Like Father Like Daughter (15 page)

I sat forward in my seat. “But that’s not true. I’ve been on antidepressants since I was a teenager. You know about my father, right? That’s why. It had nothing to do with Ryan.”

“Well, perhaps to save money, we could call your current psychiatrist to the stand to testify on your behalf. You need to keep seeing him regularly. But that still leaves the issue of the forensic expert. Do you think you can come up with a couple extra thousand?”

“I’m sure Mom will loan it to me. Right now I’m living off my 401(k), which I had to cash in. Ryan’s life insurance from work paid out, but it was only fifty thousand and the extra policy we took out when we got married won’t pay out since I’m a suspect in his murder.”

“I’m still hoping they’ll figure out who killed Lindsey, and then hopefully we can pin Ryan’s murder on that person. But until then, we need to get you prepared for trial.”

“I still think Mike Thompson did it…for Lindsey, I mean. Maybe she never paid him for Ryan’s murder, so he killed her too.”

“I’ve been thinking the same thing. I shared my thoughts with Dorne this morning, but for some reason, he’s got blinders on when it comes to Mike Thompson, and to you. He’s convinced you murdered both of them, so it’s going to be up to us to prove you didn’t.”

An idea popped into my head. I had planned on recording Lindsey, getting a confession out of her. Maybe I could do the same with Mike. I didn’t voice my plan to Dave because I knew he’d strongly admonish me not to go anywhere near Mike. But I wasn’t about to sit around and let Detective Dorne and the prosecutor railroad me for a crime, or crimes, I didn’t commit.

I left Dave’s office with a newfound determination to find out who murdered Ryan and Lindsey and clear my name.

Chapter 15

The next day, with my handy-dandy recorder turned on in my purse, I drove to Mike Thompson’s little shithole on Wichita. It was a duplex and Mike lived on the right side, I knew from Ryan. He’d told me about going to visit him on occasion, just to check in on his old high school buddy. Knowing this was the place Ryan had met the whore made it all the more difficult to approach. But I knocked on the glass front door—the doorbell was broken—anyway.

A moment later, the front door opened, and Mike stuck his head out, his eyes nearly closed to the midday sun. He looked like he’d just woken up, even though it was going on noon. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, only cut-off jean shorts, so I could see his scrawny chest, with ribs that reminded me of an old washboard my granny used to have in her basement. He had several faded tattoos on his arms and chest, including one of the Tasmanian Devil on his right pec. His face was covered in piercings—his ears, his nose, and even his cheek—and his sandy blond hair looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in months.

“Can I help you?” So he didn’t recognize me.

“Mike? Mike Thompson?”

“Depends who’s askin’.”

“I’m Libby Carter. Ryan’s wife.”

“Holy shit! Come in, come in.” He opened the door the rest of the way, and I stepped inside cautiously. The first thing that hit me was the smell. It was a combination of McDonald’s French fries, dirty laundry, and cigarette smoke. A trace of marijuana also lingered in the air. I only knew that from my experimental college days; I hadn’t smoked since I was twenty-one.

“Sorry ’bout the mess.”

Mess was one way of putting it. I would have called it an uninhabitable pile of shit. There were clothes strewn about and McDonald’s wrappers—I nailed that one—all over the dirty glass coffee table. Mixed in with the wrappers were syringes, burnt spoons, and pipes. An ashtray was overflowing with brown cigarette butts—the cheap brand—and a glass of curdled milk sat next to it.

“Sit down,” Mike insisted. I was afraid to sit on the stained blue couch covered in rips and tears, and besides, there wasn’t really a place to sit, thanks to all the clothes and garbage scattered all over it. He must have seen my hesitance, because he cleared off a space on the edge of the couch and patted it. “It’s okay. It won’t bite ya. I know it’s dirty in here, but I’m not working currently and, well, you know…”

No, I didn’t know. I wasn’t working, either, and I knew that had absolutely nothing to do with the filth that had apparently accumulated over a lengthy period of time. When Mike had his back turned, I stole a quick glance at my purse to make sure I had the recorder going. Yep. Green light.

Mike sat on the other end of the dirty sofa. “I was so sorry to hear about Ryan, man. Really good dude. He always treated me like family. We grew up together, did you know?”

“Yes,” I answered politely. I sat with my hands in my lap so as not to inadvertently touch any of the disgustingness around me. “Ryan told me. He always spoke highly of you.”

