Dangerous Lies (20 page)

THAT NIGHT DURING DINNER, THERE
was a knock at the door. Carmina set down her fork and huffed a sigh of exasperation.

“If Roger Perkins is sniffing around here again, I’m driving to the animal shelter first thing and getting a watchdog. If I can’t keep that man off my porch, maybe a pit bull will.”

“Knock, knock, anybody home?” A familiar male voice drifted through the screen door, which Carmina used at night in the hope of luring a breeze inside. “Deputy Price here. I’ve brought a few acquaintances.”

With an unfathomable look, Carmina pushed back her chair. “We’re here, Deputy. Come on in.”

I followed her into the hall, where, sure enough, Deputy Price stepped inside, trailed by a swarthy linebacker of a man, and a woman with a helmet of thick black curly hair. Detectives Ramos and Cherry from Philadelphia PD. They’d taken my statement at the police station the night I called 911—the night I was whisked into WITSEC.

Behind them, another man wiped his feet before crossing the threshold. He was lithely built, with a scholarly face that watched the world from behind wire-rimmed glasses. I couldn’t remember his name, but I knew who he was. The head prosecutor handling the case against Danny Balando.

“Hey there, Stella—whoa. What happened to your face?” Price had been leaning forward to give my hand a shake, but stopped at the sight of me. “Looks like you got in a fight.” He aimed a worried and questioning look at Carmina.

“Last night,” she explained. “It happened last night. I was going to call you.”

“You should have.”

“Local boy. Has a temper. We’re handling it.”

“I don’t like seeing my witness black and blue.”

“I said we’re handling it,” Carmina repeated firmly.

“Why don’t I ring you in the morning,” Price said levelly, but there was no mistaking the displeasure flaring in his eyes. “You can explain it to me then.”

Carmina nodded, but I could tell she was both annoyed by, and dreading, the call. I supposed, as a former cop she felt like he was questioning her ability to do her job. I felt bad that she was taking the fall for my condition, especially since none of this was her fault. Since the assault, she’d cared for me more diligently than my mom ever had.

Price turned to me. “Sorry this happened, Stella. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay? When I said you’d be safe here, I meant it.” His face warmed. “You’ve been spending time in the sun, I see. Getting a tan.”

I stared at him, baffled, skeptical. Why was he making small talk? Why was he here, period?

“Good to see you again, Stella,” Detective Cherry said. Her smile was pleasant, but behind it, her sharp eyes were furiously at work, sizing up me, Carmina, and the house—what she could see of it.

“What are you doing here?” I asked all three of them collectively. Was I in trouble? Had Danny escaped?

“Guessing you didn’t get my message,” Price said to Carmina.

“Message?” she echoed. “Haven’t heard the phone ring all day.”

“The special cell phone I gave you. I left a message on it. Said we’d be arriving tonight. I know it’s a hassle, but you really need to keep the phone with you at all times.”

Carmina patted her empty pockets, frowning. “Not used to carrying a mobile phone. Think I left it on the nightstand this morning.”

“What are you doing here?” I repeated, this time addressing Price directly, since he seemed to be point man for the group.

“You remember Detective Cherry and Detective Ramos,” he told me. “And the head prosecutor, Executive Assistant District Attorney Charles Menlove.”

Mr. Menlove also stepped forward to clasp my hand, but his grip was tighter and felt much more formal. He wore a thin, frog-like smile.

“Where’s the woman from Child Services?” I asked, thinking she was the only player missing from that long, harrowing night at the police station.

“Didn’t bring CPU, figured Carmina could stand in for her,” Price explained.

It clicked in my head. The only reason I’d needed Child Services at the police station was because my mom was too high to look out for my welfare when I met with the detectives. Instead, a woman I’d never met had been appointed to make sure I felt safe.

Price said, “There have been some developments in the case. The detectives haven’t been able to get a statement from your mom, but even if she decides to cooperate, the defense will, in all likelihood, discredit her testimony. They’ll play it so the jury views her as unreliable.”

“Because she’s a drug addict,” I stated.

Price inclined his head tactfully. “And Reed, well, his criminal history makes his testimony iffy. People don’t trust criminals.”

