Closer Than You Think (66 page)

‘And why would he tell you that, Detective Vega?’ Paula asked, amused.

‘Because he was flipping on you,’ Cat said using her ‘duh’ tone. ‘In exchange for leniency on his own charges.’

‘She’s lying to you, Paula,’ the attorney said. ‘Peter wouldn’t do that, even if they were charging him with anything. Which they’re not. He would’ve called me.’

‘Of course she’s lying,’ Paula said, irritated now. ‘She hasn’t even talked to Peter.’

Okay
. ‘You sound sure, Paula,’ Cat said softly. ‘How can you be so sure?’

Paula pursed her lips. Looked away.
Busted
.

‘Well, it doesn’t really matter. Whether it’s half or a whole kilo, possession charges are gonna make the attempted murder charge that much more believable to a jury.’

Paula rolled her eyes. ‘That’s ridiculous. I never tried to kill anyone.’

‘He said you’d say that too. He’s gonna have some pretty hefty charges against him and he’s saying you were with him all the way. Three counts of murder, four counts of attempted murder. And then there’s the arson.’ Cat made a face. ‘You know what they say – once a firebug, always a firebug. Um, then there’s the vehicle tampering, the B and E, and . . . no, that’s it.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Paula insisted. ‘You’re insane.’

‘No,’ Cat said soberly, ‘but the
abuelita
who lost her daughter and her grandson is probably feeling pretty insane with grief at the moment.’

‘Wait,’ Green said. ‘You’re talking about that car that crashed on Sunday. The one that was tampered with. You can’t put that on my client. She was
here
at the time. In custody.’

Cat snapped her fingers. ‘You know, you’re right. But she was out for all the others.’

‘What others?’ Paula cried, managing to sound both furious and bewildered.

‘All the attempts on the life of a woman named Faith Frye.’

‘That
puta
?’ Paula’s face mottled, red with temper. ‘The one that turned him in for raping that kid he never even met?
She’s
your source? She’s a bigger liar than you are.
Dios
,’ she spat. ‘
She
was stalking
him
! She
framed
him with that picture! The picture that
she took
! He lost three years of his life and that bitch walked away scot-free.’

Cat’s heart skipped a beat. There had been no picture mentioned in the trial transcripts. Everyone had assumed that Peter Combs had been angry because Faith had reported him AWOL from his session. Cat herself had until Agent Novak had hinted otherwise the night before.

She hesitated for a split second. Should she push Paula on the photo or the murder charge? She decided on door number two and sent up a prayer.

‘You must love him very much,’ she observed quietly. ‘Everyone else deserted him.’

‘I did,’ Paula said, breathing hard. She blinked three times, in rapid staccato. ‘I do.’

I did
. Cat was officially on mental tiptoes. ‘And yet here he is,’ she said pityingly, ‘throwing you under a bus for attempted murder. Some men just don’t appreciate a good woman. I almost hate to see you go down for this, Paula, but Dr Frye’s accusations are very convincing.’

Paula’s eyes were smoldering fury. ‘Specifically what murder is that
puta
claiming that Peter and I attempted?’

‘In early October, Dr Frye was nearly run off a bridge by a white van. The passenger opened her window and fired at Dr Frye’s car. Dr Frye said the gun was held by a woman. With really nice nails, all decorated. Like yours, Paula.’

That last part wasn’t true, but it could have been. And it worked.

Paula’s eyes grew wide and furious. ‘She’s lying!’ she exploded.

‘Paula,’ Green cautioned.

‘And then,’ Cat continued calmly, ‘that same white van was seen near a Toyota Prius belonging to a young mother of three, hours before she lost control on the interstate, killing herself and her little boy. The Prius belonged to Faith Frye up until just the day before. She’d sold it on the down-low, hoping Peter would finally stop following her.’ Cat ambled around the table, stopping behind Paula’s chair, leaning in to whisper in her ear, ‘So you see, I can tie you to the same van that had a hand in killing that mother and her precious son.’

‘We’ve already established that my client was here at the time the woman’s car was tampered with,’ Green said harshly. ‘What are you really after, Detective Vega?’

