Nantucket Sawbuck (23 page)

Eric: “So then…I mean—what are you—?”

She pulled off her T-shirt. Fraker was watching me so I kept my expression blank.

“So let's see what you've got. And what you can do. Get me off—then we'll off your father together.”

She grabbed Eric by the belt and unbuckled it.

Fraker froze the frame.

“You don't need to see the rest, Chief.”

“And you have it memorized.”

He grinned. “I'm working on it.”

I blew out a breath. “Wow.”

“It's not a confession, but it's the next best thing.”

“It's inadmissible.”

“They made the tape themselves—the father did, anyway. It's all in the family and we had a signed warrant to search the premises. Boomp, over and out.”

But something still bothered me. “When was the tape made?”

“Who knows? Who cares? Before Lomax got killed, that's all we need to know.”

I pushed the intercom button on my phone console. “Betty? Could you track down Haden Krakauer for me?”

“Sure, boss.”

Lonnie frowned in irritation. “What do we need him for?”

“I have a question for him. He's knows about this stuff.”

“What stuff? Not sex, I bet.”

I ignored that remark. “Electronics, video. He was quite a geek, back in the day.”

“He's still a geek.”

“But now he's on our side. No more black box phone calls and hacking escapades.”

Haden came in sneezing, still fighting the cold he picked up at Thanksgiving. We showed him the same piece of video.

“There's something missing,” I said.

Haden nodded. “No, it's there. It's hidden. We just have to find it.”

I turned to Lonnie. “Police work, in a nutshell.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?”

Haden said, “The time code. It's obviously keyed-in on this video. You need an electronic device to read the digital time code information from the tape and generate the numbers to be temporarily keyed—superimposed—over the video. The problem is that you can only see the code if you've got special equipment, like the right editing system.”

“Do we have it?”

“I think I can find something, kicking around here somewhere. Give me a couple of hours.”

Well, he found the proper equipment and keyed the time code onto the video: date and time. But that was the problem. Tanya and the boys were planning Dad's murder on the precise date and time that someone else was actually murdering him. I took Lonnie to lunch at Kitty Murtagh's and broke the news

“It's the perfect alibi,” I said.

Lonnie grabbed his hair with both hands and pulled it hard. “Fuck this. I give up.”

Thomas Edison once answered an interviewer's question about the frustration of his thousand failed efforts to invent a working light bulb: “No, no, It was wonderful! Now I know a thousand ways not to make a light bulb.” Same with police work. I knew it, even if Lonnie didn't.

Every wrong guess and dead end and failure was bringing us closer to the truth

Chapter Twenty-seven

The Interrogation

Haden Krakauer grabbed me as I walked back into the lobby.

“I think we may have something, Chief.'

“What?”

“It's Mike Henderson. The painter? I went back and talked to him and his wife. I followed up on the alibis, checked with people, examined his bank records, did some print comparisons. It's all here.” He hefted the file folder in his hand. “I think you need to talk to this guy. Seriously. He looks good for the murder.”

Haden had the victorious look I had last seen when he found a double-crested cormorant roosting at Stump Pond. Birding—though he was teased for it around the station—had made Haden tireless, patient, and detail oriented—the trifecta for good police work.

I took the folder. “I'll check it out,” said. “See how bad it looks.”

As it turned out, it looked very bad indeed—at least for Mike Henderson.

For me the day had brightened considerably.

***

Mike Henderson was sitting in the main interview room off Central Dispatch. Charlie Boyce, Haden Krakauer, and I stood next door in the dark, watching him through the one-way mirror. Mike glanced at his watch, stood, paced, ran a hand through his hair, jammed his palm against his forehead. The body language sandwich sign: “I'm nervous, I'm scared, what the hell am I going to do?”

I turned to the others in the official twilight of the viewing room, spoke softly. “What do you think?”

“Guilty, Chief,” Charlie said. “Guilty as hell.”

Haden sighed. “Just because you're innocent, that doesn't make you happy in there. The police pick you up for something you didn't do—that‘s America's number one nightmare.”

“I thought showing up at work naked was America's number one nightmare,' Charlie said.

I jabbed my palm at the air between them. “Finish this chat off-duty, boys. I'm going in. And you need to pay attention.”

I took the file from Haden and walked out.

Mike Henderson jumped up when I opened the door. “What's going on, Chief? I mean—why did—I'm at work this morning, I'm talking to a customer and a cop car pulls up! These two goons cuff me and take me away—”

“They shouldn't have cuffed you, Mike. That was a mistake.”

“Tell that to Ed Powers! Now he thinks I'm some kind of felon or something and he was about to sign off on a winter's worth of work. I guess I can kiss that one goodbye.”

