Truth-Stained Lies (4 page)

“Maybe she heard him breaking in and got the gun.”

“If she was scared, wouldn’t she have called the police before she’d run to the bedroom to get the gun? And what about the email?”

“Maybe he forced her to write it,” Cathy said.

“But why? If he had her email me, then killed her, he wouldn’t wait around until I got here. He would have gone out the back door, slipped away without my seeing.”

She tried to think like this clown. “Maybe he
wanted
you to see him.”

Jay considered that for a moment, then brought his hands to his head. “No wonder they think I did it!” He sucked in a ragged breath. “Jackson. Would you get Juliet to go get him? He needs somebody he loves. I don’t want him left at the babysitter’s. And I want to be the one to tell him.”

“Of course. But look at me.”

He slid his hands down his face and met her eyes.

“Jay, you need to be strong for him. You can’t panic and fall apart. You have to stay clear. I’ll make sure the police do their job and don’t just blow off what you said.”

“A clown,” he said. “Who’s ever gonna believe me?”

“That’s why the guy wore a clown suit — to make your story sound ludicrous. But you know what? If he drove home like that, people saw him. Sitting at a stop sign or at a red light, it’s hard not to notice a guy in a clown suit. Someone will come forward.”

Jay leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “Why is God letting this happen to me? The divorce and custody battle was unbelievable enough … losing my home … losing my son … losing my wife. The accusations. But now to have her murdered, and me be the main suspect?”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh no? They were questioning me like a suspect. I found her. It’s my gun. I have a ridiculous story about what happened.”

“The truth is the truth, no matter how it looks.”

“Tell that to them,” he said. “Some guy is laughing his head off because he got away with it, and I’m gonna take the fall.”

Cathy hoped that wasn’t true.

H
e had to get rid of the clown suit, as soon as he parked the white pickup truck back where he’d gotten it. He hoped the parking space was still free. But if it wasn’t, the co-worker who owned the truck would just think his memory had lapsed. He’d never realize that his keys had been lifted off his desk and his vehicle had been involved in a crime.

He pulled into the parking lot, slowed as he went past the other cars lined up. The space was still empty. Perfect. He pulled the truck in, grabbed the garbage bag. The clown suit and shoes and the mask with the bald head and wig attached were balled up inside it.

If they found it, they would see the blood spatters among the polka dots. He couldn’t just throw it away. He had to make sure it was never found.

He went into the building, walking purposefully down
the hallway with the bag in his hand. He stopped by the office where the guy with the truck worked. As usual, he wasn’t at his desk.

He went in and dropped the keys on the desk where he’d found them, then slipped back out.

The incinerator room, where they disposed of bio-hazardous material, would be the best place to dispose of the suit. He headed to the back door and out to the separate building where the fire continuously burned. He stepped in, felt the heat in the air warm several degrees. Sweat broke out on his skin. He opened the door to the flames that licked up from a basement compartment and tossed the bag in.

Instantly, the fire swallowed it. He stood there for a moment, watching as the orange and yellow tongues did their dance below. If there was a hell, was that what it looked like?

He closed the door and stepped back, wiping the sweat from his brow. How ridiculous, thinking about hell. He didn’t even believe in such a thing.

He stepped out of the building, letting the humid wind cool him somewhat. He looked from left to right. A few employees had clustered around the back of the building to smoke. None of them noticed him. They never did.

But soon he would be somebody.

He straightened and took a deep breath, headed back in to finish his work. They would never be able to connect him to Annalee’s death now. The smoking gun had Jay’s name on it. The only other evidence was nothing but ashes floating around in the flames.

So many problems solved in one day. He hadn’t felt this good about himself in years.

W
hile Cathy was inside, Michael got his binoculars and his evidence kit out of his car and did a visual sweep of Annalee’s front lawn. He looked for footprints along the street edge of the grass, but the yard was too dry. The property wasn’t roped off on the sides of the house, so he walked around it slowly, looking for a sign of a break in. The screens were still on the windows, but one window appeared to be unlocked. The killer could have gone in through there, but would he have stopped to put the screen back on?

He reached the backyard, saw that they had roped off an area around the back door. He zoomed his binoculars in on the door. Again, no sign of break in.

When he’d finished scanning the windows all around the house, he went back to the street. There were woods on both sides of the property. It was possible that the killer
had disposed of some of the evidence before getting off the street. The wig, maybe? The costume?

He went into the trees near the street, looking for anything the killer could have tossed out his window. There were a couple of drink cans. He pulled a Ziploc out of his evidence kit and bagged them. He doubted they were from the killer. An empty Coke can wouldn’t have been at the top of his list of things to dispose of.

