Move to Strike (6 page)

And so, as the phone rang, its shrill tone cutting a swathe across the silence in her stylish Back Bay apartment, she took a breath and ran her hands through her long dark hair. She closed her eyes and exhaled with force as she decided, then and there, that the ‘truth' was the only way to go. She would request to speak to Greenburg privately, and allude to him that circumstances were not as dire as they first appeared, and he needed to trust her until she had an opportunity to speak with Jeffrey's lawyers.

And then she would speak to Cavanaugh, and then he would understand, and then they would carve out a course of action so that the world would know the truth, and all would be forgiven.

‘I
told you,' said Jeffrey Logan, his athletic frame now swimming in the too big, red prison jumpsuit. ‘I was cleaning it. It was new. I'd never cleaned a gun before. I wasn't sure what I was doing.'

It was now almost noon. David and Sara had arrived at Boston's Nashua Street Suffolk County Jail – a huge modern construction on the Charles River across from Bunker Bridge which housed close to seven hundred temporary detainees awaiting trial – at eight. And they had been sitting in the close confines of a whitewashed interview room on the building's sixth, or ‘homicide', floor and grilling their client ever since.

David was trying desperately to put the image of his good friend Stephanie behind him, as he knew, above all else, that his immediate responsibility was, ironically, to the man who had confessed to her murder. But it was clear from the outset that Logan's story was full of inconsistencies, and so David and Sara had decided that their priority was showing Logan that just because he said he was responsible for the crime, it ‘did not make it so'.

‘Look, Doctor,' said David.

‘Please call me Jeffrey,' said Logan, who despite appearing tired, David had to admit, still had that familiar TV sparkle in his eyes.

‘Jeffrey,' David began again. ‘We hear what you are saying, but
establishing the facts is the only way we can help you. Our problem is that your story doesn't quite fit together. The details are there, but right now they are hanging like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw.'

‘I . . . I don't know what else I can tell you,' Logan replied, shaking his head.

David took a breath. ‘All I am saying is that this whole gun thing doesn't ring true – and the problem is, Jeffrey, if
we
can't see it, chances are a judge, or a jury, won't see it either.'

‘But surely I am making it easy for them,' protested Logan. ‘And for you and your co-counsel too.' Logan gestured at Sara. ‘I would imagine you spend most of your time trying to convince your clients
not
to exaggerate circumstances to assure their freedom, and now you have me, who simply asks that you corroborate my guilt.'

David had to admit he was right.

‘I understand your reasoning, Jeffrey but, with all due respect, just because you say something happened, it doesn't mean others will believe you.'

‘But that's where you're wrong, David,' said Logan. ‘In case you haven't noticed I have built an entire career on being believed. People live by my every word. They make decisions based solely on my advice. It's like . . . I am Doctor Jeff!' he said then – an exclamation, not a statement. ‘And with risk of sounding completely supercilious, if I say something happened – then that alone makes it so.'

There was silence as David swallowed the knot in his throat. In all honesty he had never met anyone like Jeffrey Logan before; the man
was
arrogant, superior – but in a strangely appealing way. And the fact that he was, at least on the face of it, making one of the most selfless acts a human being could make, certainly counted for something.

‘Look,' said Sara, trying to fill the increasingly awkward silence. ‘We are not trying to make this difficult for you, Jeffrey, but David is right when he says the facts are all skewiff. For example, why would you be cleaning a brand new rifle that had never been used before? And why, given you had never hunted before, was it loaded? And why did you decide to clean it at a time when, you admit, you had no plans to go on a hunting trip at any time in the near or distant future? And why did you . . . ?'

‘Maybe I wanted to clean the gun so my wife knew that I appreciated
her gift,' Logan interrupted again. ‘The whole idea of hunting may not be something I have ever embraced, but that doesn't mean I didn't want my wife to see how much I valued her generosity. Perhaps I figured, if I took it to the kitchen, if she saw I was taking care of what must have cost her a small fortune, then she would know how much I . . .' And then he hesitated, as his brain perhaps tracked ahead to how his supposed expression of gratitude had eventually played out.

