The Plea, page 16
part #2 of Eddie Flynn Series
It takes a lot of care, skill, and planning to set up a car accident. When I was running the con, I took a week to scout the route for the accident. I spent hours timing the traffic lights, measuring the distances between intersections, monitoring the traffic flow at different times. Once I had my preferred location on the target’s daily route, I would tail the target for another two weeks. I liked to hit them during the day, usually as they were making their commute to work. That was the most predictable route, the one least likely to change, the one where the accident would cause the most inconvenience. But then there were the professionals, guys like Perry Lake and Arthur Podolske—who could just feel their way into it. Guys like that are few and far between. If you wanted a professional driver to stage an accident and make it look real, there was a very short list of candidates. An even shorter list in New York, and I knew them all. If the accident was a setup, I still had no clue why it had happened.
Why go to all that trouble? Why do it then, when the cops don’t even know David’s girlfriend had been murdered?
The pen my daughter had given to me, the one that had “Dad” engraved on the side, whispered through my fingers, tumbling in a never-ending sequence that brought it through each finger, around my thumb, and then back again.
It helped me think.
I had the entire prosecution file spread out on the bed: witness statements, crime scene photos, Dr. Porter’s GSR report, the photos of the car wreck—Perry’s busted Ford and David’s Bugatti with the front tire all but torn off and the air bags hanging limp from the console, like punctured cartoon ghosts. I even laid out the copies of the security logs, the fingerprint analysis—which had come back negative on the weapon—and the arrest report for David. Every piece of evidence, every document, all separated, all laid out neatly on the sheets.
Walking around the bed, pen sliding over my hand, I felt close to something. Some part of this didn’t add up. It was right there in front of me, but I couldn’t see it.
Without knocking, the Lizard opened the bedroom door and said, “We gotta split in five if we’re gonna make the courthouse.”
As he slipped on a short leather jacket, he noticed the file—separated and spread out in neat columns on the bed.
“Find anything?” he said.
“Not yet, but I’m close. I’d be better if you left me alone to think.”
He chuckled, and from his jacket pocket he removed a pair of leather driving gloves and proceeded to slip them on.
“Well, you’re doing the right thing spreading it all out. Helps to order the mind. The Lizard likes to do this with his weapons—take them apart, piece by piece, and lay them out in an exploded view. Clean ’em, make ’em gleam. Then put ’em all back … Hey, what’re you staring at?”
I must’ve been wild-eyed. I was looking at the Lizard’s gloves. Something about them, something about what he’d just said—it gave me an idea.
I called out, “David, bring me your laptop right now.”
What I was looking for appeared on the sixth page of my Internet search. A mention in an obscure French forensic-science journal. Whatever search engine David used offered me a pretty good translation of the web page. I had to pay for the article. Within a minute I had it downloaded and translated. The article had been presented at a forensics conference run by Interpol last year.
It was there. It was possible.
It was brilliant.
“David, whoever set you up is one smart son of a bitch. I never would’ve looked for it if the Lizard hadn’t given me the idea.”
“The Lizard gave you an idea?” said the Lizard.
My gaze moved from the photo of the totaled Bugatti to the Lizard’s gloved hands.
“You can be very motivational, but I need a little favor. I need to borrow your gloves.”
PART TWO
THE PAYOFF
CHAPTER FORTY
28 HOURS UNTIL THE SHOT
Getting back inside the courthouse took a lot of thought and planning from the Lizard. We drove there in two separate cars. I was in the back of an overgrown sedan, driven by Frankie, another of Jimmy the Hat’s associates, who worked with the Lizard when he needed backup. The leather-clad steering wheel all but disappeared from view, engulfed in Frankie’s enormous, callused hands. Hands that beat dollars out of diamond-tough guys that owed Jimmy.
