Merry Jones - Elle Harrison 01 - The Trouble With Charlie (22 page)

Damn. Sherry wasn’t a suspect in Charlie’s murder. I lifted my Scotch. Winced as the cool glass touched the raw spot on my palm. “So. Sherry McBride’s off the hook.”

Which put me more firmly onto it.

“I don’t suppose that, while she was surveilling my house, she saw the killer go in or come out?”

Susan looked glum. “Stiles asked.”

“And?”

“Not a soul.”

My cell phone rang. I picked it up, saw the name on the screen. Ted Harrison. No way I was going to talk to Ted. He hadn’t bothered to show up for the viewing or the funeral. Had nothing to say that I’d want to hear. I let the call go. No sooner had it stopped ringing than it started again. This time: Derek Morris. I cursed, grimaced, let him go to voice mail. Wasn’t going to talk to him, either. Was not going to deal with his desperate search for the porno flash drive.

Susan saw my reaction, tilted her head. It was time to tell her. But when I opened my mouth, I didn’t mention the flash drive. Instead, I asked, “How about lunch?”

I stalled. Made use of my refrigerator full of cold cut trays from the funeral. We would eat sandwiches in my kitchen, talk about normal stuff. How I missed my class. Who was feeding the hamsters. If the substitute was being good to my kids.

Susan talked about her daughters. How Lisa and Julie were like pit bulls, fighting constantly over nothing.

We stood at the counter where I’d heard my dead husband call my name, felt him kiss my neck. I recoiled at the memory. The thought of his touch now repelled me. Susan saw me twitch, raised an eyebrow as she spread mustard.

“I mean, all siblings fight. It’s not unusual.” She assumed my twitch was a reaction to her daughters.

“I’m sure it’s just a phase.” I tried to look calm.

Susan smirked. “Like my brother and me—we really fought. Remember when Scott broke my arm?”

“No, I remember that you fell out of a tree while you were trying to lasso him.”

She laughed. “I got him, too.”

“If you don’t count the part where he pulled on the rope and you fell.”

She dished out potato salad. Roast beef and cole slaw on rye for me. Baked ham and Swiss for Susan. Dessert of brownies with walnuts and dark chocolate chips. Cream sodas. Heavy, comforting food.

But eating ended. Chitchat was over. It was time to tell her about the porn. I didn’t know how to begin, how to bring the subject up. We had, after all, just finished eating. Lunch didn’t seem an appropriate time to say I had a dozen or so computer files full of naked children. Maybe I should start by talking about Derek. About his assertion that Charlie had stolen client information. How he’d come over, asking to look around the house for missing files, maybe for a flash drive.

But I didn’t. Because it didn’t matter how I got around to it, I’d still eventually have to talk about the porn. I’d have to admit that Charlie had possessed it, brought it into my house, hidden it there. Might have died trying to protect it. And, even though the porn wasn’t mine, even though Charlie, when he’d brought it into the house, had no longer been my husband except technically, even with all of that, I was still ashamed to tell Susan about it.

After all, Charlie had been my husband for a long time. I’d loved him, and somehow, his secret—his depravity—felt personal. As if it reflected on me.

I drank more Scotch. Tried to build up nerve. I’d known her forever, but wasn’t sure that our friendship could withstand my connection, however indirect, to something as vile as child pornography. Susan was, after all, the mother of three. A home-room mother at the school. An officer in the PTA. The mom whose house all the neighborhood kids played at.

No. Susan would not be tolerant of abusers of children. Or of those who tolerated, let alone, married them.

“So,” she swallowed a gulp of soda, “why do you think
Derek Morris keeps calling you?” She took another drink. “Knowing him, it’s about money. Did the firm have life insurance policies? Or death benefits?”

Not even close.

“By the way, did Charlie have a will?”

A will?

“Do you have a copy of it? Because you should.”

I didn’t have a copy. In fact, I didn’t even know if he had a will. Nor did I know if Charlie’s firm had death benefits or life insurance.

“We never discussed dying.” Hadn’t planned on doing it in the short term. Wills, life insurance—none of it had seemed important yet.

Susan shook her head. “Seriously? Never? Lord, Tim and I already have our burial plots. We have everything—a funeral bank account, life insurance, trust funds for the house and investments, wills. The whole enchilada.”

Good for them.

She shrugged, still amazed at my poor planning. “I’ll call his divorce lawyer. Maybe he knows. Hell, maybe he drew up Charlie’s will.”

I swallowed the last of my Scotch. And decided to just get it over with. Time to tell her. Friendship aside, Susan was my lawyer. She needed to know about the porn. After all, Charlie might have been killed because of it.

And so, I took a deep breath. “Did you like him, Susan?”

“Who, Charlie?”

I nodded. Yes. Charlie.

She stuttered. “Of course. Well, I … I mean, in a way. He was charming. Not that I liked the way he lied to you. Or how he stole your inheritance—”

“But he seemed decent?”

“Basically.”

I took her by the hand, then, and led her to the study. And opened my computer.

Before I opened the files, I asked Susan to take a seat on the sofa and told her about Derek. “He told me that Charlie had stolen private client files. Important information that could ruin prominent lives.”

