First Degree, page 10
“Have you reviewed the cell phone records I sent over?” I asked her, trying to keep my cool. “And he drains his savings account first thing Monday morning after Lauren goes missing. Nobody sees him after that. You should have been sitting on his house!”
“Yes,” she said. “You can think what you want, but we’ve pursued all leads, Cass.”
“Look again,” I said, jabbing my finger on the stack of phone records Rafe now had at his desk. “You need to find Rudy Mathison. Today.”
“Is there anything else you want to bring to my attention?” Rafe asked.
“I want to know that you’re making diligent efforts to find and question Rudy Mathison,” I said to Detective Lewis. “And I want to be notified the minute you get him. Don’t stand there and tell me you’re not already trying.”
“Of course we’re trying,” she said. “Believe me, I want to talk to him too. I’m going to talk to the wife again tomorrow, actually. If anything turns up, you’ll be one of the first to know.”
I dared her to challenge me. At the same time, I was already writing my cross with her. I hoped she gave me the exact same stunned expression.
“If there is anything new that comes up,” Rafe said. “I’m fully aware of my duties under the law, Cass. Besides, from what I hear, you may not even be around to try this case.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Oh,” he said. “I still have plenty of friends in Lansing. I hear you’ve impressed a lot of the governor’s people. You might be sitting on the bench.”
I couldn’t tell whether he was trying to flatter me or tick me off. Maybe both.
“We’re in trial in four weeks,” I said. “I’m not planning on going anywhere before then. So, I’m sorry to disappoint you if you thought you’d be sitting across from someone else at the Mathison trial.”
Rafe reached across the desk and extended his hand. “Well then, I look forward to sparring with you for the first time.”
It was petty of me not to take his hand. But the hell with it. I was feeling just that petty.
I stopped in front of Megan Lewis. “You know I’ve got a subpoena out for Rudy Mathison.”
“Good for you,” she said, finding her courage. “I’m just as interested to talk to him. But of course you know serving it will fall on the deputy sheriff’s desk. My badge says Delphi P.D. Detective, Cass.”
“You’ll both be lucky to walk away from this one without having misconduct investigations launched against you,” I said.
“Have a good one, Cass,” Rafe said. I managed to leave his office without slamming the door.
Chapter 16
Eric and I made a deal. During work hours, I was Cass Leary, defense lawyer. He was Detective Eric Wray. For months, the arrangement had been working. But Friday night when he walked up the drive bearing wine, he took one look at me and knew he might be in for it.
“Should I have brought a white flag instead?” he quipped.
“No,” I said. “But maybe you didn’t bring enough wine.”
I wanted to bitch. I wanted to unload on all the reasons his bureau had done the wrong things by Cole Mathison and Lauren Rice. But Eric had a way of disarming me with that smile of his and thawed my heart.
“Come here,” I said. I took the wine he did bring and let him come inside.
“Thanks,” he said. “It’s damn cold out here. I think the lake’s already frozen.”
“Winter is coming,” I said.
“Two more weeks according to the Farmer’s Almanac,” he joked.
“You becoming a farmer now?” I asked. “Because I wouldn’t hate that. It would make my life easier.”
We took our wine to the couch. I already had a fire going. Eric managed to warm me more than it could. I curled up beside him, tucking my bare feet beneath me.
“I thought I already made your life easier,” he said.
I considered his words. “Well,” I said after a pause. “You're handy with that corkscrew. And my brother said you’re not completely hopeless with a hammer.”
“Not completely hopeless?” he said, clearly offended. “I built that new entertainment center at my place all by myself.”
“From IKEA,” I teased. “Joe and Matty would never be caught dead in that place.”
Eric grumbled, but let the statement stand. He was teasing anyway, and so was I. It felt good. It was more than just Eric’s charming smirk that disarmed me.
“You know,” he said after a while. “There’s still that one other thing that would make our lives together easier.”
I held my breath, not knowing where his thoughts were about to land.
“Cass,” he said. “Be honest. Where’s your head with this judicial appointment?”
“Oh,” I sighed. “That. I don’t suppose that’s up to me anymore. I filled out the paperwork. They’re doing whatever they do to figure out if I’m worth the risk.”
Eric poured each of us another glass of wine. “Yeah. I’ve been interviewed.”
“What?” I said, sitting up straight. I turned to face him. “When? What about?”
“A few days ago,” he said. “You knew they were reaching out to your closest friends and family.”
“I know,” I said. “But I never disclosed that you ... that we …”
“Clearly someone else did,” he said. “Does that bother you?”
“What? No,” I said, though it did a little. Not that I had anything to hide. I just hated that Eric or anyone else had to be scrutinized.
“Well,” he said. “I only told them the good parts.”
I laughed. “You want to enlighten me on what the bad parts are?”
“Well,” Eric said. “You’re kind of a slob. And I’ll never get over the way you like to put ketchup on your eggs. That’s just gross. And weird.”
I lobbed a pillow at him, which he neatly caught. “And you can barely boil water, let alone cook a decent meal. Though I can’t yet speak from experience, I’d bet good money your morning breath is something else.”
