No way out

Chapter Nineteen

Roni clapped her hands. “Dude, that was sweet!”

I sat in a chair across the table from hers. “You have no idea how much trouble you could be in, do you?”

Her mouth and eyes stretched wide. “Me? I told you, I didn’t do anything!”

“Listen to me. I’m not your lawyer. I know a fair amount about criminal law because I put a lot of crooks away, but I’m not an expert on criminal procedure or the rules of evidence and I’m lousy at reading juries. So I can’t help you shape your testimony so that you slide by on some narrow ledge between innocent and guilty. Nothing you tell me is privileged. I get called before a grand jury or summoned to testify in court, I’ll have to tell them everything you tell me.”

Her cheeks lost their pink. “What are you doing? Are you trying to scare me?”

“Just shut up and listen. Don’t talk until I’m finished. Here are the known facts. Yesterday you shot Frank Crenshaw, and then you came to the hospital to see him and were told you couldn’t. You came back tonight, after visiting hours, and raised a ruckus when you were told the same thing you were told the day before. Then you made enough noise that the cop guarding Crenshaw came running, giving the killer a clean shot at him. Quincy Carter is no dummy. It isn’t hard for him to connect the dots and tie you and the shooter together like a tag team setting up the hit on Crenshaw. Then your boyfriend shows up, saying he thought it’d be fun to hang out at the hospital.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Maybe not on your dance card, but that’s how Carter sees him.”

“I can’t help that. Sometimes, he drives me crazy.”

“And now Carter is going to turn him inside out to see if he might have finished what you started at LC’s. Case like this, the first one to make a deal serves the shortest sentence. Carter won’t care which one of you flips, so long as one of you does. So you telling Carter and me that you had nothing to do with anything won’t cut it.”

She went from pale to red hot in a flash, coming out of her chair, planting her fists on the conference table.

“I shot Frank Crenshaw to save my life and yours, and I haven’t kept a meal down or slept since. I don’t know who killed him, but it wasn’t Brett. He was hanging out with my mom and grandma tonight until he came over here. So, fuck you if you don’t believe me!”

“He’s not your boyfriend, but he hangs out with your mother and grandmother?”

“Sometimes he is my boyfriend. Just not when we fight.”

“Then what was he doing hanging out with you and your family?”

“My grandmother likes to have people for Sunday-night dinner. She invited him.”

I liked that she was mad. I liked that she didn’t curl up into a ball and cry, and I liked that she didn’t tell me to call a lawyer. I didn’t like that her family was Brett Staley’s alibi because families are the first to lie to protect loved ones, and, if Staley was spending his evening with her mother and grandmother, odds were he’d get the family treatment.

“What time did he leave your house?”

She straightened, throwing one hand at the walls before wrapping her arms around her chest.

“I don’t know. We had dinner and sat around talking and watching TV. I said I was going to see Frank, and he tried to talk me out of it because they wouldn’t let me see him yesterday. We got into it, nothing serious, just yelling like we do all the time, and he says if I go, he isn’t going with me, like I even invited him. So I left him there.”

“You want me to call a lawyer?”

She dropped her arms to her side, her initial outburst spent. “How can I need a lawyer when I’m innocent?”

“The system doesn’t always get it right.”

“But if I get a lawyer, it will look like I’ve got something to hide, and I don’t. Besides, I can’t afford a lawyer. It costs a lot of money to take care of my mom. She didn’t have health insurance when she had her stroke. She’s in a wheelchair, and her speech is pretty garbled.”

“I’ll find someone who will work with you on the fee.”

She came back to her seat, folding her arms on the table. “Why are you doing this for me?”

I smiled. “Like you said, you saved my life.”

She reached across the table, taking my hand in hers. “Well, at least I did one thing right.”

I patted her hand, letting go and easing back in my chair. “What about the lawyer?”

She chewed her lip, focusing on the table, then swiveled in her chair, looking out the windows to the west. The torch at the top of the Liberty Memorial was lit, a ring of fire glowing in the dark. She wheeled around, facing me, hands in her lap, her face cool and calm.

