CHAPTER TEN
The cop taping my formal statement is the same one who responded to the 911 call the night before. He’s also the muscle-bound cop who found me wandering around the carnival in February. He’s maybe five or six years older than me, his skin is the color of coffee diluted with cream, and he has a beautifully shaped scalp. If mine was that perfect, I might shave my head, too.
“That’ll do it.” Officer Wainwright switches off the recorder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
We’re at the police station in what appears to be an interrogation room, although there is no mirror, two-way or otherwise. The floor’s linoleum, the table’s formica and my chair is plastic. There’s a strong scent of stale coffee although neither of us have a drink.
“I still don’t understand why I had to come to the station,” I say. “I told you all this last night.”
“I know you did.” Wainwright’s voice is surprisingly high-pitched. “Just between you and me, it’s a waste of time. But the media’s breathing down our necks, and the chief says we’ve got to cross all our t’s and dot all our i’s. That includes audio taping you and your boyfriend.”
Max Harper is in a separate room with a different police officer. We haven’t spoken since the cavalry arrived on the death scene last night. The first thing the cops did was separate us so we couldn’t compare notes.
“Max isn’t my boyfriend.”
“Whatever you say.” He clearly doesn’t believe me. Before I can make another denial, he taps the back of his head. “How you doin’, anyway? The head okay? You were pretty confused last winter.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good, good.” He nods in rhythm with his comment. “Can’t be easy with your dad in prison.”
“Stepdad.” I didn’t really expect to get out of the police station without someone mentioning my felon of a stepfather.
“I saw your mom out there waiting for you.”
Even though at eighteen I’m a legal adult, Mom insisted on accompanying me to the police station. She probably expected to be present during my statement but the desk officer said it was my choice. I didn’t choose my mother.
“Lucky me,” I mutter under my breath.
“How is she?” He leans back in his chair, totally at ease. Unlike mine, his chair isn’t plastic. “I tell you, she’s one lucky lady. Not many people who ram their cars into trees live to tell about it.”
I’d overheard her tell my stepfather she’d lost control because of the enemies on her tail. No way am I bringing up my mother’s crazy history to Muscle Cop, although I do need to make something clear. “She didn’t crash on purpose.”
“Then why did she jump off the bridge after she survived the crash?”
My heart stutters and my breath lodges in my windpipe. I can barely choke out my question. “What bridge?”
“The one near where she crashed.” He peers at me and runs a big paw over his mouth. “Aw, hell. You didn’t know your mom tried to kill herself?”
Forget the Black Widow. I’ve got my own problems. As crazy as Mom is, she’s never seemed suicidal. Think, Jade. I know that bridge. It spans a marsh and connects Midway Beach to the mainland. At its highest, it’s only about twenty feet.
“That bridge is pretty low,” I say. “She might have jumped for another reason.”
Yeah, maybe she just wanted a nice swim in the marsh. Crazy people probably get urges like that all the time.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.” Officer Wainwright is squirming now despite his more comfortable chair. Baby fat pads his cheeks. He might be even younger than I thought. “You should talk to your mom. She looks like she’s doing okay.”
“Don’t you think I should know the details?”
“I think you should talk to your mom,” he repeats. He gets up and sweeps a hand toward the door. “You’re free to go. Thanks for coming in.”
“But you haven’t answered—”
“I said thanks for coming in.” He walks to the door and pulls it open. “If I need anything else, I’ll be in touch.”
My only choice is to nod and leave the room. I’m forming the questions I’ll ask Mom on the drive home when I come across another fresh hell in the waiting area. Max Harper and my mother are sitting side by side, their bodies angled toward each other, their expressions serious. I nearly break Usain Bolt’s record in the hundred meters to reach them.
Mom looks up, her brow creased as deeply as Yoda’s. “How did it go, sweetheart?”
“Fine. It was a formality.”
“That’s exactly what Max said.” Mom nods at him, like he’s her new best friend. “He told me he was with you last night. I’m so grateful for that.”
My mother showed up at the beach last night to drive me home after someone—I’m still not sure who—called and told her what was going on. From me, she got next to no information.
“Have you two been talking about me?” The only worse topic would be my mother’s suspicion that I’m schizophrenic.
“Guilty as charged.” Max is wearing that half-grin. His khakis and cream-colored short-sleeved shirt call attention to how pale he is. Either he uses sunscreen with vampire-level protection or he doesn’t spend much time outdoors.
“Do I want to know what you’ve been saying about me?”
“Heavens, yes.” Mom puts her hand to her breast, exactly like a TV sitcom mom from thirty years ago. “Max has your best interests at heart. He thinks you’re terrific.”
Neither of those statements would score very high on a truth meter. “He does?”
“I do,” Max jumps into the conversation. “I mean, we came across a dead body and you didn’t even scream. How cool is that?”
His eyes are laughing, and I wonder if he knows about the bloodcurdling scream I let loose in the funhouse. With any luck, that’s old news by now. Then again, with Maia on the case, I doubt it.
The text tone on Mom’s cell phone goes off. She pulls the phone from her purse and makes a face while she checks the message. “My clients are waiting. They got to the house early. Jade, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.”
“That’s okay, I’ll—”
“I’m happy to drive Jade home, Mrs. Greene,” Max interrupts.
