Blind Spot (6 page)

“W
ish you’d got me involved earlier.” Mike Dannow tapped the back of his pen on the legal pad in his lap and gazed at Suki over the rims of his reading glasses. He looked like a teacher disappointed with the performance of his favorite student. “Why didn’t you call me Friday night? You knew I’d come.”

Suki shrugged. “I guess I was in denial.”

Mike nodded, his eyes full of compassion; most likely, he’d seen his fair share of denial. “It’s just that some of the things Alexa told the police yesterday aren’t good for us.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Not good at all.”

Suki watched him silently. Alexa stared at the floor. Suki too wished she’d involved Mike earlier. As she had guessed, there was an emergency number on his office machine; she had reached him at home right after her conversation with Kenneth Pendergast.

Mike had been more than gracious, assuring her that working on the Kern case was not a prerequisite to obtaining his help. Suki hesitated for a moment, wondering if perhaps now wasn’t the best time to be taking on a high-pressure job, but she reassured herself that this whole mess was sure to be straightened out quickly and explained to Mike that she had decided to take the case before Jonah was killed; Mike quickly accepted her offer. They agreed that Suki would go to Watkins on Sunday, and that Mike would meet them at the police station as soon as he got dressed. Mike had ended up driving them home after a two hour conference with Pendergast, Charlie Gasperini and a young assistant DA. They needed the ride because, after both Alexa and Suki had been fingerprinted, the police had impounded Suki’s car.

Mike looked like a bantamweight prizefighter, sitting across from Suki in Stan’s beat-up leather chair. Shorter than Suki—who was five foot eight—and probably less than one hundred and forty pounds, he tapped his yellow pad as if it were his prefight workout, emanating a fierce “don’t tread on me” energy. He had already gone ten rounds at the police station, halting Pendergast in midquestion and trading punches with Charlie over the legal definitions of joint enterprise and obstruction of justice. But even the great Michael Dannow had been struck speechless when Kenneth Pendergast explained how Alexa had described the exact location and condition of Jonah’s bloody body a day before he was killed.

Now Mike studied Alexa, who leaned stiffly against the family room wall. “This prophecy thing has got me a bit stymied.” He shook his head. “We’re on murky legal ground here. Very murky.”

“Can we just put it aside for the moment?” Suki asked. “Assume it was a coincidence?”

“We’re going to have to,” he agreed. “Can’t begin to factor it into the equation yet. Need to think. Call a few people. Check a few precedents.” Mike tapped his pen double-time. “Our big problem at the moment is that Alexa admitted to dropping Devin off at his house. Knowing he was planning on getting rid of the gun. If only she hadn’t—”

“She just told the police what happened,” Suki interrupted. “A boy was dead, for God’s sake. She did the right thing.”

But Mike was concentrating on the legal, not the moral, aspects of the situation. “Which makes Alexa an accessory after the fact.…” He scribbled on his pad. “Seven-year felony. Charged and convicted …”

“But how can they even think about charging Alexa when Devin McKinna claims he wasn’t with her?” Suki argued. “How can she be an accessory after the fact if the person who’s supposed to have done the fact says he didn’t see her all evening?” As furious as Suki was with Devin, it was her anger at Brendan that had gnawed at her all day. This was the boy who was supposed to care about Alexa, the one who had climbed their kitchen roof to shovel the snow before it had a chance to leak through the ceiling, the one who played Ping-Pong with Kyle for hours on end. Brendan had obviously chosen Devin over Alexa. How could he abandon her like that? How could Alexa stand another abandonment?

“Aiexa placed herseif at the scene and accurately described the crime.” Mike was saying. “It’s enough.” From the expression on Mike’s face Suki knew he was thinking that Alexa had done all this both
before
and after the murder had occurred. He didn’t verbalize this observation, and neither did she.

“But where would Alexa get a gun?” Suki asked. “She doesn’t even know how to shoot. And why would she want to shoot Jonah, anyway?” She leaned closer to Mike, her voice rising with excitement as an idea came to her. “It’s not possible for her to have done it! How could she drive and shoot at the same time? The logistics are unworkable.” Suki sat back in triumph. “Once they think this through they’ll see it makes no sense, no sense at all. Then they’ll move on to the boys. Right? I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I’m sorry, Suki,” Mike put down his pen and stared out the window, “but all that matters a lot less than you might think—and I guess someone could make the argument that if the car was stopped, one
could
actually be both driver and shooter.”

