Natural Suspect (2001) Page 7

  The ground felt soft beneath the wet snow, still not frozen. She hoped she'd be able to muster the necessary traction to get the Toyota out of the ditch. Standing up, she could see by the light of her flashlight that she had been lucky that the car had come to a stop where it did. A few feet farther and both she and the Toyota would have ended up in a ravine.

  Positioning the jack, Devin loosened the lug nuts one by one. The soft earth was less stable than she would have liked, and she made a conscious effort to work quickly. With her dancers build, people didn't usually think of her as being strong, but when it came to handling tools she understood that skill counted for more than strength. In that way, fixing things was a lot like trying cases.

  She got to her feet and brushed the snow from her legs. Then she bent over again and slowly started to work the jack, afraid that if she pumped the handle too fast it would destabilize the car and the jack might slip.

  She wondered what Trent Ballard was doing right now. He was probably lying in his warm bed, dreaming up ways to outmaneuver her in court. Devin had no illusions about Ballard. Hot tub or no hot tub, she knew he would stop at nothing to beat her.

  Not that she had any intention of letting him. This case was definitely her ticket, her chance to move up to the majors. There was no way she was going to lose this case, even if she had to get a picture of him walking his grotesque rabbit and figure out a way to show it to the jury. Naturally, she hoped it wouldn't come to that. She knew the state's evidence and had seen the holes in it. Besides, she had a few surprises of her own.

  Even though she suffered from bouts of self-doubt, Devin knew her way around the courtroom. She'd learned it by doing Trent Ballard's job, working for Aaron McCandliss prosecuting cases in Nassau County. She also knew that the system was on her side. Even before O. J., it had been getting harder and harder to get juries to put people behind bars.

  She blamed it on TV. Starting with Perry Mason, television had continually raised the bar of reasonable doubt until virtually every juror in America walked into the courtroom expecting to take part in an hour-long drama. They wanted a smoking gun, surprise witnesses, fingerprints, and loose ends tied up so neatly during closing arguments that the defendant fell to his knees and begged for mercy.

  Devin knew what it was like going to court expecting to fight a losing battle with the last six episodes of Law and Order. That's why she liked the defense side better. In the end, it was much easier. All she had to do was come up with excuses and change the subject, and the way a good defense attorney did that was by putting someone else on trial. It really didn't matter who--the victim, the police, the stepfather who sexually abused the defendant as a child, or that mythic figure, the other guy, who conceivably could have done it.

  Until tonight Devin had been feeling mildly guilty about her plan to use a variation of this oft-used ploy, but after what she'd been through tonight at the hands of the Hightowers, she no longer felt any qualms. Instead, she smiled to herself as she finished unscrewing the lug nuts and dropped them into her pocket so that she'd be able to find them later.

  With a grunt of effort, she got down and grabbed either side of the flat and pulled it toward her until it came off. As she dragged it back to the trunk she was pleased to see that the storm seemed to be easing up. She might make it home yet. Working up a sweat, she pulled out the spare and propped it up against the rear bumper while she heaved the flat back into the trunk.

  Whether it was the impact of the flat or a gust of wind, Devin couldn't tell, but somehow, something sent the spare tire rolling. Before she could react, it had picked up speed and was heading down the incline toward the ravine. Devin took off after it. She hadn't come this far to spend the rest of her night waiting for a tow truck.

  She never heard the explosion. She only felt the impact. It picked her up and knocked her flat in practically the same instant. Instinctively, she rolled away from the blast and in doing so she managed to catch one last glimpse of her faithful Toyota, now completely engulfed in flames, shooting up into the air like a rocket on the Fourth of July.

  The man known only as Stefan wiped the last traces of clown makeup from his face. Even after it was gone it left behind a ghostly pallor that seemed to accentuate the cadaverous hollows of his face. For the few who had seen it and subsequently been permitted to live, it was not an easy face to forget.

