The Accused and the Damned: Book Three, the Eddie McCloskey Series (The Unearthed 3) (17 page)

Much as he wanted to shut down for a few hours, his mind started running through his testimony. He agreed with Green that he needed to smoothen his transitions. His theory cut a jagged path through much circumstantial evidence and suppositions. It was his job to hold the jury’s hand and lead them to reasonable doubt. It would be easy to lose them along the way if he wasn’t careful, clear, and qualified in his testimony.

The waitress brought the cheese steak with his water. He was about to chow down when he saw Officer Thieler come into the bar. He waved till he got her attention.

She was out of uniform. Low-riding jeans, cute polo shirt. Her dirty blond hair was down to her shoulders.

“Hello there,” he said.

She jutted a hip. “You’ve got to do better than that if you want me to sit down.”

“Hello there.”

“Alright, but that was still weak. You’re not going to try and get into my pants if I sit down with you?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Officer.”

She sat across from him. “You ordered a cheesesteak in this place? You’re a brave man.”

“Wanna share?”

She laughed. “No thanks.” She got the waitress’s attention and ordered a bowl of the french onion. “You still taking the stand?”

Eddie smiled. “No pun intended, but the jury’s still out. Tell me something. How does a smart, beautiful, literate woman like you end up a cop?”

“How does an ex-addict, ex-con, ex-alkie like you end up an expert witness on one of the most interesting murder trials the state has ever seen?”

“Touchee. Wanna go back to my motel room and have some fun?”

“With who?”

Eddie laughed. “Who else?”

“I told you, I’m not into career suicide.”

“Too bad. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to see a man about a dog.”

Eddie located the signs for the restroom and went down a narrow hallway. The john was empty and had two urinals and one stall. Following Piss Protocol, he assumed the position at the far urinal.

Seconds later, the door swung open and a burly man who was as thick as a linebacker came in. He closed the door behind him, leaving his hand on the knob a second longer than necessary. Then he ambled over.

He opted to use the other urinal even though the stall was open and his foot brushed Eddie’s. Eddie recalled that story about the conservative politician getting propositioned by a cop in an airport bathroom as part of a sting operation. He wondered if this guy was making a similar advance.

“The hell are you looking at?” the guy said.

Eddie hadn’t been looking at anything. He’d followed the men’s room SOP and kept his thousand-yard stare on the wall in front of him.

Eddie finished and zipped his fly. “I wasn’t looking at anything, pal.” He started toward the sink. The man turned away from the urinal and faced him.

“I said, what the hell are you looking at?”

Eddie stopped and immediately took in his surroundings. The john was ten-by-fifteen, not a lot of room to maneuver, and this guy was big.

“I said, I wasn’t looking at anything.”

“You trying to check out my junk?” The man halved the distance between them.

Eddie shifted his weight to his rear foot so if he had to throw a punch he could put everything behind it. The best defense was a good offense. There was no honor in a bar fight. Especially when you were dealing with a psycho who tipped the scales over three hundred pounds.

The man said, “Fag or not, you should keep you damned mouth shut. Or this will just be a taste of things to come.”

Eddie kept his eyes on the gorilla and reached behind him. The door was locked.

Game-changer.

His subconscious put it all together quickly. This thug had come here to deliver a message. Don’t testify. The locked door meant this was no random encounter with a homophobe.

The man moved fast for his size. Eddie didn’t have a chance to unlock the door so he just got out of the way. He avoided a tackle, but now the man was blocking his only way out.

Eddie went on offense. There was no point in hitting a three-hundred pound gorilla in the trunk. They’d barely register the blow. You had to go after the head, nuts, or extremities if you wanted any chance.

Eddie landed a glancing blow along the guy’s jaw. It wasn’t enough to slow him down, so Eddie heeled the guy’s knee cap. The gorilla howled and fell into him and wrapped Eddie in a bear-hug.

He crushed Eddie up against the stall. Eddie brought his knee up but missed the man’s groin. The man’s gut gave a little but then Eddie’s knee met hard muscle. Uh-oh. He was tumbling with a bona fide powerlifter.

Eddie went limp, letting the man take his full weight. It was an old trick to get out of a bear hug, but the gorilla was stronger than the average fella and it didn’t faze him. Eddie snapped his head forward and butted the man in the nose. He was stunned and dropped Eddie.

He roundhoused the guy’s knee. The thug howled again and went down. Before Eddie could do any more damage, somebody busted open the bathroom door and Thieler stormed in with her piece drawn.

“Hands up!”

Eddie gave her one of those roguish smiles that normally would have zero effect on her. He said, “You have impeccable timing.”

“You know what they say. Ninety percent of life is just showing up. I was on my way to the bathroom and I heard you guys. He’s saying you started it.”

Eddie laughed. “I always pick fights with ex-linebackers that have over a hundred pounds on me.”

Thieler wanted to tell him more, but didn’t. They stood in silence outside the restaurant while the thug who’d attacked Eddie was slid into the back of a cruiser.

