Heart of Ice

He looked right at Emily and she just dug her eyes deeper into his gaze.

“That’s fine,” Jason shot back. “We learn from all of our mistakes. Guess you don’t.”

Jason kicked the black briefcase to the side.

“Hey that’s pig leather! Be careful or I’ll sue!”

“You have the right to remain silent,” Emily began. The words came from her lips, and with each one she thought of Mandy and her baby. This monster standing cuffed in front of her would never hurt anyone again.

The Cherrystone jail staffers—and two guys in custody for driving under the influence—could barely contain their glee over the arrest of Mitch Crawford. He came into the jail kicking like the brat that most of his advance publicity pegged him to be.

“These coveralls smell bad,” he said. “I can’t wear this filthy thing.”

“You’ll wear it or you’ll walk around naked,” a jailer said. “You pick.”

The car dealer with the dead wife and baby had a complaint for everything. The food was bad, the place was filthy, and the staff was unprofessional.

“He thinks he’s on a damn vacation,” one of the DUIs said to the other with whom he was sharing a cell.

“Yeah. Cry me a river. This is no all-inclusive resort, that’s for sure.”

When it came time to shower, Mitch Crawford begged for unused flip-flops so his feet “didn’t have to feel the slime of the vermin who’ve been here before me.”

That didn’t win him any friends, in a place where he probably could use one. It wasn’t that anyone was going to “shank” him for a pack of smokes. It was more like someone might rough him up a little just because they could. It was also because in jail, outside of watching TV for an hour and hoping for a litter detail, there wasn’t much to do.

Mitch Crawford was fresh blood and a welcome break from the jailhouse ennui that ensured long days.

“Shut up, you big baby,” the older of the DUIs called over when the murder defendant complained about the filthy conditions of his holding cell. “Your dad sold me a lemon and I might just take it out on you.”

As Emily continued to work on what she knew was a thin case, she skipped out on the arraignment and the bail hearing the next day. While it was true she was busy, she also saw no need to see Cary McConnell argue on behalf of his client. It would be, she thought, like a barracuda cuddling up with a great white shark.

Camille Hazelton called her from the courthouse. Emily could hear the sound of the prosecutor’s heels as they smacked the marble floor.

“Interesting morning in court,” she said.

“I’m guessing that he’s already out.”

“You’d be guessing wrong then.”

“How much?” Emily expected the bail figure to be around $1 million. There weren’t many murder cases in the history of Cherrystone, but the few such cases in recent memory usually ended up with the suspect behind bars pending the outcome of their trials. Few had the means of a successful businessman like Mitch Crawford.

Camille presented her words like she was pulling a tablecloth from under a china tea set.

“I asked for—and got—five million.”

“You’re kidding. How did you manage that?”

“I really don’t know. I mean, I know I’m persuasive, but even I didn’t expect that. I threw the number out, stating all that was true—flight risk, private plane, more money than God. Cary objected, of course, but he didn’t challenge me on the flight-risk aspect, which was key. He told the judge that his client’s wealth shouldn’t hold him to a higher standard, but it was halfhearted.”

“I love it when Cary has an off day.”

“Yeah, there aren’t too many of them.”

“How long do you think it will take for Crawford to raise the money?”

“It’ll take some doing. We’ve seen his finances. Very few of his assets are liquid. I’m not sure he’ll put up the dealership—and I’m not sure if he can. Seems that his stepmother still owns a chunk of the place. And they haven’t spoken in ten years.”

Chapter Thirty-six

Garden Grove

The first time that Olivia Barton saw the news clipping in her husband’s wallet, she was doing laundry in the basement of their tidy house in Garden Grove, California. Olivia was an exceedingly organized woman who somehow managed to get all the laundry done, folded, and put away before her Saturday was shot. She hung sheets and towels outside because she and Michael liked the crispness that came with a line-dry. Darks were tumbled because no one liked a pair of jeans that stood on their own.

That morning Danny and Carla were watching the Cartoon Network with cups of Cheerios and apple juice drink boxes. From the downstairs, she could hear the TV and the relentless laugh track. It was the comforting soundtrack of her weekends.

Michael had left his wallet inside his jeans pocket and when she pulled it out, a small laminated newspaper clipping protruded. She’d never have opened his wallet to see what was inside. She’d learned from her own mother’s mistakes—“Never look into something that doesn’t concern you…you just might find something that does.”

It was silly advice, convoluted, like most of her mother’s, but she got the essence of it.

Don’t look for things that will break your heart.

That day she did just that, and her heart indeed shattered. It wasn’t because of a motel receipt or a canceled check for an expensive gift that he never gave to her. That she could deal with. That she could scream about.

Not this. She looked at the clipping and started to cry. The picture of a little boy and a toddler girl wearing Mickey Mouse ears and sitting in a police station shook her. The boy looked like her son, though she knew it wasn’t.

It was her husband.

Boy, Girl Abandoned at Disneyland

By Gwen Trexler, SEA BREEZE GAZETTE Reporter

Disneyland is supposed to be “The Happiest Place on Earth” but not for two children who were abandoned there Wednesday when a woman—presumed to be their mother—asked an amusement park attendee to watch her son and daughter while she searched for a phone.

“She said she had an emergency call to make,” Martina Montoya of Tustin said Thursday morning when contacted by the SEA BREEZE GAZETTE. “I waited for an hour. She never came back. I hope she’s okay.”

The park closed an hour later and Disney security searched for the missing woman. Her children, ages believed to be 10 and 2, are now in police custody.

Olivia wanted to cry, but with her own children around, she held it together. She couldn’t fathom why Michael’s mother had left her children. How could anyone do that to a child? Michael had told her only snippets about his past, including the fact that he’d had a sister that had been adopted by another family.

Later that afternoon, Michael, all sweaty from planting two small date palms and an enormous fan-shaped bird of paradise plant along the crisp white stucco wall that ran along the backside of the property, came inside.

Olivia’s expression told him something was wrong, though she hadn’t tried to show it.