Final Judgment (33 page)

The side street he’d chosen led him into a subdivision. He didn’t think Kelly or Brewer was following him and he doubted they had backup for that purpose. Whatever they were up to, they had to be doing it on their own. Still, he didn’t want to take any chances. His cell phone rang as he made another unnecessary turn.

It was Kelly Holt. “Where are you?”

“Just leaving my office.”

“For a guy with two dinner dates, you’re getting a late start.”

“Lucky for me, one of them cancelled.”

“Cancel the other one. We need to talk.”

“Call Mickey and make an appointment. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow. Maybe end of the week.”

“Stubborn and stupid could get you hurt,” she said.

“Then you should be right there with me.”

“It was you!”

“Yeah,” he said softly, dropping any pretense. “And it was you too.”

“It’s not the way it looks.”

“Like the song says, who should I believe? You or my lying eyes?”

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“I’ve hung too many things on that hook and I don’t have room for anything else.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Too late. We already did,” he said and hung up.

His cell rang a moment later, this time Rachel Firestone’s name was displayed on the screen. He’d turned her loose on Dennis Brewer the night before but doubted that she’d found out more in the last twenty-four hours than he had found out in the last twenty minutes.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“That seems to be everyone’s favorite question. What happened to hello?”

“What’s the matter? Are you lost? Who else is looking for you?”

“You’re the only one that matters. I was lost until you found me. Any luck with Dennis Brewer?”

“You know what happens when a reporter starts asking if anyone knows whether an FBI agent might be dirty? Phones start ringing and none of them are mine. The publisher doesn’t like hearing from the U.S. attorney.”

Mason had met the publisher, David Phelan, a passionate man who was rumored to have ink in his veins instead of blood. “Roosevelt Holmes called David Phelan?”

“And demanded that the paper kill my story and that I turn over my notes and sources or get ready to tell the grand jury why I won’t.”

“What did Phelan tell him?”

“He told Roosevelt to go fuck himself. Then he told me that I better be right or I could go fuck myself too. Am I right?”

“It’s looking that way. There are still a lot of loose ends.”

“That’s why I was calling you. One of them may have just gotten nailed down.”

“Which one?”

“The reporter whose desk is next to mine covers the cops. All he does is listen to the police scanner waiting for something to happen. A little while ago, he picked up a report of a dead body and went to the scene. He called in and told the editor to save him some room for tomorrow’s Metro section. I overheard the editor’s end of the conversation. The editor asked if the victim had been identified, and then he repeated the name out loud. That’s when I called you.”

“Who was it?”

“Mark Hill.”

He caught his breath. Blues had been right. “Where was the body found?”

“Troost Lake. Meet me there?”

He exhaled slowly. “Yeah,” he answered, thinking of Samantha Greer’s birthday celebration while not looking forward to calling Abby.

“Remember,” she said, “it’s on Paseo, not Troost.”

“I know, and it’s not really a lake either.”

SIXTY-FIVE

Abby hung up in the middle of Mason’s explanation. Right after he told her that a key witness had just been found murdered. She wasn’t interested in the details or why he had to go the scene instead of reading about it in the paper like everyone else. He knew why but couldn’t tell her because she didn’t give him the chance and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.

If she’d let him, he would have told her that a case is a living, breathing organism conceived in conflict. It is a wild, uncontrollable adolescent while the facts are being fleshed out by the rule of unintended consequences. As it matures, lawyers may rein it in with pleadings and tactics and courts may squeeze it with orders until it surrenders its last gasp, but those days were weeks or months away. Tonight, he had no control over it. All he could do was hold on.

Troost Lake was a triangle of brown water lying between Twenty-seventh and Twenty-ninth Streets, the long leg of the triangle parallel to Paseo. The full name of the street was The Paseo Boulevard, though Mason had no idea what the north–south artery had done to earn that formal distinction.

The lake was a quarter mile east of Troost Avenue, both the lake and the street the legacy of a Dutchman, Benoist Troost, one of Kansas City’s earliest physicians and civic boosters. Defeated for mayor in 1853, he had organized the city’s premier newspaper in 1854 and helped found the Chamber of Commerce in 1857. Mason read the doctor’s abbreviated biography on an historical marker near the south end of the lake well behind the yellow crime scene tape that kept him away from the cops working Mark Hill’s murder.

