River's End (5 page)

“No. No.” Horror spiked in his voice. “I’d never hurt Livvy.”

“That’s not what your wife thought, is it, Tanner?” Tracy jabbed a finger into Sam’s chest. “She put it in writing that she was afraid for you to be alone with the kid. You’re a cokehead, and a sorry son of a bitch, and I’ll tell you just how it went down. You thought about her in that big house, locking you out, keeping you away from her and your kid because she couldn’t stand the sight of you. Maybe you figure she’s spreading her legs for another man. Woman who looks like that, there’s going to be other men. And you got yourself all coked up and drove over there to show her who was boss.”

“No, I was just going to talk to her.”

“But she didn’t want to talk to you, did she, Tanner? She told you to get out, didn’t she? Told you to go to hell. Maybe you knocked her around a little first, like you did the other time.”

“It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her. We were arguing.”

“So you picked up the scissors.”

“No.” He tried to draw back, tried to clear the images blurring in his head. “We were in Livvy’s room. Julie wouldn’t have scissors in Livvy’s room.”

“You were downstairs and you saw them on the table, sitting there, shiny, sharp. You grabbed them and you cut her to pieces because she was done with you. If you couldn’t have her, no one was going to have her. That’s what you thought, isn’t it, Tanner? The bitch deserved to die.”

“No, no, no, I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have.” But he remembered the feel of the scissors in his hands, the way his fingers had wrapped around them, the way blood had dripped down the blade. “I loved her. I loved her.”

“You didn’t mean to do it, did you, Sam?” Frank picked up the ball, sliding back into the seat, his voice gentle, his eyes level. “I know how it is. Sometimes you love a woman so much it makes you crazy. When they don’t listen, don’t hear what you’re saying, don’t understand what you need, you have to find a way to make them. That’s all it was, wasn’t it? You were trying to find a way to make her listen, and she wouldn’t. You lost your temper. The drugs, they played a part in that. You just didn’t have control of yourself. You argued, and the scissors were just there. Maybe she came at you. Then it just happened, before you could stop it. Like the other time when you didn’t mean to hurt her. It was a kind of accident.”

“I don’t know.” Tears were starting to swim in his eyes. “I had the scissors, but it was after. It had to be after. I pulled them out of her.”

“Livvy saw you.”

Sam’s face went blank as he stared at Frank. “What?”

“She saw you. She heard you, Sam. That’s why she came downstairs. Your four-year-old daughter’s a witness. The murder weapon has your prints all over it. Your bloody footprints are all over the house. In the living room, the hall, going up the stairs. There are bloody fingerprints on the doorjamb of your little girl’s bedroom. They’re yours. There was no one else there, Sam, no burglar like you tried to tell us
yesterday. No intruder. There was no sign of a break-in, nothing was stolen, your wife wasn’t raped. There were three people in the house that night. Julie, Livvy and you.”

“There had to be someone else.”

“No, Sam. No one else.”

“My God, my God, my God.” Shaking, he laid his head on the table and sobbed like a child.

When he had finished sobbing, he confessed.

Frank read the signed statement for the third time, got up, walked around the tiny coffee room and settled for the nasty dregs in the pot. With the cup half full of what even the desperate would call sludge, he sat at the table and read the confession again.

When his partner came in, Frank spoke without looking up. “This thing’s got holes, Tracy. It’s got holes you could drive that old Caddy you love so much through without scraping the paint.”

“I know it.” Disgusted, Tracy set a fresh pot on to brew, then went to the scarred refrigerator to steal someone’s nicely ripened Bartlett pear. He bit in, grunted with satisfaction, then sat. “But the guy’s whacked, Frank. Jonesing, jittery. And he was flying that night. He’s never going to remember it step-by-step.”

He swiped at pear juice dribbling down his chin. “We know he did it. We got the physical evidence, motive, opportunity. We place him at the scene. Hell, we got a witness. Now we got a confession. We did our job, Frank.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t sit right in the gut. Not all the way right. See here where he says he broke the music box, the kid’s Disney music box. There was no music box. He’s getting the two nights confused, blending them into one.”

