Backfire (8 page)

Hall of Justice

850 Bryant Street

San Francisco

Saturday morning

Two guards walked Cindy Cahill over from county jail number two to the interview room on the sixth floor, where the men were housed in the Hall of Justice. She shuffled into the room ahead of the guards, wearing her prisoner’s three-piece suit—cuffs, belly chain, and leg irons. She looked up and saw her husband, Clive, dressed as she was, sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs.

“Clive,” she said, and tried to move toward him, but the guards stopped her. Clive rose slowly, smiling at her. “Hi, gorgeous. I liked you in the blue suit Milo brought you to wear in court last week, but hey, orange looks great on you, too. You okay?”

“I’m okay, but I wish I knew what’s—” Cindy shot a look at Savich and shut up.

Savich rose slowly as the guards seated Cindy beside her husband, then left the small room with Savich’s nod.

Savich introduced himself and Eve to the Cahills. He said, “Before we begin, I’d like you to confirm you’ve both agreed not to have your attorney, Mr. Siles, present. Is that correct?”

“Sure,” Clive said. “Like I already said before my sweet wife arrived, we don’t need Milo for this. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we have nothing to hide. And how could I pass up the chance to spend some time with Cindy? Even talking to you clowns is better than being bored.”

He sat back in the uncomfortable chair, like a seasoned lounge lizard.

Savich asked, “Mrs. Cahill?”

“Okay with me,” Cindy said. “So call me Cindy. I heard the guards talking about you, Agent Savich; said you were from Washington, and you were real important.”

Clive said, “Hey, where’s Special Agent Christoff? That boy needs manners, you know? He’s a hard man, that one, not much fun at all.”

Savich watched them look at each other for a moment—affectionately? Wondering if the other would spill the beans? He didn’t know, but allowing them to be together in the same room without their lawyer present was a good start. With everything that had happened—suspension of the trial, the federal prosecutor O’Rourke gone missing, and Ramsey shot—Savich knew both of the Cahills would want to find out as much as they could about what the Feds knew. He doubted they’d fold their tents and want to deal given what had happened, but maybe they’d let drop something—anything—to give him some leverage, particularly with Milo Siles, since even on a good day the chances of getting the truth out of a defense lawyer were harder than getting a bipartisan bill out of Congress.

Savich said as he sat down, “You needn’t worry. Agent Christoff won’t be joining us. There will be only myself and Marshal Barbieri.”

As Savich spoke, Cindy didn’t look away from his face. She rested her cheek on her long white fingers, her fingernails not so lovely now. Those dark eyes of hers saw deep into a man’s soul, no, not his soul, Savich thought, she made a direct connection to his sex, and the pull of her was powerful. He recognized he was new prey to her, and so Savich clicked away, knew she recognized that he’d turned her off, and hoped she would work really hard to snare him. He wanted to observe her methods.

When Cindy turned her eyes to Eve, with her fresh, very pretty face and blond ponytail, she didn’t look happy, and he was pleased. What came out of her mouth pleased him even more. “Well, now, aren’t you the cutest little thing? All blond and blue-eyed, like a little princess, and yet here you are, a big U.S. marshal all dressed up in red and black, like a hard-ass. I thought all you marshals did was chase bad guys who escaped from the real cops. Like Tommy Lee Jones.”

“My hero,” Eve said. She was pleased Savich had decided to bring her even though Harry had been major-league ripped until Savich had calmly said it was obvious Cindy would have the advantage with two male interviewers, plus she would be instantly wary of anything that came out of Harry’s mouth, since he’d led the case against them and interviewed her at least a dozen times. Savich wanted to shuffle the deck, pull out a joker, and present Cindy with another woman. Hopefully Cindy hadn’t noticed her in the courtroom. Unspoken to Harry was the message that since Eve Barbieri was a looker, why not try to rattle Cindy Cahill, who firmly believed she was God’s gift to all men? Harry hadn’t said another word. On their way to the interview room, Savich had said only to Eve, “Rattle her.”

