Beyond Suspicion (25 page)

•

Katrina was crouched low behind the driver’s seat of a Volkswagen Jetta, waiting. The floor mats smelled of spilled beers, and the upholstery bore telltale burn marks of many a dropped joint. She was dressed entirely in black, and with a push of a button the green numbers on her wristwatch glowed in the darkness.

One-fifty A.M., just ten minutes till the end of Theo’s bartending shift at Sparky’s.

Laughter in the parking lot forced her closer to the floor. A typical ending to another “Ladies’ Night,” a totally drunk chick and three horny guys offering to drive her home.
Their
home. It was almost enough to make Katrina jump from the car and spring for cab fare, but she didn’t dare give herself away.

She had a job to do.

From her very first meeting with Vladimir, she’d decided that if it ever came down to a situation of either her or someone else, someone else would get it. But she’d always thought that the “someone else” would be another mob guy. She hadn’t figured on someone like Theo.

A rumbling noise rolled across the parking lot. Katrina could feel the vibration in the floor board. A moment later, diesel fumes were seeping in through the small opening in the passenger side window. She lifted her head just enough to see a huge tractor trailer parked two spaces down. The motor was running, and the fumes kept coming. But the driver was nowhere to be seen. The odor was making her nauseous. She had the sickening sensation that the truck wasn’t going anywhere soon, that the driver had simply climbed inside and started the engine to sleep off his liquor in the comfort of an air-conditioned rig.

The fumes thickened, and she could almost taste the soot in her mouth. A dizzying sensation buzzed through her brain. The noise, the odor, the steady vibration-it all had her desperate for a breath of fresh air, but she forced herself to stay put. The very act of telling herself to tough it out and stay alert was eerily reminiscent of her life in Prague, not the beautiful old city as a whole but the noisy textile mill where she’d worked more than a decade earlier.

Back when her name was Elena, not Katrina.

There, in an old factory that still bore the scars of Hitler’s bombs, the oldest machines ran on diesel fuel, not electricity. The engines were right outside the windows, and even in the dead of winter, enough fumes seeped in through cracks and crevices to give Katrina and her Cuban coworkers chronic coughs, headaches, and dizzy spells. It was just one more hazard in a fourteen-hour workday, six days a week. Katrina had often pushed herself to the verge of blacking out, but the fear of falling perilously onto one of the giant looms around her kept her on her feet. Safety guards and emergency shut-offs were nonexistent, and the machines were unforgiving. Hers was one of the newer ones, about thirty years old. The one beside her was much older, predating the Second World War and constantly breaking down. Each minute, countless meters of thread fed through the giant moving arms. At that rate, you didn’t want to be anywhere near one of those dinosaurs when it popped, and you could only hope to find the energy to duck when a loosened bolt or broken hunk of metal came flying out like shrapnel.

Katrina had prayed for the safety of her coworkers, but she also thanked the Lord that she wasn’t the poor soul working one of those man-eaters. Years later, she still felt guilty about that. One nightmare, in particular, still haunted her. Never would she forget what happened on that cold night in January when machine number eight turned against its master, when her name was still Elena.

•

A loud pop rattled the factory windows, rising above the steady drone of machinery. Instinctively, Elena dived to the floor. One by one, the machines shut down like falling dominoes. A wave of silence fell over the factory, save for the pathetic screams and groans emerging from somewhere behind machine number eight, a tortured soul with a frighteningly familiar voice.

Elena raced across the factory, pushed her way through the small gathering of workers around the accident, and then gasped at the sight. “Beatriz!”

She and her best friend Beatriz had joined Castro’s Eastern Bloc work program together, with plans to defect at the first opportunity. Each had pledged never to leave without the other.

Elena went to her, but Beatriz lay motionless on her side, a thick pool of blood encircling her head. She checked the pulse and found none. She tried to roll Beatriz onto her back, then froze. The left side of her face was gone. A sharp hunk of metal protruded from her shattered eye socket.

“My God, Beatriz!”

The ensuing moments were a blur, her own cries of anguish merging with the memory of Beatriz’s painful screams. Tears flowed, and words came in incoherent spurts. Beatriz never moved. Kneeling at her side, Elena lowered her head and sobbed, only to be ripped away by a team of men with a stretcher.

“It’s too late for that,” she heard someone say. But the men rolled the body onto the stretcher anyway, then hurried for the exit.

Elena followed right behind them, through a maze of machinery, passing one stunned worker after another. The doors flew open, and a blast of cold, winter air pelted her face. They put Beatriz in the back of a van, still on the stretcher. Elena tried to get in with her, but the doors slammed in her face. The tires spun on the icy pavement, then finally found traction. Elena stood ankle-deep in dirty snow as the van pulled away.

