Falling Grace. Melissa Shirley
ass out of that chair and let your detective know I’m here.”
His white cowboy hat tilted as he shoved a phone receiver to his ear and punched a single digit into the phone. “I know that, Detective. Her attorney is here.” He looked up at me. “Name?”
“Grace Wade.”
“Miss Grace Wade.” He took a pointed look at my ring finger, and I slid my hand off the counter to my side.
The sassy miss he added to my name was in an accent that drew out the syllables.
“I’ll let her know.” He took his time, polishing the receiver with his soiled shirt, then replaced it in its cradle. “She’s in the interview room.” After extricating all seven feet of his body from the chair, he made his way around a wall to stand beside me.
At five-foot-seven with another four inches of heel, I barely made it to his shoulder. “Right this way, Miss Wade.” I didn’t have to ask how he felt about single women.
His white T-shirt hung beneath the tail of his button down as I followed him down the hall. He stopped in front of an unmarked door and turned to me. “She’s right in here.”
I hid my mental eye roll with a wink and walked past him, noting his name for future avoidance. “Thank you for your hospitality, Deputy Wesley.”
He grunted a reply and shut the door behind me, keeping her husband, Nathan Quinn, locked outside.
A plain clothes detective leaned across the table on his fists in front of a woman so shriveled I disguised my muttered “Whoa” with a cough.
He straightened, then looked me up and down, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead as his eyes made their way lower. A slow smile spread across his lips and he extended a hand. “I’m Detective Paul Roan, Texas State Police.”
After the initial handshake, he continued to hold on. His slimy palm sweat slithered onto my skin. I yanked my arm back to my side and wiped my fingers down the outer seam of my skirt. “Grace Wade.”
“You must be new in town. I’d remember such a pretty face.”
You’ll remember it now. “Detective, I know you weren’t in here questioning my client after she asked for her lawyer.”
He cocked his head to one side and crossed his arms over his chest. “No, ma’am. We were having a little chat is all.”
“Of course, you were.” I nodded to the woman. “Looks like she was enjoying it.”
“She never asked me to stop.”
His eyebrows issued a dare and I smiled in return. The quiet recesses of my mind came to life, and I started mentally counting the piles of money I would earn suing this police department.
“Well, Miss Wade, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go get my paperwork in order and call the prosecutor in charge of this case to let him know that we’re booking your client on first degree murder.” Honey didn’t drip with such sweetness as his tone. He smacked his big, black hat on his head and grinned as though he’d won a war with his words.
I flipped a glance at the clock ticking loudly on the wall. Four o’clock, Friday afternoon. “Impeccable timing. I would expect nothing less.”
He twisted the knob and tossed a wink over his shoulder. “See you soon, Miss Wade.”
As soon as the latch clicked into place, I looked at the woman in the chair. “I’m Grace. Your husband hired me to be your attorney.” She frowned. “Rory wasn’t there, so I came instead. Right now, I want you to tell me everything that happened with your daughter, and I need you to do it as quickly as you can.” She didn’t move, didn’t seem to breathe. I wanted to shake her, show her the urgency of her situation. Instead, I pulled a chair around the table and sat close enough to smell her coffee breath. “Listen, detective tall-hat is gonna be back in a minute to book you into the jail. They’re going to fingerprint you, change your clothes, and put you in a cell. Because it’s Friday, and this is Backwater U.S.A., you won’t see a judge until at least Monday.”
She didn’t look up from the table.
When she continued to ignore me, my guilt-o-meter got confused. In my experience, guilty clients either gave me the stare or shouted too many details of their innocence like chirping fools. Catatonia was new, though. I had no expertise to call on to deal with that kind of response.
“Mrs. Quinn, I know this is awful, but I need you to focus on what I’m saying.” I snapped my fingers in front of her. “What happened to your daughter?”
“My husband can tell you.” Her voice wavered on the words.
“No.” The sharpness of my tone caused her to look up while simultaneously becoming smaller. I softened my voice. “I need you to tell me.”
“We went out to a movie and for a couple drinks with some friends. When we came back from Dallas, I checked on the kids while he drove the sitter home. Emily was already asleep, all tucked in, so I went to bed. When Nathan got home, he came up, and we went to sleep. Emily was fine.” She broke into a sob.
“Okay. She was sleeping. Did you touch her or cover her or anything that told you she was okay at that moment?” I checked the clock as minutes sped past during her silence. She needed to move this along. “We don’t have much time.”
“No. I looked in and she was covered up. She liked to sleep with the blankets over her head. I could see her hair and I didn’t want to take the chance of waking her up.”
“What happened in the morning?”
“When I woke up on Sunday, I got our boy dressed and went in to take a bath.” She twisted the fingers of one hand in the fisted grasp of the other. “I liked having some time before Emily woke up. She was difficult in the mornings and I thought if I could just get myself ready without her wanting me to hold her and… And I heard Nathan screaming. I ran down the hall, and he was holding Emily. She was dead.” She shook her head and a wave of tears brimmed over her lashes. “So much blood.”
“Okay. What happened to her?”
“Someone killed my baby.” Her voice cracked, then shattered on a sob.
I ran a hand over hers, gave it a squeeze. I needed five more minutes of coherency. “Who could have stabbed your daughter?”
The withering continued. Mrs. Quinn slunk farther into her chair and fat, sloppy tears streamed down her cheeks. “I don’t know.” She mumbled the phrase three more times.
I covered her hand with mine. I didn’t usually coddle my clients, but she needed contact, a sympathetic touch. “Okay. We’re going to figure this out, but you have to listen to me. They’re going to put you in a cell. Whatever you do, don’t speak to them, at all. If anyone asks you anything, or tries to start a conversation, you ask for me. Do not say anything to them.” I couldn’t stress that enough. “To anyone. Especially if they put you in a cell with someone else.” She continued to sob. “Do you understand?” Her body shook as she ignored my question. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your first name?”
“Gabrielle. My husband calls me Gabby.”
“Okay, Gabby, listen. Because of what they’re charging you with, I probably can’t get you out on bail, but I will do everything I can to make your stay here as short as possible.”
A bubble of something I hoped was only gas formed in my stomach. In law school, it was drilled into us that asking the wrong questions limited our ability to defend our clients, but in this case, I had to know. Even if the answer meant I could never put her on the stand, a fire burned in me to get the answer. “Did you kill your daughter?”
She looked around the room, at the floor, the paint peeling from a far wall, the doorknob,