“He’s a fucking cokehead,” Tracy said impatiently. “His story about coming in after a break-in doesn’t wash. She let him in—her sister confirmed it was something she’d do. This guy ain’t no Richard Kimble, pal. No one-armed man, no TV show. He picked up the scissors, jammed them into her back while she was turned. She goes down—no defensive wounds—then he
just keeps hacking at her while she’s trying to crawl away. We got the blood trail, the ME’s report. We know how it went down. Makes me sick.”

He pitched the pear core into the trash, then scraped his chair back to get fresh coffee.

“I’ve been working bodies for seven years now,” Frank murmured. “It’s one of the worst I’ve seen. A man does that to a woman, he’s got powerful feelings for her.” He sighed himself, rubbed his tired eyes. “I’d like a cleaner statement, that’s all. Some high-dollar lawyer’s going to dance through those holes before this is done.”

With a shake of his head, he rose. “I’m going home, see if I remember what my wife and kid look like.”

“Lawyer or no lawyer,” Tracy said as Frank started out, “Sam Tanner’s going down for this, and he’ll spend the rest of his worthless life in a cage.”

“Yeah, he will. And that little girl’s going to have to live with that. That’s what makes me sick, Tracy. That’s what eats through my gut.”

He thought about it on the drive home, through the impossible traffic on the freeway, down the quiet street where the houses, all tiny and tidy like his own, were jammed close together with patches of lawn gasping from the lack of rain.

Olivia’s face was lodged in his mind, the rounded cheeks of childhood, the wounded, too-adult eyes under striking dark brows. And the whisper of the first words she’d spoken to him:

The monster’s here.

Then he pulled into the short driveway beside his little stucco house, and it was all so blessedly normal. Noah had left his bike crashed on its side in the yard, and his wife’s impatiens were wilting because she’d forgotten to water them, again. God knew why she planted the things. She killed them with the regularity of a garden psychopath. Her ancient VW Bug was already parked, emblazoned with the bumper stickers and decals of her various causes. Celia Brady collected causes the way some women collected recipes.

He noted that the VW was leaking oil again, swore without any real heat and climbed out of his car.

The front door burst open, then slammed like a single gunshot. His son raced out, a compact bullet with shaggy brown hair, bruised knees and holey sneakers.

“Hey, Dad! We just got back from protesting whale hunting. Mom’s got these records with whales singing on them. Sounds like alien invaders.”

Frank winced, knowing he’d be listening to whale song for the next several days. “I don’t suppose we’ve got dinner?”

“We picked up the Colonel on the way home. I talked her into it. Man, all that health food lately, a guy could starve.”

Frank stopped, laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. “You’re telling me we have fried chicken in the house? Don’t toy with me, Noah.”

Noah laughed, his dark green eyes dancing. “A whole bucket. Minus the piece I swiped on the way home. Mom said we’d go for it because you’d need some comfort food.”

“Yeah.” It was good to have a woman who loved you enough to know you. Frank sat down on the front stoop, loosened his tie and draped an arm around Noah’s shoulders when the boy sat beside him. “I guess I do.”

“The TV’s had bulletins and stuff all the time about that movie star. Julie MacBride. We saw you and Tracy going into that big house, and they showed pictures of the other house, the bigger one where she got killed. And just now, right before you got home? There was this little girl, the daughter. She came running out of the house. She looked really scared.”

Noah hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from the image, even when those huge terrified eyes seemed to stare right into his and plead with him for help.

“Gee, Dad, they got right up in her face, and she was crying and screaming and holding her hands over her ears, until somebody came and took her back inside.”

“Oh, Christ.” Frank braced his elbows on his knees, put his face into his hands. “Poor kid.”

“What are they going to do with her, if her mother’s dead and her father’s going to jail and all?”

Frank blew out a breath. Noah always wanted to know the whats and the whys. They didn’t censor him—that had been Celia’s stand, and Frank had come around to believing her right. Their boy was bright, curious, and knew right from wrong. He was a cop’s son, Frank thought, and he had to learn that there were bad guys, and they didn’t always pay.

“I don’t know for sure. She has family who love her. They’ll do the best they can.”

“On the TV, they said she was in the house when it happened. Was she?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” Noah scratched at a scab on his knee, frowned. “She looked really scared,” he murmured. Noah did understand bad guys existed, that they didn’t always pay. And that being a child didn’t mean you were safe from them. But he couldn’t understand what it would be like to be afraid of your own father.

