Truth Will Out
Truth will come to light;
murder cannot be hid long;
a man's son may,
but at the length truth will out.
– William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Two words came to Whitney Woodhall's mind, ones every homicide detective dreads: serial killer. Not only was a serial killer more difficult to catch than a run-of-the-mill murderer since he often had no connection to his victims, but public reaction was much stronger, too. Many times, women, frightened by the sensational headlines in the media, enrolled in self-defense courses, carried pepper spray or mace and even bought handguns to protect themselves.
"The last thing we need is to have an armed woman out walking her dog shoot an innocent man who stops to ask her directions," the detective complained to her partner as they drove to the latest crime scene.
The victim, the third in a period of five months, was another young woman in her late twenties, unmarried, living alone in an area often euphemistically referred to as "off the beaten track."
"No sign of forced entry," Zach Van Heusen announced after examining both the front and back doors. "It doesn't appear she put up a fight. No furniture overturned, nothing knocked off the dresser or night table. My guess is she knew him and, like in the other two cases, the sex was consensual."
"So, if we do have a repeat offender"—she preferred that term to serial killer—"he must be a real ladies' man."
Once the forensics team arrived and began going over every inch of the place, the two state police detectives left the victim's house. There was little they could do there except get in the way of the crime scene investigators. Whitney, the officer in charge, was not like the fictional detectives seen on television, who became personally involved in every aspect of the investigation. She was a team player who believed in letting each of the individuals assigned to the case do their job without interference.
"Did you get a photo?" she asked her partner as they walked down the driveway to their unmarked police car.
"Yeah, I took it out of a frame in the living room," Zach replied, holding a five-by-seven picture of the victim taken with Mickey Mouse during a vacation to Disney World. "What a shame. She was such a pretty girl."
"Oh? And if she were ugly, would it be any less of a shame?" Whitney asked with that wry smile on her face that he knew so well.
Detective Van Heusen continued to stare at the photograph, ignoring her question.
"You think he might have done it?"
"Who?"
"Him," he said, holding up the picture. "Mickey."
"I don't know," Whitney laughed. "Maybe we should ask the Orlando P.D. to get us a DNA sample."
Ten minutes later, she put on her turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of a Krispy Kreme. Only after having her usual large coffee and double dark chocolate doughnut would she able to endure another rigorous fourteen-hour workday.
* * *
Charmaine Dewhurst lay in bed, pretending to be asleep, but her eyes were peering through the dimly lit bedroom into the master bathroom at her husband who was shaving by the sink. She liked to look at him. What woman wouldn't? He was gorgeous! As she stared at his perfect face and physique, a familiar question came to her: What does he see in me?
That question always caused her pain, for she had a good idea what the answer was. She was a plain, mousy woman with all the sex appeal of an old shoe. Despite cosmetic surgery and regular trips to the beauty salon, she remained a homely woman. As one snide cosmetologist once whispered to a coworker after applying makeup to Charmaine's face, "You can't polish a turd."
To all outward appearances, Justin was a loving husband, but she knew better. He married her for her money. When they first met, she was a wealthy tourist seeing the sights of New York. Not one to take a taxi, she hired a limousine to drive her to a performance at Carnegie Hall. One look at the handsome chauffeur was all she needed. For the remainder of her stay in the Big Apple, she kept him at her side; and when she left for home, he accompanied her.
Done shaving, the former limo driver passed through the bedroom on his way to the kitchen. Charmaine caught a whiff of his cologne, an expensive one she bought him for their last anniversary, and she closed her eyes, savoring the scent. When she heard his footsteps on the stairs, she quickly got out of bed, dressed and put on some mascara and lipstick. Then she hurried down to the breakfast nook to be with the man she still adored after two years of marriage.
* * *
"What's the next place on the list?" Detective Woodhall asked her partner as she backed the unmarked Ford cruiser out of a parking space.
"Take your pick: O'Hara's Irish Pub or the Sheraton near the airport," Zach answered.
"That's a no-brainer. The Sheraton. Airport traffic will be light this time of day."
For the past three nights, the two detectives had gone to every bar in an ever-widening radius around the latest crime scene, showing the victim's photograph to bartenders and wait staff. It was time-consuming work and had yet to yield any results, but it was all part of the job. Unfortunately, the Sheraton proved to be another disappointment.
