The 3rd Victim (22 page)

48

J
oe Mannix had been sitting in the uncomfortable plastic chair for a total of seven minutes and thirty-six seconds before she was brought into the room. He had counted the cinder blocks, run his eyes across the ceiling, taken off his jacket and slowed his breathing in anticipation of what he was about to do.

He had told David that he needed to meet with Sienna Walker alone, but not for the reasons David had suspected. David thought this get-together was about Joe's need to keep his role in this whole mess under the radar. But this wasn't about discretion, it was about confronting the woman anyone in their right mind would have written off as being guilty as sin weeks ago. It was about hitting her with what they knew and gauging her reaction and, most of all, it was about protecting his friend, who Joe suspected may have allowed his hatred for Daniel Hunt to influence his perspective on his client's culpability.

She was smaller than he remembered, beyond thin – skin and bones. Her hair was pulled back in a band that made her look more like a teenager than a woman in her late twenties, and her cheekbones sat high and chiselled over slightly sunken cheeks.

‘Deputy Superintendent,’ she said. She did not offer her hand, merely pulled out the chair and sat straight backed in front of him. She placed her hands on the table. ‘David said you would come.’

Joe said nothing.

‘This is unusual,’ she said, ‘a member of the Boston Police Department visiting me for a purpose other than interrogation. Or is this an interrogation after all?’

‘You've been charged with murdering your daughter, Mrs Walker. The District Attorney has his indictment, which means the grand jury has decided that he has more than enough evidence to take your case to trial. So strictly speaking, my work is done. Your case is in the hands of the Commonwealth now, Mrs Walker, in theirs, and in the hands of your attorneys.’

‘But still you are here, which means you believe there are still questions to be asked.’

‘Let's just say I am a stickler for detail.’

‘And a loyal friend,’ she suggested.

But once again Joe said nothing.

‘Forgive me,’ she offered after several seconds' silence. ‘I don't mean to be combative, but these past months have seen my ability to take people's motives at face value diminish somewhat. I suppose I should be thanking you, but I fear your visit is not just for David's benefit, or mine. I believe you need to see me for yourself – as I am now, not sedated or bloodied but perhaps beaten somewhat by the passage of time. Perhaps you need to observe me after my months of incarceration. Perhaps you need to see if I regret what I did or didn't do and how I've played it since the death of my daughter.’ She swallowed. ‘It's easy to forget, isn't it? That I was her mother and that she is dead. I sometimes feel the brutal truth of it is shamefully lost in the process. Not by me, of course,’ she swallowed once again, ‘but by those set on deciding the matter so that I can be convicted and the entire mess can be neatly put to bed.’

Joe stared at her. For the first time in a very long time he had no idea what to say. He had interviewed hundreds of suspected killers over the past twenty-five years and none of them had ever come close to responding to an interview as she was. Her face was flushed with a controlled desperation, her breathing slow.

‘As it stands, you're going to be convicted,’ he said, knowing it was true. She blinked.

‘David Cavanaugh is probably the best criminal defence attorney in this state – probably Top 10 in the country, and even he won't be able to save you.’

She blinked again. ‘Is my cause that hopeless?’

‘You were the only one with the victim when she died. Forensics reports indicate your daughter was cradled while she bled to death. Your nightshirt indicates it was you who was holding her. Your blood is all over the crime scene. There's the wire screen and the light switch and the fact that your daughter's body was shoved up a gutter pipe in your own backyard.’

She flinched, just a little.

‘And that's just the stuff that's solid – then there's the other stuff that's a little shakier but can easily be manipulated by the savvy DA. There's the death of your husband, the fact that your doctor will testify that it was your husband who wanted the baby, that you wanted a career, that you didn't suffer from depression, and finally the possibility that your doctor will testify that you sedated yourself, with the intention to commit suicide, given you were racked with guilt about the affair you indulged in, the one that led to your husband's death.’

Sienna lowered her chin and began to shake her head before raising it once again. ‘You are a smart man, Deputy Superintendent. You are experienced, practical. You are also a good friend of David's and I have always believed that you can judge a man by the company he keeps, so … I am going to take a leap here and assume you are a man to be trusted.’

‘This isn't about me, Mrs Walker.’

‘Perhaps not, but my guess is you wouldn't be here unless you wanted to hear what I had to say.’

Joe did not disagree.

Walker took another breath before opening her mouth to go on. ‘The list you just gave me, it is flawed.’

