Act III

A figure paced back and forth in a darkened room.

 What was taking the police so long?? The case had been set up perfectly for them, practically dropped right in their lap.

 But still, no arrest had been made. Were they all just stupid and incompetent, or did they suspect that something else was going on? But how could they suspect anything, when everything had been totally accounted for? There should be no reason to suspect anyone other than Jeremy.

 Trying to act normal all the time was getting increasingly difficult, though. The urge to bolt was simultaneously getting stronger.

 But no, just wait a little longer. Have to see the whole thing through.

 ****

 

The two occupants in Maggie Snow’s car sat silently, each staring out the window, away from each other.

 Maggie had attempted to make some small talk earlier, but while it usually seemed like the red-headed reporter would never shut up, the opposite seemed to be true in this case. Maggie was done trying to make nice.

 Maggie did break the silence, however, as they sat at a red light.

 “Hey, isn’t that one of the guys Tex interviewed for her latest case?” she asked, noticing a man hurrying down the sidewalk, looking conspicuously around him.

 That caught Cindy’s attention. “Who?” she asked. “And how would you know?”

 Maggie pointed him out. “Jill showed me the case file, and there was a picture of him. I’m good with faces,” she explained. “That’s the suspect’s best friend, I’m pretty sure. He sure looks kind of sketchy, doesn’t he?”

 Both women watched him for a moment, before the light turned green and Maggie drove on through the intersection.

 “Let me out,” Cindy demanded after a beat.

 “What?” Maggie asked, confused.

 “I said for you to let me out,” Cindy repeated. “I want to go follow that guy. He looks like he’s up to something, and he was mentioned as a possible suspect.”

 Maggie could only laugh. “Your girlfriend would totally kill me if I let you go off on your own to follow some strange guy.”

 The reporter only debated with herself briefly before adding, “So come with me, then.”

 “What?” Maggie repeated. Jill had told her about Cindy’s tendency for impulsive behavior, but this was her first actual experience with it.

 “Come with me! You’re right, Linz will kill you if you let me go alone, so come with me. If he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, and we help with the case, then you’ll earn some extra brownie points. And let’s be honest, you could really use some of those. But if he’s doing something totally harmless, we simply don’t have to tell anyone about it, and no harm done.”

 Maggie certainly wasn’t sure about this, but Cindy did have a point. And an opportunity to go after a potential suspect like this, out on the streets, was always tempting.

 Able to see that Maggie was seriously considering it, Cindy pushed on. “Come on, you know you want to. Plus, you’ll make Jill happy because you can tell her that we spent some quality time with each other!”

 Maggie wondered in amusement if anyone ever actually said “no” to the persuasive reporter. Without saying anything at first, she pulled her car over to the side of the road and parked.

 “Okay,” she declared. “I’m in.”

 ****

 

Jeremy Grayson sat alone in an interview room, anxiously bouncing his leg up and down as he waited for something to happen.

On the other side of the two-way mirror, Lindsay, Jacobi, Tom, and Jill stood watching him.

 “So how are we going to do this?” Lindsay asked her partner. “Come right at him with the accusations, or ease into it?”

 “Ease into it, I’d say,” Jacobi voiced his opinion. “He’s looked pretty spooked since he got here. So we start off slow, wait for him to let his guard down briefly, then go for the kill.”

 Jill agreed. “I’m with Jacobi. And be careful with how fast you go at him, because I think we’d all rather have this chat without a defense attorney showing up and not letting him say anything,” she advised.

 Both inspectors nodded, before going to join Jeremy. As soon as they entered the room, his head popped up from where he’d been leaning it against the table.

 “Is she really dead?” he demanded right away, his voice a mixture of pain and disbelief.

 Lindsay nodded curtly. “She is, I’m sorry.”

 Jacobi took a seat on the other side of the table, while Lindsay stayed standing, leaning casually back against the door, arms crossed in front of her chest.

 “How’d you hear about it?” Jacobi questioned. “And why did you decide to come in?”

 Jeremy ran a shaky hand over his short hair, taking a deep breath before responding. “I, uh... I’d missed a bunch of calls from a friend of mine, and when I called him back, he told me. Told me that she was dead. Told me that you think I killed her.”

 His voice trembled, and then broke at the end. Lindsay cynically wondered how long he’d been practicing that show of emotion.

 Jeremy looked down at his own hand, making a fist and grimacing slightly. Looking over at him, Lindsay noticed that his knuckles were a brighter shade of red than they should have been.

 “Get into a fight recently?” she asked nonchalantly.

