Lou Mason Mystery 03-Cold Truth (30 page)

"Smells great, Connie. Thanks," Mason said.

"Leave a decent tip," she told him.

Mason had finished half the sandwich when Samantha Greer slid into the seat across from him. She rubbed her hands together, pressing them against her cheeks. "Boy, it's too early to be this cold already," she said.

"Frigid Canadian front," Mason said. "I heard it on the news."

"I once dated a Canadian with a frigid front," Samantha said.

Mason did a finger drum roll on the table. "Dynamite material. You should try open-mike night at a comedy club."

"Who puckered your backside?" she asked him. "Never mind, I don't want to know. I've got some news that will pick up your spirits."

"What? Patrick Ortiz resigned as prosecuting attorney to write legal thrillers and dropped the charges against my client as a going-away gift to me?"

"You know, Lou, your fantasies used to be a lot more fun."

"Yeah, but the rubber suit gave me a rash. What's up?"

"We found your car. I wanted to tell you myself. You didn't answer at home or the office or on your cell phone. I don't have what's-her-name's phone number, so I tried here. Glad I caught you," she said, not concealing the light in her eyes.

"Her name is Abby. Her number is in the book. You found my TR-6?" Mason asked, pushing the Reuben out of the way, reaching across the table for Samantha's hand, an instinctive gesture.

"Well, I didn't personally find it," she said, tentatively resting her other hand on top of Mason's, gently rubbing her finger between his. "A patrolman doing a routine check of abandoned buildings found it stashed in a vacant garage on the East Side."

"That's fantastic," Mason said. "No, it's beyond fantastic. When can I get it back?"

"Tomorrow morning," she said. "But it's a little banged up," she added.

"Banged up? How bad?"

"A little, actually more than a little, a lot. And it's not running. To tell you the truth, it's sitting. On blocks. Without wheels."

Mason slumped against the back of the booth. "Is this how you tell the widow she's a widow? I've got good news, Mrs. Smith. We found your husband, or at least most of him."

"Oh, come on, Lou. I know you love that car, but it's just a car. I had it towed to George's Body Shop. Just like you asked."

Mason let out a sigh, realizing that Samantha was still cradling his hand in hers. He drew his hand back, ignoring the slight resistance she offered. "Thanks, Sam," he said. "I appreciate you taking the trouble to come here. You didn't have to do that."

"Yeah, well," she said, pushing her hair back with one hand, hiding the other in her lap. "You know our motto: to protect and serve. This falls under customer service."

Mason wished he'd kept his hands to himself, not stumbling into another awkward, post-lover exchange with Samantha. Her not-so-subtle flirtation was a complication he didn't need.

"Good," he said, nodding like a bobble-head doll, struggling for something to say to put their conversation back on a professional track.

Samantha sat back, took a deep breath, and clapped her hands. "Okay, I give up," she said. "A woman should never tell a man she isn't over him, especially when he's found somebody else. I'm not over you, Lou, but I guess you know that. I'm working on it, and I'd appreciate it if you'd help me out by acting like a jerk a little more often. I know you've got it in you," she said with half a laugh.

Mason smiled. "I can be a jerk," he said. "No problem. How about if I beat you up on the stand at Jordan's preliminary hearing on Friday. Then you could hate me."

"I wouldn't hate you," she said. "I'd feel sorry for you if that's the best defense you can give your client. If it is, you better make a deal."

"It's worse than that," he told her. "I don't even have anything to beat you up with."

"Tell me what you do have, Lou. I don't just want to win. I want to be right. I'll take my badge off and just be your friend. Try me," she said.

Mason considered her offer. He knew she was telling the truth when she told him she wanted to be right. He also knew she didn't want him to fail, and letting his client be sentenced to death or life imprisonment when he could have made a deal that left her some chance to live again would be a terrible failure.

"Okay," he said. "I'll tell you what I've got and you tell me what kind of deal Ortiz will make. Fair?"

"Fair," she said.

"Everything you have against Jordan is circumstantial," he began.