‘It is?’

‘Yes. It all fits together bar the last point, the one about my sedating myself, trying to end my own life. The other points,’ she continued, when he did not contradict her, ‘culminating in my hiding my daughter's body, they all point to a woman who is in control, organised, focused. Dick and Daniel – they are painting the picture of an ambitious woman who needed to rid herself of the inconvenience of motherhood. But the last point, the one that suggests that my intentions were murder-suicide does not fit. If I wanted a life beyond my daughter, then why would I kill myself? One minute they want me to be the self-centred perpetrator of the perfect crime and the next they want me to be suicidal. They cannot have it both ways, you see? I am either one or the other or neither of the two.’

Joe was impressed. She was right.

‘Secondly, if Eliza was just the first part of my murderous plan, why did I hide her body? I was about to kill myself, remember, so why bother to dispose of her remains if I wouldn't be around to face the consequences in any case.’

And once again she was right.

‘It's a mistake,’ she went on when Joe remained silent, ‘on their part, I mean. They are trying to fire at me from all directions but logic says an assassin can only be positioned at a single vantage point at any given time. Either I am mad or I am not. Either I am manipulative or depressed. My guess is it plays better when I'm of sound mind but perhaps they know that and have no intention of going down the murder-suicide route in any case.’

‘You think Hunt was bluffing when he told Sara that Davenport would testify as to your self-sedation?’

‘Don't you?’ she asked.

‘Why would I? If they are determined to put you away, it is certainly a good way of doing so.’

But she was shaking her head. ‘No, depression suggests the decision was somewhat out of my control. They need me with a clear mind to secure the maximum sentence.’

‘You don't think Davenport has brought this theory up with the DA?’

‘No.’

‘So why on earth would Hunt put such a story to Sara? Why tell the defence and not the prosecution?’

‘Isn't it obvious?’ she asked.

But a frustrated Joe could not see it, so Walker took a breath and went on. ‘You have to understand the people we are dealing with here. They are incredibly clever, always two steps ahead. The murder-suicide scenario – I suspect it was a last-ditch attempt to get David and Sara to drop my case, for they know if David did so, especially at this late stage of the game, it would crucify me in the eyes of the people. And twelve of those people will ultimately decide my fate.’

Finally Joe saw it. This was all about David's reputation, that all-important promise he made to himself when he decided to dedicate his life to representing people he believed in.

‘Tell me this then,’ he said after a time. ‘Why do you think Hunt and Davenport are doing what you purport them to be doing?’

‘David thinks it is because my husband suspected Daniel of insider trading.’

‘I didn't ask you what David thought.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No you didn't.’

She looked at him then – her eyes like steel – and in that moment, he saw beyond her fragile exterior and into something deeper, something stronger, something determined and powerful, filled with purpose but driven by fear.

‘This isn't about the insider trading,’ he said.

But she did not move, merely continued to meet his eye.

‘Then what is it about and why are you so afraid to tell me?’

‘I'm sorry,’ she said, after a time.

‘You're the one whose life is on the line here, Mrs Walker.’

‘Perhaps, but I still feel … responsible, for involving others. I am not a fool, Deputy Superintendent, I know how far you are sticking your neck out for me – not to mention the risk David and Sara are taking with …’

‘With what?’ Her comments were starting to worry him.

‘With their reputations, of course,’ she replied. Her answer should have eased him, and it did, to a point.

‘David is a big boy, Mrs Walker, but you aren't doing him any favours by not telling him the one hundred per cent truth.’ He met her eye, sure then that she was still hiding something. ‘You are going to prison for a very long time unless you trust in your attorneys.’

‘I have trusted them with my life, Deputy Superintendent, isn't that enough?’

There was movement at the window – it was the deputy who had allowed him access without noting his name in the visitor's log, now knocking impatiently on the door.

‘It appears our time is up,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I have one last question,’ he said.

‘All right.’

‘Do you know a woman by the name of Esther Wallace?’

She blinked and her lips parted for a fraction of a second before she closed them once again.

‘Mrs Walker?’ he prompted.

‘Mrs Wallace used to be Dick Davenport's assistant.’

‘Until she went on vacation.’

‘It's a shame that she's gone,’ she offered after a pause. ‘I found her to be very … efficient.’

Joe did not answer, understanding this was her way of giving it to him, the seed of something he needed to grow.

