Justifiable Means

  “Yes.” He gave her a distracted glance, then hit the “print” button. “It seems our man has a couple of other arrests. For the same thing.”

  Melissa didn’t look as surprised as he’d expected. “Can that be mentioned in his hearing? Should you call the DA?”

  Larry looked fully at her now, studying her face. “You didn’t happen to know his background before, did you? Is that why you’re so afraid of things falling through?”

  She grew stiffer then, but kept her eyes clearly focused on his. “Of course not. How could I have known? I’ve barely had a complete conversation with him.”

  As she talked, Larry noticed Tony behind her. Tony stared at her, glanced back at his computer screen, then shot a look at Larry. “Excuse me a minute,” Larry said. “I need to talk to Tony.”

  “What if your phone rings? What if someone calls about the hearing?”

  “I’ll hear it,” he said. “Don’t worry.” He crossed the room to Tony’s desk. “You have that look on your face,” he said quietly. “Like you’ve got something.”

  Tony glanced up at him over his shoulder. “I thought I’d check out our little lady. Just to get a better take on her. Take a look at this.”

  Larry leaned over him and read the skeleton history he’d come up with. “She’s got a degree from Florida State. Changed her major to criminal justice after her sophomore year. Graduated summa cum laude. My question is, how did a criminal justice whiz wind up here working as a secretary?”

  Larry frowned. “Why would she do that?”

  Tony shook his head. “Why don’t we ask her?”

  Larry straightened. “I will.”

  The phone was ringing when he got back to his desk, and he snatched it up. “Millsaps.”

  He listened as the secretary in the DA’s office relayed the decision in the hearing. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  He hung up and leaned forward on his desk.

  “Did they let him go?” Melissa asked.

  He shook his head. “No bond. He’s staying.”

  Relief washed over her, and she leaned back in her chair, finally relaxed. “I can’t believe it. I was so worried.”

  “I know you were.” He set his chin on his palm and looked at her for a moment. “Can I ask you something, Melissa?” She was smiling, and he hated to ruin it, but he had to. “We had to do a little research on you, just as a matter of routine. And we were looking at your educational background.”

  Her smile faded, and she fixed her eyes on him. “What about it?”

  “Just seemed odd to me, that’s all. You have a degree in criminal justice, of all things.”

  “Why is that odd?” she asked.

  “Well, because you’re not working in that field. In fact, I wondered why you’d take a job doing secretarial work.”

  She glanced away then, avoiding his eyes, and shrugged. “I worked for the FBI for three months after I graduated last spring. Three months was long enough. Now I’m a secretary, until I find something better.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and she gaped at him. “I’ve been a little bit distracted. The subject didn’t come up!” She glared at him, as if trying to determine if he was suggesting that she had covered up, then finally, she came to her feet. “Do you have any more questions for me, Detective? Like why I drive a red car instead of a green one, or why I chose exactly the apartment complex I did? I’m familiar with how a rape case often gets turned on the victim. As you pointed out, I spent a lot of time studying things like that. So go ahead! Take your best shot.”

  His eyes remained locked with hers, but finally, he shook his head. “I’m not trying to interrogate you, Melissa. I just have to ask about things that seem out of sync.”

  “And since my job is out of sync, maybe what happened to me last night is too, right?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. Call me if you come up with anything else that’s out of sync. I’ll see if I can explain it to you.” With that, she started to limp away from his desk.

  Larry lunged out of his chair and caught her arm. “Melissa, I’ll take you home. Just wait a minute.”

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll get a cab.”

  He stood there as she hurried from the room, and it was a moment before he realized that Tony was standing next to him.

  “She didn’t like the question, huh?”

  “No, she didn’t,” Larry said. “And now I feel like the kind of pond scum that makes rape victims sorry they ever report the crime.”

