Chapter 66
Louise
Why what’s happening tonight??
He’s back for more $
Don’t worry it’s coming out of my half not yours
Allison (8:49 p.m.)
That’s not the point. I don’t care about money. If you keep paying he will NEVER stop. Go to police
Finley (8:50 p.m.)
LOL if I go to cops he shows them the proof
Allison (8:51 p.m.)
What proof? You took his phone. He’s bluffing.
Finley (8:51 p.m.)
He said it’s on his cloud and if he’s not bluffing then I’m fucked not worth the risk
Allison (8:52 p.m.)
Bluff or not this has to stop. If he goes to police I will defend you. You were acting in self-defense.
Finley (8:53 p.m.)
Easy to say from the cheap seats! You won’t be the one going to prison I’ll figure something out
Finley (11:11 p.m.)
I’m truly sorry for all the pain I caused you. I love you and Grayson more than anything.
Bruce looks up from the page. “Wow. So Finley met with Marlow that night.”
“He sure did,” says Louise. “Cutty, you did the license plate cameras.”
“Sure.” Cutty looks over his notes. “Finley Brice’s car left the underground garage at 432 East Erie at 10:37 p.m. We get about a dozen hits on his license plate, tracking him from downtown Chicago along the interstate to Austin, where he gets off and heads south, turns on Roosevelt into Cicero.”
“His cell phone tracks the same route,” Louise adds.
“He drove straight from the condo to Marlow Luckett’s house.
We think he got there about ten minutes after eleven.
That’s when he sent that last text message to Allison, kind of a goodbye of sorts, like he had some inkling of trouble coming his way.
‘Sorry for the pain I caused you, I love you guys.’ ”
“And he stayed there, best estimate, about twenty-five minutes,” says Cutty. “We think that’s when he handed off the money.”
“Okay,” says Bruce. “That’s the fancy bag full of money you found in the woodpile behind his house.”
“Exactly,” says Cutty. “That’s Finley’s bag. He bought it at Neiman Marcus on Michigan Avenue a week earlier. The damn thing cost four hundred and fifty dollars. Can you imagine? For a gym bag?”
“Anyway,” says Louise. “He hands off the money, and Marlow guts him. Maybe there was an argument first, or Finley said this is the last time or something. Probably a struggle. But that’s where Finley met his maker.”
“No murder weapon?”
“No murder weapon. Not entirely sure of the exact crime scene, even. Doesn’t look like it was inside the house. Maybe the backyard?”
“We think the fight happened while the money was being exchanged,” says Cutty. “There was a decent amount of blood spatter inside the leather bag.”
“My personal theory,” says Louise, “is that Marlow was counting the money and Finley tried to attack him—y’know, catch him off guard. Marlow had a weapon ready and stabbed him. Spattered blood on the money.”
“The blood on the money is Finley’s?”
“We’re running DNA tests,” says Louise, “but if that blood isn’t Finley Brice’s, I’m the queen of England.”
Bruce laughs, then nods for a long time, digesting everything. “That it?”
“No,” says Cutty. “After about thirty minutes, give or take, Finley’s car was on the move again.”
“Ah. Right. He had to dump the body. But he didn’t want to use his own truck. Makes more sense just to use Finley’s Wagoneer.”
“That’s what we think, yes. Finley’s cell phone gets turned off then.
Marlow probably realized it wasn’t a good idea for Finley’s phone to be active while he drove him to his burial site.
But we have the license plate cameras. They track Finley’s Wagoneer up to Grace Park, where he dumped the body at a residential construction site. ”
“Why Grace Park?” Bruce asks.
“Two reasons,” says Louise. “One, he wanted the body far away from him, away from Cicero. Several towns over, at least.”
“Makes sense.”
“And two, he knew of this construction site in Grace Park,” she says. “Because he worked on that job site for a couple weeks in March.”
“No shit.”
“No shit. He did some excavation work. This fancy home on a double lot on Cherry Oak Avenue in Grace Park that belonged to one of Al Capone’s former lieutenants back in the day.
We got a list of every worker on the worksite where the body was dumped.
We’ve had Marlow Luckett’s name on a damn list since day one.
But he didn’t jump out immediately at us. ”
“So anyway, he dumped Finley’s body in the dumpster and…”
“And drove back to Cicero. Parked Finley’s Jeep Wagoneer about a mile from his house. So not too close to home, but close enough that he can walk home after ditching the Jeep.”
Bruce slaps his hands down on the table. “Is he talking?”
“Marlow? No. His lawyer’s got his mouth sealed tighter than a knot in a rope.”
“Well.” Bruce lifts himself from his seat. “Looks like game, set, and match for Mr. Luckett. Oh, hey.” He snaps his fingers. “So…Allison Brice?”
“Home all night on April first,” says Louise. “Or at least, her phone stayed put. So did her car.”
“And Luke?”
“Same. Never left his house.”
“I’ll be damned.” Bruce removes his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Think I’ll stick around for the interview with Allison, now that she’s willing to talk to us.”