“I will talk to him. But right now we have to go over a few things.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“Didn't they Mirandize you?”

“They did, but…I just—I don't understand what's happening, Chief. What do they think I did? Am I some kind of suspect?”

I gestured him back to his chair and sat down across the table from him. “Can I get you some coffee or something? Water?”

“No, no. I'm—just tell me what's going on. I have to get back to work.”

I took a breath, let it out slowly. “Let's back up,” I said. “First of all, can you tell me where you were four nights ago? That would be last Sunday night. The sixteenth of December.”

Mike's face bunched up in thought for a second, then cleared. He pushed back away from the table eyes wide, like I was going to attack him. “Wait a second. That's the night Lomax was killed.”

I nodded.

“You can't possibly—are you saying that I—”

“We're just looking at everyone who had a motive, Mike.”

He laughed. It sounded more like a cough. “That would be everyone who ever worked on that house! Everyone who ever met the guy. I mean, what a total—”

“Mike.”

“What?”

“Before you go much further, this might be the time to get your lawyer in here.”

“I don't need a lawyer! I didn't do anything! Getting a lawyer, that's like pleading the Fifth Amendment, it's like saying ‘I'm guilty'.”

“No, Mike. Not all. It's merely a way of—”

“Forget it.”We stared at each other.“Like I could afford a lawyer anyway.”

“I thought they explained this. The court will appoint one for you if—”

“Yeah, they're motivated. They fall asleep during the trial.”

“Okay, that was bad. But it happened a long time ago, in Texas. Any attorney chosen to represent you here will be fully professional. I guarantee that. Lester Rowlands is on call today. He's a good man.”

“I painted his house five years ago.”

“Okay, then. Shall I call him?”

“Are you trying to frame me? Or sweat a confession out of me?”

“Of course not.”

“Then let's just get this over with.”

I shrugged. “So where were you Sunday night?”

“At a client's house in Manhattan.”

“Can they vouch for your whereabouts?”

“They weren't home.”

“And they just let you stay in their apartment whenever you want?”

“They like me. And they trust me. And it's not an apartment. It's a house, a sort of row house. A brownstone. On the upper West Side.”

I stood up. “So no doorman?”

“No.”

“Any neighbors see you?”

“Not that I'm aware of. But you should check with them.”

“We already did, after Assistant Chief Krakauer's initial interview.”

“So you already know all this! What the hell are you trying to—”

“We need it on the record Mike, in your own words.” I walked around and sat against the edge of the table. “How did you get off-island?”

“Hy Line fast boat. I used an old ticket.”

“So they have no record of you at the counter.”

“No, but—”

“Did you see anyone you knew on the boat?”

“No.”

“How about the Hy Line guys? Would they remember you?

“I doubt it.”

“So you disappear off the island Saturday morning?”

“I guess.”

“You're in Hyannis. Did you take a bus to the city? Or did you go by plane, because if you did they'd have a record—”

“I drove. In my customer's car. They keep one off-island in the Steamship Authority lot.”

“Nice customers.”

“They're friends of mine.”

“What were you doing in the city?”

“I had—I was—that's private.”

I walked around, sat down again and opened the file. I turned over a few pages. “Your wife says more or less the same thing. It seems she had a doctor's appointment.”

“How would you know that?”

“Phone records.”

“You can just grab my phone records now? Just because you suspect something? Just because you're curious? Just start pulling my life apart and nosing through the pieces because you have a hunch?”

“It's the law now, Mike. Let's try to work through this. Cindy made the appointment on Saturday night. That was unusual. We checked it out. Apparently she called this Dr. Mathias at his home number. She told him it was an emergency. He suggested she go to the ER on Nantucket, but she insisted that she had to see him, as soon as possible. He gave her an appointment on Monday morning, the 17th. Any idea what that was about? It would help us to know. So we can put together a viable picture of your trip.”

Mike slumped in his chair. “She was getting an abortion. All right? Happy now? And I had to stop her.”

“She didn't keep the appointment.”

“Because I stopped her! I talked her out of it.”

“And then?”

“We spent the day in the city, drove to Hyannis, and got the last flight back. The eight-thirty flight. Nantucket Airlines.”

I turned a page. “The problem is, we have no record of you on that flight.”

“We used Cindy's coupon book.”

“Yeah, well…okay, but—no one remembers a couple boarding the aircraft.”

He sat forward. “Cindy was in the bathroom. She almost got left behind. And they didn't seat us together because they have to distribute the weight on the plane. You know that.”

I nodded. “Was the flight crowded?”

“I don't remember. Yes—I think so. Yes it was.”

“Well it would be, this time of year.”

“So I'm guessing?”

“I don't know. Are you?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Try and see it from my point of view, Mike. You manage to get on and off the island, all the way to New York and back, without a trace. That's very convenient.”

