Murder One (46 page)

Oberman would never be charged; nor would Lori Andrews.

Not that it mattered.

Oberman had been injured once too often. He could never fully recover. He was leaving Seattle, likely someplace far from his ex-wife and the insanity he had been forced to endure because he loved someone who was mentally ill.

After several more questions, Pinkett gave way to Sloane. He stepped to the podium with Reid at his side.

Sloane said, “I want to thank the prosecutor and Mr. Cerrabone for having the courage to make this decision. It is never easy bringing charges against a person of Ms. Reid’s stature, and I know that it was not done lightly in this instance. We are pleased the matter has resolved itself.”

A reporter in the audience shouted above the other voices. “Would you have preferred to go to a jury and receive a not-guilty verdict to prove Ms. Reid’s innocence?”

“We believe that a dismissal by the prosecutor is tantamount to a finding of—”

Reid interrupted. “Every good lawyer wants to win,” she said, beaming in front of the cameras. “It’s what we do. It’s what gets us out of bed in the morning and gets our adrenaline rushing—the competition, the desire to be the best, to win. I know that’s how David feels. But I consider this to have been a complete victory.” She turned to Sloane, wrapped her arm through his. “I was blessed to have the very best legal counsel not only in this city but, in my opinion, the United States. David Sloane has proved again why he is so often referred to as the attorney who does not lose.”

The words sent a chill through him. “All I can say is it would take one hell of a lawyer to beat him.”

“Will you handle more criminal cases?” another reporter asked Sloane.

“I don’t know,” Sloane said. “This case took an emotional toll.”

“Will you continue to push the legislature for a drug dealer liability act?” another asked Reid.

“I think that is best left to the politicians,” Reid said. “I’m eager to get back to my practice and to move on with my life. Leenie’s death was tragic, but it is in the past, and I realize now I must look to the future.”

The news conference lasted little over an hour. Sloane, Pendergrass, and Reid left the building and stopped at the corner of Third and James. The snow had not stuck to the ground downtown, though the streets and sidewalks were wet, and it remained cold. Heavy gray clouds blanketed the Emerald City.

“You coming back to the office?” Pendergrass asked Sloane, his tone cautionary. Sloane had not had time to explain the situation
to Pendergrass in any detail, nor had Jenkins, who had shot out of the office the night before without explanation about what the documents meant. But Pendergrass seemed to have some sense that things were not as they seemed.

Sloane said, “Barclay and I have some unfinished business. Tell Carolyn to shut down the office. Then head home. Take a few days or a week.”

“Better alert the police,” Pendergrass said, trying to lighten the mood. “She’s liable to trample me getting out the door.”

Sloane thanked him for all he had done and watched him depart.

“Is this where you tell me what a horrible person I am, that I’ve thrown away the best thing I was ever going to have in my life, then walk off, leaving me to pine for a love lost?” The corner of her mouth and left eyebrow raised, mocking him.

“Happy endings are only in the movies, Barclay. You know that.”

“Really?” She smiled wide. “Because I’m feeling pretty happy right now. Come on. Don’t be sore. We could be a great team, you and I. We’d be tough to beat, and I have to admit you are really good in bed. I only had to fake it once.”

“What is it you said about games?” he asked.

“What?”

He looked past her, causing her to turn.

“Ms. Reid?” Detectives Rowe and Crosswhite, and a third person Sloane had never met but whose name he suspected he knew, approached. Rowe leaned on a cane.

Reid gave Sloane a quick, hesitant glance, then turned and nodded. “Detectives. No apologies are necessary. I understand you were only doing your jobs, and I admit this did look bad. But I’m not a person to hold a grudge.”

“We appreciate that,” Rowe said. “But we’d like to talk to you about another matter.”

“Another matter?” Uncertainty crept into her voice.

“Do you know the name Zach Bergman? I believe he worked as a private investigator for you during your divorce.”

Reid’s eyes found Sloane’s, but her recovery was remarkable. “Yes, he did. What about him?”

“Well, you see, he’s dead.”

She chuckled. “I’m well aware of that, Detective. I believe he died ten years ago, and I think it’s rather obvious now that my ex-husband must have killed Mr. Bergman because of the investigation into his sordid lifestyle. He was very bitter and angry at the time.”

