Broken Places (8 page)

Chapter Twenty-three

Sheriff Willingham swung Tom’s office door open. “Hern’s here, in the conference room.” He closed the door behind him. “And his New York lawyer’s with him, some pretty young woman. I’m sure she’s a lot tougher than she looks.”

Tom stood. “She got him here. She must want him to look like he’s cooperating.”

“Let’s talk about this a minute before you go in there,” Willingham said. “I know this fellow’s an old friend of Dr. Goddard’s. If that makes you inclined to go easy on him—”

“It doesn’t. He’s a murder suspect. I’ll treat him like one.”

Willingham nodded. “I’ll hold you to that. You got any kind of strategy for getting information out of him while his lawyer’s sitting right there? He’s going to take his cue from her before he answers every question.”

“From what I can tell,” Tom said, “Hern’s pride is a weak spot. He might blow up and let something slip if he thinks I’m ridiculing him, not treating him with respect.”

“All right then, try to goad him into losing his temper. Do whatever you have to do. We need some answers, Tom, and we need them soon.”

The lawyer who rose when Tom entered the room was indeed young and pretty, a Chinese-American woman with a slender figure and black hair that fell straight and shining to her shoulders. She was no neophyte, though. She met Tom’s gaze with the kind of resolve and calm self-confidence he was used to seeing in seasoned lawyers with a long string of victories behind them.

She held out a hand but didn’t smile. “Captain Bridger? I’m Jessie Wang. I represent Mr. Hern, and I’m licensed to practice in Virginia as well as New York and several other states.”

“Good to meet you.” Tom appreciated her firm handshake. Everything about her was understated, professional, from the lightly applied makeup to the trim gray silk suit and black pumps. He wondered if this was the same lawyer who’d handled the payoff to the outraged father in New York.

Tom shifted his gaze to Hern, who slumped in a chair with his arms folded across his chest. “Thanks for coming in.”

“My pleasure,” Hern said, with heavy sarcasm. He wore a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up over his muscular forearms. “Have you found my mother yet? Do you even care what’s happened to her?”

“We’re still looking for her.”

His attorney placed a hand on Hern’s shoulder, a brief touch but enough to make him straighten in his chair and wipe the scowl off his face.

Taking her seat beside Hern, Jessie Wang told Tom, “My client had nothing to do with the deaths of Cameron and Meredith Taylor. He’s prepared to cooperate fully in your investigation and do anything he can to help you find their killer.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Tom sat across from them and switched on the tape recorder that sat on the table. He recited the date and time and named the people present. Clasping his hands on the tabletop, he looked across at Hern. “Where were you last night a little after midnight?”

Frowning, Hern shot a puzzled look at his lawyer before he replied. “Last night? Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I was in bed asleep. Why are you asking me about last night?”

“Were you alone?”

This time the lawyer answered. “Yes, Captain, he was alone in his bedroom. I was in the house and awake at that time. I would have heard if he’d left the property.”

Tom let it go for now. “Tell me what happened Friday morning, from the time Cameron Taylor showed up at your house until you saw him for the last time.”

Hern stared at the whirring tape recorder while he spoke, never looking at Tom. The story he told about Taylor’s visit to his house matched Rachel’s, Holly’s, and Angie’s reports in every detail. No openings there for a challenge. When he reached the part about escorting Taylor off the property, Hern halted.

“Go on,” Tom said. “What happened on the road?”

Hern glanced at his lawyer. She nodded as if he’d asked her a question.

“I was following him,” Hern said, “to make sure he didn’t turn around and come back. A couple miles from the house, he stopped his car in the middle of the road and got out.”

“Did you stop too?”

“Yes.”

“Did you get out?”

“Yes.”

Tom waited, but Hern didn’t go on. “Why did Taylor stop?”

Hern shifted in his seat. His hands curled into fists on the table, and the muscles in his arms stood out like thick ropes under the skin. “To tell me to go to hell. To start the whole argument up again.”

“Why didn’t you tell me on Friday that the two of you had another encounter after he left your house?” Tom said. “Why did I have to find that out from a witness?”

Hern stayed silent, his jaw working. Tom could hear his teeth grinding.

“The witness,” Tom said, “heard Taylor say he knew a secret that could ruin you if it got out.”

“Taylor liked to throw accusations around.”

“Oh? I thought he might have been talking about that problem you had in New York.”

Hern’s eyes met Tom’s. He opened his mouth to speak, but Wang touched his arm and he stayed silent.

“Mr. Hern does not have a criminal record, Captain,” the lawyer said. “In New York or anywhere else.”

Tom addressed his answer to Hern. “If it was on the record, Cam Taylor couldn’t have blackmailed you with it. What I heard was that you paid off the girl’s father so he wouldn’t have you charged with raping his daughter.”

Hern jumped to his feet so fast that his chair rocked and fell over behind him, landing on the floor with a clunk. “I’m not sitting still for this crap.”

Tom slammed an open hand on the table. “
Sit down.
Remember where you are and who you’re talking to.”

“Ben,” the lawyer said, catching his arm. She spoke quietly, and Tom noted that she seemed neither surprised nor alarmed by her client’s behavior. “Sit down, please. Tell Captain Bridger what actually happened.”

Hern, his face flushed, glared at Tom while Tom looked back calmly. The silence stretched out for half a minute. Then Hern reached for the chair, yanked it upright, and sat again. “You don’t have the whole story.”

“I’d like to hear your side of it.”

“I never raped anybody. I was painting her.”

Tom tried for a slightly incredulous tone when he asked, “You were painting her nude, right? Even though she was a minor?”

“I didn’t know she was a minor, and it didn’t start out as a nude portrait. One day she just…It was her idea, not mine. The whole thing was her idea. She approached me.”

