JD wasn’t sure if Hyatt kept them standing to keep them in their place or if he held to the belief that standing meetings were short meetings. The bald man achieved both.
‘Close the door, Detective,’ Hyatt said formally. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’
JD wanted to roll his eyes. He was exactly on time, to the second. He’d hurried not to impress Hyatt, but because he’d wanted to get back to Lucy.
She’d smiled at him back in Drew’s office, a quick, unfettered smile that had lit up her face and stopped his heart. Something about her had changed in the hour between the garage and the CSU lab. He didn’t know what had happened and wasn’t sure he cared. At that moment it had been all he could do not to reach for her, but they’d been at work and he’d been covered in dumpster filth.
He closed Hyatt’s door and instantly felt the chill. Something was up. Stevie and Drew were there, along with Elizabeth Morton and Phil Skinner, the other detectives assigned to the case.
To his surprise, Lucy sat in Hyatt’s extra chair, turned around to face the group. At her side was ADA Daphne Montgomery, who JD hadn’t yet met in person, but had spoken to on the phone. Daphne was forty-ish, with big blond hair and a hot pink suit with a short skirt that showed off a magnificent pair of legs. Rumor had it that she’d been a Vegas showgirl back in the day, and Daphne hadn’t done anything to quell the mill. JD liked her a lot. Daphne was an optimist in a land of career pessimists.
But at the moment Daphne wore a frown, her hand on Lucy’s shoulder almost protectively, sending the hackles on the back of JD’s neck straight up. Hyatt sat behind his desk like a drill sergeant, revealing nothing. Her expression shuttered, Lucy met JD’s eyes, seeking answers he didn’t have.
‘What’s going on?’ JD asked Hyatt quietly. ‘I thought you wanted to ask Dr Trask a few questions about Dr Bennett.’
‘I do,’ Hyatt said. ‘Just not the ones you think.’
JD opened his mouth to protest, but Stevie cut off him with a sharp warning glance and a shake of her head. JD folded his arms across his chest, not liking this a bit.
Hyatt noted the silent exchange, then stood. Now only Lucy sat and she was looking increasingly pissed. JD could relate. Hyatt was known for grandstanding, and there was little doubt that that was where this was headed.
‘Lieutenant Hyatt,’ Lucy said, her voice level but tight. ‘I was under the impression that I’d been cleared of suspicion in Russell Bennett’s murder.’
‘Your alibi checked out. But given that my detectives have requested your presence at the notification of a victim’s family, I thought I should know more about you.’ He lifted an arrogant brow. ‘It seems you’ve been keeping secrets, Dr Trask.’
JD thought he saw her eyes flicker, but it was over so quickly he couldn’t be sure.
‘I have not, Lieutenant,’ she said coolly. ‘I was candid with your detectives. I told them that I’d dated the victim for a short time and that I’d broken his nose.’
Hyatt nodded. ‘Five years ago, true. I’m talking about further back than that. Try August, fourteen years ago.’
Her eyes didn’t flicker this time. They flashed in shocked fury before she quickly reined herself in. ‘I have nothing to hide, Lieutenant.’
‘I should think not,’ Hyatt said dryly. ‘It took Detectives Morton and Skinner less than an hour to dig it up. Ms Montgomery found the court records faster than that.’
Daphne Montgomery’s jaw tightened while Morton briefly closed her eyes and Skinner shook his head, a slight movement that made JD realize that whatever this was about, they hadn’t meant for it to go down this way.
Lucy lifted her empty hands before folding them in her lap, the gesture one of contempt. ‘Then you know it all. Anything I’d provide would be . . . simply extraneous.’
Hyatt sat on the edge of his desk close to Lucy, deliberately crowding her space. ‘Humor me,’ he said. ‘What happened, in your own words?’
She met Hyatt’s gaze head-on. Her voice was calm, but her hands clenched tightly in her lap. ‘I was arrested, charged, tried before a jury of my peers, and acquitted. The charges were then dropped, my record expunged.’
JD looked to Stevie and saw she was as stunned as he was, but Hyatt appeared unsurprised, his mouth curving in a half-smile of appreciation. ‘Succinctly delivered, Doctor,’ he said. ‘But I’d like a little more meat with my bones.’
‘I owe you no explanations,’ Lucy said coldly. ‘May I leave?’
‘You could, but I don’t think you’ll want to,’ Hyatt said. ‘It was an accident, right?’
She nodded, tight-lipped. ‘Lieutenant, I—’
‘Your fiancé was killed,’ Hyatt interrupted, ‘was he not?’