In her heart she knew that this was the last she’d see of Beatriz.

She couldn’t move. It was well below freezing, but she was oblivious to the elements. Half a block away she spotted a police car parked at the curb. It seemed like a sign, Beatriz whisked away in an ambulance right past the police. It was time for someone in a position of authority to see the deplorable conditions they worked under.

On impulse, she ran down the icy sidewalk and knocked on the passenger-side window. The officer rolled down the window and said something she didn’t understand.

“Come see,” she said, but her command of the language was still very basic. “The factory. Come see.”

He gave her a confused look. His reply was completely unintelligible, a dialect she’d never heard before. She’d learned Russian as a schoolgirl in Cuba, but there was surprisingly little crossover to Czech.

“What are you doing, girl?”

She turned and saw her foreman. He was a stocky, muscular man with extraordinarily bad teeth for someone as young as he was.

“Leave me alone. I want him to see what happened.”

He said something to the cop that made him laugh. Then he grabbed Elena by the arm and started back toward the factory.

“Let go of me!”

“Are you stupid? The police can’t help you.”

“Then I’ll talk to someone else.”

“Yes, I know you will. We’re going to see the boss man right now.” His grip tightened on her arm till it hurt. He took her down a dark alley that ran alongside the factory. The pavers were frozen over with spilled sludge and dirty run-off from the roofs, and about every third step her feet slipped out from under her. At the end of the alley were two glowing orange dots, which finally revealed themselves as the taillights of a Renault.

Her foreman opened the door, shoved Elena in the back seat, climbed in beside her, and closed the door. The motor was running, and a driver was behind the wheel in the front seat.

“This is her,” said the foreman.

“Hello, Elena,” the driver said.

It was dark inside, and from the back seat she could see only the back of his head. “Hello.”

“I heard there was an accident with your friend. I came as soon as I could.”

“What do you care?”

They made eye contact in the rearview mirror, but she could see only his eyes. “Do you think it makes me happy when someone gets hurt in my factory?”

Elena didn’t answer, though she was taken aback to realize that she was talking to the owner of the factory.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I know it’s dangerous in there.”

“Then why don’t you fix it?”

“Because that’s the way it’s always been.”

“And you can’t do anything about it?”

“I can’t. But you can.”

“Me?”

“You can make things safer, at least for yourself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s very simple. This is a big factory. There are many jobs. Some are dangerous. Some are very dangerous. Some are not dangerous at all.”

“Seems to me that the women are always getting the most dangerous jobs.”

“Not all women. Some get the dangerous jobs, some get the not-so-dangerous jobs. It all depends.”

“On what?”

“On which part of your body you want to sacrifice.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Machine number eight should be up and running in a day or two. You’ll be taking over Beatriz’s spot.”

“What?”

He shrugged, as if it were none of his doing. “Or I suppose I could tell your foreman to assign it somebody else. It’s up to you.”

“What choice are you giving me?”

He turned partly around, as if to look at her, but his face was blocked by the headrest. He spoke in a low serious voice that chilled her. “Everything happens for a reason. No decision is meaningless. We all determine our own fate.”

“Like Beatriz?”

“Like you. And like hundreds of other girls much smarter than your friend.”

She could have smashed his face in, but an Eastern Bloc prison was no place for an eighteen-year-old girl from Cuba.

“Sleep on it,” he said. “But we need your answer.”

The foreman opened the door and pulled her out into the alley. A cold wind swept by her, stinging her cheeks. She stood in the darkness and watched as the car backed out of the alley.

She brushed away a tear that had frozen to her eyelash, but she felt only anger.

You pig,
she thought as the car pulled away.
How dare you hide your evil behind such twisted views of fate
.

•

The lock clicked; a key was in the car door. Katrina cleared her mind of memories and sharpened her focus. The door opened, but the dome light didn’t come on. She’d taken care of that in advance to reduce the risk of detection.

Theo climbed inside and shut the door.

She was close enough to smell his cologne, even feel the heat from his body. Her pulse quickened as she rose on one knee. With a gloved hand, she guided the.22-caliber pistol toward the back of the headrest.

Theo inserted the key.

As the ignition fired she shoved the muzzle of her silencer against the base of his skull. “Don’t make a move.”

The engine hummed. His body stiffened. “Katrina?”

“Shut up. Don’t make this any worse than it already has to be.”

•

Jack went into the office as if it were a normal day. He was following the same advice he’d given countless clients living under the cloud of a grand-jury investigation: If you want to keep your sanity, keep your routine.

