Turning Angel (57 page)

He turns away and knocks for a deputy.

I search for the right words to make Drew reconsider, but he’s gone before I find them. I turn to Quentin in anger and confusion.

The old lawyer is looking at the glass where Drew stood just a moment ago. ”That’s a man, right there,“ he says. ”Haven’t met any like him in at least twenty years.“

I clutch Quentin’s upper arm. ”You’d better get him off on appeal. You hear me? He doesn’t belong in a cell.“

”If it can be done, I’ll do it.“

”That’s what you said about the last trial.“

Quentin pats his coat flat, then shoots his cuffs. ”Nobody could have got him acquitted for that girl’s murder. Not in this town. Not this week. The deck was stacked, and Elliot’s too goddamn noble to play the game the way he would have had to for us to win. Even with his life at stake.“

I say nothing. It’s time for me to get back to the hospital, as much as I hate the idea. My jaw muscles are already aching, and the bone pain won’t be far behind.

Quentin and I take the elevator down together. Doris Avery is sitting with Daniel Kelly on a bench in the lobby, talking quietly. As Quentin and I walk toward them, my cell phone rings. The caller ID says,MIA .

”Hello? Mia?“

”Yes! I’ve got to talk to you.“ She’s breathing as though she’s just run a hundred-yard dash. ”Face-to-face. Where are you?“

”The county jail. Where are you?“

”Your hospital room. I thought you’d be here.“ Her voice is crackling with energy, but I can’t tell whether that energy is the result of excitement or panic.

”Hang on.“ I shake Quentin’s hand, then motion him onward. ”It’s my kid’s babysitter. I’ll call you later at the hotel.“

Quentin says, ”We may head back out to the country tonight. Call me there if you don’t get me at the hotel.“

I wave to Doris as Quentin makes his way to the bench. Then I turn away and walk back toward the elevators. ”These are digital phones, Mia. No one’s going to hear you. Tell me what’s happened.“

”I can’t. It’s too dangerous.“

My patience has worn down to nothing. ”Mia, stop the melodrama and just tell me what’s going on.“

The silence that follows tells me I’ve hurt her feelings. I’m sorry for that, but there’s too much at stake now for high school detective games. ”Mia…“

”It’s okay,“ she says.

”What’s this about?“

”Coach Anders.“

”Wade? What about him?“

”He’s been sleeping with a student.“

My stomach goes hollow. ”Who?“

”Jenny Jenkins. She’s a
junior.
“

”How did you find this out?“

”She told me herself, not fifteen minutes ago. I was up at the school, in a meeting about the senior trip. When I came out, Jenny was waiting for me.“

”Are you two friends?“

”Not really. She told me because I’ve been bugging everybody all week about Marko. You know, trying to find you.“

”I don’t get it.“

”That’s what I’m trying to tell you. This isn’t really about Coach Anders—it’s about
Marko.
“

I can hardly contain my frustration. ”What about Marko?“

”His alibi is bullshit.“

I feel a wave of disorientation, but I’m not sure if it’s Oxycontin or the first hint of true knowledge. ”His alibi for which day? The Wilsons or Kate?“

”Kate!“

”Wade Anders was Marko’s alibi.“

”
That’s
what I’m telling you! Coach Anders’s story was bullshit!“

I blink in disbelief. ”Don’t say another word.“

Mia laughs. ”Told you.“

I think quickly. ”Do you know where Jewish Hill is?“

”The City Cemetery?“

”Meet me there as soon as you can.“

”I’m on my way.“

Daniel Kelly and I stand on the edge of Jewish Hill, waiting for Mia in a softly falling rain. Beyond the twin bridges over the Mississippi, the sun is sliding down the last of its arc; soon it will slip silently into the great river. I turn and look out over the cemetery. Kate’s grave is only a low mound of mud now. The faded green tent that protected it is gone, and there’s been no time to carve a gravestone. That takes weeks in this town.

Looking down the road that runs along the bluff, I spy a solitary figure in the rain. The Turning Angel. She’s not turning now, but merely standing with her head bowed, trying to weather the coming storm. As I stare, a hundred thoughts sweep through my mind. Ellen told me she killed Kate, and I believed her. But if Ellen killed Kate, why did Marko Bakic get Coach Anders to lie about his whereabouts that day? Could he have been doing a drug deal? If so, and Kate happened to get killed at the same time, then Marko must have improvised the alibi to cover his dope deal, not a murder.