 “When Darren told me...” He lapsed into silence for a bit. “I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t. I mean, I’d just seen her alive. So I met up with him in person, and he said it again. And... I’m not proud of this now, but I punched him. I just didn’t want to hear – couldn’t bear to hear – the things he was saying.”

 “Where have you been, Mr. Grayson?” Jacobi questioned next, his voice remaining soft and calm.

 “I have a sailboat I like to take out when I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he mumbled, looking down at the floor. “I keep it stocked so I can stay out there for a while and have plenty of food and water and whatever. I was out of cell phone range, though, so that’s how I missed everything.”

 “When did you leave shore?”

 “What day is today, Thursday?” At Jacobi’s nod, he continued, “Well, so I guess it was Tuesday night, then.”

 Lindsay and Jacobi shared a look. The night Maya was killed. How convenient.

 “Don’t you have a job, Mr. Grayson?” Lindsay asked. “How can you just take off for a few days in the middle of the week?”

 “I’m self-employed, so I set my own hours. I’ll work some weekends to make up for this.”

 “So what time did you leave on Tuesday?” inquired Jacobi.

 Jeremy shrugged. “I don’t know, around 8 at night, or somewhere around there?”

 “I don’t know much about sailing, but seems like that would be pretty late for heading out,” Lindsay commented. “Any reason you decided to leave then, and not the next morning?”

 Jeremy sat still for a while, staring unseeingly at the table in front of him, clearly lost in thought. The inspectors let him be for a bit, until Jacobi cleared his throat, causing Jeremy to sit up straighter and meet their eyes once again.

 “Maya and I fought a lot, I’m sure you’ve heard that by now,” Jeremy admitted frankly. “We’d had a big fight on Monday, and then the issue came up again the next day.” He sighed and continued, “God, that sounds really bad now, doesn’t it? So on Tuesday, I went for a long run to try to clear my head. That didn’t work, so I went home and watched some mindless television for a while. Then I drove around aimlessly for a while. Nothing was working, so even though it was on the later side, I decided to take the boat out anyway, because that almost always succeeds in taking my mind off things and relaxing me. The moon was clear that night and I’ve sailed in the dark plenty of times before, so the time of night wasn’t an issue.”

 Lindsay wondered idly if there were video cameras down at the docks to verify his story. “What had that last fight been about?” she asked.

 Once again, Jeremy merely sat quietly at first, until Lindsay had to speak up again. “Mr. Grayson, we’re trying to find out who killed your girlfriend. Wasting time is not something that we want to do right now.”

 Finally, he seemed to snap out of his thoughtful daze.

 He ran his hand over his face before replying softly, “I thought she might be cheating on me.”

 “Why’d you think that?” Lindsay pushed.

 “There was some guy from work she’d been talking with a lot more, recently. Not just about work stuff either, they’d actually text each other regularly. I didn’t like it, but she said they were just friends, and I believed her for a while. Then on Monday, I...”

 He paused, taking a deep, pained breath before continuing. “She keeps space in her closet for some of my clothes, and I found a men’s shirt there that wasn’t mine. I figured that he’d been there and left his shirt for whatever reason, and she’d washed it and just put it in there, without realizing it wasn’t mine.”

 “And what did she say about it when you confronted her?” asked Jacobi.

 Jeremy let out a short, pained laugh. “Oh, she denied it. Said that I was delusional. Paranoid. She tried to explain it away by saying that she’d never touched any of the shirts in there, and it was probably one of those shirts that my mother had given me, but I never wear, so that’s why I hadn’t recognized it. It can’t be true, though. If I never wear it, why would I keep it? She had nothing to say to that. Just yelled at me for not trusting her.”

 “Man, that doesn’t look too good. Must have made you real angry,” Jacobi prodded. Time to get to the hard stuff.

 “Yeah, of course it did,” Jeremy agreed, his voice rising in volume for the first time. “She was cheating on me and didn’t even have the decency to admit it.”

 Lindsay moved from her position by the door, starting to slowly circle around the room. “So you leave there Monday night, understandably pissed off. You have a night to mull it over, let it stew in your head for a while.”

 Jacobi took over. “So you head back the next day, still pissed off, and she still won’t admit to anything, will she? No, she still keeps to that high road, maintaining that she did nothing wrong, when you know that she did. That can’t be easy to take. Even the most reasonable of guys wouldn’t deal with that well.”

 “So what’s a guy like you to do?” Lindsay went on. “You certainly couldn’t let her get away with that. So in a moment of anger, you kill her, flee the scene, go home to pack up some stuff, and then head out to your boat, to make sure no one finds you for a few days and you can figure things out, right?”

