Dead Certain (21 page)

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR

“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” Sean asked as he parked the car, still not certain he was doing the right thing.

“Absolutely,” Amanda replied without hesitation.

“I don’t know how Lowell is going to react to seeing you,” he reminded her. “And you know I’m going to be showing him some photographs you might not want to see.”

“I’m fine, Sean. If you think Lowell is somehow involved in these killings, I will do whatever I can to help flush him out. Maybe my being there when he’s forced to look at the photos of Derek and Marian might rattle him a bit. I know it’s a long shot, but it can’t hurt.”

“As long as it doesn’t hurt you. And who knows, if you appeal to him to tell what he knows—if in fact he knows anything about this guy Giordano—it could pay off. At this point, I’ll take whatever I can get.”

“You’re still thinking about my brother telling you that you should bring in the FBI.”

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t on my mind.”

“You’re afraid they’ll take over your case.” She smiled. “Would it help you to know that I remember my brother being afraid of just that same thing on more than one case?”

“I guess no one wants to relinquish the wheel, so to speak. And bringing another agency in feels like an admission that you can’t do it alone.”

“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with admitting that you need help?”

“I guess it’s the same as admitting to failure.”

“How do you figure?” She frowned. “Where is the failure in taking advantage of every available tool to get the job done? The FBI is just another tool, Sean. Evan learned that on his last big case.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He took one of her hands in his and asked, “Ready to go in?”

“I’m not afraid to see him, Sean. He can’t hurt me now. I’m the strong one now.”

“Damn if you aren’t. I’d put my money on you any day of the week.”

“Then let’s go see what Mr. Archer Lowell has to say.” She squeezed his hand and opened the door.

While not quite as fearless as she’d made herself out to be, Amanda was relatively confident as she strode through the front door of High Meadow Prison. She’d never had a glimpse inside, never known anyone other than Lowell who was incarcerated.

The pungent scent of institutional cleaning fluids, antiseptic and acrid, filled the air inside the long, wide corridor that led from the front desk to the small anteroom off the warden’s office, where they were to meet with Lowell.

“Last chance,” Sean said, his hand on the door of Warden Fred McCabe’s office.

“Lead on,” Amanda told him.

“Come in, come in.” Warden McCabe rose to greet his visitors with an outstretched hand. “Amanda Crosby, I know your brother. Fine man. Good detective. Sean, good to see you again.”

“Thanks for setting this up for me.” Sean held out the lone visitor’s chair for Amanda.

“Sorry about that. All my chairs were commandeered and sent down to the conference room this afternoon. Some big meeting with the insurance people.” He stole a peek at his watch. “Meeting should be starting soon. I need to make an appearance. Anything I can get you before I go on down?”

“Not a thing.” Sean shook his head.

“Well, you go on in”—McCabe nodded toward the room next door—“and you let Corporal Leonard there know when you’re ready for Lowell. He’s at your disposal this morning.”

“We really appreciate it.”

“Anything I can do to help out . . .” Warden rose and gathered a folder, patted his pockets for his glasses, and searched the top of his desk until he found the pen he was looking for. “Anything else you need, the assistant warden is right down the hall. Anything you need . . .”

Smiling absently, his visitors already forgotten, he waved and left the room.

“You ready?” Sean asked.

“You betcha,” Amanda assured him with a smile. Deep inside, however, the faintest thread of uncertainty began to quiver.

Corporal John Leonard was already in the small room next door, waiting for them, when Amanda and Sean stepped inside.

“He’s on his way up,” Leonard told them.

“Fine.” Sean gestured for Amanda to sit facing the door.

He took the seat next to her. Leonard would be seated on her other side, and the guard who was accompanying Lowell would sit on his side. There would be no chance for him to so much as reach out to touch her.

A sharp rap at the door was followed quickly by the door being pushed open. Archer Lowell took one or two uncertain steps into the room, then, seeing Amanda, his eyes widened.

“Uh-uh. No way. No one said she was going to be here.” He shook his head adamantly and tried to back out through the door. “I’m gonna be out of here in six weeks. The D.A. said if I so much as thought about her and he found out about it, he’d slap more time on me. Nope. Get me outta here. Take me back to my cell—”

Sean held up his hand. “Relax, Archer. I spoke with the D.A. this morning. He said we could have this meeting and it wouldn’t count against you.”

