Injustice (19 page)

“Of course it's cut and dried,” Philbin said.

“Get up, Philly,” Sabin said, appearing behind him, on her feet now. She shoved him on the shoulder. “Move over. Let me sit there.”

Philbin moved over. Sabin sat next to me.

“We have enough circumstantial to make a case and put that freak away where he belongs,” Philbin said. “And I'm sorry if you're feeling all sentimental about the murderous Henry Tatlock. Honest, I really am.” (This said sarcastically.) He held up his fist and peeled back his index finger so it was pointing straight up. “First, Henry Tatlock, the fiancée-killer, can't account for his whereabouts at the time Lydia Trevor was shot. Second—”

“Christ's sake, Philly,” Sabin said, “he's accounted for his whereabouts. He just doesn't have anyone to confirm it yet.”

“Second,” Philbin said, pulling another finger from his fist to stand beside the first, “the saintly Mr. Tatlock was consorting with underworld figures, to wit, one Aaron Pursley.”

“For which Henry has a credible explanation,” Sabin said.

“Credible, my ass. And Aaron Pursley is known to be in the firearms-procuring business,” Philbin said. “What a coincidence. Lydia Trevor was shot in the head with a firearm that somebody must have procured from somebody.”

“Have you questioned Pursley?” I asked.

“Gee, never occurred to us.” Philbin said. “Hey, Sabin, you ever think of asking Pursley about any of this?”

“For Christ's sake, Philly, simmer down,” Sabin said. To me, “Yeah, we spoke to Pursley. At first he wouldn't say anything. So I told him what Henry had said about looking for his bio family, and Pursley says, ‘Well, I wouldn't dispute Henry Tatlock's version of events.' That's all he'd say.”

“
Known
underworld figure,” Philbin repeated. He peeled another finger from his fist. “Third, it turns out Mr. Tatlock's fiancée was out bucking someone else's bronco, which, for her being engaged to a guy as explosive as Henry Postal Tatlock, is kind of like playing Russian roulette with five bullets in a six-shooter.”

“Unless I'm mistaken,” I say, “you don't even know if Henry was aware of Lydia's affair.”

“Fourth,” Philbin said, and he freed a fourth finger. Sabin, who was sitting with her back to Philbin, rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Lydia
left a panicky message for her sister minutes before she was killed, making it clear she was running from someone. And fifth . . .”

“ ‘And fifth,' ” Sabin mocked, using a cartoon voice.

Philbin extended his thumb and waved his open hand at me. “Fifth, Lydia's texts with her illicit Romeo made frequent and repeated reference to Henry's violent temper and unpredictability and to Lydia's fear of him. Wherefore, to put it in legalese you might understand, counselor, we got it scientifically proved that Henry Tatlock did, with malice aforethought and desirous in his heart to splatter her head like an overripe melon, shoot her with no more compunction than if she was a rabid skunk.”

“Oh, for Christ's sake, Philly,” Sabin said, “all that is—”

“The guy was a powder keg,” Philbin said. “We've asked around. He's bad news.”

I hadn't realized what a volatile jerk Philbin was. I had hoped to talk with these two about other theories for the case, other directions to go with the investigation. Now I was pissed.

We were all facing out the window. I'd been watching the sidewalk across the street, where a guy in a gorilla suit was handing out fliers. It wasn't a busy time of day, so the gorilla spent a lot of time leaning against a building and staring at the sidewalk. The costume was cheap and ratty. The guy seemed tragic.

Philbin pivoted on his stool. “If you'll excuse me,” he said, and made his way to the men's room through the thicket of laptop and iPad and smartphone and tablet users.

“Sorry about him,” Sabin said. “He gets like that.”

“Henry didn't kill Lydia,” I said.

“I kind of believe you,” Sabin said. “I mean, you know him. We don't.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I wasn't sure you two recognized that fact.”

“Tell me about him,” she said in an intimate voice. “There are rumors about him. That he went off on some girl once.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“We've been talking to people. Have you heard about anything like that? People talk about him like he's got one foot in the psych
ward. And Philbin always believes the street talk. I like to think I have a more balanced understanding of how rumors work. So help me out here, Nick. What's the real story?”

I liked Sabin. I liked her Brooklyn accent and her no-bullshit approach, and now I liked that she was more interested in getting some facts than in jailing the first possible suspect. She was attractive, too, not that I was looking, but a guy can't help noticing. Maybe if I could explain Henry to Sabin, she could get Philbin to back down. “Here's what I know,” I said. “I know that Henry—”

My cell rang. It was Lizzy. “Hi, Dad. I was just wondering how you're doing. Are you okay?”

I held up a finger to Sabin and mouthed, “Be right back.” I walked toward the restroom hallway, which was quieter than the café area. “I'm okay, sweetie. Can't really talk right now, though.”

“Mom says you should come over for dinner tonight.”

“I don't know,” I said. “Let me think. I'll call you back in a half hour?”

“Sure, Dad.”

“Bye, honey.”

Before returning to Sabin, I went into the men's room and found Philbin there, also talking on his phone. He nodded. I nodded. I took care of business and walked out, weaving back through the crowd of zombified screen-gazers. I realized that Philbin was just hanging out, delaying to give me time with Sabin, and it struck me like a sledgehammer that I was being played: Philbin had gotten me worked up and indignant about Henry, then he'd gone off to piss, leaving me to be comforted and cooed at by the compassionate Sabin. And I
fell
for it! Me: hard-bit prosecutor, ready to cozy up, stool to stool at the coffee counter, our heads all but bumping as I spilled Henry's secrets to the calculating Sabin. She had plied her feminine charms, and I was ready to believe we were allies in trying to wrest the investigation from the oafish Philbin.