“She’ll be all right.”

“Why did he do it, Dad?” Noah looked up into his father’s face. He almost always found the answers there.

“We may never know for certain. Some will say he loved her too much, others will say he was crazy. That it was drugs or jealousy or rage. The only one who’ll ever really know is Sam Tanner. I’m not sure he understands why himself.”

Frank gave Noah’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “Let’s go listen to whales sing and eat chicken.”

“And mashed potatoes.”

“Son, you might just see a grown man cry.”

Noah laughed again and trooped inside with his father. But he, too, loved enough to understand. And he was sure he would hear his father pacing the floor that night, as he did when his job troubled him most.

Confession may be good for the soul, but in Sam Tanner’s case it was also good for snapping reality into sharp focus. Less than an hour after he wrote his tearful statement admitting the brutal and drug-hazed murder of his wife, he exercised his civil rights.

He called the lawyer he’d claimed had only complicated his marital problems and demanded representation. He was panicked and ill and had by this point forgotten half of what he’d confessed.

So it was a lawyer who specialized in domestic law who first claimed the confession had been given under duress, ordered his client to stick to his right to remain silent and called out the troops.

Charles Brighton Smith would head the defense team. He was a sixty-one-year-old fox with a dramatic mane of silver hair, canny blue eyes and a mind like a laser. He embraced high-profile cases with gusto and loved nothing better than a tumultuous court battle with a media circus playing in the center ring.

Before he flew into L.A., he’d already begun assembling his team of researchers, clerks, litigators, experts, psychologists and jury profilers. He’d leaked his flight number and arrival time and was prepared—and elegantly groomed—for the onslaught of press when he stepped off the plane.

His voice was rich and fruity, drawing up through the diaphragm like an opera singer’s. His face was stern and carefully composed to show concern, wisdom and compassion as he made his sweeping opening statement.

“Sam Tanner is an innocent man, a victim of this tragedy. He’s lost the woman he loved in the most brutal of fashions, and now that horror has been compounded by the police in their rush to close the case. We hope to correct this injustice swiftly
so that Sam can deal with his grief and go home to his daughter.”

He took no questions, made no other comments. He let his bodyguards plow through the crowd and lead him to the waiting limo. When he settled inside, he imagined the media would be rife with sound bites from his entrance.

And he was right.

After seeing the last news flash of Smith’s Los Angeles arrival, Val MacBride shut off the television with a snap. It was all a game to them, she thought. To the press, the lawyers, the police, the public. Just another show to bump ratings, to sell newspapers and magazines, to get their picture on the covers or on the news.

They were using her baby, her poor murdered baby.

Yet it couldn’t be stopped. Julie had chosen to live in the public eye, and had died in it.

Now they would use that, the lawyers. That public perception would be twisted and exploited to make a victim out of the man who’d killed her. He would be a martyr. And Olivia was just one more tool.

That, Val told herself, she could stop.

She went quietly from the room, stopping only to peek in on Olivia. She saw Rob, sprawled on the floor with their grandchild, his head close to her as they colored together.

It made her want to smile and weep at the same time. The man was solid as a rock, she thought with great gratitude. No matter how hard you leaned on him, he stayed straight.

She left them to each other and went to find Jamie.

The house was built on the straight, clean lines of a T. In the left notch Jamie had her office. When she’d come to Los Angeles eight years before to act as her sister’s personal assistant, she’d lived and worked out of the spare room in Julie’s dollhouse bungalow in the hills.

Val remembered worrying a bit about both of them then, but their calls and letters and visits home had been so full of fun and excitement she’d tried not to smother the light with nagging and warnings. They’d lived in that house together for two years,
until Julie had met and married Sam. And less than six months afterward, Jamie had been engaged to David. A man who managed rock and roll bands, of all things, she’d thought at the time. But he’d turned out to be as steady as her own Rob.

She’d considered her girls safe then, safe and happy and settled with good men. How could she have been so wrong?

She pushed that thought away as useless and knocked lightly on Jamie’s office door before opening it.

The room had Jamie’s sense of style and organization. Ordinarily the sleek vertical blinds would have been open to the sunlight and the view of the pool and flowers. But the paparazzi and their telescopic lenses had the house under siege. The blinds were shut tight, the lamps on though it was mid-afternoon.