We drove past the front of the courthouse. From the sidewalk, up the steps, all the way to the entrance, it was like a media convention. You would be forgiven for thinking that the president was due to arrive. Far too many bodies. All it would take would be somebody waiting in the crowd with a .38 and David wouldn’t even make it up the first step. In among the crowd, I saw a couple of suits, and in the center of that expensive group was the tall figure of Gerry Sinton, waiting outside to escort his client past the world’s media.
“As expected, it’s packed,” I said.
We circled around, pulled up a couple of blocks before the courthouse. Waiting for the Lizard’s van to appear in the rearview mirror, I thought about the hundred and twenty-five feet of people between the sidewalk and the courthouse entrance. How many shooters could the firm have in that crowd? I’d given the photos of the firm’s security team to the Lizard to study. I’d studied their faces, too—and so had David. If we saw any of them, we ran. A blue Ford Transit van appeared in our rearview mirror, slowed. Frankie pulled out into traffic, and the Transit fell in behind us.
The sedan parked alongside the curb, just behind the media trucks with their satellite dishes beaming from the roof. I got out, my files slung over my shoulder in a laptop bag. I wanted my hands free, just in case.
I found Gerry Sinton warding off the handful of reporters who’d recognized him as David’s lawyer and were crowding him hungrily. He saw me, made his way down the steps, pushing through the TV crews. The reporters in the know sensed they were about to get their shot—they followed Sinton down the steps, toward the sidewalk.
He acknowledged me with a nod.
The Transit pulled up and stopped behind the sedan. Sinton came alongside me, the reporters and cameras on his heels. His voice quavered as he fought to hold down his rage.
“Where’s David? He never made it to the hotel,” he said.
“Let’s get him inside, and then we can talk. Here he comes now,” I replied.
Frankie got out of the sedan and opened the rear passenger door. Gerry craned over my shoulder to see a pair of red Nikes hit the pavement, and a hunched figure, covered in a white bedsheet, all but fell out of the car and ran toward us.
Gerry grabbed the sheet, guided his hands around his client, and led him toward the now-exploding sea of cameras, lights, and voices. Ignoring the reporters, I checked the hangers-on. Didn’t see anybody from the firm’s security crew. A few members of the public joined the throng of reporters, not really knowing what was going on, but simply overwhelmed with the energy in the air and desperate to catch a glimpse of the accused beneath the sheet. As Gerry plowed through the reporters, his right hand thrust in front of him like a linebacker from the seventies, I let myself drift away just before the media completely enclosed Gerry and his client.
Another scan of the area—no potential shooters. I nodded to Frankie, who stood on the hood of the car, watching.
The rear door of the Lizard’s Transit popped open and I saw the small figure of a young man in an ill-fitting suit. He closed the van door and began to walk briskly toward the courthouse entrance. I moved with him and watched Holly coming behind, tossing the van’s keys to Frankie before she broke into her run.
That’s when I heard the shot.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
“Go!” I yelled, and David turned away from the sound of gunfire. Holly grabbed him by the arm, and together they bolted for the entrance. Their path was clear.
I spun around to see bodies tumbling down the staircase as people scrambled to get clear, to get away, before they were caught in the cross fire. A big guy in a fawn overcoat, still talking into his microphone, shouldered me out of his way, and I had to bump past a couple of female anchors to get a view.
Gerry Sinton was kneeling, with his head down on the concrete. He sat up, ran his hands over his stomach, chest, legs, making sure he hadn’t caught a stray bullet. The white sheet flew off the head of the Lizard, and with it, he discarded the spent firecracker. Before Gerry could get a good look at him, the Lizard took off. Frankie made a circular motion above his head with his fist. He was going to park and then he’d be coming back. The crowd of reporters caught their breath, cameras steadied, and the screaming became commentary.
As I reached the top steps, I saw David and Holly safely beyond the security check, inside the courthouse.
Holly was holding David’s hand.
I made my apologies as I weaved through the group of reporters that had gathered outside the entrance. A hand gripped my arm, and I turned.