Eddie said, “Either way, thanks for showing up when you did. I had it under control, but you never know. I owe you. How about I buy you a drink?”

She took a drag from her cigarette then stamped it out. “How about a rain check? Maybe after the trial.”

“In all likelihood I won’t be anywhere near this town after the trial.” Eddie thanked her again and got in his car.

It was a shame how good-looking he was. And a reader to boot. But she couldn’t be seen out with him. Not unless she wanted to kill her career. She’d had no choice in the restaurant. She’d recognized the goon from the steak house the other night so had to follow him inside and there was no way of hiding from Eddie in that place. But her instincts had been right. When the thug had followed Eddie into the john she’d known.

She reported to the chief first. He didn’t seem convinced that it was related to the trial at all and completely discounted everything that Eddie had told her. Then she called Ross and shared the news with him.

“We have to take what Eddie says with a grain of salt,” Ross said. “Could be a coincidence you seeing this guy at the other place. But still, it supports the theory.”

“The man’s name was Jeb Markalow. He lives over an hour away and didn’t have any convincing reason to be in this dive restaurant, just that he was out for a drive, passing through, and stopped because he was hungry.”

“Still just his word against McCloskey’s. And let’s not forget that McCloskey is an ex-con.”

“They’re bringing Markalow in now.”

“I’ll take a look at him. You stick with McCloskey. Knock off if he goes back to the motel. If this is intimidation, they won’t try anything again tonight.”

Thieler shared what the chief had said then hung up. She got in her car and drove to Eddie’s motel. His car was parked outside his unit.

She was tempted to knock on that door. It had been almost three months since she’d been with a man. Her last date had been as much fun as a visit to the OB/GYN.

Thieler pulled into the lot and stopped short of Eddie’s unit. She could just slip inside, no questions asked, no expectation except one of mutual secrecy. He was an ex-con so normally she wouldn’t be interested but there was something different about him.

She went home.

It still smelled like smoke.

The Ketcher house had been reduced to a pile of rubble, only part of one side wall still standing. Eddie wandered the grounds with his equipment but he knew it was a waste of time. Eventually Gracie showed up. It was just her and a driver, and the driver stayed in the SUV.

She met him in front of what used to be the house. “Ready to give up?”

“I have not yet begun to fight.”

“One professional to another, you’ve done your best. You can’t do anymore. You were dealt a bad hand here. You should walk away.”

“You sound scared, Gracie.”

“I like you. I’d hate to see your career ruined by one mistake.” She smiled a wicked smile. “But believe me I won’t have any sympathy for you when I’m on that witness stand. I’m out to prove Anson did it, I’m out to win, which means I’m out to crush you.”

“The truth will out.” Eddie smiled back at her. “And if it doesn’t, I’ll get it out.”

* * * *

On Friday, Green and Spencer took Lee Oliver’s sworn testimony. He was lucid and both attorneys agreed hauling him into court the following week would be too much a burden.

That night Eddie and Green shared a takeout dinner of Chinese food and spent the time fine-tuning Eddie’s testimony. Green grilled him six ways to Sunday, exhausting him with his interminable questions. The lawyer assured him that his mock cross-examination would be nothing compared to the real thing by the DA.

They quit at ten, and Eddie drove to his motel and fell into bed, exhausted. He was asleep in less than a minute.

* * * *

That same day, Ross hit brick walls everywhere he turned with Markalow. The suspect had been charged with a handful of petty crimes years ago but there were no convictions. He had no direct ties to the Towsons or the DA. He had one of those vague titles most middle-management guys employed by the unions had and there were at least five degrees of separation between him and this trial. That was two too many for Ross to plausibly connect any dots.

Ross looked over the DA’s composite list of potential witnesses appearing at the trial: Billy Towson, Ross, Gracie Barbitok, Han the M.E., Eddie McCloskey, Beverly Magloin, Giles Tyson, and Anson Ketcher. There were no other players in this game.

He’d hadn’t had a chance to speak to Giles Tyson yet. He’d stopped by two days ago to chat, but the disgraced paranormal guru wasn’t around. Yesterday Ross had been busy with a missing persons call that turned out to be a run-of-the-mill marital spat. Hubby hadn’t been seen for two days and upon returning reminded wifey that she’d chased him out of the house with a twelve-gauge.

That part of Ross that sought to eradicate coincidence immediately juxtaposed Giles’s absence at home to the arson committed at the Ketcher residence on the same day.

He laughed the thought off. Giles had no reason to burn that house down, especially when the evidence in hand was damning to his friend.

Unless Giles was afraid more incriminating evidence would come to light. Or afraid more evidence would tie him to the crime somehow.

Ross frowned as he left the station. He was pretty sure Markalow had gone after Eddie at the behest of someone friendly to the prosecution. If the Towsons were willing to do that, then it was likely that the arson had been their doing too.

Unless both sides were trying to rig the game to their advantage.

