Hayes’s statement caused Emory’s heart to lurch. “Jeff is next on your list? What does that mean?”
“I know what it means,” Jack said. “For God’s sake, Hayes, you can’t take this matter into your own hands.”
Hayes turned away from them and went over to the table. “What did you get to eat?” He removed a sandwich from one of the bags, folded back the foil wrapper, and inspected the ingredients between the thick slices of bread.
“Did you hear what I said?” Jack asked.
“I can’t take matters into my own hands.”
“Before I’ll let you do something stupid, I’ll have you thrown in jail for the Floyds. Swear to God, I will.”
“Enough with the threats, Jack. Eat.”
He sat down at the table and motioned Emory into the second chair. “You take the bed,” he said to Jack as he passed him a Styrofoam cup of coffee and a breakfast sandwich.
Emory sat down as instructed but left the food untouched. “You won’t do anything illegal, will you?”
“Like tear Jeff limb from effing limb? I would love nothing better. But you said the key word. Illegal. I refuse to give him a loophole to wiggle through in court. Our job,” he said to Jack, “is to make damn certain we have a solid case for the prosecutor.” Hearing an approaching vehicle, Emory turned to look through the open blinds. The familiar SUV was pulling into the parking space directly in front of the room. “It’s Knight and Grange.”
“The cavalry,” Hayes said.
“They know who you are,” Jack said, and in response to Hayes’s angry reaction, he added, “I had to tell them. Last night after you snatched Emory off that balcony, every officer in the area was out beating the bushes for you. If I hadn’t told them who you were, you could’ve been shot on sight.”
When the knock came, Emory asked, “Should I let them in?”
“The plan was for us to regroup here at eight o’clock,” Jack said. “They’re right on time. Open the door.”
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed at the detectives’ dumbfounded expressions upon seeing her. “Good morning.” She stood aside so they could come in. Both stumbled to a halt when they saw Hayes sitting at the table, his carryout breakfast spread out before him.
Knight was the first to recover his powers of speech. “I gotta say, you two never fail to surprise.”
Jack said, “Sam Knight, Buddy Grange, this is Hayes Bannock.”
Emory noticed that it was with reverence and awe that Grange approached Hayes to shake hands. “You’re the stuff of legends. Never thought I’d have the honor, sir.”
Hayes replied with a terse thanks, and, after shaking hands with Knight, continued eating.
“How’d you get the bruise on your chin?” Knight asked Connell.
“I slipped in the shower.”
Emory could tell that neither he nor Grange believed that. They both looked toward Hayes, whose only reaction to their speculation was to ball up the empty wrapper of his sandwich and toss it into the sack.
Knight said, “Gotta tell y’all, I’m dying to know how this little get-together came about.”
Jack took it upon himself to explain. He gave them a broad-strokes overview, then filled in the details. “When you arrived, we were about to address how solid the case against Jeff Surrey is. You were the first to suspect him. What’s your take?”
Knight thoughtfully tugged at the rubber band around his fingers. Turning to Hayes, he said, “We don’t have a crime scene, and even if we did, you compromised it when you removed that rock.”
“I realize that. I haven’t forgotten all my training. But there was weather moving in, which would have compromised it anyway. Or the rock could possibly have gotten overlooked. Jeff could have started thinking about it, gone back to the spot, and removed it. Best option I had was to take it with me. I was wearing gloves, so the last person to touch it was the person who used it as a weapon.”
“Why a rock?” Grange asked. “Not a very reliable murder weapon.”
“Jeff wanted it to look like an accident,” Hayes said. “Like Emory fell.”
“Are you sure you didn’t, Dr. Charbonneau?” Grange asked.
“No. The first time you questioned me, I told you I couldn’t remember specifically what happened, and I still can’t. If it came to trial, I couldn’t swear under oath that I didn’t just fall.”
That disturbed the detectives, and Hayes noticed. With discernible irritability, he said, “Show them the thing off Jeff’s jacket.”
Emory removed the silver charm from her pocket. While the detectives were examining it in turn, Hayes explained how he’d found it.
Knight asked her, “You couldn’t have dropped it there yourself?”
“No, and I’m positive about that. The last time I saw it, until last night, it was dangling off the zipper pull of Jeff’s ski jacket.”
“What happened last night?”
“Hayes showed it to me out on the balcony of the hotel.”
