Shadow Suspect

by Patrick Logan

  Chase shook her head.

  “Not one. Not a single article about the crimes, let alone the perpetrators—I had Dunbar double-check after I received the file. I’m beginning to think that Ken Smith’s strategic donations might include some very specific editors over at the Times. The way I figure it, if you can pay them to print whatever you want, you can pay them to keep whatever you want out of print.”

  Don’t I know it, Drake thought.

  “And,” Chase continued, “this was more than twenty years ago. No blogs or vlogs back then.”

  Drake raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve heard of blogs, but vlogs?”

  “Video blogs.”

  “Ah.”

  Chase moved around to Drake’s side of the desk.

  “Take a closer look at the auto theft.”

  Drake did.

  Nothing jumped out at him.

  “The co-defendant.”

  It took Drake a second to find the line, and when he did, he whistled.

  “Wow.”

  Chase’s smile grew.

  “Yep. Thomas and Neil—both of them stole the car. Looks like the two rich boys liked to get into a little trouble way back yonder.”

  Drake leaned back in his chair.

  “No kidding,” he said as he reached over and grabbed the high school yearbook again. He opened it to the page with the photograph of Thomas and Neil and the three other boys, which had been marked with a sticky note. When he had first seen the photo, he had only seen youthful glee in their eyes, their mouths spread wide in laughter. But now, given what he knew about Thomas and his youth, his perspective had changed.

  No longer did they look happy, jubilant. Now they looked… different. They could be laughing, sure, but it didn’t have to be with joy. It could be something else.

  “You think that these boys pissed someone off all those years ago, and whoever it was is just getting around to extracting their revenge now? After all this time?”

  Chase shrugged.

  “I thought about it. I mean, Dunbar can’t find a recent connection between Chris and Neil and Thomas—he’s still working on Tim. But I doubt they were all chumming about in a ritzy club together. As for someone with a vendetta? I managed to pull up the case files for the most egregious of Thomas’s indictments… they are readily available, only the juvi’s names are censored. The car they stole belonged to a school teacher, and he was trying to have the charges thrown out. The theft? Macy’s. Shit, everyone steals from Macy’s. And the assault was from Thomas throwing a punch at a bouncer who wouldn’t let him into a club because he was seven years underage. The guy is in his sixties now—and he’s a minister.”

  Drake thought about this for a moment, her previous comment about Ken Smith paying off an editor still at the forefront of his mind.

  “You know what? Maybe it’s not the crimes that Thomas was arrested for, but for ones he wasn’t.”

  Chase clucked her tongue.

  “That’s what I was thinking, too. But how the hell can we find out about a crime that was never reported? Never filed? No arrest made? Maybe today we can do a computer search for any notes on Thomas or Neil, but twenty years ago? Impossible.”

  Drake looked up at Chase.

  “Not impossible. We just have to ask one of the boys.”

  Chase looked dubious, and Drake knew what she was thinking.

  Thomas was dead, so were Neil and Chris. And they had decided to keep their distance from Tim Jenkins for the time being.

  But he wasn’t interested in any of them.

  He leaned forward suddenly, and his finger landed directly on the face of the lanky boy half cut off by the edge of the photo, his thin lips pulled down into a deep frown.

  “This boy… I bet he can tell us what we want to know. If we can ever find out who the fuck he is.”

  One look at her face was enough to tell him that she was skeptical.

  “If he isn’t just some random lurker, which we can’t tell. I have Dunbar on it, just in case. Speaking of which,” she said as she pulled out another sheet of paper from the folder in front of her.

  “More gifts?”

  “Dunbar came through again. A list of the teachers that taught the boys in high school. At first I thought that maybe the teacher whose car they had stolen would be on it, but no such luck. He didn’t work in the same district. Anyway, most are dead or long retired. I had Detective Simmons make some calls—apparently he’s good with the elderly—and three of them remember the boys. Him and Detective Yasiv are headed out to speak to them now.”

  “And Dunbar?”

  “He’s still working on the Jenkins connection. He’s gonna call me as soon as he knows.”

  Drake spun in his chair, and started adding the new information—the teacher, the mystery boy with the long arms and longer face, the bouncer that Thomas had clocked—to the board.

  When he was done, he pointed a finger at the psychiatrist Dr. Mark Kruk.

  “What about him? Anyone speak to him?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “You were supposed to, remember? Before you went off visiting hookers and getting punched in the head.”

  Drake chuckled, and then winced as he was reminded of his sore ribs and swollen face.

  “It’s a waste of time, anyway. He’s not going to reveal you any patient information.”

  Drake shrugged, remembering how he had loathed the idea of speaking to another psychiatrist when Chase had first suggested it.

  But now Dr. Mark Kruk looked like the last person they hadn’t interviewed yet.

  It might be worth a shot.

  For several moments, both of them just stared at the board without speaking.

  “Looks like a spider web,” Chase finally said.

  “More like an immature chrysalis,” Drake said.

  Chase frowned and was about to say something when her phone buzzed and she answered it. After a few short sentences, she hung up and turned to Drake.

