Authors: Lisa Scottoline
God, no. Marta’s stomach torqued. He was walking toward the house. Following her tracks. She could see the glint of his gun as he got closer.
Marta ducked and tried to silence her panting. She found a skinny crack between the boards of the stall and pressed her eye to it. She could see Bogosian, but he couldn’t see her. She told herself she had the advantage and willed herself to believe it. She would surprise him.
Bogosian lumbered toward the house. He stopped, crouching to touch the snow. Tracing the footprints. He straightened up and followed them directly to the house.
Marta bit her lip so she wouldn’t scream.
Bogosian kept coming. His gun was drawn, ready to fire. He was ten feet from the house, then five. Going straight up to the porch. Stopping right where Marta had, in front of the wraparound deck.
Marta didn’t move, she didn’t breathe. Then she remembered the pritchel. She reached into her pocket and grabbed the spike. What could she do with it? Marta forced herself to think despite her fear. In the movies, they threw things to create a distraction and run. That wouldn’t work. Bogosian would shoot Marta down as she ran.
Bogosian cocked his head, reminding Marta again of an attack dog. This time it gave her an idea.
She scratched the pritchel against the wood and gave a soft whimper like a puppy. A little lost dog trapped in the shower stall. The thug was a dog lover, wasn’t he? He’d practically memorized that magazine.
Bogosian swiveled toward the sound. He aimed his gun at the stall.
Marta’s heart leapt into her throat. She scratched harder and whimpered more fearfully. It wasn’t hard to fake.
Bogosian took a step under the house, then another. He was so tall, she could reach him if she could draw him near enough. He had the advantage at a distance. Guns will do that.
Marta scratched even harder. She whimpered as low as she could, as if she were wounded. Starving. Near death. Three more steps was all she needed to reach him.
Bogosian took one more step, then the second. Then the third. Striking distance.
Please, God, help me.
Marta raised the forge hammer and brought it down on Bogosian’s head with brute force, driving the iron ball through his crown. His skull cracked like a pavement. Blood gushed from the wound, hot and wet, splattering Marta’s face. She screamed in horror.
Bogosian’s eyes went round as the moon and they stared at her.
He was dead as he stood.
E
lliot Steere sat behind the thick bulletproof window in the interview room and watched with masked amusement as Judy Carrier tried to interrogate him. She was a young woman, and her bowl haircut and oversized features made her look like an oversized rag doll. Carrier had been questioning him for almost fifteen minutes and had managed to keep her temper even as she got nowhere. Steere could see from her expression that she was growing angry and desperate. A potentially troublesome combination, even in toys.
“I want to know what the fuck is going on,” Carrier was saying. She stood behind the chair on her side of the window and gripped the backrest. Steere noticed her right hand was bandaged but didn’t mention it.
“I am on trial for murder and awaiting a verdict.”
“You didn’t tell us the truth.”
“I didn’t tell you anything. You’re a junior associate on my defense. I deal with Marta.”
“Where is Marta?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who shot Mary?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does street money have to do with Eb Darning? What do you have to do with Eb Darning?”
“What’s street money?”
Judy’s anger bubbled to the surface. “You don’t know what happened to Mary, you don’t know what happened to Marta. You don’t know the ‘driver’ who took Marta to the office and you can’t explain how you knew the traffic light was red. For a man who’s supposed to have all the answers, you don’t know jack shit.”
Steere brushed smooth a wrinkle in his pants. “If this is what you interrupted me for, I’ll go back to my cell.”
“Someone’s trying to kill your lawyers. Why do I get the feeling it’s you?”
“Absurd.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re a murderer. I think you murdered Eb Darning and I think you hired somebody to kill my best friend.”
“You’re not talking like my lawyer, Ms. Carrier.” Steere stood up and shook down his pant legs. “I’m going back to my cell. Do not call for me until the jury has returned.”
“You expect me to go forward as your trial counsel?”
“Expect it? I insist on it.”
“I knew you would.” Judy folded her arms and her blue eyes narrowed. “The last thing you want is a mistrial or a continuance, am I right?”
“Correct. The jury has the case. My name must be cleared.”
