Airtight (13 page)

“Nothing good to report,” Emmit said when he entered my office carrying a large folder with the accumulated information. “Nobody has come forward claiming to having seen Steven Gallagher that night. He made a couple of phone calls, but they were three and four hours before the murder. The last e-mail he sent was earlier that day, to his brother.”

For some reason, when I heard that information, it struck me differently than it had Emmit. But before I voiced my point of view, I asked Emmit to give me a half hour with the detectives’ reports to go over them.

When he came back I said, “Somebody saw Gallagher that night.”

“Where did you see that?” he asked.

“The nine-one-one call. Whoever made that call must have seen him.”

“Unless Gallagher told him about it the next day.”

I shook my head. “He was a loner, had almost no friends, but he happened to see someone the next day and mention that he murdered a judge? Doesn’t make sense.”

“So someone saw him come home with blood on his clothes, made the anonymous call, but hasn’t come forward,” he said.

“It was nighttime, Steven was wearing dark clothing, but somebody saw the blood and knew that’s what it was? And then connected Steven to a judge’s murder twenty miles away?”

“Maybe they knew Steven, and knew Brennan had sentenced him.”

“It’s a stretch, but maybe,” I said. “How did Steven get to and from Brennan’s house? He didn’t own a car.”

“That’s bothered me as well,” Emmit said. “Brennan lived miles from a bus stop, and there’s certainly no bus that goes anywhere near a route from Steven’s house in Paterson to Brennan’s neighborhood.”

I nodded. “Have them check the buses anyway, and every cab company that services the area.”

“Will do. Maybe Steven has a friend that gave him a ride, then realized what had happened and called nine-one-one anonymously.”

“So how come we haven’t found the friend?”

Emmit shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. Somebody called nine-one-one, and we found the bloody clothes. With Brennan’s DNA. You can’t wish that away, Luke.”

Right then all I was wishing was that I hadn’t been so intent on developing a lie, because it had stopped me from searching for the truth. “Emmit, this kid was strung out on drugs. He lived in a dump with no locks on the windows. Almost never went out of the house. He had no friends. No support structure. Danny Brennan was about to sentence him to prison.”

“And?”

“And I’m not saying it happened, but can you think of an easier person to frame?”

Emmit didn’t seem convinced, which was OK, because I wasn’t, either. “This murder was done in the dark, with no one around. As far as we know, there wasn’t a single piece of evidence at the scene which would have led us to the killer.”

It was my turn to cut the speech short. “So?”

“So why bother to frame him at all? The killer got away clean. Why go to all this trouble? It would only add to the risk.”

“Why do you ever frame someone? So the dumb cops would stop looking for the real killer. And in this case maybe there was another motive. Maybe it wasn’t just the killer they were protecting. Maybe they were protecting the reason for the killing.”

“You mean one of Brennan’s cases?”

I nodded. “Maybe we’ve been looking in the right place all along.”

Emmit was clearly skeptical. “You believe all this?”

“Probably not, but there’s one other thing that bugs me,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“That the informant called us. The Feds had a hotline being advertised constantly on television; they even had a reward offered. But someone anonymously calls us. If it were one of our regular informants, I could understand it. But it obviously wasn’t. So why did he call us?”

“You have a theory on that?” he asked.

“I do. They thought we could be more easily manipulated than the Feds. That we’d take the bait, and maybe even go in shooting. They thought we’d be dumb enough to take it all at face value.

“And you know what?” I asked. “They were right.”

Bryan … we’re checking into weather patterns. Did you hear any thunder? Can you hear anything outside at all? Making progress, Brother … hang in there.

Julie said to tell you that she loves you. It wasn’t her fault … it was mine. You need to know that.

Finally Tommy Rhodes believed he was earning his money.

Well, maybe not all that money, but a lot of it. Because this was one of the most difficult things he had ever had to do.

Once again Frankie Kagan was along to provide protection against any unexpected intruders. Tommy would have preferred that Frankie help in the actual operation, since it involved some heavy work, but it also required a technical sophistication and expertise that Frankie didn’t possess. Frankie’s expertise was better suited to stabbing judges to death in their garages.

Explosives, by definition, are designed to destroy, to obliterate. As such, they often don’t have to be placed with great precision; if the bomb is big enough, the job will get done.

Sometimes, of course, the placement of explosives becomes an art. For instance, in the implosion of an aging building or sports stadium, they must be placed strategically, so that not only will the target come down, but it will come down in a specified and predictable manner.

Tommy had a great deal of military experience with all kinds of munitions, but this assignment was particularly challenging. It had to be done in darkness, in a period of a few days, but that was not what made it difficult.

Man-made structures are finite; like baseball managers who are hired to be fired, structures are built to eventually come down. Explosives can eventually hasten the process, but the end result is inevitable.

This was different. Nature was the target, at least the primary one. And the goal was to inflict damage that would take years, if not decades, to overcome.

He finished the job and set the timers for Saturday at 8 PM. For Tommy Rhodes that moment would be his crowning achievement, albeit a secret one.

But he would certainly have earned his money.

My dislike for Richard Carlton was pretty much instantaneous.

He deigned to see me in his suite in the Pierre Hotel on 61st Street, between 5th Avenue and Madison. I was greeted at the door by a guy who identified himself only as William, and who seemed to be an assistant of some sort. Or, more likely, based on the way William fit into his jacket, a bodyguard.

He led me into a private dining room, said, “He’ll be right out,” and left the room. Carlton came in a few minutes later.

In a bathrobe.

“You didn’t have to get dressed up,” I said.

He chuckled an annoying chuckle, which made me sorry I hadn’t been the one to blow up his guesthouse. Then, “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

I had decided to be aggressive about this interview. Since there was a very good chance that I was going to claim to Gallagher that the real killer was somewhere on the Carlton side of the court battle, I needed to act as if that’s what I believed.

