A Conflict of Interest (9 page)

M
ONDAY MORNING,
Jake called Tom Drake’s office and gave the staff hell for dragging their feet about getting him Griff Butler’s case files.

On Monday afternoon, Tom finally brought the files to Jake’s office. Personally.

He set the stack on Jake’s desk. “It’s a closed case, sir.” He dropped his hand on the top folder and the whole shebang threatened to topple.

“I’m sorry, Tom.” But not that sorry. “I didn’t realize there was so much, or I’d have sent a courier.”

“We’re not your personal clerks anyway, Jake.”

“I get that, but I’ve been concerned about what happened at the trial.”

“If Butler sang out his confession on the courthouse steps, we couldn’t do anything now,” Tom said. “I prefer to depend on the jury. The system works pretty well.”

“You now think he’s innocent?”

“I think I can’t do anything if he’s not.”

“And his aunt and uncle? Their children?”

“Nothing I can do. Griff hired the more creative lawyer.” Tom went to the door. “And face it, Jake. You’d be the last guy to support preemptive arrests.”

“But I wouldn’t mind a little creative help from your
office.” He sat at his desk. “Yeah, I know. Sorry about ranting now, and on the phone this morning.”

“Don’t worry. Kay loves having her ass chewed before coffee.”

Jake pulled the chair forward. “If you’d answer your own phone or return a message, Kay would still be in possession of her ass.” Maybe his own perspective was shot. “I’ll call back and apologize.”

“Thanks.”

“How can this case be closed if the boy didn’t do it?”

“That’s what the jury said. At the department, we’re still happy with our solution. I can’t waste time on a murder that will never be solved now. Because I solved it, then your little friend had her buddy write a diary.”

“My little friend?”

Tom straightened the flag that flanked the left side of Jake’s door. “If you’re going to string Christmas lights as a charity act, get some help. If you’re hot for the shrink, try to be a little more careful until all this blows over. People in town are angry with her.”

“They wouldn’t be if they knew she wasn’t guilty. But you’ve said you don’t care if her story or Griff’s is true.”

“We determined the truth. You feel free to meddle with a closed case and try to cast aspersions on our detectives, though.”

“Cut the crap, Tom.”

The sheriff straightened. “Sir?”

“I don’t want to make anyone look bad, but someone has called in the state’s Psychology Review Board—was that you?” An impulse he couldn’t control made him want to know for sure who’d turned Maria’s life upside down.

“I was stunned to hear Buck brag about doing it. I thought you would have.”

Jake stared at the other man for a moment before he shoved his chair back and went to the window. Below, the citizens of Honesty milled about their business. Leila wasn’t the only one who thought him unfeeling. He’d never cared before. He’d done his job and done it right. He’d seen himself as a fair man who did the right thing.

“Jake, you think trying to prove we screwed up will help that woman?”

Jake gave that question the contempt it deserved. “Did Maria Keaton hurt this boy?”

The change of subject didn’t make Tom any happier. “God alone knows. The diary makes you think, and nothing anyone does surprises me anymore.”

“What did the diary make you think?”

Tom shrugged for an answer. “I believe he confessed to her. Doesn’t mean she didn’t sleep with him, but I think she was telling the truth when she testified that he told her he killed his parents.”

“And you believe he killed them?”

“He had their blood on his clothing. Mud from his shoes was on his mother’s sleeve. We found his father’s hair on the leg of Griff’s jeans.”

Jake repeated Buck’s argument. “They died in their home. If he found them, all of that evidence makes sense.”

“Or he didn’t bother to clean himself up before he called nine-one-one.”

For once Jake didn’t want to be any devil’s advocate. “Thanks for the files, Tom. I am sorry about upsetting your assistant.”

“She’ll forgive you. By the way, since the case is closed, Griff was able to recover his stuff from evidence, including the journal.” Tom waited at the door. “And I don’t like to get in a man’s personal business, but if this is about that doctor, you don’t need to go public. Don’t make my department look bad so you can feel good about her.”

Would he do that? Destroy confidence in the police department to clear his conscience about being with a woman? “If you hear anything more about this case, you’ll let me know?” He couldn’t tell Tom whether his interest was in justice or in clearing Maria.