“Huh,” the older detective said. “So that’s what convinced you to hightail it with him.”
“Yes. I realized instantly what it signified, and that I was still in danger from Jeff.”
Hayes said, “He didn’t get the job done up on that trail, but he was there.”
“What were you doing up there last Saturday?”
He explained, this time without referring to her black tights. “It took me a while to circle around. By the time I found her, at least a half hour had elapsed, possibly a little more. She was cold.”
“Time enough for Jeff to intercept her, do his thing, and get away without you seeing him,” Grange said.
“Obviously.”
Knight snapped the rubber band. “Okay, let’s assume—optimistically, because I’m afraid that a defense lawyer will brutalize that timeline—let’s assume that if we can place him on that trail, we’ve also got a classic motive. You’re loaded.”
Emory flinched at the word but didn’t make an issue of it. “Jeff also has been having an affair.”
Grange said, “So you do know about that? We weren’t sure.”
“I suspected. He’s now admitted it. He told me it was over, but I don’t believe anything he says at this point.”
“The romance might be over, but he still needs her as his alibi. Alice Butler vowed to me that she and Jeff were together from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.”
Later, Emory wondered how she managed not to cry out and give herself away. Without realizing the blunder he’d made, Grange continued talking, but she was deaf to what he was saying and insensible to everything except the soul-crushing betrayal.
She felt the pain of Alice’s betrayal even more keenly than Jeff’s. Alice was the trusted and admired colleague with whom she’d built a practice. She’d poured out her heart to Alice about Hayes. Worse, she was the friend to whom she’d shared doubts about Jeff’s fidelity, the future of their marriage, and her suspicion of his culpability.
As though reading her mind, Hayes interrupted Grange. “Alice knows that Emory suspects him.”
Everyone looked to her for an explanation, but when she didn’t immediately launch one, Hayes told them about her phone conversation with Alice. “She attributed Emory’s distress to fatigue, medications, like that. Poo-pooed her suspicions, said no way could Jeff have harmed her.”
“Love can make you stupid,” Connell said. “Maybe she truly believes that.”
“Maybe. But she’s still lying to protect him.”
“Up to us to prove she’s lying, though,” Knight said.
“Put her love to the test. If Jeff is actually arrested and charged, she may rethink her story.”
Grange seemed to like Hayes’s suggestion. “Let’s get a warrant for him and see what happens.”
“Do you know where he is?” Jack asked.
“At the suite hotel,” Knight said. “We stopped there on our way here, asked him if he’d heard from his wife overnight. We didn’t expect he had,” he said, dividing a droll look between her and Hayes. “But we wanted to test his reaction. He told us he’d been going crazy with worry all night. So much so that as soon as it got light this morning, he went to the hospital to see if she’d been admitted to the ER as a Jane Doe.”
“He’s putting on quite a performance,” Jack said.
Grange pulled his cell phone off his belt. “I’ll get a deputy over to the hotel to watch his room, make sure he doesn’t go anywhere while we’re waiting on that warrant.”
As he turned away to make the call, Knight said to Jack, “If an FBI agent was waiting on that warrant, too, it might add some heft and speed things along.”
Jack looked over at Hayes, posing a silent question. Hayes shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Stick around here where it’s safe.”
“We’ve canceled the BOLO,” Knight told him. “Reason we gave was that last night’s incident had been a domestic misunderstanding. We didn’t let on who you were. Agent Connell here said you’d be royally pissed if word got out and a big to-do was made of you. Anyhow, you’re safe.”
“I didn’t mean safe for me,” Hayes said, his lips barely moving. “I meant for Jeff. If I see him, I’m liable to kill him.”
At that point Grange rejoined them and reported that a deputy was in place. “He’s got Jeff’s suite and car in plain sight.”
As Connell was pulling on his coat, he said to Hayes, “I’ll call when we’ve got him in custody. What’s your current phone number?”
Hayes hesitated.
Connell rolled his eyes. “Look, I know you leave Rebecca a way to contact you.”
Hayes pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and when the number showed up on the readout, he held it out for Connell to see and commit to memory. “Got it.” Turning to the detectives, he said, “Let’s go get this done, gentlemen.”
Grange opened the door and stood aside for Connell to go first. “You can ride with us.” The three filed out and pulled the door closed. None of them had seemed to notice that Emory hadn’t spoken a word since the mention of Alice.
But Hayes had.