The Day Trader (35 page)

“I’ve been with Melanie since we were in high school. I couldn’t have killed her. My God, she was my wife.”

“Like no husband has ever killed his wife,” Reggie scoffs, rolling his eyes. “People kill out of revenge and passion much more often than they do for money. I can tell you that from experience. The odds aren’t in your favor on that one, Augustus. A capable prosecutor will easily convince a jury of that.” Reggie frowns. “And it would be very difficult for that same prosecutor to convince a jury that Taylor would kill a woman for insurance proceeds when he wasn’t the primary beneficiary on her policy. Prosecutors play the odds like anyone else, Augustus. After a while it becomes just a job for them. They indict the person they think they can convict. They lose sight of the human aspect. It’s too bad, but you can’t blame them.”

Reggie is a hard man, but I’ve always felt that down deep he liked me. Despite all of that tough talk about being able to remain objective and never being surprised at what people are capable of.

“What do you mean, you can’t blame them?”

“I mean that prosecutors in this city are judged by their conviction rate. They get raises for putting people in prison, not for letting them back on the street. Prosecutors want cases they know they can win, not ones they think they have a good chance of losing.”

“Frank Taylor is guilty,” I say firmly. “He had motive, he had opportunity, and he argued with Melanie the night of her murder. There was a witness.”

Reggie looks up. “Who? What was her name?”

“A woman named Erin who dances at a place here in D.C. called the Two O’Clock Club.” I hesitate. “I know you’ve been there. Erin said you showed up a couple of times asking questions, but that she was able to avoid you.” I pause again. “She and Melanie had a routine they did at the club. A bondage routine.” Reggie stares at me but says nothing. “That’s why you asked me if Melanie had ever performed for me when you came by Bedford that day. That’s why you tried to dig into our sex life. You already knew about Melanie and the club.”

“Yes, I did,” Reggie agrees quietly.

“How did you find out?”

“I checked Melanie’s social security records. We always do that in a murder case just to see if there’s concealed income that could lead to another life that people close to the victim might not have known about. In this case, that’s exactly what we found. Even places like the Two O’Clock Club have to pay the women who work there a small per-hour amount. It’s required by law. Consequently they have to withhold taxes and social security. Like waiters and waitresses, the women make most of their money in cash tips, but they still get that tiny weekly paycheck, part of which has to go to the Social Security Administration. That’s how I found out.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Now, go on.”

I take a deep breath. “Erin saw Melanie and Frank Taylor arguing outside the club on a couple of occasions,” I say, not wanting to think about Vincent. “She saw Taylor shouting at Melanie a few blocks from the club the night of Melanie’s murder.”

“I’ll check into that,” Reggie promises, his fingers an inch from the matches.

I lean forward and snatch the matches away just in the nick of time. “One more thing.”

“What?” Reggie asks quickly, eyeing the matches longingly.

I close my eyes tightly. “The night Melanie told me she wanted a divorce . . .”

“Yes?”

“The night before her murder.”

“Yes?” he asks again impatiently.

“Melanie had bruises on her wrists, as though she’d been tied up. I saw them right after she asked me for the divorce. The ones the coroner identified.”

Reggie stares at me intently. “So?”

“Taylor was the one tying her up. She probably even asked him to do it the first time,” I say, remembering a night long ago when she first suggested that I bind her wrists with my necktie and take what I wanted. “She liked it.” I’m thinking on the irony of how she partly satisfied her need for power over men by being restrained. “Taylor was enjoying it,” I continue. “He even did it at the club once. You can ask Erin. He thought he was the one who had the power in their relationship, but he was wrong. Ultimately it was the other way round. Melanie had all the power. Until he decided he couldn’t take it anymore.” I look away. “It all blew up on him that night she asked me for the divorce. He needed the money desperately, but when he asked, she wouldn’t help him kill me. So he killed her instead.”

“Whoa, kill you?” Reggie asks incredulously. “What are you talking about?”

“That was Taylor’s initial plan.”

“Do you have proof of that?”