The man with the Scream tattoo on his throat had taken hold of me. I couldn’t move. It wasn’t his grip that held me; it was his eyes. His pupils and irises were not dark brown; they were black. Totally black. Each eye looked like a perfect pearl of onyx resting in a saucer of milk. And below that face, the pale man screamed on his throat.
I caught the stink of cigarettes from him when he released his grip and held up his open hands, fingers spread wide. While his skin was dark, his palms were purest white. I noticed more droplets and splashes of white coloring on his fingers and wrists. The skin in these areas was smooth: no wrinkles or lines on his palms or fingers. Everything had been scalded clean, flat, and unmarked. His touch wouldn’t even leave a fingerprint.
The man was so unusual, so striking, that for a moment I didn’t see that he was hiding something in the pinch between his thumb and index finger.
“Tell your client to keep his mouth shut, cabrón,” said the man in a thick Spanish accent.
He backed away and spread his right thumb away from his index finger.
I heard the cracking of thin glass. Pushing through the crowd, he trod down the steps. I heard something hissing and looked down. Fragments of glass, no bigger than a spoonful, and surrounding them an amber liquid bubbled as it ate through the concrete.
He’d been holding a small vial of acid. I shivered and scanned the steps. He’d gone.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The courtroom of Judge Knox was filling up rapidly with the still shaky members of the media. I slowed a little, to make sure David and Holly were right behind me. I’d already decided not to tell David about the warning; he was only just holding it together. I laid out my papers on the defense table and took the seat on the right, David to my left. When he arrived, Gerry would have to take the corner seat.
The rear doors of the court opened, a hundred feet behind us. The prosecution was arriving. Zader hovered at the rear of the pack of assistant district attorneys who hauled evidence boxes and folders into court. District Attorney Zader typed on his iPhone with his thumb.
As he passed me, he leaned down and said, “I just posted this on Reeler.”
The official Reel of the New York District Attorney’s Office held a new message:
THE EVIDENCE WE ARE ABOUT TO PRESENT IN THE PRELIMINARY HEARING IN THE CASE OF DAVID CHILD WILL SHOCK THE NATION. FOLLOW US AS WE LOAD REELS LIVE FROM THE HEARING. #JUSTICEFORCLARA #PUBLIC&MESSY
“Like it says, public and messy,” said Zader, unable to keep the excitement from his voice.
I saw a box with an “R” below the DA’s Reeler post with a number below it. The number was rolling up every half a second—257, 583, 1,009. This was the number of times the message had been relayed through Reeler, Facebook, and Twitter.
“Public and messy,” he said again slowly.
He strode back to his ADAs and waved to a few of the more influential TV anchors who’d taken their prime seats in the front row of the gallery.
“Can he do that?” asked David.
“Pretty much. He’s not giving away any details about the case. He’s just raising his profile. You’re a pretty big fish—he wants to gut you in public. If he wants to be mayor, or governor, he needs the face time on TV. I think he’s enjoying the fact that he’s using Reeler to destroy you. I guess he finds some irony in that. You’re his meal ticket. This isn’t about Clara. This is about him, and that sickens me.”
Gerry Sinton took his seat at the end of the defense table without a word. I hadn’t heard his approach; for a big man, he walked softly. Sending a warning with a vial of acid wasn’t beyond Gerry. He’d worked his way up the chain from the back alleys to the boardroom. Dell had told me as much. I thought about reaching across, gripping Gerry’s silk tie, and ringing his head off the mahogany a couple of times. I thought better of it when Judge Knox came into the room, took his seat at the bench, and called the case.
No backing out now. This was it. What happened here would save or condemn David. It would save or condemn Christine. It would shape the course of my life. The prosecution had half a dozen witnesses—all of them ready to give evidence that put David Child up for a slam-dunk conviction. It’s much easier to tear a witness apart when they’re lying. Far as I could tell, with the possible exception of two witnesses, each of the remaining prosecution witnesses was telling the truth—and that truth added up to David’s guilt. I had to swing the truth away from each of them so I could create my own truth and let Knox see the bigger picture.
