Justice for Sara (10 page)
Authors: Erica Spindler
Tags: #Contemporary Women, #General, #Romance, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Fiction
He shifted his gaze to the window above the sink, to the detached garage beyond, then started out the door. Guidry and Sloane met him at the bottom of the steps.
Tanner brushed past them; they followed like a couple of lost puppies. “Where’re we going, Chief?” Sloane asked.
Guidry didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Have you called the sheriff’s department? Are they on their way?”
“No. I didn’t call them.”
Guidry looked at him as if he had gone daft. “We can’t do this without them.”
“The hell we can’t.”
“We don’t have the manpower, Chief. The technical expertise—”
“That’s bullshit. What technical expertise? I’ve been trained in evidence collection. So have you. The crime lab does the rest.”
Tanner opened the garage’s side door, stepped inside. Flipped on the light.
Nestled just inside the door, on a cement pad, was what looked like a fairly new washer and dryer.
Guidry pressed on. “But this, Chief … I don’t think—”
Blood. A swath of it. On the side of the washer.
Bingo.
Guidry fell silent. Sloane cleared his throat. Tanner crossed to the washer, lifted the top.
The tub was empty. A moment later, he saw the dryer was, as well.
Chief Stephen Tanner
2003
The afternoon after the murder
Jeremy Webber agreed to bring Katherine in for an official interview. Instead of meeting in the broom closet they’d converted into an interview room and holding cell, they sat in Tanner’s office.
Tanner eyed Kat McCall. Her demeanor was odd. Not quite right. Jittery. Dry-eyed. Strange. She seemed closer to nervous laughter than to tears.
He’d asked Guidry to sit in, take his own notes. He signaled him now. “Grab Miss McCall a box of tissues. She may need them.”
“I’m okay.”
Fricking weird.
“Get ’em anyway.”
A moment later, Guidry set the box on the table, then returned to his post by the door. He’d positioned himself to have a clear view of McCall.
“May I begin?”
Webber nodded. “We’re all yours.”
He looked at McCall. “Do you prefer I call you Katherine? Or Kat?”
“Kat, I guess.”
“When we talked at the scene earlier, you said you didn’t touch your sister’s body.”
“I didn’t.”
“What about the stains on your hands?”
She looked at her hands, frowning. They were clean, free of what he’d seen earlier.
“Do you remember me asking you about them?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Why hadn’t he documented that? A flicker of panic settled in the pit of his gut.
A mistake.
“You had bloodstains on them. You must remember that.”
“She doesn’t, Chief. Let’s move on.”
“Let’s go through this morning, step by step. Okay?”
She nodded.
“What happened first?”
“I woke up.”
“You have an alarm clock?”
“Yes. I hit the snooze. A whole bunch. I hate school mornings.”
Not animated. But conversational. “Go on.”
“I grabbed my stuff and headed for the bathroom.”
“At that point, did you notice anything different about this morning?”
She shook her head.
“It wasn’t too quiet? Did you call hello to your sister, nothing like that?”
“No. Most mornings she left early for school. She might have hall duty or a student conference. Stuff like that. Besides, I was still mad at her.”
Jeremy frowned. Tanner hid a smile.
That’s right, sugar. Give it up.
“Why were you mad at her?”
She hesitated a moment. Tanner was certain the next thing out of her mouth would be a half-truth or a lie. “She wouldn’t let me have my friends over.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Let’s switch to last night. When’s the last time you saw your sister?”
“Dinnertime.”
“Which was?”
She shrugged. “Around six, I think.”
“You ate together.”
“No.”
“No?”
“I told her I wasn’t hungry. I had a candy bar in my purse. I ate that.”
“And she was okay with that?”
Again, she shook her head. “She was pissed. She told me if I didn’t eat with her, I wouldn’t eat. And that I had to stay in my room. No TV or anything.” She paused. Glanced sheepishly at Webber. “She didn’t know about the candy bar.”
“So, you stayed in your room all night?”
“Yes.”
“What about Sara? What was she doing?”
“I don’t know. She does her thing. Grades papers, whatever.”
Present tense
.
Earlier she referred to her in the past.
“You didn’t hear anything.”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I was listening to music. On my iPod.”
“You had headphones on?”
She nodded.
“What time did you go to sleep?”
