Murder Suicide (25 page)

"I’m not sure I do," Clevenger said, even though he knew exactly why LeGrand would instruct his client not to respond.  There was nothing for him to gain by going on the record.  The only reason LeGrand was allowing the questioning in the first place was to get a sense of what direction the police might be headed in.  "You’re invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?" Clevenger asked him.

"I don’t need to do that," LeGrand said.  "He hasn’t been charged.  You’re not a Grand Juror.  This isn’t a trial.  He doesn’t choose to respond to you, that’s all.  Maybe he doesn’t like your tone of voice."

Clevenger looked back at Reese.  "Were you aware they met at the Four Seasons?"

"Beautiful hotel," Reese said.  "I like it  myself."

"Where did you find your wife’s suicide note?" Clevenger asked.

The muscles in Reese’s jaw started working?  "You have nerve bringing up my wife’s suicide.  If it weren’t for you, she’d still be alive."

Those words hit a raw place inside Clevenger.  He did what he could to prevent it from showing.

"How many times did she call you for help that day?" Reese asked.

"LeGrand touched Reese’s arm.  "Again," he told Clevenger," my client has no comment about whether or where he did or did not find any suicide note."

It looked to Clevenger like the discussion might never flow.  He wanted to throw Reese off balance, make him wonder how much the police might really have on him.  "You met with Kyle Snow, is that right?"

"No comment," LeGrand said.

"Did he give you anything at that meeting?" Clevenger asked.

"Don’t answer," LeGrand told Reese.

"Have him take the Fifth," Clevenger said, never looking away from Reese.

"No need," LeGrand said.

Clevenger kept staring at Reese.  "Then let him talk.  He’s got nothing to hide, right?"

"Move on," LeGrand said.

"The night your wife was found dead, you told Officer Coady you had been to see a divorce attorney," Clevenger said to Reese.  "You said that was why the suicide note found at your wife’s bedside talked about a break-up.  Which attorney did you go to see?"

"No comment," LeGrand said.

"The man says he went to visit a divorce attorney," Clevenger said, glancing at LeGrand.  "Let him go on record with who that was — if he went at all."

LeGrand just smiled.

Clevenger needed to push harder.  "Did you know your wife was pregnant, Mr. Reese?"

Reese’s brow furrowed.  A flash of pain registered in his eyes.

LeGrand leaned forward.

"About three months pregnant," Clevenger said.

"Maybe we should shut this down right now," LeGrand said, glancing at Reese.

Clevenger knew he didn’t have much time.  "When she was in my office, she told me she felt like a prisoner in your marriage."

"You’re a goddamn liar," Reese shot back.

That response seemed odd from a man who considered his marriage at the point of dissolution.  "The diamond bracelets you gave her? She told me they were no better than handcuffs."

Reese looked at Clevenger like he very much wanted to reach over the table and strangle him.

"We’re done," LeGrand said to Reese.

Reese kept staring at Clevenger.

"The child was John Snow’s, by the way," Clevenger said.  "The genetic testing just came back."

Reese’s eyes closed for an instant.

"George, I really think we should leave," LeGrand said.

Clevenger wanted to deliver Reese one more piece of information.  "Your bank was a major investor in Snow-Coroway Engineering.  We know that.  Were you actually foolish enough to introduce your wife to John Snow?  The man was an inventor.  A genius.  Women love that."

Reese glared at Clevenger.

LeGrand stood up.  "George," he said.  "We’re out of here.  Now."

Reese didn’t move.

"Could you tell right away they would end up lovers?  They say that happens sometimes, you know — that it’s obvious, from the beginning. 
Lovemaps
, they call them.  People meant for one another."

"Back off, Frank," LeGrand said.

Reese’s hands closed into fists.

"It’s not a pretty picture," Clevenger said.  "He took your money and then your wife.  Twenty-five million, and Grace.  That has to be infuriating.  I mean, talk about no return on your investment."

Reese lunged across the table for Clevenger.  Clevenger tried to lean back, but Reese caught hold of his jacket collar with his left hand, swing with his right, connecting with Clevenger’s lip and chin.