He was doing pretty well, until a certain hand-delivery turned his stomach.

It was a letter he’d expected but dreaded. As a prosecutor, he’d sent many of them, and he could have recited the language from memory.
This letter is to inform you that you have been identified as a target of a grand jury investigation. A “target” means that there is substantial evidence to link you to a commission of a crime. Blah, blah, blah. Very truly yours, Benno Jancowitz III.
The only surprise was that Benno Jancowitz was “the Third.”

Who in his right mind would keep that name around for three generations?

Line one rang, and then line two. Jack reached for the phone, then reconsidered. The target letter would surely push the media to another level of attack. He let his secretary answer. Screening calls was just one of the many ways in which Maria was worth her weight in gold.

He answered her on the intercom. “How bad is it?”

“I told Channel 7 you weren’t here. But line two is Theo Knight’s lawyer.”

“Thanks. I’ll take it.” With a push of the button Rick Thompson was on the line. Jack skipped the hello and said, “I presume you’re calling about the target letter.”

“Not exactly.”

“Theo didn’t get one?”

“I don’t know if he did or not. I can’t find him.”

“What?”

“We were supposed to meet in my office three hours ago. He didn’t show. I was wondering if you might know anything about that.” Rick’s words were innocent enough, but his tone was accusatory.

“No, I don’t know anything about that,” said Jack, a little defensive.

“I called him at home, called him at work, tried his cell, and beeped him five times. Not a word back from him.”

“That’s weird.”

“I thought so, too. Which is why I’m calling you. I was serious about what I said last night at Rosa’s house. I appreciate Rosa bringing me into this case. But just because she’s my friend doesn’t mean I’m going to treat you and Theo any differently than another client and codefendant. If I’m Theo’s lawyer, I’m looking out for his best interest.”

“I don’t quibble with that one bit. All I’m saying is that if you can’t reach your client, it’s none of my doing.”

“Okay. I’m not making any accusations. It just concerns me that all of a sudden he seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.”

“That concerns me, too.”

“If you hear from him, tell him to call his lawyer.”

“Sure.”

As he said good-bye and hung up, his gaze settled on the target letter atop his desk. It had been upsetting enough for him, and he could only imagine how it might have hit a guy who’d spent four years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit.

Jack faced the window, looked out across the treetops, and found himself wondering:
How big was the “if” in “if you hear from him
”?

Jack turned back to his desk and speed-dialed Rosa. Her secretary put him straight through. It took only a moment to recount the conversation with Theo’s lawyer.

Rosa asked, “You don’t think he split, do you?”

“Theo? Heck, no. He doesn’t run from anything or anybody.”

“You really believe that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why?”

“I represented him for four years.”

“That was for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Are you saying he killed Jessie Merrill?”

“Not necessarily. Just that people naturally draw inferences when the accused makes a run for it.”

“Nobody said he’s running.”

“Then where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You sure?”

He paused, not sure what she was asking. “Do you think I told him to run?”

“Of course not. But maybe Theo thinks you did.”

“You’re losing me.”

“The conversation you had at Tobacco Road is a perfect example. You told him that Jessie Merrill threatened you, and he took it upon himself to go threaten her right back. Maybe this is the same situation. You could have said something that made him come to the conclusion that you’d be better off if he just hit the highway.”

“I haven’t spoken to Theo since he and Rick Thompson walked out the front door of your house.”

“Then maybe his sudden disappearance has nothing to do with you at all. Maybe it’s all about what’s best for him.”

“Theo didn’t kill her. He wouldn’t. Especially not in my own house.”

“Think about it, Jack. What was the first thing you said to me when we talked about Jessie’s body in your house?”

He didn’t answer right away, though he recalled it well. “I said, if I was going to kill an old girlfriend, would I really do it in my own house?”

“It’s a logical defense. You think Theo was smart enough to give it to you?”

“It’s not that smart. I said the same thing to Sam Drayton at the U.S. attorney’s office. He tore it to shreds, asked me if I thought it up before or after I killed Jessie Merrill.”

“Theo’s not a prosecutor.”

“Theo’s not a lot of things, and he’s especially not a murderer.”

“I hope you’re right. But if you’re going to look for him, which I know you are, let me ask you this. You call him a friend, but how well do you really know Theo Knight?”

Jack’ first reaction was anger. Serving time for a murder he didn’t commit had forever put Theo in a hole. But he was no saint, either, and Jack knew that.

“Jack, you still there?”

“Yeah.”

“Honestly. How well do you know him?”

“Do we ever really know
anyone
?”

“That’s a cop-out.”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know what I find out.” He said good-bye and hung up.