“And if I don’t want to clear it? If I withdraw from the case?”
“I’ll oppose. My constitutional—”
“I figured as much. That’s why I wrote this.” Judy pulled a packet of papers from her inside pocket and pressed them through the slot in the bulletproof window. “It’s handwritten. Not the prettiest motion in the world, but it’ll do the trick.”
Steere glanced at the papers without touching them. “What is this?”
“A motion for a mistrial. Considering what’s happened to my co-counsel, I have reason to believe my life is in danger. It’s an emergency motion.”
Steere tried to suppress his smile. “Since when are your fears legal grounds for a mistrial?”
“Since now. I’m not too worried about precedent on this one. There’s no law on what happens when someone uses the defense team for target practice. I’m not one for precedent anyway. When you’re right, you’ll win. Case law or no.”
“Very interesting, but you can’t file a motion without my approval. And I’m not giving my approval to any such motion.”
“Too bad. I already filed it.”
Steere paused momentarily. “You didn’t.”
“Yepper. I left it under the door of the clerk of the court’s office downstairs, timed and dated.” Judy checked her watch. “The motion is filed as of five minutes ago. I’ll serve the D.A. and the judge as soon as I leave here. It’ll be of record in the morning.”
Steere appraised her anew as they stood tall on either side of the divider.
“Your only choice is to fire me. Either way, I’m no longer your lawyer and I get my mistrial.” Judy grinned, and Steere noticed the gaps between her teeth.
How unattractive, he thought.
M
arta couldn’t stop shaking. Her left hand trembled around the pritchel and she forced the tool into her pocket. She crouched on the wooden bench in the shower stall and waited for her tremors to subside. She had killed a man, self-defense or not. The legal excuse didn’t alter the moral question. The quivering in her muscles taught her that lesson, and she knew it was one she would never forget.
Marta was a killer now. The thought nauseated her. Frightened her. She thought back through the clients she had defended. Murderers, some of them rich. Most too high profile to do it again or not crazy enough. But they did it once, as Marta had. Did you get one free murder if you were a Richter client? Did she? Marta trembled on the bench, waiting to feel like herself again. Hoping the quaking would pass, and the questions.
She wiped her eyes on a clean part of her coat sleeve and rose stiffly. Her knees wobbled and she groped for the shower wall. She found the front door, felt for the bolt, and drew it back with fingers that were slick with warm blood. The door swung open. The sight was grotesque. Bizarre.
Bogosian was still standing, dead on his feet.
Marta gasped. She didn’t know people could die standing up. Maybe there wasn’t enough wind under the house to knock him over, or his feet were too big. It made her sick to think about it. Then she felt a momentary tingle of fear. He was dead, wasn’t he?
Marta forced herself to step closer to check. Bogosian’s dull brown eyes were rigid, fixed. His coarse features were frozen in agony. Blood streamed from his head in rivulets. Marta looked away, sickened. She’d seen enough autopsy photos to know Bogosian was dead. She wasn’t about to feel his pulse.
She hurried by the corpse. The Magnum must have fallen in the snow, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t need it anyway. She didn’t even want to touch it. She hustled under the deck to the beach, then turned into the wind.
Marta made a beeline for Steere’s house, the only light on the beach. Wind filled her hair and briny snow pelted her face. This time the mist from the ocean felt cool and cleansing. She scooped a handful of snow and rinsed her cheeks and hands. It was freezing, but it heightened her senses. Her relief. She was alive. Safe.
She began to run to the house. Alix was locked in the office, and there was a lot Marta wanted to know. What had Alix been searching for? Did it have to do with why Steere killed Darning? Her stride lengthened as her plan took shape. She would get Alix to give a statement in return for immunity, then turn it over to the D.A. It would put Steere away forever. He might even get the death penalty.
And what about Marta? Steere would retaliate and send somebody else after her, but she would have hired security by then. She had the resources to protect herself. Money would do that. Insulate her behind anonymous walls. Pay for plane tickets to her different houses. Send her to deserted islands in the Caribbean. Get her lost. Marta didn’t care if she didn’t practice law again. She couldn’t turn back now anyway.
