A soft knocking made her look up. Baldwin stood in the door, Lincoln behind him.
“Come on in,” she said. “I’m ready, I was just putting a couple of notes in the files so I don’t forget. I could use a Guinness, I’ll tell you that.”
“We might have to hold off on that a moment.” Lincoln had that look, that “I found something you’ve got to see” look that he only got when he had something explosive to tell her.
Her stomach dropped. She took her hair out of the ponytail, then put it back up. “God, don’t tell me. More tapes?”
“No. Nothing bad for you.” He smiled and sat in the chair opposite her. Baldwin stayed standing in the doorway.
“Spill. I’m out of patience today, Linc.”
“Michelle Harris has a juvenile record. A sealed juvenile record.”
Taylor’s heart thumped twice, resetting its rhythm for a faster pace.
“For what? Did you get them unsealed?”
“I did, but Baldwin had to help. It was a federal case.”
“Michelle Harris was charged with a federal felony when she was a kid?”
“Not exactly. She was raped. When she was fourteen. By a really bad guy who was a serial rapist, preyed on young women in Connecticut. That’s why it was so hard to get, the records are tied up in a completely separate state’s jurisdiction as well as with the FBI. Because this guy transported some of his victims across state lines, the FBI was able to level kidnapping charges against him. But he slipped the net. Got off in court on a bogus technicality. I could go into details, but let’s fast forward to why. He slips the noose and goes out to get himself some play.
“He found them at summer camp. Tennis camp. Michelle was fourteen. We don’t have all the details, but on the night he raped her, Michelle managed to kill him.”
“What?”
“Yeah. It’s a wild story. He raped her, left her, and instead of reporting it, she followed him. He went to a bar, she waited on him. He came out drunk, she took advantage of the situation. Lured him behind the bar, took care of business.”
“How?” Taylor asked.
“With a piece of steel pipe. She beat him to death.”
Forty
T aylor was tired. They were sitting outside Henry Anderson’s home again. The sun had gone down. The air was cool, nippy almost. The lights in Anderson’s home looked warm, inviting. She watched Michelle Harris bustle through the living room, couldn’t tell if she was crying or singing with joy.
When Taylor knocked this time, it was with her knuckles. Polite. Rap, rap, rap.
Michelle came to the door, saw Taylor and Baldwin standing on her step again. Her face contorted in anger. Before she could react, Taylor held up her hands, palm forward.
“It’s okay. Can we come in? We need to talk to you.”
“Why would I let you in? You’ve completely destroyed my life in the past week.” But she walked away from the door, leaving it open. With a shrug to Baldwin, Taylor went into the house.
Michelle had lit a fire and looked to be having some sort of celebration. Takeout containers and an open bottle of wine sat on the coffee table in the den. This time, Taylor did take a moment to look around, and was struck by the incongruity of the scene. Anderson was a foul creature, profited from the basest of people’s emotions, yet his home was as warm and inviting as Taylor’s own. It made a chill go down her spine.
Michelle sat on the leather sofa, drew her bare feet up under her. She picked up the glass of wine, toyed with the stem.
“Do you want some,” she salvoed. It wasn’t really a question and Taylor didn’t bother answering.
“Why did you do it, Michelle? Why did you kill Corinne?”
Michelle didn’t look up, just stared deep into the contents of her glass. A pinot noir, judging by the lightness of the red and the brown notes that caught in the reflection of the merrily dancing fire. Taylor glanced at the bottle. Yes, she was right. A David Bruce, decent vintage too. Jesus, was Anderson an amateur oenophile like herself as well? Dark and light, that’s what they were. Two sides of the same coin. She shuddered, forced her thoughts back to Michelle.
“I loved him,” Michelle said. “It was as simple as that.”
“Were you with Todd that weekend? Was he with you instead of in Savannah, like he claimed?”
“Yes. We met up in Crossville, stayed the night.”
God. Cold-blooded was getting a twin. Killed her sister, framed her lover. Nice girl.
“You know we have to arrest you now.”
“Can I finish my wine?”
Taylor glanced at Baldwin. His green eyes had gone nearly black in the firelight. He nodded.
“If you tell us how it happened.”
Michelle leaned forward, took the bottle, and poured herself a hefty dollop. With an almost apologetic smile at Taylor, she took a gulp, emptied the rest of the bottle into the glass, then sat back with a smile, as if she were going to tell a wonderful story.
“She had them both. Both of them loved her. They’d fuck me. Well, Henry couldn’t do it so much, but he panted after Corinne like a dog in heat. Todd was so wrapped around her little finger, he’d do anything she told him. She ran things, you know that, don’t you?”
Taylor nodded. An exhaustive search of all the records indeed showed Corinne’s hand dipping into each aspect of Anderson’s empire.
“She was even better at being a criminal than she was at tennis. There was nothing she couldn’t do. I loved them both, and they both loved her. Gave her children. Gave her everything. I got the scraps. Always had. It wasn’t fair. You know about Connecticut?”
“Yes. You beat a man to death.”
She went blank, her piercing blue eyes shuttered. “He raped me. He deserved it. He promised me he’d come back the next day, rape Corinne too. I had no choice, I had to defend her.”
“You killed a man to protect her. If you loved her so much, why did you kill her? Why did you frame the man you loved with your sister’s blood?”
Michelle was silent, drank more of the wine. Her eyes were starting to droop; she looked a bit tipsy. Michelle knew she was caught. She had nothing to lose, not anymore.
“That was convenient. She cut her hand in his truck. I knew he’d get the blame. We always fought, but we had a horrific fight on Friday night. We’d been going through some of the tapes that we were going to sell. She made a crack about Henry not being able to get it up with me, I made a crack about Todd being able to get it up just fine. Yes.” She waved her hand around. She was getting deeper into the liquor. Taylor reached for the glass, set it aside. Michelle didn’t notice.
“I had such fun with Todd. She didn’t know we were doing it. Right under her noshe, her nose. She din’t like that. I said too bad, if she got to fuck my man, I got to fuck hers. One thing led to another. I couldn’t stand looking at her anymore. She said I was a failure, that I’d always been the biggest disappointment in Mother and Daddy’s life. She wash mean.”
Michelle’s eyes were clouding, and her pupils seemed huge in the soft light.
Taylor jumped to her feet. “Shit! Baldwin, call 911. She’s OD’ing. God damn it. She must have taken something before we got here. Michelle!”
Taylor shook her, and Michelle smiled. “I forgot…to turn off the lights. Don’t tell…Mom. She’d be…mad…if she…knew.”
She stopped responding. Baldwin called the ambulance, then came and felt for a pulse. They laid her down. Her breath was short, her heartbeat thready against Taylor’s fingers.
“Damn, Baldwin, what did she take?”