“And would you look, you’ve got a little holster where you carry your gun. Isn’t that delicious? I always liked macho girls. I mean, men can be so difficult, don’t you think? Tell me, Eve, what do you do with a difficult man?” And Cindy Cahill slanted Savich a sloe-eyed look.

Eve smiled at Cindy, recognizing pure sex on the hoof when she saw it. She was sure men vibrated to full alert when Cindy waltzed into their vicinity. She was also beautiful, despite so many months spent in jail. Her dark eyes were exotic, slightly slanted, full of sparkle and high-voltage tease. She looked at you with incredible focus, and that focus was now turned on Eve. Eve sensed a formidable intelligence behind those hot, dark eyes—and something else when Cindy looked at her—calculation, and hatred.
Hatred?
Was Savich right? Was this incredible woman jealous of
her
? She said nothing.

Savich smiled. “Maybe what we should be talking about, Cindy, is how you thought you could get away with threatening a federal prosecutor.”

Direct attack,
Eve thought, and took due note.

Cindy Cahill answered Savich, her voice dripping Southern Savannah honey, “Threaten the federal prosecutor? You mean Mr. O’Rourke? I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about, Agent Savich. Do you, Clive?”

Clive said through a yawn, “Not a clue.”

“What you both must have figured out by now,” Savich continued smoothly, “is that your whole plan to get the murder charges dismissed has blown up in your face. Judge Hunt saw through it, and now there will be a mistrial. You will be tried again, with even greater security, and you’ll be convicted. If you had anything to do with Judge Hunt’s shooting or with O’Rourke’s disappearance, we’ll find that out, too. I would think two people facing the death penalty might be asking about a deal right about now.”

Clive and Cindy exchanged glances. Clive said, “We already told you we had nothing to do with any of that. Mr. Siles has already told us to sit back and wait awhile, see what happens now. Right, darling?”

Cindy said, “Right. We wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Siles.”

Savich said, “You’ve got to know your lawyer doesn’t want to end up in prison with you, if he was involved. If you could help us find Mr. O’Rourke, or to find Judge Hunt’s shooter before he can do any more harm, I’m sure the U.S. attorney would be very interested in possibly removing the death penalty from the table, maybe even reducing your sentences. And I’m sure the government would very much like to know who you sold that information to from Mark Lindy’s computer.”

Clive said, “We don’t know what happened to Mr. O’Rourke. I’ll tell you, though, I think maybe he went off somewhere and had a heart attack. He was real intense, always impatient, always demanding. I saw him start shaking once in the courtroom, looked to me like the poor boy was about to fall apart. Do you know he threatened me? I laughed at him, because what could he do? I was already in jail.”

Cindy said, “O’Rourke’s a schmuck, no sense of humor. Clive’s right, he’s probably dead in a ditch somewhere of a heart attack. If he is, I sure won’t miss him.”

Eve said, “I guess you don’t know Mickey O’Rourke’s a great volleyball player with a serve like a bowling ball, and he can spike the ball down your tonsils. His wife tells him he’s a killer, then she punches him, and he laughs. He’s a nice guy, loves his daughters. Did you know he has two daughters, teenagers?”

Clive shrugged and began whistling.

Cindy continued to study Savich, but Eve knew she was well aware of her. She’d come out swinging at her, Eve thought, something she had to admire.
Well, then, time to go for it.

Eve said, “I’ve wondered exactly what you did, Cindy. I mean, you had sex with Mark Lindy—it’s your tried-and-true method, isn’t it? And then Mark did most anything you wanted because he was so pleased with himself that this beautiful woman was sleeping with him, telling him he was a stud. Did he let you look over his shoulder while he worked on a classified government project, never suspecting you were writing all his user IDs and passwords on your sleeve while you were cooing in his ear?

“And then you put him to sleep with a nice cocktail you made with your own little hands, a bit of Rohypnol with a knockout drug, didn’t you? Poor Mark, he didn’t have a clue that his sex goddess was knocking him out so she could get to his key fob to tunnel into his computer, and access all his data. I’ll bet you called in Clive to help you with that part, didn’t you? This is all really Clive’s deal, isn’t it, Cindy? He’s the brain in your duo, right? He does the planning, makes the decisions, deals with the buyers, handles all the money, doles out spending money to you, his sex kitten?

