by Sydney Bauer
David took a breath, his last words hanging tangible and heavy in the air.
‘Further to this, the police Crime Lab Unit have identified a second blood sample at the scene. There was a significant amount of blood belonging to this second person and DNA analysis suggests it belongs to you.’
Still Sienna said nothing.
‘If the blood on that shirt belongs to Eliza – and perhaps also to you – then the DA will use this as conclusive evidence that you were the one who held her as she bled out. And this, along with all the other evidence and the fact that at least at this stage we can offer no theory to the contrary, will almost certainly see you found guilty of the murder of your daughter and imprisoned, without parole, for the rest of your life.’
David watched her closely, needing to gauge her reaction. He expected her to blink, or swallow, or at the very least drop her gaze, not because she knew she was guilty but because she had to know her situation was dire and instinctively feel a desperate need to find a way out. But Sienna Walker did none of the above. On the contrary, her eye contact with him did not waver as she opened her mouth and said, ‘I am sorry, I need to take this slowly.’ She paused and removed her hands from the table to rest them carefully in her lap. She shivered, just a little, as her skin rose into goose bumps, her lips slightly blue from the cold air around them. ‘How did they discover her?’ she asked at last, her eyes clear, her voice now steady.
‘There's a fallen branch in your courtyard,’ said a so-far silent Sara. ‘It has been raining and its leaves were washed down and clogged your drain.’ Sara swallowed. ‘The police noticed the pipe was dripping red and a police sniffer dog confirmed the location of Eliza's remains. They cut the pipe out and found her there, wrapped in the blood-soaked top.’
Sienna gave the slightest of nods. Her chest rose and fell. ‘It has been raining,’ she said.
‘For days now,’ replied Sara.
Sienna looked at David. ‘That branch has leant over my back fence since we bought the place over a year ago, the leaves clog the drain after every downpour. So why did the police only notice the dripping now, a week after my baby was murdered?’
David glanced at Sara. He saw where this was going. ‘You're asking why, if she was put in that pipe on the night of her murder, didn't the pipe drip red sooner?’
Sienna nodded. ‘I gather the police have had a steady presence at my house.’
David knew this was the case. The cop named Atkins said they had been on a regular patrol. ‘Yes,’ he answered.
Sienna nodded once again.
‘You said a sniffer dog confirmed the discovery,’ she offered after a pause.
‘That's right,’ said Sara.
‘But there were dogs at my house on the night that Eliza was taken. Why didn't they find her then?’
David sat forward in his seat. ‘A team of K9s was at your home on the night of the murder?’
‘I was sedated but I heard them. They were barking, the noise made me jump, I … You can confirm this.’
He nodded before turning to Sara.
‘Yes, Sienna,’ said Sara. ‘Yes, we can.’
David considered his client. She was doing what they asked of her – providing legal explanation for the discrepancies. Her ability to do this had impressed David from the outset. Sienna Walker was perhaps one of the smartest clients he had ever represented – her ability to compartmentalise perhaps beyond even his own.
‘I see where you are going with this, Sienna,’ said David, ‘and it's certainly something that can be looked into, but none of this explains why your blood was found in that bedroom. The DA will claim you cut yourself with the same knife you used to kill your daughter – and in all honesty, his argument is iron-clad.’
David had not yet had time to do what Joe had suggested – to check Sienna's medical information from Massachusetts General and Suffolk County Jail on the night of, and a few days after, Eliza's death respectively. And before he did he wanted to see how his client reacted to this question – one that would be key to either their survival or their obliteration in court. He believed that she would answer, expected it even, but what he did not expect was the form of her response, which began with her pushing her seat out from the table.
‘I understand your question,’ she said, as she reversed her chair as far back as the cinder block wall behind her would allow. And then she proceeded to roll up the sleeves of her jumpsuit, before holding up her hands palm outwards for David and Sara to examine.
