Music of Ghosts (13 page)

“Nick Stratton.”

“Who's he?”

“Head of the Pisgah Raptor Rescue Center. Lisa Wilson's boss.”

Turpin's eyes brightened. “Got anything on him?”

Cochran shrugged. “We executed a search warrant early this morning and found some interesting items.”

“What?”

“The girl's diary,” replied Cochran. “Plus a lot of iPhone photos and a ring she took off for safekeeping.”

“Oh, God,” cried Turpin. “Please tell me you found it around his dick.”

“No, under his bed.”

“Hmm.” Turpin turned back to the interrogation. This Stratton character would be handsome except for a scar on his upper lip. “What did the diary say?”

“I'm still going through it, but Lisa Wilson wrote some pretty hot pages about him.”

Turpin frowned. Diaries were tough in court. Either side could paint them as accurate accounts of someone's life, or mere fantasies the diarist dreamed up. “Have you got anything else on this guy?”

“Some. But it's circumstantial. You'd have trouble with it in court.”

“How do you know?” cried Turpin

“Because I know good evidence, George. And I know I don't have it yet.”

“Why not?”

“That writing still bothers me.”

“The writing in the diary?”

“No, George—all that stuff carved on the girl's body. It has to mean something.”

Turpin grabbed the tabloid, gaped again at the centerfold. “You mean these are letters carved into her skin?”

“They're something. I've run them through every computer from Raleigh to Washington and come up with nothing.”

“Then maybe they're nothing. A smokescreen.” Turpin looked at Stratton through the mirror. “To make it look like some mountain psycho's loose.”

They both stepped closer to the window. Cochran turned up the audio. Buck Whaley was oozing compassion, going on about how he could sure understand how a man might want out of an affair so badly that he'd kill for his freedom.

“Except we weren't
having
an affair,” said Stratton. “I already had my freedom.”

Whaley shrugged, as if he couldn't care less. “That's not what her diary says, buddy. Plus she had two hundred pictures of you on her iPhone.”

Stratton shook his head. “I don't care if she had two thousand pictures. We weren't lovers.”

Whaley needled him. “All your interns think you were.”

Stratton laughed. “All my interns thought that cabin was full of ghosts.”

“Then can you tell me why she wrote her father and told him she'd be staying with you after the semester ended?”

“I don't know.”

“And why we found the ring she'd stored in her room underneath your bed?”

“I don't know.”

Whaley leaned forward. “For a smart guy you don't know all that much, do you?”

For a long moment, Stratton just stared at him, then he withdrew something from his shirt pocket. “I know one thing,” he said softly.

“What's that?” demanded Whaley.

“That I'm entitled to call a lawyer.”

Whaley smiled. “Are you saying you need one?”

“I'm saying I'd like to call this one.” Stratton held up the business card. “Mary Crow.”

Behind the two-way mirror, Turpin's stomach curdled. He glared at Cochran. “The bastard's already got Mary Crow? That alone should tell you something, sheriff!”

“Getting good counsel doesn't make him guilty, George.”

“Well, it makes him a hell of a suspect.” Turpin turned away from the mirror, furious. “I want every piece of evidence you've got against this guy on my desk in an hour.”

Cochran gave a bitter laugh. “Going to make the evidence fit the crime?”

“No. But I'm not going to let a bunch of carved-up squiggles scare me away from filing an indictment.”

Eighteen

Mary Crow had not
lingered to watch Lily and Jonathan as they drove away; instead she'd stormed back inside the house and started to clean the kitchen.

“Why did you have to buy that damn duplex?” she asked the absent Jonathan, as she cleaned the grate in the woodstove they kept burning all winter. “Were you that scared of Fred Moon?”

She decided that yes, he was. When it came to Lily, Jonathan scared pretty easy. She scrubbed her way through the kitchen and hall, working her way upstairs, to their bedroom. In his packing, Jonathan had left the laundry basket overturned on the floor; all the dresser drawers empty and agape. The room reminded her of crime scenes she'd visited in Atlanta, where some family's day had started off like every other day until somebody went crazy and begun shooting up the people they loved.

“Just like Jonathan,” she muttered as she slammed the dresser drawers shut. “Only he shoots lies instead of bullets.”

She picked up his cast-off clothes from the floor and began to straighten the sheets he'd twisted into a knot. For an instant her anger abated, and she longed to curl up on his side of the bed, wrap herself in his smell. Then she remembered his coldness, Lily's ugly accusations about her killing Ruth Moon.

“Just get the sheets off the bed,” she said. “Everything in this room needs a good washing.”