He walked along, picking up stray pieces of trash — an empty water bottle, an old trash bag, more cans here and there. He bagged everything to give to Max, just in case. But it looked like the killer hadn’t dumped anything here.

He doubled back, checking again. When he reached the house, he saw Juliet and Holly sitting in Juliet’s car, the doors open. Holly was still a wreck. Juliet just stared toward the house.

If only he could get in there and take one look at the crime scene … but Max would never allow it. Max’s pride was too great to consult with Michael on anything — especially a homicide case. Even if Max did care about his younger brother’s opinion, he’d say that Michael was too close to the family and couldn’t be objective.

He supposed that was true.

But there were so many things he wanted to know. If she was shot in the bathtub, had there been water in it before or after? Were there signs of a struggle? Was there blood anywhere else in the house? If he could just see where she was found, he might be able to piece together how she’d gotten there, when she’d realized she was in danger, where and when the killer had made his presence known.

But it was out of his hands, and that was his own fault. He had to trust his brother and the police department that had booted him.

W
hen the police insisted on continuing Jay’s questioning at the station downtown, Cathy told them she would take him in. Outside, as her sisters met Jay with hugs and tears, Cathy took Michael aside and filled him in on Jay’s story.

“I need your help,” she said. “Will you go to Jay’s house and look on his computer for that email Annalee sent him? Print it out and bring it to me at the police station.”

“Sure,” he said. “You got a key?”

“Yes.” She dug in her purse for her keychain, found the one with Jay’s name on the label, and pulled it off the ring. “Michael, if his story gets out to the press, no one’s going to believe it. I wouldn’t.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, of course. He’s my brother. He wouldn’t do that to his child’s mother.”

She glanced toward Jay, locked in Juliet’s embrace. “Whoever did this, they deliberately set it up so that his story would be outrageous.”

Michael had that look on his face that told her his instincts were fully engaged. “We need a detailed description of that clown suit. I could go around to some costume shops, see if anyone rented or bought one lately.” He glanced around the expansive lawn. “Jay said the clown walked across the grass. I looked at the yard and didn’t see any prints. It’s been dry lately, but there might be some prints in the bathroom or footsteps on the carpet since his feet may have been wet when he left.”

“Do they know what they’re doing, Michael? Can Max and Al handle this?”

“We have to trust them. We have no choice.” She could tell from his popping jaw that he doubted their competence. “It’ll be okay. Max is well trained. And Al is experienced.”

“Al Forbes was coasting two years ago when you and Joe were in the department,” she said. “He’s hanging on while the clock runs out, and you know it. The easiest way to get a quick conclusion to this case is to charge Jay and stop investigating.”

“I hope you’re wrong,” Michael said. “I don’t think my brother will do that.”

But Cathy knew there was a big difference between Michael’s ethics and Max’s.

“You’re not really representing him, are you, Cathy?” Michael asked.

“I have to.”

“No you don’t. You can hire somebody else.”

“He’s my brother! Nothing is more important.”

“But you’re rusty, Cathy. You haven’t practiced law in two years, and you’ve never worked as a defense attorney.”

“All I know is that he needs me right now. Maybe if this goes further we’ll pull in somebody else. But this is where I belong.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, no. I’m supposed to be on TV tonight. I have to make a call.”

Quickly, she called the producer at FOX, told him that she’d had a family emergency and couldn’t be there tonight, but pointed him to the blog she’d already written for the latest information on Sara Chesney’s case. As she hung up, she realized they probably wouldn’t invite her on again … unless it was to talk about her brother’s case.

“You okay?” Michael asked her as she clicked the phone off.

“Yes. I have to be.”

“You’ll call me if you think of anything else I can check on?”

“You know I will. I trust you a lot more than I trust them. Follow any lead you get. We can help Max out on this case whether he likes it or not.”

She went to Jay and pulled him from Juliet and Holly. Her brother looked wrung out, as if he were the one who’d bled out on the bathroom floor. “We have to go,” she said. “Michael will take us to my house to get my car. Max and Al are meeting us at the police station.”

Jay gave another round of tearful hugs, then he slipped into the passenger seat of Michael’s Trailblazer. Cathy climbed into the back. As Michael pulled away from the police cars, he patted Jay’s shoulder. “You okay, man?”

Jay just shook his head. “We have to find that clown. Are they even looking? He’s probably taken off the wig by now, changed clothes … Every minute that passes, he gets farther away.”

“I checked the woods along the road. I didn’t find anything like that, but I turned the little bit of trash I picked up
over to Max.” Michael reached into his glove compartment, got out a small notebook. “Here, draw what the clown suit looked like.”

“I can’t draw.”

“Do the best you can. Write the colors out beside it.”

Jay’s hands were shaking, but he started to draw.

