Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride by Tess Gerritsen Read Free Book Online Page A

they on the knife?”

    “That’s the problem. The knife handle was wiped clean. Now, that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Here’s this crime of passion, see? She uses her own knife. Pure impulse. So why does she bother to wipe off the fingerprints?”

    “She must be brighter than you think,” Evelyn said, sniffing. “She’s already got you confused.”

    “Anyway, it doesn’t go along with an impulse killing.”

    “What other problems do you have with the case?” asked Chase.

    “The suspect herself. She’s a tough nut to crack.”

    “Of course she is. She’s fighting for her life,” said Evelyn.

    “She passed the polygraph.”

    “She submitted to one?” asked Chase.

    “She insisted on it. Not that it would’ve hurt her case if she flunked. It’s not admissible evidence.”

    “So why should it change your mind?” asked Evelyn.

    “It doesn’t. It just bothers me.”

    Chase stared off toward the sea. He, too, was bothered. Not by the facts, but by his own instincts.

    Logic, evidence, told him that Miranda Wood was the killer. Why did he have such a hard time believing it?

    The doubts had started a week ago, in that police station hallway. He’d watched the whole interrogation. He’d heard her denials, her lame explanations. He hadn’t been swayed. But when they’d come face-to-face in the hall, and she’d looked him straight in the eye, he’d felt the first stirrings of doubt. Would a murderess meet his gaze so unflinchingly? Would she face an accuser with such bald courage? Even when Evelyn had appeared, Miranda hadn’t ducked for cover. Instead, she’d said the unexpected. He loved you. I want you to know that. Of all the things a murderess might have said, that was the most startling. It was an act of kindness, an honest attempt to comfort the widow. It earned her no points, no stars in court. She could simply have walked past, ignoring Evelyn, leaving her to her grief. Instead, Miranda had reached out in pity to the other woman.

    Chase did not understand it.

    “There’s no question but that the weight of the evidence is against her,” said Tibbetts. “Obviously, that’s what the judge thought. Just look at the bail he set. He knew she’d never come up with that kind of cash. So she won’t be walking out anytime soon. Unless she’s been hiding a rich uncle somewhere.”

    “Hardly,” said Evelyn. “A woman like that could only come from the wrong side of the tracks.”

    Wrong side of the tracks, thought Chase. Meaning poor. But not trash. He’d been able to see that through the one-way mirror. Trash was cheap, easily bent, easily bought. Miranda Wood was none of those.

    A car marked Shepherd’s Island Police pulled up in the driveway.

    Tibbetts sighed. “Geez, they just won’t leave me alone. Even on my day off.”

    Ellis Snipe, spindly in his cop’s uniform, climbed out. His boots crunched toward them across the gravel. “Hey, Lorne,” he called up to the veranda. “I figured you was here.”

    “It’s Saturday, Ellis.”

    “Yeah, I know. But we sort of got us a problem.”

    “If it’s that washroom again, just call the plumber. I’ll okay the work order.”

    “No, it’s that—” Ellis glanced uneasily at Evelyn. “It’s that Miranda Wood woman.”

    Tibbetts rose to his feet and went over to the veranda railing. “What about her?”

    “You know that hundred thousand bail they set?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Well, someone paid it.”

    “What?”

    “Someone’s paid it. We just got the order to release her.”

    There was a long silence on the veranda. Then, in a low voice laced with venom, Evelyn said, “ Who paid it?”

    “Dunno,” said Ellis. “Court says it was anonymous. Came through some Boston lawyer. So what do we do, huh, Lorne?”

    Tibbetts let out a deep breath. He rubbed his neck, shifted his weight back and forth a few times. Then he said, “I’m sorry, Evelyn.”

    “Lorne, you can’t do this!” she