The Betrayal of Lies (21 page)

“That must have hurt when their grandmother passed her jewels to the daughter who already had everything, like she was her favorite,” Emily said.

“Maybe. Russell’s mother probably would have just pawned it.”

Emily wondered if Russell handled any of Patrick’s finances or investments. She was about to ask when she heard someone call Kaitlyn’s name.

“There you are,” said a middle-aged woman with dark red hair. Emily had seen Kaitlyn talking to her at the graveside service. “Your dad is looking for you.”

From the look of her, she must be a relative of Elise’s—a sister, perhaps.

“Emily, this is my aunt, Janet,” Kaitlyn introduced.

The woman put out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Emily shook it. “You too.”

“Tell him I’ll be right there,” Kaitlyn said.

“Okay,” the woman replied, heading back toward the house, “but you know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

Kaitlyn turned back to Emily. “Thank you for telling me about my mom, especially the part where she was helping you plan your wedding. She absolutely loved that sort of thing.” Again, the tears welled up in her eyes at the mention of her mother.

“Are you planning to stay here for the rest of the summer?”

“No, I’m headed back to Colorado. Without Mom here, this isn’t my home anymore.”

Emily pulled a business card out of her purse and offered it. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call. Even if you just want to talk, call me. I lost my mom, too, a few years ago. Maybe I can help.”

Chapter 22

Emily left the Murphy estate and made her way through town to the police station, wondering if Colin had been able to get anything out of Kara St. James. She had been caught red-handed with Elise’s necklace, which had to have been taken after her abduction and after the video was made, demanding the ransom.

While she drove, Emily thought about what Isabel had told her regarding Patrick’s financials, how he wasn’t worth nearly as much as everyone seemed to believe. Emily wondered if Patrick himself knew that. Was he suffering from mental illness, like Kaitlyn had said? Was he losing his mind?

Isabel had suspected that Patrick was either moving funds offshore or someone was pilfering his wealth. She supposed someone could be taking advantage of him. If Russell Gray was overseeing any of Patrick’s investment accounts, there was a chance that he had his hand in the cookie jar.

Emily phoned Isabel and asked her to check into Mr. Gray’s financials as well and get back to her as soon as possible.

When she arrived at the station, Colin had Kara in the interview room. Emily stepped into the observation room and watched the interrogation.

“So far, you haven’t told me anything of value, Miss St. James. Your best chance right now is for you to come clean,” Colin advised. “You were caught red-handed with a critical piece of evidence. We know the murder victim was wearing the necklace right before she was shot. If you don’t explain to me how you came to be in possession of that necklace, you leave me no choice but to charge you with the murder of Elise Murphy.”

“I didn’t kill her!” Kara screamed, her eyes moist. “I already told you that.”

By this time, Colin must have been questioning her for over half an hour and she appeared to be feeling the strain of it.

“At the very least you are guilty of accessory to murder, meaning you know who shot her and you’re covering for him. Maybe you were even there when it happened.”

“No!” She flopped her head down on her arms, which were crossed on the table. “You’ve got it all wrong.”

“Then tell me what the truth is.”

Her head popped up and she narrowed her eyes at Colin. “You haven’t arrested me yet, so you must not have enough to move forward.”

“I believe I do have enough to charge you, Kara.” Colin pushed his chair back and shot up out of it. “I’m just trying to give you the chance to help yourself. The best thing you can do right now is to tell me everything you know, because when Jake Mitchell wakes up, all bets are off. You know how it works—the one who talks first gets the deal.”

Kara raised her head and stared at Colin in silence for a prolonged moment, obviously thinking through her options. “I want an attorney. I’m not saying another word.”

“If it’s Russell Gray you’re asking for, I’d rethink that if I was you,” Colin suggested.

“Why is that?”

“Mr. Gray is Patrick Murphy’s attorney, after all. You need your own lawyer, because chances are you will both be arrested. You need someone who’s looking out for your best interests alone. You know that if Mr. Gray has to choose between defending you or Patrick Murphy, you’re the one he’ll throw under the bus.”

