Matter of Trust (15 page)

‘He wants to help a friend, and see that justice is done,' said Sara, sounding more than just a little tired as Lauren's cries started somewhere in the background.

‘Sure. But the two don't always go hand in hand.'

‘He says Chris is innocent.'

‘He press the point?'

‘Well . . . yes.'

‘Then exactly who is he trying to convince?'

Sara said nothing, until, ‘Should I say something, Joe? Should I try to convince him that this one is just a little too close to home?'

Her question worked on so many different levels that Joe wasn't sure exactly where to start. ‘Not yet,' he replied, suspecting that despite how much David loved his wife and respected her professionally, and despite the fact that he'd told Joe he had sworn off any case that might cause his family concern, there might be little Sara could do to dissuade him.

‘He's seeing McNally tomorrow,' she said.

‘Then let's wait to hear what he has to say after that.'

‘Okay.' Then a pause until, ‘Joe?' she asked.

‘Yeah.'

‘I know he's trying to change – to do what's right for Lauren and me. But I'm not sure that's what's best for him. He is who he is, Joe, and I married him knowing as much. The fact that he does run off half-cocked, that he sticks his neck out for the people he cares about – those are some of the reasons I fell in love with him in the first place. I want him to be happy, Joe, to be who he was meant to be, and if that means I have to let go every now and again, or follow him just to make sure he is okay, then . . .'

‘He only wants what's best for you, Sara.'

‘And I for him,' she replied. ‘Listen to me,' she continued with the slightest of laughs, ‘thinking the worst. Chances are David will sort this thing out with McNally tomorrow and be back by Tuesday at the latest.'

‘You're right,' agreed Joe, but it was a compensatory lie. For while Joe hoped he was wrong, he guessed David was too far gone to pull out – and, knowing Harry McNally as he did, he sensed the savvy detective was now working to a different deadline – and if all had gone down just as Sara described, McNally would be paying Chris Kincaid an impromptu visit, before the sun went down today.

Newark, New Jersey

Marilyn Maloney's University Heights apartment was like a furnace. So hot, in fact, that McNally had peeled off his overcoat and his jacket and was now standing in the living room with his shirt sleeves rolled up.

The place was neat and tidy – and there was certainly no immediate evidence that a struggle had occurred here. But somebody had left without remembering to turn down the heat – which suggested to McNally that he or she had done so in a hurry.

The super named Sacramoni was standing in the doorway. He had let McNally into the apartment. He seemed like a genuine enough guy. He was worried about Maloney – which was why he was hovering in the doorway instead of sprinting back down the corridor which was what most supers tended to do when the cops came calling.

Carla Torres was walking through the kitchen. McNally had called her soon after that key had turned so sweetly in the front door security lock. Torres wasn't a detective, but like McNally, she was ready to make the shift.

He didn't like calling her away from her boys on a Sunday, but he didn't have a search warrant and given he was walking a fine line by convincing the super to let him into Marilyn's tiny two-bedder in the first place, he figured there was safety in numbers when it came to admitting into evidence what, if anything, they found.

‘We should have gotten a warrant,' said Torres, mirroring his thoughts.

‘It's Sunday, Carla. It would have taken hours. Besides, the key fit the lock and the super let me in. He's worried about Ms Maloney.'

McNally's argument was that the search of the apartment was part of a homicide investigation and not in violation of the occupant's constitutional rights. In fact, he was counting on Kincaid's first mistake – his parading into the 3rd Precinct and concocting that ridiculous reunion story, effectively reporting his good friend missing, as a means, if necessary, of covering his ass. Under the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, police could engage in reasonable searches and seizures as part of an ongoing investigation – and McNally figured, if Kincaid's lawyer – one smart son-of-a-bitch David Cavanaugh – attempted to rule the search illegal, McNally would just claim they were acting on the concern expressed by Kincaid himself.