‘You said you wanted some fresh rags from the kitchen,' said David, taking Sara's lead, getting them back on track. ‘But a police search confirmed your garage was stocked with fresh rags and there were no similar cloths in the kitchen.'

‘I mustn't have seen the ones in the garage,' said Logan, taking a breath now, shifting in his worn plastic chair which scratched in protest across the dirty concrete floor.

‘Where do you normally keep your gun, Jeffrey?' asked David, not missing a beat.

‘In the hall cabinet. Under lock and key.'

‘And the key?'

‘Like I told you, in the upstairs drawer.'

‘In your bedroom.'

‘Yes.'

‘Beside your bed.'

‘Yes.'

‘In a drawer that remained unlocked.'

‘
Yes
.'

‘Did anyone else in the household know where this key was kept?' asked Sara.

‘No,' said Logan, tapping his prison issue flip-flops on the cold grey floor. ‘My wife knew but my son . . . I mean my
children
,' he corrected himself, shaking his head as if in self-admonishment, ‘they did not know where it was kept.'

David looked at Sara. Logan was lying again – and this time, not very well.

‘What time did you get home last night?' asked Sara. She was tag teaming it now.

‘Ah . . . seven-thirty, eight, I am not sure.'

‘It was eight-sixteen,' continued Sara. ‘A neighbour saw you turn into your drive.'

‘Well, it might have been . . .'

‘But Stephanie was shot at eight-twenty,' said David. ‘Which means that you must have gotten out of your car, taken your briefcase to the study, run upstairs to the bedroom, retrieved the cabinet key, run downstairs to the hallway, taken out the gun, gone to the garage, looked for the cleaning rags, found none, walked back to the other end of the house to the kitchen and accidentally shot your wife – all in the space of no more than four minutes.'

‘Then I suppose I am . . . a fast walker,' said Logan.

‘Did you re-lock the cabinet?' asked David, this new question stopping their client dead.

Logan looked at them then, his foot frozen mid tap, his brow contorted in a knot of confusion, his head shaking rapidly as if trying to clear the fog.

‘I'm sorry?' he managed.

‘Did you re-lock the cabinet – in the hallway, where the gun was kept?'

‘Ah . . . no. There was no need, I was going to put the gun back so . . .'

‘Then why did the police find it locked?' asked Sara. ‘And why was the key found back upstairs in the bedroom drawer?'

‘I must have . . .'

‘Walked, quickly, we know,' finished David, not meaning to be harsh but determined to show his client just how unbelievable his story was.

Logan looked at him then, and David could have sworn that in that second his lips had clenched in anger. But then they quivered, and David realised that he had misread the doctor's sorrow for resentment – sorrow at his own predicament and the predicament of his son.

‘The thing is, Doctor,' said Sara, ‘the gun, the cabinet, the timing of the whole thing – the fact that there was no blood on your clothing, no residue on your hands . . . ? We don't mean to be unsympathetic, but we needed you to see just how implausible this whole thing is. We understand your motives are selfless, but your story . . . it is so full of holes, so desperate in its irrationality, that in many ways it only goes to consolidate your teenage son's guilt.'

So, she had said it – plain and clear.

Logan lifted his head, his eyes burning with what could be fear, frustration, perhaps even irritation at Sara speaking of it before he had the chance to utter it himself.

‘Please,' he began, his voice much softer than the expression on his face. ‘You must understand that this is the
only
solution, for if you don't, all is lost. Not one life, but two – my wife's and that of my son. What happens to me is now inconsequential. I had my chance in life – at a family, at parenthood, and somewhere along the line I forgot what matters the most. So now I have a chance to make amends – a sick and twisted opportunity that I must hold on to, no matter what the cost.'

‘This isn't going to work,' said David at last.

‘Probably not,' said Logan. ‘But if I do not try, I will
never
forgive myself.'

David nodded before glancing at Sara. ‘Okay, Jeffrey. Let's see if we can't get you indicted.'

