Simple (42 page)

It took the weekend to work with State Police to get the arrest warrants in order and to take Haigh and his secretary, Walter, and an associate named Benton into custody. Christie wanted Coleson and McGranahan to have a piece of the action, so he sent them to do the work on getting Rita Sandler arrested. They were happy to be included. They reported that Rita Sandler was surprised enough to try to talk them out of arresting her. She said her lie was a minor thing.

Christie kept chugging.

Even the mosquito cooperated and gave them Todd Simon's DNA. Christie was thrilled. He named the mosquito Bert and called it his littlest witness. The fact of Todd Simon's blood in the mosquito plus Freddie Lorris's testimony put Todd Simon at the scene of the crime.

All that accumulated information got Cal Hathaway a trip to Headquarters to check him out on the polygraph machine. He aced it. So the monitoring device came off his leg.

The kid stood there Sunday afternoon and shook Christie's hand.

Then Christie rethought the partnerships so he could announce them on Monday morning. He decided not to budge things too much. Here was the problem. Dolan liked working with Christie, and vice versa, but Dolan, always easy to get along with, when paired with Colleen a while back, showed terrible signs of jealousy. Hurwitz and Denman were terrific together, so Christie was reluctant to split them up. He decided that since Potocki and Dolan got along fine, he would try them together. Then once more he would be the one to work with Colleen. It was going to be okay. They worked well together.

Now, as Christie gets home late on Sunday night, the house is quiet. He doesn't hear Marina's voice. He stands at the kitchen counter, eats a few spoonfuls of leftover mashed potatoes, then a cookie, and thinks about poor Connolly, already on his way to Ireland. Well, he's done all he can do. It's over.

He climbs upstairs to find Marina has fallen asleep reading. He undresses and crawls into bed, exhausted, but careful as he is, the movement wakes her. Marina lies there, tumbled in bedclothes, trying to come awake. She reaches out for his arm. “Hey.”

“This was a good one.”

“You're glad you intervened?”

“Oh yeah.” He drops his head onto the pillow. “Some cases—you end up knowing you did something big. This … this was one. Ugly in many ways, but calling those politicians on the kind of things they think they can do, freeing that kid, that felt good.” But he's too exhausted to talk anymore and she's too tired to listen.

“I'm glad.” She lets him come into her arms. They lie there like that for a long time, until he falls asleep.

*   *   *

TODD HAS BEEN THE
recipient of jail wisdom. He nodded sagely as, one by one, they told him how to handle himself. One man warned him to watch his tongue, explaining that many of the men would want to know what he did, but if he told them, they would try to sell it, to use what they've got from him for their own freedom. He acted as if he'd never heard that before.

He played basketball a little, chess a little, watched television for most of the day, and when three, no, four of them asked why exactly he did in the pretty girl, he smiled and said, “Well, it's kind of complicated. Well, see, okay, I was seeing her. I'd been seeing her. We kept it kind of secret. I used a special prepaid phone when I called her because I was working on the political campaign and she was a worker in my boss's office—well, he wasn't my boss, I was more his boss, but never mind the details—and she said she didn't want anyone to know and definitely not her boss. I could see he had the hots for her. She was totally gorgeous. And I thought he was moving in on her, and of course I didn't like it, but I shut my mouth about it. Then one day, I go for drinks with her. She gets pretty drunk. She tells me she's in love with him and I get fucking furious but I'm not showing it, you know, just very cool, just being reasonable with her. I follow her home and I see this other guy, this housepainter or whatever, working on her porch. I'm thinking how I've been discreet like she asked and she's probably bonking everybody who wants her. You don't look surprised about all that—huh?”

“Tell it,” said one pint-sized guy. “Sing it out. We all been with bitches.”

“If we're lucky,” Todd said. And they laughed.

“So I thought, Pin it on the guy. I did. I said, Pin it on that schlub. I went to her house in the middle of the night. She knew I was coming, I'd called her, but then I get there and she doesn't open the door. So I jimmy the door. Catch them red-handed is what I'm thinking. I get in. She finds me. She's alone, but she calls me every kind of name and tells me I'm not worthy to kiss the boots of the housepainter or whatever he was and that I'm a big zero in her eyes. Which I'm telling you is not how my other woman friends felt. This one bitch out of all of them doesn't appreciate me. So we got into it and I lost it and I strangled her. The truth is, I planned it out. I thought it might happen. I covered myself up—I mean totally, used a polypropylene suit. I even used her boyfriend's work gloves to implicate him. I thought of everything. I made it look like a robbery. Of course, we've all heard of that trick, but I pulled it off really well. I took her phone. I took her wallet. I buried them. They arrested the housepainter. Well and good. When they let the housepainter out of jail, I said to myself, Hell, I'm not done with this. It's his garbage night. I'm going to fix him once and for all. So I took the shit, the evidence from her handbag, and I put them in his yard. Good thinking, huh?”

Sounds good, they say. Sounds like you were thinking.

“One little mistake. Everything perfect and one little mistake.”

“What was that? They saw you?”

“No.”

“What was the mistake?”

“It happened earlier. Ha. Ha. Wouldn't you like to know?”

“Yeah.”

“Tomorrow, my mates. Or the next day.”

He'll tell them something else tomorrow. Something else the next day. They won't know A from Z.

One day he will tell them, Don't ever kill a mosquito and leave it around when you're busy doing somebody in. When his attorney first told him there might be trouble about a mosquito, Todd thought it was a joke. Then he realized maybe it wasn't. For one second that night, he had lost his temper. One split second. He slapped at the thing, dug it out of his collar, and that was that. What a joke. What a joke.

“I want to know,” the small guy said.

“I know you do, bud. Later.” It was amazing the way they flocked around him. “That's for another day.”

I wanted her, she dissed me, I lost it. Funny. When he said it, it seemed utterly true. Stories go every which way, and where is the truth?

*   *   *

CAL THINKS ABOUT
repairing his reputation in the neighborhood and of the other things he might do with his life—the new idea that keeps coming to him is counselor in the jail or in the prison system. Not that he wants to go back to school especially, but to be a minor Dr. Beni, going around talking to inmates, he thinks he could do that. Could be
good
at it, too. People have worked to rescue him, a possibility he never considered.

He imagines one day coming across a surprised Sidney who believes Cal has somehow, like a Houdini, unwrapped ropes and climbed out of a locked coffin. All by himself. Dead, supposed to be dead, and there he is again, alive.

ALSO BY KATHLEEN GEORGE

Hideout

The Odds

Afterimage

Fallen

Taken

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.

An imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group.

SIMPLE
. Copyright © 2012 by Kathleen George. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.thomasdunnebooks.com

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by Lisa Pompilio

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

George, Kathleen, 1943–

Simple / Kathleen George.—1st ed.

     p. cm.

“A Thomas Dunne book.”

ISBN 978-0-312-56914-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-01129-9 (e-book)

1.  Women law students—Fiction.   2.  Women—Violence against—Fiction.   3.  Murder—Investigation—Fiction.   4.  Police—Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh—Fiction.   5.  Pittsburgh (Pa.)—Fiction.   I.  Title.

    PS3557.E487S56 2012

    813'.54—dc22

2012016579

e-ISBN 9781250011299

First Edition: August 2012