The Murder Book

by Lissa Marie Redmond

  “Don’t you want to know how it ends?” Reese asked shoveling cereal from the bowl into his mouth. “I was riveted right up to the last paragraph.”

  She sat down on the couch next to the Westie, careful not to squash her tablet. “I’ll wait for the movie.”

  Watson rolled over onto his back so she could scratch his belly. A Sunday afternoon decorated with the season’s first snowfall should have been cause for hot chocolate and cozy slippers. Instead, Reese’s head was dotted with twelve staples and every detail of what had gone on the night before had been leaked to the press. Including the fact that Sam Schultz was the suspect in the cold case homicide of Gabriel Mohamed. Carl Church was right when he called it a shitshow. Their whole case had been laid out for the media before they had even stepped in a courtroom.

  “I can’t believe this.” Lauren repositioned herself on the couch to give Watson more room. Every part of her body hurt from the crash, and her tongue was swollen. She was lucky her stitches had all held. Lucky, too, the brass hadn’t insisted she go to the hospital. Another night at ECMC and she would have lost what was left of her mind. “Talk about showing your opponents all your cards right off the bat.”

  “Yeah, well.” A piece of yellow Cap’n Crunch hung from Reese’s lip for a second, then tumbled off onto her hardwood floor. “At least now we know who the leak is.”

  “We do?”

  Reese nodded, sending another piece of cereal flying. Watson made to jump after it and gobble it up, but Lauren held onto him, not knowing if sugar was bad for dogs.

  “I kind of told a lie, accidently on purpose, to someone during my statement last night. Just one detail to just one person. That detail made the paper.”

  “What did you say?”

  Crunching his way across the living room, he picked the tablet up, awkwardly juggling it while still trying to stuff as much cereal in his mouth as he could. After hitting the touchscreen as best he could, he held it out to Lauren. “Right there,” he said as she rescanned the article. “Four or five paragraphs down. I gave my full name for the statement. Shane Robert Reese.”

  Lauren looked up. “Your middle name is Raymond.”

  “You know that.” He winked, that big shit-eating grin spreading across his face as he held the bowl close to his mouth. “But the leak didn’t. He only ever saw Shane R. Reese anywhere else. That name in the paper could’ve only come from the leak. I suspected, but now I know. You should thank me for being so damn brilliant.” He then tipped the bowl up to his lips and slurped down the rest of his milk.

  44

  The Kinger was in tears.

  He sat crying in Carl Church’s office not three hours later as Riley and Reese flanked Carl Church. King sat in the chair in front of them, blubbering all over his suit coat.

  Church had changed out of the bar tee shirt and sweats back into his district attorney power suit. “You put Lauren’s assault investigation in jeopardy, you put Rita Walton’s life in jeopardy, and you may have gotten Joe Wheeler killed.”

  Kevin King ran a sleeve across his nose, which was now as red as his hair, spreading a thin line of snot from his wrist to his elbow. “I was just trying to help Sam Schultz’s campaign. We’ve been friends since right out of law school. All I was trying to do was, was”—he took a deep, staggering breath—“show the dysfunction of the district attorney’s office. I had no idea that Sam shot a kid, and I never suspected Vince stabbed Lauren. I am so sorry, Lauren.”

  Lauren stood with her arms folded across her chest, in no mood for forgiveness. “You weren’t suspicious about their interest in my attack?” she asked, seeing the beads of sweat forming on his forehead along his hairline. “I bet they were asking you about leads. That didn’t raise a red flag or two in your twisted little head?”

  “No. I swear. Who would think they’d be capable of something like this?”

  “A better attorney,” Reese snapped. With his silver staples exposed, snaking from the side around the back of his head, he looked downright menacing. Kevin recoiled a little as Reese put both hands on Church’s desk and leaned in. “I started to suspect you when my investigation into the Murder Book seemed to stall, when me and Lauren started following up without telling you. If it had been someone in the Homicide office, they would’ve talked about the bullshit leads Joy and I were tracking, like Patrick Harrington. Because who knew they were dead ends? You knew. And that’s why they never made headlines. Seemed like only the really important details got leaked. So I gave you a little test.”