A
FTER EACH MORNING’S
paper route, Maria returned to her house, gazing warily at the newly draped decorations. She was so poor she wouldn’t be offering anyone a commercial Christmas this year. Inside, she turned her back on her unpaid bills and took a nap. It was the only time she slept well, because she was too tired to think.

Days slipped by, bringing Christmas closer. Maria usually loved the celebration of family and hope, but this year she was afraid. She felt cut asunder, and she missed her mother. She longed to hear her sister’s uninhibited laughter, but she was used to being the strong one, the reliable Keaton. She couldn’t face them until she felt good about herself again.

In unguarded moments, she imagined turning to Jake, but she’d sent him firmly away, so she had only her fear of losing everything to keep her company.

As an antidote to her dark mood, she left her debit and credit cards with her checkbook in the desk drawer
at home and joined the crowd siphoning into the Sugarplum and Snowflake forest in the heart of Old Honesty, where Santa held court. As soon as she arrived, though, she realized she’d made a mistake. Having already spent every penny she could afford on gifts this year, she walked around like a shooting victim, testing the pain in her wound.

She couldn’t find comfort. Each colorful light seemed to mock her. Laughter burrowed under her skin as people looked away from her. She might never belong again.

Her frustration grew. Bad enough to be unemployable, but now she felt as guilty as if she had done something wrong. It was a relief when she got so fed up with averted faces and her lack of Christmas spirit that she found some healthy resentment. She didn’t have to quit or give in or act guilty. She refused to hide or stop looking for work.

So she applied for a position as Santa’s elf. She approached Old Honesty’s business manager first, but he referred her to Santa, who ran his own show. She took her application to jolly old Saint Nick in a corner of his peppermint-studded house, but Santa shook his pink cheeks at her.

“Are you kidding?” He pulled down his beard. “I’m Marvin Henry. I live about three houses from Griff Butler’s old place. That kid has problems, but I seriously doubt he killed his parents. And even if he did, Buck has me wondering whether your actions didn’t make Griff do it.”

“I went two years without prompting anyone to murder, but suddenly I got the urge to flex my megalomaniacal muscles?”

“Miss, I don’t need an elf who’s looking for her next victim. These kids come up here to tell me their dreams.”

Her mouth literally dropped open. But not for long. “I would never hurt a child. My whole life has been based on helping people, and yet I’d go after the most vulnerable? Never. Buck threw a disgusting stereotype at the jury. These days people have to believe that authority figures hurt others in their care. Like a sick Santa in a small-town shop. But a wise neighbor extends the kindness of looking for proof from an otherwise blameless woman. Something not even St. Nick can do in this town.”

Marvin actually blinked at her. “I guess that’s your side of the story.”

“The truth.”

He reached into his pockets. “Maybe I’d want someone to question whether I was guilty in similar circumstances.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“I still can’t hire you.” He actually looked troubled as he pulled a stick of peppermint from his red, fur-lined pocket. “May I offer you a candy cane?”

“I can’t afford a dentist. Better lay off the sugar.”

He nodded with a shaky smile, and she went away pulling at her collar as if she were catching her breath after a brawl.

She’d been turned down by almost everyone in Honesty who had a delivery schedule, a cash register, trash to haul, laundry to wash, papers to type or phones to answer. But no one until Santa had reduced her to reckless anger.

Her own four walls, soon to belong to the bank, had
begun to drive her a little insane with their intimations of failure. She fled to the library with the newspaper and reworked her résumé on her laptop. She’d already canceled her Internet service at home, but using the library’s public terminals she looked up an updated local business listing that gave her leads she hadn’t been able to find in the phone book.

She’d keep passing out résumés until they showed up on light poles like missing puppy posters.

Halfway down the long aisle to “her” carrel, she found Jake, leaning over a back issue of the paper. He straightened when he saw her, and his eyes went all watchful and self-protective. She couldn’t tell if he was remembering the way they’d kissed each other, or if he feared she might attack him in the way of all pervedout psychologists. But maybe that last was unfair.

