Read The Law of Second Chances Online
Authors: James Sheehan
“You’re jumping everywhere, Jack. I’m not following you.”
“You’re following me fine, Molly, or whatever your name is. We don’t need to pretend anymore. You used Angela Vincent; you used Benny; and you used me. Where was I? Oh, yes, after I went back and traced the steps of our relationship and realized it was a setup all along, I knew that you or somebody who worked with you was in court every day following this case as closely as the most conscientious reporter. All you really needed to know at the end of the day was how I perceived things. You knew I’d never tell you my strategy. So every night, you’d simply ask me how it was going.
“You had an idea Spencer’s case was going south on Thursday night. When I confirmed it, you decided to help the prosecution along with the anonymous tip about the gun.”
“Just being a good citizen,” Molly replied.
Jack couldn’t believe how calm she was. She probably had a gun in her pocket and could blow him away at any time.
“Not exactly, Molly. After the trial was over, Benny and I talked. On the night of the murder you gave him a
revolver
, which means that you had to switch guns at his place before calling the police. It also explains to me how the murder occurred. You had gotten close to Angela Vincent in order to find out about Carl’s habits so you could kill him. Benny just happened to fall into your lap. I figure you got the idea the night he stole Angela’s credit card. You knew Leonard Woods was going to be killed around the same time Carl was. If one
of the murders looked like a robbery, nobody would ever connect the two. So you enticed Benny with the promise of a ten-thousand-dollar score, and then you pretended to trip and fall so that Benny had to take center stage. You gave him the
revolver
, told him it had a hair trigger and not to shoot under any circumstances, and then you filled his head with cocaine. When Carl got out of his car, you were across the street and you shot him right between the eyes. You even had Benny believing he was the murderer. It was
almost
perfect.”
“What do you mean ‘almost’? It was perfect.”
“Not any longer. Now Benny can tell his story. Angela can identify you, and there’s a bartender in the Village who Benny believes can finger you as well.”
“Finger me as to what, Jack? A woman who was with Benny and Angela and eventually you? And that gets you where? The state already has enough egg on its face. It’s not going to prosecute me for anything, even if your theories had any merits.”
“You may be right.”
“I am right, Jack. Knowing you, if I wasn’t right the police would have picked me up already. You wouldn’t wait until after dinner to report what you know.”
Jack refused to acknowledge that she was right. He also refused to get angry at her attitude. He wanted some answers.
“At least Carl’s plan won’t be thwarted,” he told her.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Jack. In the year and a half since Carl’s death, all his gas stations have been purchased out of his estate, as have his factories and his trucks—so his grand plan is over even though the
existence
of a formula has been revealed.”
“How come you didn’t get rid of Milton?”
“We didn’t know about him. Besides, the existence of a formula means nothing without the financial backing, and Milton won’t get that. He won’t even try.”
“If the trial didn’t matter, why did you kill Sal?”
“It didn’t matter a year and a half later. Six months ago, everything wasn’t in place. And Sal made the mistake of
finding out about Leonard Woods’s relationship with Carl and the close proximity in time between their deaths. He wasn’t able to put things together like you were—and I have to tell you, Jack, you did an incredible job against overwhelming odds—but Sal had to go. It gave us an additional six months.”
“You keep saying ‘we.’ Who do you work for?”
Molly looked at him and smiled. “You’ve already gotten more out of me than any man or woman alive. Now you want to know who I work for?”
“There’s no harm in asking.”
“Oh, yes, there is. If I gave you names I’d have to kill you right after I told you. Here’s the general answer: I work for the powers that be—the people who get things done in the world.”
“The government?”
Molly shook her head. “The people who run the government are like the officers of a corporation. I work for the owners.”
“You’re not going to tell me any more than that, are you?”
“No.”
They were at the corner. She stopped and looked at him, her hands in the pockets of her peacoat. Jack figured she had the gun in there. “Good-bye, Jack,” she said, knowing there would be no polite exchange of kisses.
“You know, you’re really good at your job, Molly. There were times there that I thought we had something going on between us.”
“We did, Jack, we did. If we hadn’t, you wouldn’t be standing here.”
She turned and walked away.
A month after Benny’s trial, Jack was back in New York for a visit. He met Frankie O’Connor for breakfast at Pete’s. Frankie brought along a friend, Nick Walsh. The two men shook hands. Throughout the entire investigation and Benny’s trial, Jack had never spoken with Nick Walsh except on the witness stand.
“I asked Nick to join us for breakfast, Jack. He wanted to personally pass along the results of the information you provided to us.”
Jack had given Frankie Molly’s telephone number, hoping it would be useful to the police in some way. Apparently, Frankie had turned the information over to Nick.
“She obviously ditched the phone when the trial was over,” Nick began. “However, I was able to persuade her phone company to give me the last month’s billing records. They were very interesting.”
“Who was talking to her?” Jack asked.
“One of my personal favorites,” Nick replied. “And as I understand it, one of yours as well—a little peacock named Spencer Taylor.”
“I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch,” Jack replied. “He was in on it all the time.”
“I don’t get a hard-on for too many people,” Nick added. “But I’m going to love watching this guy go down.”
“Do you have anything specific on him yet?” Jack asked.
“Not yet,” Nick said. “I’ve just been watching him. There
was, for sure, a boatload of money involved in a deal like this, and sooner or later I know he’ll be spending it.”
“That could take a long time,” Jack replied.
