Defensive Wounds (27 page)

When his lips trailed down her neck, she asked herself what the hell she thought she was doing. She barely knew the man, and he was a cop. They were generally trustworthy in every area
except
this one.

“Come belowdecks with me,” he murmured.

“No!” The idea rattled her system so that she stepped back, one foot stumbling over the bait bucket, and Neil had to grab her quickly to keep her from falling into the lake. Fortunately, he seemed to take this discombobulation as a compliment.

“Okay, okay. I only planned to make coffee, since it's getting chilly up here. I didn't mean it as an assumption of your virtue or ease of same.”

Words poured out with a giggle. “I'm sorry, but I really have to go … My daughter … I like … I like your boat—”

He gave her nose one very light tap. “Okay. That will do for a start, anyway.”

And so she grinned wickedly as they climbed back onto the dock, strolled past the stadium, and most of the way up West Third Street. She grinned even harder when he would slide an arm around her shoulders for ten or twelve paces. Amazing how one could walk the planet for forty-odd years and still feel like a schoolgirl. The breeze carried the scent of freedom, and the city glittered like Oz.

At her car he trapped her in the acute angle of the open door. “Thank you for a very interesting, if too brief, evening, Ms. MacLean. I believe we'll have to do this again, leaving out the ‘brief' part.”

“Absolutely. As soon as we find out who's killing lawyers and get my daughter away from her new friend.”

He frowned at that. “Can't guarantee I'm willing to wait.”

She protested when he bent to kiss her, gesturing up at the many lit windows of the Justice Center. “Someone might see us. Bad enough for me, but you have to work here.”

“And your cousin will kick my ass, I know. I don't care.” He kissed her anyway, letting his mouth explore hers until she leaned on the car roof for support, and breaking away proved difficult and prolonged. “I don't hide who I am, Theresa.”

Then he went and stood on the curb until she started up the car and pulled away. When she turned the corner onto Ontario, she caught sight of him in the rearview mirror and for several minutes could form no coherent thoughts at all.

Theresa patted the dog and scratched the cat before dumping her purse on the counter. Rachael's work shoes were by the door, and no messages blinked from the digital recorder.

No sound from upstairs. Rachael had probably gone next door to hit up her grandmother for some dinner, always a more reliable source than her I-hate-to-cook mother. So Theresa changed clothes, washed her face, and walked up the grassy knoll to the house in which she'd grown up.

Her mother stood at the stove over a pan of yellow-colored liquid with the consistency of gravy. “What is that?” Theresa asked.

“It's an experiment.” Sixty-seven years on the planet had not begun to dull Agnes's appetite for learning. Theresa, on the other hand, sometimes felt she had absorbed all the information possible and her brain had locked its doors and turned off the porch light. But perhaps it had more to do with the nature of the information.

“I'm trying a mint-infused custard puff,” her mother said. “How was your day? Rachael said you found another dead lawyer. You have some sort of serial killer?”

The experimental nature of the dish didn't put Theresa off. A true foodie, Agnes often devised new dishes for the diner where she worked, and even her failures were edible, while her successes were something to celebrate.

“Apparently. Either these two were involved in something that ticked off the wrong person or someone really doesn't like lawyers. I keep trying to think of a serial killer who targeted people of a certain profession, and I can't think of any. Except for prostitutes and real-estate agents, professions that make it easy to get the victims alone and isolated. That's a choice of convenience. But I don't know of any cases where someone targeted lawyers or doctors or used-car salesmen.”

Agnes stirred, the glossy, buff-colored stuff churning and changing with each pass of the wooden spoon. “It happens on TV every other week.”

“Of course it does. But in real life, not so much.” Theresa's finger crept toward the shining, perfect surface of the custard.

“Hot,” her mother warned. “Maybe the guy is killing hotel guests and they both just happened to be lawyers.”

“That's one theory. Hotels are tailor-made for crime—nothing but strangers coming and going, multiple exits, good soundproofing. If the killer had started up next week—or checked in to the hotel next week—the odds might be equally good that he would kill two video-game designers, or aluminum salesmen, or members of a visiting football team.”

“But you don't think so.”

“Too many people really
wanted
to kill Marie Corrigan. It would be ironic for her to be murdered by some random psychopath with no personal grudge. And this feels personal.”

Agnes took the pan off the burner and, in one of those masterpieces of timing that Theresa had never been able to pull off, removed a tray of lightly browned, puffed-up pastries from the oven. “Do you have any suspects?”

“I've got a favorite.” Theresa snatched up one of the puffs.

“Hot,” her mother warned again. Theresa passed it from hand to hand as she described Sonia's—and now her own—suspicion of Dennis Britton. “That's all it is, though, suspicion. Nothing approaching proof. But then he's defended enough murderers to be good about proof. Maybe good enough to get away with killing his wife.”

“His wife's dead?”

Theresa had been unable to resist a look after stumbling onto Elizabeth (Ellie) Britton's file. It hadn't taken long.

The healthy brunette had been thirty-two years old, five-five, and 130 pounds. She had been driving a three-year-old Honda Accord that went over the embankment behind a business on Canal Road, near I-480 in Garfield Heights. Why she would have arrived well after closing time (passing a security camera over the side door) or why she somehow missed the end of the parking lot behind their building remained unknown. She apparently drove off the asphalt, through some trees, and down a short but steep hill to the Cuyahoga River. A rotting tree stump stopped the car from submerging, leaving it stranded on the bank.

