The lawyer looked at her client and nodded reassuringly. “Go ahead, Wilbur, tell them what happened that night.”
Roswell nervously twisted his cap in his callused fingers and switched his gaze from McCord’s face to Sam’s because he obviously found her less intimidating. “I was driving down the road that night at a little after eleven, but I hadn’t been drinkin’—not a drop, I swear it.” He raised his right hand, for emphasis. “It was snowing real hard, and I saw this big dark lump on the side of the road, kind of hanging partway over a snowdrift. I pulled over to drive around it, and I seen it was a body.”
He looked down at the table. “I wasn’t supposed to be driving because my license got suspended for driving under the influence, so I decided not to stop, but I—I couldn’t just leave her there to freeze to death. So I pulled over and got her into my car; then I drove her down the mountain to a motel. I woke up the night manager, and he helped me get her into a room in the motel. He thought I should stay until the cops or an ambulance arrived, but I knowed—knew—if the cops came, they’d ask for my name and address and my driver’s license. So I told the manager to stay with her in the room while I got her stuff out of my car, but I took off instead.”
Since he’d spoken directly to her and avoided McCord, Sam took over. “You helped her, even though you knew you were taking a risk,” she summarized with a smile. “That says a lot about the kind of man you are, Mr. Roswell.”
After living with six brothers, Sam knew the difference between a male who was simply embarrassed by a compliment and one who felt guilty because he knew he didn’t deserve it. The moment Roswell’s gaze shifted away from hers, she knew he fell into the latter category and that her original hunch about his story was right. Without changing her mild, encouraging tone, she asked a question. “You said that the reason you stopped was because you couldn’t leave her on the side of the road to freeze to death?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, ma’am.”
“It was dark, and it was snowing. How did you know that ‘big, dark lump’ was a woman’s body, instead of a man’s?”
“I—I didn’t until I got up close.”
“But when you pulled over to help, you did know that the person lying on the road was still alive, didn’t you? That’s why you had to stop to help, why you couldn’t leave her there to freeze to death, isn’t it? You have a drinking problem and you lost your driver’s license because of it, but you’re basically a decent man, even a brave man, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know as anyone’s ever called me decent or brave,” he said uneasily. “And I don’t know as anybody’s ever had call to say I was.”
“I have a very good reason to say that, Mr. Roswell. When you stopped to help Mrs. Manning and drove her to that motel, you weren’t just worried that the police might find out you were driving without a license. You were afraid they’d look at your car, realize that you were in that accident, and even blame you for it. You risked a great deal that night in order to help Mrs. Manning, didn’t you?”
His face turned ashen. “I—” he began, but his attorney put her hand on his sleeve to stop him. “Don’t say anything else, Wilbur, not another word.”
To Sam she said, “Mr. Roswell has told you everything he knows about that night.”
Sam ignored her and looked at Wilbur Roswell. With a gentle voice and soft smile she said, “Then let me tell him something that he doesn’t know. Mrs. Manning admitted to us that she had slowed her vehicle almost to a stop that night—on a hazardous blind curve—in extremely dangerous weather conditions. I’ve seen the curve myself, and if I’d been driving Mr. Roswell’s car that night, I wouldn’t have been able to stop either. If anyone is responsible for that accident, I would say it was probably Mrs. Manning.”
“Nevertheless,” the attorney said sternly, “my client has nothing more to say. If he was driving the other car involved in that accident—and that is not my understanding—then your assurance that the accident was Mrs. Manning’s fault doesn’t mean a thing. She could disagree, she could try to sue him in civil court, and you could try to prosecute him for leaving the scene of an accident, at the very least.”
Sam propped her elbows on the table and perched her chin on her folded hands. “Your attorney is right, Mr. Roswell. However, if you weren’t drinking that night—”
“I wasn’t and I can prove it!”