The deputy knocked again.

‘My time is up,’ she said before correcting herself. ‘I mean
your
time is up.’ She got to her feet before meeting his eye once again. ‘Deputy Superintendent, please forgive me if I have appeared … callous, but …’ she swallowed, ‘it is the only way I can cope, you see, by rationalising, trying to justify what has happened and how I might find some sense of justice for …’ Her eyes started to water as she swallowed back the tears.

‘If it makes any difference … your daughter – I don't believe she suffered.’

She looked at him then, the slightest smile of gratitude forming on her pale pink lips. ‘When your people found her,’ she asked, ‘did they … was their some sort of acknowledgment, some sort of pause, or silence out of sorrow, or respect, or …’

‘Nobody said anything for what felt like a very long time,’ he said.

She nodded.

‘And if I didn't say it before, I am sorry for your loss.’

‘Me too, Deputy Superintendent. Me too.’

49

M
adonna Carrera pressed her thumb firmly against her thigh. She held it there a moment before releasing it and was pleased to see that it left a white impression. Job done! She had managed to get a slight tan in her forty-five-minute lunch hour which would mean she could get away with not wearing pantyhose to the bar she was going to tonight. She was glad she tanned easily. Her friend Carina was as white as a bleached sheet and was openly jealous of Madonna's Jennifer Lopez-like hue. But Carina was also jealous of Madonna's hair (the volume), her boobs (the volume) and her ass (the tightness). So the skin thing was just one more asset poor Carina would continue to covet, which made Madonna wonder why people labelled both jealousy
and
beauty as curses, given she was blessed with the latter, and there was no way her beauty was anything close to being a –

The sight of him cut her thought short. It was her boss, Dr Davenport. It caught her off guard seeing him anywhere but inside the surgery. He was standing by those statues looking all serious and contemplative and melan … cholic.

This is awkward, she thought as she slowly got to her feet and shook the crumbs of her cinnamon roll from her skirt. There was no way she could avoid him, those bronze ducks were right beside the path that led back to the surgery and she was already running late so … She decided that this could be an opportunity to converse with him outside the confines of their professional setting. Perhaps this was fate – her decision to sun her legs in the Public Gardens at lunch time. Perhaps this would give them a chance to bury the hatchet from the other morning's shellacking, to converse as friends and connect on an alternative level. And so she undid the top button of her blouse before sidling up beside him and tapping him on the shoulder.

‘Dr Davenport, how nice to run into you! Such a lovely day, isn't it? Are you taking a brief moment to carpet diem?’ she asked, trying to sound multicultural. ‘To seize the day?’

He turned to her then, his eyes squinting against the sun, and for a moment it looked like he did not recognise her, but then he nodded as he turned back to the statues and pointed at the largest of the nine and opened his mouth to say: ‘You've read the book, I assume – about Mrs Mallard and her eight little ducklings.’

Um … okay … just go with it, she told herself.

Madonna
had
read the book, of course, but only because
Make Way For The Ducklings
had been compulsory reading in elementary school. From memory, it was some lame tale about a mother duck – Mrs Mallard – who led her eights kids across the city to meet the father duck – Mr Mallard – in the Public Gardens. Which made her wonder if that was where the expression ‘lame duck’ actually came from.

‘Sure,’ she replied with a smile. ‘It was one of my favourites. I liked the part where the policemen stopped the traffic to let them through.’ As if that would ever happen, she thought. ‘And I remember the ducklings had really sweet names that rhymed – something like Jack and Mack and Flack and Slack.’

‘Actually their names were Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack and Quack. Their journey was a long one, but once they got here, they decided to make the Gardens their home for good.’

‘Wise decision,’ said Madonna, not knowing what else to say. ‘Sure beats the hell out of Southie,’ she added, referring to Boston's working-class south.

The doctor nodded and did a vague sort of bob before turning to look at her once again. ‘Did you know that these statues have a replica in Moscow?’ he asked. ‘In Novodevichy Park to be exact.’

‘No, no I didn't,’ she answered, thinking it best not to lie.

‘They were a gift from Barbara Bush to Raisa Gorbachev – for the children of the Soviet Union.’

‘That's nice,’ said Madonna. The conversation was not going the way she had expected.

‘It
was
nice,’ Dr Davenport continued, ‘until some Moscow hoodlums cut off a number of the ducks at the knees so they could sell them on the black market as scrap metal.’