“But that’s completely nonsensical.” Suki was just about spitting.

“The point is that Alexa admitted to the police that she left the scene with the murder weapon.” Mike slowly turned his eyes back to Suki. “We’ll just have to sit tight and wait until the tests on your car have been completed—maybe something good’ll turn up for us there.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

He shrugged. “My guess is then the police’ll push for an arrest.”

“But it makes no sense.” Suki slumped into the couch. “And the boys are
lying
.”

According to the police, after Suki and Alexa left the station, an APB had been put out on Devin, Brendan and Sam. The three had been found in the gym at the rec center helping Devin’s father, Ellery McKinna, decorate for a teen dance scheduled for tonight. Ellery claimed they had been with him all evening. Finlay Thompson, the custodian, concurred, as did the secretary, although she admitted to being “in and out.” Still, based on Alexa’s statement, the boys were questioned separately and their houses searched. All three stories matched. The search for the gun and the possible witness were still ongoing, but so far, neither had been found.

“They’re lying,” Suki repeated.

“Both good news and bad,” Mike said.

Suki looked at him questioningly.

“As you’ve pointed out,” Mike explained, slowing down enough to frame his argument in complete sentences, “we can contend there’s no corroboration for Alexa’s statement. If the boys insist they weren’t with her, I can make the logical argument that she couldn’t have dropped them off, and therefore, couldn’t have been an accessory after the fact. If this doesn’t go over with the police, it’ll at least raise a few eyebrows in the press.”

The press, Suki thought, glancing toward the front of the house. She had found a band of reporters camped out in the driveway this morning, their vans and cameras and wires littering the street. There had been twice as many by the time they returned from the police station.

Mike had helped them maneuver through the noisy, demanding throng, yelling “no comment” and keeping one arm around Suki and one around Alexa. When they got inside the house, Kyle reported that the phone had been ringing nonstop all morning. He excitedly informed them that the
Boston Globe
and
Boston Herald
, as well as the
New York Times
, had left messages. But when his eyes connected with his sister’s, he sobered and offered to station himself in the kitchen to screen calls through the answering machine. Suki had been more than glad to let him.

Suki turned back to Mike. “So you’re saying that the one thing we’ve got going for us is that the lying little bastards are hanging Alexa out to dry?”

“Oh, we’ve got lots more than that,” Mike corrected her. “Presuming no evidence shows up at the crime scene that implicates Alexa beyond what she’s already said, we have a highly credible girl, with no history of trouble, who came forward voluntarily to help the police. There’s no malice aforethought.” Mike began to tick off items on her fingers. “No reckless driving. No alcohol involved.” Mike looked up at Alexa, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

“So she won’t be arrested,” Suki said, beginning to warm toward Mike’s take on the situation.

“That’s the plan.” The lawyer flashed her an encouraging smile, then turned to Alexa. “Anything happen recently that could be construed as motive? Did you two have a fight? Any kind of disagreement?”

“They broke up ages ago,” Suki answered for Alexa. “Six or seven months, at least. Before Thanksgiving. Too long for any hard feelings to be left.” She tried to smile at Mike. “And anyway, Alexa has a new boy—” Suki stopped herself. Some boyfriend. “Alexa never even saw Jonah out of school anymore.”

Mike began tapping again. “That’ll probably work as long as the police don’t start focusing on the prediction angle. Figure that the only way Alexa could have known Jonah would die was if she was planning to kill him.”

Alexa let out a soft moan and slumped further into the wall.

“That’s ridiculous,” Suki said, although she had had the same thought, wandering the house in the darkness of early morning, doubt creeping with the shadows. “No one could possibly believe Alexa’s a murderer. And anyway, didn’t you just say we were going to put that aside for the moment?”

“Even so,” Mike said, “there’re a few problems. You’ve got to keep in mind that Alexa
did
admit to helping Devin get rid of the gun when she knew a crime had been committed with it.”