We’re like hostages, Val thought as her daughter sent her a harried smile and continued to talk on her desk phone.

Val sat in the simple button-backed chair across from the desk and waited.

Jamie looked tired, she noticed, and nearly sighed when she realized how little attention she’d paid over the last few days to the child she had left.

As her heart stuttered, Val closed her eyes, took several quiet breaths. She needed to focus on the matter at hand and not get mired in her grief.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Jamie hung up the phone, pushed both hands through her hair. “There’s so much to do.”

“I haven’t been much help.”

“Oh, yes, you have. I don’t know how we’d manage without you and Dad. Livvy—I can’t handle this and give her the attention she needs right now. David’s shouldered a lot of the load.”

She rose and went to the small refrigerator for a bottle of water. Her system had begun to revolt at the gallons of coffee she’d gulped down. In the center of her forehead was a constant, dull headache no medication seemed to touch.

“But he has his own work,” she continued as she poured two glasses. “I’ve had people offer to field some of the calls and cables and notes, but . . .”

“This is for family,” Val finished.

“Yes.” Jamie handed her mother a glass, eased her hip on the desk. “People are leaving flowers at the gate of Julie’s house. I needed to make arrangements for them to be taken to hospitals. Lucas Manning, bless him, is helping me with that. The letters are just starting to come in, and though Lou, Julie’s agent, is going to help handle them, I think we’re going to be snowed under in another week or two.”

“Jamie—”

“We already have a mountain of condolences from people in the business, people she knew or worked with. And the phone calls—”

“Jamie,” Val said more firmly. “We have to talk about what happens next.”

“This is what happens next for me.”

“Sit down.” When the phone rang, Val shook her head. “Let it go, Jamie, and sit down.”

“All right. All right.” Giving in, Jamie sat, let her head fall back.

“There’s going to be a trial,” Val began, and this had Jamie sitting up again.

“There’s no point in thinking about that now.”

“It has to be thought of. Sam’s fancy new lawyer’s already on TV, prancing and posing. Some people are hot to say he couldn’t have done it. He’s a hero, a victim, a figure of tragedy. More will say it before it’s over.”

“You shouldn’t listen.”

“No, and I don’t intend to anymore.” Val’s voice went fierce. “I don’t intend to take any chances that Livvy will hear any of it, will be exposed to any of it or be used as she was the other day when she got outside. I want to take her home, Jamie. I want to take her back to Washington as soon as possible.”

“Take her home?” For a moment, Jamie’s mind went completely blank. “But this is her home.”

“I know you love her. We all do.” Val set her glass aside to take her daughter’s hand. “Listen to me, Jamie. That little girl can’t stay here, closed up in this house like a prisoner. She can’t
even go outside. We can’t risk her going to her window without knowing some photographer will zoom in and snap her picture. She can’t live like that. None of us can.”

“It’ll pass.”

“When? How? Maybe, maybe it would have eased up a little, but not now that there’s going to be a trial. She won’t be able to start preschool in the fall, or play with her friends without bodyguards, without having people look at her, stare, point, whisper. And some won’t bother to whisper. I don’t want her to face that. I don’t think you do either.”

“Oh God, Mom.” Torn to bits again, Jamie rose. “I want to raise her. David and I talked about it.”

“How can you do that here, honey? With all the memories, all the publicity, all the risks. She needs to be protected from that but not locked in a house, however lovely, in the center of it all. Are you and David willing to give up your home, your work, your lifestyle, to take her away, to devote your time to her? Your father and I can give her a safe place. We can cut her off from the press.” She took a deep breath. “And I intend to see a lawyer myself, right away, to start custody proceedings. I won’t have that man getting near her, ever again. It’s what’s right for her, Jamie. It’s what Julie would want for her.”

What about me? Jamie wanted to scream it. What about what I need, what I want? She was the one who soothed Livvy’s nightmares, who comforted and rocked and sat with her in the long dark hours. “Have you talked to Dad about this?” Her voice was dull now, her face turned away.

“We discussed it this morning. He agrees with me. Jamie, it’s what’s best. You and David could come, spend as much time as you like. She’ll always be yours, too, but not here, Jamie. Not here.”

