CHAPTER 48 - Rita

CHAPTER 48RitaKIM PEARSON SQUIRMS IN THE CHAIR FACING ME AND JOE. CHASE and Agent Metz are taping all the interviews and are in the little room next door watching on-screen. As each couple comes in, we are talking to the women first, while the husbands wait their turn.“Mrs. Pearson, we’re interested in the night of July Fourth, last summer. You and your husband were at the Bradleys’ Mountclair home, correct?” I ask.“Yes. Is this about the woman they found by the river?”“Part of that investigation,” Joe says.She seems to settle some, smooths the front of her sweater.I open my notebook. “Can you run through that visit for us, please?”“Yes. Sure. We were there since Monday. Molly invited us up to celebrate the Fourth and her birthday on the second. We’d had a fun week—”“What did you do?” Joe asks. “All week?”“We barbequed. Walked in the woods. Had drinks. Watched movies.”“Anything out of the ordinary?” He peers at her, his dark eyes unblinking.“ No.”I sketch her face, the frown lines on her forehead. “What about the Fourth itself?”“We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs outside.”“You go out to see fireworks?” Joe asks. He and I have slipped easily into our previous pattern. Taking turns asking questions, quickly tossing the reins back and forth, hoping to keep our interviewee on her back foot.“No. Molly doesn’t like them.”“Why not?”She shrugs. “She’s, I don’t know, anxious. Loud noises bother her. We stayed at the house.”“So it was a quiet evening?” I ask.“Yes. We ate and drank. Watched a Fourth of July show on TV.”“What time did everyone go to bed?”“I don’t know.”“Who went first?”Mrs. Pearson blows out a breath. “Molly, I think. She had a headache.”Chase and I had pinned a diagram of the house on an easel in the corner. I stand and point to the first floor. “Mrs. Bradley went to the master bedroom here? What time?”“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe around ten?”“What about Dr. Bradley?”“I’m not sure. I went to bed shortly after Molly did, so I guess I was next.”“Pretty early, huh?” Joe says. “Where did you sleep?”“Show us on the diagram, please,” I say.She gets up and walks to the easel. It takes her a minute to orient herself. “Here. This upstairs bedroom.”“You go right to sleep?” Joe asks.“No. I read for a while.”“When did your husband come up?”“I think it was around eleven.”“Were you still awake?”“Yes.”“You or he leave the bedroom all night?”Her eyes open wide. “No. We went to sleep.”“You hear anything in the night? Anything at all?” I tap my pencil against my notebook.“Oh, wait. I did get up. I heard cars driving by the house.”“What time was that?” Joe leans forward.“Um, around midnight, I think. The people up the road had a big party. People were coming and going all day.” She puts a hand to her mouth. “Do you think someone from the party killed that woman?”“Maybe,” I say. “You hear anything else?”“No. I went downstairs for a glass of water.”“At midnight?”“Yes.”“Was anyone else up downstairs?” Joe clicks the top of his pen.“Jay was. I saw the light on in the den, so I peeked in. Jay was drinking coffee, working on his laptop.”My heart starts to pound. “Did you speak with Dr. Bradley?”“A little. He said he was just finishing up. He was going to bed shortly.”“Then what happened?”She shakes her head. “I got my drink and went back upstairs.”“Was anyone else awake?”“Not that I noticed. The house was dark.”I add to my notes and sketch of the mountain house. “Did you hear any more cars go by?”“Maybe. I don’t remember.”Joe leans forward. “Did you fall back asleep right away?”“I think so. I don’t remember lying awake too long.”“In the morning, was everyone there?” I ask.She frowns like where else would they be? “Yes. We all left at around eight. Everybody wanted to get back. Pick up our kids.”“Everything seem normal in the morning?” Joe asks. “Anything odd that you remember?”“No. Nothing.”Joe and I exchange a glance. “Okay, Mrs. Pearson. Thank you.” I walk her out to the waiting room and beckon to Mr. Pearson before they can talk to each other and compare notes.Pearson is back to his obnoxious self as he runs through the week at the Mountclair house. His rendition doesn’t vary from his wife’s. He slept soundly through the night of the Fourth, so he says. Didn’t mention his wife getting up for that drink of water.“What about this bar incident when you were twenty-three?” I ask, glancing through a file folder.His face goes blank, and he blinks his eyes. “What?”