Maggie and the Mourning Beads Page 9

  "Of course it was," he said. "I didn't even have my driver's license when we made the video. There was a big ole teamster crouched on the floorboards just out of sight, driving the car while I sang. There were fifty crew members offscreen, and wind machines ruffling our hair. And they had put some kind of grease in the girl's ponytail to make it shine, and she cried in between takes because it was so uncomfortable. And she was from Uzbekistan and didn't know a word of English and we never even spoke to each other. And I never saw her again. I don't even know her name. We were just kids, in the center of an elaborate illusion, with all those people working to make it look like a perfect, carefree world."

  "Exactly," she said. "My whole dream of what I wanted in life was based on a lie. And I didn't like the person I became when I tried to make that lie real. I kept trying, desperately, clinging to some image of how things should be. Now I want to be something else. Myself."

  "And you are," he said. "Do you think I don't support that?"

  "Of course not," she said. "You've stood by me when everyone else thought I was nuts for walking away."

  "Then is it me? Is it that I'm not that fantasy guy you thought I was?"

  She smiled. "Of course not. I'm not twelve years old anymore."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  She shook her head. "You know I like you. A lot. You may be my best friend. But only a friend."

  "So there's just no chemistry between us." The sun caught at his hair, the glistening spun gold framing his beautiful bone structure and striking blue eyes.

  Despite herself, she laughed out loud. "Yeah, that must be it. You're just not sexy enough for me."

  He leaned closer, and his voice dropped to a seductive rumble. "You find me attractive?"

  She blew out a breath. "You're the most handsome man I've ever seen in my life."

  He brushed her shoulder with his fingertips. "The feeling is mutual," he whispered.

  "No," she said.

  He dropped his hand to his side. "Why not? Am I really that awful?"

  She wanted to laugh at this stunningly handsome man with his intelligence and charm and wit, with his fame and his millions of dollars in the bank, asking her if he was not the kind of catch women dreamed about, but she realized he was serious.

  "There's nothing wrong with you, Stanley. It's just Reese Stevens."

  He shook his head. "But they're both me, Maggie. I'm both those things. What's wrong with that?"

  "There's nothing wrong with you. It's all that." She echoed his motion with a sweep of her arm. "All that. Out there in the world. Where you're rich and famous and surrounded by phony people."

  "But that's out there," he argued. "That's not here."

  "That world is always there. There's no escape. I was married to a rich man. A powerful man. A great big macho Alpha male who had the whole world at his beck and call. And I chose to walk away from that. I don't ever want to go back to that world. Hollywood. Fame. Fortune. All of that. I want to be a barefoot bohemian hippie girl who makes jewelry and doesn't wear makeup and lives in a tiny house on wheels. You're Reese Stevens. And there's no way for me to be the person I want to be if I'm dating Reese Stevens."

  He nodded. "Okay. You can't be more clear than that."

  She kept talking, trying to convince herself as much as him. "We're friends, but we can't be lovers. We can't be life partners. That world is not for me. I learned that. It was a painful lesson, but I figured it out. And I'm not going back."

  Again he nodded, firmly, accepting the practicality of it. "Logical as always, Magdalena. Platonic friendship. I'll take it. Beggars can't be choosers, so I'll take what I can get." He stood up.

  She looked up at him, tall and handsome and out of reach. "But there are so many other women you can fall in love with," she reminded him. "If you can't be with me, it doesn't mean you're destined to spend your life alone."

  He nodded and went down the steps, but she heard him whisper, "yeah. That's exactly what it means."

  After he left, Maggie sat there for a long time, trying to convince herself she was making the right choice.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Late that afternoon things in the case finally broke.

  She got a text from Lauren while she was working in the shop. Willow had been arrested when she tried to sneak back into her family's house on Sea Hollow. They were holding her in jail until she could be transferred to juvenile detention that evening.

  Maggie closed the bead shop and rushed down there, not knowing what she could do about it, but needing answers.

  She quickly spotted Keith Norris in the police station's waiting area. He was standing there looking completely out of place in his nice suit and aviator eyeglasses, with the stream of upset crime victims and perps and cops walking around him. He stood there, very still and calm, with that same stunned demeanor he'd had when he'd gotten the news.

  He wasn't alone. A cop who looked a lot like him, impeccably dressed, calm and collected, was talking with him. Maggie suppressed a groan. It was Chief Randall, who she knew was more concerned about his case closure statistics and TV appearances than he was in justice. Randall patted the bereaved father on the shoulder reassuringly and then left through a side door.

  Keith Norris just stood there without moving.

  Maggie went over to talk to him. He seemed a bit surprised to see her, but she explained that Willow had been in her beading class only a few hours before the murder, and that she'd been worried about the girl.

  "Thank you for coming," he said. "I just don't know what to do. The police are threatening to charge her even though she didn't do it."

  "Did they catch Grey, too?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "They still don't know where he is. And she's not talking to anyone."

  He leaned closer to Maggie, after giving the busy room a quick glance. Then he said softly, "I'm sure he did it. Not her. But she seems to be covering for him. I don't know why."

