Read Presumption of Guilt Online
Authors: Marti Green
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Thrillers, #Women Sleuths, #Thriller & Suspense, #United States, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals, #Legal
Presumption of Guilt
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2014 Marti Green
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
ISBN-13: 9781477825709
ISBN-10: 1477825703
Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014940449
To Lenny, the wind beneath my wings
CONTENTS
C
HAPTER
1
M
olly Singer didn’t know this would be the last night she’d ever make love to Finn Reynolds. She hurriedly kissed him good night, then exited his car, quietly closing the door behind her. She prayed her parents were asleep. It was well past her curfew and her mother had been on her back about everything lately. She didn’t need her scowl greeting her tonight. It would break the magic of the evening.
Molly walked up the bluestone path to her house and, when she reached the front door, turned and waved to Finn. He blew her a kiss, then drove off. Molly put her key in the lock, rotated the latch, and opened the door.
Nothing. No parent standing in the foyer demanding an explanation. Just silence. Molly smiled, slipped off her shoes, and tiptoed up the carpeted stairs.
The upstairs hallway light was on, the signal she knew her mother depended on, when she stirred from her sleep, to tell her if Molly was back in the house. Light on meant she hadn’t returned from her date. Light off meant she had. Molly glanced toward her parents’ darkened bedroom, the door ajar just enough to let in the telltale hallway light, then switched off the light and slipped into her room.
She closed the door behind her and flopped down on the bed. It was almost one a.m., an hour past her curfew, but she was wide-awake. Her body tingled with the memory of Finn’s hands, exploring, caressing.
After a few moments, Molly got off the bed and pulled a tank top and shorts from her dresser drawer. She quickly changed into them, then headed into her bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.
When finished, she stared at the medicine cabinet.
Should I?
Inside was a stash of Ambien pills she’d secreted from her mother’s supply, a help for those nights she was too wired to fall asleep. She didn’t like the way they made her feel the next morning, but still—no school tomorrow meant she could sleep in. Probably the only way she’d get any sleep tonight, she thought as she reached inside the cabinet, shook two five-milligram pills from the bottle into her hand, and stared at them.
One or two?
One usually worked. Mostly, she’d needed it when she was overtired from studying too late into the night. A smile crept across her face as the image of Finn planted itself in her mind. She could still feel his lips on hers. The scent of his aftershave lingered on her. The promises they’d made to each other tonight, to love each other forever, reverberated through her.
Definitely two.
Otherwise, she’d never fall asleep.
Molly popped the little pink pills into her mouth, took a swig of water to wash them down, and got into her bed. Ten minutes later she fell sound asleep.
The sun streaming through her pink-and-green gingham curtains woke Molly. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and jumped out of bed, startled that her parents had let her sleep past eleven. “There’s too much to enjoy in life to sleep it away,” her father always said.
Sundays were supposed to be family day, although lately Molly had been pretty successful at finding excuses for avoiding time with her parents. It had been harder when Donna first left for college almost four years earlier. Then, her parents glommed on to her as though she were their intravenous fix. Their attention suffocated her, to the point that she called Donna late one night and begged her to return home. “They’re killing me,” she’d cried over the phone. “I can’t take it anymore. You’ve got to get them off my back or I’m going to do something drastic, I just know it.” Donna had laughed at her. “Give them time,” she’d said. “They’re just frightened at the thought of the empty nest. They’ll let up soon enough.”
And they had. They’d let up so much that they’d stopped thinking that Molly walked on water and started complaining about everything she did. And everyone she saw.
She knew they didn’t like Finn.
Too bad.
Molly loved him, so much so that her top college choice was no longer Harvard, but Columbia. That way she’d stay close to Finn. And it was still the all-important Ivy League her parents insisted she strive for. It wasn’t good enough for her parents, though. They claimed it was because she shouldn’t deprive herself of a traditional campus life—the setting of Columbia had its charms but couldn’t compare to the campuses of Yale, Harvard, or Princeton—but Molly knew the real reason. They wanted to get her away from Finn.
Molly opened her bedroom door and peeked outside, expecting to hear the drone of the television tuned to the Sunday-morning news shows. Instead, silence greeted her. She looked toward her parents’ bedroom and saw a closed door. It was usually left wide open when they were up for the day. Could they have gone back to sleep? Molly wondered. She tiptoed over to their room and pressed her ear against the door. No sound.
Molly bounded down the stairs and checked first the kitchen, then the family room. Empty. I bet they’ve gone out for brunch, she figured, then headed to the garage to check for a missing car. She opened the door that led to the garage and stood there, confused. All three cars were parked inside. For a moment she had the sickening thought that a carbon monoxide leak had wended its way through the house, rendering her parents unconscious. Then she laughed at her melodrama. It would have knocked her out as well, and she felt fine.
Quietly, she made her way upstairs again, then tiptoed across the floor to her parents’ bedroom. Softly, she knocked on the door, then, after no response, knocked again, loudly. Finally, she turned the doorknob, entered the room, and stopped, rooted in place.
At first, her brain only registered the blood. On the quilt, on the walls, on the bed’s headboard. Perhaps it was a trick of her mind to protect her from seeing her parents, but soon enough she saw their bodies.
Her father nearest her, frozen in the bed, her mother on the other side, half fallen out.
Her father’s head on his pillow, eyes opened in a fixed stare.
Molly screamed, then screamed again, over and over.
C
HAPTER
2
TWELVE YEARS LATER
D
ani Trumball had just leaned back in her chair and let the sounds of the orchestra wash over her when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Ignore it, she thought. Jonah’s violin concerto had already been performed, brilliantly composed, and expertly played, as attested to by the enthusiastic applause of the other mothers and fathers in the audience. Now she could relax, appreciate the warm evening breeze in her hair, and enjoy the remainder of the concert. The black sky was bursting with stars, and the full moon cast its light over the girls and boys on stage, huddled intently over their instruments.
“Ms. Trumball?” The whisper, barely audible over the sound of the trumpets, came from behind her. “I’m sorry, but are you Dani Trumball?”
How rude. The audience members had driven hours, maybe days, to hear their children perform in Camp Adagio’s end-of-summer concert, all of them bursting with pride over their children’s musical prowess. Every boy and girl was a Williams syndrome kid, so lacking in other areas of intellectual development, but gifted with this one unique talent. It was hard to imagine a more blissful moment, yet here was this woman, determined to spoil it.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but—can we go somewhere and talk?”
Dani sat up and turned around and saw a woman leaning toward her. “Shh. Please. You’re disturbing the others. After the concert.” Dani turned back to the front and resumed her reclined position. The full orchestra was playing a symphony composed by one of Jonah’s bunk mates. In his letters home, Jonah had gushed about the musical expertise of his friend, and Dani knew he’d question her later about it.
A few minutes passed, and then the annoying whisper returned. “You work for the Help Innocent Prisoners Project, don’t you?”
Feeling her husband, Doug, stiffen beside her, Dani turned around again and practically hissed. “Look. Call my office next week and we can talk. I’m not here to discuss cases.” She turned back to the front, crossed her arms, and fervently hoped that would be the end of the intrusions. No such luck.
“Please.” Her voice, still a whisper, had a note of desperation. Dani wanted to ignore her, knew Doug would be angry if she didn’t, yet couldn’t stop herself from standing up and moving to the aisle. Dani understood desperation. Quietly, she slipped out of the row of seats, then walked with the woman away from the music. They came to a grove of trees and stopped.