Straw Men (5 page)

She'd finally hit the wall about three and left her office in a daze. She needed rest, but also some distance from it all. In the days since the hearing, media interest in DellaVecchio's release and her role in it had remained at fever pitch. Dagnolo kept busy demonizing them both. He'd leaked everything from decade-old police reports filed by women DellaVecchio had harassed to an excerpt from her closing argument eight years earlier in which she acknowledged the “unpredictable incubus” that DellaVecchio's alcoholic mother had “unleashed upon the world.” Quack calls were coming in at a dozen a day, including a psychic who saw “a handsome man” attack Harnett “in an unfolding vision, like a slo-mo replay” in a reflection on the lid of her nonstick frypan. Would Brenna like her to testify?

The house was dark except for the front-hall lamp, which was on a timer that clicked on at dusk. Jim wouldn't be home from Pitt until five-thirty. Annie and Taylor were still at the sitter's down the street, where they went every day after school. Should she summon them home early, or take advantage of an hour of silence in the house? A hot bath sounded like heaven.

The Legend's door scraped the curb as it opened. She reminded herself to redistribute the two boxes of hate mail in her trunk. Their combined weight had the car riding low on the left side. She was a long way from having time to read it all, if she ever decided to do that, but for now she'd vowed to keep the letters from outraged citizens from cluttering up her office, distracting her from the work at hand.

“Claire64,” she reminded herself as she turned the brass deadbolt and pushed through the front door.

The new alarm system's red eye winked at her in the front hall's dim light. On the panel's alphabetical keypad, she punched in C-L-A-I-R-E—her mother's name. She shifted to the numeric keypad to add the 6–4—Claire Kennedy's age when ovarian cancer finally took her. The red light turned green.

Jim and the kids must have left in a hurry. A pile of Taylor's clothes lay in the middle of the foyer. Her son was a fussy dresser, and Jim was accustomed to his last-minute changes, but they usually got the discards back into the right drawer before leaving. Annie's lunchbox sat forgotten at the base of the banister. Nothing unusual. She was nine and preoccupied with her overwhelming need for pierced ears. Little else mattered.

Brenna suppressed a tingle of guilt, wishing she could be more help in the morning, wishing sometimes she could be the doting mother and loving wife other people expected her to be. But she wasn't, couldn't be no matter how hard she tried. Thank God Jim understood; thank God he brought to the relationship the patience her eight-year-old son needed so badly. She couldn't imagine a better man for the job. So why couldn't she commit? Why had she twice postponed the civil marriage ceremony Jim planned, both times using the DellaVecchio case as her excuse?

She picked up Taylor's clothes, folded them, and set them on the bottom step. She unloaded the Tupperware sandwich container from Annie's lunchbox into the refrigerator. The PBJ would keep for tomorrow's lunch. She kept the one filled with grapes. It would keep Annie from starving while they fixed dinner. Brenna put the ice pack back in the freezer and started toward the stairs when she heard a chirp from the far side of the kitchen, over near the microwave. The answering machine. She poked the Play button and turned back toward the stairs, then stopped to hear which of Annie's many friends had called. Long pause. The low hiss of an open line, but nothing. Then something indecipherable, mechanical, followed by another hiss, this one pitched higher. An electronic solicitation? Brenna was about to hit the Erase button when the music began:

Got to learn to live with what you can't rise above

If you want to ride on down in through this tunnel
of love.

Husky voice. Springsteen. Chillingly familiar. The message ended with a
click!
as abrupt and startling as a gunshot. The answering machine's digital voice followed: “End of messages.”

Brenna's hand shook as she reached again for the Play button. She thought of the mail in her car's trunk, of the obvious anger this case was generating. Somebody's idea of a joke? Maybe, she thought, but it would have to be somebody who remembered DellaVecchio's trial in re­markable detail.

Brenna flashed on the letter Teresa Harnett had received two days before she was attacked. She remembered its odd weight the first time she held it during pretrial motions. The chunky letters of the manual typewriter. The distinctive, truncated letter
y
throughout that tied it to the battered Olivetti found in the Dumpster near DellaVecchio's house. The Lawrenceville postmark on the envelope. She remembered Harnett on the witness stand, holding the note in her rock-steady hands, reading aloud the lyric for a jury transfixed by her courage:

Got to learn to live with what you can't rise above

If you want to ride on down in through this tunnel
of love.