She stripped the bed and went downstairs to run another load of laundry. As she walked through the dining room, she wondered if she ought to start the painting project she and Jonathan had discussed for months. One person could do it—they had a ladder long enough to reach the ceiling. But it would entail a trip to the hardware store, the purchase of brushes, the selection of paint. For some reason, the thought of that brought tears to her eyes. Looking at paint chips all by herself seemed like the loneliest task in the world.

“Eat some lunch first,” she told herself. “You can decide about painting later.”

She made a grilled cheese sandwich and took it into the study, eating at her desk. “My old refuge,” she said, looking at a photo of her younger self, graduating from Emory Law. How proud she looked in her blue and gold gown! How ready to put every murderer on death row!

“And look at you now,” she whispered. “Can't even pick out paint.”

A wave of despair engulfed her. How could she and Jonathan have gotten to this place? She had done everything he'd ever asked. She'd brought them to her home, treated Lily as her own child, abandoned the one area of law she truly loved. And for what? A man who couldn't even tell her he was being sued and a whippy little brat who accused her of murder? Did Lily honestly believe that? And even if she didn't—even if she'd simply spoken in anger, how could they ever un-ring that awful bell? She sat there, growing sick to her stomach, when suddenly, her cell phone rang.

Jonathan! He was calling to apologize, to explain. She rummaged through the flotsam on top of her desk, finally finding her phone under the Moon's complaint. She grabbed it, cutting it off in mid-ring.

“Jonathan?”

“Mary?” A voice she did not recognize came sketchily through the mountain static.

“This is Mary Crow,” she answered, her heart crumbling. Jonathan had not called to apologize. Jonathan had not called at all.

“This is Nick Stratton, from the Raptor Rescue Center?”

She closed her eyes. Nick Stratton, the man with Lily's owl; the man whose intern had been murdered. She didn't know whether to express her sympathy or just inquire about the bird. “Hi, Nick.” She decided to go with a neutral response. “How's it going?”

“Well, your owl's doing better,” he said awkwardly, as if trying to find the right words. “But the owl doctor's not so great.”

“Oh?” Mary replied, puzzled.

“Uh, I'm here at the police station,” Stratton's voice grew raspy. “They think I killed Lisa Wilson.”

She wondered if they'd gotten a bad connection. “Excuse me?”

He cleared his throat. “The police think I killed Lisa Wilson.”

Mary frowned. “But doesn't Cochran have your interns locked up?”

“He let them go,” Stratton said disjointedly. “Then he came and got me.”

Mary sat up straighter. “Have you been arrested, Nick?”

“I'm not sure. Mostly, they've just asked me a lot of questions.”

She heard the edginess in his voice. Having cops fire questions at you scared most people—that's what it was meant to do. What most people didn't know was that it was largely smoke and mirrors. Still, without counsel, Stratton might incriminate himself badly. He went on.

“I think I need a lawyer, Mary. Could you help me out?”

His voice brought back a raft of old memories. Investigations, jury summations, the heady electricity when a jury foreman rose and gave you a conviction. If she took this case she'd be working the other side of the aisle, but at least she'd be practicing the kind of law she loved.
But what about your promise to Jonathan,
she wondered, gazing at the family photos lined across her desk.
Maybe the Moons happened to that promise
, she told herself.
The Moons and that duplex and the secret life he's been living in Oklahoma.

“Mary? Did I lose you?”

“No, Nick.” She took a deep breath. “Tell the police you've retained counsel. Don't answer another question until I get there.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”

So do I,
Mary thought as she hurried upstairs to change clothes.
A client in jail just beats the hell out of choosing new paint.

An hour later she stood outside the interview room, briefcase in hand. Buck Whaley was sitting inside, sneering at Nick Stratton, who was sneering right back. Briskly, she opened the door. Whaley jumped, surprised.

“Detective Whaley,” she greeted the beefy cop. “I'm representing Mr. Stratton.” She dropped her briefcase on the table. “You want to tell me what this is about?”

Whaley gave a smug grin. “We're about to charge him with murder.”

“Murder?” She gave Whaley a practiced look, implying he was crazy. “Who did he kill?”

“Lisa Wilson.” Whaley folded his arms across his chest.

“I did not kill Lisa Wilson!” cried Stratton.

Mary put a hand on Stratton's arm. “I assume you have evidence, Detective?”

“We do.”

“Well, then could you share it?” Mary feigned impatience, trying to take some of the wind out of Whaley's enormous sails. “I cancelled a tennis match to come down here.”

“I can put Lisa Wilson's murder weapon in his bird barn, Lisa Wilson's ring under his bed, plus photos that indicate he had a pretty close relationship with Ms. Wilson.” Whaley looked at Mary with a wide, triumphant grin. “What is it you tennis people say? Game, set, match?”

