By Reason of Insanity (48 page)

Bo waved Quinn inside and managed a half smile. "I was going to ask if you wanted a drink," he said.

Quinn held the remainder of his six-pack aloft. "BYOB." He slid into the easy chair on the opposite side of the room from Bo, his legs sprawled out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He popped another beer.

"I'm not testifying tomorrow," Quinn announced. "I'm not testifying ever. Not about my brother-in-law's death anyway."

Bo regarded Quinn with curiosity, as if trying to figure out whether this was the beer talking or Quinn's actual decision.

"And that stuff I told you in the conference room--" Quinn halfheartedly motioned toward Bo--"that's attorney-client privilege. Take it to your grave."

"Not necessarily," replied Bo, his face stern and indecipherable. "I told you I couldn't represent you and Catherine at the same time. My first obligation is to her. I never agreed to be your attorney."

Quinn sat up a little straighter in the chair. "Meaning what?"

"I've got to do what's best for Catherine." Marc Boland spoke slowly, condescendingly. "My duty to the client comes first." He picked up a black remote and pushed a button. Blinds started descending on the tinted windows all around the salon. "But don't worry, Quinn; I'm not going to put you on the stand. Our client is insane. This bizarre vision that triggered your guilty conscience doesn't change that."

Quinn took another swig. "You're quite the actor, Bo. All that sanctimonious, high-sounding lawyer talk; your self-righteous sneer. You think you're better than me?"

Bo narrowed his eyes but didn't answer.

"I think we're a lot more alike than you'd care to admit," Quinn said. He set his beer down and straightened up in his chair, his feigned intoxication instantly gone. It was time for some
real
cross-examination.

"Did you love her, Bo? Did you love Sherri McNamara?"

99

Quinn sucked in a breath, stood up, and put his hands in his pockets. He started pacing as he zeroed in on the man sitting on the couch, his former co-counsel, now prime suspect number one.

Quinn shook his head in scorn. "I must be slipping, Bo. It took me too long to see it. You worked in the Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney's office when Paul Donaldson was prosecuted. You were young and idealistic, assisting victims who testified. You and Sherri McNamara got to know each other, maybe even became lovers." Quinn spoke with the sharp edge that characterized his cross-examinations.

"When your colleagues lost that case and Sherri killed herself, you started plotting your revenge."

Bo leaned back on the couch and chuckled. "You're pathetic, Quinn. Representing insane clients has made you start to think like them."

Quinn ignored the comment. "You waited. Months turned into years, but you could never get her out of your mind. You finally decided the time was right. You picked some random victims first, just to throw police off the trail: the Carvers, defense lawyers who represented rapists--something you'd never do--and Clarence Milburn, a rapist who beat the rap. But all you really cared about was Paul Donaldson and his lawyer, Rex Archibald."

Quinn spoke faster now, watching for a crack in Bo's unnerving veneer. Quinn took his hands out of his pockets and began gesturing. "You didn't have the heart to actually kill the Carvers or Milburn, so you kidnapped their kids and placed them on the black market, making sure the kidnappings coincided with times and places when Reverend Pryor was in town. He was your first scapegoat. And then, a stroke of luck."

Quinn smiled, placing a palm on the back of the easy chair, a pose he might strike in the courtroom. It was classic Quinn Newberg--disguise gut-wrenching nervousness with a show of false bravado. "Catherine O'Rourke had visions. Maybe she picked up some vibes from you; I don't know. But you used it as an opportunity to frame her. You planted DNA evidence on the envelope and the bloody paper towels and methohexital in the trash." Quinn paused, frustrated that Boland showed absolutely no sign of concern. "How am I doing so far?"

"Sit down, Quinn," Bo said. "Have another beer. You're starting to lose it, my friend. Too much pressure. Too much work." He stood and took a step toward the sliding doors that led to the deck, placing himself between those doors and Quinn. Bo seemed larger than he did in court, his neck muscles tightening.

