All Day and a Night (35 page)

“Let me worry about that, okay? I think I know who hurt Carrie. I’ll take care of everything.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to talk about this any longer, Thomas. I just want to finish eating dinner. And thank you so much, by the way, for getting it for me. I’ll figure out what’s going on with Carrie tomorrow. Maybe it’s some kind of misunderstanding.”

“Okay. I’m really glad I talked to you about this.”

From Thomas’s mic they heard the sound of Linda’s hotel door close. Moments later, the screen on Ellie’s cell flashed a text message: “Was that OK?—Thomas.”

“Aces. You rock!” She added a smiley face for emphasis.

On the speaker phone, Max was less enthusiastic. “She didn’t admit to the assault.”

“No,” Rogan said, “but she admitted ordering her assistant to commit a theft and file a false report, all to stop Carrie from leaking more information. There was also that pause when Thomas told her Carrie had been assaulted, and she seemed to know it happened at the apartment. And then she even said she thought she knew who did it. Motive, dishonesty, knowledge. If this were a gangbanger in the Bronx, you’d agree it was enough.”

“Okay. Wait for her to make a move—that’ll be evidence of consciousness of guilt—then take her.”

A
taxi pulled in front of the hotel thirty-two minutes later. They watched, slumped in the front seats of Rogan’s car, as the cabbie placed a call from his cell. Two minutes later, Linda Moreland walked out with her handbag and suitcase. She was fumbling with her cell phone.

The driver said something to her as he placed the suitcase in the trunk. His voice got a bit louder as he continued to speak. He was to the point of waving his arms animatedly when she used her free hand to remove her wallet from her purse. Despite the juggle with her cell phone, she managed to hand him what looked like a wad of cash.

Smart guy to ask for cash up front when someone wants a late-night ride all the way to New York City.

“Can I be the one to say it?” she whispered.

“I hated her first,” Rogan said.

“Pretty please? Cherry on top?”

“Your lady charms don’t work on me, Hatcher.”

“Steak. At Peter Luger.”

“Done.” He turned the key in the ignition and accelerated across the parking lot, blocking the taxi’s exit.

“Hey, ass—” The driver stopped himself from yelling the next syllable as he saw the badge hanging from Rogan’s neck when they stepped out of the BMW.

“Linda Moreland,” Ellie yelled, “you’re under arrest for the attempted murder of Carrie Blank. You have the right to—”

“I know my rights, Detective.”

Ellie grabbed the cell phone from her hands and placed it on the taxi’s hood. She was about to continue the recitation of Linda’s Miranda warnings when she noticed the sound of a voice coming from Linda’s phone. She looked at the screen. It read: “Debi Landry—00:12.” The line had been open for twelve seconds. She picked up the phone and listened.

“Linda?”

Ellie recognized the raspy voice of Anthony Amaro’s foster sister.

“Sorry,” Ellie said. “There was a commotion in the parking lot.”

“You’re the one who told me that bitch was screwing Tony over. You said something needed to be done. But I don’t know nothing about police pinning it on you. I ain’t seen them since I told them I wasn’t saying nothing on Tony.”

Ellie hit the disconnect button and pocketed the phone.

“That was a blatant violation of privacy, Detective.”

“You said you knew your rights, Ms. Moreland. A search incident to arrest includes anything within your reach. Not my fault you left your phone on. And you must also know that Miranda warnings don’t count unless they’re given completely, even if the
arrestee
—that’s you in this scenario—is the one who cuts them off. So, shut your sociopathic mouth while I continue. You have the right to remain silent . . .”

The recitation of the warnings was like a lullaby, the click of the handcuffs a goodnight kiss.

E
llie waved from the bar as she spotted Max spinning through the revolving door at Otto. He gave her a quick kiss and took the seat next to her. He also took a sip of her wine, then gave a thumbs-up to Dennis, the bar manager. “The same, please. And when you have a chance, could you find my real girlfriend? Someone replaced her with a lookalike who drinks red wine.”

As Dennis poured the unpronounceable Italian varietal, he shook his head. “No, I think this is the one you’re looking for. She had two Johnnie Walkers before announcing a switch.”

