won’t understand why I always leave again. She’ll think it’s something she’s done when it really has nothing to do with her at all.”
Sam would never understand how Norah could walk away from her daughter, but he also believed she was sincere in saying she didn’t want to cause Maddy harm.
It was time to let Norah go completely and move on. No more hopes for something changing.
Norah wasn’t going to change.
“I would like frequent updates, however,” Norah added. “To know how the two of you are getting along.”
“I’ll e-mail you.”
The waitress approached with menus. Sam took one and bent to show Maddy what the children’s menu included. As she weighed the merits of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich versus chicken fingers, Sam glanced at Norah and found her smiling.
“I was right,” she said. “You were meant to be a father.”
On that, he thought, they could agree.
“Are you going to sit in on the interrogation?” Norah asked later, after the waitress had brought their orders.
“Detective Tandy wouldn’t let me.”
Norah smiled. “She’s quite the little authoritarian.”
“She’s right. It would be a conflict of interests.”
“But she’ll whisper the details in your ear later, no doubt.”
Sam tried not to react to Norah’s sly tone. She was clearly fishing for information about his relationship with Kristen, and since he didn’t know how to define it himself, playing Norah’s game would be folly.
“If she’s as good at interrogating suspects as she is at interrogating innocent people like me, Mr. Morris should break in no time.” Norah settled back in her chair with a wry smile.
Sam hoped she was right. Because if Darryl Morris wasn’t the person who’d tried to kidnap Maddy, then Sam and the cops were back to square one.
“THIS IS YOU IN THE surveillance video, isn’t it?” Kristen reached into the manila envelope lying on the table, pulled out the screen grab the deputy had supplied and slid it toward Darryl Morris.
Morris looked down at the photo, his complexion shiny with sweat. Morris had grown increasingly unnerved since the Birmingham Police had transferred him over to her custody. The interview room she’d placed him in wasn’t air-conditioned, by design, but it wasn’t hot enough to warrant the perspiration dripping down the man’s sallow cheeks. He looked queasy, well aware he’d been caught red-handed.
“That could be anyone.”
“Anyone wearing a tan windbreaker and a Braves cap.”
“Exactly.” Morris looked at Foley, who’d remained quiet to this point. “There’s gotta be a lot of guys out there with Braves caps.”
“Who also happened to send angry letters to Sam Cooper?” Foley asked reasonably.
“And took pictures at Maddy’s preschool while Maddy was in attendance?” Kristen added.
“I’m a part-time photographer. Big deal.”
“Apparently a courier, as well.” Kristen tapped the photo.
“Jeez, okay. I dropped off a package at the D.A.’s office. Is that some sort of crime?”
“A terroristic threat comes to mind,” Kristen said to Foley. “Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’d think that’s fair.”
Morris’s eyes widened. “Wait a second-terroristic threat? Sure, I wrote the jerk a couple of letters, but I didn’t make any threats.”
Kristen pulled a piece of paper from the envelope and placed it on the table in front of Morris. It was a full-size photocopy of the handwritten threat on the back of the last photo.
“What does that say, Mr. Morris?” she asked.
He stared at the words. “I didn’t write that.”
“That was in the envelope you delivered to Sam Cooper.”
“I didn’t know what was in the envelope.”
“Why not?” Kristen prodded.
“Some guy paid me ten bucks to deliver it.”
“You needed ten bucks that bad?” Kristen asked, skeptical. “Come on, Darryl. You don’t really expect me to buy this.”
“‘Your child for mine.’” Foley read the phrase written on the paper aloud, letting his tongue linger over each word. “You lost your son in a terrible accident.”
“He was murdered.”
“Sam Cooper didn’t see it that way,” Foley said.
“Wasn’t his kid!”
“But Maddy Cooper is.” Kristen leaned closer, dropping her voice a level. “Must be hard for you, watching Maddy Cooper running around the playground, so full of life and promise.”
“No,” Morris said, shaking his head. “I think her father’s a bootlicking political hack, but I’d never hurt a kid.”
“How about a teenager?” Foley nodded at Kristen.
She pulled out another photo and laid it on the table in front of Morris. It was a photo taken at the crime scene of Sam Cooper’s niece Cissy lying unconscious and still, her face wet with blood from her head wound.
Morris recoiled. “You think I did that?”
“Where were you this past Tuesday night?” Kristen asked.
Morris looked at her suspiciously. “At home.”
“Anybody there with you?”
He looked down at his hands. “No.”
“Nobody saw you at home?”
“I live up in Pell City, near the river. Not a lot of neighbors around.”
“You took these photos of Maddy, didn’t you?” Kristen pulled out the photocopies of the pictures Sam had received, both the more recent batch and the set from two days earlier.
He looked down at the photos again. She saw his eyelids flicker, and she knew she had him.
“Why did you take the photos and send them to Sam Cooper? Why did you tell him, ‘your child for mine’?” Kristen pulled up the chair across from Morris, settling down to look him in the eyes. “He denied you the justice you needed, and yet there he was, with his perfect, happy little child. It wasn’t fair, was it? That he could go home to his kid while the best you can do is go see a headstone.”
Morris’s eyes welled up with tears. “Charlie didn’t deserve to die. Yeah, he had some trouble, but he didn’t deserve to die!” He wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. “Sam Cooper didn’t think his life was worth crap, or he’d have tried that stupid son of a bitch who ran Charlie over!”
“You wanted to give Sam a taste of his own medicine.” Kristen kept her voice low and soothing. “Because he should know how it feels to lose his kid.”
Morris froze. “No, I didn’t say that-”
“Why did you take the photos, Darryl?”
“The guy paid me to.”
“What guy?”
“The guy who gave me the envelope. He was right outside the courthouse-didn’t your cameras catch that, too?”
Kristen slanted a look at Foley. He shrugged.
“What did the guy look like?” she asked, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to play along.
“I don’t know-average. About my age. Blondish hair, going gray, maybe, what there was of it. Not short, not tall.” Morris’s face twisted with frustration. “Go look at the video.”
Kristen glanced at Foley again. He gave a little nod and slipped out of the room.
Kristen remained silent for a few minutes, deciding it wouldn’t hurt to let Morris sweat a little more. She wasn’t really buying his story about another man-what were the odds that there were two men, both with an axe to grind with Sam Cooper, collaborating on the threats against Maddy?