I had to keep asking myself how I would proceed if this were a normal investigation, and in this case, if I suspected Carlton, I would try to shake him. He was obviously complacent and feeling in control, so I would scare him as best I could.

“I am conducting an investigation into the murder of Judge Daniel Brennan.”

He looked surprised. “I thought that crime was solved rather violently. Wasn’t a young man shot to death?”

“If the crime were solved I wouldn’t be here,” I said.

“Then why are you here?”

“We have strong reason to believe that the murder of Judge Brennan is directly connected to the fracking case before the Court of Appeals.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that the Judge was considered a solid vote on behalf of the town of Brayton.” I was vastly overstating it; Julie had solicited opinions that confirmed Holland’s view that Brennan was more likely to side with the town than Judge Dembeck. But it was far from a slam dunk.

“So?”

I decided not to answer that directly, at least not right then. “You share ownership of the land in question with an offshore company, Tarrant Industries.”

Carlton was clearly annoyed with my impertinence. “My company shares ownership, not me personally.”

“You own eighty percent of your company.”

“Is that a question?” He made a motion to look at his watch, as if he was late. It would have been more effective had he been wearing a watch.

“Tarrant Industries has set up a structure which is difficult to penetrate. Can you tell me the names of the principals of that company?”

“No,” he said.

“You can’t, or you won’t?”

“I can’t, but I wouldn’t if I could.”

“Are you denying that you own Tarrant as well?”

“I do not own Tarrant; that much I can tell you,” he said.

“Mr. Carlton, are you familiar with the concept of motive?”

He was now openly hostile. “What are you saying?”

“Your chances of making hundreds of million of dollars have increased dramatically now that Judge Brennan will not be on that court.”

He stood up. “You clearly have no idea who you are talking to. This interview is over. Direct any further communication to my attorney.”

With that he strode out of the room, and William entered moments later. “If you’ll follow me, Lieutenant…”

“Just a heads-up, William. Carlton seems a little pissy today.”

I can’t hear anything … total silence. It’s as if I’m at the bottom of the earth.

It was her fault, Lucas, and it was yours. But I can’t deal with that now. All I seem to be able to do is watch television, and the clock. I don’t think five minutes has gone by without me looking at the clock.

Please tell me about your investigation. I need something to think about that doesn’t involve me worried about being able to breathe.

“Three areas in New Jersey and one in Long Island experienced outages,” Julie said.

“But the Long Island one lasted for twenty minutes, so it doesn’t seem to fit what Bryan said. All the documents from the satellite company are in the folder, and I included a map showing where they are. The supervisor for that area was very helpful.”

Julie and I were having a quick dinner at a coffee shop near her office. Everything seemed to be quick these days, including the days themselves. Bryan was running out of time, so every second seemed precious.

“Terrific,” I said.

“What does it do for us?” she asked, picking at her French fries. Julie is the healthiest eater I know; she throws down broccoli and brussel sprouts like I do M&M’s. But this time she ordered a burger and fries, which probably said something about her mental state.

“At this point not enough. But if we get more information, we can cross-check it against this.”

She asked that I bring her up to date on the status of the investigations, which I did, starting with my concerns about Steven Gallagher’s ability to get to and from the crime scene.

“You really think he could have been framed?” she asked, her tone clearly displaying her skepticism.

“I think there’s a lot that a defense attorney could have used, if I had let it get to that.”

“He could have hitched a ride with a friend. He could have stolen a car and then dumped it.”

“There is no evidence that this kid ever harmed a fly in his entire life. He had probably been before a half-dozen judges on drug offenses in the past. All of a sudden he tracks down this one and becomes Jack the Goddamn Ripper?”

She seemed exasperated. “Come on, Luke, you’ve never arrested a first-time murderer? People snap, and drugs make them even more unstable.”

“You seem anxious for me to be wrong about this,” I said.

She shook her head. “I actually don’t care either way right now if Steven Gallagher was a killer or an altar boy. But I want you to focus on the prize, and not waste your time on re-solving the case.”

For some reason while she was talking I was looking at the wedding band she wore on her finger. I’m not sure why; I don’t think I’d ever noticed a ring on a woman in my life.

“You know, when I got there that day, the first thing Steven yelled was something like, ‘You said you wouldn’t come back here.’”

“So?”

“So maybe he thought he was talking to people that had framed him. Maybe they left the bloody clothes there, and he thought they had come back.”

She sighed. “You need to separate the facts there are from the facts that you wish there were,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means he had motive. It means he probably couldn’t think clearly because of the drugs. It means he had the Judge’s blood on his clothes. And it means there’s not a jury in America that wouldn’t have convicted him.”

“That’s all true.” She was right in that I was having some difficulty in separating what I wanted to be facts from what I knew to be facts.

“But you’re not buying it?”

“Not entirely, no. I think there is a chance that Steven Gallagher was innocent.”

Julie seemed to decide there were much better things to do than continue pursuing that topic. “Let’s talk about the court case,” she said. “I’ve done some work on that.”

That sounded promising. “What did you come up with?”

“Carlton’s got some financial troubles.”

“His company? Or Carlton personally?” Remembering him in his robe in that hotel suite did not conjure up a picture of a guy worried about where his next meal was coming from.

“Both. The company has been bleeding money for quite a while now; it seems that each new generation of Carltons is less competent than the one before it. And Richard is in the middle of a tough divorce, which is sure to cost him a bunch of cash.”

“Interesting,” I say. “If he wins the court case, he gets four hundred million dollars. If he loses, he keeps a tract of undeveloped land near a depressed town. Pretty powerful motive. Not beyond a reasonable doubt, but definitely strong stuff.”