The Plea, page 14
part #2 of Eddie Flynn Series
He went on to say that he’d ordered GSR testing on Child and his clothes and had the tests carried out by an independent GSR expert, to ensure there was no possibility of the samples taken from Child’s skin and clothes becoming contaminated. The expert that Morgan had chosen proved to be an interesting angle.
Dr. Henry Porter had once been employed by the state’s forensic department, but now he was an independent expert. Dr. Porter was pretty much unshakable on the stand—a real hard case. None of Porter’s testimony had ever been successfully challenged before. He was well known in defense counsel circles as an ironclad expert witness. So when the cops caught the whiff of a high-profile shooting—one that would certainly catch headlines—they consulted the DA and brought in the supposedly independent Dr. Porter to boost their case.
Porter’s report confirmed the wide presence of highly concentrated gunshot residue on Child’s face, hands, arms, and upper body. When somebody pulls the trigger, the little explosion that results from contact between the firing pin and the primer sends a small cloud of gas around the weapon and the bullet. This cloud contains minute particles, like shrapnel, some of which fuse together from the heat. This is gunshot residue. Some of the material can be found on the victim, or on the weapon or the shooter. Experts look for lead, barium, and antimony, or burned combinations of these, which come from the explosion, or fragments from the cartridge or sometimes even the gun itself. The sheer amount of GSR would, in Porter’s opinion, be consistent with Child having discharged a firearm on multiple occasions. In the appendices to the report were the graphs showing the concentrations of material found in each sample. The samples from David’s skin and clothes looked pretty much the same, but the graph depicting the results of the sample taken from the gun were slightly different; the GSR wasn’t as concentrated. When you consider that the material disperses widely from the gun itself, it’s easy to see why that might be the case. However, there were other differences. Lead deposits, one of the key indicators of GSR, were found on the gun, but none were found in the results from David’s samples. In addition, some of the other non-GSR material found in the samples from David differed from the gun results. Again, not that big a deal. The main problem was that if David was telling the truth, then he shouldn’t have had any GSR on him at all.
Porter also offered the theory that the large particles of burned rubber and nylon found in the samples from David could mean that he wore gloves. Some part of that theory jarred a little with me. Felt like the prosecution told Porter to include this in his findings so that they could argue that the lack of fingerprints on the gun recovered from David’s car could be explained by the fact that he’d worn gloves.
I remembered that Detective Morgan had asked Child on no less than six occasions if he’d ever owned or fired or been around someone when they were firing a gun. Child said he’d never owned a gun, held a gun, or been around when a gun was fired. Porter’s GSR report seemed to give lie to that statement.
The combination of Child’s interview answers and Morgan’s report pretty much nailed him. When this was coupled with the security footage of Child entering the apartment, then leaving, just before Gershbaum heard the shots and then saw the window blowing out—well, that would be all she wrote.
I thought about Porter’s report. The subtle differences in the test results, between the GSR on David and the GSR on the gun, intrigued me. Often the key to blowing open a case lay in the small details, in the finest of inconsistencies. I just had to figure it out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Lizard opened the door to Holly’s apartment and stuck a Beretta in my face.
“Jesus, if you’re not careful you’re gonna kill somebody one of these days,” I said.
“The Lizard lives in hope,” said the Lizard.
Dropping the gun to his side, he offered me his free hand. Guy had a grip like a pneumatic press. He’d gotten a new tattoo since I’d last seen him. A bottle-green serpent’s tail licked out of the neck of his plain black tee and coiled up to his jawline. He liked reptiles. And for some reason he always referred to himself in the third person. Nobody knew why, and no one had the balls to ask him. Clean-shaven, with close-cut dark hair, and zero body fat over a gym-cut physique, the Lizard oozed serious. He was ex-military and had served in Afghanistan and Iraq. When he’d come home, his war had continued, only now he got well paid for it by Jimmy the Hat.
“Any problems losing the tail?” I said.
“None. Cab drove into the alley, they ducked out, turned in to the next alley, and got into my van. The cab stayed put, blocking the view and their tail. We got away clean.”
He stepped out of the apartment and checked the corridor as I brushed past him. A powerful chemical smell washed over me as soon as I walked over the threshold. Holly knelt on the wooden floor, furiously scrubbing at a persistent stain. A two-gallon bottle of bleach sat on the kitchen counter above her head, and a mop bucket lay beside a battered, old brown leather chair.
She raised her head from the floor, and I saw her face flushed from her efforts with the scrubbing brush.
“He’s got a thing about cleanliness,” she said, and held her palms wide. I figured her new houseguest would be pretty hard to live with.
Even though the place probably cost a small fortune in rent, it wasn’t exactly big. A small kitchenette on the right, a TV, a couch and that leather chair on the left. Beyond the living space was a compact, square dining table surrounded by four chairs. Two doors led into the bathroom and the single bedroom, respectively.
At the dining table, Child punched the keys on his laptop. He hadn’t even registered my presence. As I approached him, I noticed half a dozen shopping bags on the floor, all from the same sports store. The bags were filled with new clothes.