Quinn needed him to crack. Just one incriminating statement. The miniature microphone taped to Quinn's chest was capturing every word, transmitting it to Billy Long, waiting out on the pier.

"I gave you a chance to save Catherine's skin by putting me on the stand," Quinn said, "but you refused to jump at it. Why? Because the last thing you want is for Catherine O'Rourke to change her plea to not guilty and actually get acquitted. If that happens, the cops will reopen the investigation and look for the real killer."

Boland didn't flinch. The face of stone was frozen in a half smirk, as if he knew something Quinn didn't know--a pair of aces for his down cards. Quinn looked Boland over again, searching for any bulges that might signify a gun. Quinn's only hope was to keep talking, to somehow draw Boland out.

"The ironic thing is that the person you set up as the scapegoat is the one who nailed you," Quinn said, forcing his own half smile. "I told you that Catherine saw a vision of Marcia Carver pointing at me, but that's not what she saw. Marcia Carver was actually pointing at
you
. How long do you think it will be until Catherine sees another vision with the location of Rex Archibald's body or the electric chair you used on Donaldson? You can't explain away these visions, Bo. You know it as well as I do. The woman has a gift."

Instead of reacting, a very composed Marc Boland started slowly approaching Quinn, a linebacker just before the blitz. "All that time in the Vegas sun has fried your brain," he said.

"The problem you didn't anticipate," Quinn replied, taking a small step back, "was that Billy Long would figure this out by squeezing some folks who are involved in the seedy business of selling babies. I talked to him less than two hours ago at the airport. We've got you dead to rights."

Even this did nothing to knock the confident look from Marc Boland's face.

"So here's the deal," Quinn said. "You've heard my confession about shooting my brother-in-law. But you've got your own issues."

Boland took one last ominous step, bringing him an arm's length away.

"We swear each other to secrecy," Quinn continued. "Get the women declared insane. They get a little treatment, we get--"

Bo lunged, and Quinn ducked to his left, sliding away from his attacker's grip. Quinn grabbed the first thing he could get his hand on, a glass bottle at the bar, and cracked it against the side of Boland's head.

The blow staggered Boland, but the big man didn't go down. Desperate now, Quinn scrambled up the steps to the pilothouse area. "Get in here, Billy!
Now!?
"

He headed for another set of steps that would lead to the upper deck. From there he could leap to the dock, maybe dive into the water. But Boland grabbed Quinn's leg and dragged him back down to the pilothouse. He spun Quinn around and drove a right fist into his ribs, knocking the air out of him, doubling him over. A left uppercut to the jaw sent Quinn crashing into the galley sink.

Quinn crumpled to the floor. Boland stood over him like a raging bull.

But instead of trembling, Quinn managed a painful smile. In the shadows behind Boland, gun drawn like a pro, stood the rounded silhouette of a man who had been recording every sound tonight, every word that had been spoken.

"I thought you'd never get here," Quinn gasped.

Breathing hard, Marc Boland stepped aside. "Neither did I."

Billy Long's gun stayed leveled at Quinn's forehead.

"I'd like you to meet an old friend of mine," Boland said, signaling toward Billy. "From the Richmond police department."

Quinn fought to catch a breath, struggling to understand what was happening. He had been transmitting this conversation to an ally of Marc Boland's?

"Known to some," Boland continued, "as the Avenger of Blood." Boland's face lit up with a demonic grin. "I'm not the Avenger you thought I was, Vegas. I'm the judge and jury."

100

Billy Long steered Quinn down the narrow steps that led below deck; Boland stayed in the pilothouse area. Billy pushed Quinn into the guest suite, which had been converted into a small study with an ornate desk in the middle of the room and bookshelves along the wall behind it. While holding Quinn at gunpoint, Billy pushed a button on a remote, and a mirrored wall in front of the desk slid aside, exposing a solid wooden chair bolted to the floor. The chair had metal handcuffs built into the ends of both armrests and ankle shackles at the bottom of the chair legs, one thick leather strap for a seat belt, and another for a neck restraint.