‘Sienna, this isn't what we …’ Sara began.
But Sienna shook her head in protest, her gesture telling them in no uncertain terms that she was determined to do what she needed to.
She got to her feet. She looked at the door, noting that the deputy's face was now turned away from the small, narrow piece of reinforced perspex which acted as a window to the interview room. And then she stepped to her left so as to be out of the deputy's line of sight. She crossed her arms over her chest before pulling her orange jumpsuit top up and over her head. And she bent to take off the matching trousers, allowing both items of clothing to fall softly on the concrete floor beneath her.
‘Sienna …’ an obviously uncomfortable Sara repeated as their client's skin blushed with patches of purple. But the now near-naked Sienna shook her head, this time with force, as she adjusted the straps on her simple white bra, and lifted the elastic at the sides of her loose-fitting panties.
‘Please, look,’ she said, as she lifted her arms in the air. She turned to David who, now sick with discomfort, had instinctively averted his eyes. ‘Please, stand up and look.’
And so David took a breath before doing as his client requested – getting to his feet and moving until he was two feet in front of her.
‘Where did I cut myself?’ she asked them then. ‘Tell me where that knife sliced my body, from where I lost all that blood.’
They watched as she turned slowly, inch by inch, her ribs visible beneath her skin. Her hip bones protruded over the top of her now slipping underpants, her movements mixing humility with humiliation.
‘Did you read the results of my physical on processing?’ she asked as she turned, her mind still clear and logical despite the mortification of her circumstance. ‘Did it say I had any cuts – any scars that proved I was the one who held that knife and slashed my baby's throat?’ Her voice began to crack.
‘If I murdered my daughter on Saturday night the evidence of such a wound would still be there. But there is nothing to see because I did not kill my daughter. Someone stole into my house and took the one thing that meant everything in the world to me, and then they took my clothes and planted them, later, to make sure that they “killed” me too. But I am not dead. I wish I was, but I am not – which means they'll keep going until they kill me like they did Eliza or at the very least make sure that I am sent away to prison for a crime I did not commit. And they are out there. They are out there and they are laughing – at the police, at the prosecutors, at me and perhaps most of all at you, David, because they counted on your taking my case from the outset, and they planned on your dumping me and thus confirming my guilt.’ She took a breath. ‘Whether you realise it or not, David, you are the ultimate pawn in their chess game – you leaving me hanging out to dry is the move they predicted you'd make. But if you are brave enough to defy them, if I was right when I suspected that perhaps only you can take them on, then it is time we started asking ourselves when, how, why and, most importantly, who. Who would want to see us dead, David? Who would risk everything to be rid of my daughter and ruin my life?’
He would have pondered on her odd turn of phrase if she had not bent to pick up her jumpsuit to hold it tight to her body as if she needed to find some dignity in the cold, sterile room around her and met his eye once again. ‘You want to know who's responsible for reducing my life to this,’ she said, a statement, not a question.
David nodded.
‘Daniel Hunt,’ she said, as if it hurt to s
ay it. ‘Daniel Hunt.’
PART TWO
31
Esther Wallace could not feel her feet.
Boston had been cold, but this was not cold, this was torture. The wind whipped up off the moors in lashings. It blew and sucked, it inhaled and exhaled tossing fat, languid puffballs of snow to and fro, in and out, the iciness of each breath catching Esther by surprise until she was just too numb to feel it.
The vegetation on the path was mangled. It was overgrown and twisted like distorted joints and bones. Her legs were tired from lifting them up and over, her skirt dragging all wet and sluggish underneath the bottom of her useless knee-length coat.
Esther had seen a lot in her sixty-five years – seen, heard, tolerated, ignored – but nothing compared to this. Emily Bronte had said it was beset with silvery vapours, and Esther saw them now, the low-lying fogs that danced around the crags so big that they looked like almighty fists punching at the landscape from beneath.