  “If she can’t take the heat—”

  Larry spun around, his face furious. “If she can’t take the heat, what, Tony? Who really can take the heat? Could you? What if you were attacked on the street, and when you reported it, all of a sudden your life and your history became suspect? Would your record stand up to our kind of scrutiny? Would you be able to take the heat?”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “Man, you’ve got it bad.”

  “Give me a break!” he shouted, and some of the others in the busy room stopped what they were doing and looked at him. “I would like to think I have a little compassion for any victim I deal with, so don’t go accusing me of preferential treatment just because she’s a woman!”

  “What are you so hot about?” Tony flung back.

  “I’m hot about putting an innocent, wounded, violated woman on the defensive, Tony! That kind of thing always gets to me! I don’t know why it doesn’t get to you.”

  “Maybe it’s because my gut is telling me that things just aren’t fitting into place here.”

  “So who are you gonna believe? A guy who’s been accused of rape before, who’s being accused now, who had evidence up to his ears in his car and his apartment—or a woman whose only crime is to be overqualified for her job and who had the audacity to get raped?”

  Tony threw his hands up. “All right. You got me. You’re right. Now can we please get back to work?”

  Larry plopped back down into his chair and turned to his computer. This day was going from bad to worse. And he hadn’t had enough sleep last night to deal with any of this.

  Acouple of hours later, as Larry and Tony were returning from investigating a missing persons report on two seventeen-year-old girls who had apparently run away—and for good reason, judging from the neglectful homes they’d each come from—Larry’s mind wandered back to Melissa Nelson. He thought about her indignation that morning, then about their conversation at breakfast. Something had been bothering him about that, something she’d said . . .

  “. . . you’re not going to just blow off the hair and fingerprints . . . and assume that the shirt and knife in his car were enough, are you?”

  The hair. That was it. How had she known that they would find follicles of Soames’s hair on her bed? Just an assumption, based on what she would have looked for, had she been investigating?

  He shoved the question out of his mind. Tony’s suspicions—of what, he still wasn’t sure—were affecting him. Rubbing his eyes, he glanced at Tony, who was driving. “Did I tell you I ordered the police file on Pendergrast from Santa Rosa County?”

  Tony shook his head. “No. I was going to do it this afternoon.”

  “I asked them to rush it. They said it would be here by tomorrow.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Well, the grand jury will be hearing the case soon.”

  “So the DA will ask for it.”

  Larry breathed a laugh. “Yeah, well, you and I both know that the more we lay the case out for the DA’s office, the better chance we have of conviction. I just want to make sure.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Anything I can find on the previous arrests. Who the victims were, his MO, exactly why he walked. That kind of thing.”

  Tony glanced over at him. “Larry, you look like a zombie. How much sleep did you get last night?”

&nbsp
; “Couple hours,” he said.

  “Why don’t you go on home? I’ll fax the info about these runaways to some other PDs across the state and see what I can come up with. Get some sleep. You’re not worth a plugged nickel when you’re this tired.”

  “Thanks a lot.” They pulled into the PD parking garage. “I think I’ll take you up on it, though.”

  “Sure you can drive?” Tony asked with a grin.

  “Hey, I’ve functioned with less sleep before. Remember the Barrett case?”

  “Yeah. I almost killed you, man. Volunteering us to stake her place out all night after we’d been on duty for over twelve hours already.”

  “Hey, I did it myself.”

  “Yep. Another case of a lady in distress. You do dumb things for women, Larry.”

  “It was dumb to stake out her house?” he asked irritably. “Are you telling me there was no threat?”

  Tony grinned and shook his head. “Okay, okay. But breakfast this morning? I don’t think that was within the call of duty, pal.”

  “Just don’t worry about it. I’m going home.”

  “Good,” Tony laughed. “And don’t come back until you have a better disposition. Or I just might have to kill you after all.”

  Larry grinned as he headed across the garage to his own car.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Aknock at the door woke Larry a few hours after he’d fallen asleep. He stumbled to the door. Tony stood there, the setting sun at his back, grinning as if he enjoyed waking Larry. “Rise and shine! We’ve got work to do.”

