“You could say that. I’ve watched over him all his life.”
“I thought that your primary objective was keeping Timothy safe. I have heard that you two were close.”
“Why do you make my loyalty come off sounding as if it’s a bad thing?”
His back is up…“People like Timothy attract a lot of enemies. Protecting him would have been a full-time job.” Eric carried on in his own direction, not touching on Kramer’s question.
“It was. But he’s dead, so…”
“Detective, if you could get to the point…” Wood huffed as if the minutes weren’t being rounded up to the hour.
“To the point, your client is suspected of murdering Susan Crawford.” Eric didn’t normally play interrogations quite so bluntly but there was a time and place.
To Kramer’s credit, he held eye contact while remaining silent.
“I assume you have something to back up this allegation,” Wood said dryly.
Eric put his gaze on Kramer. “Does the name Susan Crawford sound familiar to you?”
Kramer’s gaze diverted, danced around the room.
Eric took that reaction as a yes. Also, Officer Moore’s opinion about Kramer wasn’t far from mind.Kramer is a liar.She was positive Kramer recognized the name Ryan Crawford despite acting like it was foreign to him. “Maybe some context will help. She died in a fatal crash thirty-three years ago.”
“Detective, are you being serious right now?” the lawyer inserted.
Eric silenced the lawyer with a raised hand and withdrew photos of the accident from his folder. He spread them out on the table. Other than briefly glancing at them, Kramer didn’t show any reaction.
“The accident file stated it was a single-vehicle crash due to unfavorable road conditions, but as you can seefrom these photos, another vehicle was involved,” Eric began. “Eyewitnesses say they saw someone run Ms. Crawford off the road. This person took off immediately after Crawford hit the pole, but the driver didn’t get away without being seen. He was described as being of large build with brown hair.”
Wood smiled tightly. “Who could have been anyone.”
Eric pushed forward. “Eyewitnesses also say the vehicle was a white cargo van.”
Kramer met his eyes. “Honestly, I don’t know anything about this. It has nothing to do with me.”
The eye contact and his words tried to convince Eric he was being truthful. But from Eric’s experience whenever people saidhonestlyor something stupid likeyou’ve got to trust me, the next words out of their mouth were going to be a lie. Eric produced a copy of the rental agreement, the signature highlighted. “Maybe you could explain this for me then?” He pointed at the signature line.
Kramer avoided his gaze. Was it going through his head that the FBI agent had him sign some bogus form for comparison? After a few beats of silence, the lawyer spoke.
“So Mr. Kramer rented a van. Big deal. Do you have any proof that van was used to push Crawford off the road?” Wood clasped his hands on the table and tilted his head.
Eric opened the folder and pulled out a copy of the NDA. He pushed it across for Kramer to read.
“Where did you get that?” Kramer asked as Wood grabbed the printout for a look.
“From Timothy Hanson’s home office, but that part doesn’t matter. What does is that we think Mr. Hanson manipulated you and used this to make you do whatever he wanted.” He pointed at the NDA in the lawyer’s hands. “Did Timothy Hanson ever tell you how he was connected to Susan Crawford? How he’d raped her and got her pregnant while she was his secretary?”
“No, Timothy was a decent family man. Respectable. Yesterday was all about some pathetic man looking for a payout.”
The first part rolled off his tongue like a rite of passage. The latter bit was an attempt to downplay the allegations. “No, he wasn’t, and I think you know that. As for thatpathetic man, money never came up. He wanted the truth to come out and for his mother to get the justice she deserves. That was why he asked that an investigation be opened into her death. Hence, what has led us here.”
“Where exactly is that?” Wood tossed the NDA back onto the table.
Eric ignored the man’s question and continued speaking to Kramer. “You’ve got a clean record. You ask me, Timothy used his power over you to make you do this. You’re not a killer on your own.” Eric’s approach was simple. Paint Kramer as the victim and hope he’d feel comfortable enough to talk. While this tactic provided the defense with a strategy, any jury could look past this and find Kramer guilty and move to convict. He might receive a lesser sentence, but at least someone would pay for Susan Crawford’s murder.
Wood tapped Kramer’s arm, and Kramer leaned in toward his lawyer. After he whispered into Kramer’s ear, he sat back and crossed his arms. “I plead the Fifth.”
When someone stood behind that US constitutional right, the truth wasn’t far behind. If Eric was going to ferret it out, it was time for a fresh strategy.Part two, prod his humanity.“You have a daughter, Ellie. She’s thirty-five.”