"While we're in the area, let's check out the bars inside the terminal," Whitney suggested.
There was a time when her partner would have grumbled at the suggestion. As a rookie, he had worked on the streets doing "real police work," as he called it. Upon receiving his detective's shield, he expected even more adventurous forays into the exciting world of crime-fighting; what he got was monotonous repetition.
Whitney pulled up to the front of the terminal and parked in an area reserved for the unloading of passengers.
"You're not allowed to park here," a porter told her when she got out of the car.
"Says who?" she countered, flashing her badge at him as she walked past.
"Go right ahead, officer."
She certainly did not need the man's permission, but she thanked him anyway.
Zach had the victim's photograph in his hand when they entered the bar frequented by those passengers who had yet to go through airport security screening. He and his partner would need to flash their badges again before being allowed to visit post-security bars.
"I'll question the—what's the fancy word for it—mixologist," Whitney announced, taking a copy of the same photograph out of her pocket. "You go talk to the waitress."
The bartender, a middle-aged man who dreamed of retiring to Florida within the next ten years, asked, "What'll you have?"
"Information."
He looked up and saw the badge.
"Be glad to help, if I can."
"Have you ever seen this woman?"
The man studied the photograph for several seconds before answering.
"She looks familiar. Yes. She was in here a few nights ago."
"Can you be a little more specific?"
"Let me think ... um ... Monday? No. Tuesday."
"Do you know what time she was here?"
"Early evening, about six-thirty or seven."
"Was she with anyone?"
"Not that I saw."
"Did she say anything?"
"Only to give me her order, a strawberry daiquiri, and to thank me when I put the drink on the bar."
"Is there anything else you can tell me about her?"
"She had luggage with her, so either she hadn't checked it yet or she just landed."
Since the young woman was killed later that same night, Whitney assumed it was most likely the latter.
* * *
Although her family had relied on the services of a cook when she was growing up, Charmaine prepared the couple's meals herself, going so far as to take lessons to sharpen her culinary skills. Whether dinner was chateaubriand or hamburger—her husband's favorite dish—it was always served at the dining room table. A lace tablecloth, linen napkins, fine china, silverware, freshly cut flowers and candles were de rigueur in the Dewhurst household.
When she heard the garage door open, Charmaine removed her apron and lit the candles. Then she ran to the door and greeted her husband with a kiss.
"How was your day?" she asked sweetly, as though auditioning for the role of a Fifties era housewife.
"Pretty much the same as every other day," Justin replied. "What's for dinner?"
"Waldorf salad, chicken cordon bleu, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, potatoes au gratin and, for dessert, chocolate mousse."
While being treated like a king was a welcome novelty when he first moved in with Charmaine, he naturally assumed it would not last long. Nearly three years later he was still getting the royal treatment, but it was beginning to bore him. After working a twelve-hour day, he wanted to come home to pizza and a beer in front of the TV, just like when he was still single and living in New York.
* * *
The medical examiner prepared his preliminary findings and sent a copy to Detective Woodhall. She skipped over all the medical jargon to find the cause of death: blunt force trauma to the head.
No surprise there. The other victims were killed in the same manner.
As Whitney was perusing the results of the crime scene investigation, Zach walked into the station, carrying two cups of coffee and a Krispy Kreme bag.
"Here," he said, placing one of the coffees and a doughnut on her desk. "I thought I'd save you a trip to the drive-thru."
"Double dark chocolate?" she asked with the eagerness of a child opening her presents on Christmas morning.
"Of course. In all the time I've been your partner, I've never known you to order anything else."
"You forgot there was that one time when they ran out and I had to settle for jelly."
"What's that you're reading?" Van Heusen asked once his partner finished her breakfast.
"Crime scene info."
"Did they find anything?"
"Plenty. We've got fingerprints, DNA and hair samples."
"And?" he asked despite knowing what was coming.
"Surprise, surprise! None of it matches up with any known assailant in the CODIS database."
"Look on the bright side. If we do manage to catch this guy, we've got enough physical evidence to put him away for life."