  A dark scar, crescent-shaped and deep, glistened high on his left cheekbone. As far as the tall man was concerned, it was little consolation that the one responsible had been made to pay with his life. Anonymity was highly prized in his profession and his vertiginous height already presented a formidable challenge. But he managed. The business with the makeup and the wig was just one of many methods he employed.

  Still, he disliked the way the makeup caused his face to itch and he was grateful that his next appointment required no disguise. He checked his watch--a Rolex he'd taken off a still-warm corpse--and noted with satisfaction that he was still three minutes ahead of schedule. In his world, staying in front of the curve meant staying alive. In a few days he would have more money than he'd ever dreamed of and he fully intended on living long enough to spend it.

  He closed his laptop and slid it into its specially designed leather case. No doubt about it, the Internet had been a tremendous boon to entrepreneurs of every kind, not just booksellers and pornography peddlers. For a hard man used to hard places, it had opened up a whole new way of life, a world of luxury infinitely preferable to the one he'd had in places like Angola and Afghanistan where he'd been sent to learn his trade.

  He slung the computer case over his shoulder and gathered up the rest of his equipment--a black leather carpenter's bag, reminiscent of the ones doctors used to carry in the days they still made house calls, and the small plastic cooler. As he bent over, the 9mm that was shoved deep into the waistband of his pants pressed against one hip. He considered it unlikely that he'd be needing it tonight, but complications inevitably arose and it was best to be prepared.

  He turned and took one last look around the room. Even though he'd worn surgical gloves, he mentally reviewed each surface he'd touched and subsequently wiped clean. This was, for the tall man, a form of spiritual discipline, like prayer. Satisfied, he made his way toward the door, pausing long enough to pick up the surgical scrubs and bright red theatrical wig he'd bundled neatly into the plastic drop cloth and left inside the door.

  He turned the key in the dead bolt and worked it in between the folds of the plastic, slowing his step ever so slightly to deposit the entire bundle down the chute that fed the incinerator in the basement. When he got to the end of the hall he pushed the elevator button and whistled soundlessly between his teeth, his lips spread into something that might conceivably be construed as a smile. He was looking forward to the rest of his evening.

  Julia Hightower slowly peeled her cheek from the kitchen table and was horrified to discover that she was not merely awake, but sober. It was a condition that she took immediate steps to rectify. Shedding the dish towels that had somehow, inexplicably, come to rest across her shoulders, she strode to the refrigerator with a single-mindedness of purpose and poured herself a drink. She knocked it back so fast that it ended up giving her a brain freeze just like the ones she used to get as a girl back in Texas when she ate her ice cream cone too fast.

  "You've come a long way, baby," she said, toasting her reflection in the dark glass of the kitchen window, and poured herself another. There had been a time when Julia had liked to drink, when she'd savored the icy liquor and the way it gradually made her feel all lit up from within. Now when she drank she barely tasted it. All she wanted was oblivion. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to blot out the thing that she was most desperate to forget--the fact that she was on trial for a murder she didn't commit.

  At least she was pretty sure she hadn't killed Arthur. What with her daily river of gin, things did have a tendency to slip her mind. Even so, she was pretty sure it
was something she'd remember, if not the actual killing, then at least the effort it must have taken to maneuver the inert bulk of her dead husband into the freezer. It had been years since she'd lifted anything heavier than a martini glass.

  Besides, Julia was the passing-out kind of drunk, not the blacking-out kind--with only one or two notable exceptions. The regrettable episode with the gardener sprang to mind. . . .

  Julia drained her glass in an effort to drown the memory. Drinking might not change the past, but if you drank enough, it was possible to achieve a delicious numbness toward the future.