“While you’re drawing, tell me about the email you got from Annalee,” Michael said.

Jay let out a long, despairing sigh. “It just came out of the blue. When it came, I felt this huge sense of relief, that maybe we could finally sit down like two people who used to love each other, and agree on something that was best for Jackson.”

“So maybe it didn’t really come from her.”

Jay frowned and looked up. “No, it came from her address. I checked.”

“Did it sound like her?” Cathy asked.

Jay looked out his window for a moment, as if trying to remember. “It looked rushed. Misspelled and abbreviated words.”

“That’s not like her,” Cathy said. “Annalee’s a grammar freak.”

“Well, yeah, but I just thought she was rushing to type it. You think the clown sent it from her computer?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I need to look at it. Cathy gave me a key to your place. You mind me going in and having a look at your email?”

“No, that’s fine. I got her email at the office, but I read it online on my Gmail account. It should show up in my Inbox at home, because I didn’t delete it.” Jay leaned his head back, swallowed hard. “So it wasn’t from her. She never had a change of heart. There was never going to be a conversation without the lawyers.”

Cathy noted the wistfulness in his tone. She tried to imagine what had happened. How had the clown gotten in? An extra key … a garage door opener … an unlocked door? Had he found Annalee in her office and taken her upstairs at gunpoint? Cathy didn’t know whether Annalee had been shot in the tub or standing in the bathroom. The clown was clearly staging things to implicate Jay. Using Jay’s gun, leading him to find her body …

But no matter where he’d shot her, she was just as dead. And Jay looked just as guilty.

“Would he have needed to know her password to send something from her email account?”

Jay rubbed his forehead. “She uses Google mail. Last I knew, she was always signed in. She checked her mail multiple times a day and didn’t have to type her address and password every time. If he used her laptop, he could get instant access.” He closed his eyes. “I should have seen that it wasn’t her writing style. I’m so stupid.”

Michael patted Jay’s shoulder again. “Don’t worry, buddy. I’m on this. And I think we can count on Max. He knows I’m gonna ride him about this. He’ll want to stay a couple of steps ahead of me.”

Jay didn’t say anything, just shook his head as if that was little comfort.

A
fter Michael dropped Cathy and Jay off at Cathy’s car, he headed to Jay’s apartment. The two-bedroom rental looked as if he’d just moved in. No pictures on the walls. Garage-sale furniture in the living room — nothing but a recliner, a worn couch, and a small TV. Michael glanced in Jay’s bedroom. A mattress lay on the floor, and next to it stood a card table with a computer on it. Boxes were stacked against the wall. He opened some and glanced inside — books, tools, shoes. Jay hadn’t even unpacked from his move.

Michael had been to Jay and Annalee’s home once for an engagement party for Cathy and Joe. It was elegantly decorated with heirloom pieces and exquisite details that only a professional designer could have pulled off. Now Jay was here, living like a college freshman.

He turned on the light and sat down on the folding chair
in front of the computer. He rolled the mouse, and the screen came to life.

Jay’s Google email sprang up, already loaded. Since Jay had gotten the email at the office, it wasn’t already open on this computer, but it should still show up in his Inbox. Michael scrolled through Jay’s email from today and found the one from Annalee.

Frowning, he read through it, looking for any clue that she had written it under duress, or hadn’t written it at all. As Jay had mentioned, words had been misspelled. He did a search for any other letters from Annalee. A list came up; all except today’s were dated over a year ago. They were all flawless, even the ones written on her phone. No misspellings, accurate punctuation, full sentences.

He printed out a few of them for comparison, along with today’s email.

He went back to Jay’s Inbox, then clicked on Sent to see if Jay had replied to her. There was a short email.

If the police decided Jay was a suspect, they would seize his computer and study that day’s correspondence to help establish a timeline of his actions and whereabouts. Michael decided to print it all out himself, just to make sure Cathy had what the cops would have.

He opened one letter after another. Most were business emails and correspondence to co-workers. But then he saw one that made him freeze.

Jay had sent a note to his sisters, fifteen minutes before Annalee sent him her invitation to come over.

Michael’s stomach dropped. Why would Jay write something like that?

He stared at it a moment, his heart pounding. The police would see this and think it was ironclad evidence that he’d premeditated her murder.

What could Jay have meant? And why hadn’t Cathy mentioned it?

He set his elbows on the desk and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. She probably hadn’t had time to check her email today, and Juliet and Holly weren’t big email users. Probably none of them had seen the letter yet.

He couldn’t delete it — that would be tampering with evidence. Besides, even if he did, they’d find it on Jay’s hard drive or his server. It was too late. He printed it off, then grabbed the stack of emails. He had to call Cathy and let her know what he’d found.