Thursday Legends

by Quintin Jardine

weren't?"

  "Our guy says there needn't have been any."

  "And our guys, as many as we need to convince a jury, will say there

  must have been. Forget it. Can you prove that she was in the house

  for any longer than she says? Her story is that she let herself in

  with a key Neidholm had given her, went into the kitchen and found him

  there. Have you got a time of death?"

  "He was still fresh when the scene-of-crime doc got there. He'd barely

  started to cool. But that's not an issue."

  "The length of time she was in the house could be. The autopsy report

  found no signs of intercourse on the body, so you can't argue that she

  had sex with him then."

  "No," Brady admitted. "Those stains were a couple of days old."

  "Exactly, so you have no physical evidence of her being there other

  than at or immediately after the time of death, and you have no

  physical evidence of her killing him."

  "Christ, Bob, we have her prints on the knife."

  "You also have his. Plus, you've proved that she was in the house days

  before the killing. She must have handled the knife then. That's all

  the prints prove; that she handled it. Evidentially the knife will

  support the proposition that Neidholm killed himself."

  "Why the hell would he do that!" the American protested. "The guy's

  rich, he's a sporting hero, plus he's just got back together with the

  love of his life."

  "By that token, why the hell would Sarah want to kill him?" Skinner

  shot back. "Show me a scrap of evidence that says she might."

  Chief Brady shifted in his chair. He glanced at Dekker, then back at

  Bob. Eventually he reached into a folder on the table and took out a

  sheet of paper, encased in a clear evidence envelope. Carefully, he

  passed it across. "That was in her purse," he said.

  Skinner took Ron Neidholm's letter of proposal to his wife. His face

  was impassive as he read it, once, twice, three times. When he had

  finished studying the words, he held it closer and peered at the

  signature.

  "It's his blood," Brady told him. "Remember, the autopsy report

  mentions a healing cut on his left thumb. The guy sliced himself open

  and signed it in blood. That's how serious he was about her."

  The big Scot shook his head. "This might be evidence against me,

  Eddie, but not Sarah, surely. If I'd been in Buffalo and had found

  that, it might have made me think about fucking killing him."

  The chief of detectives drew himself up in his chair. "It's our

  contention that your wife went to confront him about this letter. We

  reckon she went to turn him down, he got heavy about it, things turned

  nasty and she panicked and stabbed him. The only reason we ain't

  charged her yet is because the DA wants to talk to Vranic about taking

  a guilty plea to second degree homicide."

  "He'll also accept a plea to involuntary manslaughter, Bob," said

  Sheriff Dekker. The chief shot him an exasperated look. "She could

  get a pretty light sentence."

  "No way," Skinner muttered.

  "Think about it, please. Ron Neidholm was a local hero; if this case

  goes to a jury, any jury.. . Need I spell it out."

  "You heard me, Brad. No way. My wife did not kill this bastard." He

  turned back to the detective. "So far, Eddie, you've told me about the

  crime scene; that's all. Tell me about the rest of your

  investigation."

  "What investigation? We caught her in the act, or as good as."

  "You did no such fucking thing, because she didn't do it. Your guys

  got there before she had time to get herself together and call them

  herself, that's all. Are you actually telling me you don't have any

  supporting witnesses, to the relationship or anything else?"

  "No, I'm not. We have two witnesses, friends of your wife, who have

  testified that she and Ron were intimate during their college days.

  They say that when he went off to play football Sarah dumped him, and

  went to New York, then Scotland, where she met you. He never married,

  or had any long-term relationships; when they met again recently, the

  witnesses say he was ecstatic'

  "How did they meet again?"

  "At the home of one of the witnesses."

  "Babs bloody Walker!" Skinner exclaimed.

  Brady looked alarmed. "I can't tell you that."

  "You don't have to, man, I know her all too well. The little bitch put

  them together, and she did it with malice in her mind. Sarah never

  talked to me about Neidholm until Babs told me the whole story,

  embellished,

  I dare say. You put her on the stand and, under oath, I will have

  Vranic crucify her.

  "Who's your other witness?" he demanded.

  "Again," the chief protested, "I can't give you her name. I will tell

  you that she drove past Neidholm's house last Saturday, and saw them

  get out of his car. She says that they appeared very affectionate

  towards each other. Later she drove past in the other direction, on

  her way home. She saw Sarah through a bedroom window; she was

  naked."

