Page 34

Sunday

Rowan

Sunday morning I wake up in a daze. When I open my bedroom door, I almost trip over Lickie, who’s lying in my path.

It’s unusual behavior, and it puts me on high alert as I tiptoe down the hall. But five seconds later, I understand. Zoe the cat is sitting at the bottom of the staircase, glaring up at us with contemptuous green eyes.

Lickie whines.

“It’s okay, girl. You’re bigger than she is, and this is your turf. Lean into your own power.”

Lickie is uncertain.

We all traipse to the kitchen together, where I get the coffee started and let Lickie out. Then I pick up the phone to see if the lawyer got back to me and instead find an email from Detective Fry.

Rowan, I hope this message finds you well. The Portland PD requests that you sign the following form authorizing the release of your phone’s data to help further our investigation. Messages between you and the deceased can help us build a case. Details that might seem inconsequential to you could help us paint a picture of his final days.

It is vital that you assist us before 5 p.m. today, or we will be forced to ask a judge for a court order. Ignoring this request will naturally cause us to wonder who you might be protecting by withholding it.

Detective Captain Fry

Portland Police Department

I close the email, feeling queasy. And then I open it again and click on the attachment. The document is a nightmare, giving them access to everything on my phone, including photos, videos, plus all apps and messages.

They probably know I visited Harrison yesterday. And now Fry probably thinks I’m helping him get away with murder.

My hand shakes as I reach for a coffee mug. When my phone pings a second later, I assume it’s the police, pressuring me again.

But this time it’s the litigator.

On my way to see Harrison at the jail.

I wonder if hiring her was a mistake. I’ve made myself look even more guilty. And her hourly rate is sky high on the weekends. This lawyer was on Beatrice’s list of Wincott family favorites, so of course she’s expensive.

But I’m doing this for Natalie. And if Harrison breaks my daughter’s heart, I might actually become the murderer that Fry thinks I am.

Full of nervous energy, I scrub the kitchen sink, and then all three bathrooms. Then I vacuum, even though Natalie is still in bed. She’s supposed to be pounding the pavement for a summer job, so I don’t even feel guilty about the noise.

When eleven o’clock comes, I’ve stress-cleaned most of the house. The lawyer calls shortly afterward, putting me out of my misery.

“Hello?” I answer quickly.

“Rowan, I’ve been to see him.”

“Was he okay with it?” I made no attempt to warn Harrison that I was sending him a litigator.

“Mostly. He asked me my rates. I wasn’t going to deflect. But I told him you’d hired me just for the hearing tomorrow. He says he wants to pay you back in full.”

“Fine. He and I will speak about it later.”

“I’ll be calling his employer today, getting a statement in support of his recent work history. And I’ll be emphasizing at the hearing that his living arrangement was a minor, unintentional infraction. He was acting in good faith. There was no contraband found on his person or in the room he rents. His drug test is also clean.”

Clean.

I close my eyes and picture Harrison sitting across the table from me yesterday, making me laugh even in the grimmest circumstances. He told me straight up that he wasn’t on drugs.

And it was true.

“Does any of that matter, though?” I ask. “Aren’t the cops going to argue that he’s a suspect in a murder investigation?”

“They can try. It will be my job to convince the judge that the two cases aren’t related, and that a little bit of half-assed circumstantial evidence isn’t enough to imprison a man. The judge knows it’s wildly expensive to keep an inmate for no reason. He also knows how badly the police need a suspect. But if the police had any real evidence of Harrison’s guilt, they’d have charged him already.”

“Is there any way to know what the cops found?”

“Not directly,” she admits. “But Harrison provided a lot of detail about what questions they’ve asked him. It seems like his biggest problem is his timeline on the night of the murder, and the fact that he was playing the same club where they found the gun.”

My stomach drops. “Yeah, that’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“Yes and no. The club is on the same side of town as the Wincott Mansion. During the break, he walked south and knocked on your door. The police can time-stamp that from the video. And your house is on the way to the mansion. Plus, his cell phone was powered down the whole time, which the police seem to think is suspicious.”

“Not everyone is glued to their phone twenty-four hours a day.” Then again, I probably haven’t powered down my phone in months.

“He says he always turns his phone off during a gig. But they’re going to argue that he could easily have been at the scene of the crime.”

I think that through. “So... he knocks on my door, and nobody answers. Then he decides to kill Tim. And somehow, he knows exactly where Tim is without using a phone or any other communication. He walks over there and kills him, before going back to play the band’s next set? That isn’t a very convincing storyline.”

“Agreed, unless he had a second phone, which he denies. Then there’s that note, which he couldn’t have written. If they bring murder charges, we’d find a teacher to testify about his dyslexia. I’d also want to dig into the gun a little bit. The police have said where it was dumped, but not when. The club and the sidewalks around it were busy that night. Lots of people around, and they’re still looking to corroborate the gun dump. It’s much more likely that the perp threw it in there the next day, which is why nobody but the tipster saw it. Hell—the tipster could have thrown it in himself.”

“Oh shit.”

“That’s just one of the lines of inquiry I’d try to explore. Did you know Tim had a gun?”

“Nope. Never saw it.”

She hums. “I wonder whether he always carried it in the vehicle, or if he had it the night of his death for a specific reason. Did you ever open the glove box in Tim’s car?”

“Never had a reason to.”

She’s silent for a second. “The police are looking at you as well, right? They’d have to be.”

“Well, yeah. I was the one who found him. And we had just broken up.”

“Recently?”

“A few days before.”

Another silence. “Look, if they actually charge Harrison with murder, I can’t help both of you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not married. And as Harrison’s lawyer, my job will be to remove suspicion from him any way I can.”

It takes me a second and then it dawns on me with hideous clarity. “So... casting suspicion on me would be your plan?” I let out a nervous laugh.

“You don’t make a great murder suspect.” There’s a smile in her voice. “But I only need reasonable doubt. And the police will think now that you two are working together.”

Shit. “So... I’ll have to hire an additional lawyer for myself?”

“Only if I represent Harrison for Mr. Kovak’s murder. But that probably won’t be necessary.”

“Because you don’t think Harrison did it.”

“Listen carefully,” she says. “It’s not my job to decide if he did or didn’t. It’s my job to make sure that he has a strong defense, and that he can’t be convicted on circumstantial bullshit. And it looks to me like they don’t have a strong case.”

“Okay.”

“But, since you asked, I don’t see him as a dangerous man. Which is why I’m about to make a suggestion you might not like.”