“Eleven. Maybe twelve. I didn’t think about it.”
“You didn’t say good night to your sister?”
For the first time she looked upset. Her bottom lip trembled. She lowered her eyes and shook her head no.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” She mumbled the words, eyes still fixed on her lap.
“Sure you do. You can tell me, I have a son near your age. Luke. Do you know him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So, I get how it can be.”
Webber touched her arm. “Your words, Kat. Just be honest.”
Oh yes, Tanner thought, be brutally honest with me.
Kat lifted her gaze. Met his. “She sent me to my room, so I stayed there.”
“To punish her.”
Jeremy touched her hand, answering for her. “Don’t put words in her mouth.”
“Of course. But you were angry with her.”
“Wouldn’t you be?”
“I don’t know, would I?”
“Yes.”
She totally didn’t get this, Tanner thought. Her sister was dead, she was a suspect, and yet here she sat, all attitude and entitlement. Is that what happened when you were catered to your whole life?
“Back to this morning. You showered and dressed. How long did that take?”
“Thirty minutes, or so. My hair was giving me fits. I finally just had to pull it into a ponytail.”
Tanner recalled her sitting on the step, the breeze stirring her long brown hair.
“It wasn’t in a ponytail earlier.”
She stared blankly at him. Webber frowned. Tanner could tell that he, too, remembered her hair hanging free.
“When did you change it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“So, you were running late. You left the bathroom and—”
“Grabbed my backpack and iPod and—”
She stopped then. Her throat worked; her eyes turned glassy with tears. Jeremy covered her clenched hands with one of his. “I’m right here, Kit-Kat. You’re safe.”
“I found her. There. By the—” She looked at her cousin. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You have to, sweetheart. To help the police find who did it.”
She started to cry. They were the first tears Tanner had seen from her and they weren’t much. A few trickles down her cheeks.
Tanner glanced at Guidry. He saw by his expression that he was thinking the same thing—manufactured emotion.
“What then, Miss Katherine?” Tanner asked softly. “I know it’s hard, just tell me what happened.”
She drew a shaking breath. “She was there, by the front door. I think I screamed.”
“You think?”
“Yes, I’m sure I did.”
“You told me the other day that your sister had taken your phone away. Why’d she do that, Katherine?”
“To punish me.”
“For what?”
She looked away. “Nothing.”
“She took your phone away just because?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s move on, Chief Tanner.”
Tanner took another tack. “Did she have a boyfriend?”
“There was a guy she saw sometimes.”
“Who?”
“Another teacher. Danny something.”
He looked at Jeremy. “Did she say anything to you about this Danny?”
Jeremy nodded. “Danny Sullivan. He’s a coach over at Tammany West High School.”
He directed his attention back to Kat. “Was it serious? Between them?”
“I don’t know.” She made a face. “We never talked about it.”
“Why the face?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Why’s that, Kat?”
“He acts all friendly to me, like we’re going to be best friends. Then he steps in and tries to act like he’s my dad or something. It’s gross.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t mean it. He just does it to impress her.”
“That’s harsh, don’t you think?”
“He just wants her money. I told her that.”
“When?”
“The first time I met him.”
“Did he come by the house?”
“Sometimes.”
“When was the last time?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Think back, Kat,” Jeremy said. “It could be important.”
“They had an argument. A couple nights ago.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know. I heard Sara crying. He drove off in his big, stupid truck.”
“What did you do after he left?”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Did you check on her? Try to comfort her or ask what was wrong?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
She hesitated. Long enough that even Webber noticed. “I was grounded. So I stayed in my room like she told me to.”
“Grounded?” Tanner worked to keep his expression neutral. “That’s why she took your phone, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Why’d she ground you, Kat?”
“Stupid stuff. Same as always.”
“Nothing special this time?”
She rubbed her palms on her thighs. “No.”
“Stupid stuff, what does that mean?”
“My grades. Keeping my room clean. My friends.”
“The friends she wouldn’t let you have over?”
She nodded. “She didn’t like them. Thought they weren’t
good
enough for me.”
“Anybody stop over last night?”
“To see me?”
Odd.
“Anybody at all.”
“Not that I heard. Like I said, I had my earbuds in.”