  "Did she tell anyone about this, apart from you?"

  "She told the first witness."

  "Then you might as well give me her name, for you can bet that Babs

  Walker will have told Sarah she was seen, and by whom."

  Dekker nodded to his detective. "Might as well, Ed."

  "If you say so. The woman's name is Alice Bierhoff."

  "So who else did dear Alice tell about my wife and big Ron the football

  stud?"

  Brady blinked. "I don't know."

  "You mean you didn't ask her?" Bob exclaimed.

  "Hell no. How would it have been relevant?"

  "If you can't fucking see that.. ." he retorted. "It would introduce

  someone else who knew about the relationship. Another woman, say?

  Another woman who had designs on Neidholm herself?"

  Sheriff Dekker held up a hand. "Hold on, Bob. You're getting ahead of

  yourself."

  "Maybe so, Brad, but you get my point. This case has not been properly

  investigated. Eddie," he snapped. "Did your forensic team search for

  the presence of anyone else in the house?"

  "There were no prints, other than those of Neidholm and your wife."

  "Killers often wipe them, man. But what they can't do is pick up every

  single body hair that might fall off them, or every single soil sample

  they might bring on to the scene on their shoes. Did you search for

  extraneous samples or did you simply settle for what was on the bed?"

  "We saw no need to do more than we did."

  "Do you see it now?" Skinner fixed his eyes on Brady, hard,

  unblinking, intimidating. The man tried to look away, but found that

  he was unable to do so.

  "If it'll satisfy you," he replied, eventually. The words came out as

  a croak.

  "Satisfy me? What sort of a fucking investigator are you? Eddie,

  every miscarriage of justice that I can think of came about because of

  coppers like you, people who went for the first obvious solution and,

  because the facts seemed to fit, didn't bother to look any further. A

  detective has a public duty to carry out a complete, exhaustive

  investigation of every case, wha
tever the circumstances. There is no

  such thing as enough evidence, especially when there is the slightest

  possibility that some of it might actually disprove the guilt of your

  obvious culprit." He stabbed the air with his index finger, aiming it

  straight at Brady.

  "So yes, you get your forensic team back on the job, if they haven't

  contaminated the whole damn scene, and get them looking for traces of

  someone else, the person who actually killed Ron Neidholm. And as for

  the Bierhoff woman, if you won't interview her properly, then I

  will."

  "Now wait a Goddamned minute," Brady squealed. "You cannot do that.

  I'll arrest you if you try."

  Skinner glared at him, until the man flinched, visibly. "Bring help,"

  he murmured. "Lots of it."

  "Now, gentlemen, please," Dekker exclaimed. "Let's cool our tempers

  here. Bob, you have made your point. There are things that need to be

  done in this investigation that haven't been. They will be, though,

  I'll see to that. However," he continued, "I have to say, as a lawyer

  as well as sheriff, that I still see a pretty good case against Sarah.

  On the basis of what we have now, we have to proceed. You mentioned

  politics a while back. Given the victim, if we just let her walk on

  this, the flak would be unbelievable. We're going to need more than

  alternative theories to keep this away from a jury. I'll go as far

  with you as I can, but..."

  "Give me twenty-four hours," Skinner asked, his voice calm once more,

  'until you charge and arraign her, and keep her name secret till then.

  Plus, I want to go with Eddie as an observer when he re-interviews the

  Bierhoff woman .. . I've never met her; he doesn't have to tell her who

  I am ... and I want her and Babs Walker warned that there will be

  consequences if they leak Sarah's name to the media before any charges

  have been laid."

  Dekker nodded. "You can have all of that. The last part's already

  been done. The DA himself laid down the law to the wits about talking

  to the press." He turned to the chief. "Eddie, when will you see

  Bierhoff?"

  "What's wrong with now?" Skinner rumbled. "The clock's ticking

  already."

  Forty-Nine.

  "We've got to take a decision on this, Stevie." There was a degree of

  impatience in George Regan's tone, but Steele tolerated it, partly

  because he liked the gruff detective sergeant, but mainly because this

  time he knew that he was right.

  "Go on, then," he conceded. "Talk it through."

  "Okay. We've been through the Candela and Finch staff lists,

  concentrating on males, because whatever the Vargas woman might have

  put in her picture, the God who made that wind-up call to Andrea

  Strachan was definitely a man.

