Whatever Remains (24 page)

             
But Ben kept waiting for a satisfied swing of victory that hadn’t come. Either Jade had him all screwed up this morning, or something wasn’t clicking into place. It was nothing more than a sense, and a vague one at that, so he said nothing.

             
“Bloody clothes, bloody screwdriver, grudge against the neighbors,” he said with a sigh. “That’s not jumping the gun, Woods. You been prosecuting kiddie rapists so long you forgot how the process works?”

             
Woods bristled up with a growl, but Riley said, “It’s not our problem,” to her partner. “We’re here to look out for the Latham girls – living and dead. If Homicide wants to go stumbling into a shit collar, then that’s their business, not ours.”

             
Ben gave her a sideways look. “Shit?”
              She wasn’t a classically pretty woman – not in the way Jade was – but there was a similar nobility about the way she held her face. She didn’t deign to glance at him, sipping her coffee. “Scott Redding’s attorney,” she said, “is going to argue at trial that you arrested his client before you had any DNA or physical trace evidence matches. Even if it turns out to be Heidi’s blood on those clothes, that screwdriver, that leaf – and it is, for sure – his lawyer will say that you jumped the gun because you wanted Redding to be guilty, enough that you dragged his kid into the case, too.”

             
“Jared Redding’s fingerprints – ”

             
“Could have gotten on that key days or months ago. That doesn’t point to murder. Scott Redding can be guilty as sin – he is – but if the attorney argues that you had some kinda personal beef with Redding, that you were hoping the evidence would lead to him, that you might have steered the forensics in his direction at all…” She shrugged.

             
“You know what’s shit? That theory. You can’t steer forensics.”

             
She finally cut a look to him, fast from the corners of her eyes. “You know that won’t matter. All he has to do is plant that seed of doubt in the jurors’ minds, and Redding could walk. That, and suddenly you’re a cop who plants evidence and twists arms.”

             
Woods snorted a congested-sounding laugh.

             
“Ben wasn’t even the one who thought it was the Reddings,” Trey said. Ben appreciated his defense, even if it was useless. “He just thought Scott was a douche; he was never gunning after the guy.”

             
Riley turned a sweet smile on him. “That doesn’t matter at trial, kiddo. Lawyers can turn facts inside out and backward and before you even know it, you’re admitting you could have made a mistake on the stand.”

             
“Well…that’s not fair,” he said, like the kid he still was.

             
Jade’s eggs and toast gave an unhappy roll in his stomach and Ben swallowed it back down. Riley was right, of course; she had an unnerving habit of thinking like a woman and investing in foresight.

             
“We better lock down their stories, then,” Ben said. “And, Riley? You may want to have another go at Grace.” He gave himself a sharp mental kick for what he was about to do. “I think she knows more than she’s told us.”

One lesson. Of the seven regular students she was supposed to teach that day, only one had shown up. Three of the others had at least called to cancel – “You know how it is, dear, what with that girl turning up dead and all” – while the rest had been no-shows. Her one stalwart, dedicated equestrian was an adult beginner. Sybil was forty-nine, divorced, and overhauling her life. She’d always wanted to ride, so she was taking lessons. She was uncoordinated, unbalanced, and generally awkward, but despite all that, making progress. What she lacked in skill, she made up for in effort, and she doted on Pokey the school horse.

              “Good,” Jade called from the fence as Sybil and Pokey left the rail and started across the diagonal line at the top of the arena. “Shoulders back; don’t let him pull you along. There you go. Thumbs up.” It was the jargon of all riding lessons.

             
The day had turned out clear and cool, with a steady breeze and one of those crystalline blue skies that looked bright enough to crack arching overhead. The sun was a vivid glare on the white arena sand and Jade squinted as she watched her student use too much outside rein to move Pokey into the corner before she executed her turn. “Remember to use more inside leg, less rein,” she reminded. “You guys take a walk break.”

             
Sybil, blonde and thin and still lovely at the cusp of her fifties, slowed the horse with a thankful sigh. She was winded and red-cheeked. “You’re giving us a workout today, Jade,” she said with a smile.

             
Jade’s returning smile was thin. “Trying to make up for all my missed lessons,” she said, to which Sybil’s mouth formed an O of surprise; the reminder of Heidi’s murder wasn’t a welcome one to anybody.

             
While she had the chance, Jade swung a leg over the fence and went to Clara who knelt, bundled in pink windbreaker, in the grass a yard away, a whole herd of Breyer horses around her. “You doing okay, Pixie Stick?” she asked, dropping down cross-legged beside her.

             
“Yeah.” Clara had her favorite appaloosa in one hand and a dappled gray in the other. She spared Jade a fast, distracted glance. “Silver and Chip are gonna have a race.”

             
“Really?” A sound on the drive – the closing of a car door – pulled Jade’s attention. Alicia was walking toward her, dressed in the blue scrubs she wore to work, a thick gray sweater bundled up around her shoulders. Her face was pinched – but whose wouldn’t be after all she’d been through? – and she kept scraping at reddish hairs that had come loose from her topknot and swept across her forehead. “Stay right here a minute, baby,” she said, rising. She turned and called, “I’ll be back in a sec; keep walking,” to Sybil and went to meet Alicia on the driveway.

             
“I’m glad you’re here,” Alicia said when Jade drew even with her. “I’m not bothering you, am I? I didn’t know you had a lesson going. I can come back, if now doesn’t work – ”

             
“What’s wrong, Alicia?” Jade was starting to dread the woman’s appearance: she was all bad news, anxiety, and the fetid smell of danger she seemed to leave behind. Jade didn’t want anything else to do with this murder case or whatever dark things lurked in the night, opening gates and rattling chains.