He purposely gentled his tone. “Are you sorry? That you didn’t say good-bye to Sara?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I want to go home, Cousin Jeremy.”
Tanner ignored that. “Did you love your sister?”
She started to cry. “I want to go home.”
Where was home? Tanner wondered. The little cottage with blood spattered on the walls? Obviously, the fact that she didn’t have one hadn’t sunk in.
Her cousin put his arm around her. “I think that should do it for now, Tanner.”
“I’ll need to interview you, Webber.”
He nodded, expression grim. “Anytime.”
Tanner watched the two walk away. Katherine McCall had killed her sister in a fit of rage. He had no doubt about that. Now he just needed the evidence to prove it.
Wednesday, June 5
3:00
P.M.
An hour later, Danny arrived. Kat was waiting on the front porch and stood while he walked toward her. She wasn’t certain what to expect from their chat, but it had been obvious in the parking lot that he would have preferred this not happen.
“I remember you driving a pickup,” she said as he neared her.
“Still have it for hunting and hauling.” He pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “Putting gas in it was killing me.”
“You want to go in?”
He glanced at the door, then shook his head. “Rather not, if you don’t mind.”
A series of images flashed through her head: The baseball bat, shiny red bow affixed to the grip. Sara on the floor, lying in a pool of blood. Figures grouped around her bed, chanting. Demanding justice.
Why had she suggested they meet here? If he was a killer, it wasn’t safe. If he wasn’t, it was thoughtless and cruel. She motioned to the two wicker porch chairs. “I’m fine out here. Have a seat.”
He nodded tersely, crossed the porch and sat. Kat hesitated a moment, then followed. “Can I get you something to drink? A bottle of water?”
“Thanks, no.”
They fell silent. She wished she had prepared what she wanted to say to him. The order in which she would say it. Suddenly, winging it didn’t seem like such a good idea.
“Here,” he muttered, and held out an envelope.
Kat looked at it. She thought of her letter-writing fan. The last letter she’d received. She told herself that Mrs. Bell was watching, that she was always watching. Her fingers shook. She lifted the flap.
Pictures of Sara.
One with a group of students, beaming at the camera. Another of her accepting an award. And another, just a close-up of her smiling.
Kat trailed her fingers across the last, caressing. She couldn’t speak for the lump in her throat. She missed her so much it hurt.
“When—” She cleared her throat. “When were these taken?”
“The spring before—”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to, the words hung in the air between them.
Before she was murdered.
He indicated the one with her students. “She’d won that award, remember?”
Kat didn’t. She frowned, trying to remember.
“Tammany West Teacher of the Year,” he said. “It was a really big deal.”
Kat’s vision blurred with tears.
Teacher of the Year. A big deal
. Had Sara tried to share her good news with Kat, only to find her too self-involved to listen? Or had Sara, disgusted with her little sister’s horrendous behavior, not even bothered to try? Either possibility hurt terribly.
“I was such an asshole back then. I didn’t even—” She looked down at the photos, then back up at him. “She loved teaching so much. And she was so good at it.”
He didn’t reply. The tears rolled down her cheeks. Kat rubbed them away. “I thought you hated me,” she said.
“I did.” He spread his fingers. “Don’t anymore.”
“Why not?”
“We’re both victims, Katherine.”
She hadn’t expected this. Had expected this meeting to be confrontational, acrimonious, the way it had been with Ryan.
Of course, she hadn’t accused him of killing her sister. Yet.
“But earlier, at the school, you were angry. I could tell.”
He looked sheepish. “I was. I don’t know, it was a shock, hearing from you like that. I had to process.”
She got that. God, did she get it. Ten years later and she was still processing.
“I blamed you,” he said. “For a long time. In a way, that was easier than not knowing who did it. I could hate you. For taking her away from me. I could hate the system that set you free.”
All that hatred and anger, she thought. She curved her arms around her waist. It could eat a person alive, from the inside out.
“What happened to change your mind?”
“Therapy.” He laughed self-consciously. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? People like me aren’t supposed to need help. Gotta be strong, invincible. It’s part of the jock image. I just … I realized—”
He fell silent and Kat reached across and covered his hand with one of hers.
After a moment, he cleared his throat. “You didn’t do it, Kat. The justice system didn’t fail. It worked.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing you say. I was sure you were going to be like everyone else in this town, wanting to see me hang.”