 Jeremy, whose face had been getting redder and redder as the inspectors carried on, finally exploded. “I didn’t kill her!” he yelled, pounding a fist down on the table.

 Lindsay and Jacobi both remained perfectly calm in spite of the outburst. Jacobi merely shrugged. “Right, our little story doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m sure there’s a much better explanation out there, right?”

 “I want a lawyer,” Jeremy grumbled darkly, studiously ignoring the two inspectors as he simply stared at the wall opposite him.

 Tilting her head at him, Lindsay muttered, “Yeah, you’re gonna need one.”

 ****

 

Cindy and Maggie walked side by side, trailing Darren Wang from a safe distance.

 “Is that supposed to be your ‘stealthy’ walk?” Maggie asked in amusement, noting Cindy’s habit of almost ducking every time Darren seemed like he might be turning to look behind him. “Bit of advice – when you try too hard to not be seen, people only notice you more. Remember, that’s why I noticed this guy in the first place. He was acting weird. Just act normal, and no one will take a second look.”

 Cindy sighed. “I’m usually better at this. It’s different, doing it with a cop, who’s actually been trained in tailing people.”

 “Just keep reminding yourself that I’m horrible at my job,” Maggie suggested with a self-deprecating wink.

 “I never said you were horrible at your job,” Cindy replied somewhat guiltily. “Just that you made a really bad judgment call when you decided that, of all people, Lindsay Boxer was a prime suspect.”

 “Fair enough, I can acknowledge that now. But everyone seems obviously innocent to the people that love them. Doesn’t mean they always are. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t go after every hunch. And I have a feeling that you know a little something about following hunches, Ms. Thomas,” Maggie teased.

 Cindy glanced at Maggie out of the corner of her eye, but refused to acknowledge the inspector’s point, if only out of spite and continued loyalty to Lindsay.

 Maggie didn’t seem to expect a response anyway. “He’s going inside that building,” she noted, pulling Cindy’s attention back to the man they were following.

 The building in question turned out to be a medium-sized jewelry store.

 After a moment’s hesitation, Maggie grabbed Cindy by the hand and muttered, “I’m only doing this because we have to stay inconspicuous, but still be able to talk with each other,” before pulling the reporter into the shop.

 Cindy had no idea what Maggie was talking about, until they had entered the store, but Maggie still hadn’t let go of her hand.

 Oh, Cindy realized with dread. She wants us to play a couple. The small smirk at the corner of Maggie’s lips confirmed Cindy’s suspicion that another reason for the inspector’s spur of the moment choice of deception was because Maggie knew it would drive Cindy crazy.

 They quietly walked around the various display cases, always maintaining a good position to keep an eye on Darren. The man didn’t seem to actually be in the store to look at jewelry; it was more like he was waiting for someone. He seemed near-oblivious to everyone else around him, making it easier for Cindy and Maggie to watch him, while they kept up their own charade of pretending to look at various necklaces, bracelets, and rings.

 After what felt like a long time of nothing happening, Cindy was growing antsy. “Time to push things forward,” she whispered to Maggie.

 The inspector merely frowned at her. “What are you talking about?” she whispered back.

 “We need to make contact with him. Get closer to him. Get a better feel from him about what’s going on.”

 Maggie’s eyes widened. “What? No, we can’t do that! Cindy, stop!”

 Before Maggie could fully register what was happening, Cindy was already moving them steadily in Darren’s direction, and Maggie had to stop talking in order to avoid being overheard.

 Putting on her friendliest smile, Cindy approached Darren, coming up right next to him.

 “Hi, I’m really sorry to bother you, but you didn’t look too busy, so I thought it might be okay,” Cindy began innocently. Darren’s head jerked over to her, obviously startled to find someone actually talking to him.

 He looked over at Maggie as well, who gave him a forced smile. She rolled her eyes at Cindy to show him that this hadn’t been her idea.

 Still not saying anything and looking increasingly confused as well as anxious, he looked back to Cindy as she prattled on, “I hope this isn’t too forward of me, but I was just wondering if you could do us a little favor.”

 ****

 

Lindsay, Jill, Claire, and Jacobi sat in Claire’s office – the mutually agreed upon best meeting place, thanks to Claire’s candy jar.

 Cindy wasn’t answering her phone, but Lindsay made a conscious effort not to worry, repeatedly telling herself that there was probably a logical explanation. She brought Jacobi to the meeting instead, as honorary club member.