“That would be wonderful.” My mother accepts his offer before I can reject it. She lays a hand on his arm. “I’m trusting you to keep an eye on my girl. See you later, Jade.”
The high heels of her sandals click on the linoleum floor, and she wastes no time in getting out the door.
“What was that all about?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You heard her. She trusts me to get you home safely.”
“I was about to say I can walk home.”
“In this heat? In those shoes?” He points to the flip-flops I’m wearing with my sundress. “It’s gotta be two miles to your house.”
“I’m young and healthy. I can walk two miles.” Something occurs to me. “Hey, how do you know where I live?”
“I know a lot of things about you.” He winks and starts walking for the exit.
I hurry after him. “Like what?”
“Like you’re really tuned in to the Midway Beach scene.”
“Duh. I have lived here all my life.”
He pulls open the door and indicates I should precede him into the sunshine. “Then you must know where you can get the best pizza in town.”
“Mario’s,” I tell him when we’re outside.
He descends the steps that lead to the sidewalk before he says, “Sounds good. That’s where we’ll go for lunch.”
I keep pace, looking at him instead of where I’m headed. “I’m not going to lunch with you!”
“Hey, careful!” someone says.
I barely avoid running straight into a short, rumpled-looking guy who’s wearing glasses and a Wilmington News ball cap. A guy I’ve seen before. He was at the beach last night, notebook in hand.
He points a finger at us. “Aren’t you the two who found the Black W
idow?”
Max moves close to me like we’re a team. “We are.”
“I’m Stuart Bigelow from the Wilmington News. Mind if I ask a few questions?”
Being interviewed for the newspaper isn’t on my top ten list of things to do today. “I don’t think—”
“Not at all,” Max interrupts. “Fire away.”
The reporter flips open his notebook and takes a pen from his shirt pocket. “First tell me what happened.”
Max gives a semi-detailed account of how we found the Black Widow, sounding smooth and confident, like he’s used to talking to the press.
“Did you know the dead woman was Constance Hightower?” Bigelow asks.
“I recognized her from photos in the media.” It’s the first question I’ve answered.
“Did either of you notice anyone else in the vicinity?”
I shake my head.
“No one,” Max confirms.
After two or three more questions, including how we spell our names, Bigelow says, “That’ll about do it. Unless there’s anything else you can add.”
I’m ready to part ways, but Max takes a step closer to the reporter and lowers his voice. “Actually, there is.”
There is?
“But in return I want to know what you know,” Max says. “For starters, who was the last person to see Constance Hightower alive?”
The reporter lets out a laugh. “Are you really holding information hostage?”
“I really am. I’m sure you’re familiar with exchanging information.” Max sounds completely in command of the situation, like he knows exactly what can make a journalist salivate.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Her sister was staying with Constance at the manse. She’s pretty shaken up. Said Constance went for a walk on the beach a couple days ago and never came back.”
“Did Constance leave a suicide note?” Max asks.
“Yeah. Said death trumped prison. It’s consistent with what the sister said about Constance showering four or five times a day to get rid of the stink of jail.”
“Who benefits from her death?” Max sounds like he’s the reporter instead of Bigelow. “Her sister?”
Bigelow scratches his chin. “Why do you want to know all this?”
“We found her,” Max says. “We’re part of the story now.”
Max’s answer should make sense but it rings false. I’m curious about the details, too, but not in the same intense way as Max.
“Fair enough. Except I can’t answer your question. Constance wasn’t charged with her husband’s death until after she inherited. His children managed to freeze the assets but by then she could have stashed money anywhere. With her dead, it’ll probably take the courts years to sort things out.”
“Because she was never convicted,” Max finishes.
“Bingo. Your turn. What you got for me?”
“A couple questions.”
Bigelow’s eyebrows lift like the Golden Arches.
“The police didn’t let you near the body, right?”
“Right. They had the area partitioned off.”
“So you didn’t ask why there wasn’t any blood on the scene?”
Neither had I. And, unlike Bigelow, I’d been gaping down at the body.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” The reporter points a finger at Max and says, “Thanks a lot.”
Bigelow hustles away, taking the steps to the police station two at a time. As soon as he’s gone, I circle around Max to stand in front of him. “Why didn’t you point out the no-blood thing to me last night?”
“You had enough to deal with last night.”
I don’t need him protecting me, but there are more pressing issues on my mind. “So you think someone killed the Black Widow and moved her body?”
“Either that or she killed herself and someone moved the body.” He looks more serious than at any time since I’ve met him.
“Did you tell the police?”
“I’m sure they figured it out.” He starts walking down the sidewalk.
I catch up to him and match my shorter strides to his longer ones. “How did you know to hold back information so that reporter would spill?”
“Common sense.”
It seems like there was more to it than that, like he had experience dealing with the media. “But why did you do it? Why did you want to know the details?”
“Didn’t you?”
His two-word answers aren’t doing the trick. Too many things about Max Harper aren’t adding up. The more time I spend around him, the more chance I have of deciphering the mystery. He takes the remote from the pocket of his khakis and unlocks the white pickup I’d seen in front of Adair’s cabin.
I head for the passenger door, pull it open and hop in. The rifle I spotted through the window the other night is gone.
His key is in his hand but not in the ignition. “I thought you were walking home.”
I lift one of my feet and point to a flip-flop. “Wrong shoes. Besides, I’ve got a craving for good pizza.”