  Larry shuffled into the kitchen, and Tony followed. A “What is it?” Larry asked, measuring out some coffee for the pot.

  “A witness in the Nelson case.”

  Larry swung around. “Really? Who?”

  “A woman who lives downstairs. She gave a statement last night that she heard things crashing upstairs in Melissa’s apartment. I thought we should talk to her.”

  “Yeah, okay. Just let me change.”

  A few minutes later, Larry followed Tony out to the car, wondering whether the appearance of this witness would make Tony give more credence to Melissa’s story. “So what else have you been doing today?” he asked.

  “Well, I interviewed the people she worked with.”

  “Who worked with?”

  “Your friend Melissa.”

  Larry shot him a look. “My friend?”

  Tony grinned. “Well, you seem to be her champion. Anyway, you’re not going to like what I found out.”

  Larry waited. “What?”

  “That bookkeeper who was still there when Soames says Melissa asked him to dinner? She confirmed it.”

  “That she was there?”

  “No. She confirmed that Melissa asked him. She heard it. She’s apparently a real busybody, and she admitted that when she saw Melissa go into his office, she listened outside the door to see what they were talking about. She heard everything.”

  Larry tried to absorb that. “You believe her?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “Well, she could have a crush on him herself, and want to help him. Maybe he paid her. Who knows?”

  “Yeah, well . . . I’m just telling you what she said.”

  Larry stayed quiet as they approached the apartment building where they’d found Melissa last night. Things looked radically different tonight, without flashing lights everywhere and a crowd of people on the street. “Who are we going to see?”

  “A Matilda Berkley,” Tony said. “She lives in the first apartment as you come in the door.”

  “Yeah, I saw her peeking out this morning.”

  Larry followed Tony in. Before they had even reached her door, it opened. The little old lady Larry had seen that morning stuck her head out. “Hello, officers. I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you come in?”

  She seemed delighted to have company, and Larry couldn’t help smiling. They introduced themselves, accepted the coffee and cake she’d prepared for them, and sat down, anxious to get to the point. Finally, Larry jumped in.

  “Mrs. Berkley, you told the police officers last night in your statement that you heard things crashing upstairs. Could you tell us exactly what time that was?”

  “It was seven-thirty, because I was baking, and the timer went off right about that time.”

  Larry nodded. “Did you see anyone leave the apartment after that?”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “No, and I kept waiting. I had my door cracked with the chain still on it, and I was watching the stairs to see who would come down. But until you officers came, nobody came out of that apartment.”

  Larry frowned. “Are you sure? You didn’t just miss him?”

  “No. I pretty much see almost everyone who comes and goes in this building. I know everyone here, and I like to make sure the people coming and going are supposed to be here. Especially with Melissa—she’s such a lovely girl. She’s been so sweet, always checking to see if I need anything, bringing me things from the grocery store when I can’t get there myself. I feel kind of protective of her. And last night, after that first gentleman left, I heard all that crashing—”

  “Wait a minute,” Larry said. “What gentleman?”

  “Well, the one who was here to see Melissa. I opened my door and looked out when he came into the building, and he asked me which apartment was hers. He seemed like a decent young man, and I was happy that she had a date. She has so few visitors, you know.”

  Larry was getting impatient. “Did you or didn’t you see him leave?”

  “I certainly did. He came down rather quickly and slammed the door going out. I was so disappointed, because I had hoped that maybe he was a suitor. She’s a very lonely girl, I think—”

  Tony tried this time. “But you say you heard the crashing things after he left?”

  “Yes. I could tell that something was wrong, and I thought someone must be up there, but I hadn’t seen anyone else go up. I guess I should have called the police myself, but I just wasn’t sure whether anyone was there with her. It’s possible that they had come when I hadn’t been listening, so I waited and waited for them to come down, so I could decide what to do. But no one ever did. Not until the police began coming. Would you like some more cake?”

  “No. Uh, thanks.” Larry turned his troubled eyes to Tony.