With a scowl on her face, Kara crossed her arms defiantly and sat back in her chair, looking straight ahead. “He wouldn’t do that.”

Emily continued to observe from behind the mirror, wondering what that was all about.

Colin shrugged. “Suit yourself. Since I’ve already read you your rights, I’m placing you under arrest as an accessory to murder, but I warn you, the charges could be upgraded to murder, depending on new evidence.”

“What new evidence?” Kara practically leapt from her chair.

He ignored her question and stepped to the door, motioning Ernie to come into the room.

“You get me my lawyer, Detective, and I might think about telling you what you want to know.”

“Fine. The officer here will take you down the hall to use the phone,” Colin said, “you can take your chances with Mr. Gray, but you can bet he’ll follow the money, or you can call someone else you know who would represent you exclusively. Your third option is to arrange for a public defender. Your choice.” He turned his attention back to the door. “Officer, take her—”

Colin’s phone beeped and he pulled it out and looked at it. “What do you know, it’s a text from the hospital. Looks like Mr. Mitchell is awake and wants to talk. Hey, Ernie, I’m going to head down to the hos—”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Kara raised her hands in surrender, glancing from the policeman to the detective. “Forget the lawyer, then. I’ll tell you what I know.”

“So you are willingly foregoing an attorney and want to make a statement of your own volition?”

Kara nodded her head in resignation. “Yes.”

~*~

After Colin questioned Kara further and had her write down her statement, he met up with Emily in the hallway.

“Been here long?” he asked.

“I was watching from the observation room while you questioned her. Good thing you got that text from the hospital.”

“Actually, it wasn’t from the hospital, it was from Ernie. When I went to the door and motioned for him to come in, that was his cue to send me a text.”

“You devil. You made Kara think she was going to lose out on taking a deal.”

Colin grinned. “It made her spill her guts, didn’t it?”

“She certainly did that. Her story was pretty incredible, though, so I hope it was the truth,” Emily said. “You think you’ll be making another arrest soon?”

He nodded. “After we question Jake Mitchell.”

“Then he’d better wake up.”

Colin’s phone beeped again and he looked down at it. “Believe it or not, this time it
is
a text from the hospital.”

“Perfect timing,” Emily said with a wry smile.

~*~

Colin and Emily got off the elevator on the fourth floor of the hospital and found Peter Mackenzie waiting for them. They had phoned him on the way down.

The three of them walked into the Intensive Care Unit to find Jake Mitchell awake and sitting up.

Jake wore a seriously nervous expression. “I’m in a lot of trouble, aren’t I?”

“You are,” Colin replied. “The only way to help yourself is to tell us exactly what happened.”

“Poor Elise,” Jake said, raising his gaze to the ceiling as his somber eyes grew moist. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.”

Colin read Jake his rights. “Do you understand your rights as they have been read to you?”

“Yes, I understand,” Jake replied. “I think I’d better have an attorney present.”

“Do you have someone you want to call?” Colin asked.

Jake shook his head. “I need one of those free ones.”

Colin had hoped to wrangle the truth out of Jake before he asked for an attorney, but once he did, there was no choice but to arrange for a public defender. Within an hour, a young lawyer arrived and Colin filled him in on the situation and the evidence they had so far against his client.

The attorney went into the hospital room to speak with Jake privately while Colin, Emily, and Peter waited out in the hall. After about twenty minutes, the public defender came to the door and motioned for the others to come in. “Mr. Mitchell would like to give you his statement.”

“What does he hope to get in exchange?” Colin asked.

“Just a good word before the judge,” the attorney said. “I think once you hear his story you’ll understand.”

Peter set up his small video camera on a miniature tripod atop the raised table at the foot of Jake’s bed.

Emily stepped to the side of the bed. “This is Peter Mackenzie. He’s going to be videotaping your statement.”

Jake looked at his attorney, who nodded his approval. “Okay.”

