Ice Shear (29 page)

“Which your lawyer's explaining right now. You'll no doubt be released soon, but you can bet that you're going to lose your concealed carry permit
tout de suite.
” The last words were lost as the door groaned open. A state trooper waited on the other side, as casual as one could be in a military stance. “You need any help with the Merrimen?” the trooper asked as Dave scribbled his name on several pieces of paperwork. “New Hampshire says they're pretty small time, and they don't cross state lines that often.”

“They're afraid of Vermont,” I said. “They might cross the border and have their choppers magically transformed into Volvos.”

He laughed. “Actually, I might be a little afraid of Vermont, too.”

The trooper craned so far forward his windburned neck extended out of his gray collar. The second he saw the congresswoman and her husband he snapped back, like a turtle into a shell.

“Here's his property, his clothes.” He handed a bag to me. “His vehicle is at the trooper barracks near Potsdam, and will be transported tomorrow. Pictures of the whole thing from the chassis on up will be e-mailed shortly.”

We covered Marty's head as he ducked out of the vehicle, and he kept his face tucked as he approached, chin touching his chest, arms cuffed behind him, dressed in orange scrubs. Crossing the threshold into the jail, he looked up and spotted the Brouillettes. He stopped for a moment, and then lunged. I dropped his clothes so I could grip him with both hands.

“You?” Marty cried. “I knew you killed her, you sick fuck.”

“Bastard!” Brouillette's shoulder pressed against the bars as he jammed his finger at Marty. “I'm in here because of you, your family. You people foul everything you touch. You're disgusting.”

Marty tried to break away, but Dave and I held him tight, letting him thrash until the fight left him.

“Marty, Brouillette was brawling in public. With your father,” Dave said. “Who is, by the way, out front.”

“Of course.” Marty shook his head and laughed bitterly at the ceiling. This close, I could see him swallow, choking. With nothing to slump against, he collapsed in on himself.

“C'mon, bucko,” Dave said, snagging up the bag of Marty's property and pulling him along, Marty's feet half sliding and half dragging against the blue-flecked linoleum.

“Marty,” the congresswoman called as we got to the squad room door, “why did you run? If you didn't kill my daughter, Marty, why leave?”

“Ma'am,” he said, but didn't turn around, “no offense, but you have no idea. They've got me tagged as some scumfuck, and if I even breathe wrong, they roll me up. I ran to get away from the cops, and my parents, and, no offense, to get away from you.”

Marty battered his way forward, an unstoppable force. He ran smack into an immovable object.

“Baby!” His mother threw her arms around him.

“Mom,” and he placed his forehead on her shoulder, like Lucy did when she was up past her bedtime.

Dave untwisted Linda from her son. “Ma'am, if you could give me some room.”

She let go. As she did, Jackie put Marty in a tight squeeze, locking his arms behind him.

One side of Marty's mouth quirked down. “Uh, hi, Jackie.”

She pulled away, blushing. “We're practically related.”

The only one who hadn't rushed up for a family reunion was Zeke Jelickson, who lingered near the front entrance. He stared down his son. Marty wouldn't play, looking at the fans bolted to the ceiling in the corners, the recycling bin next to Lorraine's desk, and the line of doors; everywhere but his father. Zeke's lawyer ended the staring contest—or the “not-staring” contest, in the case of Marty—when he handed Zeke his walking papers.

Zeke put out his leathery hand, pumping his lawyer's pale one. “Nice work, Charles. Talk to you on next week's conference call about that Chinese intellectual property thing.”

“You don't want me to stay?” asked Van Schoon. “I was helping you out until a real criminal lawyer got here, but obviously the firm and I are more than happy to do the same for your son.”

“I'd appreciate that—”

“I decline!” Marty announced. “I'm not using the Abominations' lawyer. I'm not taking anything from you, Zeke.”

Zeke leaned over, whispering something to the lawyer.

“You're the boss,” Van Schoon said. The lawyer pulled out his card and gave it to Zeke. “It's not public, but that number there is my cell.”

Zeke pocketed the card as the lawyer left.

“Linda. Jackie. We're done.”

“Marty,” Linda Jelickson whispered, “we'll post bail.”

“I don't want you to bail me out,” Marty said, not unkindly.