“You were arrested for a bar fight, right?” I hold up the report.“Jesus Christ. Yes. Okay? I was a dumbass kid, for crying out loud. It was no big deal.”Joe clears his throat, stabs the table with his index finger. “You choked a woman. Wouldn’t let her leave.”Pearson wipes a hand over his mouth. “My ex-girlfriend. She was a fatal attraction and a freaking liar. She came into the bar just to pick a fight with me. She made a big scene. Some jerk got involved, and we threw a few punches. That’s it. The bouncer called 911.”“You never touched her?” Joe asks, raises his eyebrows.Pearson shrugs. “She attacked me.”“She went to the ER. There are pictures.” Joe’s voice is throaty. He’s a whisper away from angry.Pearson hits the table with his fist. “I just tried to get her off me, that’s all. It was no big deal.” He looks at me. “What does this have to do with anything? I paid a fine. That’s it.”“We’re just looking at everything.” I make some notes. “Got a bit of a temper, do we?”His face reddens. “For fuck’s sake,” he says under his breath.“What was that?” Joe asks.“Nothing. Okay? I didn’t kill that girl in Mountclair if that’s what you’re getting at. And I sure as hell never hurt Jay. Are we done here?”“You sure you never left the house that night?” I ask. “Went looking for a little fun. Seems like a pretty dull time at the house. You didn’t decide to ride into town for a drink maybe?”“No. I didn’t fucking leave the house that night.”“Just one more thing. You want to give us a DNA sample?” He has no idea we don’t have DNA from the scene to compare his to, but hopefully we will soon.He jumps to his feet. “No, I don’t want to give you a DNA sample. Can I go?”Joe and I exchange glances. “Okay, Mr. Pearson. We’ll be talking to you again.”“Do whatever the fuck you want.”When he leaves, Joe and I huddle. “He doesn’t do himself any favors,” Joe says.“Obnoxious twit,” I say. “But Mrs. Pearson’s information is interesting. We’ve got something of a timeline.” I tap my notebook with my pencil.“If what Mrs. Pearson says is accurate, yeah. If the doctor was awake at twelve, he could’ve waited for her to go back up to bed, given her a few minutes to fall asleep, and slipped out the door. She’d been hearing cars on the road all night, so if the doctor took off, she might not have been able to distinguish his car from the others if she’d been listening.”* * *Laken Ferris is a bundle of nerves. She looks tired, not as glamorous as she had at the beginning of the investigation. Her story meshes with Mrs. Pearson’s. She says she had another drink after Mrs. Pearson went up for the night, then she and her husband followed suit. She estimates they were in bed by eleven-thirty, as far as she remembers.Mr. Ferris is red-eyed, but otherwise, he looks composed. He sits calmly, hands folded in his lap. His story matches his wife’s. They went to bed, didn’t hear a thing.“Mr. Ferris,” I say, “we’ve been looking through a lot of information and discovered that you had a restraining order taken out against you six years ago.”His face blanches. “What?”“A restraining order, Mr. Ferris.”He drops his head and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “My mother took that out,” he says quietly.“Your mother?” Joe says, feigning surprise.He nods. “It was no big deal. My mother was a bit . . . disturbed. My father had died and left me some things.”“What kind of things?”“Baseball cards. Other sports memorabilia mostly. Nothing my mother had any interest in. And it was my stuff. Anyway, my mother was ill. She died shortly afterward. She wasn’t in her right mind. When I went to see her, I asked for the boxes, and she told me I couldn’t have them. I went up into the attic anyway. She freaked out, and when I came down with the first load, she pushed me and scratched my arms.”“You push her back?” Joe asks, leaning forward.Ferris shrugs. “A little, okay? She had a hold of my arm. I didn’t hurt her.”“Then what happened?” I ask.“I put the first load in the trunk of my car, but when I went back to get the rest, she’d locked the door.”I look over the paper. “She says she was scared of you and that you’d harassed her with phone calls after that and tried to break into the house.”“I didn’t harass her.” He grimaces.“Did you try to get back into the house?”“Once, but then she got the order, and I gave up.”“You said she was ill, died not long after. Why not just wait?” Joe asks, eyebrows raised.