A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones
7
Sprinkles are for cupcakes, not toilets.
—SIGN IN BATHROOM AT THE SUGAR SHACK
Sun didn’t hide her disbelief. She frowned at the man sitting across from her. “If I had a nickel for every time someone confessed to killing Kubrick Ravinder …”
Quincy agreed. “He’s the most popular dead guy since Edward Cullen.”
Wynn shrugged and leaned back in his chair. “What do you want to know?”
She took the pen in hand to start taking notes should she need to. “How did he die?”
“Painfully.”
“Does that mean you strangled him slowly?”
A knowing grin slid across his face. “I did, apple blossom. But that’s not what killed him.”
“Sheriff Vicram,” she corrected, only mildly curious as to why he’d referred to her as the flower of an apple tree. She was more interested in his knowledge about Kubrick’s death. While his larynx had been crushed, that was not how the man died.
“Much to my elder brother’s dismay, I put a knee on his throat, slid a knife into his chest, and watched with glee as the life drained out of him.”
It wasn’t often that she heard a hardened criminal use the word glee. There was something primal about the man. Something sharp and commanding and ruthless. The whole shot-caller thing made perfect sense now. His dark blond hair, although slicked back, hung to his shoulders in the choppy style of a man who didn’t concern himself overly much with his daily coif. Then again, what inmate did? His scruffy jaw only added to the look.
“So you and Kubrick didn’t get along?” Quincy asked.
“We took our sibling rivalries like we took our corn whiskey. Very seriously.”
It was no wonder. Moonshine was, after all, how his family had made a living for decades. But anyone could have found out how Kubrick was killed. That didn’t tell her a thing. “How long—?”
“Twelve seconds.” When she paused, he added, “It took twelve seconds for him to die. I counted.”
She began again. “How long was the blade?”
“Long enough to get the job done.”
“How many inches?”
He released a lungful of air and examined his fingernails, as though their questions were growing tedious. But he’d called her. Not the other way around.
“I didn’t measure,” he said, offering his hawkish gaze again. “But if I were to use a body part as reference, I’d say about eight inches. Give or take.”
Close enough.
“And he just lay there?” Quincy asked. “Let you crush his larynx and plunge a knife into his chest?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. We fought.” He speared him with his glistening gray eyes. “I won.”
Sun feigned boredom. “Then that was your blood all over Kubrick’s T-shirt.”
Another knowing grin crept into the corners of his mouth. “You mean all over his denim jacket and that flannel shirt he wore every fucking day of his miserable fucking life?”
Two for two. He was the first confessor to get this far. Besides Levi, of course, but she hadn’t questioned him this extensively.
“Unless,” he continued, “you’re talking about the filthy wife-beater underneath.”
Sun’s knee-jerk reaction to the derogatory term for an A-line tank top bucked inside her. Regardless, she didn’t move a muscle. Didn’t flinch. Yet he knew.
“I’m sorry.” He tilted his head to study her. “Did that offend your delicate sensibilities?”
“The only thing offending my delicate sensibilities, Mr. Ravinder, is the fact that you think we came here for tea and scones. You haven’t proven anything.”
He shrugged. “Then check the blood on Brick’s jacket. My DNA’s in the system. I’m assuming you sent in a sample.” He leaned forward. “You wouldn’t have a reason to hold off on that, would you?”
Sun’s façade slipped for a split second. It was all a predator like him needed. She’d just showed her hand, but he couldn’t possibly know how long she’d waited before sending the evidence in to the lab in Santa Fe along with Levi’s DNA. Not without having some fantastic connections.
Quincy cast a curious glance her way before returning his attention to their host.
She hadn’t told him she’d kept Levi’s DNA sample in her desk drawer far longer than she had a right to. And part of her wasn’t really sure why. Other than the fact that, if it was a match, he could go to prison. If it came out that she’d withheld evidence, even for a short time, in a murder investigation, she could lose her job.
The unfortunate fact that evidence in general tended to get lost or contaminated when surfing through the channels of justice could work in her favor should it come to that, but no one could prove that she took the sample on any given day. Besides Levi himself, and she could hardly see him turning her in.
Wynn leaned closer to Sun and lowered his voice. “What do you say we ditch Captain America over there and continue this conversation alone?”
“Over my dead body,” Quincy said.