S
he was up on a chair when they entered her office, wearing her ‘weekend' clothes – snug-fitting tailored pants and a polo top, her hair out and parted to one side, the bulk of it fixed behind her diamond-studded ears.

‘Detective, Lieutenant,' she said as they moved into the room.

Joe and Frank had originally gone to her office down the hall but, upon finding it not only empty but stripped of books, paperwork and personal belongings, they had wandered back to the Acting District Attorney, Roger ‘The Kat' Katz's office – the bigger one next to the DA's.

‘You moving in?' asked Joe, noticing Frank – a somewhat prudish, happily married father of two, trying to look anywhere but at Amanda Carmichael's perfectly formed butt.

‘Yes,' she said, twisting to look at them, and Joe knew this was all part of her ‘game' – her top shifting to reveal her toned stomach, her expression a mixture of efficiency and innocence. ‘Roger is in DC for the next couple of weeks and it seemed silly to delay the move considering DA Scaturro is not coming back,' she added, pointing to the hastily packed boxes in the corner of the room.

‘I'll get Roger's PA to move his things into the DA's space on Monday. It'll give her something to do besides file those too long acrylic nails of hers.'

Truth be told, from what Joe knew of Amanda Carmichael's reputation, he was more than just a little suspicious of the motives of the BU-educated show pony with the Supreme Court dad and the Country Club mom. She was smart, that was for sure, and ambitious, but he had also heard stories of her arrogance, her intolerance, and her general belief that she knew better than everybody else.

However, she was new at this 2IC gig, and so Joe was willing to cut her some slack, and the fact that she had the balls to shove Katz's belongings into dirty cardboard boxes had gained her some points in Joe's estimations – considering Joe deemed Roger Katz to be one of the lowest assholes on the ladder of legal depravity.

‘So,' said Carmichael, hopping down from her chair and pushing it behind her desk. ‘Take a seat, gentlemen,' she said gesturing at the two leather-covered visitors' chairs on the opposite side of her desk. ‘I appreciate your coming in on a Saturday,' she said, taking a pair of designer reading glasses from her top drawer and placing them on the tip of her perfectly shaped nose. ‘But as you can appreciate, this is one of the biggest cases we will be prosecuting this year. The press have been calling all morning, the story is headlining every major news bulletin in the country and this is only the beginning. This is a big deal, gentlemen, and we are in the thick of it.'

Frank was rolling his eyes, Joe could sense it. Carmichael was revelling in the attention and was obviously hungry for more. The fact that she gave a statement to the press late last night without consulting with Joe was evidence enough of her desire to ‘own' this thing from the beginning, and that action alone was enough to make Joe suspicious of her motives – new kid on the block, or not.

‘You shouldn't have given a statement until we briefed you,' said Joe, not one to beat around the bush.

‘Detective McKay briefed me on my cell, Lieutenant,' she argued.

‘I gave you a basic run-down,' said Frank, opening his mouth for the first time.

‘Which was very comprehensive,' said Carmichael. ‘The media were hungry. They had been awaiting an official statement for hours. I made sure they were satisfied so that they did not distort the truth from the outset. I gave them a brief statement relating to Mrs Logan's . . .'

‘Tyler,' interrupted Joe then.

‘Excuse me?' said Carmichael.

‘Stephanie Tyler. The victim went by her maiden name.' He was not sure why he needed to make a point of it; maybe because he met Tyler and found her gracious, maybe because he knew cops too often forgot to give their victims the courtesy of the correct acknowledgement, or maybe because he sensed Carmichael couldn't give a fuck what the woman was called – just that she was prosecuting this Goddamned headliner of a case.

‘Right,' said Carmichael, making no attempt to hide her displeasure at the correction. ‘Well, as I was saying, I gave a brief statement relating to Ms
Tyler's
death and confirmed that Doctor Logan was being taken in for questioning. It was a consolatory gesture so that the media did not go away disappointed. Nothing more, nothing less.'

‘With all due respect, Miss Carmichael,' said Joe, now leaning forward in his seat. ‘We were running a murder scene. And satisfying the press's insatiable appetites was not exactly a priority.'