Clevenger tasted blood.  He stared at Reese, without trying to pull away.  "You have an explosive temper, George.  What did Grace say to make you lose it?  Did she tell you she loved Snow, that she was pregnant with his child?"

Reese swung again, connected with Clevenger’s forehead.

LeGrand was trying to pull Reese away from the table, but could barely keep him on one side of it.

"Did she want to keep the baby?" Clevenger asked.  "Was she really the one who wanted to leave?"

Coady ran into the room, helped pull Reese away from the table.  He looked back at Clevenger.  "You’re all done," he told him.  "I’ll see you in my office."

Clevenger didn’t move.

Reese tried to break free to go after him again, but Coady and LeGrand held him back.

Clevenger looked into Reese’s eyes.

"What the fuck are you looking at, you piece of garbage?" Reese yelled.  His neck and face were beet red.  "You know what it is to see your wife bleeding to death?  Do you have any fucking idea?"

"Go!" Coady told Clevenger.

Clevenger waited a few seconds, then turned and walked out.

"You’re gonna hear from us on this," LeGrand said to Coady.  "What you just saw was harassment, not police work.  The doctor wanted this to happen."

*            *            *

Clevenger was sitting in Coady’s desk chair when he walked in.

"What the hell was that?" Coady asked.

"He wasn’t going to give me anything," Clevenger said.  "I had to take it."

Coady sat down in the metal folding chair in front of his desk.  "So what did you get, besides a fat lip?"

"I’m not sure."

"Wonderful.  I would have liked to be able to tell the Chief we actually got something for our money when LeGrand sues us for a million bucks."

"I said I’m not sure what we got.  I didn’t say we got nothing.  What did you see from the observation room?"

"Now I’m being quizzed?" Coady asked, shaking his head.

"C’mon.  Indulge me."

"I’ll tell you what I didn’t see.  I didn’t see him confess.  I didn’t see him answer a single question.  I saw him explode.  I saw you ride him until he blew up."

"Yeah, but when?"

"When?  When you started in about his wife."

"What about his wife?"

"What do you mean?  About her shacking up with Snow."

Clevenger shook his head.  "No.  That isn’t when it happened."  He stood up, started pacing.

Coady followed him with his eyes.  "Don’t play Socrates here, Frank.  I’m not your frickin’ med student."

Clevenger stopped pacing, looked at him.  "He didn’t explode when I talked about his wife sleeping with Snow.  It was when I talked about her loving him."

"So what?"

"So Kyle Snow told me Reese took the news about the affair — including Grace’s suicide note — pretty much in stride.  Almost like he knew it was going on."

"Okay... maybe he did.  Plenty of guys focus on the love thing when they find out their wives are cheating.  ‘Do you love him?’  Isn’t that the cliché?"

"Sure," Clevenger said.  "But usually once they get around to asking that, they’re sad, not enraged.  They’re looking to win a woman back, salvage the relationship."  He took a deep breath, let it out.  "He knew they were together, Mike.  What he didn’t know was that they were in love.  And that part is what made George Reese angry enough to come at me, and maybe angry enough to kill his wife."

"How does that help us right now?"

"It gets me inside his head," Clevenger said.  "It gets me thinking like him."

"Great, Frank."  Coady rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes.  "Let me give you that private detail, all right?  You got a swollen jaw, a fat lip and a welt on the back of your head.  Let’s quit while you’re behind."

"Chances are, if someone wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now."

"You really want to play the odds when it comes to your life?  I know you got yourself sober.  It’s a real inspiration to some of the guys around here.  Word around the department is you beat the gambling thing, too.  But maybe they don’t have that quite right."

Clevenger hung his head, tried to think of why the notion of having a bodyguard bothered him so much.  And like most of the connections that explain the pain in our hearts, he couldn’t bring it to mind.  He couldn’t see the truth because it was too big and it was right in front of him.  It was as big as his father had seemed, towering over him when he was a child.  And to recognize it would be to remember how vulnerable and terrified he had felt then, how helpless he had been, how much in need of protection and love, and how neither came his way.  "I don’t like the idea," he said.  "I don’t want Billy seeing it."  He shook his head.  Because he knew he wasn’t explaining himself at all.  "I just don’t want it," he said.

*            *            *

3:50
P.M.