Harnett's voice was just as strong when she finished reading as when she'd started. If she'd broken down, the moment would have been less powerful. But she'd set the note on the table in front of her, looked straight at DellaVecchio at the defense table and said, “I used to think ‘Tunnel of Love' was a beautiful song.” Her understatement back then became one of the most devastating moments of DellaVecchio's trial.

Brenna looked around. The house never seemed bigger. She willed away the phantom prickle that suddenly made her hair stand on end. She'd expected the hate mail, hadn't she? Even anticipated the threats. So why the pounding in her chest? Why the trembling hands as she reached for the answering machine's Save button?

Who would do this?

Brenna knew the answer, couldn't will that away. Only one person would lose if she proved Carmen DellaVecchio innocent—the animal who really did attack Teresa Harnett. After eight years free and clear, he was watching the slow absolution of the man convicted of his crimes. Was this his pathetic attempt to reverse that process? Did he really think he could intimidate her?

“Dumb bastard,” Brenna said, and laughed out loud.

Even as her words filled the empty house, she considered another possibility. Her bravado turned to anger as she paced the kitchen floor. The straw man was back on the street. The Scarecrow was unchained, a menace loosed. Any hint of trouble and Dagnolo would be all over the judge, arguing to put DellaVecchio back behind bars. Maybe someone was setting him up again.

The kitchen wall clock read 4:23. What now? She played the message again, its creepy power diminishing each time. She could ignore it, but Jim had a right to know if this ugliness was seeping into their home. She thought suddenly of Alton Staggers, the Underhill family's security goon who a year earlier had snatched her son and Jim's younger daughter from school after she and Jim had unearthed the Underhills' sordid family secret. In situa­tions this volatile, there are no boundaries.

No, she decided, this had to be done by the book. It was risky, but she saw no other way. She picked up the phone and dialed.

“Public Safety Building,” the operator answered.

“Chief Kiger, please.”

“Who's calling?”

Brenna gave her name and waited. Would he remember her? No matter. Patrick Kiger was the one man in the Pittsburgh Police Department she felt she could trust. In the years since he arrived from Memphis, he'd turned the department from a swamp of institutionalized vice and debilitating internal politics into one of the most effective and best-managed forces in the country. His low tolerance for misconduct among his officers earned him loyalty and loathing in equal measure. The police union filed regular grievances against him, but few ever questioned his personal integrity. Even Dagnolo knew better than to cross him.

“I'm sorry, Chief Kiger's out this week.”

Brenna swore under her breath. “Is there any way—”

“Hold on, I'll transfer you.”

She considered hanging up, but didn't. What choice did she have? She wanted this on record, just in case it happened again. Just in case whatever.

“So, what?” came a familiar voice. “You take it all back?”

Milsevic. Damn.

“Uh, Captain,” she stammered, “I was looking for the chief.”

Milsevic laughed. “Surprise!” he said. “He's in San Diego. Had to speak at a DBA seminar. Left me holding the fort. What can I do for you?”

As Kiger's second-in-command, Milsevic more than made up for the chief's lack of personal charm. It worked on most people. She had always felt that if his police career didn't work out, he showed promise as a hot-tub salesman, or maybe a motivational speaker. Her friends in the department's rank-and-file considered Milsevic ruthlessly ambitious, but cops have better bullshit detectors than the general public. Kiger, on the other hand, understood Milsevic's value as the department's unblemished public face.

“Nothing,” she said after an awkward pause. “Just … nothing.”

“Look,” Milsevic said, “let's not play games here, OK? If there's something we need to know—”

“Nothing personal, Captain. I do need to talk to somebody there. I'm just not sure you're the right guy. You're too involved in my case, and with the Harnetts. I'm just not comfortable—”

“If this is about your boy DellaVecchio, no worries. Unless he's slipped his collar, he's at his dad's house in Lawrenceville right now. The wonders of electronics.”

“I know,” Brenna said. “Talked to him an hour and a half ago, just before I left the office.”

“What then? The lynch mob's torches keeping you awake at night? Swear to God, they didn't get your address from me.”