“That is a theory,” Rowe said, “but you see, one thing I’ve learned from this case is that sometimes the evidence is not what it seems.”

“Really? And what makes you say that?”

“I was considering the police report in your divorce file, and it notes that you had bruises and contusions on the side of your face.”

“It was a severe beating.”

“That’s what the report says. It says those bruises were definitely the result of someone hitting you with a fist multiple times.”

“So what exactly is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Rowe scratched his head. “I’m curious, because the medical report indicates that the person who delivered those blows had to have been right-handed.”

The color drained from Reid’s face.

“And of course we all now know that your ex-husband is left-handed,” Rowe said.

Reid looked to Sloane. The jade-green eyes had turned gray again. The smile faded.

“Oh yeah,” Sloane said, drawing Reid’s attention. “Now I remember. You said, ‘You never know who’s won until the game ends.’”

The third detective stepped forward. “Ms. Reid, I’m Bernie Hamilton. I’m the detective in charge of the unit’s cold cases. Knock knock.”

Reid shifted her gaze from Sloane to Hamilton. “What?” she said, looking and sounding annoyed.

“You’re supposed to say, ‘Who’s there?’”

She shook her head in disgust. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“Actually, it is,” Sloane said. “Let me show you how it’s done.” He indicated for Hamilton to start over.

“Knock knock.”

“Who’s there, Detective?”

Hamilton’s eyes fixed on Reid. “Remember a long time ago . . .”

EPILOGUE

T
HREE
T
REE
P
OINT
B
URIEN
, W
ASHINGTON

S
loane finished another beer and embedded the bottle in the pebbles near the other empties. Between his shoes, the shaft of his fishing rod, also embedded in the rocks, twitched and bent with the ebb and flow of the tide. He sat on one of the many driftwood logs the tide had washed onto the beach, wrapped in a thick jacket and wearing a knit hat and gloves. With the tide in, he could cast while seated. Jake would have been aghast.
You never put your fishing pole in the rocks, and you never stop reeling in the lure
.

Sloane knew it to be wise advice. The minute you stopped reeling, the lure sank to the bottom of the Sound to become snagged on any number of things and likely lost forever. He didn’t care. He’d never caught a single fish from the shore in all his years at Three Tree. He’d seen Jake do it, a big king salmon, too, but Sloane never had.

A hundred yards offshore, the parade of boats trolled north to south and back—fishing poles bowed over their sterns like the bent spines of old men. Behind them, the winter light had mottled the clouds pink and red, the sun continuing its descent behind the Olympic mountain range. Tina had loved the view this time of year. They used to walk the beach or sit on the porch and watch Jake cast his line in the water until his image faded into the darkness.

“I better be getting home,” Jenkins said, finishing his only beer.

It was the first time the two men had seen each other in three weeks. Sloane left the day after the trial for the beach house in Zihuatanejo. Jake joined him for two of those weeks, his Christmas vacation. They spent much of the time fishing, bodysurfing, and eating
more than they should. Sloane told Jake that it hadn’t worked out with Reid, and the boy had accepted the explanation, though Sloane knew he was smart enough to understand there was more to the story. This time Sloane didn’t stay in Zihuatanejo nearly as long as his retreat following Tina’s death. He left Seattle to escape the insanity he knew would follow Reid’s second arrest, for the murder of her private investigator, Zach Bergman. As Sloane had warned, the game wasn’t over, and no one was perfect. Everyone made mistakes. She’d made a big one. Bergman had beat her, as she had paid him to do, so she could blame Felix Oberman.

But Oberman was left-handed, and the blows were clearly delivered by someone with a dominant right hand. No one had paid that close attention ten years ago, during a bitter divorce proceeding. But Hamilton took the lead and uncovered evidence of cash withdrawals from Reid’s account that could not be accounted for, sums of money that identically matched sums Bergman had deposited in his checking account.

As for Oberman shooting Bergman, he already had an airtight alibi ten years ago. He had fled on a cruise ship to get away from his ex-wife at the time Bergman was shot and killed.

