Chapter Twenty-Nine Raine
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raine
I’d unpacked Mom’s vintage suit hanging in the closet in the east room, where Mom had stored the overflow of designer clothes she couldn’t stop buying. The suit was a classic. Barely wrinkled. It took twenty minutes to find the old iron and ironing board in the back of the kitchen pantry.
The thick, tightly woven suit fabric reminded me of my mother.
I was about six when she’d bought this outfit on a New York shopping trip.
In these few rare fashion sessions, I’d had Mom’s undivided attention.
But when I was a little older, her mind began to fade.
Mini strokes, the doctor had said. Soon, she was physically present, but she wasn’t always mentally attached to the world.
I smoothed out the fabric with the iron. Mom’s black pumps completed the look. My briefcase was in storage, so I stuffed my laptop and notepads in my backpack.
The drive into town took a half hour. A stop at the printshop took a few minutes.
The county jailhouse wasn’t huge. The one-level building housed dispatch, a small jail, and an interview room. The magistrate’s office was in the adjacent courthouse, built circa 1900.
The jail’s small reception area smelled of bleach and stale air. Beyond was a glass partition equipped with a microphone. On the other side was an older man wearing a sheriff’s deputy uniform.
“I’m Raine Hale. I understand you’ve arrested my client, Gabe Durant.”
The old man’s eyes darkened with surprise. “That’s right.”
I hadn’t represented anyone since Pete Miller. Panic tightened my chest as memories of his large hands crushing my windpipe surfaced. His amused face loomed over mine. As the guards pulled him off me, his fists landed hard blows against my ribs.
“I’d like to see him.”
“Agent Blackwood is talking to him now.”
“Tell the agent that I’m here. I want to see Mr. Durant now.”
The deputy rose from his desk and left, leaving me to wander the small space and read random community service posters.
The Dare campaign had kicked off. Two missing teens from Richmond were spotted on Route 60.
The local high school was sponsoring a fundraiser to buy bulletproof vests for the county’s K-9 unit.
The police station hadn’t changed since I was here when Detective Hutchinson had interviewed me.
He’d offered to come to the house, but I didn’t want him in Hale House.
So I’d arrived at the police station and waited on a new orange plastic chair in the reception area.
Seventeen years had left the chairs looking tired and overused.
The tile floor, with exactly 106 tiles, remained the same speckled gray. And the air still smelled the same.
As a high schooler, I hadn’t worried as I drove to the police station.
As an afterthought I’d called the family attorney.
I’d left a voicemail. Looking back, I cringed at my foolishness.
Talking to the cops alone was never smart.
I advised clients to get an attorney even if they were just fighting a parking ticket.
Detective Hutchinson had been kind when he’d escorted me back to an interview room. I’d sat at a cheap table and noticed that the video recorder’s red light never blinked on.
I’d sat a little straighter and folded my hands in my lap like my mother had always insisted. “Always a lady,” she’d said.
Hutchinson’s questions were straightforward.
“How long has Amy Stocker been in your employ?”
“About a year.”
“Why did you hire her?”
“I needed help. I had caregivers during the day while I was in school, but nights and weekends were my responsibility. Amy was hired to cover the weekends so I could get a break.”
“How did you meet Amy?”
“First day of senior year. We had the same lunch schedule.”
“Who was watching your mother the day she escaped?”
I opted to stick to the truth until I couldn’t. “It was a Saturday. Amy was on duty that day.”
“Amy Stocker?”
“That’s right.”
“Was Amy normally reliable?”
“I had no issues while she worked in Hale House.”
“Did Amy have any visitors at Hale House?”
“Not that I know of. But I was often gone on the weekends.” Mom had seemed fine when I returned, so I didn’t worry.
“And when Amy wasn’t working at Hale House?”
“She vanished like a cat. I don’t know where she went.”
“How do you think your mother got out?”
“The outside latch on her door was loose. If she rattled the door, she could have loosened it.”
“Where was Amy?”
“She said she’d fallen asleep. Mom had had a bad night.”
“Bad night?”
“She’d wake up at night and wander. That’s why I put the latch on her door.”
A knock on the door, and Detective Hutchinson rose. He opened the door, and a deputy passed him a note.
Hutchinson faced me. “Looks like your family attorney is here.”
Ethan Weller wore a charcoal-colored coat. His gray hair was slicked back, adding a sense of menace to his angled face. “This meeting is over.”
Within a few days, the world moved on, and Mom’s death and Amy were forgotten.
The door to the back office opened. Judson stood in the doorway. The softness I’d seen earlier was gone. “I understand you’re Gabe Durant’s attorney?”
I leveled my shoulders. “That’s correct. I’d like to see my client.”
“He’s in the interview room.”
“Lead the way, Agent Blackwood.”
Judson opened the interview room door. I stepped past him toward Gabe, who sat at a faux-wooden table. He had a cup of coffee in hand and a half-eaten doughnut in front of him.
Gabe moved to rise, but I gestured for him to sit. I set my backpack on the floor and took the chair next to his. Judson sat across from us.