"When we catch him, not if. We're dealing with a repeat offender; if is not an option."
Having confirmed with United Airlines that the victim had flown in from Seattle on the evening of her death, Detective Woodhall drew a preliminary timeline on the whiteboard behind her desk.
"Her plane landed at 5:25," she said aloud as she indicated the time at the beginning of the line. "She must have then gone to the baggage claim area and picked up her suitcase because she had it with her when she stopped at the bar for a drink."
"That's assuming she checked her luggage. Some of those wheeled suitcases can fit into the category of carry-ons."
"True, but if she walked off the plane with her bag, why did it take her so long to get to the bar?"
"If she's anything like my wife, she would have headed straight for the ladies' room after getting off the plane where there was probably a long line to wait on."
"All right," Whitney conceded. "Regardless of whether she checked her suitcase or carried it on, she got off the plane and went to the bar at about six-thirty or seven."
She moved to the terminus of the line and drew a large star with a red marker.
"According to the M.E., she was murdered at about eleven o'clock, maybe as early as ten or as late as midnight. Now all we have to do is fill in the hours in between."
"You make it sound so easy," Zach laughed.
"We know the victim travelled alone," Whitney continued. "She could have encountered the killer on the plane, but she wasn't with him when she went to the bar. If they did meet during the flight, he was probably waiting for her outside the terminal, maybe in the airport parking lot."
"I don't buy it," her partner said, shaking his head.
"You got a better idea?"
"Yeah. Most travelers have a drink before they fly, especially when they get to the airport early and have time to kill. Why stop at the bar after the plane lands? Usually, everyone is anxious to get home or to their destination."
"Good point. She might have been waiting for someone to pick her up."
"Enter our killer."
"Maybe, maybe not, but it's a good place to start."
* * *
I miss the summer, Charmaine thought as she sat beside the window, watching the fallen leaves being blown across the yard by a chilly October wind. I fail to see why everyone loves the autumn so much. All the hype about fall foliage. I don't see the attraction in dying leaves.
Justin was the reason the couple still lived in New England and had not migrated south or west to bask in warm temperatures year-round. He liked the changing seasons, even winter as long as there was not too much snow and ice. Charmaine hated the cold, dreary months of January, February and sometimes March. Had it not been for the holiday season, she would dislike December as well.
Unlike her husband—who owned his own taxi service, which she bought for him to lure him to Boston—she did not work. She was, to use an old-fashioned term, a housewife, married not to a house but to a lifestyle. People often say that a man's home is his castle, but they're wrong. The home is the woman's domain. Charmaine had chosen the furniture, the window treatments, the floors, the rugs, the artwork on the walls—in short, she picked out everything right down to the brand of toilet paper in the bathrooms. Justin did not mind that his wife ran the house. When they first purchased it, she would ask his opinion before making any design choices. His response was always the same: "I don't care. Whatever you like is fine." After a while, she stopped asking.
As she watched the neighbor across the street decorate her doorway with cornstalks and a wreath of autumn flowers and gourds, the telephone rang. She knew from the ringtone it was her husband.
"Hello, sweetheart," she said, her spirits lifted by the sound of his voice.
"I'm afraid it's going to be another late night," he informed her.
"Why?" Charmaine asked, clearly disappointed.
"Emilio called in sick. That leaves just me and Jamal."
"It seems one of your drivers is always calling off for one reason or another. Why don't you hire more reliable people?"
"They're both good men. Emilio can't help it if he gets sick, any more than Jamal could help it when his mother died and he had to take off for her funeral. Look,"—Charmaine hated it when her husband began a sentence with look since it was usually followed by a lecture—"I told you owning a business is not a nine-to-five job. This one is finally beginning to make a decent profit. I'm not going to throw it all away just so that I can be on time for dinner."
"Do you have any idea when you will be home? I can always cook later so that we can still eat together."
"I honestly don't know. You go ahead without me. I'll just heat mine up in the microwave when I get home. That's the other phone. I gotta go."
There was a time when Charmaine would have gotten a "love you" before he hung up the phone, but lately she considered herself lucky if her husband remembered to say "goodbye."