Trouble was, I didn’t know the bigger picture. I couldn’t yet see the truth of this whole thing.
I told myself that it would come. Give it time.
Dr. Henry Porter was the first big job. The GSR expert. I saw him sitting four rows behind Zader. A man in his fifties, smartly turned out in gray dress pants, white shirt, and blue blazer. All set off with a pale yellow tie. For some reason, like most of his fellow contemporary firearms experts, he sported a graying mustache. I wondered if they handed out the mustache with their forensic expert certification.
He saw me staring and, with forefinger and thumb, adjusted his glasses, then turned his attention to Zader.
The DA stood, ready to give his opening to Judge Knox, who was arranging his own case file in readiness for the evidence.
I wondered then if Zader or Porter had any inclination of what I had in store for them. I hoped not. The DA checked the gallery, making sure his first witness was ready. They exchanged a thumbs-up. I gave myself even odds that in an hour Zader would be sitting with his thumb up his ass, wondering where it all went wrong. There was an equal chance that I might be sitting wondering how I’d messed up so bad. It was too close to call.
Judge Knox signaled to Zader that he was ready. The DA took his time. Sipped from a glass of water. A quick scan of the gallery to make sure all was silent, all eyes were on him—that his audience was ready.
The TV cameras started rolling. This case would be on a live feed on damn near every news channel in the country. Zader’s last words echoed in my mind.
Public and messy.
Damn, I wished I’d shaved.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
“Your Honor, Michael Zader, district attorney for the people. Second chair is Ms. Lopez. Mr. Flynn and Mr. Sinton appear for the defendant.”
He moved around the prosecution table, taking center stage in the well of the court. I imagined he’d already worked out which spot in the courtroom would give the cameras their best angle.
“I’ll keep my opening brief, Your Honor,” said Zader, buttoning his jacket.
He knew Judge Knox didn’t care for long-winded opening statements. He liked to get straight to the evidence. The fact that Zader had signposted this meant that Judge Knox would give him a little time for the cameras, without interruption. One of the first things you learn as an attorney is how important it is to find out the preferences of every judge. Some like long speeches, some like strict legal argument with little reference to the facts, and some like it all to be over and done with in the least complicated and quickest way possible—regardless of the fairness of the proceedings. Judge Knox fell into the latter category. The DA had done his homework.
“We shall present a number of witnesses to the court that prove the defendant was the only other person present in his apartment with the victim, Clara Reece, when she was shot and killed. We have camera footage that clearly shows the defendant and the victim entering his apartment. Minutes later, Mr. Gershbaum, a neighbor of the defendant, heard the first shots, went to the balcony to investigate, and witnessed a shot coming through the window of the defendant’s apartment. A shot that was fired from within the apartment. The security footage then shows the defendant leaving the apartment. Richard Forest, the security guard whom Mr. Gershbaum called, will say that he attended with other guards from the building and discovered the body of Clara Reece in the defendant’s empty apartment. The evidence will show that in those important and frantic minutes between Mr. Gershbaum’s call to security and the discovery of the body in the defendant’s apartment, security camera footage clearly shows the defendant as the only person who leaves that apartment. It is simple—two people enter an empty apartment and only one leaves alive. We know nobody else was in there, and nobody else came in. David Child leaves his home, and within minutes his girlfriend’s dead body is found. In short, he is the only person who could’ve killed her.”
He paused, nodded to himself as the judge caught up with his notes.
“The medical examiner’s report speaks to the manner of the victim’s murder. This, Your Honor, is the most shocking part of this case.”
Another pause, building the tension in the courtroom. This guy was very good.
“The victim, Clara Reece, was shot twelve times in the back of the head with a small, highly concealable pistol—a Ruger. Twelve times. She was plainly dead after the first head shot, but her killer, the defendant, emptied almost an entire magazine into the back of her skull, ejected the empty magazine, reloaded, cocked the weapon, and fired another seven shots into her head.