Mason doubted anything would be named after him, though, given a choice, he preferred a couple of kids to a strip of concrete or a muddy patch of water. Troost Lake may have been named to memorialize the good doctor, but it had become a favorite burial ground for dead bodies owing to the terrain and the demographics. The Paseo was elevated above the lake and the surrounding trees provided additional good cover. The area was part of the urban core where too many people saw violence and death through eyes dulled with repetition. Outrage succumbed to resignation as the city shrugged its shoulders.

Rachel met him, wearing a sheepskin coat and a muffler knotted at her throat. The night had turned damp, moisture seeping through his jacket with the cold. He shifted his weight from side to side to keep warm.

“What do you think?” she said.

“Samantha Greer is working the case. That’s her over there,” Mason said, pointing to the right angle of the triangle. It was the heaviest wooded corner of the lake, least likely to give up its victims until fishermen returned in the summer. “I can’t get close enough to talk to her.”

Mason felt a hand on his back and turned around. “How about I take you a little closer?” Detective Cates said. “Sorry,” he said to Rachel.

Klieg lights mounted on ten-foot stands illuminated the site where Hill’s body had been found, warming the water enough to boil a ground-hugging fog. A forensics team moved slowly across the invisible grid they had laid down over the scene, lifting each square by its roots, shaking and sifting it for evidence. A diver in a glistening black wet suit waded out of the water, carefully pinching the butt of a gun between two fingers. An ambulance waited at the north end of the lake, its back end open and ready to receive the body.

Samantha Greer stood with hands on her hips, watching her people work. She nodded as they reported to her, took notes, and resumed the position.

“Wait here,” Cates told Mason when they reached the yellow tape.

Cates ducked beneath the tape, walked over to Samantha, and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and looked at Mason, listening as Cates spoke. When he finished, she brushed her hair with her hands and made her way to Mason, keeping the tape between them.

“Happy birthday, Sam,” Mason said.

“And I don’t feel a day older. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t already know it was Mark Hill, so who told you?”

“A reporter at the
Star
picked it up from the police scanner, checked it out, and called it in to his editor. Rachel Firestone overheard and called me.”

Samantha looked past Mason at Rachel, who waved and smiled. Samantha ignored the gesture.

“Why did she call you?”

“She’s working Avery Fish’s case.”

“I read the article,” Samantha said. “Big help.”

Mason ignored the dig. He wanted to find out what he could as quickly as possible and get out of there so he could salvage the evening with Abby.

“I told her about Carol Hill’s lawsuit against Rockley and Galaxy. She thought I’d want to know about Mark Hill.”

“You think there’s a connection between the deaths of Rockley and Hill?”

“Hill smacked Carol around. Rockley came on to Carol. She didn’t like either one of them. Makes Carol a suspect.”

“Women don’t generally mutilate bodies or drag them to lakes in the middle of the night. When they kill someone, they leave them where they fall.”

“Then again,” Mason said, “Hill could have killed Rockley for harassing his wife and somebody killed Hill to balance the books. Give me enough time and I’ll come up with plenty of options.”

“All of which will conveniently point the finger away from your client for killing Rockley, huh?”

“That’s one way to look at it. In fact, that’s a pretty good way to look at it. How did Hill die?”

“Bullet to the brain.”

“Did he do it by himself or did he have help?”

“Coroner says it’s too early to tell.”

“Time of death?” Mason asked.

“Somewhere in the last twelve to twenty-four hours.”

“Talk to your client. Tell him he better be able to account for his whereabouts,” Detective Cates said.

Mason turned to him. “What’s the matter? Didn’t you hear Detective Greer say that Hill’s death points the finger away from Avery Fish?”

“I make a point to keep bullshit out of my ears,” Cates said. “The way I see it, your client could have killed Hill just so we’d look somewhere else on Rockley. Bring him downtown tomorrow morning. Don’t make us come and get him.”