“You pulled out of work early?” Max asked.

“As I recall, you were the one who was still sleeping when I left this morning. I’ve been trying to call you.”

She and Rogan had decided to make the drive back to the city late last night, after booking Linda Moreland in Utica. She’d managed to slip in three hours of sleep.

“Sorry, I was swamped today.”

“Any word on how our favorite lawyer’s doing?”

“She’s promised to sue every single guard she’s encountered for one thing or another. Word must travel fast in the jails. Apparently Amaro heard the news, because he’s already asking for a public defender. He wrote on the application that he had a preference for one with, quote, extensive television experience.”

“You got my messages about the searches?” She and Rogan had executed warrants that morning at both Linda Moreland’s and Debi Landry’s apartments. They had found several of Carrie’s journals on Linda’s coffee table. On Debi Landry’s kitchen counter, they’d found the sledgehammer that she had used in the assault. More important, Debi Landry had confessed to the attack, revealing that she’d gone to the apartment after Linda Moreland told her that Carrie was the one who had given Debi’s name to the District Attorney and had done so as part of a larger plan to undermine Amaro’s defense. According to Debi, she slipped into the building when another tenant entered, initially planning to confront Carrie verbally. She got so angry when she saw Carrie in person that she “lost it.”

“A
sledgehammer
?” Max placed a protective hand on his head.

“A two-pound sledgehammer, to be precise.”

“I’m surprised you know what a two-pound sledgehammer is.”

“I was calling it ‘the badass mallet-thing’ until I was corrected by a CSU officer. Now that we’ve seen Carrie’s apartment, I think I know why she’s still alive. The entry to her apartment is this tiny alcove. Once Carrie fell to the ground, there was only so much damage Debi could inflict from a bent-over position. Based on the bruises on Carrie’s arms, she was protecting herself. Luckily, Debi didn’t think to start dropping the weapon on Carrie’s head from above, or we’d be talking about murder charges against her and Linda instead of attempted murder.”

Max was swirling the wine in his glass, staring at the liquid in silence.

She waved a hand in front of his face, breaking the trance. “Why do I have a feeling there’s a reason you didn’t call me back today?”

“I wanted to tell you in person. The good news is that both Debi and Linda were arraigned today.”

“Okay, that’s what we expected, right?”

“We went with attempted murder against Debi, but Martin doesn’t believe we have enough evidence to charge Linda as an accomplice.”

“She
sent
Debi there.”

“No. She simply told Debi that Carrie was a problem for Amaro.”

“Linda’s smart. She had to know Debi had a rap sheet filled with assaults, and she certainly knew how ridiculously loyal the woman is to the foster brother she sees as her only family.”

“Which is all pretty reckless, but we would have to prove that she
intended
for Debi to go after Carrie. We can’t do that.”

“She knew exactly what she was doing; she was lighting the match. And she had Carrie’s journals—several of them, not just the one that was stolen from Carrie’s hotel room. Debi Landry admitted tearing the apartment apart, looking for anything that could hurt Amaro. She grabbed the diaries just in case, and Linda was perfectly willing to take them.”

“But that’s conduct after the fact. It doesn’t prove advance knowledge, let alone intent.”

“According to Debi, Linda even
told
her where Carrie lived.”

“I tried, Ellie, okay? You don’t think I made these arguments to Martin? But Debi also said that she told Linda she just wanted to talk to Carrie. So again, we don’t have enough evidence to prove that Linda intended for Debi to hurt Carrie.” He downed his glass of wine in one swig and signaled to Dennis he’d have another.

“So what’s she being charged with?”

He was still staring straight ahead. “Receiving stolen property.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Do I seem like I’m kidding?”

“It’s a fucking Class A misdemeanor,” Ellie said. She saw the customer next to Max shoot her a dirty look, and lowered her voice. “She won’t do any time.”

“She’ll be disbarred.”

“It’s not enough. She put Carrie Blank in the hospital, just as if she’d wielded the weapon. We’re supposed to be on the same side here.”

