Eye of the Beholder (28 page)

“You, a guy who’d practiced criminal law his whole life,” Stoletti punches, “suddenly given responsibility for millions of dollars of civil litigation for BentleyCo.”

I sit back in my chair and take a moment. My insides are on fire. I feel the sweat on my forehead, my heart pounding against my shirt.

In my law practice, I will often counsel people who are targets of a criminal investigation. I give them all the same advice. Don’t talk about the case with anyone. You never know who’s wearing a wire. And if the government calls, don’t say a damn thing to them without me—or some lawyer—present.

The human impulse is to talk, to explain away something that appears to be incriminating. The instinct is also to lie, or if not lie, to massage the truth. Cops and prosecutors count on the vast majority of people succumbing to these basic principles. Federal prosecutors make a living on it. Even if they can’t prove an underlying charge against you, if you abused the truth a little they will get you on that, and use that to flip you, or put you behind bars, for that reason alone.

Resist the impulse, I tell them. Let the government remain suspicious of you. It’s better than being caught in a lie. You can always talk later.

Thing is, I have nothing to hide.

Stoletti is enjoying this. McDermott is trying to read me.

“This,” I tell them, “is bullshit.”

“Another name that’s come up in the investigation,” McDermott says, “Amalia Calderone. That name ring familiar to you?”

I shake my head no.

“You never made her acquaintance?” Stoletti asks.

“It doesn’t ring a bell,” I answer.

“Two nights ago,” McDermott joins, “she was bludgeoned to death. Does
that
ring a bell?”

Bludgeoned.
Bludgeoned.
It doesn’t fit with the second verse’s lyrics. Next up is a straight razor, then a chain saw, then a machete.

“It doesn’t ring a bell,” I repeat. “Should it?”

Stoletti takes the folder from McDermott and produces three eight-by-ten glossies, in color, that she slides across the table.

I take one of the photos and a groan escapes my throat. It’s a close-up of her face, turned to the right. A wound to the right temple, and then massive contusions on the top of the skull. A violent death. She was beaten severely. Whoever did this enjoyed doing it.

“Molly,” I say. The woman who lured me outside of Sax‘s, when I got jumped and robbed. I look up at the cops. “You don’t honestly think I killed her?”

“You tell me, Counselor,” McDermott says. “Explain to me why your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.”

T
HE SIGN OVER the front of the store says VARTEN’S TOOLS AND CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT, a run-down shack attached to a large lumberyard. A bell rings as Leo walks in. The store is empty, save for the clerk, an old guy behind the counter on the phone. Leo walks up to the counter as he looks over the chain saws attached to the wall.

Leo looks at the clerk, who holds up an index finger to him while he finishes his phone call. Leo drums his fingers as he looks around the store, looking casually, just strolling through the neighborhood, thought you might have a chain saw, yeah. Then his eyes move back to the clerk, and then to the counter behind which the clerk is sitting.

He sees a scrap of paper taped down on the counter, a single word on it: TRIM-METER.

He sucks in his breath. Trim-Meter. Pretend to cough, buy some time.

“Help you, sir?”

Leo nods to the wall. He says the words again:
Chain saw.
He isn’t looking at the clerk when he says it, but he notes the pause, a couple beats too long, long pause—

“Any, uh, any brand in particular?”

Shrug the shoulders, act casual. Like you don’t care.

Look at the man, elderly guy, spotted forehead, tiny neck, seems relieved, he likes the answer—

Leo says the brand the other guy mentioned:
Husky.

“Sure, yeah, sure.” That makes the man even happier, he taps the counter and comes around it, now much more animated, happy, shiny and happy“ ‘Course, the Husky isn’t gonna be the cheapest.”

Follow him to the wall, good, he’s away from the counter, follow up with him, he said
Husky isn’t the cheapest,
ask him what is.

“Cheapest? Honestly, whatever’s oldest.” The man nods to the wall. “Got a Burly 380 that’s good for shrubbery or small trees. Think it’s about ten years old.” He slaps another one. “This here’s a Trim-Meter 220. Has a little wear and tear on it. Probably fifteen years old. These two are my oldest. What do you need it for?”

Same thing the other guy asked.

“Sir, what I mean is, what are you sawing? Shrubs, tree branches, that kind of thing?”