  Of course, Julia Hightower had no intention of spending even ten minutes in jail, much less the years and years it would take the State of New York to work up sufficient energy to execute her. She wasn't willing to do it even if it meant saving the necks of her miserable children. Julia had reached an age where she had few illusions and she'd long come to terms with the fact that she'd been a lousy wife and an even worse mother. In fact, the only thing she could think of that she was good at--besides drinking--was keeping secrets. Arthur, more than anyone, had come to appreciate her talent, but if he were still alive even he would profess to be mystified by her silence on the subject of the pearls.

  So much had been made of that damned necklace. Julia smiled in spite of herself, imagining the looks on all their faces when she told them that the pearls that had been found clutched in her dearly departed husband's dead hand weren't hers. It just proved that once a woman was past a certain age nobody bothered to look at her anymore. She'd worn her pearls the day before Thanksgiving when she'd driven into the city to have lunch with Joe Kellogg. The pearls in the freezer had to be one of the other strands, one of three identical necklaces Arthur had brought home as gifts in one of his intermittent bouts of generosity. He'd given one to Julia, one to Marilyn, and the third to Morgan, who'd doubtless told Sissy that he'd purchased them for her himself.

  Of course, all of Arthur's gifts were tainted. Jewelry from Arthur meant only one thing--he was trying to make amends for another of his sordid affairs. In the simple arithmetic that passed for Arthur's moral code, jewelry--provided it was expensive enough--evened the score. Over the years it had required a lot of evening. The safe behind the bookcase in the library was the exact same size as the one at Tiffany's and very nearly as full. Not that any of it gave her any pleasure. What beauty could there be in a diamond or an emerald if all it represented was yet another in a seemingly endless succession of bimbos?

  She didn't want to think about what kind of indiscretion had merited three necklaces. Or maybe it was just that he'd finally found a jeweler willing to give him a quantity discount. By the time he came home with the pearls Julia was genuinely past caring. But that was a hard concept to explain to someone who'd never had the pleasure of being married to a cheat like Arthur. Ironically, it was his infidelities that convinced her that she hadn't killed him. After all, if she'd been capable of murder, she would have been a widow long ago.

  She drained her glass and poured herself another. She'd have killed him the first time she found him in bed with the baby-sitter, or that time she'd wandered into the study and found him behind his desk with a beatific smile upon his face. It wasn't until she happened to notice a single stiletto heel protruding from beneath the desk that she discovered the true source of his happiness--a fifteen-year-old hooker he'd picked up on his way home from the city the way another man might have stopped for a six-pack of beer.

  Of course, that was nothing compared to the time she'd been playing bridge at the Club and that pretty black girl showed up, heavily pregnant, and explained to Julia and her scandalized friends that she was carrying Arthur's baby. Julia wondered what had become of her--and the child. No doubt Joe Kellogg had made some kind of arrangement.

  The thought of Joe Kellogg brought Julia's own attorney to mind. Devin McGee. What sort of name was Devin anyway? What were these mothers thinking? But that was beside the point. The truth is, whenever Julia gave any thought to her attorney (which admittedly was seldom) she felt the teeniest little twinge of guilt. It was too bad so much depended on her being less than frank with Ms. McGee.

  Not that she spent much time worrying about the outcome of the trial. She laid her head back down on the kitchen table, feeling the world slipping deliciously away like a gently receding tide. Even if she didn't manage to drink herself to death, for a woman of Julia's means there would always be other avenues of escape. . . .

  Trent Ballard raced around the apartment, hurrying to get everything ready. The minute he'd hung up the phone he'd put away his trial notes, tidied up the apartment, put a bottle of champagne on ice, fluffed the pillows on the couch, and brushed his teeth. He was just about to drop a blanket over the top of Bucks cage when he heard the doorbell ring.

  "Life is chock-full of surprises," he thought to himself as he stopped in the bathroom to check his hair in the mirror one last time. "Some of them more pleasant than others."

  He opened the door and stepped back to let Marilyn Hightower pass. She was dressed for the storm in a floor-length sable coat, and the flakes of snow that clung to the spectacular tumble of her hair glistened in the soft light. Trent's heart hammered in his chest with anticipation. If anything, it seemed to get worse every time.

