Page 130 of Nightshade

“You’re blackmailing me and that’s a bad idea. Just ask your little friend. Oh, wait, that’s right, you can’t, because she’s dead.”

Crane’s anger and hate was radiating off the screen, and Stilwell was suddenly not sure that Sneed was safe despite her being in a public place. Crane had not directly incriminated himself yet, but he had said enough to help persuade a jury. Stilwell pulled off the headphones and stepped away from the monitor. He pocketed the recorder and quickly walked out through the hotel lobby and into the bar. He came up behind Crane unseen, put a hand on the back of his neck, and shoved him forward and down, chest on the bar top, knocking his wineglass over.

“Charles Crane,” he said. “You are under arrest for the murder of Leigh-Anne Moss.”

Stilwell pulled handcuffs from his pocket and expertly latched Crane’s wrists together behind his back.

“What the hell is this?” Crane said.

“You heard me,” Stilwell said. “You’re under arrest.”

Stilwell looked at Sneed.

“Good job, Leslie,” he said. “We got what we needed. You can step back.”

Sneed slipped off her stool and regarded Crane as she moved away.

“Nice doing business with you,honey,” she said.

Crane made a lunge toward Sneed, but Stilwell easily restrained him and swung him back hard against the bar.

“You people don’t have shit!” Crane yelled. “I didn’t do anything. She’s an extortionist and I was just trying to scare her off.”

Stilwell held Crane against the bar as he started going through his pockets. From one, he pulled a fold of hundred-dollar bills. He tossed it on the bar top and they spilled apart. It appeared to be more than a thousand dollars.

“Really?” Stilwell said. “You were going to scare her away with hundred-dollar bills?”

“That wasn’t for her,” Crane said. “You have no proof of that.”

“Whatever you say, Crane. Now listen to this.”

Stilwell recited the Miranda admonishment. As he spoke the words, he thought about Leigh-Anne Moss and Daniel Easterbrook and how the crime Crane had committed had destroyed much more than one life.

46

CRANE SAT CUFFEDto the metal arms of a chair in the sub’s interview room. Stilwell had placed him in the room and let him percolate for a half hour before returning. He came in and began talking in midstream, as though they were in the middle of a conversation.

“You know what I can’t figure out?” Stilwell said, sitting down. “Why you reported the statue missing and fingered Leigh-Anne for it. I mean, if you had just cleaned it up and put it back on the pedestal after killing her, we might still be trying to identify the woman in the water and you wouldn’t be sitting there handcuffed to a chair.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Crane said.

“My guess is that it broke. The statue. You were so angry and you hit her so hard that it broke, and then you couldn’t put it back. You had to make up a story to cover up that it was missing. That was what happened, right?”

“I don’t know anything about this or what you’re talking about. If you would be kind enough to bring me my phone, I’d like to call my lawyer.”

“Well, that’s a problem, because your phone is evidence in amurder case now. We’ll be checking it for evidence that you were communicating with the victim.”

“She worked for me and we communicated by phone. It’s evidence of nothing. Can I please contact my attorney now?”

“Tell you what. Since you’ve invoked your right to an attorney, I can’t ask you any more questions—”

“Thank God for that.”

“But I can tell you a few things, and maybe they’ll be helpful for you and your attorney to know.”

Stilwell took the recorder out of his pocket and hit the play button. He had cued the playback to the most incriminating statement Crane had made to Leslie Sneed just an hour before: “You’re all alike, aren’t you? The way you think you can destroy a man. Well, your little friend got exactly what she deserved and you will too if you think you’re going to take from me what’s mine.”

He clicked it off.