“Do you even know who the buyers are?”

Cindy rose straight up, slammed her fist on the table, rattling her chains. “You bitch! I do the planning, I do everything, do you hear me?” Clive grabbed her hand. She shut up, even managed a twisted smile at Eve.

Nice start,
Savich thought. Cindy Cahill looked like she very much wanted to kill Eve. The investigative training the marshals were given at the marshals’ academy at Glenco looked to be good; either that or Eve had learned a few things growing up with a marshal as a father. Probably both.

Eve said, “Was it Clive who targeted Mark Lindy for you? Or did some foreign agent set you up with Lindy? Did you know, Cindy, that those top-secret materials were headed for a foreign government?”

Cindy Cahill didn’t leap to the bait this time, but she couldn’t keep the rage from her eyes. She tried on a sneer for size, but she couldn’t mask the mad. “You’re making up a story. The same story that ridiculous CIA operations officer told, too. Do all of you read off the same script?

“Listen up, little girl. What I mean is that Clive is my husband, my partner.” She gave Clive Cahill an adoring look and patted his hand, making the chains rattle again. “He’s my sweetie pie, not my boss, never my boss.”

Eve arched an eyebrow, gave her a
yeah, right
look. “Your sweetie pie didn’t mind you sleeping with Mark Lindy so long as there was a big payoff? Sorry, Cindy, but come on, now—that was your only role, wasn’t it? That is, until something went wrong. What happened? Did Mark Lindy realize what you were doing and threaten to call the police? And so you gave him the last cocktail of his life?”

Cindy gave Eve a girl-to-girl smile. “In my experience, guys usually prefer beer.”

Eve sat back in her chair. “That wasn’t a bad comeback, Cindy, but maybe Clive could give you a cooler line, since he’s smarter.
Hmm,
I wonder what your folks would think about how you’ve grown up, what you’ve finally done.”

Cindy Cahill never looked away from Eve’s face. “Since dear old Dad started coming to my bedroom when I was eleven years old, I don’t think he’d care one way or the other.”

Interesting,
Savich thought. Did the shrinks know she’d been abused? He started to rein it back, since he didn’t want the Cahills to demand their lawyer, but he wanted to see what Eve would say next. He gave her a small nod.

Eve said, “Clive, if it wasn’t you running the show, what were you doing, anyway? Did Cindy have you fetch her coffee, slide her slippers on her dainty feet, make up her schedule of seduction for her?”

Clive was shaking his head, looking from his wife to Savich, then finally back at Eve.

Eve continued. “Then what is she doing with you, Clive? You’re nearly old enough to be her father, aren’t you, nearly as old as her father who abused her? Tell me the truth, now, Clive, I know it must be tucked in the back of your brain. You’re afraid of her, aren’t you? Afraid she’ll tire of you, afraid she’ll start seeing a guy who’s younger than you? Afraid she’ll take her chances and talk to us, leave you here by yourself on death row?”

Clive’s pale face turned red. He yelled, heaving, he was so mad, “I am not afraid of her! She’s my wife. She’d never do anything to hurt me! I’m the one who found her, who taught her everything—”

“Did you teach her how to kill? Probably not, since the scene at that murder was a mess, not well done of you at all. Poison doesn’t always make a person just fall over and die. No, Mark Lindy fought when he realized what you’d done to him. He tried to take you down, but the poison got to him first, and it wasn’t at all pretty, was it, Cindy? And that, Clive, led the police to both of you.”

Cindy Cahill squeezed Clive’s hand hard. “Don’t you get all bent out of shape about anything, Clive. She’s only trying to play you.” She shook her head at them. “Aren’t you two the cool team? How long have you worked this routine together? Have you ever had any luck with it?”

Eve sat forward now, clasped her hands in front of her. “Do you know, Cindy, one thing I’d never do is kill someone by poison. It’s so—mean-spirited, cowardly, really, you know what I mean? And it’s so tacky. So low-class. Give me a knife any day and let me face down the person I’m going to kill.”

