Carolyn McSparren - His Only Defense

“How old is this case, and why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”

“Because you are. Frankly, I think this one has gone as far as it will ever go, but I’ve had a call from upstairs asking us to take another look.” He grimaced. “As a favor to somebody important who shall remain nameless.”

She felt a tingle down her spine. “Political?”

“A friend of the commissioner wants us to look into it. I’m not going to tell you anything else except that it’s seven years old and a Shelby County homicide, or at least we think it’s a homicide.”

“Think? As in not sure?”

“Read the murder book. We had two of the best homicide detectives on it at the time. Both retired. One of them’s dead. It’s the kind of case where they knew in their gut what happened and who the doer was, but couldn’t prove it. Seven years later, someone may be willing to talk, or you may find some forensics that we missed. Frankly, I doubt it, but as the new kid on the block, you’re getting stuck with it. If you get nowhere, at least we can say we tried.”

“I get it. CYA.”

Gavigan grinned. “Right. Cover your ass. Think of this as a reward for finding Leroy.”

“Oscar Wilde said no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Not in this department,” Gavigan said, and waved a hand toward the box, dismissing her.

JUD SLAUGHTER POURED himself two fingers of Jack Daniel’s Black Label, dropped in a single cube of ice and waited until he’d settled into his elderly leather recliner in front of the fireplace to take a sip. If the November rain didn’t slack off, the construction site would be twenty acres of slop.

Fifteen days from today was the seventh anniversary of Sylvia’s death. It had been raining that night, too.

For seven years he’d held on to the fragile belief that Sylvia might be still alive somewhere, maybe amnesiac, but alive. Colleen swore her mother must be dead, for she would never have deserted her only daughter. Jud knew better. He’d simply never been able to figure out why Sylvia had left when she did.

He couldn’t see her walking away from a hefty divorce settlement, which is what she would have received if they’d gone through with the split. She would have demanded custody of Colleen, too, although he knew damn well having a child underfoot was the last thing she would have wanted.

She’d have used Colleen as leverage, so Jud would give her everything she asked for. Besides, her father, Herb, would never have understood Sylvia’s abandoning his granddaughter. Being Daddy’s girl was important to Sylvia. Herb was probably the only person in the world she actually cared about. She wanted his love, but she also wanted his respect.

Jud was taking a risk having Sylvia declared dead so that he could collect her insurance money. Even now, the cops might still charge him with her murder. Only the lack of a body had kept him from being arrested at the time she went missing.

For seven years he’d dreaded waking up to cops beating on his door, dragging him off in handcuffs in front of Colleen, because some hunter had discovered Sylvia’s bones in the woods.

He was still eighty percent certain his wife had run away to start a new life.

The remaining twenty percent kept him looking over his shoulder.

The cops had never believed in the stranger-killer theory. The homicide detectives were old-school. Anything happens to the wife, the husband probably did it. Jud had had motive, no alibi and the best opportunity to kill her and hide her body. There had been no evidence of anyone else at the scene, and random killers didn’t generally operate at night on a country road in a downpour.

He’d been forced to admit that when he was a boy, he’d hunted in the Putnam Woods Conservation Preserve, across the road from where Sylvia’s car had been found. He’d done so years before the owner died and left it to the state as protected wildlife habitat. Since then the trees had grown, and the undergrowth and marshes had changed the woods, but the fact that he’d once been familiar with it was enough for the detectives. One more nail in his coffin—or hers—as they’d told him repeatedly.

If she’d been dumped by someone unfamiliar with the area, she’d have been found by now, even if buried in a shallow grave. The detectives had warned him that bodies always surfaced sooner or later. They’d quickly declared him the only suspect, and had stopped looking for anyone else.

Jud was so lost in his thoughts, recalling the past, that he jumped when the telephone beside him rang. He cleared his throat and answered it.

“Daddy?”

He smiled, although he knew Colleen couldn’t see him. “You got me, sweetheart.”

“I just called to say good-night. Gran says she’ll pick me up after school tomorrow and take me to soccer, then drop me by your office afterward.”

“Thank her for me.”

“I will. Good night, Daddy. Oh, Gran wants to talk to you.”

He sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

“Jud, honey?”

“Why are you whispering, Irene?”

“I don’t want Herb or Colleen to hear me. That man Jenkins from the insurance company came to see me this morning. Thank God Herb wasn’t here. You’re really going ahead with it?”

“Trip’s already started the paperwork to have Sylvia declared dead. It’s time, Irene. I’m sorry if it upsets everyone. I can use the money to send Colleen to a good college. As it is, I barely keep up with her school tuition. An Ivy League college is out of the question, even with a partial scholarship.”

“I know it’s hard for you, but I do not like that Jenkins fellow. He acts as though it’s his own money. He as good as told me he was going to pull some strings and get the police to reopen the case.”

Jud heard the question mark behind that sentence. His mother-in-law was really asking whether he had anything to worry about. She swore she believed him when he told her he’d had nothing to do with Sylvia’s disappearance, but hearing Herb condemn him as a killer for seven years must have eroded her belief in his innocence at least a bit.

“It’s going to be hard on Colleen,” he said. “Everything dragged up all over again. When she was seven, she really didn’t understand what a divorce would have meant to her. If they reopen the case, her schoolmates will probably dredge up the story of the disappearing mother and the murderous father. I wish I could keep her wrapped in cotton, but it’s time to get it finished once and for all.”

“I’ll be here for Colleen, dear. And for you, too. I know what Sylvia was really like, even if Colleen and Herb don’t. I’ll pray for you.”

“Pray for all of us.”

After he hung up, he leaned back in his chair, took a long drink of his bourbon and closed his eyes. He’d lived carefully for seven years. Now he was about to take the biggest risk of his life. Only time would tell whether he’d made the right decision.

LIZ CLIMBED OUT of her Honda in front of the Weichert and Slaughter construction trailer and stepped into a cold mud puddle. She hadn’t seen it, given the late-afternoon shadows.

Great. You’d think a construction company would have enough leftover gravel to keep their parking area dry. Her boots were now covered with mud. Her black slacks were splashed, as well, and the darn things had to be dry-cleaned.

She left muddy footprints on the wooden stairs up to the trailer entrance, where an industrial rubber welcome mat lay. She scraped off as much muck as she could, and opened the door.

After staying up past midnight poring over the murder book, then spending most of today on the evidence box, Liz agreed with the two homicide detectives who had handled the case the first time. Jud Slaughter had gotten away with murder.