“He was going to kill me,” I say adamantly, even though I know I don’t have anything at all that would stand up in court. “Then he was going to marry Melanie so he could get the money to save his practice. But ultimately she wouldn’t help him kill me so he killed her instead, betting that you would come after me as the murderer. Just as you have.”

“You’re reaching, Augustus.”

“His plan was ingenious, and you’re doing exactly as he knew you would. Frank Taylor is a monster, Reggie.

Reggie’s eyes narrow. “It was your blood beneath Melanie’s fingernails, Augustus, not Frank Taylor’s. Our lab people confirmed that yesterday.”

“That’s no surprise,” I reply calmly. “The night before her murder, the night she asked me for the divorce, she became violent, beating my chest over and over. I tried to restrain her without hurting her, but at one point she was able to wrench her hands free. It was then that she scratched my neck,” I say, pointing to the faint scars below my left ear. “That happened the night
before
her murder.”

“Remember what I said about prosecutors,” Reggie reminds me. “About how they want to win. That kind of physical evidence makes their mouths water. Blood beneath the victim’s fingernails is the kind of thing that sticks in a jury’s mind.” He takes a deep breath. “That and the fact that you have a recent history of violence.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Today was the third time in the last few weeks that you’ve assaulted Frank Taylor. The third time you’ve tracked him down and beaten him silly. He logged in the other two assaults a couple of days ago and said he was going to get a restraining order against you. Said he had plenty of witnesses.” Reggie’s expression turns grim. “You just couldn’t leave him alone.”

“Nope.”

“Well, it’s another nail in your coffin. It proves you hated him. And it will prove to a jury that you thought he was having an affair with Melanie, and that you couldn’t handle it. It will make them believe that you are a man capable of cutting your wife’s throat. As will the fact that you assaulted a woman named Sasha in Vienna. There’s a witness on that one too.”

I was about to explain to Reggie how Taylor had searched me out on the previous two occasions and that I hadn’t touched him today, but I’m momentarily stunned by the news that Sasha has filed a complaint against me for what happened on Saturday. I try to say something, but I can’t.

Reggie watches me struggle. “You jacked her up against the wall of her place,” he says. “You choked her and she has a witness. A young man who swears you looked like you were going to kill her when he came down the steps. By herself, I don’t believe the woman would be convincing. She’s a psychic, for Christ’s sake. Even a cut-rate defense attorney could shred her on the stand. But with an additional witness, you’re as good as convicted, my man.”

“The witness looks like a druggie.”

“He might now, but when the DA’s office gets through with him, he’ll look like a choirboy. They’ll get him a haircut and buy him a suit, and before you know it, Augustus is a dead man.”

I realize what Reggie’s saying is right. If I were a prosecutor I’d want me at the defense table too. I look up when I hear his chair scratch across the linoleum floor.

“I’m sorry, Augustus, but you leave me no choice,” he says, standing up. “I’m going to book you on a charge of first-degree murder.” He tosses his unlit cigarette into a trash can by the door. “Lew will be in to read you your rights, and if you don’t know a good criminal lawyer, I can help.” He starts to turn the doorknob, then stops. “Augustus?”

I was staring down at the floor again, wondering if this nightmare will ever end. “Yes?” I ask, my voice gravelly.

“One of the first times we talked, I asked where you were the night of Melanie’s death.”

“And I told you. I took a drive. I’d quit my job, and Melanie had demanded a divorce. I needed some time alone.”

“Winchester, right?”

“Yes,” I mumble, wondering why he’s asking. “I wanted to go to the mountains. I love the mountains.”

“How did you come back to the city? What road did you take?”

I think for a second. “Route 50. I took it out and back.”

“Do you remember what time you started back from Winchester?”

“Around ten, maybe even a little later than that.”

“Okay,” he says, turning to go.

“Reggie?” I call as he’s about to walk out the doorway.

“What is it?”

“Did the Montgomery police ever find Mary Segal?”

He shakes his head. “Not as of ten this morning.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

“Does Washington, D.C., have the death penalty?”

CHAPTER 22

A few moments after Reggie leaves the interrogation room, Lewis returns to read me my Miranda rights in a fast-forward monotone I can barely understand because he’s speaking so quickly. I’m not paying much attention either.