“We tennis people say you cannot be serious,” Mary replied, though she realized that if Whaley was just blowing smoke, he seemed awfully cocky about it. “I think we're done with questions today.”

“That's fine.” Whaley gave an insouciant shrug. “We can talk again tomorrow.”

Stratton leaned forward. “Look, I've got animals to take care of. Federally protected birds.”

Whaley rose from his chair. “Guess you should have cleaned those cages before we got down here.”

A few minutes later, Mary Crow sat across from Nick Stratton in a private meeting room. “I want to make this perfectly clear,” he began. “I did not kill Lisa Wilson.”

Mary smiled. She'd heard similar assurances from other clients. Marvin Sutton never drank when he drove, Tanya Foster had never taken matches and kerosene to her cheating boyfriend's apartment. Mary never paid much attention to her clients' protestations of innocence.

“That's great, but I don't care,” she told him.

“But I didn't kill her,” Stratton repeated, his eyes flashing with impatience.

“It's not necessary that I believe you, Nick,” said Mary.

“It's necessary to me that you believe me,” he replied.

“Alright.” She held up her right hand. “I swear I believe you.”

He sank back in his chair, as if extracting her vow of belief had used up all his energy. She took a legal pad from her briefcase. “Let's go over what they've asked you about.”

For the next hour he told her about the blood-stained jesses—the leather bird leashes—they'd found in the barn, the fiddle music he loved to play, the ring that never left Lisa Wilson's finger. “I have no idea how it got under my bed. I was drinking coffee in the kitchen when Cochran came downstairs with it.”

Mary started her third page of notes. “And that's why they think you and Lisa were lovers?”

“That, and the fact that she'd taken all these pictures of me. I didn't know anything about them until I took Cochran down to her room.”

Mary frowned. “You took Cochran to her room?”

“Yeah. After he told me she'd been killed. We found all these pictures of me plastered all over her wall.” He swallowed hard. “I guess that's why the others figured we were lovers, but we weren't.”

“The other kids?” Mary shook her head. “Let's back up and begin at the beginning. Tell me when you first met Lisa.”

He ran a hand through his hair. “She came a week late, after the other interns had gotten here. She was an eager, helpful girl, but there was something sad about her.”

“Sad?” asked Mary.

“I think her home life was difficult. She once said her father was an alpha male who'd married a bleating sheep. I think Lisa was trying to find her place in the family zoo.”

Mary caught her breath, wondering if some Oklahoma lawyer would soon describe her own family in similar terms.

Stratton went on. “For whatever reason, she latched on to me pretty quick. Followed me around like a puppy, always snapping pictures with her iPhone.”

“And that's why everybody thought you were lovers?”

A twinge of discomfort flashed across his face. “I don't know how much the others knew, but one night Lisa came on to me.”

“Oh?”

“I
came home from playing a dance. I'd had a little too much to drink, so I went to bed. Woke up an hour later, to find her standing there, in the middle of my room. I asked her what was wrong, but all she did was pull off her T-shirt and step out of her shorts.”

Mary wondered what it would be like to strip naked in front of a man like Nick Stratton. “And?” she finally asked, trying to keep her voice level.

“She climbed on top of me. We started kissing. I have to tell you, I was … ”

Mary watched him, waiting to hear how he would finish his sentence.

“I was tempted,” he finally admitted, squirming in his chair. “She was young, pretty. She wanted me.”

“And you slapped her hands and sent her back to her room?”

“Yes,” he told her, his blue-green gaze meeting hers directly. “That's exactly what happened. Sleeping with Lisa Wilson could have ruined everything I'd ever worked for.”

Inwardly Mary groaned, wondering if she had run into another man like Jonathan, who turned hot, willing women out of their beds just because they were worried about something else. She tapped the table with her pen. “You do realize how ridiculous this is going to sound if the DA gets hold of it?”

“I can't help it,” Stratton replied angrily. “It's what happened.”

It sounded so incredible that Mary decided either he was telling the truth or he was the best liar on the planet. Regardless, she couldn't help but like Nick Stratton. He didn't have the nervous look of her other clients, as they weaved and dodged their way through a story. Dr. Lovebird just sat there and said what he had to say.

“Any more questions?” he asked.

“Oh, my, yes,” she replied. “Thousands more. The police will probably question you again tomorrow, but I'll be with you.”

“So you'll take my case?”

She put her legal pad back in her briefcase and snapped it shut. “For now,” she said, smiling, finding something attractive in his scarred lip, something even more attractive in the prospect of returning to her office to think about something other than Jonathan and Lily. “For now, I'd be delighted.”