Innocence (18 page)

“Fuck,” he said out loud. He reached over, mouth full, and grabbed the receiver. “Yeah?” he grunted.

“Salazar still has a lawyer,” the voice said.

“No shit,” Mac replied. “He’s entitled. It’s in the Constitution.”

“He can’t get out of prison. You know that.”

“No judge is gonna let him out. Certainly not Cavanaugh. Not with what he did. Not with the shit they’ve got.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Fuck you.” Mac couldn’t help himself, but he knew taking the offensive was probably a bad strategy.

“If that’s the way you want it . . .” The voice trailed off.

“This isn’t what we bargained for. None of it. Not the shit you’re doing. And sure as hell not what you’re asking me to do.”

“If you believe this is merely a request, that may be part of the problem. I must not be making myself clear. If you need a reminder, that can be arranged.”

Mac considered his response carefully. “I don’t need a reminder. Let me work on it.”

“Fine. Work on it. But remember, we’re on a very tight time line.”

“I know.”

“Things have gone too far for hesitation.”

“All right. I know. I’ll contact you soon.”

“Do that. You don’t want me to have to contact you.” The line went dead.

Mac threw the phone on the floor. He looked down at his pizza, but he’d lost his appetite. He looked up at the television. The game was only minutes old, and the Celtics were already down by eight—to the Grizzlies, no less.

“Fuck,” he said out loud again. The world had changed when he wasn’t looking. And it wasn’t for the better.

Chapter Eightee
n

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Finn woke early the next morning. Truth be told, he hadn’t really slept at all. He’d just lain in bed, replaying every conversation he’d had with Mark Dobson over and over in his head. Every rational impulse told him that he bore no responsibility for the young man’s death, but for some reason, he couldn’t let go of his guilt.

By four thirty he was up and moving, in and out of the shower for a quick rinse, scarfing down a piece of dry toast, and out the door by five. It was still pitch-black when he unlocked the door to his office.

He sat down at his desk and pulled out a yellow legal pad and stared at it. His goal was to organize his thoughts on the Salazar case. In his head, the questions and issues were free-flowing, swirling out of control, like bits of paper in a city wind. They would do him little good in that form, and his hope was that by reducing them to writing he might impose some order on them, which might allow him to proceed in some sort of logical manner.

As always, he started with the assumption—the required belief— that his client was telling him the truth, and that Salazar was, therefore, innocent. Finn pulled the pad toward him and began scribbling across the page. Then he paused and looked at what he’d written.

Madeline Steele identified the wrong man.

He thought about it. Below that, he wrote a simple but important question.

Why?

After another pause, he started on a fresh line.

How did Salazar’s print get on Steele’s gun?

Underneath that:

Framed?

He sat back in his chair and picked up the pad, examining what he’d written. It was a start, but that was all. There were so many other pieces to this, pieces that didn’t seem to fit, no matter how hard he tried to force them. Slapping the pad back onto the desk, he began scribbling furiously, channeling any notion that popped into his head down onto the paper without thought or analysis.

Who had a motive to kill Steele?

Who had a motive to kill Dobson?

Who had a motive to frame Salazar?

Is Salazar a member of VDS?

Are there cops involved?

Macintyre?

What did Salazar tell Dobson?

What was it like growing up blind and fatherless?

Would Salazar have been deported?

Finn wrote out all the questions in a stream. When the questions ran dry, he stared at the piece of paper for a long time. It was a good list of questions; a hard list of questions. Somewhere in there were the right questions, and the right answers would free his client and, to some degree, himself.

He drew a bold line under the questions and wrote in large capital letters: task list. He underlined that and then wrote out a list.

