Chapter 28
It was early evening by the time we got back to my office. On the car ride back, I’d left three voicemails for Tallon Shipley that went unanswered. The fourth time I tried, her mailbox was full.
I was spent. Whipped. A thousand scenarios ran through my mind. Tallon Shipley had withheld the truth. I had the proof in my hands.
We walked in the back door, expecting the building to be empty. Instead, Miranda walked out to the lobby, her expression grim.
“Jeanie’s not back from court yet,” she said.
“You didn’t have to wait for us,” I said. “Go home. It’s almost six.”
“Jeanie texted me during a recess. She asked me to have you wait for her. She should be here in about five minutes. Have you caught up on all the episodes of Tallon of Justice?” she asked.
I nodded.
“I’ve been making calls all day,” Miranda said. “I think I know who Tallon’s source might have been for what Katy may or may not have said at the hospital.”
I braced myself. If it was another instance of Katy herself being loose-lipped, I wasn’t sure I could hold my temper.
“What did you find out?” Eric asked.
“My friend Darla’s daughter Justine, her boyfriend’s brother, is a custodian who works in the ER. As you can imagine, he sees and hears everything.” Miranda’s gossip chain made me dizzy.
“The custodian talked to Tallon?” I asked.
“Oh no,” Miranda said. “But he was there the morning they brought Katy in. There was a big hullabaloo because she had so many cops with her. Not that they’re not used to cops being around the ER. You know, I’ve heard there is a thing between ER nurses and cops. Is that true, Eric?”
“Well,” he said. “I suppose …”
“Miranda,” I said. “What did your, um, friend’s daughter’s boyfriend hear?”
“Brother,” she said. “My friend Darla’s daughter’s boyfriend’s brother. His name is Nathan, I think. The boyfriend. Not the brother. I’m not sure what his name is.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Anyway,” Miranda said. “The phlebotomist.” She nodded triumphantly and put her hands on her hips.
“The what now?” Eric asked.
“The phlebotomist,” Miranda repeated, sounding exasperated.
“The custodian I know through channels said the young girl who took Katy’s blood was with her for a very long time.
Skinny veins or something. Well, Katy was talking a mile a minute and the phlebotomist …
or maybe it was another nurse … I wasn’t too clear on that.
But the gal was in there for a long time and at the same time as all the cops. ”
“So there’s another potential witness Quick might call on rebuttal,” Eric said.
“It’s a theory,” Miranda said. “Nobody knows for sure if that’s who gave that story to Tallon. I’m just saying that seems to be who was in a position to know what Katy said.”
“Thank you. I don’t know if Jeanie can use it. But it’ll give her a heads-up as to what to expect should Quick call any hospital personnel.”
Sliding my heavy messenger bag off my shoulder, I headed for Jeanie’s large office across the hall.
I heaved my battered bag onto her leather couch and helped myself to her stash.
She kept a bottle of rum in her bottom desk drawer.
I grabbed a small can of pop from the cube fridge she had in the corner and poured a shot into it.
Eric took the rum from me and poured himself a shot in one of the glasses on the shelf.
“That bad?” Miranda asked.
“I don’t even know where to start.” I went over to the couch and plopped down next to my bag. I pulled out Maisy’s accordion file, flipping through until I found the half-a-dozen photos she’d taken of Tallon and Tom. I handed them to Miranda. Her eyes went wide as she looked at them.
“Is that …”
“Good!” Jeanie’s voice called out from the lobby. Her face was flushed as she walked into her office. She tossed her own bag onto a desk chair, took the rum bottle from Eric and drank straight from it.
“Do we still have a case?” I asked.
Jeanie handed the bottle to Miranda and took a seat beside me. “It was an interesting day.”
“To say the least,” Eric said. Miranda was still flipping through Maisy’s photographs.
“You go first,” I told Jeanie.
“Welp,” she started. “A whole lotta chest thumping from Quick today. The jury was only in the box for half the day. He’s trying to subpoena Tallon Shipley so he can put her on the stand tomorrow.
He’s trying to get her to reveal who Lissa Daughtry is.
I checked with the prison. Nobody’s been to see her yet.
For the moment, Tallon’s source is staying secret.