He shook his head and tsked. “That is the wrong thing to say in this place, junior.”
“Why are you confessing?” she asked him.
“Why do you care?” he countered. “You’ll have your man. You’ll have solved the case. You’ll probably get a medal. Isn’t that all you badges care about?”
After a long thoughtful moment, she said quietly, “Chief Deputy Cooper, can you leave us alone for a minute?”
He tried to hide his astonishment when he looked at her. He failed. After a long, tense moment, he recovered, cleared his throat, and said, “No, ma’am.”
She gave him her full attention and said softly, “Deputy, that’s an order.”
He stared at her for what seemed like an hour. She could practically see his mind racing with all the scenarios of how this could end badly. But she didn’t like showing her vulnerabilities. It would be hard enough asking what she wanted to ask Wynn without having Quincy in the room. Besides, statistically, men were much more apt to open up to a woman.
“They frisked him,” she assured her partner. “They’re right outside the door. I’ll be fine.”
Wynn sat back in his chair, clearly amused when Quincy unfolded his large frame, tossed him a quick glare, and headed toward the door. With a single knock, it opened and Quince was shown outside.
When it closed again, she said, “I don’t believe you.”
“Then get over it, because it doesn’t matter. You’ll have your killer.”
“It matters.”
“No, apple blossom,” he said, leaning forward again. “It doesn’t. The investigation will be closed. The case will be solved. And all of those people breathing down your neck can go fuck themselves.”
Her mind churned with questions. There was so much she wanted to know, but to trust a convicted felon would make her all kinds of stupid.
Still, a part of her wanted him to be the killer, because there was no denying the most damning piece of evidence of all. The ID bracelet Kubrick had clutched in his hands, even after fifteen years of animal mauling and decomposition. The ID bracelet with Levi’s name on it.
She decided to play along with Wynn for now. Curiosity won out every time. “Were you in it with him?” When he didn’t answer, she clarified. “Did you help him abduct me?”
The look he gave her, part concern and part sympathy, almost convinced her he cared. Almost. “No, Sunshine. I found out later. After he’d taken you.”
“That’s when you joined his cause?” When he only deadpanned her, she added, “It was a lot of money. Who could blame you?”
“And here I thought we were becoming friends.”
“Walk me through it. You found out Kubrick abducted me and then what? You came to my rescue out of the kindness of your heart?”
He kept his gaze trained on her face. In fact, besides an initial sizing up, he hadn’t ogled her or objectified her in any way. Hell, even the guards had done that when she and Quince had walked in. Did that imply a level of respect? Or was he simply that cunning?
“There isn’t much kindness left in my heart, apple blossom. But at the time? Sure. Why not.”
She nodded and decided to delve deeper. “How did you find out where he was keeping me?”
“It wasn’t difficult. Brick was a creature of habit.”
“He’d taken other women there?”
“You weren’t a woman,” Wynn said, suddenly serious. “You were a kid.”
“I was seventeen.”
“Exactly. Either way, no. Brick was not in the habit of abducting women. He used that shed as a hunting cabin.”
“Okay. You figured out he was keeping me there and then what?”
“And then nothing. He busted me trying to get you out. We fought. The rest is history.”
She nodded, deep in thought. “Who took me to the hospital?”
He spread his cuffed hands, indicating himself.
Her chest tightened so hard, so fast, it felt like it was going to explode. Wynn Ravinder was certainly the right build. The person in the hospital surveillance video seemed younger, but even now, in his forties, Wynn was lithe and agile.
“What did you give me? In the truck?”
“Besides a ride?”
He didn’t know. Then again, it was a long time ago and he was bleeding profusely. How could anyone remember every minute detail? Maybe he really did forget.
She studied him and decided that was not likely. Quincy was right. He was playing her. Though he did seem fairly certain the lab results would prove his DNA was on Kubrick’s clothes. But even that could be explained. He could’ve been a part of her abduction with Kubrick. They could’ve argued about the two-million ransom they were demanding. Came to blows. None of this proved he came to her rescue.
There was just something off about all of it. Why so many confessions? Was someone trying to muddy the waters? And even though Wynn had the right build, she couldn’t help but doubt his claims. Especially when taking the ID bracelet into account.
