Blind Spot (38 page)

“There’s been another development.”

“Something about Alexa?” The clamor of steel slamming against steel filled Suki’s ears.

“I’m afraid so.”

Suki wanted to press her hands to her ears, to block out the sound of the prison doors, to block out Warren’s words. But she had made the mistake of not listening to him once. She wouldn’t do it again. “Tell me quick.”

He cleared his throat. “The state cops found the gun. They dredged it out of the river yesterday.”

“The gun that killed …”

“It was McKinna’s—just like the boys said.”

“Alexa, too.”

Warren nodded. “Alexa, too.”

The first thought that crossed Suki’s mind was that this was good news, but when she saw Warren’s face, she knew it was not. “Why is this bad for Alexa?”

Warren looked down at his hands. He spread his fingers wide, contemplated his ruby ring.

“Why?” Suki could hear a touch of hysteria in her voice.

“They got a fingerprint.” Warren still wouldn’t meet her eye. “Apparently, it’s not all that difficult—something about skin oils.”

Suki remembered Kenneth talking about prints being viable even after a gun had been underwater for years. She leapt from the chair and stood directly in front of Warren. “Are you trying to tell me that Alexa’s fingerprints are on the gun? None of the boys’—just Alexa’s?”

“That’s what Teddy Sutterlund told Darcy.” Warren continued to study his hands.

“Well, I don’t believe it for a minute,” Suki said. “And neither should any thinking person. How exactly could that happen?”

“I—”

“What did Alexa do?” Suki continued before Warren could answer. “Go into Ellery McKinna’s house and take his gun from wherever he kept it? How did she know where it was? Or even that he had one? And I suppose neither Devin nor Brendan touched it the whole time? Does this make any sense to you?” she demanded. “Well, does it?”

Warren placed his hands on her shoulders, and Suki resisted the impulse to twist away. “They’re not saying the boys never touched the gun,” he said. “They’re just saying the only good print they got was Alexa’s.”

Suki sat back down in the chair and took a deep breath. She tried to match her breathing to Warren’s. Calm to calm. This wasn’t his fault. He was just the bearer. “The prints aren’t Alexa’s.”

Warren sighed. “You told me you were wrong about Alexa yesterday, you could—”

“Don’t you see that this is completely different?” Suki interrupted. “This fingerprint thing is a setup, a frame-up, whatever you call it. There’s a conspiracy going on here. The Witton police are involved—and who knows who else. Someone’s been out to pin this murder on Alexa from day one, and the fingerprint is just another example of his, or their, handicraft.”

“I shouldn’t have told you,” Warren said. “I wasn’t thinking. It’s not as if you don’t have enough to worry about, enough to do.”

“You did the right thing,” Suki assured him. “I may have a report to write, and I may have to cook dinner and clean the toilets and hold my children’s hands while their world falls apart, but none of that, none of it, is more important than fighting this.” She stood up and swung her purse over her shoulder. “Nothing’s more important than finding that witness and getting whoever is trying to get Alexa.”

“It was stupid of me.” Warren shook his head. “Stupid. I thought I’d be saving you time, trouble …”

“I don’t care about the time, and it’s no trouble at all, believe me,” Suki said. “You’ve energized me, reinvigorated me. And I’m thankful to you for it. Really, I am.” She surprised herself, and Warren, by leaning over and kissing his cheek. Then she walked across the gym and out of the rec center.

But Suki didn’t go to find the witness, and she didn’t go to her office, and she didn’t cook dinner or hold her children’s hands. She went home and climbed into bed. When the rain and the darkness and the thunder came, she welcomed it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

T
he storm raged all night, and Suki heard most of it. Her billowing ghosts were more than just fog after all; they were wind and rain and powerful rakes of lightning. She lay on her back and watched light and dark do battle on her ceiling. When the dawn finally broke, all was silent. And all was gray.

Kyle left for school, Alexa slept and Suki sipped her coffee. She tried to read the newspaper, but it made no sense; she understood each individual word, but when she tried to put them together, the sentences were meaningless. A second cup of coffee did little to improve her comprehension. Both Mike and Kenneth had left messages on the machine, so she called them back, hoping against hope that Warren had been wrong. Mike wasn’t in the office yet, but Kenneth was at home. His news, as she had feared, was not good.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said as soon as he heard her voice. “State forensic guys dredged McKinna’s gun out of the river.” He snorted. “Piece of luck.”