* * *
Whitney licked the chocolate icing off her fingers, not wanting to waste a morsel of her doughnut. Her swivel chair was turned away from the desk as she stared at the timelines on the whiteboard. There were three, one for each of the victims.
There must be something that ties these women together, some common denominator—other than the fact that they all lived alone in homes located on Robert Frost's "roads less traveled."
If she could determine what it was the victims had in common, she might learn how they met their killer. As she waited for her partner to report to work, she went over the entries on the timelines.
Victim one left her office at half-past six, having worked an hour and a half later than normal. She was last seen walking toward the bus stop. Normally, she drove to work, but her car was in the shop being repaired. Police have not found anyone who saw or heard from her after that. Victim two was out jogging most of the day, trying to get in shape for the Boston Marathon. She was seen running in the park at four in the afternoon. Then nothing. Victim three spent a week in Seattle visiting a college friend, returned to the airport, had a drink at the bar and was killed later that night.
There was no sign of forced entry at their homes or evidence that the victims were raped. The three young women all had sex—apparently consensual—with the same man on the night they died.
Where, when and how did they meet him? the detective asked herself.
The DNA profiling gave them a bare bones description of the killer: white male, light hair and blue eyes. It was helpful, but it failed to significantly narrow their suspect pool.
After questioning nearly everyone these three women knew, the only thing Detectives Woodhall and Van Heusen could say with any certainty was that they had little in common. One was a native of the state; the other two had moved here from outside New England. Two were college graduates; one went no further than high school. One, the jogger, was an outdoorsy type who frequently went hiking, boating and camping. One was a guitarist in a local all-girl rock band. Between practice sessions and gigs, she was always on the go. And the most recent was a homebody who liked nothing better than to read a good novel or do needlepoint.
They had no friends in common, lived in different towns, worked at different occupations for different employers, shopped in different grocery stores and only one attended church. Furthermore, no two had the same doctor, dentist, or car mechanic.
"Good morning," Zach said cheerfully.
Whitney spun her chair around and faced her partner.
"You're late," she teased him.
"For Christ's sake, it was only ten minutes. I had to drop the kids off at school."
"When I was a kid, I had to walk to school."
Despite being only five years younger, Zach never missed an opportunity to good-naturedly needle his partner about her age.
"That's because you were a kid before Henry Ford invented the car."
"I went to school when they still taught history. That's where I learned it was Karl Benz who built the first automobile—proving once again that with age comes wisdom."
"Okay, Professor Einstein, let's go talk to some more people."
They were only two blocks from the police station when the call came in. A fourth victim had been found.
* * *
Christmas carols played over the Muzak system as Charmaine strolled through the center court of the mall. She had gone there in hopes of finding a gift for her husband, but all she bought was a sweater for herself.
I have no idea what to get him, she thought glumly. He's got plenty of clothes and shoes. He doesn't have any hobbies. He likes to wear cologne, but how many bottles does he need?
She was considering buying him a large gift box of cheeses and sausages—the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, after all—when she saw a kiosk for Find My Roots, an Internet company that helped people trace their ancestry. Charmaine knew very little about her husband's family, mainly because he knew little about them himself. His parents died when he was a boy, and he was raised by an uncle who rarely spoke about anything except cars and Red Sox baseball.
"I suppose I could get my husband a subscription to findmyroots.com," she told the girl behind the kiosk. "But I don't know how often he would use it. He works a lot of hours and doesn't have much time to get on the computer."
"Why don't you surprise him with a DNA kit then? It only takes a few minutes to spit in the vial and drop it in the mailbox. I gave one to my mother last Christmas, and she learned her ancestors were Dutch, not Swedish like she always believed."
"It would be something he doesn't already have," Charmaine said, warming to the idea.
When she left the mall an hour later, she carried, along with her new sweater, a selection of cheeses and sausages and a DNA kit.
* * *
"You're late."
This time it was Zach's turn to play truant officer.
"Give me a break. The ice on my windshield was an inch thick."
"What do you expect? It's January. You have a garage. Why don't you keep your car in it at night?"
"Because there's no room. I've got a snow blower and lawn mower in there already."
The detective plopped down on her desk chair, not wanting to face the whiteboard that now had four incomplete timelines on it, all of which seemed to mock her.
