Chapter 32
Eddie
‘Flynn!’
My eyes opened and a wave of pain shot up my spine and into my neck. My suit jacket was a poor pillow and the wooden bench in the holding cell wasn’t doing my back any favors.
I dropped my legs to the floor and sat up, rubbing my neck.
I hadn’t slept much. Maybe an hour or two.
They’d brought in a tweaker at some point during the night and he bounced off the walls for another hour, screaming and crying and telling everyone else in the cell that there was a giant cockroach in his apartment who was eating all his breakfast cereal and hadn’t been paying rent.
The other four guys in the cell were regulars.
Even the gangster, who could have put the one-hundred-and-ten-pound tweaker in his shoe, knew there was no way to threaten the guy to get him to shut up.
And beating the crap out of him would only make things worse.
Only thing to do was sit quietly and wait for the meth in his system to dissipate.
‘Flynn! You want to stay here or what?’
The cop standing at the door to the holding cell had one hand on his equipment belt, his palm resting on his can of pepper spray, just in case anyone wanted to make a run for it when he opened the cage for me.
I stood and stretched my back. Grabbed my jacket and turned to my cell mates.
‘Darius, hope that thing works out with your sister,’ I said. ‘Andy, if your lawyer can’t figure out a way to plead your case down to one charge, call me. All the best to you guys. Stay lucky.’
‘Bye, Eddie,’ said Darius and Andy, and the rest of them waved or wished me well, apart from the tweaker, who was now sleeping softly underneath the bench in the corner.
I approached the door. The cop unlocked it and let me out.
‘Thanks for your hospitality,’ I said.
‘You’re welcome. Sounds like you had fun in there, Flynn.’
I stepped out, heard the door slam closed behind me.
‘I had good company, but the bed was terrible and the room service sucks. Don’t expect a five-star rating on Tripadvisor.’
I followed him down the hallway, through detention clearing to the desk sergeant. There, on what looked like a much more comfortable bench, sat Harry. He stood when he saw me coming, but there was no greeting.
‘Released with no charges. Sign here, Eddie,’ said the desk sergeant, who handed me a plastic bag with my tie, shoelaces, money roll, phone, watch and my father’s Saint Christopher medal on a silver neck chain. I thanked him, signed for my property and tossed him the pen.
‘I don’t want to hear it, Harry,’ I said.
He held up his hands and said, ‘We can do it in the car.’
I walked with him outside and across the street to his old, green convertible sports car. I hated it. I liked some British cars, but not even the Brits liked this thing. Even though it was cold, the sun was out and way too bright for my liking. Harry had the top down.
‘Can we put the top up?’ I asked.
‘Mechanics in four different garages can’t figure out how to fix the roof of this car. At least it’s not raining. Besides, you look like shit and don’t smell much better. The air will do us both good.’
‘I don’t need a lecture right now,’ I said, lowering myself into the passenger seat, and wincing at the shooting pain in my back. I was going to pay for sleeping on a bench all night for at least a week or two.
‘Too bad – you’re getting a lecture,’ said Harry as he got in, and tried and failed to start the engine.
He pumped the gas, pulled the choke, then tried again and this time it eventually coughed to life.
He reversed out of the parking space. After a couple of tries and a good deal of swearing, he managed to wrestle it into first gear and hit the gas.
‘You’d get better results lecturing the clutch in this thing. Neither of us are listening.’
‘You’re lucky you’re not on your way to central booking for aggravated assault, property damage and God knows what else.
I think Julian Vanderpool and his head of security didn’t want to file a complaint because then they would have to admit on record that a lawyer in a cheap suit blew through a whole security team with nothing more than a tire iron and charm.
You’re a lucky son of a bitch. You could have been going to jail. You could have lost your law license.’
‘I’m beginning to think losing my law license might be in the best interests of my long-term health.’
‘Joke all you want, but there are people who care about you.’
‘How’s Amy?’ I asked.
‘She’s okay. She still hasn’t seen a phone. Christine saw the articles, and Kevin and her are trying to get a court injunction to have the pictures taken down.’
‘That’s not going to work, but let them try. It’ll keep them busy. If she’s busy, she won’t blame me for this.’
Harry took his eyes off the road long enough to give me a withering look.
