Cause of Death by Laura Dembowski (ereader iphone .TXT) 📗

small feat. And here I sit, no one knowing how brilliant I am. No one understanding what it’s like to be me.

I can tell Kate everything. She’ll appreciate it. She’ll understand. She’ll respect me. Not as much as her murderous partner, but still, what do I have to lose?

“You already know what happened.”

“I know what I think happened, but I want to hear it from you.”

She’s looking right at me, daring me to talk, or perhaps daring me not to. I can’t tell the difference, and I’m not so sure it matters to me.

“Of course I killed her. I had to; she was going to leave me. All alone. How do parents just let their kids go? I did it in self-defense, really—before everything went wrong, you know? I did it to protect myself from life . . . from change.”

She says nothing, so I keep talking.

“But then it didn’t make things better; it made everything worse, because Dave hated me. We were never going to be the same, so I killed him too. But then I was left with no one. That’s not what I wanted at all. I wanted to be with my family, not permanently separated from them.”

She clears her throat. I’m sure Kate knew this all along, but hearing it surprises her nonetheless.

“What about Tracy?” she asks. “I know you had something to do with her death—I’m just not sure what.”

I pause. “Darling, you can’t blame everything on me. I don’t know who killed your partner’s little lady.”

Kate slams her hand on the table. “Just admit it. You fucking killed her. You disguised yourself or hired a hitman. Just fucking tell me.”

“Those are great ideas, but it simply wasn’t me; sorry to disappoint you. Looks like your little boy toy is going to be stuck in jail for a long time.”

She leans into the table and for some reason, instinct perhaps, I lean too. She looks at me, and I swear I see a faint smile, a flash of myself. It’s brief, but it’s there.

“Confess to Tracy’s murder.”

“I didn’t do it, so why would I do that?”

She gets up and turns off the camera in the corner. Not sure if that’s good news or bad news for me yet. She paces the room a moment before leaning against the corner of the table, her leg swinging rapidly back and forth. She’s nervous about something and she can’t hide it. I just can’t imagine what would make her so nervous.

She opens her folder and pulls out a piece of paper.

“This statement says you killed Tracy and Ron.”

“I told you, I didn’t kill Tracy. I suppose there’s not a whole lot of point in denying I killed Ron, as you seem to have put all the pieces of the puzzle together there.”

“If you confess to killing Tracy, I’ll get a deal for you.”

I lean back in my chair and try to get as comfortable as I can with my hands cuffed to the table. “What’s the deal?”

“I’ll take the death penalty off the table.”

I laugh. It’s funny. That statement is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a long time.

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Detective, I’m not getting the death penalty and we both know it.”

“I don’t know that.”

“You want your partner out of the slammer, you’re going to have to do better than that,” I say calmly, knowing she will. She has to. It’s the only way she can save the man she finally realizes she truly loves, something I’ve seen all along. It’s the only way she can prove to everyone that he’s innocent. There’s a better offer coming.

“Fine. Twenty years, no parole. You might just get out in time to enjoy some of your golden years.”

“Plus conjugal visits if I make a few pen pals. I hear men have the hots for women in prison.”

“Two conjugal visits a year.”

“A month,” I correct her.

“One a month.”

“Deal,” I say.

She scribbles on the paper and pushes it to my side of the table. I read it over. It seems pretty standard, and I feel like we both got what we wanted, so I sign it. I pause briefly before crossing the “t,” in my mind, the move that will make it binding.

I am about to sign away the next twenty years of my life, but I suppose it’s what I deserve. Plus, Kate just signed away her entire life if she wants anything to do with that Ryan guy. Can’t she see it? Doesn’t she know he’ll ruin her eventually? Even if he doesn’t kill her, something I find to be unlikely, he’ll abuse her or get her fired or cheat on her. He will do something to make her life hell, which makes signing this paper all the more worth it.

“Nice doing business with you. Enjoy prison,” she says.

“You too,” I say as she walks out of the room.

Chapter 27

Kate

When I bring Sarge the signed confession, he looks at me, surprised, without saying a word. This wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting.

“We have her,” I say.

“What happened in there?” he asks.

“What do you mean? We chatted, and I got her to confess to killing four people. We won.”

“You turned the camera off and made a deal with her. That’s what I mean.”

“Oh, come on—like you’ve never done anything like that before.”

“I haven’t, Kate,” he says. “We don’t do things like that. We had her, and now you’ve given her a break, so that one day she’ll get out and God knows what she’ll do.”

“I did what I had to do, Sarge. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“Yeah,” he said, hanging his head, disappointed in me. Disappointed in the process, but mostly in me.

“Are you telling me that nothing sketchy went on in there? You can tell me the truth, Kate. I’ll defend you and stand up for you through anything. You went through too much with this case.”

“I just wanted Margaret to feel like we could talk honestly,” I say.

“Okay,”