearning rolled through her, and she closed her eyes against it. Hadn't she endured enough without having to fall in love with a man she could never have?

The sound of the door opening from the garage into the laundry room tore her out of her self-pity. A wild, primal instinct swung her hand to the knife block on the counter. Dustin Holloman's killer was still at large. Who was to say he wouldn't come back for Josh? If Josh could identify him . . .

The kitchen door swung open and Paul cast a look at the knife in her hand.

"I suppose I can guess what you'd like to do with that," he said.

The panic bottomed out, leaving a thick, sour anger in its wake. Hannah set the knife aside. "It wouldn't be worth the trouble."

He gave a bitter laugh. "And the press wondered why I would cheat on you."

Somehow the admission of guilt cut more coming from Paul's own mouth. The same mouth that had pledged love and fidelity. She had kissed that mouth in play and in passion, had loved its smile, worried at its frown. It had told her lies and tasted another woman.

She wanted to launch herself at him, to punish him. But when she opened her mouth to speak, the fight went out of her.

"I loved you," she said quietly, knowing immediately that wasn't true. She had loved someone else, not this bitter, angry man. "What happened, Paul? What happened to you?"

"Me?" he said, incredulous. "Maybe if you'd paid attention to something other than your career the last few years, you wouldn't have to ask."

Hannah shook her head. "No, Paul, this isn't about my work. For once, it really is about you. You turned away from me. You turned to another woman. You made that choice. We had something wonderful and you threw it away."

"Yeah, fine, blame me," he said impatiently, starting past her.

"I will blame you," she said sharply. "I just wish I knew how much to blame you for."

He wheeled around, brows lowered. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means Josh called you that night and you did nothing."

"I wasn't in—"

"But no one can say where you were. Were you with her?" She swung an accusatory finger in the direction of the Wrights' house. "When I was frantic, trying to find Josh, trying to call you, were you down the hall screwing Karen Wright? Where were you when Josh needed you?"

"It was your night to—"

"No! Don't you dare blame me. I was trying to save a life. You were fucking yours away—or worse. And you had the gall to dump all that guilt an me, as if you hadn't done anything wrong, as if you hadn't lied to me and to the police and done God knows what else!"

The implication struck Paul hard. "The defense is building a case against you, Mr. Kirkwood. . ."

"I would never hurt Josh," he insisted.

The doubt in her eyes was stark. "Then why won't he let you near him?"

"You can't think I took him," he said, stepping toward her, wanting to shake her. "You can't think that!"

"Why can't I? You've lied about everything else!"

"The defense is building a case against you, Mr. Kirkwood. . . ."

The press was on him. The prosecution was eyeing him. Now this. St. Hannah casting judgment. And no one would blame her. She was golden; he was nothing, nobody. In that moment he hated her enough to want her dead.

His control snapped. There was no thought, only action, only fury. "You bitch!"

Hannah saw the blow coming. The back of his hand caught her hard on the jaw, snapping her head to the side. The world blurred and tilted, and she staggered sideways, knocked off balance by the slap and by the idea of it. Never in her life had she been struck by anyone for any reason. As often as she had seen the aftermath of domestic violence in the ER, she had never in her darkest dreams imagined she would become a victim.

Paul advanced toward her, his eyes dark with rage, his mouth twisting.

"Paul, no!" Tom McCoy shouted, lunging up the steps to the kitchen.

Paul wheeled on him, arm drawn back. Tom blocked the punch and caught Paul square in the mouth with a right cross that dropped him to his knees. The action was automatic, instinctive. It stunned him to the core of his soul. He stared down at Paul, who sat back on his heels, his hands covering his mouth, blood leaking between his fingers.

"Why did you come here, Paul?" he asked. "Haven't you done enough damage already?"

Paul glared up at him, wiping his mouth on his coat sleeve as he rose to his feet. "I came to get my stuff."

Tom shook his head. "There's nothing here for you. Get out."

"You can't throw me out of my own home."

"This isn't your home," Hannah said. The ache inside her rivaled the pain in her throbbing jaw. "You just gave up your rights here. Get out before I call the police."

He looked from her to Father Tom, eyeing the priest's sweater and jeans and stocking feet.

"Oh, I get it," he said snidely.

"Don't say it, Paul," Tom warned. "At the moment I can't see that there'd be any sin in my beating the snot out of you."

