A Stranger on the Beach(78)
“I love you. Please, help me. Don’t leave me here,” he said.
A second officer and then a third piled on. One of them pulled out a Taser and applied it to Callahan’s side. Jess heard a rapid clicking sound and gagged at the burning smell. Callahan convulsed and then slumped to the side, his hands finally releasing Caroline’s clothing. As the officers picked up his limp body and carted him away, Jess reached out to help Caroline to her feet.
“Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
Caroline wouldn’t meet Jess’s eyes.
“Are you hurt?”
She straightened her clothes, looking shaken. Her eyes were glazed. The poor woman.
“You said you would keep me safe,” she said.
Jess’s heart sank. Caroline was right. Jess had failed. The locals had failed. They’d failed in their first duty. They hadn’t protected her.
“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe they let that happen. I’m going to take this case completely away from the local PD. They’re incompetent.”
“You said I wouldn’t have to see him. That he was locked up, that he could never get to me.”
“This is inexcusable. I can’t apologize enough. All I can do is promise that it won’t happen again.”
“I don’t believe you. I don’t trust you anymore. If the police won’t protect me, I’ll have to protect myself,” she said, and turned her back on Jess.
Jess followed her to the lobby, buzzing around her like a fly, apologizing profusely. A blond woman who was sitting in the visitor area jumped up and came toward them. She held out her arms to Caroline, who walked right past them.
“Get me out of here,” Caroline said to her sister.
The star witness marched out of the police station and didn’t look back. Jess had the feeling she might never see her again.
48
Two days later, the storm had passed, and the sky was bright and clear. But Jess’s mood was grim as she walked out of the courthouse following Aidan Callahan’s arraignment. She ought to be happy. The judge ordered Callahan held without bail on the murder charge. The forensics team discovered a silver handgun wedged under the seat of Aidan’s truck. (The gun was at the lab now, being tested for fingerprints.) The gun, combined with the blood on Aidan’s clothes, was enough to back up Caroline Stark’s statement. And when the prosecutor brought up the station house attack on Caroline Stark, the judge was convinced. She ordered him held without bail—temporarily. They now had ten days to get an indictment from the grand jury. That was the new deadline. Ten days. If they failed, Callahan would be released.
The prosecutor was a guy named Vernon Mays, who had blindingly white teeth and a political career in his future, and he didn’t like to lose. This case was generating lurid headlines. BARTENDER KILLED MISTRESS’S HUSBAND, COPS SAY. FATAL ATTRACTION. ONE-NIGHT FLING LEADS TO MURDER. WIFE’S BOY TOY NABBED IN HUSBAND SLAY. And on and on. The press attention made it critical to get this right, Vernon said. He wanted the victim’s body found—yesterday. He wanted a report that said Aidan’s prints were on the gun. He wanted ballistics, and crime scene evidence, and every lab report on his desk by close of business tomorrow, no excuses. And most important of all, he wanted Caroline Stark in his office tomorrow morning, so he could sit her down, assess her credibility, and prepare her to testify before the grand jury.
There was only one problem. Caroline was missing.
Jess had been reaching out to Caroline ever since the other night, when Aidan Callahan assaulted her in the station house. Jess wanted not only to apologize, but to offer Caroline official protection. Yes, Aidan was in jail, but he might try to get to her through a third party. Jess had the paperwork in hand to have a security officer assigned to protect Caroline. She’d reached out over and over again, but Caroline wasn’t answering her phone. When she didn’t return numerous texts and voicemails, Jess got worried and went looking. What if something bad had already happened to her? Jess would be devastated to have a witness killed on her watch, and one she felt such profound sympathy for. Jess checked the beach house, but it was shuttered and cordoned off with crime scene tape. She had a colleague drop by Caroline’s apartment in the city, but the doorman reported she hadn’t been there for days. Finally, she reached out to Caroline’s sister, Lynn, who said that Caroline was safe but didn’t want to talk to the police. Why should she cooperate when they’d done nothing to protect her or her family? When Jess protested that she was calling precisely to offer security, Lynn’s reply was basically too little, too late.
Jess reported to Vernon Mays that their star witness had gone into hiding, and the prosecutor refused to hear that. He flashed his campaign-poster smile and told Jess to have Caroline in his office bright and early the next morning to start preparing her testimony. If she was unable to accomplish that basic function of an investigating officer, he’d have to consider restaffing. Nothing personal, of course, but this was a high-profile case and he couldn’t tolerate mistakes.
Hence, her grim mood on this sunny day.
“Jess, wait up!”
Mike Castro jogged across the parking lot toward her. He caught up to her by her car.
“I’m in a hurry,” she said, and opened the car door.
Mike’s face was flushed and shiny. He looked uncomfortable in his dark courtroom suit.