They would have to be careful, though. If they ransacked the place, the search could come back to bite them. This hunt for evidence had to appear like a simple walk through to check on the whereabouts and safety of the supposedly missing person. However, if either Torres or McNally happened to come across something out in the open, something they
could claim was displayed with such obviousness that it was beyond any ‘legitimate expectation of privacy', then that item could be entered into evidence and be legally admissible in court.

In other words, McNally figured he had to find what he could now, before Chris Kincaid and his good friend Cavanaugh realised they were between a rock and a hard place. Right now, he didn't have anywhere near enough to cuff Kincaid for a crime McNally suspected he'd committed – but if they found something accessible, here, now – well, that might just be enough to . . .

‘Ms Maloney have many friends?' McNally asked of the super then.

‘Not that I know of. She was kind of a loner. She and the landlord's wife kind of hit it off. The wife's Russian. Kind of lonely. Her husband's an ass and Marilyn was nice to her. But I haven't seen the wife in a few weeks – I think her husband has a house in the Hamptons, so she may well be there. I guess when she returns, I'll have to tell her.' Sacramoni shook his head at the thought. ‘She'll be awful sad when she hears.'

McNally nodded. ‘So no-one's been asking after Ms Maloney?'

‘No-one bar the politician.'

McNally and Torres stopped short.

‘Politician – you mean Chris Kincaid?'

‘Yeah, that's him, came by a week or so ago. Said she was an old friend and he'd been trying to raise her. Said he was worried she might have passed out or something. Seemed genuine enough, so I let him in. But she wasn't here.'

McNally did a double take. ‘You let him in?'

Sacramoni nodded. ‘He seemed awful worried.'

‘You watch him leave?'

‘Sure. Walked him out.'

‘He take anything?'

‘Not so far as I could tell.'

McNally nodded again. ‘Can you stick about, Mr Sacramoni? We might need to ask you a few more questions.'

‘I ain't going nowhere,' he said, and he leant against the doorjamb to prove it.

‘Can I ask a favour in the meantime, Mr Sacramoni?' asked Carla, shooting a quick glance at her partner.

‘Sure,' said the super.

‘You wanna check my car hasn't been towed? It's a blue Nissan. I left it parked illegally out front.'

Sacramoni straightened. ‘No problem. I'll be back.' And he left.

‘Shit,' said McNally.

‘I know,' said Carla. ‘And that's not all.' She gestured with her head for him to join her near the armoire in the corner of the living room.

‘What is it?' asked McNally.

But Torres said nothing, just used the toe of her brown leather boot to poke at what appeared to be the corner of a large white satchel resting on the floor underneath the armoire.

‘Look closer,' she said, and McNally moved around the sofa. The satchel appeared to be covered in some sort of writing – what looked from a distance to be an indecipherable scrawl. Further, there appeared to be something round and metallic nestling underneath its furthermost corner.

McNally looked toward the door to check the super was gone, and then he gave Torres the nod. Torres then feigned the slightest of slips with her right foot so that her toe hooked behind the back edge of the satchel – causing it to slide out toward the middle of the living room floor – a tarnished silver ring coming with it.

‘Now why in the hell didn't we see that when we first walked in here?' asked Torres.

McNally did not answer, but simply pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket before searching for a pen in his jacket pocket and scooping up the ring.

‘It's old, silver – a man's ring,' said Torres, now close against his shoulder.

‘It's not silver, it's pewter,' said McNally, now examining the crest on its front and reading the inscription around it, ‘Fortitudo, Veneratio, Veritas'.

‘A college motto,' she said.

‘Not college. I've seen this crest before, it's the one outside that high school up on Martin Luther King Boulevard.'

‘The Catholic school – isn't that the one that . . . ?'

‘“Grass roots” Kincaid boasts about having gone to? Yeah, I think so.'

McNally turned his attention to the satchel, lifting it from the floor with his handkerchief-covered hand. He turned the satchel around to see if it was addressed to anyone in particular.

‘Is it hers?' asked Carla, who had moved from his side slightly to place the ring in a plastic evidence bag.

‘You tell me?' he asked, angling the satchel toward her.