Nick just smiled. “Yeah, it could. However, Taylor just booked a flight to the Caymans. I strongly suspect he wants to see his money and count it. I’ll be there when he does.” Jack looked at Frankie, who was smiling as well.
“That’s beautiful,” he said.
“Once we catch him, he’ll start squealing like a pig,” Nick continued. “We won’t ever get to the people on top, but maybe we can cut a few legs off and make them think twice the next time.”
“It’s a constant battle,” Frankie added.
Back in Bass Creek later that same week, Jack lifted his head from the pillow and glanced at the clock on the night-stand next to his bed. It was 5:35 a.m. He rested his head back down for a moment and took a deep breath before swinging his legs over the side and sitting up. Ten minutes later, he was out the front door, dressed only in running shorts and a T-shirt.
This was his time now, the early morning when nothing stirred except the night owl and the crickets, and the moon and the stars were on center stage. He followed his and Pat’s familiar path into the woods, armed with his flashlight. Five minutes into his run in the deepest foliage, as a possum ran across his path and almost sent him reeling, he heard her voice in his head:
Keep that flashlight up so you can see where you’re going
. He smiled to himself. Maybe it was an illusion. Maybe he was just plain crazy. It didn’t matter, though, because it was his own personal craziness, a warm feeling in his heart that he didn’t share with anybody. Nor was he troubled that she had seen him with Molly. In all probability there would be others. Pat was above that now—a spirit devoid of human frailties, unburdened by time and space—free at last.
In case you think Henry Wilson’s story in Part One of the book is a little too far-fetched to be real, it is loosely based on a true story—the case of Florida inmate Juan Roberto Melendez. You can find numerous articles about Juan Melendez on the Internet, including the actual opinion of Judge Barbara Fleischer granting Mr. Melendez a new trial.
The breakthrough biotechnology mentioned in the book is also true. Lonnie Ingram, a professor of microbiology at the University of Florida, perfected this technique and patented it. Chuck Woods, a reporter for
The Palm Beach Post
, wrote an article on May 5, 2005, in which he quoted Mr. Ingram as saying this new biomass technology could make ethanol at $1.30 a gallon. (That estimate has probably changed in the last two years.) The article also stated that half the automotive fuel in the United States could be replaced with this new technology. You can read more about this on the Internet as well.
My greatest joy has always been my family, and I have been blessed in that regard. My three children, John, Justin, and Sarah, are my anchors. We have always been there for one another. John’s wife, Bethany, Justin’s wife, Becky, and my five grandchildren, Gabrielle, Hannah, Jack, Grace, and Owen, make up the rest of my inner circle. The next band of that circle is my brothers and sisters: John, Mary, Mike, Kate, and Patricia, and their significant others: Marge, Tony, Linda, Bill, and John. You form a unique bond when you grow up in a four-room flat in New York City with your mother and father and five brothers and sisters. My siblings have always kept my feet firmly planted on the ground. I also have an extended family of aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, in-laws, close friends, and three godchildren, Ariel, Madison, and Nathaniel, whom I love dearly. And I send a note of special gratitude and love to my mother’s twin sister, Aunt Anna.
At the top of my “other” family, my publishing family, sits my agent and my friend, Larry Kirshbaum. Larry was a great publisher and editor for many years before starting his new career as a literary agent. I am proud to say that I am and will always be his first client. His advice and expertise, and that of his staff, especially Susanna Einstein, have been invaluable to me. Soon after teaming up with Larry, St. Martin’s Press became my publisher. Since the beginning, Sally Richardson and Matthew Shear at St. Martin’s have been very
enthusiastic and supportive of me and my work. I will always be indebted to Kate Hartson and Yorkville Press for giving me the opportunity to be a successful writer. Kate has not only been my publisher and my mentor for many years, she is also my sister.
Marc Resnick is my editor at St. Martin’s. This second book is our first full-time collaboration, and we worked very well together. Thank you, Marc, for your patience and your suggestions on how to make this book better.
I would also like to thank a special friend, Greg Tobin, who helped me to understand the finer points of the writing process. Thank you to the staff at St. Martin’s for the outstanding layout and cover design of this book, and to Bob Somerville and Tina Taylor, my original editor and designer on
The Mayor of Lexington Avenue
, who I still look to for support and insight.
I owe a large debt of gratitude to my friends who have read my work and provided me with their honest analyses and opinions. I am tempted not to name names because I might forget someone. But, having filed that disclaimer, here goes: Dottie Willits, Kay Tyler, Robert “Pops” Bella, Peter and Linda Keciorius, Diane Whitehead, Dave Walsh, Lindy Walsh, Lynn and Anthony Dennehy, Caitlin Herrity, Gary and Dawn Conboy, Gray and Bobbie Gibbs, Teresa Carlton, Linda Beth Carlton, Kerrie Beach, Cathy Curry, Dee Lawrence, Ron DeFilippo, Urban Patterson, Richard Wolfe, Stephen Fogarty, and Paul Hitchens.
Last, but certainly not least as far as this book goes, are my nephews Michael Sheehan and John Tartamella, who are New York City cops and who read the police stuff and gave me some pointers; Pat Fahey, a cousin and also a retired New York City cop, who helped with some of the ballistic stuff; and Carla Jimenez, an ovarian cancer survivor herself, who gave me some insights and some Web sites to help me understand the “silent killer,” ovarian cancer.
I also want to bid a fond farewell to my breakfast buddies, Eddie and Bill, neither of whom made it to the next winter.