‘The truth. Combs tried to kill Dr Frye four years ago. He set fire to her workplace in order to do so. Those are facts. After his release, he blatantly and persistently stalked Dr Frye. And then someone shot at Frye, killing her boss. Someone tried to break into her apartment, then later tried to burn her out of it. A van tries to run her off the road and a woman shoots at her. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Peter Combs wanted Faith Frye dead. Paula loves Peter. She’d do anything for him.’ Cat shrugged. ‘I’m sure even Paula is seeing where I’m going with this.’

‘I’m not stupid,’ Paula fumed. ‘And she’s a dirty liar. We did not try to kill her. I was not in that van. Peter was not in that van. He couldn’t have tried to run that bitch off a bridge, therefore I couldn’t have been his passenger. Therefore I cannot be guilty!’

‘Why couldn’t he have run Frye off the road?’ Cat demanded. ‘Because you say so? Woman, you’re defending a man who raped little girls. Why would anyone believe you?’

‘Because he’s dead, that’s why!’ Paula shouted. She drew breath. Shuddered it out. Began to weep. ‘He’s dead. Okay? Are you happy now? That bitch had him killed. And now she has the nerve to accuse him?’

Aw, fucking hell
. Keeping the frustration from her expression, Cat casually leaned in to the table, blocking Paula’s view of her attorney. ‘How do you know that, Paula?’

‘Paula,’ Green said urgently, ‘be—’

Cat threw up her hand, interrupting him. ‘Mr Green, the best thing you can do for your client here is to let her answer. If Combs is dead, Paula’s off the hook and Faith Frye is exposed as a liar.’ Which Cat didn’t believe for a moment. But if Combs was dead, it meant that nobody had any suspects for a number of homicides in Florida, and possibly in Ohio too. ‘Tell me, Paula. How do you know Peter’s dead?’

‘Because
I saw him die
.’ Paula looked at her with haggard eyes. ‘Okay?
I saw him die a month ago
.’ She lifted her hands, stared at them. ‘And then I buried him.’

Aw, motherfucking hell
. Cat dropped a notepad on the table. ‘Details, Paula.’

Green leaned forward to get past Cat’s body, putting his hand over Paula’s as she reached for the pad. ‘Not so fast. What does she get if she tells you?’

‘She absolves herself from suspicion of attempted murder,’ Cat snapped. She walked around the table so that she could look Paula in the eye. ‘And she absolves Peter, too. If someone killed him, he’s innocent of these murders. He was framed. But if I can’t prove he’s dead, he’ll be paraded through the press again: “Convicted sex-offender kills
niño y mama
.” The pictures of that crashed car will be shown on every news show and every Internet site. And every headline will call him a sex offender again and again and again.’ Cat leaned closer with every
again,
until she was nose to nose with the sobbing Paula. ‘You know how I know this? Because I will make sure of it. And I’m not lying. I will
crucify
him. You have my word.’

‘Stop,’ Paula cried. ‘Just stop it. He never hurt those little girls. He was just trying to make a new life, but Faith Frye
wouldn’t leave him alone. She kept making complaints. The cops kept coming to our place. Everyone knew. The neighbors knew. They whispered terrible lies.’

Wow
, Cat thought. Denial must be Paula’s middle name. ‘You said she had him killed. That’s a serious charge. Can you prove it?’

‘Yes. I saw the man kill him. He got a call—’

‘Paula,’ Green said. ‘For the last time, say no more. I can get the drug charges dropped.’

‘Like you got Peter’s sex charges dropped? You let him go to prison for something he didn’t do. You don’t care about him.’

‘She doesn’t either,’ Green flung back, pointing at Cat.

‘Yeah, but I’ll be damned before I let her run his name through the dirt again.’ Paula turned back to Cat. ‘He got a call a month ago. He promised to meet someone at a bar, later that night. I thought maybe he was having an affair, because he’d been acting strangely. Like going to the bank the day before and withdrawing money. Lots of money. I found the receipt in his wallet. He’d taken out all the money he had left after his divorce, in cash. I thought, what if he is leaving me, running off with someone else? So I followed him and saw him meet a man and get in the car with him. Peter was driving. And then I thought, God, what if he’s gay? What if he’s been lying to me all this time? So I followed the man’s car, up Alligator Alley. I needed to know. It wasn’t till they stopped that I saw the gun.’

‘Peter had a gun?’

‘No, the man did. He made Peter get out of the car and kneel down. And then he shot him in the head. And pushed him down a hill. Then he drove away.’