First clearing his throat, Jake told how he had been approached by a man in the Phoenix airport. They were both waiting in an airport bar for their flight to Boise to begin boarding. They exchanged small talk which led to chatting about their wives, or ex-wife in Jake’s case, commiserating about the wretchedness they inflicted on them.

Jake told the man that his ex-wife wouldn’t let him see his kids because he was almost ten thousand dollars behind on his child support payments. Said she didn’t understand how difficult it was for an ex-con to get work and have the money to send her.

The other man was well-dressed, Jake said, in his early fifties, with graying hair. He told Jake he could help him out of his dilemma if he would be willing to do a job for him. The man offered him a hundred thousand dollars if he could seduce his wife and convince her to leave him and run away with Jake. The husband claimed he wanted this because this way it would be cheaper than what he’d have to give her in a divorce.

According to Jake, it was the husband’s idea for Jake to suggest to Elise to withdraw the cash from their checking account and savings account, telling her it was the only way she could get away from him with money to start over. The husband assured Jake it would be more than fifty thousand dollars, and he could keep whatever she got from the bank as his first half of his payment. Even the part where she mouthed a plea for help into the ATM camera, that she was being held captive, was the husband’s idea.

The man told Jake about a perfect place in the mountains that he knew was for rent. That was where they should hide out. Then, after the fake ransom demand, which would only make everyone believe Elise really was taken, Jake was supposed to shoot Elise in the cabin and bury her body out in the woods where no one would ever find it.

After the job was finished, the husband promised he would pay the other fifty thousand dollars. At that point, Jake was supposed to disappear. He convinced Jake he had it all worked out and no one would come looking for him. Jake admitted he hadn’t been sold on the idea of murdering the woman, but he figured with at least fifty thousand in his back pocket he could find a way out when the time came.

If the CSI investigators were any good, the husband had said, surely they would discover the kidnapping had been staged by Elise and that she had run off on her own, hopefully even figuring out that the ransom request was a fake. They would assume it was part of Elise’s plan to keep her husband from searching for her if he thought she was dead.

And no one would be looking for Jake, the husband assured him, because he would have an alibi for the time when she went missing.

Jake had been able to convince Elise to leave her husband and stage her abduction, playing on her trust and her loneliness. The problem was, as Jake spent time with Elise, he found her sweet and warm and full of life. He began to develop feelings for her. When the time came, it further confirmed that he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her, not for any amount of money. He was going to take her and the money and disappear. It would mean he’d probably never see his kids again, but at least Elise would be alive.

“So you’re saying someone else shot her?” Colin asked.

“That’s right,” Jake said.

“What about the necklace she was wearing?” Emily asked.

“That was strange. The guy just ripped it off her neck after she was dead.”

“Her husband?” Emily asked.

“Yep, the guy from the airport bar who hired me,” Jake replied. “But then this other guy showed up.”

“That doesn’t add up. What other guy?” Colin asked.

“Another guy showed up,” Jake insisted. “The one that shot me.”

“Now you’re not making any sense. Take us through what happened again. This time step by step,” Colin directed.

Jake took a deep breath and let out a long sigh of exasperation. “All right. Like I said, Elise and I were in the cabin. We were going to do another video that made it look like Elise was shot and killed so that her husband, and everybody else, would think she was dead and would stop looking for her. We had enough money to run away together and that’s all she really wanted—to get away from her husband. He was losing his mind, she told me.”

“Okay,” Colin said. “Go on.”

“I tied her to the chair and put a gag in her mouth. None of it was against her will—I swear. It was just for the video.”

Emily cleared her throat. “So you say.”

“It wasn’t! You have to believe me.”

“Continue, please,” Colin said.

“I had the gun in my hand, one the husband had given me, and I was going to shoot past her and she was going to drop her head to the side, like she was shot. It was all planned. We were going to get out of there and head for Canada as soon as I sent the video. I had the video camera all set up and I was about to turn it on when the husband walked in—you know, the guy from the airport. I didn’t hear a car drive up, which was weird, so it took me by surprise.”