  Marilyn swept into the apartment and cast her eyes imperiously around the room. Ballard felt his throat constrict. It really was amazing, he thought to himself, that a woman who carried herself so regally should have such gutter appetites in bed. No doubt, the contrast was part of the appeal, as was the fact that the woman was practically insatiable. There was nothing she wouldn't do and nobody she wouldn't do it with. Trent would have to pace himself.

  Without uttering a word Marilyn Hightower reached for her throat and began slowly to unfasten the buttons of her coat, one after another until finally the priceless fur slid down her body to the floor. Underneath she was dressed only in fishnet stockings that stopped at mid-thigh and high black leather boots with four-inch heels. Her breasts were absolute perfection, round alabaster globes that haunted his every waking hour.

  Eagerly he took a step toward the rabbit's cage, anxious to drop the blanket on Buck so that he would be free to give Marilyn and her breasts the attention they deserved.

  "Don't," she commanded in a husky whisper. "You know I like it when he watches."

  Janie Powell was so tired she could have lain down on the restaurant floor and happily gone to sleep. It may not have been as comfortable as her bed at home, but she knew for a fact that it was every bit as clean. She'd just finished scrubbing it down herself, proud of the fact that Jaksnakshak was tidy, spotless, and nearly ready for business. All that was left was for Jack to bring up one last case of frozen chicken patties from the big freezer in the basement and they could finally go home.

  As much as she hated to admit it, her pregnancy was starting to slow her down. She was doing everything she could to hide her exhaustion from Jack, but she wasn't sure how long she was going to be able to keep it up. Her mother kept telling Janie that she needed to stay off of her feet, that she needed to save her energy for after the baby came, but rest was a luxury that Janie couldn't afford right now. Later, after the damned trial was over . . .

  Maybe she would just close her eyes and rest her head on the table for a minute. She was about to shut her eyes when she suddenly sat bolt upright, instantly awake, her incredulous gaze fixed on the street just beyond the plate-glass window.

  "Jack!" she called out. "Come here quick!" The alarm in her voice brought her husband from the basement at a run, his face full of concern.

  "What is it, honey? Are you okay? Is it the baby?"

  She shook her head and pointed.

  "Look," she said.

  "Look where?"

  "There, under the streetlight. Can't you see?"

  "Well I'll be damned," exclaimed Jack, taking a step back in surprise.

  "It's a naked man," declared Janie incredulously. "A naked white man."
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  "What's he doing outside in the snow?" demanded Jack, reaching up to grab his parka off the hook. "There must be something wrong with his head."

  "I don't know about that," countered Janie as she continued staring through the glass at the trail of bloody footprints in the snow. "It looks to me as if the problem is his feet."

  The sign above the loading dock said mcginty's meats-- wholesale only. The tall man parked his anonymous rental next to a white-paneled van with New Jersey plates. It was the only other vehicle in sight, and judging from the scant dusting of snow that had only just begun accumulating on its windshield, it hadn't been parked here for very long. Stefan hoped for John's sake that he'd managed to get everything ready in time.

  He left the laptop in the car. If some hapless thief should be unlucky enough to try to steal it, he'd be in for a nasty surprise. Booby traps were another of the tall man's specialties.

  Carrying the cooler and his black leather satchel, Stefan climbed the concrete steps to the loading dock. Before he could even raise his hand to knock, the door swung open. John was still dressed in the vest and bow tie that he'd worn behind the bar at the Sweeney Hotel. From the look on his face it was obvious he couldn't wait to get out of there.

  "Who picked this place?" he asked as the tall man stamped his feet on the scarred floor to get some of the snow off. "It gives me the creeps."

  "Did you follow all of my instructions?" demanded the other man brusquely. He did not care for using operatives not of his own choosing, but it had been imperative that they have someone on the inside at the Sweeney, and there hadn't been enough time to bring in one of his own men.