“Wait, what?”

I sat sideways, so I could face her. “He indicated that Charlie was going to blackmail one of their clients. And he thought Charlie might have hidden the information here. He asked if he could look around.”

“Tell me you didn’t let him.”

“Of course not.”

“Good. I don’t trust him. So what are you going to show me? You found the pilfered files?”

I nodded. “I found the flash drive after the funeral. Charlie hid it on the bar.”

“So?”

“Susan. It’s pretty—”

“No, I’m asking if you told Derek that you’ve found it.”

I shook my head, no. “See, the stuff on the drive isn’t what Derek said it was. It’s not private client information.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Okay. Maybe this isn’t the same drive that Derek was looking for. Maybe it’s something else entirely.”

I bit my lip. Folded my hands. Sat tall. Why was she asking so many questions, making this even harder than it already was? “Trust me. It’s the right drive. It’s just not what Derek said it was. Actually, I think it’s possible that Derek made up that whole client story to cover for Charlie and, indirectly, protect himself and the firm.”

She watched me. Mildly interested.

“Susan. Charlie might have been into something awful—”

“What is it, a snuff film?”

“No, but—”

“Let’s take a look, why don’t we?” She turned to the screen.

“Be prepared, Susan. It’s bad.”

And with that, I opened the first file.

I didn’t look at the pictures. I’d seen them. Instead, I watched Susan’s face, her reaction. As she advanced through the photos, her eyes changed, became grim. Her jaw became set. I expected outrage and shock. Revulsion. I’d even left the door open to the bathroom, in case she had to expel her ham and cheese.

But she didn’t need the bathroom. Didn’t express any of the emotions for which I’d been prepared. She simply viewed the photos, one at a time. When she’d viewed the entire file, she sat back. Pushed hair out of her eyes. Looked at me.

“How long have you had these, Elle?”

I shrugged. “A day or—”

“Because you realize these might change everything.”

I nodded. Yes.

“You never saw Charlie with any images like these before?”

“Of course not.”

“His sexual appetites never seemed—”

“Susan. No. I never had a clue. How can you even ask me that?”

She shrugged. “You never know what goes on in people’s bedrooms.”

I let that pass. Bristling.

She turned to face me. “So. Do you know any of the children?”

What? “Of course not.” Did she think I’d taken the pictures myself? Perhaps posed my students?

“Nor do I. You know what? I don’t think they’re local.” She started through the shots again. “The settings—look at the furniture. And that telephone? Its design? It looks foreign.”

Really? I wasn’t sure. There were all kinds of phones anymore.

“And look,” she pointed to a magazine on a nightstand, “that’s not English.”

The letters were too small to see. No way she could know that.

“I think it’s Greek. Maybe Russian.”

“So?” What difference did it make where the pictures were taken? “I don’t see—”

“Have you looked at the other files on the drive?”

“No. I couldn’t stand it.”

She clicked away, moving on to a new file. “Damn it, Elle, why didn’t you tell me about this right away? What’s the matter with you? These pictures might cast a whole new light on Charlie’s murder. It might take the heat off you.”

She opened another file. The images were poorly lit. Candid, not professional like those in the first file. The hands were adult, male, faceless. Touching a child.

I choked on my question. “So, Susan. You don’t think Charlie had these because he was—”

“Was what?”

I hesitated. She looked up at me from the screen.

“Are you asking me if I think Charlie was a pedophile?”

Adult male hands caressed a boy’s buttocks.

I just looked at her, couldn’t speak.

She looked back at the screen. Then at me again. “I learned a long time ago that people can surprise you, Elle. I’ve represented people whose spouses have had not the slightest idea that they’ve been robbing convenience stores or stealing cars. Even raping women. But this? Could Charlie have hidden a sexual aberration like this?” She paused, thinking.

Could he? Had he? Bed had been the one area where, even at the end, our marriage had been strong. Thinking of it made my throat feel thick.

“No. Sorry. I don’t buy it. You’d have had some indication.”

She clicked forward through the file. Opened the next one to find more of the same, this time with young girls, as well. And the next.

Finally, she opened last file on the flash drive. The first photo showed a young tow-headed boy in Moscow, outside the Kremlin. Holding Somerset Bradley’s hand.

That file didn’t show sex acts. The photos looked perfectly innocent, showed men, sometimes alone and sometimes with children, mostly candid, eating ice cream and walking like tourists in the Russian capital.

Susan recognized the children. “Remember the kid in the shower stall? This is him. And that’s the girl from the bondage thing.”

But in this file, they were dressed. Like children. Smiling. Skipping in a park. Kicking a soccer ball.

Altogether, there were pictures of four men. Somerset Bradley. Jonas Walters. One I didn’t know. And another that I did.

Charlie’s partner, Derek Morris.

Derek. With Somerset Bradley and Jonas Walters. In Russia.

My stomach twisted. I tasted a mixture of recycled roast beef and anger. Susan was talking, but I couldn’t listen. I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Were all four of these men pedophiles? Even Derek? Jonas Walters? And Somerset Bradley? Had they gone to Russia on some kind of pedophilia tour package? Were the candid shots in these files mementos of their trip?