Question Madeline Steele

Hire fingerprint expert/evaluate fingerprint match

Interview Salazar family

Interview trial witnesses

Research VDS

Contact DNA testing lab

He tore off the sheet of paper, put away the legal pad, and put his new lists in the center of his empty desk. Now, at least, they had a plan to follow. Well, perhaps not so much a plan as a list of random activities, but Finn’s general view was that one of the most important aspects of preparing a case was to keep your feet moving at all times. Even if you weren’t sure exactly where the goal line was, without motion, you’d never advance the ball, and mere intellectualism would never accomplish that. Advancing the ball took legwork.

He stood up and looked at his watch. Six thirty. He’d been at the office for well over an hour, and it was still dark out. At least the donut shop around the corner would be open. That was one of the things he loved about New England: There was a donut shop on every block. He had no idea what it was about the circular puffs of dough that so tantalized people in the region, but he was as much a victim as anyone, so who was he to complain? He also needed coffee to really start the day, and while there was a machine in the office, only Lissa could make it function. Served him right for going top-of-the-line. It had more buttons and switches than any car he’d ever driven. No matter. He’d head around the corner and pick up some coffee and a dozen mixed donuts. Both Kozlowski and Lissa generally arrived early, so the breakfast and the coffee would still be fresh when they arrived.

Finn put on his coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck. He already felt better than he had the night before. Things were moving, at least, and with only a week to find some answers, motion was desperately needed. As he stepped out onto the sidewalk, he felt as though he had a sense of purpose for the first time since he’d read the headline about Dobson’s murder.

z

Kozlowski lay on his back on Lissa Krantz’s bed. A sheet was pulled over his hips, leaving his legs and torso bare. Covering himself was an unconscious nod to etiquette that was probably unnecessary, given their activities over the preceding six hours. Still, when Lissa had gotten up and walked into the bathroom, he’d felt a little odd lying alone in all his splendor.

He rubbed his wide chest as he reflected on what had happened between the two of them. In many ways, it seemed odd. They had nothing in common. Nothing. They came from different backgrounds, different economic situations, different cultural and religious upbringings. And then there was the age difference. Fifteen years was probably not considered drastic by most people in today’s world, but Kozlowski didn’t consider himself part of “most people.” To him, fifteen years seemed like an eternity. It felt like a gulf potentially too wide to bridge. It felt like cradle robbing.

And then there was the other thing—the sex. Would she really be satisfied with someone older? It hadn’t seemed as though it had bothered her the night before. If anything, she’d seemed very pleased with . . . everything. And yet he had no real basis from which to judge. His experience with her was such an anomaly in his life that he had no frame of reference to determine whether he was evaluating her reactions accurately. He’d had only a few “lady friends” in his lifetime, and they had been nothing like Lissa. They’d been demure and proper: good marriage material, as his mother used to say in heavily accented English. When he’d been intimate with them, it had been perfectly pleasant, but there had been little communication, no experimentation, and never an encore.

His evening with Lissa had been a different experience entirely. They hadn’t slept. Ever. They had crawled over each other nonstop throughout the evening, doing things to each other he’d only read about. While they were together, it hadn’t occurred to him to worry about his performance—about whether or not she was being satisfied. He’d been too busy trying to keep up.

Not that it had seemed difficult. He’d simply done what seemed natural, following his body’s impulses and reacting instinctively to her movements, matching the rhythm of her body and the intensity of the expressions of ecstasy on her face. If those expressions were any indication, then he’d performed acceptably for her. And yet there was no way he could be sure. He’d heard about women faking pleasure to make their partners feel better about themselves. Lissa’s reactions had seemed genuine, but how could he know?

He stretched his arms over his head and let go of his doubts. Doubts wouldn’t help him, and there was nothing he could do about it now. It wasn’t in his nature to dig too far down emotionally, anyway. In personal relationships, he’d always found it easier to accept people at face value unless they gave him reason to question. Lissa Krantz had done nothing to raise his suspicions, so he thought it better to enjoy the memories of the evening for what they were.

z

Lissa looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Holy shit,” she whispered to herself. Then she laughed, putting a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. “Holy fucking shit.”

