Murder Suicide (32 page)

She stepped into his arms, buried her face against his neck.  "I love you," she whispered.  "I’m proud of you.  But there shouldn’t have been anything in our way to begin with."

Chapter 20

Mike Coady picked Kyle Snow up at the house on Brattle Street and delivered him to Clevenger at Boston P.D. headquarters.  He came voluntarily, no doubt to avoid another drug test that would have landed him in jail again for violating probation.

Clevenger and he sat across from one another, this time in the same interview room where Clevenger had met with George Reese.  Coady watched from behind the one-way mirror.

"Tell me about your dad’s gun," Clevenger said.

"What about it?"

Clevenger stayed silent.  He noticed Kyle’s pupils were pinpoints, even though the light in the room was dim.  He was high, probably on Percocet or Oxycontin.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," Kyle said.  "I don’t know anything about..."

"He kept it in his closet, right?  On the top shelf of his shirt rack."

Kyle shrugged.

"I understand what happened, Kyle.  He paid attention to you for the first time in your life, and then he pulled away, again.  He reopened the wound.  A very deep wound."

"Like I said before, he couldn’t hurt me.  I never expected anything from him."

"You don’t chase opiates unless you feel raw and empty inside.  And you saw the chance to be relieved of that pain.  You couldn’t resist it.  Not at sixteen."

Kyle flipped his black hair off his forehead, leaned toward Clevenger.  "You don’t know shit about me."

"So you took his gun — from the closet."

"Says who?"

"You said you gave it back to him the night before he was shot."  Clevenger watched Kyle’s face, saw his eyes thin, his jaw set.  "But you didn’t."

"My sister tell you this?"

"It doesn’t matter."

Kyle looked very angry now.  "What a bitch."

"Your dad’s prints weren’t on the gun," Clevenger said.  "If you gave it back to him, and he shot himself, they would have been.  Somebody wiped that gun clean.  I don’t see your dad doing that."  He raised his voice slightly.  "Why would your father wipe his own gun clean before shooting himself?"

Kyle’s jaw muscles were churning.

"We’ve got you as the last person with your father’s pistol.  We’ve got you down the street from Mass General the morning he was shot.  We know you hated him.  It all adds up.  That’s why when I asked your mother about interviewing you, she told me no."

"I didn’t murder him," Kyle said, his eyes filling up.

"No?" Clevenger pressed.  "You told me you wanted him dead.  You wanted to watch him killed.  Now I’m supposed to believe you took the gun and didn’t..."

"I took it so he wouldn’t kill himself.  But I couldn’t keep it."

"Why not?"

"Because I wanted to use it."

"Help me understand this.  You’re all worried he might kill himself, but you can’t keep the gun for fear
you’ll
kill him?"  Having said it, Clevenger realized it might very well be true.  Kyle was simultaneously that much in need of his father and that enraged at him.  But he pressed ahead, feeling the truth was about to surface.  "No," he said.  "You wanted to use it and you did use it.  You killed him.  You killed your father."

"No," Kyle shouted.  Tears began streaming down his face.  "I wanted to, so I gave it away."

"You gave it away," Clevenger repeated, feigning anger.  "What did you do, just walk down to Harvard Station and hand it off to some undergrad?  Who the hell would take it from you?"

"Collin," he blurted out.  He covered his face with his hands.  "I gave it to Collin."

"You gave it to Collin."  He paused.  "Why?" he asked quietly.  "Why Collin?"

"I don’t know."  Kyle was heaving with sobs now.  "Why can't you just leave us alone?  Just leave us alone."

Clevenger nodded.  He stared at Kyle as he wept, his face shielded from view, his plea still echoing in Clevenger’s mind. 
Why can’t you just leave us alone?  Us
.  And everything became clear.  That’s how the truth breaks sometimes.  Like a submarine surfacing, or a missile appearing on a radar screen.  The roots of destruction, the method to a particular madness, emerging into the light, of a sudden.  "I understand," he said.

*            *            *

"You believe him?" Coady asked as Clevenger walked into the observation room.

He glanced through the one-way at Kyle.  "I don’t think he’s our shooter."