Sun had always had a sixth sense about people, and Wynn just didn’t fit. Putting him at the scene that night, fighting Brick, giving her water, taking her to the hospital. Not that Wynn wouldn’t have done all of that. After meeting him, she had little doubt there was a part of him that was noble. She just didn’t think he did do it. Envisioning him at the scene was like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It didn’t fit without some pretty serious manipulation.
Just when she’d dismissed his claims completely, he added, “Unless you mean the water I poured down your throat.”
Her lungs stopped working.
“You remember that? Right before you threw up all over me? And my truck, I might add.” He eased forward, and whispered, “Ingrate.”
Her world spun. Nobody could know that except the person who took her to the hospital. No one possibly could. She’d only started getting flashes of that night in the last few months and she hadn’t told a soul about the pickup or the water or the vomit. Mostly because she didn’t know if it was real or simply a product of her drug-induced imagination.
Unable to sit any longer, she stood and walked to the postage-stamp window Quincy was dogging her through. He was mad. She needed to see his face regardless. He stood on the other side of the door like an anchor. Always there for her.
She turned back to Wynn. “Why are you doing this? Baring your soul. Why now?”
“I have conditions.”
Ah. And so it begins. “You mean demands.”
He lifted a shoulder. “If you want a signed confession, I have three.”
“And you think you have enough to bargain with?”
“What? I still haven’t convinced you?” he asked, seemingly surprised.
She shrugged. “You don’t fit.”
He tilted his head in a shruglike gesture. “I usually don’t.”
“Again, why now? Why not ten years ago?”
“You weren’t the sheriff ten years ago.”
“Why not four months ago, then? When I was first elected.”
“I only recently heard you found his body.”
“Your own brother’s remains were found on a mountain four months ago and no one told you?”
He spread his hands as far as the cuffs would allow. “I’m all but forgotten.”
“If your blood is really on Brick’s clothes, I won’t need your confession.”
“Ah, but there’s so much more, apple blossom.” He swiveled around in the chair to face her more fully. “A lot you don’t remember about the time leading up to the abduction. About the days you spent in that shed. About that night. You’re right about one thing. Kubrick didn’t do it alone.”
She felt her eyes round and cursed inwardly. If she were interviewing a suspect, she would never give away the game so easily. She would never reveal her thoughts. Show emotion. Give him the upper hand. With this case—her case—she seemed incapable of doing anything but.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said, very aware of the fact that he was winning.
“Then you lied.”
“I lie all the time. Can you be more specific?”
“If you know everything, you and Kubrick were definitely in it together.”
“Not hardly. The man liked to brag. As did his partner in crime.”
“Whose name is … ?”
“Nah-ah, apple blossom. When my … demands are met, we can talk.”
“I’m the sheriff of a small county in New Mexico. I have exactly zero pull here, but feel free to demand away.”
“Don’t worry. They’re simple.”
“Sure. What is it exactly you think I can do for you?”
“I’m in here for the rest of my life, apple. I don’t have a whole lot to look forward to, and I want to be closer to my family so they can come visit me more than once a decade. I want to be transferred to Santa Fe.”
The look of astonishment she planted on him said everything he needed to know about her ability to pull that off.
“It’s called a transport order.”
“I know what it’s called. But getting a prisoner transferred across state lines is kind of a big deal. I just don’t think it can happen.”
“Why not? I have vital information about an ongoing murder investigation and am willing to testify to certain … atrocities that were committed in said case. I can even lead the authorities to the weapon I used to defend myself, which will have my fingerprints on it.”
“You have the knife?” she asked in surprise.
“I know where it is. In return, I’m transferred to the state where the case occurred and will be available to testify once I name my brother’s accomplice. Et cetera, et cetera. It can be done.”
“You came prepared,” she said, walking back to the table.
“Always.”
She sat across from him again. “And two?”
“I want you to look into my case.”
“Oh, right. I forgot, you’re innocent.”
“Hell, no,” he said with a snort. “There’s not a single innocent person in this place. But I am innocent of the crime they put me in here for, and I’ve heard you are just savvy enough to figure that out and prove it for me.”
Wow, was he ever wrong about a person. Then again, she’d been wrong about him. “Who do I have to thank for spreading false rumors about me?”
He relaxed against the chair, the metal cuffs jingling with each movement, and refused to answer once again. After giving her enough time to form her own flawed opinions, he said, “My lawyer is sending over the case files. Everything we have.”