She’d been engaged. Of course she’d had relationships, so had he. He’d been married, for God’s sake. Still, it left JD unsettled to think of her so attached. Her fiancé’s death still caused her pain. It was plain on her face before she closed her eyes, recovering her composure.
‘He was.’ Then she opened her eyes and they were empty. ‘This has no bearing on anything related to this case or to any of you. I’ve had a very long day. I’m leaving now.’ She rose, but Daphne pressed her back into the chair.
‘Lucy, the lieutenant’s approach is vile.’ Daphne looked straight at Hyatt as she said the words, making JD want to cheer. ‘But you need to stay, sugar. And Peter, you need to get to the goddamn point.’
Hyatt’s glare was annoyed. ‘Thank you, Miss Montgomery.’ He blew out a frustrated breath. ‘Tell me what happened, Dr Trask. If you truly have nothing to hide.’
Once again Lucy’s eyes flashed as she battled for control. ‘Fine. But I will not sit here like I’m in the defendant’s chair. Been there, done that.’ She stood, straightened her skirt, and walked to the window before turning to face them. ‘I was with my fiancé. I’d had a glass of wine, he’d had way more. I tried to get his keys, he pushed me out of the car. A minute later I heard a crash, ran to the scene. He’d been thrown from his convertible and was already dead, but he’d hit another car.’
‘In which two people were hurt,’ Daphne supplied softly.
Lucy’s nod was stiff. ‘Yes. A mother and her child. The mother was critically injured, the child bruised, but strapped in a car seat and therefore alive. I went for help, but through a misunderstanding was accused of being the driver. I was charged with vehicular homicide of my fiancé. The evidence supported my assertion that I was not in the car at the time. I was cleared.’ She drew a breath. ‘That is all.’
Hyatt’s smile was wry. ‘I don’t think so, but we’ll leave it at that for now. For the record, I had no intention of making you feel like you’d been seated in the defendant’s chair. As you noted, you’ve had a long day. I was trying to be nice.’
Lucy’s expression showed her skepticism as to Hyatt’s intent. JD agreed with her.
‘So to get to the point, Peter,’ Daphne said, articulating each word. ‘The file.’
Lucy looked around the room. ‘What file?’
‘What file?’ JD and Stevie said at the same time.
‘The file we found in Bennett’s condo when we did our search,’ Elizabeth Morton replied. ‘It was on his desk. It’s a file about you, Dr Trask.’
Hyatt reached backward to pull a thick folder from his desk. ‘Copies,’ he said and handed the file to JD.
JD put the file on Hyatt’s desk and began sorting. Lucy stood at his side, looking over each page as he did. ‘Oh my God,’ she murmured. ‘What is this?’
‘Looks like everything you ever did,’ JD said, turning the pages. ‘College transcripts, articles on your arrest and trial, your move here to Baltimore. Everything.’
She leaned over his arm, riffling through the pages. ‘No, not everything. The articles about the trial are here, but the one on the verdict isn’t.’ She turned to look at Elizabeth Morton. ‘Did you remove it?’
‘No,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We saw the article on the trial and called Daphne over to see it.’
‘I was there in case they found any patient records,’ Daphne said when Lucy frowned at her, puzzled. ‘We have to protect doctor-patient confidentiality. We all made a few calls and dug up the story in a short time. We pretty quickly determined you’d been fully cleared of any wrongdoing in the accident.’
‘Then why this?’ she asked, anger making her voice tremble. ‘Why sandbag me?’
Hyatt sat behind his desk. ‘I wanted to be sure you truly had nothing to hide. If you’d minimized your role or denied it happened, then I wouldn’t have approved your participation in this case. But if anything, you made yourself look worse.’
‘Worse than what?’ Stevie asked.
‘Worse than she needed to,’ Daphne answered cryptically.
‘So I’m to participate?’ Lucy asked sardonically. ‘To what do I owe this honor?’
‘I asked him if you could be our native guide,’ Stevie said. ‘Bennett had ongoing ties to his hometown – your hometown. We wanted your help.’
‘But if he’d had cause to blackmail you, I couldn’t approve it,’ Hyatt said. ‘You were upfront about it. No danger of blackmail.’
Lucy’s pale cheeks darkened in anger. ‘Good to know. And if I refuse?’
Hyatt shrugged. ‘Somebody left a human heart in your car today. I’d think you’d want that man caught.’
‘Like it or not,’ JD murmured, ‘you’re a key to this. This killer picked you. And for what it’s worth, Stevie and I didn’t know about this.’
She jerked a nod. ‘I believe you. Thank you.’
Relieved, he turned to Morton and Skinner. ‘Was this the only file? Or did he have others on his other women?’
Lucy winced. ‘How many other women?’
‘At least forty in five years,’ Stevie said and Lucy winced again.