"I don't call fingerprints, hair and fiber samples at the scene and on the victims circumstantial," Samantha interrupted. "And I don't call an eyewitness who puts her at both scenes circumstantial, and I sure don't call her confession to Gina Davenport's murder circumstantial. The only thing we don't have is videotape of her killing them and we're damn close to having it on Dr. Gina. You know the trial judge will let that Channel 6 videotape into evidence even if Pistone wouldn't. Once the jury sees that tape, they won't hear another thing you say."

"Like I said," Mason continued. "Everything you have against Jordan is circumstantial. I have enough crap to throw on your case to raise a reasonable doubt."

"Beginning with your theory that Trent Hackett killed Gina because she was going to report him for a rape he didn't commit. And if he did commit it, Jordan has a terrific motive for killing her brother to go along with all that lousy circumstantial evidence we dug up. We only have to convict her of one murder to put her away forever."

"Fine. You don't like Trent for Gina's murder. How about Arthur Hackett? He had one of the best motives, money. He cashed in on Gina's life insurance policy, recovering the money he was going to lose when she jumped ship a year from now."

"You've seen Arthur Hackett. He's disintegrating faster than the invisible man. No one will believe he could throw Gina through a plate-glass window, then turn on his own son. Not even for five million bucks. Tell me you've got something better, Lou."

Mason emptied his beer, rolling the glass between his hands. "Maybe. Even I'll admit this next part is a little murky. Gina and Robert Davenport illegally adopted their daughter Emily. Terry Nix was the baby broker. They were all in St. Louis at the time. Nix was working at the hospital where Emily was born. He deep-sixed the medical records of the real mother. Somebody else, I don't know who, forged a birth certificate showing the Davenports as Emily's natural parents. They couldn't adopt because Robert Davenport was a drug addict and wouldn't pass the social services evaluation for a legit adoption."

"Which has what to do with the murders?" Samantha asked.

Mason pointed a finger at her. "Nix also dealt drugs to Robert Davenport back in their St. Louis salad days. Nix lands in Kansas City, hooks up with Centurion Johnson in a textbook example of vertical marketing, selling drugs and babies. They were probably supplying Robert Davenport. Somebody tipped off Emily's real mother, who, up to that point, had never tried to find her daughter. The mother is put on to Gina. Things start to come unraveled. Gina gets nervous. Nix and Centurion kill her to keep her quiet."

"Your rubber-suit fantasy has more appeal than this one. Assuming you're right, where does Trent fit in? Who kills him and why?"

"I don't know," Mason admitted. "The little shit tried to kill me. Why shouldn't someone besides Jordan try to kill him?"

"That's clear thinking," Samantha said. "Stick to soda between now and the trial. Your new—sorry, Abby— told me about her phone call to Gina Davenport. Is she Emily's birth mother? You might as well throw her into the suspect pool."

Mason hesitated, wanting to keep Abby out of their conversation, though he knew he had to put everything on the table. "There's a good chance. Abby delivered a baby at the same hospital a week after the birth date on Emily's birth certificate. The hospital can't find any record that Abby was ever a patient there."

Samantha drummed her fingers on the table, working the angle Mason had given her. "The rumor we picked up was that Abby thought she was Jordan's mother. We heard that's why she posted the bond."

Mason said, "That's what she thinks. According to the autopsy report, Gina couldn't have kids. Whoever got Abby to call Gina must have known the truth."

"Have you told Abby she put her money on the wrong baby?"

"Not yet. Not until I'm certain," Mason said. "Gina was also skimming money from the charity she set up in her daughter's memory. Maybe Nix and Centurion were in on that too. Maybe Trent was a bagman for them. I don't know. The murders should be tied together, but I can't make it work."

"I can," Samantha said. "Jordan had the motive, the opportunity, and the rage to do them both. That's what the jury is going to believe."

"Assuming you're right, what kind of deal will Ortiz make? I may not have much, but I've got enough to muddy the waters."

Samantha shook her head. "You don't have that much mud," she said. "I'd bet on pleading guilty to second-degree murder on Gina's case, taking into account Jordan's emotional history and the sympathy the jury might show her when they find out what an asshole her old man is. The jury might blame him for some of this, figuring he drove her to it. She gets fifteen years to life, maybe gets out in ten years."