"Cheer up," her partner said, seeing the doleful expression on her face. "I'll run through Krispy Kreme's drive-thru on our way to question the latest victim's parents."
The image of a double dark chocolate doughnut crossed Whitney's mind, and a smile slowly spread across her face. It quickly faded when the phone on her desk rang.
Why couldn't whoever-this-is wait until after I had my morning chocolate fix?
"Woodhall," she announced into the receiver.
"Merry Christmas, Detective!"
It was the head of forensics.
"You're about three weeks late."
"I have a late gift for you."
"What is it?"
"A DNA match."
Whitney caught her breath.
"Would you repeat that? I'm not sure I heard you correctly."
"We've got a DNA match to your killer."
"Give me a name, so I can go arrest the bastard."
There was a moment of hesitation.
"This is tricky."
"Don't tell me some other police force already has him."
"No. He's still out on the street. But you can't arrest him because we got the DNA from an Internet genealogy company."
"So?"
"There's a privacy issue here. People send in their DNA to learn more about their ancestors, unaware that the results are being shared with a national law enforcement database. No judge will allow such evidence in a trial. Not only that but if word gets out, people will think twice before sending in DNA samples and we lose a valuable ally."
"This isn't much of a present. In fact, it ranks up there with a fruitcake."
"Not so. Now that you know who the guy is, you can dig into his past, put a tail on him and do whatever else police do when they have a suspect. I'm sure you'll find some way to tie him to the murders."
"Okay. What's his name?"
"Justin Dewhurst."
* * *
"This is absolutely incredible!" Whitney cried, slamming her coffee cup down on her desk with frustration. "I now know enough about this guy to write a book on him, and yet there's nothing here that can link him to the murders except the DNA match, which we can't use because we can't reveal where it came from."
"Weren't the phone records from the Dewhurst Cab Company helpful at all?" her partner asked.
"No. I couldn't find any of the victims' numbers there. Assuming that's how he met them, the women must have hailed his taxi on the street."
"That makes sense. One victim puts in a long day at work, gets tired of standing on the corner waiting for the bus, she sees a taxi drive by and hails it. Same goes for the jogger. She's been running all afternoon and decides she's had enough. Dewhurst drives by, and she decides to get a ride home."
"Sure, it makes sense, but it's all conjecture. We don't have any evidence or witnesses to back it up. No judge will grant us a search warrant for his house or business based on an unsubstantiated theory."
"Taxis aren't cheap," Zach pointed out. "One or more of the victims might have paid their fares with a credit card."
"I checked all the bank statements. None of them had charges for the Dewhurst Cab Company on them."
"What's next then?"
"I honestly don't know," Whitney reluctantly admitted. "I suppose we can go back and interview friends, family and coworkers a second time. They may have remembered something useful since we last spoke to them."
"Oh, by the way. Would you mind if I left early on Friday?" Zach asked as his partner was putting on her coat.
"Why? What's Friday?"
"I'm taking my wife out to dinner for Valentine's Day."
"The date slipped my mind. Sure, go ahead and ...."
A young woman suddenly appeared in the doorway.
"Excuse me, can you tell me where I can find Detective Woodhall?"
"That's me. Can I help you with something?"
"My name is Laynie Eads. I was just wondering if you could tell me if there's been any progress in finding out who murdered my friend."
The young woman then explained that she was a friend of the third victim, the one she had been visiting in Seattle before she was killed. Whitney took off her coat and sat back down at her desk, eager to speak to Miss Eads.
"The last time I spoke to her was when she called me from the airport to tell me she arrived safely."
"Did she mention meeting anyone on the plane or maybe at the bar in the airport?"
"No. She wasn't able to talk much. The battery on her phone was low, and she needed to call a taxi to take her home."
"A taxi?" Whitney echoed, exchanging a look of hope with her partner.
"Yeah. She hated driving her car to the airport, so she always took a cab instead."
"We checked her phone records. She didn't make any calls after she spoke to you," Zach said.
"That's because I made the call for her. That way she would still have some battery power left on her phone in case of an emergency."
Whitney's heart raced with excitement when she learned that Laynie phoned the Dewhurst Cab Company to pick the victim up at the airport.