“I believe you. And if you can prove it, I will testify in your behalf in any civil suit Mrs. Manning might bring that the accident was unavoidable. Furthermore, I know Mrs. Manning, and I really don’t think she’s the sort of person to sue the man who saved her life and risked going to jail in order to do it. Also, she doesn’t need money, so there’s no point in suing you. If you can provide proof that you weren’t drinking, I think I can extend Lieutenant McCord’s earlier promise not to notify any other law enforcement agencies of what you’ve told us here or to prosecute you for leaving the scene, or anything else.” Sam had been so intent until that moment that she’d virtually forgotten McCord was present or that she might need his cooperation. She looked at him then, her eyes begging him not to be a hard-ass. “Would you agree to that, Lieutenant?”
To her shock, McCord smiled a little and his smile became conspiratorial when he transferred it to Roswell. “I don’t know about you, Wilbur, but I have a hard time saying no to any woman who looks at me like that, don’t you?”
Wilbur hesitated; then he grinned at McCord. “She sure is pretty. And she’s real nice, too.”
The only one with reservations about all this was his attorney, which was appropriate. She frowned. “Was that a ‘yes,’ Lieutenant McCord? Are you agreeing to extend your promise not to prosecute Mr. Roswell if he admits to driving the other vehicle in that accident?”
“As long as he can prove he wasn’t drinking that night. If he was, all bets are off.”
“I wasn’t! I was at Ben’s Place all night drinking Cokes, and shooting a little pool. Ben will say so and so will everybody else I was with.”
“Good for you!” Sam said. “Now, here’s why it’s important that we stop beating around the bush and you tell us straight out if you were driving the other car in the accident that night: We’ve all been thinking that the same person who killed Mr. Manning might have also tried to kill Mrs. Manning by running her off the road. If that was just an accident, then we need to drop that theory and start looking for other suspects right away, before we lose any more time.”
Wilbur Roswell straightened in his chair and slapped his hat on the table. “It was just an accident,” he proclaimed. “I was driving that night. You can look at my car and see how bad it got wrecked.”
Sam nodded and stood up. “I’ll find someone to come in here and take down your statement.” She walked around the table and held out her hand to him. “I was right about you,” she said with a smile. “You’re a good and decent man. And a brave one.”
She shook Julie Cosgrove’s hand next. “Thank you for encouraging Mr. Roswell to come here today. It was the right thing to do.”
Sam was wending her way across the squad room when McCord emerged and joined Shrader and Womack at the two-way window. Shrader looked at McCord and chuckled. “When’s the last time you charmed a witness, then shook hands with him and his lawyer?”
“I don’t believe I have that much charm,” McCord said wryly.
“She’s one smooth talker,” Womack put in. “She had that lawyer eating out of her hand.”
“Which isn’t surprising,” McCord replied, “since Littleton practically spelled out for her that Mrs. Manning was more to blame for the accident than her client. As we stand here, that lawyer in there is mentally drafting a letter to Leigh Manning’s insurance company demanding money for damages to her client’s vehicle, et cetera, et cetera.”
Shrader came to Sam’s defense. “Littleton’s brand-new at the job. Give her time to learn that it’s usually a mistake to volunteer any information in interviews. She slipped up a lit
tle, that’s all.”
McCord gave him a skeptical look. “Littleton didn’t slip up. She did it on purpose.”
Chapter 37
* * *
Did you do it on purpose?” McCord asked her when they were in his car on the way to Jason Solomon’s apartment on West Broadway in SoHo.
“Roswell and his attorney were entitled to know what information Mrs. Manning gave us in her first statement about the accident. You saw how he was dressed. I’ll bet he can’t afford to repair his car, and I’m sure it was badly damaged from the accident. Shrader and I saw where the accident happened, and I drove the route myself. It’s a blind curve, and she was virtually stopped in the road. The miracle is that he didn’t go over the embankment with her. Besides,” Sam finished with a shrug, “I’m sure Mrs. Manning’s insurance will cover whatever claims Roswell files.”
McCord shot her a puzzled glance. “Did you think my question was some sort of criticism?”