"What about on Trent's murder?"

"Ortiz will want a guilty plea on that one too. He'll probably agree to the same sentence, let them run concurrently. Maybe make her serve the minimum of fifteen years. Two brutal murders a week apart is a lot to overlook."

Mason reached back across the table, patting her hand for an instant. He knew she was right. It was time to make a deal. "Thanks, Sam," he told her. "For everything. I mean it."

"Hey, listen," she said. "All in a day's work. See you in court, Counselor."

Mason met with Jordan the next afternoon. She was anxious to see him, giving him a bear hug when the guard ushered her into the cramped, windowless room where Mason waited.

"Why haven't you been to see me?" she said, letting him go.

"I've been pretty busy working on your case," he answered. "Besides, the guards tell me you've had company."

"Yeah, Abby has been here a couple of times. I still haven't figured out how she got involved in all of this, but I'm glad she did."

"Blame it on me," Mason said, dodging the question. "Are they treating you okay in here?"

Jordan walked around the perimeter of the room, extending her arms like yardsticks, measuring the space. "You know, this room is actually smaller than my cell. I didn't think anything could be smaller than that. The guards haven't bothered me. One woman came on to me and I thought we were going to have a problem, but she backed off."

"Jordan, tell me about the baby you gave up for adoption," Mason said.

She looked at him, her arms drooping at her sides. "It happened the first time my parents put me at Sanctuary. I was pissed at them and my brother. This guy, he wasn't even cute, I just figured, what the hell, it couldn't be worse than my brother. When I missed my period, I got scared and I wanted to get an abortion. Terry talked me out of it."

"What did your parents say?"

"Don't come home until the baby was gone." Sitting down at the table in the middle of the room, she clasped her hands together, laying them out in front of her, her eyes moistening. "Lou, you've got to get me out of here. I want to find my baby."

Mason knew that people often responded to incarceration the same way they did when a doctor told them they had a terminal illness, grinding through denial, anger, and bargaining until they accepted their new reality. Jordan was twenty-one years old. Fifteen years was almost as long as she'd been alive. Mason didn't know how she could ever accept the reality he was about to give her.

"Jordan, it may be a while before you get out."

Jordan's eyes flickered, light draining from her face like a picture morphing from color to black and white. "What are you saying?"

Mason gathered himself, looking at her, not wanting to tell her, not having a choice, giving it to her straight. "I think we should consider a plea bargain, making a deal with the prosecutor."

"What kind of a deal?" she asked, her voice rising an octave, the veins in her arms beginning to bulge as she clamped her hands more tightly together. "What does that mean? That I plead guilty? I'm not guilty! You don't believe me, do you?" she accused him, jumping out of her chair, knocking it over behind her. "I'm not guilty! I can't stay here. You've got to get me out!"

Jordan planted her palms on the table, leaning over Mason, pushing him back with her demand. Mason rose, circled past her, picked up her chair, and put his arm around her. She wrestled away, Mason holding on, pulling her back.

"It's not that simple, Jordan. It should be. It should only be about guilt or innocence, but it isn't. It's about proof, theirs and ours. It's about what a jury might do. It's about the risk you are taking with your life. I need you to know all these things so you can decide. I'm not going to make you do anything."

She wouldn't bend, keeping her frame rigid, fighting his grip and his words. "If you think I'm guilty, what chance do I have?"

Mason patted her on the back. "I don't think you're guilty, Jordan, but I'm not on the jury," Mason said, dispensing the standard lawyer's bromide, not telling her that he wasn't certain of her innocence any longer, but wouldn't let his doubt stand in the way of a vigorous defense.

Mason returned to his seat, Jordan still standing, her head turned to the side, not meeting his gaze. "Your preliminary hearing on Friday will be just like the one last week. The judge will bind you over for trial for Trent's murder. You won't get bail. Your trial on Gina's murder starts in two months. Let me tell you what the jury will hear."

Mason recited the evidence in a flat, neutral monotone, letting his words fall like small hammers on Jordan, beating the resistance out of her until she fell back in her chair, her head on the table, covered by her arms.