A Grand Murder Read online

  Belinda shoved past Louise but was halted by Mel who had the ultimate game face on—her eyes were narrow, her lips inched up showing her snowy teeth, and her head tilted down, as if preparing for impact.

  “Get out of my way.”

  Mel didn’t budge.

  “This isn’t funny.”

  “We’re not kidding, Mrs. Stanley.” Louise pulled her handcuffs from her pocket, locked Belinda’s wrists behind her back, and began to Miranda her.

  “You have no right to arrest me. My lawyer is going to be all over your asses for false arrest.”

  We’d heard that threat before. One of our arrests had actually tried to sue us for false arrest once. The charges were dropped since the evidence we had on him was overwhelming.

  “Is that true?” Tracy twisted her hands in front of her. “Can you arrest her?”

  “Sure they can,” Mel said. “They have enough to bring her in for questioning.”

  “I won’t tell you anything, you bitches. I want my fucking lawyer, right now!”

  “That’s your right ma’am,” I said. “But you’ll have to come with us to the station first. How do we get out of here?”

  Mel pointed down the stairs. “These go right to the underground parking garage.”

  Louise took Belinda by her right elbow and I grabbed her by the left. Together we led her down the steps to Louise’s car.

  We could finally tell the chief that we had someone to question. The only problem was if the chief was a friend of Stanley’s, then he knew Belinda too.

  In any other case, the chief would be pleased to have forward progress. This time I wasn’t too sure the chief was going to like who we’d pegged as our prime suspect.

  Chapter Eleven

  Belinda Stanley screamed, bitched and yelled nonstop all the way back to the office. Between her bitching and Louise’s insane driving, my nerves were shot. The four miles from Stanley and Forster to the station had to be the longest drive of my life.

  I tuned Belinda out and focused on the scenery around me. The seven hills of St. Paul were beautiful and run down at the same time.

  The State Capital building and the cathedral were my favorite parts of the city. Stunning architecture, full of old world—charm, punctuated almost every building we passed—a wonderful contrast to our “twin” city across the river.

  Minneapolis’s skyline was full of tall, steel and glass office towers. Modern, shiny, and cold. St. Paul respected its history and its varied architectural history stood intact.

  For a long time the city was nearly empty. Minneapolis had all the advantages for businesses, so St. Paul’s downtown was dying.

  Recent attempts at urban renewal were chipping away at the rundown warehouses and empty storefronts. In their place were luxury condominiums and indoor heated parking facilities. St. Paul would soon be a beautiful phoenix.

  Louise careened into the ramp and jerked to a stop. I sent a quick thank you to whatever angel watched over Louise while she drove.

  We hustled the white witch through the station and into a small interrogation room where she could call the lawyer she’d been screaming for, for the past ten minutes.

  I made a beeline to the break room to suck down a large cup of coffee. As backward as it might sound, a large dose of caffeine would settle my irritated and frazzled nerves.

  “What do you have on the Stanley and Forster murders, O’Brien?”

  The chief strolled in behind me. He loaded up a cup with four small packets of sugar and two heaping tablespoons of powdered cream, then poured coffee over the mixture.

  I took a long pull on my coffee and burned my tongue, but I needed the rush before I could deliver the blow.

  “We brought in Stanley’s ex—wife for questioning.”

  The chief sputtered into his cup. “Belinda? Why the hell did you pick her up?”

  I sensed a delicate situation, not my forte by any stretch, but there didn’t seem to be any way to get around this conversation. Louise was nowhere to be seen and I was pinned in the chief’s icy glare.

  One more slug of coffee. I’d have to do this my way, delicacy be damned.

  “She admitted that she wanted Stanley dead. She has no alibi for the night of his murder.”

  I held my hand up in front of my face and ticked the list off on my fingers.

  “Plus we found her in a secret stairway that leads to Stanley’s office, where we found Forster dead this morning.”

  The chief looked like someone had just pulled out one of his nose hairs. “Is that all?”

  “That’s enough evidence to hold her for questioning,” I said. “It might not pan out but so far she’s our best suspect.”

  A resigned look passed over his face. “I’ve known Belinda for years. Sure they had problems, that’s why they divorced but I just can’t believe she would kill Nathan. But I guess that’s what everyone says when they find out a friend is a murderer.”

  I nodded sympathetically. He was right. Every time we arrested someone for murder, inevitably their friends would turn up on the evening news proclaiming that we’d made a horrible mistake. They would claim that so and so was a great person who went to church every Sunday and sat in the front row.

  Not all killers were Freddy Krueger or some other equally psychotic—looking character. The most frightening killers, to me, were the average run—of—the—mill, stand—up Joes who you’d never suspect. The most disturbing killer was the one who could smile in your face and cut your throat when your back was toward them.

  “I appreciate your candor, O’Brien.” He heaved a heavy sigh and put his hand on my shoulder. “Let me know what happens in the interview.”

  “You bet,” I said. “I’ll fill you in as soon as we’re finished.”

  His chin rested on his chest as he walked away. My heart ached for him. My heart always aches for the family and friends of victims and killers; especially the mothers, who always feel responsible in one way or another. Their lives, no matter how hard they tried, would never be the same.