  “Mr. King.” Church rose to his feet, gathering himself to his full height, towering over the crying man. “If it were up to me, not only would you lose your job here as well as your license to practice law in New York State, you’d also be facing jail time. As it stands right now, you are dismissed from this office immediately. I’m turning the case over to the state’s attorney general’s office for pursuit of further charges. Don’t even bother trying to log into our computer system. Not only have you been locked out, your correspondence will be subject to criminal review.”

  “I have private emails on our server,” King protested weakly.

  “Nothing is private on my server,” Church answered. “Please exit the building immediately. I’ll have a court officer escort you out. Your personal property will be sent to you at a later date.”

  King rose from his chair, looking uncertainly from Riley to Reese, as if he thought one of them were about to attack. When they both maintained their silence, he seemed to muster up some courage to defend himself. “You were no fan of hers last year when she made a fool out of you at David Spencer’s trial,” he told Church as he backed away from the desk, toward the door. “It took her getting stabbed to get back into your good graces.”

  Church picked up his phone and called the main desk for an escort. When he was finished, he hung up and looked at King like he was a bug he’d love to squash. “I would never have stooped to impeding an investigation or colluding with possible murderers,” Church countered, his voice booming across the room.

  “I didn’t know about any of that.” King tried to sound convincing. “I swear, I had no idea.”

  Church mirrored Lauren, crossing his muscular arms. “I would advise you that you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law …”

  The Kinger, now dethroned, didn’t wait for Carl Church to finish reciting the Miranda Rights. He swung the door open and fled out into the hallway, only to be intercepted by the officer sent to escort him out of the building.

  “Good riddance,” Church said. He took a deep breath, turning his attention back to Riley and Reese. “That was a damn good bit of police work you pulled off last night, including figuring out that King was the leak,” he complimented as he sat back down. “That cell phone audio and video is the nail in Vince Schultz’s coffin.”

  “What about Sam?” Lauren asked, making her way around the desk to sit in the chair King just vacated. She felt like a parrot, asking the same question over and over and getting no crackers.

  Church rifled around in his brown leather briefcase for a second before extracting his iPad from it. “Sam sent Lincoln Lewis to represent Vince at his arraignment at noon. I imagine someone from Lewis’s firm will be representing both him and Ricky as well. Lewis is a damn good defense attorney, but he’s going to have a hell of a time overcoming that recording.”

  “Lewis will try. He’ll probably want me locked up for larceny of a champagne glass and assault for sticking a fork in Vince’s face.” Lauren knew Lincoln Lewis. She considered him a ruthless gentleman in the courtroom.

  Church gave her a reassuring grin. “The fork went right to the bone, by the way.”

  Lauren ran a hand through her hair and came out with a handful of loose clumps. “I think he was trying to yank my head off.” She twittered her fingers over a wastebasket next
to her, sending the stray blond hairs into the trash. She had tried to put her hair in a ponytail before she left her house, but it proved to be too painful. Even my freaking hair hurts, she thought. I am really and truly a physical train wreck right now.

  “What’s the latest on Vince’s condition?” Reese asked.

  “Besides the puncture wounds? Three broken ribs. Multiple cuts and bruises. He’ll be released from the hospital by the day after tomorrow,” Church said. “He’ll spend the rest of his recovery in the lovely county lockup.”

  “Joy Walsh is serving the search warrant at Vince’s apartment as we speak,” Reese said, glancing at his phone for any messages from her. “Vince is a slob. If we can grab his city-issue boots, I’m sure we’ll find something.”