“Fine,” I said, grabbing another pillow. I settled back on the couch further away from him.
“In all seriousness though, it wasn’t bad.”
“Good,” I said. “But did they ... did they ask if we were dating? Eric, that could be complicated. With Wendy …”
“Wendy isn’t anything you have to worry about,” he said. “And there’s nothing you and I have ever done that either of us should be ashamed of. But if that’s the thing somebody in Lansing thinks should keep you from …”
“No,” I said. “Don’t even finish that thought. You’re right. I’m not ashamed of my life or how I live it. They approached me. I didn’t seek this out.”
“But now that they have,” he said. “Cass ... you really want it, don’t you?”
I reached for my wine. “Yeah,” I said. “I kind of think I do. I know it would make things easier for us. Like maybe I wouldn't have the urge to throw things at you as much. For being so pigheaded and all.”
“Me? Pigheaded? You might want to look in the mirror there, Porky.”
I threw a second pillow. He caught that one and slipped it behind his head. Now I had no pillows.
“It’s just …” I traced a circle around the rim of my wine glass.
“Spit it out,” he said. “You’ve been wanting to the second I walked up.”
“Detective Lewis,” I said. “She’s ... Eric, she’s in over her head. If you were lead on this case, I know you wouldn’t have sent it on to Rafe’s desk. Not without tracking down Rudy Mathison. Not with the state of the evidence the way it is.”
He set his glass down. “Cass, Megan knows what she’s doing. And you know we can’t get too far into this particular conversation.”
“I know,” I said. “But it would bother you. You can’t tell me this thing with Rudy Mathison’s whereabouts wouldn’t bother you. It’s more than a loose end.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But like you said. It’s not my case. Megan’s good. She’s damn good. She’s had to deal with a lot of shit from command in my department. There are unfortunately still a lot of people with old-fashioned ideas about what a real detective is supposed to look like.”
“I get that,” I said. “Hell, I’ve lived it. It’s just, I know this kid ... I …”
Eric’s phone rang. The way he screwed up his face, I had a feeling it was a call he had to take. Not two seconds later, my phone rang too.
Anytime we got synchronous calls like that, it meant something serious was happening in Delphi. We exchanged a glance and went to our neutral corners.
In my case, Rafe Johnson’s cell phone flashed on my caller ID. I heard Eric answer and call his lieutenant by name.
“Rafe?” I said.
“Hey, Cass,” he said. “I wanted you to hear this first from me. We’ve had a development in the Lauren Rice case. Some physical evidence has been discovered.”
“What physical evidence?” I said. On the other end of the room, I heard Eric tell his caller that he’d be right there. And I heard him ask what the crime scene unit had to say.
“Rafe?” I asked.
“Cass,” he said. “We’ve found some of Lauren’s missing clothing. Her, uh ... underwear. It was thrown under a bush not that far from the ditch where she was found. We’ve got the preliminary report back on the DNA.”
“A DNA sample?” I asked. “Rafe? When did this whole thing go down?”
“A few days ago,” he said. “It took a while for them to figure out what it was and who it belonged to. I needed to be sure. But it’s Lauren’s. You’ll, of course, have all the science.”
“Of course,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach.
I hung up with Rafe around the same time Eric ended his call. He looked grim as he walked back to me.
“Cass,” he said.
“Tell me what it is,” I said. “I know you already know. And you know Rafe’s going to have to disclose what you have, anyway. He said they found Lauren’s underwear.”
“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head. “Cass, I’m sorry. They found traces of semen. Waiting on the official labs, but the preliminary report is saying it’s a hit. It’s Cole Mathison’s DNA.”
Chapter 17
“We got to him in time,” Maxine Carver said. “Cass, I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
I sank into a chair in the hallway just outside the emergency room. Maxine sat beside me. She’d taken a panicked call from Roxanne Mathison, who had been afraid to call the police or an ambulance. Maxine and Dave had no such fear and raced over.
“Hell of a twenty-four hours, yeah?” she said.
I couldn’t even answer. Instead, I found myself assuming an airplane crash position with my face in my hands and my head between my knees.
Thirty minutes after I called to break the news to Cole about the new evidence against him, he’d tried to off himself by swallowing half a bottle of his mother’s antidepressants.
Roxanne couldn’t look up when I came to her. She sat with her head on her cousin, Dave Carver’s shoulder. “He’s okay,” she whispered. “He’s gotta be okay.”
“We’re here, Rox,” he said. “He’s getting the best care.”
Heavy footsteps drew my attention. One of the nurses gestured to Maxine.
“That’s you,” Maxine said, patting my shoulder. “Kid said he’d only talk to you.”
Roxanne looked up. “Will you tell him I’m here? Tell him I love him.”
“Of course,” I said, leaning down to meet her eyes. “It’s going to be okay.” I should have grabbed a coffee before I headed over. It was going to be a long night.
The kid I saw in that hospital bed bore no resemblance to the one I’d known all summer. It was as if every drop of blood had drained from his body. He became a wax figure with white lips and sharp-boned cheeks.