"We've got him!" the detective cried, doing a little victory dance once the young woman from Seattle left the station, with the detective's promise that the killer would soon be behind bars.
"I'd better request a copy of Miss Eads's phone records and make sure Dewhurst's number is there."
"Make it quick, Zach. I want to get a search warrant ASAP. With any luck, our killer will be spending Valentine's Day in lock-up."
* * *
Justin stared in horror at the photographs of the four dead women, all laid out in front of him on the table in the interrogation room.
"Y-yes," he managed to say. "I knew them—sort of. I picked them up in my taxi."
"We figured as much," Whitney said. "But that doesn't explain how your fingerprints and DNA wound up at the crime scenes."
"We ... uh ... They and ...."
"Let me save you some time here. You had sex with all four of these women."
Justin nodded his head.
"Then you killed them."
"No!" he cried, jumping to his feet.
Zach quickly sat him down again.
"I did have sex with them. That's true, but I didn't kill them! In each case, I left afterward and went back to my taxi."
"And in each case the women wound up dead. Can you explain that?"
"Someone else must have gone to their homes after I left."
Not surprisingly, neither of the detectives believed him. Nor did the district attorney or the assistant prosecutor. And far worse for him, neither did the twelve men and women on the jury. After a nearly month-long trial, Justin Dewhurst was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole.
* * *
Now that the taxi driver was in prison and there was no serial killer terrorizing the female population, Detectives Woodhall and Van Heusen no longer had to work sixteen-hour days. With no open homicides, they spent eight hours a day reviewing cold cases that no one actually expected them to solve.
After opening a can of Fancy Feast shrimp for her cat, Jezebel, Whitney made herself a tuna salad sandwich and sat down in front of the television set. As usual, there was not much on that interested her. She surfed through sitcoms, reality shows, ball games and crime dramas until a familiar face on the screen stopped her hand from pressing the channel button on her remote.
Charmaine Dewhurst! What's she doing on a talk show?
The detective pressed the volume button to hear better.
"It's been a living hell for me since my husband was arrested," the convicted serial killer's wife claimed, dramatically wiping the tears from her eyes with a trembling hand. "Everywhere I go people stare at me and whisper behind my back. I've done nothing wrong. My only crime was falling in love with the wrong man, and yet I've become a social pariah. I wish everyone would realize that I'm as much a victim as those four women."
"Bullshit!" Whitney exclaimed, despite there being no one but Jezebel to hear her. "You're still alive; they're not."
Unbeknownst to the soft-hearted TV viewers who sympathized with the serial killer's wife, Charmaine, sensing a unique opportunity for fame, had hired a public relations expert to help her create an image of a wronged woman. Although the cost was high, her money was well spent. After her emotionally charged interview on the talk show, her name and photograph appeared in magazines across the country. Even the tabloids were sympathetic to her plight.
"Christ!" Whitney exclaimed six months later when she saw Charmaine's photograph on the cover of Cosmopolitan while she and her partner were waiting in line at the deli. "Everywhere I go I see her face. What's next, the centerfold of Playboy?"
"She hasn't been on Sports Illustrated yet," Zach laughed, as he reached for a bag of potato chips to eat with his Italian sub.
"Yeah? Well, keep an eye out for the swimsuit issue. It wouldn't surprise me if she shows up there alongside Chrissy Teigen."
"I read she might become a regular on The View."
"I just don't get it. If I were married to a murderer, I would want to keep a low profile. I'd change my name and move to another state, not advertise my relationship to the whole world."
"Her behavior really bothers you, doesn't it?"
"Yes. Four young women are dead, and their killer's wife is behaving like she is about to become the next Oprah Winfrey or Ellen DeGeneres."
"Just forget about her," Zach advised. "We did our job and put her husband away for life."
But Whitney could not get Charmaine out of her mind. It rankled her that the woman was taking advantage of the tragic situation.
That night as she lay in bed waiting to fall asleep, she recalled her initial interview with Justin Dewhurst. He seemed sincerely surprised that the four women had been killed. At the time, she thought he was putting on a good act; now she was not so sure. She recalled the explanation he gave for their deaths, which no one had believed: "Someone else must have gone to their homes after I left."