“Agent Blackwood, why’s my client here?” I asked.
Judson didn’t blink. “We believe that he administered a foreign substance into his wife’s wine, causing her to suffer a near-fatal heart attack.”
Hearing the stark charges laid out in a gray, windowless room leveled up the stakes. “What evidence do you have against my client?”
“A search of his truck produced a small packet of white pills in his toolbox, which are now being tested. There were also pictures of Gabe and a woman who wasn’t his wife on his phone. The images suggest an affair.”
I didn’t look at Gabe, but I imagined his head dropping like that of a contrite small child. The clock on the wall ticked. “Who’s the woman?”
“Amy Stocker.”
A breath slowly filled my lungs as I looked at Gabe. I didn’t hide my frustration. Could the man not keep his mouth shut?
Gabe leaned forward. “I was going to tell you.”
I held up my hand, silencing him.
Gabe shook his head. “It’s not what it sounds like—”
“Not yet, Gabe,” I interrupted.
I’d had cops expose damning evidence like a winning poker hand. Many times, I’d expected it, but some had caught me off guard. I’d never taken these games personally. Today, this felt personal.
“I need a minute alone with my client,” I said.
Judson scooped up his legal pad, which contained only the day’s date scribbled in black ink at the top. He moved to the door.
“Shut off the camera,” I said.
“Right,” Judson said. When the door closed, I sat in silence, barely moving until I saw the red light on the camera click off.
I removed a single sheet of paper from my backpack. I’d printed it off at the local Staples on the way to the jailhouse. I laid my pen beside the paper. “Sign this. It authorizes me to act as your attorney.”
He looked at the simply worded statement. “Does it have to be formal?”
“Yes, it does. No shortcuts, Gabe.”
He signed. His slanted signature wasn’t readable beyond the G and D. I tucked the page back in a folder.
I removed a legal pad from my backpack and, like Judson, wrote the date in the top-right corner. “Where did they arrest you?”
“At home. They arrived five minutes after Mom left with Molly for school.”
That was Judson. He wasn’t above a perp walk, but he’d held back for Molly’s sake.
“Are you having an affair with Amy Stocker? You admitted you were flirting with her.”
Endless explanations rushed through his dark gaze. How many times had he mentally practiced explaining this to Maria?
“Yes or no, Gabe?” I asked.
He met my stare. “Yes.”
“How long?”
“Five months.”
“Did Maria know?”
“Yes. She confronted me the night before she collapsed. That dinner was supposed to be a fresh start for us.”
“How did she find out?”
He shook his head and picked pieces off the doughnut. “She’s smart. There’s very little that she misses.”
“Did Maria say anything else?”
“No.”
I leaned forward. “That doesn’t sound like Maria. She never shies away from conflict.” I’d always joked that she loved stirring up turmoil. Why not go for the jugular with Gabe? “She accuses you of cheating and then nothing?”
He sat back. “She dropped it. The next day, it was like it never happened. She started talking about taking a vacation. Second chances.”
“Okay.” Couples had affairs all the time. Ken was a case in point. I’d considered therapy until I realized it wasn’t his first.
But Maria and Gabe had always struck me as the exception. Yeah, they quarreled, but they’d stayed dedicated to each other through some tough times.
“Did you and Amy hook up in high school?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember exactly. The fall of senior year. I’d torn my ACL. I was sidelined and in a bad place. On the fall weekends when you and Maria were at the games, I came to Hale House.”
“Why?”
“The first time, Amy asked Mom if I could check a fuse. The lights on the first floor weren’t working. I came by and fixed the fuse. Amy started talking, offered me a drink. She was fun.”
“And you kept coming back?”
“We saw each other several times in November and December.”
“Did you have sex with her then?”
“A couple of times.”
I’d heard worse confessions. “Did Maria know?”
“No. Not then. I broke it off. I told Amy we had to go our separate ways.”
“When was this?”
“Early December.”
“How did Amy react?”
“She took it well. She said people came and went.”
I pulled the image of Amy’s Polaroid. “Is this you in the picture?”
He looked at the picture. “No.”
“That’s not your hand?” I pressed.
“No.”
“Gabe. Lying to me isn’t going to help.”
“I’m not lying. We never took any pictures. I was sure of that.”
“Except this time around on your phone.”
“Just a few.”
“That’s all it takes, pal.” I scanned the empty legal pad, unwilling to write a note that would make this moment feel too real. “When did you two reconnect?”
“May.”
“How’d you meet this go-around?”
“I do the lawn service at her office building.”
“How long before you two were in bed?”
“A week. I was feeling lost. Maria and the job. Your cousin can be very hard and judgmental.”
“Is Amy a possessive woman?”
“She wants more, but she understands I can’t leave Maria or my child.”
“When was the last time you saw Amy?”
“Eight days ago. We met at her place. I told her we had to stop. Maybe take a break for a while. I was truthful about us from the start.”
His definition of truth didn’t fit mine. “She the type to poison your wife?”