 They’d all had a busy afternoon since Jeremy Grayson had decided to finally show up at the Hall.

 “Well, it didn’t take long to figure out who the potential cheating partner at Maya’s work is,” Jacobi reported. “As for why none of her colleagues thought to mention that she was particularly close with this Luís Gonzalez guy when we talked to them earlier? I have no idea. But as soon as I asked specifically if there was ever any rumored relationship between Maya and another co-worker, everyone mentioned Gonzalez, almost immediately.”

 “He’s got an airtight alibi, though,” Lindsay continued. “Fifty people, as well as video cameras, place him at his cousin’s birthday party. It was held at a reception hall at the opposite side of the city from where Maya lives. No way he’d have time to commit the murder and still be seen in as much security footage as he is.”

 “So do you think she was actually cheating on Jeremy with him?” Claire asked.

 Both inspectors shrugged. “Hard to say one way or the other,” Lindsay replied. “He says that they were just friends and that it never turned sexual. Just that they had a lot in common, and each liked having a friend who also spoke Spanish.”

 “So, if we believe him and Maya, then there was no affair. And if we believe Jeremy and his thing about the shirt, then there was,” Jill concluded.

 “The only thing I can add seems to imply that there wasn’t any affair,” Claire spoke up. “She was on the pill and apparently decided that meant they didn’t need extra protection. There were traces of semen belonging to one man, and one man only. Just a few minutes ago, I was able to finish the analysis which showed a DNA match with Jeremy Grayson. I can’t rule out the possibility that, for whatever reason, she used a condom with one guy, and not with the other, though.”

 “Well, it doesn’t much matter whether she was actually cheating on him or not,” Jacobi added. “The point is that Jeremy thought that she was.”

 “I’ve been working on getting various warrants,” was Jill’s input to the investigation. “The most important one is for Grayson’s boat. I’m expecting a call about it any minute now, actually. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and he’ll have left some evidence lying around.”

 As soon as Jill finished speaking, everyone looked up as the door to Claire’s office opened and Tom poked his head in.

 “Hey guys. Anyone seen Inspector Snow?” he asked.

 There were three shaking heads, before Jill spoke up. “Uh, last I knew, she was going to give Cindy a ride.”

 Everyone quickly turned and stared at the blonde in surprise.

 “She what?” Lindsay demanded. Hollywood and Cindy in a confined space definitely didn’t sound like a good idea.

 Jill sighed, inwardly amused at everyone’s shocked reactions. “Cindy needed a ride, I couldn’t give her one, and so Maggie was kind enough to offer.”

 Claire raised a doubtful eyebrow. “And Cindy actually said ‘yes’?”

 “It may have taken a little bit of prodding,” Jill admitted slowly, “but yes, Cindy left of her own volition.”

 Even Jacobi knew that putting those two together was bound to produce some fireworks, and probably not in a good way. “And you let it happen?” he asked.

 “Oh come on, you guys!” Jill scoffed. “I know they’re not the best of friends, but they’re both adults, they can handle themselves. It’s not like I sent them off to go have a catfight or something.”

 “That would be kind of awesome to watch,” Tom admitted.

 “Shut up, Tom,” was the unanimous response from the three women, as Jacobi simply laughed.

 Jill looked down at her watch and frowned as she realized how late it was. “That’s weird; Maggie should have definitely been back by now.”

 Lindsay dropped her head down into one hand. “Jill,” she muttered, “if your girlfriend killed mine...” She paused, considering. “Or if my girlfriend killed yours, and so now mine has to go to jail, I’ll never forgive you.”

 As if on cue, Lindsay’s phone rang. She looked down at the caller ID and exhaled in relief. “It’s Cindy,” she announced.

 “Cindy, where are you?” she asked as soon as she picked up.

 “Linz, tell Jill not to be mad at me, okay? And if you could not be mad at me, too, that would be great. You’ll probably thank me, though.”

 Lindsay looked in concern towards Jill, the expression on her face causing the D.D.A. to sit up straighter and lean forward, as she started to feel nervous for the first time about what might have happened with Maggie and Cindy sharing a car.

 “Cindy, what are you talking about? Are you okay? What happened?”

 “I’m fine,” Cindy verified quickly, but there was a long pause before she continued, speaking very quickly and not taking a breath until she’d finished. “But we went to follow the guy, and it was totally fine until the other guys showed up, but then they got mad and a fight broke out, and because of me, Maggie got accidentally punched in the face, and now her nose won’t stop bleeding, and she’s arrested all three guys, but I think maybe she should see a doctor, because she may have broken her nose.”

****

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