Chase’s heart pounded as he followed Wyatt down the hall to the small interrogation room. “Who’s going to be conducting the interview?”
“Greg Hart from LPD and Stacy,” the sheriff answered. “In here, please.”
“I’d like a few minutes alone with Chase, if you don’t mind,” John said as they went in the room.
“Sure. Just knock when you’re ready.” Wyatt closed the door as he left.
As soon as the door shut, Chase let out a hard curse. The temptation to slam his fist through the wall was strong, but he knew that’d be about the stupidest thing he could do under the circumstances.
“Have you called your parents?” John asked calmly.
“No, I don’t want to worry them unless I don’t have a choice.”
“Good. Let’s hope neither of us has to make that call.” He pulled out a chair but didn’t sit. “As your attorney, I’m advising you to cooperate as fully as you can. Answer the questions as honestly as you’re able to, but don’t volunteer anything.”
Chase shot him an incredulous look. “Really?”
“I know you know all this. It doesn’t hurt to hear it again. Much like doctors make the worst patients, lawyers make the worst clients. Do you have any problem giving them the DNA sample?”
“Do you mean should I worry? No. The only way they’ll find my DNA on anything is if someone else put it there. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. Let’s face it—if the Bledsoes go that far, I’m hosed. It won’t matter what we do here.”
“You think that’s a real possibility?” John asked, concerned.
Chase nodded. “I’m terrified that it is. I’d much rather be accused of being paranoid, but I think we can’t discount the possibility.”
John cursed. “If it does, we’ll fight it. I won’t let you go it alone.” He awkwardly patted Chase’s shoulder. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah, I want to get this over with.”
“Then let’s do that.” John opened the door and spoke to the deputy stationed outside the room. When he returned to the table and sat down, he pulled two tablets and pens from his briefcase, pushing one of each to Chase.
“Set it up well, right?”
“Give them at least part of what they’re expecting. Use the rest to throw them off,” he murmured as Wyatt, Stacy, and a shorter man walked in.
John had an eidetic memory and didn’t need to take a single note. The notepads gave them a method with which to communicate, and Hart would expect them to write something down.
Wyatt set three bottles of water on the table. “These might come in handy. Detective Kirchner and Detective Hart are going to be conducting this interview. Agent Gordon and I will be observing from the other room. I’ll leave you to it.”
He pulled the door closed behind him. The room fell quiet. Stacy moved to turn on the recording equipment, then sat down at some distance from Hart. Lining up her pen in a straight parallel to the top of her notepad, she lifted her eyebrows and shot Chase a steady look that helped put him somewhat at ease. He gave her a subtle nod in return.
Hart glanced up from where he was reviewing his notes and cleared his throat. “Let’s get started. We have a lot to discuss. First off, who’re you exactly?”
“John Hudson. I’m Chase’s legal counsel.”
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “Well, now, that is interesting and awfully fast of you, Chase. I’m a little surprised. From what I’ve heard, you’re an innocent man.”
Even though his temper lit up at the words, Chase let John handle the remark.
“Make no mistake, Detective. My nephew had nothing whatsoever to do with Kiely Turner’s death ten years ago or what’s going on now. However, given his profession and what’s at stake here, we’re erring on the side of caution. Now, what documentation do you have?”
Hart handed John what looked to be the DNA warrant. “That’s your copy.”
After a quick read of the papers, John nodded and looked at Stacy, who had the buccal swab kit at hand. “Fair enough. Let’s get that out of the way.”
From the way Hart’s eyes narrowed, Chase figured his cooperation had surprised the detective. He was aware enough about what had happened to Kiely after her abduction to know there was likely plentiful DNA material to work with. That they’d thrown Hart off balance so early in the interview was, he hoped, a good sign.
Stacy opened the package and pulled the gloves on with efficient moves, and within a few seconds, it was done.
John spoke as she sealed the kit. “The warrant specifies that sample goes to the FBI, not back with Detective Hart.”
“I’ll make sure it does,” she promised.
Even knowing full well that he was innocent, Chase felt hunted. Old wounds were bound to be torn open, stomped all over in front of people he considered his friends and family, and Chase had little doubt that a lot of his pride would be demolished by the time the interview was finished. He drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. Holding on to the principles of self-control he’d learned when he was a teenager and had started kickboxing classes, he let calm wash over him and hoped it was enough.
Hart officially opened the interview for the tapes. He identified himself and Stacy, gave the date, time, and location, and asked Chase to state his full name.