Frank pushed away from his desk, surprised when he saw Jamie Melbourne. She took off her dark glasses as she crossed the squad room, then passed them restlessly from hand to hand.

“Detective Brady, I’d like to speak with you if you have a moment.”

“Of course. We’ll go in the coffee room.” He tried a smile. “But I’m not recommending the coffee.”

“No, I’m trying to stay away from it just now.”

“Do you want to speak with Detective Harmon?”

“It’s not necessary to pull both of you away from your work.” She moved into the cramped little room. “I came on impulse. Not an easy feat,” she added as she walked to the stingy window. At least it was a window, she thought. At least she could look outside. “There are still reporters. Not as many, but a number of them camped out. I think I ran over that snippy one from Channel Four.”

“Never liked him anyway.”

She leaned her hands on the windowsill and laughed. Then couldn’t stop. The bubble of sound had burst a hole in her dam of control. Her shoulders shook and the laugh turned to sobs. She held on to the sill, rocking back and forth until Frank drew her gently into a chair, gave her a box of tissues and held her hand.

He said nothing, just waited for her to empty out.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Frantically she pulled tissue after tissue out of the box. “This isn’t what I came here to do.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Melbourne, it’s about time you let that go. The longer you hold it in, the bigger it gets.”

“Julie was the emotional one. She felt everything in big soaring waves.” Jamie blew her nose. “And she was one of those women who looked gorgeous when she cried.” She mopped her raw and swollen eyes. “You could have hated her for that.” She sat back. “I buried my sister yesterday. I keep trying to take a step back from that now that it’s done, but it won’t stop coming into my head.”

She let out a long breath. “My parents want to take Olivia back to Washington. They want to apply for full custody and take her away.” She pulled out another tissue, then began to fold it neatly, precisely, into squares. “Why am I telling you? I was going to tell David, cry on his shoulder, then I found myself going into the garage, getting into the car. I guess I needed to tell someone who wasn’t so involved, yet wasn’t really separate. You won.”

“Mrs. Melbourne—”

“Why don’t you call me Jamie now that I’ve cried all over you? I’d certainly be more comfortable calling you Frank.”

“Okay, Jamie. You’re facing the worst anybody faces, and things are coming at you from all directions at once. It’s hard to see.”

“You think my mother’s right, about Livvy.”

“I can’t speak for your family.” He got up, poured some water. “As a parent,” he continued, offering the paper cup, “I think I’d want my kid as far away from this mess as possible, at least temporarily.”

“Yes, my head knows that.” But her heart, her heart didn’t know how much more it could take. “Yesterday morning, before the service, I took Livvy out in the backyard. It’s screened by trees, it seemed safe enough. I wanted to try to talk to her, to try to help her understand. This morning there was a picture of the two of us out there in the paper. I never even saw the photographer. I don’t want that for her.”

She drew in a deep breath. “I want to see Sam.”

Frank sat again. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

“I’ll have to see him in court. I’ll have to look him in the face, day after day during the trial. I need to see him now, before it begins. I need to do that before I let Livvy go.”

“I don’t know if he’ll agree to it. His lawyers are keeping him on a short leash.”

“He’ll see me.” She got to her feet. “He won’t be able to stop himself. His ego won’t let him.”

He took her because he decided she’d find a way to do what she felt she had to do with or without his help.

She said nothing as they dealt with security and protocol. Nothing when they entered the visitors’ area with its long counters and glass partitions. Frank showed her to a stool. “I have to back off here. I can’t have any contact with him without his lawyer at this point. I’ll be right outside.”

“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”

She’d braced herself so she didn’t jolt at the harsh sound of the buzzer. A door opened, and Sam was led in.

She’d wanted him to be pale, to look ill and gray and battered. How could he, she thought as her hands fisted in her lap, how could he look so perfect, so carelessly handsome? The hard lights didn’t detract from his appearance, nor the faded, ill-fitting prison clothes. If anything, they added to the appeal.

When he sat, offered her a long, pain-filled stare out of those deep blue eyes, she all but expected to hear a director call out
Cut! Print!

She kept her gaze level and reached for the phone. He mirrored the move on the other side of the glass. She heard him clear his throat.

“Jamie, I’m so glad you came. I’ve been going out of my mind. Julie.” He closed his eyes. “Oh God, Julie.”