Ties That Bind (31 page)

Grant’s Cadillac was on the second floor. Reis checked the garage before taking the carton out of the trunk. No one was on the floor. The other car was parked nearby. Reis carried the carton to the car and put it in the trunk. A minute later, he gave the keys back to the valet and returned to wait outside the private dining room.

“It’s me.”

“Why are you calling?” Grant asked.

“The carton wasn’t in the trunk.”

Grant blanched. He was about to question Victor when he saw two cars parked in front of his gate. Reis braked sharply. The trailing cars hemmed in the Cadillac. J. D. Hunter stepped out of one of the cars. Several armed FBI agents got out of the other cars and surrounded Grant. Hunter pressed his identification against the driver’s side window. Standing behind him was Sean McCarthy. Reis lowered the glass.

“Good evening, Judge Grant, Mr. Reis,” Hunter said. “Could you please step out of the car?”

“What’s this about?” Grant demanded.

“Aiding and abetting the attempted murder of Tim Kerrigan, for starters. Then there are the attempts to murder Amanda Jaffe, Frank Jaffe, and Jon Dupre. Oh, yes, I almost forgot. There’s the murder of United States Senator Harold Travis. I’m sure that there will be a lot more charges, but those will do for now.”

Grant remained stone-faced.

“We’re not doing good cop, bad cop either,” Hunter continued. “Just show and tell. So sit back and relax. Any cooperation with our investigation on your part will be strictly voluntary. Personally, I hope you don’t cooperate. We’ve got enough evidence to send you away right now and I really don’t want to cut you any breaks.”

A third agent entered the room and stood by the door while the agent who’d entered with Hunter made certain that the VCR was working, before inserting a cassette.

“I’m going to show you a movie, but I’d like you to meet someone first. You don’t have a heart condition, do you?”

Grant didn’t respond. Hunter laughed. “I knew you’d be a bitch to crack.” He turned to the agent who was guarding the door and nodded. The agent opened the door and stood aside. The judge leaned forward and stared.

Ally Bennett was standing in the doorway.

“Hi, Your Honor,” she said. “I can’t wait to testify against you and your friends.”

Hunter nodded and Ally backed out of the room. Her eyes never left Grant until the door shut.

“Miss Bennett is alive and well. It was all a setup.”

The judge looked thoroughly bewildered.

“Don’t feel bad about being conned. The Bureau uses a magician on occasion when we want to create an illusion. This guy is really good. I’ve seen his show in Vegas and L.A. Normally, I’d never let you in on a magician’s professional secrets, but this will give you something to tell the other death-row inmates on cold, winter nights.”

Grant kept his jaws clamped tight, but his mind was racing. Hunter nodded, and a picture appeared on the television. It was Stan Gregaros’s car following Bennett’s on the night Kerrigan was supposed to have killed her. Hunter pointed at the rear of Ally’s car.

“One of Ms. Bennett’s rear taillights was intentionally put out of commission. We had a cop pull her over to highlight that fact. When Stan got to the park, he was following a car with one working taillight. The trick depended on that piece of misdirection.”

The picture changed to a shot of Gregaros entering the park and winding along the twisting road that led to the meadow.

“Earlier in the day, our magician constructed a stage set. We planted tall hedges to block the view from the road. There were black curtains on either side. Magicians call them black art drops. The drops look solid but can be penetrated by a car. At night, it was impossible for Stan to tell that there was a set at the side of the road.

“A row of low beacons guided Ally through the drop and behind the stage, where she parked. Also behind the stage was a specially rigged car that was identical, down to the bad taillight, to the one Ally was driving. Inside the car was a corpse dressed in clothes identical to hers. Blood packs were attached to the cadaver’s clothes, and a wig was glued in place. A body harness under the clothes was secured to a magnetic latch that we installed in the driver’s seatback. This held the body in place until a signal released it.”

On the screen, the rigged car drove up the road toward the meadow.

“A guidance wire had been laid under the gravel road bed,” Hunter explained. “It led from the stage to the meadow. A unit was installed under the front bumper, which allowed the car to be driven along the wire by remote control. The agents who operated it were in a camouflaged tree house that overlooked the meadow. The remote-control system is similar to a system that the Germans are experimenting with on the Autobahn.”

A maintenance truck suddenly appeared on the screen. Its high beams turned on.

“That truck was driven by an FBI agent,” Hunter said. “Stan met him the next morning. He pretended to be a maintenance worker who’d written down most of Tim Kerrigan’s license number.

“Anyway, the agent blinded Stan for a moment with the headlights to distract him. In the dark and momentarily blinded, he didn’t see the substitution. When he saw a car with single taillight headed for the meadow, he assumed it was Miss Bennett’s.”

Now the screen showed the meadow where Gregaros had thought he’d seen Tim Kerrigan murder Ally Bennett. The pictures on this section of the cassette had been taken from overhead.

“By the time Stan reached the meadow, Tim Kerrigan was already at the window of the second car. You’ve probably guessed by now that he’s been working with us all along.”

Grant felt light-headed. His stomach clenched.

“A remote-controlled tape in the tape deck of the rigged car contained Ally’s half of the conversation. Our agents turned it on and off using a remote control in the tree house. A shotgun mike recorded everything Stan said. I can play you the audio if you’d like. I’m sure your attorney will want to hear it.”

On the screen, Tim Kerrigan was emptying his revolver into the cadaver.