“He did?” Mike looked genuinely touched that anyone would say anything good about him.

“Yes, he did. Mike, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Go ahead, shoot. If I can answer, that is. I hadn’t seen Ryan for weeks when he…well…”

“No, it’s not about that. It’s about…Lindsey Unser.”

Mike’s face changed instantly from one of good humor to one of complete dread. I had caught him unaware. Good.

“I…uh…Libby, I’m sorry…I didn’t know they were going to…you know.”

“So you introduced them?”

“Yeah, but like I said, I didn’t know they were going to—”

“That’s okay, Mike. It’s not your fault.” But truly, I did blame him, at least partially. He knew Ryan was married. Maybe he didn’t know me personally, but he should never have introduced someone like Lindsey to a married man. He should have seen that coming a mile away.

I continued. “Mike, what I want to know is…do you think it’s possible that Lindsey killed Ryan?”

Now he looked terrified. Why would he look like that if he knew nothing about Ryan’s murder?

“I mean, I don’t know her all that well. She, uh, she was friends with my girlfriend Angie. That’s how I met her, anyway. That and she, well…”

“She bought heroin from you? It’s okay, Mike. I’m not going to tell anybody. Ryan loved you like family. I wouldn’t betray you like that.”

“Okay, then, yeah, she scored from me almost every day.”

“And at some point, you realized they were having an affair?”

“Not at first, no. But sometimes he would come with her when she came by to buy dope. I thought they was just friends at first, but then I’d see them…”

“Kissing? It’s okay, Mike. I know about that too. Nothing you can say is going to surprise me at this point.”

“Yeah, it became pretty obvious about a year ago they was hot and heavy. I told him he shouldn’t be doing that to you, but Ryan, he’s always been stubborn like that.”

I’m sure you did
. “So, back to my question. Do you think it’s possible Lindsey killed him?”

“I mean, all I know is that she was pressuring him pretty hard to leave you. I’m sorry, Libby. I hate to tell ya this, but he promised her he would. Lots of times. Said you two were getting separated. But one day, about three weeks or so ago, they had a big fight. Right here in my living room.”

“Go on. I’m okay. Really, I am.”

“All right, so she was yelling at him about leaving you. He kept stalling and saying ‘soon, soon.’ Well, I guess she got tired of hearing the same thing over and over again, so she picked up an ashtray and threw it at him.”

“Oh, my God! She threw an ashtray at him? Did it hurt him?”

“No. Missed by an inch. He was one lucky bastard. That was a damn heavy ashtray.”

“What else did she say?”

Mike knew something more. I could see it in his eyes. Something he didn’t want to say. Maybe because it was me, or maybe he wouldn’t want to say it to anyone. But when I kept staring at him, waiting for an answer, he finally shrugged his scrawny shoulders and said, “She said she’d kill him. If he didn’t leave you, that is.”

Thank God for my mini-recorder. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So she had threatened to kill him less than a week before he died! This was something the police had to know about. It could completely exonerate me if they knew his mistress had threatened to kill him. But that still didn’t rule Mike out as Ryan or Lindsey’s murderer. I had to get him to say something more. Something to prove Lindsey hired him to murder Ryan.

“Mike, why didn’t you tell anybody? You know they think I killed Ryan.”

“I promised her I wouldn’t. Plus, the police, well, we don’t get along real good.”

“What about her?”

“What
about
her?”

“She’s dead now too.”

“I know, I heard.”

I looked for any kind of reaction. Something that would tell me what I needed to know. But his pallid face revealed nothing.

“Mike, do you know who killed Lindsey? Because now they think I killed her too.”

“Wish I could help you, Libby. For Ryan’s sake. But I have no idea who killed either of them.”

So much for a spontaneous confession. So much for any kind of confession. If he killed Ryan or Lindsey, he certainly wasn’t going to admit it to me. I had to think of something fast. I leaned forward with both arms on my knees.

“Listen, Mike, if you know anything, I mean,
anything
about what happened to my husband…I can pay you for information. I have money from his life insurance.

His dim, drug-addled eyes lit up briefly. “Money? You’d pay me for information?”

“Yes, absolutely. It’s important. And you know, if anyone killed Lindsey…they’d have my eternal gratitude.”

“For reals?”

“Yes, for reals.”