“Richard Chase Hudson II.” He followed that with his date of birth and address as requested.
“You’re an attorney here in Leroy, Indiana, is that correct?” Hart asked.
“I am.”
“And you are represented here today by your uncle, John Hudson, who is also an attorney, is that right?”
“Yes.”
Hart harrumphed. “The purpose of this interview is to resolve some questions that have arisen as to the nature of Chase Hudson’s involvement in the death by homicide of one Kiely Jianne Turner. To that end, Detective Kirchner, since your department has jurisdiction, if you wouldn’t mind reading the suspect his rights?”
Chase’s heart sank, not because he’d expected not to be Mirandized, but because Hart had used “the suspect” to describe him in a formal interview. That didn’t bode well going forward, and they all knew it.
Stacy complied. “Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?” she asked as she finished.
“I do.”
“Super,” Hart said, taking back the reins. “Now that that’s out of the way, I’d like you to take me back ten years. That was a busy summer for you, wasn’t it?”
Chase sat back in the chair a bit and carefully stretched his legs out under the table. “It was.”
“Tell me about it,” Hart requested.
“What do you want to know exactly?” He wasn’t about to give a general answer. If Hart wanted specifics, let him ask.
The corner of the detective’s mouth quirked up in a sneer. “That’s an excellent response, Counselor, turning it back to me.” When Chase raised an eyebrow and didn’t respond, Hart sighed. “Gentlemen, this will go a lot faster if we simply talk about what happened.”
Chase and John exchanged a look. Still silent, Chase picked up the water and took a drink as John responded.
“If it hasn’t escaped your notice, Detective, my client is here voluntarily. He’s here to address specific concerns you have about this case. He’s not here to chat. He is not here to do your job for you. If you want your questions answered, I suggest you use a direct approach instead of this ‘let’s be friends’ routine. We have no interest in obstructing your investigation, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you play cat and mouse all day. Do we understand each other?”
Chase watched the battle of wills play out between the two men. The tension in the room was palpable, and he could almost see the chess pieces Hart had placed on the board shift into new positions to accommodate John’s parry. The slight tightening of the detective’s mouth and jaw was the only indication of the man’s agitation.
“Tell me about the job you had that summer,” Hart instructed Chase. “Dates, names, duties.”
“It was an internship with the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. I was basically a gofer at first, and as the summer wore on, I was given more responsibility, like typing up briefs or pulling books for research. It started in late May, and the position lasted through September.”
“Who was your supervisor?” Stacy asked. He told her, and she wrote the name down.
“How old were you?” Hart asked.
Chase thought for a minute. “I was twenty when it started, but I had a birthday that July.”
“So you weren’t in law school, but you managed to get into the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s internship program. That’s unusual, isn’t it?” Stacy asked.
“Very, and I was in law school—at the end of my first year in fact. I was about a year ahead of my classmates. One of my professors sponsored me for the internship, and when I was offered the chance, I wasn’t about to pass it up. I wasn’t allowed to do anything in court, but I assisted the various attorneys and other office staff.”
“Kiely wasn’t too happy with that decision, was she?” Hart asked softly.
“No, she wasn’t,” Chase confirmed.
“And why was that?” The detective leaned forward.
“She wanted me to go back to Ashland with her, at least for part of the summer. Her parents were traveling, and I guess she wanted to play house. When I refused, she didn’t take it well.”
Hart picked up his pen and played with it as he studied Chase skeptically. “Let me get this straight. You’re twenty years old, the girlfriend you proclaim to love is offering you a whole house to use, all to yourselves with no adult supervision, and you refuse so you can pull eighty-hour weeks at the CA’s office. Unpaid, I might add. Is that right?”
“That about sums it up, yes,” Chase said.
The detective shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I have a hard time believing a twenty-year-old man would pass up the chance to spend weeks on end screwing his girlfriend and partying.”
Chase matched Hart’s posture. “Here’s a newsflash for you, Detective—just because it’s outside your realm of experience doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Sure, I was tempted to take Kiely up on her offer. I cared for her deeply. I wanted to be with her. But my parents didn’t raise me to be the kind of kid who’d throw that kind of opportunity away on a whim. I knew how hard it was to get a shot at that internship as a third-year student, much less as a first-year student. I figured Kiely would understand that choice. I took a gamble, and it didn’t turn out the way either of us anticipated.”