I was about to say hi to David when I stopped. Backed up. Picked up one of the bags and looked at him.
He wore a green hooded sweatshirt that looked as though he could fit into it twice. Gray sweatpants hung off of his skinny legs, and he wore a pair of red sneakers. The bags contained several more identical green tops, gray pants, and two more pairs of red Nikes.
I looked at Holly, who rolled her eyes in reply.
This was the exact same outfit the cop described in his statement, which summarized the security camera footage from David’s building; the same clothes David had been wearing when he’d been hit by the drunk driver; the same outfit he wore as he sat at the table.
“I can make business decisions in a heartbeat, but I can spend an hour choosing my cereal brand in the morning. When it comes to everyday things, I don’t like making … choices,” said David, still not looking up from his computer screen. “I like these clothes. I buy a few of them, and then it’s easier in the morning. I don’t have to choose. All I have to do is put on the clothes in the correct order.”
I nodded, not really understanding what the right order might be.
A chime echoed from David’s laptop. Then another. The chirping alert multiplied, and David began tapping on the cursor pad and running his fingers over it.
“I put an e-mail alert out on my name. Looks like I’m finished,” he said.
He got up and located the remote for the TV, switched it on, and found CNN. His picture, taken on the red carpet of an anonymous awards ceremony. The banner across the bottom of the screen read FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR OF REELER—DAVID CHILD—CHARGED WITH FIRST-DEGREE MURDER.
The volume indicator appeared on-screen and rose as the anchor’s voice boomed from the TV.
“… District Attorney Michael Zader said that a David Elliott Child has been arrested and charged with murder in the first degree. The victim has been officially named as twenty-nine-year-old Clara Reece. CNN sources believe that Clara Reece was the fiancée of twenty-two-year-old David Child, the billionaire founder of popular social media platform Reeler. No further information has been released at this time, but CNN will be bringing you more on this story as soon as we get it. We hope to have our economics and business analyst report within the hour on how the stock market has been reacting to this news. As you might predict, it’s not good for Reeler. In other news, New York Harbor Police have recovered the body of an unidentified male from the East River. The male is said to be in his late sixties…”
David killed the power and drew back his arm, ready to throw the remote at the wall.
He stopped himself, held his brow for a time, and then placed the control on the couch. He returned to his seat at the table and tried to focus on the screen as his world and his business crumbled around him. Holly stood behind him, put a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t flinch, didn’t shrug it off, just nodded, and she let go and went back to the kitchen. I’d been warned not to get too close to David when I’d first met him. Dell told me that David had a real issue with people touching him.
He didn’t have a problem with Holly. I got the impression they were closer than I’d first realized.
“In the cell, I asked you who might’ve set you up. You said a name—Bernard Langhiemer. Tell me about him,” I said.
“He’s the devil. Langhiemer is probably the only celebrity genius in the tech world who few outside of it know anything about,” said David, looking up from the screen.
“At fourteen he hacked the Chinese Secret Service. He sent every secret agent in China a Christmas e-card. He was never prosecuted, and the Chinese covered it up. They didn’t want the embarrassment of admitting that a kid in his bedroom burned their system. The CIA, the FBI, even the Secret Service tried to recruit this guy, but he said no to all of them and went to work on Wall Street. In the city, the speed at which information flows is vital. Langhiemer all but revolutionized the computer systems.”
“And how do you know him?”
He wiped a rueful smile from his lips.
“Within a month or so of Reeler’s launch, Langhiemer brought out his own social media platform—Wave. Tell you the truth, it was just as good as Reeler, maybe even a little better—but we were flavor of the month and Wave died. I heard Langhiemer lost a ton of money and blamed me.
“Wave folded, and a few weeks later he tried to buy Reeler. At first he hid behind a group of backers. Then he came out in the open. I turned down all of the offers. When I stopped taking calls, Langhiemer showed up at my apartment.
“I let him up. I was curious to meet him; guy’s a legend. He’s in his thirties. Hipster beard, tight Armani suit, and he stood in my doorway holding Chinese takeout and a briefcase. We talked a little—who we both knew in the industry, who we liked, who we hated. He didn’t like anybody. I didn’t eat; neither did he. Then he got up, left the briefcase on the table, and said he’d expect an answer in twenty-four hours.”
“How much money was in the briefcase?” I asked.
“There was no money. Inside was a partnership agreement. In return for selling Reeler, he’d cut me in on his business. If I’d signed, I would own a hefty chunk of the digital world. And I’d be richer than I am now. But I wanted my own company. I don’t play well with others. I got mad. Langhiemer thinks he can buy anybody. So I waited until his car pulled up outside my building and threw the agreement off the balcony. I remember him looking up at me. I couldn’t see his face; he was too far away. As those pages fell around him, he sent me a message on Reeler. It said ‘I will destroy you.’”
I pushed my chair away from the table, folded my arms.
“You think this guy set you up?”