She was not far now, a mile perhaps from her final destination, and she took comfort in the fact that no one would find her here. Esther was used to faring for herself – built a life on it even. This would not have worked if she hadn't, which was why if felt so foreign to know that despite her solo struggle, she was not alone – which on one hand made things all the better, and on another all the worse.
32
Joe Mannix's Roxbury Crossing office was a square-shaped space located to the right of a wide corridor which ran the length of Boston Police Headquarters' expansive third floor. The building itself was a concrete and glass masterpiece, a state-of-the-art, 180,000 square foot mini-city that housed everything from Joe's Homicide Unit to a brightly painted day-care centre – life and death, future and past, hope and despair sitting right there alongside each other, like the unlikeliest of friends.
It was Saturday, February 14 and Frank McKay was seated on Joe's office sofa. He had just opened the third of three Tupperware containers Frank brought with him to work every day – the first containing breakfast cereal, the second fruit salad and the third some complimentary sweet.
‘What is it today, McKay?’ said Joe, knowing his partner would tell him in any case.
‘Blueberry scone,’ said Frank, before his eyes narrowed at the second item in the container. ‘And a candy in the shape of a heart.’ He held up the red foil-covered sweet. ‘It's from Kay.’ McKay's wife's name was Kay. ‘Valentine's Day,’ he said, perhaps noting the crease between Joe's eyes. ‘Jesus, you forgot,’ he said with a shake of his downcast head.
‘Shit,’ replied Joe. ‘But Marie was still asleep when I left the house, so technically …’
‘Oh no, my friend,’ said Frank. ‘There are no technicalities allowed on Valentine's Day.
Joe threw up his hands in surrender. ‘I'll stop for some flowers on the way home.’
Frank nodded before popping the candy into his mouth.
They fell silent. Joe looked at the clock. It was 8.15 am – they had been waiting for forty-five minutes.
‘They'll be here any minute,’ said Frank. He was referring to Sienna Walker's medical records which Davenport had finally handed over to the police. Joe had dispatched a patrol car to pick up the file from Davenport's surgery right on the dot of the twenty-four-hour deadline, which meant it was due back at HQ any second.
‘It's like waiting for a false positive,’ said Frank, ‘for confirmation that what we know won't be there isn't there, just as we figured.’
Frank was right. Ned Jacobs' assessment – and David's opinion – that Sienna Walker was not suffering from PPD was probably correct, which meant Davenport's records should confirm Walker's competency, leaving the twenty-nine-year-old accused even further up the creek without a paddle.
‘The Kat has a hard-on for this woman, Frank,’ said Joe, his mind taking the next logical leap.
‘Forgive my frankness, Chief, but the Kat has never needed a woman to give himself a hard-on. It's all about his lofty goals – Walker is a means to an end and the absence of the baby blues will mean the DA can go for broke.’
Frank was right.
‘Can anybody join this party or do they have to have brought a plate?’
Joe and Frank looked up to see an unexpected visitor standing in the doorway. It was the first time they had seen FBI Boston Field Office Special Agent in Charge Leo King since the meeting in Katz's office, the one during which the DA had railroaded the profiler Jacobs into providing the assessment that suited him – the one during which King had sat mute.
‘You're pissed at me,’ said Simba, as he walked into the room. ‘Listen, Joe,’ he said as he took a seat on the arm of the sofa, ‘I don't like it any more than you do, but our Director is on a PR mission and he has made it very clear that we need to offer all assistance necessary to the local authorities – and that includes Roger Katz.’
‘Katz isn't an authority, he's an asshole,’ said Joe, making no bones about it. ‘And you weren't assisting him in an investigation in there, Simba, you were kissing his arrogant ass. He's gonna milk his association with the Bureau for all it's worth during this trial, and you know it.’
King shook his head. ‘Is that such a bad thing if it helps build a case against the accused? I mean, from what I'm hearing the evidence is stacked against her.’