Asshole,
Brenna thought. “I'd take a mob any day over some spineless little prick who just phones in his threat,” she snapped.

The line went quiet. The bluster was gone from Milsevic's voice when he finally asked, “What are you saying?”

“I'll just talk to Kiger.”

“Look … sorry. If there's a problem, we need to know.”

He was right. The message was too scary to ignore. Brenna thought again of the kids, of Jim. This was her battle, but they were in the crossfire. She thought, too, of Teresa Harnett. If it was the same guy, she could be a target again.

“I got a phone message, a threat, I think,” she said. “Nothing overt, just implied. I'm no Chicken Little. I think you know that. We've had plenty of this bullshit since the release. But this one was different. I just got a feeling about it. Plus, it was on my home machine.”

“You saved the answering-machine tape?”

“It's digital. Not sure how that works.”

“But it's still on the machine, right?”

“Right.”

“You recognize the voice?”

“There's no talking. Just a recording. The verse from ‘Tunnel of Love.' ”

Brenna didn't elaborate; the police captain was intimately familiar with the details of the Harnett attack. He knew what it meant.

“I'll get someone over there,” he said.

“No hurry.”

“Look for a patrol officer in the next fifteen minutes. You're in Shadyside?”

She gave him the house number on Howe Street. “Brian?” she said, regretting the uncertainty she betrayed by using his first name. “It's probably nothing.”

“Or it could be a lot of things.”

“Just make sure to keep the Harnetts in the loop,” she said. “They should know. But don't screw me on this.”

“You did the right thing, calling. Let us do our job. I know what you're probably thinking. You probably know what I'm thinking. But either way, we need to be involved. Fifteen minutes. If it takes longer, call me back.”

As reassuring as she found Milsevic's words, they suddenly struck her as overly concerned. “I'd almost rather you didn't take this so seriously,” she said. “What exactly are you thinking, anyway?”

“You don't really want to know,” he said.

“Humor me.”

Milsevic waited. “It is kind of funny, sort of a coincidence. You spring DellaVecchio, and suddenly we've got a Springsteen fan with an attitude running around out there.”

Bastard.
“He wouldn't threaten me. Just forget it, OK. I should have known better.”

“You asked my opinion.”

“Your opinion is so goddamned predictable,” she said. “You want to know what I think, Captain? I think whoever savaged your friend Teresa is still out there. I think he's worried Carmen's off the hook. This misguided soul may actually think someone there would take a new investigation seriously. He may not know any better. So he's going after me, because I'm the one all over TV and the papers talking about how somebody other than Carmen DellaVecchio nearly killed Teresa. That's what I think, Captain, and you can bet your ass I'm going to track down your boss in San Diego and let him know what I think.”

She was breathing hard and covered the phone's mouthpiece so Milsevic wouldn't hear. After a long pause, he said “Touché. Fifteen minutes, OK?”

Brenna hung up without another word.

“And you think it's somehow connected to a court case you're working on?” he asked.

“Long story, but yes.” She told him the shortest possible version; he nodded as though he'd never heard of Teresa Harnett or Carmen DellaVecchio. As they talked, she memorized the name above his badge and the badge number itself.

“May I hear the message?” Officer Plantes asked when she was done.

Brenna led him into the kitchen, to the corner where the answering machine continued its red-eyed wink. He listened to the recording, scribbled a few more notes, then tried to find the machine's cassette-tape bay. “Go figure,” he said. “I'm way out of date. Mine still uses tapes. Guess I'll take the whole thing.”

“I'd like a receipt for it, though,” Brenna said as she unplugged it. “And if you wouldn't mind, officer, I'd like you to note the time and date on the receipt. Oh, and just note on there the reason why you're taking it.”

Brenna smiled. He actually blushed. If her paranoia bothered him, it didn't show. The young patrol officer complied with all her wishes and apologized for the trouble.

“So you'll file a report when?” Brenna asked.

“Before I'm off tonight,” he said. “Not supposed to send out copies, since they're available in the records room. But I could send you a copy if you'd like. This address OK?”

Brenna touched his hand lightly and nodded her appreciation. “ZIP code's 15232,” she said. “Thank you so much. Is that all you need from me?”

