Indefensible (20 page)

Monday, 2:52 p.m.

H
e was in deep shit.

Randall sat on the edge of the bed in his hotel suite. His suitcase sat on the other bed, untouched. When the police came to his house to serve the search warrants, he hadn't been surprised. The writing was on the wall. Drake's taunting this morning had given him a good indication of how confident the police were that they were on the right trail.

His
trail.

So he'd packed a bag, leaving his home to be rifled by the police. Already the house had distanced itself from him. As if it was bracing itself for its violation. And blaming him. It had become, in the past few days, just a space with objects.

Before he left, he called the daughter of his neighbor. She agreed to water his garden.

He locked the door. He didn't look back.

Couldn't look back.

Because he had the feeling he was never going back.

It was a melodramatic thought, an emotion bred by the trauma of the past few days.

But he couldn't shake it.

He had acted recklessly. Drunkenly. Disgracefully.

He hoped that was all.

Dear God, he hoped getting drunk was the worst he'd done.

Because what Nick accused him of shook him to the core.

What if…?

He jumped to his feet. He couldn't think about it. And yet, his son believed he'd seen him killing Elise.

And he had no idea where he'd been that night.

He couldn't have done that.

Could he?

He lowered his head into his hands.

It was time to meet his lawyer.

He found himself hurrying to the hotel bar, gazing straight ahead to avoid the stares from the other guests. He looked as if he'd been hit by a truck. He wanted to shock the curiosity out of their faces, tell them that you too could look like this if your teenage son tried to commit patricide.

When he pushed open the glass doors of the bar, he forced himself to take his time. Intimate pairings of sofas sat on Persian-style rugs against one side of the room. From the farthest corner, his lawyer gave Randall a small wave.

Randall moved toward him, passing a group of tourists who had either had enough of the Natal Day celebrations or were just getting warmed up. They stared
at him, unable to disguise their shock at his battered face, unable to meet his unswollen eye.

Bill Anthony shook Randall's hand vigorously. Randall was not going to let this guy see how tender his own hand was. He forced a smile. “Bill, good to see you.” As if this were a regular business lunch.

One of Halifax's top—and highest-profile—criminal defense lawyers, Bill Anthony was only average height, with stubby salt-and-pepper hair and a face Randall was sure only Bill's mother loved, but he exuded the confidence of a man who knew he was the best in his profession. His eyes, sharp and bright like a ferret's, flickered over Randall, noting his stitches, swollen eye and bruised neck with a glint of amusement. “So, tell me what they have.”

Randall gave him all that he knew. He tried to be objective, lawyer to lawyer, but when he described Nick's first attack, the words got stuck in his throat. Randall had assumed Nick was acting out by hitting the dog. But now he realized Nick had never intended to attack Charlie. He'd been gunning for Randall. And the dog had saved him.

He still could not comprehend it.

Bill popped a peanut in his mouth. “So your son explained the attack by telling the police he saw you throw your ex-wife over the balcony?”

Jesus. Did he have to say it like that?
“Yes.” Randall took a long pull on the rum and Coke he had ordered.

What had gone wrong between him and Nick? That Nick could believe he was capable of killing someone, let alone his ex-wife?

“Do you think your son killed your ex-wife?”

Randall stared into his drink. The slice of lime had turned brown, sinking to the bottom of the glass. “No. He had no reason to.”

“And yet he tried to kill you.”

“He wanted revenge.” Randall forced himself to sound dispassionate, but his mind was protesting:
I can't believe I'm saying these words about my own son. My ex-wife. My family.

“And where were you the night she died?”

“I don't know.” His admission was soft, but rang in his ears.

Bill Anthony's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

“I had too much to drink. I can't remember anything after I went to this bar downtown.”

“Blackout?”

“I suppose so.” He felt humiliated. He'd never in his life lost his faculties like that.

What if…?

He quashed the thought.

“What kind of condition were you in when the police found you? Were you disheveled? Bruised? Did you have any scratches you don't remember getting?” As he spoke, Bill Anthony's eyes scanned Randall's hands, face.