Nod your head yes.

“Give you either one for fifty,” the man says.

Shrug your shoulders, ask him something, say something, say something—

But he doesn’t speak so well.

The man puts a hand on Leo’s arm, like he’s trying to help out someone stupid.

Leo recoils, a sharp pivot to the right.

The man withdraws his hand. His lips part and he breaks eye contact with Leo. He begins to slowly backpedal. “Okay, sir, well—well, I’ll tell you what, I—I might have something in the back that’s cheaper.”

Leo shakes his head.

The man freezes, looks into Leo’s eyes, then over toward the counter—

“Take whatever you want, sir,” he says. “Please.”

He feels a chill. He opens and closes his hands. Looks at the elderly man.

“I wish,” Leo tries. “I wish it—wasn’t me.”

Do it fast, use your hands, no blood,
snap-snap.

Scan the place for cameras. Anyone watching? No time. Drag him through a door that says EMPLOYEES ONLY and arrange some boxes in front of his body, in the corner. Go to the front door and reverse the OPEN sign to CLOSED, go back to the employees’ room and finish up with the man.

Grab the Trim-Meter chain saw from the wall, open the door, the chime bids
Good-bye.
He makes it to the car before the pain in his stomach doubles him over.

 

McDERMOTT LIFTS HIS HEAD off his hand after Paul Riley finishes his story. Stoletti, next to him, is writing down an occasional note, but McDermott likes to observe. When you’re writing, you’re not watching.

Stoletti is taking the lead among the two of them, though if anyone is in the lead here, it’s probably Riley. Stoletti wanted to do the questioning. She has a real thing with Riley.

Way she explained it to McDermott earlier today, a few years back, Riley defended a guy accused of murder, up in the northern suburbs, which fell into the multijurisdictional Major Crimes Unit, where Stoletti worked at the time. Seems Riley took a pretty good piece out of the arresting officer, a guy named Cummings, during the trial.
Took him apart like a cheap model airplane,
was how Stoletti put it. Cummings took a Level One—a single-grade demotion—when Riley’s client was acquitted and someone had to be blamed. Seems Cummings was a mentor to Stoletti, and Stoletti is none too friendly nowadays toward Mr. Paul Riley, Esquire.

McDermott thought Stoletti’s hostility to Riley was amusing before, but now it could be a problem. Because now Paul Riley’s fingerprints were found on the tire iron used to bash in the side of Amalia Calderone’s head.

Riley, who is done with his story, looks at the two cops. Stoletti is writing a note. McDermott just wants to think this through a minute.

“You guys should take this show on the road,” Riley says. “Raise your hand—anyone—if you think for one-tenth of one second that I killed this girl.”

Say this for the guy, he doesn’t back down. But McDermott’s seen the bluster before. He’s seen the look of defiance dissolve into a mask of terror in the blink of an eye.

“So Joel Lightner leaves,” McDermott says. “He thinks you’re about to get lucky and he wants to give you some room. You walk out of the bar with this woman. You think you’re walking her home. You turn down an alley and you get one fresh on the back of the skull. You wake up, no ‘Molly,’ no cash.”

Riley nods.

“You don’t report it. You don’t even tell your buddy Lightner because you’re embarrassed about the whole thing.”

“I felt like an asshole.”

“And you’re saying, this guy must have wrapped your hand around the murder weapon to frame you.”

The police found the tire iron—an L-shaped metal rod with a very bloody lug wrench on the bent end, a prying tip on the other—in the trash, along with Amalia Calderone.

“Either that,” Riley says, “or I’m a killer. What do you think?”

Putting the ball in their court. Riley’s good.

“You admit being intoxicated,” says Stoletti.

A fair point. People do dumb things when they’re drunk.

“I could hardly stand,” Riley answers. “And even if I could, I’m not a violent person. Your true personality comes out when you’re drunk. Like you, Ricki. I’ll bet you’re even more of a raging bitch after a couple pops.”

“Oh, keep
that
attitude up, Riley,” she says.

McDermott suppresses a smile. He’ll have a technician look over the bruise on Riley’s head—the magnitude, the angle—to rule out self-infliction. “What about the hand?” he asks Riley, seeing the bandage near the knuckle.

Riley sighs. “I had to break into my house afterward. He took my keys. I cut my hand on the glass: ”

“You used your hand?”