“And he won't get it, ma'am.” Dave handcuffed Marty to a chair. “He's a flight risk. Officer Lyons here will process the paperwork.”

“Linda,” barked Zeke.

“Jesus, Zeke, I'll be there in a minute!”

Zeke left. I began the paperwork, while Hale and Dave disappeared into the evidence room with Marty's belongings. Marty answered my questions, giving his age, “Twenty-five,” and his full name, “Martin Fizzeller Jelickson.”

His mother was spelling out “Fizzeller” for me when Marty snarled, “Go, Mom. I don't want you here.”

Linda Jelickson stepped back. “Okay, baby. You need a little time to sort this out in your head, to brood. I know my son.” She smiled sweetly and hissed: “Just don't open your mouth between now and when you come to your senses.”

“Was Ray a brooder?” asked Jackie as Linda guided her to the door, one hand at the small of Jackie's back. The doors swung closed behind them, and quiet reigned.

I breathed in the silence, waiting patiently for the computers to load the next screen. Finally I was able to enter the codes for the different charges. Petty larceny. Stealing of state property. Not murder, not yet.

“You want to make your phone call now?” I asked.

Marty rolled his eyes. “Who am I going to call? My dad's lawyer?”

“A lawyer, sure, or I thought you might want to call your sponsor.”

Marty looked at the ground.

“No,” he said.

I was walking to the printer for the paperwork when Dave dragged me into Interview Two. A laptop was open on the table. Hale sat in front of it, clicking, again and again.

“Ta-da!” Dave said. “The crack team at the FBI was able to pull some digital photos out of Marty's work computer.”

“Some special FBI decryption software?” I asked.

“Left in the recycle bin,” Hale said, not looking up. “The photos were sitting there waiting for us. The guys made us a copy.”

Hale clicked. The first two pictures were of Marty: one reading a Don DeLillo book on his couch, and another looking up from the same book with an arched brow, beckoning the person taking the picture to him with a sly smile. Hale clicked again.

Solo shots of Danielle followed. They captured her beauty, but more important, they captured her aliveness. In one, a twist of smoke from her cigarette traced the pathway her hand made when she was gesturing grandly toward Ray, who was doubled over with laughter.

The picture that followed looked familiar: Ray could be seen carrying huge beakers into a building. Painted on a wall behind him a pale hand curled around a red rose, now pink all these years later. I knew exactly where that photo was taken.

“How did he get copies of your surveillance shots?” I said to Hale.

“He didn't,” Hale said.

“Different night?” Dave asked.

“No.” Hale looked angry. “Marty was there when we were there. I'll be having a conversation with the agents on how, exactly, we missed him. At least we have proof that he was there the night Danielle was killed. Are we done?”

He clicked. The next shots were of Craig, Ray, and Danielle: Danielle gesturing angrily at Craig, her iridescent red nails glinting dangerously close to his face; Ray and Craig giving each other a fist bump in front of Marty's house, Danielle on the porch and almost out of the shot; Danielle and Craig hugging at the doorway, his face buried in her gold hair.

Finally Hale spoke: “Spy anything, June?”

I hesitated.

“What?” Hale twisted around, looking at me. “What's your instinct?”

“I have an idea,” I said, appalled at what I was about to suggest. Dave frowned, but Hale smiled, like a shark tasting blood.

“Let's do it,” he said.

I
SAT ACROSS THE TABLE FROM
Marty in Interview Two. With his eyes focused on the wall over my shoulder I had all the time I wanted to take him in. He'd lost a little weight in the last few days, his features were sharper, more wolflike. If I didn't know they weren't blood, I would have sworn he was Zeke's. Marty's eyes darted around the wall: Danielle alive, Ray at the funeral, Ray in the bloody snow, Ray and Danielle kissing on the back porch, Danielle after her autopsy, pale and still, like a pearl covered with frost. Marty's eyes shot back to Ray and Danielle kissing—it had been Dave's idea to post that one—and then back to Danielle after her autopsy. Again, Danielle after her autopsy. Again, Danielle. Again.

I had felt excited as Dave and I led him to the room, my stomach knotting. I explained to Marty that with Phil Brouillette's release in process and Jason being interviewed in Room One, he'd have to cool his heels.