She inhaled a lungful of cold, salty air, and it sped her like a spinnaker toward the house. Time to close this case. She would bring Steere to justice. The lights of the mansion house got closer, jittering with each hasty step, and soon Marta could see the French doors to Steere’s office. Something was flapping there, fluttering.
She squinted against the driving snow. Sheer curtains flew from the doors in the wind, sucked from the room like an incubus. The French doors were slamming back against the house in the wind. Steere’s office was empty.
Alix was gone.
Once inside Steere’s office, Marta tried to shut the French doors against the storm. The wood around the doorknob had been broken and was too splintered to close completely. Why hadn’t Alix unlocked the door from the inside? It must have been locked with a key, one she couldn’t find in her haste. Alix had apparently escaped off the second-floor deck, taking her answers with her. And Marta’s hopes of learning the truth about Darning’s murder.
Marta spun around in frustration and surveyed the ransacked office. Walnut file drawers hung open and folders spilled onto the floor. Messy papers blanketed the glass top of the desk. A cushy leather desk chair had rolled to the wall. The computer on the desk had been disconnected and its fifteen-inch monitor lay smashed beside the French doors, gray wires dangling from its back. Alix must have used the monitor to break the doors. It was the heaviest thing in the office. But what had Alix been looking for? She undoubtedly didn’t find it. She would have run from Bogosian without continuing her search.
Marta’s gaze fell on the cardboard box that Alix had tried so frantically to open. She knelt before it and yanked on the box top. Trifold brochures were stacked inside, describing a resort development deal. Was that what Alix wanted? Unlikely. Marta closed the top, leaving a watery red print of her own palm. This wouldn’t do. She’d leave blood everywhere. It gave her the creeps.
Marta got up and found a bathroom in the hall that connected to the master bedroom. She flicked on the light with her arm. The glistening white counter was well stocked with cosmetics. Lipsticks plugged the holes in a plastic organizer; eye pencils rolled around a Lucite tumbler. It must be Alix’s bathroom. A magnified makeup mirror extended over the sink, and Marta caught sight of her reflection.
She almost screamed. Her magnified face was red with watery blood. Her hair hung in thick ropes around monstrous blue eyes. Marta couldn’t go around looking like this, especially if she went back to the city. She’d have to shower. On the bathroom sink was a white tube of facial cleanser. Clarin’s Doux Nettoyant Moussant, it said. Alix’s self-important face wash. Marta grabbed it and took it into the shower.
After a warm shower, Marta padded into the bedroom to find something to wear. Just as she’d suspected, a walk-in closet next to Steere’s was stuffed with women’s clothes. Marta scanned the perfumed clothes, and picked out a tan cashmere sweater and camel pants. What the well-dressed mistress will wear. She slipped into the clothes, then searched the closet for good measure. She went through the silk blouses on padded hangers and looked behind the dresses. No clues of any sort. She moved on to the night tables and storage bins under the bed. Nothing. Marta thought a minute. Alix had been searching office papers.
Marta hurried back to Steere’s home office and the drawers Alix had ransacked, hoping she’d find what Alix hadn’t. Hair dripping wet, she yanked open a drawer and read through the labels of the accordions in it. A divider read
BUSINESS PROPERTIES
and contained manila folders for five different areas of Philadelphia. One folder read
CENTER CITY
, and Marta pulled it out and opened it up.
Steere’s major buildings and the loan documents for each. He had more property than she thought and it was highly leveraged. There were lenders in and out of state and the notes were spread among a number of different banks. No single bank would know how much Steere owed, and from the looks of it, his debt was huge. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Marta closed the manila folder and reached for the next.
BUSINESS PROPERTIES — NORTHEAST
. More properties, more loans. Even a criminal lawyer could see that Steere’s business operations were precarious, the properties heavily leveraged. Each lease was held in a corporate name and Marta counted at least twenty different names. None of them appeared to have partnerships, since no partners had signed on any of the notes. Steere was the key man in every transaction. Marta closed the file folder and replaced it. It was intriguing, but it wasn’t what Alix had been looking for. What had she wanted, and why now?