J.T. Ellison - Judas Kiss

“You’re doing great, Michelle. Just a few more questions, okay? Tell me about Todd.”

“What’s there to say? Todd is—”

“What’s there to say?” Matthew Harris stormed into the kitchen. “I’ll tell you what there is to say. Todd isn’t here, and my Corinne is dead. He might as well have beaten her to death himself. Him and all this travel, this desperate need to get his name out there. If he’d been home, protecting Corinne like he should have been, this wouldn’t have happened. My daughter and my grandson wouldn’t be dead.”

Matthew Harris stepped toward Taylor, pointing his forefinger at her chest, making jabbing motions in the air. “I don’t want to hear anything from you, Lieutenant, except ‘I’m going to nail this bastard to the wall for what he’s done.’ That’s all I need to hear.”

Taylor stood, stretching to her nearly six-foot height, only an inch shorter than Corinne’s father. He took another step toward her and she put up her hand.

“Mr. Harris. I suggest you take a step back.”

“Daddy!” Michelle was on his arm, yanking at him, pulling him toward a chair. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant, this isn’t like him. Daddy, what is wrong with you?”

Taylor had a brief, flickering image of her own father’s incredulous face, staring at her through the thick Plexiglas of a patrol car, but shook her head to disrupt the thought.

Matthew Harris sat heavily at the kitchen table, lowered his head onto his folded arms, and began to cry.

Taylor caught Fitz’s eye and he came in from the deck, the younger Harris boy following on his heels.

“Dad, are you okay?” The boy sat down, his hand on his father’s heaving back.

Taylor jerked her head to the right, signaling to Fitz to follow her. They left the grieving Harrises at the kitchen table and stepped outside, closing the French doors behind them. Taylor pulled her sunglasses out of her pocket and put them on.

Fitz had a furrow between his eyebrows. “Anything new?”

“No. Michelle Harris told me the same story twice, with nearly identical details each time. From what I’m hearing, nothing is rehearsed. We have a timeline at least—the lights were on all weekend, and the neighbor saw Corinne on Friday. Michelle Harris said Corinne turns the house lights on at dark, so we can start with the assumption that the murder happened sometime after sunset Friday. The sisters are upset, the father is cracking under the pressure.”

“That’s understandable.”

“Of course it is. The mother refused to be sedated. I’d like to take a shot at her before she changes her mind. I’m anxious to meet the husband.”

“The brother pointed me in the husband’s direction.”

“Really? That sounds promising. I’d like to hear what he has to say. The father just intimated that he felt Wolff was responsible, too. He’s pretty upset, I didn’t get the feeling he thought Wolff committed the murder. Just that he wasn’t around to protect his wife.”

“Well, the kid seems to think that Wolff is entirely capable of doing the deed. Says they fought all the time, that Corinne was talking about leaving him.”

Taylor looked over the hedge into the Wolffs’ backyard. Nice, open view for Mrs. Manchini. “Funny, the sister didn’t mention it. Let’s go talk to the mom, if she’s ready, then we can talk to the kid.”

“Mrs. Harris, could you tell me a bit about your daughter?”

Taylor was back at the table in the chintz kitchen, a fragrant cup of tea steaming at her elbow. Corinne Wolff’s mother was doing better than before. Father Ross sat next to her, holding her hand. Her husband was in the other room. Taylor didn’t feel like having a confrontation with him. Besides, girls talked to their mothers.

She sniffled into a tissue. “What do you want to know?”

“Did she have any enemies? Was she fighting with her husband? What was she like? I need to get to know Corinne so I can start looking for her killer.”

“She was a wonderful child. Gifted.”

“Gifted how?”

“She was an athlete. Tennis. She was ranked in the top ten in her age group for most of her career. She wanted to go to the Olympics. But that all changed when she got into high school.”

“What changed for her?”

Julianne Harris stifled a smile. “My Corinne discovered boys. And suddenly, tennis was something she could play with them. She stopped training, decided she wanted to be normal. It was a huge waste of talent, she was qualified to go out on the circuit. She made the finals at Wimbledon, in the juniors, against the number one seed. A girl from Russia. Nearly took the match. The loss was…difficult for her.”

The tone of her voice made Taylor think the loss might have been hard for Mrs. Harris, too.

“So where did Corinne go from there, Mrs. Harris?”

“She got tremendous grades, went on to Vanderbilt. She continued to play, just without the same fervor that she had as a girl. She met Todd, they graduated, and she worked for a time before she got pregnant with Hayden. They were so happy, oh, you should have seen the look on her face when she told me. It was a very easy pregnancy for her. This one wasn’t as simple, but she was doing so well.”

“How would you characterize her relationship with Todd?”

Mrs. Harris fiddled with her stringy tissue. That was interesting. Taylor could tell the woman was trying to think carefully about what to say. Protecting the husband? Or protecting her daughter? The Harrises weren’t unbiased in all of this. They had a granddaughter to think of as well.

Mrs. Harris sighed deeply. “Oh, Lieutenant, what can I say? They were just like any other new family. They had their issues, but they seemed to be superficial. Todd would do something to upset Corinne, she would call and complain about it. I’d tell her how much I understood and she’d attack me, accuse me of hating Todd. It was a very typical mother-daughter-husband situation. As far as I know, Todd didn’t do anything exceptional. He is a solid man, a good provider. He works too much, but he’s the sole breadwinner. Corinne didn’t want to have children only to let a day care raise them. She was adamant that she stay home with Hayden. And Dalton…Did anyone tell you that they’d named the baby Dalton? In my day, it was always bad luck to talk about your unborn child, but nowadays they don’t think that way.” The tears started again, and Taylor decided she’d had enough for the moment.

“It’s a nice name, Mrs. Harris. I’m so sorry for your loss. Thank you for your candor. I appreciate it. I’ll let you get back to your family now.”

Taylor left Father Ross to it. He was going to be much more of a comfort now than she ever could.

Taylor took Derek Harris outside to chat. They got seated in the chairs on the deck, Fitz and Taylor facing Derek. He was happy to talk badly about his brother-in-law.

“They’d been having problems for a while. Corinne swore me to secrecy. She knew she could trust me not to tell Michelle. Michelle’s a little intense. If she’d known they weren’t getting along, she’d be badgering Corinne to move out or something.”

“Tell us what happened.”

“Corinne didn’t say what they fought about, only that they had a huge, terrible fight. I remember she came over to Mom and Dad’s that night, she looked like she’d been crying. Anyway, we were talking after dinner. She told me he’d gotten furious with her and stormed off. She hadn’t seen him for about five days, didn’t know where he was.

“But he came home the next day. I went over there after class to check on her, and he was sitting in the living room, drinking a beer. She had this chirpy look on her face, seemed happy that he was home. Do you think he killed her?”