She hadn’t heard a word from him since Thanksgiving.

If she ever got her license cleared, she’d remember how she felt at this moment before she blithely told a client that healing only came when he learned to let go of a grudge.

“How are you?” Jake asked.

“Good. Not busy enough.” Quite an understatement, but she hoped to sound jaunty. She put one hand to the shoulder strap of her laptop case. “And you?”

He crossed his arms over the paper so that his elbows and upper body covered most of the print. Maybe she was desperate for someone to analyze, but Jake looked as if he was trying to hide something.

“Research,” he said.

She tried hard not to look, but in the end she saw
half of Griff’s solemn face staring back at her above Jake’s sleeve.

“Holy—What are you doing?” She set her laptop on the headlines, glancing furtively at the patrons around them. “I asked you to leave it alone.”

“I want to know about the case. I wasn’t allowed to research the news reports before.”

“But now you can, to better judge if I’m a liar?” she asked.

One of the librarians rose from her chair at the information desk. Maria’s face grew as hot as a frying pan. “Your snooping will only make it worse. I couldn’t convince the jury, and no one else wants to believe me now. Even if I could prove Griff did what he said he did, he’s free because of double jeopardy.”

“I’m not doing this for Griff. Obviously, I’m thinking of you.”

Her knees went weak—but not with ever-loving passion. “This thing between us is crazy,” she said. “I don’t want to give people anything else to hold against me.”

A frown creased his forehead. How had Leila ever misunderstood her father? His feelings were right out there for anyone to see.

“So you’ve already heard talk about us?” she asked.

“What is it with you? I sit on a bench all day—for years—and no one ever knows what I’m thinking. Now you can read my mind.”

She gave him her best “come on” look.

He sat up, obviously deciding there was no point in hiding the paper now. “Yeah, I’ve heard some stuff.”

“So why won’t you listen to me? You don’t know best.
Everyone will think I only abandoned my sick interest in Griff to chase a man who could get me my job back.”

His mouth went thin. “You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“Nice,” she said. “You’ll never learn to believe me.” But maybe she could look at it another way. Maybe he didn’t think she could be interested in him for anything except ulterior motives. Something had to be behind his inability to trust anyone’s emotions.

“I’m trying to believe everything you’ve said. But these stories are full of Griff’s innocence. Put everything he said together with the journal, and I have to wonder at least what was in his head.”

“The journal?” Her stomach slapped at her feet. “You have that?”

“What if I do?”

Lying wasn’t his best skill. “Don’t test me, Jake. I see what you’re trying to make me say.”

“So say it.”

That husky tone in his voice usually tempted her. But, this time, anger trumped desire.

“I have said it, over and over, and you choose not to believe.”

“I don’t have the journal.”

“You really were testing me.”

As she was on her way anywhere but near him, he rose and caught her arm. “I’m out of my depth. I don’t know what to think, and I can’t manage to hide anything from you.”

“You’re not supposed to hide things from people who—”

The librarian started their way this time. Thank God. She’d saved Maria from claiming she mattered to Jake.

He eased her into the chair across from his and waved off the poor woman trying to keep the peace.

“The journal was part of Griff’s personal effects, but if you think about it, a careful read might have given us something to refute his claims.”

“Don’t you see that reading it would have meant Griff was partially right? I’d have been almost the worst kind of therapist.”

“But not interested in seducing a client,” Jake said as if reminding her.

“Never that,” she said, uncertain whether to laugh with relief or simply pretend she didn’t consider his acceptance a gift.

Jake sighed. “I have the case files and the public record and I’m playing detective. Maybe I can find something all the other investigators missed.”

What more powerful way was there to admit she mattered to him? In turn, she didn’t want him to compromise his own reputation. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

“I’m doing it for me, because I’ve hurt you and I wish I hadn’t.”

“You didn’t make that call, Jake, and wishing you had only hurts my feelings.”

“Maybe that’s what bothers me most.”

Across the table, the attraction she couldn’t control swirled between them. She wished the room would empty. “It doesn’t change anything. I was your daughter’s therapist. I pretty much single-handedly set a killer free, and I’m a scourge in your neighborhood.”