And in that moment he heard Carla Torres gasp as she read the writing scrawled across the centre of the satchel.

‘FOR ME – THE FUCKING FOOL WHORE,' it said, in big bold letters – like the receiver had addressed the once-blank satchel to herself. Around these words were various other references alluding to the satchel's previous contents.

‘$100,000
,' read McNally. ‘
For twenty-five years of fucks.'

And then, scrawled in the top left-hand corner: ‘
I am just a whore to you, Chris Kincaid. I hate you. Fuck you.'

L
unch was liquid. Largely because Mike had suggested they call Chris and see if he was available to join them. Chris was on his way back from New York City, but said if they were willing to wait an hour or two, he would cook them both a late-afternoon barbeque on his new twelve-burner. He said he would be grateful for the company given his wife had made last-minute plans to take the girls to a play date in the park and Connor had gone out with his friends.

‘You look good, DC,' said Mike after David had shared his wallet-sized photographs of Sara and Lauren.

‘You don't look too bad yourself,' said David. Mike's light brown hair was greying slightly at the temples but his boyish face still glowed with the energy of youth and with a hint of mischief.

‘You seem happy, Mike,' continued David, pocketing the photos and accepting his second Heineken from the barman at the quiet Lincoln Park pub, ‘like things are working out.'

Mike nodded. ‘I'm doing okay. The congregation keeps me busy and the school – I did a degree in theology, so I'm teaching religion to the seniors. They're good kids, David, and unlike most of the adults I know, they see past the collar, consider me a friend.'

‘I can see how that collar might take some time to get used to,' smiled
David. ‘Don't take this the wrong way, Mike, but if someone had asked me to make a list of the possible professions my friend Mike Murphy would pursue when he grew up . . . ?'

‘But that's why I don the collar, DC – to ward off the ladies.'

David laughed. ‘You were something.'

Mike shook his head. ‘No I wasn't. The only time I got lucky was when I managed to convince the girls too shy to approach you that you weren't worth the trouble – and as for Chris, well . . . he'd have been some serious competition if he hadn't met . . .'

Mike stopped, and David met his eye. Could Mike know something about what was going on with Marilyn? But that was impossible, Chris told him he had not spoken to anyone – and given Chris's desperation to keep things quiet, David was inclined to believe him.

‘Mike,' David began, ‘my coming to church this morning, it's not something I would normally—'

‘Me neither,' Mike cut in, ‘but they pay me, so . . .'

Despite the joviality, David could read the concern on his old friend's face.

‘What are you doing here, DC?' asked Mike after a pause.

‘Chris invited me.'

Mike nodded. ‘He in some sort of trouble?'

‘Maybe.'

Mike nodded again, lifting his cold beer slowly to his lips before swallowing and replacing it on the now damp bar towel before him. ‘This about Marilyn?' he asked, his eyes now straight ahead.

‘Yes.'

‘And you asked me here because?'

‘I'm not sure. I guess we both know Chris can be a closed book – and besides his family, you and I are the only two he might feel comfortable sharing things with.'

‘He doesn't talk to his family,' said Mike. ‘He speaks to them, but he doesn't talk to them.'

David nodded. ‘And to you?'

‘We talk,' he said, making the distinction. ‘But not about Marilyn – too much water under the bridge, too many old wounds that never had time to heal.'

‘Twenty-five years is a long time, Mike,' said David, remembering the exact date of his two friends' violent altercation.

‘A millennium is a long time, DC. Twenty-five years is a heartbeat.'

‘Maybe you're right,' answered David, drinking some more of his own icy cold beer.

‘Is Chris concerned she might . . . blow his cover?' asked Mike, the question sounding specific. ‘Deep down, I think she always knew the relationship had to come to an end at some point – with Chris being who he is. Did he ask you to speak to her? Did Chris ask you to broker some sort of separation?'

David could tell the question was asked out of hope rather than suspicion. Mike knew David would never agree to act as relationship broker for his friend, and the look in his eyes told David he was already expecting the worst, but maybe not
the
worst, as David had to tell it.