“How did she approach you?”

“She lived with her parents in the same building I lived in. Her father’s an executive on Wall Street. The girl started bumping into me in the lobby and the elevator, too often for it to be accidental. She wanted me to paint her. I know a lot of college students, male and female, who make extra money by modeling for art classes, but in this case she wanted to commission a portrait. She couldn’t have paid my fee, but she had an interesting face, so I agreed to paint her for a cut rate.”

“You thought she was a college student?”

“Yes,” Hern said. “She told me she was nineteen, and she looked it. She said she was a sophomore at Columbia.” Hern shook his head. “If you saw this girl—I believed she was nineteen.”

“How long did the two of you get together for these modeling sessions?”

Hern threw a pleading look at his lawyer, but she nodded. He gave a heavy sigh and said, “A little less than three weeks.”

“Then her father found out.”

Hern didn’t answer. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

“He came after you, and you broke his nose.”

“I was defending myself,” Hern said. “He invaded my home and attacked me.”

“How much did it cost you to make it all go away?”

“Captain Bridger,” Jessie Wang said before Hern could answer, “there’s something you need to know. Mr. Hern is being treated—”

“No!” Hern broke in. “Don’t tell him a damned thing.”

“Ben,” she said, her voice low and even, “I understand why you don’t want to disclose something so personal, but I think it’s vital that you give the police this information.”

“Oh, for god’s sake.” Hern twisted in his chair, ran a hand over his face. “It’s my business, nobody else’s.”

Tom waited. What were they talking about? Hern seemed torn, more embarrassed than angry. Obviously the incident with the girl wasn’t the only secret Hern was determined to keep hidden.

“I strongly recommend that you tell him,” the lawyer said.

“Tell me what?” Tom asked.

Hern’s tongue swiped his lips. After a minute of silence, the words gushed out of him. “I’m bipolar and I was off my medication when that happened. The medication fucks up my painting and I hate the way it makes me feel. So I stopped taking it, and I went into a bad manic state—I was working around the clock, I wasn’t sleeping, I couldn’t slow down. I was literally not in control of myself. That’s the condition I was in when all that stuff with the girl happened.”

Tom sat back, digesting this in the silence that followed Hern’s outburst. He didn’t know a lot about bipolar disorder, but he knew it could vary from moderate mood swings to outright psychotic states. Was that what Hern wanted to hide—a serious mental illness? Or did he want to cover up a criminal act committed while he was out of control? Tom sat forward again. “Her father didn’t believe it was innocent.”

“She told her friends we were sleeping together. She was just trying to impress them, but kids talk, they text and e-mail and post rumors on Facebook, and pretty soon their parents hear about it. So one day I opened my door and her father shoved his way in and socked me in the face. He jumped on me, he was yelling he was going to kill me, and I defended myself.” Hern paused, threw Tom a challenging glare. “You’d do the same damned thing if somebody attacked you. Any man would.”

“You paid him to forget the whole episode, right?”

Jessie Wang answered before Hern could. “The fact that the man was willing to forget it in exchange for money, and sign an agreement not to disclose the incident publicly, should tell you there was nothing to it.”

“Come on, Ms. Wang, I think we both know human nature a little better than that.”

“In any case, my client went back on his medication after that incident, and he’s been taking it faithfully since then. He also goes to New York once a month to see his doctor.”

“But he still can’t control his temper,” Tom said, “if his behavior toward Cam Taylor the other day is any indication.”

“I believe I’m allowed to feel normal anger,” Hern said. “Taylor was making a damned nuisance of himself. I had a right to be ticked off.”

“Was he threatening to make the incident with the girl and her father public?”

Hern nodded, looking miserable, ashamed. He didn’t meet Tom’s eyes. “Look, I do children’s books. My strip’s in newspapers all over the country. I’m on the board of the most respected humane organization in the country. If any of that got out—” He broke off, shaking his head. “The rumors are damaging enough. I don’t want it in print.”

“How did Taylor hear about it?”

“He told me his wife had relatives in New York City, cousins, an aunt she was close to. That girl’s family moves in the same circles as Meredith Taylor’s family, and there was some gossip going around—quietly, because nobody wanted to offend the girl’s father. I didn’t think it would follow me to a place like Mason County. But Cam Taylor said his wife visited her aunt when the woman was sick, and the aunt knew about the connection between my mother and the Taylors, so she filled Mrs. Taylor in on what she’d heard about me. By the time I moved to Mason County, Taylor already knew the story. He must have thought he hit the jackpot when I showed up here.”

“Small world,” Tom said. “So you had to silence Cam to protect your career.”

“No! That’s not what I’m saying. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill his wife. I thought—” Hern pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger as if he had a headache. “I was hoping Taylor would give up after a while. My mother wanted to intervene, make him drop it, but I told her not to get involved, he’d drop it when he found out I wouldn’t give in to his threats. The funny thing is that I ended up deciding she was right. After Taylor and I had that argument, I decided to go ahead and give him the money. But then it was too late.”

“How could your mother stop him?” Tom asked. “If Cam was mad at you for refusing to give him money, why would he listen to your mother?”

Hern rubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. “My mother’s spent her entire professional career negotiating with idiots, and she’s pretty good at getting them to see things her way. I guess she thought she could persuade him.”

“A witness saw a dark-colored Jaguar at the Taylor house Friday morning. Your mother must have decided to try her powers of persuasion after all.”

The information jolted Hern into sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide. “No. No, she didn’t go over there. It couldn’t have been her car.”

“Was it yours?”

“No! I’ve never been to the Taylors’ house, that day or any other.”

“Ben,” the lawyer said, laying a hand on his arm.