“I am not tacky!”

“No? Then what do you call using your body whenever Clive wants you to? Without the money, without the trappings, who would think you’re worth any more than a fast in and out with a streetwalker against a wall in an alley?”

“You bitch! I’m not a whore. Sue thinks I’m perfect!”

Sue? Who is Sue? What is this?

Savich broke in, hard and fast. “And Sue is walking around outside in the sunshine while you two are on the road to a lethal injection. Was it Sue who tried to kill Judge Hunt?”

Cindy and Clive Cahill looked at each other again and pulled it together. Cindy studied her fingernails and sounded bored. “There is no Sue, it’s a name I made up. As for Judge Hunt getting shot, I don’t know any more than anyone else who saw the news on TV. I have no idea who shot him.”

Eve said, “Come on, game’s up, Cindy. Did Sue shoot Judge Hunt?”

“I’ll tell you again—there is no Sue,” Cindy said. “There wasn’t even a reason for us to shoot the judge, was there?”

Savich said, “Are you so unimportant, Cindy, that Sue didn’t even tell you why she wanted Judge Hunt dead?”

“There is no Sue,” Cindy said yet again, calm as a stone now. “Like I already told you morons, why would we want the frigging judge dead? There’s no payoff for us, you said so yourself. Me, I was sort of sorry to hear it. Judge Hunt was hot, the way he looked at me—” Her husband didn’t say a word, only stared at the wall behind Savich’s head. “I bet he doesn’t look so hot now, does he?”

Eve wanted to leap over the table and punch her out. She forced herself to draw a deep breath instead.

Savich said, “Did Sue kill the prosecutor like you did Mark Lindy?”

Clive shrugged. “We don’t know anything about the judge, and we don’t know anything about the prosecutor. How could we? We’re in jail, Agent Savich, not out drinking beer and dancing at clubs.” He sat back in his chair and smirked. “That prosecutor, what a schmuck. O’Rourke would never have proven a case against us.”

But Cindy was still enraged. “All the accusations—it’s entrapment, nothing more. We didn’t kill anyone—if that ridiculous judge hadn’t stopped the trial, we would have been acquitted! Somebody else shot him—probably someone he put away.” She turned to Clive. “You know what, darling? This has been fun, but we got to put an end to it. Agent Savich, we want our lawyer.”

Eve wanted to kick herself. She’d been the one to screw it up, to push it too far.

Savich said as he rose, “I was hoping you two were behind the attempt on Judge Hunt’s life, that you’d hired an assassin to kill him, with the help of your lawyer paying him from some offshore account we haven’t found yet. Now I see that’s impossible.” He flattened his palms on the scarred table. “After spending some time with the two of you, the fact is I don’t think either of you has the brains to pull it off by yourselves.”

“We could do anything we wanted to,” Clive shouted. “And what we want now is our lawyer!”

Eve rose and stared down at him, then at Cindy. “Why don’t you tell us about Sue? You really don’t have to take the fall for her, not if she approached you, not if she’s the go-between to sell the material you stole off Mark Lindy’s computer.”

Neither of them said a word.

Savich said, “Do you know Mark Lindy always liked to say he wasn’t a wackadoodle, like Sheldon on
The Big Bang Theory
. He was more like Leonard, funny and kind?”

They looked at Savich blankly.

Savich shrugged. “Mark’s sister Elaine said he readily admitted he was a nerd, and he’d laugh, say he loved Spock as much as the next nerd, but she said Mark knew he saw people more clearly, interacted with them more easily, than most nerds did. But he didn’t see you clearly, did he, Cindy? And it cost him his life.”

Still no word from either of them.

How had Savich known that? From the murder file, of course. Eve said, “Did this Sue tell you to poison him, Cindy? Clive? Did she watch you do it?”

Cindy said, her voice vicious, “There is no Sue, you little dyke.”

Eve smiled at Cindy, turned to the door, and said over her shoulder, “You could be a model, Cindy, but not for much longer. Not if you stay in here.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a model. What idiot would want to live on yogurt and look like a refugee camp survivor?”