And Tallon’s AWOL. She’s not answering anybody’s calls or texts.
I sent Emma out looking for her. I did an about face on my edict to keep her away from this. I didn’t see how I had a choice.”
“She’s around somewhere,” Miranda said. “She uploaded a teaser for the next episode of her podcast. A bonus episode, she says. It’s supposed to drop sometime tomorrow.”
“It ought to be a doozy,” Eric muttered. He sat on my other side and put his feet up on Jeanie’s coffee table.
“Anyway,” Jeanie said. “I put up a fight. Surprise witness, and all. But Dr. Wall did all right. Quick was so worked up about this jailhouse witness he didn’t fight me on some stuff he probably should have with the doctor.
I got all of Katy’s medical records in. Her history of insomnia.
Her toxicology. Wall was able to render his opinion that Katy could have plausibly been under the influence at the time of Tom’s murder. ”
“Did he say she could have plausibly slept through everything?” I asked. That was the key.
“Oh, he said it all right. I’m just not sure how much it stuck.
Quick got off all the usual hits. It helped that Wall actually treated her.
It didn’t help that he never wrote her a prescription for the zolpidem that was in her system.
But Quick tripped him up a little. Landed the very good point that Wall’s theory is just that.
A theory. Her meds and alcohol could have kept her unconscious through a ruckus like that.
And considering there were no signs of a struggle, I think the jury believes that Tom’s death was bloody, but not a battle. ”
“That’s good,” I said. “Jeanie, that’s really good.”
“I’m not done,” she said. “The problem is, Quick also got the doctor to admit that if she was that sauced from the drugs, it’s also possible she could have done things she didn’t remember or that her inhibitions were compromised.”
“How bad?” I asked.
“Bad. Wall likes to hear himself talk. And he likes being the expert.”
“Damn,” I said. I’d gone over his testimony with him. He came off as arrogant, but authoritative.
“He went off on a tangent during cross that I couldn’t rein in.
Quick got him talking about all kinds of anecdotal evidence of weird things people do on zolpidem.
Especially if she took too much of it or hadn’t ever taken it before.
The strength Tom had of it in his medicine cabinet was higher than Wall said he would have prescribed Katy.
Then, with the alcohol. He tried to draw some parallels with that one comedian in that murder-suicide in the early aughts. ”
“Castor let him?” I asked.
“Gave him leeway, yep. I coulda reached across the bench and smacked him.”
“That doesn’t do much to help Quick’s case for first degree,” Miranda said. “If he’s now teeing it up that Katy might not have known what she’s doing? How does that help the prosecution?”
“That’s why I couldn’t get Wall to shut up. He thought he was helping.”
“How bad is it, do you think?” I asked.
“I’m sorry, Cass. I should have done a better job keeping the genie in the bottle.”
I waved a dismissive hand. “It would have happened to me too. Quick had a good strategy and executed it well.”
“Well, if the jury is confused, that’s to Katy’s benefit,” Miranda said. “Reasonable doubt, remember?”
“I’ve only got the station manager lined up,” Jeanie said. “I’m not so sure it’ll be enough. Please tell me you got something usable with Maisy Carmichael.”
“About that,” I said. Miranda on cue handed Maisy’s photos to Jeanie. She had the same reaction: a wide-eyed stare.
“What the devil are these?” she asked.
I let Eric do the talking. Jeanie was speechless. Miranda punctuated Eric’s retelling with about three “I’ll be damneds.”
“So let me get this straight,” Jeanie said. “Tom Loomis has a lucrative, upward trajectory gig at a station in a major market. Only he can’t keep it in his pants around a young intern. How old was she at the time, six years ago?”
“Twenty-one, twenty-two,” I said.
“And he’s in his forties and she’s subordinate to him.”
“The bosses find out. Tallon maybe raises a stink. Tom’s got the choice to leave on his own or get fired.”
“They expunged his personnel file and everybody signed NDAs, including Tallon.”
“Why come back here now?” Miranda asked. “Why insert herself into the story? Somebody else is bound to put two and two together from his old station. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”
“Because she’s using a different name,” I said. “We’ve seen her face to face. But who else has? She doesn’t put her picture up on the podcast website or on the show art itself, does she?”