  Maggie didn't agree, but he was grasping at an easy villain to blame for his wife's death. The rude goth boy made a perfect scapegoat, both for the police who wanted an easy solution to the crime, and for a father who wanted to avoid thinking that his daughter had anything to do with it.

  A lawyer with a big briefcase arrived at the station then. He made his way over to them.

  "This is the attorney I hired for Willow," Norris explained to her. He introduced the man as Dave Matthews.

  "Not the musician," the lawyer joked. She recognized the name as a member of the top legal firm in town.

  "Willow's in good hands, then," she said to them.

  The lawyer looked a bit doubtful, then covered it with a hearty smile. "Yes, yes, of course," he said. "We'll certainly do our best for her."

  "She won't talk to me," Keith said morosely. "Maybe you can convince her to… take a plea, or whatever will get her out of this."

  Maggie bit her lip to keep from interrupting. Take a plea?

  Ibarra came out then, and asked Keith to come meet with him.

  "Talk to Willow, please," Keith said to Maggie. "Go with Matthews and see if you can convince her to save herself. Tell her that boy isn't worth giving up her own life for."

  "I'll try," she said, and he left with Ibarra then.

  The lawyer and she stood there awkwardly for a minute.

  Then she blurted out, "I think they're innocent. I don't want her to take a plea. I just want you to know that before we go see her. I'm not going to try to talk her into pleading guilty to anything."

  He smiled. "Thank you. I'm her lawyer. Norris hired me. But his daughter is my client. And I don't want her to plead guilty until—and unless—there's a reason to think that's her best option."

  He led her to a side door and the guard on duty took their names and told them to wait while Willow was brought into an interview room.

  "Do you think he's wrong to want her to plead guilty?" Maggie asked.

  But the lawyer shook his head. "The police are ready to char
ge her with murder. He's decided the boyfriend is to blame for everything and is looking for a way to get his daughter out of the mess. It's actually a rational option. He's probably right to suggest she take a deal to testify against her boyfriend."

  "But what if they're both innocent?" Maggie asked.

  The door opened and a cop ushered them through the metal detector and into the interview area.

  "Let's wait and see," the lawyer said.

  Willow looked very different without the white pancake makeup and harsh eyeliner.

  Her hair was still purple. And her nails were still painted black. But without her protective costume she was so clearly a child in over her head that Maggie's heart broke for her.

  But she didn't seem to see herself that way.

  She sat across the table from them, arms crossed defensively and glaring at them. "You can't make me talk," she said, acting like the criminal in a cop movie.

  "No one's trying to make you talk," the lawyer said. "You and I will have a confidential conversation in a little while, but your father thought maybe you'd like to see Maggie first.

  Willow's eyes flashed hostility at her. "You told the cops I threatened to strangle my mother with that necklace."

  "No, I didn't," Maggie corrected her. "I never did that. Lauren was at the class and heard you. She told the police."

  Willow's expression softened. "You didn't fink on me?"

  Maggie shook her head. "I knew you didn't mean it, and the police would get the wrong idea, so I didn't say anything."

  Willow started crying. "I didn't mean it. I really didn't. I was just mad. I wouldn't strangle her like they think. But they think we did."

  "I'm afraid so," Maggie said.

  "But I would never strangle someone. I wouldn't even know how."

  The lawyer opened his mouth to speak, but Maggie put her hand over his, and he closed his mouth. "Did you tell the police that? That you couldn't have been the one to strangle her?"

  Willow shook her head. "I ain't saying nothing to the cops. I'm keeping my mouth shut."

  "And Grey? Are you sure he didn't strangle her, either?"

  "He couldn't have. He was with me."

  "He was with you when?"

  "Whenever. The whole day."

  "Where? Where did you go?"

  But then she closed her lips tightly, and refused to say any more.

  "Where did you go when you left my class?"

  She looked from Maggie to the attorney. Then shrugged.

  "Where is Grey?

  Again, the slow look from her to the attorney. Then the shrug.

  "Young lady, do you understand how serious this is?" the lawyer asked.

  She pursed her lips together.

  "You're holding in a secret, aren't you Willow?" Maggie asked.

  She shook her head.

  "Is it about your mother?"

  "No."

  "Your father?"

  "No."

  "About yourself?"

  No answer. The girl looked at the wall.

  "What about Grey? Don't you think he might be in trouble? Don't you think telling us what's going on might help?"

  No answer. Maggie leaned forward and took her hand. "Willow. Look at me."

  The girl glanced her way, but then her eyes darted back to the wall. She didn't want to look Maggie in the eye. If she did, she was afraid she'd say something.

  But her hand still gripped Maggie's. So they sat for a while while the lawyer went over information about bail and hearings and trial dates, and all the while, Willow stared at the wall, and gripped tightly to Maggie's hand.

  "Now I need to talk to my client in confidence," the lawyer finally said.

  Willow let go of her hand and Maggie stood up. "But you won't try to convince her—?"

  He smiled. "Nope. I won't try to convince her to plead guilty to strangling her mother." He said it pointedly, making clear he understood what was happening as well as she did.