Don't be ridiculous! she told herself and rolled on to her other side. He was clearly guilty. Not only did we have his DNA, we also matched his fingerprints with some of those found at the victims' homes.
As was the case with most crime scenes, there were several unidentified prints found. None of them matched the FBI's fingerprints on file.
Detective Woodhall had a sudden feeling. It could not be called a hunch much less a full-blown suspicion. It was more an inkling or a mental itch. But, being a good cop, she decided to follow it up.
* * *
Charmaine frowned when she walked down the jetway and saw Whitney Woodhall waiting at the gate.
"Mrs. Dewhurst," the homicide detective called. "I was wondering if I might have a word with you."
"With me? Why?"
"I just need to tie up a few loose ends regarding your husband's case. I want to make sure I've got all my ducks in a row. His lawyer is appealing the conviction, you know."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that."
"I have only a few questions for you. Why don't we go over to the bar and talk? I'd rather not inconvenience you too much by asking you to come down to the station with me. God knows you've been through enough already."
"The bar? I thought cops couldn't drink while on duty."
"I can get a Coke."
"All right. I have a few minutes to spare."
"Let me begin by saying how sorry I am for what you've had to endure," Whitney said, pretending to feel sorry for Charmaine.
"Yes, well, it's not your fault. You were just doing your job."
As the detective asked her questions—paying little attention to the answers—she slowly sipped her soda. Meanwhile, the other woman quickly finished her glass of wine, eager to be on her way.
"That ought to do it," Whitney announced, closing her notebook and tucking it back into her jacket pocket.
"I assume you're picking up the tab for the drinks."
"Of course. I'll put it on my expense report."
Within moments of Charmaine's departure, the detective carefully picked up the empty wine glass and put it in an evidence bag.
* * *
Justin Dewhurst walked out of prison, wearing a cheap suit donated by Good Will. He lost weight since Whitney had last seen him, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. Nevertheless, he was still a good-looking man. She could see why those poor women had fallen for his charms.
"Detective Woodhall!" he said with surprise when she stepped out of her unmarked police car. "You're the last person I expected to see when I got out."
"If it hadn't been for me, you'd still be locked up."
"I know that. Thank you."
"Just doing my job."
"I think it's more than that. You had your killer—me—and I was convicted. End of case. But you kept looking. Why?"
"I believe in leaving no stone unturned. You never know what may have crawled under a rock."
"What made you suspect Charmaine in the first place?"
"She seemed to take way too much pleasure in playing the innocent wife."
"That's her. She always liked to be the center of attention. It must come from being the only child of wealthy parents."
"Along with possessiveness and jealousy, no doubt."
"That too."
"Were you aware that she would get in her car and follow your taxi on those nights you worked late?"
"No," Justin admitted. "If I had been, I certainly wouldn't have had sex with those women right under her nose."
Although exonerated of all blame, the former taxi driver could not help feeling a sense of guilt at the death of the four young women. Had he dropped off his passengers, collected the fares and then driven away, they would still be alive. Charmaine would not have had a reason to kill them.
"Can I give you a lift anywhere?" Whitney asked.
"I'm going to the airport."
"Hop in. I'll drive you."
There was little conversation since her passenger was not good at making small talk. Finally, Whitney asked a question to break the silence.
"Are you planning on taking a vacation now that you're out of prison? Maybe someplace warm like Miami?"
"I'm going back home to New York where I hope to put all this behind me."
"I don't blame you. Want a word of advice? Try to keep clear of the press. They're bound to go after you like a pack of hungry wolves."
When the detective pulled up to the passenger unloading zone, she said goodbye to the man she had once arrested. He thanked her for the ride, got out of the car and walked into the terminal without looking back.
"Consider yourself fortunate, Mr. Dewhurst," the detective said to herself, watching him disappear into the crowd of travelers. "You might have spent the rest of your life paying for a crime you didn't commit had your wife not left her fingerprints behind at the crime scenes. I suppose, in this case what Launcelot said in The Merchant of Venice was right: murder cannot be hid long ... truth will out."
I can't tell you how many times I've told Salem if he keeps eating all those chocolate doughnuts he would turn into one. As you can see, I was right!