  “That was Detective Gainsford. He’s on his way in with Raul now. We should head to the interrogation room, get ready. Make sure Veronica sees him.”

  Drake nodded.

  “Yeah, you head over. I doubt that she’ll be too happy to see me first. Might be good if you can smooth things over, make her feel more comfortable. Maybe put that little number you had on before?”

  Chase punched him on the shoulder, and he winced when the impact made his side flare again.

  “You’ve got five minutes.”

  “Five minutes,” Drake agreed. When the door closed behind her, he took his cell phone out of his pocket and made a call of his own.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Raul, I’m trying hard here, trying to understand why you were taking money to a hooker in Clinton Hill. Money that you received from Weston Smith,” Chase said, leaning over her desk.

  Raul said nothing, just stared across at Chase with his small, dark eyes.

  Chase sighed.

  “I don’t understand. You come here on your own volition, without representation even though we both know that all you had to do is whistle and Weston would be here. Why? To just sit here and say nothing?”

  Still nothing. Not a flash of anger, sadness, frustration. Nothing. The man’s affect was slightly disturbing. Chase decided to push a little harder, try to evoke a reaction in him.

  “Why were you paying the prostitute, Raul? Did you rough her up a little last time? Choke her maybe?”

  Not even a flicker in the man’s dark eyes.

  “No? Maybe Clarissa is more your type, with her big—”

  “That’s enough!” the man shouted suddenly.

  The outburst was so sudden that Chase recoiled in surprise.

  So there’s the button, she thought. But instead of pushing it, she leaned back in her chair and studied the man. He was small in stature, but had a presence that she hadn’t truly appreciated when they had first met back at the Smith estate. Back then, she had thought that it would
take a large man to open the massive oak doors, and was surprised that instead it had been Raul.

  Now Chase was beginning to think that Raul was “bigger” than she had first thought, and made a mental note for Dunbar to look into Raul as well as Tim Jenkins.

  Why are you here? Guilt? Duty? Remorse?

  Chase massaged her forehead.

  “You can leave. At any time, you can leave, Raul. You’re not under arrest, you’re not being held or detained. This is just a conversation. A conversation between two people who want to find out who killed Thomas Smith. Do you think you can help me with that?”

  Raul didn’t move; he didn’t so much as twitch his coarse mustache. Any anger she had drawn out of him for speaking ill of Clarissa had faded as quickly as it had come. And worse, it seemed to have transferred to her.

  Why is everyone involved in this case dead set on making it as difficult as possible to solve? What the hell is everyone hiding?

  ~

  Drake pressed the bag of peas he had stolen from the staff freezer to the side of his head. He inhaled sharply, but the numbing sensation that followed was greatly appreciated.

  “This is what I get, trying to do the right thing,” he grumbled.

  Veronica scoffed.

  “I know you were seeing Thomas Alexander Smith. I know because we saw your name in his cell phone,” Drake stared intently at the woman as he spoke, seeing if she would give anything away.

  Veronica shook her head and rolled her eyes, but kept her lips tightly closed.

  “I also think that you were seeing Neil Benjamin Pritchard.”

  Was that a twitch? Did she cut her breath short?

  “It doesn’t look good, Veronica. Doesn’t look good for you at all. Two of your wealthy clients are dead, and you accepting a bribe from one of their rich families to keep silent. In addition to solicitation, we can book you on obstruction of justice, and maybe accessory after the fact. That’s up to 15 years in prison, my dear.”

  Veronica sneered at this.

  “That envelope of cash won’t do you much good in prison. You’ll still be turning tricks in prison, but it won’t be in a giant bed with red drapes, and your clients will have names like Sadie Mae and Squeaky Fromme and not Blake and Finn, let me tell you.”

  Veronica was unfazed.

  “Three murders, Veronica. Murders. Thomas, Neil, and Chris. Are their lives worth less than the cash that Raul slipped you?”

  Veronica pursed her lips, then crossed her arms over her ridiculous Frozen nightgown.

  “Who?”

  Drake stared.

  He suddenly stood, unable to look at Veronica’s smug expression for any longer. Without another word, he stormed out of the room. Then he pressed his back against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  Just one drink. I’ll head to my car and grab the miniature that I stashed in the glovebox and down it. Just one.

  Drake opened his eyes and turned, and nearly stumbled when he realized that Chase was standing there, staring at him.

  “It’s probably thawed by now,” she said.

  Drake’s face twisted in confusion.

  “What?”

  She nodded at his bag of peas in his hand. Drake growled and threw them into a trash bin by the end of the hall.

  It clanged loudly and threatened to topple, but after an obnoxious whu-whu-whu-whu rocking sound, it settled.

  “You getting anywhere with Indian Oddjob?”

  Chase squinted in response to the obscure reference, and the racist nature of the remark, but then shook her head.

  “He hasn’t said anything. Literally nothing—aside from protecting Clarissa. I mean, why even come down here if you aren’t going to speak? What’s the point?”

  Drake ground his molars so hard that he felt a fine powder rain down on his tongue.

  Chase was right. None of this made sense. Drake suddenly found himself in the alley again, nursing his wounds, shouting at the dumb ass beat cop to move his car, when the black Range Rover drove by.