“I started remembering the good things Sara had said about you. Not the ones she’d said out of frustration and anger, but the rest of the time. She loved you very much.”
He squeezed her fingers, then released them. Kat fought tears. Danny Sullivan, an ally? A friend? Could it be?
“Thank you,” she said softly. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“You came back to find out who did kill her.”
It wasn’t a question. She answered anyway. “Yes.”
“And now Tanner’s reopened the case.”
She nodded.
“Good,” he said. “Sara deserves justice.”
She froze. “What did you say?”
“That Sara deserves justice. Why? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I—” She turned toward him, wanting a clear view of his face. “It’s hard to put the past behind me. I keep wishing I’d done things differently.”
He nodded, looking sorrowful. “Me, too. I wonder, if I hadn’t asked for that loan, if we hadn’t fought, would she be alive today? Would she have been safe in my arms that night?”
The loan, Kat remembered. It was addressed during the trial. A brief line of questioning.
He looked down at his hands, clasped in his lap, then back up at her. Something in his eyes was far away. “I never should have asked to borrow money. It gave her the wrong idea. About me. My feelings for her.” He sighed. “She was sensitive about having so much. She didn’t like being rich.”
She didn’t, Kat realized. Sara had enjoyed simple comforts, the quiet life of a small-town teacher. She’d wanted children. To raise them in Liberty.
“Chief Tanner never made much of that fight,” she said softly.
“There wasn’t much to it.” He lifted a shoulder. “Couples fight, Kat.”
He fell silent a moment, then met her eyes, and there were tears in his. “I loved Sara. She meant more to me than any business proposal. Then she was dead. And I couldn’t take it back.”
He fell silent again. And so did she. This time, it dragged on.
Finally, he broke it. “Would it be weird if we became friends?”
Kat smiled. “I think Sara would’ve liked it.”
She went to give the photos back; he shook his head. “They’re for you. Keep them.”
“But—”
“I have others.”
For a long time after he left, she sat, photos in her hands, lost in thought. Ten years ago, she had left with nothing. A suitcase of clothes. A few photographs of her parents. She had wanted to leave Liberty, her life here, as far behind as possible.
Jeremy had taken care of it all for her. Had everything packed up, put into storage. She wanted it now. The stuff from her past. The memories. And the truth.
Kat shifted her thoughts to Danny Sullivan. Was she crazy to trust him? He could be lying. A murderer, desperate to keep his secret buried. Or to gain her trust.
She almost laughed at her own thoughts. Danny hadn’t killed Sara. She would bet her life on it.
Maybe you are,
a little voice inside her whispered.
Suddenly chilled, she hugged herself. Sara had been keeping a journal. She’d begun after their parents’ death, at first as a way to make sense of her feelings. The police had claimed it didn’t exist, that it had been yet another thing Kat had invented to try to divert them.
But it had existed. And she wanted it, whether it contained secrets that would lead to her killer or not.
It contained Sara’s secrets. Her hopes and dreams. Their lives together. Kat couldn’t physically have her sister back, but she could have this piece of her heart.
She meant to find it.
Danny Sullivan
2003
The afternoon after the murder
Danny Sullivan looked like a man who had been to hell and back. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his face pale. His usual confidence had been replaced by despair. By all appearances, he was a broken man.
“Danny,” Chief Tanner said, taking the chair directly across the folding table from him. “Thank you for coming in. I know how difficult this must be for you.”
He nodded. Though he didn’t speak, Tanner noticed his throat worked, as if he was trying to hold back tears.
Tanner went on. “Guidry here is going to take notes, as am I. If you don’t mind, we’d like to record this interview.”
“Record?” He shifted his watery gaze between him and Guidry. “Why?”
“For your protection. And ours. It’s important that we move the investigation forward as quickly as possible, before the trail gets cold. It’s imperative we don’t miss anything. Do you understand?”
“Yes.” He rubbed his hands against his thighs. “Whoever did it … I want … you have to get them, Chief Tanner. They can’t get away with this.”
Word had spread like wildfire through Liberty. Of Sara McCall’s murder. Of Wally’s. The phone had been ringing off the hook. People were freaking out. He’d had to call in all the volunteers to calm them down. If he could quell fears by dispelling—and stopping—rumors, it would make this investigation go much more smoothly.