“I would’ve used the tire iron,” he answers, “but I left it at the crime scene.”

Stoletti doesn’t like the attitude, but McDermott is focusing more on what’s ahead here. This doesn’t work. They have the security tape from Sax’s. Riley was almost stumbling drunk. He was wearing a tuxedo. He had nothing with him. He sure as hell wasn’t walking around with a tire iron. Could be, it was a weapon of opportunity—it was lying in the alley maybe—but it’s hard to imagine anyone in so intoxicated a state pulling it off. And this woman came up to him, not the other way around. Seemed clear from the tape that they were meeting for the first time.

“This woman was a pro, right?” Riley asks them.

Stoletti cocks her head. “Why do you ask?”

Amalia Calderone was a prostitute, the high-class, escort variety. She wouldn’t be the first to be trolling the bar at Sax‘s, late night, which is how she bumped into Riley.

“She seemed like it, in hindsight,” he explains.

“Where’s your tux?” Stoletti asks.

“Dry cleaner’s.” Riley looks at them. “I was lying in a pile of trash, for Christ’s sake. Ask my dry cleaner if there was any blood on it. Other than my own, at least.”

“We will.”

“Good, Ricki. Do that.” Riley stands up. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you take the tire iron and shove it up your ass? I’d be happy to put a fresh pair of fingerprints on there and help you out.”

McDermott raises a hand. “Sit down, Riley. You’re talking pretty good smack for a guy with prints on a murder weapon who was the last person seen with the victim. You know damn well we could arrest you on suspicion right now. Sit,” he repeats, pointing his finger down.

Riley takes a moment, then puts his hands on the table, leaning over toward the detectives. “Same guy,” he says. “Had to be. This isn’t a coincidence. That’s the lead you should be following. Every second you waste trying to make me for this poor woman’s killer is another second he walks around with a straight razor, or a chain saw, or wherever he is in that song.”

McDermott exchanges a look with Stoletti. “Let’s say you’re right,” he says to Riley. “You said it yourself. No razor. No chain saw. No machete. No kitchen knife.” He shrugs. “If this is our offender, why does he deviate from the song?”

Riley shakes his head. He surely doesn’t know, either. “All I can think,” he says, “is this is payback. This guy is taking a personal interest in me. I mean, I’m the damn poster boy for the Terry Burgos prosecution.”

“Yeah,” says McDermott, “but you’re
alive.”

Riley doesn’t have an answer for that. But that’s the key problem here. If it’s the same offender, why did he bypass the poster boy, Riley, and kill the woman with him? And then go to the trouble of wrapping his prints all over the murder weapon?

He thinks of Carolyn Pendry and her explanation of why the offender would go after her daughter:
There’s no worse way to hurt me.
It made sense to McDermott. Hell, the worst way to hurt
him
would be to hurt Grace, his daughter. Maybe the offender took Amalia Calderone for Riley’s girlfriend, tried to hurt Riley the same way he hurt Carolyn, by going after a loved one.

“He wants me involved,” Riley says. “He’s sending me notes. He kills someone walking next to me. He puts my prints on the weapon. He wants me to be a part of this.”

But why? Why does the offender want Riley in on this?

McDermott nods at Riley. “Let a techie check out the wound on your head,” he says. “The hand, too. We’ve got a CAT unit upstairs.”

Riley straightens, smooths out his suit. “You wanna rule out self-infliction.” He laughs. “Okay, sure. And then when the fun and games are over, maybe you guys could solve a crime or two.”

 

 

McDERMOTT TAKES RILEY up to the CAT lab. When he walks back down, Stoletti is still in the interview room. “Something’s not right here,” she says.

McDermott eases into the chair. “You said Riley was helpful at your interview with the professor.”

She agrees with that. “Albany was holding back on me. I didn’t see it. Riley did. Why?” she asks, trailing his thought. “You think it was a song and dance for me?”

McDermott doesn’t know, but it’s a thought. “Riley asked to go along. Hell, he’s the one who gave us the professor’s name.”

“And if he comes on strong with the professor, he looks like he’s trying to get to the bottom of this.” Stoletti seems to warm to the idea. “He’s a smart guy, no doubt about that. But how does Amalia Calderone fit in?”