  “I want the boots, every knife he owns, every pair of uniform pants, gloves. He probably destroyed your Murder Book, but you never know. I want his computer and his phone, and if there’s a tire iron in there, I just might throw a party.” Church fiddled with the touch screen on the iPad he set up on his desk. Lauren watched him scroll through a hundred emails without opening a single one. “The press is going crazy with information requests. We’re going to have to hold a press conference.”

  “Did your investigators find Gabriel Mohamed’s mother?” Lauren asked, trying to change the subject away from press conferences. The tiredness was creeping over her again and she wished she had grabbed a bottle of water out of the soda machine on the way in.

  Nodding, Church turned the iPad face-down on the desk. “She still lives on the lower West Side on Grant Street. She’s a cook at The Poppy Restaurant on the corner of West Ferry and Niagara. My investigators found her this morning. She’s in shock. I sent one of our victims’ advocates over to her apartment to help her through what’s coming next.”

  Lauren thought of the long years with no word from the police on who had killed her son, only to learn that the very people she was supposed to trust had been the ones to betray her. She pictured Gabriel’s smiling face, his student ID stapled to the inside flap of his Homicide file, yellowing with time.

  What’s coming next for his case? she wondered. Do I have to pry it out of Church? The district attorney’s office was constantly being accused by the Buffalo Homicide squad of dragging their feet when it came to charging cases. The DA’s office argued they wanted tighter cases from the Buffalo detectives, and the Homicide squad grumbled back that suburban cases got a higher priority. Whether true or just a squad-wide impatience due to the volume of murders they handled, the fear of being blown off had leached into Lauren’s head.

  “Sir, I’d like to know why you’re being evasive about arresting Sam Schultz,” she asked Church outright. She was too tired to go around in circles anymore.

  Church bristled at her words. “I’m not being evasive. This situation is complicated. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy here.”

  Seeing the frustration on Lauren’s face, Reese asked, “How long until you charge Sam Schultz with Gabriel Mohamed’s murder?”

  Church hesitated a second, obviously not wanting to give a specific time frame. But he was cornered and they wouldn’t settle for unanswered questions. “First, we need the lab to process the sample you submitted. Once we have that report in hand and it says the champagne glass is a match to the numbers on the gun, then I’ll ask for a court order for Sam’s DNA. A week, maybe less, if our lab guys come through quickly.”

  “A week,” Lauren snipped. “Sam gets to walk around building up his defense with Ricky for at least a week. Beautiful.”

  “We can do it fast, or we can do it right,” Church reminded her, growing defensive. “Remember, there are three separate cases here: Gabriel Mohamed’s murder, your attack, and Joe Wheeler’s murder. Make that four, if we add Vince’s psychotic episode last night. We’ve got a lot to sort out and I will not be rushed.”

  That was reasonable, Lauren knew. Mistakes could cost you a case. But it still sucked.

  Trying to break the tension that had built up in the room, Reese moved toward Lauren and touched her on the shoulder. “Let’s get over to the office and see what we can do.”

  “I want both of you to get some rest,” Church’s voice raised another octave, sounding like a scolding father to his disobedient children. “You look like Frankenstein, and Lauren looks like she might keel over any second. Go home. Go to bed. I’ll call you when I need you.”

  Wanting to protest but too tired to argue, Lauren rose and exited Church’s office in a much more dignified way than Kevin King had.

  45

  “Hey, Lauren? Wake up. You have to see this.” Knocking on her door, Reese’s voice caused Watson to leap from Lauren’s bed. He was now jumping up and down, barking at the closed door, desperate to get to his human. Lauren looked at the digital clock next to her bed on the nightstand. Eight thirty-five on Monday morning, she saw, blinking herself awake. Possibly it could be Tuesday or Wednesday—she had been so exhausted when she had fallen into bed—but she was pretty sure it was Monday.

  It had been worth risking Church’s wrath by heading to the Homicide squad after leaving his office to see what they had uncovered in the hours since the crash. The search of Vince Schultz’s suburban upscale apartment had turned up some interesting evidence. Joy had informed Riley and Reese that Vince lived like a swine in an expensive Amherst townhouse complex. The neighbors had come out when they saw the police cars and told the detectives on scene that Vince was constantly having domestics with his girlfriend, didn’t follow any of the complex’s rules regarding noise, and was an all-around thorn in their collective side.