“We will, Danny. You and Sara were dating. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Six months. But we were friends before that. We teach together. At Tammany West High.”
Present tense. It hadn’t sunk in yet.
Tanner went on. “Was it serious?”
“Yes.” He cleared his throat. “I was going to propose.”
“Did she know?”
“No. I mean, we’d talk about getting married, but not specifically. I’d gotten the ring. I—” He choked on the words.
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said again. “How long have you had the ring?”
“Three weeks.”
“But no set plans on when you were going to pop the question?”
“No. I … I wanted to wait until things with her sister calmed down.”
“Explain.”
He spread his fingers. “It was an unhappy time for Sara. Kat was making her crazy. Lying. Acting out. I worried some of it was my fault.”
Tanner waited; after a moment, Sullivan went on. “Kat doesn’t like me much.”
“Why’s that?”
“I think because I tried to step in sometimes. To help Sara out. Be a father figure.”
“And that didn’t work out so well?”
“Not at all. She resented me for it.” He lifted a shoulder. “I always wondered if she might have been afraid I’d steal her sister from her. You know, since she lost her folks. Of course now…”
“When’s the last time you saw Sara?”
“At school. Yesterday.”
Tanner nodded. “What about Katherine?”
“Our paths don’t cross much. Even when I visited Sara. Kat wouldn’t come out of her room.”
“Where were you last night?”
He looked surprised. “Home.”
“Alone?”
He nodded. “It was a school night.”
“What were you doing?”
“Same things I do most weeknights. Ate dinner, watched some tube. Worked on lesson plans, stuff like that.”
“Lesson plans? I thought you taught P.E.?”
“Believe it or not, Chief, even P.E. teachers are required to make them.”
“Could I get a copy of those?”
“Of course.”
Tanner flipped through his notes, then looked back up at Sullivan. “When was the last time you were over at the cottage?”
Sullivan frowned. “Sara’s?”
“Yes.”
He thought a moment. “A couple days ago.”
That jibed with what Katherine had said. “What did you do?”
“Watched TV. Talked.”
“That’s it?”
Tanner held his breath. Would Sullivan offer up that he and Sara had fought? Considering that the woman was now dead, it would be a bold admission.
And then he did. “We had an argument.”
“What about?”
Color flooded Sullivan’s face. “I’d asked to borrow some money. It was a stupid thing to do. It was unmanly.”
Tanner didn’t comment, though he agreed with Sullivan’s assessment. “What did you need the money for?”
“A business opportunity. With Dale Graham.”
“The LSU basketball star.”
He nodded, expression miserable. “It hurt her feelings for me to ask. She accused me of wanting her for her money. I tried to assure her that wasn’t true. I begged her to believe me. That I loved her.”
“And did she believe you?”
“She told me she needed time. To process.”
“And that’s it?”
“Pretty much.”
Tanner narrowed his eyes. “Kat overheard the fight. Your version sounds pretty tame compared to hers.”
“I can’t help that. Mine’s the truth, Chief.”
“So, she refused to loan you the money?”
“No. She said she had to think about it. Talk to her cousin Jeremy.”
“Will Webber corroborate your story?”
“I don’t know if she ever talked to him. It was the last time I saw her. She wanted time and space, I gave it to her.”
“You make yourself sound like a helluva guy, giving her all that ‘time’ and ‘space.’”
“It’s true, Chief. After screwing up so bad, I owed her that, don’t you think?”
“Maybe your story’s only half true. Maybe, when she refused you the loan, you thought you’d play your trump card. You got her the ring, you popped the question. But she said no.”
“That’s not what happened! I already had the ring, I’d been planning—”
“You flew into a rage—”
“No!”
“—and killed her.”
He launched to his feet, expression horrified. “You can’t seriously think I had anything to do with Sara’s— Don’t you get it? I loved her. She was my future. I honestly have no idea what I’m going to do with my life now!”
He was trembling, looked near tears. Tanner pointed at the chair. “Sit back down, Sullivan. I believe you.”
He sank back to his chair. Dropped his head into his hands.
“Your story’s gonna check out, right? With Graham and the loan? The date you bought the ring? The lesson plans.”