Ross got in his car, sat there a moment. “Well, shit, Mark. You gotta do something to earn all this pay.” He drove to Giles’s house because nobody else was going to.

This time Giles was home. Thirty seconds after the doorbell chimed, Giles opened the door and let Ross in. His long hair was wet like he’d just come out of the shower.

“Detective, would you like something to drink?”

“Just a water. Thanks.”

Ross took inventory of the house as they walked its long, shadowy hallways. Lots of furniture, paintings, other expensive-looking antique knick-knacks, thick rugs that made their footsteps silent. There were a million nooks and crannies to hide in and you could sneak up on somebody easily.

Giles lived high on the hog for a guy who chased ghosts for a living. In the den, Ross spotted the standalone shelf filled with the books Giles had written. There were a dozen copies of each.

Giles disappeared to get their drinks. Ross walked the length of the room and found a window behind heavy curtains. It opened to the south side of the cemetery, where the older burials were.

Ross didn’t believe in ghosts. He figured the strange events that had happened at the Ketcher place in front of Eddie and Gracie had been orchestrated by someone. The detective wasn’t superstitious. He rolled his eyes when wide receivers thanked God after scoring a touchdown. At most, he believed in a higher power that did not like to micromanage.

All the same, even he thought it was creepy to live in a house surrounded by a cemetery.

Giles returned with a water for Ross and a bourbon for himself. “Now, Detective. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Ross put on the everybody’s friends here smile. “Chief likes giving me busy work. He and I don’t get along. But you probably already knew that.”

“I’d heard something along those lines.”

Ross shrugged. “So he’s got me crossing the i’s and dotting the t’s. Did you know that Alice Ketcher was seeing a psychic?”

Giles watched him over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of his drink. “You must know I do, detective.”

Ross smiled. “Fair enough. So how’d you know?”

Giles took another sip. “Anson thought she was cheating on him and asked me to follow her. I’m his friend.”

“Were you surprised?”

“Not by Anson asking a good friend for help.”

Ross nodded his appreciation of Giles’s dodge of the question. “That’s not what I meant.”

Giles put his glass down on an end table and put his hands in his pockets. “Honestly? No. She needed answers and that church of hers wasn’t giving her any.”

“What did you and Ms. Magloin talk about?”

Giles blushed. “We talked about the Ketchers, what little she shared, and then I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone so I started asking her about me.”

“Been back to see her since?”

“A couple weeks ago. It was after Alice died.”

“And what did you talk about then?”

“The same things. I feel … guilty isn’t the right word. I could have done more. You must know what I’m talking about being in your line of work.”

“The senselessness doesn’t get to me. Some guys it cripples, hollows them out. I just take it as a given.” Ross thought a moment and then pretended to remember something. “Oh right, why the chief sent me out here. What were you doing Tuesday?”

Giles seemed confused. “Tuesday?”

“You know, the day the Ketcher place burned down.” Ross watched Giles’s reaction very closely.

Giles frowned. “Oh. Right. Let me think for a moment.” He put forefinger to chin and Ross found the gesture a bit forced.

But then again, everything about Giles was odd. “Take a moment. I know it’s hard.”

After a thoughtful pause, Giles said, “In the morning I trained. In the afternoon, I ran some errands. I got home around dinner time and stayed in the rest of the night.”

“Trained?”

“I practice mixed martial arts and BJJ at a school in Lumberton. The morning class ends at ten-thirty. I showered there and commuted home, so add another hour to that. I usually read for a little bit after a workout so I probably did that, then went out around two or three I guess.”

Ross smiled apologetically. “What errands did you run? Where did you go?”

Giles flipped a hand through the air. “The usual. Drycleaners, hardware store, library, I think I grabbed a bite to eat while I was out.”

“You said you got home around dinner time. When’s dinner time?”

“For a bachelor, whenever he’s hungry.”

Ross smiled at the joke.

“For me that night, I got home around five or six then made myself … steak, I think. You know what it’s like trying to remember routine things you do all the time?”

Ross had stopped by Giles’s place around three that day. “It’s hard. Go anywhere else that night?”

“No. I stayed in and just read, watched some TV.”

“While you were out, did you see anybody that you know?”

“Bonnie Dehmer at the hardware store. She was working at the time. I know Carl Harrington pretty well at the drycleaners. I saw him in the back but I don’t know if he noticed me.”

Ross jotted the names down. “Hey while I’m here I might as well ask. I just finished the new Lee Child book and I’m looking for my next read. What’d you get at the library?”

Giles shook his head. “You wouldn’t be the least bit interested in what I picked up at the library. I’m doing some research on this county. There seems to be an unusual amount of paranormal activity around here, higher than the statistics. I’m trying to establish patterns and figure out why the baseline here is inflated.”

Ross did his best not to roll his eyes. “What books did you get?”

“County digests, almanacs, I looked through some old papers. They still have some of them on microfiche if you can believe it. The library is very backed up on scanning and transferring all that old copy.”

“In five years we’ll be lucky if we still have a library. Thanks for your time.”