“Sam,” Mason said. “You can’t be serious.”

“Rockley isn’t my case, Lou. Hill belongs to me unless it turns out they’re related. If they are, Cates and Griswold will take it. Right now we don’t know one way or the other. Either way, we’re going to need to talk to Fish. Might as well make it tomorrow morning.”

Dennis Brewer was meeting with Mickey at 9
A
.
M
.
to prepare him for the tour of Fish’s safety deposit box. Mason wanted to sit in on that session, which shouldn’t take more than an hour.

“We’ll be there at eleven,” he said.

Mason told Rachel what he’d learned, thanked her for the tip, and declined her offer for a late dinner, telling her he was already late for dinner with Abby. His cell phone rang again before he reached his car. He let it ring while deciding whether to answer it or throw it in the lake, choosing the former when he saw Blues’s name on the screen.

“What do you have?” Mason asked him.

“One address for both cars at Lake Lotawana. Place is owned by someone named Ernie Fowler. Got the phone number too.”

“I’ll bet the rent money that Ernie Fowler’s phone is answered at Sylvia McBride’s call center in Minneapolis.”

“One way to find out,” Blues said. “Call him.”

“What if he doesn’t answer?”

“Then we knock on his door.”

“I was thinking of something more discreet. Besides, have you ever tried finding an address at a lake?” Mason asked. “You practically need a guide.”

“I’ve got one. This BMW has a GPS system. I’ve already punched in the address. It’s only twenty-four-point-thirty miles if we pick the route for the fastest time and the most use of freeways. Damn, being rich is a fine thing.”

“Pick me up at the office,” Mason said. “Ten minutes.”

SIXTY-SIX

Troost Lake was an oversized pond, home to no one. Lake Lotawana was the real deal: a pastoral haven far enough from Kansas City to feel like you left. Mason didn’t expect to find any bodies floating there, but that didn’t make him feel any better about making the trip. The case was swallowing him whole, the dark water lapping against his chin. He had an image of Abby turning her back as the water closed over his head.

The first twenty miles were easy. They took Highway 71 south, picked up I-470, and got off at Colbern Road. A handful of quick turns later, they were on Lake Lotawana Road, passing the Lake Lotawana Police Department, which served and protected the two thousand people who lived in homes surrounding the lake, according to the brightly lit sign outside the station.

“Look at that map,” Mason said, pointing to the GPS screen. “The lake looks like Italy and we just crossed the border from France. Ernie Fowler’s house is south of Rome. The way this road curves around, we are going to have to knock on his door. There’s no way we can get there without being seen.”

“You want to see his house from the outside in or the inside out?” Blues asked.

“I’ll settle for outside. My breaking-and-entering days are behind me.”

“Too much conscience is a bad thing for a man in our line of work,” Blues said.

“Maybe I need a new line of work. What about the lake? If we can find a boat, we can check the house out from the water.”

“I’ve got a pair of night vision binoculars in the trunk. But I didn’t have room for the boat.”

“We can borrow someone’s boat,” Mason said. Blues looked at him, eyebrows arched. “We’ll put it back and I’ll leave gas money, all right?”

“Need a new line of work, my ass.”

Lake Shore Drive circled Lake Lotawana. Side streets named with single letters led from Keystone to the homes at the water’s edge, the entrances to each flanked by long, curved brick walls that gave way to a split-rail fence, the fence connecting to the brick wall at the next side street. The wall and fence added an air of privacy to the residential area though they wouldn’t keep anyone out.

Ernie Fowler’s house was on L Street. They drove south on Keystone along the west flank of the lake, pulling onto the shoulder just beyond the entrance to L Street, not wanting to risk that someone was watching from the house for any unexpected traffic.

“Let’s see how close we can get without being shot at,” Blues said.

They took their time, Mason letting his eyes adjust to the darkness, Blues scanning the street with his night vision glasses. The street was laid out in a T shape with houses on both sides of the vertical leg and a row of houses on the horizontal bar at the top of the T. These were the lakefront houses and Fowler’s was at the south end, cut off from his neighbors by a row of evergreens grown to privacy heights.