"I don’t get that off him, either.  Which brings us right back to Coroway.  If Kyle’s willing to testify, and if he’s credible to a jury, we’ve got Coroway at Mass General, with John Snow’s gun.  We’ve got motive:  Coroway’s suddenly got carte blanche to market Vortek and take Snow-Coroway public — which Snow would have resisted.  He happens to register Vortek with the Patent Office one day after Snow is shot.  The only thing we don’t have is an eyewitness.  We can’t put him in that alleyway.  I checked Snow’s cell phone records.  He didn’t take any call from Coroway the morning he was killed.  And there’s another problem:  We have no motive for Coroway killing Grace Baxter."

"Let’s bring him in anyway," Clevenger said.

"You think you can get a confession?"

"I think I can get what we need."

Coady looked at him askance.

Clevenger looked through the one-way, again.  "I’ve got a hunch I’d like to play.  But I need everybody in one room.  The Snows, Coroway, Reese — and Jet Heller."

"Listen.  I pick up Reese, Jack LeGrand comes with him.  Realistically, Reese isn’t saying a thing with his attorney by his side.  And we’re already on thin ice with the Commissioner."

"He said plenty last time.  LeGrand was there then, too."

"I’m telling you:  This is gonna be your last shot at him.  You sure you want to take it now?"

"I’m sure."

"What are you planning?  A little group therapy?"

"Exactly.  And you’ll be able to watch the whole thing through the one-way mirror."

Coady didn’t respond right away.  "This better be good," he said, finally.

*            *            *

Clevenger was at his desk in his office, rereading his copy of Snow’s journal, waiting for Billy to come by after boxing practice.  He had decided to invite him to watch the interrogation, to finally take him fully into his confidence.

The phone rang.  He picked it up.

"I’ve got North for you," Kim Moffett said.

"Put him through."  He waited a second.  "What’s up?"

"I’m not sure what to make of it," Anderson said, "but we’ve got a very large, very peculiar transaction in George Reese’s money market account about two weeks ago.  And it isn’t a deposit that would square with him getting his investment in Vortek back.  It’s a wire out of his account."

"How much?"

"Five million dollars."

"To who?"

"Grace Baxter."

Clevenger literally shivered.  He closed his eyes, pictured Baxter tugging at her diamond bracelets.  Her handcuffs. 
I’m a bad person.  A horrible, horrible person
.

"What do you think?" Anderson asked.  "Some sort of settlement, in advance of splitting?"

Clevenger opened his eyes.  He felt a great weight of sadness in his gut — for Baxter, for Snow, for the countless others who try to break free of what they are, only to find themselves sinking into the quicksand of the lives they so desperately want to leave behind.  "Every piece of the puzzle fits now," he told Anderson.

Chapter 21

George Reese, Attorney Jack LeGrand, Theresa, Lindsey and Kyle Snow, Collin Coroway, and Jet Heller sat around the long table in the interview room.

Clevenger, North Anderson, Mike Coady, and Billy Bishop watched them from the observation room.

No one in the interview room would look at anyone else for the first minute or so.  Kyle finally snuck a glance at Coroway, who nodded toward him in a fatherly way that turned Clevenger’s stomach.

LeGrand looked at his watch.

Heller, his eyes bloodshot, his long hair wild, stared down at the table.

Theresa Snow brushed Lindsey’s hair out of her face.

Reese and Coroway made eye contact, held it a few moments.

Clevenger watched Billy checking out the scene through the one-way mirror.  And rather than feeling self-conscious about him invading his space, rather than worrying that exposing him to crime would turn him into a criminal, he simply felt grateful Billy was there — that he
wanted
to be there.

"All set?" Coady asked Clevenger.

He’d told Coady his plan.  "All set," Clevenger said.

"Good luck," Coady said.  "If this works, it’s one for the record books."

Clevenger left the observation room, walked into the interview room.  He took a seat at the head of the table, opposite George Reese and Jack LeGrand.  Collin Coroway sat on one side, next to Jet Heller.  The Snow family was seated across from them.

Clevenger looked around the table.  "Anyone care to start?" he asked.

Silence.  A few glances exchanged.  Lindsey staring at him.

Reese shifted in his seat.

"I don't know what kind of game you’re playing, Doctor," LeGrand said.  "But if you have no specific questions, my client would like to get back to work at the bank."

"The bank," Clevenger said.  "That’s as good a place to start as any."  He looked at Coroway.  "Mr. Reese and the Beacon Street Bank invested in Snow-Coroway Engineering.  Is that right?"

"That’s right," Coroway said, without emotion.

"A substantial investment," Clevenger said, looking at Reese.  "Is that correct?"