  Joy told Lauren she assigned a patrol officer to listen to them complain while she conducted the search inside Vince’s residence.

  Garcia’s swipe card was found under Vince’s mattress. A pair of city-issue police pants were pulled from the bottom of a hamper in the bathroom and the pant-leg hem tested positive for blood. Even though it was obvious someone had tried to scrub the soles, the laces on his city-issued boots tested positive as well. Things were looking worse and worse for Vince Schultz.

  By the time they had left the office yesterday, Lauren didn’t know if it was day or night, the weather had turned so bleary. That, combined with the fact she was bruised, battered, and sleep-deprived, had thrown her remaining sense of time even more off kilter.

  “Can I come in?” Reese had never breached the sanctity of Lauren’s bedroom, ever.

  Thankfully, she had on a heavy pair of flannel pajamas. Sitting up, she scooted against the headboard and called, “Come in.”

  “I just got a call from Church.” Reese rushed over to the bed, carrying his iPad. He looked as disheveled as she felt, wearing a ripped undershirt and boxers. “He said there’s something coming on we have to watch.”

  He dropped himself down next to her, positioning the iPad between them so they could both see. Watson squirmed his way up onto the bed and lay across Reese’s legs as he hit the television app on his touchscreen.

  “What channel?” Lauren pulled the bedspread up around her chest. Her furnace hadn’t kicked in and the room felt chilly.

  “All of them.” Reese’s mouth was set in a hard line as he maximized the window. An empty lectern was set up in some unknown office conference room, surrounded by microphones. A ribbon of text scrolled across the bottom of the screen reading: Sam Schultz Press Conference to Start at 8:30. Obviously, they were late kicking things off. Random noises filled the background: a cough, a whisper, the sound of chairs being moved. The reporters out of the line of sight were jockeying for position in anticipation of the announcement to come.

  The great chase and arrest of Vince Schultz had made national news. The twenty-four-hour cable channels had descended on Buffalo, streaming the story live as it unfolded. That’s what every newscaster said, Lauren thought, staring at the empty lectern, “Bringing you the story live as it unfolds.” Try
living it as it unfolds.

  Lauren wondered why Sam Schultz was calling a press conference. He was days, if not hours, from being locked up. What could he possibly throw out to the media that could help his case?

  Lincoln Lewis appeared in the far-right corner, leaning over, talking to someone out of the frame. Not exactly handsome, but extremely confident, Lewis stood almost six-five with short brown hair and deep-set brown eyes. He had a way about him that moved juries to disregard facts and evidence, making him the highest-paid defense attorney in Buffalo.

  Lauren had come close to propositioning Lewis at a charity benefit over the summer, almost breaking her self-imposed vow of chastity. He’d seemed very receptive as they stood at the bar at the North Buffalo Club, but ever the gentleman, he waited for her to suggest that they go back to her place. Five drinks later she chickened out; the lawyering community in Buffalo was small, and word was sure to get back to her ex-husband. She wouldn’t have wanted to hear about Mark banging another female cop. Lewis had slipped her his business card as she excused herself with a regretful kind of smile.

  Cops and lawyers, she pondered, that’s all I seem to attract. Maybe I should start dabbling with the guys on the fire department?

  Still, there was something undeniably appealing about Lewis. Even now as he prepped himself, he oozed confidence from every pore, as if giving a news conference was really just a locker room chat between two old hockey buddies. His signature bow tie was red with white pinstripes, very festive seeing how it was now December and the holidays were looming. He never missed a trick. Those subliminal messages he sent out were meant to make you trust and like him. Lauren watched him tap one of the microphones and it gave a squeal of feedback, causing him to jump back slightly, then laugh self-deprecatingly at himself.