“He isn’t a criminal. He made a few bad decisions,” I argued. “I know about the breaking and entering charge—he broke into that house on a dare. The people weren’t even home! And I know about the prowling at nighttime charge. I can’t believe that’s even a law. So what if Reed made a couple mistakes? It doesn’t change how I feel about him.”

“Because you know him,” Price said.

“Yeah,” I jumped in defensively. “I know his dad was harsh and authoritarian, and his approach to parenting—if you can call it that—backfired, driving Reed to rebel. If you want to point fingers, maybe you should interrogate General Winslow. Ask him how he treated his son during the eighteen years Reed was forced to live under his roof. That man is an abusive sociopath.”

Price’s mouth pinched, but he didn’t respond to my accusation. “To a jury, perception is everything. They have no reason to trust Reed. Right now, you’re our best shot. Remember how I told you delay is the defense’s best friend? That’s because over time, witnesses forget their testimony. We need to make sure yours is rock solid.”

“Detective Cherry and I reviewed the statement you gave us,” Detective Ramos said, “and we have a few follow-up questions. We want to make sure your story is airtight. We don’t want the defense seeing something we overlooked.”

My knees swayed a little, but I ordered myself to keep it together. Follow-up questions. I knew my story. Stick to it, and I could get through this.

“Why don’t we sit in the kitchen?” Carmina suggested. “Stella can finish her meal, and I can pour the rest of you sun tea.”

“What was your mom’s relationship with Danny Balando?” Detective Ramos asked, flipping out the coattails of his blazer as he lowered his muscled physique into the chair across from mine.

“I already told you. He was her drug dealer,” I said, refusing to be intimidated by his hulking size, which I was sure was his intent.

“Meaning their relationship was strictly professional?”

I held his gaze without blinking, but my mind raced furiously. He was digging. Why? What did he know? “If you call buying and selling drugs professional, then yes.”

“See, we believe he was more than that. We believe he was also her boyfriend. It’s our belief that they were romantic.”

I blinked once, reflexively, but other than that, revealed nothing. “Did Danny say that? Because we all know Danny can be trusted. He’s
such
a great guy. I mean, it’s not like he’s in jail for murder or anything.”

“Stella,” Carmina said softly, covering my hand with her own. “Just the facts.”

“We believe the reason your mom is refusing to cooperate with us is because she’s trying to protect Danny,” Detective Cherry explained.

“My mom’s an addict. She was passed out when Danny Balando shot that man in our house. She isn’t being uncooperative—she doesn’t know anything.”

Ramos flipped through the notepad in front of him. “When we asked her to tell us about that night, she said,”—he licked his index finger, finding the right page—“ ‘Go to hell.’ Those aren’t the words of someone with no memory of events. Those are the words of someone who’s defensive because they’re hiding something.”

“Maybe she’s tired of being pestered for information she doesn’t have,” I shot back. Under the table, I wiped my palms on my shorts.

“Tell us about that night,” Detective Cherry murmured. Her dark brown eyes were soft, sympathetic. Classic Good Cop. “Let’s walk through it one more time.”

“Again?” I said resentfully.

“Again,” Charles Menlove said. Until now, he’d stood with his shoulder to the wall, watching the proceedings without comment. “I want to hear it again.”

“It was after midnight,” I began. I had rehearsed these words until I knew them by heart. My story was solid. “It was really late—or early, depending on how you look at it.”

“What time? Ballpark,” Detective Cherry said gently.

I shook my head, showing them I was at a loss. “I’d been out with friends. I lost track of time.”

“Can you give us a range—between this hour and that?” Detective Cherry urged.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “It’s okay. Keep going.”

“I parked on the street because I didn’t want to wake my mom.”

“Because you broke curfew, isn’t that right?” Detective Ramos clarified. “You were worried you’d get in trouble if your mom heard you. You were sneaking home. But you can’t remember the exact time you got home? You weren’t frantically checking the clock as you drove, sweating bullets as each minute ticked by?”

“I didn’t have a curfew.”
Stay calm.
“I was a little worried I’d wake her, but not overly. I knew there was a good chance she’d be passed out. I was right.”

“At seventeen, you were allowed to come and go as you pleased? You don’t find that unusual?” he pressed.