She opened the front door just as Jim was herding Annie and Taylor away from the police cruiser and the huffing beast inside. “Bren?” he said from the sidewalk, shifting two plastic bags of groceries from one hand to the other. He picked up the briefcase he'd set down during the switch. “What's up?”

“Your dog smells,” Annie interrupted as the smiling cop approached his car. “You shouldn't feed him beans or else you should keep the car windows closed or something.”

“Does he bite?” asked Taylor, her eight-year-old bundle of anxiety.

The cop ignored Annie's commentary. “He only bites bad guys,” he said to Taylor. “You're not a bad guy, are you?”

Her boy's eyes strayed to the cop's holster and the weapon inside. Taylor shook his head, speechless.

“Then you wanna pet him?”

Taylor shook his head again. The cop turned to Annie. “How about you?”

“What's his name?” Annie demanded.

“Carmack.”

Brenna blanched, then shot a look at Jim. He seemed just as astounded as she was. Did Kiger know his cops had named a K-9 dog after the victim in one of Pittsburgh's most notorious police brutality cases? Brenna filed that delicious little tidbit away for the next time one of the city's finest got too rough with one of her clients.

“But we call him Ace. You know, like Ace Ventura?” He paused. “Get it?”

Annie rolled her eyes. “Pet detective. Duh.”

The officer bent low so he could look Jim's younger daughter in the eye. He tried again to win Annie over. “Ace loves kids. Wanna pet him?”

“No way.”

“You sure?”

“He smells and probably has fleas and I saw a show once where this guy was wearing one of those big padded suits and a police dog chewed on his arm.”

“Ace only does that with bad guys.”

“Yeah, well,” Annie said. “Why are you here, anyway? Somebody gettin' busted?”

Officer Plantes stood up and turned toward the porch, apparently convinced that nothing he could do would impress her. “I'm gonna let your mom explain that, OK? Time for me and Ace to hit the road.”

“She's not my mom,” Annie said. She pressed her nose against the car's rear window and sang, “Beans, beans, are good for your heart—” until the dog's low growl backed her off.

“Annie,” Christensen said. “Inside. Now.”

Taylor was already clinging to the jacket hem of Brenna's Jil Sander suit as Jim and Annie climbed the stairs.

“I'd like both kids upstairs,” Jim said, his eyes fixed on Brenna's. “Let's get the homework started. Dinner'll be maybe forty minutes, and the grown-ups need to talk.”

“What are we having?” Annie asked.

Jim held up the plastic bags. “Tacos!” he said.

“Ooh, there's a new one,” Annie said.

“First time this week,” he protested. “You guys love tacos.”

“I like tacos,” Taylor agreed.

Annie withered the boy with a glare, then trained it on her father. “Remember, no cheese.”

They watched the kids haul their backpacks up the stairs. Jim sighed. “When did Patty Hearst move in?”

“She's pretty angry these days.”

“Is it me? Her dominatrix-in-pigtails thing used to be charming, right? Now it's, I don't know, bitter.”

“She misses her mom,” Brenna said.

Jim's face fell. “Why? She said something?”

Brenna shook her head. “I found Silkie two nights ago, under her pillow.”

“Molly's old nightgown? She hasn't asked about it for, what? Almost a year?”

Brenna shrugged. “You know, for somebody who's supposed to understand people, you can be pretty dense. Maybe it's a guy thing. Think what time of year it is.”

She knew as soon as she said it that she'd connected.

“Oh God,” he said. “The sixth anniversary of Molly's accident. First time I forgot.”

“That's not a bad thing, you know,” Brenna said. “You're healing.”

“But Annie remembered?”

“Melissa mentioned it when she called from Penn State last weekend. Annie must have dug Silkie out of her closet after talking to her big sister.”

Jim stood there, a tightening knot of guilt. “I'll talk to her tonight.” He leaned forward and tried an awkward hug. His briefcase and the grocery bags bounced against Brenna's back and shoulders. “Thanks.”

The cop started his cruiser, and they both turned. Officer Plantes waved brightly, then eased the black-and-white out onto Howe Street. They watched the car turn the corner onto South Aiken and disappear. Jim turned back to her.

“Mind filling me in?”