“I don’t believe it.” Archer refused to take another step closer, refused to even look in Amanda’s direction.

“Give me the phone,” Sean directed the guard, who passed it to him. “Do I need to dial a number to get an outside line?”

“Dial nine, then the number,” Corporal Leonard replied.

“Kathy? Sean Mercer, Broeder. Yes, thanks, fine. She’s fine, thank you. Is your boss in? Sure, thanks. I’ll wait.”

Sean stared at Lowell while he waited, stared until Lowell looked away. “Jack? I’m out at the prison with Archer Lowell. He needs your assurance that speaking with Ms. Crosby today will not be a violation of his sentence. . . . Yeah, here he is.”

Sean passed the phone to the guard, who held it up to Lowell’s ear, as Lowell’s hands were secured behind him.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh . . . okay. But do I, like, get any time off for this? Hello?” Lowell made a face. “Dude hung up on me.”

“That dude could hold your life in his hands one day. You might want to be a little more respectful.” Sean took a file from his briefcase and placed it on the table. “Never know when you’re going to be going head-to-head with him, Archer.”

“Not me, man. Once I get out, I am never coming back.”

“Sure, sure. You all say that.”

“Yeah, well, I mean it. I’ve had enough of this place.” Lowell looked at Sean, but avoided so much as a glance in Amanda’s direction.

“So, Archer.” Sean crossed his arms over his chest. “I know how you knew Derek England . . .”

“Who?” Archer frowned, then nodded as if a little light had gone on someplace deep in the recesses of his memory. “Oh. You mean the dead guy you talked about last time?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t have nothing to do with him. I told you that. Shit, I been in here—”

“Yeah, we know where you’ve been.” Sean nodded. “How about Marian O’Connor?”

“Who?”

“Marian O’Connor. You remember her, Archer. She owned an antiques shop across from Amanda’s.”

“The busybody. Yeah, I remember her. What about her?”

“She’s been murdered.”

“Yeah, well, that’s got nothing to do with me.” Lowell shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about no murders.”

“Derek was my business partner. He was one of my best friends.” Amanda spoke for the first time since she’d entered the room. She’d had a few tremors when Lowell had first entered the room, but seeing his reaction to her—his fear at having her in the room—had somehow empowered her. It was a moment of great satisfaction when she realized that he was much more intimidated by her presence than she was by his. “Marian was a close friend, too. I loved them both.”

“Yeah, well, you used to love me, too,” Lowell sneered.

“You know that wasn’t true, Archer.” She forced a kind note into her voice, one she did not feel. It occurred to her then that she was grateful that his hands, the hands that had beaten her, were secured behind his back.

“I know that you betrayed me. You knew that I loved you. You let me think that you loved me—”

“Archer, that isn’t the way it was. Please try to remember the way it really was.” She pushed away the image of those hands and forced herself to sit up just a little straighter, to stare him in the eyes and not blink.

“I do remember how it was. He was always hanging around. And her, nosy old lady, she called the police on me.”

“You threatened them both,” Amanda said without flinching. “You wanted to hurt them both.”

“But I couldn’t have been the one who hurt them, could I?” He seemed to gloat. “Since I was safe and sound in here when they got whacked, wasn’t I?”

“But maybe you had a friend on the outside, one who was happy to help you tend to that unfinished business,” Sean interjected.

“I told you before, man, I ain’t got no friends.”

“Okay, Archer. So we know how you knew Derek England and Marian O’Connor. Tell me how you knew Connie Paschall.”

“Who?” Archer tilted his head to one side.

“Connie Paschall. The hairdresser down in Carleton.”

“I swear, I have no idea who you’re talking about. I swear, I don’t know a Connie whatever-her-name-is and I don’t know no hairdressers in Carleton. I don’t know nobody in Carleton.” Archer looked from Sean to Amanda to Corporal Leonard.”What is this?”

Sean opened the file and slid several color photos across the table. They stopped, as intended, directly in front of Archer.

“Oh, man, what is that?” He drew back sharply.

“That is Connie Paschall, after someone put a bullet through her head.”

“I swear, man, I do not know anything about this.” He shook his head, his face pale. He pushed back in the seat and turned his body so that he wasn’t even facing the photos. “Get them out of here. That’s so gross, man. I never seen a dead person before.”

