Starkey had taken what Crane said as a pass. Crane shrugged it off and turned to Sneed. Again his voice was too low for Stilwell to hear. The hidden microphone was pointed directly at Sneed, but Crane was standing two stools away. Her voice came through clearly.
“That’s right,” she said. “Did you bring me something?”
Crane moved to the stool next to Sneed and sat down. He glanced at Starkey suspiciously, and when he turned back, the bartender was there to take his order.
“I’ll have what she’s having,” Crane said.
The bartender pulled a wineglass off an overhead rack and moved down the bar to the wine cooler. Sneed watched him walk away, and at the same moment, Crane made a move, running one hand down Sneed’s back and one up the front of the loose-fitting blouse she was wearing.
“Hey!” Sneed said sharply.
The bartender turned to see what the disturbance was. Crane held up his hands, palms out.
“I had to check,” he said to Sneed. “Let me see your phone.”
“I’m not giving you my phone,” Sneed said.
“I check your phone or we’re not having this conversation. You want the money or not?”
“Fine.”
Sneed opened the small purse that had been on the bar top next to her glass. She pulled out her phone and handed it to him. This was a move Stilwell had anticipated and planned a response for.
“Unlock it,” Crane said.
He held the phone up and Sneed typed in a password. Crane then started looking through her apps. The bartender put a glass of wine in front of him and moved away. Crane finally found the voice-memo app, opened it, and saw that there was a recording in progress.
“Amateur,” he said. “You think I’m stupid?”
He stopped the recording, deleted it, and put the phone down on the bar.
“You think you can play me like that?” he said. “Well, fuck you, honey. This conversation is over.”
He stood up and kicked his stool back with his foot.
“You leave and you’ll regret it,” Sneed said, expertly delivering the line Stilwell had given her.
Crane stayed standing but didn’t move toward the exit. He leaned down and in toward Sneed, a move designed to intimidate the younger woman.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“I told you what I want,” Sneed said. “I want money. I decided I also want a job at the Black Marlin. I’m tired of waiting on tourists and sweaty golfers who think they’re funny. I want what Leigh-Anne had.”
“Or what?”
“Or I call up Stilwell, the sheriff’s guy who came and asked about Leigh-Anne, and tell him what she told me the morning before she got murdered. I sort of left that part out when he came around.”
“Which is exactly what?”
“That she was going to see you to get her money and tell you she was quitting the club... and quitting you.”
It was another line Stilwell had given her — a guess based on what he had learned during the investigation. How Crane reacted here would determine whether there was a case to be made.
“You’re full of shit,” Crane said. “And you know it.”
“Really?” Sneed countered. “She lived with me, stupid. I’m sure she told you that. And she was only letting you bang her so she could keep her job and hook one of those rich assholes like Easterbrook. That morning she joked about dumping you. She said you were disgusting and that you wouldn’t take the news too well. I guess you didn’t.”
Sneed had now gone off script. Stilwell wondered if the conversation she had just recounted had actually happened or if she was just riffing. Either way, she was good, and her words hit Crane hard. Even on an overhead camera, Stilwell could see his furious reaction and knew that staging the meeting in a public place had been the right choice. It was the only thing holding Crane in check. He was tensed and ready to lash out at Sneed.
In that moment, Stilwell knew that Crane had killed Leigh-Anne Moss.
“What did she say that set you off?” Sneed said. “That must have been so hard to take after all that time when you were thinking you were in charge. Hard to find out she was running you, not the other way around. You must’ve been scared about what she would do next, who she would tell.”
Crane leaned in again to return fire.
“You’re all alike, aren’t you?” he said through a clenched jaw. “The way you think you can destroy a man. Well, your little friend got exactly what she deserved and you will too if you think you’re going to take from me what’s mine.”
It wasn’t a full admission, but it was close. Stilwell felt a cold finger go down his spine. He almost had what he needed. Crane’s words also revealed that Leigh-Anne might have threatened him during their last meeting — threatened to expose him, which would have cost him his job and livelihood.
“Look, I’m not talking about this anymore,” Sneed said. “You know the town put up a reward. Ten thousand dollars — and the members of your club announced they’d match it. I figure I get that and then some from you or I get it after I turn you in. Which is it going to be?”
“You think I have twenty thousand dollars?” Crane shot back. “You’re the same as her. She didn’t just want her paycheck. She wanted more. She wanted everything I had, and I wasn’t going to give it to her. You’ve made a big mistake here, honey. Just like she did.”
“Don’t try to scare me. I’ll put you in jail.”
“You’re blackmailing me and that’s a bad idea. Just ask your little friend. Oh, wait, that’s right, you can’t, because she’s dead.”
Crane’s anger and hate was radiating off the screen, and Stilwell was suddenly not sure that Sneed was safe despite her being in a public place. Crane had not directly incriminated himself yet, but he had said enough to help persuade a jury. Stilwell pulled off the headphones and stepped away from the monitor. He pocketed the recorder and quickly walked out through the hotel lobby and into the bar. He came up behind Crane unseen, put a hand on the back of his neck, and shoved him forward and down, chest on the bar top, knocking his wineglass over.
“Charles Crane,” he said. “You are under arrest for the murder of Leigh-Anne Moss.”
Stilwell pulled handcuffs from his pocket and expertly latched Crane’s wrists together behind his back.
“What the hell is this?” Crane said.
“You heard me,” Stilwell said. “You’re under arrest.”
Stilwell looked at Sneed.
“Good job, Leslie,” he said. “We got what we needed. You can step back.”
Sneed slipped off her stool and regarded Crane as she moved away.
“Nice doing business with you, honey,” she said.
Crane made a lunge toward Sneed, but Stilwell easily restrained him and swung him back hard against the bar.
“You people don’t have shit!” Crane yelled. “I didn’t do anything. She’s an extortionist and I was just trying to scare her off.”
Stilwell held Crane against the bar as he started going through his pockets. From one, he pulled a fold of hundred-dollar bills. He tossed it on the bar top and they spilled apart. It appeared to be more than a thousand dollars.
“Really?” Stilwell said. “You were going to scare her away with hundred-dollar bills?”
“That wasn’t for her,” Crane said. “You have no proof of that.”
“Whatever you say, Crane. Now listen to this.”
Stilwell recited the Miranda admonishment. As he spoke the words, he thought about Leigh-Anne Moss and Daniel Easterbrook and how the crime Crane had committed had destroyed much more than one life.
46
Crane sat cuffed to the metal arms of a chair in the sub’s interview room. Stilwell had placed him in the room and let him percolate for a half hour before returning. He came in and began talking in midstream, as though they were in the middle of a conversation.