Lori Andrews had also confessed, saying it felt cathartic to rid herself of the guilt. She told Crosswhite that ten years earlier she had agreed to set up Oberman in exchange for enough money to pay for her sex change. The money was delivered by Zach Bergman, but Andrews knew where it had come from. Barclay Reid. She said Bergman had brought the money along with a message: “Don’t think there’s any more here. This is a onetime payment.”

Bergman should have heeded his own words.

A friend with Bergman in a bar the night he was shot provided a statement that Bergman had been bragging about a client who kept on giving while throwing around a lot of cash.

There being no statute of limitations, Reid would again stand accused of murder in the first degree, and Seattle would have another sensational trial. She would never plea. She would never admit defeat. The media wanted to know if Sloane would defend her, but he left word with Carolyn to advise anyone who asked that he believed
representing Reid would be a conflict of interest, given their prior personal relationship.

Reid remained incarcerated in the King County jail, her bail denied. Trial was set for the spring. She had called Sloane from the jail. The first two messages, she sounded like the woman he had met and fallen in love with, pleading with Sloane to help her. The third call, he barely recognized her voice. She called him vile names, and told him when she got out, she would find him and get even.

Before leaving town, this time for good, Oberman advised Rowe and Crosswhite he considered Reid a sociopath and likely schizophrenic. Sloane hoped, at the very least, she would receive the treatment she had long needed.

“You going to be okay?” Jenkins asked.

“Aren’t I always?” Sloane twisted the cap off another bottle of beer.

“Quite a collection,” Jenkins said.

“I’m just getting started.”

“And I’m leaving before the neighbors start talking about the two of us watching sunsets together. You need anything before I go?”

Sloane shook his head.

The log shifted when Jenkins stood. Sloane listened to the fading sound of his friend’s shoes sinking into the rocks.

“Charlie?”

Jenkins turned back.

“Thanks.”

The big man nodded, turned, and walked off.

Sloane slipped his hands under his armpits to keep them warm and watched the sky continue to change color. Tina had said the colors reminded her that there was beauty in the world, and that it was important to stop every once in a while and acknowledge that beauty. Sloane saw it as the end of another day, one more he had survived since her death. He was unsure what the future would have held with Barclay Reid, but while in Zihuatanejo, he had also come to realize that it was that uncertainty that had made him feel alive again from the moment he first stumbled into her, not knowing what each new day might bring. In some strange way, he believed
that was why Reid had entered his life, at a time when he was so vulnerable, to serve as a vivid reminder that things were never as good or as bad as they seemed.

They just were what they were.

He wasn’t prepared to say it had all been a part of some divine plan, as Father Allen had intimated during a recent chat. Sloane didn’t really believe God worked that way, controlling everyone’s life like moving pieces on a chessboard. But he felt a sense of strength he hadn’t expected. The loss of another woman he had grown to love could have devastated him, but he didn’t feel that way. He saw it as a step forward in his grieving process, and he knew now what Jake had meant about the pain being part of the healing.

He also knew he could love again.

And that he could survive anything the world had yet to throw at him.

Unlike after Tina’s death, he no longer feared the unknown. He’d come to realize it was not knowing the future—the unexpected—that made life worth living.

He picked up his fishing pole and reeled, not getting far before the line snapped taut and the tip of the pole bent forward. In his head, Sloane could hear Jake’s voice.

I told you so
.

Then the line darted right across the surface of the water, the tip of the pole dancing, the reel buzzing—the big fish making a determined run.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Last spring, I had the unfortunate and fortunate experience to sit in on a capital murder case in King County Superior Court. Knowing that I would soon force my protagonist David Sloane into the criminal justice system, I thought it prudent that I educate myself, a civil attorney, on as many of the nuances of that system as I could. The case received publicity nationwide; the defendant, in his midtwenties, was accused of walking across the street and brutally murdering two women and two children he did not know, then setting the bodies and the house on fire in an attempt to conceal his crimes. I quickly realized that while the physical courtroom looked the same as those I had entered many times while practicing law—the two counsel tables facing the elevated bench, jury box to the right, the gallery behind—that was where the similarities ended.