Stacy spoke up, diffusing the tension a bit. “So Kiely went back to Ashland. You stayed in Lexington. When did you see her again?”
“I didn’t see, hear from, or talk to her until the first week of classes that fall. She tracked me down in the library. I suspect now that she probably engineered that meeting, but at the time, I thought it was accidental.” When John laid a hand on his arm, Chase shook his head. “Full disclosure, John. I know Detective Hart has probably memorized my interview from back then. My opinion of that day has changed since I was interviewed, and it won’t mesh with what’s in the tapes and transcripts. That’s all.”
Stacy crossed her arms on the table. “Why is that? What made your impression change?” There was no suspicion in her voice, just curiosity.
Chase exchanged a look with John, who nodded. He struggled for words for a minute before figuring out what he wanted to say. “After Kiely died, I had a confrontation of sorts with her sister, Amy Lynn. One of the things she told me was that Kiely was pregnant and that they had decided to set me up as the father. The real father wasn’t in the picture, and they needed a patsy. I didn’t want to believe her at the time.”
He paused to finish off the bottle of water and regain his composure. Telling this to Annie had been hard enough. Recounting it to friends and practical strangers was humiliating.
“When I received the letter from the killer a couple of weeks ago and it reiterated what Amy Lynn had told me, I guess it finally clicked. Nothing about our relationship that fall was accidental. She planned it all.”
“So you had no idea before she disappeared that Kiely was pregnant? That it wasn’t your child?” Hart asked.
“None whatsoever.”
“And there’s no chance the child was yours?” Stacy asked quietly.
Chase’s jaw clenched. “No. Kiely and I were never intimate.”
When Hart laughed, they all looked at him with varying degrees of incredulity and disgust.
“Oh, come on,” he said, chuckling. “You were twenty years old, Hudson. Guys that age nail everything that moves, especially when it’s offered to them on a silver platter. You never screwed Kiely Turner? Pull the other one.”
When the water bottle collapsed in Chase’s hands, he looked down, startled. He drew in a deep, calming breath and carefully set the flattened bottle on the table. “Once again, Detective, don’t use your own moral yardstick to measure my life.”
Detective Hart sneered. “Next thing you’ll know, you’ll be telling us you’re still a virgin.” When Chase just stared a hole through him, Hart laughed, incredulous. “I’ll be damned.”
Before Chase could answer, John spoke, his voice ice cold. “I would like to remind you that we are here to discuss the death of Kiely Turner. We are not here to discuss my client’s sex life outside the extremely narrow context specific to that summer. If you want this interview to continue, you had damn well better remember that.”
Detective Hart ignored John and spoke directly to Chase. “You’re something else, Hudson. I keep hearing how you’re some kind of frigging paragon. Let’s go back to that summer then. So you’re working eighty-hour weeks, you’re a year ahead of your class, and you aren’t screwing your girlfriend. I can believe all of it except the last part. Who were you screwing?”
Chase leaned back in his chair, raising the front legs off the floor as he counted silently to twenty and beyond in an effort not to reach across the table and take a jab at Hart. “If you’re the best Lexington has to offer, it’s no wonder Kiely’s murder is still unsolved.”
“Chase,” John warned, his voice low.
The detective glared at him. “You know, for someone who purportedly cared deeply for the girl, you don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about helping to solve her murder. Is that because you already know who raped and strangled her and dumped her body in Hickman Creek?”
Chase let the chair fall in place. As he leaned forward, he saw anticipation light up the detective’s eyes. “Whether you’re here to find the truth or whether you’re a damned sock puppet for the Bledsoes, I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t care, because my answers don’t change either way.”
Hart sneered. “That’s an interesting—”
Chase cut him off. “I’m not finished. I’m going to tell you what I told the original investigators, Kiely’s family, and half a dozen people since. I did not kill Kiely. I did not have her killed. I did not have knowledge then, nor do I now, of who killed her beyond what information was contained in the letter I received the other day.
“I know you must have some new evidence in regards to her murder and that it must be compelling in order for you to have gotten this particular group together.” He gestured around the room. “Why don’t you ask me whatever it is you came here to ask, and let’s cut the bullshit?”
Detective Hart sat back and clapped slowly. “Bravo, Chase! Bravo! How long have you been rehearsing that little speech?”
Chase stood, his chair flying back to hit the wall with a loud clang. The sudden movement wiped the smug grin off the detective’s face and made him reach for his holster, which hung empty on his shoulder, the gun having been checked at the door. Chase knew that if it had contained a weapon, it would have been drawn and pointed at him, and the knowledge that he had so unnerved Hart made him smile. It didn’t feel like a warm and friendly expression.