  Louise slammed and locked the door of the interrogation room. She stalked over to her desk and collapsed in her chair like a rag doll. She took a bottle from an emergency stash of Smart Water she kept in her bottom drawer. She took a long swig like a caricature of a movie cowboy drinking whisky.

  “Man, Louise, you’re hitting the hard stuff early.” I sat across from her and rested my chin in the palm of my hand. “Is Belinda that bad?”

  She gulped another swallow of water, then leaned back. She stared at the ceiling, and counted to ten as she let out a controlled breath. I hadn’t seen Louise this irritated in a long time. It made me wonder what Belinda had said behind the closed door of the interrogation room. She didn’t seem clever enough to come up with anything too scathing.

  “The white witch is dummying up on the advice of her lawyer, Barnett Calloway.”

  The mention of his name sent prickles of revulsion rampaging through my body. Barnett Calloway is one of the slickest defense lawyers in town.

  We’ve had dealings with Barnett before—all of them bad. He could contort any situation, so that by the time he was done making his case to a jury, they would not only find the criminal’s he represented innocent (despite being found with a smoking gun in their hand and spewing a confession) the jury would also try to award his clients punitive damages.

  Our last case with good old Barnett had been particularly awful—a kidnapped and murdered child. One of those cases I hope I never get used to investigating.

  We nailed his client with more damning evidence than we’d had on any other case and Barnett got him walked on a technicality. I’ll never forget the look on the parents’ faces when I walked out of the courtroom. Hurt and confused by what happened. I’m not sure I believe there can ever be closure when you lose a child, but there can be justice—something these parents were denied.

  Barnett, in my opinion, was more evil than his clients.

  She recapped her water and
slammed the bottle down on the desk. “I can’t help but think we haven’t got enough on Belinda to charge her. As soon as Barnett gets here, he’s going to raise holy hell until we let her go with a full apology from the department.”

  “How long until Barnett gets here?”

  “His firm is in downtown Minneapolis. So I’d say a half an hour, max, if we’re lucky and traffic is really slow.”

  A half an hour was enough time to try to scare her into telling us something. She didn’t know what information we had on her.

  We didn’t need to ask her any questions directly. We might be able to rattle Belinda enough, by talking around her, to provoke her into letting something slip.

  I made an exaggerated check on my watch and grinned at her.

  “Louise, I think it’s chicken plucking time. So, what are we waiting for? Times a wasting!”

  A knowing grin split Louise’s face.

  “Then let’s get in there and pull some feathers.”

  Belinda Stanley’s angry, tear—stained, face was punctuated with a pronounced pout.

  I sat in the chair next to her and Louise settled into the seat across the table. Since Belinda had already seen Louise’s interviewing technique, it was my turn to take the lead.

  I adjusted my suit coat and made a show of adjusting the cuffs so they were perfectly even. A pointless act, but one that distracted Belinda Stanley—enough, I hoped, to disarm her.

  “Can we get you anything, Mrs. Stanley? Some coffee or water?”

  I laced my fingers together and rested my hands on the table.

  She tossed her blonde head back and forth.

  “No, and I’m not going to tell you anything.”

  Her defenses were still up.

  She wagged her finger at me. “My lawyer said I don’t have to answer any questions, so you can forget trying to get on my good side.”

  “From what I’ve seen, Mrs. Stanley, you don’t have a good side.”

  Shock flicked across her face, then her lips tightened and flattened into two thin, red wrinkles across her face. Her eyes narrowed into two slits and her hands curled into fists.

  “Fuck you, you bitch.”

  I turned to Louise. “See what I mean?”

  “Yep.” She nodded. “She’s perpetually hostile.”

  I ignored the angry gasp of the white witch sitting next to me.

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you. She could have easily had enough power in her anger to stab Forster multiple times. He was an old man, after all. And sneaking up behind Stanley and slipping a dagger into the back of his neck.”

  I splayed my hands and shrugged.

  “Come on. Slam dunk.”

  Louise nodded. “She seems sneaky enough to stab someone in the back.”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath next to me. Louise knew how to cut deep when she wanted to and she could read people like no one I’d ever met.

  “Sneaky? I am not sneaky.”

  “We’re not talking to you ma’am.” Louise held up a manicured nail and halted Belinda’s tirade.

  “No alibi, plenty of motive, and found at the second crime scene with no good reason to be there.”

  Louise nodded along with each piece of evidence I presented.

  “I think we can get a conviction on that evidence,” I said. “She even admitted that she had a reason to want Stanley dead in front of both of us.”

  “We could find a few bits of evidence to fill in the gaps. I didn’t think we could do it, but you’ve convinced me.”

  Louise splayed her hands. “No question about it. We can close this one. She’s going to jail.”

  “You’re going to frame me?”

  Belinda looked between the two of us as if trying to decide if we were serious, and then she laughed.

  “Wait until I tell my lawyer,” she said. “He’ll rip you to shreds. When he’s done you’ll be thrown off the police force. At the very least, you’re going to look like idiots.”