It’s a plausible theory. But something has been bothering me ever since I heard Ellen’s confession. It’s the sequence of events as she described them. Ellen told me that after she began choking Kate, Kate quickly ”went out“—or became unconscious—and then fell and hit her head on the buried wheel rim. But the pathologist who autopsied Kate determined the cause of death to be strangulation, not head trauma. I believe Ellen choked Kate long enough to make her unconscious, but probably not long enough to kill her. In fact, my impression during Ellen’s confession was that she believed Kate died from the blow to her head. Ellen must have read otherwise in the newspaper, but she probably figured Kate was dead before her head hit the wheel.

But what if Ellen didn’t kill Kate at all? What if Marko—unknown to Kate—was at the crime scene, too? What if the person Ellen heard walking through the woods after Kate fell was not Drew, but Marko Bakic? That would have put Marko with Kate after Ellen left her, but before Drew arrived and discovered her corpse. The more I think about that scenario, the more convinced I become that it might be true.

But why would Marko have been there?

The answer comes to me so fast that it leaves me breathless. Marko met Kate there to sell her—or more likely, give her—Lorcet Plus. Cyrus had cut off Kate’s supply of pills; Cyrus’s e-mails to her told me that. Cyrus had warned Kate not to go to Marko in search of Lorcet, but what alternative did she have?

Because Marko gave me his hair so willingly at the X-rave, I discounted the possibility that he’d raped Kate. But maybe he gave me that hair because he knew he would be long gone before the police could arrest him. No…that would have been stupid. He would only have given me the hair if he was positive it could never come back and bite him on the ass.

”Oh, God,“ I say softly. Marko gave me that hair because he knew I would be dead in a matter of hours—long before I could deliver his DNA to anyone who mattered.

”What is it?“ Kelly asks.

”Wait a minute.“

The events of the past two weeks are realigning themselves in my head with nauseating speed. Why is the chain of cause and effect so hard to see sometimes? Sonny Cross sticks his gun into Marko’s mouth to interrogate him. Five hours later, Sonny is dead. Murdered by the Asians. Three days later, I track Marko down at the X-rave and question him about Kate’s murder. Four hours later, the Asians try to kill me in the lobby of the Eola Hotel. Coincidence?

Not likely.

Marko and the Asians have been working together all along—probably against Cyrus. That’s why Cyrus didn’t kill me when he had the chance. Cyrus never saw me as a threat. I was after Kate’s killer, and Cyrus knew he was innocent of that crime. But to Marko…I was a genuine threat.
Jesus.

At Drew’s trial, Shad painted the jury a picture of Marko as the ”mystery man“ who’d left the other semen sample in Kate’s vagina. Shad chose Marko not based on evidence, but because Marko was conveniently missing, and thus offered the most possibilities for exploitation in court. But Shad painted Marko as Kate’s consensual partner—and Drew as the jealous killer. But what if those roles were reversed in reality? The rightness of this logic settles into my soul with the weight of gospel.

”That’s it,“
I whisper. If Marko discovered Kate’s prone body just after Ellen fled, he might well have killed her, and then witnessed Drew finding her body. If so, Marko could have been the blackmailer who extorted money and drugs from Drew on the night of the crime. Was Marko the man on the motorcycle that we chased through the woods behind St. Stephen’s? Or was he the rifleman by the press box, shooting as we tried to get through the fence?

Another rush of images fills my brain. The lone killer dressed in black who shot so many of Cyrus’s men…who was that but Marko Bakic? What makes me sure is that it was the same night—just hours later—that the Wilsons were brutally murdered. And they weren’t gunned down in the style of the Asian gang, but stabbed dozens of times, as though in uncontrolled fury. What was that attack but retaliation by Cyrus’s crew against the man they believed responsible for the attack on their safe house?

Marko
…

”There’s your girl,“ Kelly says. ”Blue Honda Accord?“

Mia’s car is racing up Cemetery Road. She slows by the second gate, turns in, and speeds along the narrow lane toward the superintendent’s office. I watch her turn and climb the road to Jewish Hill.

”What do you want me to do?“ Kelly asks.