Silence descended. Paul picked the dish towel off the counter and blotted at his mouth.

"I'll have your things delivered to the office," Hannah said.

She leaned against the refrigerator as he left, refusing to look at him. But in the corner of her eye she could see their Christmas photo, still held to the refrigerator door by magnets shaped like candy canes. The back door closed.

"Are you all right?" Tom asked, stepping closer, reaching out to her.

"No," she whispered.

He took her in his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the rorld, cradled her head against his broad shoulder and stroked her hair with his hand. The love that welled inside him was the purest, the strongest he'd ever known in his life. He loved her in a way that meant he would do anything for her, be anything for her. He couldn't see how that could be wrong.

"I don't understand," she murmured, her arms tight around him. "We had a nice life. Why did it have to go so wrong?"

He couldn't share the answer that came to him— So you could love me. He didn't know if it was God's will or just his own.

He knew what the monsignor would tell him—that this was a test of is faith and his duty to the Church. The idea that God would use people that way, like pawns in a game, only made him want to rebel.

"I'm sorry, Hannah," he murmured. "I'd give anything to change it for you."

"I just want to walk away from it. Take the children and go someplace new and clean and start over."

"I know."

"Would you go with me? I could use a friend when I get there," Hannah said, pretending it was a joke.

But when she looked up at him, what she saw in his earnest blue eyes wasn't humor but truth. A truth that didn't need words. A truth that spoke to her battered heart. A truth he sealed with a kiss. A kiss so tender, so sweet. Full of the kind of promise she wanted to grab with both hands and use as a shield against an uncertain future.

Instead she put her head back on his shoulder, and they stood there for a long while, each wondering where they would go from here.

"So where do we go from here?" Cameron asked.

They had assembled in The War Room at the law-enforcement center, where the time line of all that had taken place in the last three weeks stretched the length of one wall.

"We've got to take a closer look at Kirkwood," Wilhelm said. "See if we can put him in the wrong place at the wrong time. Confiscate his phone records. Check—"

"What about the suspect we've got?" Mitch asked irritably. "Garrett Wright is the man."

"But the tape—"

"Doesn't prove shit."

"How can you say that? The boy called—"

"And Paul was otherwise engaged."

"But his mistress can't account for the time—"

"And why would he keep that tape?" Cameron asked.

"Guilt," Mitch said simply.

"Yeah," Steiger interjected around the toothpick he was chewing. "The kind that comes with a sentence to the state hotel."

"Don't be stupid," Mitch snapped. "If Paul was guilty of taking Josh, getting rid of that tape would have been his first priority. If he had taken the boy, he would never have gone up to Ruth Cooper's house and said he was looking for his own damned dog."

"Unless he's nuts."

Wilhelm was like a puppy with a new chew toy. "And there's the connection to the van. And the kid's reaction. And—"

"And I've got a man standing before the court tomorrow," Ellen said sharply. "We've built a case against Garrett Wright. Mitch apprehended Garrett Wright. Agent O'Malley identified Garrett Wright. Our erstwhile witness identified Garrett Wright. What the hell are you doing to help me get Garrett Wright to trial?"

Wilhelm pouted, looked down at his coffee. "Wright couldn't have taken the Holloman kid."

"We're not dealing with Holloman," Ellen reminded him. "I'm sure you'd like to wrap all the crimes up in one neat package with one perp and move on, but that's not the way it works. We've focused on this game being played by Wright and an accomplice. Did you ever stop to think,

Agent Wilhelm, that they want you to run off half-cocked after Paul Kirkwood?"

"We have to follow all leads, Ms. North," he said. "I've asked Mr. Stovich to get search warrants for Paul Kirkwood's home and office, and for a locker he rents at the U-Store-It on the south side of town. We'll execute the warrants tonight if we get them in time. In light of what's on that tape, I'd say we've looked the other way long enough where Paul Kirkwood is concerned."

Ellen couldn't argue. As much as she hated having the investigation pulled in another direction, it seemed they had no real options. Costello had leaked word of the cassette tape to the press. The police had to act on it.

She looked to Cameron. "Will you go with them?"

"Sure."

Turning to Mitch, she asked, "Did you get anywhere with Todd Childs?"

He scowled. "Yeah, I got threatened with a lawsuit for false arrest."