Clevenger had left his cell phone in his truck.  He pulled out of the Boston P.D. lot, dialed voice mail.  Billy had left a message at 3:12
P.M.

"I heard you were looking for me," he said.  "I’m headed over to the gym."

That was odd, given that the operation on the nine-year-old girl was scheduled to go into the night.  Clevenger wondered whether checking on Billy at the O.R. had somehow ruined the experience for him, infantilized him in front of Heller.  He dialed Billy’s cell phone, got no answer.  He decided to drive over to the gym to see him.

When he walked in, Billy was in the ring, backing his opponent into a corner.  The other kid was lanky, but ropy, at least six inches taller than Billy.  He fired off a jab that caught Billy on the side of the head, then another that landed squarely on his nose.

Billy kept coming.

Clevenger leaned against the cinder block wall, nodded over at Buddy Donovan, Billy’s trainer.

Donovan nodded back.

The other kid’s back was against the ropes.  He crouched a bit and leaned side-to-side as Billy fired off a series of lefts and rights, most of them wild.  When the kid could, he got off his own punches, scoring with a couple quick shots.

Clevenger waited for the inevitable, barely controlled explosion that was Billy’s way of finishing a fight.

The other kid threw a right hook that slammed into the side of Billy’s neck.

Billy took a step back.

Donovan looked over at Clevenger, shrugged.  He stepped closer to the ring.  "What are you doing in there, Bishop?" he called out.  "You got him where you want him.  What are you waiting for?"

Billy threw what looked like a series of halfhearted punches.  Two landed, forcing his opponent to cover up again.  But neither one seemed to have anything behind it.  Then Billy took another step back.

"I miss something?" Donovan asked, looking up at him from the side of the ring.  "He throw a phantom punch, or you’re just not interested in fighting today?  Maybe you figure you’re ready to go pro?  Bored with us amateurs.  That it?"

Billy glanced down at him.  Just as he did, he took a hard right to the chin that staggered him.

"Good punch, Jackie," Donovan said to the other fighter.  "I think he’s all yours.  Taking a little break for himself today.  But watch yourself."

The kid took two steps toward Billy, the muscles of his arms taut, ready.  He leaned right, about to throw a right hook, but just as he did, Billy delivered a single left hook that came out of nowhere and dropped him to one knee.

Donovan looked up at the kid, saw he was struggling not to keel over.  "Back off, Billy.  He’s all done," he yelled.

Billy had already turned around and headed for his corner.  He picked up his towel, spread the ropes and climbed out of the ring.

Clevenger walked over to him.  "I didn’t think you were paying attention there.  I guess I was wrong."

Billy shrugged.  "Looks like you let your guard down yourself."

Clevenger touched his lip.  "A suspect who didn’t like my line of questioning.  Weren’t you supposed to be in the O.R. until tonight?"

"I got bored."  He wiped the sweat off his face.  "I have something for you in my locker.  You want to come out back?"

"Sure.  What is it?"

"C’mon."

Clevenger followed him to the locker room.

Billy started dialing numbers into his combination lock.

"We got to talk at some point about you missing classes today," Clevenger said.

Billy stopped dialing for a second, started again.

"I get that you love surgery.  I think that’s great.  I really do.  But it can’t interfere with school."

"Doesn’t matter," Billy said, squinting at the lock.  "Like I said, I was bored."  He went back to dialing numbers.

Skipping school did matter, and Clevenger didn’t like the way Billy seemed to be brushing it off.  "Let’s talk about it when we get home," he said.

Billy shrugged, pulled open his locker.

Being shrugged off didn’t sit well with Clevenger, either.  "We’ve also got to talk about you and my computer — going through my files."

Billy shook his head.  "You think I’m spying on you?"

"I didn’t say that."

Billy turned, looked at him.  "Yeah, you did."

"We don’t need to get into this right now."

"You don’t want me near your stuff.  I get that."

"I don’t go through your things.  I don’t expect you to look through mine.  That’s all."

"Cool," Billy said.  "Maybe we should draw a line down the middle of the apartment."

"Where is this coming from?"

Billy reached into his locker, pulled out a sheaf of papers, thrust them toward Clevenger.