‘The medical records are yet to be examined,’ began Joe, ‘the preliminary forensics don't come in until late this afternoon and the ME won't be finished with the autopsy until sometime later today. Walker has entered a plea of not guilty and there's no indication that is about to change given –’
‘Given our friend Cavanaugh is her lawyer and he only defends the innocent?’ finished King with the slightest shake of his head. ‘Have you spoken to him?’
‘We've shared a word or two,’ answered Joe.
‘He was railroaded into this one, Joe. I know, because I was there. Maybe, given recent discoveries, he'll request to be removed.’
‘He hasn't dumped her yet, Simba,’ said Joe. ‘Maybe he believes her.’
‘Does that worry you?’
‘Should it?’
‘The guy does have a knack for calling it.’
Joe said nothing.
‘But he's not a time-traveller, Joe – he can't place himself in that nursery and prove she didn't do it.’
‘I wouldn't count on that, Leo,’ said Joe, meeting King's wide brown eyes.
But King did not respond, instead he gave Joe the slightest of shrugs in acknowledgment. ‘I need a favour,’ he said after a pause.
‘You want me to shine the Kat's shoes for you, Simba?’ asked Joe.
King managed a smile. ‘I need you to keep me up to date on this one – like you said, I threw Ned Jacobs in the deep end so, at the very least, I owe it to him – and the Bureau – to keep my head around how the Kat will be using us in court.’
Joe shook his head. ‘I didn't know lion cubs could do a back-pedal, Simba.’
‘It's not a back-pedal, Joe – it's me covering my ass. I might have overindulged in our hospitality.’
‘Well at least you admit it,’ said Joe.
King smiled once again. ‘So we're good?’ he asked as he got to his feet, moving aside as a uniform entered Joe's office to hand Joe the oversized envelope they'd been waiting for.
‘I'll keep you in the loop,’ Joe finally conceded, knowing that most of the time King hated playing politics almost as much as Joe did. ‘But, Leo,’ he added, a final thought coming to him as the Bureau Chief turned to leave. ‘If I need your help in return, I'm assuming that that hospitality you were talking about extends to the BPD as well.’
‘Under the Kat's radar?’ asked King.
‘If necessary,’ replied Joe.
King shook his head. ‘What he doesn't know won't hurt him,’ he replied, before turning and walking out the door.
Joe didn't waste a second before reaching for the envelope and ripping at its seal.
33
Arthur Wright lived in
a comfortable two-storey wood shingle home in Cambridge's Harvard Square. The house was painted a subtle tone of grey, with glossy white accents around the windows. The garden was wild but controlled, with stepping stones weaving their way in and out of the undergrowth until they reached the awning-covered front door. The outside smelt of soil and dew and wet oak, the inside of cigars and aged whisky and the spent embers that now glowed blue in the antique fireplace before them.
This Saturday morning meeting had been David's idea. He was here to spell out Sienna Walker's story to his mentor, boss and friend. When it came down to it, David probably respected Arthur's opinion over all others – most likely because Arthur had become a sort of father figure to David over the past fifteen years, a man who understood him, unlike his own father who, despite his best efforts, had always found his second son a mystery.
David prefaced Sienna's story by explaining that her delay in sharing was simply because of her fear of what the consequences of telling it would be. He knew Arthur would be sceptical, which was why he was determined to take it one step at a time, beginning at that moment when Daniel Hunt first entered the Walkers' lives.
‘Daniel Hunt first met Jim Walker when he took over Capital Consolidated back in early 2009. He kept Walker on for one reason and one reason only – because Walker was smart, savvy and, more importantly, he looked after the wealthiest of CC's impressive list of clients.’
‘And these clients expressed a desire to stick with Walker,’ said Arthur.
‘Yes – they were impressed by him. He was already working on ways to pull them out of the hellhole that was the 2008 crash. He was starting to recoup their losses.’
‘The financial wizard,’ said Arthur.