             
Alicia pulled her purse up in front of her like a shield, clutching at it with white knuckles. She darted a glance toward Clara, wetting her lips. “It’s nothing, really. I mean, I don’t want to alarm you or, especially, Clara.”

             
A sharp prickling rippled down her skin, leaving gooseflesh behind. “Alarm us about what?”

             
Alicia took a long time answering, face reflecting the way she wrestled with phrasing it. She took a deep breath, and her eyes flipped up to Jade’s, intense in the fixed way of a painting, caught in the grips of a singular emotion. It was eerie. Like looking at a frightened doll. “I heard some noises last night,” she said just above a whisper. “There was something outside my window.”

             
Jade suppressed a shiver; she was back in the loft, teeth chattering, cold rain dripping down her neck. “What kind of noises?”

             
“It sounded – ” Alicia took another deep breath. “Like someone tested the back door, to see if it was locked. I don’t have a key under the mat anymore – the detectives took it – so I knew whoever it was couldn’t get in…” She shuddered. “But then something brushed against my window.”

             
“Did you see anything?” Jade asked, knowing she herself hadn’t been brave enough to look. “Did you go outside?”

             
“No. I went to the window, but it was too dark, and raining.”

             
Jade folded her arms under her breasts and chewed at the inside of her cheek. This wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear; she’d been working all day to chalk last night up to some trick of the wind, or even a forgetfulness on her or Jeremy’s part. They’d left the gate open, they must have. But if Alicia had heard something too…

             
“What?” Alicia asked. “Did you…?”

             
“I was in the barn,” Jade admitted. “Doing night check. It sounded like someone unlatched the side gate over there.” She gestured toward it; it was red and closed and benign in the sharp daylight.

             
“Oh my God. What happened?”

             
“Nothing. I called Ben and he came and checked it out. There was no one there, but the gate was open.”

             
Alicia pressed a hand over her heart; her fingernails, Jade saw, were chewed down to the quick. “Holy shit!” she breathed. “I know the cops picked up Scott Redding and his oldest boy – so who’s trying to scare us?”

             
“Scott and Jared?” Jade asked, surprised. She’d had minimal contact with the Reddings; the wife had come for one riding lesson and decided, like so many did, that all that bouncing around on a hard leather saddle wasn’t her cup of tea. They had money, and acted like it. But murderers? She wouldn’t have expected that. Then again, she hadn’t expected Asher either. Asher…could he have been the one…? She shook the thought away. “I didn’t know they were suspects.”

             
“He didn’t tell you? Your detective, I mean. I guess he wouldn’t.” Alicia frowned. “You’re not part of the investigation and, like you said, he can’t risk anyone knowing you were involved.” She nodded. “It’s better. I don’t want anything to mess up the case.”

             
Jade blinked. Under her concerned mother routine, there was a feminine smugness (I know something you don’t know) and a litany of slights in what Alicia had said. It was so unexpected – coming from the mother of a murder victim – and so foreign to her little world of Jeremy and Clara and the horses, that she wasn’t sure how to react. She’d spent five years learning how to battle in Ben’s direct, cutting style, and she’d been hardened to that. This she didn’t understand.

             
“Yeah,” she said. “Look, I gotta get back to my lesson.”

             
“Right. Sure.” Alicia twitched a smile. “Sorry I bothered you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

             
The breeze caught on some invisible snare; lifted, twisted, whistled, cold as winter for a moment.

             
“Thanks.”

“Okay, Jared. Let’s try this again.”

              A night in lockup hadn’t done Jared Redding any favors. Eyes bloodshot and black beneath, he stared sightlessly at the interview room table, elbows braced on it, fingers knotted in his greasy mass of hair. All nineteen-year-olds thought they were hardasses, but the smallest taste of the real world – real hardasses – had them sucking their thumbs and asking for Mommy. “I didn’t
do anything
,” he said. “I swear.”

             
“Yeah.” Ben exhaled, exhaustion pulling at his already tight shoulders. “We’ve been over that. Here’s the thing: I don’t believe you. So, explain to me why your prints were on the key to Alicia Latham’s house.”

             
“They
weren’t
. Someone musta framed me.”

             
“Jared.” Ben slapped his palm down on the table with a
crack
that echoed off the block walls. Jared leapt back in his seat, hands falling out of his hair, eyes darting wild around the room. “Stop dicking me around. Your
prints
were
on
the key. I’m assuming they got there when you broke into the house, stole some of Heidi’s clothes, and took them back to your place so you and your dad could redress her after you killed her.”

             
“No. No.” He shook his head, clumpy hair flopping. “Dude, I didn’t.”

             
“Didn’t what? We’ve already established you picked up the key.”

             
Jared tucked his chin down in the neck of his t-shirt; he hadn’t been incarcerated yet, so he was still in his own clothes. He and his father had slept in precinct cells with the drunk tank losers. His fingernails – chewed to the nub – dug into the table top.

             
“Jared,” Ben said, “I’m a Homicide detective. Do you know what that means?”

             
Red-rimmed eyes lifted, brimming with a child’s tears. He was a little shit, but he was just a kid. Ben felt a sharp pang of doubt.
He didn’t do it,
a voice whispered in the back of his head. Scott had – he’d rammed that screwdriver in Heidi’s throat – but Jared hadn’t been party to that.

             
“It means,” he explained, “that I don’t give a damn if you broke into the house for whatever teenage bullshit is in vogue now. You steal her shit? Take a girl in there? Drink her liquor? That’s not my problem. All I care about is your involvement – or concealment – of Heidi Latham’s murder. You tell me what you were doing in that house, whatever it was, and it stays between you and me.”