Good cop/bad cop. Damn them both. I'd take what I knew to Chip. Let him be the one to crack it open.

I sat back at the counter beside her. “You were saying,” she said.

The gorilla paced the sidewalk across the street. Sometimes
he'd hand out a flier and sometimes he'd let people pass without interruption.

I said, “Well, you remember that kid you questioned the day after the murder? The one who found a credit card and wanted to buy computers? What ever happened to him?”

“I don't know,” Sabin said, “but what I want to know—”

“Be right back,” I said. I went up to the counter and ordered a coffee drink, then took it outside and crossed the street. The gorilla offered me a flier. I offered him the cup. “Been watching you,” I said. “Thought maybe you could use a pick-me-up.”

He took the cup warily.

“Vanilla latte,” I said.

He took off the gorilla head. I was expecting a kid like the confused credit-card finder. But the gorilla was closer to my age and unshaved. Homeless, perhaps, impersonating a gorilla to make a few bucks. “Okay,” he said.

I crossed back to the café.

“A humanitarian,” Sabin said.

“Not really. It was just a notion.”

The gorilla sipped the coffee. I tried to catch his eye—I wanted to hold my coffee up in a salute—but he didn't see me.

“About Henry Tatlock,” Sabin said. “You have information.”

“Oh, right. Sorry. My information is that Henry is innocent.”

“I know. But something about a girl. Something about people misunderstanding and about careless accusations.”

“No,” I said. “I wouldn't know about anything like that.” I looked at the flier I was still holding.
BLOWOUT LIQUIDATION SALE!!!
It was for one of those places that's always going out of business but never actually goes.

I
tried to get work done in my office, but I couldn't focus on anything. The meeting with Sabin and Philbin had me too upset. It had started me thinking about Lydia again. I thought how furious Tina had been at her dead sister when we found out about the secret romance. I'd been pissed, too. I was still pissed. Was it really asking so much for Lydia to keep her panties on and to revel in her good fortune at landing a guy like Henry? Damn her. Because not only did it screw up her own life; the shock waves were still spreading out like a tsunami rising up from the surface of a placid ocean.

I was thinking about my own marriage, of course. Tina and I were just finding our groove. Things had been tough. Tina had gotten pregnant as soon as we'd gotten together. It was a difficult pregnancy, followed by life with a colicky infant and the torturous deprivation of sleep—much less sleep for her than for me—followed by the breast cancer scare, then waiting for results, then more waiting during those months when the doctor didn't like the looks of things. Then the week before Lydia's death, Tina's follow-up exam came back clean. It should have been our independence day. Barn had been sleeping through the night for over a year. Tina felt great and loved her work. We were finally free to get on with the long-delayed business of being newlyweds. But Lydia fucked it all up, smiting Tina with this unmanageable sorrow at the very minute we'd thought ourselves delivered.

Damn Lydia. I pulled out my phone to look at that last picture of her. Though it was taken from behind, Tina and Lydia were turning to look at something, so the camera captured a quarter profile each: a cheek, an eye, the jawline, and part of the forehead. They looked
very alike except for the texture of skin and crinkle of eyes and neck. You could tell that Tina was several years older.

I felt the realization in my veins and then in the prickle of my skin. I felt it in scattered bits, then the bits became a stone that stuck in the middle of my chest. I couldn't breathe for a second.

I took my phone to Janis's desk. “Can you help me print this picture?”

Janis got me set up. I printed the picture and quickly ripped it in half, right down between the two women. “Who is this?” I asked Janis, showing her one half of the picture.

“Your wife, of course.”

I took it to Upton. “It's Tina,” he said.

Tina had worked in this office. She was known to everybody here, and everyone I asked identified her in the photo. But they didn't identify her. The picture I showed around was Lydia. Lydia, a younger version of Tina: Tina the way she'd looked five years ago, pre-marriage, pre-childbirth. Anybody might have mistaken them, but especially someone who knew Tina only before she'd acquired that ineffable look of motherhood and maturity, before lines of character and worry and sun exposure began to surface in the predictable spots around her face.

The conference room at the FBI is a cheery place. It has a big skylight. Upton was there with me; Isler and Sabin and Philbin, too. The two halves of the Tina and Lydia photograph were on the table.

“So if you're right,” Philbin said, “if it was a case of mistaken identity and your wife was the target, who would want to kill
her
?”

“You know the federal prison out at Ellisville?” I said. “It's full of people who would love to kill her.”

Upton said, “Tina specialized in gangs and drug prosecutions and crimes against children. Mostly it's little guys, users and losers, and the last thing they want when they're sprung is any new problems with the man. But a few are megalomaniacs who take it all real personal.”

“You got any names?” Sabin asked.

“I've got every case she worked on.” I waved the list Janis had printed for me. “We can go through it a name at a time. Cross off the ones still inside. Focus on the ones who are out and have a history of violence.”

Tina walked into the room. Chip had sent over an agent to pick her up at her office. There were half a dozen empty chairs around the table, and she picked the one next to me. I slid the list to her. Without hesitation, she flipped through and found the name she wanted. Tony Smeltzer.

“This guy would be my first choice,” she said. “But I assumed he was still inside. Corrections is supposed to inform me when he's released. You remember him, Nick? He's the one who screamed at me in the courtroom, said he was coming after me when he got out. We all just figured someone had slipped him some angel dust in lockup and that he was high as a kite during trial.”

“But if he's still inside . . .”

“He isn't,” Chip said. Chip was typing on his laptop as we talked. “It says here he successfully appealed his sentence, shortening it by five years. And that he did every day of the shortened sentence, so he was released outright. No parole.”