Ellen pretended surprise. "Did Mr. Childs get the impression he was under arrest?"

"A simple misunderstanding," he said, straight-faced. "He calmed down after we gave him a cup of decaf."

"And got his prints off the cup?"

"They're being run in St. Paul even as we speak. If we can put him at Enberg's office, that would give us a nice big lever to crack this thing open."

"How soon will you know?"

"Couple of days."

"The hearing will be over tomorrow morning," Cameron said. 'Grabko could rule as soon as tomorrow afternoon."

"We need a break, gentlemen," Ellen said. "And we need it tonight."

Steiger pushed himself to his feet. He had shed the adhesive tape from his nose, but the bruising remained, streaking across his hard cheekbones like war paint. "Grabko dismisses, you can always charge him again later, it's not like double jeopardy."

Ellen stared at the sheriff. "And if he hasn't packed up his little Saab and driven off into the sunset, we might actually get him to trial. I don't rant to take that chance. I want him bound over. Tomorrow."

"I've got men double-checking all hot-line tips that came into Campion," Steiger said, moving toward the door, declaring the meeting over for himself. "Don't get your hopes up."

Seeing his chance to escape, Wilhelm hustled after him. "A—yeah— Sheriff, I wanted to talk to you about those hot-line tips."

Ellen watched their defection with a mix of anger and despair. If Wright's plan had been to divide and conquer, he was scoring points tonight. The revelation of Paul Kirkwood's answering-machine tape was acting like a wedge, splitting her team even more decisively than the kidnapping of Dustin Holloman had.

"Cameron, go offer them some suggestions," she said with a meaningful look.

He grabbed his coat and hustled out.

Silence hung in the air for a moment before Ellen turned to Mitch. "Well, do you want to jump on the bandwagon of people who think I should have asked the judge for a postponement right off the bat?"

"The Twenty-Twenty Hindsight Club?" He made a face. "Why would I join them? The membership requirements are too low. Who's on your case?"

"Well, let's see," she mused, tapping her chin with a forefinger. "Not counting you? Everybody. Stovich, the state attorney general, the press, half the population of Deer Lake."

"Pointless bullshit."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Are you forgetting the Olie Swain debacle?"

"Sorry. No."

She blew out a sigh and rose with all the energy of a ninety-year-old arthritic. She stared at the time line, wishing something would jump out at her. Some heretofore overlooked minutia that would spark The Big Revelation and point to Todd Childs or Christopher Priest. Nothing. If anything, the words and lines and arrows became less coherent, a hopeless jumble of scribbling. The only name that leaped out at her was Paul Kirkwood.

Paul had owned Olie Swain's van. Olie Swain, the convicted child molester. The van had yielded them nothing. Paul had excuses instead of alibis. They had no hard evidence against him. Paul had searched tirelessly for his son in brutal subzero temperatures. His son, who wouldn't let him get within an arm's length.

"What do you really think about Paul?" she asked quietly.

Mitch's face was blank as he walked along the time line, his eyes resting on every notation that mentioned Paul. "I've said it before—I think people would like for Paul to be the bad guy in all this. He's not well-known, he's not well liked. They'd rather think someone like him lost his marbles than believe a man like Garrett Wright is an evil genius."

"I could see people thinking that when it was Josh missing," Ellen said. "They wanted to contain the malignancy to one family. But how does he tie in to Holloman? It doesn't make sense."

"Depends on how you want to spin it, counselor. Who's framing who?"

"You're not beginning to have doubts, too, are you?"

He ran a hand back through his hair, leaving it standing up in tufts. The exhaustion dragged on his face, pulling at the lines time and trouble had dug in. "In my gut I don't think Paul did it, but as Megan has pointed out to me more than once, I might be bringing too much of my own personal experience into it. Regardless, Wilhelm was right—we'll have to dig deeper into the possibility. I don't look forward to executing those search warrants, but it's got to be done."

More time spent chasing wild geese, Ellen thought, while Garrett Wright sat back and smiled, and his accomplice slipped in and out of the shadows unseen, unsuspected.

"We need a loose thread we can pull on," she said. "How's Megan coming with Wright's background?"

"Nothing yet. It's slow going. If Wright's never been caught to this point, he probably hasn't left behind many bread crumbs."