Miranda pulled out her phone. She opened it to her podcast app. The cover art for Tallon of Justice just showed the eagle with the scales of justice and a microphone in its talons.
“And she doesn’t know Maisy Carmichael was following her around back in the day, much less taking photos of her. Everybody back in Detroit knows her as Theresa Sheffield, right?” A quick browser search cross-referencing WDTN had yielded Tallon’s full legal name.
“Can you talk to them?” Jeanie asked. “Can one of you have a sit-down with her station manager out there? He’s already on your extended witness list. Quick can’t claim surprise.”
“He withheld information from me once,” I said. “Gave me this useless redacted personnel file. It doesn’t matter who signed what NDA. Tom was murdered!”
“Once again,” Eric fumed. “This was all Sharon DePaul’s job.”
“We can use it,” Jeanie said. “Is Maisy willing to testify?”
“You don’t want her to,” I said. “Jeanie, she was mentally unstable during this time period. If nobody will confirm Tom’s relationship with Tallon outside of these photos, it’s a dead end.
And we’re just speculating that Tallon was the reason Tom was forced to resign.
Quick will never let any of this in without a fight. ”
“You need Tallon herself,” Miranda said.
“You put her on the stand and she can’t lie about her relationship with Tom.
And if she tries, you impeach her with those photos, Jeanie.
You don’t even have to work hard with the judge to get her on.
Quick’s already trying to call her on rebuttal. He’ll think you’re doing him a favor.”
I got up from the couch and walked over to the window.
I felt sick to my stomach. Everything the rest of them were saying was true.
This revelation about Tallon was a bombshell.
It introduced someone else who may have had a motive to kill Tom.
At the very least, it underscored the flaws in Detective DePaul’s investigation.
Eric was right. She should have tracked all of this down.
And yet, there was that one glaring lie eating at me. Why had my brother lied about where he was the night Tom was murdered? For Joe’s sake, it was a good thing Sharon had bungled this investigation so badly. If she’d been thorough and tried to confirm his alibi …
“I just don’t know,” Jeanie said. “I’d like to talk to Tom’s boss in Detroit though. I’ll try to place a call tonight yet.”
“I could …” I started.
“Cass, no,” she said. “If I’m going to call this guy to the stand, I need to handle this. You’ve done more than enough. I know it’s useless for me to try to pry loose what’s going on with you. I’m grateful for the information you both got from Maisy. But let me do my job. I’ve got Miranda’s help.”
The front door opened as Emma keyed herself in. She was still wearing work clothes: a purple suit and heels.
“Perfect timing,” Jeanie said. “Did you find her?”
Emma shook her head. “She’s gone. Tallon’s disappeared. The front desk at her hotel said she checked out before noon today. Settled her bill. She’s not answering her cell phone. I’ve left like ten messages.”
“So did I,” I said. Between the two of us, we’d likely have overflowed Tallon’s voice mailbox.
“She’s got to have figured out we’re on to her,” Eric said.
“On to what?” Emma asked. Eric filled her in with the photos and Maisy’s story. Emma brightened until Jeanie went through all the logistics and evidentiary issues she faced bringing any of this up in court.
“I’ll keep trying,” Emma said. “She’s still invested in this case. She’s got something to lose now. Her podcast is going viral. Her subscriber numbers shot up three hundred percent in just the last twenty-four hours.”
“What’s her endgame?” Eric said.
“Couldn’t she get into trouble?” Miranda asked. “Is this obstruction or something?”
“Unless she’s the one who slit Tom’s throat, Tallon hasn’t done anything illegal. Slimy and unethical? Sure. But I don’t see a crime in just the fact that she’s holding herself out as some impartial podcaster.”
“You asked me how it’s going,” Jeanie said, her tone sober.
“Quick’s got more than we do right now. I’m worried.
The best angle is to show how incomplete DePaul’s investigation was.
But what the jury really needs is somebody else to blame.
Somebody else we can plausibly pin Tom’s murder on.
Tallon is a good lead. A great one. But we have no proof she was in that house that morning.
Unless we’ve got a witness who outright lied, I don’t like Katy’s odds. ”
Her statement hit me in the chest like a gunshot. Unless someone outright lied …
Emma’s face nearly shattered me. She had no idea that someone was her father.