  “No, I don’t think we will,” I said. “But I do think you’ll look like a murderer. Even if Barnett does manage to somehow get a jury to dismiss your case, I don’t think your country club friends will be scrambling to invite you to their next soirée.”

  I paused again and rubbed a smudge of dirt from the heel of my boot. She’d held together better than I thought she would, but she had shifted in her seat too many times and twice I’d heard her voice waiver. All we had to do now was remain quiet. Belinda needed time to hear her own thoughts.

  In my mind, I started to sing the alphabet song. If she didn’t crack by the time I got to, “now I know my A—B—Cs” I’d have to try another tack. I don’t know what Louise did during her mental countdown but she stayed quiet with her eyes firmly on Belinda’s face.

  When I hit L—M—N—O—P, she showed the first signs of pressure. Belinda ran her fingers through her hair, ripping apart the flawless style.

  “I have a fucking alibi. I have a good reason for being at the office today,” she said. “You can’t touch me.”

  “You don’t have an alibi. If you did you would have told us what it was,” Louise said. “No one would have let us get this far if they were innocent.”

  “I can’t tell you where I was.”

  She stood and paced the short wall of the room. “Why can’t either of you understand?”

  Louise and I made eye contact for the first time since we’d entered the interrogation room. She was on the edge. Now we had to decide if we were going to push her over, or talk her back.

  Tears bubbled in her eyes and spilled down her face. These were not tears of anger, but of confusion and fear.

  “I just can’t tell you where I was.”

  “Why?” I stood to be on her level. “I don’t understand, Belinda. Why can’t you tell us where you were?”

  “Because.” She pushed her spider web of hair out of her face and snuffled. “There’s someone. I promised.”

  “Someone?” I stepped closer. “You’re protecting someone?”

  She nodded.

  “Whoever it is Belinda, they must not care about you as much as you care about them.”

  Louise’s tone had softened. We would talk Belinda away from the edge, earn her trust, and finally learn what was really going on.

  I glanced at my watch. We didn’t have much time left. Barnett Calloway would soon be here, and if he got to her before we earned her trust, we would never get this chance again.

  “What?” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  She sat on the edge of the seat next to me. Her shoulders curled forward as if she were trying to shrink into the table. Part of me felt sorry for what we had done to her. Of course the other part of me thought if she had just cooperated we wouldn’t have had to go through all this bullshit.

  “Think about it,” I said. “By now everyone at Stanley and Forster has probably heard about your arrest. If whoever you’re protecting gave a rat’s rectum about you, they’d be here to provide you with an alibi to keep you from being thrown in jail.”

  She pulled herself up straight, but her attempt to look confident failed. The quiver in her chin gave away her true feelings.

  “You’re trying to trip me up, but it won’t work,” she said. “I know he cares about me no matter how you try to twist things around.”

  “He?” Louise typed a quick note on her phone, then locked it so Belinda couldn’t see what she’d written.

  “What? What are you writing?” She pointed at Louise’s phone. “Show me what you wrote. I didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Settle down.” Louise used her soothing tone. “I just made a note about your friend—a male friend. That narrows it down.”

  Yeah, to about half the building, I thought.

  Maybe it would work. Belinda showed small cracks in the sleek marble armor she wore to protect herself. Perhaps all she needed was a small tap from our hammer to drive in a wedge, and create chasms that would make her crumble.

  “
So you’re protecting a man who doesn’t care enough to keep you from being arrested?”

  I put my hand on her arm to make personal contact. She tensed under my touch and I removed my hand.

  She stood and paced again, like a caged animal, confused and alone. We had put doubt into her head about someone she trusted enough to protect, someone she obviously thought would protect her, too.

  “Why does he need you to hide who he is?” I said. “Do you have reason to believe this man has some involvement in your ex—husband’s death?”

  “No!”

  Small pieces fell.

  “Then why does he need your protection? If he doesn’t have a reason to hide, why wouldn’t he come and tell us that you were with him? Even if he is married, you’d think he wouldn’t want you to go to prison.”

  She fell back against the wall and slid down onto the floor.

  For someone so concerned about cleanliness, she must be completely dejected. Even I wouldn’t sit on these floors.

  “Why isn’t he here?” Her tiny voice shook.

  “Who?” Louise knelt next to her. “Why isn’t who here? Just tell us his name, Belinda.”

  Tear—filled, puffy blue eyes turned up to Louise’s face.

  “Philip. Why wouldn’t he be here to defend me? If he really loved me, he would be here.”

  Louise glanced over her shoulder, no doubt to make sure I was jotting down the man’s name.

  I was on it.

  “Philip who?” Louise took Belinda by the elbow, helped her to her feet and into one of the plastic chairs.

  She pointed at the plastic water pitcher on the table behind me. I poured a Dixie cup full of water and handed it to her. Belinda took the little cup in a thin, shaking hand and took a sip of water.

  “Mrs. Stanley,” I said. “Philip who?”

  “Philip Carter.”

  The name pinged a memory in the back of my consciousness but not a clear one. I jotted the full name in my notebook.

  “I’ve been having an affair with him for six or seven months,” she said. All the bravado and gusto had gone from her voice.