Randall tried not to flinch under his lawyer's gaze. “I don't think I was any more disheveled than you'd expect when you've drunk that much booze.”

“Look, Randall, the police are lining up their ducks. They just need the murder weapon and they'll be after you.” Bill chewed another peanut, vigorously. Thoroughly.

Randall watched Bill's jaw work. How could someone spend so much time masticating one frigging peanut?

“They may try to charge you even without the weapon.” Bill reached for another peanut. Randall had to restrain himself from grabbing Bill's hand and yanking it away from the bowl. “If they think your son's testimony is strong enough.” He chucked the nut into his mouth.

“So what do you think we should do?”

Randall's question halted Bill's hand in his quest for the peanut bowl. His dark eyes locked onto Randall's. “First of all, make them realize that they may have the wrong guy. Your son has a history of problems. He attacked your dog. He just tried to kill you. They shouldn't rule him out.”

“There's no way I'm deflecting this onto Nick.”

“How do you know he's not deflecting it onto you?” Bill scooped up a handful of nuts and jiggled them in his hand. “Either way, he's taking you down, Randall.”

Randall stared at his drink. It was dark and murky. His bile rose. “I can't do that.”

“Then we go with plan B.”

“Which is?” Randall knew he wasn't going to like this. Maybe it was the way that Bill's eyes had narrowed. Or the way that he'd thrown all the nuts in his mouth.

“We argue that your ex-wife killed herself.”

Randall stared at him. Had Elise killed herself? He didn't know. His gut told him she hadn't.

She loved those kids too much.

“We know that Elise was under the care of a psychologist, that she'd just had an abortion and that she had a history of severe postpartum depression.”

Randall closed his eyes. It was sure to be all over the media.
Successful Lawyer Victim of Depression.
Then the media would provide salacious details of Elise's previous postpartum issues under the guise of shedding light on an important social issue.

“What about my son's testimony?”

“We'll show he had reason to fabricate a story. Besides, it was dark. He'd fallen.”

“So your strategy is to make my ex-wife and my son look like basket cases?”

“Exactly.” Bill reached for the final peanut in the bowl.

Randall was sure Bill Anthony would mete out the same vigorous mastication to his ex-wife and child. “No, thanks.” He stood, then stalked out of the bar. A waitress stepped out of his path. The fear in her eyes forced him to slow down. He looked like a crazed beast, with his beaten-up, angry face.

This depersonalized box dressed in heavy brocade and fake mahogany wood wasn't helping. He felt like a caged animal. He was scared he would begin to behave like one. Real air was what he needed.

He drove his rental car down to the water by Point Pleasant Park, yearning for his own vehicle that had been seized by the police under the search warrant. The salty breeze ruffled his hair, cooling his inflamed skin. Sunlight swathed the water in ribbons.

He had planned to be far out on the ocean by now. Just him, the water and his son.

His phone rang. “Randall, I've been trying to reach you,” Nina Woods said, her voice crisp, holding an edge of accusation.

“I've been held up.”
So would you, if your ex-wife was killed and then your own son tried to murder you.

“I left a message with your associate at your home.” There was no mistaking her tone: What the hell was Kate Lange doing at your house?

He wanted to leave Nina Woods stewing over that, but it wasn't fair to Kate. She had to work with this woman, this rainmaker who had saved Randall's ass just a few months ago.

She'd been a coup, bringing Great Life Insurance and several other corporate entities with lucrative business to the newly branded McGrath Barrett, providing a needed income stream for the partners. It had helped eradicate some of the doubts about Randall's leadership. But Nina Woods was well aware of her value.

“We need you to come in,” she said.

The fact that Nina Woods felt confident enough to make demands on the firm's managing partner told him that he was no longer in charge. And her choice of words insinuated that he was no longer part of the “we.” She had turned his partners on him.

Although, he suspected, they hadn't been hard to persuade. It was telling that it was the newest partner in the firm who'd called him. The partner who had the least history with him.