  "We've still got Sheringham in the frame as a suspect, but without any

  supporting evidence that puts him in possession of the materials it

  took to make the incendiary device, that's all he'll ever be. Plus,

  though he accepts that the call to the girl was made from his phone, he

  maintains someone else nicked it and made it."

  "And that," Steele interjected, 'could only have happened during the

  staff party."

  "Right; that gives us a list, if we leave in the partners, of one

  hundred and thirty-seven males, one hundred and nineteen, if we take

  them out. Take away Sheringham and we've got a hundred and

  eighteen."

  "But were they all there?"

  "I've asked Mr. Candela that; he checked and told me that eleven staff

  members were out of town on business last Friday evening. So we've got

  a hundred and seven men potentially in the frame. After the incident

  on Saturday we interviewed all the staff members who were there, and

  all eighteen partners. Of the staff people we spoke to, twenty-three

  of them were males, not counting Sheringham."

  "But can we rule out the possibility that the bomb was triggered from

  outside the building?"

  "No, but if we take this further, we go there second. I'd say we must

  concentrate on the people who were actually inside the room. Even at

  that, though, Stevie, if we're going to be thorough and not rule out

  people on grounds of importance, we've got a list of forty-one. I've

  got all their statements sorted out for us to go through in detail, but

  I've had a quick shuftie through them, and nothing jumped out at me.

  None of them even mentioned Andrea, so how will anyone have spotted

  someone less noticeable?"

  Steele nodded. "I take your point. I don't expect to get anything

  from the statements either, but they're all we've got. We can't get

  search warrants for forty-one people, forty-one bloody lawyers at that.

  And we can't exactly ask all of them to talk to Andrea on a mobile

  phone and say "Hello, dear, this is God". It's a nice idea," he

  chuckled, 'and it might even be good therapy for Andrea, but it's not

  on. No, George, I agree with you. We'll probably have to go through

  these statements again, and maybe even re-interview a few people, but

  it's all just to show the bosses that we haven't stopped trying. This

  investigation is stalled, stuck, stone cold."

  Regan sighed. "Still, best get on with it, and keep Dan Pringle

  happy." He reached for a pile of statements on his desk. "Do you want

  to split these down the middle?" He glanced at the inspector, and saw

  that he was staring ahead at nothing, with a frown on his face.

  "Stevie?"

  "What? Oh sorry, George. I was away for a minute, thinking of

  something Andrea said to me at lunch, and what it might mean." His

  eyes narrowed as he looked at his colleague. "What if our getting

  bogged down in this was the whole idea?"

  Fifty.

  Bob Skinner had often wondered exactly what a soccer mom was. As he

  looked at Alice Bierhoff across her comfortable, well-furnished living

  room, he began to understand. She was a classically pretty woman, and

  had an outdoor look about her, well scrubbed and with an all-embracing

  enthusiasm shining from her eyes, and a smile permanently on her

  face.

  There were pictures of her son Byron all over the room, in various

  stages of growth, from infancy to twelve; understanding moved a step

  closer for Skinner when he saw that the most recent showed him in his

  football kit... as is true of most Scots, soccer was an alien term to

  him. There were no photographs of Mr. Bierhoff. They must have been

  removed, Bob guessed, after the stockbroker shocked the neighbourhood

  by moving in with a cheerleader from a college basketball team.

  Eddie Brady was still seething quietly at his presence, but Dekker had

  stood firm. Skinner had been included on the interview, with Brady and

  Sergeant Madigan; he had been introduced simply as a colleague from

  another agency. Bizarrely, Alice Bierhoff's bland nod and smile at the

  description had made the image of Johnny Rotten flash before his eyes,

  as he looked at her, the chorus of the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant' ran

  through his brain.

  He stood by the window as she served tea to the two Erie detectives. He

&nb
sp; had declined; he had drunk enough American tea in his time.

  "So you're chief of detectives, Mr. Brady?" Alice twinkled as she sat

  opposite them. "I guess I'm honoured. What can I do for you?"

  Brady sipped his tea, and gave a short, spluttering cough. "Sergeant

  Madigan and I," he began, when he had recovered, 'would like to go over

  a couple of points in the statement you gave our colleagues, after Mr.