“Wonderful. Is there a magic wand in there, too? I’m going to need one.”
He laughed softly. “I think that’s in my other case file.”
“Of course it is. And three?”
He waited a beat. Studied her. Sized her up just long enough to make a layer of sweat appear on her palms. She suddenly desperately wanted him to be telling the truth. His claims would exonerate Levi.
After another moment, he straightened in the chair, and said, “I wanna see the girl.”
Disturbing. “Look, I know it’s been a while for you—”
“Not as long as you might think.”
Okay. She didn’t need to know that. “—but smuggling women into prison is not one of my talents. And, believe me, I have many.”
“So I’ve been told.”
The more they spoke, the more she wondered who was out there talking her up to a convicted murderer. Because she wanted a word. “What girl?”
“Your girl.”
Sun stopped tapping the pen on the pad and tilted her head. “I’m sorry?”
“When I get back to New Mexico, I want you to bring your daughter to see me.”
Emotions Sun didn’t know she possessed rushed through her like a lightning strike. Sharp and hot and desperate, they blinded her for a few seconds. Why would a convicted killer want to see her daughter? How did he even know she had a daughter? Levi could’ve told him if they were still in contact, but why would he? Why would the conversation turn toward her?
All semblance of professionalism abandoned her. All of her training, all of her skills with de-escalation and negotiation disappeared within the span of a heartbeat. She became someone else. Someone willing to risk her career. Someone willing to kill.
She leaned forward. “What the hell did you just say to me?”
“I get to see the girl or no deal.”
Sun was drowning in apprehension so thick she could hardly see straight. She’d been on the force for almost ten years and this man reduced her to an unstable powder keg in a matter of seconds.
Tears seared the backs of her eyes as she looked into the dark depths of gray in his.
“Apple,” he began, but reconsidered when her glare turned murderous. “Sheriff, it’s not what you think.”
Something hit the door. Or, more precisely, someone. It opened and Quincy was by her side at once, trying to ease her away from Wynn. She held the pen in her fist like she was going to use it to shank the man across from her.
“Get back, Ravinder,” Quincy said, coaxing Sun to do the same.
“I understand,” he said, ignoring Quincy. “You need to sleep on it.”
“The only thing I need to sleep on is how to make sure you never make it out of prison alive.”
“I didn’t hear that,” Quincy said to Wynn. He looked at a guard that had hurried in, quickly followed by a second. “You didn’t hear that.”
One corner of Wynn’s mouth rose. “He was right about you. You’re amazing.” Before she could comment, he added, “I’m willing to take you on your word. You meet the first two conditions, I’ll sign a confession and tell you everything on the contingency that I’ll get to see your daughter at some point in the next year.”
She felt a tear slip past her lashes as question upon question ran rampant through her brain. She settled on the most predominant. “What makes you think I would ever agree to such a demand?”
Wynn shrugged. “I just thought maybe she’d like to know who her father is.”
The breath in her lungs couldn’t have fled any faster if he’d punched her in the gut.
A guard leaned down until he was between them. He focused on Sun and said, “You two need to back down or this interview is over.”
Quincy planted her ass back in her chair with a firm push, and Wynn eased into his. Satisfied, the guard straightened but didn’t dare leave the room.
Sun forced herself to calm. To unclench her teeth. “Fine. I’ll bring my daughter to see you.”
“What?” The question was from Quincy who stared at her, appalled.
“I’ll bring her to see you as soon as you tell me why.”
Quincy sat beside her, but he wasn’t happy about the direction the conversation had taken in his absence.
A sadness seemed to come over Wynn when he said, “I’ve been told she resembles her grandmother.”
Sun knew instinctively he was not referring to the carefree creature known as Elaine Freyr. “You don’t get to play with my daughter’s life. To use her as a pawn. I’ll make it my life’s mission to see that you rot in here until you die first.”
It was his turn to let his emotions overtake him. He stood and turned his back on her.
The two guards tensed. One of them put a hand on his arm as though to subdue him if need be, but he remained calm.
“Can I speak to you alone?” he asked. When he turned back to her, his expression had changed. A vulnerability shone through. A vulnerability Sun didn’t believe existed in a man like him. He was a good actor, she’d give him that.
Still, that curiosity burned too hot and too bright for her to ignore. “Quincy?” she asked.