‘What’s the hometown tie?’ she asked.
‘At least three of you are from Anderson Ferry,’ JD said. ‘We’re checking the rest of the names on the list.’
‘Three of us? Gwyn, me, and who else?’
‘Brandi Bennett,’ he said and her eyes widened.
‘Brandi Bennett is from Anderson Ferry? No way.’
‘You didn’t know her there?’ Hyatt asked.
‘No, but she was much younger than Gwyn and me. What was her last name?’
Stevie checked her notes. ‘Stackhouse.’
‘I knew of the family. They had a lot of kids. I didn’t really know any of them.’
‘Did he have files on the other women?’ JD asked again.
‘Not that we found,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Only Dr Trask. Why would he have a file on her?’
‘Hate’s the easy answer,’ JD said. ‘Because she broke his nose. But I’d ask why now? The articles were stamped by the Anderson Ferry newspaper just three weeks ago. Was anything else found in the condo?’
‘Nothing to indicate a struggle,’ Elizabeth said. ‘We got his credit card and bank records. Guy paid a hell of a lot of alimony to the first wife.’
‘What about the crime scene, Drew?’ Hyatt asked.
‘We took casts of the tire tracks we found in the grass,’ Drew said. ‘The tracks were made by a wheelchair, like I thought. But we never found the chair.’
‘He didn’t ditch it after setting up the body,’ Stevie said, ‘but pushing an empty wheelchair around the park seems like a risk. If anyone saw him, they’d remember that.’
‘He could have ridden away in it,’ Drew said. ‘But then there are no tracks leading from the scene. He had to stay on that path all the way back to the parking lot or he stashed the chair in one of those apartments.’
‘No surveillance cameras in the parking lot?’ Hyatt asked.
‘None that work,’ Drew replied. ‘Your apartment security sucks, Dr Trask.’
She nodded, but said nothing.
‘What about the body, Dr Trask?’ Hyatt asked.
‘So far, only the injuries I’ve already reported.’ Her tone was cool, clearly unmoved by Hyatt’s explanation of his actions. She was still very pissed. ‘We’re waiting for DNA confirmation that this is indeed Russ Bennett.’
‘His current wife, Brandi, corroborated the scar and the broken bone,’ Stevie said.
‘It’s him,’ Hyatt said. ‘Mulhauser called me. He spoke with Bennett’s orthopedist who confirmed that Bennett had broken his arm in exactly the same way and same place. We’ll do the DNA to dot the i, but we can be confident that Bennett is dead.’
‘His body was flash frozen,’ JD said. ‘We need to get a list of area food-processing plants with freezers. His killer had to have had access to a big one.’
‘Skinner and I will follow up on that,’ Elizabeth Morton said.
‘And my clerk will run checks on the women on Bennett’s delivery list,’ Hyatt said. ‘Any one of them may have had motive. What about the first ex-wife?’
‘She had motive five years ago when he was cheating on her,’ JD said. ‘But why would she kill him now? He was paying her a lot of alimony.’
‘She’s too small a woman to have moved the body,’ Lucy added.
‘But we’re going to see her before we go out to the parents,’ Stevie told Hyatt. ‘To do the notification and check her out.’ She looked over at Daphne. ‘What about Bennett’s medical office? Do we have a warrant to search there too?’
‘Grayson’s working on it,’ Daphne said. ‘That’s more complicated than the condo. We’ll call you when we get a judge to sign. Peter, if you’re through grilling Lucy for shits and giggles, I’ll be on my way,’ she said to Hyatt, who once again looked annoyed.
JD’s respect for Daphne increased tenfold.
‘You all know what you have to do,’ Hyatt said irritably when Daphne had departed in a cloud of gardenia perfume. ‘Everybody go. Except Mazzetti and Fitzpatrick. You stay. And close the door.’
‘Wait for me outside the office,’ JD said to Lucy in a low voice. He watched her go, then closed the door and turned to a placidly staring Hyatt. ‘That was a test, wasn’t it? Not just of Dr Trask, but of us.’
‘And you passed,’ Hyatt said. ‘Barely. You,’ he pointed to Stevie, ‘did okay. You, Fitzpatrick, are a hothead and you lead with your emotions. Get your head in the game, and I don’t mean the one you’ve already engaged. Now get to work. Be back at oh-eight.’
Fuck him
. Lucy marched toward the ladies’ room, hands clenched into fists, too angry for much more articulate thought than
fuck Hyatt
. It was all she could do back there to keep her voice civil, and she’d only done so for Fitzpatrick, who’d seemed as furious with his boss as she’d been. Hyatt had manipulated her past for his own benefit.