  She left then, and the attorney leaned forward, earnestly trying to get the sullen teen to believe he was on her side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  She asked the police officer escorting her out if she could see Lieutenant Ibarra, and soon she was in his little windowless office, facing him across his cluttered desk.

  "She told me something," she started, and his eyebrow raised.

  "Really?"

  She explained about how Willow insisted she and Grey hadn't strangled her mother, and how that should make it clear that they weren't involved in the stabbing death of Alexis Norris.

  He took it patiently, not smirking at her or ignoring her. But when she finished her description of what had happened in the interview room he said, "now you'll have to testify at her trial. You should have stayed out of it, Maggie."

  "But why will there be a trial?" she asked. "Doesn't this make it obvious she has nothing to do with the murder? She doesn't even know how her own mother was killed."

  He picked up his orange coffee cup and took a drink, then made a face and put it down. "I hate cold coffee," he muttered. Then he looked up at her. "And I hate amateurs who think they've got all the answers."

  "Last time I did have the answers," she said quietly, crossing her arms over her chest.

  "That's true. And so I sat here and listened to your fairy tale without laughing, didn't I, Maggie?"

  "But—" she started.

  "—Wherever those kids were for two days, don't you think they had access to the news? The stabbing death of an art gallery owner in Carita Cove was on the news, don't you think?"

  Maggie sat back in her chair. "I guess so."

  Ibarra picked up a pen and began tapping it on the thick file in front of him. "She finds out we know she threatened her mother, so she comes up with this act about not even knowing she was stabbed to make us doubt her guilt."

  "But—"

  "—but nothing. You fell for her poor little girl routine." He said it gruffly, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

  "You feel sorry for her," she said. "You're acting all tough, but you aren't sure she's guilty, either."

  He shook his head. "I feel sorry for the kid. I know what a monster her mother was. How she was always picking fights with everyone. But that doesn't mean I think the kids are innocent. I think that boy she's running around with could very easily have stabbed the woman, and this girl is covering up for him like she thinks they're Romeo and Juliet against the world."

  "But—" she started again, and he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

  "Don't start, Maggie. The smartest thing that girl can do is take a deal and testify against her boyfriend. She's only fifteen, and will be tried as a juvenile. Even if they throw the book at her, she'll be out by the time she's twenty-five. Grey is eighteen, and he'll get twenty-to-life. If you care about her, you'll tell her that."

  "But there are other suspects," she blurted out, finally getting a word in.

  "Like who?"

  She paused there, pursing her lips together. It was one thing to say Willow and Grey were innocent. It was another to throw suspicion on her fellow business owners. "What about her father?" she said. "He's a pretty cool customer."

  "He's in shock, Maggie. And he has the best alibi: a bunch of people saw him at a convention in San Francisco at the time of the murder. It's not just his coworker covering for him, but hotel staff and other guests saw him, too. He's not guilty. He's trying to save his daughter's life."

  Maggie gripped the arms of her chair and said aloud what she'd been holding back. "What about the other business owners? Do they have alibis?"

  "Not good ones. You're the only one who had customers at the time, so you'll be happy to know you're in the clear." He smirked at her, and she rolled her eyes at him.

  "But Paige Zimmer and Harper Higgins?" she asked.

  "Both have the kind of alibis a person has when they have nothing to hide, Maggie. Paige was meditating in her studio, and Harper was sitting on a beach."

  "Are you sure
?"

  He dropped the pen he'd been fiddling with. "No. We aren't sure, but we're canvassing to see if anyone saw either of them. But why are you so quick to throw them under the bus in favor of these kids?"

  "I'm not. I just…." She trailed off, finding it harder to betray a confidence than she thought, even if it was the right thing to do. "Do you know about Harper's tires?" she finally said.

  Ibarra shook his head, so she shared the whole story Abby had told her about the slashed tires and the dead woman's confession that she'd done it.

  But when she'd finished, the lieutenant just picked up his pen again and began tapping it on the desk again. "That's it?"

  "Isn't that something to look into?"

  "Sure," he said. "We'll look into it. But it sounds like the tires were replaced and everything was fine. And it happened months ago, so it seems unlikely it had anything to do with this crime."

  "But the painter's knife—"

  He just sat and looked at her. "Got any other brilliant insights, Maggie?"

  "Well… Paige doesn't have an—"

  "—if you're about to tell me that the rock star's wispy little hippie chick wife—the one who wanted me to sit on the floor and contemplate my navel when I was taking her statement—stuck a knife into her neighbor, my fairly good opinion of your intelligence is going to take a hit."

  Maggie blew out a breath. "You're right."

  "I'm right?" he said in shock. "Should I get in a stenographer to put that in writing so you can sign it? I'll have it framed and put up on my wall."

  She glared at him.

  "Go home, Maggie," he said. "This case is over. All we have to do is find the boyfriend and we can all go home and put this behind us."

  She stood up. "But—"

  "—Close the door on your way out," he said, opening up the case file and not looking up at her.

  "But—" She stopped herself. He was right. There was no point going on. "Fine," she said. "But if I'm right, you owe me."

  "Okay," he said. "If someone else is convicted of the murder, I'll buy you dinner. But if I'm right, you owe me a bowl of your dad's chile verde."