  Tony sighed. “Mrs. Berkley, are you sure you didn’t just get the events mixed up? I mean, maybe you heard the crashing, and then saw him leave.”

  Her chin came up with indignation. “I’m telling you the way it happened. There must have been someone else up there. That first gentleman wasn’t there long enough to do anything. I’d say maybe five minutes. But if there was someone else, maybe he went up onto the roof, or got into another apartment . . .” Her eyes grew round as she imagined all the places a culprit could have hidden.

  “All the other neighbors were interviewed,” Tony explained. “None of them saw anything like that.”

  She sat back hard on her couch. “Then it doesn’t make any sense, does it? It’s just downright peculiar. How did he get in and out?”

  Tony pulled a picture from his shirt pocket. “Mrs. Berkley, was this the man you saw coming to see Melissa last night?”

  She took the picture of Soames that they’d used to identify him last night, and nodded. “Yes, that’s him. Nice-looking young man, like I told you.”

  “And you’re sure that he’s the same man you saw leaving?”

  “Oh, absolutely.”

  “Did he have anything in his hands?”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Anything at all.”

  The woman thought for a moment. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Did he look angry?”

  “Well, yes, he did.”

  “And what did he have on?” Larry asked. “Mrs. Berkley, this is very important. Can you remember what he had on when he arrived?”

  “Well, the same thing he had on when he left. One of those stripe
d pullover shirts, like a golf shirt or something, you know? It had red and green and navy stripes that went this way . . .”

  Larry glanced at Tony. The same shirt he’d been wearing when they’d picked him up.

  “And you’re sure he was wearing that when he left?”

  “Yes,” she said adamantly. “Like I told you, he wasn’t up there more than five minutes. He looked just the same when he came back down.”

  No cartoon T-shirt, Larry thought with confusion. So where had the bloody T-shirt come from?

  They finished questioning her, thanked her, and left.

  As he settled in behind the steering wheel, Tony asked, “Am I the only one who notices that something is a little tilted about this case?” He pulled the car back out onto the street.

  “The woman has to be eighty years old. Maybe she’s imagining things,” Larry said.

  “Did she imagine the shirt he was wearing when we picked him up?”

  “Well—” Larry sighed, looked out the window, then brought his gaze back to his partner. “Well, how do you explain the crashing after Soames had left? Melissa didn’t tell us anyone else was involved.”

  Tony shook his head. “I’m not sure Melissa is telling us the truth, Larry. I know you don’t want to hear that, but I’m telling you, things aren’t fitting together here.”

  Larry couldn’t deny it. “I just don’t get it. What really happened?”

  “There’s no telling,” Tony said. “But the only story we’ve heard that we’ve been able to corroborate with witnesses is Soames’s story.”

  Larry rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on. You saw his record. You saw the things in his apartment, the pictures, the bloody shirt under his seat—”

  “That’s right,” Tony said. “I saw them. I’m not saying that he’s not a scumbag. I’m just not sure what he really did in this case.”

  He pulled into a parking space near Larry’s apartment and let the car idle for a moment. “Look, what do you say we just sleep on it, and tackle all this fresh tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, okay.” Larry got out and headed back toward his apartment. But before he reached it, he turned back and walked to his own car. He couldn’t just let it go; he wouldn’t be able to rest haunted by the possibility that Melissa was lying. He had wanted to check on Melissa anyway, to make sure she was all right. Tony would say that he was obsessing—that if she wasn’t a blonde with soulful eyes, he wouldn’t be giving this case such attention. But Larry hoped that wasn’t true. He’d been on the police force for nine years now, and while many of his colleagues had gotten jaded, he’d worked hard not to. He liked to think that he would always stand up for justice, fairness, and the rights of the victims—especially the more vulnerable victims who needed someone to stand up for them. As tough as Melissa’s facade suggested she was, he suspected that she was as vulnerable as any victim he’d ever encountered. Even if there were things about her story that didn’t make sense.