‘They cut off the ducklings at the knees?’ she asked, genuinely horrified. ‘Why that's just
awful.
They are just babies. If that was real life, the mother duck would have been … you know, spewing.’

‘Except they cut her off too – she was biggest and therefore worth the most.’

Shit, thought Madonna, what the hell do I say to that? But then she saw an opening. ‘Must make you feel good about what you do, Doctor – you know … making families, keeping the mothers and their babies together.’

He looked at her then, and his face turned all tortured and sad as if she had said something deliberately to hurt him. ‘You should be back at the surgery,’ he said. ‘The Thompsons are due in at one.’

She nodded, wondering what she had said wrong.

‘All right,’ she said, as she backed away and started up the path toward Charles Street. As she reached the crossing she took a chance and turned back to check if he was behind her, but he was still near the statues, standing there, mesmerised, like he expected those fucking ducks to up and start following
him
. Like he was the father they'd trekked all that way to hook up with, the daddy who'd take them all home.

*

This was not like him. He was usually so in control. He was usually immune to … how might you put it? … the
human
aspect of his work. He saw himself as a scientist, which was probably why he was able to do what he was able to do, but he'd be lying if he did not admit to his also acknowledging the humanitarian aspects of his work – and it was these more morality based concepts that were distressing him so much, or to call a spade a spade, eating away at him, like parasites sucking on his soul.

He knew what he was supposed to do. His friend had made it very clear. First he was supposed to have found the midwife, which he had failed to do. It did not help that her name was Mary Brown and Dublin had a population of over half a million people. He was not sure why this request had been made of him but he guessed it was his friend's way of rubbing salt in the wound – reminding Davenport how he'd failed to maintain control of his end of the deal from the outset. It was petty, but Davenport would not have put it past him.

The second task was more … worrisome. He also knew that he should have completed it by now, but Sophia was still alive and well, as was the child inside her.

So what was the problem? As it was pointed out to him, he had done this before. All right, that was not strictly true. When his friend had commented that it was ‘not like you haven't done it before’ he was referring to the old woman – to Wallace, who was way too smart for her own good. He had told him that he had dealt with her, which he had, but not in the fashion his friend had imagined. The truth was, he hadn't
had
to deal with Wallace because she'd up and left before he'd had a chance to. And perhaps he was playing ostrich by hoping that that was the end of it and he would never hear from the woman again, but he figured, given he had not heard a peep from her in over four months, that the woman had indeed put her time working with him behind her. She was smart, and that had definitely been the smart thing to do – under the circumstances.

But Sophia was another matter altogether. She and Wallace were polar opposites. So the idea of ‘dealing’ with a subordinate such as Sophia went against everything he had supposedly dedicated his life to when he entered Yale School of Medicine all those years ago. He took the oath – to do no harm – and more to the point Davenport, in all his genius, had taken the words of Hippocrates further. He did not just cure, he created, he did not just treat, he
designed
.

No, this was not just about Sophia, it was about the child that she carried inside her. The first was lost in … in so
violent
a fashion, but to voluntarily give up both – it seemed so … indulgent. It was not like another could be created with a click of the fingers. Indeed, they lost that opportunity many months ago. So how could he, given his commitment and, he had to admit, appreciation for what he was capable of, destroy what was perhaps the greatest thing he had ever produced? It was just so criminal considering the masses who were churning out millions upon millions of substandard specimens at a rate that would eventually be the ruination of the planet. And so to annihilate one so unique was, well … it was tantamount to sacrilegious, whether you were religious or not.

Dick Davenport shifted his weight. He looked up and noted that the blue sky was being consumed by the grey and he told himself that if he was smart he would, like that blue, allow the inevitable to happen. For even if he did act on such notions, what was he supposed to do with a child such as this one he had fashioned? To
not
provide it with the nurturing it deserved would be sinful – like painting a masterpiece for no one to see.

No
, he told himself as he glanced down at Mrs Mallard one last time before turning to head back to his surgery,
this nonsense has to stop.
He knew there was no alternative bar the one that had been set for him, so he needed to swallow this bitter pill and move on before the situation transformed from controllable to beyond their manipulation.
Better to let something go than not do it justice
, he reiterated as he passed the smallest of the eight sculptures, the duckling named Quack.

Unless
… the thought came to him like a bolt from the blue, causing him to stop in his tracks on the pathway.
Unless …