She ran her hands over her body, tracing some of the infinite paths Tom Kozlowski had blazed during the night, closing her eyes as she relived the experience in her mind. She ran her fingertips over her hips and around the curves of the small of her back, then up her sides and over her breasts, feeling her nipples stiffen at her touch, as they had at his.

From her breasts, one hand crawled down her abdomen, making her stomach flutter in anticipation as it wandered farther down. When she touched herself between her legs, she paused as the electricity flared up her spine. She let her hand linger there, as his had, touching herself lightly, with a curiosity that mimicked his as she teased herself, swallowing a moan as her entire body shuddered.

She took her hand away and leaned forward on the sink. She shouldn’t be doing this; she could tell that she’d be walking gingerly for a day or two as it was. It had been worth it, though. She laughed quietly again at her reflection. She probably had more sexual experience than any three friends of hers combined, but this had been completely different. Her evening had been a total immersion in pleasure and abandon. As much as her body ached from it, it still wanted more.

She opened the door and stepped out of the bathroom, walking over to sit on the side of the bed. He was lying there, eyes closed, hands behind his head. She touched his thigh, and his eyes opened. She wondered what he was thinking, whether he was having any regrets. It wouldn’t be unusual, she knew from experience.

“Tired?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I probably will be later, but not now.”

“Me, neither.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then immediately regretted it. “I had fun.”

“Me, too.”

She looked away from him. “We probably shouldn’t tell Finn. It’d only freak the shit out of him.”

“Okay.”

“Besides, it’s not like this has to be some big fucking deal.” She’d given the same assurance to dozens of men in the past. This time it rang hollow to her.

He frowned. “If you say so.”

“I mean, it’s just a night, right? It’s not like we’re dating or anything.”

“Okay.” They were quiet for a moment. He reached out and stroked the inside of her leg. It was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing into him. “You dumping me already?” he asked.

A hint of relief nudged her. “No,” she said quickly. “I just didn’t want . . . No. I don’t want you to feel trapped, is all.”

He continued touching her, his hand sliding up her leg. “I’ll let you know if that becomes a problem.”

She smiled and slid her own hand up his thigh, underneath the narrow slip of sheet covering his hips. He was hard, and her smile widened as she ran the tips of her fingers lightly up and down over him. Then she pulled aside the sheet and climbed up on her knees, straddling him without letting their bodies touch.

The look in his eyes as he watched her body made her melt. He reached up and ran his hands over her legs, up her body, and over her breasts. His hands were thick and strong but gentle, and her body moved involuntarily against his touch.

Suddenly, he stopped. His face went serious. “I want you to know, I didn’t expect this,” he said. “When I asked you out, I wasn’t expecting this. I’m not sure I’d even thought to hope for it.”

She smiled again as she lowered herself onto him. Leaning forward, she whispered in his ear, “This was exactly what I had hoped for.”

Chapter Ninetee
n

By nine thirty Finn was annoyed as he sat alone in his office. He was anxious to get moving on the Salazar case, but he needed Kozlowski to reach out to Madeline Steele and set up a meeting for that morning. He needed Lissa to coordinate with Dobson’s office and get the files transferred so they could begin their substantive analysis. Neither of them had arrived.

He supposed he had no technical right to take umbrage with Kozlowski; notwithstanding appearances, Koz wasn’t his employee. True, most of the work he did was for Finn, but he was still an independent contractor, free to take on whatever jobs came his way. And the reality was that he was a good enough private detective that he’d be able to keep busy with or without Finn. Still, they had such a well-established routine that Finn felt let down, particularly because Kozlowski knew the time pressure they were under with the Salazar case.

As for Lissa, he had every right to be perturbed with her. She was an employee; an intern from law school, to be sure, but she still had to take orders and show up on time. With her brain and skill, she’d be able to get a job after graduation at lots of firms that would pay more than he could, but she still needed him to review her work to graduate. More than that, he’d come to depend on her, and she knew it.