“A small reel operated by an electric motor was installed below the front passenger seat. A thin, transparent multifilament that’s impossible to see even in daylight was drawn out of the reel and attached to the corpse’s left lower jaw from inside the mouth. When Tim shot the corpse, the blood packs were set off, spraying the car with blood. Then the magnetic catch was released and the reel was activated, snapping the head and torso of the cadaver to the right and pulling it face-down across the passenger seat so its face couldn’t be seen. Ally’s scream was played. Tim doused the interior of the car with gasoline and tossed in a match. The front seat had already been doctored to ignite with an intense heat to prevent Stan from looking inside the car for more than a second. In that second, he saw a corpse dressed like Ally. That, the shots, the blood, and the screams convinced him that Tim had killed Miss Bennett.”

Hunter nodded and the agent turned off the VCR.

“I’m sorry you had to wait so long in here, but I was performing my little dog-and-pony show for Stan. I’m going to let you sit in here for a while longer, so you can think about life and death. It’s useful to have complete quiet when you’re contemplating such big subjects.”

Hunter started to leave when he remembered something.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that you have a right to remain silent. If you do decide to talk to me, anything you say can and will be used against you. You have a right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, one will be provided for you free of charge.”

Hunter paused and silently ticked off the warnings on his fingers. Then he smiled.

“Yeah, that’s it. See you later.”

“Why aren’t you home?”

“Tim is here to give you a chance, Mr. Kerrigan. It was part of our deal.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Harvey and Stan are in custody, Dad. These men are here to arrest you, but Agent Hunter and I want to talk to you first. You don’t have to. You can ask for a lawyer, but I think that would be a mistake.”

“We have the carton with the signed confessions,” Hunter said. “The other members of your group will be in custody before dawn.”

Francine appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Who’s there, Bill?”

Hunter walked past William and held up his identification. Tim and the other agents followed Hunter inside.

“I’m with the FBI, Mrs. Kerrigan. I have a warrant to search your house. We’ll try to be as neat as possible. An agent will have to stay with you during the search.”

“What is he talking about, Bill?”

“Let them search,” Kerrigan told his wife.

“Can we talk someplace private?” Hunter asked.

Several officers headed up the stairs. Francine called after her husband, but he ignored her and led Tim and Hunter down the hall to his office. Hunter closed the door, cutting off the sound of Francine’s strident protests.

“Ally Bennett is alive, Dad,” Tim said as soon as they were seated.

William looked bewildered. It was the first time Tim could remember when his father did not appear to be totally in charge. William turned to Hunter.

“You told me that Tim murdered her.”

“Miss Bennett’s murder was staged. She’s alive and well and prepared to testify. You should know that we have Detective Gregaros on audiotape and videotape at the scene of the staged murder, making very incriminating statements. We also obtained a warrant before you met with Harvey Grant at the Westmont, and we have a recording of your call to the judge telling him that the carton is not in the trunk of your car.”

Hunter paused. William held his tongue.

“Aren’t you going to ask us what carton we’re talking about?” Hunter asked.

“I don’t know anything about a carton.”

“No?” Hunter said. “So this is the first time you’ve heard about the carton of confessions that Victor Reis took from the judge’s trunk, the carton he was supposed to put in your trunk? Doesn’t ring any bells?”

William Kerrigan said nothing.

“We had to trick the judge into moving the confessions, because we had no idea where they were,” Tim said. “I told you that I knew about them and was going to tell the police. We knew you’d tell Harvey and he’d figure out that we’d get a search warrant. That forced him to move them immediately. He couldn’t give them to anyone who had signed a confession. That eliminated everyone but the original members of your group. Wendell Hayes was dead and Pedro Aragon is in Mexico. That left you.”

“We had Tim insist on meeting at the Westmont to bring you and Grant together,” Hunter said. “We thought you’d take advantage of the chance to switch the evidence there and we assumed it would be moved from Grant’s car to yours. Since neither of you could afford to have Tim see the transfer, we were certain that Victor Reis would do it while the three of you were talking.

“We studied your car while you were with Tim at the hospital, and got a duplicate with matching plates and a lock that would take any Mercedes key in case you gave your key to Reis. The parking valet was an FBI agent. All we had to do after that was have the valet give Reis the number of the slot where the duplicate car was parked. He put the carton in the trunk, we drove the FBI car away, and put your car in the slot we’d just vacated.”

“We’ve been through the confessions once,” Tim said. “Some of the names came as a real shock. It made me sick to think that I trusted these people.”

“You’re going to be charged with conspiracy in the murder of Harold Travis and the attempted murder of the Jaffes, Jon Dupre, and your son,” Hunter said. “The murder of Senator Travis can put you on death row.

“We’d like you to work with us. It would be helpful to have one of the original members of The Vaughn Street Glee Club as a government witness. It would mean a life sentence for you. But you have to act now. We haven’t started to interrogate Harvey Grant and Detective Gregaros, but they know that Ally is alive and that Tim set them up. I promised Tim we’d talk to you before we spoke to them.”

“What’s it going to be, Dad?”

Kerrigan glared at Tim. “I should have known you’d never have the guts to kill someone.”

Tim hung his head. Even now his father could hurt him.

“Your son was very brave, Mr. Kerrigan,” Hunter said, “and very insistent that we give you the first opportunity to cut a deal.”

Kerrigan stared at the agent. “I have no reason to cut a deal. I don’t know what you think Harvey Grant and this detective have done, but I’m not part of it.”