“When?”

“Tomorrow—9:00 a.m.”

He hung up.

The wind was picking up, the ocean no longer ribboned in silver. Instead, the wind ruffled the surface into white-tipped swells.

He raised his head and let the wind fill his ears. The
wind could tell you a lot. Whether there's a fog lurking beyond Chebucto Head, whether a warm rain was coming from the south, the wind never lied. Never betrayed you. It will give you the full force of its wrath or cool you from the midsummer heat, it will caress your cheeks or whip your hair into a tangle. But it will always play straight with you.

And the wind was telling him he'd better watch his back.

Monday, 5:42 p.m.

I
t was becoming a compulsion. Every few hours he would check the
Halifax Post
's website, searching for a mention of the Barrett case—searching for another photo of Lucy Barrett.

There were several updates, but none that involved Lucy. On Monday, the
Halifax Post
reported Randall Barrett had been assaulted by his son, Nick.

He had scrolled down the article, his fingers shaking with impatience, only to find that the photo accompanying the report had been mined from a hockey tournament in which a flushed Nick, bulky in his hockey gear, grinned at the camera.

Disappointed yet again by the lack of fresh material on the website, he clicked on the archives, plowing through the links until he found the photo of Lucy taken the night her mother died. He let out his breath.

Her grief, her shock, her softly rounded vulnerability never failed to stir him.

It had been like that with Becky Murphy, too. In the beginning.

A runaway with a tough attitude smeared over her childlike features, Becky was the first girl with whom he'd been able to consummate his desires without fear of reprisal. He'd picked her up on a rural road in the heart of Nova Scotia, about one hundred miles away from his cabin. She hadn't gone willingly into the specially fitted basement, but she was easy enough to overpower. She'd been the first girl he'd ever abducted, the first girl he'd ever physically restrained. He'd been amazed at how easy it was.

It had been perfect in the beginning. Becky, unloved and unwanted, had blossomed under his care.

He'd visited her on weekends, and occasional weeknights. After each of their weekends together, he would shackle Becky to a ring in the wall, assuring her that it was a symbol of his commitment to her. He would never abandon her, he'd explained. He would always come back and unlock her.

She had never complained. And the chain had been long—she had plenty of room to move. The basement was furnished with a small refrigerator, a tiny bathroom with a bath, a TV (no cable but with a DVD player and a generous assortment of DVDs), a bed and his
coup de grâce
—a pair of lovebirds.

Becky had loved the birds. She'd never had a pet before. She had named them Hugs and Kisses. Given a chance to love something that loved her back, she'd matured and finally learned to trust.

Perhaps that had been the turning point. Or perhaps it was the fact that there was no immediate danger to what
he was doing. And even though she was technically his captive, she had been so pathetically eager to see him that the whole situation was depressingly domestic.

One Friday night in May, she'd thrown herself in his arms, then placed his hand over her stomach. “You knocked me up,” she'd said. Her words were crude, but a small glow of excitement had lit her eyes.

She was going to be a mother. Another little bird for her nest of captivity.

And he couldn't help but suspect that this was a ploy to get his attention. She had sensed his distance. She had been desperate for him to lavish her with the love he'd given her at the beginning. So she had tricked him. They had always used condoms that he'd left in the tiny bathroom. Had she tampered with them?

Becky Murphy had become a liability. He couldn't let her have his child. Besides, her pregnancy had been the tangible proof of what his subconscious had been telling him: Becky was no longer the prepubescent girl he'd abducted.

She had become a woman.

The next week, while she was stroking Hugs and Kisses, cooing to the birds in a high-pitched voice that set his teeth on edge, he had slipped an electrical cord around her neck.

Garroting her had been simple.

He'd killed her quickly, while she was with those she loved most in the world.

He'd buried her in a shallow grave in the basement. That was three years ago.

There had been no other girls since Becky.

Until now.

He ran his finger over Lucy's face, imagining the velvety texture of her skin, the smoothness of her mouth.

His finger left a smear of sweat on his laptop screen.