Reese didn’t respond.

"Twenty-five million dollars," Clevenger said.  "And the Beacon Street Bank isn’t exactly built on granite.  You’re swimming against a tide of delinquent loans.  A twenty-five million dollar loss could land you in bankruptcy court."

"My client doesn’t run a public company," LeGrand said.  "His assets are his own affair.  And I’d ask you to refrain from implying his business is insolvent."

"I apologize," Clevenger said.  He turned to Theresa Snow.  "Your husband was very close to coming up with an invention that would have solved Mr. Reese’s financial problems many times over," he said.  "Not to mention making Mr. Coroway here even richer than he was.  Far richer.  But then everything went wrong.  There was something in your husband’s way.  Call it a mental block.  And when he tried to push through it... Well, we all know," Clevenger continued, looking around the table, "that John Snow had a seizure disorder.  Too much stress, a problem he couldn’t solve, and his mind would short-circuit.  Now, maybe those seizures were real, maybe they weren’t.  But they plagued him.  We know that much for sure.  And that’s one of the reasons he was going forward with neurosurgery.  He was tired of his limitations."  He focused on Theresa Snow, again.  "You knew that."

She barely nodded.

"You all knew that," Clevenger said, scanning the group.  He let his gaze linger a few seconds on Heller, to make sure he was holding together.  "So the question was how to help John Snow clear that final creative hurdle.  How do you inspire a genius whose brain — or mind — can’t go the last mile?"  He shrugged.  "Anyone want to take a shot?"  He waited.  No takers.  "Well..."  He looked down the table at George Reese.  "What if he were to fall in love?"

Reese turned slightly in his seat, averted his gaze.

Jack LeGrand seemed to be wondering why Reese looked so uncomfortable.

"It goes something like this," Clevenger said, keeping his eyes on Reese.  "Your wife comes home one day and tells you she’s made a nice sale at her art gallery.  Two hundred thousand dollars.  A single painting.  And it happens to be a painting of her."  He paused, glanced at Theresa Snow, who looked away.  "She’s proud of herself," Clevenger continued, "because she knows things have been pretty bleak, financially.  What she’s always cared about — which happens to be money — is running out."

"According to you," LeGrand said.

Clevenger didn’t break stride.  "So you inquire, Mr. Reese, as any husband would, who the buyer is.  After all, someone must be very taken with your wife."

Reese looked up at him.

"And she tells you the man’s name is John Snow," Clevenger went on.  "He’s an aeronautical engineer, owns his own company.  Very, very smart, but, socially, rather inept.  Odd.  He seems captivated by her — almost bewitched.  She feels like she could sell him anything.  She finds it almost funny.  And the wheels in your mind start turning."  He looked into Reese’s eyes.  "Want to take it from there?"

"Screw yourself," Reese said.

Clevenger saw Coroway raise his fingers off the table, signaling Reese to stay in control.  He looked over at him.  "Mr. Reese has a front-row seat to John Snow falling for his wife, because Snow has the bad habit of confiding in his business partner.  And you had never seen him so energized, Mr. Coroway — from the very first day he met Grace Baxter.  You’d never seen him so alive."  He paused.  "So you and Mr. Reese came up with a little plan.  Why not let Grace Baxter be John Snow’s muse?  If he’s already got the information you need, maybe he’ll divulge it to her.  If he’s really blocked, maybe she can motivate him to go the final mile, make that last creative leap.  After all, he wouldn’t be the first great artist or intellect inspired by a beautiful woman."  Clevenger shrugged, looked back at Reese.  "He’s already half in love with her.  And it’s not like she’s gonna fall in love with him herself.  The man can hardly dress himself."

Clevenger thought of Billy in the observation room, primed for what he was about to see and hear.  He worked to keep himself focused on the group at the table.  "No one, in fact, would ever think of Grace Baxter and John Snow getting together for real."  He turned to Theresa Snow.  "Certainly not you.  That’s why you didn’t object to the scheme when Collin Coroway let you in on it.  You knew your husband’s passion was limited to his science.  He was hardly a romantic, hardly about to steal away a glamorous young woman from her multimillionaire husband.  So when he hung a portrait of Grace in your home, you kept your eye on the prize.  On the invention — and the money that would come from Snow-Coroway Engineering going public.  You did what you felt you had to do to get him through that mental block.  If his muse needed a little wall space over your mantel, so be it."