‘No body was found along Alligator Alley last month.’

‘Because I buried him. I didn’t want the animals to get him.’

She couldn’t have buried him deep enough. That stretch of I-75 ran through the wild swamp. Even if she was telling the truth, they’d be lucky to find Combs’s pinky bone. ‘He didn’t see you?’

‘No. He pulled off the road, into the preserve. I turned off my lights.’

The Big Cyprus National Preserve covered more than three-quarters of a million acres of swamp, which made finding a body harder than finding a needle in a haystack. ‘Okay. Why didn’t you call the cops?’

‘Oh, right. And then Peter’s killer would know I’d seen him and he’d kill me too. I may not have college but I’m not stupid, Detective.’

‘Who did you think had killed him?’

‘I figured it was one of those crazy vigilantes. He got hate mail all the time. Because he was a sex offender. It never stopped.’

‘But why would he have met with a crazy vigilante in the first place?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I followed him.’

‘Where did you bury him?’

‘I’d have to show you.’

‘Of course you would,’ Cat murmured. ‘What about the money?’

Paula looked startled. ‘What about it?’

‘You said he’d taken out a lot of money from the bank. Where is it?’

‘You found it, Detective.’ A sly sparkle slid through Paula’s eyes, so quickly that Cat would have missed it had she not been watching her so closely. ‘Under my car seat. Peter must have turned it into something he could sell later. After he was dead, I figured he might have intended to run away. When you found the coke, I figured he’d planned to sell it so that we’d have money to live on.’

‘I see.’ Cat had to smile. The woman had spun a very nice web. If Cat believed one part of the story, it would be harder to negate the other part. If she bought the stranger-killing-Combs murder angle, it would be harder to argue that the coke was Paula’s. ‘I underestimated you, Paula. You’re pretty good.’

‘I told you I wasn’t stupid,’ Paula said mildly.

‘Yes, you did. Can you describe this man who killed Peter?’

‘He was tall, about Peter’s height. Not bad-looking. Big, the same size as Peter, but he moved funny. Like he was robotic or something. He was bald. His head shone like the surface of the moon.’

‘Let me arrange transport. I’d like you to show me where you buried Peter.’

Cincinnati, Ohio, Wednesday 5 November, 5.00
P.M.

By the time Deacon got to his neighborhood, the Bureau agents had narrowed the killer’s choice of vantage points from fifty houses down to three. As soon as he heard the street name over his radio, he knew which of the three it would be.

Dread mounting, he parked his car in front of a three-story Victorian that was all too familiar. SAC Zimmerman was waiting out front to meet him. ‘What made you pick this house of the three?’ Zimmerman called out when Deacon got out of his car.

‘Two things. It’s got a bird’s-eye view of my front porch. And I used to live here.’

Zimmerman’s eyes widened. ‘You lived here?’

‘When I was in high school. Best damn years of my childhood. My stepfather owned this home and we were very happy here. When Bruce and my mother died, he left the house to my sister and brother and me, but we had to sell it. Did you find evidence of forced entry?’

Zimmerman nodded. ‘Broken glass panel in the back door. I didn’t realize you lived here. That changes everything.’

‘Yeah,’ Deacon said grimly. ‘It’s a giant eff-you to the Fed who robbed him of his kill the other night. I imagine he thought this was very funny.’

‘It also means that he’s targeted you too. It’s a lot more personal.’

‘Let him come,’ Deacon said quietly, meaning every word.

‘How did he know you lived here?’

‘Not too hard to find. Bruce Novak’s name was on the deed, so it’s in the tax record.’

‘Searchable online now,’ Zimmerman said.

‘Yep. Plus I ran track in high school and there were a few articles in the newspaper the year we went to the state finals. And then Dani, Greg and I were listed in Bruce and my mother’s obituary.’ He shrugged. ‘We live life and leave little pieces of information as we go.’

‘True enough. When did you sell the house?’

‘Right after we inherited it. I’m the oldest and I was only eighteen. I couldn’t afford the mortgage or the taxes. So we sold it to Noel and Kay Lazar. He was an engineer, she was a nurse. She died a few years ago, but he still lives here. He’s retired. If he’s still alive.’

‘We cleared every room,’ Zimmerman said. ‘No sign of the home-owner or the shooter. But there is evidence of a struggle. Come in, I’ll show you.’