“Vince Giordano.” Sean threw the name out there as glibly as he’d tossed out the photographs.

“Wha-what?”

“Vince Giordano. What’s he to you?” Sean leaned back in his chair.

“Nothin’, man. Don’t know him.” Lowell shook his head a little too briskly.

Sean took another photo from the file and leaned across the table to slap it down on the Formica in front of Lowell.

“What can you tell me about this man?” He tapped the photo of Vince Giordano taken right before his trial.

“Nothing.”

“Well, how about in this picture, then? You recognize him now?” Sean took out one of the photos that the Carleton police had faxed over that morning. “That photo was taken at Connie Paschall’s viewing two nights ago.”

Lowell shrugged and looked away.

“Take another look, Lowell.”

Archer Lowell leaned forward obediently and did a double take at the picture that lay before him on the table. He stared at it for a long time, then shook his head.

“I don’t know the man,” he said calmly. “Never saw him before in my life. I already said, I don’t know nobody named Giordano, and I don’t know nothin’ about these dead people.”

He looked up at the guard. “I wanna go back to my cell now. I don’t have nothin’ else to say.”

“So help me, God, Lowell, if I find out you had anything to do with this . . .” Sean’s voice was taut with emotion.

“I don’t know nothing.” Lowell stood with the help of his guard and turned to the door.

But he just couldn’t resist looking back over his shoulder and smirking, just a little, as he left the room.

“So, what do you think?” Amanda asked as she tried to keep up with Sean, who was all but racing to the assistant warden’s office.

“I think he was lying through his teeth. Oh, I think he might have been telling the truth about Connie Paschall, but he definitely recognized Giordano. In both pictures. Did you see the way he studied the picture from Paschall’s viewing? It took him a few seconds to catch on to the fact that Giordano had dyed his hair. That red would have been a dead giveaway, so Vince went to brown. The mustache, the glasses—it took Lowell a few seconds to see past those, but the minute the light went on, bingo. It was pretty obvious he recognized him.” He stopped in a doorway and added, “I’ll bet he’s a lot of fun in a poker game.”

“Can I help you?” The secretary at the desk nearest the door rose at their entry.

“I’m Chief Mercer, from Broeder. Warden McCabe said if I needed anything . . .”

“Yes, he said you might stop by. What can I get for you?”

“I’d like copies of your cell-block records. Who is housed next to who. More specifically, I want to know who has lived, slept, eaten, showered, exercised, or watched TV with Archer Lowell since the day he was incarcerated.”

The secretary stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Have a seat.” She pointed to a love seat and chair in one corner. “This is going to take a while.”

Back in his cell, Archer Lowell marveled at the changes in his onetime victim. She was a different woman than the one he’d known. He’d liked the old Amanda far better. This one—this new one—just left him cold.

But hey now, how about that Vince! I hardly even recognized him. Dark hair, glasses, muzzie. And he has a lady friend. Way to go, Vince, you dog, you.

But as the implications of Mercer’s visit slowly began to come together in Archer’s mind, he began to pace back and forth in his cell on increasingly worried feet, and his fears began to gather and take shape, looming before him like a still shot on a big-screen TV.

Somehow, someone had figured out there was some connection between him and Vince Giordano.

There were dead people, people who were part of his past—except for the hairdresser—who were now being connected to Vince, and the dots were leading right back to Archer.

But unless those dots could be connected, there was no way they could bring any of it back on him. Unless Giordano named him, there was no way they could prove anything.

Would Giordano name him?

Jeez, he’d seemed like such a stand-up kind of guy. . . .

Denial took over and those feet began to pace a lot faster.

I don’t really know what Vince has done. I ain’t had no contact with him. It could be a coincidence, right? Sure, that’s it. It’s all a coincidence. And I ain’t about to admit to knowing him. Six weeks left on my sentence. Uh-uh. I ain’t done a damned thing to get into trouble since the day I was brought in here, and I ain’t about to blow it now. I just want out. Besides, I didn’t do nothin’. Whatever Vince has done, well, that’s on Vince, isn’t it? I don’t know nothin’ about it and I don’t know him. I been in here and I ain’t seen no one and I don’t know why he did what he did.