“The stuff was mine. It belonged to me, and I wanted it. I didn’t realize she’d get so worked up about it. Once she took out the order, I let it go, okay? That was the end of it.”I tap my pencil against my notebook. “You sure you never left the mountain house on July Fourth?”His eyes open wide behind his glasses. “No. We all stayed at the house that night. Someone suggested we drive over to some local fireworks, but we decided not to go.” He shakes his head. “I had nothing to do with that woman’s death, if that’s what you’re getting at.” His gaze meets mine.“I heard there was a lot of drinking. You didn’t get a little inebriated? Didn’t go out looking for a little excitement after everyone was asleep?” I stand and lean against the door. “Maybe you met Annalise and things got out of hand?”Mr. Ferris’s eyes flash. “No. No fucking way are you going to pin this on me.” His face reddens. “It wasn’t one of us. Just because she was found nearby doesn’t mean anything. Anybody could’ve dragged her down that hill.” He turns to Joe. “Somebody could’ve buried her there just to make it look as though one of us did it.”“Maybe,” Joe says mildly, shrugs, goes back to his notes, then drops his pen on the table. “You hear anything that night?” His gaze meets Ferris’s. “Maybe you heard or saw something that could help us find the real killer.”“I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything.”“Then you won’t mind giving us a DNA sample? Just to eliminate you.”Mr. Ferris’s mouth falls open. “I think I need to talk to my lawyer before this gets out of hand.”“Of course,” Joe says.“You sure?” I ask. “It’s quick and easy. Then we won’t have to bother you again. Come on, Mr. Ferris. What are you afraid of?”He jumps to his feet, perspiration running down the sides of his face. “I’ll get back to you. I need to get home to my family.”He leaves, and we wrap up for the day. Joe asks if I want to grab a drink, but I’m tired, so I tell him we’ll do it another time and hurry through the dark parking lot to my van.* * *At home, I put on my oldest, rattiest T-shirt and a pair of faded gym shorts. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and pull out the elastic from the top of my head. My hair falls down over my shoulders, and I paw through it. There are definitely more grays than there were last time I really looked, whenever that was.A box of dark brown hair color sits on the edge of the tub, and I eye it suspiciously. When I was young, my mother and her friends used to dye their hair every six weeks like clockwork. They’d sit in the kitchen on a Saturday afternoon with coffee and cigarettes, shoo us kids outside, and perform the ritual. They’d sit like statues, heads glistening with stinky goo.I want to think I’m not that vain, but maybe I am. When my mom was my age, she looked old. By then, she’d let the grays win and cut off her hair, wearing it in a neat, curled cap like all the other old ladies she knew. Like you had no choice. The calendar said you were old, so fall in line.I’ve kept my hair long, still enjoy wearing makeup, but I’ve been distracted lately and have let myself go a little. My exercise bike sits in the corner, covered with clothes like an extension of my closet. I usually use it three or four times a week and lift hand weights besides to stay slim and toned. But I’ve slacked off lately. I pick up the box, peruse the directions. I can probably pedal while the dye is doing its thing on my head.* * *My doorbell rings. Shit. I’ve got ten minutes left before it’s time to rinse. The bell rings again, and I jump off my bike, sweat running down my chest, soaking my sports bra.I look through the peephole. “What d’you want, Collin?” I ask through the door.“Reet? Open the door. I’ve got dinner.”“Leave it on the mat. I’ll get it in a minute.”“Why? Do you have a man in there?”“No.”“It’s eggplant parm.”I flip the lock. “Okay, fine. Come in.”He gives me a sideways glance as he walks past me. “Why didn’t you call my stylist? I gave you his card. Those box colors are really harsh, Rita.”I draw a deep breath. “This was quicker.”He wiggles his eyebrows. “Have you talked to Leo? He’s been visiting his mother quite a bit lately.”“No. I was just getting tired of looking at myself, Collin.” My phone timer goes off. “I gotta get in the shower.”“Say no more. I’ll preheat the oven for you and put this in the fridge.”“You’re a pal, Collin.” I smile as I head to the bathroom.