“He’s got the money, the power. He’s done it before—sent illegal images of kids to the computers of high-profile bloggers who posted critical articles about Wave or were trying to orchestrate a campaign to expose the seedier side of his operations. He got away with it, too—the bloggers went to prison. Some of them were trolled so bad on Twitter and Reeler that they committed suicide. The only hits you’ll find for Langhiemer on the web are what he permits to be there. I know there’s a lot of people I hurt on the way up—I’m not proud of that. But they all got paid. Langhiemer is the only one who hates me enough to do it.”
I told David about my Internet search and the call that came in from Langhiemer minutes afterward.
“The article was probably a fake that he posted to keep an eye on who might be checking up on him. The article itself probably implanted a trace virus allowing him to hack the PC. When you checked your e-mail, he ID’d you and got your bank history, everything. You’d be wise to change your e-mail password and bank accounts.”
“You think he’ll meet me?” I asked.
“I don’t know. All I know is you should be careful. By the way, I’ve been working on some trace coding myself. I think I figured out a way to trace the algorithm.”
He pulled a memory stick out of his laptop. “This program can trace every cent of the firm’s money as fast as the algorithm moves it. It can even tell us which account all of the money will pool into when the cycle ends. There’s just one thing—we can’t use it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“He’s been working on that thing since we got here,” said the Lizard. I turned and watched the big man checking the windows.
Holly got to her feet, wiped at the sweat on her forehead, and asked if I wanted coffee.
I did.
“Why can’t we use it?” I asked.
David pursed his lips and set the memory stick on the table. He lowered his head and looked at me over the rims of his designer glasses.
“When you tricked your way into representing me, you wanted to make me plead guilty so you could get a deal for your wife, right?” said Child.
He’d been thinking more clearly since he’d gotten out. The panic had left his voice, and he seemed calm and assured. I’d been waiting for him to drop that bomb, waiting for my less-than-ethical methods of becoming his lawyer to be debated. He didn’t shout, or sneer, or even look mildly pissed off. It seemed like a neutral question, like he was just putting it out there on the table, matter-of-factly, like he put the memory stick on the table—There it is.
“As soon as I realized you were innocent, I came clean. I didn’t have to tell you anything, David. In fact, I still can’t quite believe that I told you any of it. It’s not like me to be so up front with people.”
Shifting my weight between my feet, I suddenly felt uncomfortable. So I dragged a chair out from the table and sat down. The memory stick lay inches from my reach.
“I’ve been as honest as I can be with anyone. Don’t forget, the only reason you’re sitting here and not lying dead in the morgue is because of me and Popo.”
He nodded, shifting his gaze to the memory stick. He touched the cushioned speakers on the earphones that hung around his neck, then rubbed his fingers together. A pack of antibacterial wipes were beside the laptop. He peeled off a couple of sheets and carefully wiped down his fingers.
“I don’t know if I can trust you,” he said.
“Maybe not, but I’m not the one trying to kill you.”
A heavy sigh and a shake of the head.
“But you lied to me,” he said.
“I did, and if I hadn’t lied, you wouldn’t be alive right now. I want my wife cleared, but she was just attacked, and now I’m more worried about her staying alive. They’re targeting her because they don’t want me to represent you, so they can control the situation and make sure you don’t turn state’s witness against them in exchange for a small-time sentence.”
“My God, your wife, is she all right?”
“She’s safe. For now.”
A white coffee mug appeared in front of me, steam rising off the jet-black brew.
“Cream or sugar?” asked Holly.
“No thanks,” I said.
She looked at David, and he shook his head. They knew each other well enough that she didn’t have to ask him if he wanted anything. Their understanding passed between them, unspoken.
The coffee tasted good, rich, and had enough caffeine to wake up a marine platoon. David refilled his glass from a can of energy soda. The liquid looked almost toxic; it was bright blue and fizzed like a science experiment when it hit the ice at the bottom of the glass. I could smell the sugar from it a mile away. He drained half of the soda, smacked his lips, and leaned forward.
“I’m … ah, I’m struggling here,” he said, his voice betraying the facade that he’d put up for my arrival. “I don’t know who I can trust. I need help. What I’m saying here is, I want to trust you, but I can’t. How do I know you’re not just using me to save your wife?”
I considered this for a moment, sighed. Right then I couldn’t think of anything better to tell him than the plain God’s honest truth.
“Something happened to me a couple years ago,” I began, and David folded his arms, tilted his head. He was curious but guarded.
“I represented a guy accused of attempting to kidnap a young woman, Hanna Tublowski. I got him off. Before the jury came back with the ‘not guilty,’ I realized that my client did try to take that girl. During my cross-examination of the victim, I saw my client’s face light up with hate, with excitement, and I knew then that this guy was guilty. Listening to that seventeen-year-old crying as she testified gave my client immense pleasure. It was almost as if watching her fall to pieces made some part of him come alive, a part of him that he kept hidden. He couldn’t hide it from me. I did my job and he got off. Later I found the same girl tied to his bed. She’d been beaten and … well, you don’t want to know what he did to her. By the time the cops arrived, I’d almost killed the guy. I broke my hand on his face.
“I failed that girl. I didn’t owe her anything and it wasn’t my job to care about her; it was my job to destroy her on the witness stand.”