He hesitated but decided not to push the point. The guards followed him out, only they didn’t close the door this time. They did, however, give the two some semblance of privacy by walking a few feet away. Quincy crossed his arms over his chest and stood closer, refusing to give the man too much space.
“Ask yourself this, Sunshine. Why would I want my conviction overturned if I’m about to confess to killing my own brother? I’m going to rot in a cell either way.”
“You just said you were rescuing me. You probably wouldn’t get any time for defending yourself and saving my life. I doubt the DA would even pursue it.”
He nodded and dropped his gaze. “I didn’t think of it that way.”
She didn’t believe him. He was far too smart not to have thought of that angle.
“They were friends of mine,” he said after a moment. “The couple I was convicted of killing. They were friends and I’ve spent almost a dozen years in prison while the person who really killed them has walked around free. They deserve better.”
He was good. “Do you know who did it?”
He sat down and wiped at some imaginary dirt on his palm. “Yes.”
“Did you tell your lawyer?”
“No. I didn’t know then. I know now.”
“Why not just have him taken care of ?”
“Too easy. I want him inside. I want him to be in fear for his life every single day for as long as he lives.”
“Like you are?”
He scoffed. “Not hardly, but that’s not the point. Most people don’t thrive in here like I have.”
“Are you her father?”
The question slipped out before she could stop it. She didn’t know what to believe at this point. Even if he did know everything he was claiming, he could still have been involved in her abduction. Maybe the plan went south and he and Kubrick fought. It made a lot more sense than his galloping to her rescue.
He cast her a sideways glance. If her question surprised him, he didn’t show it. “No,” he said softly.
Not that he would tell her if he were. “Tell me who is and you have my word I’ll do everything in my power to get your conviction overturned.”
“’Fraid I can’t do that, apple blossom. I have to have something to bargain with.”
“You mean something to hold over my head.”
“Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.”
“Even if it were possible, even if I found the evidence needed to get the case reopened, it would take years to get your conviction overturned.”
“I told you, I have complete faith in you.”
Sun watched as he scrubbed the palm of his hand with a thumb, the clinking of the metal cuffs not unlike the sound of the metal chains she wore for five days when she was seventeen. Her chains were heavier. The sound deeper. They’d echoed on the walls of the dark shed. But somehow the sound was still similar.
She shook out of the memory and decided on one more test. “Whose knife was it?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The knife you killed Kubrick with. Whose was it?”
“Mine.”
“That’s how you cut my ropes?”
He took a moment to study her, probably catching onto the fact that she was testing him again, and said, “I don’t remember. But I’ll give it to you the minute I’m transferred. Even more incentive to get me moved.”
He must not have known about the ID bracelet. She did wonder how he would explain Kubrick’s clutching a bracelet with Levi’s name on it, but that little piece of evidence was not common knowledge and she didn’t want to tip him off.
She could only think of one more test. One more piece of evidence that could prove he was indeed her rescuer. She stood, walked around the table, and leaned against it in front of him.
Wynn angled away from her warily. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had a body like yours this close to me, apple blossom.”
“May I look at your hands?”
After a moment, he gave her the barest hint of a nod.
She reached down and lifted his right hand to examine the palm he’d been rubbing. The cuffs that were anchored to the belt around his waist only allowed her to lift it so far, but she could see his wrist.
She didn’t remember much about that night, but she did remember the blood oozing out of a deep wound on her rescuer’s wrist as he tilted the bottle of water to her mouth. The dark stream was thick and pulsing and his hand shook as though a vein had been nicked during the struggle.
“You think those guards can keep you safe?” he asked, admonishing her with a soft warning.
Ignoring the empty threat, she ran her fingers over the inside of first his right wrist, then his left. Nothing. Only a small scar higher up on the inside of his forearm.
Either she remembered wrong or Wynn Ravinder was indeed lying. But if he were, how did he know so much about her abduction? About that night? About her rescue?
She needed to stop with all the questions and just check the DNA. That would give her a definitive answer and a lot more to work with. Still, the Kubrick brothers were not exactly altruistic. Why would he confess to a crime he didn’t commit and in the next breath want to be exonerated from another crime he swore he didn’t do?
There was no way in hell she would take Auri to prison to have a tête-à-tête with a convicted felon, but that was a bridge she could cross when she got to it.
“I’ll be in touch,” she said, dropping his hands.