During the entire time Lewis “processes” me into the penal system, I don’t sense that he cares one way or the other about me. It’s just his way of making a living, and I can tell he can’t wait until his shift is over. He isn’t passionate about his job, or life, the way Reggie is. He’ll never be the cop—or the man—Reggie is.

It’s interesting the way Reggie markets himself as a cold, hard man, when down deep he’s really a good guy who’s just driven to do the right thing. To find the truth. It’s strange what you think about when you’re being fingerprinted for the first time in your life.

When Lewis has a clear imprint of each of my fingertips, he hands me a roll of paper towels to wipe off the ink while he completes my paperwork. Then he leads me back down the hall to the holding cell where I sit for a few hours until they’re ready to transport me to the city jail with the rest of the hoodlums they’ve rounded up overnight. It’s a short ride and it isn’t pleasant. The whole time I feel like the other guys in the van are sizing me up. I can only imagine what for.

A few hours after being locked in my cell, I’m sitting on the lower bunk, staring at a cold gray wall two feet away. A feeling of despair sinks in as someone down the hall calls lights-out. I thought I was lonely in the motel room, but last night was nothing compared to this. I almost wish there was somebody else in here just so I’d have someone to talk to. Even if he was a hard case with a violent record. Anything would be better than this.

I remember the first time I spent the night at a friend’s house as a child. I was seven years old and I woke up in the middle of the night in that strange, dark house feeling completely alone. My first night in jail, I wake up the same way, shivering even though it isn’t cold, wishing I could go home. Knowing I can’t. Knowing that this time there’s no one who will magically appear to rescue me.

I manage to keep my emotions in check, though I feel the heat in my eyes and the pit in my stomach more than once during the night. But two other men can’t. They sob uncontrollably in their cells while the hard cases laugh, then finally yell for them to shut up. If they don’t, the tough guys warn, they’ll pay. It’s a helluva first night, and more than once I second-guess my decision to go to Frank Taylor’s office. But I had to bring everything to this. There was no other choice.

The thing about jail is that you can hear everything. There’s nothing but rock and metal inside these walls—nothing to absorb sound the way there is on the outside. It’s like being on the water, the way sound travels in here. As I lie awake and stare through the darkness at the wall, I can hear all of the whimpers, the whispers, the obscenities, the snores, the guttural coughs, and the guy in the cell next to mine who masturbates repeatedly—at least once an hour—without any attempt to conceal what he’s doing from the rest of us. I close my eyes, and for the first time in years I pray, hands folded on my chest as I lie on my back on the lower bunk. I pray that someday I’ll see the mountains again.

Reggie comes through on his promise to help me find a defense attorney. The guy’s name is Walter Cox, and I can tell the first time we meet that he’s as competent as they come. He’s a sharp dresser with a deep tan and authoritative good looks. He speaks as quickly as Lewis did while reading me my rights, but I can understand Walter. He’s incredibly articulate, and I can see how a jury would fall in love with him right away. He has a knockout smile and there’s something about him that makes you want to believe what he’s saying, whether it makes sense or not. He tells me he’s defended several famous people and that he has an excellent track record. Then we get down to business.

At the end of the last of our three meetings over the next week, Walter raises one dark eyebrow and levels with me. He says I’m in a tight spot, and that it will take a minor miracle to convince a jury of my innocence. He doesn’t actually say it in those words, but I think I’m translating accurately. As he’s leaving, he pats me on the back and tells me to keep my chin up. He says he’s been on a roll lately and he doesn’t want me ending that winning streak. Then, with a nod to the guard, he’s gone and I’m led back to my cell from the visitors’ room, the shackles on my ankles forcing me to take short, awkward steps.

I just want my life back. That’s all I want.

“Augustus.”

I look up from the wall of my cell and a guard named Randy is standing outside the bars. He’s taken pity on me since I was brought in, slipping me newspapers and magazines so I won’t go crazy. He even smuggled me in a shot of scotch the other night. I just hope there isn’t a quid pro quo in all of this somewhere.

“There’s someone here to see you,” Randy announces.