“Luck?” She caught hold of his last word. Now there was something she probably wouldn’t recognize if it smacked her between the eyes.

“Lots of river,” Kenneth told her with uncharacteristic reticence. “Small gun.”

“Did, ah, did you hear anything about finger-prints?” Suki held her breath.

“Should I have?” Kenneth asked.

The line hung open and empty. The sky outside the dining room window seemed to pulse between gray and grayer.

“Do you know something I don’t?” he pressed.

“I heard they got a fingerprint off the gun.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“Teddy Sutterlund told Darcy Ward.”

“Really?” Kenneth asked, and Suki could hear the surprise in his voice. “Sutterlund’s getting pretty deep into this case.”

Suki thought back to Kenneth’s tale about Sutterlund’s botched murder trial and political aspirations. “So you think that means it isn’t true?”

“Did he say whose prints they were?”

Suki swallowed hard. “Alexa’s.”

“No,” Kenneth said. “I don’t believe it.”

“You don’t?” Suki was foolishly filled with hope.

“Figure of speech,” Kenneth corrected quickly.

Although quite familiar with the extensive documentation on the resiliency of the human spirit, Suki knew she was pushing hers to its outer limits. It’s true. It’s not true. It’s true. It’s not true. She was living on a roller coaster of hope and despair. He loves me. He loves me not. “So you think it’s true?”

Kenneth cleared his throat. “I didn’t say that either.”

Suki closed her eyes. He loves me. He loves me not.

•  •  •

Suki worked at home on the evaluation while Alexa slept. She had rescheduled her Friday patients and appointments so that she had the day free for the evaluation—and a few hours in the late afternoon to hunt Brendan down. Her plan was to work at home today so she could be with Alexa, and then tomorrow, when she could enlist Kyle to keep his sister company, she would go to the office and do the final editing, printing and faxing. Both Mike and the prosecuting attorney had to have the report in their hands no later than Saturday afternoon.

Given the complexity of the case, Suki felt she was in relatively good shape. She had all the data sections completed and just needed to put the finishing touches on the precise language necessary for the opinion section. It was the all-important data-opinion linkage that was proving problematical. On one level, Suki was glad: delineating exactly how she had concluded Lindsey was mentally ill, anchoring each piece of her reasoning process with a specific data set or precedent, was an intricate and mind-consuming task, and right now, mind-consuming was good. On the other hand, to complete this section she needed the details of the legal opinions she’d failed to get yesterday, and for this she had to have access to the Internet.

Alexa was still asleep when Suki left for the office. She wrote a cheerful note and propped it up next to a glass of orange juice on the kitchen table. In the note, she promised Alexa she would be back in an hour, but it was almost three before she was able to return. An unreliable Internet server, a patient suffering a panic attack and a massive traffic jam all conspired to keep Suki longer than she had planned.

Despite her frustration and continuing anxiety, as she drove toward home, Suki was feeling more optimistic than she had felt in days. Once she got on-line, she easily found the briefs she needed. She calmed her panicky patient and helped his sister find his meds while instructing her to keep him out of subway stations. And she spoke with Mike, who had given her a mixed bag of information on Alexa’s arrest.

From her reaction to Mike’s phone call—relief tinged with distress, rather than distress tinged with relief—Suki realized she now accepted the inevitability of the arrest, that she had moved on to the next level: getting Alexa through the ordeal. And that’s where Mike’s news was welcome. Late yesterday, he had successfully negotiated a deal with Frank Maxwell to go what he termed “low-profile.” There would be no media notification, no handcuffs, no jail cell, no police cars at the house. First thing Wednesday morning, Mike, Suki and Alexa would drive themselves to the Witton police station. There Alexa would be “processed”—Suki appreciated Mike’s careful use of that word—then immediately taken to the Concord courthouse, where she would be arraigned, bailed and released. Mike estimated a total of four hours at the outside. It would be painful, of that Suki was certain, but at least Mike was making it as painless a painful as was possible.

