Mean Streak

“Dr. Charbonneau? Emory?”

She quit her study of the rubber band and looked him in the eye.

“Dr. Cal Trenton was in Coral Gables, Florida, with his wife to celebrate their fortieth wedding anniversary. He gave his whole staff the week off. They didn’t reopen till yesterday. When they did, they discovered that the office had been burglarized, and everybody went into a tizzy. It wasn’t until this morning that the doctor remembered the nanny cam he’d put in his bookcase a few months back.

“Seems he keeps a bottle of hooch in his bottom desk drawer, and he suspected the after-hours cleaning ladies of helping themselves. He hoped to catch them at it. But,” he said with a wave that dismissed the backstory, “in the long run, he just replaced them with a crew of teetotalers.

“He didn’t know if the camera was still recording. It was on one of those cycle-timer things. A loop, I think somebody called it. Anyhow, he took out the disk and brought it here to the deputy who’d investigated the break-in yesterday.” He raised his beefy shoulders in a shrug that was almost apologetic. “He recognized you right off, of course. Called me at home.”

She was looking at him, but her eyes had glazed, thinking of the catastrophic damage this had done to her credibility. She was armed with nothing more than an unexplained reference to sunglasses. The authorities had a video of her burglarizing a doctor’s office.

Knight spoke her name, softly but with a definite prod behind it.

She brought herself out of her daze. “Will I go to jail?”

Knight looked over at Grange, who seemed to share his senior partner’s dismay. When Knight turned back to her, he said, “That’s all you have to say?”

“Yes.”

“No explanation?”

“Is one necessary?”

“Emory, don’t say another word until we get an attorney here,” Jeff said. He tugged on the back of her chair as though expecting her to stand up and leave.

“You can play it like that,” Knight said.

“I should have played it like that when you started questioning me about her disappearance. We know how wrong you were then, and I’m certain that Emory has a logical explanation for this…” At a loss, he motioned toward the laptop. “But she won’t say anything else until she has a lawyer present.”

Knight patted the air. “Calm down, Jeff. We don’t want to book Dr. Charbonneau just yet. We feel sure there were extenuating circumstances, and we’d like to hear what they were. While we get some clarification from Emory, why don’t you wait outside?”

“Why don’t you kiss my ass?”

“Jeff.” She turned in her chair and looked up at him. “You’re probably right about having defense counsel. I’m sure our business lawyer could refer someone. Would you please deal with that for me?”

“And leave you in here alone with them?”

Grange stepped away from the wall. “Actually, it’s not up to you to decide who stays and who goes. We can have you escorted out.”

Before the situation got entirely out of hand, Emory clasped Jeff’s arm. “Call our lawyer and get that process started. I’ll be careful of what I say.”

He glared at the two detectives. “If this ever results in an arrest or trial, I’ll testify that you denied my wife an attorney’s presence when you questioned her.”

“Duly noted,” Grange deadpanned.

Jeff bent down and kissed her temple, whispering, “Why didn’t you share this with me?”

“I couldn’t.”

He hesitated, obviously wanting to know more. Then he gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you.”

He stalked out and slammed the door shut behind him.

A tense silence ensued. Finally Knight said, “Well? Care to share what you were doing in that video?”

“Isn’t it apparent?”