  Why was the Rover there? Why would Raul still be hanging around?

  Like a flash of lightning, an idea came. Chase must have seen a change in his face, because she suddenly became alarmed.

  “What? What is it?”

  “I want to try something, okay? You said you play poker—”

  “—Internet poker.”

  “Yeah, well can you read people?”

  Chase grinned.

  “Most definitely,” she replied.

  “Okay, good. So here’s what I’m going to do,” Drake said, and then told her of his plan.

  ~

  “That’s it, Raul. You don’t want to talk, so there’s really no point of either of us wasting our time,” Drake said. As expected, the man didn’t so much as bat an eye. “No, seriously. I’ll walk you out. No more questions. It’s not as if you would answer them anyway.”

  When the man across from him still didn’t move, Drake stood and walked over to him. He placed a hand under Raul’s arm and helped him to his feet.

  This act finally elicited a response. It wasn’t so much a recoil from his touch as it was a tremor of surprise.

  “Come on now,” Drake patronized, “I’m not going to hold your hand.”

  Raul rose to his feet and turned toward the door.

  “Go on! This isn’t a trick.”

  Raul walked slowly into the hallway. He started to turn right, but Drake rushed up beside him and gently guided him the other way.

  “This way,” he said with a smile. “Head this way; one of the detectives can drive you home.”

  The man took three or four steps, then finally broke his plea of silence.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said calmly. “I can take a cab.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Drake pressed. “It’s no big deal. I’d drive you myself, but I have a sock drawer to rearrange.”

  As he spoke, Drake encouraged Raul forward. He took several more steps, and they passed the open door to Interrogation Room 1. Raul peered inside, meeting Veronica and Chase’s gazes.

  “I’ll just take a cab,” Raul said, turning back.

  “You sure? Because—”

  “A cab will be fine.”

  Drake shrugged and pointed back the way they had come.

  “This way then, I’ll walk you out,” he said with a smirk.

  CHAPTER 40

  “Tell me you saw that,” Drake said when he and Chase were once again alone in the conference room.

  “As soon as Veronica saw Raul, her jaw clenched and she glanced away. What do you think it means?”

  Drake made a hmph sound.

  “It means we have been duped, my good partner.”

  Chase made a face.

  “Duped? How so?”

  Drake turned back to the board.

  “We thought bringing in Raul would make Veronica more likely to talk, make her think that Raul was going to spill the beans, cut a deal. Fucking stupid—we played right into their damn hands.”

  Chase sat and sighed heavily.

  “I’m not following you, Drake,” she said.

  Drake moved the strings on the peg board around so that a string went from Weston Smith to Raul then to ‘V’. He then made one string go from ‘V’ to Neil and one from ‘V’ to Thomas. He was about to do the same to Chris, but hesitated.

  That didn’t feel quite right.

  “Drake, you wanna clue me in here? Tell me what the hell is going on? I have a press conference in an hour.”

  Drake cleared his throat.

  “We played right into their hands,” he said absently.

  “Who?” Chase demanded, clearly becoming frustrated. “Whose hands, Drake?”

  Drake jabbed Weston Smith’s face with the pad of his index finger.

  “This man’s—or maybe his father, I don’t know,” he looked at Chase. “When I was following Raul, I was forced to pass him twice and…” Drake suddenly burst out laughing. “Goddammit, these guys are good
!”

  Chase was at her wit’s end.

  “For god’s sake, Drake! Tell me what the hell is going on?”

  Drake took a deep breath.

  “I was at the cemetery when I saw Raul. He was putting flowers on a gravestone, which I thought was his mother, maybe—heard him say madre. But that row, the row he was standing in, was for fallen service men. Does Raul have a family member in the service? His mother? I think not.”

  “What are you saying? That this was all a set up? Why?”

  Drake nodded, his grin slipping into a frown.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Raul knew I would see him at the cemetery, and knew that I would follow him. He also knew that if I saw him with Veronica I bring her in. You know… when I was being pummeled by those street thugs his car was still there. I bet Raul was the one who had called the cops, to make sure they didn’t kill me.”

  “And bringing him here? What was that all about?” Chase asked when Drake paused to take a breath.

  “Shit, he knew we’d do that too. And you saw how Veronica reacted when she saw him. She was terrified—he wanted to be here, just to make sure she didn’t open her mouth.”

  Chase’s face suddenly brightened with the characteristic glow of understanding.

  “What about the envelope, the money?”

  “I bet it was all real. I think the money was also part of the deal, a little insurance to make sure Veronica kept her mouth shut. But here’s the thing, Veronica said but two words in the interview room, scared shitless that Raul would tell Weston or his father. But when I mentioned Chris’s name, just once, she said, who? She didn’t say ‘who’ about Thomas, even though back at the apartment she was adamant, and lying, that she didn’t know him. Same when I mentioned Neil. But with Chris, she said, who.”

  Chase thought about this for a moment.

  “You think she was seeing Neil and Thomas?”

  Drake nodded.

  “I do. I think she was seeing both of them, and I think the text messages support that. But I also think that she has no idea who Chris is, let alone sleeping with him.”