“Bravo, Detective. We’re done here,” Chase said, feeling not quite civilized.
John got to his feet without a word and packed his things.
As they started toward the door, Hart blocked them. His face was a mottled red, and anger was coming off of him in waves. “We aren’t done here.”
“Oh yes, we are. Either arrest me or get the fuck out of my way.” Chase leaned in closer to the detective, who was a few inches shorter than him, silently daring the man to raise a hand to him.
Before Hart could do anything, the door swung open and Wyatt hurried inside, Gordon close behind.
“Gordon, take Detective Hart for a walk to cool him down. Now!” Wyatt barked when the man continued his staredown with Chase.
Hart moved away with reluctance, shooting a furious glare at Chase as he left the room.
“Chase, give me three minutes,” Wyatt asked. “Three minutes alone with you and John. Please. Stacy, turn the tapes off and give us some privacy.”
With an explosive curse that questioned everything from Hart’s manhood to his parentage, Chase turned and moved back into the room. “Make it quick.”
As Stacy left and pulled the door closed, Wyatt moved to the table and sat on the edge of it. With a hard growl, he ran a hand over his hair. “I’ve known you and your family a long time. I like you, and I respect you. I hope that’s mutual.”
Fighting for patience, Chase walked to the corner and grabbed the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. When he finally felt calm, he turned back to Wyatt and John. “You know it is. I’m pissed off as hell about this, but I don’t blame you.”
The sheriff smiled briefly. “Good. Then I hope you’ll take what I’m about to say to heart. You need to finish this interview, son.” When Chase laughed with bitter amazement, Wyatt held up a hand. “Hear me out.”
Chase waved. “By all means.”
“You’re absolutely entitled to walk out of here, and after that asshole’s attitude, I almost wish you would. But that’s what the guy wants. You’re playing straight into his hands if you walk out now, and if you stop to think for two seconds, you’ll admit that. He thought he had you when you lost your temper. He still thinks he does. I guarantee that if you leave now, he’ll be on the phone to whatever judge he has access to and you’ll be thrown in jail—probably in Lexington instead of here—before you can blink twice.”
“I’ve never been so angry in my life,” Chase muttered, leaning against the wall. He crossed his arms. “He hit all my buttons today. I tried to hold on to my temper, but I just couldn’t do it. After everything we went through with Beth and Ethan last fall, after the threat against Annie now… it’s too much. I’m sorry. You don’t know how sick I am of this. For over ten years, this case has tainted my life. I want it to stop.”
“So do we, but Wyatt’s right, you know.” John looked as worried as Chase had ever seen him. “I know you’re upset. Hell, I’m proud of you for not knocking the bastard across the room, but walking out now is the worst thing you can do. You need to see this through.”
With a frustrated groan, Chase scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Do you know, until last year when we went through hell with almost losing Beth, I really believed I was levelheaded?”
“That was enough to turn anyone upside down,” Wyatt said quietly. “It did that to several people, not just you. Neither of us is judging you for losing your temper here. That’s not what this is about.”
Chase laughed, a short, bitter sound that was anything but amused. “I appreciate what you’re saying, guys, but I’m tired. Tired of being stoic, of being pitied, of being ‘that poor Hudson boy’ who lost his girlfriend and who, according to more than a few, murdered her. I’ve reached my breaking point. I can’t do this anymore, especially not with Hart. I’ll go across the table at him despite my best efforts not to.”
“What if Gordon and Stacy finish the interview?” Wyatt asked. “Would that make a difference?”
“Fuck me.” Oh, he wanted to say that it wouldn’t. He really did. “There’s really only one answer I can give here, and you both know it.”
“That’s a yes then?” John asked.
“As long as you keep Hart away from me.”
Wyatt smiled, relieved. “Good. I’ll go let everyone know and give you a couple of minutes.” He stood and left the room.
When the door closed, John let out a breath and came to stand beside Chase. “You’re doing the right thing. For what it’s worth, I meant it when I said I’m proud of you.”
“It’s worth a lot, thanks. I’m not very proud of myself at the moment though.”
As they discussed strategy, Chase wondered how Gordon would feel about this new development. As relieved as he was at not having to face Hart, he dreaded what was to come with Gordon. It was a role they’d never played before, and Chase couldn’t help but wonder if their friendship would survive.