“But Devin claims he never
had
a gun,” Suki argued.

“Then who killed Jonah Ward?”

Kyle came hesitantly down the stairs and into the family room before anyone could answer Mike’s question. “Mom?” he asked tentatively. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Suki ran her fingers through her hair. “What is it, honey?”

“It’s Grandpa,” he said. “On the phone.”

Icy fingers gripped her stomach. “Does he know?”

Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think so. He made a batch of lasagna. He wants us to come over for dinner.”

Suki knew this was going to devastate her father, who was in his late seventies. She thought of Seymour’s slowing gait and failing hearing, of the sweet, blind way he had always referred to his wife’s depressions—Harriet had called them her “melancholies”—as headaches, despite the fact that they often lasted for months. Suki had planned to call him. She knew the news would be easier to take from her than someone at the senior center, but she hadn’t had the time between Pendergast’s phone call and their second trip to the police station.

She had barely had the time for the calls she had made. The first was to Stan, but it had been fruitless—as was so much with Stan. Her oh-so-reliable ex-husband was off somewhere in the outback of New Zealand and no one seemed to know where. She wanted to call her sister Julie in California, but it was 4:00
A.M.
on the West Coast, and Suki knew Julie had more than enough trouble with her own daughter—and no money to fly out anyway. So Suki called Jen and Phyllis, her two closest friends. Phyllis was her buddy from day-care days, friends since their children had met at the Witton Children’s Center, but the machine answered the phone and Suki didn’t want to leave such news on a recording. Jen had come over and stayed with Suki until they left for the police station. Suki had been planning to call her father next, but her time had run out.

“Mom?” Kyle asked, his voice nervous. “What should I do?”

Suki blinked. “Tell Grandpa tonight’s not good. Tell him I’m tied up right now, but I’ll call back later this afternoon.”

Kyle nodded and shot a glance at Alexa. She was staring at the carpet, and Suki watched a tear fall from her cheek to her sweatshirt. Most likely she was thinking of her grandfather, who she adored, and how this news might affect him.

As Kyle left the room, Suki continued to watch Alexa. Her vibrant daughter had been transformed into a lifeless waif in less than twenty-four hours. Alexa looked as if she’d lost ten pounds and a week’s sleep since yesterday, and she had been growing more distant and silent with each passing hour. She was both painfully familiar and frighteningly unknown. Suki again recognized the haunted expression in Alexa’s unfocused eyes. Seymour would recognize it, too.

“Ellery McKinna.” Mike cleared his throat. “Devin’s father. Got the feeling at the station that he was ‘big man on campus.’ Then someone said he was just the recreation commissioner. What’s the deal? Does he hold town office? Have a lot of money?”

Suki was relieved to focus on Mike’s question. “In this town, being recreation commissioner is about as big a deal as you can get.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Suki looked over at Alexa for corroboration, but Alexa was still staring at her feet. As it had been last night, one of her shoelaces was untied, and Suki had the absurd image of her sleeping in her sneakers. She turned back to Mike. “A big chunk of Witton’s budget goes to recreation,” she told him. “Sports are huge. And Ellery’s very well liked, almost revered.”

Mike took down the information. “And I suppose this upstanding citizen is beyond reproach?”

“He’s been commissioner forever. Brings in big contributions, federal grants. He’s the reason we got the new skating rink—and he plays poker with the chief of police every Friday night.”

Mike raised an eyebrow.

“Witton can be a pretty incestuous place,” Suki said. “Did I tell you Sam Cooperstein’s stepfather is a cop?”

“Not good news,” Mike said, as if, after years of being caught in a miserable marriage, Nancy Cooperstein’s newfound happiness was his own personal tragedy. “Not good at all.”

“It’s a small town—” Suki stopped as a new take on the situation occurred to her. “But that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she said slowly.

“How so?” Mike asked.

“Everyone knows everyone—or just about. And they know Alexa would never shoot anyone,” she explained. “Could never shoot anyone. They also know Devin McKinna’s not Mr. Clean—despite what his father might like everyone to believe.”

Alexa perked up a bit at Suki’s words, although Mike appeared unimpressed. He listened politely but didn’t write anything down, just tapped his pen on his pad.