His Only Defense

“Certainly not Liz the cursed?”

She laughed—the first time he’d heard her laugh. He loved it. A Shakespeare-quoting detective with a laugh like warm honey, and a smile that would melt icebergs in the Bering Strait. It definitely melted him, and warmed parts of his body that he’d rather keep dormant, thank you very much. He’d known she was dangerous, but not this dangerous.

“Certainly not the prettiest Liz in Christendom,” she said.

“Who says?”

The silence was deafening, the look lasted too long and the connection was too sudden. She broke eye contact first, stirred two packets of artificial sweetener into her tea, squeezed the lemon and drank greedily. He did the same with his coffee and burned the roof of his mouth.

“Uh, what’d you fix?”

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“The file says you cooked dinner that night. What’d you fix?”

No one in all those hours of interrogation and interview had asked him that. “It was seven years ago.”

“Come on, Jud, you might not remember what you had for dinner last night, but I’ll bet you remember the menu that night.”

As a matter of fact he did. The other detectives had asked him why he was the one doing the cooking, but not the menu. He took a breath as though trying to remember, then said, “I picked up a roast chicken at the grocery on the way home from the job I was working. And some fresh asparagus.”

“Expensive in November.”

He shrugged. “Sylvia liked it. I poached it in chicken stock until it was just crunchy, and thawed some brown rice in the microwave. I make it in big batches and freeze it in portions. Takes forty-five minutes to an hour to steam from scratch and only ten minutes to heat up in the microwave. That’s it.”

“What about rolls?”

He shook his head. “Two starches at one meal.”

“Dessert?”

Again he shook his head. “Watching our weight. Sylvia never has a problem, but I have to be careful.”

“To drink?”

“We’d opened a bottle of pinot grigio the night before and stashed the rest in the refrigerator. There was enough left for a couple of glasses each. I poured myself one when Sylvia called to tell me she was on her way.”

“Then?”

“There was boxing on Showtime. I sat down to watch it. I’d been out on the site most of the day in the cold rain, so that one glass of wine put me right to sleep. The boxing must have been boring. I really don’t remember who was fighting, but it wasn’t a championship match or anything. When I finally woke up, I realized Sylvia wasn’t home yet. It was nearly midnight.”

“What did you do?”

“Tried her cell phone. No answer. There are a couple of places along that road where you can’t get decent reception, particularly during bad weather. I figured she’d had a flat or something and couldn’t reach me. I dashed some cold water on my face to wake up, grabbed my coat and headed out to find her.”

Bella slapped down two plates in front of them. Jud’s held at least three eggs, bacon and wheat toast. Liz’s held a toasted English muffin.

Jud might worry about his waistline, although Liz couldn’t see that he had any problems in that department. Obviously he wasn’t bothered about cholesterol. She wished she’d indulged in at least an omelet or an order of bacon.

His answers had been interesting. He’d said Sylvia has, not had. Did he really believe she was still alive, or had he coached himself to use the present tense?

Liz would be willing to bet nobody had ever asked him what he’d cooked for dinner. The original detectives, Sherman and Lee, whose names had no doubt given rise to a million jokes during their partnership, were both middle-aged, had probably been horrified to find that Jud did the cooking for his family and had abandoned the subject.

He could have fixed the entire meal in ten minutes, leaving more than enough time to commit the killing and hide the body. The one call that had been logged from Sylvia’s cell phone that night had originated from the tower closest to her office. In his original interview, Jud had said that she called every night as she was leaving to give him her ETA so he could get dinner ready. She had not attempted to phone him again, but that call alone would have told him approximately where her car would be and where he could intercept her.

One of the most damning items against him was that his partner, Trip Weichert, said he’d tried to reach Jud at about ten and had gotten the answering machine. Jud had said in his original statement he must have slept through the call.

Maybe. Liz—who couldn’t bear to let the answering machine pick up even if she knew the caller was from a magazine subscription service—had never slept through the ringing phone. He must really have been dead to the world.

Or simply not there to pick up.

“So, Jud, between us, what do you think happened that night?” She leaned forward and gave him her full attention.

He, on the other hand, leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. She’d been taught to read people’s body language. His signified avoidance, protecting himself, distancing himself. When he spoke, however, he lowered his eyes and took a deep breath, but did not look down and to the right. That was a liar’s look. Dead giveaway. Either he was trying to tell the truth, or he’d practiced so long it had become the truth to him.

“I think she had arranged for somebody to pick her up, and left her car that way so we’d think she’d been abducted, and would stop looking for her quicker.” He raised his eyes. “It worked.”

“We couldn’t find evidence of a pickup by any of the rental-car agencies or taxis, even the ones that will drive that far out,” Liz responded. “With all the publicity at the time, surely any taxi or rental-car company would have come forward.” She shrugged. “The alternative is a colleague, a friend or a lover. No evidence was ever found for any of those.”

He started to say something, then stopped.

“If you know of any lover, or even a possible lover, I’d suggest you give me a name.”

“I don’t. To the best of my knowledge, Sylvia was not having an affair at the time she disappeared.”

“Were you?”

“What? No, of course not.”

“But you’ve had affairs since she disappeared.” Liz made her comment a statement, not a question. She didn’t know whether he’d slept around or not, but he would assume she’d traced his lovers. Or she hoped he would.

The man actually blushed. With shame or guilt?

“Lady, it’s been seven years since my wife disappeared. What do you think?”

“I’d like to talk to the ladies.”

“You find them, you talk to them. I’m not giving you any names. Believe me, there are damn few of them to find. What difference does it make, anyway? I was a completely faithful husband until long after Sylvia disappeared.”

It made a great deal of difference to Liz. She’d find those women and interview them—no, interrogate them, until they admitted their liaisons with Jud. Who knew what he might have let slip to a lover? “I don’t need no stinkin’ divorce,” for example. She pushed her empty plate away. Jud pushed his plate back, as well, although most of his farmer’s breakfast lay congealing on it.

So she’d rattled him.

“You’re telling me you had a good marriage?”

“About average.”

This time he did look down and to his right. He was lying.