‘Is she that pissed?’ I asked.
‘She’s livid. She knows this is fallout from one of your cases. She asked me if this had something to do with one of your clients and I pleaded the fifth, but Christine isn’t stupid. She was talking to Kevin about going to court and getting an order restricting your access to Amy.’
‘She what?’
‘She won’t do it. I persuaded her to think about it.
Focus on Amy for a couple of days. When Christine calms down, she’ll see things differently.
I hope. But look, beating up a handful of Julian Vanderpool’s security men just to threaten him isn’t going to help Christine see sense.
You’ve got to calm down. When are you going to realize you’re a lawyer?
You’ve got to leave that other life behind. ’
‘Doesn’t matter if I’m a lawyer or a bricklayer. This is me.’
‘This is why Kate . . . This is why she left,’ he said.
I could tell by the hesitation that he didn’t want to say it.
But the bitterness in those words swam around the car for a while.
My law partner had bailed because she was a good person, a straight shooter, who used the law to help our clients.
But the law doesn’t work. And I can’t live with that.
I’d been down that road and people got hurt.
When the law fails, I have no choice but to do things my way.
‘Any word from Bloch and Lake?’
‘Yep, they’re waiting for us in the office. They had an eventful trip to East Hampton.’
‘How eventful?’
‘Possibly a major break in our case and five men are dead.’
I listened to Lake lay out what had happened yesterday in East Hampton, and all they’d learned from Captain Landry, and more importantly the late Detective Paul Winchester. The South African ex-special forces ops stank of Julian Vanderpool’s right-hand goon, Dekker.
We sat in silence for a time.
‘Can’t we use this to help Vanessa? It’s a hell of a coincidence – two decapitated victims both with relationships to Patrick Vanderpool immediately before their deaths? That’s a defense, right?’ asked Lake.
‘We can’t use Patrick’s confession to Vanessa,’ said Harry. ‘But if we can somehow prove Teresa Chase is the unidentified decapitated body that Winchester found then that is a defense. But we’re risking one hell of a firestorm from Julian Vanderpool.’
‘Looks like the fire has already started,’ I said, gazing at my phone.
I passed it to Harry, then Bloch and Lake crowded round him to take a look.
Patrick Vanderpool had issued a statement. He was immediately filing for divorce from his wife due to her alleged involvement in the murder of one of his close political aides.
‘We should talk to Vanessa,’ said Harry.
I rubbed my forehead, then raised my arms above my head and stretched my aching back, forcing my spine to curve until I heard a satisfying click.
‘I need some coffee,’ I said.
Denise appeared with a mug in her hand. I took a drink. It was almost cold, but I didn’t care. I needed the fuel.
‘This case has two suspects. Our client and her now estranged husband. The police haven’t looked at Patrick for a reason.
And it’s not just the security camera footage showing Vanessa as the last person to be in that apartment.
The same thing that happened in East Hampton is happening right here.
The cops are helping steer the investigation away from Patrick Vanderpool.
Two women who were having a relationship with him end up dead and decapitated.
That’s beginning to look like a pattern. If we can prove it,’ I said.
Bloch and Lake exchanged a look.
‘Why were the bodies decapitated?’ I asked.
Lake sat on a desk, said, ‘There are various psychological factors involved in a deranged murder. Mutilation takes many forms. Decapitation, without other evidence of bodily mutilation, is uncommon. Usually, we only see it in certain extreme religious or cultural murders from certain fundamentalist groups. But I don’t think we’re in that territory.
I know that certain serial killers would carry out full dismemberment, so they could scatter the victims remains over a wide area.
That’s a dispassionate tactic, designed to help the killer elude detection.
The Route 66 Taskforce is dealing with that right now.
They might find an arm in one state, and a torso in another.
It makes investigation incredibly difficult. ’
‘But it’s just the head that’s missing,’ said Harry. ‘That doesn’t . . . Wait . . .’
‘It does make sense,’ I said.
Bloch, who had been sitting in an armchair, listening intently, stood up, a bright look in her eyes.
‘It makes establishing cause of death near impossible,’ said Bloch.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Lake.
Bloch, Harry and I were tugging at a theory, but Lake wasn’t quite there yet.