Ellie had died only a month and a half after Jenna Simone. Again, this explained why Theresa had no recollection of the case—she'd still been in a funk over her fiancé's death. Plus, it had been reported as a car accident, and Theresa hadn't been as familiar with attorney Dennis Britton then as she now had the misfortune to be. She didn't mention any of this to her mother, only summarized the autopsy report: The victim had received a blow straight across the forehead, consistent with having hit the steering wheel upon impact. Decomposition had advanced slightly faster than usual as the corpse lay in an open car in mid-July, next to the river's humid environment. Even without the stump, it would have been unlikely for the car to wash away in the shallow river, but the hood of the car had entered the water and a pool had formed at the victim's feet. Police found the victim in the driver's seat, wearing a seat belt. After the impact her head came to lodge between the headrest and the open window. Either the blow to the head or the loss of blood had caused a lack of brain functioning until the involuntary muscles failed and her heart stopped. Keys were in the ignition, her purse and wallet found intact. The toxicology results showed no traces of alcohol, sedatives, or any illegal drug use.

As in Jenna Simone's file, a few of the scene photographs had been printed. Dr. Phil Banachek had done the autopsy; perhaps the aging pathologist preferred to work from the photos rather than make his way down a sloping forest hillside with his aching knees.

They showed what Theresa had already imagined: a damaged Honda, its nose stuck in the flowing Cuyahoga; a bloated, maggot-infested corpse, with wisps of brown hair escaping through the open window and hanging down the side of the driver's door alongside narrow streaks of blood; a smear of blood on the steering wheel and one on the passenger door; the view from the passenger side—the body slumped, another streak of blood visible against the light gray interior of the driver's door … not much blood for someone who bled out, even partially, but there could be more behind the body itself or poured down into the window well; an oversize Gucci purse on the edge of the passenger seat with a briefcase on the floor, its papers scattered; more blood on the passenger door, its window rolled down as well; and the view from the parking lot, deep ruts in moist ground at the edge of the lot, the Honda visible in the distance. The car had traveled in a straight line. There were no concrete barriers to stop it or even alert the driver that the asphalt ended, which seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen. But the victim's aggressive lawyer husband had not filed one.

Scary to think that a life could be lost so easily, by simply driving four feet too far in a dark parking lot.

Between bites of the pastry, Theresa told her mother that a vehicle-inspection sheet reported the Honda to be in working condition, with all relevant parts functioning as expected. This meant that the seat belt and the brake and gas pedals were working properly. The headlights, however, had not been turned on at the time of impact.

There were no police reports in the file—not any reason for there to be, unless the pathologist requested them and tossed them into the file when done. But a second newspaper clipping told her more. The parking lot and the building belonged to Rule and Sons, a manufacturing plant and home of the main witness against Ellie's client in a case of high-dollar employee theft. The owner and two managers had been dodging her calls, and she may have gone there to see them before resorting to subpoena, a common technique for her. The parking lot had no fence and not much lighting. They had never felt the need, the owner said, as they functioned solely during business hours. The security camera had only been installed because of the aforementioned theft case.

Her husband, Dennis Britton, had last seen Ellie that morning before they left for work. They lived only a mile away, off Brecksville Road on the other side of the river. She did not come home after work so far as he could tell. He had arrived at about 7:00
P.M.
, unsurprised to find the house empty—they both worked long days, even on Fridays. But when she hadn't returned by bedtime and calls to her cell phone went unanswered, he became concerned. He did not call the police at first, knowing that they wouldn't be too interested in an able-bodied adult who'd stayed out late, but called his wife's friends and co-workers. The co-workers reported that she had left the law office—a small group specializing in drunk-driving cases, not where her husband worked—at around 6:00
P.M.
on Friday. No one had heard from Ellie since. As soon as he could, he filed a missing-persons report with the Garfield Heights police department. Dennis Britton made a point of saying that the police officers had been polite and helpful—Theresa found this sudden admiration of the boys in blue suspicious, to say the least, but the rest of his behavior had been pitch-perfect.

The article even snuck in the small fact that the police had dusted the trunk of the car for palm prints, to see if someone had pushed it into the ravine. Nothing.

A couple of kids playing on the other side of the river had seen the car on Saturday morning but didn't mention it to their parents until after the news broke. An employee arriving for work at Rule and Sons bright and early on Monday morning, who made a habit of parking in the shade at the back of the lot, noticed the tire tracks leading into the brush. This, along with the security camera, which showed the Honda Accord passing the entrance at 8:40
P.M.
, fixed the time of death at Friday night.

Ellie Britton, while alive, had been a pretty woman with straight dark hair and a prominent nose. The article did not include a photo of the grieving husband.

“Sounds like she took a wrong turn in the dark,” Theresa's mother said as she filled the puffs with custard. “She'd hardly be the first person in history to do that. Why does your friend think her husband killed her?”

“That's what I'm trying to figure out. There are a few things I don't like, such as why wouldn't she have hit the brakes when she felt the terrain dip? And if she
had
hit the brakes, wouldn't the seat belt lock up to prevent her from slamming into the steering wheel? I guess she could have slipped out of the shoulder strap. But why douse her lights in a dark parking lot? How could the final impact be harsh enough to crack her skull but not hard enough to throw her purse forward onto the floor? How did a smear of blood get on the other side of the vehicle, onto the passenger-side door?”

“Good Lord,” her mother said. “The details you notice.”

“Not really. There are always the unexplainables. Items fly around, peculiar coincidences occur, homeowners actually forgot to lock a door they insist they
always
lock. Maybe the blow didn't kill Ellie Britton outright but was enough to cause a slowing of the motor functions, maybe a touch of positional asphyxia. The blood on the passenger door could have squirted there; usually the initial blow doesn't bleed a lot, but head wounds bleed especially well. I've seen way more bizarre examples of blood flight characteristics. Maybe she had a habit of turning off her lights before parking to minimize the chances of forgetting about them entirely and returning to a car with a dead battery. I've done that.”