“I didn’t take any time off,” Katherine said. “I thought I had him hooked. He spent last night at my place.”
Dawn Rule set her coffee down and stared at her niece. “When I first proposed this . . . this . . . idea to you, I didn’t expect you to have sex with him. We set up the DUI charge, you went into his office and sold him on your damsel-in-distress act, and everything was going fine. All you were supposed to do was get to know him, see if you could get him talking about his mother, maybe make an admission to you that he was involved in the murders in West Virginia or the disappearance of Ben Clancy. I didn’t expect you to jump in the sack with him.”
“You’re judging me. I’m a big girl, Aunt Dawn. I can jump in the sack with whomever I please. And besides, he’s excellent between the sheets. A little tentative at first, but—”
“Spare me the details, please.”
“I actually like Darren,” Katherine said. “The things he’s been through? Unbelievable. Most people would have put a bullet in their head or gone completely insane by now. Did you know he and his girlfriend have broken up? You might want to go at her again. Something obviously changed.”
“No, I didn’t know that, but it makes me feel a little better knowing you weren’t sleeping with him while he was engaged to someone else. A jury would love you for that.”
“Stop,” Katherine said. “You told me on the front end this would be dirty. It’s the kind of thing I want to do. I want to catch bad guys doing bad things and make them pay for it.”
“I thought you just said you liked the guy.”
“I do. I really do, and I feel sorry for him. But if he killed two men in West Virginia and maybe another here, then he has to pay for that. I mean, that’s what a lot of people in this family have been all about. Dad was an FBI agent until he had the aneurysm. Mom’s still a prosecutor, Uncle Jim is a TBI agent, you’re a detective. I’m about to go to law school, and I’m going to be either an FBI agent or a prosecutor, maybe both before it’s over. I can’t let personal feelings get in the way of doing the job, right?”
“It isn’t a good idea to have sex with people you’re investigating, Katherine.”
“First of all, I like having sex. Men practically throw themselves at me, and I’ve learned to take advantage of it. If that makes me a bad person, so be it, but I don’t feel badly about myself. Secondly, I’m not really investigating him, am I? I’m not a cop. I’m not on your payroll. I’m not even a paid informant. I’m just a girl who got charged—falsely, I might add—with driving under the influence of an Ambien pill so I could get close to Darren Street and use the tools I have to get an admission out of him. Now you’re criticizing me for doing exactly what you thought I might do. And when you get right down to it, you’ve probably broken more laws than Darren Street setting up the phony charge. You didn’t kill anybody, but we’re splitting hairs, aren’t we? You’re being hypocritical.”
“Sometimes we have to bend the rules a little. The sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.”
“Oh, I’m learning, all right. So . . . are you going to do anything about what I told you earlier? I told you something must be going on. I know where he’s staying.”
Dawn shook her head. “I told you earlier. It’s the holidays. I’m not working.”
“Can’t you get a warrant or a subpoena and search his room?”
“On what basis? That he told you he doesn’t want to see you for a little while?”
“Make something up.”
Dawn threw her hands in the air. “He’s a lawyer, for goodness’ sake! And a good one, from what everyone says. If I make up a reason to search his hotel room, he’ll find out. He’ll find out, and he’ll sue the hell out of the city and the police department and me.”
“You just said you have to bend the rules sometimes.”
“Bend them, not snap them in half.”
“I’ll do it myself, then,” Katherine said.
“Do what?”
“Search his room, provided he isn’t there. If he is there, I’ll charm my way in and take a look around.”
“What will you be looking for?”
“I don’t know. Anything unusual. Not many places to hide things in a motel room.”
“If he isn’t there,” Dawn said, “how do you propose to get inside?”
“Don’t you remember what one of my dad’s favorite hobbies was? He could pick any lock out there, and he taught his daughter well.”
“You’re crazy,” Dawn said. “If you get caught, I’ll deny all of what we’ve done. I’ll get everyone in line. You’ll be out there on your own.”
“I won’t get caught,” Katherine said. “I’m going to bag you a murderer.”
CHAPTER 52
By the time I got to the Flying J in the cab, I was fighting myself. The night with Katherine had a great deal to do with it, I was sure, but I also just couldn’t find it in myself to drive all the way to West Virginia and execute a man who hadn’t done a thing to me. In fact, he’d allowed me to mete out a violent form of justice to Donnie Frazier and Tommy Beane in his bar, and he’d walked into the bathroom while I shot them. He’d taken his time about calling the cops, and for all I knew, he couldn’t really identify me. I’d been wearing the beard, the glasses, and the hat. We’d spoken for a little while about my mother, so perhaps he could recall my voice, but I knew from my experience in courtrooms that eyewitness identifications were often unreliable, and that voice identifications were even less reliable. After I got out of the cab, I paced around for a while. The December wind was cold, and the sky was foreboding. I immediately saw the car Pappy had left for me—a Dodge—but I didn’t want to get into the car and start driving. Instead, I took out my prepaid cell and dialed Pappy’s number.
“People are going to say we’re in love if you keep calling so often,” Pappy said.
“I’m not going to do it,” I said.
“You’re not going to do what?” he said. There was a chill in his voice I’d never heard.
“I’m not going to West Virginia. I’m not going to kill the bar owner. It’s stupid. They can’t convict me on what they have. They can’t even arrest me, or they would have done it by now. If I go up there and kill the guy, all I do is piss them off and take a chance on leaving some forensic evidence somewhere. He didn’t do anything to me, and I’m not going to kill him.”
“Where are you?” Pappy said.
“I’m at the Flying J, but I’m about to go back to the motel.”
“No. No, you aren’t. Get your ass in the car, drive up there, and do what needs doing.”
“I’m a damned lawyer!” I yelled. “If they were going to arrest me, they would have done it. I know what I’m talking about. They don’t have a case.”
“Don’t grow a fucking conscience on me, Darren,” Pappy said.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with growing a conscience. It has to do with whether they can make a case on me, and they can’t. Just let it be. Go on about your business. This will blow over. It’ll go away.”