He jumped up and lurched behind the chair, grabbing the seat-back. I half expected him to lift it up like a lion-tamer. But he just stood there. “Convenient? For who?” he yelled. “Convenient? For the guy who wants to go to jail? For the guy who wants to make sure he has no alibi for a crime he didn't commit? Or maybe it's convenient for you, so you can have an arrest, and look smart and get the fucking media off your back.”

“Sorry. You're right. That was out of line.” I tried a different tack. “Maybe you can clear up some of the other questions that keep cropping up. The murder weapon was a ‘four-way' screwdriver with removable tips. People we spoke to told us it was your favorite tool. You even joked about using it as a murder weapon. I found the page, the quote highlighted in red by Haden Krakauer. ‘It would have to be someone you hated enough to kill with one strike,' you said, presumably because the tip would lodge in the body.”

“That's ridiculous! I never said that. Why would I say that if I was actually going to kill someone that way?”

“I don't know. Maybe…so you could say ‘Why would I say that if I was actually going to kill someone that way?' It's classic misdirection.”

“What so now I'm some weird psycho who likes to play head-games with the police? I'm a housepainter! I like four-way screwdrivers. So what?”

Time to move on. “We found your fingerprints on the headboard in Lomax's room.”

Mike was studying his hands on the table. “I had sex there.”

“Would your wife verify that?”

“It wasn't with her.”

I made a note on the file. Kevin Sloane had said he “wasn't the first” to fool around on that bed. Maybe he knew something about his boss that could help us. “Who then?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“Let me tell you. It was a woman named Tanya Kriel. She came here to kill Lomax—to avenge her sister's death. I'm sure you know the story. We heard it from the widow. Tanya comes here, gets on the crew painting the Lomax house and when she finds out Lomax is going to cheat everyone out of their final payments, she tells you and she has an instant accomplice. You were both stalking him, your cars were seen there. And the night before, you were seen in the house after the party, eavesdropping while Lomax boasted about ripping everyone off. An hour later you're at the Chicken Box, telling everyone to go out and kill him. Then you disappear into the no-alibi zone. You took a thousand dollars out of your account in cash over the last month and that's the exact amount that wound up in the victim's mouth. Ten Nantucket sawbucks, as they say. The amount rich guys hand out as petty cash. But it wasn't petty to you.”

“Goddamn right it wasn't! I'm broke. I took that money out so I'd have some way to buy groceries if the IRS attached my bank account.”

“Or you wanted to make a statement and the price didn't matter. It makes sense—you were going to be ruined anyway.”

“Did you find my fingerprints on the cash?”

“No, you wiped it clean. Then you knocked him out, stuffed his mouth with money and stabbed him with a screwdriver. Nice symbolic touch there. The working man's murder weapon.”

“You didn't find my prints on it.”

“No, of course not. You were wearing gloves.”

“So how did I leave a print on the headboard?”

“You didn't, not that night. But the print proves you were there, that you trespassed on the man's property, that you had an unhealthy, sinister interest in him, that you had in fact been stalking him. It's ironic. The gloves gave you a false sense of security. If you had been bare-handed you would have wiped off every surface and removed all your fingerprints, even the old ones. We'd have no evidence of your history with Lomax, no way to prove your obsession with him. Of course there were all those witnesses at the Chicken Box. Some of them thought you were going to go back and kill Lomax that night, yourself. But you waited until you knew he was alone. You made the mistake of using your work van—a gray Ford Econoline. Maybe you thought it would be inconspicuous. But someone saw it at the house on the night of the murder.”

Mike seemed to have shrunk into himself. His voice lacked conviction. “I told you. I was in New York City on the night of the murder.”

“With your wife, supposedly. Well, she in fact spent the night at the Sherry Netherland Hotel. But she was with another man, a filmmaker named Mark Toland. Name ring a bell?”

“Yes, but…I told you I was staying at the Levines' that night, and I—it's not possible, I couldn't have—I'm not—”

It was time to close this down. “Sorry, Mike. You had motive and opportunity. You had the murder weapon in your possession. You had the thousand dollars in cash we found in the victim's mouth. You left fingerprints at the crime scene. Your van was observed there at the coroner's estimated time of death. You had keys to the house. You knew the alarm code. You had an equally motivated partner, but she has an alibi for the night in question and you don't. I think you got played, Mike.” I stared at him. “It doesn't look good.”

Mike pushed his chair away from the desk and stood facing me. “Talk to my wife. She'll tell you what really happened. She'll defend me.”

“Of course she will. But if she claims to be with you on the night of the murder, she'll be facing perjury charges of her own. I hate to do this, Mike, but I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Preston Lomax.”