“Cole,” I said. I pulled up a stool and sat beside him. I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. That would be Joe. Or Emma. Or both.
At first, I didn’t think he heard me. Then, a flicker of movement. He turned his head and met my eyes.
“Why is this happening?” he asked.
I felt cold. Detached. I had questions to ask but knew if I pushed too hard, the kid might break for good.
“They found your DNA on Lauren’s underwear, Cole,” I said. “That’s what’s happening. I know you feel like the walls are closing in, but this isn’t the answer.”
He sat up. The hospital gown hung off of him. “I couldn’t do it,” he said. “Didn’t they tell you that? I only swallowed three pills. They brought me here as a precaution, Maxine said. I wanted to do it. Or I thought I did.”
“How do you feel now?” I asked.
He lifted his shoulders. “Like no one will ever believe me.”
“What do you want them to believe?” I asked.
He stared at me. “Not they. You. I want you to believe me. I didn’t ... whatever they found, it wasn’t me. It can’t have been me.”
“Semen,” I said. “That’s what they found. In her underwear. They have your DNA. It matched.”
He shook his head. “Cass, I didn’t ... I didn’t rape Lauren.”
I snapped. “You don’t have to have raped her. Cole, I need you to tell me. Right here. Right now. What really happened that night?”
“I’ve already told you!” he shouted. “God. I feel like I’ve woken up in hell. Lauren and I weren’t having sex. Not that night. Not since months and months before that. I don’t know how they found what they found. Are you sure? Could there be some kind of mistake? Like a bad test?”
I folded my hands in my lap. My heart and head warred with each other. I’d been around hardened criminals before. Murderers. Hitmen. The worst kind of evil. Cole Mathison still seemed like nothing more than a scared kid.
But no, the DNA didn’t lie.
“I don’t think so,” I said. “It can be challenged. But a match is a match. So, I’m going to ask you again. What happened?”
He threw his head back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Nothing happened. I’ve told you everything. I saw Lauren at that stupid party. I didn’t like the way she was acting. Everyone wants to say it was a fight. It wasn’t. I was just kind of sad. I told her I didn’t think it was a good idea for us to even be friends anymore. But that was the end of it. Cass, I didn’t have sex with her.”
“Cole …”
He lifted his head. “I’m telling you the truth. Hook me up to a lie detector. I’ll do anything.”
Part of me wanted to do just that. Though it wouldn’t be admissible in court, they were far more accurate than people gave them credit for.
“We’re just weeks from trial …” I started.
“We?” he asked, desperation making his voice crack. “Are we still a we? You’re not going to give up on me?”
I slapped my hands to my knees. “I don’t know,” I snapped. It kind of poured out of me. “I’ll be honest. I don’t even know what the hell to think right now. I have more questions than answers. That’s not really the place I want to be this close to a first-degree murder trial, Cole.”
“I know,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I know. There are so many things I wished I’d done differently. But I swear to you. I swear to God, this wasn’t me. I wasn’t with Lauren like that that night. It’s got to be a mistake. It has to be.”
“It isn’t,” I said.
“Did you find my dad?” he asked. “Maybe …”
“Maybe what?” I asked.
“My dad,” he said. “I think you have it right. I think he’s staying off the grid because of all of this. I thought it was just because he didn’t want to get asked to help me. He would do that. He hates me that much. The fight we had in July was really bad. I already told you that. I didn’t want to believe it, but I think he would do everything he could to ruin my life.”
“Cole, his cell phone data is very disturbing. What Emma has said is very disturbing. It paints a picture that you have to confront. I’ve never asked you this point blank. Could he have killed that girl?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been running it through my head over and over.”
“Cole,” I said. “I want to believe you. I really do. But DNA doesn’t lie.”
“No,” he said. “I know. But ... do you think ... someone is setting me up. I don’t know who. I don’t know why. I just know that whatever they found, I did not have sex with Lauren Rice that night. I just didn’t.”
My head throbbed. It got hard to focus under the harsh glare of the fluorescents in this room. I needed a good night’s sleep. I needed a stiff drink. I needed ... something.
“Cole,” I said. “I have a lot to think about.”
“Will you stick with me?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer. That’s the honest truth.
“Give me some time,” I said.
“Right,” he said. “No. I know. But could you tell Emma …”
“No,” I said. “That I can be pretty clear about. I’m not going to be your go-between. I’ve blurred enough family and professional lines as it is.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. Gosh. I’m just so sorry for everything.”
“Cole,” I said. “I need to know. Are you planning on doing anything like this again?”
He let out a breath. “No,” he said. “I told you. I wasn’t ... in the end I couldn’t even go through with it. I just ... I panicked.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, you’re in here for the next seventy-two hours. Dave and Maxine had to file a report. It’s their job. So, I think you need to take this time. Get your head straight. Maybe take the advice of the good doctors that work here. Then, I don’t know. I’ll figure out what I’m going to do.”
He nodded. “That’s fair. I get it. Thank you. For everything. No matter what you decide or what happens. You’re a good person.”