He seemed to contemplate this momentarily. I thought I saw something in his eyes. Was it greed? Was it knowledge? It appeared he was giving serious thought to helping me.
That’s it
, I thought.
I’ve got him. He’s going to fess up. If for no other reason than the thought of a payday.

But then, just as quickly, his face changed again into one of stubbornness. “Nope, sorry. Don’t know shit. Wish I could help.”

“All right. Just remember what I said. Anyone who killed Lindsey is a friend of mine. And I take care of my friends. Don’t forget about the money.”

“I gotcha. If I think of anything, I’ll call you. Leave me your number.”

I gave him the number for my prepaid phone. He entered it into
his
prepaid phone.

But just as I was about to leave, another thought occurred to me. Something I just had to know, even if it had no bearing on my case.

“Mike…”

“Yeah?”

“Was Ryan using again?”

“What do you mean?”

He knew exactly what I meant. He was stalling and I could see right through it.

“I mean, you know Ryan used to be addicted to pills. I just find it pretty hard to believe he was hanging out with that heroin addicted slut but not doing any drugs himself.”

“Oh, I see,” he said.

“So…was he using again? It’s okay, you can tell me. Plus, Ryan’s dead now, so there’s no reason to lie for him.”

“I guess you’re right. Okay, yes, Ryan was taking pills again. OxyContin, Methadone, anything he could get his hands on.”

I knew he was telling the truth because those were the same pills he had been addicted to before I met him.

“And he was getting these pills from you?”

Mike looked down at the stained carpet but didn’t answer me.

“Mike, I really need to know. I’m not going to tell anybody or judge you for it. I just need to know for my own sanity.”

“Okay, yes, he was getting them from me. When I had them, anyway. I don’t know who he got them from when I couldn’t get my hands on anything.”

“Did he owe you any money?”

If Mike had any clue where I was going with my line of questioning, he didn’t let it show.

“Well, yeah, a little maybe, but not that much.”

“How much, Mike?”

“Maybe a thousand? I used to front him the pills until he got paid but then he racked up quite a bill with me and so I had to cut him off.”

“You cut him off? How long ago was that?”

“Maybe a month ago?”

“All right, thanks Mike.” I turned and left the decrepit duplex and climbed into my Sorento.

On the drive home, I tried hard to think of what everything meant. So far, I had learned that not only had Lindsey thrown an ashtray at Ryan, but she had threatened to kill him only days before he died. On top of that, I had learned that Ryan was back on pills and that he owed Mike a large sum of money. It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that it had to be either Lindsey or Mike, or both, who killed my husband. Both of them had a motive, and I didn’t. Surely once the police heard my secret recording, they would finally stop looking at me and start looking at the more likely suspects. The one thing I couldn’t figure out was how Ryan was back on pills—for a whole year—without me knowing about it. I felt totally naïve and even a little betrayed, once again, by more of Ryan’s lies.

***

On Friday, I received a call from Dave with the first piece of good news I’d heard since the whole damn thing had started. Forensics had done an analysis on the bruises on Lindsey’s throat. Although they couldn’t get any discernable fingerprints, they had determined the prints were likely those of a male, not a female. I had been, for the time being, cleared in Lindsey’s death.

A man’s hands. It had to be Mike. I was right all along. But how to prove it? My visit with Mike had given me information I hadn’t had before. That Lindsey and Ryan had a knock-down-drag-out over his unwillingness to leave me. That she had thrown an ashtray at him and threatened to kill him. That Ryan was back on pills and owed Mike lots of money. But nothing at all to implicate Mike in either of the deaths. It certainly lent credence to my theory that Lindsey had Ryan killed, but then Mike had clammed up when I asked him about Lindsey’s murder.

And there was no way I could give my recording of Mike’s story to Dave, the police, or anybody without letting on that I had gone to see him. I knew that would really piss Dave off. In Kentucky, I knew, it was legal to record a conversation as long as one of the parties speaking is aware of the recording. This meant my recording of Mike was not illegal wiretapping. Still, I didn’t want anyone to know the foolish and dangerous thing I had done.

On the other hand, if I did turn over the recording, it might help strengthen my defense when Dorne and Gaines heard about Lindsey’s threat. What was the worst that could happen? I get a slap on the wrist by my attorney for sleuthing behind his back? I finally decided it was worth the risk and called Dave.