“Jason?” he said. “For what?”

“An accessory to murder, guy,” Dave said. “The murder you committed.”

“I knew you guys couldn't tell your ass from your elbows, but Jason? That's fuckin' idiotic.” As he ambled toward the room, Marty's orange pants slipped down an inch, revealing his flat stomach and the slide of his hip bones. His hands cuffed, I hitched up the waistband.

“Hel-lo, Officer.” Marty winked at me, Danielle and Ray seemingly forgotten. “Trying to take advantage?”

He remembered Danielle and Ray fast when I opened the door, revealing the murder wall.

“Oh, hell no.”

“Oh, yes,” Dave said, handcuffing Marty to the table and walking out.

I now sat opposite him, steeling myself. Not illegal, but that's the only line I wasn't crossing. I spoke low and firm. “Marty, I understand. Marriage is an important thing.” I thought of Kevin, for whom I would have done anything to keep alive, and Danielle, whom Marty might have killed. “It's supposed to be forever.”

He didn't respond, and I adjusted course.

“She must've loved you a lot, considering she didn't have to marry you. I mean, she wasn't pregnant.” At this he shook his head, participating in the conversation nonverbally. He would talk soon.

“And she had choices, her parents made sure. Sure, UCLA didn't work out, but she wasn't going to be stuck in a dead-end mill town, wearing a smock and stocking cigarettes at the minimart on the eleven-to-seven shift, always on the lookout for someone who's going to rob her. Her parents would've made sure she earned a degree, bribed her way into a second- or third-tier school somewhere far away, someplace where Jesuits could give her a solid education so she could be a teacher, or a newscaster. She was pretty enough to do that.”

“Don't forget smart.”

A response. I was on the right track. I continued my story. “And she'd marry someone nice, someone who'd appreciate the connections she provided. Being the daughter of a congresswoman had its perks.”

Marty joined me in telling my fairy tale, far away from an interrogation room in Hopewell Falls, New York, with, if I had to guess, everyone he loved dead. “And Phil's got weight. Weight he could throw around. If he wanted to.”

I knew the “if he wanted to” part was the part that stung. Phil didn't want to help Marty. “So she must've loved you,” I said. “Or you must've had something she wanted.”

He nodded at the pictures on the wall. “Like my brother?”

“So that was it?” I leaned forward. “You were stopping her from going behind your back?” I continued to tell the story. “I think you were setting up something nice for yourself here. You brought your brother out as your second. You ran the operation the way you ran the operation in California, your wife stealing amphetamines from her job until she got fired.”

“They didn't have the money to pay her. . . .”

“Fine, if you say so. The Byrnes were broke.” I pushed at the edges of Marty's control. “So you, your brother, and your wife were the first wave in the Abominations' move to New York, and she was the perfect cover—the daughter of a congresswoman and a millionaire—”

“Multimillionaire,” he corrected.

“—who could fix things if you got in a jam. You just repeated the operation you had set up in California: Get the supplies through the Abominations' connections. Cook at the Brouillettes'. You were the one with years of experience running a meth lab. Produce enough meth to blanket upstate and Pennsylvania and maybe Ohio—did you have enough? But then, you caught the brother and the wife—caught them on camera—trying to edge you out.”

“When they weren't fucking.” He nodded to the picture of Danielle and Ray kissing. “Don't forget that.”

“That couldn't have been a surprise.” I was ready to tip him over. “Yeah, they figured out you'd lost your edge—lost it when you got sober. He bought her diamond earrings, and you bought her a tea set.”

He exploded. “She liked that tea set. She liked it
fine
. She always talked about how she and her mom would have tea parties, and I wanted to give her back a little of what she had . . . something nice. She used it the night she died—I came home, and she wasn't there, and two cups were in the drying rack. Two cups you fuckheads broke, thank you—”

“Submit a receipt, Marty. Let me finish my story, and after you can tell me yours.” I had him talking, and discussing Ray's diamond earrings had him off balance. “So an old and boring gift made clear you didn't have enough brass to run the show, and they were going to do it themselves, do it better. You had to punish them for the runaround, what they'd done. I can understand. I can. You build something up, you make your own way, away from your family, and you get screwed. So you did what you did last time. You killed them.”