Page 46 of Nightshade
CRANE SAT CUFFED to 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 a murder 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.
“‘Got exactly what she deserved,’” Stilwell said. “I’m thinking that a jury of your peers will eat that up like ice cream.”
“A jury will never hear it,” Crane said. “Because you have no case. You need a case to go to trial.”
“I don’t know about that, Charlie. I mean, you revealed yourself up there at the hotel. We have it on the hotel’s camera too, by the way. The whole conversation will play in front of a jury and they’re going to see into your dark fucking soul. You ask me, that’s a real risk, letting that happen.”
“It never will. The whole thing was a setup.”
“Oh, I definitely agree with you there. We set you up pretty good with that text. And you took the bait.”
“The judge will throw it out. It’s entrapment.”
“I don’t know about that either. This is a Catalina crime, so the case will go to Judge Harrell—at least for initial pleadings and motions. He’s tough, and I hear he’s not overly fond of the crowd at the Black Marlin Club.”
Crane blinked and seemed to have no response, the first sign that his smug demeanor might be a front.
Stilwell picked up the recorder and scrolled back, watching the counter until he got to the number he wanted. He played a shortened version of what he had already played, repeating it as an interrogation tactic, reinforcing the jeopardy Crane’s own words had put him in.
“—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.”
Stilwell hit the stop button.
“Talk about ice cream. You’re saying a woman with a bashed-in skull got what she deserved. I don’t know—it’s not a good look on you. The best lawyers in the state won’t be able to keep women off the jury. I think if you roll the dice and go to trial, then you go down. That’s how I’d bet it, and I’d bet big.”
Crane had no comeback this time. Stilwell started to believe he was close to breaking him.
“So, let’s review things for a couple minutes here,” he said. “We have video and physical evidence that Leigh-Anne Moss’s body was put on the Emerald Sea in the middle of the night, then taken out to the bay and dumped into the Pacific. We also know that as the manager of the club, you had access to the Emerald Sea .”
“A lot of people have access to that boat,” Crane said. “It proves nothing.”
“But then somehow, like a ghost, somebody said, the body of Leigh-Anne Moss comes back into the harbor with the undersea currents. And who just happens to be in the harbor scraping hulls? Denzel Abbott. Denzel sees the body and now we have a murder. The next day you report the stolen statue and finger Leigh-Anne as the culprit. I think what happened was that you panicked, Charles, and you made up a story, but it was a bad story because here we are.”
Stilwell paused to see if Crane wanted to respond. He said nothing, but his eyes were cast down. Stilwell continued.
“You then get a text from Leigh-Anne’s roommate and you go all the way up the hill to the ZG to confront and threaten her. You have to understand that the prosecution is going to lay this out piece by piece to the jury, like a hammer hitting nails on a coffin. And before you get to trial, I’ll still be working the case, digging up more witnesses and evidence. We’ll search the club top to bottom. If you cleaned up there the way you cleaned up the Emerald Sea, then you’re going to be in more trouble. And I haven’t even begun to question members of the club and employees, other than Buddy Callahan, who you gave me to throw me off the scent.”
Crane turned his face away as though the thought of the members of the club being drawn into a police investigation was a greater embarrassment to him than a murder charge.
Stilwell continued to add pressure.
“Now, you run a boating club, so you must know what Yacht Lock is, right?” Stilwell said. “Mason Colbrink installed it on the Emerald Sea . It’s a hidden GPS transponder that helps the authorities track yachts that get stolen. So we served a search warrant on Yacht Lock and we’ll be getting the GPS for all the Emerald Sea’ s movements. Once we pinpoint the spot where you took the boat out and dumped the body, we’ll put a dive team down. My guess is that they’ll find your missing statue—the murder weapon—and Leigh-Anne’s cell phone. What we don’t get off your phone, in case you were using a burner, we’ll pull off hers. You know, all your texts and maybe some photos. And then we’ll have everything we need to get a conviction and put you away forever.”
“You live in a fantasy world, Stilwell,” Crane said. “Pure fantasy.”
It was a weak comeback. He said it without the defiance he had mustered just moments before.
“Maybe,” Stilwell said. “But I don’t think so. I think the evidence holds up, and a prosecutor is going to see headlines and glory. And you’re going to see the inside of a cell for the rest of your life.”
Stilwell stood up and went to the door but turned back before opening it.
“There’s really only one way out for you,” he said. “Own up to it. Tell me what happened. She played you, used you. She got under your skin and you reacted. Without thinking. You followed her to the door and grabbed the first thing you could get your hands on. You lashed out and you hit her. You didn’t want to kill her; you just wanted to hurt her. Hurt her for hurting you. That’s manslaughter and there’s light at the end of that tunnel. There is no light at the end of murder one.”
Crane smirked and seemed to be calling on his last ounce of bravado.
“Nice try,” he said. “Can I call my lawyer now?”
“I’ll get the phone,” Stilwell said.
He opened the door and looked back at Crane.
“I think I like it better this way,” he said. “Knowing you’ll never be able to use or hurt another woman again.”
Stilwell stepped out and closed the door.