”Give us some space, but watch us. I have no idea where Marko is, but I have a feeling that kid’s a lot more dangerous than I thought.“

”You’re covered.“

As Kelly walks down through the stones on the back side of Jewish Hill, Mia’s car noses onto the grass and drives along beside the wall shielding the graves. When I motion for her to stop, she opens her passenger door and waves me inside. I shake my head and beckon her out.

”It’s raining!“ she calls.

”That’s what’s keeping me awake!“

She nods and gets out of the car. She’s wearing old jeans and a royal blue St. Stephen’s sweatshirt. When she reaches me, she looks me up and down. ”You look really sick. Are you all right?“

”I’ve definitely been better.“

Mia tries to smile, but it doesn’t work. She buries her head in my chest and hugs me hard. I hold her for a minute, then gently separate us and lead her to the far edge of the hill, where the view of the river is unobstructed.

”Why did Coach Anders lie for Marko?“ I ask.

”Because Marko knew about Wade and Jenny.“

”What else did Jenny say?“

”Coach Anders has been really stressed out for the past week and a half.
Really
stressed, like talking to himself and stuff. Jenny didn’t know what that was about, but today at school she was worried he might have a heart attack or something.“

”Go on.“

”Jenny went into Wade’s office after fifth period, and he was crying. She begged him to tell her what the matter was, and he finally did. It was Drew’s conviction. Apparently Wade had suspected for some time that Marko had something to do with Kate’s death. He told Jenny all about Marko and the fake alibi. But he was afraid to tell the police, because he knew Marko would blab about Jenny, and he’d lose his job. Maybe even his career as a coach.“

”It’s worse than that,“ I tell her. ”Wade’s in a position of trust as defined by statute. He’d be facing the same kind of sexual battery charges as Drew. Thirty years in the pen. He might even be charged as an accessory-after-the-fact in Kate’s murder.“

Mia looks at me in shock. ”Well, Wade told Jenny he’d been praying all week that Drew would be acquitted. When he heard it had gone the other way, he lost it.“

”What did Jenny do?“

”Freaked out. She knew she couldn’t keep quiet about the Marko thing. She’d already been going crazy herself because of the affair. She’s been late for her period a couple of times, and she was worried that Wade was sleeping with somebody else. It’s a mess.“

”God, this town has gone crazy.“

”No rules anymore,“ Mia says, pulling up the hood of her sweatshirt against the rain. ”It’s definitely Wade’s fault, but you can bet Jenny pushed hard to make that affair happen. She’s been with seven other guys that I know about, and she’s only sixteen. She’s got a messed-up home life.“

I’m not thinking about Jenny Jenkins, but Wade Anders.

”What are you going to do, Penn?“

”Call our esteemed athletic director.“

”Is that the best thing?“

”I need to know if he’s willing to admit the affair.“

Mia nods, but she looks unsure. ”Why should he, though? I mean, if he thinks Marko murdered Kate, and if he knows how crazy Marko is—which he does—he’d be crazy to tell on Marko. Forget keeping his job—he’ll be worried about his
life.
He only told Jenny what happened because he thought she’d keep quiet.“

”Will Jenny repeat her story to the police?“

”I have no idea. My gut says no.“

”I have to know, Mia. Call Information and get me Wade’s home number.“

”I already have it, from being head cheerleader.“ She calls the number and hands me her cell phone. ”Wade drives the bus to all the games. I had to deal with him a lot this year.“

The phone rings twice. ”And he never came on to you?“

Mia shakes her head. ”I guess he had Jenny taking care of him.“

”Mia?“ Wade Anders says in my ear.

He’s looking at his caller ID. ”No, Wade, this is Penn Cage.“

”Oh. What can I do for you, Penn?“

”I know about you and Jenny Jenkins.“

The silence on the phone makes the silence of the cemetery seem a roar.

”Wade? Are you there?“

”Yeah, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.“

”I don’t have time for lies, buddy. I don’t even care about your affair. I’m trying to solve a murder here. There are lives at stake.“

”What lies are you talking about, Penn?“

I look at Mia and shake my head. ”You’ve been having sex with Jenny Jenkins. That’s bad enough, okay? But you lied about where Marko Bakic was on the day Kate Townsend died, and that’s unacceptable.“

”I don’t know where you heard that, but it’s bullshit.“

”Wade,“
I say in a locker-room voice, ”this is me, man. It’s gone too far already. You can’t get out of it now. Don’t even try. Drew’s already been convicted of murder because of you, and he could get the death penalty.“