“She didn’t
allow
me to do anything,” I shot back. “She was completely unaware of me. When she was high, which was most of the time, the rest of the world dropped away. It didn’t exist.
I
didn’t exist. It was like . . . we were roommates. One roof, two different lives. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“What happened after you got home?” Detective Cherry asked.

Shutting my eyes, I let that night return to me. Every time I went back, I expected the nightmare to lose some of its grip, but that wasn’t the case. I could see the past all too clearly.

I remembered the squeak of a rain-washed pavement beneath my shoes as I crept toward the back door. I remembered the hushed stillness of sleeping houses. The cool dampness of the night air.

I let myself inside. The kitchen light didn’t turn on. Same thing in the dining room. In the dark, I felt my way through the house.

As I crossed in front of the library’s glass doors, I saw my mom passed out in a chair. Her pills were spread on the side table. Before I could register disgust, my eyes were drawn behind her. I stared at the man’s body. He’d been shot, execution-style.

I was too paralyzed to scream.

Scuffling sounds carried in from the street outside.

I turned to the window. A barrel of a man dragged a second, leaner man over to a parked Honda Civic. The man being dragged had a sack over his head. Something about him was remotely familiar, but I was too much in shock to pursue the thought.

The big man shoved the other man into the Civic’s trunk, then beat him with a tire iron until his chilling screams fell quiet.

After closing the trunk, the big man stared at our house. His eyes glittered with something dark and disturbing. He didn’t see me. But I saw him.

As much as I might want to, I would never forget Danny Balando’s face.

“Your mother was unconscious when you entered the library?” Detective Ramos repeated, jolting me back to Carmina’s kitchen table.

“Yes.”

“And the man on the floor, the man who was shot, he was dead?”

“He wasn’t moving. There was blood everywhere,” I said shakily.

“Did Danny Balando attempt to enter the house at that point?”

“Reenter. No. He drove off.”

“Did you see the weapon he used to shoot the man in the library?”

“No. He must have taken it with him. Why would he leave it?”

“What time did you call the police?”

“Right after Danny drove off.”

Ramos paged through his notes. “Phone records show you placed the call at three twenty-two a.m.”

“That sounds right.”

“So it’s safe to assume you arrived home about three fifteen a.m., wouldn’t you agree?”

“I guess.”

“You see, here’s where we have a problem. We have some new information, and your statement doesn’t jive.”

New information? That had come to light while I was in Thunder Basin? My mind reeled frantically as I tried to guess what they knew. My hands felt damp with perspiration and I shifted in my seat.

Ramos went on, “In hopes of catching Danny Balando leaving the scene of the crime, we pored over hours of security feed obtained from cameras in the area. Banks, convenience stores, that sort of thing. We have a street cam showing your car driving through the intersection of Audubon and Eighth at two fifteen a.m. That intersection is only a handful of blocks from your house. You were driving in the direction of home. It stands to reason you should have made it home closer to two twenty. And yet, you didn’t call nine-one-one for another hour.” He propped his meaty forearms on the table, his eyes locking me in their hard gaze. “That street cam shows your car driving
toward
your house at two fifteen, then
away
at two forty. More perplexing, it shows you returning again at three ten. That’s a lot of driving. What were you doing? Where were you going?”

I stared at him. My paralysis lasted only a moment. Finding my voice, I said, “I drove to Reed’s. After I saw the dead man in my house, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. My mom was passed out—she couldn’t help me. So I drove to Reed’s, but he wasn’t home.”

“You drove to Reed Winslow’s?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you mention this in your statement?”

“I—” Tears burned my eyes. I wanted to look to Carmina for help, but she hadn’t been there. She couldn’t tell me what to say. “I didn’t want to drag him into this. I—wanted to protect him.”

“You weren’t aware that Reed had just been at your house when you left to drive to his place?” Detective Cherry asked.

I shook my head adamantly, blinking against the hot sting in my eyes. “No. I didn’t know Reed was in my bedroom that night, waiting for me to get home. I didn’t know he would hear gunfire downstairs and go see what was wrong. I didn’t know he’d walk in on a murder scene.” My voice went up an octave. “Did I know my mom’s drug dealer would drag him outside, shove him in the trunk of a car, and beat him with a tire iron to make him ‘forget’ what he’d seen? No! Why are we going over this again?” I cried. “I’ve already told you what happened! Why are you making me relive it?”