"You guys are sick," Quinn said.

"Have a seat," Billy responded, shoving Quinn toward the chair.

Quinn considered his options--all bad--and reluctantly did as he was told.

"Slide your right wrist into the handcuff," Billy said.

Long had the gun trained on Quinn's forehead and stood just out of arm's reach. The man had an unstable look in his eyes that made him seem like a different person from the one Quinn had met at the airport just hours earlier. Quinn knew he couldn't make a play to escape right now, but if he put his wrist into the handcuff and cinched it down, the game would be over.

"Billy, you're in deep on this, but I know you're not the mastermind here. Work with me, and I'll take your case to the authorities--"

Whack!

In a movement too quick for Quinn to avoid, Billy pistol-whipped Quinn across the cheek, opening a gash with a blow that felt like it shattered the cheekbone. Shards of pain engulfed Quinn's face, spreading like the spiderweb pattern of a cracked windshield. Dazed, Quinn turned back toward Billy and felt warm blood dripping down his cheek. He touched the spot with his left hand.

"Put your wrist in the handcuff," Billy demanded.

Quinn did so, cinching down the handcuff with his free hand. Then, at Billy's order, Quinn placed his bloody left hand in the other handcuff, and Billy locked it down. After Billy had locked both ankles into the metal shackles, he pulled the leather straps around Quinn's waist and neck and cinched them tight. Quinn felt blood oozing in small rivulets down his neck and soaking into the collar of his shirt.

"Do I get a last cigarette?" Quinn asked.

"Always the comedian," said Billy. "The judge will be back soon. Let's see how good your sense of humor is then."

Quinn heard the engines on the big yacht begin to rumble. They would be leaving the dock soon. This might be Quinn's last chance.

"Hey!" he yelled at the top of his voice. The pain from his cheek intensified. "Down here! Somebody call the police! They're going to kill me!"

Billy shook his head and pulled a gag out of the closet, jamming it into Quinn's mouth as the lawyer yelled. Billy tied a bandanna tight around the back of Quinn's head, holding in the gag and putting more pressure on the cheekbone, while Quinn resisted with all his might.

"Nobody can hear you anyway, Quinn," Billy said after he had tied the gag tight. "This is more for my own peace of mind."

With the gag in his mouth, Quinn stopped trying to make noise. He could tell from the cold look in Billy's eyes that the man was determined to complete his task.

Billy checked Quinn's restraints one last time, surveyed his captive with something that approached disdain, and left the room. Quinn sensed movement beneath him, the maneuvering of the boat as it left the dock, and then the acceleration that signaled the beginning of the trip toward the wide expanse of the Chesapeake Bay, maybe even the Atlantic Ocean. His cheek and shoulder throbbed with pain. Soon, that would be the least of his worries.

101

Quinn realized he was probably sitting in the same chair used to electrocute Paul Donaldson. He flashed back to the court testimony--Donaldson fighting against the restraints, his skin bright red, eyes bulging out, sparks flying from the electrodes on his skull like a scene from a horror movie.

Quinn's mind paraded out other images as well--the most gruesome executions described in the death penalty cases he had studied. The electrical current literally cooked internal organs and heated skin to temperatures that required fifteen minutes of cool-down before guards could touch the executed prisoner. Blood literally boiled. Soon, that could be him.

Quinn used every ounce of willpower to banish those thoughts. Survival would require focus and clear thinking, not panic. There would be time enough to dwell on the pain once Marc Boland started the current. For now, Quinn needed a plan.

A few minutes later, Boland entered the office and sat at the desk, his boyish face stern and judgmental. He raked his hand through his hair and gave Quinn a disapproving shake of the head.

"Don't look at me that way," he told Quinn. "You know the system sucks."

Quinn made a noise, indistinguishable because of the gag.
Don't I even get a chance to defend myself?

"You were never supposed to get caught up in this, Vegas. This wasn't about you. You're actually a darned good defense lawyer. Too good, maybe."