“I’m not guilty of anything, and I’m not going to act like I am. Tell Detective Carter I’ll answer his questions.”

I nodded. “You know it’s not always enough to be innocent. Sometimes it’s smarter to be innocent and have a lawyer to make sure you stay that way.”

“I’ve got you. That makes me smart enough.”

“Okay, then. Let’s run through it a few times. Make sure I know what you know.”

She was a solid witness, recalling details as we went through it until she had it nailed down, serious until I gave her a taste of a bad-cop interrogation, leaning on her. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling, gave up, and dissolved into laughter.

“Hey, I’m not practicing my stand-up routine, here.”

She wiped tears from her eyes and sat up straight. “Sorry, I couldn’t help it. I promise to be really scared when Detective Carter asks me how I’m going to like being a girlfriend on a chain gang.”

“All I said was that you could go away for a long time, maybe the rest of your life.”

She started laughing again. “I know. I know. I can’t help it. What can I say? You kind of scared me at first, but now you don’t. Is that a bad thing?”

My head tilted back, my chin elevating past the perpendicular, my neck telescoping and leaving me hanging until the spasm evaporated and I found Roni’s eyes again. They were narrow and sober, her lips pursed as if she had been twisting beside me. I took a deep breath, restoring order for both of us.

“Only if you don’t listen to me. That could really get you in trouble.”

She nodded. I opened the door and told our sentry that we were ready to talk to Detective Carter. A few minutes later, Officer Fremont appeared at the door. I looked past him at Joy, who was standing alone at the entrance to the administrative suite.

“We’re ready,” I said.

“Detective Carter said to tell Ms. Chase that she can go home. He’ll give her a call tomorrow and set something up.”

Roni and I exchanged glances. Her quick smile vanished when she realized the same thing I did.

“What about Brett Staley?” I asked.

“Detective Carter says Ms. Chase shouldn’t wait up for him.”

“What? No way!” she said. “He didn’t do anything wrong, and I’m not leaving without him.”

“I’m sorry, miss. He’s already gone.”

“Gone! Where? With who? Is he under arrest?”

“You’ll have to talk with Detective Carter about that, miss.”

I grabbed Roni’s arm when she bolted for the door, clamping her to my side.

“Tell Carter I want to talk to him.”

“Next time I see him.”

“What do you mean next time you see him?”

“Detective Carter packed it in for the night. Said if you wanted to talk to him to call and leave a message. He’ll get back to you soon as he can.”

Officer Fremont walked us to the lobby and watched as we stood outside the hospital entrance. Roni called Brett’s cell phone and left a message when he didn’t answer, doubling up by sending him a text. She hugged me, and I made her take a blood oath not to talk to Carter alone.

She nodded, squinting, her brow furrowed, half-listening and looking over my shoulder as if Brett would emerge from the shadows. We were parsing the same puzzle, neither of us certain what had just happened or why, the worry lines around her eyes and mouth telling me the one thing that was certain: Despite her protests, she would let Brett buy her funeral dress, though not for a long, long time. I watched until she got into her Toyota Highlander and drove away.

Joy didn’t add much to what we knew. Soon after Carter and I left to talk with Roni, Fremont told her to leave. The last time she saw Brett Staley he was still sitting on the bench next to the fourth-floor elevators. She waited for us in the lobby until she saw Fremont and followed him into the administrative suite.

My movement disorder does more than put me through impromptu and involuntary gymnastic routines. It stresses the rest of my brain, sometimes gumming up the gears and making it impossible to concentrate, other times giving me jelly legs. When that happens, I’m no good to anybody. I closed my eyes on the drive home, my questions bogged down in neural quicksand. Joy held my arm as I stumbled into the house, staggering up the stairs and into bed.

“You’ll figure it out tomorrow,” she said, turning off the light.

“Too late. Whatever’s happened has happened.”

“It’s never too late, Jack Davis. Not for any of us.”