“Look, we have different jobs, Ellie. You know that. Weren’t you the one who pointed out the other night that I shouldn’t know too much about Buck Majors’ interrogation tactics? You and Rogan—you . . . react. You do what needs to be done in the moment. I have to make sure the process is right. I can’t charge someone unless I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that they did whatever it is I’m charging them with.”

“Thank you, but you don’t need to mansplain the criminal justice process to me.”

“Seriously? Jesus, Ellie. You really don’t like it when I disagree with you, do you?”

“You never said you disagreed with me. You even said Martin made the wrong call.”

“No. I said I made all these points to Martin. If you must know, he then accused me of not being objective. Frankly, I think he was right, and so was our charging decision. What Linda Moreland did was reprehensible, and it was reckless, but I am not convinced she meant for Debi to go after Carrie. I think, at most, she hoped Debi would confront Carrie and make her life difficult. Or maybe even break in and make sure she didn’t hang on to additional incriminating evidence. But we can’t even prove that. And it’s pretty screwed up that I can’t give you my honest opinion without you accusing me of talking down to you or betraying you somehow.”

“You know, Rogan was right.”

“Excuse me?”

“You say we
react
, like that’s a bad thing. But it’s just like he said: this isn’t about a
process
for us. We see the bodies. We tell the survivors they’re never going to see their family members again. We look directly into the faces of killers, still high from the rush, and can smell the evil rotting them from the insides. You see . . . our paperwork.”

He was trying to calm her down, but she couldn’t stop.

“You meet the families after they’ve learned to live through their grief. You see the killers after their lawyers have cleaned them up and coached them for court. We
react
, Max, because someone
has
to.”

She finally stopped when she felt her cell buzz. It was Rogan.

“Hey.”

“I’ll pick you up in front of Otto in three minutes.”

She started pulling her suit jacket from the back of her chair. “How’d you know I was here?”

Dennis nodded knowingly behind the bar. “You’re always here,” he mouthed, as he poured orange liquid into a martini glass.

“Because you’re always there,” Rogan said. “And you’re especially there on Wednesdays, because you’re Rainman. Some kind of mushed pea thing, right?”

“Pea and pancetta bruschetta,” she mumbled.

“See? White-people food. Eat fast.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Better than okay. Carrie Blank’s awake.”

She finished pulling on her jacket, and then threw cash on the bar to cover the tab she’d accumulated so far.

“Why are you rushing off?” Max asked.

“Because despite Linda Moreland’s best efforts, Carrie Blank regained consciousness. Excuse me while I react.”

D
etectives. You’re here for Carrie Blank?” It was the same physician who had originally updated Ellie on Carrie’s condition after the attack.

“She asked for us,” Rogan said. They were used to hospital personnel assuming that law enforcement would put its needs above the patient’s.

“I’m aware. She was out a full twenty-four hours longer than the maximum I would have expected. I was beginning to fear the worst, but she went from bare responsiveness to an adamant insistence that we call police within twenty minutes.”

“How did the nurse know to call me specifically?” Rogan asked.

“Because
Carrie
was very specific. She threatened to check herself out against my recommendations if we didn’t call either Detective Rogan or Hatcher. She seems to be doing remarkably well, but, do you mind if I have a neurological resident sit in on your discussion with her? The substance of what she says could be medically relevant.”

Rogan scratched at his temple. “I’m not sure I follow.”

“Detectives, I’m used to dealing with patients who are here because of a crime. A lot of them are determined to avoid the police—gang shootings, domestic violence, drug deals gone bad. Other people—like Carrie—are eager to cooperate. But here’s the thing: she didn’t say one word about her head injury. It was like she didn’t even care why she was in the hospital.”

“Then why did she call for us?” Rogan asked.

“Well, that’s why I want a neuro resident in the room, because it didn’t make much sense. Something about Donna and Anthony Amaro? Do those names mean anything to you?”

T
hey found Carrie in bed, eyes closed, her face nearly as white as the hospital sheets. Her head suddenly jerked, the tiniest yelp escaping her throat.

“Sorry if we woke you,” Rogan said. “The hospital called us.”

“Good, I told them to. And, trust me, if you had any idea what I was dreaming, you wouldn’t apologize for waking me. They give you a hard time about coming in?”