When she thanked him, Mike had waved off her gratitude. And when she promised him the Kern evaluation by fax tomorrow afternoon, he said he didn’t want to talk about it—although she knew he did. Mike was the kind of lawyer who cared deeply about his cases, about his clients, and Suki was well aware he felt as strongly about helping Lindsey as he did about helping Alexa. As Suki waited to make her left onto Lawler Road, she almost believed, as Mike had said, that this too would pass, that they
would
win in the end.

The first thing she saw when she turned the corner was the strobing blue lights. Had there been a fire? she wondered. An accident? Then, slowly, it registered that the lights were attached to a swarm of police cars—and that the cruisers were clustered in front of her house. Suki slammed on her brakes and stared, immobilized. A television news van was parked haphazardly on the grass, reporters and photographers with minicams on their shoulders littered the front lawn, uniformed cops and plainclothes cops lined the walk to the front door.

But nothing, not what was happening in front of her, not her worst nocturnal imaginings, prepared her for what happened next: for the specter of Alexa, pale and terrified and tiny, being led from the house, her hands cuffed painfully behind her back.

The lightbulbs flashed and the minicams whirled as Suki raced toward Alexa. This wasn’t happening. Her foot slipped on the sand at the side of the road and she went down on one knee. She threw herself up and forward. “Stop!” she shouted. This wasn’t Wednesday. This wasn’t low-profile.

“Stop!” she yelled again as she lunged toward Alexa. “You can’t do this. There’s been a mistake.” Someone grabbed her, but she twisted away, moving forward. Must go forward. Her arms reached out.

“Mommy!” Alexa wailed, using a word she hadn’t spoken in at least five years.

Suki threw herself at Alexa, but just as her fingers brushed against Alexa’s sleeve, Suki was yanked backward. Hard.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” a low voice said in her ear, “but we’ve got a warrant for your daughter’s arrest.”

“That’s not possible,” Suki told the young policeman, pressing her face almost into his. It was Norm Wolbrom. His mother was on the library board. “There’s been a mistake. Call Frank Maxwell. He’ll tell you.” She whirled toward Alexa. “Alexa, honey,” she cried, stretching her arms out again. She needed to touch her; Alexa needed to be touched. But Norm held her fast. She struggled against him, but could feel the futility of the match in the insignificant bit of effort he expended to restrain her.

Suki continued to fight as Alexa was led past. Suki kicked Norm in the shins, and he let go of her in surprise. In that nanosecond of opportunity, Suki drove for her daughter. The policewoman holding Alexa’s arm hesitated. Maybe it was out of compassion, or maybe she was just caught unaware, but the woman stayed still long enough for Suki to grab hold of Alexa, to whisper in her ear that she loved her, that she would take care of this, that they would be home soon. Then she was seized by two policemen. It took both of them to wrench Alexa from her arms. Alexa sobbed uncontrollably, but Suki maintained her composure.

“I’m with you!” she called to Alexa’s retreating back, to the tiny hands held in large silver cuffs. “I’ll be right with you.” Then she turned to Norm, who was holding her by both shoulders, and said calmly, “I have to go with her—she’s just a child.”

Norm shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jacobs, but you can’t do that. It’s standard that—”

“I demand to speak to your boss,” Suki interrupted. “You are making a drastic mistake here, and Frank Maxwell will not be happy when he finds out what you’ve done.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the policewoman help Alexa into the cruiser. At least she didn’t push her down into the back seat by the head, the way they did on television. “I’m coming!” Suki called out as the door slammed. “I’m coming!”

A man in a suit walked up to them. “The chief signed the warrant.” He handed her a blue piece of paper, and Norm let go of her shoulders.

“That’s impossible,” Suki declared, but she wasn’t as sure of herself as she had been. “Chief Maxwell just spoke with my lawyer. They made a de—had an arrangement.” She tried to read the paper, but her vision blurred. The fingerprints. Alexa’s fingerprints on the gun must have broken the deal. Suki’s hands began to tremble so badly the warrant fluttered to the ground; she let it lay. She sensed, rather than saw, the cruiser pull away. “I have to go,” she said to the cop.

He nodded and leaned over to pick up the warrant. Suki raced to her car and sped to the police station. The Channel 7 minivan was right behind her.

•  •  •